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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
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Part 5
Rebecca
The day after Emma’s forced abortion I buried myself in my lab work, not wanting to reflect any longer upon the darkness of the previous day, or waste thought dreading the relatively trivial annoyances promised by the coming afternoon. As much as I would have liked to have some samples arrive requiring my personal attention, oh, well into the evening, long enough to avoid Julie’s company, I would not mind missing dinner at all.
Julie was not my favorite. She reminded me a little too much of someone else, someone from Vermont: never a hair out of place and she smiled too much. I’ve never found people who smile much too much to be worthy of trust. I suspected she was more intelligent that she presented herself to be. She reminded me of dozens of female characters in 1950s movies, charming, flattering, and scheming. How could Grey stand it?
Picnic tables on site overlooked the lake. Employees ate lunch there when weather allowed. We brought a picnic supper down to the tables.
I could always talk to Grey, but I was never sure what to say to Julie, especially now. She was several months along in her pregnancy, farther than either of mine had lasted.
I found myself envying her youth and the ease with which she conceived. Don’t do that, Rebecca. Julie’s half your age, a shallow, miserable waste of oxygen, whom you need not envy.
“Why didn’t you have children during your first marriage, Rebecca?”
Had she read my mind? Jolted out of my reflections, I looked across the table at smiling Julie. She had delivered the question sweetly, but sweetness was not her intent. The cruelty of her question was startling. Ask a rude question, Julie, and you never know what you’ll get for an answer. Why didn’t you learn any manners?
“In part because Jeff did not have the testosterone to get the job done, but chiefly because any progeny of his would not have been worth risking my life in a pregnancy.”
My, don’t I sound arrogant? But it’s true. Several friends of mine who wanted children badly made poor, desperate choices in husbands. Their longed-for children were disappointments, lacking the mental agility of their mothers. I could not imagine having children who would always lag behind me.
“Well, you have your work. That’s very important to you. It’s good you weren’t born any earlier than you were. Women didn’t do much not so long ago, did they?”
Catty wench. Grey, can this trophy mean much to you?.
Mason didn’t care for what Julie was saying, either. “I’ve always found work to be the best means of coping with personal difficulties. Goals are met, and work is not personally destructive in the manner of alcohol and drugs.”
“Many women were content with being traditional. Grandmother Steyn was a pediatrician. My other grandmother was a concert pianist. My great-great-aunt Deborah was a field hospital surgeon in the Kaiser’s army. Later she wrote one of the more famous German novels to come out of World War I.”
All of that was true, but my annoyance had driven me to pile it on a little thickly. Julie probably did not know what a Kaiser was, or what the war was about. Pearls before swine.
Julie had never told Grey about her half-brother Jules who had spent the last ten years in and out of treatment centers for his addiction. Jules had lost his family and career, and seemed unlikely to live to be forty. Grey still didn’t know about Jules, but Mason and I did. Mason could ferret out anything about anybody. Jules was not the only interesting family detail Julie failed to share with Grey.
Mason took care not to let on how thoroughly he investigated anyone his children became involved with. Julie’s family was not as upstanding as she described them. Eight years ago, her father had been investigated but never indicted for questionable business deals. Her mother managed several school cafeterias until presented with evidence she was diverting school food into her sideline catering business, after which she resigned, and agreed to pay for what she had swiped. He had yet to find anything damning, but given time, this would happen.
Grey knew none of this, and Mason wasn’t going to tell him unless Grey had to know. Julie had already driven a slight wedge between them that Mason had no wish to widen.
Mason delivered his comment to Julie with an ambiguous smile calculated to make her wonder just what he knew so she would squirm inwardly. I was amused.
“And I was glad to have that work. Getting rid of Jeff was expensive.”
But not, I think, as expensive as Grey would find divorcing Julie!
The balance of the meal and after was mercifully civil. We cleaned up the table, and went for a walk beside the water at twilight.
