Chapter 22 in No Romance

Chapter 22, “The Emergency Plan”

Golbez drove up, a steady stream of curses flowing from his mouth, the politest of which was “What the hell is going on here, lassie?” when he wasn’t even near enough for her to hear.

But it turned out there was nowhere “near enough for her to hear.” Even after he had stopped the jeep, the two sides were making so much noise that Golbez asked Jack to fire a warning shot.

Jack obliged, drawing Wrench from his waistband and firing straight up in the air. It went off like a cannon. The two sides quieted down immediately as Jack and Golbez exited the jeep. Ann Paula, seeing Jack, walked in long, swift strides to meet him.

“Jack, the train is here. We have to hurry. I don’t know when it’s going to leave.”

It appeared she had not noticed Golbez. But he noticed her.

“Paula!” Golbez said, horror dawning in his features. “Paula, what does this mean? What’s going on? What have you done?”

She looked at Jack, then back to Golbez.

“I’ve freed the Cardaccians!” she announced firmly.

Golbez looked stricken. “But they’re a crucial part of my retirement plan! And now you’ve given them guns! Now they can fight back! Why have you done this thing? Why have you thus dealt with me?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do!” she said boldly. Then, with a little less boldness, she turned back to Jack and said, “Right?”

Jack gave the heavens a little nod, then turned to Ann Paula, gave her a little nod, and finally stepped up to her side, and turned finally to Golbez.

“Yes,” he said. “Golbez, you’ve lived a life of wannabe villainy. But I don’t think that’s who you really are.”

Golbez looked like he was about to faint, either from despair or from anger, we knew not. Not right that second, anyway.

“You...you and Jack...don’t you want to be a part of my retirement plan?” He weakly held up the folded up plan Jack had been reading in the jeep. “But you’re like a son to me, Jackie boy.”

“Yes, just like one,” said Jack with a cough.

“And you,” Golbez said, turning to Paula, “You were like---”

“Not a daughter, surely?” she said, one eyebrow raised. “You came on to me every single day---”

“No, not like a daughter! Like a daughter who isn’t a daughter but rather someone whom I wanted to be with all the time and also a female! Like a companion! Like my Malandra!”

He was on the brink of tears.

The armed men in the background continued to hold their peace, allowing the scene in the foreground to take place in clear silence.

“Jack, you’re a hero, a star,” Golbez said, white-faced. “You can have any girl you want. Why do you want...her?”

Jack looked him straight in the eye. “Because she chose me. Chose me when she didn’t have to. And no one’s saying I want anything or anyone right now. But she...she’s who I choose to be with right now. Just right now. Let the record”---he looked up at the sky---”show that it’s just right now. I only choose to be with her right now. Got that, guys?” And again he shook his fist at the heavens, as if that’s where the camera was. Then, in a whisper to Ann Paula’s questioning look, “I’ll explain later.”

Golbez just stood there agape, processing it all. Ann Paula turned back to the conveniently peaceful crowd. “Cardaccians! Get on the train! Those with guns keep your eyes on the guards! Back slowly and get in the cargo cars! We’re taking you back to your home!”

They started doing as she said, moving up the beach to the train platform, then to the open cars. Jack, however kept his eye on Golbez, whose face was turning from white to red. And that was not a blushing red.

“It won’t go until I say it can go,” he seethed, arms folded. “Or rather, until North says it’s okay to go. He’s the one with the password. And he hasn’t been seen for days! Hahahaha! Well, there goes another of my colleagues, my friends, so the whole retirement plan is bust regardless. Yes, time to turn to my backup plan, my emergency plan. Yes...yes...” And he started cackling to himself.

“Golbez, we’re not trying to destroy you---” Jack started to say.

“Don’t apologize, man. I won’t accept it. There is no apology for it. You!” he said, and Paula instantly knew he was speaking to her. “You were a plant! All along, a plant to destroy me! A femme fatale! It worked, honey bunny. I am most certainly finished. You took away my workers and you’ve taken away my son. How dare you! How dare you throw a wrench in my retirement plans!”

Jack took that moment to draw his gun from his belt and fire a shot at the folded-up plans on the ground near Golbez’s feet.

Golbez and Ann Paula gave him a look.

“What?” he said.

Then they turned back and Golbez continued his tirade, saying more words that are not printable, which had on the audience an effect like a strong gust of wind. Go ahead and pretend that a strong gust of wind blew into your face, through your hair. There, now you’re all windswept. Just like the mountain peak.

