Chapter 169: Gardening* lessons with Gramma

Chapter 169: Gardening* lessons with Gramma

***David Manchin***

“How the hell did you get in here!? Bill said you backed off!“

“Bill was lying. Open the cabinet under the sink.”

He did so, allowing a single beam of light to spill into the cabinet, revealing Bill Grove stuffed violently into the space, displacing the harsh cleaning agents soaking into his skin. Bill’s breathing was shallow and labored, the skin of his lips and wrists stuck together with some kind of clear adhesive.

“If you do anything, your baby is dead!” David spat, recovering his calm as he closed the cabinet and held the expensive Jalosh cutlery in front of himself with a shaking hand.

“Yeah...I don’t care,” Paradox said, slowly standing up and tapping his skull. “I turned that off. I’m sure I’ll care a lot later, but for right now...It’s just you and me.”

David’s heart froze in his chest as the void-black armor stalked towards him.

“You know, my eighth great grandfather ate his enemies. I always thought it was a weird thing to do, but after really thinking about it tonight, I realized there’s a certain amount of satisfaction in dehumanizing your enemies to the point that they become a literal side-dish. As far as power moves go, it’s pretty effective. If I recall correctly, no one ever crossed him again.”

Paradox stopped right in front of the frozen David, pinching the meat of his cheek. “And androids can’t give people prion disease.”

His heart slammed in his chest, lungs burned from hyperventilating, and his knees shook with unused energy. David hadn’t had this much adrenaline flooding his body since he was a teen.

It made him think he could still move like one.

David ducked away from the upraised arm and weaved around Paradox, scrambling to leap around the table and make a break for the door.

David’s wrist didn’t have the strength he expected and he didn’t bounce up as fast as he was expecting, slamming his shoulder painfully into the huge ivory dinner table made from a megafauna.

“Gah!”

“What are you running for? I never said I was going to eat you.” Paradox said, turning to regard David from the kitchen as he struggled to his feet, having made it less than ten feet away in his escape.

“What?” David asked, frowning.

Click.Scrape.

The distinctive sound of a silver fork on a china plate made David’s hair stand on end. It was coming from the staircase to the second floor. Where his family’s bedrooms were.

Click. Scrape.

Despite the sound, David clouldn’t look away from Paradox as the monster slowly approached him.

“Mm,” A young man’s voice groaned, close enough behind him that David thought he might be whispering in his ear, causing him to jump in place, rattling the crystal salt and pepper shakers on the dining table.

Click. Scrape.

David finally turned away from the approaching armor and saw the puppetmaster, standing in the archway that led to the stairs, his body partially cloaked in shadow.

In his hand was a plate of...something. It was too dark to see, but David smelled blood.

“What did you do!?” David demanded. “Where’s my family!? What is that!?”

“This?” Paradox asked, holding up a forkful of...something. It was still too damn dark.

“I swear to god, if you’ve hurt my family-“The inaugural upload of this chapter took place via N0v3l-B1n.

“I think we both know you don’t care enough about your family to risk your life. Let’s stick to threats I know you’ll back up with action. And this?”

Paradox regarded the shadowy forkful of food.

“This is your son...’s birthday cake.”

A tidal wave of relief struck David’s body at once, weakening his limbs.

“If you leave now-“

“I’m not that gross.” Paradox interrupted. “They’re just dead.”

“You!” David tried to leap at Paradox, but the void black armor grabbed his shoulder in an iron grip, turned him around and slammed his back down onto the dining table.

The arms of the suit grabbed his wrists, then detached from the main body, the individual arms swinging around underneath the table and reattaching to each other, effectively acting as restraints, holding him tight to the table.

Paradox froze for a moment, seemingly thinking to himself, his gaze flickering back and forth like he was reading.

“One moment. Don’t go anywhere.”

The insane Tinker patted him on the cheek then disappeared into David’s house, followed by some scraping and clattering.

A moment later Paradox re-emerged with one of David’s flat screen TVs, sticking it to the ceiling above the dining table somehow before turning it on, shining it’s light straight down into his eyes.

The telltale insignia of Washington News Media came up on the bottom of the feed, but what it was reporting was not state sanctioned. The sight sent a chill across David’s skin.

“What we’re seeing here is a breach of trust at the highest level,” The talking head said, standing in front of the dregs of combat between the androids and government forces.

“These civilians are being relocated by heavily armed government forces, a complete abuse of power...”

The camera focused on a little girl in torn pants and a T-shirt, leading a last-ditch charge against the people trying to force women and children onto a bus. It wasn’t a good look for the state.

The talking head then gushed about how heroic she was...how noble her sacrifice as her last ditch effort was easily dismantled by the Washington military....then the heroic charge was replayed over and over again, ad infinitum, along with her name...on PUBLIC TELEVISION!

Who the hell is at the helm down there!? David demanded internally. This is a goddamn nightmare.

“Would you look at that...She’ll do.” Paradox said, leaning on his palm to watch the TV with David. “Lucky me, am I right?”

“Her!? What Experience!?” David demanded, blood bubbling from his swollen lips at the outrage.

“More than you know,” Paradox said, his voice ice cold for a moment before going back to the casual tone. “Now, the next step in our coup/graft metaphor.”

“The last thing you do is trim off a few of the rotten older roots, so more nutrients flow up to the new graft. To do this, you have the remaining old roots demonstrate their loyalty to the new graft by executing the rotten ones publicly...It’s an imperfect metaphor.”

Paradox hefted the fork he’d been teasing David with, and David saw his grip tightening, preparing to strike.

“Who knew gardening with my grandma when I was five would be so informative, Amiright?”

David’s breath came fast and hard. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from Paradox as the Tinker prepared to gouge out his eyes.

“...Hold on a sec.” Paradox said with a frown, setting aside the fork and fishing a phone out of his pocket.

The psychotic Tinker winked at him as he dialed a number, holding the phone to his ear.

David could make out the dial tone, followed by what sounded like the lilting voice of a high-class old woman answering the phone.

“What the hell, Gramma? Did you set me up?”

The sound of laughter echoed from the phone.

“No, that’s not funny, I almost stabbed a guy’s eyes out with a fork.” Paradox said,

There was a quiet sentence that David couldn’t make out, but Paradox glanced over his shoulder at David with an expression that nearly stopped his heart.

“Oh?”

More indistinct words.

“Well, I was monologuing prior to cutting his eyes out, and I mentioned you, which got me thinking about it, and I realized there was no freaking way you wouldn’t have stopped your great grandchild from being kidnapped, or failing that, contacted me.”

“Yeah,” Paradox said, pacing.

Indistinct whispers.

“A coup, obviously. I’m not a monster. No, not me, someone I know who fits the bill better. Yeah, they’re amenable, I’m pretty sure. Yeah. Twelve. Sure, I’ll give her your phone number...but I don’t think you’re going to have as easy a time manipulating her as you think. I’m still gonna get you back for this, by the way. Love you too, Gramma. Buh-bye.”

Paradox put the phone away, and heaved a long sigh of relief before glancing back at David, his expression going murderously neutral.

“So, good news and bad news,” Paradox said, pulling out a chair and sitting above David’s restrained form.

“Good news: Your guy who was supposed to kidnap our baby-momma was caught before he got within a couple blocks of her, and my gramma used it as an opportunity to play a practical joke on me.”

“Because of that, I’m not going to kill your family,” Paradox said, clasping his hands together. “They’re at your wife’s parent’s.”

David heaved a sigh of relief.

“The bad news:” Paradox picked up the fork. “You targeted my baby, so we’re not done here.”