by Lea Tassie
"Bring him back? Did he think the Russians would kill him?"
"Reader, you've never lived through a war. Dengler had lived through World War I. He was afraid the Russians would torture him for information and he was determined not to tell them anything. So he swallowed a cyanide capsule and that was the end of him."
"But the experiment survived."
"Amazingly, it did. The underground lab survived the shelling. The jar containing the experiment which, by the way, looks like ooze from a swamp, remained undisturbed until an earthquake ruptured the walls of the lab some hundred years later. The jar tumbled off the shelf and broke. The amorphous brown blob inside began to grow, developing small tentacles which allowed it to move. Eventually it oozed through cracks in the concrete and burrowed into the earth."
"And now," Reader said, "it's obviously grown to become entangled underground around the entire Earth. It's like a virus. It's an evil monster, eating everything in its path."
"I'd call it a plague." Dart leaned forward. "It has no intelligence, no brain.
It's not evil in itself, only in its effect on humans and the other living things on Earth."
"Well, that's evil!" Reader was scowling. "And I hate it!"
"What's the point of being angry with it?" Dart asked. "You might as well be angry with the tide, or the knowledge that DNA has seven components. They're facts, that's all."
"Charger will kill it and save my people," Reader said. "What are we going to call this underground brute? Not that Charger will need a name for it."
" I'm calling it the Septimus plague. And really, I'd prefer to leave it alone and see what happens. I'd like to see what your new humans do with it."
"And I'd like to get into your head and change your stupid mind!" Reader snapped. "How irresponsible can you be? No, don't answer that. How can my humans deal with the monster when they have no weapons, no specialized knowledge?"
"Well, you know whose fault that is, don't you?"
"I saw no reason to provide them with technology they didn't need. It was better for them to retain their innocence."
Dart smiled. "So now they need technology to create weapons and they don't have it. Why don't you let nature take its course? It will, anyway."
"I am Nature!" Reader exploded. "And things are going to go my way!"
"You'll have to manage it without my help."
Reader rose and paced back and forth along the path. Finally, she turned to Dart and said, "Are you willing to have Charger arbitrate?"
"It's the only choice, obviously. Though I think I've reminded you already that if he's angry because we disturbed him, he's quite capable of killing both of us."
***
Before she and Dart left to resurrect Charger, Reader directed her children to pack up their belongings, and drive the remaining herd animals out of the river valley and up into the mountains. "Find a place that has solid rock underfoot," she told them. "Take all the food you can carry and fodder for the animals. If the magic I am about to perform works, you'll be able to come home again in a few days."
"And if it doesn't," Dart muttered, "the eagles will be picking your bones."
As soon as the humans were on their way, Dart and Reader blinked to the Boston Museum of Science and located the exhibits marked The Rockwall of Texas Skeleton and The Giant Skull of the Americas. The bones in these exhibits were all that was left of Charger, who had died peacefully in the late 1800s, according to Tasker records. They extracted the bones' DNA in preparation to recreate their arbitrator.
"Shall we try to bring him back as Charger or Henry?" Dart asked.
"I'd prefer Henry," Reader said. "He's sure to be more compassionate."
Dart decided not to voice his opinion that there was little difference between the two. After all, Charger had been created from Henry, and Henry had been looking out of Charger's eyes during thousands of years of history. He was quite sure, whatever Henry/Charger called himself, that he would retain the same immense powers Charger had wielded. And, with this second resurrection, he would no longer be programmed to save humanity. In spite of himself, Dart shivered.
They completed the final part of the task high on the mountain where Reader's people had gone. Henry paced around the forest glade for a few minutes, shaking his head and muttering. He was old and crippled now but definitely Henry, a normal-sized man, not a monster like Charger. Finally, he confronted them. "All right, this better be good! What the hell do you want now?"
"We need help," Reader said.
Henry glared at her and Dart could feel immense power emanating from him. He might be ordinary in size, but he was still Charger the Hyborg. Would he help or would he explode into a killing spree?
Reader seemed to realize that Henry was less benevolent than she'd hoped and hurried to relate the story of the Septimus plague. "I want you to kill this plague," Reader said, "and save the new humans."
"And I want you to leave it alone," Dart said. "The humans will either adapt or die. If they die, something better may appear."
"So you want me to be judge and jury, do you?" Henry said. "Fine, but you're going to regret it."
Is he going to kill us now or later? Dart wondered, clutching his cape a little closer around himself.
Henry pointed a finger at Reader. "You have no right to interfere with humanity's evolution. You did your duty by giving birth to the new race and now you must let them evolve on their own."
Reader opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Henry turned to Dart and said, "You have no place here, either, interfering and experimenting with Earth's living creatures, whatever they are."
"I don't want to interfere," Dart said. "I just want to watch what happens."
It was as if he hadn't spoken. Henry turned once again to Reader. "You were meant to live only another twelve years but you've been interfering with that programming. You're trying to grab the ultimate power exercised by Mother Nature and that is wrong. You don't have the wisdom to fill such a role."
Dart felt Henry's gaze burning into him. "As for you, sitting around watching humans and Earth be destroyed is just morbid curiosity. You could be doing something more constructive."
