by Dan Darling
“What if you’re wrong?” I asked. “What if I’m just a poor zookeeper who only wanted to take extra special care of his dung beetle collection?”
“That’s why you’re perfect.”
We pulled into the dark and quiet parking lot of Typhon Industries. Tanis drove uphill through a checkpoint with a guard post. The guard checked her ID, made a phone call, and waved us on. She parked in front of Mount Olympus’ only entrance. Once we’d come to a halt, she left the car running.
“This is your stop.” Her black hair gleamed like silk in the soft light of the moon. Her big eyes twinkled and her skin was as smooth, clear, and dark as the desert in the minutes before dawn. I’d only begun to perceive her unfathomable depths.
Abbey sat in the back seat, stroking Dracula’s chin. His squeezed his eyes shut, and his mouth curved in a feral smile. His wing would heal up in no time, especially with Abbey looking after him.
“Bye,” I said to her.
She smiled and stuck her hand at me. I shook it. She kissed her fingertips and pressed them to Dracula’s lips. “I love him,” she whispered.
“Take care of him. He’s one of a kind.”
I walked away.
No animals or humans stirred in the mountain night. No wind shook the pines or rattled the leaves of the aspen. I took a deep breath and then another. Each inhalation reached an icy hand down into my lungs and gripped the core of my body in a cold fist. As I stood before Mount Olympus psyching myself up to enter, a few crickets creaked out their careful noise. A buzz whirled around my ear and landed on my arm. The harpy tilted its head from side to side and washed its hands, one over the other. Its tail ended with a sharp and deadly stinger. Its wings gleamed with iridescent blue and purple, and its big round eyes saw a hundred images of the world, each one the same but from a minutely different angle. I shook my arm gently until it buzzed off into the night.
I knocked on the door, assuming that a camera hidden somewhere was capturing my chest. Before I banged again, an electric mechanism triggered and a bolt sprang back. The heavy doors opened noiselessly. I stepped into a small, featureless antechamber, where I faced off with a set of heavier metal doors. I stood there until the doors sealed and locked behind me, and the ones in front clicked and wafted open.
A humid wave of air caressed my face. It emanated from a hot spring in the center of the chamber. Set in rough natural rock, the pool spanned roughly ten feet in diameter. The dark waters swirled in a gentle but deep turbulence and sloughed steam in lazy tendrils. A slim channel cut under the east wall of the room and trickled over a small falls into the main pool. Where it went from there, I couldn’t tell.
The majority of the room looked like a rich Englishman’s parlor. The north wall featured floor to ceiling bookshelves, full of finely bound tomes, complete with a wooden ladder on wheels to access the upper shelves. In front of it stood a chaise lounge and two leather chairs with footrests and mahogany side tables. The south side of the room had been outfitted as a fully equipped scientific lab, with microscopes, glassware, and a couple of bulky machines whose function I couldn’t guess at. On the west side, beside the pleasant little stream, a matronly woman sat in a rocking chair. A burgundy and yellow afghan lay spread across her legs, and rimless glasses sat on the bridge of her nose. Knitting needles clicked between her hands, and a swath of brown fabric lay in her lap. A cradle sat on the floor beside her, which she absently rocked with her foot. A man stood nearby, with an open book in one hand and his chin in the fingers of the other.
I recognized Charon, with his forgettable face and his average hair, eyes, and build. But colder eyes regarded me from beneath his brow. And the way he snapped his book shut and circled the pool to greet me were the actions of a more decisive man.
“Where is he?” I called out before he was even halfway to me.
Charon spread his hands. His nonchalant brusqueness, his manic insomnia, had vanished. This person walked straight-backed, his face fine-lined and severe―the exact type of man you’d expect to run a corporation like Typhon Industries.
“You,” I said.
“I’ve been watching you,” the man said.
“But you’re Charon,” I said.
He shrugged, a precise movement, as if he’d perfected it. “I am. I’m the head of Typhon Industries. I’m the lead biologist. I’m your new best friend.”
“Is John White your real name?” I asked.
“No. It’s a blank name, as plain as I am. For my entire life, people kept forgetting they’d ever met me. I changed my name to match.”
The central actor in every problem I’d faced over the past weeks stood in front of me. I could have picked him up, carried him to his pool, and pushed him down until it was all over.
“Why?” I asked. “Why make up a name? Or two names, since you’re obviously not Jacob Charon either.”
“Human beings have names. You and I―we’re better.”
“I hate to break it you, doc, but we’re still human beings even though we have boring names.”
“For the moment. But we can be so much more.”
“You mean, like being nice to our neighbors and generous to charity and stuff like that?”
“That’s not at all what I mean,” he said. “Let me tell you the story of my life.”
“I can’t wait. If I were sitting down, I’d be on the edge of my seat. But shouldn’t you be out chasing down the army of mutant vampires your trucks just spilled into the lap of the city?”
He smiled. Every muscle in his face tightened in concert to execute a polite but forced smile. “That is all under control. Everything is unfolding as it should.”
