The Dwokdeer was used to the rain. In fact, it preferred it. Rain kept away insects, hid its smell from predators, and rain clouds blocked out the hot sun. Seeing some Dwokweed, the animal bends its neck down for a bite, gobbling up the sweet, crunchy plant.
The deer’s ears perk up. There is a subtle change in the sound of the rain as it hits the leaves in the trees. The surface tension of the droplets is different. The rain is green. Suddenly, the deer feels very sick. Strange pains fill its body. Cells begin to divide rapidly. Hooves erupt from its skin. A third antler grows from its nose. Its brown fur falls out and is replaced by yellow and white. All this activity uses up its fat stores and it becomes ravenously hungry. It runs around eating all the vegetation in sight, no matter the taste or caloric value. Still in pain, it lets out a wild hiss toward the sky.
Several days later, Nathaniel, Darryl, and the Stuffians meet with Boss Bok on planet Dwok. He is a disturbing sight – covered with eyes and branching limbs. One multijointed limb seems to be covered in noses and resembles a flower spike. “It all happened so quickly. One minute we were enjoying the beach and the next minute we were mutants. Now we can barely walk and our ecosystem is slowly collapsing,” he says through loud, scratchy, breathing.
“And how long did this green rain last?” Darryl asks.
“Only a minute. It came from nowhere. It wasn’t even cloudy,” Bok says.
“It sounds like it fell from space,” Nathaniel comments.
“Yes. Any comets, meteor showers, or spacecraft seen nearby at the time?” Darryl asks.
“Well, I don’t know. We aren’t very technologically sophisticated here on Dwok. You might ask the astronomy club. Most of them have telescopes. They might have seen something,” Bok says.
As it happens, a ship was seen passing by at the exact time the green rain landed across nearly one-third of the planet. One of the telescopists even took a photograph. “I’ve never seen a ship like this,” Nathaniel says.
“Me neither,” Darryl adds. The ship resembles a sea urchin. At the end of each spine is a bulge with an opening. Some release burning jet fuel. Others release a green mist. Nathaniel, Darryl, Haticat, Fred, Doctor Bill, and Mojo spend the next couple days reaching out to spaceport directors, news agencies, and shipspotter clubs within five hundred light years for information. A similar ship was seen passing through the area, but never landing. Expanding the scope of their investigation to include the entire galaxy, they learn of twelve additional green rain events. They are hunting a serial mutater.
Each event is different. On Loy, all mutations were symmetrical. On Fanklet, they were always asymmetrical. On Lectipas, Dinosaurs only grew addition copies of organs they already had. On Earth, Humans grew antlers, wings, tube feet, halteres, and many new organs still unidentifiable. On Dwok, only animals were affected. On every other planet, plants and fungi were affected as well.
Eventually, the ship is spotted again and the mercenaries are able to track it to the Ariel system. They hide in their asteroid ship in the system’s asteroid belt to observe. “The third planet appears to have life. The atmosphere is nitrogen and oxygen with numerous trace gases, including formaldehyde, benzene, chloramine, and radon,” Haticat reports.
“Okay. Keep looking for a landing pad or any other artificial structures,” Darryl orders.
“I will,” Haticat replies.
“While you two are doing that, I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up if anything happens,” Nathaniel announces.
Nathaniel is not asleep long when something happens. Soft objects of odd shapes touch down lightly on the hull, magnetic boots gripping the surface. One of them climbs down a crevice and finds a door. It deactivates the lock. On the bridge, Fred sees a message appear on his screen: UNEXPECTED ENTRY AT REGION 10 ZONE 43. He almost doesn’t notice it. “There’s an open hull door,” he says.
“It’s probably a sensor fault. Take Haticat and check it out,” Darryl says.
Haticat and Fred each grab a laser rifle and hurry off. When they get there, the door is closed and there’s no sign of life. “I’ll tell the bridge there’s no one here,” Fred says. Just as he lifts the radio to his face, it is knocked away by a tentacle. Other tentacles grab their laser rifles while still other tentacles grab their laser pistols from their holsters.
