The Misadventures of Samantha and Malcolm/Chapter 8 R&D

“Three Pennies from the Fountain?” asked Anthony as he walked by cafeteria tables with his lunch. “They had two albums about fifteen years ago,” said Rinni as she walked next to him with her own lunch. “Their gimmick was that they were all hard and soft penitatas. They did covers of a bunch of songs about jail and prison; ‘Folsom Prison Blues, Jailhouse Rock, 18 and Life.’” They reached the table with the Cummings and the Martins. “Most of their stuff was mediocre, but I did like their version of ‘Over the Hills and Far Away.’” She realized that Malcolm had his face in his hands and Natalie had wrapped her arms around his right arm. Samantha and Jaydee sat on the other side of the table. Rinni sat next to Malcolm and Anthony sat next to Jaydee. “What happened?” asked Rinni. “Malcolm’s going to the research and development department,” said Samantha. “Ah,” said Rinni as she stuck a straw in her juice box. “What’s that mean?” asked Anthony. “Aw, we just got done explaining it to these two,” said Samantha as she gestured to Jaydee and Natalie. “I’ll tell him,” volunteered Rinni. “When the board of Corrections has something new, they randomly select us to act as test subjects.” “Test subjects?” asked Anthony. “Yeah, all the stuff they use on us, the paddles, the mouth soap, the needles at the doctor’s office, it all had to be tested before they go into production. The parents have to okay it, but most of them say yes,” said Rinni. “So Malcolm is-” started Anthony. “About to get a special sneak preview of…whatever…those sadists have thought up this time,” finished Malcolm. “God, I never realized until now that there were actually scientists, sitting around thinking to themselves: ‘How can we make this more painful for children?’” “Probably in a secret lab in the shape of a skull that rises out of a swamp,” said Natalie. “Yeah, that sounds like Dr. Crugen,” said Rinni. “Who?” asked Malcolm. “Oh, you’ll be meeting her soon,” said Rinn after taking a hit of her juice. “Dr. Crugen is the head doctor in the Research and Development department. You know how your parents, after a spanking, will hold you and tell you that they still love you and want you to do better?” Everyone nodded. “She won’t,” said Rinni. “Five sessions with her have convinced me that she is driven entirely by a childish sadism, and the joy of kids screaming.” Malcolm lay his face upon the table. “I’m gonna lose my black cherry to the ‘Anal Invader,’” he said. Rinni nearly choked on her trail mix. “I’m sorry,” she said after she swallowed. “What?” “That machine,” said Malcolm, “that picks you up with claws and shoves a-” “EW! No!” interrupted Rinni. “They do NOT have a machine like that!” “They don’t?” Malcolm looked up. “"The punishments they give you cannot be worse than your worst SPD." She looked at the boy critically, "I was arrested for child molesting, you were arrested for trespass. Even if they had such a device they wouldn’t be allowed to use it on you. Maybe on me though," she said wryly. “Who told you they had something like that?” Malcolm, Natalie, and Jaydee turned their heads toward Samantha. Samantha broke down in a snicker. Jaydee raised her fist as if to jab Samantha, but then lowered it. “I miss being able to punch people,” said Jaydee. “Don’t get me wrong, Malcolm,” continued Rinni. “This will be bad.” “How bad?” “Well, it kind of depends on what they are testing that day,” said Rinni. “I mean even if they have one test of something not that bad, like Nano-web software or delta beds, they will always double it up with a new synthecord cane or corner stool, under SPD level conditions.” Malcolm groaned. Natalie squeezed his arm tighter. “So when do you leave,” asked Anthony. As if on cue, the loudspeaker chimed. “MALCOLM MARTIN, YOU ARE ORDERED TO REPORT TO THE FRONT OFFICE.” “That’s my ride,” admitted Malcolm. Natalie gave him what she thought was a strengthening kiss on the cheek. He rose from the table, abandoning his untouched lunch. “Don’t you want your food?” asked Jaydee. “I’m not hungry,” said Malcolm. “Split it among yourselves. Natalie gets the brownie.” The elevator door opened, Alison led Malcolm by the hand onto the second floor of the Corrections building. They were ten minutes early. Alison followed the signs to the Laboratory set of suites and approached the door. She tapped her watch, scrolled through some options and then tapped it twice, a copy of her parenting license appeared on the door. The license turned into a green circle and the door slid open. There were three women inside sitting in big comfy swivel chairs in conference, two in the standard jumpsuits and one in a lab coat with her back to the Martins. The room had three doors, and one window into a white room with a man in another lab coat working on something that Malcolm couldn’t see. The woman in the lab coat rose. Malcolm was struck dumb. Under her open lab coat was a small, tight, dark blue dress that was dedicating itself to supporting her globular e-cub breasts. Her voluminous black hair cascaded around her porcelain face. Square glasses framed big, dark eyes. Her full pouting lips clad in dark crimson. She was the kind of woman you’d expect to enter a room with a saxophone solo accompanying her. She approached Alison with a tablet computer in her left hand. “Mrs. Martin correct?” she asked as she offered her hand. “I’m Dr. Crugen.” “Yes, Hello,” said Alison. “And this must be little Malcolm,” she said as she bent down to the boy. “How are we feeling today?” Malcolm stared slack jawed at her exposed cleavage. She tipped up his head with her index finger. “I’ll need some eye contact Malcolm,” she said. “Yes Ma’am!” Malcolm hastily answered, his face flush with embarrassment. “Now, Mrs. Martin, I was just telling this to the others, but you have complete control over if or when this stops. The red button you see on the table there is the stop button. You press that and you can take Malcolm right out of here, no hard feelings, no questions asked, and should you…” Malcolm stopped listening, Alison had let go of his hand and he was wandering over to the window. Inside, the technician was working on a quadralinear card that Malcolm guessed would go into the access panel of the machine behind him that was mostly covered up by a sheet. ''Oh, he’s installing the displacement regulators, wait, those two are of a different brand than the other two, that’s not supposed to…well I guess it will be okay if he remembers to-NO HE DIDN’t! He’s installing the pairs on adjacent sides! That’s not going to work. It will just…well, maybe they know