Mason held my hand. We probably looked ancient to Julie. I wondered what she thought of Mason and me showing affection, something people who were part of Genomex saw only by the rarest chance. She found Mason very odd, but most people did find him peculiar. He was peculiar. I did not mind her finding Mason odd; she apparently found me very odd as well. I did mind her less than subtle comments that flew right past Grey but not by me and not by Mason. Her cruel streak was unlikely to soften; we both had misgivings about well motherhood suited her. Julie was subtle about this, which is part of why I believed she was smarter than casual observation indicated. Over time, her comments to and about Mason indicated her genuine attitude.
Julie was visibly bored with the conversation. Mason and Grey were both fascinated by the American Civil War. [They both referred to it as the War of Northern Aggression.] I knew a fair amount about its influence on the waging of later wars, especially WW1, but I had not delved into any of the personalities involved except Lee.
I caught Julie making faces she thought no one else noticed while Grey and Mason ran various blockades, and re-fought various campaigns. When one of them found a well-done book about the War of Northern Aggression, they sent it to the other to read. Julie probably resented this. She never said anything about the contents of any book. She was not inclined towards the intellectual. How could Grey stand her company?
Very suddenly, the mild soft twilight descended into nightmare.
Jesse glided up to us, unnoticed in the soft light of the fading day.
Until I saw Jesse do it, I would have thought that what he did was impossible.
Mason and I both should have been paying greater attention to our surroundings, but even if we had, I’m not certain either of us could have changed anything. Neither of us had the physical strength to stop Jesse. He was not presenting an obvious threat, so we did not think of using weapons or calling security. At that moment, he was still Mason’s most trusted lieutenant and likely heir.
We were all absorbed in one another or in the lovely sunset. No one noticed Jesse until he was nearly upon us.
“Mason, I was told you would be here with Grey and your daughter-in-law.”
The vague threat implied in his voice was disturbing, coming from someone we had trusted. Even in the fading light, Jesse’s eyes betrayed him. He did not appear wholly there.
“Jesse?” Mason saw it, too.
Jesse made no reply. He walked purposefully up to Grey and Julie, making his right arm intangible, then passing it into Julie’s belly.
Julie screamed. The rest of us stared. Our minds can perceive and process only what we are prepared to see, and what Jesse was doing was so far outside our experience that we had difficulty understanding what we saw. When we first see what we believe impossible, we hardly see it at all.
To do the next part, he must have made his hand and wrist selectively tangible inside of Julie, then intangible as he withdrew his hand with Julie’s fetus outside of her with the umbilical cord severed and sealed at the end. Jesse threw the fetus with all possible force down onto the beach below.
I screamed. I can cope with almost anything, but this was so far outside of what I believed possible I lost control. The act alone was horrible, and the fact that Jesse was responsible deepened the horror.
“Now we’re even, Mason.” Jesse’s smirk made me queasy. He stood there a moment, enjoying the look on Mason’s face. He turned slowly, in no great hurry, and walked deliberately back towards the facility at a casual pace. Jesse knew we could do nothing to him.
Julie went limp and collapsed to the ground.
“Have you killed her, too?” Mason shouted at Jesse.
Jesse stopped, turned halfway around, and said, “No. She’s just…surprised.” He was still smiling. Then he continued walking.
Grey started after Jesse, but Mason grabbed his arm, and stopped him. “No…you can’t do anything to him, but he can destroy you. He could pinch your head off as easily as you can twist a grape from a stem.”
I didn’t know what I could do for Julie, but I gathered my wits, and called for emergency help. Then I knelt by Julie, searched for and found a pulse.
Grey cornered his father. “Do you know why he did this?”
“I do.” Mason released Grey, and stalked back towards Julie, Grey at his heels.
“Then tell me,” Grey demanded. “It’s about your damn mutants, isn’t it?”
“Julie is our immediate concern, Grey.” Mason kneeled on the other side of her. “Is she alive?”
“I think she’s breathing. I’m trying to find a pulse.” I didn’t have much practice at this kind of thing.
“I want to know now. Tell me,” Grey demanded.
“Which I will, after dealing with your wife.” Mason remained focused. Grey was aggravating him, but he would not address that annoyance until the immediate crisis was controlled.
Julie did not look good. Mason glanced my way. I handed him my cell phone. “You’ll need to key in the passcode to open the gate for the ambulance.”
“I want to know now,” Grey insisted.
