Archaeopteryx

by Dan Darling

  When I’d pulled off the Interstate and was making my way through the village of Placitas, a glint flashed in the seat beside me. I spared a glance at my passenger. A dark, shiny slice of eye shined through the black fur on his face. His lips twitched. I jogged my attention back and forth between the road and the bat. His eye remained open and his breathing quickened. He showed me his sharp front teeth and pink tongue. The blue tarp I’d straight jacketed him with rustled as he breathed harder. With each exhale, he let out a wheeze. His breathing became harder and heavier. The wheezes became groans. His long mouth hung open and his voice cracked out of him in a half-bleat, half growl. He wasn’t struggling. He didn’t move. He just lay there swaddled in my tarp, shrieking at me.

  He was happy. I’d seen the female Tazzies at the zoo posture their mouths in that way and emit the same cry when their keepers rubbed their bellies. I lay my palm on his flank. He groaned louder. I rubbed him through the tarp. He loved it.

  I felt a pang of guilt about using him as a tool to infiltrate Typhon Industries.

  The complex was quiet when I arrived. Floodlights cast their cones of white light up the flanks of the buildings. Razor wire glinted in the starlight. A couple of security Humvees trolled the perimeter of the fence that held the place together. Mount Olympus, the crown jewel, was the only building not lit up. It sat invisible at the top of the campus.

  I rolled up to the security shack and leaned back so the guard could see my passenger.

  “Is that what I think it is?” the guard asked.

  “Move your mouth a little more and we’ll find out. He’s waking up.”

  The guard flapped his hand at me. He hit the button to raise the gate and babbled into his walkie-talkie. As I drove through, he yelled after me.

  “Hades, Hades!”

  I hit the brake and stuck my head out the window. “Hell?”

  “The building,” he hollered and pointed at the building with the long rectangular structure attached. “That building. Take it there!”

  “You named a building after Hell?” I asked.

  He made a frantic gesture with his arm and went back to pouring words into the radio.

  The building wasn’t far. I drove at a crawl, brewing up a con to get myself inside. The curbside crowd at Hades looked equipped to handle a Sasquatch. A handful of guys in coveralls with tranquilizer rifles and catchpoles stood with itchy pants. A few gorillas decked out in armaments and armor hung to the sides. A single Anglo man in a white lab coat stood at the center of it all, with thinning brown hair, average build, average height―average everything. Before I got out, I checked on my little friend. His eyes were open and drizzled reddish fluid at the corners. He cracked his mouth again and moaned. He sounded like a sheep that craved meat.

  “Sorry pal.” I scooped him up like a baby and stepped out of the truck. The coverall guys drew a bead on the beast against my chest and more than a small part of me hoped they’d pump my heart full of sweet numbness. The handlers with catchpoles looked like they didn’t know whether to put a ring around my neck or the bat’s. Only the scientist seemed able to hold himself together. He walked up without ceremony and stabbed the bat in the neck with a needle. In no more than a few seconds, the creature’s eyes fluttered shut and his body went limp in my arms.

  The man in the lab coat was Jacob Charon, the man I’d met at the Bosque a thousand days ago. “This night is pure evil.”

  “It’s a good night to catch devils.”

  He angled his face up at the stars, which this far from the city, were polychromatic and infinite. “Every star is a tear in the fabric of space-time.”

  “That, or a fistful of dying fire.”

  “Either way, the gods’ creation is slowly coming apart at the seams. It’s only a matter of time.”

  “I’m beginning to see why you call this place Hades,” I said.

  He barked out a laugh. He put his arms out and flapped his fingers. “Give him to me.”

  I passed the bat over. My body felt a little colder when he was gone.

  Charon passed him off to the posse of coveralls, one of which stuffed him in a steel cage. They put the cage on a cart and wheeled it off through the doors of Hades before I could open my mouth. The guards faded into the shadows, leaving me alone with Charon.

  “Your name is John Stick, and you don’t remember me.”

  “I do actually. We met at the Bosque Del Apache.”

  “I am the everyman. No one ever remembers me.”

  “Must be nice,” I said.

