LA QUIMERA
Illustrated by Samuel Blanco – Written by Ian Mondrick
[Editor’s note: Presented below are three excerpts from LA QUIMERA, the oral history of Venezuela’s fight against the extradimensional invaders known worldwide as ‘The Chimera’. The book details a country’s incredible victory over an alien enemy, but also functions as a tribute to Rafael Briceño, the young man credited with discovering their unique vulnerability.]
-1-
Sgt. Albert Garcia retired a few weeks after The Battle Of Valencia, a fight that saved thousands of lives and delivered the crushing blow to a growing biological hazard. Incredibly tall and framed with a grey head of hair, he’s credited with developing and implementing the high pressure cannons his “Cazafantasmas’ ‘ unit used to pacify the city & surrounding areas. The rudimentary but effective design was based on Rafael Briceño’s pump squirt gun, the style of which had become a standard defense tool for civilians. The Venezuelan army would go on to craft 25,000 over the next ten years, and quickly became utilized world-wide as Las Quimeras ‘sanitation’ devices.
No one was really bending over backwards to help Venezuela, at least not in the early days, when the UN thought Las Quimeras was a joke, and certainly not after those bastards started showing up in everyone else’s backyards! [Laughs]. But looking back now, a few days’ time made the difference between hundreds or thousands of casualties, hell, maybe even the whole damn country. It’s really hard to believe how close the line came to breaking, and how that one little boy gave my soldiers the strength to hold it firm. I’m not downplaying the efforts of our countrymen, but Rafael gave the mission a face. A name. Something to keep us grounded. We were faced with a monster that turned into whatever it had eaten the night before— horrifying to think about, and a lot of soldiers froze when they saw them in the field for the first time. The men in my unit were trained to kill- and good at it- but Las Quimeras were something our nightmares wouldn’t dare to conjure. The first ones out of the jungle- like the ones with Rafael, in the picture?- damn things had been feeding on crocodiles, sloths, and armadillos. Can you imagine? Three inch claws and a jaw that could crush a cinder block. [adjusts mask.] And the second time you’d see them, they’d look totally different! Always a fresh new hell waiting in every village, on the side of every dirt road, crawling over the roof of your neighbor’s house. The night before Valencia, my men almost rioted when I told them we wouldn’t be taking any firearms into the battle. They laughed when I showed them the Cazafantasmas backpacks. In the end I had to bring the guns along in crates to pacify them. But Valencia, and Venezuela herself, did not NEED bullets, explosives, or anything else that could blemish her beautiful face. No collateral damage, no civilian lives lost; that was our mandate. We’d wash our country clean with nothing more than what mother nature provided. And a little engineering & some pressure molded plastic, it would seem. [laughs, coughs into his oxygen mask]. When we lined up along the overpass, outside the city, after the firemen did their thing, we waited for a herd of them to rush us. This was the first large scale field test of the tanks, and it was hard to not be nervous. But my soldiers knew what was at stake. Television cameras were there, broadcasting what would be our first victory against the monsters. They were going to WIN. For their parents, for their country. For Rafael Briceño, the name stenciled on the sides of their 35-gallon tanks. They rushed at us almost immediately. You’ve seen the footage, yeah? A thousand Quimeras, galloping up the highway at speed, some so big they overturned cars, and not one of my soldiers turned and ran. [nods head slowly.] Not my Cazafantasmas. Every one of those men opened their mouths, and shouted Rafael’s name so loud it shook the concrete.
And then they turned their cannons on and melted every single one of those bastards.
-2-
President Alejandra Montero returns from a brief press conference regarding a small earthquake outside Caracas, but is nevertheless prepared and seemingly excited to speak with me. Her role in re-establishing Venezuela to power in a post-Quimera world is well documented, but with Rafael Briceño’s birthday (a national holiday) around the corner, she speaks only about what “Venezuela’s Child” means to her.
I still make time for sunsets, as often as my schedule allows. Reflection is important, we all know this, but I instead like to spend those moments letting my imagination tease itself out. Inspiration comes when you need it the most but want it the least, as my father used to say, and if the answer to one of Venezuela’s problems interrupts the few quiet moments I get…well, there’s always tomorrow, isn’t there? [a long, pensive pause follows.] Rafael has become synonymous with Venezuela now, and I realize that has led him to be viewed as more of a concept than a person who once walked among his countrymen. He is a reflection of our children, and of ourselves as children. We must not fail to protect the future generations the way we failed Rafael. But again, that failure, that loss, was the catalyst for our people to reconnect with one another. We started taking better care of our families, our neighbors, and ourselves. Some see the invasion as a blessing in disguise, and who am I to argue with them? Las Quimeras could be construed as metaphors for my country’s ills, you see. Greedy beasts that tore through the beauty of Venezuela, eating everything good, leaving nothing but death and scraps in their wake. Well, after sanitizing real beasts to save our homeland, the metaphorical ones in office were a lot less of a chore. These trials made us stronger, they galvanized our people, and, with the help of a little boy and his squirt gun, led us through our darkest nights. Venezuela means more to the world now than just oil reserves and beaches. Our people are no longer hamstrung by inept politicians and greedy businessmen. This new way of life must be protected at all costs, and I am too old to keep in touch with the children of Venezuela. I’ll be announcing my last term before too long, but we must stay ever vigilant, as the future is always at stake. If we force people to remember Rafael’s name, to remind them of him, then we can never lose. [pauses as she looks to the horizon.] In a few years, when I retire, my sunsets will belong to me again.
