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Late nights weren’t unusual at the Earth Protection Force, especially not for Bishop. It was rare for him to go to bed before 10 pm. All nighters were frequently pulled when he had deadlines to reach, or even just when he found himself in a particularly motivated mood. Although he had to admit that after 60 hours awake, Bishop did tend to find himself a little compromised. He had been staring at the same words on his screen for a full minute, trying to process them and remember what an Actinomycetes is. He really knew he was out of it when he was startled by the ring of someone at the titanium office door.
He sat up properly in his chair. “It’s Stockman,” a familiar voice said through the door’s intercom. Bishop pressed a button and watched the mechanical door lift up.
Bishop was fairly confident that Dr Stockman spent an irresponsible amount of time and taxpayer money working on robotic bodies for himself. He seemed to get a new one every few months. He says it’s to keep up with the ever changing technological world. Bishop is pretty sure he just does it to feel like he’s wearing a new outfit.
Today’s outfit of choice was a vaguely human shape. Two arms, two legs, and a head housing the perfectly preserved biotic brain. His “face” was a sleek black screen displaying what was once Stockman’s human face. At the top of the head sat a stationary mechanical eye-shaped camera. Out of his metallic back sprouted four extra robotic limbs all resembling his current arms and all occupied with something. Bishop rather liked this design. It was effective, relatively small, and generally aesthetically pleasing. For some strange reason, one of those hands held a coffee cup.
“Your assistant was outside spilling coffee on herself.” Stockman said casually, offering the slightly damp cup to him. “She’s going to kill you for forcing her to tag along on these over-achieving night shifts one of these days.”
Bishop took the coffee and downed at least a quarter of the burning fluid in one go. “Perhaps.” He looked up at him with heavy eyebags. “What do you want?”
Stockman continued walking through the office, looking through a tablet in one of his hands. “There’s been another incident with the xenotransplantation lab.”
An exhausted groan escaped Bishop’s mouth before he could be bothered to stop it.
“My thoughts exactly,” Stockman continued, equally unimpressed. “I forwarded you the report a few minutes ago. The new anesthesiologist apparently doesn’t work well under stress.”
“And how far has your staff set us back?” Bishop glared over the top of his sunglasses.
“Oh, so when they mess up they’re my staff. How very in character of you.” Stockman walked over to another of Bishop’s lab benches, absently inspecting the materials. “The subject woke up, ran away, destroyed approximately $4,000 worth of equipment, passed out on account of its abdomen being wide open, and was recaptured. The chief doctor – that foolish old man – said it’ll take up to three days to get back to where they were, depending on the damage the subject sustained.”
Bishop leaned back in his chair. That lab and all its consecutive failures had been keeping him awake for days. He was this close to getting in there and swapping the organs himself. “Any good news, doctor?”
Stockman raised his head up from the lab to look at him. “I hear the Secretary of National Finance has agreed to a meeting about the technology budget.”
“That’s not good news.” Bishop took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes. “Find someone to attend the meeting, I’m not debating that fool about the monetary value of my work.”
“I don’t know if you’re aware, John.” Stockman’s words lifted Bishop’s head up. “But I am your Chief Scientific Officer, not your business manager.”
“Watch yourself, Stockman.” Bishop’s glare passed through his sunglasses as he put them back on. “I’m in no mood for your flippant attitude.”
Stockman scoffed, barely smiling. “You always did get short tempered when you were tired.”
“I don’t get tired.” Bishop snapped.
“I have studied your neurological metabolism extensively. You get tired. In fact you’re tired right now to the point of redundancy. You’re mixing sodium hydroxide with magnesium citrate when you should be mixing it with microcosmic water. Congratulations, you’ve reverse engineered lemon juice.” Stockman gestured dramatically to the lab bench he was standing next to.
Bishop stared at the lab work… Oh dear.
For the next two hours Bishop sat in a chair with his arms and legs crossed while Stockman loudly and insistently restarted an experiment on alkaline-based homeostasis. “This is why you need to be careful.” Stockman rambled. “My mother almost burnt her hand off with this stuff.”
A very tired Bishop raised his eyebrow and a new cup of coffee to his lips. “Why was your mother playing with sodium hydroxide?”
“I had discovered heavy metals in our water supply. The city hadn’t bothered fixing the filters of our neighbourhood's water tower for months. So we took it upon ourselves to clean our water. She had a friend who worked in a water treatment plant who told her sodium hydroxide would do the trick.” Stockman said, going on as he measured the liquids in a becker. “That friend later went blind by getting sodium hydroxide in his eyes, so perhaps we should’ve been more sceptical. Moral of the story, don’t be careless with deadly bases.”
Bishop stared for a little while. His face was eerie even when it was calm – especially when it was calm. “I was under the impression you lived in a much nicer place than that.”
Stockman gave him an odd look. “I grew up in the Bronx. What on Earth made you think that?”
He squinted. “Was your father not a landlord?”
Stockman whipped around suddenly, glaring at Bishop harshly from his digitally generated eyes. “My father has nothing to do with me.”
Surprised by the rather sudden outburst but too tired to discipline, Bishop looked at Stockman with wide eyes. They stood there in a weird sort of staring contest before Stockman imitated a sigh and let his shoulders slouch.
“My father was a wealthy landlord, yes. And a married man at that, not to my mother of course, no. My mother was a poor sweet woman he decided to have a fling with, and when she inevitably got pregnant he decided his status and reputation was more important than his child. He left us with nothing. I never got so much as a cent from him for twelve years. Hell, the first time I met him was at my mother’s funeral.”
Bishop watched him, intrigued. This certainly wasn’t in the file. Although, Bishop had wondered a time or two why the man had been given his mother’s last name, and not Franklin Carters’. “Better late than never, I suppose.”
“Don’t make me laugh. That man spoke to me for 10 whole minutes just to tell me he had asked an old friend to take me in until I had somewhere else to go. Paul. He was a buffoon. I couldn’t stand that sad old man’s house. Why do you think I went to university at 15?”
Bishop leaned back and got comfy. “I suppose I thought you were smart.”
“Oh I am brilliant. And that sad excuse for a father died knowing his illegitimate son was more successful and extraordinary than him or any of his proper children.” Stockman snarled. Bishop hadn’t seen him this bitter in at least a day.
“I’m fairly certain he died after you had been missing for several years.”
The screen displayed Stockman with nostrils flared in offense. “Well something tells me your parents weren’t too proud of you when they died.”
Bishop’s gaze hardened slightly. “My mother died within minutes of giving birth to me, and my father before that. But nice try.” They stared at each other for another long moment, unspoken thoughts floating in the air, begging to be released. “But they would be proud of me. My father lived and died as a doctor, and I have followed in his footsteps and achieved more than he could’ve ever dreamed.”
Stockman watched him for a bit. “How quaint,” he chuckled bitterly. “You live to please the dead, I live to spite them.”
Bishop’s head fell to the side subtly. “Clearly both are effective.”
“Clearly.” Stockman turned his head, looking at the half finished experiment. “I’m going to bed.”
Bishop squinted suspiciously. “You don’t need sleep, Baxter.”
“So it says something that I’m going to bed before you, huh?”
After another long moment Bishop sighed and pushed himself up on his knees. He nearly wobbled when he finally stood after so long. “Good night, Baxter.”
“Good night, John.”