Chapter Six: The Epicenter of the Salvation of Man

“I must

Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple

Some vanity of mine art: it is my promise,

And they expect it from me.”

-Prospero, The Tempest

            “I’m sorry for the theatrics,” said Charles as he marched them back up the passage. It didn’t occur to either of them to try to escape; the revelation of Charles’s power seemed to have temporarily sapped any will of resistance from their souls, and they proceeded quietly in front of him. “I couldn’t resist playing with you a little after you shot me. Honestly, though, we could have avoided all of this if you had just come with me in the first place.”

            They went through the winding passage and the huge, empty room in silence. It was only when they were approaching Prosser’s study again that Helen asked “What are you?”

            “Such stuff as dreams are made on,” he answered with a grin. “The dreams of every soldier and every man.” He laughed. “To put it in laymen’s terms, I can’t die. Or at least, as far as we know. My body can keep working and heal itself even in the face of catastrophic damage. This also means I can’t get sick, be poisoned, drown, or suffocate. For all intents and purposes, I’m invulnerable. But Dr. Prosser can provide a much better explanation than I…And what did you do to his study?!”

            They had just come through the mirror and Charles stared around in disbelief at the trashed office and shattered window.

            “My God! When Dr. Prosser sees this…what were you thinking?”

            Charles glared at them furiously.

            “Come on,” he growled. “We’ll deal with this later.”

            He opened the study door and they obediently followed him down the hall into the library. Dr. Prosser stood by the fire place, his hands clasped behind his back, staring meditatively at the painting over the mantle. A thin, sour-faced man was leaning against the wall, and sitting in one of the armchairs reading a book was…

            “Ralph!”

            “Oh, dear, they got you then?” he said, looking up. “I thought they might. What do you know? It turns out they were expecting you to make a run for it. Mr. Hendricks! Whatever happened to you?”

            Hendricks jerked his aching head at Charles, who said “They were a little reluctant to accept your invitation, doctor.”

            “Invitation?!” Helen exclaimed.

            “Where’s Hogan?” Hendricks demanded. “And the crew?”

            “Oh, don’t worry about them,” said Charles. “We’re keeping them quite safe.”

            Prosser looked over at them for the first time, his face quite expressionless.

            “Mr. Wainwright, please alert Dr. Kipling that we have a patient for him,” he said. The sour-faced man nodded and left.

            “Wainwright?” Hendricks asked. The name seemed oddly familiar to him.

            “Yes. A colleague of yours, I believe,” said Charles dryly.

            Before Hendricks could work out what this meant (the pain in his head and chest was making it very hard to think) he was interrupted by Prosser inviting them to sit. Helen and Hendricks glanced at each other and sat down on the couch. Ralph carefully marked his spot and put the book away while Charles walked over to Prosser and muttered something in his ear. Prosser nodded and Charles went and stood behind Helen and Hendricks.

            “The time has come,” said Prosser. “To be honest with you. First of all, I apologize for any rough handling you have experienced. Charles can get a little carried away at times.”

            Charles acknowledged this with a shrug and a nod. Prosser took a moment to collect his thoughts.

            “The story I told you, Helen, of how I came to this island, was true, as far as it went. I really was forced out of Empire State University, and I really did go to work for Centron Farms…”

            “Empire State University!” Hendricks exclaimed suddenly, which set his head throbbing violently. “That’s where I heard your name before,” he continued more softly, massaging his head. “You’re the one who blew up the observatory.”

            “That was an unavoidable accident,” Prosser said sharply. “And yes, I recognized your name, Mr. Hendricks. It was your father who forced me to resign.”

            “Because you blew up the observatory,” Hendricks pointed out.

            Prosser glared at him.

            “As I say, it was an unfortunate and unavoidable accident,” he said. “And the damages were comparatively slight.”

            “But what were you doing in the observatory if you’re a doctor?” Helen asked.

            “Because I am not a medical doctor,” he said. “Despite what you’ve been led to believe. I am a physicist by training. That lie was necessary to bring you to this island.”

            Helen looked angrily at Prosser.     

            “And what did you want with me?” she asked.    

            “That will become clear shortly,” he replied. “Ah, here is Dr. Kipling.”