  “It has its advantages. Well, my master would throw me in Tartarus if I didn’t lure you inside and interrogate you.”

  “Let’s say I come quietly. Would something stiff in a glass be part of my torture regimen? Maybe on ice?”

  “I’ll pour you an elixir even Zeus wouldn’t sneeze at.”

  “I guess if it’s good enough for the god of thunder, it’ll have to do.”

  “Come in out of the moon”―he turned toward the entrance―“before it sucks you into space.” He trudged through the automatic doors before I could think of a rejoinder. I followed him into a quiet lobby. Guards cocooned in Kevlar and guns sat on stools behind the counter. Their heads traced our journey across the tiled floor to a narrow door with no sign or knob. Charon swiped a card, and it opened with a hiss of balmy air. I followed him into an ecosphere of swelter and the sour musk of lusty animals. He led me down some featureless halls, swiped his card again, pressed his thumb against a pad, and spoke into a small microphone.

  “Jacob Charon.”

  The door clicked open on a dumpy, windowless room. A stained brown couch sat against one wall; a mini-fridge and microwave sat in a shelving unit huddled against another. A card table and a few fold up chairs occupied the middle. Against the farthest wall clung a shallow counter with a hotplate, coffeemaker, and sink with a dead teabag in it. It looked like any break room in any workplace in America.

  “That’s some serious security for a few square feet of cheap furniture and appliances from last century,” I said.

  “This is my Zen space. It’s full of spiritual energy. The material aspects of it don’t matter.” He threw his body into a chair and ran fingers through his frail hair. His slight baldness was unremarkable, like everything else about him. “Choose a seat.”

  I stood. The ceiling was just high enough.

  “Or don’t. Good idea. You choose a seat, you could inadvertently change the fate of the world. Butterfly effect. You never know. I like your style.” He folded his hands across his belly and settled into a slouch. He fixed his sepia gaze on me, and for a second I felt like I was face-to-face with the Sphinx. The moment passed, and he smiled mildly. “Thanks for returning our lost demon.”

  “No problem. He just kind of fell into my lap.”

  “Whatever they’re paying you, you deserve a raise. We’ve been hunting Dracula for weeks.”

  “Dracula,” I said. “Cute.”

  “Nicknames.” He shrugged. “They’re one of the small pleasures the master allows.”

  “I’ve been calling him O-negative. He smells like my favorite blood type.”

  He shook his head. “That’s disappointing. Only weak men choose the universal donor. I had higher expectations of you.”

  “You barely know me.”

  “Everyone knows you. You’re the Pied Piper.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “You already know the answer to that,” Dr. Charon said. He placed a hand behind his ear. “Listen.”

  I did. Coolant trickled inside the refrigerator’s compressor unit. Air huffed through the ductwork. Some machine in a neighboring room whined. Then I caught it: a burbling swell below the derma of commonplace sound. I couldn’t pinpoint its nature or origin. It sounded as if someone was boiling the call of a dozen animals together into a sonic broth.

  “That”―he held up his finger―“is for you.”

  I tilted my head this way and that, trying to angl
e the sound more directly into my ear.

  “You’ve been here once before,” he said.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You caused an uproar then, and you’re causing one now.”

  He was talking about the only other time I’d tried to get into Typhon Industries. An alarm had gone off while I’d been there. Now I knew what that meant. It meant a room somewhere in this building packed full of cages. Those cages teemed with beasties. And those beasties, for some mysterious reason, liked me.

  “Where’s that drink you promised me?”

  “It does not yet exist; however, I have power to create it.” He lurched up from his chair and bustled around the room. “So, you work for us now. Auribus tenere lupum.”

  “Excuse me?” The words were Latin, of which I’d only caught a form of the word wolf.

  “Nothing. Just words. The Romans and Greeks understood the world perfectly and designed sayings for every situation. Our progress over the millennia has simply been a process of forgetfulness.”

  “Didn’t they own slaves and rape women?” I asked.