Mason ignored Grey, and attended to opening the gate. He was losing patience with his son rapidly.
“She has a pulse. I don’t know enough to interpret it.”
Mason handed me my cell phone, and turned to Grey. “I stopped their child from being born.”
“That’s insane.”
“Really? That child would have been capable of the abomination we just witnessed, and all the abilities of her mother, who can induce emotion and attack the minds of others. I’ve dedicated by adult life to stop havoc like this from affecting the wider society. That is my job,” Mason replied calmly and deliberately.
“That’s not the way you described it all these years.”
“There are a lot of things I could not and cannot tell you. That’s also the nature of my job.”
I turned to Grey. “Stop it, Grey. You don’t know enough about these things to make judgments.”
“And you do?” he challenged.
“Yes,” I answered, annoyed with the way Grey was arguing with his father instead of tending to his stricken wife. I would have said more, but I allowed Grey the benefit of the doubt. People can react oddly to crises. Grey’s anxiety for Julie could be emerging as an argument with Mason.
Shouldn’t you be one of the people down on the ground trying to help her?
Then something unexpected happened. Julie opened her eyes and sat up without hesitation.
“How do you feel?” I asked. I felt foolish saying that but I could not think of anything else.
“Dazed. Did I faint?” After surprise flickered through her eyes I saw something else: disgust at the proximity of Mason.
“Something like that,” Mason told her. “Don’t move. There’s an ambulance on the way.”
She surprised me next by scrambling to her feet, without hesitation or special effort. As soon as she did that, she sensed an unmistakable wrongness in her balance. I watched panic cross her face as she realized she was no longer pregnant.
“What happened?” She was screaming.
Mason and I could not move as fast as Julie, but we rose after her, standing to either side of her, ready to support her if she became unsteady or weak.
“You don’t remember?” Mason asked.
“No.”
You don’t want to remember. “The paramedics will be here anytime.” I tried to sound a good deal calmer than I was.
“Grey?” She looked pleadingly at Grey, as if Grey could help her.
Grey help you? Your Grey has been worthless.
Mason flashed a glare at Grey. I had never seen him do that with one of his children, but he was clearly irritated by his son’s conduct.
He’s lucky she didn’t witness what he did, or more accurately, did not do. I would not tolerate such lame, lukewarm behavior.
Grey finally took over from Mason and me.
“Grey, I want to get away from here. Right now.”
“We have to get you to a hospital. The ambulance is on the way.”
I walked up beside Mason. “What are you going to do with Jesse?”
“Beyond demanding his resignation, there isn’t anything I can do. I dare not go to law enforcement. Who would believe what we just saw? So many questions would be raised that I’d rather not have asked outside of Genomex. Did you hear me, Grey?”
“I heard it, but I can’t believe you’re saying it. People need to know about these monsters. They need to be hunted down and dealt with.”
“Don’t pursue this.”
“I’ll pursue what I want to pursue.”
“If you do that, people will panic. Think about the consequences of this becoming general knowledge.”
Grey looked at me. “And what do you say?”
“Understand what is at stake. There is so much more involved than personal justice for you.”
I don’t think Grey understood what I said.
There was nothing more Mason could say. He couldn’t control Grey. Or could he? What could Mason do? If he believed Grey was a threat to the program…Mason was capable of all kinds of things, things Grey knew nothing about and couldn’t imagine. Would he pod Grey?
The ambulance rolled up the access drive. The light was failing fast; Mason waved to be certain of having their attention.
“Grey, I don’t really believe I need a hospital. I just fainted because of the heat.”
Grey looked stunned. “No, more happened than that. You need to go.”
“I don’t want to make a fuss about this. I just need to rest a little while.”
“Julie…” Grey began.
“Julie, of everyone present, I have the most experience in matters of childbirth and its complications. Go to the hospital. Grey will go with you.”
Julie wasn’t going to argue with her father-in-law. She didn’t like him and she was more than a little afraid of Mason.
The paramedics left with Julie and Grey, leaving me with Mason. Night was coming on fast.
“I’m glad you thought of that. I have no idea what will happen to her next. Her body had to have a response to her suddenly vanished fetus.”
