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Strange Dark Alchemy
Part 4
I took a few days off after the Adam incident. I stayed in Mason’s cave and slept as much as I wanted. My physically and electrically bruised tissue was stiff and sore.
Mason enjoyed fussing over me. No human being had personally depended upon him in more than fifteen years. I enjoyed being fussed over.
“Dr Shah asked about you. She knows precisely where you are, but she never admits it and has great fun talking all around the truth. ‘Mr Eckhart, do you know how Rebecca is feeling? I have called her condo repeatedly but she never picks up the phone.’ She never breaks into a full smile saying any of this, but her eyes give her away.”
“Samihah’s a kind, sweet woman. She’s also funny. What do you tell her?”
“That I have been told you will be back in your lab in two to three days.”
“Which you deliver with a grim, serious demeanor.”
“Of course. People would notice if I did things differently.”
I was initially self-conscious about wearing my emerald, but since it wasn’t a diamond, no one said anything. I was almost disappointed. I realized how much I had wanted someone to notice, which seemed perverse. Only Samihah knew. Samihah knew everything.
Dr Varady wanted to talk to me at the end of my first day back in my lab. Talking to Laura Varady was easy, since her concern was genuine.
“How was it, being back?” she asked.
“I always felt safe here before. I’ll never feel safe here again.”
“Understandable. What are you going to do about that?”
“Besides indulging in fantasies leaving Adam a bloody heap on the floor, I’m not sure what I can do. Mason has me scheduled for instruction at the GSA range, and issuance of a GSA firearm when I’m qualified. He believes Adam will be back.”
I knew I’d made a mistake as soon as I’d called him ‘Mason’; I could see it in Varady’s eyes. I could also see she wasn’t surprised, but she was an astute, observant woman who knew Mason for a long time. I wasn’t worried about Laura Varady but about making the same error in front of people who could do some damage.
“Adam’s had an amazing run of luck,” she said.
“Adam leads a charmed life,” I said.
“That comes from being something of a con artist.”
“Putting it bluntly.”
“Why did Breedlove cut Adam so much slack? He certainly did not assist Adam’s personal growth.”
Dr Varady laughed at the sarcasm. “The exact nature of the relationship between Adam and Paul was never clear, but it had elements of parent and child. There may have been a biological basis for this, but I have no better information than anyone else. Mason has shared his speculation that Adam might be part human, part machine.”
“Adam was antagonistic towards me almost from the start. I never knew why. I was never a threat to his position. I’m a physical scientist, not a life scientist. I’ve always functioned in a support capacity, not directly in research. The only way I can advance myself beyond the position I hold now would require leaving Genomex.”
Varady smiled. “You really don’t know, do you?”
“No idea. I just know I started here, and not much later Adam went crazy trying to undermine me. I avoided him. I left him alone. Nothing changed. Adam’s craziness continued unabated. To this day, I believe when I caught him going through my desk and purse, I think he took money out of my wallet.”
“Is that something Jeff would have done?”
“Yes. A lot of men like to steal things from women. They believe they are owed.” I really hadn’t wanted to go down this old path. “I could never figure out what Adam wanted to steal from me, except whatever he removed from that wallet.”
“You won’t ever forget that, will you?”
“No. I should have had the gumption to confront him. He might have been so shocked he might have handed back the cash.”
“Adam was making $65,000 in 1992. Do you honestly believe he would take cash from you?”
“It’s the thought that counts. For some men, taking $5 from a woman is a trophy. It’s the same behavior as pets stealing food from the dinner table. If the same food was offered to them, they probably wouldn’t eat it, but when it’s stolen, it’s desirable.”
“Rebecca, Adam was peculiar, but I don’t think he was looking for money. He was looking for information about you.”
“Why would he do that?” I asked.
“Because you ignored him. Adam, Prince of Genomex, Paul’s Obvious Successor, the Smartest Man in the World, Polymath, finally meets a woman worthy of his wonderful self, and she is unimpressed! Adam wasn’t used to anyone ignoring him for any reason. After all, why do you think people called him the Prince of Genomex?”
“I must have missed a few chapters, Dr Varady. I don’t remember any of that. Men ignore me.”
“I don’t think you see them paying attention to you. People other than me certainly saw what Adam was doing. When he couldn’t get your attention in a positive manner, he tried negativity. And you did notice. Think back to the social customs of thirteen year olds.”
“Kid stuff? From Adam?”
“Very much so. But remember whom we’re talking about. Adam spent his adolescence in college studying, not in the company of other thirteen year olds. He missed that stage. Would you have behaved differently towards him, had you known?”
“No. I never thought much of Adam personally or professionally. I found him boring, tedious and self-absorbed.”
“Don’t think he did not realize that. Adam expected worship from all. Your behavior confused and puzzled him. There were lots of women who would cheerfully have become the Princess of Genomex, but they lacked your intellect, character, and l0oks. No one else came close. Adam went through the possible candidates and they came up wanting. Then, in you walked, but you wanted none of him! The gossip mills ground away for months about this. The subject still comes up among the old timers. Seeing Adam not get his way was exhilarating. You cannot imagine how many of us were cheering you on.”
Dr Varady found the memory amusing and apparently thought I would be entertained as well, but I merely found it disturbing.
“Hearing this makes me want to stay in my labs and never come out again, except to shower and change clothes.”
“Don’t hide. You haven’t done anything wrong and you’re too good of a person to hide. Mason needs you badly.”
“Then, why do I want to run away?”
“Fear. A perfectly good reason. Most of us have enough sense to avoid repeating disasters. Some of us prevent repeating mistakes by doing nothing.”