“You two are conspiring against me!” he raged. “You think I’m the villain! I’ll just have to show you how villainous I can be. Captain Tommy Blast! Take these two to Dr. Aperture’s warehouse. He’s just finished setting up a new invention of his, and they’ll be dying to see it! Bwahahaha!”

“We don’t have to come quietly, you know,” Jack said quietly and coolly, concealing the panic in his voice. “We could start a war right here, right now. And that means you’ll lose even more than you already have.”

“I’m going to lose everything!” Golbez said wildly, eyes aflame. Then, in a more reasonable tone of voice, he said, “But we won’t start a war if you two give yourselves up.”

Jack looked at Annie, and Annie looked at Jack. Their eyes connected and Jack knew that Annie, not Paula, was truly in control. Despite wearing Paula’s get-up, despite the swearing, despite the power she held and exercised on this beach, in this day, he knew it was Annie. He could tell by the fear in her eyes. Those eyes wordlessly confirmed her identity.

“I agree to give myself up,” Jack said. He was in the middle of thinking confidently about how he could get out of any situation when the two of them were clubbed over the head by the butt of C Toon leader Tommy Blast’s assault rifle.

---

Several minutes later (they didn’t know it was several minutes, but we do---about eleven or twelve), they woke up. Both were bound with ropes, Jack tied to some kind of wooden contraption, and Annie (we’ll just call her Annie) sitting against a wall before him with her mouth covered by a mask. A series of little tubes connected the mask to a gas-filled bag hanging from a medical station a few feet away.
            They were in a warehouse. But this house was not filled with wares---as Jack craned his neck to see around him he only found more mechanical contraptions like the one he was lashed to. From what he could see, it seemed like a series of physics experiments all linked together in a complex array. And they weren’t just parts of machines---Jack saw a small blossoming sapling in the middle of it all, and thought he might have heard a bleating sound as well. Other parts had springs or tracks or bowling balls. The whole warehouse was filled with them, Jack tied to one at the far side. And as he registered all this, he saw ahead of him, right next to Annie, a wall of three-foot-long spikes pointing straight at him.
            And at last he determined his own position: he was tied to a catapult.
            “My, what a splendid device!” came the voice of Golbez. “What do you call it?”

Jack looked and beheld Golbez on the other side of the warehouse, strolling by with admiration and awe in his face. He was accompanied by an older man in a white laboratory coat with a reflector headband on his head. Dr. Aperture.

            “It is part of Operation Diabolical Doomsday Dropkick,” Dr. Aperture said. His voice was nasal and arrogant. “ I haven’t decided what to call it; either the Doctor Device or the Doomsday Device.”
            “Both are pretty derivative,” Jack reported from his position on the catapult. He just started noticing a pounding pain on the back of his head. It irritated him.
            Dr. Aperture and Golbez turned to Jack.
            “I think it’s called a Rube Goldberg device, to be honest,” Jack continued, wincing from the headache and the annoying situation he found himself in.
            “No, no,” said Dr. Aperture. “I am certain only I could have invented or discovered such a thing. I am the scientist here, after all.”
            “You know, doctor,” said Golbez, “after three decades of funding your research and observing your experiments---all sans ethics, which I heartily approve of---if after three decades, you made this as the culmination? Then I am extremely proud and very much impressed.”
            “It’s a pretty simple principle,” Jack said. “Just cause and effect. One thing leads to another.”
            “And ultimately to your demise,” said Dr. Aperture with narrowed eyes. “And you have no choice in the matter. Like you said. Just cause and effect. Locked in eternal combat, never to be broken. It---is---all. All. And that’s science.”
            “And what’s Annie here for, then?” Jack said.
            “You know Annie, do you?” said Dr. Aperture. “Is that who she is now? Not Paula?”
            “What is this?” said Golbez, turning to Dr. Aperture. “Annie? What Annie?”
            “She has a divided mind,” Dr. Aperture said shrewdly. “It’s never been a problem for you before, has it?”
            “No...” said Golbez, looking ponderous.
            “Then give it no thought. Turn your attention to our subject over here. He seems to want it.”
            “Yes,” Golbez said, turning back to face Jack. “Yes, he does, doesn’t he? Hmph!”
            “So are you going to trip this Rube Goldberg device and get on with it?” Jack said, the throbbing getting more intense.
            “No, old boy. I will do no such thing. I’m not here to kill you.”
            “No?”
            “No, that’s the doctor’s job. I’m here to explain what’s going to happen next and why it’s going to happen.”
            “To monologue,” Jack summed up.
            “I don’t know what that means. I refuse to give it any credence or any attention or any support whatsoever! Are you trying to derail me, old boy?”
            “Quite the opposite. I want you to get on with it already.”
            Golbez stood there, arms akimbo and bulbous as ever. He waited until all parties were entirely silent. Then he began his monologue.
            “You were my son. My boy. You came here to see me, on word of your mother. But you came here to rebel. I should have known what was coming when you refused to add that A to your last name. Rebellion! From my own son! But I forgot about it, as my mind tends to do, and we moved on. My mind can forget things from time to time, but it’s all still in there, somewhere. Nothing ever really goes away. Even now I remember forgetting things, but I can’t bring them back just by will. But you came back. You came. And I welcomed you. I cooked the fattest calf for you! And then you stole my map, you stole my Paula, and you stole my treasure. You’ve taken everything away from me. And now, even if you were to somehow give it back, I wouldn’t accept it. Because everything is tainted now. Damaged irrevocably. I might forget that this ever happened, but from time to time it would come back and haunt me. Just like you have done. Just like what Malandra is doing to me. I’ve read the letter now, boy. The letter she sent. I don’t remember much of the damn thing, but I do know what she was doing. And she’s going to succeed. But I will have whatever revenge I can get as I go down. You convinced Paula to betray me, and stole away Norrigan North, one of my oldest friends. You took my workers away. I was giving them benefits and you had to go and give them arms! How am I to run a business of repute without slaves? And---and finally, you led my noble father’s enemies to my greatest possession. Now that is tainted too. So, like all of this horribleness, it will be purged, destroyed. And I with it. I will take my soldiers, my orphan sons, up to the place of Diabolo, and do battle there against my enemies the Johnsons. Battle to the death. Battle to destruction, as the volcano will blow in the next few hours. That artificial volcano is impossible to un-trigger, isn’t it, Dr. Aperture? Yes, see, he’s nodding. It, with the rest of this island, will be my funeral pyre. That is my Emergency Plan.”