“Grey could not cope with a suddenly hemorrhaging woman. We have unfinished business. I’d rather not do the next part alone,” Mason said softly.
“Your grandson.”
“Yes.”
And I knew why. “His DNA would indicate close kinship to you. There would be no good answers to the questions created by the DNA results.”
He nodded. “The ground is hard. Digging will be difficult.”
Rain had not fallen in weeks. The ground would be almost impossible to dig without a pick or a drill. “I have an idea, Mason. There are ovens in my lab hot enough to reduce anything organic to inorganic residue. Nothing would be left for anyone to test.” I shocked myself thinking of anything so desperate.
“How long would that take?”
“Just a few hours.” Just a few hours to reduce anything so small…to inorganic ash.
Mason did not hesitate, but hurried down to the beach, searching for the remains of his grandson by the faint exterior lights, and the faint glow in the western sky. I sat down on a bench, allowing myself a moment’s rest.
Once again, you’ve drawn me into sharing a terrible secret. There must be an end to these terrible secrets. I want this to end. I want to carry out the duty I have promised, and then, I want to run away as far as I can as fast as I can, and never look back. But that would mean abandoning the people I care for.
The person I care for most is destroying me. I cannot handle any more lives ended before they have a chance to begin.
I knew life with Mason would not be like anything else.
I would never have agreed to anything as crazy as the last few days. I believe I might have made a terrible mistake. But it’s not too late to change things. No. There are other jobs in other places. No more freakish mutants. No more peculiar people. No more feeling somewhat responsible for the fate of humanity. I’ve been strong for a very long time…but even I have limits.
Leave tonight, or you will never do it.
The nightmare deepens. I am afraid we have not yet found the bottom, Mason.
Darkness had fallen when Mason emerged from the shadows. He had removed his jacket and carried it wrapped in a bundle. I knew what he had inside.
“A few minutes more and an animal would have gotten to him. Predators and scavengers live around the site.”
Mason did not need to tell me about all the wildlife that lived at Genomex. I had lived here long enough to be familiar with the site wildlife at night, more abundant and active than anyone working daylight hours only would imagine.
This isn’t just about hiding evidence, is it? This is about doing something proper…under duress.
We could have double or triple bagged everything in burn bags, and disposed of those like other autoclavable waste. We could have put him into a bag, and been done quickly. The bags would never be searched. At best, their contents were assumed to be foul, smelly microbial samples; at worst they might be microbial samples best avoided if one wished to remain healthy and whole.
Bagging the remains like waste would have been indecent.
We said nothing walking back to the building and to my lab. Everyone had long gone home by this hour, and security would think nothing of me going to my lab at this hour, with Mason accompanying me.
They might wonder what Mason was carrying, but none of the corridors we traveled were equipped with cameras allowing close inspection.
The muffle ovens sat in a fume hood. I started putting on latex gloves.
“I want to do that, Rebecca.”
“Very well.”
He placed his sad little bundle on the edge of the hood.
I opened an oven door. Relieved that Mason was doing this, and not me, I turned away. I wanted no visual memory.
“Just set everything down on the floor of the oven?”
“Yes. And your gloves, too. We don’t want any of this found. A small amount of tissue would cause too many questions. Then nearly close the oven door. At first, there will be a lot of smoke. We want to vent that and the water.”
“Then what?”
I turned around, lowered the glass front almost fully down, and plugged in the oven.
“To be perfectly thorough, we’d want to clean up whatever blood is out there on the beach, but we’d draw a crowd doing that. Mason, is there a camera aimed at the picnic area all the time?”
If there was a digital record of what Jesse had done…
“I’m not sure. There may be. I will need to destroy the record if one exists. If anyone was watching in real time, every agent on site would have rushed here. The records are not reviewed unless questions are asked. I did not summon agents, so they will assume only that Julie became ill. Any blood found by a hiking employee will be assumed to be that of an animal. Security knows animals hunt and get into fights deep in the night out there. ”
We hadn’t looked at each other while doing these things. The evening had aged him. No doubt it had aged me as well.
“This is all so pitifully sad.”
“I want the ashes. I don’t care that they’ll include jacket and gloves as well.”
