Eve turned around at the top of the stairs, gesturing for Mark to stay back. The door in front of her opened. A triangle of light ran down the stairs and Mark jumped out of the way as the light slid toward him. The alarm was still shrieking. Mark saw a head peek out of the doorway, looking around tentatively, with a frightened expression. The door opened wider silhouetting an old man with white hair like a cloudy halo around his bald domed head. The head looked enormous on the fragile, thin body.
Who's there?" The man shouted. He looked around myopically until Eve moved directly in front of him. A smile lit his face. "My computer!"
The old guy was Ferd, Mark thought. The man who had made Eve.
As Mark stood in the darkness at the bottom of the stairs he saw Ferd jerked out of the doorway. Another man stood in front of Eve. He was tall and stocky as a bear with dark, slick, wavy hair. He had an enormous walrus-like mustache. He grabbed Eve's shoulder, pulled her into the room, and slammed the door. Mark thought she must have let him do it, or else the guy was strong as an ox.
Mark walked uneasily up the stairs and knocked tentatively. Nothing happened. They couldn't hear him over the wailing alarm. Mark knocked harder and pushed on the door, leaning against it. It flew open unexpectedly and he almost fell into the room, windmilling his arms and legs forward to keep his balance. He was halfway across a small living room before he could stop.
Mark turned around and saw Ferd in the middle of two enormous dark men. Both were frowning at him and appeared menacing and dangerous. Especially as one of the men held what looked like a real gun. Mark thought the two must be brothers. They were burly and dark, with wide receding foreheads and beaked noses. One had a walrus mustache and was a little taller. The other had grey streaking his black hair and appeared a few years older than Walrus Mustache. They made Ferd, standing between them, look like a dwarf.
No one could talk because the alarm was so piercing, so Mark tried to smile ingratiatingly, feeling utterly stupid. They probably thought he had broken in. No one would believe someone as fragile looking as Eve could have done it. Now the gun was pointed directly at him, a unique and terrifying experience.
The man with gray hair wiggled the barrel of the gun toward the sofa. Mark obediently went and sat down. He watched as Ferd and Walrus Mustache left the room to turn off the alarm. Eve was standing still as a rock by the doorway, her eyes moving back and forth from the man with the gun to Mark. Except for her eyes she could have been part of the furniture.
Mark gazed around the small, sparsely furnished living room. There was a high-backed couch and two comfortable flowered wing-back chairs on either side of a round coffee table. Thousands of books lined all the walls on bookshelves from floor to ceiling. The smell of old paper made Mark feel like sneezing and produced a dark claustrophobic aura.
Abruptly, the sound of silence was almost deafening. Mark's ears were ringing, trying to fill the sudden void. The alarm had been turned off. Mark started to stand up to explain what had happened to the gray haired man. As he did so, he saw Eve moving with amazing swiftness. The gray haired man had quickly pointed the gun at Mark, when he got up. Eve's movement across the room was so fast that she blurred. She viciously kicked Gray Hair on his left shin.
Mark heard a crunching noise, very much like the sound when Eve had twisted off the doorknob downstairs. He almost wished the siren was on again when the large man screamed in agony. Eve calmly kicked his other leg. The man shrieked, 'Help' and collapsed.
She broke both of his legs, Mark thought, stunned. Better than karate. Then Eve kicked the hand that still held the gun and it flew across the nubby carpet and slid under the couch. The other two would be back very soon, but he thought Eve could handle Walrus Mustache. Still, it would be better if he got the gun in case there was some misunderstanding about the break-in.
The man Eve had kicked was writhing in agony in the fetal position, his arms protectively around his broken shin bones. Mark felt sorry for him, he sounded so pathetic. He was numb with shock at Eve's ferocious behavior.
Mark heard Ferd and Gray Hair enter the room just as he knelt by the couch to get the gun. He looked around. Ferd was shaking his head in what looked like profound sorrow. He turned to Eve, "I told you never to hurt anyone." He sounded like he was admonishing a child.
"He pointed the gun at Mark."
I don't believe it, Mark thought, scrabbling around for the gun. She thought the gray haired man was going to shoot me and broke both of his legs. It was unbelievable. His fingertips finally touched cold hard metal.
Danger made Mark's brain pessimistically active. The alarm would have alerted the police and they would probably be arriving shortly. That would be a disaster. Breaking and entering, for one thing. Then assault. Breaking two legs would definitely be considered an attack. He decided they should leave as quickly as possible. Luckily, no shots had been fired, but you could count the kicks that Eve had made as an assault with a deadly weapon, even though she had misguidedly been trying to keep him from being shot.
"We'll be leaving now," Mark said to Ferd, as he got up, guardedly holding the gun pointed down at the floor. "We didn't want to cause trouble. We want your help in protecting the girl you cloned this computer to. We'll keep the computer, until you can prove that my friend will be safe."
Ferd did not respond, he was looking at the man with the broken legs sadly, shaking his head.
"You can come with us, Ferd," Mark said. "These men might hurt you. They wanted to kill my friend to keep the computer a secret."
