Dr. Zero & Mister X: Singularity Blues
A short story of science error
Part 3 (of 3)
orchid pic courtesy of Larsen Twins Orchids
∞
This is the link to PART ONE.
This is the link to PART TWO.
Dr. Zero pulled off his surgical mask and gloves. “It is a literary reference,” he said in a snarky tone. “If you show a gun in the first act, you have it come up again in the third act. I could have sworn you went to college.”
“I’m a public school plebian, doc,” Mister X replied. He shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack and stuck it between his teeth. “Your fancy book-learnin’ don’t mean much to a fella like me.”
Dr. Zero shook his head and began to clean up the work area. The high-pitched whine of a handheld vacuum cleaner filled the air in Lab 6. Mister X lit his cigarette and blew a plume of smoke towards the ceiling.
“You cannot smoke in here,” Dr. Zero said, raising his voice above the vacuum.
“Sure,” Mister X said, but he made no move to put it out. “So, what do you need it for?”
“What?” Dr. Zero said over the noise.
Mister X turned off the noisy device. “What do you need a fancy, time travel bomb for?”
“Ugh,” Dr. Zero grunted. “Can’t you come up with something else to call it? Aren’t you supposed to be clever with branding, and acronyms?”
“Fine, I will,” Mister X tapped his cigarette ash on the floor. “Right after you tell me what you need it for.”
Dr. Zero glared at his partner for a moment. “It’s a measure of last resort,” he said.
“Doc, I really don’t like to say this, but,” Mister X blew a thin stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth and licked his lips. “Are you tampering with forces beyond your control? Again?”
But Dr. Zero didn’t answer. There was something odd on the floor.
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Dr. Zero knelt and picked up the delicate flower. The broad, drooping petals had a splash of yellow in the middle, but faded to dark purple at the tips. He had seen this flower before, many times. Over the black smoke from burning plastic, he could smell the intoxicating orchid even before he brought it up to his nose.
“Holy crap, Doc!” Mister X yelled. “Was that the Chehkov thingy? Doc?”
Dr. Zero nodded at his partner and glanced at what remained of the Christmas Village. It was strangely quiet. People who had been thrown, or knocked down from the explosions were unmoving. The spot where Professor Malefactor had been standing, atop Santa’s throne, still shimmered with dark energy. Subtle crackles of black spots faded into and out of the time-stream.
“Spaghettification,” Dr. Zero muttered.
“What?” Mister X cleared a path through the smoking debris, to be at Dr. Zero’s side. “You okay, doc?”
“Did you see it, Mister X?” Dr. Zero said with a broad smile on his face. “When the gun appeared – did you see what happened? It generated a black hole within Malefactor’s proximity field. He literally got pulled into a black hole! Which I made!”
“You’re bleeding, doc,” Mister X held a kerchief up to the wound on the side of Dr. Zero’s head. “Looks like a bit of shrapnel. Can you stand up? Can you walk?”
“Yes, yes. I’m fine,” Dr. Zero tried to squirm from his partner’s grip, still fixated on the place where Malefactor had once been. “But did you SEE it? Ha? It was the noodle effect! My goodness.”
From far away, they could both hear the wail of sirens, as emergency vehicles raced towards the mall. It was a cacophony of a dozen different fire engines, ambulances, and – of course – lots of police cars. Around them in the shattered mall, there was a rising wail of a more organic nature. People began to regain their senses and cry out, both in fear and for their loved ones. Distantly, the air was cut by the rhythmic slice of helicopter blades.
“Noodles, sure,” Mister X said. “Look, I think you’re going into shock. We’ve gotta get outta here.”
“Would you put that thing out?” Dr. Zero said. He waved his hand in front of his face.
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“Really. You can’t smoke in here,” Dr. Zero said. He glared at the video monitor as he spoke. “Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yeah, sure,” Mister X replied. He blew twin jets of gray smoke from his nostrils and put the cigarette back between his teeth. “So, what do we know about this guy?”
“Well, he just broke into Lab 2 like it was child’s play,” Dr. Zero said. He watched on the screen for the third time as Professor Malefactor disabled the alarm system and entered the restricted lab. “I’ve seen him before, but never met him. I always thought he was a poseur.”
