‘There you go.’ On her return, Teena sat smiling on the trolley’s left edge, feeding Danny his new pie. She insisted he eat every last crumb.
All done, she frisbied the paper plate across the lab. As intended, it slapped into the wall, flipped twice then landed neatly on the mind-machine panel.
Still tied down, Danny made himself swallow the last bitter horribleness, no longer even deriving pleasure from its reminder of her incompetence. Her cooking had got worse. He couldn’t believe it, suspecting a deliberate plot to make him suffer.
‘So, how do you feel?’ she asked.
He thought about it. ‘I don’t know.’
She gazed at the ceiling, impatient foot tapping trolley leg.
‘No. Hold on.’ He latched onto something nagging at the back of his mind. It was like someone trying to pull a door marked PUSH.
Danny Yates’ lost memories became a drunken group of friends planning a surprise homecoming party, hiding behind the door, lacking the patience to wait. Pushing and jostling, they whispered too loudly, ‘Shh. Shh. Here he comes,’ then tumbled through the door, landing in a heap at his feet.
Shouting, ‘Surprise!’ they blew party poppers, burst balloons and enjoyed their silliness too much to even care about him anymore.
‘I remember,’ he enthused. ‘I remember everything.’
‘Everything?’ she asked.
‘Everything.’ He excitedly picked each memory up from his mind’s floor, dusting it down, making the effort to recall its name; ‘Spooky Houses, Thieving Flatmates, Monsters, Rats, Rabbits, A Man Called Osmosis, Fake Latino Black Marketeers [the fake latino black marketeer winked at him then ducked behind a fire extinguisher], Homelessness, Unemployment, Nuns, A Rhyme of Long Gone Hats.’ He shuddered. ‘My God, it’s a nightmare.’
‘Now perhaps we can concentrate on finding Arnold Meekly?’ observed Teena. ‘What puzzles me is how he found his way out of the caves, into the lift, into the house then up into your room. No one as stupid as him should have managed that.’
They considered the issue for a moment but came up blank.
‘Do you have a monster detection machine?’ asked Danny.
She looked clueless.
‘A machine for detecting monsters,’ he said.
She looked clueless.
‘There are monsters,’ he explained, thinking it couldn’t be as half-baked an idea as her expression was suggesting, ‘and it detects them.’
‘Based on what principle?’ She was still looking at him like that.
‘On the monster detection principle,’ he insisted, withering.
‘You’ve never had a scientific paper published, have you, Gary?’
‘Not lately,’ he acknowledged defensively. ‘I’ve been busy.’
She seemed amused for some reason. ‘There’s no such thing as a monster detection machine, and never will be, monsters being notoriously undetectable. We’ll need more mundane methods. I suggest you seek him on the streets while I stay here monitoring news and police broadcasts.’
‘Why don’t I get to stay at home?’ he asked.
‘And do you know how to build a Fighting Android?’ she asked.
‘I know not to chase after monsters.’
‘I can assure you there’s no danger.’
He looked at her as if to say.
‘No, really,’ she insisted. ‘Have you heard anything, in the last three weeks, about anyone encountering a monster in Wheatley?’
‘Maybe not.’
‘Don’t you think you would if they had?’
‘Perhaps.’ He looked at her sideways, yet to catch her thread.
‘Clearly, the good accountant has reverted to human form. In that guise he’s quite harmless, and may even be trying to return here, filled with remorse over the damage done to my plans. Take it from me, once you’ve found him he’ll be no trouble to you – just so long as you keep him away from bad town-planning, overly drawn out journeys and offensive workers. Now, in a town like this, how difficult can that be?’
Outside the Seaman’s Mission, Arnold Meekly – desperate to reach Dr Rama before again changing – slammed the cab door. Sliding along the seat, he leaned toward the perspex partition between him and the driver. One of her arms rested on her seat-back, the other on the wheel. She idled the engine, meter running, more interested in the empty road than him.
He said, ‘23, Moldern Crescent, please; the Rama residence. And hurry.’
She slid open the partition, chewing gum. ‘No way. We’ll be taking the scenic route; past every tower block in town. I always chuck my guts up laughing at those monstrosities. You got a problem with that, talk to my colleague.’
Beside her, a dreadful giant ant stared at him, mandibles opening and closing in a style that was highly threatening. ‘Fear, mammal, fear, for I am Destructor, and soon you shall call me “Master”.’
The driver watched Arnold in her rear-view mirror. And she asked, ‘Do you know you’re getting bigger?’