The Lizard
In 1831, Theodore C. Connors was studying medicine at the University of Cambridge when he was offered a unique opportunity to serve as ship's doctor to a surveying expedition aboard the HMS Beagle. Alongside a young man who would one day be known the world over as Charles Darwin, Connors spent the following five years circumnavigating the globe. Of particular interest to the young physician was an island in Southeast Asia inhabited by a species of enormous carnivorous lizards with a unique ability to regenerate their own lost limbs. Connors, who had lost a foot to tetanus as a boy, wondered whether the lizards' regenerative capabilities might be extended to human patients, and was able to convince the ship's captain, one Robert FitzRoy, to allow him to capture a pair of the lizards for transport back to England.
Upon his return to Cambridge, Connors completed his
doctorate and began studying the lizards full time.
One night, believing he had discovered the secrets of
their healing powers, he took a syringe of their blood
that he had exposed to a powerful electric current and
injected it into the stump of his own leg. The results
were unexpected: while the young doctor's leg did
indeed grow back, the serum also transformed him into
a monstrous lizard. Thankfully, the effects faded
quickly before he could do any damage.
When Connors returned to his human form, however, his
leg had once again gone missing. Moreover, as he
discovered, he had somehow become dependent on regular
infusions of the lizards' blood to maintain his
health. Frightened of what damage he might cause when
in his uncontrolled monstrous form, Connors
sequestered himself away in his family's estate to
seek a cure.
Over fifty years have passed since then. Connors has
not yet found a cure for his malady, but he has
discovered a solution of lizards' blood and other
chemicals that, when taken daily, allows him to
maintain his health without transforming. As a side
effect of either the serum or his new monstrous
nature, he has also discovered that he no longer ages
naturally. In the decades since his first
transformation, he appears to have grown only a year
or two older.
These days, Dr. Connors seldom leaves his estate, now
home to hundreds of roaming lizards, which serve both
as a source of blood and as objects of study. A
correspondence with a professor of biology at Oxford,
one Nathan Osborn, briefly offered the doctor a
glimmer of hope that a cure could be found, but this,
like all of his other efforts, ultimately proved
fruitless. (The correspondence ended several years
ago, shortly after one of Osborne's suggestions
resulted in strange and unsettling new abilities
manifesting themselves in his monstrous lizard form.
The risk, Connors decided, was too great.)
His greatest fear is that he might misjudge his dose
or otherwise lose control of the beast within him, and
escape into the countryside to cause harm. In the past
few years, this has happened several times, but thanks
to a costumed dragoon calling himself "the unknowable
Spyder-Man", he has always been thwarted before he
could cause any real damage, allowing his better
judgement to seize control and flee into the night.
His true identity and nature are tightly-controlled
secrets, known only to a few of his contemporaries at
Cambridge ... and even they are now old men, with whom
the truth will die unless passed on to someone else.
But what could necessitate the revealing of such a
shocking secret?
