MONSTER KIDNAPS GIRL AT MAD SCIENTIST’S COMMAND!

MONSTER KIDNAPS GIRL AT MAD SCIENTIST’S COMMAND!
Lawrence Watt-Evans

It slithered up to the bar and settled onto the stool beside me.

“Gin and tonic,” it told the bartender.

The bartender gave it the eye. “Got any I.D.?” he asked.

The thing writhed around for a moment, and produced a battered wallet from somewhere. It flipped the billfold open, extracted a folded paper, and handed it to the bartender.

“What’s this?” he said warily, picking it up. “This ain’t no driver’s license.”

“I can’t drive,” it said apologetically. “That’s my genetic experiment authorization form.”

The bartender unfolded the paper and looked it over.

“Hmph,” he snorted. “Looks okay. Where’s the date?”

It extended a pseudopod and pointed.

“Oh, I see it,” the bartender said. He blinked at it, and then grinned. “Hey, kid,” he said, “Happy birthday!” He dropped the paper on the bar and reached for the bottle of gin.

“Thanks,” the thing said.

It looked like about four hundred pounds of tentacles and slime. Two stalked eyes projected from a scaly purple lump that didn’t have enough of a neck to be a head, and the rest of the face consisted of slit nostrils, a big sloppy maw, and a row of tendrils. The dominant color, overall, was a bilious green.

It looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it at first.

A tentacle retrieved the paper from the bar. I watched, trying not to be blatant about it, and saw where it went—a belly pouch.

The bartender set the gin and tonic on the bar, and the thing picked it up gingerly in one tentacle. The eyes drooped down to focus on the glass, and it took a tentative sip.

I smiled. “Just turned twenty-one, huh?” I asked.

The eyes swung around to look at me, and then the mouth stretched into a grin bigger than my head. “That obvious, huh?” it said.

I recognized that grin.

“Hey, I know you!” I said, “You were in the remake of ‘Return of the Jedi,’ right? In Jabba’s throne room?”

The grin grew wider. “Yeah,” it said, “That was me.”

“Hey, you were great!” I said. “Really!”

“Thanks,” it said, eyestalks dipping modestly.

“Hey, drink up—next round’s on me!” I said. “I don’t meet very many famous movie actors.” I raised my glass and took a slug of bourbon.

It raised its own glass and took another sip, a little larger this time. I signalled the bartender, and laid my MasterCard on the bar. “Keep ’em coming,” I said, indicating the monster and myself.

“You don’t have to do that…” it began while the barkeep was running the card through the reader.

“No, it’s okay,” I said, “I’ve got the money—I can afford it.”

“Well,” it said, “If you’re sure…”

“I’m sure,” I said, “Drink up!”

It drank.

“You always been in movies?” I asked.

It nodded. “Oh, yeah,” it said, “I was made for the movies. Ever see an oldie called ‘Pets’?”

I sat back and thought for a minute, and it came back to me.

“I think I did,” I said. “Big-budget horror movie, right? Tom Cruise as the crazy old hermit? Jennifer Bacon as the Marine sergeant?”

“That’s the one,” it agreed. “I was one of the extras, when all the monsters start coming out of the attic. I was six months old, could barely crawl. They ordered me up special for that film.”

I nodded. “You remember working on it?”

It stared at me. “What, are you nuts? I was six months old! What do you remember that far back?”

“Nothing,” I admitted.

“Well, I don’t either,” it said, miffed. “You think I’m some kind of freak?”

I hesitated, and then pointed out, “Well, you are a monster.”

“Sure I am,” it said, “And proud of it, too! But that doesn’t mean I’m not human.”

“Ummm…” I began.

“Legally,” it said warningly, “I’m human.”

I shrugged. “Okay,” I said, “You’re human. No offense. But come on, how am I supposed to know how different you are? You’ve got to admit, you aren’t exactly just another face in the crowd! I’m sorry if I offended you, but I’ve never had a chance to talk to a movie monster before.”

“All right,” it relented, “Apology accepted.”

I gulped bourbon. “So,” I said, “You started out in ‘Pets’ when you were a baby. Then what?”

