the Cenobites," Differel asked.
"Yes."
"Then pray, tell me who your intended victim was."
Before she could reply, the Cenobites walked in with Mabuse trailing them. Holt stepped out of their way, and Vlad pulled out his Maskeulin revolvers, but no one made any threatening moves against them.
"It is time," Pinhead said.
"You're welcome to take her, but only after I find out who her real target was."
"We do not want her."
It took a moment for the shilling to drop, but then her heart stuttered as her mind skipped a track. Double-cross! "You assured me that all you were after was the person who wanted the Lament Configuration solved!"
"No," Mabuse said, coming to the fore, "that isn't it. This person is a robot."
"Not quite," Dupree said. There was a sound, like the hiss of escaping air, and then her head detached and rose up off the neck. What looked like metal cables attached to the base of the head emerged from the body, but once the head rose high enough they pulled free and revealed themselves to be tentacles. The skin and hair covering the head dissolved away, revealing a crystalline skull with jewel-like eyes. Inside the cranium filled with a transparent turquoise fluid floated a living brain.
"I didn't care who opened the Lament Configuration." The jaws didn't move as the voice spoke, but the eyes flashed and the fluid in the cranium seemed to become agitated. "Sir Differel was my intended target. I knew that she would sacrifice herself to protect whoever did by offering herself to the Cenobites as a substitute. Even if I was discovered, I knew the Cenobites would not want me, since my brain would be unable to feel pain, so they would still take Sir Differel instead."
"A sound, logical plan," Mabuse said.
"Praise from Caesar."
Pinhead stepped towards Differel. "You must come with us now."
"No." She aimed her weapon at him, and Vlad and her staff did the same. "I fulfilled my part of the bargain: I found the person you were looking for. That she is 'unacceptable' is your problem, not mine."
"This is not open for negotiation."
"If you say so." She fired, pointblank into his face. Vlad, Holt, and Maggie directed their fire at the other Cenobites while Aelfraed threw daggers at Pinhead. He only smiled in an arrogant fashion as he ignored the attacks. Hooked chains exploded out of the walls, ceiling, and floor, ensnaring her people and tearing them to pieces. Vlad fought the hardest, but he turned to shadow and disappeared as he was pulled apart. The only one left standing besides herself was Mabuse.
"No!" Differel summoned Caliburn and charged straight at Pinhead, who stood his ground, smiling. More chains emerged; they wrapped themselves around her body as the hooks and spines impaled her and ripped through clothing, skin, muscles, and organs, and anchored themselves in her bones. The pain felt agonizing, unlike anything she had experienced before. Every nerve in her body fired at once; her senses processed more information than they were designed to, quickly reaching overload. She was hauled off her feet and pulled in every direction imaginable as she screamed with more force than a normal Human could muster. She prayed for relief, even as the pain continued to build past what she thought she could tolerate.
Pinhead looked up at her. "This is only the beginning."
A blinding flash appeared above the middle of the desk, and when it had gone she saw a huge Lemarchand box hovering in the air as it turned randomly around its center of gravity. For a moment she realized that it looked identical to the fake Elysium Configuration; then the chains disappeared and she dropped to the floor. Barely able to lift her head, she saw the four acolytes were frozen like statues, and they moaned an atonal dirge as if gripped in a profound horror. Pinhead, however, forced himself by sheer will to turn towards Mabuse and move towards her. She didn't try to evade, but raised a hand. In it was a device that looked like a television remote. She pressed a button, and the box began to rearrange its parts to the sound of clangs and slamming bangs, as if solving itself. An opening appeared as a weird but beautiful tune played, revealing a vortex of blinding light. The air in the room howled and she felt it rushing into the vortex as if an airlock had opened onto the vacuum of deep space. The four acolytes were swept up and drawn screaming into the opening, but Pinhead managed to grab a handful of Mabuse's lab coat before his feet were lifted off the ground. He clung to the mad scientist tenaciously, dragging her across the floor. She dug in her heels, and the flagstone tiles snapped and cracked like gunshots.
She reached up with her free hand, took hold of his arm clutching her coat, and twisted it. He howled and let go, but she continued to hold him.