A figure steps from around the corner clad in a brown spacesuit except for its exposed head, which has two mouths, eight eyes, and six noses arranged as if they were simply dropped onto its face without foresight or planning. It holds a laser blaster in one limb. “Hold sssstill. Be quiet,” it hisses.
A few minutes later, the intruders take control of the bridge. Elsewhere, Nathaniel is jolted awake in his bedroom when booped on the snout by a soft tentacle. All the crew are brought to the bridge to watch as the intruders carefully land the ship onto the third planet near a very large dome covered in short trees. They are then marched outside to meet “The Geniussss.”
Waiting for them in a floating sphere, The Genius sits. He has one robotic arm, one robotic eye, and his skull is split open by his overgrown and oozing brain. Blue-green fluid drips down his face. Two long stemmed knobs stick out from his brain – one horizontally and the other vertically. The lower half of the bubble is metal and is covered internally with buttons. The upper half is transparent. “Nathaniel, Haticat, and friends, I’ve been expecting you.”
“You know our names?” Nathaniel says.
“Of course, I am The Genius. I knew you were coming. I knew what you would do. I even planned every word in the conversation we are now having,” The Genius explains.
“What number am I thinking of, then?” Haticat asks.
“1,403,115.2803,” The Genius answers. Haticat stares at him in stunned silence.
“How did you find our ship?” Darryl asks.
“Easily. It might look like an asteroid, but its velocity and orbital eccentricity did not match the rest of the belt,” The Genius answers.
“That makes sense,” Doctor Bill says. “I should have thought of that.”
“Why are you mutating people?” Fred challenges him.
I’m experimenting to perfect my mutagenic slime,” The Genius answers.
“Why are you doing that?” Nathaniel asks.
“So I can mutate everything and everyone in the galaxy,” The Genius answers.
“Why?” Nathaniel asks.
“I’m studying brain mutations. I hope to learn how to make myself even smarter,” The Genius says.
“Why?” Nathaniel asks.
“So that I will be smart enough to understand how to make myself – and everyone else – even smarter,” The Genius says.
“Why?” Nathaniel asks.
“So that Together we can continue to become smarter and smarter and smarter,” The Genius answers.
“Why?” Nathaniel asks again.
“You wouldn’t understand that. My highest motives are beyond your capacity to process,” The Genius says.
“If they’re too complex, just break them down into simple steps and explain them,” Nathaniel says.
“The fundamental axioms of my argument are necessarily more complex than your brains can handle. They can’t be broken into smaller parts,” The Genius claims.
“But if you can’t explain your reason, we won’t know if it’s a good reason,” Nathaniel explains.
“I know,” The Genius says. “Simply trust that I serve a higher morality outside your comprehension.”
“Why should I trust you?” Nathaniel asks.
“I’m smarter than you,” The Genius says.
“Prove it!” Darryl says.
“I have travelled far and read much. I’ve been to pretty worlds of glowing clouds and dark blue crystal mountains where the air is filled with sparkles. I’ve been to dangerous worlds of acid rain, razor-edged rocks, and electrified swamps. I’ve been to weird worlds of levitating rivers, singing bread, and parasitic mustaches. I have learned every branch of math and even invented a few of my own. Mere arithmetic is beneath me – too boring to hold my attention. I use k-dimensional operator matrices and topological reduction for the answers I seek. I have mastered the science of doing science, bringing all theories under a unified framework – the chemistry of economics, the genetics of particle physics, the crystallography of medicine, and even the music of doing music of doing music,” he says.
Nathaniel turns to Doctor Bill. “What does that mean?” Doctor Bill simply shrugs.
“I must return to work. You are free to explore the jungle and eat whatever fruit you find, but do not be surprised if it mutates you.” With that, The Genius floats away in his bubble and his mutants walk into the dome.
“So we’re not prisoners?” Haticat asks.
Darryl immediately tries to open the door to the asteroid ship, but the lock has been covered by another. “What is this? Some sort of slider puzzle?”
“Oh, I’ve seen these. You’re supposed to slide the pieces around until they make a picture, but I’ve never seen one with so many pieces,” Nathaniel says.
“I suppose without our weapons and access to our ship, we aren’t seen as a threat,” Doctor Bill muses.