“He knows his way around security though,” Mister X said. “See, this is why actual people are a good idea sometimes. This guy couldn’t fight his way past a couple of rent-a-cops.”
Dr. Zero frowned and skipped back to the beginning of the security footage. “Don’t start that argument again,” he said. “Look here, Malefactor goes right to the correct console. Then straight to the ‘black project’ cache – like he owns the place.”
“All right, so how bad is it?” Mister X idly scratched his chin. “Do we know exactly what he stole from us?”
“Just the one thing,” Dr. Zero said. “The Theta-Squid. Apparently, he knew exactly where it was stored as well. Do you know what this means?”
“Well, for starters, we gotta get it back,” Mister X said. “I remember the specs on that thing. I told you we shouldn’t be messing with mind control stuff. There’s a history of bad investment returns on that kind of tech.”
“No, you fool,” Dr. Zero said. He scrolled back the start of the security footage again. “I mean, yes, of course. But more important: we need to upgrade our security.”
“Well, I’ve been saying that for a while now,” Mister X replied.
Dr. Zero tapped the keyboard. “There’s no telling what he’s up to,” he muttered. “I wonder if we’re the only ones he has robbed.”
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Everyone in the mall turned, in unison, to stare at Dr. Zero and Mister X. All of their eyes drooped, half open and their lips seemed to be loosely parted. A few were drooling. At the same instant, they all began to move towards the center of the Christmas Village, like one giant organism.
“I am SO very pleased you could join me,” Professor Malefactor said. His voice dripped with mock sincerity. Wisps of ethereal plasma burst in the air around his head. “After all, you made all this possible.”
Mister X raised his automatic pistol and aimed it at Malefactor’s chest. For a brief moment, everyone seemed to hold their breath. And then Mister X pulled the trigger three times. The gun kicked in his hand and the lead slugs slapped into an invisible shield, mere inches from Malefactor’s pristine lab coat. The mad scientist didn’t even flinch.
“Oh crap,” Mister X said. He spun, to keep his eyes on the crowd of mind-controlled shoppers that circled them. His left hand scrambled to pull a pack of pen-grenades from his coat pocket. “Doc? We need a Plan B! Right now!”
“A quantum proximity field,” Dr. Zero said. “I see you also paid a visit to Professor Nemesis.”
“Now do you see?” Professor Malefactor said, with a gleam in his eye. He climbed atop the large, wooden throne that Santa Claus had been sitting on. “Nothing can stop me. The same technology you were afraid to use will bring your doom! And this is just the beginning.”
Dr. Zero sighed and pulled a key fob from his pocket. He held up the simple push-button device for Malefactor to see. “I really shouldn’t do this,” he said. “But I’m going to give you one chance to stop all this nonsense. No monologues, no posturing. Just stop.”
The mob of shoppers drew closer to the men, their hands stretched out in a sleepwalking menace. Mister X thumbed the safety switches off the explosives in his hand and pointed his gun at the nearest member of the shambling crowd.
“Ooh, an ultimatum!” Malefactor sneered with cruel glee. “Please – DO – tell me how your key fob will unlock my car and be my undoing. I’m all ears, my dear Doctor!”
“No,” Dr. Zero replied. He allowed himself a tiny smile. “THAT was your warning.”
As if from a silent signal, the crowd surged towards Dr. Zero and Mister X. Shots rang out from Mister X’s gun and he dropped the pen-grenades in between him and the advancing line of hostile sleep-walkers.
Dr. Zero’s smile spread across his face as he pressed the button on his key fob.
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“It’s called the ‘noodle effect’ because a person is stretched infinitely thin,” Dr. Zero said. “Hence, the more accurate – but nonetheless pleasing term: Spaghettification. He was turned into human spaghetti, as he was compressed and sucked – molecule, by agonizing molecule, no doubt – through a rip in the space/time continuum. It’s beautiful, really.”
“So, that’s what the Chekhov’s Gun is all about, huh?” Mister X said. He used his own necktie to secure a makeshift bandage to Dr. Zero’s head. He checked that it wasn’t too tight and lifted his partner to his feet. “It’s basically a black hole bomb that you can send through time.”