“I’ve had enough pain for the balance of my life. The next person who betrays my trust, well, I try not to think about what might happen. I’m not inclined towards violence or cruelty, but I’ve had animals murdered and property stolen, all within the bounds of the legal system in this country. None of this will happen again. I will not allow it.”
“You’ve told Mason?”
“Yes.”
“Mason is the most rational individual I’ve ever known. Nothing else could have gotten him through the life he’s led. I hope you understand how vulnerable he is. Mason trusts me slightly because I knew him well before the ‘accident’. Mason has not invested trust in another human for over fifteen years.”
“I’ve known my share of hurt. I try not to create any fresh pain for anyone.”
“I’ve seen that. You’ve made all the difference for Samihah Shah since she became widowed. You’re a kind, decent woman despite your misfortunes. You could have become something else, you know.”
“I chose to become a pleasant semi-recluse.”
“But not any longer. Mason has a lot of enemies. Some here, some elsewhere. Some very powerful. They’ll become your enemies.”
“We’ve talked about that. I suspect some of them already were my enemies.”
“This won’t be easy.”
“No. If I think too much about what I’m doing, I’ll bolt.”
“Don’t do that.”
“What surprises me is that I want another chance at Adam. No one has ever done anything like that to me. I want badly to get the better of Adam. I’ve never felt this way towards anyone.”
I was beginning to understand the loathing Mason felt for Adam. And people thought Mason was arrogant. Adam’s ego was boundless.
“Be very careful. Adam probably wants another chance to do ill to you. Adam has years of practice doing violence.”
“I want to hurt him. I’ve never wanted to hurt another human being, Dr Varady. When I knew I had to get away from my ex-husband, after he murdered my cats, I just wanted to get away from him.”
“With so much pain in the world, I am always amazed by the willingness of some people to create unnecessary agonies.”
The tissues from the face gouging were worked up carefully, and turned out to be highly unusual. There was DNA in common with Paul Breedlove, indicating kinship, but the balance was a puzzle.
“I wonder if Paul Breedlove put something together using bits and chunks of his own DNA and some completely new material?” I had read the report carefully, and was frustrated by the lack of definitive conclusion.
Mason had waited for my comments. “Paul was capable of trying anything. Perhaps Adam isn’t quite a machine, but a human based upon natural and synthetic DNA, created the way some extinct species have been brought back using the egg cells of related species.”
Several experts independent of Genomex had studied the results and all were puzzled. They agreed the sample reflected some human manipulation, which lent support to the possibility of Adam being an android.
“Given the way he created mutants, doesn’t it make sense that Breedlove created other Adams as well?” I asked.
“Other Adams?” Mason clearly had not considered this possibility. “Scary, and distasteful, but plausible.”
“Breedlove may have created some Eves as well.”
“Breedlove’s medical empire extended well beyond Genomex. Lots of surprises could be waiting out there.”
I had written a short notice, a very short notice, of our marriage for inclusion in the small-print column of births, deaths, and marriages among Genomex employees and retirees that appeared in the monthly Genomex newsletter mailed to all employees. We had done nothing shameful or wicked, and the prospect of telling employees in a low-key, small print, can-this-be-real-or-is-it-a-joke fashion appealed to Mason’s sense of humor and mine. I hand-carried the draft to Mason’s office for his approval.
As soon as the door to Mason’s office opened, I should have had the presence of mind to turn and run. Instead, I hesitated, trying to make sense of the odd spectacle of Dr Harrison and others whom I did not recognize gloating over Mason, held and pinned up on the glass wall of his office.
Mason looked terrified.
I lingered too long.
In the time that I did not run, the large man with Dr Harrison turned to face me. He knew who I was by reading Mason’s mind when the door opened, and in the next moment he forced his way into my mind. Mason had not been able to resist him, not with all his will and strength of mind, and only a formidable telepath could do that.
*I don’t remember you, but it’s enough that you have meaning to him.*
*Gabriel Ashlocke.*
*Yes, you know about me.*
He telekinetically dragged me through the door, and just into the office, pinning me against the wall.
*You cannot save yourself from me, pitiful little human.*
*Perhaps I cannot, but I’m glad not to be a damned, doomed, diseased freak like you.*
In that moment, through Ashlocke’s mind, I was linked tenuously with Mason.
*Rebecca, he’s insane. Don’t argue with him. You cannot imagine what he can do.*
*Listen to Mason. No one on earth can stop me.*
I knew the truth of that as soon as he ‘said’ it.
The two women half-dragged, half-floated Mason down from the wall and out of the office, followed by Dr Harrison.
*Shouldn’t have thought such bad thoughts about Dr Harrison. He helped make this possible.* Ashlocke came and stood over me. *You’re quite a surprise. I did not think Mason liked anyone anymore. You are full of surprises, Rebecca! You don’t even know about this one! You have no idea you’re pregnant, do you?*
*Impossible. I’m too old and Mason’s sterile.*
*That’s not the case, but I can undo it.*
*What do you mean?*
*You won’t have a son much longer. I’ll be sure to tell Mason.* Ashlocke smirked and left.
At first I believed Ashlocke had been raving. Mental contact with him had been jarring, chaotic, disorderly, without a hint of discipline or conscience. He had somehow left me adhering to the wall. Then suddenly I did not feel so good. As soon as I could pry free of the wall, I made my way to Mason’s desk and paged Samihah, and sat down in one of the chairs before the desk. She must have come running, or I blacked out for a time.
“Something is very wrong, Samihah. I want to go to a hospital and I want you to come with me.”