“Well, the studio put me up for adoption, but got no takers, and then the Artificial Child Welfare Act went through and the producer of ‘Pets’ found himself playing Daddy to fifteen of us little monsters and farmed most of us out to relatives and ex-wives. I got lucky, I guess; Mom was ex-wife number two, and far too good for that son of a bitch. She raised me like her own son.” It—or rather, “he,” going by that last sentence—sniffled a little and slurped gin.

I nodded. “So was the Jedi remake your next role?”

“Naw,” he said, “Of course not! Mom needed money to support me—we eat a lot—and why shouldn’t I help earn my keep, when it’s so easy for me? I was in ‘Arms Race,’ and ‘Ms. McGillicuddy on Mars,’ and a couple of others—‘Jedi’ was my sixth. I was nine.”

“Nine?” I marvelled. “I’ll be damned; that was a hell of a performance for a kid your age!”

“I know,” he said. “I was good. I could always get work, even when half us monsters were on welfare.” He drank gin, and I realized he was on his third or fourth; the bartender had been refilling them so smoothly I hadn’t even noticed. I’d only had one before the kid came in, and was working on my third over all.

I was just far enough gone not to worry about what might happen if I got a four-hundred-pound monster, a monster unfamiliar with alcohol, good and drunk.

“So if life’s so good,” I asked, “How come you’re here drinking alone on your birthday?”

One eye had wandered off; the other had drooped somewhat. Now it rose up straight again and stared at me, though the other one was still looking somewhere in the direction of the video.

“You don’t want to hear it,” he said at last.

“Sure I do!” I said.

The other eye wheeled back around. “If you’re so damn curious,” he asked, “Then what are you doing here drinking by yourself?”

I shrugged. “I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Both eyes were trying to focus on me and not quite managing it, and a fifth gin and tonic was in a nearby tentacle. “Who are you, anyway?” he demanded.

I held out a hand. “Ryan Tewary,” I said. “And what do you go by?”

It reluctantly held out a tentacle, and we shook. “They call me Bo,” he said. “My real name’s Genex H W Two-Forty-Four Dash Oh-Six.”

“Pleased to meet you, Bo,” I said. “Call me Rye.”

He nodded.

“You haven’t said what you’re doing here,” I remarked.

I think he glowered at me, but with his anatomy it was hard to be sure. “I just turned twenty-one,” he said, “I shouldn’t buy myself a legal drink to celebrate?”

“You’ve had a lot more than one,” I pointed out—the fifth glass was empty. “And besides, isn’t it sort of traditional to party with friends, not by yourself?”

“What makes you so snoopy?” he asked.

I shrugged. “Just curious. Scientific curiosity.”

“You’re a scientist?”

I nodded.

“Microbiology?”

I didn’t like the tone he used to say that, and I was glad I wasn’t a genetic engineer. “No,” I said, “Flavor chemistry.”

Bo nodded. He looked at the barman and held out his glass. “Fill ’er up,” he said.

“Kid,” the bartender said, “I think you’ve had enough for now.”

Even in my own less than entirely sober condition I could see his point, so before it could turn into an argument I said, “Come on, kid, let’s find someplace friendlier.”

Bo’s eyes swiveled a little unsteadily, looking over the bartender, the bar, and me, and then he nodded. “Right,” he said. He slithered off the stool. I signed the tab and got up.

“I’m still buying,” I said as we headed for the door.

“Hey, you don’t have to,” he said. “I’ve got money. Truth is, I’m stinkin’ rich, y’know. Movie work pays.”

“That’s okay,” I said, “I’m stinkin’ rich, too.”

He stopped in the doorway and looked me over.

“You said you’re a chemist?”

“A flavor chemist,” I agreed.

“That pays well?”

I motioned for him to stop blocking the door as I said, “What’re your three favorite flavors of ice cream, Bo?”

He blinked at me, puzzled. “You talking shop? I’m no chemist.”

“Just tell me your three favorite flavors.”

“Uh…vanilla, coffee, and creamberry, I guess,” he said as he worked his way out onto the sidewalk.

“Well, I invented creamberry.”

He stopped dead and stared at me. “You did?” he said.

I nodded, and pointed at the drifting stardust up the street. “Let’s try that place,” I said.

“Okay.”

We walked on in silence for a moment—at least, I walked; I’m not sure how to describe what Bo did, but it moved him along. It wasn’t really slithering.

