Free robert Charrette - Arthur 02 - A King Beneath the Mountain by Robert N. Charrette Page A

fast, too fast.
    He waited. Time was his. Patience was his. The reward, when it came, would be his.
    The bright hummingbirds brought him to a place of cold and dark. Abandoned him, taking away their light and heat. A ploy to entrap him? No. They returned with a cold artificial light that he felt though he could not see it.
    His hunger returned as well. He felt its heat.
    He felt their heat. The light beckoned him.
    He wanted.
    He needed.
    One flickered close, lingering.
    Unaware.
    There was no sign to avoid on this one.
    He rejoiced.
    He took the light, sucking it down, feeding his hunger, warming his self.
    Light beat against lids long closed. He had sight again. He declined to use it. He had strength again, but so very little. He was still so very weak.
    The hummingbirds flitted about, still too quick.
    He could wait.
    Pamela Martinez was surprised that Nakaguchi invited her to attend the installation of his prize. Presumably he wanted to demonstrate his command of the Project. Pamela had considered finding something else to do, but Nakaguchi was going to be using the Nieumann Lab at the Brookfield Chemogenics Facility, a lab which, prior to Nakaguchi's usurpation, she had shepherded. She had personally approved the purchase orders for every item of equipment that had gone into the lab. She had seen to it that the Nieumann Lab was one of the best in the world, a cutting edge facility for biochemical and biomedical research. She wanted to know what Nakaguchi had done to it.
    And now, standing in the observation bay of Lab 1, she did. The dark and shriveled thing Nakaguchi had hauled back from the Andes looked totally out of place on the shining lab table. Its ugliness dominated the chamber. It looked as dead as any mummy she'd seen in a museum. Deader, possibly. Or maybe it was just the contrast with so much shining machinery dedicated to life.
    A bevy of technicians in green medical scrubs complete with masks were scattered around the periphery of the lab, setting up monitors, manning workstations, and adjusting machines. Some stood in clumps, discussing things in voices that carried over the interphone as no more than a buzz. One figure separated itself from a clump and walked toward the observation window. The man bowed toward the observation bay. Pamela noted the caduceus symbol on his greens and read the name tag: Hasukawa.
    "I am ready to begin the preliminary examination, Nak-aguchi-sama," Hasukawa said.
    "Proceed, Hasukawa-san."
    "Is that Matsuo Hasukawa?" Pamela asked.
    Without taking his eyes away from the scene in the lab, Nakaguchi replied, "None other."
    Hasukawa was a world-renowned geriatrics specialist. What expertise did he bring to the examination of a centuries-old corpse? Why was he here at all? "Just what are you trying to prove here, Nakaguchi? Your 'sleeper' hasn't shown any sign of being more than a well-preserved mummy."
    "You're mistaken, Ms. Martinez."
    "Unfortunately," Hagen said.
    Hasukawa moved to the table and began his examination. Whatever the doctor was doing, it wasn't particularly visible from the observation bay. She turned her attention to the others in the lab, trying to make sense out of the collection of machines and the contents of the displays. One of the untended monitors blipped to life, a green squiggle tracing a sluggish path across the screen.
    Someone in the lab shouted.
    Hasukawa was staggering away from the examination table, clutching at his chest. He fell to the floor. Technicians abandoned their stations and rushed to the fallen doctor.
    "It looks like a heart attack," said someone. "He's fading
    fast."
    Nakaguchi leaned over the mike for the interphone. "Get him to the hospital."
    One of the green-coated men around the fallen Hasukawa looked up at the window. He had a caduceus on his greens. "I don't think there's time. Best we work on him here. We have everything we need."
    "Respiratory arrest," one of the others said.
    The doctor started to turn back, but Nakaguchi's