Samihah picked up the phone, and bypassed the front desk, summoning emergency services directly. Then she started to half-carry me out of Mason’s office. She was a very tough, strong little woman.
“Where is Mr Eckhart?”
“There were some people here with Dr Harrison—mutants—they took Mason prisoner.”
“That does not sound good. I’ve heard stories about Harrison questioning Mr Eckhart’s authority. I never did like that odd botanist.”
“No.”
We made our way to the front entrance, leaving behind a trail of my blood.
Dr Harrison was there, chatting with the receptionist.
“What’s this?” he asked, summoning his most imperious air while blocking our path.
“Dr Steyn has taken ill and is going to an emergency room.” Typically quiet and compliant Samihah had turned protective. She sounded prepared to claw Ken Harrison’s eyes out.
“No one is to leave Genomex without my permission,” he insisted.
“She’s bleeding, and I don’t know why, Dr Harrison. She’s going with the EMTs when they get here, and I’m going with her.”
Samihah could be very fierce. I had seen this side of her when she made her boys behave, but Dr Harrison had not and was clearly stunned. He turned to me and noted the red trail on the floor.
“Dr Harrison, I have no intention of bleeding to death in the lobby of Genomex. I don’t feel so good right now, but I am prepared to do whatever I must to get past you. If I do hemorrhage to death here, I want you know I come from a family full of attorneys who will see you charged with something, and left penniless.”
Harrison was an odd character. Mason peddled the division Harrison ran for a long time, just to get rid of him, before finding a buyer willing to pay what the botanical group was worth. Mason wanted to be rid of the Rafflesia flowers and the carnivorous plants. Harrison fed the carnivores live insects; Mason had seen him do it, confirming company lore. There were plenty of other rumors about him as well, more difficult to confirm, about which I did not wish to know any more.
Harrison backed off, cowed and intimidated by a pair of determined women.
My memory of the balance of that day is confused. I remember being carried into an ambulance, Samihah’s presence, and being told at the emergency room that I had suffered a miscarriage of an unusually painful, bloody, and spectacular nature.
Not long afterward I fell asleep for hours. I must have been medicated. I awoke to the unexpected sight of my brother Steve and his wife Sherri. I must have given someone their phone number, but I didn’t remember doing that.
“We’ve come to take you home,” Steve announced.
I was atypically passive about everything. My apathy was probably a combination of the medication and the confusion of the last 24 hours. Calls the hospital staff placed to Mason’s Genomex numbers, all of them, went unreturned. I began to believe he was dead.
Steve and Sherri hauled me off to their home, many hours distant. Sometime while I was sleeping they had collected my car from the Genomex parking lot, and my purse and wallet from my desk.
I told Steve the truth of what had happened to me, but I’m not sure how much he believed. If you’ve never seen mutants levitate objects and people, then the notion is not very credible. I had never mentioned anything before about Genomex being involved with anything this outrageous before, and I’d never mentioned Mason Eckhart’s name before. Just what Steve believed I cannot be sure, but he did care about me.
I had already sold my condominium and most of my things had gone into storage about a week before. Transferring them closer to Steve and Sherri was not a problem.
I was lost for a few weeks. I hardly knew what to think. None of the old Genomex numbers worked, and neither did Samihah’s home or cell numbers.
I wanted to drive back there and see for myself what had happened, but Steven and Sherri said I’d been saying all kinds of bizarre things while under sedation and they believed Genomex was the last place on earth I should ever go once more.
Memories of the last few weeks became increasingly dreamlike and unreal. I found myself craving reality. I found another job without much trouble, and buried myself in that. Mason always insisted hard work could be healing.
My jewelry had been removed and locked up when I was admitted to the hospital. I was without my emerald and wedding ring when Steve and Sherri saw me.
I probably should have told them as soon as Mason and I married, but I dreaded Sherri’s inevitable interrogation. There was so much about him that could not be easily explained.
What does he do? (Oh, Mason tracks down mutants—you didn’t know there were mutants?—and plunks them into stasis pods—oh, you’ve never heard of stasis pods?)
Where did you meet him? (I’ve worked with him for 15 years.)
What does he like? (Reading. Classical music. There really are people like that, Sherri. Not just me.)
What kind of house does he have? (He lives at the plant. He cannot leave the site for long because of health reasons. His immune system is nearly nonfunctional.)
Does he have AIDS? (No, Sherri.)
What does he look like? (Oh, fairly bizarre, and that’s for work. He wears only black, black suit, black shirt, and out of fashion black glasses. Longish white hair, also decades out of fashion, --yes, Sherri, white hair— no, he’s not really old, and his entire body is covered by a layer of biopolymer. Yes, Sherri, this is different.)
How…? (Don’t ask that, Sherri.)
When will we meet him? (I don’t know.)
That was just what I could imagine her asking, and it was more than I could cope with. I was even less inclined to deal with it once I had regained some emotional equilibrium.
Steve and Sherri meant well. Since I did not mention the name of the father of the son I lost, they assumed I wasn’t interested in him any longer. The truth was, I thought Mason was dead and I was in deep mourning.
For a while, Steve and Sherri did everything they could to introduce me to unattached men of Steve’s acquaintance. They were nice enough men, most of them. They were presentable, reasonably intelligent, and they all made more money than I did, which Steve seemed to think was really important.
Mildly annoyed with Steve, not feeling constructive, and uncertain whether or not I should be in mourning, I made a point of turning conversation around to matters which absorbed Mason and me, matters of geopolitics and the long term perils of transhumanism for humankind whenever Steve coaxed one of these fellows to the house for dinner.