Then he asked, “So if you’re a rich, famous inventor, why don’t you have anything better to do than go out drinking with me?”

“If you’re a rich, famous movie monster…” I began.

He wiggled a tentacle at me. “Okay, I get the idea. I’ll tell my story if you tell yours first.”

“It’s a deal. Mine’s real short. About a year after creamberry hit the market, I had a little industrial accident—my own damn fault, I’m not blaming anybody. I got careless. Nothing all that serious, by most standards—just minor nerve damage.”

“Uh…what kind of nerve damage?”

“Nothing much,” I said bitterly. “I lost my sense of smell, that’s all.”

“But…oh. You’re a flavor chemist.”

“I was, anyway. But now…well, I can still run the computer, but that’s about it.”

“Jeez,” he said, “That’s rough!”

I didn’t answer at first, except by pushing open the door of the bar, but then I burst out, “Damn right it’s rough! I get so damn mad about it! One stupid little mistake and my whole career is gone!”

We sat down at the bar; the bartender was busy down at the other end.

“So you lost your career,” he said. “I can see the drinking, I guess. But don’t you have any friends to party with?” He seemed to realize he’d been a bit blunt, and he turned his eyestalks away, ostentatiously examining the decor.

“Not any more,” I said. “People get tired of drinking with somebody who just gets morose about it.”

The eyes drifted back in my direction, and he might have nodded a bit—or maybe that was just swaying. He’d been drinking a lot, after all, and he was new at it. “Um,” he said.

“So what’s your beef?” I said.

That huge mouth of his sort of pursed up for a minute; then he leaned over toward me and whispered, “It’s sort of embarrassing.”

“Spit it out,” I said, “I’m hardened.”

He blinked, and spat it out.

“I’m still a virgin.”

I blinked at that.

“You’re a virgin,” I said stupidly.

He nodded. “Twenty-one years old and I’ve never gotten laid. Never even gotten close.”

I thought about that for a second, and then said, “Um…pardon my asking this, Bo—but just what else did you expect, given your, ah…your appearance?”

“I don’t know what the hell I expected, but I sure know what I wanted,” he said bitterly, “And this ain’t it!”

“But…Bo, your anatomy, I mean…”

“I know what you mean,” he said. “Look, I don’t know that much about it, I don’t think anyone does, but Rye, I’ve been interested in girls since I was twelve, and I’ve got the equipment— maybe not exactly like most guys, but it works. I’ve been whacking off since I was thirteen—and I’m still just whacking off.”

“Ah…what kind of girls?” I asked.

“Girl girls, stupid! You think because I look like this that I only want to screw monsters? Hey, you don’t look like Valerie Bertinelli yourself, y’know.”

“What about female movie monsters?”

He snorted, a truly disgusting sound. “Bleah!” he said. “Maybe they don’t look as bad to me as they do to you—I mean, I’m used to what I see in the mirror, and I’m happy with it—but they sure don’t have any sex appeal, either. I mean, would you want to make it with a movie monster?”

I had to admit I had never considered the idea, and didn’t find it very appealing.

“Besides,” Bo went on, “There are only about sixty of us, all together, and because of all the legal trouble they aren’t making any more, and almost all of us are male. A couple I think are neuter. I don’t know why they did that, but they did.”

I knew why they did that, actually—I was old enough to remember when the point was brought up in the papers. They didn’t want anyone taking chances on maybe producing a fertile female monster that could be the mother for whole new generations of monsters. I decided not to mention that.

The bartender came up about then, and Bo shut up. I gave the barkeep my card and told her, “It’s all on me. I’ll have bourbon and ginger. My friend here will have a Coke.”

“Hey,” Bo protested.

“You don’t think you’ve had enough?” I asked him.

“Hell, no! Look, I told you why…”

I held up a hand. “Okay,” I said, “What’ll it be?”

He considered. “Get the Coke,” he told the bartender, “But put rum in it.”

“Right,” she said.

While she was getting the drinks, I asked, “So are all you guys frustrated, then?”

He shrugged, an awe-inspiring sight. “I don’t know,” he said. “I mean, it’s not that easy to talk about. I get the impression that a lot of us, especially the younger ones, just aren’t interested.”

