Read Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 Online
Authors: Evil Triumphant
Stackpole, Michael A - Dark Conspiracy 03 (5 page)
I have rejected the power offered to me in favor of opposing Dark Lords. Right now, Pygmalion is at the
top of my list and your son Mickey is very important to the effort to stop Pygmalion. However, he is still a minor, so I have a legal and moral responsibility to have you make his decisions for him."
"If you were a Dark Lord, you would have just used my son regardless."
"Something like that, yes."
Tadd nodded, then added a little shake of his head at the end. "I accept that, but your role model does not inspire confidence. Lucifer wanted to overthrow God so he could rule in his place."
I shook my head and straightened up. "I was trained as a killer, not an administrator."
"Dad!" Mickey's shout from the edge of the courtyard reached us barely before he arrived. Mickey came to a stop without spraying stones around and lifted his father from the bench. Like a father tossing a
toddler in the air, the youth let his father fly upward, then caught him in a hug.
I pulled back, riding the tide of joy away from the embrace. Dorothy, breathless and crying, streaked past me to join the rest of her family. I walked away to leave them to their private reunion, and headed on into the courtyard. The Yidam and his daughter had withdrawn to one of the small conversation nooks deeper
in the forest. I left them alone and zeroed in on Bat and the two other people standing with him.
Natch Feral's smile dimmed slightly as 1 approached. A petite woman, she seemed an embodiment of the
idea of America being a melting pot. While her almond eyes bespoke an oriental heritage, her cafe au lait skin and long, kinky brown hair suggested blood originating in Africa. Her blue eyes were a clue to
A B B YY.c
norther
n European ancestry as well, but the caution in her eyes was nothing short of American Orba
n.
She wor
e a thin white tank-top and some baggy black fatigue pants over combat boots, with her only adornment being the twin diamond studs in each earlobe.
The other member of the trio towered over both Bat and Natch. Hal Garrett had made his living for years
playing basketball for the Phoenix Suns. The tall, balding black man had bulked out enough that his
height wasn't readily apparent until I got close. He still looked a bit drawn, but he had recovered from two gunshot wounds relatively quickly. A sense of self-doubt lingered on him, but day by day it got
weaker as he realized that he could not have prevented the death of his wife in the same white
supremist attack that wounded him.
"What is the verdict on Mickey?"
Bat grunted, which was more response than I had actually expected. The fact that he stayed down on
one knee gave me a clue as to how much of a workout the boy had put him through. I knew that I had
no desire to fight with Bat in a one-on-one match. I felt certain I could have killed him, but what
Mickey had done was more impressive because he struck at will without Bat's being able to repay
him for that indignity.
Natch gave me a thumb's-up which said a great deal. "Mickey's an ace. If he ever gets a raditude-
baditude, blood will flow."
Hal flinched almost imperceptibly as Natch spoke. "Mickey is impressive. You were right, the tattoos are really poly-carbon fiber armor that protects muscles and his major organ groups. Pygmalion
replaced his bones with ferro-titanium analogs, then fine-tuned his metabolism so he heals incredibly
quickly, strikes even faster, and possesses unbelievable physical skills."
The retired basketball star chuckled lightly. "Mickey and I played some hoop earlier this morning. I have a foot and a half on him, and he stuffed me—repeatedly."
"From what I saw when Pygmalion brought him here and in this battle with Bat, you're lucky he
didn't kill you."
Hal shook his head. "Not luck at all, Coyote. Mickey understands playing and has an unbelievable
amount of control over his body."
Bat stood and opened his arms wide. "Not a bruise."
"I'm missing something, then." I frowned. "Pygmalion
made Mickey into the ultimate warrior, didn't he? I thought he was a bomb just waiting to go off."
"Rajani disarmed him." Hal smiled and gushed pure pleasure. "When Pygmalion put Mickey
together, he apparently subjected the boy to training that included the loading of a combat protocol
into the boy's brain. It consisted of three sections: Acquisition, Imprinting and Termination. On
command, Mickey would locate his target, match it to a mental template that told him what the
easiest way to kill it would be, then he would kill it."
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"I knew that. For t
hat reason we have isolated Mickey from the wolfmen Pygmalion first had him
attack.
" I narrowed my eyes. "Are you telling me that Pygmalion's program has been disabled?"
