01:11
Episode 1: The Original Blueprints
Part 11
Laurel collapsed beneath the car door she was holding. Nothing had hit her and Brenda had not cast any spells on her, at least to her knowledge. The witch stood on the porch of the house and stared blankly at her hands as if examining them for signs of premature hex.
“What the hell did you do?” asked Ned. He rushed over to the girl and lifted the door from her limp body. He pressed his fingers to the girl’s neck
“There’s no pulse,” he yelled.
“There wouldn’t be,” said a quiet, creaking voice behind Ned.
Ned turned to look. He already knew who stood there.
“Lynda?” How did you get….”
A blue streak shot out from Brenda’s hands and dissolved into sparkling glitter that fell at Lynda’s diminutive feet. The ancient red-head hadn’t raised a hand.
“You’ve been very bad, Mr. Maxilla,” Lynda said. “That is not the sort of … person with whom I thought you associated.”
There was another blast of light and more glitter fell, this time around Ned.
“It’s right,” Lynda assured him. “How is your partner?”
Ned looked at Violet. The bleeding had stopped and she merely lay unconscious , breathing deeply on the ground.
“She’ll live.”
Lynda nodded sagely. “Good thing, too. Her uncle would be quite put out if she were to die.”
Another blast shot from Brenda’s hands and again turned to glitter at Lynda’s feet. The wizened woman looked up from Violet’s prone body and then over to Brenda as if she had noticed the witch for the first time.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” Lynda shouted to her but Brenda remained silent. “I know your mistress. I don’t think she’ll be particularly pleased with your work here tonight.”
Brenda held her hands up before her casting a sparking blue light on her face.
“It’s mine you Irish whore.”
“I’m afraid not,” replied Lynda. “I will be taking it. I think your mistress might be, shall we say, disappointed in your work here tonight.”
Brenda fired a double burst of light at Lynda but the only thing Lynda did was to raise her own hands to cover her face. Glitter showered down around her.
“Delightful,” Lynda said, “but I think you’ve had enough excitement for the night.”
Lynda shot a stream of yellow light from her left hand that Brenda tried to dodge. The stream intersected Brenda across her back enveloping the woman in an arcing glare of light that shrunk and squirmed as Brenda fell to the porch. The light faded and where Brenda would have lain there was a fox. The fox staggered to her feet and fell over once more then lay panting on the porch.
“Holy shit. What the fuck are you?” Ned asked.
“Nothing you should be concerned about,” Lynda answered turning back to the man. “You may run along now.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ned told her. He drew his pistol and pointed it at Lynda’s head.
Lynda rolled her eyes and sighed again. She wiggled her fingers and suddenly held Ned’s tiny gun in her hand.
“There’s a bus that runs until eleven just four blocks down,” she said calmly. “If you run you can still catch it.”
Ned backed away with his face twisted in frightened concern. When he was far out of Lynda’s reach he turned and walked south into the darkness.
Lynda watched Ned disappear and shook her head as he went, then she walked back to where Violet lay. Her wounds had already closed and were beginning to heal up. Lynda cleared her throat expectantly and the woman woke. She looked up at Lynda and, after realizing where she was, looked for Laurel.
“It’s over by the big car,” Lynda told her.
The short woman watched as Violet brought herself up on wobbly legs to stumble across the yard to the Crown Victoria. Sirens wailed in the distance growing closer.
“It will be all right,” Lynda called to her. “It will just sleep for a while.”
Violet knelt down next to the girl and felt for a pulse at her throat. In an instant she held a forty-four pointed at Lynda.
“She’s dead. You killed her.”
“You Americans have far too many guns,” Lynda said shaking her head. “I said it would be all right and it will be all right. I think we should leave now.”
“I won’t leave her,” Violet said.
“Of course not. Do you need help lifting it?”
Violet scooped the body in her arms and lifted her up until she stood.
“She’s heavy,” Violet said.
“It’s a robot,” Lynda told her.
