Road Less Travelled

A Mad Science Christmas

“I’ll drive Mum and Dad home,” Norina said. “If you’re okay with the washing-up, Anita?”

“You know it just goes in the dishwasher,” I said.

“There’s you rubbing our noses in your good luck again.” Norina grinned.

Her brother, Louie shrugged into his coat and collected the large, plush of his favourite anime. “See you ‘round, coz.”

Finally, they were all gone. I leaned on the door listening to the engine of Norina’s car start and hearing it fade as they drove away. Christmas dinner wasn’t as bad as I had expected and for that, I totally honour my cousin Norina. She insisted that we all meet at my Edinburgh house as there had been a certain amount of bad feeling over the last year.

I can’t say I forgave my Aunt and Uncle for pretending that my father had died 22 years ago, rather than three months ago, but their lies gave me a happier childhood than I might have had otherwise. Revelling in the silence, I headed to the kitchen and stacked the plates in the dishwasher.

Cuddie burst in carrying his lead, claws scrabbling on the tiled floor. He dropped it at my feet and wagged his tail. “They’ve gone, now can we go for a walk?” he said. “I shall sniff everywhere.”

A talking dog? And he’s not been on a talent show? That was part of the reason why my Aunt lied about her brother’s death. He wasn’t an ethical scientist. I might have shared his interest in genetics, but I would always follow the Ethics Committee's directives. His genetics experiments walked around the houses I had inherited from him. Now, one of them was demanding a walk.

I groaned. My stomach was too stuffed to do more than toddle and Cuddie liked to rush everywhere. He’s such a big dog that he has to be on his lead or he’ll scare people.

“Can’t it wait?”

“We’ve been good all day and not talked,” Cuddie said. “Just a little walk.” He twirled around excited at the prospect of getting out.

I stuffed the last glass into the top rack and set the dishwasher going. “Okay.”

Picking up his lead, I followed him to the front door. Betty slithered down the stairs. She’s a four-metre constrictor.

“How can that dog want to go out?” she said.

“Because he’s a dog,” Katya said, from where she had ensconced herself in the armchair in front of the fire. Katya is either a miniature panther with lynx genes or a lynx with a long tail.

And yes, all of the pets I inherited along with the houses can talk. Mucking about with the human genome and mixing it with animals is absolutely wrong, but they are people and I’m not going to have them put down. That would be murder. My father wasn’t the only bad apple in the science community. My animal friends have helped me hunt down the so-called Pure Scientists, but this was Christmas and I deserved a break. Season of goodwill and all that.

Cuddie reared up on his hind paws and lifted his harness off the coat rack with his sharp teeth. He’s taller than I am when he does that. Most of his genetics are wolf, but mixed with human makes him a dog. He bounded over to me. I knelt and strapped the harness around his chest. He only permits this because he wouldn’t be allowed in the park without the harness and lead. I grabbed my coat, hat, scarf, and gloves and headed out.

While we were on the pavement, Cuddie trotted at my side. Twilight brought colder air, though today had been mild, for Scotland, about 5°C. The wolf genes in Cuddie meant he thought being in the house with the fire lighted was too stuffy.

Plenty of people had decided to walk off Christmas dinner in the nearby park. And of course, everyone with a dog couldn’t decide not to walk them just because it was Christmas.

Cuddie trotted into the park, secure in his Top Dog status. Even the local Rottweilers play bowed to him. Over at the children’s recreation area, a couple of police officers talked to a distraught woman, but I had no intention of being a ghoul and going over to listen in. We headed the other way, into a patch of trees.

Cuddie lowered his head, sniffing at everything. He couldn’t talk while we were out, but his tail wagged nineteen to the dozen. The frozen ground did nothing to mask the scents of other dogs. Once we were in among the trees, I unhooked his lead, just for a little Christmas treat.

“If anyone is about to come back here, so that I can put you on the lead,” I said. “We don’t want to scare anyone.”