Operation Velvet Ant―the meaning of the name hit me in the face. A velvet ant wasn’t an ant at all. It was a wasp that disguised itself as an ant, so that it could infiltrate the hives of other wasps and bees. Once inside, it implanted its eggs on their larvae. When those eggs hatched, the velvet ant larvae ate the bees’ babies.
“You meant to let them loose. That’s why you let me spill information to the Good Friends. You wanted your monsters to escape.”
“Yes. I couldn’t release them myself; it had to look like an accident. I have to give you credit for your execution, however. Caltrops. An ancient weapon used by ninjas of Japan to deter pursuers.” He smiled like a proud but very strict father. “Ingenious.”
“Why?” I asked. “Why would you want all of your animals free? They’ll get eaten, mauled by cars, shot. You’re throwing them under the bus―which I understand is something you industry tycoons do, when there’s an angle to it―but in this case I can’t see the angle.”
He eyed me for a moment, his face tense but neutral. “Do you want to hear my life story or don’t you?”
“Mind if I sit?” I asked. “I haven’t slept in a hundred years or so.”
He led me to the rich person chairs by the monstrous bookshelves. I sank into a cloud of leather and air. Even my body appreciated it despite the chair’s normal proportions. It was probably the most expensive piece of furniture I’d ever touched.
“Spill it,” I said.
“I was born with a fraternal twin brother.” He assumed the other chair. “We were radically different in temperament and appearance. My brother was tall, dark haired, with striking features. People saw him and remembered him. I was average. My hair was mouse brown, my nose average, my eyes gray, my build average, my voice dull. As I grew up, I had to remind people again and again that they’d already met me. When my parents saw me in a crowd, their eyes would pass over me. It wasn’t that they didn’t recognize me. They simply didn’t notice me. My teachers were the same way. I was the last boy whose name they memorized. They never called on me in class. I was a blank space in the universe. A colorless absence.
“Very early in my life, I discovered that while my physical form was absolutely forgettable, my mind was far beyond that of any other human. I was a Hercules, born into the mortal world, but with a god-like gift. His was
strength; mine was intelligence. I read voraciously, but I was particularly struck by what Plato said about forms. He believed that everything in the world had a perfect, original form. That’s how one knew that God existed: he had created a template for everything from a spoon to the moon. The same went for humans. Man sprung from an original design, but strayed off into all sorts of derivations after that. The original Perfect Forms, though still housed where the Gods lived, were invisible to us, as every tangible thing was an imperfect iteration of them.”
John White paused. His eyes lost focus, as if he were peering into the space behind his reflection in a mirror. “In my youth, I thought that I was a perfect iteration of the Form of Man. My intellect was divine―that much was clear. My mind was perfect. And believing that my physical form was so average, so utterly forgettable, because it was a template from which every other human derived―that gave me comfort.”
He smiled peacefully, as if that comfort momentarily touched him.
His face hardened. “We live in the Shadow World where only the distorted specters of the Perfect Forms exist. Except for me, I thought. I wanted to see into the realm of Perfect Forms. I wanted to break through our reality into what could only be called heaven, where all is perfect and good and where I might find more beings like myself. I scoured the earth for special places that might be portals into that realm. I learned about black holes and astronomical oddities. I studied paranormal psychology―temporal displacement, out of body experiences, clairvoyance, those who claimed they could touch the astral plane. It was all hogwash.
“Then I discovered this pool, as a footnote in an article in a geographic journal. The writers claimed they measured the temperature of the pool as part of a routine study of hot springs in New Mexico. They discovered that the surface was both hotter than the water from the source of the springs deeper down and the temperature of the air heated by the sun. It was an impossible temperature, subverting the laws of thermodynamics. The writers ran another test the next day and found that the water’s temperature was normal. They wrote it off as a fluke―though one that troubled them enough to include in their write-up.”
A faint rustling stirred across the room. It came from the cradle. The matron inspected whatever lay within over the tops of her glasses. She resumed knitting.
“I came here. I performed tests and took measurements. Hot springs are often associated with the divine. But this one seemed normal. Then I read the account of a Franciscan monk who traveled to New Mexico during the centuries when Spanish conquistadors were trying to convert the land into a new colony. He claimed that a local healer used the waters to cure women and men of infertility, but this healer only did so on a very specific day. I performed some calculations. It was the same day the geologists measured their impossible temperature.
“Thus, I waited for that day and I took measurements. They were impossible―only by a few degrees. But still. At that moment I knew I’d found my gateway between our Shadow World and the world of Perfect Forms.”
“Just because a hot springs gets a little hotter than you’d expect doesn’t mean God made it that way,” I said. “And isn’t believing a monk’s description of indigenous rituals a little cliché and probably racist?”
White looked annoyed. “Only to the narrow minded.”
“Alright. Call me narrow minded. I believe what I can see. You say you took some measurements. Obviously you found something besides abnormal temperature, since you built this little shrine around your God pool.”
His annoyance retreated into a relaxed, almost friendly smile. “I like your ethos, John. Nothing is holy to you.”
“Holiness is a word invented by humans to make us feel good about ourselves. It’s a comfort blanket so we don’t have to be scared of the dark.”