something I don’t…'' “Um, are you sure that’s going to work?” he asked Dr. Crugen without turning around. Dr. Crugen soon took his chin in her hand and turned his head towards her. “Malcolm,” she said, “how old are you?” “Six, Ma’am,” he answered. “No, I correct myself,” she said. “I mean, how long has it been since you were born?” “Uh, twenty four years, Ma’am,” said Malcolm. “Well, Malcolm, I have directing this division for a total of eighty three years, in between my rejuves. So, seeing as how I have been doing this for slightly over three times your own age,” she gave his cheek a hard pinch “I think you can trust that everything here is going to work fine.” “I just mean that-” said Malcolm. “I’m sorry!” the Doctor interrupted. “You’ve used up your talking credits.” She took him by the wrist “It’s time to get you dressed for your sessions.” She escorted him through one of the doors “Or more specifically, get you undressed.” She led him down a short hallway into a white room. “This is the penny waiting area,” she said. There was a square table in the center of the room, surrounded by four white chairs, on in the left corner there was a white carpet and four white bean-bag chairs. There were two pennies in those chairs, one a blonde boy maybe a year older than Malcolm with an open P on his hand, the other a black girl maybe a year younger than Malcolm. They were both wearing white hospital gowns. On the other side of the room was a shelf with six bins in it, and in the other corner was a toilet, sink and an oversized changing table/cabinet. There were two cameras in opposing corners. Dr. Crugen led Malcolm to the changing table, grabbing one of the bins from the shelf, and sat him upon it. She removed his shoes and socks and placed them neatly in the bin. “Lift up your arms Malcolm,” she said. He obeyed, and she slid off his shirt, folded it, and placed it next to his shoes in the bin. “Now, lay down…” she guided him to lay across the table. She undid his button and zipper lifted up his legs and slid off his pants. Into the bin they went. Then she raised his legs again, and Malcolm covered his face in embarrassment as she slipped her fingers into his briefs, and pulled them off exposing him to the cold air. “Now I’m just going to check for signs of abuse,” she said as she parted his legs. “On one occasion I found evidence of a parent going over the line in punishment. Turn over.” Malcolm obeyed. He gasped as she parted his bottom for inspection. “After that I do these checks on every little penny I see here. I’ve only ever found it again on two other occasions…And this,” she patted his bottom, “is not one of them.” He breathed a sigh of relief knowing that nothing was terribly wrong, then inhaled sharply as he suffered the cold intrusion of a rectal thermometer. “Just making sure you don’t have a fever…and we’re done. Now sit up.” He obeyed. She produced a dressing gown like the ones the other kids were wearing. He dutifully raised his arms and she slipped it over his shoulders. Malcolm realized that this was less a gown and more of an apron. The string fastening it in the rear was the only piece of fabric in the back. She tied it tight around his chest and lifted him off. “Now why don’t you go sit with your little friends over there?” she directed him towards the bean bag chairs. “We start in ten minutes, I just hope number four gets here by then…” Malcolm set himself down in a bean bag chair between the two other pennies. “So, what’s you claim to fame?” asked the girl next to him. “Huh?” asked Malcolm. “Your dime, your doin’, your dash, your asterisk,” said the girl. “Um…” “She wants to know what your crime was,” said the boy on his other side. “Oh, criminal trespass,” said Malcolm. “That’s it? You got cut short for that?” asked the boy. “Well, I plea bargained away from a quarantine violation,” said Malcolm. “Quarantine Violation!” the boy ejaculated (if that is the proper term). “That universal crime! Everytime the government wants to remove someone from their path, they put their life under a microscope and find SOMETHING that violates the quarantine law!” “Really?” asked Malcolm. “It happens everyday,” the boy continued, “you just never hear about it because the media’s in the pocket of big Government.” “Here we go again,” said the girl as she placed her palm upon her face and slunk deeper into her bean bag. “It’s FEAR is what it is,” the boy continued, “The government generates the fear, and the people follow them like sheep.” “Yeah,” agreed Malcolm, “about three hundred billion stars in this galaxy alone, and they expect us to spend our entire lives looking at them from here.” “First thing they did was isolate the population,” said the boy, “next they put every single surviving scientist on their payroll or else, and you want to know the REAL reason they did that? So that no one would realize it was their virus!” “Wait…what?” Malcolm asked. “IT OBVIOUS!” exclaimed the boy. “It was and INSIDE JOB. They’re the only ones who benefited from the virus. They wanted to use it to wipe out the Church of Galactic Light!” Malcolm thought for a moment. “You mean,” said Malcolm, “that crazy cult in the southern hemisphere? The ones that claimed that every piece of technology was satanic and refused all the medicine?” “They needed them out of the way,” continued the boy, “but the virus got out of control, so they just let it spread all over the planet, keep the population under control.” “You…” said Malcolm, “…you’re saying that the Paradiso Planetary Government is responsible for the Plague?” “Yes!” he said. How is it that the psychiatrists, thought Malcolm, supposedly always on the lookout for new talent, managed to miss this raving nutter? He noticed the Psi symbol on the boy’s hand. Oh, they didn’t. “Have you talked to your counselor about this?” Malcolm asked the boy. “They’re in on it,” said the boy. Malcolm had stopped listening to the boy and just nodded and said ‘yeah,’ every time there was a pause. He endured three more minutes of insanely improbable conspiracy theories before Dr. Crugen brought in the last subject in her arms: A black circle penny. Malcolm stared wide eyed. She couldn’t be more than four. Her hair was light brown and in pigtails, she was wearing a pink t-shirt with a picture of a crying bunny on the front, a diaper, her shoes were little pink booties. Rather than a secureband, she had a thick metal collar with several lights and an interface port on the front, one large loop, and a gold bell on the front. She had a pacifier in her mouth that was connected to a fabric strap that was connected to her collar. “Carmine, Malcolm, Sara,” Dr. Crugen