Link to Chapter 6 (plus chapters 1-5), Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9
And, finally, here is the last chapter of the story:
10
‘Goo’byee, Moffer’
By the time Lucille and the posse
got to Copper Acropolis, the first faint light of dawn was creeping over the
eastern horizon. When they came to the
big double doors, Lucille turned around and faced the posse.
“You’ve got to let me go in there
alone,” she said.
“Why,” shouted Guy Maddox, “so you
can build another one of those things?”
“No,” said Lucille, “I’ll never
build another creature as long as I live.
But if we all burst in there, she’ll kill some of you. You don’t know how strong she is. I don’t want any more dying. I’ll go in there and end the job I started.”
“Okay,” said Constable Maubery,
against his better judgement. “We’ll
give you ten minutes, then we’re coming
in there blasting at anything that moves.”
“Agreed,” said the Doctor.
She began to open the double doors.
“Doctor Dewar?” It was Art
Schprengel. On the way from the lake to
the mansion, he had been told that it would be impossible for his daughter to
live in a bucket of goop, and now was resigned to the fact that his daughter,
what was left of her, must die. “Before
you kill them, her, would you tell my Pristle that her mother and me love her a
whole lot.”
Lucille found she couldn’t look at
the man. “I will,” she said, then, “I am
truly sorry about this, Mr. Schprengel.”
“Just tell her,” came the reply.
Lucille opened the doors and went
inside. Once in, she shut the doors and
quickly bolted them shut with a large piece of metal that slid into its sheathe
across the doors and the door frame.
“What’s going on in there?” yelled
Constable Maubery, trying to open the door upon hearing the sounds of metal.
“I’ve locked the door,” yelled
Lucille, back out the door. “I must do it my own way.”
She heard Constable Maubery order
some of the men to run down to the Afton Road General Store to get a battering
ram. That should give her enough time,
she thought.
Lucille walked up the three flights
of stairs to the door of the laboratory.
It was open, and inside the domed laboratory she could hear voices. She carefully entered the room and saw her
creation, her daughter, their daughters, pick up one of the medical machines,
and heave it across the room. It crashed
heavily, smashing into bits.
“What are you doing?” asked Lucille.
Newgirl turned around quickly,
flinching as if expecting some sort of gunshots. There were none. Once she saw that it was only her Mother,
Newgirl began to laugh. “So, Mother has
come for her little daughter.”
“You know you have to die.”
“Do I? You know, it’s always so sad when a child
dies before her parent. I’d rather that
didn’t happen.”
“Who am I talking to?” asked
Lucille. “Is this Amalga– Newgirl?”
“Yes. Who else?”
“Well, I thought that maybe that
vain little heart of yours would be yapping at me some.”
“I’m here, Doctor,” said
Pristle. “Don’t let Newgirl fool you
into thinking she’s in control. I’m the
one with all the power.”
“Really?” said Lucille. “Don’t you think the orphan brain has all the
power?”
“See,” said Orphan Brain. “She thinks I should be in charge.”
“No,” said Lucille, “I think you
should be dead.”
“We’re not going to die for you,
Mother,” said Newgirl.
“Well you can’t live like this, can
you? Three silly girls trying to beat
the others to the controls. Don’t you
see, none of you will ever have complete control. Ever.
Maybe if I hadn’t used that stupid orphan’s brain.
“I’m not stupid,” shouted Orphan
Brain.
“I wish you didn’t use her hair at
least,” said Pristle.
“Why, don’t you like her red hair?”
asked Lucille. “I like it.”
“No, I hate it. I’m going to get it
dyed.”
“You can’t dye red hair,” said
Lucille, dismissing the idea. “It would
just turn green.”
“How do you know that?” asked
Pristle.
“Because I tried to dye your red
hair before I brought you to life, and the dye job didn’t work. It turned your hair green.”
“Where?” screamed Pristle, panic
coming into her voice. “I don’t see any
green hair. Where did you dye the hair?”
“Well,” said Lucille, “let me just
advise you not to look at your pubic hair anytime soon.”
Pristle screamed. “My pubic hair is green?”
“And red,” added Doctor Dewar.
“Green and red?” shouted
Pristle. “I’ll never find a man who’ll
marry me!”
Newgirl’s heart began to beat faster
and faster, as Pristle began to contemplate her dire future with green and red
pubic hair.
