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fellowshippers2007-04-05 02:50 pm
pecos.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2007-04-05 02:50 pm
Beyond Design Limitations 19
With no undue ado, I humbly offer:
TITLE: Beyond Design Limitations
CHAPTER: Nineteen – Courting Danger
AUTHOR: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
WEBSITE: http://www.chimerafic.com
BETA: Gloria Mundi
RATING: Varies by chapter. This one is NC-17
WARNING! THIS CHAPTER IS VIOLENT!
DISCLAIMER: I don’t make the toys, I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
WHAT IS IT?: RPS / AU
Sequel to ‘Prophecy: Destiny & Design’
which can be found on my website
WHO’S IN IT?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen and other
actors from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Pirates
of the Caribbean’, ‘Hidalgo’ and others
FEEDBACK: remember the golden rule, (please!)
NOTE: Please forgive any intentional or
unintentional abuse of facts or history.
Story takes place in early 2002
NOTE 2: Thanks to Hithliun for special assist!
Beyond Design Limitations
Chapter Nineteen: Courting Danger
Viggo
Stepping under the lukewarm spray of the hotel shower, he moaned in appreciation. The water painted colored streamers down his chest and thighs, carrying away the pervasive Saharan dust and grime. The wind hadn’t been too harsh to film that day, but it had certainly stirred things up enough to make animals and humans plenty miserable. Morocco had proven insane, beautiful, and painfully harsh. So different from all of the other places he’d lived; Viggo loved it. Still, he’d fallen in love with every corner of the world he’d ever inhabited. You didn’t have to check your shoes for scorpions in Denmark, and in New Zealand you could drink straight from the mountain springs…but the sky in Morocco was a shade of blue that he’d never seen before, and the sunsets were colored by dust into excruciating palettes he had no chance of ever reproducing on canvas. Those same colors were now pooling around his feet, and slowly washing away down the drain.
Orlando had been here too, not that long ago, filming ‘Black Hawk Down’. He hadn’t called Viggo very often from that set. Come to think of it, that was when the distance between them had started to grow. The same distance that had stretched into such a chasm now; a chasm that threatened to swallow up their friendship, their love of each other. That was something that Viggo wasn’t willing to let happen. He tackled the job of washing with more efficiency and less reflection. The hippy-length hair suited his soul, but it was a bitch to keep clean and out of your face. Maybe he’d cut it all off after this job.
The water had cooled to something the other side of tepid when he finished at last, and Viggo stepped out onto beautiful, elaborate tiles. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he went into the bedroom and rummaged through the piles of detritus that always seemed to spontaneously form wherever he stayed for more than a few minutes. He came up with a copy of the shooting schedule and sat down to study it.
If they moved the tent scenes to tomorrow night, and got a few more establishing shots on Tuesday, so they wouldn’t have to return to that location the day after…he rearranged the director’s work in his head. Then he picked up the phone. Joe was having drinks with friends, from the sound of it. “Sorry to bother you,” Viggo said softly, surprised at the scratchiness of his own voice. What was it about this place that seemed to take your voice away? Probably the damn sand. “I just think I found a way to cut a couple of days off the shoot. We could be out of here a bit sooner than planned.”
Was Joe interested? Fuck yes. And so were the people who wrote the checks. “I’ll come up to your room,” the director offered. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better. Disney is hemorrhaging money on this shoot as it is.”
“I’ll put some pants on,” Viggo offered.
“That would be nice,” said with an exasperated tone. One of the producers was a woman who’d already expressed a bit too much interest in seeing their star outside of the set, even after she’d told Joe that she thought Viggo was a bit overly fond of his ex-Lord of the Rings co-star, Orlando Bloom.
Viggo dropped his towel and searched for something non-costume to put on. But his mind was really wandering back away, across the wide Atlantic, to a supple young man dressed as a blacksmith pirate…a young man who needed to sort out his own life. Orlando “Lambda’ Bloom needed a helping hand.
Maybe a helping heart too.
Orlando
Rollie Tyler had led him across the road and down to a bar that the cast didn’t frequent often, and the place turned out to have a back room where the only interruptions were people bringing you more drinks. There had been food – local fish and some kind of island stir-fry –but Orlando wasn’t really hungry. He picked at his plate enough to appease Rollie’s raised eyebrow (“If you get too thin to keep your pants up the Disney grannies will toss a wobbly, you know.”) and drank more than he should have. Strike that – in his current condition he knew that he shouldn’t be drinking anything other than water. But he was a grown man, out for some fun with another grown man, and one of them was Australian…so there was destined to be alcohol involved.
The conversation had been about such a mish-mash of things that Orlando couldn’t really remember any single topic. Oh, well, there has been some affectionate teasing directed at Johnny’s smelly cigarettes and the poshness of the yacht he was living on, but Tyler was obviously as fond of the American as anyone else. And he did a wicked impression of Johnny trying to find his house keys! It was a very relaxing evening, and just what Orlando needed to finally unwind.
Thumping down his tin of Red Stripe, Rollie pushed the dinner plates out of the way and produced a small white ball from his jeans pocket. He set it on the table, moving it a few times until he found a place where it wouldn’t roll. Then he leaned on his forearms and stared at it intently. “So, how do you make it move, Orli, mate?”
Orlando’s throat started to tighten, and then he remembered that this was just his friend Rollie. He could trust Rollie. There was nothing to fear from Rollie Tyler.
And, to be honest, he really kind of wanted to show off a bit. He wanted to be good at something…anything. He wanted to show that he could do other things than look good and remember where to stand and what to say.
He mimicked Rollie’s posture, hands clamped under his chin, and then nudged the ball. It rocked a bit, then stilled.
Tyler grinned, obviously pleased. “Brilliant! So, what, you just stare at it? ‘Cause, mate, I could stare at that fucking ping pong ball until the next bloody earthquake, and it still wouldn’t go anywhere.”
Orlando grinned at him, then held up his hand. “It’s like this. I just imagine that my hand is reaching out. It’s like an invisible hand, you know?” He reached down and pushed the ball with his real finger, rocking it. “But I don’t use my flesh and blood, I use the hand that isn’t there.”
