"Ahhh! I've HAD it!" Von Richter
angrily shut the monitor off, "Cybersix has been sighted in Meridiana AGAIN!"
A techno stood by respectfully, hoping
not to be the subject of Von Richter's anger.
"I had hoped that Grizelda and she had
somehow perished together, but now it seems that another one of my creations
has failed me!" Von Richter ranted, before falling into a thoughtful silence,
brows knitted together in a deep frown. Suddenly, he came to life,
"Bah! I'm through hiding!" he turned the monitor back on, closed
the offending message window, then started up several programs, "YOU!"
he whirled on the Techno, "Monitor the progress of the creation on THAT
monitor!"
The Techno, Number 477, ran to comply,
activating the terminal and accessing the basic statistics of the new creation,
"Oh wow! This thing is-HUGE!"
he thought when he saw the number of zeros representing its mass, "Where
is it? Why, from the looks of this-"
"Initiating surfacing sequence!" Von Richter
stated, typing in the commands.
"IT, master, is starting to rise!
half meter per second!" The techno called out, "But where-"
"At the bottom of the Atlantic, where nothing
that size would be noticed!" Von Richter cackled, typing away, "A huge
bomb growing right under the unsuspecting noses of tourists packed on cruise
ships making their way to Meridiana!"
"One meter per second!" The techno called.
The creation was 2000 meters down, and would take a long time to come to
the surface.
After about 15 minutes, the techno became
a bit worried, "One and a half meters per second, master! It's accellerating!"
"Hmmm!" Von Richter replied absently.
The Techno was too intimidated to mention his worries.
Five minutes later, the Techno called out,
"Two meters per second! Master, I'm worried! It's coming up
too fast!"
"Nothing to worry about." Von Richter said,
looking at his monitor intently.
"But master-"
"SILENCE!" Von Richter shouted "Let me
think! I can't think with you yapping at me!"
"Yes, master!" The techo watched
as the creation's speed of ascension increased the closer it got to the
surface.
Suddenly, a red light began to blink and
a buzzer began to sound, "EH? WHAT?" Von Richer glanced up at the
light, alarmed, "But that-"
The techno watched as certain bio-circuits
in the creation began to fire wildly, "It's in pain, master!" he reported
after isolating the specific ones. "This is bad!" the techno
thought, "Pain in a creation, as in nature, means that something is
seriously wrong! But what?"
The techno racked his brains, then suddenly
remebered reading something on the web. He quickly called up a browser
and began to type in a search command.
"WHAT'S HAPPENING??" Von Richter demanded,
sweating bullets as he watched the pain circuits fire continuously, typing
in commands and trying to figure out what was wrong.
"OH NO!"
"WHAT IS IT?" Von Richter ran over to the
Techno and shoved him aside to read the article on the display, "NOOOO!
NOT THAT!" He screamed when he got to the same paragraph the Techno had.
He threw himself back at his console, wildly
typing in commands to his largest and most obedient creation.
Alas, it was too late: The Isle of Doom
could flail its huge tentacles as much as it wanted, but it could not force
itself back into the safe depths. It was mostly hollow, and that
hollow had to be filled with air in order to make it rise. However,
as it got closer to the surface, the water pressure on it went down.
Boyle's Law dictated that the volume of the gas inside increase, reducing
its density and increasing its buoyancy.
Von Richter had forgotten to design air
vents into the Isle of Doom, to let out gas if the internal pressure was
too great. Deep sea creatures shared the same design flaw, and the
web article had described what happened to such creatures when researchers
netted them and brought them to the surface.
Having no mouth, the Isle of Doom could
not scream, like its creator did, when it popped, like an overinflated
balloon, 100 meters below the surface of the Atlantic.
--------------
"I have no idea what to do!" Lucas
Amato thought to himself as he walked home from the cafe.
He had not seen Cybersix for a few weeks,
and he missed that. But what was worse was what was happening to
Adrian.
"IS something happening to Adrian?
I have no idea!" Lucas shook his head, not sure of how to interpret
the behavior of his friend this last week. It had begun innocently
enough, when Adrian clapped him on the shoulder.
Except that usually he, Lucas, was the
physical one. At first, Lucas had thought it was a lapse in the behavior
of his usually reserved friend, but Adrian began repeating it.
And yesterday morning, Adrian began letting
his hand slide down his back before lifting it away.
And spreading his fingers while doing so.
That wasn't the only thing. He was
catching Adrian looking at him while sitting across from him at the Cafe
while eating or sipping his coffee. Usually, Adrian concentrated
on what he was doing, but Lucas got the distinct impression that eating
and drinking was becoming a cover for something else. At first, when
he caught Adrian doing that, the young man's eyes would dart downwards
or away. Now, they would occasionally hold his gaze for a split second
before looking a bit alarmed and darting away.
And it wasn't just the behavior of the
eyes. There was the LOOK in them. Lucas couldn't put his finger
exactly on what was bugging him about the way Adrian was looking at him
while he talked at length on some subject or on some story: It was
familiar, yet out of his grasp.