  “What’s so wrong with that? People were born to exploit, humiliate, and destroy each other. It’s the gods’ plan. We’re an awful race. The fern is the only noble being left on the planet.” He took two tall glasses from the cabinet and filled them with ice. After removing a bottle of champagne and two cans of synthetic energy drink from the mini-fridge, he popped the cork from the bottle, poured champagne over the ice, and added a can to each. Passing me a glass, he bobbed his head at me. “Chin, chin.”

  I tossed a mouthful back. It tasted like candy, gasoline, and helium.

  “Five of these between dusk and dawn, and you’ll never need a bed. I drink them all night. Then in the day, I switch to coffee. Around eleven in the morning, I fall asleep on the job and travel to a distant dimension, where humans created God and he’s forced to live on some slummy planet while we enjoy milk and ambrosia.”

  “Sounds just great. You’re going to live a long and happy life.”

  “Sine labore nihil. Now that I have my vampire bat back, I have a thousand hours of tests to perform.” He lifted his glass, chugged down half of it, and swelled his cheeks with a close-mouthed belch. “How’d you catch him?”

  “I shot him with a tranq rifle,” I said.

  “Neat. Where’d you get one of those?”

  “Contraband. I embezzled it from the zoo, along with my collection of emu eggs and polar bear teeth.”

  “Ha. Humor. Where’d you find him?”

  “He took a liking to my pine tree. He liked to sit there in the evening when he wasn’t out making bedroom eyes at the Tasmanian girls in the zoo.”

  “Heard about that. We have people on it. Can’t let these species fall into the wrong hands. Might have to napalm the whole zoo. Kidding.”

  “What are ‘these species’?” I asked.

  “Classified.”

  “Listen doc, I brought your bat back because I’m a nice guy. I could have blasted him out of my tree with a shotgun or turned him over to animal control. I figure that earns me something in return.”

  “Quid pro quo.”

  “Exactly.”

  “It’s quaint that you think so. We already have the bat. If you plan to use a bargaining chip, you don’t hand it over first and then try to haggle about its value.”

  I started to respond, but he cut me off with a wave of his hand.

  “The truth is, I don’t care. I watch over the animals. I study them. I care for them. Whatever schemes John White has incubating in connection with you―and I’m sure he has plenty―don’t concern me in the slightest. What do you want?”

  “Answers.”

  “Ask away,” he said.

  Put on the spot, I didn’t know exactly what to ask. I should have had a lot of questions, but they were tangled together in my head like rodent bones in an owl pellet. “Do you know Simon Marchette?”

  A veiled expression passed over his face. He nodded once.

  “Where is he?”

  Dr. Charon sat still for a moment. “Gone.”

  “As in dead?” I asked. “Imprisoned? Escaped?”

  “As in deep.” Dr. Charon’s lips tightened and his eyes narrowed. “Below ground.”

  “Are you saying he’s buried?” I asked.

  “You might say so.” Charon’s voice was as thin as a disposable razor. “He was a traitor.”

  “And exactly what did he do?”

  “He stole company secrets.” Dr. Charon shook his head back and forth very slowly. “That’s a no-no.”

  “I have trouble believing that. What did he steal?”

  “Genetic material.”

  “Spit it out, doc. Which genetic material?”

  “Which do you think? Dracula’s genetic information, for one―and every other unique animal we’ve got here.”

  “And what sorts of animals do you have here, exactly?”

  “Hybrids. Your liger on steroids.”

  A liger was the offspring of a lion and a tiger. “Ligers occur naturally. Lions and tigers are the same genus. They can mate. A Tasmanian devil can’t impregnate a vampire bat.”

  Charon snapped out of it. A half-smile sprung to his face and his body relaxed back into a slouch. “Of course not.” He sipped his drink and smacked his lips. “Genes don’t match up. We have special techniques. Surprised you haven’t been briefed.”

  “I’m new.”

  “Ahh. They didn’t want to tell you. Security clearances and all. Secrecy is a waste of energy. The truth will get out.”

  “Suppose we give it some air right now.”

  He downed the last of his drink and emitted an “Ahh!” of appreciation. “What with the big operation coming up, the more you know, the better.”

  “Big operation?” I asked.

