Authors: Bradley Ernst
Her angry, deep black eyes were not her
fault.
She should not feel ashamed of what she
had become. Poseidon did it to her.
“Although
lust is a frailty only possessed by human beings,” their owner claimed,
“Poseidon allowed himself to succumb to his desires. That was the catalyst that
changed Medusa.” Rickard nodded.
Now she is more interesting than a mere
beautiful virgin, a priestess of Athena, alone could be—and so are you.
Their
captor, their loose-fleshed prey, closed the book and traipsed disorganized into
the small room to rummage through the brown bag, which he had placed on the
desk. The smell of food hung in the air. Food was usually left in the sink for
them soon after he arrived, but their comical jailer had not put what he
brought in the sink. Only the piles of clothes—short white pants on top
of each—sat conspicuously like rock cairns for them to consider. Rickard
was certain they each knew where the short white pants went.
Underneath the long
pants.
The
storyteller moved the brown bag in a way that echoed off of two green walls and
emerged with a long, thin loaf of bread no thicker than a stout rope. He placed
the baguette across the span of the sink where it formed a bridge similar to
one in a story—the thirty-first one he’d read them. The bread appeared to
Rickard a bridge for beetles and almost immediately the water dripped on the
middle of the loaf—a different sound than when a drop hit the spot in the
grooved, brown-stained sink—and the sweet smell of the bread filled the
room. He was suddenly aware of his incredible hunger; the thoughts of attack
had courted his stomach.
Largess
so bestowed, their sloppy benefactor folded the empty brown bag along creases
placed by someone else then returned to replace the book in the cabinet and attended
to last minute housekeeping. With great care, and selecting the correct key to
lock the smallest room, he wove his way to the larger door. With a pause,
eyebrows bunched together in the low light, each pelt of which bristled like a
small, angry animal, his voice boomed once more, thick with the musk of
confidence.
“Rickard.
Answer the first question.” With the speed of a scorpion’s tail, Rickard
flicked his eyes away from the wet spot on the bread.
“My
face looks identical to Ryker’s face.”
Announcing a middling
arthritis, the man pointed his thin-boned elbow at the one who was unlike any
of them. He froze. The boy appeared not to have moved at all during the naming,
the psychological experiment, the distribution of short pants and long pants,
shirts, socks—installation of the thin-bread-bridge for beetles, the
reading of Medusa and other assorted rumblings and noises.
“And
knowing that Ryker’s face is different from that one’s face does not make you
question your reasoning?” Rickard felt impatient for the lout to leave.
“We
are identical in nearly every way and altogether unlike the boy who remains in
his cot.”
Ryker snapped his
approval—a deep, new click coming from down between his thin, dense
lungs.
Nodding,
the unwitting nitwit left the keys dangling from the door that held promise and
shuffled to hover above the cot where the boy unlike himself rested, hiding his
eyes. With dilatory sloth, the man studied the lump beneath the thin,
war-beaten layer of wool.
“You
were the first I created.” The clod reached a hand—fingertips close to
the boy’s head—then seemed to reconsider the gesture. The sweet-offal
stench of his fear plumed into the room like the ink-screen of an octopus. He
patted his left pocket, pulled out the loose key, and seemed to study it as he
swept his cluttered thoughts into a sorry pile. “I have not been able to exceed
you with these others who I have named.” Shaking as though chilled, he
continued. Rickard’s mandible picked up the vibrations. The urge to clamp into
the singing old flesh was almost too much; fear dripped from his meat. Each
oversized pore and scar and inefficiency of movement had become a terrible
beacon of the deadly lies he had woven for
them
. The
smell of terror hung in a straight line from the idiot to Rickard’s jaws like
sweet blood-honey wrung from a tight kite-string.
“You
contain exclusive components, and Rickard is correct: his face is nearly
identical to Ryker’s face, which you know. I do not ask you questions for a
reason. The components I poured into your mold brought the answers to all
questions with them.”
A
sloppy evil suffused the room. The attempt to reinforce the ridiculous sham
with his pale erudition made Rickard’s jaw muscles tight—angry as glowing
ingots. The fake tucked the loose key into his pocket then ran his fingers
through his greasy, fear-sodden hair.
“You’ve
done well to stay quiet.” He told the thin form under the blanket, “Tomorrow I
will name you and gift you one hour with the book. An hour all your own; you
may spend the hour in your cot with the book unopened or you may read. I am
certain you know how. I will administer a bank of questions, both before and
after your hour. This, I will do to study—” Rickard imagined the shake of
his neck, how the fat and skin would feel if he were able to tear a chunk off
of a leg; it was not a hunger for meat, but a voracity to damage. “…
the
result on either end of that particular stimulus. These
two…” he nodded toward those with names “…will sit, quietly and clothed. You
will don your own clothing after you have received your name, after your hour
with the book—when my second bank of questions has been answered.”