“She’s a…? Wait. What?”
“It’s a robot, dear. Hurry along, please. I’d like to avoid any entanglements with the police if I could.”
Lynda glanced over at the fox which still lay on the porch. She waved her hand and once again Brenda was a woman.
Violet followed Lynda to an SUV carrying Laurel’s unmoving body. Violet carefully laid the body in the back seat and then climbed in front with Lynda. They rolled out of the lot and then turned north as police entered the neighborhood. Lynda kept right on driving much as Violet had back in New Robbins Valley. The police ignored them.
“Is she really a robot?” asked Violet. “I mean how is that possible?”
“Yes it’s a robot and a very advanced one at that. If we don’t get a chance to study it there may not be another. Not after tonight, anyway.”
“So you’re jut going to dismantle her?”
Lynda smiled and shook her head. “Nothing that crude, dear. We know how it was assembled but its programming is far more advanced than it should be. Since we can’t rebuild its brain we will study it to see what makes it tick.”
“Her,” said Violet.
“I beg your pardon.”
“You keep calling Laurel ‘it’. She’s a girl.”
Lynda looked over at Violet and realized the woman wasn’t looking back at her but instead was looking at Laurel in the back seat. She turned her attention back to the road with the distinct feeling she was intruding on a private moment.
“Quite right,” she said at last. “I’ll make a note.”
They drove the rest of the way in silence. The city rapidly vanished with the urban landscape giving way to the suburban. They crossed the Mississippi and drove north-west to New Robbins Valley where the chase had begun just a few hours before. There the exited highway fifty-five somewhere in Plymouth and entered a gated estate. The fence lay at the top of a steep hill that ran around the property like an enormous dish. At the bottom of this dish, near the center, it amazed Violet to see a seven story building completely invisible from anywhere but inside the perimeter of the fence. Not only that but shorter support building surrounded the high-rise forming an entire campus and all of it lay in neatly manicured grounds.
“Welcome to T&T,” Lynda announced.
Violet pulled her attention away from Laurel to look at the spectacle before her.
“Where did all this come from?” she asked. “I’ve never seen any of this before.”
“We make a point of remaining anonymous,” answered Lynda. She pulled the SUV to a stop near one of the support buildings where two men waited with a rolling gurney. They came up to the SUV and quickly unloaded Laurel.
“Where are you taking her?”
“We’re taking it — her — to her new home. She’ll stay here for a few days until we feel we can transfer her.”
The men had strapped Laurel to the gurney and were wheeling her away through an open door of a building.
“Where will she go?”
Lynda opened her door and stepped out onto the perfectly clean asphalt of the parking lot. Violet had no choice but to do the same.
“That’s need to know information, dear, and you don’t need to know.”
Lynda came around the truck and stood beside Violet who watched Laurel disappear through the door.
“The money will be wired to the account,” Lynda told her. “We recovered you motorcycle. It runs although there was only so much we could do.”
She drew Violet’s attention over to a dented and scraped motorcycle at the edge of the parking lot.
“It will need extensive repairs.”
Violet only nodded and looked down at Lynda.
“How – how free will she be here?” she asked.
“She can come and go as she wants but our facilities will be her home from now on. She will be a ward of T&T and we will keep her safe.”
“She’s in danger?”
“People want her, Miss Capagio. She is capable of amazing things. It’s best if she remains here — for all of us.”
Violet walked to the motorcycle and put on her helmet. Lynda followed her.
“It would be best if you stop thinking of her as a human being,” Lynda told her. “She is a machine after all.”
Violet climbed on her bike and thumbed the starter. The engine roared to life.
“You’re wrong you know,” she told Lynda.
“About what?” asked the woman.
“She’s a person,” answered Violet and drove away out of the T&T campus.
Lynda watched the killer disappear and stared at the gate for a moment after it had closed.
“Oh dear,” she said shaking her head. “That was unexpected.” Then she turned and walked inside the same building where Laurel entered.
