Parthenia Rook, Episode 3: Fallen Lepidopterists
by Luc Reid
The android toddler, Parthenia Rook reflected, had in the end been more dangerous than the zombie photographers. But far more dangerous than either was the kirchenstreuselkuchen at the Café Gefahrlichefrau in Vörpalsberg, where Parthenia was seated in a small, private room with a piece of the cake in front of her. If she didn’t restrain herself, she could eat enough kirchenstreuselkuchen to burst an anaconda wide open. She knew this from experience.
“Excuse me, Fraulein Doktorin, but aren’t you Parthenia Rook?”
Parthenia looked up to see a handsome young man of about her age at the door holding a copy of The Journal of Theoretical Lepidoptery.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you, Dr. Rook, but I’ve read your monograph on Zemeros dinonoctis and I’m afraid I’m a hopeless fan. It was the most fascinating work I’ve ever read on any butterfly whatsoever.”
“Please sit down,” said Parthenia guardedly. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” She took a small vial she kept for special occasions out of her pocket and tapped a few aromatic drops of its contents over her kirchenstreuselkuchen.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” said the young man.
“Lepidoptery symposium?” she said. The young man shook his head.
“Martial arts fight-to-the-death benefit performance?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Family event?”
The young man smiled slowly. It was not a nice smile. “Closer.”
Parthenia lurched up from her chair, but the young man appeared to be at least as fast as she was and shot her in the chest with a burst of some electrical weapon. She collapsed to the floor, quivering.
“It’s a new type,” he said cheerfully. “That shot should keep you paralyzed, though fully conscious, for oh … call it twenty minutes,” he said. “More than enough time, actually, to eat your kirchenstreuselkuchen for you. I can’t resist these, I don’t mind telling you. But you should know that. You see,” he said, sitting and forking up a huge bite of the cake, “I’m your identical twin brother.”
Parthenia said nothing, but the young man raised his eyebrows. “You don’t believe me? Despite father’s remarkable skill with genetics? But it’s true, dear sister.”
He continued to eat the kirchenstreuselkuchen, making little humming noises of pleasure. “Of course,” he mumbled through a mouthful, “I was raised by the Bonobo King.”
Then his eyes glazed over, and he collapsed on top of Parthenia. He should be out for at least 30 minutes, Parthenia calculated, if he’d ingested enough of the knockout drops she had put on the cake.
Parthenia spent the remaining seventeen minutes gazing wistfully at a crumb of kirchenstreuselkuchen that had fallen only three inches from her face.