Metamorphosis

by Sesh Heri

  “Well,” the big man said.

  “Well hell,” the old man said. “You win.”

  “I win?” the big man asked, gasping for breath. “What do I win?”

  “The race,” the old man said. “It’s official. I declare you the winner. It’s a bitter defeat. I don’t have any medal to give you. Guess you don’t want one anyway. You just want to go in there and poke around all my stuff. Well, go on, then! Go in there and poke around, Mr. Snoop!”

  “That’s not nice,” the big man said.

  “What?” the old man asked.

  “Calling me names. ‘Mr. Snoop,’” the big man said.

  “Well,” the old man said.

  “Well, hell,” the big man said.

  “You made me mad,” the old man said, “coming around here, asking questions, lookin’ everything over from the outside in, snoopin’ around. What business have you got snoopin’ around my place here? Do you know I own this property? I’m the landowner. You want to search these premises you need a warrant. In your case you need a federal warrant, since you’re a federal officer.”

  “How do you know that?” the big man asked.

  “Figure it out for yourself,” the old man said.

  “I thought you just said I could go inside?” the big man asked.

  “I’m talkin’ legalities,” the old man said. “You federal boys do everything according to legalities. I know.”

  “How do you know?” the big man asked.

  “Figure it out—“ the old man started.

  “—for myself,” the big man finished. “Can I go inside or not?”

  “Go inside,” the old man said. “Go on. Open the door. You earned it. You out-foxed me and won the race. I’m handing it to you. Just remember: I’ve got legalities on my side. So when you open that door, and go inside, you remember that I let the legalities go. And then you think long and hard about letting the legalities go yourself. Now go on. Open the door.”

  The big man opened the door all the way. Sunlight fell upon the interior room, brilliantly illuminating the bed and the blank-faced man lying upon it.

  The big man stood for a moment, then staggered a half-step back.

  “That what you’ve been looking for?” the old man asked.

  The big man slowly turned his head back over his shoulder to look at the old man. The big man’s brows were tightly knit, his eyes wide in shock.

  “Go on in,” the old man said. “No sense in standing out here now.”

  The big man slowly turned back around and stepped through the door of the cabin, and the old man followed him inside, closing the door behind them.

  The big man stood before the bed, looking down at the blank-faced man.

  “What’s happened?” the big man asked the blank-faced man.

  The blank-faced man reached up to his throat, and said, “Yaaaah.”

  “He can’t talk very well yet,” the old man said, “but he will be able to soon. Then he can tell you everything you want to know.”

  “What’s happened to you?” the big man asked the blank-face man. “What’s wrong with you?”

  The blank-faced man slowly raised his arm and pointed to the old man.

  “What is it?” the big man asked the blank-faced man. “What about him? Did he do something to you?”

  “All I’ve done to him is save his life,” the old man said. “That’s all.”

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “How?” the big man asked. He turned to the old man.

  “How did you get him in here?”

  “On a sled,” the old man said. “First time was on a sled. It was night. Nearly every bone in his body was broken. He was dying. Minutes away from dying. I stopped that process with an injection of a substance that reduced his brain-swelling. I stabilized him.”

  The big man looked back down at the blank-faced man who nodded.

  “Been workin’ on him for months,” the old man said. “I had hoped he would’ve been completely recovered by now. He should’ve been recovered by now. Can’t understand it. His progress has been unusually slow. But he is making progress. That’s all that matters. He needs to continue the treatments I’ve been giving him in the pyramid.”

  “Pyramid?” the big man asked. “That heap of stone out there?”

  “It looks like a heap of stone,” the old man said. “That’s because I wanted it to look like a heap of stone. It’s much more than that.”

  The big man looked down at the blank-faced man.

  “Your parachute failed,” the big man said to the blank-faced man.

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “I saw it happen,” the old man said. “Plane was coming down toward the mountain in a steep dive. I knew it was going to crash. It flew right over the cabin here. I was up on the ridge out there and saw his parachute come out of the plane. It was tangled up. I thought he didn’t have a chance. It was nearly dark when I finally found him. He was unconscious, but breathing, lying in a bed of snow, all bloody. His chute was tangled in a tree. I think that tree and that snow saved him.”

  “And you,” the big man said.

  “And me,” the old man said.

  “Can he move now?” the big man asked.

  “He can walk a little with a cane,” the old man said. “His bones are all healed, but his muscles have become atrophied. He has to build his strength back up. I’ll have him walking out of here in another three weeks.”

  “He’s going with me now,” the big man said.

  “I was afraid you were going to say that,” the old man said. “Why does he have to go with you now?”

  “A lot of reasons I can’t discuss,” the big man said.

