hum like a jet engine firing up, the beaters began to churn and chop the contents of the vat, creating a whirlpool.
Brondon reached out with swollen, steaming hands—and was sucked under. The beater made a loud thump as the motors strained to break the large chunk into more manageable bits. Then the stirrer continued to spin more smoothly.
Robin was shuddering and sobbing. “What a horrible way to die!”
“Don’t feel too sorry for him,” I said. “He meant to do that to you.”
Sheyenne had a disturbingly calm expression on her face as she returned to us. I said, “I didn’t know you were so ruthless.”
She didn’t look guilty at all; instead, she was indignant. “That man killed me. He put toadstool toxin in my drink! I suffered for days as the poison destroyed my body, one organ at a time. Brondon Morris did that to me—and he shot you too. More than once, in fact.” She sniffed. “Believe me, that might have looked messy, but he got off easy.”
Self-consciously, I touched the bullet hole in the back of my head and the putty-filled one in the front. I couldn’t argue with her logic.
McGoo bounded up the metal stairs to join us all on the catwalk, looking around with wide eyes. “We’re all right, McGoo,” I said.
Still self-righteous, Sheyenne presented herself to him and extended her forearms, wrists together. “Are you going to cuff me, Officer? You saw what I did.”
He peered into the churning, frothing vat as the beater kept working. A large rectangular swatch of green plaid floated to the top of the liquid, then was sucked under again.
After a long pause, McGoo said, “I didn’t see anything. He must have slipped on the catwalk.” He indicated a sign on the cinderblock wall next to a pile of pipes from a dismantled scaffold. WARNING: HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS. “Must be an internal problem at JLPN, insufficient safety precautions for the employees.” He looked over at Robin. “Someone should file a workers’ compensation suit.”
We descended the stairs, glad to be down from the vat. I retrieved my .38 from where I had tossed it. Robin rubbed her wrists, flexed her fingers. She smiled at me. “Thanks, I knew you’d come.”
On the side of the huge tank, a laminated sheet announced, SAFETY FIRST! THIS FACILITY HAS HAD ___ DAYS WITHOUT AN ACCIDENT. The number 121 had been written with a grease pencil that hung by a piece of twine next to the sign. With the side of my hand, I smeared out the 121, picked up the grease pencil, and wrote 0.
McGoo was still red-faced and panting as he looked around the process floor. He touched the back of his head and winced. “Jekyll’s around here somewhere. He’s the one who knocked me out.”
“We’ll have to send an emergency recall notice to all the stores and facilities that were about to release the new JLPN product line,” Robin said. “Get word out on the radio, have the mayor make a speech and warn all unnaturals. They can’t be allowed to use any necroceuticals that contain Compound Z.”
“You’ll do no such thing,” said a nasal voice. “That would destroy all our hopes and dreams.”
Harvey Jekyll walked onto the factory floor. A small bookish man with shrunken shoulders and large eyes, he looked more qualified to be a dungeon librarian than a corporate executive. “I’m afraid I can’t let any of you leave here—even the humans.” Jekyll’s nostrils flared, and the wrinkles on his brow furrowed together. “I’m very sorry that Brondon didn’t live to see our ultimate triumph. Do you know how hard it is to find a good, imaginative chemist who isn’t profit-motivated?”
“You can find him right there in the vat,” I said. “But you’ll have to strain out the pieces.”
Jekyll stepped forward, and I noticed how very small his shoes were; perhaps he bought them in the boys’ department. He had small, feminine hands, too. If clichés about endowment were accurate, that might have been another reason why Miranda was so eager for a divorce.
“Brondon was a crusader for humankind,” Jekyll said. “Under my auspices, he created products to make real human beings safe, to make us stand strong against the unnaturals.” Then, as if a thought had occurred to him, he raised his chin and smiled. “However, his death does now make me the official Grand Wizard of Straight Edge. That’s a silver lining, at least.”
We all just stared at him. Two villain soliloquies in one night?
“Harvey Jekyll, you’re under arrest for