The Monster's Daughter

by Paul Gamble

  Jack stopped wriggling his wrists. “Oh, come on! Does everyone have a glove puppet for a friend these days?”

  Regina squinted at Jack. “What are you talking about?”

  “Nothing, it’s just sometimes my life seems to be bizarrely repetitive. Everyone who is lonely seems to be relying on a puppet these days.91 Anyway, I might not be a puppet, but you can talk to me.”

  Regina weighed up Jack’s offer. “Well, okay, you aren’t going anywhere.”

  Jack smiled inwardly. That was exactly what Blackbeard Junior had thought, and Jack had escaped from him.

  “You already know we’re Atlanteans and that we’re planning to sink Northern Ireland?”

  “Yes, but why? I mean, you have an entire seabed to live on. Why would you want to sink one small country?”

  “Your country is only a start.” Regina sighed and began her story. “I am descended from a long line of Atlantean queens. My adopted name, Regina Maris, translates as ‘queen of the sea.’”

  “Did Atlantis always have queens, never any kings?”

  “Well, of course we only had queens; after all, we were very smart,” snapped Regina. “Anyway, one of my ancient ancestors decided to turn us into a race of superintelligent people by sinking the island. Unfortunately, she hadn’t thought the entire plan through.”

  “So it didn’t work, then?”

  “Oh, it worked. But it was only after we became superintelligent we realized that living under the sea wasn’t such a brilliant idea after all.”

  Jack remembered animated cartoons about undersea worlds. As far as he recalled, living under the sea was basically one long carnival with singing crabs and slightly annoying, forgetful fish. “What was wrong with living under the sea?”

  “Lots of things. Haven’t you ever noticed that builders never work when it rains? Well, it’s even worse when you’re actually under the sea. Cement doesn’t set, trying to get the electricity done is almost impossible, and you can forget anything that requires welding.”

  “So your houses are pretty poor, then?”

  “What with the problem of actually building anything we mostly live in caves. And on top of that we basically live in an enormous toilet.”

  “I’m not sure I entirely understand that.”

  Regina Maris was clearly warming up to her subject. “Think about it—where do you think the water goes when you flush your toilet? Into the sea. It’s very unpleasant. And to make matters worse, our own plumbing is awful.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because when you’re underwater it’s pretty much impossible to tell where a pipe is leaking from.”

  Jack was beginning to see that living underwater clearly wasn’t that fun, no matter how good crabs were at playing the xylophone. But there was still one thing that was confusing him. “Okay, I can see how all that would be very annoying, but I’m not sure why any of this would make you try and sink a country.”

  Regina Maris ignored Jack and carried on complaining about the problems of undersea life. “And the water gets into food. There’s no such thing as concentrate for diluting. It’s all prediluted the minute you open the bottle. And as for trying to read a book, well, forget about that, unless you’re willing to spend an entire weekend laminating it page by page.…”

  Jack coughed loudly. “Excuse me, I was just wondering why any of this would make you try and sink Northern Ireland? I mean, you know how awful it is to live underwater. So why would you do that to us?”

  Regina Maris smiled cruelly. “Because we really don’t care about you. But if we sink your country, it goes to the bottom of sea with houses and buildings already built. With a plumbing system that’s been built in the air so we know that it’s going to work. With roads, electrical wires,92 walls, fences, and infrastructure.”

  Jack realized what she was saying. “You sink the country and then you steal our houses and homes.”

  “Pre-cise-ly,” said Regina, sounding out every syllable in the word. “It was an idea we came up after spending decades living with hermit crabs.”

  “But thousands of people will die.”

  “Oh, no … hundreds of thousands of people will die. Some might be shocked and have their breath taken away—but not all of them. But that’s the beauty of our plan: We won’t even have to clear up the mess.”

  “What do you mean?” Jack asked.

  Regina Maris smiled the most sinister smile Jack had ever seen. “Because the land will be on the bottom of the ocean, and corpses float.”