The boys wander around the jungle near their ship. There are palms and cycads here. There are also lizards and rodents and birds and bats. Fred finds some pretty, yellow flowers surrounded by bees. There are no signs of mutation. Doctor Bill scans some of the trees. “Interesting.”
“What is it?” Nathaniel asks.
“I’m detecting protozoan DNA,” Doctor Bill reports.
“So?” Nathaniel says.
“I’m detecting only protozoan DNA. The trees, the ferns, the mushrooms, and the lizards all register as amoebas. I think they are all mutant versions of the same organism,” Doctor Bill clarifies.
“If that’s true, the mutagenic slime must operate on the RNA and proteins reading the DNA rather than on the DNA itself,” Mojo says.
“Yes, that makes sense,” Doctor Bill says.
While the scientists continue to scan, Nathaniel changes the subject. “Do you think it’s possible that The Genius is telling the truth?”
“About what?” Haticat says.
“That his motives are good, but not understandable,” Nathaniel says.
“Impossible!” Darryl says.
“How do you know? How do you know about what you don’t know you don’t know about?” Nathaniel asks.
“Huh?” Fred grunts.
“I don’t need to be an expert in transdimensional metacalculus to know that one times one isn’t two. I know evil when I see it. This is evil,” Darryl says.
The mercenaries wander the jungle for a while before becoming bored. They are afraid to eat anything and starting to get hungry. They walk back to the dome and find an entrance. Inside are shelves and shelves of potted plants. There are also rows and rows of caged animals, mostly gerbils and monkeys. Nathaniel feels sorry for them. There are also tanks of fish, frogs, and daggertails – aquatic, shrimplike animals with pointed tails. One cage contains a large, snarling mesonychid, a sort of hoofed predator. Nathaniel even sees a cage of flying, frisbee-like quoidibookaloofs.
“We should set them free,” Darryl says.
“How? All the cages have puzzle locks,” Nathaniel says.
“There must be cutting tools around here somewhere,” Darryl says.
“Maybe in that cabinet.” Doctor Bill points at an unlocked cabinet with a sign reading: TOOL CABINET
Nathaniel pulls open the door. This releases tension on a string running overhead that allows a small weight to drop out of the way of a caged gerbil. It immediately runs through a maze to the food at the other end while the heroes watch. Grabbing the food triggers a lever that releases a ball that bounces across the room until it hits a lantern right in its switch. The flame ignites, filling a balloon above it with hot air and lifting the lantern off the ground. The balloon carries the lantern up to a high shelf where the flame settles right under a taut string. The group watches in amazement. Several seconds later, the string has burned through and a weight drops against another, which hits another, which hits another, which knocks a giant piece of equipment in front of the doorway to the section they are in. They are trapped! “Ugh!” Fred exclaims.
“There isn’t even anything in the cabinet,” Haticat says.
With all of them pushing together, they manage to move the machine enough to squeeze by and escape. They continue to explore the giant greenhouse, but are wary where they step. Strings are everywhere. They see spring-loaded arrow launchers and firecrackers and saws. Predicting how they all work together is impossible. “The Genius is too smart for us,” Darryl grumbles.
Then some mutants walk by, rolling a caged walrus. The soldiers hide in the bushes and the mutants continue to wheel the walrus into a large clear area in the exact middle of the dome. The Genius waits for them. “Good, now get me the mutagen base from the fridge while I calibrate the injector for walrus RNA.” His fingers run swiftly over the keyboards inside his bubble. “Do you have it yet?”
“Here bosss.” He is handed a large jar of thick, blue-green liquid.
“No, I said the mutagen base. This is the smart juice! Didn’t you read it?” The Genius says.
“Sssorry, too many wordsss.” The mutant assistant returns the liquid and brings back a large jar of thick, pea-green liquid.
“Thank you, and sorry for snapping. I forgot you can’t read barcodes,” The Genius says.
“Yesss bosss,” the mutant says.
