“My magnificent machine contains all manner of creatures.”
“Where are they hiding?” Copia asked.
“They are not hidden,” Professor Vasquez replied. “They dwell within.”
Copia joined him on the dais and searched the great steel contraption. “But there aren’t any windows.”
“Yes, the only thing left to do is to put it to use,” Professor Vasquez said as he descended the three steps from the dais and crossed the laboratory floor. Copia hurried after him, taking notes on her clipboard. Two goats and a sheep that had been lingering by his table retreated as he approached.
“This could solve the world’s hunger problems,” Professor Vasquez said. “But transporting all that livestock would be troublesome.”
“We could rent a truck, I suppose,” Copia said. “But why not move the machine?”
“The machine is far too complex to move. Besides, it is my life’s work! Transporting it would be far too dangerous.” Vasquez twisted the ends of his thin black moustache. “Yes, that is simply out of the question.”
“Why does it have to be animals?” Copia asked. “Why can’t the machine make airplanes or tennis rackets?”
“Because that would be absurd! Copia, who is the scientist here? You are merely my research assistant. You wouldn’t understand.”
“All right, Professor,” Copia said. She lobbed her clipboard onto the table. “How do we use your animal machine?”
“While the science is quite complex, its use is rather simple,” Vasquez said. He went back up the dais to demonstrate: “one simply presses this button to activate the machine. Then, by inputting the proper formula that produces a rhinoceros, and then pulling this lever…”
“Professor, I know how it works. I’m the one who has to pull the lever when it gets stuck. I meant how do we put it to use?”
Professor Vasquez activated the machine and tried to pull the lever, but it was stuck. “Copia, your assistance, please,” he said weakly.
Copia joined him on the dais and threw the lever. The machine began to rattle and hiss and fume. Equal parts steam and smoke filled the room as it worked. Copia went to the wall and flipped the switch that turned on the fans. After several minutes of suspenseful rumbling and creaking, a frog hopped through the curtain on the side if the machine labeled “output.” Professor Vasquez picked up the frog and studied it in disbelief.
When the Professor was distracted, Copia knew that she could say wherever she wanted. So she said suddenly, “A rhinoceros!”
“Where?” Vasquez said absently.
“In your hands.”
“Oh,” Professor Vasquez said. “Yes.”
“And your hair is on fire,” Copia added. His hair was not on fire this time, but even if it had been, he might not have noticed.
“I see,” Vasquez said. He strode to his chalkboard and began recalculating the formula already there. This went on for twenty minutes. Copia made a pot of coffee and read a magazine. When she checked back in with the Professor, he still had the frog in his hand, but he was squeezing it in frustration. Copia took it from him and it sat calmly in her hand.
“This makes no sense,” Professor Vasquez said. “The machine cannot make amphibians.”
“But this is a rhinoceros.”
“No, no,” Vasquez said. “Enough silliness.” He noticed his now empty hand, where the frog had been. He instead took up a paper cup of coffee, which he squeezed no less intensely. “What went wrong? My calculations must be correct. I’ve checked them a dozen times!”
“Maybe the machine didn’t make it,” Copia said. She drew a face on the frog’s back with chalk dust.
“Of course the machine made it,” Vasquez snapped. “It was the only thing to come from the output.”
“What about the smoke? And the steam.”
“Ah, well,” Professor Vasquez said. He settled into a hardback chair and gazed at his glorious machine, which was now lit by the sunset streaming through the tall laboratory windows. “No matter. People can still eat frogs.”
Copia and the frog exchanged looks. She went into the hallway and then around the corner into the break room, which was already occupied by two cows and a chicken. She rinsed out the coffee pot in the sink, filled it partially with water, and plopped the frog inside.
“It truly is a wonder,” Professor Vasquez was saying when Copia returned to the laboratory. “The extent of my genius reaches beyond what mathematical formulae can express.”
“Why is there so much smoke in here?” Copia asked.
The machine was rumbling again in its suspenseful way. The metal lid on the tall part that looked like a milk can was rattling. The square part in the middle that always sounded like it was full of bees was trembling. The sheep and two goats that had wandered to the other side of the lab looked up from grazing on loose textbook pages.
“Did you pull the lever again, Professor?”
“No, I don’t have time to palaver.”
“But the machine,” Copia said. She to the dais and around to the output side. The machine’s humming and rumbling grew loud enough to rattle all the glassware in the lab. “Professor Vasquez, come quick!”
“What is it, Copia?” he said. He finally noticed the smoke and came running.
“I think it’s…”
“Another frog?”
All at once, the humming and rattling and rumbling stopped. A final snort of steam issued from the exhaust pipes. Inside the metal output housing there was a loud clank, and then an ominous shuffling. Professor Vasquez and Copia threw the curtain open and reached in. They pulled out a gray snout with a horn, and then a pair of tremendous legs. With some effort, they pulled the rest of the rhinoceros out. It stomped past them, surveyed the laboratory, and seemed to fixate on Professor Vasquez’s bowling trophies.
“No, you daft beast!” Professor Vasquez said. “Anywhere but there!”
The rhinoceros tossed its head and turned its bulk slowly. Its horn stopped directly in line with the chemistry table, which was overloaded with delicate glassware and expensive instruments. Professor Vasquez tried to push the rhinoceros away, but it was no use. The rhinoceros thrust its head into the forest of flasks and decanters and glass straws as though it might find tasty leaves inside.