addressed the other three pennies, “this is Delphine.” The small girl didn’t even try to look the other pennies in the eye. Dr. Crugen carried Delphine over to the changing table and proceeded with the same routine she had subjected Malcolm to. The little girl followed every instruction, every prod without so much as a wimper. Doctor Crugen lifted up her legs and removed her diaper, throwing it out. She examined the girl as she had Malcolm. “Children, if you will each take a seat at the table,” directed Dr. Crugen. The three pennies obeyed. The doctor carried Delphine, naked but for her collar and pacifier, to the table and laid down a blanket upon it, then the girl. The little one just stared at the pattern in the blanket. “Seeing as how pennies see each other naked quite often,” said the doctor, “I want you all to be familiar with the signs of sexual assault.” She parted Delphine’s legs. “you see these bruises, here?” Malcolm felt like he was going to throw up. “You don’t get these from falling down the stairs,” continued the Doctor, “these marks mean that the subject has been violated. If you ever see these marks on one of your school mates, it is your moral imperative to report it until someone believes you. Tell your parents, tell the teacher, tell the school nurse. It crosses the line, and later in life the victims will suffer everything from depression, to anxiety, substance abuse, even suicide.” “THEN STOP DOING IT TO HER!” Malcolm burst out, no longer able to contain himself. Doctor Crugen stared at Malcolm with a wild surmise. Delphine actually looked up and met Malcolm’s gaze with…what was that look in her eyes? Pleading? Carmine and Sara moved away from him, fearing a reprisal upon Malcolm might reach to themselves. The doctor composed herself. “Malcolm,” she said, “shall I tell you what Delphine’s crime was?” Delphine’s gaze fell back to the ground. “She,” continued the doctor, “and her husband, physically, and sexually abused their own twin children so much, that both of them, at the age of seven, threw themselves off a cliff to escape the horror.” It was Malcolm’s turn to have a wild surmise. “A hiking party found the bodies and called the authorities. Soon four police officers were dispatched to Delphine’s house to arrest them. Two of those officers were killed with homemade explosives when the happy couple resisted arrest.” Malcolm was silent. “I suppose your outburst is understandable, but rest assured, Malcom, this contemptible excuse for a human deserves none of your sympathy.” Delphine whimpered through her pacifier. It was a sound that broke Malcolm’s heart to pieces. “Okay,” said the doctor. “Now that everyone is ready, we can begin,” she carried Delphine to the door (she had noticeably denied Delphine even the meager gowns the other children had, leaving her naked but for her collar and pacifier). “Follow me now children.” The three pennies dutifully followed their new mistress out the door. They were led down the opposite hall into a new room, this one furnished with a table in the sporting a large container. The left and right walls had a pair of cubicles each, and four cameras, each mounted on an extendable appendage and each one monitoring one for the cubicles. The doctor walked to the table and set Delphine down. “Come here, children,” Crugen said, “and hold out your hands.” Oh boy, thought Malcolm, what are they testing, a new palm spanking ruler? He held out his hands, palms up. Doctor Crugen reached into the center container and pulled out a pair of kid cuffs. This model consisted of two inch wide bands padded on the inside and a outside with red foam and connected by thirty centimeters of heavy black synthecord. “Some of you may have heard that three months ago,” said the Doctor as she took Carmine by the hand and bound his wrists, “that a little girl in Miskatonic actually managed to break her kid cuffs.” Malcolm had not heard that, but he hardly had his ear to the ground these days. “So,” said the Doctor as she took Malcolm by the hands. “That little stunt revealed some glaring flaws in the design, I mean nobody ever tried it before her,” she locked the boy’s wrists into another pair of cuffs. Malcolm felt the pads inside expand to secure him. “So we’ve retooled them a bit and we want to see…” she locked in Sara’s hands “…how easy it is to escape THESE models.” She stooped down to Delphine. Malcolm didn’t see what she did, but three beeps, two clicks and a clunk later, Delphine’s wrists were lock in the cuffs, and the synthecord was threaded through the loop in her collar, forcing her to keep her hands close to her chest. “Now, Carmine Brich, tax evasion, soft time,” she now produced a small tool box from the container, “you will be attempting to break them with tools commonly found in garages.” She handed the blonde boy the tools. Malcolm felt a flush of jealousy. “Malcolm Martin, criminal trespass, hard time,” she handed him a slightly smaller box, “You will be trying to break the cuffs with items commonly found in the kitchen.” Malcolm took it with both hands. “Sara Dexter, production and distribution of an unlawful substance, hard time,” the Doctor took out a pencil box, “You get some school supplies.” Sara accepted. “And Delphine,” she reached in the box one more time, “gets a fully stocked Mr. Potato head.” Carmine snickered. “Okay,” the Doctor clapped her hands together, “Everyone pick a cubicle and get working, I will come to collect you in twenty minutes.” Larson, Crugen’s assistant and technician, was monitoring all the test subjects from four separate monitors in the control room. He was a lad who wanted the world to know he did not conform, from his red streaked black hair to the “666” tattoo on his hand. Odds were he wasn’t going to get any usable footage here. Bare penny pics were a dime a dozen. He was really looking forward to the second test. The door behind him opened and doctor entered. “Any problems?” she asked. “Nope, nobody’s broken out,” Larson called up the footage. “The soft timer has set off all four of the silent alarms we installed, the hard time boy hasn’t done anything, the hard time girl is still trying to pry open an access panel, and the black circle just put the potatoes head together wrong, then she crept over to the hard time boy’s cubicle and peeked in, when he turned his head to look she ran back to her own cubicle and put the head back together the right way and now she’s just crawled into this corner.” “What is this?” asked Doctor Crugen. “What’s what?” asked Larson. “Look,” she moved Malcolm’s camera to get a batter look. “He’s opened every panel on his cuffs without tripping an alarm. How?” “Um,” Larson was at a loss, he had been focusing on the black circle girl for most of the time. “Look closer,” said Doctor Crugen, “he’s managed to completely disable the transmitter.” She froze the image. “Look there, he must have used the filigree off of that fruit scraper to form a bypass. That’s clever. Can you fetch me his dossier?” “What, now?” asked Larson, she gave him a dirty look and he scurried off to the record console. Ten minutes later, Doctor Crugen returned to the testing room. “Okay children, time’s up. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t break the cuffs. Come on now, come here.” The children filled out of the cubicles and gathered in front of the doctor. Crugen took a small control out of her pocket and took Carmine’s cuffs by the cord. She pushed the button and he was free and she tossed the cuffs in the container. She did the same to Sara, but when Delphine walked up to her… “No, I think I like you better in bonds,” Delphine dropped her hands, “You can just keep those on a while longer. Malcolm,” Malcolm raised his hands, Crugen clicked the control, but nothing happened. She took a closer look. “Malcolm,” she giggled, “Do you know what you’ve done?” “Um…no…” said a clearly fearful Malcolm. “You’ve disassembled the mechanism that opens them,” laughed the Doctor. “You’re more trapped than when I placed you in them.” “I…needed to get to the alarm wires, I’m sorry, I thought-” Malcolm was frantic. “You’re not in trouble Malcolm,” assured the Doctor. “Well, at least no more than you were already in.” She turned to the others, “Why don’t you all wait in the waiting room while I try to break Malcolm out of his jam?” The other three pennies turned for the door. “Not you Delphine,” said the Doctor. “You are not leaving my sight.” Delphine returned to her cubicle. “It’s actually for your protection, girl. You ever hear of the Covered Wagon assault?” She took Malcolm into a cubicle and sat him on the work bench, producing a set of tools from her white coat. “You know, I took a look at your transcripts, you were leading your class,” said Crugen as she selected the correct spanner. “I was wondering, whatever possessed you to go and get pinched?” “To prove I was right,” said Malcolm as she started manipulating the wires in his cuffs. “You know one of the biggest hindrances to space travel is the size of the matter-antimatter intakes on capitol class star ships.” “You mean how you cannot achieve warp in anything smaller than a bulk cruiser or a carrier?” asked Crugen. “That was true about a century ago,” said Malcolm. “And since all the research around here goes to sensor and defense applications, no one has done any research in how to make them smaller…until I did.” He sat up more, his heart filled with the pride of his work. “My sophomore year I studied every technical manual, did as many metallurgic and chronostatic tests as they would allow me to do. I covered every variable, every stray piece of data. I finally finished a thesis on how to build a matter-antimatter intake small enough to allow a one man fighter a star drive. Then I presented it to the board…” Malcolm slunked into his seat. “They told me I had wasted my time, that too much of my work was theoretical to be taken seriously, and one professor said ‘What’s the point? We aren’t going anywhere.’ That was the first night I tasted whiskey…which I threw out after the first taste wondering why anyone would ever take two sips of that rancid stuff. But, one week later, that trade convoy was brought down. I scoped the ships as they were being taken to the government lab, and low and behold, their dimensions were much less than our current theories about starship size. I resolved to take a look at them myself to test my theories more…and the rest is in my dossier.” Crugen finished her work and clicked the control again. This time the cuffs fell off proper. “There we go,” she said, “now let’s go gather up your friends.” She collected up Delphine in her arms and led Malcolm out the door. Stopping off at the waiting room, she commanded Carmine and Sara to join them. She led them all to the room where Malcolm had seen the technician working on the machine that was under a sheet. He couldn’t see out the two way mirror, but he he imagined that his mother was on the other side. There was a small white bench that the doctor bid the children to sit down upon it. “This is what you will all be testing, regrettably we only have one, so you’ll just have to go one at a time.” She pulled of the sheet. It was a spanking machine. It had a cushion that curved upward (clearly to leav the victim’s bottom high) with hand and foot restraints at either end along with thick padded waist and thigh restraints. On the left side protruded the spanking arm and a variety of interchangeable inplements. “As you know the current incarnation of the spank master features two arms, each one handling half the bottom. With this model, we hope that we can start producing single armed machines that will distribute marks evenly across both hemispheres. Let’s start with you, Carmine.” Malcolm thought about anything, everything, just to keep from thinking about Carnine’s naked body struggling helplessly against the rhythmic torment of that mechanized cane. ''They’ve moved the bins containing our clothes to a table 1.5 meters from where I am sitting. Two hover-cameras monitoring the machine, each one completely synchronized along the x and z axis but set at a fixed distance along the Y axis. The shifting individual inclination of each camera tells me that one is monitoring the device while one is monitoring Carmine. I still can’t see out the window. I don’t know the fire escape plan for this room. If I hold my feet parallel to the floor, they dangle by about a half a centimeter.'' “No, no…” said Doctor Crugen. “It’s still pulling to the right.” Carmine’s time was finished. She tapped a series of commands into her tablet and the machine’s arm slowed to a stop. The restraints holding down the boy released and Carmine slid to the floor, collapsing to his knees weeping. “Come on, child,” said the Doctor, “on to your feet.” She took him by the hand and helped him into a wobbly stand. “The cane marks came out fine, but the paddle is still paying more attention to the right side than the left. I mean look at this children, does this look even to you?” The children shuddered. “No, of course it doesn’t.” She handed Carmine the bin of his clothes. “Now we’ve got a full treatment of nano-lotion and your mommy waiting for you in the next room,” she guided him through a door. Moments