I knew exactly what I was doing. Puzzled by my intelligence (none of them approached me), confused by my conversation topics, they had no idea what to make of me. The feeling was mutual. I found their golf games and sports fixations equally incomprehensible and mind-numbingly dull, duller even than Adam’s self-absorption
One of them, someone who owed nothing to Steve, but who made an obscene amount of money, had the nerve to tell me how odd I was, how out of place intelligence was in a woman and what a bad idea it was to educate women. I had to laugh in the face of this primitive, who boasted that he only hired women at the lowest levels of his company.
“We should come with ownership papers, like the deed to a house or the title of a car,” I chuckled.
Amusingly, this fellow did not understand my sarcasm, and thought it was a good idea. After he finally left, I cornered my brother.
“In what century did you find that one, Steve, the ninth or the tenth?”
“He makes a lot of money.”
“Doing what? Running re-education camps for lobotomized women?’
Steve almost threw me out of his house over my handling of this masculine paragon. At this point I realized how far apart Steve and I had grown.
Sherri remained curious. After a prolonged period of her dropping hints, I finally sat down with her, determined to tell her everything and be done with it. I did not expect her to believe much of it.
“Genomex, the place I worked all those years? They were deeply involved in arcane biotech work involving human genetics gone badly wrong years before I was ever recruited. I thought I was signing on as a chemist, but in fact I was joining a kind of secret army. There were skirmishes between Genomex staff and certain outside renegade elements.”
“How does any of that relate to you?” she asked. Sherri was already suspicious. My story sounded like bad television, and not the kind of bad tv Sherri preferred.
“Years ago, in the early 1990s, I antagonized the renegade leader when he was still at Genomex, and had not organized an opposition.”
“You treated him like the guys we had over at the house?”
“Something like that.” Sherri could be surprisingly perceptive.
“Was he cute?”
I thought I had run through all the possibilities before talking to Sherri, but her capacity to surprise was boundless. For a moment, I thought I had gone back to junior high.
“Adam was a pompous ass, and very well-connected. He could do no wrong. Teflon Adam. I became something of a target.”
“What antagonized him?”
“Two things. One, I ignored him, and two, I would not give his work preference before anyone else’s. Some women did think he was cute, but I couldn’t stomach him.”
I was confusing Sherri a lot.
“Remember the phone call you got from Samihah Shah last spring when I was in the hospital the first time?”
“The laboratory accident?” Sherri nodded. Good. She was paying close attention.
“Well, that was no accident. That was the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Adam invaded the facility, and turned one of his hooligans on me in the corridors of Genomex. The guy tossed me several yards into a wall.” I decided this was probably not the time to go into Brennan Mulwray’s ability to eject lightning bolts from his hands. What I was telling Sherri was difficult enough for her to chew and digest.
“But what about your miscarriage?”
“At the time, I was involved with the director of Genomex.”
“And you didn’t tell Steve or me! But that sounds wonderful.”
Note that the only data she had was Mason’s job title. He could have been married with twelve children aged one to twenty-one at home, but all she reeled in was his title and imagined pay stub. O, Sherri. Why do I bother?
“Only Samihah knew about this. He had some unusual health problems, requiring him to live on site.”
I could tell by Sherri’s eyes that she was dubious about my story. She was perhaps now imagining a married man with twelve children at home…
“What was wrong with him?” She was very dubious.
“His immune system had collapsed.”
“He had AIDS?”
“No. There was an industrial accident, or as Mason was convinced, Adam intentionally inflicted damage to destroy his immune system.”
“This is the same Adam you were talking about before?”
“The very same. The one and only Adam.”
“Mason required daily specialized medical care just to stay alive. A few days after Adam’s invasion, Mason and I took a long lunch and were married in a civil ceremony.”
I could always count on Sherri to ask the really important questions.
“But where’s your ring?”
I removed a small velvet bag from a pocket, and extracted the emerald and the wide wedding ring. Sherri knew jewelry and knew she wasn’t looking at junk. She was impressed. And now she believed part of the story. Progress.
“But you don’t wear them.”
“They raise too many questions. I never would have been hired where I’m working now if people thought I had a life elsewhere. Just looking at them upsets me.” I replaced them in the pouch. I hadn’t looked at them in long while, and sight brought back too much grief.
“What happened to him?”
“A few days after we were married, another renegade, not Adam, took Mason prisoner and did something to me to make me spontaneously abort. I didn’t even know I was pregnant.”
“Why was this such a surprise? Had you been trying to become pregnant?”
“No. Not at all. I thought my time had passed, and Mason’s doctors told him for the last sixteen years that he was sterile. Obviously, something changed.”
“And where is he now?”
“That is the hard part. Sherri, I don’t know if Mason is dead or worse than dead. I cannot get phone calls through to anyone I know there. Samihah does not seem to have a home phone anymore.”
“Rebecca, that’s a crazy story.”
“I knew you would think so. But it’s the only story I have, and it’s true. I even omitted some of the crazier details.”
“It has to be true. The rings are real.”
Thanks, Sherri.
“After Jeffrey, Steve and I thought you might have sworn off men. You didn’t talk about anyone and you never said anything about looking for someone. When any of my girlfriends were still single, they made no secret of the fact that they were looking.”
How well I remember. Emotionally needy women, desperate to acquire the one thing they believed would make them whole and transform their desolate lives into something meaningful and real. If I was a man, I would run like blazes from such hollow hearts.
“Well, I hadn’t resolved to be celibate, but I knew I wasn’t going to ‘settle’ for someone not worthy of me, the way I did with Jeff.”
I knew I had made a mistake as soon as I said that. Sherri liked Jeff.
