LEITH AND THE LURKING EVIL

WHILE MUT AND ANT COWERED, I threw myself at the “grenade.”

“Brave boy,” droned Adam. “Silly, brave boy!” He must have thought I was sacrificing myself to save others.

Instead, I sprang to my feet, holding the object out toward Ant and Mut (like a gun), clicking relentlessly.

“Throw it!” yelled Adam. “Out the window!”

I just kept right on clicking.

With the strange remote-control from Dr Grieg’s office. All the words I’d seen on it - circuits, currents, transmitters, microwaves - had set me thinking. It wasn’t a handset for a TV. Not even the world’s biggest TV. It was a control device for another type of machine - a robot - make that robots, plural - and Ray had come through, breaking into Dr Grieg’s office and bringing the remote here. I pushed all the buttons in rapid succession, holding down as many at once as I could. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I certainly was making a fuss!

Ant had hold of Mut’s head. Her steel knees kicked him in his metal groin. “Ugh!” He twisted her head around backwards. She dropped the blade. I dove for it. She punched a titanium fist through his chest-plate, revealing circuitry. Ant continued his chiropractic work. Smoke rose out of her neck. A smell like the burned-out transformer of my childhood train set poured forth from the cavity in his chest.

I rushed to Adam. Behind me, the counsellors collapsed to the floor, intent on dismantling each other.

“Let’s hear it for mutants!” I yelled.

“Good show!” cried Adam. “Now, get the key to these chains - there, on the hook above my right hand. He hangs it there to torment me.”

“Dr Grieg?”

“Yes. Him.” There was hatred in his voice.

I reached for the key. “What is going on here? I figure they’re advanced types of robots, and that thing over there was going to be used to replace my sister, but ...” The key was out of reach. I jumped for it. No use.

“Get the stool,” said Adam. It was as if he’d been gradually coming out of a deep sleep and was now fully awake. Considering the size of the syringe Dr Grieg used to sedate his prisoners, it was a wonder Adam wasn’t in a coma.

But why had they bothered to keep him alive at all when they might more easily have replaced him with a lookalike and killed the real Adam?

Then it hit me - was that what had happened to Broody and Jane and the nervous boy and the pigtailed girl and Mavis? Had Dr Grieg and his mutants murdered them?

“Unhgrrr!”

“Aeeooiop!”

Mut and Ant continued to fight it out on the floor, pummelling each other. I guess that’s why I didn’t hear the upstairs door open as I picked up the stool. But when I turned around, Dr Grieg was standing on the bottom step, a smile on his smug face.

I dropped the stool in fright.

“The doctor will see you now!”

“I was just enjoying a nice game of Canasta with Mr Jekyll when his head exploded. And I was winning, too. It’s hard to beat an android you programmed yourself – he knows what you’re thinking. Still, that’ll teach me to buy spare parts from Radio Shack!”

I stood as still as the Pippa lookalike.

“Still, Jekyll was an outmoded model, a forerunner for what came later. Of course, he was several rungs above my early genetic experiments on animals - the ‘creatures’ he never stopped babbling about - but poor old Jekyll has always had a few screws loose. Wouldn’t you say so, Adam?”

“You’re the one with the screws loose, Grieg - more than a few - you’re a mental case!”

“That may be, but I’m not the one chained to the wall.” Dr Grieg turned his attention from Adam to Mut and Ant, still going at it on the floor. “Oh dear. They were really much more promising. Leith, you’ve been a very naughty boy.”

I reached for the stool.

“Don’t.”

I knew if I could get in one good shot, I could knock this pompous little creep sideways. Then I would unchain Adam and we would do what he’d wanted to do all along - escape.

Instead, Dr Grieg, walking briskly across the room, pulled out his huge hypodermic and put it to Adam’s throat.

I let go of the stool.

“Better,” said Grieg.

“Please don’t hurt him.” I heard my voice wobble. “Why do you keep him here like this? What is he to you, anyway?”

“Haven’t you told our young friend, Adam? Professor Python is my partner.”

I couldn’t believe it.

Grinning, Grieg relaxed his grip on the needle. Still, its deadly point rested against the soft flesh of Adam’s neck. This was no time to make any sudden moves.

Adam stared at me, his eyes pleading. “It wasn’t meant to be this way. I was Grieg’s partner - we were fellow inventors in the field of robotics. I was working on a model to help the sick and disabled. A robot that could anticipate problems, that could to an extent think. If someone was having a heart attack, it could call an ambulance. If an elderly patient fell, it would know to pick them up without being told, and how to do it without hurting them. I was interested in behaviours that could be programmed. Then Pericles the Great here took my ideas and started to ... twist them.”

“Refine them,” said Grieg. “You see, Leith, blind obedience mixed with a certain amount of reasoning ability is a heady mix. When you think about it, that’s how most people make their way through life - switching off their brains, following the leader. Look at all the great leaders of history, from Hannibal to Papa Doc. People are automata. And then it hit me - what if people who could be helped by robots, who often acted like robots, could be replaced by robots?

“It seemed like science fiction, but why not? Think of it - the world’s heads of state, every banker, every politician - robot-calm, robot-efficient ... finally, world peace!”

“For you, maybe,” I said, fingering the handle of the surgical knife in my pocket. “That would make you the invisible dictator of the world, a puppet-master to billions. But how many actual people were you planning to leave alive?”