later she returned. The Doctor wiped down the device with a disinfecting cloth and turned to “Malcolm, it’s your turn,” she strode over and took him by the wrist. Leading him over to the machine, she reached behind him and undid the tie in the back of his gown, letting it fall to the floor. She picked him up and lay him down on the table face down on the red cushion. He was already sniffling. She placed his ankles in the clasps and sealed them. He felt the foam inside restrict. She took up his wrists and locked them into clasps. He twisted his arms and open and closed his hands, proving that he was well and thoroughly trapped. She folded the thick waist restraint over his stomach, and folded the individual thigh locks over his legs. Malcolm felt like he was about to be sacrificed. “Okay,” Crugen typed commands into her tablet, “Let’s change a few angles by a few degrees and see if we can’t get an improvement. The mechanical arm rose, this time bearing a paddle. Malcolm couldn’t turn his head far enough to see it once it rose. He felt it come down hard and his whole body shuddered in vain against his bonds. He set his teeth against crying out in pain. The second stroke fell and he already felt tears forming in his eyes. His body spasmed with every strike, soon tears were flowing freely and he buried his head in the cushion just to keep from crying out. He sunk in his teeth and- “Error Code FIVE-ZERO-SEVEN,” said a mechanical voice. The arm fell still. Did I do that, Malcolm thought as he released the cushion from his teeth. Or was it… “What in blinking blue blazes is this?” demanded Doctor Crugen as she typed furiously into her tablet. “LARSON! What did you do now?” “It wasn’t me!” protested Larson. “It’s…it couldn’t have been just give me a chance to check!” “YOU’VE GOT AN UNEVEN POWER DISTRIBUTION IN YOUR QUADRALINEAR CARD!” Malcolm declared through tears. Doctor Crugen stared at him. “What was that?” she asked. “I TRIED TO TELL YOU!” declared Malcolm. Between the paddle and his anger over being snubbed earlier he was quite disturbed. “HE MIXED BRANDS OF DISPLASMNT REGULATORS IN THE CARD!” He took a deep breath and talked more calmly. “When y’ do that you’re ‘posed to put matching brands at ‘posite sides. But ‘e put em in at adjacent sides!” He turned his head toward Larson. Crugen considered the boy’s words for a moment. Then she opened up the machine, dug out the card and disassembled it on the work bench, confirming the boy’s story and Larson’s mistake. “Take notes, Larson,” said the Doctor. “The penny knows your job better than YOU do.” “I…I can get some replacement parts,” offered Larson. “Oh, there’s no need for that,” said the Doctor. “Really…?” said Larson, “then how-” “Oh, I just feel my work proceeds exponentially better without you,” said the doctor. Oh no! thought Malcolm, what have I done? “Doc,” pleaded Larson, “Just give me another chance!” “You’ve hand THREE ‘another chances’ and I made it perfectly clear this was your last chance!” declared the Doctor. “I did not go through fifteen years of college for the opportunity to clean up your messes! You are dismissed, immediately! I trust you can manage the task of cleaning out your desk and walking out of the building without causing any catastrophic damages! Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to fetch replacements for the parts you ruined!” She stormed out of the door. Larson stood frozen on the spot. “I’m so sorry,” said Malcolm, “I was just trying to hel-PAAAAAAH!” Larson backhanded him across the face. “WHAT!” shouted Larson. “WHAT WERE YOU TRYING TO DO!” Malcolm yanked harder against his bindings, he hid his face between his arm and the cushion. HE’S GONNA KILL ME! “WERE YOU TRYING TO-!” Larson was cut off by a red light flashing over head. “Oh, shit!” Malcolm heard the sound of a door opening. There was a flash of green light and Larson collapsed to the floor. Malcolm twisted his head back and saw Mommy standing in the open door wielding a personal defense delta inducer. “What’s the order of operations again?” Jaydee asked Samantha. “Why are you asking me?” asked Samantha. “You’re always bragging about your math grades,” said Jaydee. “That’s because I have Malcolm here to help me,” said Samantha. The three girls sat at the desks in the Cummings house (Jennifer having graciously offered to look after Samantha until Alison got home) Natalie tapped her pencil on her blank workbook. “Um, Natalie,” said Samantha, “haven’t you done anything yet,” “What,” Natalie said. “Natalie! Over here!” Samantha clicked her fingers. “OH!-Um!” Natalie snapped out of her stupor. “We’ve been here fifteen minutes and you haven’t done any work!” “I’m just worried about Malcolm,” she said. “You really got me thinking about everything that could happen.” “You do realize I made all that up,” asked Samantha. “I know but,” said Natalie, “Now I’m thinking about all the stuff that COULD happen to him. Not just testing new canes, but Rinni told me about this thing called ‘figging,’ and there’s this thing that they used to do in Asia called moxibustation…I can’t concentrate.” She rose. “I’m gonna go ask Mommy something .” She left the room, went down the hall, and knocked on Mom & Dad’s door. Mom answered. “Yes, Natalie?” she asked. “Mommy, may we please call Mrs. Martin?” Jennifer gave this some consideration, finally deciding that it was inside the bounds of propriety. “I think we can, but I can’t guarantee that she will answer,” she sat down at the desk and called up her contact list. Selecting Alison, Jennifer was surprised when the autodialer showed her picking up from the home console, not her portable. “Yes,” answered Alison abruptly.” “Ali, your home,” observed Jennifer. “How was the lab?” “Oh, I’d say the phrase unmitigated disaster sums it up pretty good!” shouted Alison. Natalie gasped. “Omygod, is Malcolm okay?” asked Jennifer. “He’s fine, now,” said Alison. “He’s in his bed with a bottle of grape juice and a dose of nano lotion,” Natalie collapsed to her knees in a sigh of relief. “Natalie honey, go back to your room,” Jennifer ordered. “But mommee-” objected Natlaie. “NATALIE’S THERE?” asked Alison. “Natalie, go to your room,” ordered Jennifer again. “Malcolm is fine. I will tell you what happened soon.” Natalie reluctantly obeyed. “Okay what happened?” Alison recounted the whole event to Jennifer, her emotions rising when she described Larson. “After I laid him on the floor I started unlocking Malcolm. Then the doctor rushed in and she had dozens of useless apologies. Once Malcolm was free I grabbed him up with his clothes and I was out of that buildin’ lahk shit outta goose. (Her