fiction - brigits_flame - "There it goes."
This is my entry for the writing activity on the brigits_flame community. The prompt for this week was a little different. This time, we were asked to start our piece with the sentence "There it goes."
"There it goes," Klaus said as he watched the gauge's level quickly rise. He realized immediately that it was not the sort of thing that he was supposed to be saying at a time like this. He glanced at his malformed, hunchbacked assistant, and sure enough Uzik was shaking his head in disappointment. "I mean…uh…" He floundered for a moment before he hit upon inspiration. "Behold, Uzik! Success is at hand!"
Uzik gave him a weak smile and a thumb's up. Klaus tried to smile back, but his heart wasn't in it. Months of failures had crushed his spirit. Was tonight going to be any different? As if it had read his mind, the level in the gauge suddenly dropped. In quick succession the lights in the room dimmed, the crackle of lightning disappeared, and the throbbing hum of machinery faded and died.
Klaus collapsed into the chair in front of his desk. "That will be all for tonight, Uzik."
"Klau - er, Master. It's not even eight o'clock, Master," Uzik said.
"I know, I know. I just…," he trailed off. He realized that he was being selfish. This wasn't easy for Uzik either, after all. Klaus tried to summon some enthusiasm for Uzik's benefit, at least. "I said that will be all! Begone from my sight, you mangy cur!" Klaus even threw a book at him. Uzik cowered and scraped away, begging forgiveness, trying to conceal a grin. Klaus managed a small smile himself. He'd manage to make Uzik feel a little better, and that was something, at least.
Klaus wondered how much longer he should keep this up before he finally admitted that he just didn't have the knack for Mad Science.
The problem was that there was a lot more to Mad Science than a lot of people suspected. First, of course, there were the blasphemous perversions of science. They didn't just pervert themselves. It wasn't all Tesla coils and laughing maniacally. It was hard work.
However, there was also the matter of the aforementioned maniacal laughter. It was just part of a style and a presence that you had to keep up every second, or people wouldn't take you seriously. No matter how much he tried, Klaus couldn't train himself to act that way automatically. Klaus always found himself saying things like "A few more volts, please, Uzik," when he should have been screaming "Full power, Uzik! They'll rue the day they laughed at me!"
It didn't help that everyone had such high expectations. The pressure was overwhelming. He was, after all, the son of the legendary Dr. Valerion Heinrich Überverrückt. He gazed across the desk at a daguerreotype of his parents. It was a lovely picture in which Valerion looked proud and regal as always, and his mother, Experiment 37-B, looked particularly beautiful. Technically, his biological mother had been Experiment 37-A, but 37-B had raised him as if he were her own son, and she was the only mother he had ever known.
Klaus knew that he was letting them both down. When he had reached adulthood they had set him up in this wonderful old castle on a hill above a quaint little village. His parents had conducted exhaustive interviews with dozens of applicants before hiring Uzik as his assistant. But what did he have to offer any of them in return? A month ago there had been a full moon during the worst thunderstorm in a decade, and the townsfolk had formed a mob in eager anticipation, breaking out their finest pitchforks and smokiest torches. It had all been for naught, though. The next day a concerned mob had appeared at the castle gate with a basket of fruit, warm bread, and a fresh pie, wondering if he was alright. He was an embarrassment to the family name.
And what a name! Everyone knew the famous Dr. Überverrückt. Valerion had made the cover of every newspaper in the country, under praising but hokey headlines like "The Man Who Reanimated Mad Science." It was a pity that his talent for the art didn't appear to be hereditary.
Klaus had, for a time, dabbled in other areas of the forbidden, hoping that he'd have some other talent that would make his father proud. He had spent weeks studying a copy of the Necronomicon, and then one dark night he had covered the floor of the dining room with blasphemous symbols that seemed to writhe unwholesomely in the flickering light cast by torches made from the bones of the dead. Shining Trapezhedron in hand, he had spoken words that would drive ordinary men mad. In the end, though, all he had to show for his efforts was a piece of human skin covered with scar tissue that spelled out the words:
"Dear Mortal Fleshling,
Thank you for your interest in Yog-Sothoth, the Gate and the Key, Who Watches From Outside the Doors of Time. We regret that we do not have a position for you in our organization at this time. We shall keep your résumé on file for consideration in the future."