            Wainwright had just appeared in the doorway, followed by a small, dumpy man with a vacant expression. He was balding, unshaven, and muttering non-stop under his breath.

            “Doctor, your patient,” said Prosser, gesturing at Hendricks.

            Kipling stared at Prosser for a few seconds, as though shocked to find that he was in the room. He then waddled over to Hendricks, who felt faintly terrified to have this man as his doctor.

            “Er, is he the only doctor on the island?” Hendricks asked.

            Kipling stared at him with a hurt expression.

            “I…I am a good d-doctor,” he muttered. “A v-very good doctor…I am-am very good…”

            Still muttering about how good a doctor he was, Kipling opened his bag and pulled on a set of rubber gloves. They weren’t medical gloves; they were the kind that you might see being used to handle highly toxic material.

            “S-shirt,” Kipling muttered, gesturing vaguely at Hendricks. “Shirt up. Up shirt. Shirt needs to be up.”

            “Oh, yeah,” said Hendricks, wincing as he pulled his shirt up. Helen gasped as he revealed a set of huge, black bruises where Charles had beat him.

            Kipling pulled out a large tube, like an over-sized toothpaste, and an old rag. He squeezed a small amount of bright red goo onto the rag and rubbed it out, careful not to touch any, even with his gloves.

            “I should warn you,” said Charles. “This might sting a bit.”

            “N-now, now, now h-hold still…very still…” Kipling said. And pressed the rag to Hendricks’s torso.

            It was pain beyond anything Hendricks had ever experienced. He felt as though Kipling had pressed a red-hot poker to an open wound. He pushed Kipling off of himself and clutched at his ribs, but that only caused his hands to burn as well. He screamed and writhed in blinding agony…

            Then, as suddenly as it had begun, it was over. Hendricks opened his eyes to find that he had fallen onto the floor and Ralph and Helen were bent over him. He sat up, gasping for breath and sore all over.

            “What the hell did you do to him?!” Helen shrieked.

            “We healed him,” said Prosser. “Go ahead, Mr. Hendricks; take a look.”

            Hendricks looked under his shirt and saw, to his amazement, that the bruises had vanished. He felt his ribs; they were slightly sore, but not painful.

            “What…what is that stuff?”

            “Informally, we call it Goop,” said Prosser, with an expression that told this wasn’t his choice. “In short, it is a synthesized version of the same process we used on Charles, combined with a powerful acid to allow it to seep into the skin. It can heal most injuries almost immediately, though we haven’t found any way to dull the pain.”

            While Hendricks was mulling this over, he unfortunately didn’t notice Kipling muttering right next to him.

            “Face…n-now must do face….”       

            “Wait, no!”

            Kipling pressed the rag to Hendricks’s face, and again he felt as though his skin was on fire. After about ten long seconds of blinding agony, Hendricks’s nose was back into shape and he scrambled to his feet to get away from Dr. Kipling.

            “There you are,” said Charles. “No harm done.”

            “No, a lot of harm was done!” Hendricks snapped, massaging his aching face.

            “Don’t be such a child,” said Charles.

            “A fascinating substance,” said Ralph, picking up the tube and examining it. “But what do you mean by ‘the same process used on Charles?’”

            “No, no, no touching!” said Kipling, pointing a shaking finger at Ralph. “Don’t touch! Please put-put it back and-and-and don’t touch…”

            “Oh, yes; awfully sorry,” said Ralph, putting the tube back into the bag. “But as to my question…” 

            “All in good time,” said Prosser. “But first, I think, we need to return to the starting point, which is why I had all of you brought here.

            Ralph shrugged. “Very well.” And he, Helen, and Hendricks resumed their seats.

            Prosser took his own seat in the arm chair in front of the fireplace and pressed his hands together as though praying.

            “First of all, Mr. Hendricks, let me say that, the fact that you, of all people, are here, is indeed a startling coincidence,” he spoke as though he had no personal interest in the subject, but was noting it as a piece of history. “But one I am quite glad of. Did your father ever speak of the incident?”

            “Some,” said Hendricks, “Not much. Just that you, you know, blew it up because…”

            He stopped, thinking that the reason his father had given probably wouldn’t endear him to Prosser.

