Lost City

"Like Pierre Levant?"

"I don't recall the name," she said with a frown.

"Captain Levant was a French officer. He became one of the first mutants your research created."

"Yes, he seems vaguely familiar. A dashing, handsome young man, as I recall."

"You'd never recognize him these days."

"Before you condemn me, you must know that they were all volunteers, soldiers who were excited at the prospect of becoming supermen."

"Did they know that along with these superhuman powers, their appearance would change rather drastically?"

"None of us did. The science was crude. But the formula worked, for a time, anyhow. It gave the soldiers superhuman strength and quickness, but then they deteriorated into uncontrollable, snarling beasts."

"Beasts who could enjoy their new bodies forever."

"Life extension was an unexpected by-product. Even more exciting, the formula promised to reverse aging. We would have succeeded in refining the formula if not for Jules."

"He turned out to have a conscience?"

"He turned out to be a fool," she said, with undisguised vehemence. "Jules saw our findings as a boon to mankind. He tried to persuade me and others in the family to stop the march toward war and release the formula. I led the family against him. He fled the country in his airplane. He carried papers that would have implicated the family in the war plot and intended to use them as blackmail, I suppose, if he had not been intercepted and shot down."

"Why did he take the helmet?"

"It was a symbol of authority, passed down to the family leader of each generation. He lost his right to the helmet by his actions, and it should have passed to me."

Austin leaned back in his chair and put his hands behind his head. "So Jules is gone, along with the threat that the family's war scheme will be exposed. He was in no position to stop your research."

"He had already stopped it. He destroyed the computations for the basic formula and etched them into the helmet. Clever. Too clever. We had to start all over again. There were a million possible combinations. We kept the mutants alive with the hope that one day they might reveal the secrets of the formula. The work was interrupted by wars, the Depression. We were close to succeeding during World War Two when our laboratory was bombed by Allied planes. It set back our research by decades."

Austin chuckled. "You're saying that the wars you promoted hurt your research. The irony must not have escaped you."

"I wish it had."

"In the meantime, you got older."

"Yes, I got older," she said with uncharacteristic sadness. "I lost my beauty and became a crackling old crone. Still, I persisted. We made some progress in slowing aging, which I shared with Emil, but the Grim Reaper was catching up with us. We were so close. We tried to create the right enzyme, but with limited success. Then one of my scientists heard about the Lost City enzyme. It seemed to be the missing link. I bought the company doing research on the enzyme, and enlisted Dr. MacLean and his colleagues to pursue round-the-clock research. We built a submarine that could harvest the enzyme and set up a testing laboratory."

"Why did you have the scientists at MacLean's company killed?"

"We're not the first to dispose of ^scientific team so they won't talk about their research. The British government is-still investigating the deaths of scientists who worked on a Star Wars missile defense project. We had created a new batch of mutants and the scientists threatened to go public with the news, so we got rid of them."

"The only problem with your scientists is that they hadn't really finished their work," Austin said. "Pardon me, but this operation sounds like a clown convention."

"Not an inaccurate analogy. I made the mistake of letting Emil handle things. It was a big mistake. Once I took control again, I brought back Dr. MacLean to reconstitute a research team. They managed to recoup much of the work."

"Was Emil responsible for flooding the glacier tu

"Mea culpa again. I had not brought him into my confidence about the true significance of the helmet, so he never tried to find it before flooding the tu

"Yet another mistake?"

"Luckily, Mademoiselle Labelle removed the helmet, and it is now in my possession. It provided the missing link and we closed down the lab. So you see, we make mistakes, but we learn by them. Apparently, you don't. You escaped from here once, yet you came back to certain disaster."

"I'm not certain that's the case."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you heard from Emil lately?"

"No." For the first time there was doubt in her face. "Where is he?"

"Let us go and I'll be glad to tell you," Austin said.

"What are you saying?"

"I stopped off at the glacier before coming here. Emil is now in custody."

"A shame," she said with a flip of her fingers. "Too bad you didn't kill him."

"You're bluffing. This is your son we're talking about."

"You needn't remind me of my familial obligations," she said coldly. "I don't care what happens to Emil or his cretinous friend Sebastian. Emil pla

Austin felt as if he had just been dealt a pair of deuces in a high-stakes poker game.

"I should have known that mother snakes sometimes eat their eggs."

"You can't insult me with your silly taunts. Despite its internal friction, our family has grown ever more powerful through the centuries."

"And created a river of blood in the process."

"What do we care for blood? It is the most expendable commodity on earth."

"Some people might argue with that."

"You have no idea what you have gotten yourself into," Madame Fauchard said, with a sneer. "You think you know us? There is layer upon layer invisible to you. Our family has its origins in the mists of time. While your forebears were clawing at rotten logs searching for grubs, the first Spear had already fashioned a flint point, attached it to a shaft and traded it to his neighbor. We are of no nation and every nation. We sold weapons to the Greeks against the Persians and the Persians against the Greeks. The Roman legions marched across Europe wielding broadswords of our design. Now we will forge time, bending it to our will as we once did steel."

"And if you live another hundred or even a thousand years, then what?"

"It is not how long you live but what you do with your time. Why don't you join me, monsieur? I admire your resourcefulness and courage. Maybe I could even find a place for your friends. Think of it. Immortality! Deep down, isn't that your most fervent wish?"

"Your son asked me the same question."

"And?"

A cold smile crossed Austin's face. "My only wish is to send you and your pals to join him in hell."

"So you did kill him!" Madame Fauchard clapped her hands in light applause. "Well done, Monsieur Austin, as I would expect. You must have known I wasn't serious with my proposal. If there is one thing I have learned in a century, it is that men of conscience are always a danger. Very well, you and your friends wanted to be part of my masque, so it will be. In return for removing my son, I will not kill you right away. I will allow you to be present at the dawn of a new day on earth." She reached into the bodice of her dress and extracted a small amber phial, which she held above her head. "Behold, the elixir of life."