Synthetic: Dark Beginning Read Free Page B

over rounded muscles. A variety of aquatic gargoyles scowled down from every archway, the largest a menacing squid that looked nearly identical to Ishmael.  It writhed above front doors carved with a hellish assortment of sea monsters.  A pile of wind-blown debris lay before the doors as if no one had opened them in decades.  Kora would have thought the building abandoned, like everything else in the area, if not for the presence of an enclosed construction scaffold several floors up.
    The limo descended a steep drive and came to a stop before a pacing figure dressed in an elegant black robe with a fur-trimmed hood. Kora instinctively sank down in her seat while Randall sprung from the limo with outstretched arms.
    “Ruby, you look ravishing as always,” he said.
    “And you look drunk as ever, Randall,” she replied in a hoarse voice, followed by an infected cough. “Someone removed enough of your flesh to make another one of you. I suppose that makes you quarter of a man, now, instead of half.”
    Randall paled, his lips moving as if searching for a reply.  “I have been working out lately.”
    “Where’s my new body?” demanded Ruby.
    “We have your glorious new vessel right here,” said Randall, pointing at Alex as she guided the synthetic’s temperature controlled chamber up the steps.
    Kora watched through the open door as a man with a massive hump directed Alex to place the synthetic's chamber on a long gurney. Kora had never seen anyone so deformed, and it made her stomach swell with nausea.  She watched the hunchback fasten the chamber down with a series of leather straps and roll it away, nearly slamming it into Randall who was too busy prattling away at Ruby to notice.
    When Alex returned, Kora reluctantly climbed from the limo. “This doesn’t seem right. No one told me we were going to a dumpy old castle.”
    “Too much dirt and ugliness for you, Doctor?” replied Alex, prodding Kora up the steps into a room that looked fit to imprison a medieval queen.
    The robed figure tossed back her hood to reveal the powdered face of an old woman with dark eyes lined in coal. Her hair was neatly cut Betty Page style but a stripe of gray divided the black at the top of her head like a stream of dishwater through a pool of ink. A set of vintage diamonds circled a neck that at one time must have been long and graceful, but now sagged with papery skin. Two bright red lips parted to reveal a row of teeth that were as white and straight as sun-bleached bones. “What do we have here?”
    “You remember Kora?” Randall seemed relieved that he was no longer alone with Ruby.
    “You must be the new client,” said Kora. She held her hand out in an effort to appear professional.
    “This can’t be her.” Ruby stared at Kora’s fingers, then ran her eyes wildly up and down her body.
    A nervous smile twitched onto Randall’s face. “What could you possible be mean, Ruby dear?”
    Ruby grabbed Kora’s arms and raised them to the sides as if performing a physical examination.  “You've brought the wrong girl.”
    “I know what you’re thinking, but I can assure you that this is Kora,” said Randall.
    Ruby growled and circled Kora like a suspicious cat. “But it looks nothing like her. I would never have approved of something so…excessive.”
    “How am I supposed to look?” said Kora, making no effort to hide her irritation.
    Ruby leaned forward until Kora could see the dark makeup trapped in the wrinkles around her eyes. “You always wanted to be pretty. I’ll admit the blue hair is a surprise but the rest is predictable. I should have known you’d pull a stunt like this.  Are you trying to impress someone with this cheap circus?” Ruby cranked Kora’s head sideways to peer inside her left ear. “There’s a definite lack of symmetry, but I have a feeling you did that on purpose. Everything you do has some sinister reason behind it.” Ruby sauntered over to stand before Alex who towered over