Doom Patrol #23 - The Treachery of Images (Part 5)

Ricardo sits with his head in his hands, watching from the back porch as Cliff fumbles about from within the structure of poles and sheets. After a few more moments, and a particularly alarming snapping sound, a shiny gold head pokes out of a fold in the sheets and looks over at Ricardo.

 

Cliff: And… we are all set to go.

 

Cliff emerges from the tangle of wires and bedsheets and stands next to Ricardo as he rises from the steps, gazing at his handiwork like a proud father.

 

Ricardo: Awesome.

 

They stand and stare at the machine for a moment in silence. Ricardo grins excitedly and looks over at Cliff.

 

Ricardo: So… all I gotta do is sit in there and I get superpowers?

 

Cliff: Uh…

 

Ricardo: You said I’d get superpowers. I do get superpowers, right?

 

Cliff: …Probably?

 

Ricardo: Cause it sure doesn’t look like I will, R-Man. And believe me, I could really do with superpowers to help my mother out around the store, y’know?

 

Cliff: It’ll work! Just trust me. Build it and they will come!

 

Ricardo: So I will get superpowers?

 

Cliff: Just stop sayin’ ‘superpowers’, alright?

 

Ricardo goes quiet and looks to the floor.

 

Cliff: Look, you might get somethin’, but I can’t promise…

 

Cliff reaches into the machine and pulls out a makeshift helmet covered in wires.

 

Cliff: Come here.

 

Ricardo wanders over and frowns.

 

Ricardo: What is that?

 

Cliff: You’ve gotta wear it… to, uh…. connect you to the… machine.

 

Ricardo eyes the helmet suspiciously and goes quiet. After a moment of observation, he grins and nods.

 

Ricardo: Ride on, R-Man.

 

Cliff: Uh, sure.

 

Ricardo presents his head and Cliff carefully lays the helmet on it as if it were it a priceless crown.

 

Ricardo: Mega.

 

Cliff: Did you just say: ‘mega’?

 

Ricardo: Huh?

 

Cliff: Nothin’.

 

Ricardo stands carefully as he balances the helmet on his head and grins excitedly.

 

Ricardo: Okay… now this is more like it. Yeah, real science-y and shit! How does it work man? It just looks like a strainer covered in bits of wire!

 

Cliff: That’s cause it is.

 

Ricardo: Oh.

 

Ricardo’s excitement begins to fade as Cliff enters the machine and turns on the battery. As it hums quietly into life Cliff pokes his head out and looks at Ricardo.

 

Cliff: How’d you feel?

 

Ricardo: Great!

 

Cliff: You can’t taste metal?

 

Ricardo: Nope.

 

Cliff: Or feel a buzzin’?

 

Ricardo: No. Should I?

 

Cliff: Great. Hang in there a sec.

 

He goes back into his machine and turns up a dial on the battery. The machine’s fragile frame creaks slightly and begins to vibrate. Ricardo, still proudly donning his helmet, watches Cliff with anticipation.

 

Cliff: Okay, come sit here.

 

Cliff beckons Ricardo over to a small fold out chair positioned in the middle of the contraption. Ricardo sits down gently, careful not to knock his helmet off.

 

Ricardo: I’m excited, R-Man! Are you excited?

 

Cliff ignores him and exits the machine. He pulls back the white sheet covering the contraptions entrance and clips it shut with a clothes peg. He goes outside and picks up a small box connected to one of the wires running from the house and into the battery inside the machine.

 

Cliff: Now, when this happened before, Morden was inside for at least a few minutes before anythin’ started to happen. So you might not feel anythin’ straight away, okay?

 

A voice pipes up from within the now quietly humming machine.

 

Ricardo: Okay!

 

Cliff: And you’ve gotta try stayin’ real still.

 

Ricardo: Gottcha!

 

Cliff: And if you feel anythin’ strange, or smell anythin’ you don’t think you should be smellin’, just shout, okay?

