The Mandrake Effect– ONE– by P J Searle

An antique, gold-plated carriage clock pings midnight as Harry enters Rose’s darkened apartment. He makes his way towards the bedroom, opens the door quietly and stands, straining his eyes to make out the detail in the darkness. As his eyes accustom to the light he stiffens in terror. Something is moving behind him. A white luminous hand comes out of the shadows and grabs him sharply under the armpit.

‘Arggghh!!’ Harry lets out a piercing yell.

Rose jumps back and lets out a louder, more piercing yell. ‘Arggghhhhhh!!!!’

‘Dear God, Rose!’ gasps Harry, his terror giving way to relief, quickly followed by anger, ‘Never, ever do that again!’

‘You stupid chicken-livered creep!’ yells Rose, ‘What in hell did you yell like that for, you scared the be-Jesus out of me?’

‘Sorry… I’ve had a busy night. What are you doing sitting in the dark, I thought you’d be sound asleep?’

Rose switches the light on. ‘I’ve been waiting up for you. She’s out! The freak is out! – Escaped!’ Harry just stares at her. ‘Harry. Did you hear what I said? She’s escaped!’

‘Yes… don’t I bloody know it? Lift both your arms up over your head.’

‘Why?’ She gives him a questioning look and obediently lifts her arms over her head.

Harry studies her arms intently. After a moment he smiles, ‘Why? So I can do this,’ he cuddles both arms around her and buries his head in her chest.

‘God, I love you, Harry, chicken-livered or otherwise,’ she whispers into his ear as she hugs him, ‘So, what are you going to do about the bitch?’

‘I thought I’d sleep on it. Ha ha!’

She punches him hard in the arm. He lifts her up and carries her – switching the light off with his elbow – into the blackness of the bedroom.

The blackness flickers away under a circular neon light. Rose is examining herself in her illuminated bathroom mirror. She inspects her face, then leans close and inspects her eyes, pulling down one eyelid, then the other. Her hand now touches at her lips, tracing their beautiful outline, top, and bottom – ‘Ugh, lips!’ She covers her mouth and gags, turns and vomits into the toilet bowl. She flushes, rinses her mouth then looks back into the mirror. Harry is now in the reflection. He puts his hands on her shoulders and they stand staring at each other’s image.

‘I want you out of this, Rose. I think you’ve had enough. Go to your mother’s for a while… Will they let you go?’

‘They can’t stop me.’

‘No. I guess not.’

‘Come with me Harry. They don’t need you any more, and you don’t need them. Everything is money to them… I’m sick of it. I gave my youth for them. I’m not giving them anything else… Please.’

‘Rose, Baby, I can’t. I owe it to my uncle, to myself and to you. You’re right, I am a waster and all the other things you said. I just want to do something for myself. I need to change. I need–’

She puts her hand over his mouth. ‘I don’t want you to change, Hal. I love you as you are… I love you as a creep. Honest to God, Henry Mandrake, you’ll do for me exactly as you are. I want to beat you up every time you cheat on me.’

‘Rose, I will never–’

‘Don’t say it, Hal. I know you’ll cheat… you can’t help yourself. You’re weak and I love you for it. I’ve never loved, even liked any other man. I never will. Come with me, Harry.’

He moves away. ‘I’ll drive you down to your mother’s, but I must continue. Sorry.’

‘Don’t bother. I’ll take the Greyhound. I’ll stay for a spell, maybe even a couple of weeks, months… we need some time apart. I don’t know yet, but maybe I won’t come back here. I need to sort out my life.’

‘I’ll come and visit–’

‘No! Don’t come, not unless you are going to stay. Give it up, Harry.’

Major, wearing his grimmest look of bad intent, sits working at his desk. Sentinels, Rex and Hamish, flank to his left and right. They come to attention at a knock on the door. Major grudgingly responds:

‘Come!’

Harry enters. Major speaks without looking up, ‘Okay, Mandyke, to business: the woman’s out… but not for long.’

‘Look, Major,’ says Harry, his excuses welling on the tip of his tongue, ‘what you have to understand is–’

‘So… you got beat up in a gay bar?’ says Major, now looking up, ‘Well well! Yes I know – the boys have been on your ass the whole time.’

‘Yes but–’

‘Shut up and listen! You got caught up in a drugs-dispute, right? – Someone cheating on one of the families, right? One man pumped full of zap, the other executed in some gangland ritual – they smashed a syringe into his head… RIGHT!?’

‘No! It wasn’t like that. What happened was–’

‘Shut up! I’m not asking, I’m telling what happened, for the record! None of which is open to conjecture, not to anybody. Do, you, understand? – Speak, damn you, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’ He smashes his hand down on the desk as he screams the words. Harry is speechless. Unable to answer he nods a definite ‘yes’. After a long silence Major continues, ‘Now, Mandyke, what have you got for me?’

Harry is lost for an answer. He has to think quickly. ‘I, I’m working on a theory of my… illustrious uncle’s. Yes… I’ve been looking back… through my old lecture material. It seems he, my uncle was convinced the entity had… had made a vital error. Yes…’ He stops and thinks for a few more seconds, desperate to gather his thoughts.