The bartender arrived with his drink; he took a slurp and said, “I sure am, though.”

The barkeep left, and I asked, “You ever date anyone?”

He snorted again, and his rum-and-Coke foamed up.

“You ever try?” I asked.

He hesitated, and then he admitted, “Well, yeah. There was this girl in high school who got used to me, and I thought she liked me. Her name was Ashley, and she was a cute little blonde, and she’d say hi to me every day in the halls. So one day I met her after school and asked if I could take her out to a movie or something, and she just stared at me, and then she started to giggle, and then she just burst out laughing, and I said something stupid, I forget what, and she was practically rolling on the ground, laughing at me…”

I thought he was going to start bawling, but he gathered himself together and took a deep breath—that was something to see!—and then went on, “So after that I never even asked again. And I sort of avoided girls in general. And then I started avoiding guys, too, because they’d all talk about their dates, or how hot their sex lives were, or later on they’d even be talking about their wives, and I haven’t even gone on my first damn date!”

He slammed the glass of rum-and-Coke down on the bar with that last word, and it shattered. He looked at it stupidly and said, “Oops.”

“No problem,” I said, mopping up the mess with a stack of paper napkins and waving to the bartender with my free hand.

She came and we got the mess cleaned up and added to our bill, and a twenty-dollar cash tip let us stay where we were and go on drinking.

“Maybe I have had about enough,” Bo admitted as he sipped his replacement Coke—no rum this time.

I nodded.

“You know,” I said, “You shouldn’t let that one girl, Ashley, ruin your whole life, Bo. I mean, she was just a kid, and you caught her by surprise. You’re older now, you’re not a kid, you’re a little more self- assured—you should try again.”

“Yeah, but I’m not in school any more, either—where am I supposed to find someone to ask?”

“Anywhere,” I said, with a sweeping gesture that left me a little dizzy. It began to register that I’d been drinking a little more than was good for me, but I didn’t let that interfere with my speech. “Right here in this bar, maybe. The world’s full of beautiful women, Bo, and they aren’t all unreachable. You’re a nice guy, you’re rich, you’re famous—you aren’t handsome, but you can’t have everything, and hey, you’re different, right? There’s gotta be a girl for you somewhere! All you need to do is find her—and you’ll never find her if you don’t look! Right?”

He stared at me with drooping eyes. “Right,” he said, a bit doubtfully.

“And you’ve gotta let them know you mean it, Bo! That girl Ashley probably thought it was a joke—I mean, she probably didn’t realize you were serious, that you’ve got the same needs and desires as any other guy. You need to make a girl know you really want her—you have to sweep her right off her feet!”

I was losing the thread of what I was saying, and wasn’t sure I was making sense any more, but it took a real effort to shut myself up.

I was so busy gathering my wits that I didn’t realize at first that Bo was staring at me. His eyes weren’t drooping any more.

“You’re right, Rye,” he said, “You’re damn right!”

Then he got off the stool, and I tried to get off my own, but my feet got tangled and I went over sideways, and by the time I was untangled I’d forgotten why I wanted to get up in the first place, and it seemed like an awful lot of effort when there was a perfectly good floor there for me to lie on.

Then the bartender was there leaning over me, which was a very interesting sight indeed, and I enjoyed that for a minute before I realized she was trying to get me back on my feet.

I was glad to cooperate, once I knew what she wanted, but even so, it took both of us to get me upright.

And once I was upright, the first thing I did was to sit down again—not on a stool this time; the bartender got me to a booth.

“No more drinks for you,” she said. “You want some coffee, or something to sober you up?”

“No coffee,” I said, “But I could use something, I guess.”

She brought something, a little green pill and some orange juice to wash it down, and I swallowed it all and sat back, while she went back to her duties. The stuff began to work in a minute or two, or maybe the booze was just wearing off on its own, and I was able to lift my head and look around and realize that I didn’t see Bo anywhere.

“Hey,” I called to the bartender, “Where’d Bo go?”

“Who?”

“The guy I came in with—the movie monster. Where is he?”

She shrugged. “He…”

That was as far as she got, because she was interrupted by an ear-piercing shriek.

We turned just in time to see Bo weaving his way out the door with a chunky redhead in his tentacles.