“Don’t listen to Mother, Pristle,”
said Newgirl. “She’s only trying to
trick you. Get you worked up.”
“Shut up, Newgirl,” screamed
Pristle. “Don’t you understand? I’ll never get a man with an ugly red and
green muff!”
“Not that you ever would have,
anyway,” said Lucille, “not with an orphan’s brain as your brain.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
asked Orphan Brain.
“Just that everyone knows that no
one would ever marry an orphan. They’re
too dumb and you can’t trust them.”
“You know I’m not dumb,” said Orphan
Brain. “You even told me so, the night
before you killed me. You said I was
brilliant, just like you.”
“I lied,” said Lucille. “Remember I’m an orphan too, and you
shouldn’t have trusted me. I really
think you’re dumb.”
“I am smart,” yelled Orphan
Brain. She was beginning to get
agitated.
“You can’t be smart,” said Pristle,
“if you like red hair. I agree with
Mother. You’re stupid.”
“Yeah, well, you’re vain and
stupid,” said Orphan Brain.
“I am not vain!” shouted Pristle.
Pristle began to pump her heart in
such a way that the flow of blood to the head increased, putting undo pressure
on the brain, causing severe pain in Orphan Girl.
“Cut it out, Pristle,” shouted
Newgirl to no avail.
The only retaliation that Orphan
Girl could do was to send brain signals to the heart, telling it to beat
faster. While Orphan Brain knew that
this course of action would probably make her brain explode, it would also
cause a massive heart failure in Pristle’s heart, and without her heart,
Pristle was nothing.
“Stop it, the two of you,” screamed
Newgirl, as her body began to writhe in pain, ‘you’re killing us!”
Lucille ran over to Newgirl, who was
now oblivious to her surroundings. She
grabbed the helmet that was used to send energy pulses through Newgirl’s body
and placed it again on Newgirl’s head, strapping it on.
When Newgirl felt the helmet go on
her head, the internal fighting stopped, as all of her wondered what had
happened. Both Orphan Brain and Pristle
had suffered extensive damage in the melee.
“Whush goan awn?” asked Newgirl, her
voice now slurred from brain and heart damage.
“What’s going on?” repeated Lucille.
“I’m about to flip the switch that will kill you. All of you.”
In the distance, downstairs, a
battering ram could be heard starting its work against the front double doors
of the house.
“I doan wanna die,” said Newgirl.
“You must die, and I must kill you,”
said Lucille. “After all, I created
you.” The pounding on the door
continued.
“Ah try ta be khoot,” said Newgirl.
“I know you tried to be good,” said
Lucille. “But it’s impossible to be good when you have an orphan for a brain,
and a vain, self-centered heart. And for
that you have me to blame. I am sorry.”
Newgirl looked at Doctor Lucille
Dewar with her right eye, the left, Pristle’s being now blind. “Goo’byee, Moffer,” she said.
“Good bye, Newgirl,” said
Lucille. “Oh, and tell Pristle, if you
can, that her Mother and Father love her so.”
Newgirl farted.
“Good,” said Lucille. “No one will forget you, I’ll make sure of
that.”
The banging on the double doors
finally ended, as the battering ram burst through, and the shouts of men could
be heard. They were slowly beginning
their search of the old house. She had
only a few minutes left.
Lucille pulled the switch on the
Energy Conversion Unit, causing the residue energy still inside to pulse through Newgirl’s body. The extreme power of the pulses caused the
brain and heart, already damaged heavily, to stop altogether. Newgirl was dead.
“You won’t be forgotten,” said
Lucille to her dead daughter. She walked
over to the desk where Yune Mune’s torn, shredded body lay, pulled some paper
and a pen out of the drawer, and sat down to write.
She could hear the voices of the men
getting closer.
She wrote, ‘The woman lived just where the Afton Road main road dipped down into a
little hollow, fringed with alders and traversed by a brook that had its
source-’ before Constable Maubery burst into the room. She calmly put her pen down and thought,
“I’ll finish my novel in jail.”
Constable Maubery escorted Doctor
Lucille Dewar from Copper Acropolis and had the Mount Stewart Fire Department
burn the building, and all of its contents. The copper was salvaged, however,
and used to make a monument in memorial to the five girls from Afton Road who had
all died of pneumonia in the same year. The people who knew about and were
involved in the going’s on in and around Copper Acropolis that night had
decided to keep quiet, and let the world sleep soundly for a little while
longer.