‘Error, you say?’ prompts Major. ‘Go on.’

‘Yes, an error. The entity had used the intellects of the two crewmembers to create one. He, my illustrious uncle, theorised on the mechanics of the, the… shall we say… the metamorphosis… Yes, that’s it, metamorphosis.’

Rex, who until now has been disinterested, picks Harry up. ‘Metamorphosis? – Explain.’

‘Well, old man, it works as so: Errm… right… part of the flesh is used as building material, and part is used as fuel to generate heat for a living, shall we say… crucible, as he, my illustrious uncle–’

‘Jeeesus H Christ!’ explodes Major, ’Will you stop saying, ‘illustrious fucking uncle!’ God damn it, get on with it, man.’

‘Sorry. Where was I? Oh yes, as my… as he put it. I personally think it had copied something that was already degenerating. I think the crew was already suffering from some sort of gamma radiation poisoning. That, or the entity used too much material and caused a conflict within… a form of malignant cancer. It seems to have learned from its mistake.’

‘I don’t think so, Hal,’ Rex chips in, ‘Rosette is not responding to treatment. We think she’s dying.’

‘Damn. I was hoping to–’

‘–You were hoping to what?’ growls Major, turning on him with malice. ‘Listen, buddy, this is the best news we’ve had for months. She’s crawled off somewhere to die.’

‘Believe me,’ says Harry, ‘that is not the case.’

‘Yes, it, is! And that’ll be the end of it. I don’t want you making waves – We are a very insular group here, understand? It’s simply a matter of timing. Once the contracts are signed you can negotiate whatever crazy project you like, with my blessing, with them, the government! But until then I don’t want to hear anything more about novocaine, metamorphoses, entities or any other such scaremongering, cockamamie fucking nonsense!’

‘But it’s still out there. We have to–’

Major puts up a hand, cutting Harry short. ‘My people are already working on a shield for the next launch.’ He turns away, to Hamish. ‘You explain, Son, I can’t bear to look at him anymore.’

Hamish shrugs and smiles sardonically, ’It’s based on your ‘illustrious uncle’s’ own documented account, Hal, the destruction of the 1950’s, shall we say, anomaly.’

‘So you haven’t been a complete waste of money,’ adds Major without turning. ‘We need your uncle’s material, but I’m not sure if we need you. Shape up, or ship out, contract or not. This meeting is over. Leave your report and go.’

Harry makes to offer a final comment, thinks better of it and leaves. As he walks out, a short, wavy-haired man walks in. Harry speaks to him as they pass. ‘Morning… Mr. Casey, isn’t it?’

The man is shocked and embarrassed. He blurts his reply, ‘Oh… hi… Mandrake.’

The door closes. Outside Major’s office, Harry uses the reception phone and makes a call to Rose. The line connects. He whispers into the handset. ‘How are you? – Me, I’m okay… I don’t know, as soon as possible, Rose. I can’t, please try to understand, I just can’t.’ The line goes dead. Harry shrugs and puts the phone down. He looks back at Major’s office door, trying to imagine what Casey is up to. He shrugs again and walks off.

Inside the office, Major offers Casey a seat and drink, the former accepted the latter declined.

‘Okay, what have you got, Casey? Make it quick, I’m busy. You said something about–’

‘–The Mandrake Experiment… that’s what they called it back then. I want in, Major.’

‘You, what!?’ growls Rex, in disbelief.

Casey gives Rex a ‘who the fuck, are you?’ look, then turns back to Major. ‘If you don’t let me in, Major, I’ll print what I already have. I just want in… an exclusive.’

‘And if I say no?’

‘Please, don’t say no, Major. You should know I’ve left instructions that in the event of my, shall we say, untimely demise… all is to be published…’ he pauses to a pregnant silence, ‘… I give my word I won’t print anything until you say so. I’ve worked on this far too long not to be in at the end. I can help you, I’ve studied Henry Mandrake for years, I know what he knows.’

Major looks intently at Casey. ‘You believe that cock-and-bull story of a Limey Mars shot in the fifties? There’s no proof.’

‘Listen, Major, the Brits put a manned shot around the planet Mars back in the fifties, that, is, a, fact! Believe it! I’ve seen some of the film, the payload was enormous, the size of a goddam submarine, for all intents and purposes it was a submarine. Trouble was it had a nuclear reactor with solid uranium fuel. The British government got cold feet. They tried to stop it but Lord Melrose – Henry Mandrake’s uncle, who was Air Minister at the time – went ahead, anyways.’ He stops and looks around – it seems they don’t believe him. He continues, raising his voice. ‘Look, it went around the planet and crashed back on Earth, that is a fact!’

‘So you say.’ Rex chips in.

Casey eyeballs Rex. ‘Who the fuck, are you? I take it you’re important, boy… the size of your goddam fucking yap?’

‘Don’t call me, boy.’ says Rex, on the verge of laughter.

Casey turns back to Major, ‘It’s a fact – of the three crew, only one survived. All that was left of the other two men was some decaying matter and a lower torso. None of the doors had opened – Sounding fucking familiar?’

