The Perfect Human: An Abelard Chronicles Book Read online

THE PERFECT HUMAN

  BY

  Manuel Werner

  ©2016 Manuel Werner. All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

  More by the Author

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  Chapter XVI

  Chapter XVII

  Chapter XVIII

  Chapter XIX

  Chapter XX

  Chapter XXI

  Chapter XXII

  Chapter XXIII

  More by the Author

  The Mercenary’s Mercenary

  For more information and blogs go to:

  theabelardchronicles.com

  Chapter I

  Feeling good

  Abelard could only smile. It had been altogether too long now since he had had the opportunity to physically really hurt someone. There were some incidents since waking up, but too few compared with the fondly remembered regularity of violent transactions prior to the incident. As much as he liked to think he had adapted well to modern civil society, which encouraged bloodless conflict resolution, he did have intense urges to settle disputes in a more traditional fashion.

  His cheerful contemplations on his great good fortune had been abruptly interrupted by a burly man who bumped him rather harder than he would have expected from an accidental brush with a passing stranger. On first impressions, Abelard may have attributed the heavy coat to an obsessively careful personality, worried about last minute, end of winter diseases. But his suspicions were aroused by the woollen balaclava, revealing only the eyes and thick moist lips through three crudely cut holes; utterly out of place, even for those who most terribly felt the cold.

  Conveniently, or so it seemed to Mr. Balaclava, they were where a dark alley gave onto the street. Abelard was quickly shoved into the dim lane way and pressed against a wall. The assailant’s face was close to Abelard’s, exhaling the putrefying remains of his last meal. “I’ve a butcher knife under my coat,” he sneered, probably more to frighten Abelard that he might be filleted alive than to explain that there was a good reason other than insanity or cold for him to be so overdressed “and my buddies are also about, so don’t yell or try anything stupid.”

  Abelard’s brain went, in a blinding moment, from sober contemplation to basic instinct. In Abelard’s more familiar world there could not be any ending to a confrontation other than death. In these contests hesitation was almost always fatal. And that is how the moment’s events had coalesced in his hidden mind.

  The unwavering stare from Abelard’s transparent grey eyes motivated the mugger to reach inside his coat but, all his determination and frequent participation in such ventures notwithstanding, he was hopelessly outmatched against Abelard’s recalled experience in these matters. His hand was still fumbling inside his coat as Abelard was bashing his head against the brick wall, stopping regularly to smash a large fist into the hidden face. As the unlucky thug slipped slowly to the ground, leaving a bloody smear on the grimy brick, behind his descending head, Abelard picked up a handily discarded lead pipe and began to systematically break his bones, starting with the easily accessible knees. In such circumstances, he remembered, it was necessary as a dissuasive measure to inflict the severest pain before finally putting such criminals to their ultimately deserved deaths – a thought that Abelard knew to be laden with hypocrisy.

  Ordinarily an undesirable presence for him, to the dying assailant’s good fortune a prowl car was just turning into the alley and caught Abelard’s exertions in its headlights. Another moment and he would have lost his life. Like a feral creature caught in the harsh electric glare, still on the upswing, ready for the final sweep to crush the miscreant’s skull, Abelard froze.

  Had it not been for the insistent contralto voice, piercing the darkness, pleading for attention, Abelard may have come to blows with the two constables who, in the momentary confusion, quite reasonably mistook Abelard for the assailant. They already had their weapons in hand and were approaching what appeared to be a particularly gruesome case of assault and battery. Abelard’s mind was still roaming in a place where neither quarter nor mercy were rarely given and it would never have occurred to him to relinquish the lead pipe, the only weapon he held.

  Had the German accented contralto not calmed sufficiently to identify mugger and mugged, things may have finished very badly for Abelard. She must nevertheless have had a momentary doubt as to whether she had gotten it right as she looked more closely at the prone figure, bloody and misshapen. His head was bleeding, the balaclava had not withstood Abelard’s punishing blows and was no more than shredded wool, revealing a red pulpy hash, making it difficult to recognize as a human face. The right knee showed as splintered bone and the left arm was bent in an unnatural position at the elbow.