“Hand that isn’t there,” Rollie repeated, nodding like that explained everything.
“Yeah, it’s easy once you imagine the hand. I can imagine both hands, but the right is easiest. I think I like the thumb on the left or something.” He intertwined his fingers beneath his chin again, then said “This is a little bit harder. But it’s the same thing, really.” The ball lifted off the table’s surface and floated in the air. Then it was dropped. The ping pong ball bounced and disappeared over the edge. Rollie scrambled after it, and when he came back he was shaking his head.
“But, see, I don’t know where my invisible hand is,” Tyler said. “Maybe it’s in my back pocket or something.”
That made Lambda laugh. “I suppose that everybody’s got one, they just don’t know it. The hard part for me was realizing that since it’s not a real hand, it doesn’t have to conform to the laws of the real world.” He took the ball from Rollie and put it back on the table, and then picked up an empty glass. Drying the glass out with his napkin he upended it over the ping pong ball, then sat back. The ball levitated to the top of the glass, bumping against its bottom, tapping lightly.
“You’re reaching through the glass?”
“Better, I’m reaching up through the table!” Lambda laughed, completely amused at himself. “The invisible arm doesn’t have to be attached to me! I can make it anywhere, any size, reach through things…all kinds of stuff!” The glass tipped over and the ball was moved through the air, landing in Rollie’s outstretched palm.
“Blimey! I had the strangest impression that I felt the brush of fingers that weren’t there! Damn, Orli! Can you touch me with this hand that isn’t there?”
“I can, but I don’t like to. It seems…wrong, somehow…dangerous. I’m afraid that I could, like, reach too far and go inside or something, and I could maybe hurt somebody that way.” He shook his head. This had probably gone too far already. He reached for what was left of his wine.
Rollie had set the ping pong ball back on the table. “Well, I’m just stunned, yeah? This is just completely awesome!” He coaxed a small smile from Lambda. “You do know how awesome it is, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sorta. You have to keep this a secret, Rollie. I know that it’s not something most other people can do.” As far as he knew, he was the only one in the world doing it, thanks to the genetic manipulations of the Galacorte scientists…but Tyler didn’t need to know anything about that.
“Not a word to anyone outside of this room,” Rollie promised, holding up his hand. “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, mate.”
Orlando smiled, and thumped Rollie on the back – using his real hand, of course.
“But aren’t you curious about what else you can do?” Tyler asked, reaching for a bit of fish left on the plate. “I get the feeling that you don’t really know how far this talent extends. Don’t you want to know more?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Orlando said with a shrug. “I’ve never taken the time to really test it.” His eyes narrowed, and suddenly the ping pong ball was smashed utterly flat. Their table rocked, dishes rattling, and a glass fell to the floor. Rollie jumped back. “See…I’m kind of worried about just how strong it can be. Maybe it’s better to just keep it to myself.”
Rollie was staring at him with shock in his eyes, obviously thinking, and then he smiled again. “You’re something else, Orli! Something else all together! We better get back to the hotel, right? Morning’s chasing us, ready or not.”
They rose and left, the remains of the crushed ball still flattened on the tabletop. After a few minutes there was a motion in the corner of the room. A man named Ricky Jay came out from behind the screen which had concealed his hiding place amongst piles of chairs and unused seasonal decorations for the restaurant. He stood for a moment over the table where the actor and the special effects technician had been sitting, reached out to take the ruined ball, and then he turned to follow them.
Dominic
He’d read Hurley’s lines for three different sets of people now, and the guy across the table was nodding at him with what Dom figured to be an insincere smile on his face. “Very nice job, Dominic,” he said. “We really appreciate you coming in. We were just thrilled when your agent said you might be interested.”
“Yeah, well you don’t look that thrilled now,” Dom said through clenched teeth. He didn’t think that his American accent was likely to fool anyone, even television viewers. One of these guys was supposed to be a big deal in the television business. Dom didn’t know which – he’d blanked out during the introductions, mind still trying to bend around all the pretty boys in the waiting room, one of whom had winked at him and called him ‘Fur Feet’. Damn pretty boys, they would look really great romping on that Hawaiian beach.
“We thought maybe you’d like to take a look at the Charlie part too. You could speak English. Charlie’s English, right?” the suit asked one of the casually dressed blokes at his side.
“I thought he was Irish. Colin Farrell type,” one of them muttered.
“No, like some guy from Liverpool. English.”
“English?” Dom sputtered. “Ah, fucking hell…why do I bother? You don’t know me! I’m a bloody star, okay? I’ve headlined movies! I made the biggest bloody movies of all time! I’ve gotten awards, fans, bloody conventions! I’ll be at the goddamn Oscars this year! You and your stupid airplane crash, fucking Gilligan’s Island! I can do better than this!” He slammed the script down, face red, heart pounding, more angry at himself than anyone else.
Utter silence from across the table, and then the suit’s jaw dropped. “Oh, my god. That’s perfect! Carlton, did you hear that?”
“Amazing!” sputtered wanker number three.
“He’s really too young, but we could do something about that, right?”
“I’ll rewrite! Jesus, Monaghan, that was great!”
“Do the ‘you don’t know me’ bit again!”
“Younger, edgier, from…Manchester…” he said, consulting Dom’s bio. “And you actually can play guitar and sing? God, what a perfect match!”
“We’ll tailor the part just for you! Please, please say you’ll take it!”
“Yes!” chimed in another. “Please, just say you’ll let us rewrite and you can look at it again! Pilot shoots in eleven days. Can you think about it?”
Dominic rocked back on his heels, head spinning. This was all too much. He really had to get the grass and junk food out of his system. He thought that maybe he’d just tossed a fit, and got a job offer for his bother. Something ticked in and he started to negotiate. “You gonna just kill me off like that Jack character?”
“Not now!” thrilled one of the guys. “Not our new Charlie!”
“Okay then,” he said, trying a bit of Merry’s stoicism on. “I’ll go on your little adventure. But I’ll need time to surf.”