  “You’ll never get away with this,” said Jack, although he wasn’t altogether sure that she wouldn’t. After all, she seemed to have it all very well planned out.

  “But don’t you see, Jack? We already have. We kidnapped you as a hostage. Your friend Trudy will never attack when she knows we have both her Ministry partner and her mother at our mercy.”

  The mention of Trudy’s mother enraged Jack, and he jumped from his chair and swung his cuffed hands at Regina. She moved effortlessly out of the way, then tripped Jack, sending him sprawling to the ground. “Is that the best you can do?”

  Jack struggled to his feet. “Where is Trudy’s mother? Tell me!”

  Regina snorted. “I’ll do better than that. She’s being held by a scientist that works for me. And that’s where you’re going to be going soon.” Regina put her hand flat on Jack’s chest, and a sharp shove sent him tumbling back into his chair. “Forget about trying to save Northern Ireland. Forget about trying to save Trudy’s mother. Forget about trying to save yourself. Soon all of you will be drowned. And if the fracking plan works in Northern Ireland, then we’ll start sinking the rest of the countries of the world!”

  “The pirates thought that their plan was foolproof. But it wasn’t,” Jack snarled.

  Regina smiled. “Yes, my Internet friend BlackbeardJnr1680 admitted that. But our plan goes back a lot longer than Blackbeard. It’s been right under people’s noses for thousands of years and no one even noticed it. And on top of that we freed the criminal hammerhead sharks and sawfish from the Ministry for a reason. Apart from finishing the drilling platform in Lough Neagh, they’ve also been building something of an insurance policy.”

  Jack started to speak but couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Regina Maris then said something very odd indeed. “You people are so foolish. After all, you still think that the Giant’s Causeway is the result of a volcanic eruption, don’t you?”

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  UNDERWATER BUILDING

  ADDITIONAL CONTRACTORS

  It is amazing that so many people are unaware of the underwater races such as the Atlanteans and the merpeople. After all, so many fish and aquatic animals have clearly been adapted and trained by the Atlanteans to become builders. The most obvious of these is the crab, who comes complete with a hard hat and his own pliers/snippers.

  However, the crab is far from being the only creature adapted for building. A person would have to be idiotic not to realize that animals such as the hammerhead shark and the sawfish could not have turned up by accident. They have been specifically bred by the Atlanteans to look after carpentry.

  It is also worthwhile noting that there is even a fish called the carpet shark. Just because you live all your life underwater, it doesn’t mean that you don’t like soft furnishings.

  * * *

  47

  CRAZY AND CRACKED

  If there was one thing that schoolchildren in Northern Ireland did nearly as many projects on as the Titanic, it was the Giant’s Causeway. It was a large formation of hexagonal-shaped stones on the north coast of the country. It was called a causeway because it looked like a road that led under the sea.

  “But the Giant’s Causeway is the result of localized volcanic activity,” Jack said automatically, remembering his third-grade project. “Lava flowed over the land, then as it cooled, it cracked into symmetrical shapes.”93

  “You really belie
ve that explanation?”

  Jack felt slightly unsure. “Well, my third-grade teacher did.”

  “How many volcanoes are there in Northern Ireland?”

  Jack paused and did a very short mental calculation in his head. “Well … none.”

  “So how did the lava get there? Did a giant carry it?”

  Jack refused to even dignify this with a response. It was one thing being lectured by Grey about these kind of things. It was quite another being lectured by a mean Atlantean queen who was trying to drown everyone.

  “And anyway, have you seen the Giant’s Causeway? It’s all hexagonal shapes. Have you ever seen footage of a volcano exploding? Lava rolls over the landscape at random, burning, killing, forming odd shapes. If lava formed perfectly symmetrical, hexagonal shapes, they would never have found the lost city of Pompeii, would they? They would just have assumed that for some reason someone had decided to cover an area of Italy with the largest-ever piece of crazy paving. Even if an archaeologist had dug it up he would have been stumped, wondering why someone decided to put a patio over a city.”

