(no subject)
Schreber shuffles through the ruins of his laboratory, picking forlornly through shattered vials and warped machines. He is a hunched, limping figure, the only living thing in the blue light of the pit left by the Stranger’s activities.
Quiet footfalls approach, tapping across the hard floor, occasionally sending a fragment of glass or twisted metal tinkling across the floor.
Schreber whirls around when he hears the sound, face pale and clutching at his chest. He calms a little when he sees John, but pants still. “Oh… it’s only… you.”
“Heh. Who else would be down here?” He looks around casually, dark brows slightly knit.
“hah I was just.. no one else, John. There is… no one else.” He slumps against a table, looking relieved.
He focuses on him abruptly. “You’re sure of that?”
“They are gone, John, even… Mr. Hand. He was… the last. Didn’t… you see the paper? The police… found his body. Didn’t… know quite what to make… of it.” He looks around, unnerved by the thought of the Strangers still being around.
“That’s not what I meant.” His gaze is intense. “You’re telling me they didn’t have anyone else working for them? No one else like you?”
“Not… that I can remember…” He smiles twitchily, on his guard again.
“That’s too bad.” He strolls closer, looking over Dr. Schreber’s shoulder at a ruined piece of machinery.
He jumps just a little and tries to edge out of the way. “Is it? Hah well it… hasn’t done my heart any… good.” He watches John nervously.
He is silent for a moment, then says, “I’ve been thinking.” He stops a couple feet away. “How long can we really expect these things to last?”
“I don’t know, I couldn’t… tell you how long they’ve lasted… already but…” He looks around the room. “This part at least they… built to last. My… lessons should have given you… some idea of how the workings.” The lessons in John’s head are useful enough to control and use the clock and model, but no match for having seen it operated firsthand day in and day out.
“Not enough to keep it running. If it breaks down, half the people in the city will die. You know that, don’t you?”
He cringes a little. “That might not be… for decades.”
“Decades.” He raises both eyebrows at him, incredulous.
“…or more…” He cowers slightly next to a table, gripping the edge of it surreptitiously but so hard his knuckles go white.
Murdoch sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “I was hoping you’d thought this through to the aftermath. How well do you understand these things? Can you keep them running?”
“My life has Hah… given me a short-range… view. But I think I could with… some help. The clambering around I… would need to do to maintain… parts is a little beyond my ability.”
“I’ll do what I can to help, for now. We’ll have to get you a… student or assistant or… something.” He looks annoyed.
His grip relaxes a little. “Yes… yes you will. I won’t… be around forever.”
He laughs suddenly. “Neither will I, you know. Where do we find me an assistant?”
“The city made you, a product… of forced evolution. It may… make another. Or maybe it can… be taught to certain indi… viduals.”
“I’m not sure I want to count on that.”
“We can only try…” He sighs and begins to relax against the table again. “I will train whoever… you want.”
He looks relieved, having not looked forward to intimidating him into it. “Good. But there’s something else I need from you too.”
He looks up again, immediately wary. “…Yes..?”
“We can’t stay here forever. We have to find where we came from.” He shoves his hands in his pockets.
His eyes widen, then he takes his glasses off and polishes them. “It wouldn’t be… home, John. Not anymore. We may… be better off not knowing.”
“Knowing isn’t the problem. Long term survival is the problem,” He growls a little.
He flinches but does not grab for the table this time. “we come from a small blue-green planet at… the far end of some arm of a spiral… galaxy but the stars here, what… little I can see of them don’t… match up to any record of constellation we’ve got.” He puts his glasses back on but does not look at John.
He continues as if he hasn’t heard. “I can make doors. Gates. I can’t make them lead somewhere I’m not specifically sure exists, but… I can make them lead out of here.”
This gets Schreber’s attention and he stares at Murdoch. “You’ve done this already? Just… opened doors to nowhere?”
“It was somewhere.” He says defensively. “I’m just not sure where.”
“…Did anything come… through?”
“I couldn’t hold it. There was rock, and pink sky, and rain, and then it was gone.”
“That’s… incredibly dangerous don’t you… think? And even if you could hold… it open you’d have to send… some kind of lab rat through to see… it was safe, and then, if it was who… would you send? These people know… nothing else, you can’t just march… them off to some world with pink sky.”
