Prodigal Son

fingers was a plug that it had pulled from a socket.
        Although disappointed by this setback, Victor was amazed that Karloff had been able to shut himself down.
        For one thing, the creature had been programmed to be incapable of self-destruction. On that issue there had been no wiggle room in the directives by which it had been governed.
        More important, the hand could not have functioned separate from its own life-support system. The moment it had broken free of its feed and drain lines, it had lost the low-voltage current needed to fire its nerves and operate its musculature. At that point, it should have at once fallen still, limp, dead-and should have begun to decompose.
        Only one explanation occurred to Victor. Apparently, Karloff's telekinetic power had been strong enough to animate the hand as if it were alive.
        When controlling the hand at a distance, Karloff had shown the ability only to flex a thumb and to imitate an arpeggio by strumming an imaginary harp with those four fingers. Small, simple tasks.
        To make the hand tear loose of its connections, to cause it to drop to the floor and then to climb three feet up the face of these machines to throw the life-support switches, to cause it to pull the plug, as well… That required far greater telekinetic power and more precise control than he had previously exhibited.
        An incredible breakthrough.
        Although Karloff was gone, another Karloff could be engineered. The setback would be temporary.
        Excited, Victor sat at his desk and accessed the experiment file on his computer. He clicked the camera icon and called up the twenty-four-hour video record of events in the studio.
        Scanning backward from the present, he was surprised when Erika suddenly appeared.

CHAPTER 83
        
        AS WHEN SHE had been to the Luxe the previous evening, Carson found one of the front doors unlocked. This time, no one waited in the lobby.
        A set of double doors stood open between the lobby and the theater.
        Surveying the refreshment stand as they passed it, Michael said, "When you buy popcorn here, I wonder if you can ask for it without the cockroaches."
        The theater itself proved to be large, with both a balcony and a mezzanine. Age, grime, and chipped plaster diminished the Art Deco glamour but did not defeat it altogether.
        A fat man in white slacks, white shirt, and white Panama hat stood in front of the tattered red-velvet drapes that covered the giant screen. He looked like Sidney Greenstreet just stepped out of Casablanca.
        The Greenstreet type gazed toward the ceiling, transfixed by something not immediately evident to Carson.
        Deucalion stood halfway down the center aisle, facing the screen. Head tipped back, he slowly scanned the ornate architecture overhead.
        The strangeness of the moment was shattered with the silence when a sudden flapping of wings revealed a trapped bird swooping through the vaults above, from one roost in the cornice to another.
        As Carson and Michael approached Deucalion, she heard him say, "Come to me, little one. No fear."
        The bird flew again, swooped wildly, swooped… and alighted on Deucalion's extended arm. Seen close and still, it proved to be a dove.
        With a laugh of delight, the fat man came forward from the screen. "I'll be damned. We ever get a lion in here, you're my man."
        Gently stroking the bird, Deucalion turned as Carson and Michael approached him.
        Carson said, "I thought only St. Francis and Dr. Doolittle talked to animals."
        "Just a little trick."
        "You seem to be full of tricks, little and big," she said.
        The fat man proved to have a sweet voice. "The poor thing's been trapped here a couple days, living off stale popcorn. Couldn't get it to go for the exit doors when I opened them."
        Deucalion cupped the bird in one immense hand, and it appeared to be without fear, almost in a trance.
        With both pudgy hands, the man in white accepted the dove from Deucalion and moved away, toward the front of the theater. "I'll set it free."
        "This is my partner, Detective Maddison," Carson told Deucalion. "Michael Maddison."
        They nodded to each other, and Michael-pretending not to be impressed by the size and appearance of Deucalion-said, "I've gotta be straight with you. I'll be the first to admit we're in