accent was always more pronounced when her emotions were up) “I was about to call Jet and ask him how to press charges and then-hold on I have- OH! Jet is calling me. Alison shifted the call console to Jet. “Alison, where are you?” he asked. “At home, you’re never going to BELIEVE what happened,” once again she recounted the events of today. Jet listened silently to her story. “…so what do we do now?” she finished. “I wish you would have gone straight to the police station,” said Jet. “I know! I just…All I could think about was getting Malcolm to safety!” “I understand,” said Jet. “Take him to the station house, now. I’ll have our lawyer meet you there.” “Laywer?” asked Alison. “Is something wrong?” “This all took place on government property,” said Jet. “I don’t want to take the chance that the spooks will make a sledge hammer case about this. I’m probably being paranoid, but I want all of us protected, just in case.” “Okay, honey,” said Alison. “I’ll see you soon.” She disconnected with Jet and opened up Jennifer again. “Jennifer, can you look after Samantha just a little bit longer?” “Of course, Ali, you can count on me. I’ll explain everything,” assured Jennifer. “Thank you SO much,” said Alison, “I owe you one.” “Think nothing of it,” said Jennifer, “just do what you have to do.” Jet stood in the same waiting room Alison had witnessed Malcolm’s assault from. He scrolled through his portable console’s list of documents for…there it is. “Officer Wiley,” he called over his sergeant, “I’m filing a 714w with headquarters. You’ll be in charge of the investigation until the next detective arrives.” “You’re recusing yourself?” asked Masamune Wiley. “I just learned that our prime suspect in Doctor Tyra Crugen’s murder assaulted my son earlier this afternoon. Any defense attorney worth his or her salt will tear any evidence I gather from here on out to pieces.” It’s strange to be on the other side of the Justice System, thought Malcolm. Barely a year ago he was in a spartan interrogation room with a belligerent in condescending officer. Now he was sitting on a couch in a professional office with his advocate next to him and a bottle of his favorite grape soda that one of the attending officers had gotten him from the vending machine. His advocate was Mrs. Gina Vidmar, a short woman of Indian decent with a lot of experience as an officer’s advocate at internal affairs cases. Malcolm had told her the whole story and she assured him he had nothing to worry about and told him to stop talking if she told him to. The door opened. A woman in her late fifties in a cotton dress and shawl entered. “Malcolm? I’m Doctor Marjorie. I’ll be conducting your interview today.” “Are you an officer?” asked Malcolm. “No, I’m a child psychiatrist,” said the doctor. “I’m Gina Vidmar,” she presented her hand. “I’ll be acting as Malcolm’s advocate today.” “Oh, a pleasure,” Marjorie shook Gina’s hand and took a seat across from Malcolm. “Now Malcolm, I want you to know that you are absolutely NOT in trouble. It’s the man who assaulted you, he’s the one in trouble, and to keep you safe we need you to be completely honest about what happened, without any kind of exaggeration or embellishment and without withholding details from when you arrived in the building to when you left. But if remembering is too painful and you don’t want to talk about it, just say so.” Malcolm gave her a full account of the events more detailed than the doctor was expecting, from the model of the car that brought him there to Crugen’s dress to the material used in the cuffs to the articulation of the mechanical arm to the orbital pattern of the cameras. Between his overuse of detail and his mechanical view of the physical world, he actually managed to make an assault upon his person seem boring. “Well, Malcolm that’s very thorough,” said the Doctor after he finished. “Malcolm,” said Gina. “I’m going over the case file now. It states that there was only one video recorder on the scene. Are you sure there were two cameras?” “Absolutely, one was on top of the other the entire time, neither ever entered the other’s line of sight. I could plot it out if you have a graphing program.” “I don’t think that will be necessary,” said the doctor. “I’ll just slide this testimony to the master file.” “I’m going to add a request for the footage from the second camera,” said Gina. “Oh yes, feel free,” said the doctor and the two women tapped away at their tablet consoles for a few minutes. “Malcolm,” said the doctor after she finished. “Now I am going to tell you what happened after you left. All of the other parents chose to remove their children from the experiment. Roughly ten minutes after they walked out, an intern walked into the monitoring room of that laboratory and she saw Doctor Crugen lying on the floor with an overturned chair, bleeding out of her skull, with John Larson standing over her with a bloody tablet. She dashed out the door and hit the emergency lock-down button, sealing Larson in until security came to restrain him. Thankfully, they were able to get Doctor Crugen to an emergency rejuve station fast enough to save her life. Unfortunately, between the amount of blood she lost and how long she was out, she’s going to be unconscious for the next few weeks. The amount of time she was clinically dead did qualify this as a murder charge.” “Oh my…” said Malcolm. “Yes,” said the Doctor, “your testimony may yet help convict a murderer.” There was a chime one at the door. She got up and walked to the door. “Now I have two people who are very eager to see you.” The door opened. On the other side there was a thin man with tanned skin a long chin and a big nose, and a light skinned brunette with a button nose and big round eyes. Their names were Jeffry and Mirina Doohan, but Malcolm knew them as… “Mom…Dad…?” “Brandon!” his mother (his real mother) rushed in and took him up in her arms. “Are you okay? Tell me you’re okay!” “I’m okay,” he said. “He’s okay! Thank God!” she hugged him tighter. “You gave us quite a scare, Brandon,” said his father. “What happened?” asked his mother. They took a seat on the couch and allowed Brandon, dah-I mean Malcolm, to give them the whole story as he saw it and the newest details he had been made aware of. He got the feeling he would be retelling this story to his school mates as well. “Oh, God,” said his mother after he finished, tightening her grip on the boy. “This is the kind of employee the government hires?” asked his father. “No, it’s the kind of employee they fire,” said Malcolm. “Actually, come to think of it, he was fired BEFORE he did the worst stuff.” “Well leaving that