Andre
It was a nice evening in Belgium as Doctor Andre Van Vonderhousen pulled up the steep driveway to his secluded house. His mind was many kilometers away, on issues both profound and mundane. The drive home from Ghent had ceased to be something to look forward to after Greta had left him and taken the dog. Greta was a selfish bitch, but he really missed that dog.
He pulled up the garage and put on the emergency brake before getting out. You’d think that the people who’d built this house in the 1950s could have found a flat space big enough for a single car, wouldn’t you?
Muttering about how exceptionally incompetent his co-workers and the staff at the hospital had been that day, Andre clamped his briefcase between his knees while he worked the lock and pushed hard on the front door. It had been sticking lately, probably because of the rain. He paused for a moment in his front hall, sighing at the lack of claws clicking happily on the parquet floor. He really did miss that dog. The house smelled stuffy and old.
He was just setting his briefcase on the table when the doorbell rang. That was odd, he never got many callers all the way up here, and the drive was not well-marked – intentionally so. It was probably a messenger from the hospital. He groaned at the utter futility of his life and went back to wrestle the door open once again.
An extremely familiar face looked up at him from porch steps. “Hello, Doctor Van.”
The issues of the day disappeared, and the past rushed forward with a jerk. Spit pooled at the back of his throat, and he coughed before he could really say anything.
“You’re going to ask me inside, aren’t you?” asked the young man with the unruly dark curls. He pushed up the final step and into Andre’s house before waiting for an answer.
“How did you find me?” Andre finally gaped.
“No greeting then, Doctor Van? No, 'hello'?” The young man was taller than Andre remembered them being, and his body was much more lean and mature. The sharp, dark eyes were rimmed with dark lashes, and his skin was no longer pale and transparent. He looked good – healthy and vital. He also looked dangerous. Andre had never thought that he’d see one of them as dangerous…but then he’d never seen one outside of the lab before. This subject had no business being loose in the world, and even less right invading his home.
“How did you get here?” he blurted. “Which one are you?”
“Definitely no hello, then,” the younger man sighed. He pulled his hand from the pocket of his yellow hoodie, and the doctor was surprised to see that he held a small handgun. “Come sit down please, Doctor Van Vonderhousen. I want to ask you a couple of questions.”
Now his anger started to outweigh surprise. “I am not going to answer your questions, childling!”
“Not a child,” the young man said darkly. “Not a child at all.” The fist, still gripping the handgun, connected soundly with Andre’s jaw, and knocked him back into the wall. A second blow took him in the gut, and he doubled over. The doctor was dragged forward and shoved toward a chair in the normally cozy parlor. He crouched on the edge of the seat, trying to regain his breath, mind racing. There was a gun upstairs, locked in a drawer. His attacker left the room for a moment – but before Andre could get to his feet and head for the stairs the familiar figure was back. Improbably enough, he was drinking a soft drink. “You took your time getting home tonight. I’ve been waiting for almost two hours.”
“Which one are you?”
“Does it matter? Is there a particular one that you liked better than the others?” He gulped his drink, sinking down on the couch opposite, like they were just going to have a nice visit, and maybe some tea and cake. “Did it bother you more to terminate any particular batch of babies? Was any one clone tougher to kill than another? Did you just consider it a delayed abortion to wipe out little people – children, innocent children?”
“I was doing important work!”
“No. You were killing. You are a killer.”
“But you are the one with a gun!” Andre spat.
“Yes, though this is just a little .22. Nothing, really. Just something to encourage you to talk to me.” He shifted in his seat, and pulled a different weapon out from underneath the hoodie, from where it had been tucked into the waistband of his jeans. “Now this is a gun. It’s a Glock .357 SIG. This one will blow your fucking head all over the wall.” He admired the weapon for a moment, light glinting off the short barrel.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
But apparently he would…and he did. The doctor’s left knee exploded in a spray of blood and bone. Screaming, he fell onto the floor.
“Oh, do shut up. That was just the .22. I can probably shoot you a dozen times with that one before killing you. Don’t make me count, okay?”
“AAHHHHHHHH! GOD! You SHOT me!” The doctor thrashed, body gripped by agony, shrieking in pain. After a few moments he was able to gasp out a coherent question. “What do you want? WHO ARE YOU?”
“I’m Omega. The End.”
“There…GOD!…there…WAS no Omega!”
“There is now.”
The next shot took off two fingers.
Rho
Laughing almost hysterically, Rho took the corner at the top of the stairs far too fast, his socks skidding on the hardwood floor. He skated into the wall, rebounded, and was off down the hall a full ten strides in front of Sean Bean, who was in hot pursuit.
“I’ll have ye, ya nutter!” Sean yelled, coming on hard despite his superior age and slightly inferior physical condition.
Rho grabbed the jamb on the master bedroom and made a three-point slide into the room, as graceful as an Olympic ice skater. He bounded onto, and then over the bed and was facing the door by the time Sean arrived.
“Cornered, like the dirty back alley rodent you are!” Sean crowed.
Panting, Rho grinned. He waved his trophy high: Sean’s last pack of cigarettes.
“Thieving li'l prick! Give ‘em here before I have to throttle ya!”
“That is a really vile habit, Sean. I’m doing you a great favor.”
“How do you figure that? I’m just going to get them off’a you, smoke one to calm my poor old heart, and then shove my shoe up yer arse.”
That got him an odd look. “So, that’s what you gays do for fun? Shoes?”
With a roar, Sean leapt. The cigarettes went out the bedroom window. Bean’s jaw dropped as he watched the slim white life-savers tumble free of the pack on the way down, scattering across the drive pavement below, landing with little splashes in the puddles. He closed his mouth slowly, face reflecting the profound and tragic loss.
Rho patted him on the back. “I’m sorry, Sean. It had to be done.”
“Why?” The word was so forlorn, so bereft of any further will to live.
Rho had to struggle not to laugh. “So you’d drive me into town again. I’ll go mad if we stay home another night. This is England, Sean! I need to see a real pub! I need to hear people talk! I want to look at girls with freckles!”
