by Bruce Hale
“Glad to see you’re not trying to convince me to let you into the mechanical room,” said the principal.
“We’ve learned our lesson,” said Benny.
We hadn’t really. All we’d learned was to be sneakier.
And we put our sneakiness to good use that night. After my dad had gone to bed, I crept into the kitchen to collect some helpful supplies. I was loading up my book bag when I heard the telltale clickety-click of doggie toenails.
Zeppo padded up to me. He wagged, giving me the Bambi eyes. Once a moocher, always a moocher.
“Go away,” I whispered. “Shoo!”
But he just sat there, tongue hanging out. Zeppo the chowhound was convinced that anytime someone entered the kitchen, it was to feed him. As I shut my bag, he began to whine.
“Shhh!” I checked the hallway door. The last thing I needed was to wake up my dad. “All right, all right. You win.”
Opening the fridge, I scrounged up some leftover chicken and dropped a chunk to the floor. Zeppo pounced on it like Spider-Man on Doc Ock. Hmm…that gave me an idea. I popped some hamburger into my bag, just in case the Hanzomon offices had a watchdog, then I tossed another chicken morsel to Zeppo. While he was occupied, I tiptoed back to my room and slipped out the window.
Benny was waiting in the field between our two houses. Our bikes stood beside him. “You’re late,” he whispered.
“Doggie blackmail,” I said. “Let’s go.”
Like a big fat graffiti artist, the moon had painted the trees and bushes with silver. As we threaded our bikes down the trail, TV noises still rose from our neighbors’ houses, so we kept our traps shut. An image of my dad sleeping entered my head. Was he dreaming of my mom? Or dreaming of life without her? I shivered.
When Benny and I reached the street, I pushed the vision away. Time to focus. We mounted up and pedaled down the street.
“Hey, what if this Hanzomon guy has guard dogs?” said Benny.
“Thought of that.” I patted my book bag. Then my face fell. “But what if he has actual guard-guards?”
Benny’s smile flashed milky white in the moonlight. “I brought a distraction.” He waggled his eyebrows. “You know, between the two of us, we’re actually kind of smart.”
“Then how come we’ve gotten into so much trouble?”
Benny pursed his lips. “I did say ‘kind of.’”
We pedaled on in silence for a while. Past the empty Little League field, past the construction site, skirting areas where people might spot us. Before long, we reached Via Madrugada, which wound through the low hills just outside of town. Rich-people territory.
When the road turned steep, we walked our bikes, stopping at last in front of some fancy wrought-iron gates, right out of a Dracula movie.
Benny checked the address. “Here we are,” he said. “Office, sweet office.”
I took in the ivy-covered wall, the security lights, the nearly empty parking lot, and the electronic gizmo that controlled the gate. My muscles felt twitchy. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a hot idea.
“How will we even get inside?” I whispered. “It’s probably locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”
Benny waved off my worry. “We’ll find a way in. They always do in the movies.”
“Yeah; but, Benny?”
“What?”
“This isn’t the movies,” I said.
Nevertheless, we’d already come all the way out there. Might as well give it a try. We stashed our bikes along the side of the wall and checked the street for witnesses.
All clear. The neighborhood was as quiet as a puma hiding in the long grass.
Despite my sudden conviction that this was a very bad plan, I followed as Benny began scaling the thick ivy stalks. Up we climbed, until we swung our legs over and sat astride the wall. I was relieved to find no barbed wire or broken glass up there.
For some reason, this billionaire wasn’t all that worried about security. I didn’t know whether or not I should be worried about that.
“Check it out,” Benny whispered.
Behind the walls sprawled a massive three-story structure. It looked like a Spanish castle and a Ukrainian embassy had had a baby, then buried it in bling. The place was all golden gargoyles and turrets, onion domes and red-tiled roof—just a wee bit unusual for an office. Up top, a spotlight illuminated the blue Hanzomon International sign. The lower two stories were dark; lights showed in only three top-floor windows.
“Perfect,” said Benny.
“Sure,” I said. “If you’re a billionaire with more money than taste.”