  The more Jack thought about it the more the explanations he had been given for the Giant’s Causeway seemed ridiculous. After all, when you heated something until it turned molten and then let it cool, it never formed a perfect hexagonal column. If that were the case, then Rice Krispies treats would be considerably more uniform that they were.94 Jack’s curiosity overtook him. A few moments ago he had promised himself he would just be silent and give Regina Maris the cold shoulder. But now he found himself asking questions again, so great was his curiosity. “So was it a giant that built it, then?”

  “Why would a giant make a bridge out of dozens of tiny stones? The stones are just big enough for a human foot. A giant would spend his entire time tripping and falling into the sea. No—quite clearly the Giant’s Causeway was…”

  Jack completed Regina’s sentence, “… built by Atlanteans.”

  Regina clapped her hands slowly. “So the boy that BlackbeardJnr1680 thought was so bright finally figures it out.”

  Jack had just remembered the stepping-stones in Cthulhu’s room. But of course the stones of the Giant’s Causeway weren’t placed so that people could jump between them. Instead they ran down to the waves of the sea and then continued on underneath them. Jack had a horrible thought. “So that’s what the Causeway is for—it’s like a ladder out of the sea for you. It’s built so you could attack with an invasion army.”

  “It was built millennia ago, shortly after Atlantis sank beneath the waves. We decided that we would try and invade Ireland.”

  Jack cocked his head to one side. “Well, obviously it didn’t work. So what went wrong?”

  “Nothing went wrong,” Regina said in an irritated voice. “We were just early. We had been looking for a country to sink and use as our home. Preferably a smallish island with ready-made buildings we could use. We had already figured out that trying to build a new city underwater was pretty much a nonstarter. We thought Ireland might fit our requirements. And so we created the Causeway. We couldn’t just use a conventional port. Islands are always expecting to be invaded by sea, so ports tend to be surrounded by castles, cannons, and men carrying pointy sticks.”

  “But there was someone waiting for you, wasn’t there? There are always people at the Giant’s Causeway.” Jack was proud of himself.

  “Jack, don’t be an idiot. There are always people at the Giant’s Causeway because they come to see the Giant’s Causeway. Before we built it there was no reason to go there at all. And so our people arrived and started marching down Ireland trying to find the buildings with the plumbing we so craved.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, not much. They didn’t come across many buildings and very little plumbing of a satisfactory nature.”

  Jack couldn’t understand this. “But there are lots of buildings.”

  “Not back then there weren’t,” Regina sighed. “It took Ireland a lot longer to get their buildings, you see. What my ancestors hadn’t figured out was that the difference between living under the sea and living in Ireland is that living under the sea is slightly wetter. But very much with the emphasis on the word slightly. That meant it took a lot longer for Ireland to get around to erecting a satisfactory number of buildings.”

  This Jack could understand—it rained a lot in Ireland. Occasionally there would be two or three weeks without a single drop of rain, but even when that happened it was only because you knew the weather was building itself up to give you a really thorough drenching. “So your ancestors went back into the sea?”

  Regina smiled confidently. “Not at all. They decided that eventually when enough buildings were in place they would sink the island and claim it for their own. The Atlantean army disguised themselves using perfume made of natural flowers and marched right to the center of Northern Ireland. There they spent nearly a hundred years digging out an enormous round hole. That way, when Ireland was ready, all they had to do was to drill down in the center of that spot and the water would flood in, sinking the country.”

  Jack tilted his head quizzically. “But Lough Neagh isn’t a round shape. It’s got knobbly bits. It almost looks like a star shape.”

  The queen’s brow wrinkled. “We know. But we aren’t sure how that happened. Someone must have done more excavations after we left Lough Neagh to reshape it. Although we really aren’t sure who.… After all, who would want to make it that shape? And we needed an entire army to dig it in the first place. So whoever changed the shape … Well, they must be a creature of enormous power. Anyway, despite the change in shape it’s still an enormous hole, so it still fits our purposes.”