“Wrong,” he said. “The word describes a perfect quality, of which you can see shadows cast here in our world, but the perfection of which only truly exists in the dimension of Perfect Forms. This spring”―he gestured at the steaming pool―“is one of the few manifestations of that quality here in our Shadow World.”
“I’d ask you to prove it,” I said, “but I imagine you were already planning to.”
He leaned toward me. His eyes gleamed. “I’ve been proving it for eight years in a row now.”
I wasn’t a math genius, but the arithmetic was pretty simple. The roof of Mount Olympus had opened eight times. There had been eight calamities on that same day―but I’d only met seven chupacabras. I looked at the cradle. It had high sides. All I could spot poking above those sides was a blanket. I had a sinking feeling in my guts about what lurked down in all that pink and blue swaddling.
“I can tell by your expression that you already know some of this,” he said.
“I’m doing guesswork.”
“Let me clear it up for you. I’m a geneticist by training. I’ve been combining the DNA of specific creatures, including a splash of humanity, into an egg and sperm and suspending them in an artificial semi-permeable membrane. I then place that membrane in the pool and subject it to sunlight on the exact day when the anomalous temperatures occur. The sperm activates. It impregnates the egg. The organism grows like kudzu. One can virtually watch it mature by the hour. I incubate it. In very little time a new organism emerges.”
“That’s how you’ve made all eight chupacabras. Magic.”
“No. I’ve been stealing the power of Perfect Forms. I’ve found a crack between the Perfect Dimension and our own where that power leaks through. I’ve been using it to create new forms.”
“I’d call you a lunatic, but I’ve seen your new forms. But I don’t understand why it’s worth your while to brew up these new monsters only to chase down Mexican fruit pickers. You must really hold a grudge.”
“That’s merely part of an economic equation.” He waved dismissively. “The government funds my company. I provide them with detainment facilities and innovative technology to patrol the border. I feel the same way about immigrants that I feel about every human being.”
“You dislike them.”
He nodded. His eyes narrowed and the dark pits at their center glimmered. “Greatly.”
“Then why do all this?” I asked. “For science? For fun? For revenge against your twin brother for being better looking than you are?”
“I’m waging a war.” His voice was low and sibilant.
“Against who?” I asked.
“Ancient Greece tells the story of Zeus, who overthrew his father to become king of the gods. What followed was an age of Perfect Forms set loose on the earth to do battle―Monsters and Heroes the likes of which we have never seen before or since. Now, we settle for a World of Shadows. I want to bring back the age when monsters roamed the earth. I want humans to prove their worth by performing heroic feats. I want to challenge God’s monopoly on creating Forms.”
“You have a God complex.”
“I don’t have a God complex. A God complex is a psychological deficiency. I am on my way to becoming a god. I am ripping holes in this World of Shadows. I am letting the light shine in. Eventually, this Shadow World will be teeming with Perfect Forms, luminous and new, and they’ll destroy God’s shadow forms. For every new form I create, a little bit of God’s Shadow World vanishes. The bird deaths were the latest. This well focuses the power of the Perfect Forms. It also imbalances this world. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Creating a chupacabra requires a huge amount of cosmic energy. It bleeds that energy from somewhere else.”
“So, you knew why the birds died all along,” I said.
“Of course,” he said, “but not in advance. I knew something would happen when I used the pool to create my eighth form, but I didn’t know what. Normally, I would have collected and tested a few samples and been done with it. However, when you became involved, it changed everything.”
“You’re cuckoo, doc. I feel like I should tell you. I didn’t change anything. I’m just anothe
r piece of biology tripping around in the desert until I die.”
John White shook his head. “When I was young, I believed that I was a Perfect Form manifest. I came to believe that less and less over the years. Now I believe that I’m just another shadow, but with the intellect of a god. You are the Perfect Form. Why would God make a small, average man the template for all others? No, he would use you, a titan. I have been on the board of directors of the city zoo for some time. I was struck by your size many years ago. Every other human was an ant beside you. Dracula confirmed my theory. He recognized one of his own, another Perfect Form who didn’t belong in this world of shadows. All of the chupacabras see it. They’re Perfect, as are you. I realized that I had to have you as my closest ally and confidant, and I set about making it so.”
“You could have just bought me a beer,” I said.
“You don’t greet a titan by buying him a beer. You show him that you respect his power.”
“My power is a pituitary gland gone haywire. I’m not perfect. I’m a glitch.”
John White eyed the steam billowing from the hot springs and steepled his hands in his lap. “As a young man, I believed in a God who used the Perfect Forms as templates for creating everything in this world. It was an orderly ethos. When I became a geneticist, and I looked at the genome of a human being, all I saw was chaos. Mutation, dormant traits fatal when awoken, diseases inherited through the very fabric of one’s being. Death and life, health and sickness were all predestined, not by an orderly God presiding over forms, but by chance. I used to believe God’s design was perfection. Now, I believe it is imperfection. He’s a dice thrower. And you’re the highest number possible.”
John White was a lost soul. I should have guessed.
“You know what I’m here to do.”
“You’re here to make a choice.”
I took the pistol out of my pocket and laid it on my thigh. “I’m here to kill a god.”