  “Operation Velvet Ant.” He leapt up and slapped his thighs. “You haven’t heard of that either. Guess I’m doing everything I can to get fired tonight. Come on. I’ll take you across the River Styx.”

  Dr. Charon trotted out the door without further ado. I guzzled the pale yellow concoction left in my glass. My stomach felt like one of those volcanoes kids make for science projects in elementary school. He led me down deserted halls that hummed with fluorescent light on white tile. The place felt more like a hospital in the dead of night than a genetic research facility. As we stalked the corridors, the scent of life grew stronger and so did the cacophony of animals losing their marbles.

  “I’m the lead biologist around here,” Charon said as he jogged along. “I keep the animals healthy and study their growth and physiology. For every one of them we―for lack of a better word―breed, there are hundreds of years of research and study to be done. Full of surprises. Who knew, for instance, that when you combined a tarantula hawk wasp and a horsefly, you’d end up with a species that secretes anticoagulants from its stinger?”

  That was news to me, but explained why the bites and stings I’d seen sometimes overlapped.

  “Or,” he said, “that so many of our animals would have genetic predispositions for social behavior. Based on their parent species, they should want to remain solitary. Yet, time and again, they seem to enjoy grouping themselves socially. Which is why you’re a part of the team, I suppose.”

  “I suppose so.”

  He gave me a sidelong look. “They do seek you out, after all.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  He faced forward again for several quiet strides. “Quite curious.”

  “Tell me about this big operation you mentioned,” I said.

  “It’s why we’re rushing with you. Normally, we wouldn’t shove a new employee into the back of a van with Cerberus until we knew he could be trusted. Or until we’d obtained appropriate collateral for his silence. Put certain safeguards in place, as it were. With you, there’s no time. The master needs you now, and he’s taking a big risk that you won’t betray him.”

  “Why is that, exactly? S
o, your”―I almost said beasties, but caught myself. It was a word Tony used―“your creatures like me. So what?”

  “You’re like a magnet,” he said. “They’re drawn irresistibly to you. That’s how Dracula escaped―did you know that? The first time you showed up at the Bosque. We had Dracula in a van. As soon as he smelled you, he became absolutely manic. Bit two fingers off a handler. Tore the inside of the van to shreds and sprayed the entire thing with musk―you can still smell it. We had to burn the handlers’ coveralls. The handlers, being cowards, fled. They had to open the doors to do so. Before you could say ‘broken arrow,’ Dracula was flapping off into the woods.”

  “Any idea why I have that effect on them?”

  “At first, we thought they wanted to eat you.” He laughed. It echoed down the short span of hallway still before us. “Now, we’re stumped. John White has his theory, which like everything else, we mortals will never know. But you should know they don’t act that way around any other human.”

  “They… How many of these things do you have?”

  “Over the years, we’ve made seven from scratch.” He swiped his ID card and opened the lone door. “But now we have quite a few more.” He grinned widely, showing me a lot of not too crooked but not too straight teeth. “They have voracious sexual appetites.” We entered another small room with a security booth of one-way glass, through which I assumed a team of guards gave us a thorough inspection. A red light above the final set of double doors turned green and Charon led me into a cauldron of hissing, screeching madness.

  The stench of animal musk, blood, and urine hit me as hard as the sound. It smelled like an indoor zoo with no windows, one where the animals were sexually supercharged and drank blood by the gallon. Dr. Charon led me up a few flights of stairs and through a door that opened on a chamber the size of a football field. It sunk a story into the earth and had upper walls and slanted ceilings made of greenhouse plastic. Fenced enclosures with a few hundred square feet of floor space lined the walls. Periodically, a wall rose between the enclosures to screen them from one another. The walls were only two stories tall at most; the chamber itself was four stories high. From my vantage point on the balcony overlooking the place, only the closest enclosures, cubed with mesh netting, were visible. The one on the east side had a cement floor, contained small simulated bogs of shallow water and river grasses, and seemed otherwise empty. The western enclosure was a desert-scape, bristling with cacti and scraggly milkweed. It buzzed with hundreds of finger-length wasps.