Mark started walking to the door, pointing the gun at Walrus Mustache, who was barring the way out. They were separated only by the body of the man with broken legs, who was still lying on the floor and groaning.
"Move out of the way." Mark motioned with the gun.
"You can't take the computer."
Mark kept inching slowly toward the door, around the man lying on the floor. He was surprised that Eve went along with him. In a way, he had hoped he could leave her here.
"No bullets in that thing."
Mark involuntarily looked at the gun, knowing even as he did so that he was making a serious mistake. Walrus jumped toward Mark, chopping at the arm holding the gun. Ferd was yelling, No, No, No, and waving his arms in agitation.
Mark didn't even think of firing the gun, but it was apparent that Walrus was going to attack him, so he tried to protect himself by swinging the gun. The man ducked sideways. Mark tried to stop the arc and velocity of the heavy metal when he saw what was going to be happen. It was impossible to avoid hitting Ferd, who was standing behind Walrus. He heard a sickening crunch as the gun hit Ferd's head. Ferd crumpled to the floor.
"Oh, God." Mark looked down at the old guy. "I am so sorry."
The Walrus was now upon Mark and seemed to go berserk, punching Mark in the face and neck. Luckily, the man was so blinded with fury that he was pretty ineffective, because he outweighed Mark by at least twenty pounds. Mark stood there, unable to defend himself because of the horrible realization that he had accidentally pistol-whipped an old man.
Eve ended it all by walking over and composedly kicking Walrus in the shin. She had no expression on her face and showed no effort when she broke his leg.
Now there were three bodies on the floor.
"Should I break the other one?" Eve asked Mark.
"No! Lets get out of here." Mark hurried to the door and pulled it open.
"Wait," Eve said. "Ferd's dying."
The old man gasped, choked horribly, and then stopped breathing. He was lying totally motionless. Ferd's face turned an unhealthy shade of grey and seemed to ooze perspiration. Mark watched as Eve knelt beside Ferd and started mouth to mouth resuscitation. Both of the men lying on the floor stopped groaning and watched Eve alertly.
"Dad?" Walrus Mustache said.
Mark crouched down beside Eve and took hold of Ferd's wrist to feel for a pulse. Dad? Was Ferd the father of these two thugs? Mark held the fragile wrist and felt carefully, but he couldn't discern a flutter of movement.
Eve continued to work on Ferd. She blew in his mouth for a couple of minutes and then started thumping on his chest. Mark was afraid for the old guy when Eve started the thumping. Now he knew how strong she was. He remembered laughing when Eve said she would put the thugs out of commission.
"I haven't done this before, Mark," Eve said. "But I read about it."
Great, Mark thought. This whole incident was a total fiasco. He should have stayed in the car. They would probably be in jail soon.
"You're going to kill him," Walrus Mustache said angrily.
"I'm being very careful." Eve started blowing in Ferd's mouth again.
Ferd finally gasped and started breathing. Eve thumped on his chest a few more times. Ferd's face was suddenly suffused with a rosy glow. Even the top of his bald head turned a bright pink. He blinked a few times, looking dazed.
"I think he'll be all right, but he should go to a doctor," Eve said. "That was a cardiac arrest. Now we should go, Mark. The police are coming."
"How do you know?" Mark wasn't surprised. This situation had turned into a nightmare.
"Sirens. About a mile away, I think."
Mark listened, but all he could hear was the men on the floor moaning. He decided to take her word for it. If they were a mile away, he and Eve might be able to get to the car and leave before the police arrived. He thought momentarily about taking Ferd with them, but the police could get Ferd help faster, anyway.
"Remember what I said," Mark told the two men on the floor. "If you try to come after the computer, or the person she's cloned to, we'll go to the police and tell them what you were up to."
Mark tried to sound threatening, but he had no idea what they were up to, really, except their intention to kill Sabrina, and they probably knew it.
What a disaster.
"We have to hurry." Eve pulled Mark out the door and ran down the stairs in front of him. She had started out the front door, but Mark suddenly wanted to see the machines that produced clones. He stopped, looked around, and went quickly down the side hall at the bottom of the stairs. The machines would have to be here, he thought, there wasn't anything else but this one hallway. He opened the light in a small room. There were two tanning beds. Above the couches there were hoods that went to the ceiling of the room, where he imagined the real machinery was located.
Ferd's apartment was above the tanning room, so he probably worked the machinery from above. It was pretty amazing. Ferd looked like the sort of man who went to the park to feed the pigeons and doddered around ineffectually, living a simple life of aged forgetfulness. Mark tried to think of a word to describe Ferd. Sweet. And totally innocuous.
Mark still had the gun in his hand and thought that maybe he should blow up the machinery. He could fire up into the hoods and end the nightmare. He might also kill someone in the apartment above if he fired randomly. There had been enough destruction for one night, so he turned off the light and jogged to the front door. He looked at the gun in his hand with distaste. Carrying it around if the police stopped them would be ruinous. He placed the gun on the front desk, next to the broken door knob, and went outside to join Eve.
They went directly across the street and got into the car. The police car passed them from the opposite direction with flashing lights and sirens.
All the way back Eve stared at Mark in unblinking silence.