The Mad Scientist Megapack

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  I knew what Varsag meant. In spite of every physical endowment, Dexter Montrex hadn’t done especially well as a prize fighter. You had to be more of a killer than he was to get by with plug-uglies. He had taken several bad beatings after doing well in his early years in the ring. His beautiful physique might have been pounded into a derelict shell after kicking around the fight clubs. All of us knew what lay at the end of that kind of road.

  “What are you leading up to?”

  “Imagine a creature so fast that it could dodge a snake—a snake as swift as a Cobra, which strikes so swiftly that it is only a blur to the human eye!” Varsag was standing there, almost talking to himself now, carried away by his own words. “Think what a nervous system such a being would have, think what marvelous speed of sight, what control and precision of muscular movement, what lightning reflexes!”

  He turned and looked at me. “There is such an animal—the Mongoose. For some purposes, of all the living things on earth, the Mongoose has the best developed of all possible nervous systems. A human being with that equipment would be invincible in personal combat. You couldn’t possibly put a finger on him. He could strike a dozen blows before you realized he had started to move.”

  I was shouting before Varsag had finished speaking. “You’re not going to experiment on Montrex!”

  Very quietly Varsag answered me. “You saw what I did with the guinea pig? This isn’t an experiment any longer. I know what I can do, and I’ve shown it to Dexter. We’ve both made our minds up.”

  I stood there for a minute helpless with confusion and rage, and for a half a moment I was almost tempted into violence. Standing there, watching him carefully, Varsag must have known what was going on in my mind. He smiled faintly.

  “I hardly think so, Bert,” he said. “Not two such old friends as we. Not when Dexter himself, as well as I, think that this is the best thing to do.” He held out a hand shortly, knowing I would take it, and I did. “I am almost sorry I told you about this,” he went on. “I anticipated your reactions weeks ago, that’s why I kept quiet. Then, when I remembered the early direction of your work, and realizing that I would need help, I thought we could take the chance. I hope you won’t make me sorry.”

  And so, the battle that had loomed suddenly and irresistibly in my mind, was quite as suddenly over. There were times when it was impossible to fight Varsag. I nodded slowly in agreement…

  I will not describe for you the details of that operation, for the same reason that I destroyed all notes on observations and experiments, and destroyed with my own hands Varsag’s experimental animals. In spite of everything that happened, at least I knew from the beginning that Arnold Varsag was an extremely competent man, and more than that—he was honest. If his studies and notes had ever gotten into other hands…

  I watched and helped as well as I could that night, half fearful, half fascinated, while Varsag grafted sections of Mongoose eye on Montrex’s eyes, and made some extremely minute changes in the optic nerve. During this time he worked from a series of very detailed models he had constructed from dissections of Mongooses. I might add that there was some variation made in the dendrites around the nerve center of the brain. Nothing, however, could induce me to go into the matter any further.

  * * * *

  Montrex was convalescent for almost ten days. During that time Varsag fed him on food mixed with a brown paste. He would not tell even me what this paste consisted of, but gave me to believe it was manufactured—unbelievable as it sounds—from some of the vital organs of the Mongoose.

  Such was the splendid body of our patient that he was on his feet in less than half the time it would have taken an ordinary man after the terrific beating he took on that operating table. It is a wonder to me that he survived at all.

  During this period of ten days Varsag checked over his notes again and again to be sure he had made no mistake. He made careful and detailed notes on all his observations of the patient’s condition. As for me, the nervous strain of that period was almost beyond endurance. The proofs of my book lay where I had left them that night Varsag had called, and I ignored a dozen cajoling and threatening letters from my publisher.

  And then Montrex was on his feet again. The operation, it appeared, was a success. Our first impressions were that a glorious man had been created, faster and more potent than any man that had ever lived. At first I never doubted a striking contribution to humanity had been made, except when I sometimes would accidentally see one of the Varsag Mongooses slinking around in a cage, looking at everything with that horribly penetrating, furtive look. Then I shook as if with a strange fever that might have come from the Asiatic home of the damned creatures.

  I will never forget the first display of Montrex’s new power. It was his first day out of doors. Varsag and I were walking with him through a nearby park. We passed a little boy playing with a large brown dog. For some reason the animal suddenly growled deep in its throat and a slightly mad look came into its eyes. It flung itself at Montrex’s legs! Montrex moved easily aside and the dog’s rush carried it past him. It turned and came at him again, jaws slavering. Again Montrex dodged without effort.

  While Varsag and I stood by, watching the queer scene intently, a burly policeman rushed up, his gun half out of its holster. ‘Whose dog is that?” he shouted. “It’s gone mad!”

  “Rubbish!” said Varsag.

  The officer spun around. “Who the hell are you?”

  Varsag looked coolly at the speechless officer and turned to Montrex and me. “The dog will be all right. Let’s be on our way.”

  Someone grabbed the animal and we walked quickly off. As soon as Montrex had walked out of its range the animal quieted and stopped struggling with its captor, though continuing its hoarse growl. Montrex laughed loudly. It was one of the few times he laughed after the operation.

