CHAPTER IX

David knew he was skating on thin ice with Comm Tech. He let his lab go while he went down to Karen's lab every night and back to the hospital to be with Karen through the day. This way he hoped no one would get suspicious about the duplicates coming out of Karen's lab. The only reason the board didn't fire him was they thought he was able to do what all the computer engineers couldn't. That was make models almost as good if not as good as Karen made.

"I’m coming back to work tomorrow." She raised up her bed so she could sit up.

David was holding her hand and he reached over to brush the hair back from her face. Karen winced and pulled back slightly. "Karen, let me help you. I won't hurt you. You know that."

She made a feeble attempt at a smile. "I can't help it. I can't stand to be touched by anyone. I feel dirty and unclean all the time."

He went back to gently massaging her hand. "It wasn't your fault hon. You have to understand you did nothing to deserve what they did to you. You heard the lady who gives rape counseling. You were the victim of sick men. Karen, please don't let it change you. I was in love with the old carefree Karen. You know the one. The one who loved everyday as it came along."

She turned her face toward the window. "They killed that Karen."

"Henry misses you." It was an attempt to get her mind on something else.

"You're wrong! I understand you and he are doing all right without me. I’m not as indispensable as I thought. They say you’re turning out some beautiful models."

"No, you’re wrong on two counts. I’m not turning out anything. Henry is making them because he loves you. He misses you Karen. He is dying a little everyday you are gone."

Her head snapped over and she looked David straight in the eye. "You're lying!"

The accusation carried poison like he never heard from her before. Would he ever get his old Karen back?

"Do you now hate all men so vehemently?" Was she reachable after what they did to her?

"I’m sorry." The voice was flat and there was no feeling to the words.

"Karen, I can't go back and take away everything they did to you. But I can't help you either if you don't let me close to you. Your hate is separating you from the ones who love you along with the ones who deserve that hate."

"Henry can't come see you like I can and it’s killing him. You know it’s true because you made him. Don't let these men destroy everything good in you. If you do they might as well have truly killed you that night because you're dead anyway. The only thing left is this body I’m looking at."

There were tears running freely down both her cheeks. No crying or sobbing, only tears.

"Henry and I love you. Lean on us. We want to help." David pulled her gently over where she buried her face in his chest.

She put both arms around him and dug in like her life was depending on it and held on. And silently she cried.

David promised himself Karl and the others would pay dearly for what they did to her. Very dearly.

After she checked out of the hospital he drove her home and spent the night on her couch. He wanted to be there if she needed any reassurance in the night. It would be difficult for her to pick up the pieces and start over. He would help anyway he could.

The next morning was a real shock to David when she came out of her bedroom dressed for work. Or he figured she was dressed for work. An old scarf tied over her head with a ragged hat on top of that. Wearing one of the scruffiest looking long coats he had ever seen it came down to her ankles. She scuffed up her shoes to take the shine off them and was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. She looked like a bag lady.

He knew it was because she had been raped and felt like everyone would be sizing her up to see if she liked it and wanted more. This was her way of mentally defending herself. He also knew if she didn't stop blaming herself for what happened, he would never get Karen back.

Max would have stopped them at the gate if it hadn't been for one of Randy's cars ahead of them. There was another following close behind. He might have anyway except the guard in the shack with him told him to let them go through. There was no way that could have been Miss Long in the car with Dr. Beckworth. He didn't get a chance to find out. That guard in the shack with Max was one of Randy's men and he carried some mighty big guns. Even if your name is Max you don't argue with men like that.

Randy made it perfectly clear to everyone they were to keep their distance from Karen. David was amazed at the number of people who turned away when they noticed him looking at them. They wouldn't speak to him or acknowledge he and Karen existed. No one wanted to be within fifty feet of them. Randy hurt people for a living. No one wanted to be hurt. There was a rumor five gang members ended up in the hospital more dead than alive the night Karen had been raped. It was rumored they had threatened Randy as he walked through their neighborhood. When asked what happened the gang said they ran into a rival gang. It was rumored Randy walked into Comm Tech with blood all over him that night and none of it was his. No one wanted to test the rumors.

David pushed the door open to her lab after he heard it click. He figured Henry had watched them drive in the gate and walk down the hall.

"I gave to the salvation army last week."

Could it be Henry didn't recognize her? David didn't know what to think.

Karen snapped back at him. "You're not funny."

"Neither are you."

She was glaring at him through the dark sunglasses as she held on tightly to the old coat she was wearing. "Henry, I’m not ready for this."