I don’t mean walking alongside—Bo was carrying her, and she didn’t look at all happy about it. She was kicking and struggling, and she was the source of the shriek we’d heard.

Bo seemed oblivious to her reaction; his eyes were waving about wildly, and he was staggering—at least, I think it was staggering, but since I never figured out his means of propulsion in the first place I can’t be sure. Let’s just say his path was not a straight line.

“I’m calling the cops,” the bartender said, and she slipped away.

I got to my feet, wavered for a moment until the floor steadied itself, and then staggered out the door after Bo.

It wasn’t hard to spot him—a four-hundred-pound monster carrying a screaming woman down the middle of an otherwise quiet street does sort of stand out from the background.

I tried to run after him, but with all the liquor sloshing in me it wasn’t much of a run, and he was really moving. I hadn’t realized he could go that fast. He’d gone three blocks before I got close, and by then I was too out of breath to yell at him; I just tottered along behind him, trying to suck in enough air to be heard over the redhead’s hollering.

Then we heard the sirens.

“Oh, shit,” I said.

Bo stopped where he was and looked around, puzzled, still holding the girl.

She stopped yelling and looked around, too.

A moment later the first cop car pulled up in front of us, and two cops climbed out, one on either side. One had his revolver out, and the other had a riot gun.

“All right, hold it right there!” the one with the shotgun called.

Bo blinked, and I thought I’d never seen so stupid an expression on anybody’s face, human or otherwise.

“You mean me?” he said, in a tiny little voice.

Another car pulled up, and some idiot in civilian clothes stuck his head and a camera out the window and started shooting.

“Put the lady down!” the cop called.

Bo looked down at her in surprise, as if he’d forgotten he was carrying her.

“Jeez, miss, I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I got carried away.” He lowered her gently and stood her on her feet.

“I was the one who got carried away!” she snapped. She tugged her purse free from where it had snagged in Bo’s belly pouch.

I figured the crisis was over, so I stepped up and put a hand on Bo’s tentacle.

“Freeze!” shouted the cop with the revolver, and I froze, startled.

“Put up your hands!” the other one yelled.

I put up my hands, saying, “Officer, it’s okay, really, he’s harmless!”

Bo raised his tentacles, too. On him it didn’t look much like a gesture of surrender, though— more like he was getting ready to pounce. Fortunately, the cops didn’t take it that way.

“You okay, lady?” one of them called.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said, and she started to walk away, back toward the bar.

“Hold it!” the cop called, and she stopped, startled.

Then about three dozen other cops started arriving, and we were all bundled into a police van and taken to the station.

They put cuffs on me, and tried to put them on Bo, but they wouldn’t stay, just kept sliding off. He tried to look sheepish about it, but it didn’t really work.

One cop even went up to the redhead with a pair of cuffs, but she snarled at him and said, “I’m the victim, bozo!”

The guy with the camera followed us.

At the station they checked our I.D., and after a few minutes of standing around looking confused the cops got us into a quiet little room, where a cop in plainclothes asked, “What’s the story?”

Bo and I looked at each other, unsure who should say what, and the redhead took the opportunity to say, “This stupid monster kidnapped me!”

“I did not!” Bo burst out.

“You did too!” she shouted at him.

The cop held up his hands for quiet, and they subsided. Then he pointed at me.

“You,” he said, “Who are you?”

“Doctor Ryan Tewary,” I said.

“What do you say happened here?”

I sort of shuffled uncomfortably, then said, “I didn’t see all of it, but I think it was just a misunderstanding. My friend here, Bo, was a little drunk, and he wanted to ask this lady for a date, and…and I don’t know what happened after that.”

“He kidnapped me, that’s what!” the redhead announced.

The cop turned to her. “Tell me about it,” he said, “And start with your name.”

“Sheena Dubois,” she said. “I was sittin’ in the bar when this monster comes up and says hello, and asks if he can buy me a drink, and I was sort of surprised, but I said yeah, and then he asks if I’d like to go somewhere for a bite to eat or something, and I looked at him and figured it had to be some kind of a joke, so I said…ah…”

Her voice trailed off for a moment, but the cop prompted her, “Go on.”