            “It doesn’t matter much,” said Prosser, ignoring the obvious gap in his account. “I only wish to comment that I am pleased that you, at least, will be able to comprehend his shortsightedness.”

            “That means you’re gonna let me go afterwards to tell him about it, right?” Hendricks asked hopefully.

            “Perhaps,” said Prosser. “It depends.”

            “Depends on what?”

            “On her,” said Prosser, nodding at Helen, who looked startled.

            “Me?”

            “Yes. You see, I intend to offer you a permanent position here, Ms. Marshall, and much depends upon your acceptance.”

            “What are you talking about?”

            Prosser hesitated for a half-second.

            “Before I explain any further,” he said. “It might be best for you to have an idea of what this island really is.”

            “I thought you were going to explain that now,” said Ralph in a tone of amused impatience.

            Prosser spared him a contemptuous glance before resuming his meditative study of his own fingers.

            “This island,” he said at last. “Is the epicenter of the salvation of man.”

            A silence followed this remarkable statement, and Prosser continued.

            “Here we are developing the means that will allow us to end all human suffering; all war, all famine, all poverty, all disease.”

            He smiled suddenly and looked over at Helen.

            “What do you think of that?”

            “I…” said Helen, faintly alarmed at the sudden request for her opinion. “Well, that sounds a little too good to be true.”

            “It does, doesn’t it?” said Prosser. “I wouldn’t believe it myself, if I hadn’t been watching the idea flourish and grow over the past twelve years. It has been very slow and very difficult work, but now, at last, we are ready to begin in earnest. If all goes well, we should be able to begin the revolution of humanity by the end of the decade.”

            “I take it,” said Helen softly. “That you’re not really working on cures or anything like that?”

            “You have seen a cure in this very room,” said Prosser. “And, in a sense, we are working on a total cure; a cure for all of humanity. But for individual diseases, no, we are not. We deal with much grander things.”

            “But what kind of things?” said Ralph. “You seem remarkably reluctant to make that clear.”

            Prosser surveyed him with dislike, then smiled.

            “Perhaps I shall give you all a little tour before dinner,” he said. “So that you will have some idea…”

            “This island was originally a missile base,” Prosser said as he led the four of them – Hendricks, Helen, Ralph, and Charles – out of the villa and down the path to the facility. “Built in the1950s, when the Cuban Revolution began. I suspect they foresaw the day when Russia would send missiles to Cuba. In any case, after the Missile Crisis, President Whitmore shut down and abandoned the facility. Apparently, he thought it might be a political liability for his Latin American agenda. The island was then re-purchased by the original owner, and I purchased it from him. Or, rather, Ms. Orlich, whom I understand you met this afternoon, purchased it from him on my behalf.”

            “Why’d she do that?” Hendricks asked.

            “It wasn’t out of charity, I can assure you,” he said dryly. “In any case, I found the facility in desperate need of repair, and set about transforming it into a suitable laboratory for my research. The result is more or less what you see before you. Most of it, though, is underground. It even spreads out underneath the ocean in some of the deeper levels.”

            As they approached the gate to the facility he waved lazily at the guards, who saluted him.

            “Where’d you get the guards?” Hendricks asked.

            “They’re on loan,” said Prosser. “From El Jefe.”

            “El Jefe?” exclaimed Helen. “I wouldn’t think he’d be interested in…whatever you’re doing.”

            “He isn’t,” said Prosser. “But it is a mutually beneficial arrangement. He provides some of his resources, I provide him with technology to further his goals. He intends to conquer and control all the drug cartels in the Caribbean, which means he needs unmatched-power. I can provide him that. For instance, Charles here occasionally runs errands for him.”

            “And you’re not concerned about…about what he does?” Helen asked.

            Prosser gave her a very serious look.

            “Of course I am,” he said. “But drug lords will continue to exist as long as there is a despair and hopelessness in the world. I am working to eliminate these things and, consequently, the drug lords. In the meantime, though, isn’t it better that some of his resources are going to a good cause rather than simply being reinvested in spreading misery and violence?”

