Toys Part 8

4

"How did you know I am an Enforcer?" I asked him when we were on the open road to nowhere. I pulled up at an isolated petrol kiosk and stopped the car at the side.

"We know a stiff like you from a mile. You guys have bad taste in shoes." I looked at my shoes which is standard issue for durability and comfort. "Your shoes ar a giveaway in most cases. Look, I am here to seek your help. The Uni is going crazy; doing experiment on us. They pulled us in these chambers and administer the drugs. Then the victims would go into frenzy and talked with multiple personality. They are killing them. I tell you, man. Do your job; arrest them or we will be all paranoia freaks." He is talking about something which the Freed is doing but that was never advised to me.

"Hey, are you on any drugs? Speed? Ice? Bomber?" I shook the youth to get his attention.

"No, man. I am not into those. Weeds, yes, but not those lab stuff. I will pass you this book. It contain all that is to know about the works there. Do it, man. My friend died there with four personality and he died jumping on a metal stake. He thought he was the devil incarnate. Help me, please." The youth has broken down to cry in his lap. As my personality Butler, I have seen such signs. He is telling me the truth and I need to know if he is telling me about Freed or something else. I am not helping because of what he asked but inside him is a species like me. If he dies, the species die too.

I drove him back to the city and let him off a block from the University. I sat him watching the forlorn youth walked to the crossroad to wait at the lights. He was standing there looking at the skies when the shot came and took off his head. He was dead hitting the floor. I got out of the car and ran to the building wall. I looked up from there and I can see are high towers and closed windows.

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"Butler, I can assured you that we have no faction in the Uni doing any experiment similar to ours. Its could be another group or the Science Center doing something we are not aware of." I looked at Professor Heptanes who is sitting across me at the Park. He is taking a risk to see me here but it unavoidable as I need to work fast on this one. I owed it to the youth. Professor Heptanes read the notes and was pale in look as he uncover more details of the experiment. There has been like about twenty four victims to date according to the book and there are six in the chambers now. Its seems that they are releasing the identities or left over identities memory to the current vessel, causing multi personality surfacing at the same time. Unlike my case, there is no dominant identity to drive the vessel.

Of the twenty four victims, sixteen committed suicide and the rest was killed by their friends or families.

The interesting part of the book was the name I found as the leader of the experiment; Professor Martha Kiln. She is supposed to be the leader of the team of consultants.

I asked of Monica and he tells me she is still recovering. But she is starting to accept the real situation and need to be brief before she can be released to do my works. Now I have to work as Officer Butler for the time being to check on this new experiment.

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"Officer Butler, I believed the lunch will come with a price. So what is the cost to me?" I looked at the Professor Kiln who has agreed to lunched me today. Its been two days since we last met but I needed the time to know more about the Professor. One thing I learned that she likes to have her lunch once a week at the Baron's and I took the table for her. We just had one of her favorite dish and I planted the small box of chocolate for her dessert. She took one which is also her favorite flavor.

"Tell me about the new chemical properties you are looking at." I pushed the formulation across to her. "Its a stimulant I believe for the patients with multi disorders or better named as Schizophrenia."

"Most interesting. You have my formula here in every line including the new steps. Are you a chemist too or am I being too stupid not to know that a layman can also work out such formula." She holds the paper in her hand like she way she held the chocolate; ever careful not to smudge the edge of the design.

"I had some help but I cannot disclose their names. I believe they shared your thoughts on the cure but they may not be aware of the live experiments you are doing. I wondered how many has you injected them with the serum. Ten or twenty or maybe its forty of these fine youths." She looked ever compose even though I drew her to the sourced of my questioning.

"Officer Butler. I thank you for the lunch but I think I ought to be going." The Professor Kiln got up and picked her purse to leave. But I held her back with my curt caution.

"Professor Kiln. The youth who died two days ago was my source, if you want to end like him, you may leave or you can stay for coffee." But she left me at the table alone. I soon left with a hefty bill to clear with the Secretary soon. But the Manager of the Baron stopped me.

"Sir, I believe you left this at the table." He hands me a note with a number.

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"Professor Kiln, I never thought of a dinner in a lab to be romantic. But I bought the wine nevertheless." I walked in to her lab as per my scheduled call with her. She is dressed as her daily attire but I detect a whiff of perfume that smells like lilac. I see the table has been set with the chinese takeaway but I was looking to a slice of pizza with all the toppings.

"Officer Butler, do you know that one percent of the people suffered from some form of Schizophrenia due to stress and also peer pressure. I was commission to do the new drug which would do away the illusion. But in my works, I discovered something new. Something more than I should know. I could not do my test on mice but on real subjects as this only affect them and not mice. But who in their right mind would volunteer for such tests except the homeless or the desperate. I did on them and discover more of them in one person. But it can't be as there is no logic to it. Unless they are already multi personality inside. But how was my question. And till now I have no answers. Not even when the Foundation of Science Center offered to finance my project and offered me volunteers from the youths as their mind is fresh and free of pressures like an adult. But I find the same results. I was creating a solution to reversed the effect but it seems to be getting worse. I know I am killing the youths but its for a bigger hope of curing more inflicted with this disorder." She has stopped talking and we have not touched the food or the wine.

"Does that include shooting a youth in the head at outside the Uni?" She looked at me and shook her head.

"No, I did not do that. It could be the works of someone else., but not on my knowledge. I killed them as a result of bad testing but never intentional. I have told you everything I know. So tell me who are you and why are investigating me." I am surprised at her direct statement but I like that as I can get to the core of the subject.

"Professor, your motives are good but your way are not within the norms of the practice. Nevertheless, your last line of trying to reversed the effect tells me you are no cold blooded killer. But you did not realized that you have uncover a hidden mystery of this city that many of us are not aware yet. Do you have any instances that you could met someone and that person may be not be the same anymore? Or walked to a shop for the first time yet you knew you been there before?".

"I know what deja vu but I have come across that several times in my life. Its nothing new as its the working f our subconscious. Surely,m you can try better, Officer Butler."

"Deja vu has been discounted in science as unreliable conclusion but some believed in it. What if I would to say that you are not who you are in the physical self but someone else. I going to show you a photo." I hand her a photo I took of her as Schmidt 213 in this lab. She looked at it and then she saw the ID on my coat. She went over to her cupboard where she keeps the files. She drew out an envelope and produced the same photo but the picture is not of me but of Schmidt 214.

"Officer Butler, is this a joke? Mine here kept in the file showed me the real man. Yours is a bogus copy; a fake copy which the student did before on those program of theirs." But I held out my hand to her lips. I then recited the same words I said then to her. She looked at me and felt pale. I drew from my jacket the photo of 213 from the woods. She went to a moment of silence and she shook her head.

"You killed him. He told you those words we spoke." She is in tears and when I reached for her, she pushed me away. "Keep away. I think our dinner is over.."

But I want to show her something else. I took the note pad and wrote on it the new formulation which I completed as Professor Schmidt 213. I gave it to her and asked her if she remember the formula and the writing. She looked at it for a long time and started to cry. This time she allowed me to hold her. It took her an hour to settle down and both of were sitting on the floor of the lab.

"I suspected all along that there are some syndicate works behind all these disorders but I could not prove it. But what you just told me makes me wonder if we are truly who we are. I mean ....." She is confused and I need to reassured her.

"I am who I am inside. I was Professor Schmidt 213 but what I told you then was true as Professor Schmidt. He did love you and he could not bear to tell you as he was married to Rose. But he is leaving Rose now, so he told you the words that night. You took the photo with him as a remembrance. I am so sorry, Professor Kiln." I cradle the lady in my arms as she let out her emotions.

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