The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination Part 38

Geroge went limp at the sight of the gun. He couldn't speak. His legs began to tremble.

"Get up," said the professor.

George couldn't move.

"Get up or I'll shoot you where you sit. I'm mortally bored with your sniveling."

Werms c.o.c.ked the trigger and stood. George managed to slowly get to his feet. The professor waved the gun. "Walk over to that door there," he said, and pointed to the left wall.

George searched the shadows off to the left and saw the dim outline of a door.

"Make it quick," said Werms. "Don't r.e.t.a.r.d my life because yours is a fistula."

When George couldn't move, the professor stepped away from the desk and got behind him, nudging him forward with the barrel pressed to his spinal column. "Yes, I'll change your life," he said.

"Open the door," Werms commanded when they'd arrived.

George did as he was told, his face drenched with sweat.

Inside, there was a lit overhead bulb and a set of crude wooden steps descending into darkness.

"Get a good look," said the professor.

"What's down there?"

"Your Fate."

George let out a moan.

"One last time, for the record, do you want to report a problem with the operation and/or results of The Pittsburgh Technology?"

There was a long silence before George whispered, "No." He felt the gun pull out of his back. He heard Werms stepping away.

"What are you waiting for?" said the professor. George turned and saw the gun had been lowered.

"Now, scuttle back to your miserable existence and get on with it."

George ran like a man with a dog at his heels.

Two months later, a package was delivered to his apartment from TPT. It held a piece of parchment decorated with intricately inscribed designs of curlieves and swirls in peac.o.c.k blue. There was a gold seal on it that bore the inscription: fatulus-fatalis. It was a diploma for the successful completion of The Pittsburgh Technology, signed by Professor Werms. The sight of it made him ill and he cursed and said, "Four thousand dollars." He turned it facedown and left it on the table in his bedroom.

A week later he rediscovered it, and although initially deciding to throw it away, instead he bought a frame for it and hung it in the kitchen. Occasionally, before dinner, while waiting for the microwave to ding, he'd gaze at the doc.u.ment and wonder what the future would have been without it.

Jeffrey Ford is the author of several novels, including The Physiognomy, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, The Girl in the Gla.s.s, and The Shadow Year. He is a prolific author of short fiction, whose work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, SCI FICTION, and in numerous anthologies, including John Joseph Adams's The Living Dead and The Way of the Wizard. Three collections of his short work have been published: The Fantasy Writer's a.s.sistant and Other Stories, The Empire of Ice Cream, and The Drowned Life. He is a six-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, and has also won the Nebula and Edgar awards.

Human beings and gorillas share about 98 percent of the same gene tic material. They are remarkably similar in biological terms: humans and gorillas are both mammals with close kin structures organizing their social groups; both species pa.s.s along learned experiences to their children; even their bodies are constructed in a fairly close fashion.

But can a gorilla be a mad scientist? Our next story gives us one.

m.o.f.ongo was once one of the great mad scientists. Not only was he a gifted inventor with a thirst for world conquest, he was also the proud possessor of a remarkable brain that could once give off rays of lethal energy. Once. Now m.o.f.ongo lives in a cage in a freak show, the prisoner of his nemesis. But as the sideshow fades in popularity, change, like the delicious smell of cotton candy, is in the air.

Here is the tale of a primate who could easily take on King Kong, with energy left to trounce Mojo Jojo in a contest of brain size. After wiping out those super-apes, what kind of challenge is humanity?

m.o.f.oNGO KNOWS.

GRADY HENDRIX.

Off the muddy tracks between the House of Shadows, the Freak Out, and the Gravitron, where pa.s.sengers are pummeled with physics until they puke, behind the generators that push power to the Top Spin, the Zipper, and the Rainbow, back where the night air is so thick you can chew it- stale cotton candy, old dough fried in rancid oil, the ripe aroma of the IQ Zoo with its pathetic poultry who plink pianos with their beaks- here in the jumble of shooting galleries and hoopla trailers, next to Skee-Ball concessions leaning against Crystal Lil's Refreshment Emporium lies the secret heart of the fair: m.o.f.oNGO: GORILLA OF THE MIND.

The pulsating brain of the mighty ape is no longer as powerful as it once was, but even its pa.s.sive presence subtly alters atoms. Read the subconscious signs. Hear the tiny fanfare. For all roads lead to m.o.f.ongo. Drop a slice of pizza, and it lands pointing toward his cage. The Wheel of Luck favors its m.o.f.ongo side. Lost children are always found in the litter-choked muck outside his tent.