“You think I’m taking you with me to buy cigs? After what you’ve just done, you arsehole?”
“And to the pub, yeah! Because I know where you keep them, right? You could have a lot of nicotine droughts if I don’t get to have a real English beer and play darts and taste fish and pips.”
“Chips.”
“Yeah, those too!” He scooted closer, trying the patented ‘Orlando’s Puppy Dog Eyes’ on the old man. “Please Seanie?”
“You are the worst fucking pain in my arse in the history of pains! Go find your shoes, you goddamn crook.”
Rho grinned, knowing that he’d won. He liked winning.
Mickey
They were sitting in a waiting room at Warsaw Airport, waiting for their flight to Rome. Mickey’d had a lot of choices where to take Nu next, but he’d finally decided to take him back to the Seychelles…at least for a while. The best way-point on that route would be Italy, and there would be lots of flights down to Africa or to the islands themselves from there. Mickey’s home would be a good place to assess Nu’s abilities, skills, and possible uses. They would be able to let him settle into something resembling a real life, and see what the future might hold for the clone. Besides, to be totally honest, it had been too long since Mickey had gone home, and he missed Stephanie, his ‘occasional’ girlfriend.
Stephanie had met Lambda, and some of the other clones. She was going to love Nu. She so enjoyed hard-luck projects – hence her interest in Mickey.
“You’ll like the island,” Mickey said softly. “It’s gorgeous. Really, seriously gorgeous. And warm. No more shivering under blankets.” He’d found Nu that morning on the floor between the bed and the wall, curled up beneath the bedspread, trembling, tears in his large, dark eyes. Nu had shaken him off when he’d tried rubbing his newly-shorn head, and had dressed very sullenly, even though he obviously approved of his new wardrobe. “Don’t forget now, your name is Nicky. Nicky Kostmayer. We’re brothers – at least for a little while. If you do decide to speak don’t start talking in Russian or Belorussian, or whatever. If it comes to that, English or nothing, okay?”
Nu still hadn’t said a word, and he didn’t seem inclined to start any time soon. His eyes narrowed as he stared at a couple of bored kids who had been acting up for the last several minutes, making pests of themselves back and forth across the waiting area. Their mother was busy taking on a cell phone, and the two young boys were screaming and chasing each other around, racing between the seats and knocking over people’s luggage.
“Once we get onto the concourse we’ll find something to eat,” Mickey said, watching the overhead monitors and scanning the exits, like he always did. Not much got past the seasoned agent. “You’re probably hungry again, and my mom would smack me if I left Poland without having some down-home kielbasa. If we have to lay over in Rome I’ll take you out for some Italian. I don’t imagine that they had creamed spinach fettuccini with mussels in that place.” Mickey doubted that at the mental hospital they’d served food much better than the animal shelters did in the US or UK – not that he’d wanted to stick around and find out. Being in the CIA had unexpectedly made him a bit of a gourmand.
One of the kids came galloping over, waving a newspaper that he’d gotten from the trashbin in Nu’s face. It happened faster then even Mickey could anticipate, and then the kid was flat on his butt on the floor, a stunned expression on his face. Nu had flattened him. There was a long moment when the kid couldn’t decide what to do, but the anger in Nu’s eyes made it clear that this wasn’t an accident, and the kid burst into screaming and tears.
“What the fuck?” Mickey sputtered, and Nu’s gaze shifted to him. In that instant Mickey recognized something profound and disturbing: Nu had no idea that one didn’t just smack annoying children. He saw nothing wrong with hitting the kid – he only worried that there was something wrong with defending himself. The brother had come running, and was now taunting his bawling sibling. Their mother finally perked up, realizing that the level of shrieking had increased, and she was rising to her feet while trying to end her phone call.
There were only a few seconds to decide what to do. If there was a big commotion they could be prevented from boarding their plane, or, even worse, there could be questions from authorities. The expression on Nu’s face changed again, and Mickey winced as he realized that Nu was already bracing himself for a retaliatory hit. The clone fully expected Mickey to strike him now, since he’d apparently done something wrong.
Mom was swelling up with indignation, and the nearby spectators were making no effort to hide their amusement, probably looking forward to a very entertaining fight. With one quick nod to the clone, Mickey jumped to his feet and went on the offensive. “Your damn bratty kid almost put my brother’s eye out!” he shouted in English, putting on a broad, rather snotty East coast accent. He was instantly pegged by one and all as an American, and thus the mood of everyone in the waiting room shifted. “I don’t know how you people bring up your kids around these here, but where I come from we don’t let them attack strangers!”
The ensuing row ended a few minutes later, with the mother gesturing and complaining vociferously, while Mickey pretended not to speak a word of Polish, or anything else that might have been useful. She knew enough English to tell him that he was a pig, and a shitface, and that he should go back to America. Mickey called her fat, and told her that she should shove that giant cell phone up her nose and get a headset, like any civilized person.
A good time was had by all, especially the bystanders, and Nu was all but forgotten in the resultant international incident. Mickey finally allowed an English-speaking stewardess tell him that he had better go sit somewhere else, and he got up with as much grumbling and bitching as possible. He jerked Nu away by the sleeve, and the offended mother got a few commendations from her fellow passengers. But more than one spectator smiled at Mickey and Nu, and at least one muttered “thanks for smacking the little bastard,” as they passed.
The monitors updated again and the pair were allowed to proceed through Security to the concourse. Mickey ducked into a bar and got his kielbasa, and Nu watched him eat it with growing astonishment. “Sometimes, Nick,” Mickey explained as he chewed, “the best way to stay out of trouble is to attract it. Now, for your education, let me make it perfectly clear. You don’t hit kids. Ever. I don’t care how fucking obnoxious they are. That’s a rule. No hitting kids. Do you understand me?”
Nu nodded. It was the first time he’d acknowledged a specific instruction.
“Good. Now, you want a sausage too? I’m having another.”
Nu slowly smiled, and then nodded again.