“Well, I said, you know, where he’s a monster, I said, you look more like you’d like to eat me, and he grinned at me and said sure, if you want, and then he picked me up and carried me out of the bar, and then you guys came and stopped him. I guess it was supposed to be a joke, but it went a bit too far for me, you know?”

Bo had been staring at her during this speech, his eyes widening and his mouth coming open with surprise. “I thought…” he began.

The cop turned to him. “You thought what?” he asked.

“I thought she meant like…like oral sex, you know? I thought she was…”

The cop stared at him. Ms. Dubois blushed crimson. “Oh,” she said. “I was… I didn’t think of that.”

Bo said, “Hey, I’m not a cannibal! You think I’d be walking the streets if I were dangerous? Come on!”

The cop just stared.

“It’s not my fault the way I look!” Bo said to him.

The cop sighed. “I suppose not,” he admitted, “But I’d have thought you’d be used to dumb jokes about it by now.”

Bo shook his head. “You never get used to it,” he said mournfully. “Maybe if I… I don’t feel too well.”

“He’s been drinking a lot,” I volunteered, “And he’s not used to it. We were celebrating his birthday—he just turned twenty-one.”

The cop stared at me this time.

“So what did you have to do with all this?” he asked.

“Nothing, really. I mean, I do feel a little responsible, because I’d been buying Bo’s drinks, and we were talking about women, you know, and I said he should be a little more forceful when he asked women out, and I guess he took that wrong, and…” I let that trail off, and then offered helpfully, “I was drunk, too.”

The cop turned to Ms. Dubois and asked, “Do you want to press charges? We can call it battery, or kidnapping, or attempted rape, or we can just forget the whole thing as a simple misunderstanding. What’ll it be?”

She blushed again, and then said, “Oh, forget it. It was a misunderstanding. I didn’t know… I mean, he… Never mind.”

“Fine,” the cop said. “We’ve got your name and address—tell the clerk where we can get hold of you if we need you, and you can go.” He waved her away, and she marched out.

When the door opened I saw the guy with the camera standing right there, listening.

The cop asked a few more questions, and then booked us as drunk and disorderly, and the night court judge let us plead guilty and take a fine and a night in jail to sleep it off, which we did. I didn’t feel like going home, anyway.

They put us in the same cell, and kept us there until noon. It was nice and quiet and we slept well. No video—not in a local jail like that.

I woke up around ten, feeling a little rocky but not too bad, and called a guard, who brought us breakfast and, for an additional ten bucks, a morning newspaper, one of the tabloids. I opened it out and saw the headline— “Monster Kidnaps Girl At Mad Scientist’s Command!”

I blinked, and looked at the photo of Bo standing there in the street holding Sheena Dubois and looking stupid, with me crouched just behind him. It was easily the worst picture of me ever taken—I looked completely demented.

I started reading.

“Dr. Ryan Tewary, famed scientist and inventor who suffered brain damage in a laboratory accident two years ago, appears to have been the instigator of a wild late-night rampage by the monster known as Genex HW 244-06…”

I resented that; it wasn’t brain damage, just nerve damage. I wondered if I should sue for libel.

The whole article was quite something—the writer seemed to alternate between describing Bo as a blood-crazed monster running amok and a poor, pitiful, misunderstood creature who just wanted a little love.

I, on the other hand, was consistently described as a lunatic.

I was just folding the paper when Bo stirred.

“Good morning,” I called.

An eye curled around in my direction and opened.

“It wasn’t all a bad dream after all, was it?” he asked.

“Afraid not,” I said, thoughtfully sitting on the newspaper. He was clearly not ready to deal with it.

The guard heard his voice, I guess, because he came back and said, “Hey, Bo, your agent’s on the phone, and I told her you weren’t awake yet, but I can’t get her to take no for an answer. You want to come talk to her?”

He blinked, and sort of shrugged, and said, “Sure, I guess so. I wonder how she knew where to find me, though?”

I bit my lip and didn’t say anything, and Bo followed the guard down to the phone.

He talked for a long time, while I ate my breakfast and read the funnies.

When he came back Bo was clearly puzzled.

“What’s up?” I asked, as the guard let him back into the cell.

“She says it was a great stunt,” he said slowly, “And why didn’t I tell her what I was going to do, and will I take two mil for the rights to my life story, and do I want to play myself? Oh, and there are some other offers, too.” He looked at me. “Rye, what’s she talking about?”