"Exactly." Hal knitted his long fingers together. "When Pygmalion told Mickey to kill Rajani, he acquired his target in an instant. Imprinting Rajani proved to be the problem, as Pygmalion had never
provided a template for her. Before Mickey could synthesize one, Bat tackled him and Mickey
switched over to trying to imprint on him. Because Bat was behind him and had him in a full nelson,
Mickey failed the imprint. Rajani reached into Mickey's mind and blanked both his short-term
memory and the place from which the imprinting code had been drawn. She broke the cycle."
That made sense. "So Mickey no longer has the ability to kill?"
"He is no longer
compelledto
kill, which is decidedly different. We think he may yet harbor a compulsion to kill those on whom he has imprinted previously, hence keeping him away from the
wolfmen down in security." Hal sighed. "Mickey wouldn't want to kill them, but he couldn't help himself if he saw them."
"But he can still kill, can't he?"
"Can, yes, but he won't."
"Why not?"
Hal looked at me in horror. "He's 5 years old!"
"So?" Bat looked from Hal to me and back. I shivered.
The African-American spoke slowly through clenched teeth. "Mickey is not inclined toward violence.
The way we got him to fight you, Bat, was to tell him it was play. He was concerned it would be too
rough, and he noted that he would not want to hurt any of Rajani's friends."
Hal turned back toward me. "As nearly as we can make out, Pygmalion trained him to kill using creatures and settings that allowed Mickey to believe it was all unreal. He fought Magilla Gorilla creatures. He saw the wolfmen as a villain from some Ghostbusters cartoon. Because Mickey knew those things were
fantasy, and because he was praised for his efforts, he continued to perform. Even now we have not told
him that he actually
killed
anything because Rajani and 1 think it would cause him to shut down mentally and emotionally."
"Do you think he would kill himself?"
Bat grunted. "He'd have to—no one on this planet could do it."
"I don't know." Hal glanced off back over my shoulder and smiled. "Seeing his family has picked up his spirits."
I turned and followed Hal's line of sight. Mickey appeared very animated as he alternated between sitting beside his father and standing to hug his sister. 1 could see from his hand motions and how he moved that he was miming his basketball game with Hal. Even in the courtyard I could hear his father's laughter and
feel the man's sense of relief.
I looked back at Hal. "Can they reinstate his imprinting program?"
The flesh around the big man's dark eyes tightened. "1 don't know, but I don't think so. Why would you want to do that?"
I swallowed hard. "I am the weapon Fiddleback created to destroy Pygmalion. Mickey is Pygmalion's
masterpiece and very much more effective than I am. I would hate to think we could not employ such a
powerful asset if and when we have no other choice."
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I left my friends in the courtyard and exited through another pathway that did not lead me back to
intrude on Mickey and his family. Entering the Galbro complex through one of the many doors that
opened into the central courtyard collection, 1 paced on through nondescript institutional walls.
Beyond a set of double doors I found a little alcove that had a door with a scanner plate beside it.
I pressed my palm to the scanner plate. A greenish light bar started from the top and descended, then
rose again. I felt no heat from the light and began a slow detachment. I felt as though I had
withdrawn and was watching myself go through the motions of opening the door. I found the
sensation oddly unpleasant, yet I clung to that sensation because it marked the change between the
person 1 had been and the person I had become.
The door slid noiselessly up into the ceiling, and 1 stepped through into zenly spartan quarters. Open,
light and airy, with high ceilings and sunken, hardwood floors, the whole complex had nothing
higher than a half-wall to mark the rooms one from another. I realized that the method of
construction meant that the
entire suite had superior lanes of fire for a gunfight. I knew that was not the sole reason for the design.
The furnishings were few, yet appropriate for Japan.
Tatami
mats covered the floors and the traditional low table made up the bulk of the furniture present. Off in the back I knew I would find a sleeping mat
and pillow— less because I had been here before than because I knew that was where 1 would have
placed it. The kitchen even featured a traditional firepit, though it had been fitted with an electric grill.
The bath proved to be the suite's greatest luxury, though a few pieces of antiquarian art were scattered
around the room. Each had been situated to make it the focus of the roomlet in which it had been placed,
and I was able to associate specific memories of specific jobs I had performed with my having been given
each piece as a reward. I felt an immediate affinity for the small piece of Anubis statuary in the first
room, but whether or not that came from my having assumed the role of Coyote or because it seems most
appropriate as a reward for an assassination, I could not say.
The bath, too, had been a reward of sorts. Taking a bath had been manufactured into a symbol for me as I
grew up and was trained. Just as Pygmalion had made Mickey believe his training and killings were