It
was not his human failure not to ask The One Who Was Different if he heard or
understood, because there was nothing that could be done to make the boy
answer.
Each of them in the room knew that.
Rickard
faced the thin form beneath the ratty wool coverlet. Something light came from
the boy: neither fear nor confidence.
A flutter of a
hyper-electric quality.
It didn’t have a smell, nor was it benign. He
could feel the heat from the boy. He was taller than they were.
And weaker.
And much more
dangerous.
Returning
to the door that held promise, the simian dullard took time to spin the loose
key back onto the ring then quickly unlocked the door, stepped out, and swung
it shut from the other side.
The
side
where
pomegranate trees, salt mines, and pastures full of horses were tended by
people who created themselves.
People in dirty clothes.
Some who had bowls of beetles and crimson seeds next to soft beds.
Others who were not careful with their shirts as they read, perhaps
just to themselves, beneath warm, bright lights.
Those
who may or may not choose to wear short white pants beneath their long wool
pants.
People who made brown bags from trees for the odd, lumbering
pettifogger. Industrious folk who created shiny-paged books with illustrations
and words to be read to captives in small green rooms. Those who may choose,
instead of reading stories and dripping tattletale juices on their lapels, to sit
out under the nighttime-sky beneath the stars.
H
e sat up even before
the light fizzled out. Opening his eyes against the amber glare despite the
pain the stimulus caused him, he regarded the twins. Ryker and Rickard each
felt the other’s pulse and flicked their attention to the sink for a moment. He
knew they would wait for the water to drip twice more on the bread before they
moved about. The light dimmed with a coughing, predictable hum; the tired
wiring that fed it power trickled to sleep. The others could still see.
Although he could not, he sensed Ryker looking in his direction.
He
had taken an enormous chance.
The
water dripped. The second since the door had
closed,
the twins explored the smaller room. He had slipped silently from his cot to
unlock it during the failed sermons of the abstruse-intentioned narcissist.
He’d later heard Ryker pull then wedge two of his baby teeth into the mechanism
of the cabinet’s lock.
Soon, they would be free.
P
alpating each dim nook
of the smaller room, the twins searched. The One Who Was Different worked
steadily on the lock of the cabinet.
The darkness was complete for him.
Their
fingers, different from his, fluttered and categorized. It was as though they had
the rubbery and ribbed skin of geckos on the tip of each digit. They theorized
unknown objects, practicing their clicks and purrs, humming tones at one
another. None, so far, held promise. Actually, their vision was quite good in
the dark, but the taller, warm boy needed what they sought: light.
Rickard
and Ryker nearly struck heads. It was not their nocturnal sight that kept their
craniums from impact, rather something within their nature. Instinct.
Collectively, their fingertips had, in just minutes, touched each surface below
the table; they had accomplished the feat with incredibly little overlap, as if
each could sense—chemically, like an ant—where his brother had
been.
It was time to move past the plane of
the surface of the table.
With
a click, Ryker touched Rickard’s arm like a toad in an aquarium, immune to
usual, human social convention. Rickard climbed his brother to search the items
on the high table.
A silent agreement.
Nothing they
had worked out ahead of time. The
toad-being
climbed
remained steady until the last foot left him, and then reached for the hand
that dangled in the dark to pull him up.
They
focused their attention on the most promising item, remembering the microscope
from their first foray into the room. The rubber
cup of the
objective lens
then the steady base. They pivoted each mechanism,
manipulating with pinches and flicks, twisting and turning parts. Finally,
something clicked.
The light emanating
from the base of the microscope made each of them blink. Lifting, tilting the
heavy microscope to cast a more thorough glow on the handle of the cabinet for
their companion, the twins settled in to watch.
The
One Who Was Different initially shrunk from the light, then regrouped. Ryker’s
teeth had pushed down a spring inside the mechanism. The detent within hadn’t
fully engaged, but the friction of the teeth themselves now had to be overcome.
Grating noises filled the room as their pale cellmate worked. Rickard held the
microscope steady, but the light was not focused where it was needed. Ryker
turned a knob. The deck of the scope descended—away from the light. The
twins reflexively snapped shut their inner lids. The room was now almost
too
bright. Ryker traced the cord to a
plug just above the surface of the table. Placing a foot on the wall and
pulling, the light went out.
“Just
hold it steady,” their companion sighed. “I’ve almost got it.”
It was the longest sentence he had
spoken aloud.
Ryker
replaced the plug. The light on the scope blazed, and Rickard held it as they’d
been told to—steady.