Henry turned his back and walked away. Dart was just letting out a sigh of relief when the god swiveled on his toes and came back. "I could destroy Earth and every remaining creature on it. That would kill the Septimus plague. But I won't. Maybe I'll just let whatever is happening happen. I'd like to go back to sleep. Both of you are going to pay for bringing me back to life and embroiling me in humanity's problems again."
"But…" Reader began to protest.
Henry pointed his finger at her and her face went white. "You're afraid I'll destroy you. But I'm going to do something much worse." His look now included Dart.
"I have decided to let both of you live, but without your godlike powers. And I am banishing you from Earth forever. I will blink you to a distant planet, where you can contemplate your mistakes for eternity. If you survive that long, though I guarantee you won't want to." Henry finally smiled. "But you'll never again wake me from a well-deserved rest!"
The world vanished.
***
Henry noticed a break in the trees and, beyond, the shimmer of blue water under sunlight. He walked toward it and found a small mountain lake nestled in a forest surrounded by snow-covered peaks. It would be a good place to wait for death, which couldn't come soon enough, as far as he was concerned. Oblivion was paradise. He knew; he'd been there twice now.
He limped down to the water's edge and found a rock to sit on. After a minute or two, he leaned forward to look into the water. Was that face his? He hadn't seen his reflection for thousands of years. He could remember that young Henry was supposed to be good-looking, with blue eyes and dark brown wavy hair. But who was this old geezer with wild, gray hair and a wrinkled, worn face?
Back 3,000 years, when he'd volunteered to be a super soldier, a weapon, he gave up being human, being Henry. He becam
e Charger the Hyborg. That's who he could see in the water now, Charger's ugly face and the chaos that always surrounded him.
Henry jerked his head away. He could no longer see the image, but the old, bitter, bloody memories remained, vivid and immediate.
As a soldier, he'd always been moving, always doing something, so he had no time to think. If he wasn't fighting, he was polishing his sword, or repairing his armor, or dealing with Mac and Jill. He never had time to think about what he'd done.
Now he was old, with nothing to do except think about it. It didn't matter that he still had the powers of a god. That didn't allow him to forget the fact that he was a murderer on a grand scale. He had killed millions, including entire species of life forms.
The ones he'd killed paraded through his shuddering mind, face after face after bloody face. He knew how many there were, how long it would take to look at them all. He'd always counted things; he couldn't help himself.
Worse, he realized that if he'd never been programmed to save humanity, if he’d only become a Hyborg physically, he would still have done the same things. It was Henry, his essential self, who was the monster, not Charger. It was Henry who had to take responsibility for the killing.
The faces went on parading before his inner eye, until he became aware that a shape composed of millions of molecules was moving in his direction. A mathematical miracle of some kind. Then his vision cleared and he saw that it was a little girl.
Now he remembered where he was and why he'd been called here. Reader's new race of humans had almost been wiped out. The few who were left had fled here, into the mountains, where there was only a thin layer of soil over the rocks and, in places, no soil at all, to escape from the Septimus plague.
The little girl kept moving toward him, along the pebble beach, or jumping from rock to rock where there was no beach. When she came close enough to talk, she said, "You shouldn't be sitting there, mister, with your feet touching the ground. The monster might get you."
"Tell me about the monster," Henry said. "I didn't know there was one."
She shook her head in amazement at such ignorance. "It's a very bad one," she said. "It hides underground and reaches out to snatch people. Then it eats them. Didn't your people tell you that?"
"I have no people," Henry said.
She came closer and perched on a rock right at the edge of the lake. "That's awful." She brushed her bangs out of her eyes. "I don't have very many. There's only forty-nine of us left now."
"Why did you venture down here to the lake, if you think the monster is lurking?" Henry asked. "It's a brave thing to do, but seems a bit foolish."
The little girl shook her head. "No, not foolish. We're hungry. We ate all the food we brought with us. I thought if I stood in the lake, not moving at all, that a fish might swim up to me and I could grab it."
That was one thing about humans; they never gave up. They might be wrong about everything, but they never gave up. The Septimus plague wouldn't touch him, for the same reason it hadn't touched Dart or Reader. It would sense its own death in him.
"If you're not afraid, maybe you could help us. Would you help us, mister?"
Yet again humanity was asking for help. But why should he? He'd helped, time and time again, and his only reward was being shunned and exiled because humans couldn't bear to see what they'd created in him, couldn't bear to be reminded of what he'd done in their names.
He wanted to tell this child the whole story, to explain what had happened, but she wouldn't understand. She'd think he was crazy. Reader's children were innocents, with no knowledge of history and no understanding of what they might become themselves.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Maple."
"And your father's name?"
"Cedar."
Trees! They named themselves after trees.
"What's your name?" Maple asked.
"Henry."
"That's a very strange name. What does it mean?"
"It doesn't mean anything, Maple." And it didn't. Anyway, she wouldn't understand what he was talking about if he told her that Henry had been the name of a British king. Several kings, if he remembered ancient history.
Maple tucked her knees under her chin, being very careful not to let any part of her touch the ground. "So will you help us, Henry?"
