The Frankenstein Factory Read Online Free PDF

outside, though, he had another idea. He headed downstairs to the operating room, passing through the open bulkhead doors and finally into the amphitheater itself. The place was bathed in a cool white light, and he saw at once that Freddy O’Connor had preceded him.
    The brain surgeon glanced up from the operating table as he approached. “Yeah, Frank’s still here—in case that’s what you were wondering.”
    Earl moved closer, drawn by the hypnotic fascination of the thing on the table. The oxygen tent and protective closures had been removed, and for the first time he could get a clear, unobstructed view of the patient. Frank (he hated thinking of him by that name, but there was no other) was a young man, in his late twenties, well built and somewhat handsome, with dark brows and sharp features. His complexion was gradually taking on its proper color as the body temperature rose, and Earl noticed that the intravenous feeding line had been disconnected from his arms.
    “He should be up and around soon,” Freddy said. “That’s why we disconnected the IV. He doesn’t need it anymore, and the hunger will help to wake him. He might need some low-level radiation, but I’ll leave that to Armstrong.”
    “Have you searched down here for Miss Watson?”
    “Hell, buddy, we worry about the living.”
    “You think she’s dead?”
    “If she’s not, she should be. Once they pass seventy we should take their brains and give them to the young. Too many people on the globe anyway.”
    “They’re talking about colonizing Venus.”
    “You think we’ll live to see that?”
    “Maybe,” Earl said. He was watching the slow but regular rise and fall of Frank’s chest. The young man was breathing, all right. “How about the brain? Have you run your tests?”
    “Not yet.”
    Something was still bothering Earl. “Tell me, Freddy—why did you hurry down here as soon as we discovered the old lady missing?”
    O’Connor shrugged. “Maybe I thought she was down here screwin’ him. Old lady like that—”
    “Be serious for once, Freddy!”
    But he merely turned away. “I was serious for three hours last night, over this table. That’s serious enough to last me the rest of the month.”
    Lawrence Hobbes entered from above and came down through the seats of the amphitheater. “We’ve searched everywhere. She’s not on the island.”
    “Could she have left by hovercraft?” Earl asked.
    “Impossible! Anything landing on shore would have set off our nighttime proximity alarms.”
    “You have alarms all through the house too, though, don’t you?”
    “Correct. I turned them on myself before retiring.”
    “Then she couldn’t have left her room without sounding an alarm?”
    “No,” Hobbes admitted.
    “And no one could have entered her room without sounding an alarm? Then what happened to her?”
    “Someone could have been hiding in her bathroom last night, after the operation. He could have taken her—her body out this morning. The alarms automatically go off at sunrise, but with our late night no one was quite up by then.”
    “Who could have been hidden in her bathroom?” Freddy asked. “We were all down here except for that Mexican whore cook of yours.”
    “Shut up about her!” Hobbes growled. He was rapidly reaching the limit of his patience with Freddy O’Connor. “Just remember I’m the one who’s paying you, and show a little respect!”
    “Come on,” Earl Jazine said. “This won’t get us anywhere. If she’s missing, you can be sure we’ll search till we find her.”
    “We’ve searched,” Hobbes said. “She’s not on the island.”
    “I’ll bet there’s one place you haven’t searched.”
    “Where’s that?”
    “That turretlike effect on the roof, where the microwave equipment is. A body could easily be hidden up there.”
    Hobbes tightened his lips to a thin line, then said, “Let’s go look.”
    They could see nothing from the ground outside the house. Finally Tony