man alone with three children is one of the biggest negligence charges I have ever heard,” said his mother. “We are going to sue the living daylights outta these boys!” “Oh, mom, don’t-” said Malcolm. He stopped when Alison entered the room. She froze in her tracks when she realized Malcolm’s biological parents were inside. “Oh, you’re both…here,” said Alison. Jeffry rose and approached her. “I just want to thank you for saving our boy’s life,” he said as he shook her hand. “Really?” she asked, clearly surprised. Up until now she had been feeling guilty about taking Malcolm there in the first place. “Brandon told us everything,” said Mirina. “Have you eaten dinner yet? Let’s buy you dinner.” “I…uh,” said Alison. “Come on,” insisted Mirina, “Let’s get Brandon checked out and get some food. I need to play catch up with my son.” “So…let me get this straight…” officer Wiley addressed Larson and his lawyer across the table in the interrogation room. There was one other officer standing in the room in case the perp lost control of his temper. “Doctor Crugen barged in on you and started screaming at you and hitting you. Then you started grappling with each other and you hit her in the back of the head while you two were rolling on the floor…That’s it?” “That’s what happened,” said Larson. “Okay, then let me just tell you how completely screwed you are,” said Officer Wiley. “First off, the assault charge. The angle on the video recorder isn’t ideal, but the audio coupled with the statement of the victim and the five other witnesses, three of the photogenic mothers of the penal system, pretty much dooms you. No way that’s going to come down as anything but guilty.” Larson didn’t move. His lawyer sighed. “Second, the murder charge. You just told me a pathetic lie. That fracture in the doctor’s skull was the only injury we could find, that means there was no fight. What’s more the angle of the attack was downward, which tells us that she was sitting down and you were standing behind her when you jammed the tablet into her head.” “What happened was-” Larson started to try and alter his story. “I’m not done!” Officer Wiley silenced him. The lawyer gripped his hand and gave him a ‘shut the fuck up’ face. “You see, I did some checking on the records. While you were isolated in the lab you MIGHT have used the equipment to perform basic first aid on the doctor, try to at least stabilize her for the medical team. But no, you used the onsite sanitation disintegrator to eradicate…” she checked her tablet, “about seven hundred grams of matter. Now I was wondering what was so important to you that it was more important than doctor Crugen’s LIFE. Then the DA slid me a request for the footage from a second camera on site. Well, we looked up and down for the second camera and we just couldn’t find it. I had my csu boy, brilliant kid, by the way, really goes the extra mile in his work, well he ran the equipment logs and found that the extra camera-that you requisitioned, was about half a kilo. He also found that in practically every test you have been a part of that involved penitatas, you always requisitioned one more camera than Crugen called for.” Larson was taking deeper breaths and his lawyer was eyeing him with surprise and caution. “I’m betting that the extra two hundred grams or so was whatever data transfer device you were using to move the video files…” she called up an image of a computer console in an apartment, “…to this.” Larson’s eyes went wide. Right on time, a man in a black suit entered. “Mr. Larson,” said the man in a suit as he took a seat next to officer Wiley, “I’m Agent Torn of the Paradiso Federal Investigations. We found your work twice at incidental crime scenes in the past year. We’ve been looking the leak ever since. We just got done confirming that Doctor Crugen was not the leak. Your crime today allowed us to accelerate our investigation considerably. We are, however, having some trouble breaking the password encryption on your console.” “Here’s what really happened,” said Officer Wiley, “You walked into the room with tablet in hand, realized that Crugen was sitting down and getting a good long look at your seven hundred grams of incriminating evidence of you little child porn racket, and you tried to silence her.” “So, here’s what’s going to happen,” said Officer Wiley, “Option one, plead guilty and you give us the password and you get sentenced to either black or broken circle cycles for a long time depending upon what we find on your computer. Option two, you don’t give us the password and you get sentenced to black circle cycles for a VERY long time. Meanwhile, we will eventually crack that code, or under the pressures of the penny life you will eventually crack and give us the code. Something about living through more than a century gives you quite a sense of patience. No penny has ever held out for more than a cycle. And after we crack the code, you get even MORE cycles added.” She folded her arms. “So, what’s your choice?” His lawyer whispered in his ear: “If you had told me everything I might have had time to do something, but it’s too late now. Take the offer, it’s the best you are going to get.” “So, you’re still using firearms?” asked Malcolm. “Well, ‘firearm’ is kind of the wrong term,” said Natalie. “We use contained field mass accelerators and electro magnet rails to propel metal slugs from the gun. There’s no fire involved.” “Well,” said Malcolm, “everything but personnel scaled delta inducers are pretty much illegal around here-” “Malcolm,” called Alison from downstairs. “You have a visitor.” Malcolm and Natalie left his room and came down the stairs. In the foyer he saw two people he did not recognize, a middle aged woman with brown hair wearing the standard jumpsuit accompanying a medicalos girl of about ten years with long black hair in a pony tail, dressed in a jeans and a black T-shirt under a red flannel button up shirt. “Hey, Malcolm,” said the new girl. Recognition clicked in his brain. “Dr. Crugen!” he said. “Yep, it’s just ‘Tyra’ these days,” she answered. “Well…I…when did…I thought you had died” said Malcolm. “Well, yes I was clinically dead for a couple of minutes,” answered Tyra, “But there was an emergency rejuve device on that floor, saved my life.” “Oh, well,” said Malcolm, “Welcome back.” “Thank you,” said Tyra. “I was hoping to have some private time with you.” she turned towards Alison. “Would you be so good as to shut down the surveillance?” “I...” said Alison, “Is that really so necessary?” Tyra’s guardian stepped forward. “I hate to insist, but...” she implied. “Okay,” surrendered Alison, “I suppose it’s