by Bryan Davis
Mardon poured a single drop of thick brown fluid from a test tube. When the drop struck the clear liquid in a beaker, the solution sizzled. He picked up the beaker and swirled the contents. After a few seconds, it turned violet and settled.
“Excellent. Now for the most important step.” He withdrew a vial from his pocket and pulled out a stopper. “When I add this potion, the contents in the beaker will strip Samyaza’s DNA and make it precipitate at the bottom. I will be able to filter the combination, retrieve the original potion, and add Clefspeare’s DNA. The resulting solution, however, will be volatile and short-lived, so we will have to work quickly from that point until we finish the transformation.” He set the beaker down and turned to Jared and Marilyn. “In other words, we cannot pause and reconsider, and we will not have an opportunity to try again.”
Jared nodded. “That’s when I transluminate myself and Larry collects my light energy.”
“And that’s also when Mardon will have your life in his hands,” Marilyn said. “I won’t have a clue if he’s taking care of you or trying to dispose of you.” She patted her gun. “This is the only insurance I have. I think it will be sufficient persuasion.”
Mardon mopped his brow with a handkerchief. “It is sufficient, I assure you. But please remember that my primary motivation is to travel to Second Eden to be with Sapphira. If I fail to take care of Jared, I know that my hopes will be permanently dashed and I will have no future except for an eternity in the lake of fire. I wish to avoid that fate at all costs.”
Marilyn shifted her hand away from the gun. “Fair enough, but explain the procedure step by step so I can follow your every move.”
“Gladly.” Mardon touched the suction tube. As bendable as a pipe cleaner and roughly the width of a vacuum hose, it extended from near Jared’s back to a hole in Larry’s front panel. “Jared’s light energy will travel into a collection chamber within Larry. He will reassemble the energy based on Clefspeare’s DNA structure using the program I wrote while you two took turns sleeping.”
Mardon leaned back against the table. “A casual observer might think we should be able to use that DNA code to transform the energy into a full-fledged dragon, but the process is not that simple. Just as Second Eden’s birthing garden uses special soil to feed and grow regenerated babies, and just as I germinated and grew spawns in an energizing soil, so must I feed a newly formed Clefspeare with a nurturing compound.
“My own soil, which created Sapphira and Acacia in the underground mines, was a slow grower, much too slow for our use now, but the soil in Second Eden proved to be much faster when energized by an Oracle of Fire or by Excalibur. When I was in Second Eden’s birthing garden, I collected some of the soil and isolated the properties that allowed it to become a rapid regenerator.”
He showed them the vial. “This potion is the result. It is dreadfully powerful, which allows it, in its purified state and endowed with demonic DNA, to destroy something that contains foreign DNA code, that is, a specific code that I program it to identify as an invading agent. In this case, I programmed it to attack the basic dragon DNA structure. When I remove Samyaza’s code and replace it with Clefspeare’s, it will not destroy but instead rebuild what it recognizes as its own, because Jared possesses code for both his dragon and his human form.”
Mardon smiled. “The parasite I invented revived Jared’s photoreceptors so they could leach his energy, but their revived state is a boon for us. With the parasite gone, the active photoreceptors will pass through to Jared’s dragon form. You see, my theory is that wearing the rubellite in the Second Eden garden regenerated the photoreceptors during the transformation from human to dragon. Since we don’t have a rubellite now, without revived photoreceptors, this process would be impossible.”
“So,” Jared said, “you’re proud of making a parasite that nearly killed me.”
“Not proud.” Mardon dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief again. “Just pleased that we salvaged some sort of benefit.”
“Whatever.” Jared nodded. “Finish the explanation. What happens next?”
“After the translumination, it will be up to Larry to reconstruct Jared’s light energy into a physical seed that we will plant in soil. Then I will mix the catalytic potion into the soil. Regarding creating the seed, Larry has performed similar tasks with his Apollo engine, but he will have to do so with Jared’s dragon encoding instead of his human encoding. That way, a dragon will be the result instead of a human.”
“How long will it take?” Jared asked.
“Judging by the birthing garden’s rate of reconstitution when it is energized, perhaps only seconds, but it’s impossible to be sure. This experiment is the first of its kind. I have no empirical data. Yet I do intimately know the stages of development that all regenerated spawns pass through, so if the process is slower than expected, I can identify where Jared is in the growth spectrum and extrapolate to determine when he will reach a fully mature state.”
“Tell me the stages now,” Marilyn said, “so I don’t have to depend on you if things go wrong. I’ll also need to know when to move Jared. I don’t think a full-grown dragon can fit in this room.”
“Very well. You might remember Dr. Conner’s secret laboratory. He had two doors that he labeled alpha and omega, yet you probably never learned why. They stood for the beginning and end of the regenerating spectrum. Alpha is initial germination, that is, the first time the observer notices anything sprouting from the seed. We used other Greek letters for the remaining stages. Delta means that limbs have sprouted. A river’s delta might help you remember it. Kappa means that a head is evident. Think of a cap on a head. Omicron is the mouth stage when a little oval orifice appears. The parallel with the letter should be self evident. There is a significant leap to the next stage. Upsilon is when we uproot the spawn and place it in a growth chamber. From that point it simply grows until full maturity, that is, when it can walk or fly or do anything for which its body is designed.”