Jeff had been charming, socially glib, superficially presentable, and he made a lot of money. Jeff had also been a pathological liar, financially irresponsible, and he never wearied of telling me how fortunate I was to have him. He also had some personal flaws that I did not care to share with my sister-in-law, such as an aversion to routine soap and water developed in the last years we were together, and sexual inertness making him a brother rather than a lover. He insisted there was something wrong with me for bathing daily and for not appreciating him in a sisterly fashion. Above all other factors, however, was that intellectually, Jeff could not begin to keep up with me.
“Settle?”
“Yes, ‘settle’. Jeff was pure charm devoid of any detectable substance.”
“He was nice-looking, Becky.”
I hated it when people called me ‘Becky’. Did Sherri know that?
“Of which Jeff was very much aware.”
Too bad there was nothing past that face but a pathetic gelding.
“Was this fellow at Genomex good-looking?”
“I doubt most women would have found him attractive. The initial impression he made is most charitably described as forbidding. Some people called him ‘Mr Creepy’.”
Sherri made a face. “Oh, Becky, tell me he wasn’t balding, fat, or ugly.”
“None of the above.”
“Ah, good. What was it about him that you liked?”
“He was brilliant and we could talk about anything.”
“Ivy League?”
“West Point.”
“Oh.”
Sherri sounded so disappointed, and looked so perplexed. The more she knew, the less she understood. Sherri was convinced anyone associated with the US military had to be a poor to lower middle class expendable barbarian, fit to die for her in some distant location, but unworthy of her thoughts or attention.
“Becky, the more you tell me, the less I feel I know. I’m only trying to understand. Steve and I want you to be happy. We don’t want you to be alone.”
Now I felt cruel and wicked for thinking ill of her. She sincerely wished me happiness, whatever else she thought of me.
“Thank you. That’s very kind.”
“I just cannot think of anyone who wouldn’t be intimidated by you. You’re so smart, well-read, and strong.”
“I’ve had to be strong, just to survive the things Jeff did to me.”
Jeffrey would be reduced to tears and screaming as he scampered off into the sunset had he happened upon the woman I had become, leaving behind him and his greasy, oily, unwashed self: competitive, tough, and self-assured. Mason could have reduced Jeff to unreasoning panic with a well-aimed glare.
I amused myself with fantasies of Mason catching up with the oh-so-charming Jeff, and bluntly telling him what a pathetic fraud of a man he was, a disgrace and embarrassment to his sex.
Possibly I was the only person who had ever told Jeff he was less than dazzling, charming perfection. He needed to hear this from another man, preferably the one who believed whoever had damaged me needed killing.
As daydreams go, this one was unusually satisfying.
“Jeffrey’s remarried, you know.”
“To a woman?”
Sherri looked shocked. “Yes, of course.”
“Did he import some desperate woman from a third-world country?”
“She’s from Russia. How did you know?”
“Jeff needs someone to match his socks and keep an eye on him to make sure he does not burn his house down around him. Jeff has no sense, Sherri. He just knows how to smile and con people into believing he cares about them.”
Very rarely was I able to influence Sherri, but I could tell from her eyes I had said something that connected a lot of dots for her. I had hinted at these things for years but never bluntly spoken them.
“Rebecca, you’re right. What an ass he is.”
“Yes.”
Perhaps for the eighth or ninth time in the years I had known Sherri, I had said something that gained her respect.
“But what about Mason?’
“I don’t know, Sherri. The very last I saw of him, he was a prisoner of some scary people. He was fighting a kind of secret war. I may never know what happened.”
“If he was alive and free, wouldn’t he find you?”
“Yes, he would.” Wouldn’t he? Was there any possible reason for Mason to allow me to wander away from him? I can think of none. Most likely, he’s dead.
What did his children think had happened? Suddenly the emails stop and the webcam is dead. I knew his accountant sent a check automatically every month. I did not have their email addresses and I did not know the surname Jackie was using. His children must believe the worst as well.
Sherri had at least a dozen of her best buddies at the house once a month or more often. Usually she scheduled these hoe-downs on evenings when Steve was out of town. I tried spending an evening with these women –once—and found their company unendurable.
They were all about my age and Sherri’s but there was nothing we could talk about, although observing them did have a certain fascination.
Each and every one of them was pampered and spoilt. They had highly paid husbands. Not one of them had made their own way in the world. They all drove expensive, fashionable cars and SUVs. By the time they all showed up I estimated that the driveway and overflow on the street contained a half-million dollars worth of vehicles. They all wore expensive, fashionable clothes, even when they walked their dogs. Each of them had been to college, and most had graduated, obtaining degrees which I found difficult to believe were even real: Emotional Ecology, Women’s Studies, Urban Anthropology, Literature of the Post-Literate Age, and so much more besides.
While living in dormitories, I had a vague idea there were people studying such things, studying out there somewhere. Actually meeting women who spent four years and a good deal of money thinking about such fripperies was a shock. Naturally, these women considered such matters with great seriousness, since they believed their scholarly endeavors indicated their inclusion in a thoughtful, educated, intellectual elite.
The evening one of them asked me where I had gone to college and I confessed to not only having a doctorate in chemistry, but that I dirtied my hands working in the field and actually supported myself, I was dismissed immediately as some sort of lower form of human, obviously incapable of the kind of exquisitely trained sensitivity and good taste as these very superior women.
I found them boring, pompous, and highly unoriginal. They thought much alike, and seemed shocked at the introduction of any idea contradicting their own surprisingly uniform ideas.
