But what was the point? Try as he might, King couldn’t pin down Ridley’s endgame. He decided to review what he knew. Ridley was creating and using golems to do his dirty work, yet they were tools, not the goal. But they hint at the goal, he thought. The sandfish was nothing new. Ridley had created genetic monsters before. But had the sandfish been created in a lab or manipulated by the strange protolanguage? These were all symptoms of something larger, but he couldn’t think of what that might be.
He focused his attention on what he knew about Ridley. He was a genius, ruthless beyond comparison, and considered no person his equal. The man had a god-complex to the point of successfully achieving immortality through science. Likewise he had now learned to grant life, at least temporarily, to inanimate objects. While Davidson had given them some insight into the science that gave the ancient language world-altering capabilities, he had yet to—
King’s thoughts froze on the words “world altering.” In a sense, that’s what Ridley was doing. Living statues, giant lizards, copies of himself. He was manipulating reality. But how far could it go? How much could he manipulate and to what extent? Could he become a god? As soon as the question formed in King’s mind he knew the answer.
Yes.
Ridley would be immortal and hold the keys to life, death, and to some extent, creation. He would be a god and much of the world would bow down and worship him. But that couldn’t be the end. Not for a man like Ridley. He was interested in power. In domination. But he was just one man. It might take him centuries to build a large following and he wasn’t a patient man. There had to be something else.
With his mind spinning with theories, King headed back to his seat. His body ached and he needed to rest. Alexander sat at the rear of the plane, his seat tilted back, and his eyes closed. King marveled how the man was able to fall asleep so quickly when there was so much to think about.
He sat down across from Alexander and sighed.
“Unforeseen complications?” Alexander asked.
King jumped at the man’s voice. It seemed he wasn’t sleeping at all. “You could say that.”
Alexander opened his eyes and sat up. After pushing a button on his armrest, a stewardess entered from the front of the plane. “Yes sir?”
He held up two fingers. She nodded and disappeared.
“In your … experiments with Hydra’s blood. When you created the Forgotten and made yourself immortal, did you ever…” King searched for the right words. They all sounded ridiculous. Then again, so did immortality. “Duplicate yourself?”
As usual, Alexander took the question earnestly, without laughing or even cracking a smile. For him, nothing was out of the realm of possibility. “No. Never. Removing the head, in Ridley’s case, and in mine, would simply render the body dead. Regeneration would begin at the neck. Splitting into two unique selves is not an attribute of Hydra’s genes.”
“So he couldn’t just hack off a body part and grow a new self?”
“He is limited by the DNA of Hydra, and if he did his job correctly, regeneration is the only gene he transplanted into himself.”
“So it’s not possible?”
“I didn’t say that. There are species that have the ability to split in two, creating two separate entities, which can later split again. Earthworms for instance. If he continued to modify his genetic code, well, anything is possible. What resources were available to him after the Hydra incident?”
“Manifold was shut down,” King said. “His funds were frozen. But he likely had secret accounts. Facilities no one knew about. It’s possible that Manifold Genetics is operating under the radar.”
King adjusted his body in the seat. Despite the plush cushion, he couldn’t find a pain-free position. “Like you said, anything is possible.”
The stewardess returned with a tray. Two glasses and a dark brown, one-ounce bottle, sat atop it. She placed the tray on the foldout tabletop in front of Alexander. “Anything else, sir?”
“No, thank you. How long until we land?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
He tilted his head in thanks and she left without looking back. Once the cabin door was closed again, Alexander continued. “Where is the second Ridley?”
“Danta Pyramid in Guatemala.”
“Interesting,” Alexander said, rubbing his chin.
“You know the place?” King asked, and then thought, Of course he does.
“It’s a Mayan city stretching over ten square miles that was consumed by the jungle. I’ve been meaning to visit, but haven’t had the chance.”
King felt a mild surprise at the ancient man not having been everywhere in the world.
“What’s interesting is that like the ancient pyramids in Egypt and the Tower of Babel before it, the construction techniques that allowed the Mayans to build a pyramid of such magnitude remains a mystery. Of course, you and I know that golems were used as laborers in the old world. And that several other ancient architects used the same method for building wonders all around the world.”
King saw where he was going with this. There was a connection. “Including Stonehenge.”
Alexander opened the brown bottle and extracted a dropper. A tan liquid with tiny swirling flakes filled the glass vial. He dropped five drops into each glass. “It would appear he is visiting the ancient sites for some purpose, perhaps in search of information or relics that might add to his knowledge of the protolanguage.”
Both men sat in silence for a moment. Alexander focused on the steps they would take upon landing. King’s mind drifted back to Fiona. He looked at Alexander, the oldest man on the planet and asked, “Do you have any children?”
The question took Alexander by surprise. He turned to King, with a lopsided smirk. “Children?”
King waited for more.
“There was a time, before I was immortal, that I wanted children. Acca and I tried to conceive, but she was barren. I never did get an heir. As it turns out, I didn’t need one. But there hasn’t been anyone worthy of bearing my children since.”
“You … haven’t been celibate all this time?” King asked.
Alexander gave a gentle laugh, which escaped his nose as a sniff. “For fifteen hundred years, yes.”
King couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Alexander was wealthy beyond belief, handsome, could speak a number of languages, live anywhere and do anything. And he’d chosen to live underground and alone for fifteen hundred years? It didn’t add up. It didn’t seem … human.
Alexander could see what King was thinking and ended the line of question with a preemptive statement. “I have seen and done everything imaginable with the opposite sex. After nearly a millennium of indulging, some things lost their novelty, starting with the primal act of procreation.”
“You are an old man,” King said with a grin.
Alexander smiled. “Very old.” He looked out the window for a moment, and then turned back to King. “While I may not be able to answer the questions of a new father, I can tell you this with confidence: for men like us, nothing is impossible.”
King’s smile widened, but wasn’t fully genuine. Despite being flattered that the immortal Hercules was starting to think of King as an equal, he still felt unsure about being a father. The problem wasn’t whether or not he could be a father, but whether or not he should be a father.
Alexander picked up both glasses and swirled them around until the tan liquid dispersed in the water. He offered one to King.
“What’s this?” King asked.