“I am cuddly,” Cuddie said. “Louie-Man said so.”

My cousin Louie liked anything with fur. Katya might disdain his ear tickles but Cuddie revelled in the attention. I might have guessed that Louie had taken himself upstairs to play with my animals at some point in the day.

I patted Cuddie and he raced off into the trees. Strolling along after him, I listened to birds chuckling in the trees as they settled down to roust, all the peaceful sounds of the woods in winter. My feet kicked up the fallen leaves bringing the earthy smell of leaf litter to my nose. Knowing that Cuddie would find me again, I strolled along not following his route. This was a path, I hadn’t yet taken so I wandered deeper among the trees.

An incongruous sound drifted through the cold afternoon. A muffled crying and a bit of thrashing about. Distracted, I left the path to see what the noise was about. You’ll tell me I should have known better, but you know, Christmas and I had drunk the odd glass of wine.

I emerged into a clearing. Lying on the ground was a child, no coat or hat, just a thin shirt. Next to the boy was a man in tattered clothes, one of the homeless people off the streets around here. Both of them were tied with rope. The boy struggled and kicked the ground again, trying to call around the gag in his mouth. The man lay there unresisting.

I started forward when I saw another man, dressed properly for the weather, setting up some scientific apparatus.

“What’s that?” I demanded.

The man looked up from his work, surprised. His nose and cheeks were rosy. “No one comes here.”

“Demonstrably untrue.” My gesture took in all three of them and myself. “So what are you doing?”

He straightened and stuffed his hands in his pocket. He had no gloves on as he worked with the wiring. In the fading light, I got the impression he was younger than I was.

“I’m out to measure the weight of a soul,” he said, enunciating his words clearly, but his eyes were struggling to focus on me.

“Huh?” Not the wittiest of answers, see above under wine.

“If there is a decrease in weight before and after death.” The man waved to indicate the child and homeless man. He staggered a bit as the sudden movement altered his balance. “Then it proves the existence of a soul. And with this pairing, I can see if an adult soul weighs more than a child soul.”

Oh God! I’d stumbled across another one of them. Pure Scientists, Mad Scientists, whatever you wanted to call them, they were bad news.

“I also intend to capture their last breath,” he continued, blinking at me.

Talking about breath, I’d bet if I moved closer he’d have a haze of whisky around him.

That wasn’t the end of his pontificating, however. He went on, “I believe that the soul leaves the body through the mouth. So, if I capture their last breath, I should capture their soul. It will make a good paper to publish in the Magazine.”

If you’re wondering what journal would be so morally deficit to publish this so-called science, that’s Pure Scientist Magazine. Where the morally challenged scientist can cast off the shackles of the Ethics Committee.

But measuring souls? This one was even more insane than the last two I had to deal with. At least my father had been dead before I learned of his leanings towards mad science. Now I had to rescue these victims. I’d better find Cuddie to help.

“Okay, sounds interesting,” I stepped back, my shoes crunching the fallen leaves. “But I’d better be going.”

The homeless man stared at me, his eyes pleading for help.

“Not so fast,” the scientist said, his eyes glowing with the joy of discovery or whisky or something. “I’ve decided that I need to know if a woman’s soul is heavier or lighter than a man’s soul. I expect a woman’s soul will be smaller.”

He whipped out a Taser. I stared at it. Would my thick coat stop the little needles from reaching my skin to deliver their electric charge?

I sniffed. “A woman’s soul is likely to be larger, after all a soul is about heart and caring.” Try to keep him talking, Anita, while you think your way out of this one.

“Nonsense,” he said. “A soul is the seat of the personality. And women are deficit there.”

I rolled my eyes. Sexism is rife in all areas of science including Mad Science. “And anyway, this experiment has already been done,” I said. “Have you read up on…?”

“Of course I have,” he snapped. “And when I have performed this experiment, I will have earned my Name.”