  The condition of Abelard’s attacker also left the two constables with some doubt as to the sanity of the presumed victim. They were taking no chances. Although they had put away their weapons they remained mainly vigilant. Abelard by this time no longer felt any imminent threat from the police and had already reset his mind. He allowed himself to be frisked and then bundled into their cruiser for the ride to the station. While they waited for an ambulance and backup to arrive they questioned the contralto voice.

  On a visit from Germany, a solid woman, who was clearly able to fend for herself, attending an international conference, assured them of what she had seen. She would be in Montreal for the remainder of the week and, yes, would be available if they had any further information needs. She had originally understood Montreal to be a walking city, free from the urban dangers plaguing most others of similar size. Being a scientist, though, she also intimately understood the laws of chance and knew such an improbable event possible anywhere anytime. However, from the grandmotherly lore with which she had grown up, the ‘lightening can strike twice’ stories still held much weight. She opted for a taxi back to her hotel.

  At the station the police were not yet quite prepared to relax around Abelard. He had, after all, been breathtakingly bloody minded in beating back his attacker. The hospital had him in surgery and they weren’t fully confident that he would live. To boot, they were more than a little unsettled by his manifest indifference.

  They couldn’t place his accent when he spoke French and, as to his tainted English, they stabbed at some remote East European country as its source. He was a strongly built man, probably a little over six feet and, if he was insane, where their suspicions were tending, then they had better be quite careful. He was surrounded by several of the bigger men in the room as he sat waiting for Felicity to show up.

  They didn’t seem to believe this apparently able fighter when he said, “I would have just given him my wallet had I been thinking straight.” And his credibility was again the main issue when he added, with an unnatural calm, “I can’t remember very much of what happened, my mind just went blank and I’m dreadfully sorry if I went too far.”

  They had just scrummed and concluded that it would be best to keep this madman in a holding cell until someone more senior made a decision, when in ran Felicity. He had called her upon his arrival at the station. Abelard looked at her and felt overcome with affection. She was more, much
more than her apparent beauty.

  At present, he was hopeful that she was in transition. She needed still to discard all the rubbish about noble savages and good people corrupted by bad societies. Humans were not like that. He didn’t need to read Hobbes or have anything to learn from the mushrooming crowd of neuroscientists. She would also eventually have to stop fighting the same people he was striving to become. Until she did, though, he would have to play her game. He was fairly certain he loved her and also owed her a great deal. Without her he would not have survived more than a few hours after waking up. There was an unsettling thought which intruded now and then to rattle his composure; that perhaps he loved her as she was – someone striving for an absolute good. This annoyed him to no end. He was, if nothing else, realistic and her ideas were not.

  “Hey! Halloo in there,” supplemented by a hand on his shoulder, as the detective tried to get his attention, “Mr. Bush, are you still with us,” thinking he may have slipped into another murderous minded delusion, like the one about the savage beating he had administered having been out of character. “I can’t keep you here, since you were technically the victim, but if it was up to me I would hold you for psychiatric assessment,” said the one who identified himself as lieutenant Sanschagrin. “However, since you did severely injure someone, I must ask you to be available for further questioning.”

  Abelard ignored the lieutenant and turned all his attention to Felicity and the lawyer she had in tow. He detected some mild annoyance in her unsmiling demeanour. She didn’t have the omni forgiving, unconditional motherly love expression reserved for favourite sons – hazy eyes, adoring stare, as though anything he did was only to be expected. But neither did she crease her brows, nor clench her fists, displays so rare for her that he would have been quite alarmed had she done so. She would eventually understand but, for a little while, she wanted him to know that she was annoyed.

  They had spoken at length about his swift and, for her, all too frequent recourse to lethal force. He had most solemnly undertaken to forsake violence for common disputes and to control his excesses for others. True, the man clinging to life was a scoundrel, but she is sure Abelard could have mastered the situation without having to practically dismember him.

  Finally, free to leave Abelard ignored whatever the lawyer was whispering in his ear, claimed Felicity’s hand, waved, smiled congenially and completely misunderstood his meaning, as Sanschagrin said, a bit too loudly, “I’ll be in touch, Mr. Bush.”

  *