Dead Hunt by Kenn Crawford Read Free Book Online

was
determined to prove his theories right... and his colleagues
wrong.
    The scientific community laughed at him when
he first presented his proposal. He was convinced that dead tissue
and dead blood cells could be regenerated back into living
organisms. He proposed that the dead brain cells of Alzheimer’s
patients could be brought back to life. He even dared to say that
loved ones lost in terrible accidents could be brought back to
life.
    Knowing of his recent loss, his peers thought
his intentions were “misplaced”. Others had simply labeled his
ideas as Frankenstein-ish, and although none would admit it, many
feared that if he did succeed, the end result would not be that
much different than the monster in Mary Shelley's famed novel.
    Rage filled Heslin's already exhausted mind
as the sound of mocking from his peers crept back into his memory.
He grabbed a beaker of formula 25-41 and fired it across the room,
smashing it against the wall, just inches above the opened window.
The loud crash of shattering glass snapped him out of his rage.
Heslin laughed in spite of himself.
    "Well now, Paddy me boy, that was rather dumb
now, wasn't it? Now you have a mess to clean up.”
    “Father, is everything all right?” Robin
asked.
    “Not now, Robin,” Heslin answered abruptly,
looking at his watch.
    6:10 a.m.
    Quietly, Heslin picked up a small garbage
pail and began to pick up the broken shards of glass as the thick,
translucent green liquid succumbed to gravity and slowly oozed down
the wall. His mind lost on his recent failure, Heslin grabbed a
piece of broken glass the wrong way, and as he clenched his fingers
a sharp pain jolted him back to the task at hand. Blood poured from
the deep cut. Instinctively, he put the cut to his mouth. He knew
it didn't really help the pain, He knew that it was just a
psychological link to when his mother had the power to heal hurt
with a loving kiss, but he sucked the cut anyway.
    Overcome with disappointment, yet clinging on
to a fragile hope, he peered inside the microscope’s eyepiece once
more. Nothing moved. He adjusted the magnification as a small trail
of blood trickled down his badly cut hand. A solitary drop of blood
hung suspended from his hand, daring to fall. In less than a
heartbeat the tiny drop of blood began its descent. It splashed in
the culture dish, hardly noticeable to the naked eye, but under the
magnification of his powerful microscope, the tiny splash was huge.
It looked like a giant wave of red reaching up to grab him. It
startled Heslin as if someone had jumped out of a dark corner. He
quickly collected his thoughts and looked at his hand. Blood was
streaking down his forearm.
    “I have to stitch this,” Heslin said to
himself as he headed out of the laboratory.
    Robin spoke up. “Father….”
    “Not now, Robin.”
    “Father. . .” she repeated.
    “Go to sleep now, Robin,” Heslin commanded,
cutting her off.
    The computer monitors instantly went
black.
    The command, “Go to sleep now, Robin” was a
built-in fail-safe known only to Heslin and the programmers of the
Robin 1 Mainframe. Robin prevented everyone, Heslin included, from
accessing her AI brain, so no one could tamper with her
programming. The command was created so Robin could be shut down to
allow for routine maintenance of the system. At the end of a one
hour period, a second fail-safe timer automatically rebooted the
main system, turning Robin back on.
    Heslin hissed in pain as he fumbled about
trying to stitch the deep gash on his finger. The folks down the
mountain may have called him “Doc”, but his feeble attempt to
stitch his wound proved he knew very little about practical
procedures. He was a scientist after all, not a medical doctor.
    Heslin thought about the good folks in the
Valley, hard working people who welcomed the scientist with open
arms and, as he requested, left him alone so as not to disturb his
research. Once a month they ran supplies up to him, mostly by
4-wheel