 

Ricardo: Okay!

 

Cliff: Now… you ready?

 

Ricardo: Yeah!

 

Cliff: I said are you ready?

 

Ricardo: Yeah!

 

Cliff: I can’t hear you!

 

Ricardo: YEAH!

 

Cliff: HELL YEAH!

 

Ricardo: HELL YEAH!

 

Cliff: Now let’s do some science motherfucker!

 

Cliff turns the dial on the box and the machine’s frame jolts awake. The battery inside hums louder now, growing in intensity as the poles holding the machine together begin to vibrate and shake violently. Cliff turns up the dial a little more, crosses his fingers, and presses a button.

 

Sparks fly from the box in Cliff’s hand, and from within the machine there comes a loud bang. It gives one final triumphant jolt of movement before smoke starts to fill the air and Ricardo comes running out, still clutching the strainer to his head.

 

Ricardo: Shit shit shit shit shit! Fire! It’s on fire!

 

He drops to the ground next to Cliff as the sheets covering the failed contraption burst into flames.

 

Cliff: Fuck! Fuck! No no no no!

 

Cliff runs over the burning wreck and gingerly tries to salvage the battery from inside. He reaches in, fumbles around for a moment, and gives up when his jacket sleeve catches alight.

 

Cliff: FUCK!

 

Cliff shakes his arm about wildly to extinguish the flames as Ricardo takes a seat on the back porch and watches him. He sighs and removes the strainer from his slightly singed head.

 

Cliff: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK! MOTHERFUCKER! Stupid… fuckin’… FUCK!

 

Cliff extinguishes the flames dancing on his sleeve and kicks the air frustratedly. He angrily thrashes about for a few more minutes, kicking a shrub and stomping on the grass, before calling it a day and slumping over next to Ricardo on the back porch.

 

Cliff: Fuck.

 

The two of them share a moment in silence, watching the remnants of Cliff’s machine as they smoulder on the grass. Footsteps fill the air as Larry comes running through the kitchen and to the back door in a panic.

 

Larry: Cliff? The lawn’s on fire.

 

Cliff: Yeah.

 

Larry: You gonna do anything?

 

Cliff: No.

 

Larry: Fine. Whatever.

 

Larry turns to go back inside, but stops himself and looks back at the pair of them sat on the porch.

 

Larry: Sorry, who are you?

 

Ricardo: Ricardo.

 

Larry says nothing.

 

Ricardo: Oh, right. I deliver the groceries.

 

Larry shrugs and goes back inside.

 

Ricardo: Huh. D’you see that? Dude looked like a mummy. Rad.

 

Cliff: Your hair’s smokin’ man.

 

Ricardo: Oh.

 

Ricardo raises a hand to his scalp and pats out a smouldering patch of hair. Cliff continues to stare at the wreck of the machine, unmoving and defeated, and Ricardo sighs. He leans over the edge of the porch steps and reaches into his delivery box of groceries, the contents of which now starting to slowly go off in the humid late afternoon air. He feels around for a moment then produces two bottles of beer, which he promptly opens using his teeth. He places one next to Cliff and brings the other up to his mouth. Cliff looks down at the offering and says nothing. Ricardo, realising what he’s done, goes to grab the bottle and get it out of Cliff’s sight, but before he can Cliff grabs his wrist and, with his other hand, points to his mouth. Ricardo takes a second to understand, then lifts the bottle to Cliff’s mouth and pours a little in. Cliff turns away and begins once more to stare at the remains of his White Room, now gently smoking on the lawn.

 

Cliff: I tried.

 

Ricardo silently lays a hand on Cliff’s shoulder and takes another swig of beer. They both watch as the sun begins to set on the manor, the last wisps of smoke disappearing as they twist and curl into the air.