On one side: the Ten-in-One. On the other: Saddam's Spider Hole featuring "The Marine who took DOWN the BUTCHER OF BAGHDAD!" In between: m.o.f.ongo. Buy a ticket. Part the canvas. Turn the corner. See his cage. This is where they come- the Scratch 'n' Win junkies, the astrology freaks, the overcompensating rednecks and their greasy-haired dates, the sullen and drunken, the viciously hip, the middle-aged losers with no more illusions, the unwed mothers broken by debt, the credit-card crucified, the ghetto schemers, twelve-year-old thug life dreamers, public housing divas, squad-car preachers, barroom philosophers, professional television watchers, expert beer-can emptiers, b.a.s.t.a.r.d babymakers who don't return calls, bail-bond skippers, dream destroyers, home wreckers, art-school zeroes, the angry, the humiliated, the tired, the downtrodden, the hate crazed, and all the unappreciated secret geniuses who will die still waiting for their big break . . . they all come here for his wisdom- for he is m.o.f.ongo, Gorilla of the Mind.

And m.o.f.ongo knows.

"Mommy, the monkey is stinky."

m.o.f.ongo bows his mighty head. Yes, he knows that his jungle musk is too heady for humans.

"Mommy, the monkey smells like p.o.o.p."

m.o.f.ongo's head droops lower. A soul-rattling sigh leaves his ma.s.sive chest.

"Ew, Mommy, his breath smells like dog doo. He's wearing a hat."

Yes, this is his Power Turban, possessing the ability to part the veils of time and peer into the future. A spangled head wrap with an enormous jewel pinning a peac.o.c.k feather to its center.

"He looks dumb and dirty like Meemaw."

Tokens rattle. m.o.f.ongo sighs and picks up one of the "m.o.f.ongo Knows" cards from the table and writes on it with a pen. Then he pushes the card through the slot and into the hand of the adult female, standing with its mate and sp.a.w.n. The card reads: "m.o.f.ongo Knows . . . that you will overcome all obstacles. This is a bad month for financial decisions."

The humans snort in derision: for this they paid five tokens? For this sad ape, with his heavy brow and his matted fur, they used tokens that could have been employed in the pursuit of gravity-defying thrills over at the Hi-Flyin' Swings? This monkey would not get their grat.i.tude, this monkey would get their backs as they walk out the door, mocking him in their high, reedy voices. The young, golden-haired child hangs back from its parents to hurl a final insult at m.o.f.ongo, hawking a loogie into its soft throat, expecting to expectorate on the great ape.

But m.o.f.ongo knows his reach, and with one leathery hand he seizes the tiny child and lifts it from the floor, pinching off its cry, pulling its red, bulging face close to the bars.

"Human," m.o.f.ongo growls, "your days are numbered. I remember your scent. I will come to your home as you sleep and break your bones and drink your blood. I will crush your kidneys. I will split you in half, human, and you will die of pain. Go, and tell your friends: m.o.f.ongo is coming."

He turns his back on the bars. The human child flees. The room is empty. m.o.f.ongo adjusts his Power Turban to better conceal his giant, pulsating brain, the enormous thinking engine that has deformed his skull, this overgrown tumorous organ swollen to the size of a beach ball.

A beer bottle shatters against the bars of m.o.f.ongo's cage, misting his back with gla.s.s and beer.

"You f.u.c.king touch a customer?" an angry voice slurs. "You f.u.c.king touch a customer, you jungle f.u.c.k?"

m.o.f.ongo tries to use his mind rays to kill Steve Savage, Hero of the Jungle, but these days his mind rays are weak. (Steve Savage is also weak, but m.o.f.ongo's mind rays are weaker still.) m.o.f.ongo tries to kill his old nemesis with contempt instead.

"Drunk again," he says. "How original."

"Oh, f.u.c.k you. f.u.c.k you right between your beady eyes, you f.u.c.king hairy f.u.c.k," Steve Savage says. "What do I tell you? Don't touch the customers. Don't speak to the customers. Don't take your turban off in front of the customers. You know what would happen if I called the Feds? One phone call and they'd f.u.c.king incinerate you. They'd f.u.c.king cut out your giant f.u.c.king brain and put it in a jar and they'd stuff you in a trash incinerator and turn it up to eleven and turn you into seven hundred pounds of ape-flavored ash."

Steve Savage is a Man of Adventure, and Men of Adventure age slowly, their lives dragging on long after the actual adventures are over. Together, m.o.f.ongo and his ancient enemy are almost two hundred years old but neither of them looks a day over eighty.

Steve sways, filling himself up with Budweiser and rage. This is their fight, one that they used to perform with wondrous weapons that pushed the boundaries of science so far that they shattered. These days they have nothing left to fight with but paltry profanity. But it is a fight that never ends.

"Steve Savage," m.o.f.ongo says. "One day I will get out of this cage and on that day I will rip your head from your puny human body and wash my face in your blood."

"If you could do that, you would've by now," Steve says. "I beat your Science Army, I blew up your Danger Trees, I f.u.c.ked up your Femme-Apes and Gibbon Guerillas, and I tore off Comrade Carnage's Anti-Gravity boots and beat the s.h.i.t out of his Commie a.s.s with them. So keep on threatening me, monkey!"