"Never mess with a mad scientist," she said with a determined look on her face.
She let him go, and he shot backwards, roaring in defiance. He caught the edge of the opening and hung on, pulling himself forward in a valiant effort to escape. She pressed the button and the box began to rearrange itself again. The opening closed, dumping Pinhead into the vortex. Differel heard his wail of despair recede as the box reassembled into its original form. Mabuse pressed another button, and the box faded from view.
Differel snapped back to reality, and realized she was unhurt. Furthermore, she remembered being in pain, but not the pain itself. Mabuse walked up to her, reached down, and lifted her up to help her stand. She felt a little wobbly at first, but she recovered quickly. Looking around, she saw that all her people appeared hale and whole again, including Vlad, though they all looked dazed and confused.
"What happened?" she asked Mabuse.
"I cracked the secret of how the Lemarchand boxes opened portals to other universes." She sounded quite pleased with herself.
"And Pinhead didn't know."
"Yes, he did, but I didn't tell him that allowed me to determine other possible configurations, including one that was the direct opposite of the Lament Configuration. I then programmed my computer to manipulate the Schrodinger wave functions here in this room to create the configuration and solve it. My only regret is that it took longer for the program to initiate than I expected, and for that I apologize."
"Nonsense, Doctor, I'm just glad it worked."
"I'm afraid you don't understand."
She gave her a suspicious look. "How do you mean?"
"The reversal of the Cenobites' actions, including the killing of the others, was entirely serendipitous. I had no reason to believe that this anti-Lament Configuration would have that kind of side effect."
Her mind skipped a track as her gut spasmed. "Bloody hell."
Holt prowled around the room, as if making sure the Cenobites were gone. "Dupree is missing."
She did a mental double take, then realized the head and body were both gone.
"Lock down the estate immediately!"
Aelfraed, Maggie, and Holt went into the Intelligence room while Vlad sank into the floor.
"I doubt that will do any good," Mabuse said. "Dupree probably has at least one other body stashed away for escape."
"Just what is she, anyways?"
"She's not much different from me, except I suspect hers is her actual physical brain rather than an artificial one like mine."
"How is that possible?"
"The technology to keep a human brain alive and aware in a life support jar exists, but it is very sophisticated, as is the antigravity and other advanced systems it demonstrated. If she does get off the estate, I should be able to track her down through that. There are very few companies that could manufacture the key components."
"Very well, get started immediately."
"Yes, Director."
"Oh, one more thing. What about the Cenobites. Are they gone for good?"
"I honestly don't know. Give me some time to study my data; I may be able to give you an answer in due course."
She nodded and watched Mabuse return to her lab. Suddenly she felt very lonely.
"Vlad."
He appeared out of a burst of shadow. "Yes, My Master?"
"Take me to Colorado. I n
eed to see my son."
Differel and Vlad appeared on the ground floor of a four-story rotunda. Mabuse Type II robots emerged from niches to surround them while Type I's trained weapons on them from the first floor balcony. Looking up to the second floor, she saw Eile and Sunny staring down at them. Sunny waved as Eile made an ear-piercing whistle, and the robots resumed their standby positions.
"Come on up!" Sunny shouted.
"You go on back," she told Vlad. "I should be fine."
"Yes, My Master." And he disappeared in a cloud of shadow.
She spotted a helical stairway and climbed to meet the Girls. They wore black catsuits so tight they left little to the imagination regarding their body shapes, and carried weapons: Eile her beloved Daewoo automatic shotgun, and Sunny an assault carbine of some kind with an attached grenade launcher. She wondered, for all their good intentions, whether they could have fought off the Cenobites with such puny weapons.
"Is it over?" Sunny asked.
"Yes, Mabuse found a way to get rid of them."
"Heh, good for her," Eile said.
"Unfortunately, it isn't permanent. She told me that if anyone solved the Lament Configuration again, they would be freed. However, I have it under lock and key, and I plan on turning it over to Her Majesty's Government. The Privy Council can order it sealed away in a hyper-maximum security vault. God willing, no one should ever get their hands on it again."
"You could give it ta Mayv. She'd probably be able ta squirrel it away somewhere where no one could find it."
"Is she here?"
"Not yet,"