"Yes." He couldn't refuse. Even without being programmed to help, he couldn't refuse.
He put his hand on the earth and sent a killing wave of power into the being he sensed beneath his feet. It began to die, quickly, as the waves shot through its bulk, emanating all over the world, like a lake ripples when a rock is thrown into it. He looked and saw the slope behind him drop as much as a foot, the trees quivering, as the being collapsed underground. The water in the lake, too, was choppy, though no breeze blew.
Because the Septimus plague had eaten most of the animals above ground, as well as those below the surface, its carcass would be filled with concentrated nutrition. There might be enough left of every kind of creature to begin breeding again. The plants would recover, too.
Henry rose, his stiff muscles protesting. "I've killed the monster," he said. "You're safe now."
She looked at him doubtfully, then began to smile. She trusted him, foolish child!
"Then come and meet my people," she said. She climbed down from her rock and put her hand into his.
He felt a sudden upsurge of tears. Blinking them away, he walked beside her.
She stopped and looked up at him. "My grandfather died before I was born, so I never knew him. Maybe you could be my grandfather?"
Henry felt an unfamiliar movement of his cheek muscles. Was he smiling? Maybe. He'd had a granddaughter once. Beth. He looked down at Maple and a name came to him. "Your mother's name is Aspen."
She looked up at him, eyes wide. "How did you know?"
"Grandfathers know everything."
###
Appendix
Osteology of The Giant Skull of the Americas
and the associated but distinct skeletal remains of The Rockwall of Texas Skeleton
from northeastern and southern locations of Texas
and
a re-examination of the phylogenetic relationships
Science International Peer Review Paper for submission. June 23, 2018. Cincinnati
Science Museum of America, Anthropological Commission on the existence of the “Giant Skull of the Americas and its significance to the Preservation of Ancient Societies.” Chilton Sutton Ph.D. BA. BS., University of New Denver, and Sara Williams Ph.D. Bsc., University of
Mexicanda
Abstract:
We reject the claim that The Giant Skull of the Americas and the skeletal remains of The Rockwall of Texas Skeleton are connected and thus comprise the remains of a single individual. The idea that this combined beast was the mythical giant of the First Nations populations seems farfetched, though the clearly recorded oral history of the southern American First Nations has shown them to have had contact with humans of sizeable proportions. J. Smyth’s rendition (1883) of a single giant originating in Atlantis and terrorizing and appearing in battles over all the southern states of America is, without a doubt, not science.
Introduction:
Here we present the skull explained by J. Smythe of the Boston Museum of Science, December 17, 1883, known as the Giant Skull of the Americas. The proportions and dimensions are confirmed and as stated by J. Smythe. Both the weight and extents are in accordance with sizeable growth and suggest a body size in excess of twelve feet in height. The robust nature of the skull described by the thickness of the bone also suggests the strengthening and elongation of the limbs and main trunk of the body to be both excessive and possibly genetically altered. However, the process of this genetic alteration and the purpose of its nature are both speculative and suspect. It is our opinion that it is natural and expected considering the matrix and deposition where this skull was discovered.
In 1883 on or about the da
te of June 19, one Jim Castel, farmer and land owner, discovered, while working his land in the state of northeastern Texas, a skull perfectly intact and complete buried in the soil. Castel sold the skull to the local museum for the sum of two dollars where it remained in collections until a chance discovery by J. Smythe, when it was then transferred to the Boston Museum and described.
In J. Smythe’s paper, December 17th, 1883, a correlation and dubious connection to an area known as “The Rockwall of Texas” was made. J. Smythe argues that a partial skeleton found buried in a stone cairn located at the center of the Rockwall complex was, in fact, the missing body of the skull he now possessed. In our opinion, we reject the connection of the skull to this partial skeleton based on the features of the preserved parts.
The skeleton is clearly twenty percent larger than the skull and the presence of osteoderms, skin armor with currently unknown metallic origin are problematic. It seems more reasonable to consider the partial skeleton of Rockwall Texas as a chimera, and not related to the Boston skull. The dramatic rendition of this skull and skeleton as told by J. Smythe seems to be both fanciful and exaggerated, and the idea that this combined beast would be the mythical giant of the native Indian populations seems farfetched. Though the clearly recorded oral history of the southern American First Nations has shown them to have had contact with humans of sizeable proportions, it has been stated that the natives battle “giants” and not “a giant.” J. Smythe’s rendition of a single giant terrorizing and appearing in battles over all the southern states of America with First Nations peoples and then constructing a massive complex of stone walls and alcoves in Texas to fend off natives seeking revenge is without doubt not scientific.
To further his fabricated evidence, J. Smythe also suggests that several known communities of ancient American stone builders are of such high-level construction and mathematical precision that they could be derived from only one source, namely Atlantis. The suggestion that ancient Atlanteans found the need to construct stone encampments around Middle America and then engineer a humanoid beast to terrorize American First Nations is simply nonsense. J. Smythe presents little solid evidence to support this wild rendition of American history, instead relying on “vast amounts of time and Earth process to obliterate any real tangible artifacts.” This, in our considered opinion, is too convenient and simplistic to be evidence of any real scientific significance.