  Cogs and wheels where whirring in Jack’s head. He was thinking of a dozen things at once. “So why are you fracking on different sites at the same time?”

  “The biggest hole will be in the center of the country, with dozens of smaller holes around it just to make sure that when it sinks it doesn’t overbalance and capsize.”

  Jack had a theory, but he needed to check one more thing. “And why did you cause the earthquake?”

  The smug look vanished from Regina’s face. “What? We thought that was you. It wasn’t us.”

  The Atlanteans hadn’t caused the earthquake. Just as Jack had suspected. But then what had caused it? Was there yet another villain out there? Perhaps the one who had changed the shape of Lough Neagh after the Atlanteans had dug it?

  Regina went back over to her desk and used an intercom to call for some burly Atlantean guards. “Anyway, Jack, I enjoyed our chat, but until my scientist comes to collect you I’m afraid you’re going to have to be locked in our dungeon.”

  Jack wasn’t worried. The minute he got into the dungeon he would merely put a pillow over his head and summon the Tooth Fairy. He was willing to risk his teeth if it meant saving the entire population of the country.

  The guards grabbed an arm each and began hauling Jack out of the room. Just as he was being dragged through the door Regina shouted after him, “And don’t think you’ll be using the pillow trick to summon the Tooth Fairy. BlackbeardJnr1680 mentioned all about that on the evil villain Internet forum.”

  * * *

  MINISTRY OF S.U.I.T.S HANDBOOK

  GIANTS

  FINN MCCOOL

  The giant who claimed to have built the Giant’s Causeway was called Finn McCool. Giants are notoriously boastful people in general.

  However, the truth was that giants very rarely achieve anything. Although they will claim to make bread out of ground bones and build causeways, the truth is considerably more pedestrian.

  Most giants spend at least fifty percent of their entire lives trying to find shoes that fit them.

  * * *

  48

  A WELL-DESIGNED DUNGEON

  The guards threw Jack headfirst into the dungeon. Jack gritted his teeth and prepared for his head to hit the ground. When it happened, the ground made an odd splashing noise. The fl
oor of the dungeon was covered in a foot of water. Jack spluttered and stood up. Being wet wasn’t fun, but he was quite pleased that he hadn’t been knocked unconscious. That had happened a lot in his last adventure, and he was pretty sure that concussions weren’t good for you at all.

  One of the guards stood at the entrance to the dungeon. “So, do you like our dungeon?”

  Jack looked around. Although the dungeon was in a modern soap factory, they had gone for the “classic dungeon chic” look. There were green, slimy stone walls with manacles and chains hanging from them. The ceiling was low and there were no windows. The water was filthy, with pieces of sticks and seaweed floating in it. In fact, the only indication that he wasn’t in a castle sometime in the twelfth century was that there was a modern porcelain toilet in the corner.

  “It’s a very nice dungeon,” Jack said to the guard. “The architect really did his job well when he was designing this. I mean the décor—it really says ‘dungeon’ to me.”95

  “Thank you,” said the guard.

  “And it’s not very often you get an en suite dungeon.”

  The Atlantean guard knew that Jack was making fun. “Listen, you may take toilets for granted but you wouldn’t if you lived in the sea. Using a toilet under the sea is like staring terror in the eye. Is the flush going to empty the bowl or cause what’s in there to spiral out upward into the room?”

  When it was described that way Jack thought that maybe he understood why the Atlanteans were so grumpy all the time.

  The guard shuddered. “When we get a building on dry land, it’s such a relief to get a toilet that actually works that we end up putting them in every room. Our bedrooms are en suite, the warehouses are en suite. Even some of the en suites are en suite.”

  “Well, thanks,” said Jack. Just because you’d been captured by someone who was trying to drown your entire country there was no need to be rude. “I mean, it’s a lot better than a bucket.”