  “We must be careful of such minor accidents,” said Varsag, “or we’ll be creating a sensation everywhere we go.”

  He solved the problem neatly, I must say. After that, whenever a dog grew angry in Montrex’s presence, and they did every time he passed, Varsag would throw a small bit of meat he carried about with him. Instead of rushing Montrex, the dog would stand guarding the meat until we were out of range. In this way we avoided further difficulty.

  In a few weeks, Montrex’s dodging powers increased tremendously. We used to make quite a game out of trying them. He would walk unharmed through the wildest automobile traffic, scaring motorists out of their wits, crossing through the streams of whizzing cars while the drivers looked at him foolishly.

  As his health returned completely, we decided it was time for him to resume prizefighting. There was some difficulty getting him a match, but we finally contracted for him to meet a fighter named Walloping Wharton in a small local club. Wharton was good. He had knocked out many of the big names in the ring, but he was old and could be worn down after taking a few rounds of punishment; his legs would begin to fail as the fight progressed. The usual method of fighting him was to stay away from him for as long as possible and try to get him after he had tired. Wharton was clever and a deadly puncher when fresh.

  By the time the night of the fight came, I didn’t know whether Varsag or I was the more excited: certainly Montrex was exceedingly calm. We watched him carefully. He seemed very quiet except for his eyes, which, though they seemed to have grown smaller, looked everywhere. When the time came to enter the ring, he suddenly adopted a curious shuffling gait, and his shoulders became slightly hunched, with his head bent forward. It was a startling change from his former free stride and high-held head.

  The bell rang and Montrex just walked out to meet Wharton with his hands at his sides. Wharton, obviously perplexed, threw a raking, though hesitant, left jab squarely at Montrex. Montrex moved his head slightly and the blow went harmlessly past his head. Wharton led again with his left, this time more quickly. Again Montrex d
odged.

  The crowd became restless, sensing a strange situation. Suddenly Wharton started to close in on Montrex with a furious barrage of fast right and left hand blows.

  Montrex did not move backwards. He merely stood still, moving his head and body slightly, almost twitching, just enough to miss the blows, until Wharton had come in too close to do anything but clinch. Not once did Montrex’s hands come up from his sides.

  Wharton’s face twisted into a curious expression of savagery and bewilderment. He had never before struck so surely and with less effect. And still Montrex stood completely passive. We in his corner could see the rapid darting of his eyes. Wharton came toward Montrex again, his arms well up in a close guarding position. The crowd roared for him to knock out this strange creature who could not be touched, and yet would not hit back.

  But all his efforts to land a blow on Montrex’s strong body were futile. The weird spectacle lasted almost to the end of the round. Not once had Montrex raised a hand in his own defense. Not once did Wharton manage to touch Montrex with a blow. With about fifteen seconds to go, I noticed Montrex’s cheek twitch slightly. He stepped in quickly and Wharton went down. He was out cold.

  Yet all that Montrex had done—seemingly— was to slip forward, flash down, and send a hand forward with a single light punch. One, no more.

  “Fake!” The massed cry roared through the hall, furiously. Momentarily we expected violence. But Montrex seemed composed even as he was roundly jeered, climbing through the ropes and walking back to the dressing room. His face was still completely expressionless, but his eyes were in every corner of that hall.

  * * * *

  The next morning the fight drew comment in the papers only to be condemned as a “tank show.” Only one sports writer commented briefly on Montrex’s amazing exhibition of his ability to avoid punishment. The consensus, what there was of it, was that the whole thing had been framed.

  We bided our time. Only the manager of the local fight club, who had booked our first fight, was certain there had been no fraud. He called at Varsag’s home while I was there two days later. He sat uneasily on the edge of a chair, his eyes traveling about the room, as if he were afraid of something happening.

  It didn’t take long to understand what was troubling him. He had had a long talk with Walloping Wharton, it seems, and what he had heard…“Well,” as he put it, “the long and short of it, Doc, is that I’d like yer fighter to show his stuff at my club again.”

  There was something curious, something roundabout and underhanded, in the way he proposed the whole deal. Evidently he had some plan in mind, and was hoping we wouldn’t see through it. I wagged my head for Varsag to leave the room with me, and we stepped into the adjoining library.

  “You know what he’s up to, don’t you, Arnold?” I said.

  “I think so. I think it’s rather a good thing.”

  “Fine. My reaction, exactly. I hope we’re correct.”

  We were correct. When our fight came up, I looked carefully all about the house, and in a corner of the balcony, I saw the evidence, Montrex was fighting another has-been named Sailor Darrel, but looking around at the names in the sporting world who had managed to find their way to this little club, I knew that the word had gone out. It hadn’t taken as long as we’d thought.

  I sat tensely the first few rounds. The fight was almost a replica of the first one. Montrex came in with his hands loosely at his sides and weaved easily away from everything Sailor Darrel threw at him. In the fourth around Darrel began to look frightened. It was evident he had been warned of what to expect, but even the warning had not prepared him for anything like this. After throwing a series of punches, he would back away and look to his seconds in their corner, not knowing what to do.