They needed to find that source of
power. Power meant heat. They could, perhaps, absorb heat from its source.
Rickard
stood on his toe tips, nails scratching the metal surface, to peer at
something. He and Ryker had the same nails.
Thick and smooth
and nearly clear.
The boy’s were different. He had nails
like the man’s
.
Pink,
white-tipped, and soft.
Not as useful as theirs, given the
current circumstances.
The
scratching sound seemed to bother The One Who Was Different greatly. He shrunk
for a moment, covering his ears. “Please, just let me do this. Inside we will
find many answers.” The boys ignored the request.
Ryker had seen the item too
.
It
was Ryker’s turn to climb his brother’s body. Sinking his nails into the thin
metal surface at the top, he hooked a rubbery toe behind the cabinet and pulled
Rickard up easily, one handed, behind him. They squatted, arms and legs held
close to their bodies, hunched, clammy bookends on either end of their dusty
find. They were not brothers in the conventional sense. The One Who Was
Different was correct: they would know so much more when the cabinet was open.
The
flat, hidden bag they had found was leather. It did not appear that it had
always been flat. Originally intended to sit upright, its base had heavier
leather than the sides. The leather had once been supple. Weight and time had
collapsed it into a cracked husk. Rickard ran the insides of his wrists along
his flanks to stimulate the oil he and Ryker made.
It kept their skins smooth …
Would
it work for the bag?
Ryker
did the same. It was good to have a task. Raccoon-like gargoyles, they worked
oil into the bag until it shined then leapt, light and precise, one after the
other onto the table. Ryker worked oil into the scuffmarks his teeth had made
in the horsehide strap, and then they studied the
mechanisms
which
kept the bag closed. It looked similar to the strap of dark, old
skin that held up their creator’s pants. Ryker tugged the strap loose. There
were two. Rickard watched then worked the other side free. The things inside
were pulled out to inspect.
Books, two of them.
The
liar’s handwriting filled each page. His descriptions were verbose, and he’d
jotted some diagrams. They set the books aside.
Next,
they inspected a roll of soft green fabric—a deeper, shiny green than the
walls. They had learned many words from their jailer, but none to describe the
material. Within a week they would know the name of the fabric: velvet. Small
instruments were fastened inside the roll, both metal scalpels and the more
expensive obsidian blades that the scientist preferred. Elegant
glass-and-rubber syringes, forceps, hemostats and probes, jars full of
brass-headed dissection pins. Ryker touched the tip of a black glass scalpel
and bled, placing his finger in his mouth to taste the iron. Rickard slid each
instrument back inside its sleeve sewn into the roll and put the parcel on top
of the journals.
The
last item was heavier and wrapped in an oily cloth. Taking turns, they smelled
the bundle, tasted it, and then marked the fabric with their own scents from
glands inside their wrists. Inside the rag was an instrument with a tube on one
end and what appeared to be a handle on the other. The sides were heavy,
blocky, metallic slabs. The handle was crosshatched and brown: two panels of
material softer than concrete yet harder than books. Never before had they seen
wood. Parts moved on the machine as they passed it back and forth. Ryker
toggled a switch near the base of the handle and a thin container dropped free.
Rickard retrieved and smelled it. Parts inside that component moved also, like
a slim box. His fingers pressed and pulled, exploring. A shiny object fell
free. Ryker snatched it up as though it were a beetle. It was not
alive,
in a technical sense … it was, however live
ammunition. Squatting, he tried to pull the bullet from its brass case.
They could smell the powder inside.
Scraping
a clear nail across the primer—lodged deep and flat and
firm—yielded no result. He popped it inside of his mouth, probing with
his tongue, gently biting down. Unsatisfied, he spit out the cartridge and
pointed the copper-jeweled tip at his eye, studying its diameter and roundness,
then poked the blunt tip into the business end of the Luger. Next, ears
pivoting from flattened crescents in his skull—each like half a tea
saucer—he shook the bullet, listening. Each ear took a turn, flexible,
long muscle fibers rotating Ryker’s auditory flap independently at comical
angles. The brass casing would not allow the bullet to pass fully into the
barrel, so the densely muscled youngster plucked the cartridge out again,
frowning at it in the palm of his thin, curled hand, glancing from the bullet
to the gun and back.
Rickard
pulled the Luger from Ryker gently, but without approval. Ryker hummed a low
tone, a warning, but let it trail off as he watched. Engaging the safety, his
brother pulled the trigger,
then
shook his head. He
disengaged the safety, replaced the magazine in the handle with a click, and
slipped a finger back onto the trigger.
“There.”
With a click The One Who Was Different swung both doors of the cabinet open.