Jack just watched him, expressionless. But something behind those eyes, in that heart, was moving, was being moved.

Golbez added an addendum.

            “That, and the fact that old Norrigan North has been missing for days, and the train can’t continue on without his password. So that hurts my business significantly, if I don’t have my train. Oh, how I love trains. Jackie, old boy, we could have built model trains together! Instead...this.”
            He sighed unhappily as he glanced around the warehouse.
            “And now I’m putting my own son to death. That’s what it’s come to.”
            His shoulders slumped, and he started walking away, towards a door. He had his hand on the knob when Jack called out to him.
            “Dad.”
            Golbez paused and turned his head halfway around.

“I’m...sorry.”

Golbez waited another moment, then pushed open the door. A few seconds later they heard his grizzled voice on the telecom system, speakers in and outside of the warehouse.

            “ALL EMPLOYEES DISREGARD THE CARDACCIANS ON THE TRAIN AND RETREAT TO MOON BASE. OPERATION DIABOLICAL DOOMSDAY IS BEING COMMENCED. CODE REDDISH-BROWN. REPEAT, CODE REDDISH-BROWN, FIVE-TWO-EIGHT-FOUR-NINE-ONE.”
            When it finished, Dr. Aperture turned his whole attention to Jack, who hadn’t given an ounce of struggle against his bonds.
            “At last,” said Dr. Aperture. “We may test this experiment.”
            Jack watched as Dr. Aperture walked to the far side of the warehouse, barely within Jack’s view, and flipped a switch. A small light came on, a fan started whirling, and literally the ball started rolling. The doctor’s device, like the volcano, had been triggered.

Annie was still struggling against the wall. Her wide-open eyes were trying to communicate something to Jack. Jack interpreted it as fear of some kind. Maybe of death? Of watching death? Whatever it was, Jack didn’t care. But he was a little curious. So he asked.

“What’s your plan with Annie here?”

Dr. Aperture glanced unconcernedly at Annie, still hooked up to the tubes at her mouth.

“Her? Golbez has no further need of her, so he had given her to me. Very soon your lovely lady will be neither of the women who reside within that body. She is inhaling gases that I specially concocted. Great trauma or emotional shock---in this case, the sight of your gruesome death---acts as a catalyst that will turn her into someone very different. She will be my assistant. My Sciencess. And you will be out of the picture forever.”

            “That would make you...her Science.”
            “Yes, that’s correct.”

Annie’s wide, angry eyes looked at him as if to ask, “Why aren’t you doing anything to escape while he’s talking?” but he just looked back with disinterested eyes. He knew what he was doing.