TITLE: Beyond Design Limitations
CHAPTER: Nineteen – Courting Danger
AUTHOR: Pecos – PecosPhil@sprintmail.com
WEBSITE: http://www.chimerafic.com
BETA: Gloria Mundi
RATING: Varies by chapter. This one is NC-17
WARNING! THIS CHAPTER IS VIOLENT!
DISCLAIMER: I don’t make the toys, I’m only
playing with them. No money made, nor
disrespect intended. This is FICTION
WHAT IS IT?: RPS / AU
Sequel to ‘Prophecy: Destiny & Design’
which can be found on my website
WHO’S IN IT?: Sean Bean, Orlando Bloom,
Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortensen and other
actors from ‘The Lord of the Rings’, ‘Pirates
of the Caribbean’, ‘Hidalgo’ and others
FEEDBACK: remember the golden rule, (please!)
NOTE: Please forgive any intentional or
unintentional abuse of facts or history.
Story takes place in early 2002
NOTE 2: Thanks to Hithliun for special assist!
Beyond Design Limitations
Chapter Nineteen: Courting Danger
Viggo
Stepping under the lukewarm spray of the hotel shower, he moaned in appreciation. The water painted colored streamers down his chest and thighs, carrying away the pervasive Saharan dust and grime. The wind hadn’t been too harsh to film that day, but it had certainly stirred things up enough to make animals and humans plenty miserable. Morocco had proven insane, beautiful, and painfully harsh. So different from all of the other places he’d lived; Viggo loved it. Still, he’d fallen in love with every corner of the world he’d ever inhabited. You didn’t have to check your shoes for scorpions in Denmark, and in New Zealand you could drink straight from the mountain springs…but the sky in Morocco was a shade of blue that he’d never seen before, and the sunsets were colored by dust into excruciating palettes he had no chance of ever reproducing on canvas. Those same colors were now pooling around his feet, and slowly washing away down the drain.
Orlando had been here too, not that long ago, filming ‘Black Hawk Down’. He hadn’t called Viggo very often from that set. Come to think of it, that was when the distance between them had started to grow. The same distance that had stretched into such a chasm now; a chasm that threatened to swallow up their friendship, their love of each other. That was something that Viggo wasn’t willing to let happen. He tackled the job of washing with more efficiency and less reflection. The hippy-length hair suited his soul, but it was a bitch to keep clean and out of your face. Maybe he’d cut it all off after this job.
The water had cooled to something the other side of tepid when he finished at last, and Viggo stepped out onto beautiful, elaborate tiles. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he went into the bedroom and rummaged through the piles of detritus that always seemed to spontaneously form wherever he stayed for more than a few minutes. He came up with a copy of the shooting schedule and sat down to study it.
If they moved the tent scenes to tomorrow night, and got a few more establishing shots on Tuesday, so they wouldn’t have to return to that location the day after…he rearranged the director’s work in his head. Then he picked up the phone. Joe was having drinks with friends, from the sound of it. “Sorry to bother you,” Viggo said softly, surprised at the scratchiness of his own voice. What was it about this place that seemed to take your voice away? Probably the damn sand. “I just think I found a way to cut a couple of days off the shoot. We could be out of here a bit sooner than planned.”
Was Joe interested? Fuck yes. And so were the people who wrote the checks. “I’ll come up to your room,” the director offered. “The sooner we’re out of here, the better. Disney is hemorrhaging money on this shoot as it is.”
“I’ll put some pants on,” Viggo offered.
“That would be nice,” said with an exasperated tone. One of the producers was a woman who’d already expressed a bit too much interest in seeing their star outside of the set, even after she’d told Joe that she thought Viggo was a bit overly fond of his ex-Lord of the Rings co-star, Orlando Bloom.
Viggo dropped his towel and searched for something non-costume to put on. But his mind was really wandering back away, across the wide Atlantic, to a supple young man dressed as a blacksmith pirate…a young man who needed to sort out his own life. Orlando “Lambda’ Bloom needed a helping hand.
Maybe a helping heart too.
Orlando
Rollie Tyler had led him across the road and down to a bar that the cast didn’t frequent often, and the place turned out to have a back room where the only interruptions were people bringing you more drinks. There had been food – local fish and some kind of island stir-fry –but Orlando wasn’t really hungry. He picked at his plate enough to appease Rollie’s raised eyebrow (“If you get too thin to keep your pants up the Disney grannies will toss a wobbly, you know.”) and drank more than he should have. Strike that – in his current condition he knew that he shouldn’t be drinking anything other than water. But he was a grown man, out for some fun with another grown man, and one of them was Australian…so there was destined to be alcohol involved.
The conversation had been about such a mish-mash of things that Orlando couldn’t really remember any single topic. Oh, well, there has been some affectionate teasing directed at Johnny’s smelly cigarettes and the poshness of the yacht he was living on, but Tyler was obviously as fond of the American as anyone else. And he did a wicked impression of Johnny trying to find his house keys! It was a very relaxing evening, and just what Orlando needed to finally unwind.
Thumping down his tin of Red Stripe, Rollie pushed the dinner plates out of the way and produced a small white ball from his jeans pocket. He set it on the table, moving it a few times until he found a place where it wouldn’t roll. Then he leaned on his forearms and stared at it intently. “So, how do you make it move, Orli, mate?”
Orlando’s throat started to tighten, and then he remembered that this was just his friend Rollie. He could trust Rollie. There was nothing to fear from Rollie Tyler.
And, to be honest, he really kind of wanted to show off a bit. He wanted to be good at something…anything. He wanted to show that he could do other things than look good and remember where to stand and what to say.
He mimicked Rollie’s posture, hands clamped under his chin, and then nudged the ball. It rocked a bit, then stilled.
Tyler grinned, obviously pleased. “Brilliant! So, what, you just stare at it? ‘Cause, mate, I could stare at that fucking ping pong ball until the next bloody earthquake, and it still wouldn’t go anywhere.”
Orlando grinned at him, then held up his hand. “It’s like this. I just imagine that my hand is reaching out. It’s like an invisible hand, you know?” He reached down and pushed the ball with his real finger, rocking it. “But I don’t use my flesh and blood, I use the hand that isn’t there.”