Ryker and Rickard laid their ears flat. Standing like reptilian meerkats, they
peered over the top of the cabinet door blocking their view.
The shelves were jammed full
.
Squatting,
Rickard quickly wrapped the pistol back into an oily package. Ryker placed the
books and instrument roll back inside the bag then the Luger. Each twin slid
forward off the table, hands held in front of them. Their stomachs slapped the
concrete and each sprung upright again, curious to better see what items the
shelves held. The One Who Was Different opened a third journal. The twins
rested on their heels, listening, their ears and eyes searching the shelves in
wonder. The boy read:
September 6, 1939.
In
mere days the nation’s greatest minds have been concentrated in one room. I am
one of hundreds. Our cause is noble and necessary. This is the time for
greatness to be recognized. Colleagues who had failed, previously, to recognize
me now nod respectfully as we mill about, waiting for the speeches to commence.
Dr.
Mengele has taken me on. We recruit, at top speed, a team to maximize our
greatest resource: knowledge.
Evening~
A
list, those who have not responded to the cause, is in my care.
Each dossier thicker than my own by at least an inch.
A Swiss physicist of note, a German astronomer, a French inventor,
and dozens more.
In the morning we will collect these men. If it were a
matter of verbal duels, surely none would accompany our party forth, as there
have already been conversations with each. The rifles will settle things. I am
thankful not to have been issued one—a long-gun that is. Mengele spoke
shortly with an SS official, a man in his twenties, in passing. In jabbing prose
he convinced the youth, in moments, to relinquish his sidearm to me. This, I
believe, was merely an exercise in fun. I intend never to carry nor fire it.
The immediate power of rank is exhilarating—I will follow Josef always.
September 9, 1939
.
My
time to note these happenings is short as our work (I shiver in excitement at
the possible outcomes) is
all-absorbing
. I shall
scratch a few lines, regardless. My heavy eyelids conspire, so, to close. A row
of rooms occupies our time. None of the geniuses escaped. They stood, each a
dignified, national treasure, like sullen statues to collect—inside their
homes. The papers of a British fellow (Waddington? Yes … Conrad, I think) have
provided a template for this phase. Waddington’s studies have proven, through generational
aversion and other metrics, it possible to pass along knowledge solely via
genetic contribution. As this scholar, a visionary, stumbles about to aid our
enemies, we shall nurture the roots of his ideas. The summation is this: we
have a team of eight working to coordinate each room—four rooms in total.
By installing screens, forcing cigarettes and amphetamines to keep our subjects
alert, we rush to introduce, for instance, surgery to a physicist in one room;
the teachings of the ancient Greeks to a surgeon … not one of our astute
inmates is mistreated—as such—yet are not allowed more than two
hours of rest a day. Time—an unaffordable luxury. As each man reaches his
capacity, he shall be relieved of his genetic contribution: an indelicate topic
we’ve yet to and soon, will need to, broach. The guns likely won’t help that
collection.
These
are top minds. In theory the samples will contain the world’s knowledge.
“Epigenetics,” Waddington calls it, will be our greatest weapon. We’ve
distilled his concept.
Already,
LeMarc shows signs of capacity. (We have renamed each man.) This subject, Tel
Aviv born, has an
IQ which
places him to the far right
of the median, exceptional, at 240. Though a philosopher, he has quickly
conquered mathematical lessons through abstract theory. With no time for
overlap, we push on, considering LeMarc’s linguistic aptitude (already, he is
fluent in German, Latin, English, French, and Aramaic). We will now maximize
that quarter within him—“top him off” so to speak. Those who speak Mandarin,
Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, and Portuguese await him. Topics of
all sorts have been listed. Indeed, I am the keeper of lists.
The
One Who Was Different put the journal aside and opened another near its middle.
March 15, 1957.
Involuntary
surrogate appears to be experiencing amniorrhexis. Relatively violent goings-on
within the woman have me perplexed. For months I have reviewed gestation times
for the mammalian components of the dark project, yet I float, alone, in
uncharted waters. If time and resources had allowed, I may have acquired a
second surrogate for the isolated, superior, unadulterated human zygote.
Risking the journey to Glasgow to gain access to the ultrasound machine eased
my fears a bit. However, I was disturbed by the amount of ministering two of
the fetuses performed with respect to the third. They seemed as ants—or
perhaps bees—to be tending their womb-mate in an aggressive, albeit
caring way. The machine affords a grand, if not gray-scaled and grainy view
into the lives inside. While the machine’s inventor rubbed the probe over my
soporous ward’s abdomen, counting heads and arms and legs and such, I watched
behaviors—thankful none ripped at his companions. It easily could have
been so.