"What do you want me to do? Feel sorry for you? I can't, you're too busy feeling sorry for yourself."

"Screw you."

"Don't you wish. You can't hurt me with words. I’m only a machine, remember? Or did they take your memory along with your innocence?"

"Fuck off! I don't need this."

"I see you learned a whole new vocabulary along with all the fun times you had that night. Didn't take you long to pick up all their intelligence, did it? Throw some more my way. I'm a big boy. I can take it."

David didn't know whether to take Karen out of there or not. This wasn't what he expected from Henry. Maybe he had blown a circuit or something.

"Henry, I’m warning you."

"You can't threaten me. What do you think you can do? Unplug me? You might as well. I don't see anything worth staying around here for."

"Damn your soul. You weren't the one they hurt."

"Oh, no? Look at yourself. You look like the leavings of a charity drive. I had a programmer at one time. She was always beautiful, before and after the change. I saw the soul which gave her body life. It shone through no matter what covering it had. Now I see nothing. You are as empty as the air surrounding you. You lost your will to live and I lost my best friend. They won Karen. They killed both of us with one stroke."

She yanked her sunglasses off and threw them on the floor as she screamed at him. "DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? I WAS RAPED. WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"

"I expected too much, I guess. What I expect and what I see are two different things. Karen Long was a fighter. She would have come back and defied anyone to accuse her of being the one who invited the rape. What I see is someone hiding in shame because she feels she will be accused of enjoying being raped."

"You are ashamed for being a woman. You might as well hang a tag around your neck and say 'I’m guilty of enticing them into raping me. This is what you look like and the signals you are sending out."

She stopped screaming at him. "They took something from me. It wasn't theirs. They hurt me and took part of me. They took my pride and my dignity. You don't understand. Before I had nothing to be ashamed of."

She hung her head and looked at the floor. "I can't stand for anyone to look at me."

"Because you're too busy telling everyone you're sorry they raped you and didn't kill you. You didn't mind people looking at you before. Now you're feeling guilty because you’re still alive and trying to hide in shame or from shame. Either way, you are wrong."

"What they took wasn't the most precious gift your God gave you. He also gave you life. Don't be sorry they didn't get that, too. They gave it a darn good try but your creator wasn't ready to pull your plug yet. He gave your life back to you. Not many humans get a second chance at life. You did. In fact, if I was keeping score, this is probably your third chance. I would have bet against you the night you went to David's lab for two pills."

"It wasn't your body they wanted to steal. They wanted your ideas and your mind. Your body happened to be there when they couldn't get what they were originally after and they took their frustrations out on it."

"It was my body they raped."

"Along with your mind. Your body doesn't know it ever happened. Now all you have to worry about is how long you're willing to let them keep on raping your mind. Turn lose of the hatred before you lose your mind and they win because of the poison filling your soul. Hatred is an insidious poison. It ends up destroying the one who is carrying it rather than the one it is directed at. Like cancer, it eats up the person it is in. First you hate Karl and the others for doing this to you. Then you get where you hate yourself because you feel you let them do it. Next you hate all those around you because they let it happen to you. Those you love the most receive the most hate. It fills your mind and soul. Always feeding on the seed that spawned it until that person who let it sprout is consumed by hate."

"A terrible black hole, hate. It twists the truth in the mind and feeds off you. It will suck you under with lies and deceit. Karl is filled with hate. Do you want to become like him?"

She looked over at David her eyes begging him to understand if Henry couldn't. "They hurt me. You can't understand what it's like."

David started to say something but Henry didn't let him. "You're right. David, me, or anyone can't understand what it's like. You’re not the first and certainly won't be the last as long as there are people like Karl. But you're back to apologizing for being a woman again. You make me sick. Quit whimpering because you're a woman. You never asked for special favors before because of who you were. You saw what you wanted and you worked for it. You never apologized for anything because you knew you were trying your best no matter what happened."

"Out in the hall, when that slimy weasel Karl told you he deserved to be head of your department, did you crawl back in here on your belly in shame? Not on your life. You told him he wasn't smart enough to draw connect the dots on the monitor. I expected Karl to go whining to Bill because you didn't kiss his ass. He lived up to my expectations."

"Now Karl has beat you up and you are doing the same thing he did. You're whining. Ask your friends for understanding not pity. You won't be surprised. There isn't a person out there who isn't rooting for you Karen. Most of them would go beat the living daylights out of Karl themselves if you asked them to. No one blames you, except yourself. No one thinks less of you because of what happened. However, what you do and act like will guide them on how they will treat you. You act ashamed and everyone will try to stay away to keep from disgracing you anymore. You don't have to act like it never happened but don't act like it was your fault. Quit blaming yourself."