“Hand that isn’t there,” Rollie repeated, nodding like that explained everything.
“Yeah, it’s easy once you imagine the hand. I can imagine both hands, but the right is easiest. I think I like the thumb on the left or something.” He intertwined his fingers beneath his chin again, then said “This is a little bit harder. But it’s the same thing, really.” The ball lifted off the table’s surface and floated in the air. Then it was dropped. The ping pong ball bounced and disappeared over the edge. Rollie scrambled after it, and when he came back he was shaking his head.
“But, see, I don’t know where my invisible hand is,” Tyler said. “Maybe it’s in my back pocket or something.”
That made Lambda laugh. “I suppose that everybody’s got one, they just don’t know it. The hard part for me was realizing that since it’s not a real hand, it doesn’t have to conform to the laws of the real world.” He took the ball from Rollie and put it back on the table, and then picked up an empty glass. Drying the glass out with his napkin he upended it over the ping pong ball, then sat back. The ball levitated to the top of the glass, bumping against its bottom, tapping lightly.
“You’re reaching through the glass?”
“Better, I’m reaching up through the table!” Lambda laughed, completely amused at himself. “The invisible arm doesn’t have to be attached to me! I can make it anywhere, any size, reach through things…all kinds of stuff!” The glass tipped over and the ball was moved through the air, landing in Rollie’s outstretched palm.
“Blimey! I had the strangest impression that I felt the brush of fingers that weren’t there! Damn, Orli! Can you touch me with this hand that isn’t there?”
“I can, but I don’t like to. It seems…wrong, somehow…dangerous. I’m afraid that I could, like, reach too far and go inside or something, and I could maybe hurt somebody that way.” He shook his head. This had probably gone too far already. He reached for what was left of his wine.
Rollie had set the ping pong ball back on the table. “Well, I’m just stunned, yeah? This is just completely awesome!” He coaxed a small smile from Lambda. “You do know how awesome it is, don’t you?”
“Yeah, sorta. You have to keep this a secret, Rollie. I know that it’s not something most other people can do.” As far as he knew, he was the only one in the world doing it, thanks to the genetic manipulations of the Galacorte scientists…but Tyler didn’t need to know anything about that.
“Not a word to anyone outside of this room,” Rollie promised, holding up his hand. “I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, mate.”
Orlando smiled, and thumped Rollie on the back – using his real hand, of course.
“But aren’t you curious about what else you can do?” Tyler asked, reaching for a bit of fish left on the plate. “I get the feeling that you don’t really know how far this talent extends. Don’t you want to know more?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Orlando said with a shrug. “I’ve never taken the time to really test it.” His eyes narrowed, and suddenly the ping pong ball was smashed utterly flat. Their table rocked, dishes rattling, and a glass fell to the floor. Rollie jumped back. “See…I’m kind of worried about just how strong it can be. Maybe it’s better to just keep it to myself.”
Rollie was staring at him with shock in his eyes, obviously thinking, and then he smiled again. “You’re something else, Orli! Something else all together! We better get back to the hotel, right? Morning’s chasing us, ready or not.”
They rose and left, the remains of the crushed ball still flattened on the tabletop. After a few minutes there was a motion in the corner of the room. A man named Ricky Jay came out from behind the screen which had concealed his hiding place amongst piles of chairs and unused seasonal decorations for the restaurant. He stood for a moment over the table where the actor and the special effects technician had been sitting, reached out to take the ruined ball, and then he turned to follow them.
Dominic
He’d read Hurley’s lines for three different sets of people now, and the guy across the table was nodding at him with what Dom figured to be an insincere smile on his face. “Very nice job, Dominic,” he said. “We really appreciate you coming in. We were just thrilled when your agent said you might be interested.”
“Yeah, well you don’t look that thrilled now,” Dom said through clenched teeth. He didn’t think that his American accent was likely to fool anyone, even television viewers. One of these guys was supposed to be a big deal in the television business. Dom didn’t know which – he’d blanked out during the introductions, mind still trying to bend around all the pretty boys in the waiting room, one of whom had winked at him and called him ‘Fur Feet’. Damn pretty boys, they would look really great romping on that Hawaiian beach.
“We thought maybe you’d like to take a look at the Charlie part too. You could speak English. Charlie’s English, right?” the suit asked one of the casually dressed blokes at his side.
“I thought he was Irish. Colin Farrell type,” one of them muttered.
“No, like some guy from Liverpool. English.”
“English?” Dom sputtered. “Ah, fucking hell…why do I bother? You don’t know me! I’m a bloody star, okay? I’ve headlined movies! I made the biggest bloody movies of all time! I’ve gotten awards, fans, bloody conventions! I’ll be at the goddamn Oscars this year! You and your stupid airplane crash, fucking Gilligan’s Island! I can do better than this!” He slammed the script down, face red, heart pounding, more angry at himself than anyone else.
Utter silence from across the table, and then the suit’s jaw dropped. “Oh, my god. That’s perfect! Carlton, did you hear that?”
“Amazing!” sputtered wanker number three.
“He’s really too young, but we could do something about that, right?”
“I’ll rewrite! Jesus, Monaghan, that was great!”
“Do the ‘you don’t know me’ bit again!”
“Younger, edgier, from…Manchester…” he said, consulting Dom’s bio. “And you actually can play guitar and sing? God, what a perfect match!”
“We’ll tailor the part just for you! Please, please say you’ll take it!”
“Yes!” chimed in another. “Please, just say you’ll let us rewrite and you can look at it again! Pilot shoots in eleven days. Can you think about it?”
Dominic rocked back on his heels, head spinning. This was all too much. He really had to get the grass and junk food out of his system. He thought that maybe he’d just tossed a fit, and got a job offer for his bother. Something ticked in and he started to negotiate. “You gonna just kill me off like that Jack character?”
“Not now!” thrilled one of the guys. “Not our new Charlie!”
“Okay then,” he said, trying a bit of Merry’s stoicism on. “I’ll go on your little adventure. But I’ll need time to surf.”