He blinks at him wordlessly, saying nothing, his expression full of meaning.
He stares back, then backs up with a look of growing terror and immediately bumps into the table. He shakes his head and whispers hoarsely, “…no…”
“Who else am I going to send? I can’t go myself; who knows what would happen to the city?”
“I’m… but I… I have a weak heart…” He almost whimpers, edging along the table like he wants to get behind it.
“We’d send an actual lab rat through first.”
“…and a bad leg! And… you don’t even trust me…” He is panting now and looks like he might try to make a run for it.
“I have no choice but to trust you, Schreber,” He snaps.
He half-cowers at the end of the ruined table, looking for an escape. “You could tell someone else your… new pupil you can… send them through…”
“And what if something happens to me before I get the chance?! You want me to go up to someone and say ‘By the way, your memories are fake and I control your physical world, would you mind stepping through this door?’”
“But you’ll have to say… something like that anyway to… find me someone to train and… I will need to train some… body my heart… isn’t good…” He hasn’t run yet but he looks very panicked.
“I’m not asking you to leave tomorrow either, or stay forever. It’s in my best interest to keep you alive and well, too.” He folds his arms, trying to control his irritation.
“You don’t even know… where you’re sending me?!”
“Aren’t scientists supposed to be interested in exploration? Or do you just like screwing around in people’s heads?” He growls low and soft.
He freezes guiltily, breathing hard and very aware of how incriminating it is that he was poking around here to retrieve whatever might be left of the lab. “Within… reason…”
“Right. Look, I don’t want this to get ugly. I’m not the kind of guy that enjoys pushing people around. But I can’t just sit back and risk the death of hundreds of thousands of people just because you’re squeamish.” He watches his face with bright gray eyes.
He shivers and watches John’s face, moving to grip the table again reflexively. “Are you asking me or… telling me?”
For a moment he looks furious, then he leans on the wall with a sigh. “I don’t know.”
“…Are you going… to throw me?” He grips the table even harder, voice shaky.
“No,” He grumbles after a moment. “I may throw a few other things. Look at this from my perspective a moment. I’m suddenly responsible for taking care of this place, because I’m the only one that can. I wouldn’t be in this position without you.”
He cowers more at the last word, still clinging to the table. His voice is almost a whimper. “I’ll go… I’ll go… I’m sorry if I… if it was wrong to put you… into this. I thought at… the time it was what we needed but… maybe the rest of you were better… off before…” He watches John, still very afraid, his expression lopsided because of the injured eye.
He scowls, but something in his eyes softens. “I’m not… I know you just did what you had to. And you didn’t give me the ability.” He sighs. “It was… brave. In a sneaky sort of way.”
“Err…hah… Not really. Just kind… of desperate…” His legs are shaking and he looks like he needs to sit down. “You don’t want me, I’m… not even sure I’m quite… sane anymore. The insane psychiatrist, how… funny is that?”
“I thought it was typical. Sit before you fall over, why don’t you?” He himself sits on the floor easily. “What I’m saying is I really don’t know how much of this I can do alone. Doesn’t matter whether you’re sane or not -or whether I am. You’re what I’ve got to work with, and vice versa.”
He sits slowly and jerkily with a little grunt because of his leg. His breathing is calming down a little, at least for him. “I said I’ll go…”
“Good.” He looks at him out of the corner of his eye. “I’m not like them. ‘m not one of them. You know that. Right?”
“Hah no definitely not. You’re… unpredictable. They were a lot of… things you aren’t but they… were predictable.” His voice shakes a little but he smiles twitchily.
“Oh, thanks a lot.” He scowls, but doesn’t really seem angry.
“It’s exactly what they were… looking for. I told them it would bite… them on the… well that’s as far as I… got I think before I hit the floor…” He seems to be talking mostly to himself.
He blinks, then laughs wordlessly.
Dr. Schreber looks startled, then relaxes a little. “Well you haven’t disappointed me.”
“Heh. Thanks, I think.” He sighs. “So, if you want I could buy you a coffee and we could talk this over.”
He nods warily. “The Strangers might have done… something similar to your… doors I don’t know if… any records survived. You’d have… to help me look.”
“Deal.” He stands and offers a hand up.
Dr. Schreber accepts it cautiously and follows the taller man out, limping but keeping up. “Decaf, I think…”