I think my existence embarrassed Sherri. I came in late from work one evening with social frenzy in full bloom. I was still in a suit and carrying some work papers. Sherri’s friends saw me come in. I’m guessing that this was like having the sister-in-law come in from the fields, sunburnt, dirty, smelly…but I’ve never found anything shameful about honest work.
So when Sherri invited the Haughty Hens over for an evening of confirming one another’s superiority, I beat an early retreat to the second floor where I would not be subjected to their vacuous chatter.
It was an early spring evening, one of the first with Daylight Savings Time in effect. I was already in my jammies and bathrobe. I was settling into my new job and getting serious about buying another condo locally.
Steve knew me well enough to realize I was still fragile emotionally and probably needed to be around other people. He also knew as soon as I moved into my own place, I would only emerge to go to work. My brother was a good man that way. However, I could tell Sherri wanted me gone and out of her house. Sherri wasn’t a bad or wicked woman but she could never begin to understand me.
I heard the doorbell ring because I was sitting in the window seat in the upstairs hallway watching the sun go down over one of the fairways meandering through Hidden Spring Meadows (why do construction firms give their developments names which could double as cemetery names?). Why anyone would want strangers on the move at the edge of one’s property eluded me, but this was one of the first things Sherri told anyone about her house.
Sherri dispatched one of her buddies to the door, since she was occupied with some task of great importance, making strawberry daiquiris or some similar concern. This group liked alcohol a lot.
I assumed this was a late-arriving Hen. These women wore watches, expensive watches, and they expected their cleaning women to report on time. They had no sense of personal time, however, being too self-focused and absorbed to consider the effect of their late arrivals upon anyone else.
Instead of the giggly greeting of equally exalted intellectuals, I heard a male voice, and I thought I heard, “I would like to speak to Dr Rebecca Steyn.”
There was a time lag between the request and reply. The request was that difficult?
“Who? Oh, that must be Sherri’s sister-in-law. Sherri, there’s somebody here looking for your sister-in-law.”
The vapid chatter downstairs ceased. These women never shut up for anything.
I could hear Sherri going to the door, and listening to the same request.
“She’s upstairs. I’ll go and see if she’s still awake. Come inside and wait.”
Sherri would resent being dragged from the Haughty Hens and having her social evening disrupted. I could hear her ascending the staircase. I braced for whatever comment she would make.
She saw me sitting in the window seat, but instead of talking to me from the top of the staircase, she walked all the way up to me, and whispered, “Rebecca, there’s an odd-looking man downstairs wanting to see you. He dressed well enough, but he’s strange.”
“Strange? How so?” Most nerds were just a little strange. So was I.
“Black suit, tinted glasses, and white hair. I don’t think the hair is real. I know Steve and I encouraged you to get out and socialize, and meet some decent men, but…”
I got up out of the window seat and headed for the stairs.
“You can’t go downstairs like that,” she said.
“Why not? The only way I could be more modestly dressed would be to wear a chador.”
The Haughty Hens were still roosting in silence with a full view of the foyer. They were all pretending not to be intensely curious about the man standing just inside the door.
Sherri was stalking me, just a few steps behind, horrified that I was about to bring Shame and Embarrassment to the household (that is, to her), appearing in my bathrobe and slippers from Wal-Mart while conversing with the Odd Man before the Exalted Haughty Hens. Nothing could have prepared her for what followed, with the entire flock observing.
“Mason?”
I bounded down the last few steps, as well as one can bound in slippers. We embraced with the familiarity that made obvious what we were to one another.
“Rebecca, I’ve had agents looking for you for months. Your next-of-kin information led nowhere.”
“It was probably ten years out of date. I thought you were dead.”
“Not dead.” He shook his head. “I was in stasis for several months, and released by one of Adam’s people. I thought Ashlocke murdered you. He told me what he did to you. I had no idea.”
“Neither did I.”
“I’ve been searching phone listings online every week. I found this number this afternoon but I reached your answering machine, and the message sounded like you. Where have you been?”
“Here. All along. The phone was installed about ten days ago.”
“I came to bring you home, if you were really you. The company plane will be refueled by the time we get to the airport. I paid for its use tonight.”
We were not whispering. Sherri and her hen friends could hear every word, every crazy word. I doubted much of it made sense to them. Neither of us much cared. We weren’t being lewd, crude, or obscene.
“You look different.” I touched his polymer-protected face. “It’s subtle, but you look different.”
“My time in stasis changed me for the better. I hardly need transfusions and my need for antibiotics has been scaled back.”
“Nobody predicted this.” I had never dared hope for news this good.
“I’ll never be as I was, but I’m able to live a nearly normal life with only a handful of extraordinary measures required to keep me alive.”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Let’s go home, Rebecca.”
“Mason, I can’t travel like this. First, I’m going to change into some clothes and toss some more into a suitcase.”
“Don’t bring much. Let movers worry about moving.”
“Only a minimum,” I assured him. “I won’t take long.”
I pulled away from him, and turned to see Sherri on the bottom step, shocked, mortified, and appalled. I liked the way all of that looked on her.
“Mason, this is my sister-in-law, Sherri Steyn. Sherri, this is my husband, Mason Eckhart.”
The hens heard that, too. They were very quiet.
I ran back upstairs, leaving the two of them exchanging empty niceties. For a man who could be exquisitely, devastatingly rude, Mason could also be astonishingly, disarmingly polite and mannered.
The first thing I did was put my rings back on, and got dressed in a pair of jeans and sweater. Then I dragged a lightweight suitcase from my closet.
I saw movement from the corner of my eye, and looked up to see Sherri enter my room.
“Rebecca, could you explain what is going on?”