For a little while, at least.
-3-
Evelyn Briceño, sister to Rafael, was recorded via camera phone a few years after the defeat of Las Quimeras. This is the only interview of Evelyn made before her death in 2072. Although there are multiple versions of this available online, President Montero has given us access to transcribe the original piece of media, locked away in a government vault for posterity. In it, she describes her and her brother’s first encounter with La Quimera, and the series of events that unfolded shortly afterward.
Our mother worked long hours for the oil company, yeah? Cleaning and rinsing the equipment that came in for repairs. Do you know what she used when she was doing her job? That’s right: salt water. They had these tiny tablets they’d use in their water. We’d find them in her pockets or the cuffs of her pants when we did the laundry. Rafael used to take them; he stashed them somewhere in his room, no one knew why. But he was a kid, who knows. He put them in his water gun, the kind you pump up? [mimes racking a shotgun]. He’d wash the dirt off the front porch with it, pretending he was doing mom’s job. It was silly to me at the time. But anything new is cool when you’re a kid, I guess. Before you grow up and learn to be afraid of everything. Like when we first started hearing about the attacks, they seemed like ghost stories to Rafael— he thought they were cool. But that night, when mama was working the late shift? [shakes head slowly].
It was that time of night, right after it gets dark, when everything looks purple? Mama had left a few minutes before and the door must’ve been unlatched. When I heard the hinges squeak, I thought she forgot her keys, or maybe her phone, but then I saw it, crouched in the doorway, just staring at me. Like a cat, or some kind of tiger? It’s hand was resting on the door, like it wasn’t sure if it wanted to come in, and I just started screaming. I know, I know, I should’ve run, or yelled for Raf to jump onto the neighbor’s roof & get away, but I just started screaming. I’m not gonna lie about it, my little brother was a HELL of a lot braver than I ever was. I unfroze my feet and headed for the steps, up to get Raf, up to lock us in our room. I KNOW, how stupid. And then I collided with him halfway up, he was running down, smacked me right in the mouth with the barrel. I hit my knees, and Rafael said La Quimera’s claw went right through where my head was. All I knew was something hit the wall behind me, and we needed to get upstairs. I grabbed Raf by the waist and pushed off, about the same time he blasted that monster in the face with his water gun. [smiles, shakes head in disbelief]. Brave or stupid, we will never know. I heard something as I pushed Raf into our room, but it wasn’t until I stopped moving that I realized— it was screaming. We waited a moment, listened to it throw itself about the living room, and Rafael pointed to his squirt gun. I grabbed it, and he grabbed a slingshot from the desk drawer. I was about to ask why, and then— my god! He pulled out a little salt tablet and fitted it into the pocket. Brilliant, but we wouldn’t need to use them again. By the time we crept downstairs, it was dragging itself out of the house, leaving a sticky mess all over our floor. It died, right out there in the street. Mom was home immediately, and before long the government was out, asking everyone questions, checking for radiation. I saw Rafael talking to an important looking man in a uniform, he was showing him the squirt gun, explaining how he melted the monster with it. It was over so fast, it was like it didn’t happen. And then… everything else started moving quickly, a few days later the panic started, everyone in our town had to relocate, and that’s when we got separated…[Evelyn trails off, wiping a stray tear from her eye.]
I’ve heard every answer. From friends, strangers, the government, of course the internet. But no one’s ever found them. I know they’d come looking for me, so the only logical answer is they’re dead. My brother’s a national hero, now eight years old forever. Some consolation prize. I don’t even have any of my own pictures of him anymore. Our house, it was one of the few that got bulldozed during the cleanup. Someone should have told them “Hey, don’t you know Rafael Briceño lived there?” maybe that would’ve made a difference. But all traces of us were wiped away, like we never existed.
Except Rafael. He’ll live on in everyone’s mind, forever.
-Illustrated by Samuel Blanco
-Written by Ian Mondrick