  “A lot of reasons you can’t discuss,” the old man said. “There’s that legality I was talkin’ about. You federal boys don’t know anything but legality! If you want your friend here to fully recover, you’ll leave him here and let me finish his treatments in the pyramid. Think about it. You said it yourself. I’ve saved his life. If he’d been rescued the night of the crash by your medical team, would they have been able to save him? And if they could, what sort of shape do you think he’d be in now? I’ll tell you: he’d be a vegetable. Because not only did he have massive, multiple fractures in his spine and legs, but he had swelling in his brain and major failures in several other organs. When I started working on him he was about thirty or forty minutes away from death. Now you want to take him back to your military doctors and let them work on him— and I know you will be taking him back to your regular military doctors in Washington, not the secret doctors that the Mr. Bigs who run the world use. No, your friend here will just get ordinary medical care circa 1943. And what will 1943 publicly available medical care do for your friend? It will insure that he will walk with that cane the rest of his life! Is that what you want— to leave your friend a cripple for the rest of his life?”

  “What will you do for him?” the big man asked.

  “I’ll heal him,” the old man said. “I won’t just bring him back to what he was before he fell, but I’ll give him a strength he never had before in his life. Give me three more weeks and he won’t just be as good as new— he’ll be an Olympic athlete.”

  The big man looked down at the blank-faced man and studied him.

  Finally, the big man asked the blank-faced man: “What do you want me to do? Do you want me to leave you here and let the old-timer keep working on you?”

  “Yaaaah,” the blank-faced man said, nodding his head.

  “I can’t give you three weeks,” the big man said to the old man.

  “Give me two weeks,” the old man said.

  “I can give you a week,” the big man said. “A week, that’s all.”

  “Legalities,” the old man said.

  “I have people I have to answer to,” the big man said.

  “I know,” the old man said. “Has it occurred to you that some of those people you answer to may be responsible for your friend laying here on t
his bed now?”

  “What are you talking about?” the big man asked.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” the old man said. “Traitors. I’m talking about goddamned traitors. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Don’t tell me that it hasn’t been discussed among your people.”

  “I have a chain of command,” the big man said.

  “Are you certain of its integrity?” the old man asked. “’Cause I think your friend here has been the victim of traitors. Someone who he trusted betrayed him. That’s why the plane crashed on the mountain.”

  “What do you know about that?” the big man asked.

  “Nothing,” the old man said. “Nothing for a fact. But I can add two and two. And the answer is four, as if you didn’t know. Somebody sabotaged that plane.”

  The big man studied the old man’s face for a long time and then said: “You know a lot you’re not telling me, and I just want to let you know that I know you know.”

  “And I know that you know I know,” the old man said. “We sure know a lot, don’t we?”

  “We sure do,” the big man said. “Like maybe we know something about the documents that he had with him when he jumped out of the plane. Does one of us know anything about any documents?”

  “Documents?” the old man asked blankly. “No, can’t say that I know anything about that.”

  The big man looked over to the blank-faced man.

  “What happened to your case?” the big man asked the blank-faced man. “Did this old-timer get a hold of it?”

  The blank-faced man looked over to the old man, and then back to the big man and shook his head.

  “You don’t know what happened to your document case?” the big man asked.

  The blank-faced man shook his head again.

  “No idea,” the big man said, looking over to the old man.

  “I’ve no idea about that,” the old man said.

  “Don’t forget that I know there’s a lot you’re not telling me,” the big man said.

  “Oh,” the old man said, “there’s a lot I’m not telling anybody— especially you.”

  “You know,” the big man said, “I may know more than you think— have you ever thought of that?”

  “I’ve thought about what you think,” the old man said, “and I’ve thought that you may know more than I think you do.”

  “That’s right,” the big man said. “And there’s a lot I know that I’m not telling you.”

  “I’m not interested in what you’re not telling me,” the old man said.

  “Well,” the big man said.

  “Well, hell,” the old man said. “If you know so much, you ought to know that you should let your friend stay here until I’ve finished treating him,” the old man said. “Legalities should not determine your decision. Chain of command should not determine your decision.”

  “What should determine my decision?” the big man asked.

  “The real facts you know,” the old man said. “And the possibilities you strongly suspect. I know you suspect traitors. I saw your eyes light up when I used the word.”

  The big man looked down at the blank-faced man.

  “Two weeks,” the big man said to the old man. “I’ll give you the two weeks you asked for. That’s all I can give you. Beyond that, it would be out of my hands anyway. I’m breaking security to tell you this. Your place up here has been discovered by other parties.”

  “Who?” the old man asked with great intensity.

  “Germans,” the big man said.

  “They’ve made it this far into the States?” the old man asked.

  “They’re everywhere,” the big man said. “All throughout the United States. And now they’ve got their eye on you. I’ve spotted some of their spies on a hill out there. They were watching your cabin here with a telescope. They know I’ve been up here to talk with you. They may be up here to talk with you soon.”

  “I’d be happy to talk with the sons of bitches soon,” the old man said.

  “I’m sure you would,” the big man said. “If they come up here, how can you hide him?”

  “Same way as I hid him from you and your partner,” the old man said. He went over to the secret panel, pressed on it, and the wall of the cabin slid back, revealing half of the ‘recess room.’ The shelf holding the Houdini journal and Mark Twain’s manuscript and watch fob remained hidden from the view of the big man.