Andre
It was a nice evening in Belgium as Doctor Andre Van Vonderhousen pulled up the steep driveway to his secluded house. His mind was many kilometers away, on issues both profound and mundane. The drive home from Ghent had ceased to be something to look forward to after Greta had left him and taken the dog. Greta was a selfish bitch, but he really missed that dog.
He pulled up the garage and put on the emergency brake before getting out. You’d think that the people who’d built this house in the 1950s could have found a flat space big enough for a single car, wouldn’t you?
Muttering about how exceptionally incompetent his co-workers and the staff at the hospital had been that day, Andre clamped his briefcase between his knees while he worked the lock and pushed hard on the front door. It had been sticking lately, probably because of the rain. He paused for a moment in his front hall, sighing at the lack of claws clicking happily on the parquet floor. He really did miss that dog. The house smelled stuffy and old.
He was just setting his briefcase on the table when the doorbell rang. That was odd, he never got many callers all the way up here, and the drive was not well-marked – intentionally so. It was probably a messenger from the hospital. He groaned at the utter futility of his life and went back to wrestle the door open once again.
An extremely familiar face looked up at him from porch steps. “Hello, Doctor Van.”
The issues of the day disappeared, and the past rushed forward with a jerk. Spit pooled at the back of his throat, and he coughed before he could really say anything.
“You’re going to ask me inside, aren’t you?” asked the young man with the unruly dark curls. He pushed up the final step and into Andre’s house before waiting for an answer.
“How did you find me?” Andre finally gaped.
“No greeting then, Doctor Van? No, 'hello'?” The young man was taller than Andre remembered them being, and his body was much more lean and mature. The sharp, dark eyes were rimmed with dark lashes, and his skin was no longer pale and transparent. He looked good – healthy and vital. He also looked dangerous. Andre had never thought that he’d see one of them as dangerous…but then he’d never seen one outside of the lab before. This subject had no business being loose in the world, and even less right invading his home.
“How did you get here?” he blurted. “Which one are you?”
“Definitely no hello, then,” the younger man sighed. He pulled his hand from the pocket of his yellow hoodie, and the doctor was surprised to see that he held a small handgun. “Come sit down please, Doctor Van Vonderhousen. I want to ask you a couple of questions.”
Now his anger started to outweigh surprise. “I am not going to answer your questions, childling!”
“Not a child,” the young man said darkly. “Not a child at all.” The fist, still gripping the handgun, connected soundly with Andre’s jaw, and knocked him back into the wall. A second blow took him in the gut, and he doubled over. The doctor was dragged forward and shoved toward a chair in the normally cozy parlor. He crouched on the edge of the seat, trying to regain his breath, mind racing. There was a gun upstairs, locked in a drawer. His attacker left the room for a moment – but before Andre could get to his feet and head for the stairs the familiar figure was back. Improbably enough, he was drinking a soft drink. “You took your time getting home tonight. I’ve been waiting for almost two hours.”
“Which one are you?”
“Does it matter? Is there a particular one that you liked better than the others?” He gulped his drink, sinking down on the couch opposite, like they were just going to have a nice visit, and maybe some tea and cake. “Did it bother you more to terminate any particular batch of babies? Was any one clone tougher to kill than another? Did you just consider it a delayed abortion to wipe out little people – children, innocent children?”
“I was doing important work!”
“No. You were killing. You are a killer.”
“But you are the one with a gun!” Andre spat.
“Yes, though this is just a little .22. Nothing, really. Just something to encourage you to talk to me.” He shifted in his seat, and pulled a different weapon out from underneath the hoodie, from where it had been tucked into the waistband of his jeans. “Now this is a gun. It’s a Glock .357 SIG. This one will blow your fucking head all over the wall.” He admired the weapon for a moment, light glinting off the short barrel.
“You wouldn’t dare!”
But apparently he would…and he did. The doctor’s left knee exploded in a spray of blood and bone. Screaming, he fell onto the floor.
“Oh, do shut up. That was just the .22. I can probably shoot you a dozen times with that one before killing you. Don’t make me count, okay?”
“AAHHHHHHHH! GOD! You SHOT me!” The doctor thrashed, body gripped by agony, shrieking in pain. After a few moments he was able to gasp out a coherent question. “What do you want? WHO ARE YOU?”
“I’m Omega. The End.”
“There…GOD!…there…WAS no Omega!”
“There is now.”
The next shot took off two fingers.
Rho
Laughing almost hysterically, Rho took the corner at the top of the stairs far too fast, his socks skidding on the hardwood floor. He skated into the wall, rebounded, and was off down the hall a full ten strides in front of Sean Bean, who was in hot pursuit.
“I’ll have ye, ya nutter!” Sean yelled, coming on hard despite his superior age and slightly inferior physical condition.
Rho grabbed the jamb on the master bedroom and made a three-point slide into the room, as graceful as an Olympic ice skater. He bounded onto, and then over the bed and was facing the door by the time Sean arrived.
“Cornered, like the dirty back alley rodent you are!” Sean crowed.
Panting, Rho grinned. He waved his trophy high: Sean’s last pack of cigarettes.
“Thieving li'l prick! Give ‘em here before I have to throttle ya!”
“That is a really vile habit, Sean. I’m doing you a great favor.”
“How do you figure that? I’m just going to get them off’a you, smoke one to calm my poor old heart, and then shove my shoe up yer arse.”
That got him an odd look. “So, that’s what you gays do for fun? Shoes?”
With a roar, Sean leapt. The cigarettes went out the bedroom window. Bean’s jaw dropped as he watched the slim white life-savers tumble free of the pack on the way down, scattering across the drive pavement below, landing with little splashes in the puddles. He closed his mouth slowly, face reflecting the profound and tragic loss.
Rho patted him on the back. “I’m sorry, Sean. It had to be done.”
“Why?” The word was so forlorn, so bereft of any further will to live.
Rho had to struggle not to laugh. “So you’d drive me into town again. I’ll go mad if we stay home another night. This is England, Sean! I need to see a real pub! I need to hear people talk! I want to look at girls with freckles!”