            Helen didn’t answer, and the party was silent as they passed into the lobby of the facility. It was a spacious, high-ceilinged room, marked on the floor by an insignia: a golden phoenix rising out a red fire.  There were about a half-a-dozen guards in the room, and as the ones by the gate had done they saluted Prosser as he came in. Prosser walked up to one of the doors and pressed his hand into a small screen next to it. The hand-scanner hummed for a second, then beeped as the door unlocked itself to admit them.

            “What we have been working on,” he said as he led them along a brightly lit concrete corridor. “Is a new phase in biological warfare. Rather than releasing plagues or gas, we are creating new kinds of warriors.” He paused at one of the doors that lined the corridor. “For example. Meet Anansi.”

            He threw open the door and led them into a small observation room. Computer screens lined the walls and a pair of metal desks stood crookedly on the floor. The far wall was comprised entirely of a pane of clear plastic, looking into what appeared to be an enormous, circular two-storey cage. Inside the cage was…

            Hendricks shut his eyes, shook his head very hard, and opened them again. No, it was still there.

            It was a spider the size of a small car, jet-black in color, with long, sharply jointed legs and thick tufts of hair sticking out sparsely on its fat, shiny body. There was an ugly, pale design on its back that looked vaguely like a question mark. It was sitting quite still in its web, which was about the size of a marquee and covered half the diameter of the cage, its ugly, multi-eyed head focused on the visitors.

            “You have got to be kidding…” Helen muttered.

            “Big one, that,” said Ralph cheerfully.  

            “Anansi,” said Prosser, “is, as you can see, a mutated spider. He combines the traits of several species, including the Black Widow, the Funnel-Web, and the common Wolf-Spider. His venom is, of course, lethal, and his web is roughly as strong as iron wire.”

            Prosser paused gazing into the cage at his creation, which gazed right back.

            “But the most remarkable thing about him,” he went on. “Is his intelligence. Of course, we have only been able to run very basics tests so far, but he demonstrates a cognitive capacity that we would never have expected of arthropod. His intelligence appears to be at least equal to a German Shepherd’s, if not more.”

            Hendricks found this hard to believe, in part because Anansi wasn’t doing anything particularly intelligent at the moment. He simply sat and looked at his visitors.

            “Okay,” said Helen. “How the heck did you make a giant, super-intelligent spider?”

            Prosser smiled.

            “Through a combination of carefully applied radiation and very special gene therapy,” he said. “The specifics I would rather keep to myself for now.”

            “So…this is what you’re working on?” Helen asked.

            “More or less,” said Prosser. “Of course, I have many different projects and many fields of research. The ‘Goop,’ of course, was another…”

            “I don’t think you’ve got all the kinks worked out of that one,” Hendricks muttered.

            Prosser ignored him.

            “But I don’t understand how…that helps anyone!” said Helen.

            “You will,” said Prosser, leading them out of the observation room (Anansi hadn’t moved the whole time) and back into the corridor. “But for right now, allow me to show you another of my projects.”

            As they rode the elevator down, Hendricks thought of something else.

            “What do you use for power?”

            “Hydro-electricity,” said Prosser. “We use the ocean. It’s a complicated system in which water is let in to one of the subsurface levels to flow past the turbines and then allowed to drain back into the sea. The actual output is a little lower than I would prefer, of course, but the sustainability makes up for it. When we need an extra boost of power, we simply ‘save up,’ so to speak.”

            “What do you mean, ‘save up’?”

            “We store it in powerful batteries, and then add them to the normal output,” he said. “It’s difficult, but it works.”

            The doors slid open, revealing a corridor much like the one above it.

            “Charming,” said Ralph. “Is all the facility this sumptuously decorated?”

            “I have much more important things on my mind,” Prosser said acidly as he led them down the corridor. “Than interior decoration.”

            “Still,” said Ralph. “I’d imagine you’d get a lot more done if the environment were more stimulating…”

            Hendricks glanced back at Ralph, who was walking behind him. What, in their present circumstances, could be less important than Prosser’s taste in interior design?

            “As you may have surmised,” Prosser went on, ignoring Ralph. “We have had some success crossing different species. But until recently our projects have been limited to crossing species of the same Family. This next specimen is our first successful attempt to cross animals of different Phyla.”