The muffled bark of a dog woke Klaus from his reverie. He turned in his chair to see his dog, Patches, come bounding into the room. Patches tried to bark again, but he had something in his mouth, and so it sounded more like someone sneezing into a wet towel. Patches gleefully ran forward and ended up about three feet to Klaus's left, at which point he paused, sniffed around in confusion, and then loped over to Klaus. Klaus sighed. Patches could possibly be called his one success, if one were using an extremely charitable meaning of "success." One thing that he had learned from working on Patches was the wisdom of the adage "measure twice, cut once." Most dogs liked to run in circles, but owing to the fact that the legs on Patches' left side were shorter than those on his right, Patches had an unfortunate tendency to run in circles even when trying to run in a straight line.
"Hey, boy. What's that you've got there?" Klaus said, reaching out to take whatever it was Patches had in his mouth. Patches dropped it into his hand, and Klaus froze. It was a stick of dynamite.
"Ah…good boy," Klaus said, and carefully placed the dynamite on his desk. "Where did you find that, boy?" Patches barked cheerfully, ran in a tight circle, and then bounded back out of the room. Klaus gave the dynamite on his desk one last look and then followed after the dog.
Patches led him deep under the castle into the most sub of all the basements. There, by the light of a hastily-procured and extremely low-burning lantern, Klaus found an astonishing amount of dynamite planted against support beams and into cracks in the foundation. It was obviously not being stored here, but had been prepared for detonation.
"Uzik!" Klaus shouted. Uzik materialized in the doorway mere seconds later. He had impeccable assistant credentials, after all.
"Yes, master?" Uzik said, radiating innocence so brightly it was obvious that he was guilty of something.
"Would you care to explain this?" Klaus said, gesturing towards the dynamite with the lantern before realizing what he was doing. He hastily jerked the lantern back away from the dynamite and then tried to regain his expression of stern outrage.
"Ah. Yes. The dynamite," Uzik said, his eyes dropping to the floor in embarrassment. "I…well, if you must know, I planned to blow up the castle."
"Uzik, I may not be much of a Mad Scientist, but I am not actually a moron. Any idiot can see that you were planning to blow up the castle," Klaus said. "What I would like is for you to explain why you were planning to blow up the castle."
Uzik shuffled his feet for a moment and continued to avert his eyes. "I just thought that maybe, you know…if the castle blew up, people would think you'd finally made a real breakthrough. I thought it might take some of the pressure off for a while. I know you worry about what people think."
Klaus stared at him. He considered this explanation very carefully.
"Uzik," he said after a long pause, "That was really very thoughtful of you. But I don't think I'm comfortable with the idea of deceiving everyone like that." Klaus was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the dynamite. "I think that, for me to have a clear conscience, it should really be me who blows up the castle, and not, I'm afraid, with dynamite."
Klaus looked into Patches' adoring eyes, and then at his loyal assistant, who was willing to destroy the entire castle just to make him feel better. "All right, let's give this one more go," he said. "Uzik!" he suddenly shouted, "You lazy oaf! Get upstairs and ready the equipment! Full power on everything!"
"Every -" Uzik started to say.
"EVERYTHING! Tonight we bend the laws of nature until they break! Tonight we tear power from the hands of the gods! I'll show them! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!"
For the first time, the maniacal laughter didn't feel forced at all.