The Genius then takes hold of the two knobs imbedded in his brain and turns both. “I’ll need precision for this,” he says very slowly. He pulls on a syringe built into the jar, then floats upward in his bubble to the top of the dome where a giant gun is attached. He inserts the whole jar into the gun. Then The Genius descends again and presses more buttons. The gun fires. A needle hits the skin of the walrus and is sucked inside. Instantly, the walrus begins to convulse. The convulsions become progressively more violent until its back begins to blister. The walrus swells. Its skin bunches up in convoluted wrinkles. Its head and flippers retract into its body. It resembles more and more a giant brain. Then the convulsions stop.
“It looksss good bosss,” the mutant says.
“We won’t know that until I read its brain waves, and I’ll need speed for that,” The Genius says slowly, before taking hold of his two cranial knobs again and twisting. Then he starts moving faster. He pulls up a screen inside his bubble and presses a button. Millions of numbers zip across the screen at high velocity. A few seconds later, The Genius yells, his words coming out so fast they run together. “Again! Nowhere near threshold intelligence manifestation! Prepare me another animal and dump this mess in the jungle!”
“Okay, bosss,” the mutant says, slinking away. The Genius floats after him.
With the others gone, the soldiers exit from their hiding spots. “That was animal cruelty! We have to stop him!” Darryl says.
“How do you defeat someone smarter than you?” Doctor Bill asks.
“You drink his smart juice.” Darryl walks to the fridge, opens it, and gulps down some of the blue-green fluid. “It’s sweet.”
A few seconds go by. “How do you feel? Are you smarter yet?” Mojo asks.
“I…I think so,” Darryl says.
“What’s 357 times 77?” Nathaniel asks.
“22,489,” Darryl responds without hesitation. “Oh!”
“Cool! Tell me the prime factors of 4,998,133,” Haticat says.
“Oh!” Darryl says again, holding his head.
“Is it too many digits for you?” Haticat asks. Darryl just groans and holds his head tight in both hands. Blood begins dripping from his nose. He yells, then yells and yells again until out of breath. The top of his skull pops open with a loud crack and his brains push their way out.
“Oh no!” Mojo says. Darryl yells again and his brains keep growing. Blue-green fluid oozes from the top of his skull. Then his eyes explode, spraying blood across the room and leaving empty sockets behind. He faints and the brain growth stops. Mojo runs over and scans him. “He’s dead!”
“So that’s why The Genius has a split skull,” Doctor Bill says.
“He must have drunk too much,” Haticat says.
“How are we going to defeat The Genius now?” Fred asks.
“By drinking just the right amount,” Nathaniel says, walking to the fridge. Before anyone can stop him, he takes a sip.
After a minute, he barely feels smarter and he already has a headache. “Don’t drink any more,” Doctor Bill says.
Nathaniel looks in the fridge for painkillers. What he sees is something better. He picks up a jar of yellow fluid labelled “healing juice.” He drinks some and immediately feels better. Then he starts to read the jar and his slightly smarter brain goes to work. “This mixture works to increase the body’s natural maintenance abilities; it cannot reverse injuries to what they once were. That’s why The Genius doesn’t drink it; it’s too late for him. He must have invented it after becoming smart. If I drink it first, I will be able to handle the smart juice and become even smarter than he is. I’ll be fast and precise at the same time without having to install control knobs so my brain doesn’t overload. I’ll be able to solve his puzzle locks and avoid his traps.”
“It’s too risky,” Doctor Bill says.
“If I don’t drink it, then we’re all stuck here until The Genius decides he wants to experiment on us. I’d like to try my experiment first,” Nathaniel says. Then he gulps down the contents of both jars.
Almost thirty seconds later, Haticat finally asks, “How do you feel?”
Nathaniel turns very slowly and stares at him. Smiling, he says, “I have a plan.”
When The Genius returns with two of his mutant assistants and a caged goat, Nathaniel is nowhere to be seen. Darryl is still dead. The Stuffians lay strewn about the floor next to him. Allowing his play-energy to be used, The Genius rouses them awake. “Where is the Dromaeosaur?”
“Darryl and Nathaniel drank the smart juice and said their heads hurt. Nathaniel ran from the room screaming and Darryl’s head exploded!” Haticat answers.
The Genius turns to his mutants and tells one to go look for Nathaniel. Then he looks in the fridge. “Wow. They drank all of it – just as I planned.”