“The first and last thing you need to know about me is that I am pro-Science,” Dr. Aperture said further. “All else is secondary.”

“Does your portion of the Golbez Industries budget get grouped in with Science, or is that one of the secondary things?”

“Secondary.”

“And that’s why you came to this island, isle, with Golbez thirty years ago, isn’t it?”

“He offered millions for me to do my experiments on his island.”

“What, did he want to seem cultured or something? Oh, no, I get it! Of course. That makes sense now: he wanted a mad scientist working for him! Brilliant, Golbez. Brilliant. Tell me, Dr. Aperture, will the next generation of super-animals have wings, or at least the capability to fly?”

            “Yes, how did you know this?” he said, eyes cross and curious.
            “Logic. Cause and effect. The only thing Carl Sagan couldn’t do was fly, and you seem the ambitious sort, so of course that’s where you were going next.”
            “You know the name of that magnificent beast? How is that possible?”
            Jack shrugged, as much as one could shrug when one is bound with ropes. “It was on his collar. Strange that you put a collar on a god.”
            Dr. Aperture stood tall with pride. “It is representative of my brothers and sisters in other lands. Many of them wish to practice True Science, but their civilizations bind them and keep them down with talk of ‘ethics’ and ‘humanity.’ I will show them how pitiable ‘humanity’ truly is. It is the lesser form of being. I have discovered the greater. And this because I do my work on this island, away from their ridiculous laws. Most of my research and experiments would be highly illegal in those supposedly civilized countries, but that is because they do not understand the aims of science.”

“What are the aims of science?” Jack asked conversationally.

            “To know all! To understand everything! To be able to do anything! To be omniscient! And omnipotent! In other words, to be gods!”
            Dr. Aperture ended with his hands in the air, as if inspiring a crowd. But all that sounded in the aftermath of his declaration was silence. That, and the whiz of a toy race car zooming around a track.
            “Uh, huh...” said Jack after that moment passed.

“It is because I’ve been performing my own experiments for the last thirty or so years, and because I have been cut off from the scientific world of civilized society, that I have discovered things they haven’t!”

“Like give real sentience and a love of music and roller-skating to an eagle, while also hindering its ability to fly.”

“Spyder could fly if he wanted to!” Dr. Aperture shouted defensively. “He was just hanging around that do-nothing master of his who only knew how to live off the teat of shiny treasure! Dependency breeds dependency, and Spyder never flew because it was just too much work for him. He didn’t have to fly to get around or fed, so he never did.”

“And Ryan?”

Dr. Aperture suddenly went quiet and turned away. Jack glanced at Annie, who still maintained that fearful look. In the background a series of cogs ticked mechanically and a roll of duct tape unspooled stickily.

“In that silly dinosaur was the preserved consciousness of my son, who, for all intents and purposes, died of cancer thirty-five years ago.”

In the silence that followed, one could practically hear a pin drop. Then a pin actually dropped, and all three present in that room heard it loud and clear. Even Jack didn’t have a witticism to remark with. Or at least, he didn’t want to say it.

But then Dr. Aperture came back, roaring like the T-Rex had roared.

“What did you do to him?!” he, well, roared. “Did you kill him?”

“No, no, no, no. Calm down. I don’t kill people with names. Or at least, not people whose names I know. We just gave him some much-needed love and comfort and opened his little T-Rex mind to the possibility of a life beyond mere terrorizing. I don’t know where he is anymore. But he’s safe. Hard for a T-Rex to not be safe. How did you create him, by the way?”

“With science!” said the Doctor, gesticulating with a raised forefinger pointed into the air. “Science can do anything, and answer any question!”

            A mechanical hand patted a real, genuine, living sheep on the head. The ewe seemed pleased by the pat, so it meandered forward a few paces to eat some grass on the floor. After chewing and swallowing, it bleated. A sound receiver near the sheep’s mouth was activated by the bleat and that set off an electrical charge that lit a flame.

“And with some help of a treasure,” Dr. Aperture said more quietly. But his voice grew, from a sigh, all the way up to a scream. “An artifact I helped build that temple to hide within. The temple that Ryan guarded. The temple that is no longer safe from outsiders! Outsiders who will want to pilfer and destroy! Thus is the purpose of the volcano! To keep noisy, nosy pillagers like you away from it! And very, very soon, the dirt and dust upon Windswept Peak will be swept aside to reveal the volcano’s fiery mouth beneath! The flaming jaws that will consume all beneath it!”

Dr. Aperture laughed demonically, and Jack didn’t feel sorry for him anymore.