"Anyone else would carry scars around for the rest of their life if something like this happened to them. Didn't you notice how quickly you got well? Or were you too busy falling into the poor, poor me routine?"

She looked back at Henry. "What are you talking about?"

"If you look in the mirror you won't find a single clue as to what happened to you in the van. Your mind is the only thing telling you it ever took place."

Karen quickly pulled off her hat and scarf and ran her fingers through her hair feeling along the scalp where they had cut her skull open. It felt smooth all the way. She shook her coat off, letting it fall to the floor and dug a compact out of her purse to look at the scars on her neck. Nothing there. Turning her back to David she felt along her chest where she had been shot. Smooth skin all the way.

The question was in her eyes. "I know I didn't dream all this or we wouldn't be standing here having this talk."

"David, your turn."

David put his hands on her shoulders and for the first time since the incident, he didn't feel her tighten up or pull away when he touched her. Gently he turned her around to look at him. "Remember the mouse I tried to show you in the lab and didn't get to? Henry and I did some DNA programming on that mouse like what happened to you. We didn't change him in anyway but reprogrammed him the way you were reprogrammed. After that, every time I made a change on the mouse it would go right back to the way it was designed. For instance, I would notch his ear and in a few days the notch would disappear. I removed a piece of intestine and in a few days the sonogram showed I never removed anything. Same as where I cut him open to remove his intestine. No surgical scars."

"Karen, no matter what happens to you, as long as you are alive, you will look exactly like you did the morning after you took those two pills. I understand why you don't want to marry me. One day I will be an old man while you will still be the most beautiful woman who ever graced this earth."

Karen threw her arms around him and kissed him. "David, I love you. You and this mouthy computer. I don't know why I put up with him. I’m thinking about pulling his voice box. I was enjoying feeling sorry for myself until he got in on the act. He ruins all my good miserable moods."

"You and that mangy old computer are the best friends anyone could ever hope to have. I don't know why you two put up with me."

David could see tears in the corners of her eyes but at last they weren't tears of self-pity or pain. He turned away as he wiped the tears from his own eyes. Karen was coming home to them. Emotionally she made the turn back.

She looked at her reflection in the glass between the office and work lab. "Yech, I look terrible. Looks like something the dogs dragged in and the cats wouldn't touch it. Would it be possible to sneak out of here and go change? Would you please drive me home so I could dress in something a little more decent? I refuse to give Henry the satisfaction of looking at a fashion trend setter, like me, for the rest of the day. He’s probably about to overload his video circuits looking at stylish me."

Henry coughed a couple of times. "Say what?"

David got a gleam in his eyes. "You going to put on that red dress that hugged you like a road map?"

Karen stuck her tongue out at Henry and cocked her head and smiled at David. "Nah, I don't have time to take you to the hospital for resuscitation. Maybe this time something a little less daring. Maybe the red outfit tomorrow. I will wear it without a lab coat."

David shook his head as a silly grin spread across his face. Why didn't they bring all mental patients down here to talk to Henry? He would either snap them out of it or shove them over the edge. It was an interesting concept.

Henry was right. She was a scrapper. David knew it would take her a long time to adjust to what Karl and the others did to her but she was finally headed in the right direction.

As he walked her to the car he couldn't help thinking of the contradiction she was. She was soft but firm, gentle but tough, strong but flexible. She was all woman but mentally tougher than most men. The rape counselor said it could take years for her to accept what happened and sometimes some never accepted it. Karen made it in less than a month. If this was God's idea of what a woman should be like He did a darn good job.

David gave a silent prayer of thanks for women like Karen.

Randy was in the parking tower when they arrived that morning and watched as David and Karen walked into the building. He had been in constant contact with his men by walkie-talkie and was waiting for David to leave her lab. Consequently he was still in the tower when they came back out in less than thirty minutes. She looked better. At least she didn't have on the coat and hat. He stayed in contact with the men who followed them home and back to Comm Tech for the second time that morning. He wasn't surprised when she got out of the car because they already told him how she was dressed. What surprised him was she went home and changed after a few minutes in her lab.

Exactly what went on in that lab of hers this morning? Who was controlling whom? That computer of hers scared the living shit out of him the day it decided to talk to him. How far did she leap ahead of known science when she designed that thing?

Things were bound to get rougher before they improved. There were a lot of Karls out there and they weren't all in the private sector of the population. He better make some reports and put some safeguards in place. This was one time he wished he had taken another job.