“I haven’t killed anyone,” said Grieg, eyes wide. “Whatever do you mean?”

“If you make a replacement, you can’t let the original live. You can’t have two of everyone running around. Or two of anyone.”

“Ultimately, you’re right. But we’re still very far from producing the ultimate model. That’s why I bought Camp Damble.” He smiled. “To experiment.”

“On kids,” I said, getting a grip on the knife’s handle. The fist-sized lump in my belly felt red-hot.

“Who better? Kids are helpless, highly emotional, given to moodswings, extremely suggestible, desperate for acceptance by their peers and their betters - what better sample could a scientist have? And, believe me, any parent would be pleased to take home a polite, well-behaved, studious child in place of the rowdy, insolent brats they send here. I believe parents would be my greatest allies in getting replacements out into society. Even if they suspected, I’m sure they’d turn a blind eye. Wouldn’t you?”

My right hand held the blade ready. My left squeezed my shirt against the bleeding cut. The sodden fabric squelched. My blood, I thought. It wasn’t exactly pumping out, but unless I could get my shirt off and the wound dressed, it might not be long before I passed out. Leaving Adam chained to the wall and Grieg free to do what he liked ... to both of us.

If I could get the syringe out of Grieg’s hand, I felt sure I could overpower the not-so-good doctor and set Adam free. But the meter was running ... my blood was running out.

“Too bad about Henry,” said Adam ironically. “He was to be my replacement. I’d mentioned to Dr Grieg that he was insane and ought to be locked up - so he decided to lock me up instead. And started to build a robot. But I found my would-be replacement and started to dismantle it. He caught me in the act and turned it loose on me. I bolted, the robot followed, and somewhere in the chase, it lost its head.”

“So I made up the legend of Headless Henry - a ‘true story’ - just in case anybody did come across him roaming the woods. And you must admit, it did make a good campfire yarn.”

“I was going to the cops,” said Adam.

“So I took his son,” Grieg purred.

“Antonius,” said Adam, his voice hoarse.

Antonius Python, I thought. The kind of name that would make a kid grow up tough.

“Ant was his replacement,” said Grieg. “Just as that expressionless little lady over there would have been your sister’s replacement if you hadn’t interfered.”

“So, Adam, that’s why you kept talking about escaping but never did,” I said.

“I couldn’t leave my son. I wouldn’t risk bringing the law into it, having my story shot down, and then having no chance of getting him back. If I couldn’t rescue Antonius right away, I wanted to find Headless Henry - he would have made the perfect piece of evidence to launch an investigation.”

“Meanwhile,” said Pericles Grieg, “I was steadily replacing my young summer campers, getting ready to seed the world with substitutes. In time, they would bring their brothers and sisters to me, their friends, their parents and teachers. Once I’d perfected my craft - completely replaced say a couple of small towns - I planned to move on ... to the seats of power.”

“You’re a madman,” said Adam.

“This may not be a good time to criticise your former partner.” Grieg shoved the needle into Adam’s throat as far as it would go without breaking the skin. “If I inject you with this, you’ll be dead before you hit the floor.”

“No matter what you do to me, I’m in no danger of hitting the floor. Why don’t you unchain me? You’re so close to perfecting your craft. You’ve used me up until now, threatening my son if I didn’t comply, but ... you don’t need me any more.”

“No,” said Grieg thoughtfully, “I guess I don’t. But if I don’t need you any more, is it really feasible to let you go?”

“Dr Grieg,” I said, taking a step closer and pulling out the knife, “you hurt him and I’ll hurt you!”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s likely.”

“Think again, Doctor.” I held up my red left hand.

“Good night, Professor Python - parting is such sweet---”

The point of the needle penetrated Adam’s adam’s apple. A dot of blood appeared. I lunged with the knife, hitting the meaty part of Grieg’s palm between the base of the thumb and the wrist, causing him to release the syringe with a high-pitched squeal, as I got the needle out of Adam’s throat (before the lethal plunger had been pushed) and brought my bony knee up into Grieg’s soft belly, sending him sprawling to the filthy floor. I was tempted to hit him with the stool, but instead climbed onto it and got the key.

“I’m sorry,” said Adam as I unlocked his right wrist.

“You’re sorry? Why?”

“I led you here. I’m the one who circled the letters in your book, telling you to meet me here at midnight. I took the letter to your parents. They search all the cabins daily, and I knew if that letter was found, describing all the strange things you’d seen, you’d be immediately replaced. That night, I got here early. I was hoping to rescue my son. Then you, he and I could have escaped together. Instead, Grieg turned up and stuck me with a dose of sedative. He’s been making me co-operate with the last phase of his lunacy. He said if I didn’t, he’d kill my boy.”

“But isn’t,” I started, freeing his left wrist, “aren’t they all ...?”

“Dead? Not yet. He wanted to keep them alive for DNA matches, possible skin grafts, blood types, and so on - which is lucky for us, because ...” Stretching his arms and flexing his fingers, he crossed to the wall facing him, pausing to kick Pericles Grieg as he went, then reached up, pulled out a loose brick and pressed a button behind it---as the wall slid back, revealing row after row of bunk beds.

Pulling the string off the neck of the inert Mut, Adam blew the whistle that dangled from it---and twenty blank faces sat up, squinted into the glare, saw Dr Grieg on the floor, and smiled.