-------
Addendum: At first, I was tempted to just put a picture of the rejection letter from Yog-Sothoth into the body of the story instead of just a text transcription. However, I figured that might cause problems if something went wrong with the image or someone's browser, so I decided to leave it as plain text. Here's the mockup that I made of the letter, though, if you're interested: http://hwango.deviantart.com/art/Rejection-Letter-100299800
"There it goes," Klaus said as he watched the gauge's level quickly rise. He realized immediately that it was not the sort of thing that he was supposed to be saying at a time like this. He glanced at his malformed, hunchbacked assistant, and sure enough Uzik was shaking his head in disappointment. "I mean…uh…" He floundered for a moment before he hit upon inspiration. "Behold, Uzik! Success is at hand!"
Uzik gave him a weak smile and a thumb's up. Klaus tried to smile back, but his heart wasn't in it. Months of failures had crushed his spirit. Was tonight going to be any different? As if it had read his mind, the level in the gauge suddenly dropped. In quick succession the lights in the room dimmed, the crackle of lightning disappeared, and the throbbing hum of machinery faded and died.
Klaus collapsed into the chair in front of his desk. "That will be all for tonight, Uzik."
"Klau - er, Master. It's not even eight o'clock, Master," Uzik said.
"I know, I know. I just…," he trailed off. He realized that he was being selfish. This wasn't easy for Uzik either, after all. Klaus tried to summon some enthusiasm for Uzik's benefit, at least. "I said that will be all! Begone from my sight, you mangy cur!" Klaus even threw a book at him. Uzik cowered and scraped away, begging forgiveness, trying to conceal a grin. Klaus managed a small smile himself. He'd manage to make Uzik feel a little better, and that was something, at least.
Klaus wondered how much longer he should keep this up before he finally admitted that he just didn't have the knack for Mad Science.
The problem was that there was a lot more to Mad Science than a lot of people suspected. First, of course, there were the blasphemous perversions of science. They didn't just pervert themselves. It wasn't all Tesla coils and laughing maniacally. It was hard work.
However, there was also the matter of the aforementioned maniacal laughter. It was just part of a style and a presence that you had to keep up every second, or people wouldn't take you seriously. No matter how much he tried, Klaus couldn't train himself to act that way automatically. Klaus always found himself saying things like "A few more volts, please, Uzik," when he should have been screaming "Full power, Uzik! They'll rue the day they laughed at me!"
It didn't help that everyone had such high expectations. The pressure was overwhelming. He was, after all, the son of the legendary Dr. Valerion Heinrich Überverrückt. He gazed across the desk at a daguerreotype of his parents. It was a lovely picture in which Valerion looked proud and regal as always, and his mother, Experiment 37-B, looked particularly beautiful. Technically, his biological mother had been Experiment 37-A, but 37-B had raised him as if he were her own son, and she was the only mother he had ever known.
Klaus knew that he was letting them both down. When he had reached adulthood they had set him up in this wonderful old castle on a hill above a quaint little village. His parents had conducted exhaustive interviews with dozens of applicants before hiring Uzik as his assistant. But what did he have to offer any of them in return? A month ago there had been a full moon during the worst thunderstorm in a decade, and the townsfolk had formed a mob in eager anticipation, breaking out their finest pitchforks and smokiest torches. It had all been for naught, though. The next day a concerned mob had appeared at the castle gate with a basket of fruit, warm bread, and a fresh pie, wondering if he was alright. He was an embarrassment to the family name.
And what a name! Everyone knew the famous Dr. Überverrückt. Valerion had made the cover of every newspaper in the country, under praising but hokey headlines like "The Man Who Reanimated Mad Science." It was a pity that his talent for the art didn't appear to be hereditary.
Klaus had, for a time, dabbled in other areas of the forbidden, hoping that he'd have some other talent that would make his father proud. He had spent weeks studying a copy of the Necronomicon, and then one dark night he had covered the floor of the dining room with blasphemous symbols that seemed to writhe unwholesomely in the flickering light cast by torches made from the bones of the dead. Shining Trapezhedron in hand, he had spoken words that would drive ordinary men mad. In the end, though, all he had to show for his efforts was a piece of human skin covered with scar tissue that spelled out the words:
"Dear Mortal Fleshling,
Thank you for your interest in Yog-Sothoth, the Gate and the Key, Who Watches From Outside the Doors of Time. We regret that we do not have a position for you in our organization at this time. We shall keep your résumé on file for consideration in the future."