‘Again, so you say.’ Rex repeats.

‘Yes, boy! so I fucking say. The lone survivor died later, after a dozen or so horrible civilian deaths… bodies drained of all fluid, just crusty dried husks. Now… I know that here in New York, in the past five months since the Junairo incident, there have been a dozen unaccountable deaths… the symptoms are exactly the same. And I also know they’ve been hushed up under the cover of the aids scare.’

‘Did you see any of the 1950’s corpses?’

‘No, Major, I didn’t,’ says Casey, looking agitated. ‘Look, when I was in Vietnam we had Collins, the war correspondent – You’ve heard of him, I take it?’

Major rolls his eyes in tedium. ‘Yes… Get on with it.’

‘Well, he was with us. We went into a village that had been fried two days before. They’d hit it with everything, napalmed the lot. It was still smouldering.’

‘Yes, yes, we’ve all been to Nam. Get to the point.’

‘The fireball was–’

‘The point!’

‘Okay, okay. Bodies were everywhere, people just lying where they fell, completely turned to ash–’

‘The point man,’ Major smashes his fist onto the table, ‘or I’ll throw you out of this office, myself!’

‘You’ll what!?’ Yells Casey, leaping to his feet and hurling his words back at major, ‘You wanna try that, you smarmy fucking jerk? I’ll break your damn back! – Why the fuck is it everyone thinks they can dump on little guys? I’m third dan, ju-jitsu. I’ll shove your goddam head up your own ass!’

Rex and Hamish come alert, ready to restrain any rough stuff – Rex still stifling his mirth.

Major, staggered by the little man’s aggression, proffers an olive branch, ‘Okay okay! Christ’s sake, will you kindly get to the point… pretty please!’

Casey hovers for a few moments, the veins standing out on his forehead pumping blood for attack. At length he calms and sits. ‘Where was I?’

‘You was about to shove my head up my ass.’

‘Yeah… sorry, I get carried away.’

‘One more outburst like that,’ chips Rex, ‘and you will get fucking carried away.’

Casey totally ignores the remark and continues. ‘So, Collins said these burned bodies reminded him of the Mandrake affair. I asked him what he’d meant. He said he was working for an English newspaper in the fifties, for a year. He was asked to cover a rocket launch. Nobody took it very seriously, but because it was outside the Blue Streak/ Atlas agreement with the USA, and with the ludicrous rumour of atomic fuel, they thought it worth a couple of comic columns – you know, see the Brits blow a hole in the goddam Orkney Islands. Collins missed the actual launch because, as I say, Mandrake jumped the gun. But he did see the aftermath.’

’Why did he ‘jump the gun’?’

‘God alone knows, Major. The Brit government ordered him to pull the plug, but he went ahead anyways. He had the muscle – being Lord of Melrose an’ all – so Collins said. He also said that he got to interview one of the crewmembers’ wives, and that she confirmed that her husband had pioneered the first space shot. But Collins said he wasn’t able to use the story, nobody would touch it.’ Casey stops and looks at Major.

Rex, hanging on his every word, prompts him again. ‘Continue, continue.’

‘Okay, I was in England in sixty-two. I got an interview with the same woman. Now she told a different story. She said her first husband died in an accident, but that it was nothing to do with rocketry or space exploration. I checked her out: After the accident she’d got an undisclosed compensation figure, and her lifestyle had changed considerably.’

‘Changed, in what way? … Get, at the risk of having my head shoved up my ass, to the point!’

’Well, get this Major, she’s now married to an Air Marshal, no less. I was told in no uncertain terms and in the nicest English accent to ‘fuck awff! Drop it or we’ll drop you.’ And that came from a very great height – From the top.’

‘The point!’

‘Okay… the point: I do this freelance now, I’m not on any payroll. I tailed Lord Melrose until he disappeared eight years ago. Since then I’ve studied everything, every angle. And this last year I’ve taken to tailing Henry Mandrake. I’ll never let it go, Major. They’re out there, the little green men, and they’re ravenously fucking hungry! I just want in… or I split the whole fucking sack. That, Major, is… the point!’

Both men stare across the desk at each other. Casey jumps as Major bangs his hand on the desk. ‘You won’t print until I tell you?’

‘You have my word.’

‘I’ll have more than that. Okay, you’re in. I need someone to confide in – Sometimes I think I’m going out of my mind.’

‘Great! You won’t regret it, Major.’

‘I hope not.’

‘So, what about Mandrake?’

‘Don’t talk to me about that Limey fuck! Do you know he’s practically blackmailing me? I pay him a fortune and he still bleeds me blind. He’s screwing half the women in the team, and half the men too, probably.’

‘Yes, Major, I know the man for a libertine waster.’

‘You’re telling me? He’s got a Mafia-connected bookmaker after him… after me! That jumped-up bastard put up the Agency’s name as collateral.’

‘So… ?’

‘So, that’s what you can do. Stick your head up his ass. I want to know everything he does, says, thinks and fucks. The same goes for that woman technician, Kate Ottman. He’s damnwell humping her too. Everything understand?’

‘Okay… deal.’

‘Now, Mr. Casey, what do you want from me?’