The ivy grew more sparsely on the inside wall, but it was thick enough. Benny began his descent. And, with a sinking feeling in my gut like the one you get just before the roller coaster plummets, I followed.
Paving stones traced a dimly lit path between bushes shaped into wolves and mastodons and freakier hedge animals. As usual, Benny plunged ahead while I brought up the rear. When the pathway forked, we took the turning that seemed to lead toward the back of the building.
“So far, so good,” Benny whispered.
But I wasn’t so sure. This kind of garden might have real animals in it.
My busy imagination supplied tigers, Dobermans, and hungry Komodo dragons lurking around each corner. Also visions of my dad’s disgust and disappointment when he came to identify my remains. Sneaking out of the house was one thing. Sneaking out and getting eaten while trespassing was a whole other ball game.
So when something rustled in the bushes to our left, I nearly leaped out of my skin. “What was that?”
We froze. The moon ducked behind a cloud, and the dim garden lights revealed nothing.
“Probably just a possum,” whispered Benny after a tense pause. “Come on.”
More slowly now, we crept along the path. When we were almost even with the office building, the rustling came again.
“Possums are shy,” I whispered.
“Yeah, so?”
“So why is this possum following us?”
His reassuring grin looked a bit frayed around the edges. “It’s, uh, lonely?”
Just twenty steps more to the nearest side door. For me, those steps couldn’t come fast enough. “Hurry,” I whispered.
The path curved around one last, shaggy bush. And when we reached the other side, we met the possum.
Only it wasn’t a possum.
Grrrr.
It was a dog. No, scratch that, it was a three-headed dog, growling in rough harmony. This monster was the size of an Irish wolfhound, with a red-rimmed glare and a mane that moved. One head was wolf, one was Rottweiler, and the third, Chihuahua. (Don’t laugh—they’re small but vicious.)
My insides turned to posole soup, and my heartbeat hammered like a nail gun in my ears. When I looked closer, I couldn’t believe my eyes. That wasn’t a mane around its neck, it was a living collar of what looked like…electric eels? Their mouths gaped, and their tiny eyes stared, hungry and remorseless.
“I—I—I…” I stuttered, backing into a bush.
“This,” said Benny, his voice as tense as a tea party with a tiger, “would be a good time for your distraction.”
As we kept edging away from the dog toward the building, I fumbled with clumsy fingers to open my book bag. The creature’s six eyes tracked my every move. Its growl ratcheted up, going from the sound of a distant truck to a whole pack of Harleys barreling across your front lawn.
I didn’t dare take my eyes off the beast, but I watched, riveted, as ropes of drool descended from two of its mouths. Finally, my hand closed around the tinfoil. With a surge of relief, I dug out the raw hamburger, squeezed it into a ball, and tossed it over the watchdog’s head.
“Fetch!” I whispered.
But I hadn’t reckoned on the creature’s reflexes. It reared onto its hind legs and the wolf head snatched the meat from the air in a gulp. The other two heads snarled and snapped at it, then turned their attention back to us.
“Uh-oh,” squeaked Be
nny.
“You can say that again.”
“Uh-oh,” he said.
“That’s enough, thanks.”
“GOT ANY MORE hamburger?” asked Benny as the three-headed dog stalked toward us.
“No,” I said. “Hadn’t planned on feeding three mouths.”
“What a pity,” said a dry voice behind us. “Wan-chan’s other heads get so jealous. And that, my young visitors, is a dangerous thing.”
Benny and I swiveled to take in this new threat while still keeping an eye on Wan-chan, apparently the dog-creature’s name. Unless there was another three-headed monster lurking around here somewhere.
Framed by an open side door stood Haruki Hanzomon, billionaire scientist and general oddball. He wore a royal-purple smoking jacket over ugly sage-green pants. Pouchy, half-lidded eyes examined us with all the emotion of a stone lion in winter.
Benny recovered first. “Uh, hi,” he said. “Mind if we come inside for a bit?”
A faint sneer pulled up the billionaire’s lip. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t leave you to your fate?”
“Um…” Benny’s worried glance telegraphed his message: I got nothing.