 

 

====================

 

 

Another book goes flying through the air of Niles’ study and crashing into a cabinet as Rita angrily tosses it to one side and exhales exasperatedly. She’d been up there for hours now, trying, in vain, to look for anything that may give them some kind of hint as to how to get Niles back. She hasn’t found anything of use, however, during her time she has found:

 

-A stale waffle.

-An old notebook labelled ‘W.K’, completely blank save for a drawing of a horse on the back cover that erases itself once seen.

-A copy of Heathers on VHS.

-A whisk.

-Five copies of ‘Science Today’ from 1992, each curiously missing pages 4, 11 and 27 respectively.

-A compass that always points south-east.

-And a set of tea-stained tarot cards.

 

Rita slumps against a bookcase and drops to the floor with a sigh. She casts her eyes around the cluttered mess Niles calls an office and considers for a moment if there is anywhere else she hasn’t looked. She’d been in the filing cabinets, through the bookcases and rattled the handles of the two locked drawers in Niles’ desk for far too long before realising she wasn’t going to get into them and calling it a day. Resting her head back against the shelf, she stares up at the ceiling and lets her mind go blank. She thinks about the night Niles was lost – the Brain, the White Room, Morden – and suddenly remembers something that causes her to sit upright and to attention. With everything that had happened since, she’d completely forgotten what she’d been able to do. She casts her mind back to their imprisonment in Brain’s lair; to the dingy cell they’d been thrown so rudely into by that great stinking ape of a –

 

Rita: Get a grip.

 

She stands and begins to hum to herself in some kind of warm up routine, blowing air out through her lips and shaking out her limbs. She takes a deep breath in, forgetting about everything else, and focuses her mind on her arm, and how she would very much like to reach over and pick up a book situated on a shelf opposite. She pictures herself in melted, fleshy form and starts to feel her arm lose its integrity and droop slightly. She closes her eyes and continues to picture herself as that awful, horrible pool of flesh. Her arm drops to the ground with a wet squelch. She takes another breath and concentrates on reaching for the book.

 

Rita: Come on now. Focus.

 

She tries to replicate the feeling of desperate panic she remembered feeling from before, locked in that cell and listening to the sounds of the White Room, but finds the feeling hard to retrieve. She slaps herself with her good hand and squeezes her eyes shut tighter. She whispers aggressively to herself:

 

Rita: Stanislavski, Rita. What would Stanislavski do. Think now.

 

But no matter how hard she tries, her drooping puddle of an arm doesn’t budge. She opens her eyes angrily and kicks Niles’ desk a couple of times in frustration. She bends down and gathers her melted arm up as it starts to gradually re-form itself to its regular shape.

 

Rita: Give up, sweetheart. This isn’t happening.

 

She shakes out her arm and turns to leave, but stops when she notices something sticking out of the desk before her. It’s one of the drawers that had been previously locked. She frowns and realises her aggressive kicking must have loosened it. She goes over and pulls it open fully, gazing inside at pieces of paper scrawled with calculations and numbers and strange, unrecognisable symbols. She rifles round inside, pushing more pieces of scrap paper out the way and wondering what inside the drawer is so important that Niles feels the need to lock it. After a few more minutes of searching she finds nothing of worth, but as she goes to close it something catches her eye. She reaches in and pulls out an old, yellowed envelope with the seal folded neatly over on itself. She hesitates for a moment, and then carefully opens it and pulls out a single, black and white photograph. Staring back at her is the smiling face of a pretty young woman, with what Rita can only assume to be black curly hair and dark eyes. She gazes into the woman’s face for a moment, then turns the photograph over to find, written neatly in pen, the date:

 

1986

 

And beneath that:

 

Calcutta.

 

Rita frowns, but her attention is suddenly drawn away from the photograph and towards a thick cloud of smoke blowing up from the garden and past the study window.

 

Rita: Oh for god’s sake…

 

She slides the drawer shut and turns out the study light, closing the door behind her as she makes her way down to the garden. She doesn’t know why, but she keeps hold of the photograph.

 

Done