Read Online Codename Prague by D. Harlan Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

“Everything’s in the contract,” he grumbled, “although this is the black market and contracts are entirely irrelevant and worthless. But I like to tickle my customer’s funny bones.”
    “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.”
    “That was a fake laugh. Just remember what I told you about making the unit your own. Basic assembly is only the first step. After that, it’s up to you. Your monster can be anything you want it to be as long as you don’t muck it up. Get it?”
    “I understand.”
    “I require a signature at this point please.”
    “Signature? I thought this was the black market?”
    The monster peddler pointed at his elbow. “Funny bone.” He handed the customer a slip of paper and a magic marker. “At the bottom, sir, please.”
    Dr Teufelsdröckh perused the document:

     
    QUANTITY 1 ACME MONSTER MAKING KIT® sold to QUANTITY 1 PERSON. The seller is not responsible for ANYTHING that happens (pertaining to the aforementioned ACME MONSTER MAKING KIT® or life and the universe in general) after the conclusion of this transaction to QUANTITY 1 PERSON, who buys at his own risk, of his own free will, and according to his own code of ethics.
     
    Satisfied, he put his signature on the document—
     
    Honk Honk!

     
    —and removed his spectacles. The monster peddler scanned his retinas and extracted payment.
    “You know, those sight refining instruments are out of style.” The monster peddler pointed at the spectacles.
    “Sight refining instruments? You mean my glasses?”
    “Glasses? I drink from glasses, sir. I don’t look through them.”
    Dr Teufelsdröckh put his spectacles back on. “ Auf Wiedersehen .” Tucking the box in an armpit, he crawled out of the manhole and rolled across the street onto a slidewalk…
    That evening, in the laboratory…
    “It isn’t working!” exclaimed Truth. Beauty cowered behind an anatomical skeleton as the monster repeatedly stabbed itself with shards of broken test tubes. They had already made ten monsters. None of them worked. That is, all of them either failed to come to life or came to life and tried to commit suicide. The assistants began to spin Grimm-like fairy tales in which ne’er a monster functioned properly.
    Dr Teufelsdröckh remained positive. “Chins up. Panic theories are for the Henpecked.” He struck the monster in the back of the head with a hammer. A bolt of wet lightning exited the wound and the monster collapsed. Truth and Beauty took it by the arms and legs and heaved it atop the pile of monsters in the corner. “What we need,” the doctor said, “is an effektive architect. Clearly I am not that architect. But perhaps I can create an organism capable of creating my desiratum .”
    “Perhaps,” said Truth, overconfident in the doktor’s power to fail.
    …The subsequent Wütendeswissenschaftlermunster (trans. mad scientist monster) was eight feet tall.
    Truth and Beauty tried to strap a lab jacket onto the Wütendeswissen-schaftlermunster that was six sizes too small. The Wütendeswissenschaftlermunster s watted them away. But the assistants kept coming back. Eventually Dr Teufelsdröckh blew its head off with a shotgun. “Too tall,” he noted.
    The next Wütendeswissenschaftlermunster was not only too short, it had a severe case of phocomelia; armless, its hands hung from its shoulders like rubber gloves. Dr Teufelsdröckh plunged a nagamaki into its chest…
    The third Wütendeswissenschaftlermunster looked like Donald Pleasence.
    “Donald Pleasence?” said Beauty, raising his bushy eyebrow. Juxtaposed with its considerably diminished peer, the eyebrow looked alive. As if, the doktor thought, it might be an organism in and of itself.
    “He played Dr Loomis in those Halloween movies,” said Dr Teufelsdröckh. “Sam Loomis?”
    Truth shook his head.
    “You’ve never heard of a movie called Halloween ? Or Halloween II ? And so on? I should fire you for that alone.”
    “I only watch silent films,” said Beauty.
    “I saw