I wasn’t taking much, only the essentials for civilized living. I’ve never required much time for hitting the road, because I can travel light.
“That’s Mason. I told you about him.”
“What?”
“It’s a long, convoluted story, and I haven’t even heard all of it myself. As I told you, I thought he was dead, and he thought I was dead, but we’re both alive, and I’m going home.”
Home.
“You didn’t tell me how he looked. Why does he look like that?”
I looked up from my half-filled suitcase into Sherri’s puzzled eyes, and had one of those moments of insight into my sister-in-law’s character (or lack of character) and how she viewed other people.
Yes, Sherri was a very special, sensitive individual, not like barbarian Rebecca the nerdette.
“That’s just how he looks, Sherri. He was in an industrial accident nearly 20 years ago, which nearly killed him and left him looking as he is now. He requires daily specialized medical treatment just to stay alive. I’ve seen the way he looks for so long I’m accustomed to it. I had forgotten how striking that appearance can be at first.”
“I don’t know how I will explain this to Steve,” Sherri said.
“I will call tomorrow. He’ll be back in his office tomorrow afternoon, won’t he?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to everyone downstairs.”
“Is that what’s really bothering you? Life is stranger than most of us realize, Sherri.” I tossed my bank records into the suitcase.
“Are you sure everything is okay?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not kidnapping you or anything like that, is he?”
“Hardly. Although he’s armed, and probably left at least two armed agents outside.”
“I don’t like guns. I don’t want them in my house. What kind of company is this, anyway?”
“They do some work for the federal government. Some of it is bizarre, and very, very ‘black’. Genomex is a good deal more than a biotech company.”
“It certainly sounds different.”
I secured the suitcase.
“Sherri, you and Steve have been wonderful to me.” This was no exaggeration. Temperamentally and intellectually, Sherri and I may have been hopelessly ill-matched, but she had been very kind to me. “I have to go to where I belong, which is with that very odd-looking man.”
“He seems so formal.”
“He is.”
“I’m having trouble putting you together with him.”
“Mason is definitely an acquired preference. He’s been very good to me, Sherri. Tell Steve.”
She brightened when I said that.
“I’m going to stay here for a few minutes until you’ve left. This is a lot for me to think over. I think I’ll be able to handle the girls better that way.”
I picked up my suitcase and put my purse on my right shoulder.
“Is Steve going to call tonight?”
“Sometime between 10.30 and 11.”
“Tell him everything’s okay. In fact, I don’t remember the last time when everything was this right.”
When I came back downstairs, there was some muted clucking among the hens. Even the novelty of Mason Eckhart was not enough to keep this flock silent for long.
“I did not dawdle,” I said.
“You never do. Let me take that.”
“Thank you.”
Mason took my suitcase, and we stepped out into the evening.
“How did Ashlocke do it?”
“He had help. He turned my agent Morgan Fortier, and he promised Dr Harrison a significant role in running Genomex, that horrible little snake of a man.”
“What happened to Ashlocke?” I asked.
“As all of Breedlove’s and Adam’s creations were and are, Ashlocke was flawed and doomed from the beginning. Ashlocke was not only the first and most talented, he was also the most imperfect. He’s dead.”
“Who stopped him?”
“No one. No one could stop him. His time ran out when his body failed him. I’m told it was spectacular and frightening to see. Well, you could say Breedlove’s unholy science stopped him, since the genetic manipulations he was born with brought about his end. He did not last long out of stasis.”
We got into the back seat of a bland looking light blue metallic rental car. Two of the biggest, grimmest looking GSA I’d ever seen were sitting up front.
“Call ahead to the airport and tell the crew we’re on our way.”
“Back to Ashlocke,” I said.
“He just came apart. He was in Adam’s Zen tranquility hideaway. Adam was foolish enough to try to save him at the end.”
“Why would Adam do that?”
“Why Adam does most things: to feed his curiosity and more importantly, his unfettered ego. Adam has no concern for the well-being of humanity. Had Ashlocke organized and motivated enough destructive mutants, he could have destroyed human society.”
“Have you determined yet exactly what Adam is?”
Eckhart smiled faintly and shook his head. “No. Unless I have possession of his body when he dies and have an autopsy done by doctors I trust, I doubt if I’ll ever know the truth of Adam.”
“Adam always gave me the creeps.”
Mason smirked and reached across the seat to take my hand. “You have no idea how much that vexed the Prince of Genomex.”
“Yes, I do. Dr Varady told me. But for that, I never would have known.”
“I had to hunt for Dr Varady, too. Dr Harrison dosed her with drugs that mimicked psychosis, and had her committed under a false name.”
“Nice man. How is she now?”
“Perfectly fine. She’s back at Genomex, looking forward to seeing you.”
“I think Adam’s an android,” I said.
“So do I, but I cannot prove it. Rebecca, I don’t think your sister-in-law approves of you.”
“Of course Sherri doesn’t approve of me. I’m a barbarian. I work in a technical field and dirty my hands for money. Did you know you can get a degree in Urban Anthropology?”
“In what?”
“Urban Anthropology. Or Literature of the Post-Literate Age?”
“What does one do with such?”
“Feel superior to insensitive peasants with science degrees,” I laughed. “And graduates of West Point.”
Returning the rental car took longer than the drive to the airport. Darkness had fallen fully when we boarded the GSA Citation CJ2.
Mason and I sat in the back of the small, darkened cabin, the drone of the engines offering the closest approach to privacy we’d had. Mason slipped the black leather glove from his left hand, and took up my right hand in his. Neither of us was inclined to make a public display of affection. The presence of the flight crew and the GSA agents made the setting public.