Marilyn nodded. “And that’s omega.”
“Exactly. But since the growth should be quite fast, the spawn will uproot itself and need no growth chamber.” He nudged the pot of soil on the floor with his shoe. “If all goes well, we should be able to simply watch the stages pass by in rapid succession.”
“Assuming this works,” Jared said, “how do I return to human form?”
“By reversing the process. Transluminate Clefspeare. Larry collects the energy and applies the human code to create the seed. Plant the seed in energized soil. And Jared grows from alpha to omega, but this time maturing as a human.”
“But he won’t be able to transluminate himself again,” Marilyn said. “As Clefspeare, he is not King Arthur’s heir.”
“True. I had not considered that.” Mardon tapped a finger on his chin. “Then we will have to call upon your son. He is an heir. Or perhaps Walter. Ashley could also build a device that mimics Excalibur. She has done it before.”
“If we can find any of them.” Marilyn looked at Jared. “Is that enough of a guarantee for you? Do you want to go ahead with it?”
“It’s time to rid the world of Arramos once and for all.” He nodded firmly. “Let’s do it.”
Marilyn stepped close and kissed him. As she drew back, she smiled. “I’ll kiss you again when you’re back to human form.”
“I’ll look forward to it.” Jared tightened his grip on Excalibur and focused on Mardon. The blade began to glow. “I’m ready.”
“Then we will begin.” Mardon poured half of the vial into the beaker. The mixture turned black. Green smoke rose. After a few seconds, the liquid cleared, and a sooty deposit collected at the bottom. He poured the contents through filter paper and into another beaker, then threw away the black residue. With a pair of tweezers, he picked up a single white thread from a Petri dish. “This holds Clefspeare’s DNA. You saw me dip this in the blood sample you saved and stored here. I isolated the necessary code, which now a
dheres to this sanitary thread.”
He poised the thread over the new beaker and carried both to the door. “Marilyn, kindly accompany me to the hallway while Jared transluminates himself. We don’t want to become random sparkles in the air, and I don’t wish to lose the organic material on this thread.”
“Larry,” Marilyn said, “give us a call when you’ve collected him.”
“I will choose an appropriate shout, perhaps an excerpt from Charge of the Light Brigade.”
“That should do.” Marilyn walked to the door and opened it for Mardon. When he passed through, she joined him in the hallway and closed the door. She spoke with a menacing hiss. “I suppose you have heard about the fury of a woman scorned.”
The hand holding the tweezers trembled. “Yes. Of course.”
“Good.” She drew the gun and cocked the hammer. “That is nothing compared to the fury of this woman if a certain mad scientist causes the death of her husband.”
“I will do my best. As I mentioned, this has never been—”
“Honor the Light Brigade, noble six hundred!”
Marilyn slid the gun back to the holster. “Let’s go.”
When they reentered the room, no one stood where Jared had been. Only Excalibur and a pair of gym shorts remained.
Marilyn stopped and stared. The vacancy felt like a deep void, as if someone had cut her heart out of her chest. But she had to go on. The empty room was expected.
She reached into a recess in Larry’s front panel at waist level and withdrew a pea-sized white seed. Cradling it in her palm, she showed it to Mardon. “I’ve got it.”
“Excellent.” Mardon hurried to the table and dropped the thread into the beaker. The moment the thread touched the liquid, the solution erupted. Droplets splashed into Mardon’s face. He slapped his hands over his eyes. Screaming, he dropped the beaker. It shattered and spilled the solution. Sizzling and popping, the liquid flowed to the side of the table and dripped over the edge.
“Mardon!” Marilyn ran to the table and stared at the mess. “What do I do?”
He dropped to his knees and groaned, his hands still covering his face. “I need water! It burns!”
“Not until you tell me what to do!” Marilyn slid the pot under the drip and let the soil collect the solution. “I’m catching some, but a lot of it evaporated.”
Mardon groaned again, louder and longer. “My eyes are on fire!”
“Do we have enough solution?” Marilyn shouted.
He shook his head wildly. “I don’t know! I don’t know!”
She knelt in front of him, grabbed his shirt, and jerked him close. “You left some in the vial. Can you make more?”
Keeping his eyes closed, he nodded. “But what . . . what I kept . . . I planned to use . . . to make Jared human again . . . I have no way . . . of getting more.”
She shoved him backwards, leapt to her feet, and swept the rest of the liquid down to the pot. Her palm burned, worse than if she had laid it on a stove.
“I’ll be right back.” She pushed the seed into the soil and ran out of the room, down the hallway, and into the kitchen. She turned on the cold water and set her hand in the flow while at the same time rummaging in a cabinet for a container of some kind, any kind.
After snatching a stray plastic storage bag and filling it, she ran back to the computer room. Mardon lay on the floor, writhing on his back. She rushed in and poured the water slowly over his eyes.
“Blink to let the water in,” she said softly, though the burning sensation on her palm made her want to scream. “We have to flush that stuff out.”