“Copia!” Professor Vasquez cried. He was trying to pull the enormous creature away, but he was having all the effect of a gnat. “Do something!”
Copia casually strode to the break room and took some peppermints from the jar. She unwrapped three of them: one for herself and one for each of the cows. They took their candy out of her palm with their thick tongues. She was about to make another pot of coffee because the Professor was all riled up, but the frog was still in the coffee pot. She took the coffee pot and the nagazine from the break table and returned to the lab.
Glassware tinkled and metal stands wobbled on the chemistry table. The rhinoceros had stuck its head all the way into the mess of glass and each twitch of its head and flutter of its ears sent decanters and bottles cascading off. Professor Vasquez was somehow catching each bit of glassware as it fell, frantically going from one side of the table to the other with a growing armful of dripping bottles and beakers.
“Copia!” Professor Vasquez shouted. “What are you doing?”
“I thought maybe he wanted to see his brother.” She sloshed the coffee pot, which drew the rhinoceros’ attention. Delicately, and with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel hand, it maneuvered its head out of the tangle of chemistry equipment. An alembic balanced across its nose by its thin glass arm. Inside the coffee pot, the frog’s ribbit was particularly deep. This caused the rhinoceros to shuffle back a step and snort.
“Please,” Professor Vasquez said to the animal, “just go outside.” He put down the glassware and braced himself against the wall. With the rhino, the other animals, and the big machine, there was little space in the laboratory left.
A test tube rolled off the edge of the chemistry table and shattered on the floor. The rhinoceros whipped its head dangerously. Copia’s frog ribbited again, and the rhinoceros turned back toward her. The alembic on its nose fell and smashed on the floor. With each shatter and scatter of glass, the beast looked more agitated. Its ears fluttered like nervous birds and its powerful muscles tensed. The laboratory was now stained a deep orange with the finale of the sunset.
“Oh no,” Professor Vasquez said, the dread in his voice rising. “Get it away from the machine! It’s going to charge!”
But the rhinoceros did not charge. Instead, it brought its head close to the coffee pot to see the frog. Copia lifted the lid with her thumb so it could get a sniff. Then it began sniffing her hand, and then her lab coat, and then her hair.
“Oho!” Professor Vasquez said. “He seems to like you. You’ve always said you prefer strong men, right?”
Copia rolled her eyes. “Professor, it’s a rhinoceros, not a suitor. And anyway, he’s not my type.”
The rhinoceros caught a whiff of the peppermint candy on her breath. The big rough snout grazed close to her face and she pushed it away. It bit the lapel of her lab coat and began chewing.
“Hey!” Copia said. “Let go!” She pushed at the big beast, but its teeth were firmly attached. She rolled up the magazine under her arm and swatted it on the nose. “Bad! Bad frog!” she said.
Rebuffed, the rhinoceros turned toward the Professor. The mighty horn drew daringly close to him, and in his fear Vasquez could not so much as utter a threat to the creature’s life or ivory. The rhinoceros looked like it would surely strike him, or send him soaring through the tall windows. But then the rhinoceros turned aside with a swish of its tail and ambled down the hallway.
Professor Vasquez wiped the sweat from his brow. Some bright blue fluid from the chemistry table transferred from his sleeve to his forehead. “I hope that fool knows he can’t get out that way,” he said. “He doesn’t have a keycard for the door.”
“I’m sure the guard will let him out,” Copia said, inspecting the slobber on her coat. “He’s not exactly polite, but I suppose he means well.”
“Ah, I’ve known Bruce for years. Not a bad bone in his body.”
“I meant the rhino, not the guard.”
“Now then,” Professor Vasquez said, returning to his chalkboard. “Some changes are in order.”
“But the rhinoceros came out of the machine. Like you thought, it makes only mammals, not amphibians. It took a long time because it was so big; the same thing happened with the cows. The frog must have been a coincidence.”
“Of course, Copia,” Professor Vasquez said. “I’m not talking about changing the formula. Everything remains exactly according to my previous calculations.” He spun the chalkboard around to the other side, where he had drawn a picture of himself accepting the Nobel Prize. Beside it he’d begun drafting his acceptance speech. “Copia, what’s a stronger word for ‘brilliant?’”
“Insufferable.”
“Ah, yes! Excellent.” He erased a phrase with the heel of his hand and began replacing it. He plucked up the empty paper cup he had crushed previously and held it out. Copia filled it with frog water from the coffee pot. He seemed not to notice. “And another word for ‘tenacious’? After all the setbacks like these, I want people to know I’ve never given up.”
“Incorrigible,” Copia said.
“Of course,” Professor Vasquez said. He was smiling dreamily as he wrote. “And I must mention my loyal assistant. What would you like me to put?”
“I want to go home.”
“Very well,” Professor Vasquez said. He added her words to the speech. “If you insist.”
Copia left the Professor to his writing and followed the rhinoceros, which was waiting patiently at the door. Bruce the security guard seemed skeptical, but he allowed Copia to use her security card to let the rhinoceros out. It immediately found the dumpster and began digging around inside it.
“We’ll have to get you a parking spot,” Copia said to the rhinoceros.