Wan-chan resumed his three-part growling, stalking ever closer. I sucked in a breath, and a crazy inspiration hit me.
“We’re the, uh, science heroes of tomorrow,” I said, with demented enthusiasm. “And we’ve come to learn from you.”
A corner of Mr. Hanzomon’s mouth twitched. It may have been what passed for a smile with this guy. Or it may have been gas. “Most people try the front gate first.” His eyes flickered toward the wall we’d scaled. “But I admire your—how do you Americans say? Get-up-and-go.”
“Thanks,” I said. “We were so excited to see you, we just got up and went.”
The scientist stared at us for a painfully long moment before turning and sweeping a hand toward the door. “Please, come inside.”
As soon as Benny and I made a move toward safety, the three-headed dog’s growls escalated into barks. Its hackles stood up like a tiny dark forest and its eel mane seethed.
“Wan-chan, sit!” snapped Mr. Hanzomon.
Instantly, the fearsome creature plopped down onto his haunches. Those six red-rimmed eyes stayed glued to us, but the barks cut off like a dropped cell-phone call.
That was all the invitation we needed. Benny and I hustled through the door. Behind us, the billionaire murmured, “Who’s my good boy?” When I glanced back, he was slipping doggie treats to all three heads.
Why in the world did this billionaire have a monster guard dog? I wondered. Did he collect strange and dangerous things?
Inside, I paused on the gleaming wood floor and took in my surroundings. What can you say about a fancy office? It was smaller than the Palace of Versailles. Barely. And it wasn’t quite as flashy as the Taj Mahal. Other than that, it had the usual amount of priceless artwork, expensive furniture, and massive square footage you’d expect from a mind-blowingly expensive facility.
Shutting the door behind him, Mr. Hanzomon inclined his head to us. “Let’s go visit the lab, shall we?” Moving stiffly but gracefully, like an ancient panther, he led the way. The faint scent of gardenias trailed in his wake.
“So, uh…” I racked my brains for small talk. “Nice dog.”
“Wan-chan is very loyal,” he said.
“Sweet-tempered, too,” I said.
Benny chimed in. “Love the extra heads. More to pet. And the eels? Nice touch. Um, aren’t they ocean creatures?”
The scientist’s bristly eyebrows rose. “With the proper science, all things are possible.”
“Right,” I said, realizing with a chill that Mr. Hanzomon was no simple collector of oddities. His research involved messing with living creatures. “Yay, science.”
As we passed a side hallway, two black-haired giants in charcoal-gray suits joined us. It took me a while to realize they were women—the kind of women who could wrestle Mrs. Tamasese to a standstill and still have enough energy to subdue a small country.
I suppressed a shudder. Was our host leading us someplace quiet so these amazons could snap our spines like stale churros? Someplace where our blood wouldn’t stain the nice floor?
“This way,” said Mr. Hanzomon, stepping into an open elevator cab.
I gulped. Too late to back out now.
With the guards crowding behind me, I joined Benny and the scientist in the wood-paneled car. The amazon on the right pressed a button, the doors closed, and we descended so smoothly, you could barely tell we were moving.
When the doors whooshed open, my jaw practically hit the floor. A vast, shining space stretched out before us, crammed with vats, beakers, test tubes, lasers, operating tables, and mysterious machines. It was like someone had raided a Research-Labs-R-Us store and stocked this place with it.
“Welcome to my little laboratory,” said Mr. Hanzomon.
We entered the room. It seemed longer and wider than the building itself, and well equipped enough to make Einstein drool with jealousy.
“I like what you’ve done with the place,” said Benny. “Very science-y.”
My gaze fell on a nearby device about the size of a clothing-store changing booth with huge microscopes on either side. “What’s this one do?”
Stepping over to it, Mr. Hanzomon stroked the machine like a favorite pet. “The gene splicer,” he said. “Care to have the eyes of a fly? Or the legs of a cheetah?”
“Uh, no thanks,” I said. “I’m good.”
“This machine can make it happen,” he said.