"Damn! Even the way he says 'hello
Lucas!' and 'Goodbye Lucas!' is somehow different!" Lucas thought irritatedly,
"So
why can't I put my finger on it?"
He got to his apartment building and fished
out the key to the outside door. He had turned the key half-way when
suddently, it hit him, "DAMN!"
He ran upstairs to his apartment, sweating.
He pulled his coat and tie off, grabbed his phonebook, and looked up a
name of a high school friend.
"Hello?"
"Dan Riveras?"
"Yes, I'm Dan Riveras."
"Hi Dan! Maybe you don't remember
me, but this is Lucas Amato!"
"Ama-Lucas? Is that YOU?" Dan sounded
incredulous.
"Long time no see, or hear, eh buddy?"
Lucas plunged on.
"Well, um, yeah Lucas! Nice to hear
from you!" Dan sounded uncomfortable.
"Hey guy, I know. I heard."
"You-you did?"
"Yeah, last month. So how are things?"
"Well, kinda tough, if you know what I
mean. The prejudice-"
"How long was it ago that you-"
"Came out of the closet?" Dan laughed bitterly,
"Shoulda stayed in! People aren't ready for people like me and Juan
and Georges and the others to come out in the open. Meridiana isn't
San Francisco, you know."
"I coulda told you that." Lucas said lamely.
"Well, what's done is done. Why the
social call?" Dan asked.
"I've got a problem-"
"What kind of-Lucas? You? I
wouldn't believe it, with all the cheerleaders hanging all over you!"
"No! No! Not me! A friend."
"Hey Lucas! You can come clean with
me! We played on the same football team, you know!"
"I am! It IS a friend! A fellow
co-worker at school."
"And you suspect he's gay?"
"I didn't at first. I mean, he looked
and behaved completely normal for months-"
"We ARE normal, Lucas!"
"Well, you know what I mean!"
Dan sighed, "So what's the problem?"
Lucas told Dan what had been happening
between him and Adrian.
"Hmmm. Not quite the usual way we
communicate with each other when we want to stay low. There are signals
we use, and we usually don't go after straights. Not the way you
are describing. Your friend probably doesn't know or realize he's
gay, and is improvising."
"So you think he IS gay?"
"Very likely."
"Oh man."
"What are you going to do, Lucas?"
"I don't know. He's been, no is,
a really good friend. I hate to hurt-Awww CRAP!"
"What?"
"I just remembered being a dumbass!
I accused him of-of-Ah SHIT! I can't believe-"
"WHAT?"
"Well, I thought he and a girl I'm interested
in were seeing each other behind my back! But now-OWWWW!" Lucas moaned.
"Don't tell me, you confronted them?"
"Just him!"
"You WERE a dumbass!" Dan observed.
"Thanks! So what do I do?"
"You mean, you don't know what you're going
to do?" Dan asked, incredulous.
"No." Lucas answered.
"You mean, you're going to THINK about
it for a while?"
"Well, yeah!" Lucas thought for a
long moment, "Umm, Dan? Can I kinda ask you a personal question?"
"Well sure. Shoot." Dan sounded very
curious.
"How does a guy, well, do-"
"Lucas, you're not thinking of-"
"I just want to know! I mean-" Lucas' voice
petered out.
Dan was silent for a long moment, then
said, "Well, you know how you take your cues from a girl who really likes
you?"
"Of course! She does to you want
she wants you to do to her. That's just plain common sense.
Just listen and follow along."
"Same idea. Just listen and follow
along."
"That all?"
"Works for me."
"You sure?"
"We're all human Lucas!"
"Oh, yeah."
"You'll do fine, Lucas." Dan chuckled,
"Oh, and one last thing."
"What?"
"It doesn't REALLY matter what the hell
you do, whether you DO do it or not. You stopped. You thought
about it. You didn't react in a kneejerk reaction when you discovered
this. Do you know what that tells me?"
"No. What?"
"That it doesn't matter a damn if you two
do or don't become lovers. You're his friend. A REAL friend!
God, what I wouldn't give to have a friend like your pal does..."
"Dan-"
"What?"
"I'm sorry. About not calling."
"S'okay. I knew what I was doing."
"Hey, how about a drink at the old bar?
You, me, and Juan. Like old times?"
"Usual time? After the game?"
"Yeah. Usual time. After the
game. On me."
"I'm sure Juan would jump at that, Lucas.
This Friday?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks Lucas. Thanks for calling."
"Hey, thanks for the advice."
"Glad I could help."
Lucas hung the phone up.
He then sat in the dark for a long time.
Thinking.
-----------
"Hey Adrian. You coming tonight
for the game?" Lucas asked casually, as he sipped at his coffee, and willing
his heart to stop pounding.
Adrian looked at him, puzzled, "Well, yeah,
I guess. Nothing else to do." he admitted.
"That's great! And don't bother about
the munchies, okay?"
"Well, okay."
"He's looking at me as if I'm sick.
If he only knew..." Lucas thought.
-----------
"Come on in, Adrian!" Lucas flung the
door open at the knock.