  “Right in there,” the old man said. “That’s my recess room.”

  “Well I’ll be damned,” the big man said with a smile.

  “Your friend was in here,” the old man said, “while you and your partner were out there. If German spies come to call, we’ll use the recess room. All right?”

  “All right,” the big man said. Then he looked down at the blank-faced man.

  “Are you all right?” the big man asked.

  The blank-faced man nodded, and then waved his hand toward the door. The big man realized that the blank-faced man was ordering him to go.

  “All right,” the big man said. “Is there anything you need? Anything I can bring you from town?”

  The blank-faced man shook his head and waved his hand toward the door again.

  “All right,” the big man said. “I’m going. It sure is good to see that you’re alive. We’ll have a lot to talk about when this is over.”

  The blank-faced man nodded, and closed his eyes.

  “Take care of him, old timer,” the big man said.

  “I will do that,” the old man said.

  “Two weeks from right now,” the big man said. “I’ll be here exactly two weeks from right now.”

  “Two weeks,” the old man said. “I’ll have him walking out of here with you in two weeks.”

  The big man nodded, looked down at the blank-faced man and then turned and went out of the cabin.

  May 26th, 1943

  The old man’s cabin near the slope of Pike’s Peak

  “You are doing a good deal better today I can see,” the old man said. “I can tell by the way you walked in here. I think you should try walking without that cane, don’t you?”

  “Ah ty,” the blank-faced man said.

  “Say that again,” the old man said, “say: ‘I’ll try.’ Try curling your tongue more on the ‘l’ and ‘r.’”

  “Ahhl twigh,” the blank-faced man said.

  “Much better!” the old man said. “Those tongue exercises are paying off. We’ll do more of them today. By the time your friend comes back for you, I’ll have you speaking the Gettysburg Address.”

  “Doo ooh ike eencon?” the blank-faced man asked.

  “Do I ike— what?” the old man asked.

  “Eencon,” the blank-faced man said. “Pezdet eencon.”

  “Oh,” the old man asked, “did you say Lincoln?”

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “Why, yes,” the old man said. “As a matter of fact, I do. He’s my favorite U.S. President. I think he was a fascinating historical figure in many ways.”

  “Oodeenee iked eencon too,” the blank-faced man said.

  “You say Houdini?” the old man asked.

  The blank-faced man nodded and said, “Ee iked eencon too.”

  “Houdini liked Lincoln too?” the old man asked.

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “Why, yes,” the old man said. “I believe I have read that somewhere. Say, that reminds me! The Houdini journal! We’ve got to get back to that! Yes, sir, we’ve got to get back to the story! It was just getting’ good. All that stuff about the boathouse and the dinosaurs and the Martians firing an anti-gravity beam at Houdini and Charmian. Here’s the journal. Let’s see. Where did we leave off? Mm-hm! Oh. Right here. Here it is, right on this page. My! He sure did write this very neatly. I’d say it looks like he copied this down into this journal from some other manuscript. Don’t think he scribbled it down while he was riding on a train. It would’ve been a mess. He took his time wit
h it and wrote it out very neatly, like he wanted to be sure it could be read by— by— well, by somebody like you and me! He had to want somebody to read all this someday. He must have written it down for some reason. Say! Why didn’t you tell your friend the other day that I had your case with all these documents? Why did you lie to him?”

  The blank-faced man stared at the old man, and then said, “Eecos ah wannahd oo to eenish da stahwee.”

  “You wanted me to finish the story?” the old man asked.

  The blank-faced man nodded his head.

  “Well,” the old man said.

  “Well, hell,” the blank-faced man said.

  The old man laughed. “That’s right,” the old man said. “Well, hell. That’s the best reason not to tell him. We’ve got to finish the story, don’t we? We got to see how it all turns out!”

  The blank-faced man nodded.

  “All right, then,” the old man said. “Let’s see what it says! This is going to be good! Dinosaurs! And Martians! And a seductive woman in Houdini’s arms! This is one hell of a crazy yarn! I love it! Part Three! Houdini Battles the Martians! Who would believe it? Me! That’s who!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Invested with the Intelligence of Supermen of

  Other Planets of Other Suns

  “I do not believe in that truck—

  in numerology.”

  Houdini

  Worlds were shattering.

  Upon the layers of vast etheric realms, great convulsions twisted deeply and sank to the lowest regions where worlds of time and space and matter spun around their appointed orbits. This was not a galactic storm, nor a shifting of intergalactic spaces. This was like the first time of the universe, the primal moment of all myth when reality emerged from the deeps of a formless ocean of nothingness. This was like the shining crown before which all else has ever flowed forth. This was the unlimited drawn to a point and expanded again. This was that which no man has ever witnessed.

  At the center of this convulsion was the NYMZA. By projecting the thought of the Bell into the minds of the Martians, they had cast a thread across the universal spheres to the worlds of matter, and it was this mere thread that was now shattering worlds.