And that’s when a crank attached to the catapult started winding, drawing the beam down and taut. Jack was slowly being lowered to a horizontal position. Before he was down all the way he winked at Annie, whose face was filled with more fear than ever. But Jack knew exactly what was about to happen, and he smiled, remembering the last time he had been in the clutches of this catapult. How he had been sawing at the wrong rope, and had just about severed it, thus nearly neutralizing the catapult’s possibilities.

A tiny lever tipped, and Annie gave a muffled scream. The catapult launched forward.

Except it didn’t. The strain on the sawed rope was too much, and it snapped, rendering the catapult useless. Jack was thrown up enough that he landed on his feet, and that was it.

Now, what next? Well, the next thing he did was look around quickly for the map-wrapped scepter he knew Golbez must have taken away from him. He found it in the corner, a slight green glow emanating from it. How had Dr. Aperture not seen this?

He dashed for the corner, passing a bewildered and now fangless Dr. Aperture, who didn’t care too much about what happened to Jack, but who was clutching his head in both his hands, looking over the catapult and realizing his failure.

“How could this be? How could this be?” he muttered over and over.

Jack, meanwhile, had gotten to the corner and started unrolling the scepter with his foot. When it had been fully unveiled, he lowered himself to the ground and rubbed the ropes against the scepter. They consequently burned off, giving him perfect freedom. He took the glowing rod in hand and marched over to Annie, once more passing Dr. Aperture.

He swung the scepter against the hanging bag full of gas, and it evaporated into nothingness. Then he reached down to Annie’s mask and pulled it out with his bare hand. She could breathe again, and he touched the scepter to her ropes and they burned off like his had. Then he spun to face Dr. Aperture, face full of fury.

But it was Dr. Aperture who spoke first. Raw shock was in his features.

“How...how did you get the Sonic Scepter? HOW?”

“A friend,” Jack said coldly.

“The platformers said those puzzles would be impossible to solve! They said...!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but your science ends now.”

He tossed the scepter to his left hand and pulled Wrench out with his right.

“You guys never think to check me for my weapon,” he said. “And that seems inconsistent with the type of people you are on this island, but I’ll take it. So now you’re going to feel something painful, and if you cooperate, it will be less painful.”

Jack aimed at Dr. Aperture’s left shoulder and fired. Like the shot on the beach, this lone discharge sounded like a cannon, and rang in everyone’s ears for a few seconds afterward. Dr. Aperture fell to the ground, shrieking in pain. A spurt of blood had sprayed from the wound.

“Pain’s something you understand, right? Pain is scientific?” Jack said through clenched teeth. “Paula, will you do the honors?”

Paula, her face similarly indignant, knew instantly what he meant. She walked over to the doctor’s sprawled-out body and hovered her boot over his bleeding shoulder.

“Paula and I, we need to get off this isle. The train is our only realistic way of doing so. But right now it’s stopped. And Golbez has said it will stop at other places past this one, and that we need some kind of password or code to make it through. We know you have one of these passcodeword things. You have the option of telling us now, or telling us after she steps on you a little bit. Paula, go ahead.”

The millisecond her boot touched the bullet hole he screamed. At first it sounded incoherent, but then some syllables popped up that weren’t in the general lexicon of screaming-related sounds. And ultimately Jack was able to discern the word being said.

“MORIARTY!”

Paula took her boot off the wound and looked at Jack. He seemed surprised this had worked so quickly. That made him suspicious.

“Are you absolutely sure?” he said in an accusatory voice. “You don’t want to be wrong with us, do you?”

“Fine! Fine,” the doctor panted through the pain. “It’s ‘Son.’ Like a child. Son. Like...like Ryan. But that will only get you through Machete Bay. It won’t work anywhere else.”

Jack’s eyes thinned on the man, the mad scientist.

“If you survive this whole thing, go find Ryan. He needs a father. Be better to him than Golbez is to me. But maybe you don’t know how. ‘Science’ doesn’t teach you that.”

And he spun on the spot, and walked away. Ann Paula followed after him. He seemed impatient.

“See, as soon as I give in, even in the slightest, something like this happens,” Jack said to her. “I told you.”

“Okay, okay. I’ll keep my distance from you. I’m sorry. But what do we do now?”

            The doctor moaned in the background.

“Physician, heal thyself,” Jack spat. Then he turned back to Annie. “We’re going to get that train moving,” he said.

            “How?” Annie asked.
            “By getting that password.”
            “How?” she said again, in exactly the same tone. It could have been a direct recording.
“I know something Golbez didn’t,” Jack said. “I know where Norrigan North is.”