Mardon’s eyelids fluttered. Water flowed into his eye sockets and dribbled over the sides. “You are most gracious. I very much appreciate the kindness.”
“Don’t go overboard. I’d do the same for an injured dog.” She emptied the rest of the bag and helped him up. “How are your eyes?”
“They are still burning, though not as badly.” He blinked rapidly. “I see only fuzzy images. If not for your voice and the fact that I knew you were here, I would not recognize you.”
“Not good for a scientist I’m counting on to restore my husband.”
He felt his way to the table and found the pot. “Did you plant the seed?”
“Just a minute ago.” “Do you see any growth?”
She crouched next to him and scanned the surface of the dark soil. A tiny sprout, green and supple, slowly emerged. “Yes!” Her heart thumping, she caressed the thin stalk with a fingertip. “Is that Jared?”
“Clefspeare, to be precise. He is now an alpha dragon.” Mardon ran his hand along the soil until his own finger touched the half-inch sprout. “He is very small, and I don’t detect rapid growth. That means we have some difficult options to choose from.”
“Like what?” As she rose, she helped him rise with her.
Blinking again, he retrieved the vial from his pocket. “One, we create more catalyst solution and risk being unable to restore Jared Bannister. Two, we wait for Clefspeare to grow, which is probably the safest option, though it could take a long time. Some of our spawns grew for a hundred years before we uprooted them and transferred them to growth chambers. Or three, we travel to Second Eden and transplant him into Second Eden’s birthing garden. That soil is sure to be faster than what is in our pot. The babies are ready in months instead of years. And if Sapphira is there, she can energize the soil for even faster results. Your son or Walter could do the same with Excalibur.”
Marilyn huffed. “A trip to Second Eden. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Madam, are you suggesting that I intentionally—”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She grabbed a fistful of her hair. “This is just too much! I have no idea what to do!”
“May I suggest another option? You take our alpha dragon to Second Eden yourself and leave me behind. My incentive to continue helping you remains, because I will still be short of my goal to get to Second Eden. And I know you will return for me because . . .” He held up the vial. “I have the catalyst and the know-how to restore your husband. I assume you still have the DNA sample you took from Jared before we began.”
“Yes, yes. Of course. And you’re not getting it.” Marilyn paced the floor in a five-foot circuit, checking the plant every time she pivoted. If it was growing at all, the difference was undetectable from this distance. Mardon’s options made sense, as did his offer to stay, but all the facts and possibilities jumbled in her mind. “It seems like everything and everyone is going stark raving mad, including me!”
“Marilyn,” Larry said, “my voice interpreter indicates that you might need help from an emotionless third party.”
She halted in front of his screen and heaved a sigh. “Yes, Larry. I need all the help I can get.”
“Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War, said, ‘Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.’ Since Mardon has proven himself many times to be an enemy, and since this latest attempt to prove friendship has failed, at least so far, I propose that you keep him close. You might need his help for Jared’s restoration on short notice, and you will be able to monitor his activities for anything that suggests a departure from loyalty to your cause.”
Marilyn set her hands on her hips. “Larry, that was amazing! So articulate and well thought out. And not a hint of a joke. I’m impressed.”
“Serious times call for serious discussion, but if you are concerned that I have reverted to my monitored state, I am able to imitate the sound of flatulence.”
“No. Please don’t. That’s not funny. It’s disgusting.”
“Then I will add a second quote—Your enemy is like spoiled ham. He comes from the backside of a pig, has turned rotten, and tastes terrible on a sandwich.”
“Who said that?”
“I believe I just did.”
Marilyn smiled. “Larry, thank you for the comic relief. I needed it.”
“You are quite welco
me.”
Mardon shuffled closer, his hands wringing. “Does this mean that you will take me to Second Eden?”
“Yes, but it’s not as easy as it sounds.” She sat at the control station. “Larry, can you contact Second Eden so someone at the portal will watch for us?”
“I have already begun trying to use the frequencies the guards at the portal are likely to monitor, but the recent nuclear blast has created an enormous amount of volatility in the atmosphere. So far, the guards have failed to answer, and I have no way of knowing if they did not receive my message or simply were unable to reply. Unless I get a response soon, you will have no choice but to go there and hope for a good result. The latest reports say that fallout is light here, though far worse to our south. If you begin with a northern trajectory, the danger range will be minimal to moderate.”
“Well, that raises the second problem. Transportation. We can get a vehicle, but we’ll need gas stops. We don’t want to run out halfway there.”
“Very few fuel stations are open,” Larry said, “and most of those are reserved for emergency and military vehicles. Success by a gas-powered vehicle is unlikely.”
“Then we’ll need to summon a dragon.”
“Three dragons have tooth transmitters. I will begin attempts to contact them, but the atmospheric conditions could easily interfere.”
“Thank you, Larry.”
“And speaking of gas . . .”
“Larry,” Marilyn said with a warning tone. “No flatulence.”
“I was merely going to say that if Adam fails to return soon with gas for the generator, I will have to shift to power-save mode, and I will lose my ability to send messages.”