Twitch

"If one looked to the bible, it would speak of free will.  I contend that if there were such a thing it could not be influenced in so simple a manner as turning on or off a switch.  It would persist in spite of the rearranging of a few specific molecules.  I submit to you that free will is as antiquated a notion as a world that is flat."

--Dr. Julius Rittenour, 1881

    Such words would not be spoken before a stunned crowd at the World's Fair, Budapest, for close to a decade yet, but the impetus was unfolding in a rented warehouse space in downtown Mumbai.  Cluttered, dusty, an ill-advised detour through the neglected back alleys of one of the oldest cities on earth.  In a way it was appropriate that a redefiniton of life as it was known should transpire in the very place that exhibited the consequences of its current path.  Who would have thought that history could be made in such a disagreeable place?  Amidst scattered beakers and haphazardly stacked reference materials, innumerable tubes and wires, endless scribblings and abandoned theories in the form of crumpled balls of paper?  Yet, the time was drawing near that it would be so.  A revolution was at hand, and the devastated masses of this god forsaken place would be the first to feel it.

    Julius Rittenour was a man obsessed.  Years had passed since he'd seen his marriage dissolve from neglect.  At first his wife had been angry and supicious, then resigned, and finally she felt only pity for him.  In her words he had "forfeit his husbandly obligations to some invisible, impossible mistress."  He'd spent fantastic sums in grants and still more from hopeful but impatient investors while in pursuit.  Eventually, these wells ran dry.  Collectors came calling.  The spectre of a debtor's prison loomed.  Dr. Rittenour's own fortune had dwindled as well, and eventually he fled to blessed anonymity in the bowels of Mumbai.  He could stretch what remained of his estate there.  He could enjoy an almost complete lack of oversight.  Better still, he was that much closer to the place where he had first discovered that his mistress had a name:  Cordyceps.

    In the depths of the Indonesian rainforest he'd found her.  As a young and promising entomologist participating in a study of ants, Dr. Rittenour had won the opportunity by demonstrating a rare proclivity for the subject, stellar academic achievement and a yawning ambition.

    Cordyceps.  A parasitic fungus with the peculiar habit of infecting a very specific species of ant.  Interesting enough in and of itself, only there existed a strain which went to macabre and even insidious extremes.  Militaris.  Its spores, after becoming embedded in the joints of a victim's exoskeleton, would sprout mycelium, or tendrils, that coursed through the insect's innards quite purposefully seeking the brain.  Once there, they synthesized proteins mimicking those present in the host's nervous system and...here was the hook:  assumed control of the victim's motor skills.

    Mind control.  Boorish and primitive, but mind control all the same.  A kind of forced hypnosis inflicted on the victim so that it might play its part in completing cordyceps' very complicated life cycle.  To a young Dr. Rittenour the implications were staggering, and it was from that moment on he'd dedicated his life to recognizing, isolating and controlling this phenomenon.  Now forty-seven years of tortured inquisitiveness had passed.

    "Dr. Rittenour?"

    He looked up from adjusting some gadgetry.  "Ah, Faruq, you're here.  Do you have it?"

    Dr. Rittenour's visitor didn't answer right away.  He stood just inside the doorway and absorbed the dimly lit scene before him.  A cavernous space choked with impromptu tables made of crates and piled high with machine parts of all descriptions, voluminous notes and discarded food.  A few lamps hung intermittently from the ceiling on lengths of knotted cord.  Those, and some narrow windows in the eaves provided the only light.

    "Did you bring it?"  The doctor seemed to have just appeared suddenly before him.

    "I'm so sorry, Falang.  I knocked several times but you didn't hear..."

    "Faruq!"

    "I did, Doctor.  I brought it for you.  My son stands watch over it just outside."

    The Doctor's demeanor changed completely.  "Excellent.  Well?  Bring it in."

    He busied himself with necessary preparations as the natives toiled with his delivery-- A fresh cadaver, wrapped in linens and slung over the back of a donkey in the alley outside.

    Doctor Julius Rittenour had waited years for this moment.  Until recently he'd been satisfied experimenting on monkeys and dogs, even rats, since they were in steady supply.  He was convinced now that he had advanced beyond the measure of a few miserable beasts.  No, his progress now made it necessary to take monumental steps.  What effect would his work have on human remains?  They must be quite fresh so as to provide ample opportunity for the militaris derivative to act on viable proteins.  The body must be just hours old.

    He'd struck a deal with an opportunistic mortician in Ambe Wadi-- Faruq.  He would provide the fodder.  In this case it was a convict, recently executed, though sometimes it might be a beggar or a whore, even a cripple...No matter, it was the timing that was important.  The subjects showed up, the money changed hands, particulars were never discussed.

    Every previous attempt had failed.  Each concoction was then fastidiously tweaked and reintroduced in due time.

    As the mortician and his son finished securing the latest to a rusty metal gurney, the good doctor approached with money in hand.

    "Thank you, my friend.  As always, I appreciate your professionalism."  He extended the booty but didn't immediately release it as Faruq grabbed hold.

    "Why don't you stay?  You can see for yourself what your labors have yielded."

    Clearly Faruq was uncomfortable at the prospect.  The money had been good but he didn't have much interest in what might become of his product.

    "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I'm very busy..."

    "Too busy to watch history be made?  To watch the world as we know it change?"  Dr. Rittenour still held Faruq's bag and produced another.  "I'll pay double for you to stay."  He released the first bag and Faruq stared at the second.  "Faruq, I believe I've done it this time.  If I'm correct, there will be much more of that for you.  Much more."

    He'd never been sure what the good doctor was doing locked away for weeks and months on end, seldom had he wondered.  His interest was piqued, however, by this talk of riches and everything changing.  What could it be to deserve such high expectation?

    Years later, Faruq would reflect on that night.  Back through his position at J.Rittenour & Company as head of its Asia operations, distributing "service personnel" to governments and the very wealthy, through Dr. Julius Rittenour's endless travels healing the unruly and the profoundly disturbed by "permanent sedation", even offering to "restore lost loved ones" for those who could afford it.  There had been outrage and lawsuits, money...Oh, the money.  There seemed to be no end to it.  Because Faruq had agreed to stay longer in that filthy place so many years ago, to help the Doctor transfuse a villian's cadaver with blood inocculated by some obscure fungus, this was his life.  And his son's as well.  Changed forever for having witnessed a crude display of potential.  Nothing more than...Nothing more than...

    A twitch.