“What?” Dr. Zero seemed offended. “Don’t be absurd. Haven’t you paid any attention?”
“Look around you, doc,” Mister X gestured at the chaos around them. The dead, dying, and wounded patrons of the mall were scattered about, as far as the eye could see. The volume of screams and activity from panicked people was growing.
“Yes, what?” Dr. Zero glanced around and back at Mister X.
“I was a little bit busy,” Mister X said, perhaps a little too forcefully. “I had to shoot people in the face, doc. I threw a grenade at Santa Claus. People died here, because I was trying to buy you time to save our asses.”
“Oh,” Dr. Zero said with a nod. “Yes, I see.”
“And all this happened because this jackass stole our stuff.”
“Yes?”
“So,” Mister X paused and heaved a small sigh. “I think this is all our fault.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dr. Zero said. “We didn’t cause this mess. Wait. Are you smoking?”
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“What?” Mister X punched in the security code for the laboratory access. Inside the wall, a hydraulic press sealed Lab 6 completely.
“I said you can’t smoke in here,” Dr. Zero said. “It’s bad for the machines, it’s terrible for the air conditioning, and it will give you cancer. How many times do I have to tell you?”
Mister X looked at the console and then up at the surveillance cameras. “Ya know,” he said. “I think we ought to revise our security procedures.”
“Don’t be absurd,” Dr. Zero said with a wave of his hand. He stalked down the hall towards the elevators. “Nobody could break into the labs. It’s foolproof.”
“Yeah, maybe so.”
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“What’s happening?” Dr. Zero said. His head was spinning and his vision wobbled, as if he had been poisoned. “Where are we? Is this happening again?”
“Look, doc,” Mister X half dragged, half carried Dr. Zero over and through the debris in the mall. They stepped over and around bloodied, confused survivors. “If the cops catch us here, they’re gonna lock us in a room and throw away the room. We have to go, NOW.”
“Yes.” Dr. Zero looked at the orchid in his hand again, distracted by some tiny piece of a pattern he recognized. “Something is happening.”
“Yeah,” Mister X said. “We are fleeing the scene of the crime.”
“Look,” Dr. Zero held the orchid up so the taller man could see it. “Look! It’s important. I can’t quite understand it, though.”
Mister X pulled his comrade close and glanced down at the purple flower. “Yeah. Flower. Great.”
“It is Guaria Morada,” Dr. Zero said. “The national flower of Costa Rica. It’s endangered now, but once flourished in the jungles there. Millions of years ago.”
Mister X scanned the area around them. Several people ran towards the nearest exits from the mall. Through the tall glass panels, flashing red and blue lights reflected off every surface. The air was filled with sirens, from every direction it seemed.
“No,” Mister X said. He saw an access hallway that had an emergency exit sign. He grabbed Dr. Zero by the collar and jogged that direction.
“Look at it,” Dr. Zero protested. “Do you know what this means?”
Without looking, Mister X grabbed the orchid from his partner’s hand and threw it to the floor. “You just suffered a head wound,” he said. “We are going to the nearest safe-house.”
“It fell through time,” Dr. Zero said. His view of the world began to shrink down to tunnel vision. He felt as though he was floating. “Costa Rica. I know what happened now.”
Mister X opened his mouth and then closed it with a bite. He said nothing, but continued to drag his wounded friend forward. Dr. Zero nodded and let himself be led. They ignored the rising panic of wounded and confused shoppers, made their way passed a swelling phalanx of first responders, and into a cold and strange future.
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(please click ‘Continue Reading’ to read some of my thoughts on this story)
This was a madcap ride to crazy-town for me. Writing it, I mean. I went through a half-dozen drafts of the whole thing, before I even understood what the hell I was writing. It took a lot of coffee and some serious focus to shut my internal editor up – just long enough to get anything written. After each draft I tore this damn thing apart and started over. If everything I wrote was like this, it would kill me.
I think I’ll work on something a bit less nerve wracking. Maybe a nice, fluffy story about bunnies and robots. Maybe a few wizards? Yeah, that sounds nice.
-Patrick
Dr. Zero & Mister X: Singularity Blues Part 3 by Patrick Jennings-Mapp is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