I sidled away, feeling clammy. My heartbeat accelerated like a Maserati. Unless he was making a bad joke, this guy had the power to do whatever he wanted with us, to turn us into monsters if he felt like it. And there wasn’t a thing we could do.
“Wow,” said Benny, running a hand over a centrifuge twice as tall as he was. “You’re pretty well stocked. Care to lend a hand with our science project?”
The scientist made a sound like a wombat’s wheeze. I guessed it was a chuckle. “That would be cheating,” he said. “Real heroes don’t cheat.” His half-lidded eyes surveyed us, like he knew exactly what kind of heroes we were hoping to be.
“Uh, right,” I said. My gaze rested on an exam table equipped with straps. I suppressed another shudder. “Maybe you could just give us some advice?”
Mr. Hanzomon made a slow nod.
“Our, um, science-fair project is on biotech, and the possibility of doing a mash-up between two animals.”
One of the scientist’s eyebrows twitched. “‘Mash-up’? What is this term?”
“That’s when you combine different things together,” said Benny helpfully.
“You know, like a cow and a gorilla,” I said.
“Or a mosquito and a warthog.”
“Or even,” I said, “a lion and a scorpion.”
I watched closely, but Mr. Hanzomon didn’t react. Either his whole face had been Botoxed, or he was one cool customer. “And your question?” he asked.
“We were wondering whether that mash-up would act more like one part of itself than the other?” I said.
The billionaire cocked his head, considering us. “Depends on the creature,” he said at last. “And the scientist who created it. For instance, my own private Cerberus, Wan-chan, reacts entirely like a dog, not an eel.”
I was interested in spite of myself. “But you could have made him act more eel-like?”
“Certainly. But then he wouldn’t be much use as a watchdog.”
“Good point,” said Benny. “You don’t see many watch-eels these days.”
I didn’t know about my friend, but I felt like I was walking in a minefield. One wrong step, one wrong word, and kablooie! Nobody would ever see us again.
“So…hypothetically speaking,” I said, “if someone wanted to, um, motivate a hybrid creature, he’d have to…”
Another dry wheeze. “Try both the carrot and the stick,” said Mr. Hanzomon.<
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“Thanks, but the carrot’s probably tastier,” said Benny.
“Precisely,” said the scientist. He strolled past the exam table. The amazonian guards stayed where they were, arms crossed, blocking the elevator door. There was no other exit. Sweat trickled from my hairline.
“Do you know why I’m so interested in biotech?” the billionaire asked, lifting a scalpel from an instrument tray and toying with it.
“Uh, no,” I said.
Sighting along the blade, he said, “Because humanity has grown weak. There are no heroes anymore, just”—he sniffed—“two-faced politicians, self-absorbed YouTube stars, and people famous for being famous.”
I thought of my sister, Veronica. But she wasn’t just an empty celebrity; she loved acting and was pretty good at it.
“What about athletes?” said Benny, who was crazy about basketball. “They’re heroes.”
Mr. Hanzomon’s lip curled. “Overpaid buffoons playing children’s games. How would they perform against a manticore or a Minotaur?”
Light dawned. “Like in Greek myths?” I asked.
The billionaire turned to face us, his eyes kindling with fire. “Perseus, Jason, Atalanta. Now, those were heroes.”
Benny frowned. “But you know they’re mythological, right?”
Mr. Hanzomon continued as if Benny hadn’t spoken. “A different age, a better age.” Beckoning, he strode toward a series of steel tanks along one wall.
I looked at Benny, who shrugged and followed. I joined him.
“Apart from the obvious, what was the difference between that era and our own?” said the scientist.
“Indoor plumbing?” Benny guessed.
“Deodorant?” I said.
“Worthy foes,” said Mr. Hanzomon. He stopped at a waist-high control panel that fronted the tanks. “Theirs was an age of heroes and awesome enemies. But there are no such challenges in our world today, and so, no heroes.”
Benny’s eyes met mine. No challenges? We could tell him a thing or two about that. Our lives had been nothing but challenges lately.
“And that,” said the billionaire, “is why I began Project Gorgon.” He pressed several buttons. Panels slid aside in the three closest vats to reveal Plexiglas windows.