            He led the way to the very end of the hall where there was a heavy metal door, like a bulkhead. Charles stepped forward and opened it for them, and Prosser led the group into the next chamber.

            This one was set on a high catwalk and the clear plastic walls slanted outward, allowing a downward view into a large pool, much larger than an Olympic swimming pool. A huge black shape was swimming in the murky water, but it was so strange, so misshapen that at first Hendricks couldn’t tell what he was looking at.

            “Oh, my God,” Helen whispered, staring at it, her eyes wide with astonishment. “That’s….that’s a…croctopus?”

            “Octodile,” Prosser corrected. 

            Hendricks gasped. Now he saw it; the long, slender crocodile shape, with eight thick, black tentacles growing out of its sides. Its shape had been so hard to identify at first because the tentacles kept waving and rippling about in the water as it swam.

            “How big is that thing?” he asked, trying to visually measure it against the pool it was in.

            “About thirty feet from nose to tail,” said Prosser. “Weighing roughly two tons. The tentacles are each twenty feet. It doesn’t have suckers, like an octopus, but the tentacles are nevertheless extremely strong. It’s been learning to use them fairly well.”

            They watched the Octodile drift lazily through the water for a few minutes before Prosser led them back into the hall. They passed the elevator, turned a corner, and proceeded all the way down to the far end. There was only a single door in this entire hall. Prosser paused outside of it, and Hendricks almost thought he seemed excited, if that were possible.

            “Finally,” he said. “I wish to show you my latest creation. It combines size, speed, and offensive capabilities with built-in armor that can repel most hand-held firearms…”

            “In simple, laymen’s terms,” Charles put in. “It’s a very big snake.”

            Prosser gave Charles a slightly annoyed look and opened the door.

            This was another observation room, much like the others. As with the previous rooms, the far wall was almost completely taken up by a huge window of clear plastic, only this one was reinforced inside and out by a set of thick steel bars and wires.

            In the cage was, indeed, an enormous snake, at least sixty feet long, and a bright green in color. Its flat, triangular head and yellow eyes were fixed on the observation room, and as soon as the group entered the room it hissed violently.

            “This is Python,” said Prosser. “Python is, according to early tests, the most successful biological weapon I have produced. He is, in fact, the only one of the current crop that I am seriously considering keeping for the next phase. My first true warrior.”

            Python suddenly opened his mouth, revealing long, viper-like fangs. A smoking, dark-green liquid spattered the bars and plastic, causing Helen and Hendricks to duck instinctively. Charles laughed at their reaction.

            “That,” said Prosser. “Is a very powerful biological acid. Python is conditioned to use it as his primary offensive weapon. He is extremely accurate and has a recorded range of more than fifty feet. His scales, as I mentioned, are specially reinforced to withstand most rifle fire: it would take at least a fifty-caliber machine gun to pierce his hide. He’s not as intelligent as Anansi, but he has the capacity for fairly sophisticated tactical behavior, and his tracking skills are the best we’ve ever developed. In short, I would identify Python as our greatest success to date.”

            Python curled up like a viper and lunged forward. The instance he struck the bars of his cage, there was a flash like lightning and he jerked back, hissing angrily.

            “He tests those roughly every hour,” said Prosser. “As you can imagine, we have to exercise extreme precautions with him. We even had to install this special chamber to feed him safely.”

            At the far corner of the room was a huge, metal door that looked like it could withstand a missile blast.

            “It opens onto a kind of air-lock,” he explained. “The controls are designed so that only one end can be opened at a time. The far end, of course, opens onto his cage. The chamber itself is lined with an exposed electrical cable; when we first started using it Python refused to exit the chamber and kept trying to break down the inner door. Charles had to go in and lure him away from it for us to get the outer door closed again.”

            “He’s always trying to get out,” said Charles, meeting the snake’s eyes through the cage. “I guess he just really likes killing people.” 

            Hendricks looked at Charles, who caught his eye and gave him a grin that showed he knew exactly what Hendricks was thinking.

            “I’m a professional, Mr. Hendricks,” he said. “Python is a mindless animal. I have a purpose in what I do; he doesn’t. That makes all the difference in the world.” 

Next Week: 

Chapter Seven: Perfect Killing Machines