"You didn't defeat the Femme-Apes!" m.o.f.ongo yells, jumping up and down and shaking the bars. "You didn't defeat them! I saw photographs! You had s.e.x with them!"

"They were shaved! I had a concussion!" Steve Savage screams. "You can't prove anything!"

"I can still smell their love musk on you," m.o.f.ongo cackles. "All these years later and you still stink of ape s.e.x!"

Steve Savage climbs onstage and starts kicking the bars of the cage and m.o.f.ongo reaches out and tries to grab his legs. They slap at each other, locked in puny combat, man and gorilla, each with death in his eyes.

Then they fall back, panting, gasping, hearts pounding, on the verge of stroke. Steve throws a plastic shopping bag down, just outside the bars.

"There's your newspaper and your Dutch Masters," he says. "But no more books until you stop touching the customers."

m.o.f.ongo's muscles ache so badly that he can barely raise his arms, but with a heroic effort he manages to get them up and he shoots Steve the bird with both hands.

"That your IQ or your sperm count, cancer brain?" Steve shouts over his shoulder as he leaves the tent.

m.o.f.ongo opens the plastic bag and his enormous brain twitches painfully with humiliation. Anger, rage, hate, death. Steve knows he reads the Wall Street Journal, but inside the bag, beside his pack of natural wrapped cigarillos, is a copy of USA Today.

"House full a got I," Barry the Backward Man says, throwing down his hand.

"Jesus, Barry, you're making Herman look bad to night. What're you doing? Counting cards?" Gretchen the Two Ton Beauty says.

Barry laughs.

"Lucky naturally I'm," he says.

"Everyone knows you can't count cards in poker," Herman the Human Calculator grouses. "Too many variables, not enough data points."

"Everwhat," Barry says.

"What he said, but vice versa," Gretchen says. "You wanna play the next hand, m.o.f.ongo? We'll push the table over."

m.o.f.ongo presents them with his back.

"Holea.s.s an what," Barry says.

"We come here to keep you company," Herman says. "The least you could do is act civil."

"Buy me a Wall Street Journal," m.o.f.ongo says.

"This is South Carolina," Herman answers. "They don't carry the Wall Street Journal."

"Then give me your copy."

"I read it online," Herman says. "And you know that Steve doesn't want you near a computer. The last time you got near a computer the s.p.a.ce shuttle crashed."

"I forgot you humans stick together," says m.o.f.ongo.

"Oh, come on. None of us thinks you still want to take over the world," Gretchen says. "But Steve would freak."

"Stick a cake in it, Gretchen," m.o.f.ongo snarls. "This conversation is for superior intellects only."

"Hey," she says, hurt.

"Gretchen, personally it take not do," Barry says. "Business Brainiac strictly is this. Us to are they superior how themselves reminding keep to have they."

"One day, you will die," m.o.f.ongo growls.

"We're dying every day, 'fongo," Gretchen says. "But it doesn't mean we have to be rude to each other in the meantime. Besides, if you're such a superior intellect then how come we're all down here and you're up in that cage?"

Yes. Why is m.o.f.ongo up in that cage? The Genius Gorilla of Ghana, the Warrior of Wagadou, the Monster Who Shook the World, aka Professor Silverback, Science Ape and Eater of Europeans- what is he doing in this cage, in a filthy, stinking, fly-specked, weary, run-down, water-stained, used-up, played-out, cheapjack funfair?

Bad luck, mostly. And hanging around with the wrong people.

When m.o.f.ongo sleeps he dreams of his glorious past, of his first desperate pilgrimage to Opar, the Hidden Jungle City, with its wondrous Atlantean geo-technology. His first Revolutionary Gorilla Army! The piezoelectric death rays! The anti-gravity granite! The neural enhancers that raised an army of thinking apes who rode anti-gravity platforms down the Daka River to crush the British imperialist pigs. The day they burst into the hall at Accra and turned the Big Seven into the Big Six, the head of Kwame Asanti dangling from his hand and blood dripping onto the expensive carpet.

He dreams of his first Ape Empire, its borders drawn in the blood of white men whose spines he happily ripped out and used to beat their women to death. The lady gorillas. The monkey love. His primate harem. And then the coming of Steve Savage, American adventurer and Grade-A a.s.shole.

At first, Savage was just a jumped-up poacher with a flashy public image to peddle. m.o.f.ongo should have ignored him, but he didn't, and his attempts to kill the little twerp lent the creep legitimacy.

Over the years, it turned personal. When m.o.f.ongo had taken in the refugees of the Third Reich, Savage had been there to destroy his Diamond Dome. When m.o.f.ongo had dug the Death Mines of Yendi, Savage had appeared, and the ensuing Radar War had seen the floating Science City of If plunge into Lake Volta, its mathematics burning. The decades were a heady blur of fists connecting with jaws, ray guns melting screaming faces, the ozone tang of jet-pack exhaust, the click-whir of supercomputers calculating the unsane, the oily stink of robot death squads.