Or to go into more detail: Grafftery kicks down the door and storms in with his men. Everything I've seen in television, movies, and even video games tells me that the policemen should have their guns out and be screaming at anyone they see to get on the ground. Instead Grafferty stares at the paralyzed Dr. Kutzbrain and yells out "Where's the rape-murder?", presumably expecting the murderous rapist lurking somewhere in the building to answer him.
Instead he gets the murderous mind-rapist Krak, who steps out of the bedroom, hits the plunger of the Magical Black Square device, and draws something that Gris only catches a glimpse of but thinks looks like a thumbtack. She grabs Kutzbrain with that "thumbtack" in her hand and declares "If it's a rapist you're looking for, here's your man!" And just after Grafferty asks about the murder, Kutzbrain starts ranting about tearing people to bits while demanding that they answer the questions he isn't asking.
See, as Gris explains it, Voltarian military science has come up with something called an "interrogator dart" that injects a man with something that makes him "so furious and overwrought he could not ask sensible questions." So you're an alien super-spy, but you've been captured and hauled in for interrogation. If you still have a way to fire your concealed dart-launcher, this way you can dose your captor with something to make them absolutely furious with you. So you're still trapped, but now in a room with someone violently angry, which is... an improvement because... they'll just beat you to death instead of extracting useful information?
Why not just put poison on the dart? Or cut out the "interrogator" part and develop a toxin that makes enemies go berserk and potentially attack their allies? That would seem more useful. Or maybe come up with a "make interrogator become your friend and help you escape" dart if we're just pulling things out of our ass.
Grafferty tells two of his officers to apprehend Kutzbrain, then tells the other to take Krak in as a witness and search the apartment for evidence.
Krak said, "I've got the evidence. It's right here!" She reached into the black case
"Gun!" BLAM BLAM BLAM!
case and tore four tabs off the black roll.
She reached out her hand to Grafferty and the cops, using a magician's forcer gesture, the way they make people feel they have to grab something.
So psychology is a bunch of crap, but stage musicians have a magical hand gesture they use to compel people to snatch at whatever they're throwing?
Also, BLAM!
They each took a tab, looking at it.
The Countess Krak pushed the dynamo plunger.
Grafferty and the three cops went into rigid statue stances!
So did Kutzbrain!
Like I said, she makes each of the cops grab one of those little black squares to paralyze them.
After dealing with that "threat," the Countess returns to the still hypnotized Miss Simmons. And just in case you thought my accusation that Krak was making Simmons believe she'd been gang-raped was hyperbole:
"Now," said the Countess Krak, "we will take up how you really feel about Wister. You know you are not good enough for him. But you are eternally grateful to him for not having you himself but letting you be raped. Your gratitude amounts to the worship you would give a saint and you know you would defile him if he so much as touched your body parts. You understand that, don't you?"
"Yes," said Miss Simmons.
So she's not just convincing Miss Simmons she was gang-raped, but also that she's unclean, unworthy, and would "defile" the man she secretly longs for just by touching him.
There are no good guys in this book, no sympathetic characters to root for. There are only Gris, the rapist, Krak, the mind rapist, and Heller, the totally closed non-entity who has been demoted to a supporting cast member despite ostensibly driving the plot.
Krak goes on to tell Simmons how "Wister" is such a good student that he deserves the highest grade and doesn't need to attend for the rest of the semester. Not only that, but Simmons must now believe that Wister is a wonderful student and should brag about him to all the other teachers. And then the Countess decides to give her victim some relationship advice.
The Countess Krak fingered the mike. Then she took a deep breath. She said, "After you have seen Wister away, you can please yourself. It will be your life you are living and I have no wish to take control of it,
Ahahahaahahaah!
Ahem. 'scuse me.
but I want to give you some very sound advice. Stop running around with this Krafft-Ebing fellow. He and his pals Havelock Ellis and Sigmund Freud are a crummy crowd. My suggestion to you is that you find a nice young man--NOT Wister--and get married. It's your life, but you should consider settling down and doing things in a more normal way."
The person giving this advice spent years in a dungeon run by a corrupt alien intelligence service while training circus animals and freaks of nature.
"A normal way," muttered Simmons.
"Exactly," said the Countess Krak. "You'll find it much more fun."
"More fun," muttered Simmons.
"Sex without love," said the Countess Krak, "is a waste of time. Do you understand?"
"Waste of time," said Simmons.
With that finished, Krak programs Simmons to sleep peacefully through the rest of the day and evening, disregarding or forgetting anything she hears or sees in the apartment before she wakes up the next day. Off goes the helmet, a no-doubt sticky and exhausted Miss Simmons immediately crawls under the covers and falls asleep, and now Krak has to figure out what to do with the five people she has paralyzed in the living room.
Gris is, of course, freaking out.
I flinched now as the Countess Krak went out of the bedroom and closed the door behind her. I knew what I would do: kill the witnesses.
She doesn't have to you imbecile, she has a mind-control helmet. Though in fairness Gris is stupid enough to murder witnesses even if he had the means of erasing their memories with one of those. Just look at all the wonderful spy toys he left sitting in a warehouse for three books.
My only question was how she would do it. I was losing allies right and left and could only sit there in that closet, trapped, and watch, powerless to prevent the inexorable, crushing wheels of fate.
The guy sets up his mission on Earth to revolve around him sitting on an ass watching his enemies do things while occasionally barking orders to his henchmen or, in extreme situations, getting up to botch the job on his own. And then he bitches about how terrible fate is and how he's powerless to do anything.
Wonder how the paint fumes are building up in that closet of his?
Back to Chapter Five
> There are no good guys in this book, no sympathetic characters to root for. There are only Gris, the rapist, Krak, the mind rapist, and Heller, the totally closed non-entity who has been demoted to a supporting cast member despite ostensibly driving the plot.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, Heller is awful in his own ways. He's a condescending dick who makes people painfully aware of their own insecurities, he's got a slew of murders under his belt, and he assaulted a gay guy for trying to flirt with him (plus other stuff we haven't gotten to yet). He's consorting with an anarcho-capitalist and the Mafia. He's not as bad as Krak or Gris, but that isn't saying a whole lot.