“No, uncle, I have not met the mutant yet, but I will meet tomorrow, I am sure that he is real!… Wait a minute! You said, “all mutants are now under water, by the reptilians!” Do you know something? Wait! You knew?! You knew something and hid it from me?!”
“Jean-Paul!”
“I was asking you questions! I was trying to remember! You assured me that you do not know anything that could help me… Why!?!?!”
“Because! Every time it comes to aliens and mutants, the world is ending! Finally, our business has blossomed like never before! Finally, peace and quiet! I fled from noisy Europe to retire in a tropical paradise! Dominic showed up today and declared war on me! What an impudent man! You see, the Big Eyes’ Dragon is on their side! Like these wild Indians are strongly needed by advanced reptilians, who are equally dexterous in flying and swimming in their UFOs!”
“Uncle, what are you talking about!!?!”
“So, you did not recall everything, it turns out! My dear boy! Okay, listen! Perhaps this is important for you… I am guilty before you, I confess… We have a whole underwater city of reptilians here. All the mutants, who were of already dying species, fled there!
“So, mutants, perhaps, are still alive, underwater? And there are aliens?”
“Not aliens, but reptilians – the real earthlings!”
“Where did you get all this?”
“All of you were discussing all of this right here, with me, when you were going to have dinner at the big table, and more than once!”
“Uncle! Wait! Real earthlings! I am hearing this for the first time! Or have I really not recalled everything!? I must return to the Island! And you will really help me this time! After all, last time I had a vacation by you for almost a month and did not know anything about aliens and mutants! Then I found out everything quite by accident, just before leaving for Paris! You knew everything! And remained silent!”
“Jean-Paul! Enough! I personally have not seen anything extraordinary on the Island! And I didn't want to feed you, a real scientist, with tales! But if this is important to you, then come. I will tell you all the legends, gossip, rumors, beliefs that I have heard over all years of my life here! About flying witches “soucouyant”, about people turning into birds and lizards, about black magic, dragons, a Great Serpent, a golden boiling lake under the ground and other nonsense!”
“There is gold on the island!?”
“Yes! Yes! And mutants have been mining gold for a long time – first for the alien Golden Zandolie, then for the Russian businessman from London, and now, probably, for the reptilians, if they’re still alive!!!”
“Uncle, sorry, but are you drunk?”
“Drunk! But not mad as yet! If you want the whole truth, so come on, fly in! Just remember. The Island of Golden Zandolie will eat you up. The Serpent and the Dragon guard their secrets well! It's better not to ask questions here!”
“Sorry, uncle, we'd better talk at another time! I was glad to hear your voice. Hope to see you soon! Say hi to my beloved dog Dushka!”
Sheepdog immediately barked, apparently hearing her nickname. Roger looked reproachfully at Dushka, gulped down the bottle of rum and went to bed.
How tired he had become, of everything!
The most remote and calm island in the world turned out to be the cosmodrome of all possible UFOs and the homeland of a variety of mutants with superpowers and even reptilians – the real earthlings!
Chapter 3
Zina the hybridomorph and a random snapshot of an alien
Zina was walking in the forest and picking strawberries for a long time. The day was just magical, sunny and breezy. It was very quiet in the forest, only the birds rarely exchanged short trills, sometimes the sound of a woodpecker or a slight rustle of foliage was heard.
Predators such as foxes and wolves were sometimes found here. There was talk about bears, but Zina did not believe the rumors and was never afraid to wander through the forest alone. Zina was very tall and strong, and she did not go out into the forest without a gun. From the back, she could easily be mistaken for a hunter due to her large size, simple coarse clothing such as jeans and a windbreaker, and heavy shotgun in a case. But Zina would never have thought about shooting animals. In a deep forest, people were much more dangerous.
Today Zina took only a basket for strawberries. The shotgun would have interfered with the picking of the berries. The jam will turn out to be bliss! Zina loved this time very much, when small bright red berries seemed to be playing hide and seek! They seem to be nowhere to be found, but just look under the leaf, and there is a whole clearing of berries!
But not only Zina loved strawberries. A huge old bear was also enjoying life very close to her, savoring sweet and aromatic berries. Probably, the heady pacification of a sunny day in a dense forest dulled the instincts of both – Zina and the bear suddenly collided nose to nose!
Well, not really, of course! They noticed each other, coming out simultaneously from opposite sides into a small, sunlit clearing. Perhaps Zina was walking against the wind, and the clubfoot giant did not catch her smell in time. The bear immediately got up on its hind legs and growled deafeningly.
This was the first meeting with a bear in the forest in Zina's entire life. The shotgun, as luck would have it, was not there. Only one basket full of strawberries! What a pity! Still, she could never have killed the forest giant!
Suddenly, a scene from the recent past flashed in Zina's mind. A huge mutant Ray was towering in front of her, flashing blue lightning. His dreadlocks were stirring like snakes from the electrical discharges of the enraged giant. Ray was so angry that he even levitated slightly above the ground! He looked straight into Zina's eyes, sending his deadly blue rays to her. And suddenly she just returned his own charge with her eyes… and killed him.
Now, looking at the angry bear, Zina mentally sent him a “shot with her eyes” that she was Zina the hybridomorph, and she was not afraid of him, she was smarter and stronger than him!
“GET OUT OF MY FOREST!”
Suddenly, the bear stopped roaring, ran its front paws along the muzzle from eyes to nose several times, shook its head, howled pitifully, then dropped to his four paws and disappeared into the thicket of the forest, loudly breaking branches.
Zina continued to stand motionless alone in the sunlit clearing, her powerful legs spread wide apart, her steep sides propped up with her hands. The basket lay in the tall grass, the bright red strawberries were scattered everywhere like drops of blood…
There was an unprecedented tranquility. Or got Zina just disconnected from everything around her?
Yes, right now she could concentrate only on one thing, what she refused to remember for a long time – that the blue blood of aliens flows in her.
She found out this by accident a couple of months ago, when the Frenchwoman Josie-Anne took blood samples from mutants to prove an alien impurity in their genes, and took of Zina's blood for a test… Just for the purity of the experiment, to show that one and the same red blood in mutants turns into blue under the influence of silver salts, while in humans it remains red.
And Zina's blood, to everyone's amazement, changed color to blue! Zina’s only, of all the people present!
Soon, everyone except Zina lost their memory during the tragic farewell visit of the mutant Ray. And Zina did not help anyone remember anything then!
Zina simply did not know how to live on with this knowledge that she was a hybridomorph. Therefore, she decided not to remind others of her blue blood as well – she hastily left the Island of Golden Zandolie, returning to Russia.
And she didn't just return home then. She went to the very outback, to the abandoned village of her great-grandmother, to live alone and try to understand herself. But instead,