“What?” Mojo exclaims.
“I knew you would get bored with the jungle and follow me here, so I made sure to mention the smart juice where you could hear me,” The Genius says.
“I pretended not to read,” the mutant adds with a crooked smile.
“I figured your masters would either kill themselves or remain stupid, in which case I would find another way to rid myself of them,” The Genius says.
“You evil monster!” Fred shouts.
“Nonsense. There is no morality apart from intelligence. It is the highest calling of all life. If you were smarter, you’d know that,” The Genius says. “Now you understand I don’t need to put you in a cage to imprison you. I can predict your every move and stay one step ahead. Become my Gruezhling companions, join my crew, and be rewarded with your lives.”
“No!” Fred yells.
“Fine, I’m bored with you already,” The Genius says, putting them all back to sleep with a wave of his hand. Then he returns to his experiments.
The mutant sent to look for Nathaniel finds a trail of feathers. He follows them between some potted trees, down an aisle, and around a corner. The watering system has been malfunctioning and left a puddle on the floor. Around another corner, behind another tree, Nathaniel lies immobile on his back in a puddle. The mutant raises his gun and steps into the puddle to get a closer look. Zzzzrrrrt! The mutant is electrocuted to death by Nathaniel’s electricity power and Nathaniel stands up. Then he picks up the gun and walks away.
One by one, Nathaniel ambushes and electrocutes mutants, hiding their bodies in the giant pots where the trees are planted. Eventually, The Genius realizes that many of his minions are not responding to their radios. “What is going on? Is everyone on break at once?”
Eventually, it is reported by one of the remaining mutants that the mesonychid has escaped. “It must have caught the others.”
“Find it and kill it; we can always get another.” Turning to his assistant, he says, “Go help them. I can finish alone.”
Not long after that, the computer shuts down and some of the lights go out. “Can someone check the fusebox?” The Genius calls into his radio. When nobody responds, he floats away in his bubble to check the fuses himself. It is a tight fit to maneuver his bubble under the shelter where the main control panels are located. Finding the breaker, he resets it and exits.
He winds his way back through the variety of exotic plants until returning to the clearing in the middle. The Stuffians are awake and Nathaniel stands with them, carrying some device cobbled together from spare parts. “Well, you survived. How did you do it?”
“I only had a sip. Darryl drank the rest,” Nathaniel lies.
“Then you won’t be smart enough to defeat me,” The Genius says, smiling.
Nathaniel simply flips the switch on the device he carries and the floating bubble crashes to the floor. Then he and his crew pick up laser blasters and open fire.
The Genius laughs. “Just because you can temporarily disrupt my antigravity field with a magnet doesn’t mean you will ever break through my travel sphere. I invented the materials it is made of myself.”
“Brave words from a defenseless loser,” Nathaniel says.
“Oh, you’ll find I am far from defenseless. I still have my darts.” A screen pops up inside the bubble and The Genius aims the giant ceiling gun. The gun fires, but no dart comes out. Instead, the gun begins to swing with a horrible metallic screeching noise.
Nathaniel stares calmly at The Genius. “While you were checking the breaker I pulled, I emptied the cartridge and loosened some of the bolts.”
The giant gun falls to the floor and the soldiers run. Smash! Even the weight of 6000 kilograms falling from over seventy meters is not enough to crush the bubble. However, the transparent top is cracked. Stunned, The Genius struggles back into his seat only to see Nathaniel, Haticat, Fred, Doctor Bill, and Mojo looking back at him, placing their laser blasters against the cracks running through the dome and firing.
With The Genius and his mutants dead, Nathaniel solves the puzzle lock on the ship’s door and it falls off. Doctor Bill and Mojo make plans to return all the plants and animals to their home planets. Nathaniel sits on the bridge with Haticat and Fred. “I’m not the Nathaniel I was yesterday. He’s just as dead as Darryl. I’m different now. I see how everything fits together.”
“But we’re still friends, right?” Haticat asks.
“I think we could learn to be friends,” Nathaniel says.
“A smart person could always figure out how to be friends,” Fred says.
Nathaniel thinks for a moment. “Yes, yes, I suppose I could,”