I could hear the capitals. But this was a trainee Mad Scientist, perhaps he hadn’t done anything really bad yet.

“So what’s it going to be?”

“I’ve chosen Dr Duncan, from that very experiment,” the man said. “I want to know if 21 grams is correct for everyone. Hence, the child, the man, and now a woman.”

He studied the weapon in his hand as if he hadn’t seen it before. Maybe he’d been at the Buckie, not the whisky. Then he aimed it vaguely in my direction. If he was a novice mad scientist, maybe he could be reached. Not one of my better plans, I’ll admit that now.

“Why are doing this? I mean it’s not as if you can get famous from your research.”

He stared at me.

“Face it, you can only publish this work in one obscure little magazine,” I continued. “What’s the point if the wider world doesn’t know about your greatness?”

“But my mentor… I’ve got to prove I’m worthy.”

He closed his eyes and his finger tightened on the trigger. I flung myself to the ground. So much for talking him around. “Cuddie!”

A black shadow burst out of the tree cover. It landed squarely on the Pure Scientist’s back. The Taser went flying. Cuddie’s momentum carried him over the scientist’s head. He spun as the putative Dr Duncan scrabbled in the dirt to reach for his weapon. Cuddie emitted one of his bowel-loosening growls. Duncan froze in terror.

“Hold him!” I shouted.

Cuddie pounced on the man’s back and sank his teeth into his arm. With a firm grip, he shook. The scientist screamed. I heard a crack of bone.

Releasing the arm, Cuddie howled. A wolf howl travels for miles over the winter landscape. Then, he barked. Loudly.

I scrabbled to my feet and raced across the ground to grab the Taser. I’m not sure I knew what to do with it, but I didn’t want the scientist to get his hands on it and attack Cuddie.

“Who are you?” Duncan asked.

I shrugged. “Consider us your Christmas ghosts, telling you to be nicer and give up your evil ways.”

From out on the path I heard voices.

“Over here!” I shouted, adding to Cuddie’s barks.

I had to hope we weren’t summoning Duncan’s colleagues, coming to check on him. I aimed the Taser towards the voices. Cuddie howled again. The two police officers from earlier burst into the clearing. I flung the Taser to one side.

“It’s the kid who went missing from the playground.” The woman officer ran to the boy, while the man rushed to restrain the mad scientist. Cuddie jumped off and bounded to my side nudging the pocket containing his lead.

“I’m sorry, my dog bit him.” I hooked the lead onto the harness. “He tried to attack me with that thing.” I kicked the Taser towards them.

“You should keep your dog under control at all times, ma’am.” The male officer rolled the scientist over and handcuffed him. “But if the dog was defending you...”

“My arm!” Duncan squealed. “That vicious animal broke it.”

The woman called in the find on her radio. “We’ve got the boy and a man. Yes, paramedics please.”

She crouched and rapidly untied the boy, wrapping him in an emergency foil blanket. The male police officer tossed a second foil across as she untied the man.

“Okay, I’ll get along now,” I said.

“Hold on,” the woman said. “I’ll need to take your details.”

I had no desire to mention who I was in front of a Mad Scientist. I wanted to keep Dr Anita Taylor’s name a secret. Cuddie sat patiently at my feet.

I needn’t have worried. Paramedics bustled up, along with a weeping mother, attracting all their attention. The boy and the homeless man were escorted away. More police arrived to remove the Mad Scientist. It wasn’t until about half an hour later that the policewoman got back to me. She took my name and address.

“Thank you for waiting so patiently in this cold,” she said. “You get along now and have a dram to settle. We’ll take your statement tomorrow.

I was glad to jog away with Cuddie dragging me. He wanted home as fast as possible. His tail wagged in pleasure as we entered the house.

“We found another one,” he said, dashing in to tell Katya and Betty all about it.

Ends

My Mad Science Novellas are available on Amazon.