The muffled bark of a dog woke Klaus from his reverie. He turned in his chair to see his dog, Patches, come bounding into the room. Patches tried to bark again, but he had something in his mouth, and so it sounded more like someone sneezing into a wet towel. Patches gleefully ran forward and ended up about three feet to Klaus's left, at which point he paused, sniffed around in confusion, and then loped over to Klaus. Klaus sighed. Patches could possibly be called his one success, if one were using an extremely charitable meaning of "success." One thing that he had learned from working on Patches was the wisdom of the adage "measure twice, cut once." Most dogs liked to run in circles, but owing to the fact that the legs on Patches' left side were shorter than those on his right, Patches had an unfortunate tendency to run in circles even when trying to run in a straight line.
"Hey, boy. What's that you've got there?" Klaus said, reaching out to take whatever it was Patches had in his mouth. Patches dropped it into his hand, and Klaus froze. It was a stick of dynamite.
"Ah…good boy," Klaus said, and carefully placed the dynamite on his desk. "Where did you find that, boy?" Patches barked cheerfully, ran in a tight circle, and then bounded back out of the room. Klaus gave the dynamite on his desk one last look and then followed after the dog.
Patches led him deep under the castle into the most sub of all the basements. There, by the light of a hastily-procured and extremely low-burning lantern, Klaus found an astonishing amount of dynamite planted against support beams and into cracks in the foundation. It was obviously not being stored here, but had been prepared for detonation.
"Uzik!" Klaus shouted. Uzik materialized in the doorway mere seconds later. He had impeccable assistant credentials, after all.
"Yes, master?" Uzik said, radiating innocence so brightly it was obvious that he was guilty of something.
"Would you care to explain this?" Klaus said, gesturing towards the dynamite with the lantern before realizing what he was doing. He hastily jerked the lantern back away from the dynamite and then tried to regain his expression of stern outrage.
"Ah. Yes. The dynamite," Uzik said, his eyes dropping to the floor in embarrassment. "I…well, if you must know, I planned to blow up the castle."
"Uzik, I may not be much of a Mad Scientist, but I am not actually a moron. Any idiot can see that you were planning to blow up the castle," Klaus said. "What I would like is for you to explain why you were planning to blow up the castle."
Uzik shuffled his feet for a moment and continued to avert his eyes. "I just thought that maybe, you know…if the castle blew up, people would think you'd finally made a real breakthrough. I thought it might take some of the pressure off for a while. I know you worry about what people think."
Klaus stared at him. He considered this explanation very carefully.
"Uzik," he said after a long pause, "That was really very thoughtful of you. But I don't think I'm comfortable with the idea of deceiving everyone like that." Klaus was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the dynamite. "I think that, for me to have a clear conscience, it should really be me who blows up the castle, and not, I'm afraid, with dynamite."
Klaus looked into Patches' adoring eyes, and then at his loyal assistant, who was willing to destroy the entire castle just to make him feel better. "All right, let's give this one more go," he said. "Uzik!" he suddenly shouted, "You lazy oaf! Get upstairs and ready the equipment! Full power on everything!"
"Every -" Uzik started to say.
"EVERYTHING! Tonight we bend the laws of nature until they break! Tonight we tear power from the hands of the gods! I'll show them! I'LL SHOW THEM ALL!"
For the first time, the maniacal laughter didn't feel forced at all.
-------
Addendum: At first, I was tempted to just put a picture of the rejection letter from Yog-Sothoth into the body of the story instead of just a text transcription. However, I figured that might cause problems if something went wrong with the image or someone's browser, so I decided to leave it as plain text. Here's the mockup that I made of the letter, though, if you're interested: http://hwango.deviantart.com/art/Rejection-Letter-100299800