“You think I’m taking you with me to buy cigs? After what you’ve just done, you arsehole?”
“And to the pub, yeah! Because I know where you keep them, right? You could have a lot of nicotine droughts if I don’t get to have a real English beer and play darts and taste fish and pips.”
“Chips.”
“Yeah, those too!” He scooted closer, trying the patented ‘Orlando’s Puppy Dog Eyes’ on the old man. “Please Seanie?”
“You are the worst fucking pain in my arse in the history of pains! Go find your shoes, you goddamn crook.”
Rho grinned, knowing that he’d won. He liked winning.
Mickey
They were sitting in a waiting room at Warsaw Airport, waiting for their flight to Rome. Mickey’d had a lot of choices where to take Nu next, but he’d finally decided to take him back to the Seychelles…at least for a while. The best way-point on that route would be Italy, and there would be lots of flights down to Africa or to the islands themselves from there. Mickey’s home would be a good place to assess Nu’s abilities, skills, and possible uses. They would be able to let him settle into something resembling a real life, and see what the future might hold for the clone. Besides, to be totally honest, it had been too long since Mickey had gone home, and he missed Stephanie, his ‘occasional’ girlfriend.
Stephanie had met Lambda, and some of the other clones. She was going to love Nu. She so enjoyed hard-luck projects – hence her interest in Mickey.
“You’ll like the island,” Mickey said softly. “It’s gorgeous. Really, seriously gorgeous. And warm. No more shivering under blankets.” He’d found Nu that morning on the floor between the bed and the wall, curled up beneath the bedspread, trembling, tears in his large, dark eyes. Nu had shaken him off when he’d tried rubbing his newly-shorn head, and had dressed very sullenly, even though he obviously approved of his new wardrobe. “Don’t forget now, your name is Nicky. Nicky Kostmayer. We’re brothers – at least for a little while. If you do decide to speak don’t start talking in Russian or Belorussian, or whatever. If it comes to that, English or nothing, okay?”
Nu still hadn’t said a word, and he didn’t seem inclined to start any time soon. His eyes narrowed as he stared at a couple of bored kids who had been acting up for the last several minutes, making pests of themselves back and forth across the waiting area. Their mother was busy taking on a cell phone, and the two young boys were screaming and chasing each other around, racing between the seats and knocking over people’s luggage.
“Once we get onto the concourse we’ll find something to eat,” Mickey said, watching the overhead monitors and scanning the exits, like he always did. Not much got past the seasoned agent. “You’re probably hungry again, and my mom would smack me if I left Poland without having some down-home kielbasa. If we have to lay over in Rome I’ll take you out for some Italian. I don’t imagine that they had creamed spinach fettuccini with mussels in that place.” Mickey doubted that at the mental hospital they’d served food much better than the animal shelters did in the US or UK – not that he’d wanted to stick around and find out. Being in the CIA had unexpectedly made him a bit of a gourmand.
One of the kids came galloping over, waving a newspaper that he’d gotten from the trashbin in Nu’s face. It happened faster then even Mickey could anticipate, and then the kid was flat on his butt on the floor, a stunned expression on his face. Nu had flattened him. There was a long moment when the kid couldn’t decide what to do, but the anger in Nu’s eyes made it clear that this wasn’t an accident, and the kid burst into screaming and tears.
“What the fuck?” Mickey sputtered, and Nu’s gaze shifted to him. In that instant Mickey recognized something profound and disturbing: Nu had no idea that one didn’t just smack annoying children. He saw nothing wrong with hitting the kid – he only worried that there was something wrong with defending himself. The brother had come running, and was now taunting his bawling sibling. Their mother finally perked up, realizing that the level of shrieking had increased, and she was rising to her feet while trying to end her phone call.
There were only a few seconds to decide what to do. If there was a big commotion they could be prevented from boarding their plane, or, even worse, there could be questions from authorities. The expression on Nu’s face changed again, and Mickey winced as he realized that Nu was already bracing himself for a retaliatory hit. The clone fully expected Mickey to strike him now, since he’d apparently done something wrong.
Mom was swelling up with indignation, and the nearby spectators were making no effort to hide their amusement, probably looking forward to a very entertaining fight. With one quick nod to the clone, Mickey jumped to his feet and went on the offensive. “Your damn bratty kid almost put my brother’s eye out!” he shouted in English, putting on a broad, rather snotty East coast accent. He was instantly pegged by one and all as an American, and thus the mood of everyone in the waiting room shifted. “I don’t know how you people bring up your kids around these here, but where I come from we don’t let them attack strangers!”
The ensuing row ended a few minutes later, with the mother gesturing and complaining vociferously, while Mickey pretended not to speak a word of Polish, or anything else that might have been useful. She knew enough English to tell him that he was a pig, and a shitface, and that he should go back to America. Mickey called her fat, and told her that she should shove that giant cell phone up her nose and get a headset, like any civilized person.
A good time was had by all, especially the bystanders, and Nu was all but forgotten in the resultant international incident. Mickey finally allowed an English-speaking stewardess tell him that he had better go sit somewhere else, and he got up with as much grumbling and bitching as possible. He jerked Nu away by the sleeve, and the offended mother got a few commendations from her fellow passengers. But more than one spectator smiled at Mickey and Nu, and at least one muttered “thanks for smacking the little bastard,” as they passed.
The monitors updated again and the pair were allowed to proceed through Security to the concourse. Mickey ducked into a bar and got his kielbasa, and Nu watched him eat it with growing astonishment. “Sometimes, Nick,” Mickey explained as he chewed, “the best way to stay out of trouble is to attract it. Now, for your education, let me make it perfectly clear. You don’t hit kids. Ever. I don’t care how fucking obnoxious they are. That’s a rule. No hitting kids. Do you understand me?”
Nu nodded. It was the first time he’d acknowledged a specific instruction.
“Good. Now, you want a sausage too? I’m having another.”
Nu slowly smiled, and then nodded again.
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::makes Orlando's famous puppy dog eyes at you::
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