I showed him the newspaper. He sat down on his bunk to read it.

He made an unhappy noise when he got to the paragraph about thoughtless genetic engineers failing to consider the sex drives of their creations, but other than that he didn’t say anything.

“They make me sound like a real freak!” he said when he’d finished it.

I just nodded.

“You know what my agent said, on the phone? She said they wanted to make a movie about me. They even have the advertising campaign worked out.”

“Really?” He didn’t sound pleased about it, so I didn’t say anything more than that.

“Yeah,” he said. He stood up and struck a dramatic pose. “They made him a monster,” he declaimed, “But his heart was human—until an uncaring world drove him to acts of monstrous defiance!” He turned and spat at the sink. “What a lot of garbage!” he said, in his usual tones. “I mean, they’re really making me sound like I’m a complete psycho, or something.” He shook his head sadly.

“It’s a lousy world,” I agreed.

“They must’ve seen the article,” he said, picking up the tabloid and starting to read through it again.

He was just finishing it for the third time when the guard came to let us out.

“Noon,” he announced. “Use the pay phone out front if you need to make any calls.” He took the breakfast tray, and then herded us out of the little cell block.

We collected our belongings, such as they were, and headed for the front door. As we approached, though, we both slowed down.

The doors of the station were glass, and we could see the little crowd out front, waving their home-made signs about.

“Outlaw Monsters!” said one. “End Genetic Experiments NOW!” said another. “Make our streets safe!” said a third. All in all, there were maybe twenty or thirty people milling about in an angry, unsettled way.

We stopped, our noses to the glass, and stared. Bo’s eyes drooped in dismay.

Something caught my eye, and I pointed off to one side, where a smaller group stood, a little apart from the rest—three or four young women who weren’t carrying any signs or marching about. They were standing and staring at us. They didn’t look as hostile as the others.

“I wonder what they’re doing here,” I said. “They don’t seem to be part of the demonstration.”

Bo shrugged. “Just curiosity seekers, probably,” he said. “I am in the movies, after all.” He snorted derisively.

I nodded.

A sky-blue limo pulled up just behind the smaller group. A door opened, and a plump dark-haired woman got out and stood there, looking at the protestors. Bo pointed and said, “That’s Jenny, my agent. I asked her for a lift. Can we drop you somewhere?”

“Thanks,” I said, “I could use a ride.”

We both looked out at the mob again, and I said, “I don’t think they’ll hurt us, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to leave, either.”

Bo agreed.

“I guess we’d better just make a dash for it,” I said.

He agreed again, and opened the door.

We didn’t run, but we walked quickly. None of the demonstrators touched us, but a few of them yelled insults, most of them obscene.

We were almost to the limo when one of the smaller group, a cute little brunette, jumped forward and grabbed Bo’s tentacle.

“Bo,” she said, “You can eat me if you like—and I’ll eat you right back. I’ve never made it with a movie monster.”

Bo’s mouth fell open; so did mine.

Three other girls were right behind her, making similar offers either verbally or with body language.

Jenny was in the car, motioning for us to hurry up. The motor was running. I got into the limo and pulled Bo in after me.

Two of the girls managed to climb in before the door closed. We pulled away from the curb as they climbed onto Bo’s ample lap.

He stared at them for a minute, then grinned and threw a tentacle around each. They cuddled up to him, squealing, and the tentacles slipped down a little lower.

I told the driver where to drop me off.

Jenny the agent ignored everything, and just sat staring at the street ahead.

A few minutes later the car pulled over to the curb and I reached for the latch. Then I paused. I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “They’re just using you. They just want to try something kinky. They don’t really care about you.”

He looked up from the brunette’s cleavage and asked, “So what?” Bo grinned at me. “Hey, Rye,” he said, “True love would be nice, but up until now I’ve had nothing at all. Kinky sex has to be a heck of a lot better than nothing.”

I didn’t know what to say. I climbed out of the car and closed the door. As I was about to step away, the window slid down and Bo’s eyes emerged.

“Hey, Rye,” he said, “Thanks for everything! You were right—I just needed to be more forceful!”

He waved a tentacle as the car pulled away.