Dean Koontz - Anti-Man

"I don't know," I said quite honestly. "What is it that you are heading towards?"

"You'll see," He said. "You'll see, Jacob."

"How did you manage to gain all this — tissue in so few hours? And from just a couple of hundred cans of fruit and vegetables?" Medical curiosity again. It all started with Harry giving me that doctor play kit when I was a toddler.

"My system," He said. "My system doesn't waste anything. It employs nearly all of what I consume. Precious little feces. Can you imagine that, Jacob? It works at converting all matter, not just the nutritious elements. Everything is convertible. When I take in a pound of food, I create nearly a pound of tissue."

"Impossible!"

"Not so, Jacob. Oh, there is water loss, to be sure. But that is all. And I manage to contain a good deal of the water, for my new systems need it. Still, I'm afraid I had to make a good many trips outside."

I sat down at the kitchen table, my knees weak and trembling, and I looked at Him. My head seemed ready to pop off my shoulders and balloon around the room. "I don't know," I said, still examining Him in detail. "At first I thought you were something good, something that could help mankind. I guess I'm still an idealist even after all these years. But now I am no longer sure of you. You're grotesque!"

He was silent a moment, very still. If I squinted my eyes, He faded into a brown-gray blob, something unliving, a pile of wood or grass. Then: "I need two more days, Jacob. That's all I ask of you. After that, I will benefit your people. I will revolutionize the world, your lives, Jacob. I can bring mankind an unlimited life-span. I can teach you the many things I have learned. Yes, I can even teach Man to heal himself and shape his own body just as I am able to do. Will you trust me for two days?"

I looked at Him. What did I have to lose? He was going to develop with or without me. I might as well stay along for the ride. Besides, I might be able to discover what was going on in Him, satisfy some of my longing for knowledge about his lightning evolution. "All right," I said. "I trust you."

"So now I have to ask you for something," He said.

"What is that?"

"I have had this radio on several times today, listening for word of the hunt. It seems that they are narrowing the area of search much more rapidly than we anticipated. They are forming a massive search network to start on the park tonight."

I sat up straight. "They will think of the cabins relatively early in the search. If they haven't already thought of them."

"Exactly," He said, His new, deep voice a little more palatable now that I was getting used to it.

"But I don't see what we can do."

"I've thought. I have an idea."

"Which is?"

His strange, bloated face looked concerned. "It will be dangerous for you, I'm afraid. This close to the end, I would not want to see you killed, shot down so far away that I can't reach you in time to resurrect you."

"I haven't worried about getting shot for seven days," I said. "The first day, I was scared. Then after flying bullets became common, I got used to it. What's the idea?"

"If you could leave here," He said, "and go back out of the park, you could take a flivver or rocket or monorail to someplace far away from here. Let yourself be seen, recognized. Then the chase will switch, and the heat will be off us, at least until they trace you and discover you came back here. But by then — "

"Down through the park again," I said.

"I know it will be one helluva job."

"But you're right," I said disconsolately. "It's the only thing we have to do."

"When?" He said.

"I'll leave as soon as I grab something to eat and get into my gear."

I opened a can of thick beef stew and heated it in an old aluminum pan that I found in the cupboard under the sink. I ate directly from the pan to save time and dishes. I was getting so used to His new appearance that I did not have to leave the room to eat, as I thought, at first, I might. Indeed, I sat watching Him and talking to Him while I gobbled the meat and potatoes. I finished supper with a can of pears, then went and struggled into my arctic traveling gear. When I came back into the kitchen to tell Him that I was leaving, He said, "I almost forgot about it."

"What's that?"

"When I was out in the utility shed starting the generator this morning, I noticed it on a platform near the back wall. Didn't think much of it then, but it will come in handy now. A magnetic sled."

"How big?" I asked.

"Two-man. You can handle it easily. It'll save a devil of a lot of walking."

"That it will," I said. I turned and walked into the living room.

"Be careful," He called after me from where he lay in the kitchen like a beached whale.

"Don't worry."

Then I was through the door, closing it behind, and into the white and black world of the early Alaskan night. The wind buffeted me, and the snow stung my face. I held my goggles and mask in my right hand, walked down the steps and hurried around the cabin to the utility shed. The door was a heavy metal one, bent slightly because He had had to smash it repeatedly to break its lock. It rattled now, gently, as the wind rocked it against the frame. I pushed it open. It grated unpleasantly where the buckled metal worked against the hinges.

Inside the shed, I fumbled for a light switch, found one two feet from the door, off to the right. A dim bulb popped into life, revealing the fact that Harry did not keep his tool shed too neat. Everything was stacked haphazardly around the bulk of the generator and the mammoth bulge of the water storage tank that descended from the ceiling like a pus sack. Back against the far wall, there was a platform of wooden beams nailed crudely together, and the magnetic sled perched there — a very welcome sight.

I went back to it and checked it out. It was a relatively expensive model. It was just under seven feet long, three feet wide. The front was swept up in a snowshield curve, and the metal metamorphosed into a plexiglass window to cut down the battering ram of the wind. There were two seats, one behind the other, and a set of controls before the first. I examined the controls, saw that there was nothing fancy. Behind the second seat, the oblong box of the drive mechanism jutted like a barnacle off the sleek hide of this beast-machine. I went to it, thumbed the rotating catches, flipped them back, and lifted the lid. The battery was totally dead.

For a moment, I was ready to kick the damn sled and to curse Harry with every four- and five- and six-letter dirty word I had in my vocabulary. That would have wasted a rather large chunk of time, considering the extensiveness of my known oaths. Then I relented and allowed my brain to do the thinking instead of my gut. It took just seconds to realize that Harry must have some way to recharge that battery. After all, it would have been dead for him, too.

I went to the generator first and found exactly what I had expected. There was a large battery on the floor next to the generator, and a trickle feedline kept this spare constantly charged. I disconnected the jumper cables from this live battery and hefted it, staggered back to the sled and set it down. Taking out the old battery, I replaced it with this healthier one, then took it back to the generator for its session of reactivation. Now I was ready to move.

But now there was another problem. The sled weighed a hundred and twenty or thirty pounds. I could not see myself lifting it and carrying it through the twisting aisles between the junk, turning it sideways at the narrow places, swinging it around the sharp bend between the generator and the open door. The urge to kick and curse returned. Then I won the battle with my gut and my brain was once again in charge. If I couldn't lift it and carry it out, neither could Harry, for he was smaller than I. Which meant there was some other way out of the shed. I examined the wall against which the sled rested, found the handle that slid a wide piece of it back. I flipped off the bolt lock, slid it back, and was looking out onto the snow. In fact, the sled was facing that way, ready to move.