As Lefty, Neil, and Jack had gathered from their friends, Maria and Sara, Pan Gu was an ancient creature of immeasurable power. Several days previous, former colleagues of Lefty had managed to waken the monster from its centuries-long hibernation.
To accomplish this, they had used technology that had been stolen from Lefty’s laboratory.
When Pan Gu had been roused from its long slumber, the resulting rampage had destroyed the Portsmouth Museum of Historical Artifacts, as it sought to escape the confines of the building’s basement. Immediately after it fled the building, the creature disappeared into the waters of the adjacent harbor.
Lefty had taken a great interest in this matter. When it had occurred, he had been in the process of attempting to track down his felonious former associate, Ebenezer Widget-Bocker, who had been the primary culprit in the case of Lefty’s stolen technology.
Much to Lefty’s disappointment, he had been bested by Ebenezer, who had successfully misled his pursuer and ditched him, returning to Portsmouth in order to launch his master plan.
This plan, of course, had blown up in Ebenezer’s face, and the mad scientist had been buried beneath a massive pile of rubble, following the rampage of Pan Gu. He had not yet been uncovered by the clean up crews, and his current condition remained unknown.
Though his adversaries had been thwarted in the end - primarily by their own hare-brained scheming - Lefty still felt a tremendous responsibility for what had occurred. He believed he could have prevented the awakening of Pan Gu and the destruction of the museum, had he only been better prepared to protect his revolutionary technology from those who wished to steal it for their own nefarious purposes.
Determined to make a difference for the better, Lefty had invested his energies into determining what had become of the destructive beast, following its escape into the Portsmouth harbor. He did not wish for it to cause additional damage, could such a thing be prevented.
Furthermore, he had a most inquisitive mind, and the opportunity to study this - the rarest of creatures - was something he simply could not pass up.
Utilizing the formidable technologies available to him in his customized, cutting edge laboratory, Lefty had conducted a thorough analysis of possible locations the beast may have fled to.
By assessing disruptions in the patterns of local wildlife within a fifty mile radius, he had come to the conclusion that Pan Gu had not gone far, following its departure from the museum.
Lefty had produced the theory that the monster had created a lair on Smuttynose Island… and to his great excitement, that theory had now been verified.
“The creature is a true marvel,” Lefty said. “Though we could only see it for a moment, it was a sight that would be impossible to forget. The size of it! By the beard of Archimedes, it’s really something… But it’s odd… there seems to be a blank spot in my memory. Clearly, I remember the sight of the creature, for it was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen in my life. But then… then, I recall its eyes began to transform. They were a piercing, brilliant green in color, but they started to swirl, almost like the dark skies of a hurricane… and then I began to feel very light headed.”
“Yeah, you basically took a nap at the wheel, Lefty,” Neil chuckled. “Your eyes were open, but it’s like you were asleep on your feet, and Noodles had to support you.”
“Hmm…” Lefty said, rubbing at his bearded chin in thought. “Most peculiar… it’s as if I fell into a trance, I suppose.”
“I have an idea,” Jack said. “Do you guys remember what Maria and Sara told us happened in the basement of the museum, once Pan Gu had been awakened?”
“You mean, besides him smashing the place up?” Neil asked.
“They said something similar happened, where Pan Gu’s eyes had changed, and then the adults had essentially become… stupefied, wandering around in a daze, unable to help themselves.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Neil said. “It’s too bad the girls aren’t around. We could pick their brains about that, if they were here.”
Maria and Sara had stayed behind in Hollow Oak, the town where the Beans lived. The small size of Lefty’s boat meant that not everybody could come along on the expedition, and the group had reasoned that the sisters could use a few days of rest, after what they had been through in the museum.
“Fascinating,” Lefty murmured. “I should say that this is one of many aspects of the creature that warrants investigation. It seems that children have some sort of invulnerability to this defense mechanism of Pan Gu… perhaps because their brains have not yet completed their development, resulting in a fundamentally different structure that can’t be affected by this phenomenon.”
“Uh, I think my brain’s just fine, thank you very much,” Neil said as he rubbed at his noggin.
“Yes, of course your brain is fine, m’boy! What I’m saying is that the human brain continues growing and developing, becoming increasingly complex until the final stages are reached in adulthood.”
“Adulthood,” Jack muttered, releasing an involuntary shudder at the very notion.
“If this stupefying effect is in fact a defense mechanism of Pan Gu, then it may target a part of the brain that doesn’t develop until the latter stages of adolescence or beyond,” Lefty theorized. His voice was becoming animated as his mind engaged the conundrum at hand. “Perhaps this would account for the resiliency that the two of you have shown, plus that of the Fresco Sisters. I also have an idea about how it seems to conduct these lightning storms.”
“It’s got some sort of, I don’t know… ‘wizard-like powers’, wouldn’t you say?” Neil asked.
Lefty chuckled. “Not at all! What we are witnessing isn’t the result of sorcery. There is always a scientific explanation, though things may at first appear mystical. This creature is quite unique, and I believe that it is simply endowed with properties that are very similar to that of an electric eel. The electric eel, which is by all means a fascinating animal in its own right, has organs that are constructed of ions.
“Whenever it wishes, the eel can reverse the polarity of these ions, creating an electric current that can stun its enemies. I theorize that Pan Gu must have some sort of similar anatomy, but at an infinitely more powerful level, resulting in an ability to drastically disrupt the electrical makeup of the surrounding atmosphere… in other words, it’s so powerful, it can bring thunder and lightning simply by flexing some muscle.”
The boys stared in drop-jawed amazement as Lefty explained his theories. They might have suspected that his hypotheses were the workings of a lunatic mind… but Lefty was pretty darned brilliant when it came to science, so they had no reason to doubt his concepts, as extraordinary as they might be.
“This animal,” Lefty whispered with awe, “is an electromagnetic phenomenon.”
Chapter Eight
A Dire Warning