“How did you get free?”
“One of Adam’s people, a telempath, came to ‘view’ me in stasis. Ashlocke set up my stasis pod as a tourist attraction among mutants. Too bad he did not set up a guest book. That would have made interesting reading. I allowed this telempath to ‘read’ my memories of Adam. I don’t know of any way to deceive a telempath during a ‘read’ and neither did she. The truth was enough to change her mind about Adam and about me. She works for me now; so does her husband. Emma is possibly the most dangerous mutant Adam had among his followers, yet he underestimated her and under-valued her capabilities. I do not.”
“Emma?” Mason’s use of her first name was meaningful for him.
“They’re nice kids. Circumstances developed a lot of trust between us. Emma asked me to give away the bride at their wedding.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you dropping some of your barriers?”
“With some people. Rebecca, Ashlocke told me what he did to you. I’ve been living with the fear you might hate me.”
“No. The worst of it was I had no idea what was happening to me. Ashlocke ‘said’ some crazy-sounding things in my head, but I didn’t believe him until I began leaving a trail of blood. Samihah helped me to the front lobby and went with me to the hospital.”
“That sounds scary.” He said it simply enough, but his manner was grave.
“It was.”
“I am so sorry. As far anyone knew, I was sterile. That’s what my doctors told me for 17 years.”
“The loss haunts me. I’ve been having dreams about it.”
“When I was in stasis, I had time to think about everything and everyone who’s been taken from me, but especially this son. I’ve lost too much.”
“I don’t know what I want to do about it.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
“Explaining things to Steve was awkward.”
“I can imagine.”
“Steve’s been very good to me, but I know he found my story hard to believe. I’ve never told him tales before, so I know he did not dismiss it outright.”
“We can fix all of that now. Things are different at Genomex. With the exception of Dr Varady, the staff is new.”
“What about Samihah?”
“She was carefully placed in a new position, in a new city. I can put you in contact with her, but for her safety and that of her sons, this was the best option. The mission of the GSA has been modified. In return for a promise not to have children and pass their doomed DNA on to another generation, I am mainstreaming the sane and productive mutants, pursuing only the criminals and insane.”
“That’s a major shift.” I was stunned.
“It’s working surprisingly well. I was wrong before, much too heavy-handed, and there are just too many of them.”
“That took guts to recognize you’ve been doing the wrong thing and to change course. It’s so much easier to keep making the same mistake. Nicely done.”
“Thank you.”
“This new plan must make Adam more than a little annoyed,” I said.
“Adam’s power base is nearly gone. He is marginalized now, the protector of criminals and crazies.”
“He must be livid.”
“Adam lives on the edge of rationality, ready to jump over the side at any moment. That’s how he fools people; one moment he’s talking science and next he’s over the cliff, talking pure emotions. Most people don’t catch the transitions.”
“I caught them from the beginning.”
Mason smirked. “That’s part of what endeared you to Adam and made you such a special favorite of his. The truth is that anyone who understands Adam is a threat.”
“You don’t believe you’re done with him, do you?” I asked.
“No. Adam does not have the sense to stop.” Mason sounded disgusted. “Or possibly, he is programmed not to stop.”
“You’ve destroyed the reason for his following. The adoration of the people whose lives he compromised was one of the primary foundations of his life. He must be consumed with loss.”
“He still has Mulwray with him. I wasn’t intending to get into this tonight, but I suppose I must. Mulwray stormed into Genomex last month with a gang hired from drug dealers. They slaughtered some of my people, injured others, and took me prisoner. Adam tried to kill me inducing infection. Emma and Jesse came, got me out, and Ms Fox left with us. Adam transported drugs as the price of hiring on his ‘army’. His crossing over into blatant criminal activities has attracted the attention of several federal law enforcement agencies.”
“So Adam has ever more reason to love you.”
“And you as well,” Mason said. “You’ve become part of any ‘sin’ Adam imagines I commit against him.
“Adam’s financial resources must be tenuous at best. And he must have abandoned Sanctuary.”
“Yes and yes. But he has other allies, with deep pockets. And for all of his protestations of innocence and lack of knowledge about the application of his work and railing against the GSA, Adam has maintained extensive contacts within the federal government. He has protectors there who even now trade services with him.”
“What do you think Adam tells himself at night so he can sleep?”
“The same thing he has told himself all along: that he is uniquely superior and qualified to decide what is right and proper.”
“How are you going to stop Adam?” I asked.
“Fortunately, that’s not my mission. My mission is containment of the long term problem of the Genomex mutants. My concern with Adam is chiefly defensive, no matter what Adam might think, or what might please me personally.”
“Too bad Adam could not have been kept at Genomex where he could be watched.”
“He could see ahead. His ego demanded more scope than being the Prince of Genomex.”
“Adam’s allies inside the federal government—could any of them or all of them together establish and fund another mutant-creating program, completely hidden from public view, completely ‘black’, unlike Genomex?”
“I’ve carefully tracked all the former Genomex employees, watching for employer and geographic concentrations of key workers. I have suspicions, but nothing concrete has been revealed. I’ll keep watching these people and the placement lists of the best graduate schools, certain headhunters, and applicable foreign talent brought into this country. If the puzzle pieces fall together, I’ll know early on.”
“The implications are unsettling.”
“Most nights I’m glad I sleep where I do, but even that was designed as a semi-sterile space. As a fortress, it has limitations.”
“My presence defeats the semi-sterile intent, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes,” he said.
“I’ve never understood why you admitted me into that space, knowing what you believed the risks were.”
“An irrational decision on my part.”
“And mine.”
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