  It was just about then that Montrex came in slowly, ducked for an instant and flicked his right hand out.

  The Sailor went down as if he had been hit by a steam hammer. The fight was over. A lone voice cried out, angrily, “Phony!” but no one took up the cry. More than one pair of eyes looked up at that balcony, and when Montrex left the arena, he walked up an aisle that was strangely silent.

  It broke the next morning.

  There had been a slow-motion moving-picture camera secreted in the balcony—and they had photographed the whole fight! Now they knew. Where they had seen one light punch strike Sailor Darrel, the camera showed the delivery of nine lightning thrusts— and behind those blows was the perfect timing and muscular coordination of the fastest animal on earth!

  The story was a newspaper sensation. It was ballyhooed all over the United States and every foreign country. Offers for bouts poured in by the dozens. Some bright sports writer christened Montrex “The Human Cobra,” and “The Human Cobra” he remained to the American public. Varsag and Montrex and I chuckled at that. We could still laugh about it then, about the ironical way that Montrex’s speed, taken from the Mongoose, the deadly enemy of the Cobra, had given him that name. We did not dare to reveal, however, how it was that Montrex acquired his speed. After all, it was against every law of society and nature.

  Then something happened that stopped Varsag and me cold for a time. In Montrex’s third fight, he revealed two new habits. As he moved around his helpless opponent, he began to hum in a peculiar high pitch—and his hair bristled and stood on end. The habits of the mongoose in battle!

  We cropped Montrex’s hair close so its bristling would not be noticed. The sports writers did notice the new habit of humming, but they put it down to the fighter’s efforts to maintain body rhythm, and some of them actually compared the habit to one exhibited by Jack Dempsey, who apparently used to hum as he moved about the ring.

  The habits did not give us much trouble, but the development they were a sign of did. In six weeks Montrex had defeated seven fighters including Young Michael, Terry Burns, Foxy Gottlieb, Cannonball Martin Pollock, and some of the toughest opponents in the ring. Varsag and I lived in an increasing state of fear, apprehensive lest someone discover our secret, and more and more concerned with the strange developments of Montrex’s habits. He was turning into a morose and sly brute. He had almost killed the last three men he had fought, paralyzing them with the incredible swiftness and mounting savagery of his attacks.

  It was with a sharp shock that I realized he was beginning to be bored with fighting in the prize ring!

  Neither Varsag nor I realized the transformation in him until the night we signed the contracts for the fight with Big Bo Porter, the giant Negro champion. For the past week or more, we had become concerned with evidences of a strange fatigue that came over Montrex at night. He couldn’t rise as early in the morning as he had, and he was often tired for half a day. On this night, Varsag and I and “The Human Cobra” were preparing for sleep and Montrex had just been showing us how he had learned a new way to shave himself. Using a razor blade somewhat smaller than the usual size, microscopically sharp, and a magnifying mirror which enlarged his face many times, he cut off each whisker individually, moving his hand so quickly that it could not be followed, and still finishing his shave in half the time it took an average man shaving the regular way.

  But when he put down the razor he seemed unusually morose and nervous. The recently ever-present twitch returned in his cheek. I attempted to lighten the tension by jocularity. “Well, Dexter,” I said, “if everything else fails you can always be a barber.”

  Montrex was not listening. He put down his razor and his face dropped its lively expression, resuming that quiet, yet furiously nervous look. He began to pace about the room, turning quickly, shoulders slightly hunched. I realized forcibly that Montrex was looking and acting more like an animal every day. That quiet expression, with its nervous searching glance, was like that of an animal in a cage! Montrex was getting restless. I feared we could no longer hold him in check. I looked at Varsag and caught his glance. Was Montrex’s fatigue a psychological one?<
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  Later, I spoke to Varsag and resolved to stay awake that night and stand a sort of guard.

  How futile a gesture! I could not have kept Montrex in that room unless I chained him. At about two in the morning I began to doze slightly.

  A slight click roused me instantly, in time to see Montrex, fully dressed, going out the door! He had gotten out of bed and dressed without making the slightest sound. Only the clicking of the door latch had given him away.

  I ran to follow and realized I was not dressed. Quickly I shook Varsag awake and we pulled on some clothes. By the time we were ready to pick up his trail, it was impossible to trace him. We returned to the apartment.

  Back in the room I turned suddenly to Varsag and said, “Montrex is becoming an animal.” My voice was challenging. Varsag nodded. His face looked misshapen. His eyes were hard and black as coal.

  “Our glorious man,” he said bitterly. “Our gift to himself and to humanity!”

  It relieved me a little to see that Varsag realized the menace of Montrex in his present form. ‘We must find a way to change him back,” I said.

  “Change him back!” Varsag almost leaped at me. A fanatical fire burned from his eyes. “Destroy the experiment?”

  I looked directly at him. He saw my resolution and for once he was on the defensive. “What good would changing him back do?” he said. “This may be only a temporary development. Dexter would never submit to another operation now. I’m not sure it can be performed. Bert, you’re not being reasonable.”

  “We must change him back,” I said. “Dexter is our friend.”