okay.” She took several steps to the nearest access point. Well, Malcolm is far from a hardened criminal, she thought, there probably won’t be a problem. Tyra took Malcolm by the hand and led him outside to the back yard. “So, how are you Malcolm?” asked Tyra once they were alone outside (though neither of them noticed the three girls watching from the upstairs window). “I...I’m so sorry,” said Malcolm. “What?” asked Tyra. “I...I got you killed,” said Malcolm. “If I hadn’t-” “Malcolm!” Tyra cut him off. “Don’t tell me you’ve been feeling guilty about Larson all this time!” “I...just...” said Malcolm. “I’m here to apologize for endangering YOU!” insisted Tyra. “I’m the one who should be, and IS, feeling guilty. You were blameless, I was the one who didn’t notice my own assistant was betraying me. The responsibility is on my shoulders. For god sakes, because I wasn’t keeping a close enough eye on my employee, the government had to pay out hundreds of thousands in damages to every penny’s family that had their child compromised!” She sat down on a patio chair and held her head in her hands. Malcolm thoguht about the fact that his out of court settlement was going to pay off his student loans, but he decided to pursue a different course of conversation as he took up a chair opposite her. “What happened to Larson?” he asked. “Mm? Oh, he pleaded guilty. He’s now a broken circle y-rep.” “Broken circle?!” Malcolm was shocked. “You’re surprised, after what he did to you and me?” asked Tyra. “I just...don’t like hearing about people suffering,” admitted Malcolm. “Malcolm, he was the worst assistant in the history of science! I thought I could train him into something worth while, but he contaminated samples, he failed to file proper reports, he missed obvious mistakes, the WORST attitude I have ever encountered. And less we forget, he killed me over CHILD PORN!” “Then why did you hire him?” asked Malcolm. “Because all the qualified applicants I interviewed took other jobs, he was the only one willing to do the work. Nobody likes what I do, but what I do needs to be done. But the point is that you should feel no sympathy for that man,” said Tyra. “Trust me; you are going to be much happier once you learn to hate people.” Malcolm sighed. “Now, for the other reason I’m here,” she said. “I’ve learned my lesson about how to hire people. I need quality from the get go, and I do feel a bit guilty about exposing you to Larson, so I want to make it up to you with a job opportunity.” “What,” he asked. “The R&D section is going to have to shut down for about a decade while this debacle fades from people’s minds. How would you like to come and work in my lab once this whole stink blows over? Good pay, great benefits.” “But…I’m still a penny,” said Malcolm “I’ve still got good pull with the board of corrections. One letter of recommendation from me, and I can guarantee your next cycle will be soft time, and straight to completas after that.” Malcolm was stunned. “It’s a good offer” she said. “And if I refuse,” he asked. “If you refuse, nothing,” she answered. “You’ll just have to stand on your merits like everyone else.” Malcolm thought a while before he answered. “If you had asked me a couple of months ago,” he said, “I would have joined you in a heart beat…but I’ve met these kids, I know their stories, their faces. How can I take the easy way out, then go straight to making machines that make them suffer?” “Ah, can’t get over the human problem, can you?” she asked. “Human PROBLEM?” asked Malcolm. “Since when is NOT wanting to cause people pain a problem?” “Okay,” said Tyra “that was a poor joke. It’s an inside joke that we bounce around the office.” “You work in a job where compassion is a joke?” asked Malcolm as he rose from his seat and started pacing. “The entire justice system is barbaric!” “Barbaric?” asked Tyra. “Malcolm, there has never been a perfect system of justice in the history of humanity. One thousand years ago your guilt or innocence would have been determined by your ability to carry red hot coals without receiving a burn, the only ones who survived were the ones who bribed the court. Six hundred years ago, a boy of six would be hung by the neck until dead for the crime of stealing a scarf, while a full grown man would be transported to the opposite side of the globe for a lifetime of labor under the constant threat of being flogged to the bone. You would compare your experience to these atrocities?” “I wonder how Delphine would compare her ‘experiences,’” retorted Malcolm. “After what she did to her own children and those officers?” said Tyra. “She must be made to learn the pain she inflicted upon her victims.” “If you commit a crime, we’ll do it to you ten to a hundred times more,” said Malcolm. “It seems to me that the equation is a bit unbalanced.” “She was one of the most murderous child molesters in the history of this planet,” Tyra rose from her seat and imposed her height upon Malcolm. “Now she is docile and empathetic, and with counseling she WILL become a functional member of society once again, never before has a justice system guaranteed THAT.” “If the system works so good, how many times have you used it on yourself?” said Malcolm. “I…” Tyra had no answer. “You have made the machines that have inflicted uncountable injuries upon the imprisoned of this planet,” said Malcolm. “Do you have any idea what your creations feel like? I dare you…I defy you to strap yourself to your hellish machines and see if you can even endure a fraction of what we endure on a daily basis.” She was silent. “So are you going to have me spanked for talking back?” Malcolm sat back down. “This government does not punish its citizens for possession of opinion,” answered Tyra. “We’re finished here.” She started for the door but paused before she left the yard. “Malcolm,” she said, “If you can think of a better penal system, by all means present it. Until then, what we do works, so we’re going to keep it up.” She left closing the door behind her. Malcolm paced for a bit thinking of things he should have said. he heard the sound of a car leaving the driveway. Soon enough, his sister and the Cummings girls came out of the house. ”Well, what happened?” asked Samantha. “She had an offer for me, I refused her offer, told her to go strap herself to one of her machines,” said Malcolm. “You DID!?” Samantha was shocked. “Yeah, I think I can kiss early parole goodbye,” said Malcolm. Natalie hugged him. “Malcolm sticking it to the man...” remarked Jaydee. “Which man?” asked Malcolm and Samantha in unison. “I keep forgetting, you’re both pretty much aliens.” said Jaydee. The End.