“I’ll save them for you.” I found paper on my desk and left a note on the hood window, indicating that the ‘sample’ was mine, and that it was to be left undisturbed.
“We can’t do anything more here. Let’s go back to our cave, Mason.”
I said nothing more; there wasn’t much more that could be said. We waited until the smoking stopped, then I closed the oven door. I turned to Mason. He did not look good. I took up his ungloved left hand, and began leading him from the lab.
The lights in the corridors of Genomex were never dimmed. Walking about at night after hours, things appeared much as they did during a working day. The silence was deep at this hour, however, with the complete absence of human voices.
We were very safe. I had no doubt that we were watched by GSA monitoring the facility, since we were very likely the only other people on the grounds. Agents not actively viewing screens were probably being called to them to take in the spectacle of their boss holding hands with me. All GSA were told we were married, but Mason’s grim, demanding persona and the distance we kept during working hours caused much speculation about the nature of our relationship. I knew we were inspiring a whole new chapter of Mason-lore; the GSA were a gossipy bunch. I didn’t care.
“I blame myself,” Mason said.
“Why? You don’t read minds.”
“No mind-reading was required. Killing Jessica Anne predictably destroyed Jesse.”
And the connection you had with one another. Jesse needed a father and you needed a son. You’ve both sustained terrible losses.
“What could you have done?”
“Had him watched.”
“No one could have anticipated what he did to Julie.”
“Nothing in Jesse’s past implied that he would have been capable of anything like this.”
“I should have had security watching for Jesse.”
“Even if you had done that, what difference would it have made? Jesse walks through walls. What happened was no fault of yours. Jesse did this. Jesse and Jesse alone is responsible.”
I turned to him. He looked terrible. “Mason, I am so sorry.”
“Thank you.” But he did not sound much consoled.
“Shouldn’t you be checking in with Grey?”
“Yes. Soon. Grey is handling this poorly. He’s reacting with raw emotions and not thinking through what he is doing. He’s acting the way his mother would have done, making himself the focus of the crisis.”
That was the worst condemnation of Grey that Mason could have given.
“You also need to start the search for Jesse.”
“I’ll start a search, but he’ll never be caught. Even if he’s found, how could anyone hold him? I could chase sightings for years.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you so resigned to failure before.”
“Jesse’s abilities and familiarity with my methods make a special case of him. Right now, I want to go to ground in my steel cave and hide. I don’t want to think about what is going on in that oven. I’ll call Grey and Security once we’re both behind steel walls.”
I showered while Mason made phone calls. I emerged from the shower to find Mason staring out into the night, not focusing on anything. He had dimmed the interior lights so that the only illumination came from LEDs casting a faint, muted glow.
“Did you talk to Grey?” I asked.
“Partway to the hospital, Julie began bleeding. The doctors did not question the story Grey told about a miscarriage. Julie will be fine. Nothing remains that could create a problem later. She’s going to be kept overnight and released.”
Something about Mason’s voice was wrong. I went over to him. I said nothing more; he turned his head slightly towards me. By LED-glow, I saw a single tear glide down his cheek.
I had never seen Mason cry before. His control was always perfect, so perfect that the sight of the single teardrop was more disturbing than the sight of most other people weeping uncontrollably would have been.
He was a proud man, and I knew he thought that tear a weakness, a failing, so I knew better than to speak of it. I pretended to see nothing, and hugged him without comment.
How much more can you handle? I’m feeling way past worn-out myself.
Mason
I spent the morning reviewing what we knew about Jesse’s movements before his return to Genomex.. There was not much to know. He was documented paying his hotel bill with his Genomex issued credit card, and I knew which seat he had occupied on an ordinary flight, but there was nothing implying what came later or where he might have gone. Upon his arrival at the site, the system noted his heat signature, but had not flagged it since he was wearing his unique and proper badge. As far as the system knew, everything was fine.
In hindsight, a system vulnerability. But we could not anticipate everything.
With Jesse’s ability to walk through walls, and deep knowledge of Genomex security and procedures, the chances of finding Jesse were small.
Truthfully, I was not concerned with finding him. I was concerned with where he would go, and whether he would seek out Adam. I had not expected to keep Jesse’s good will; procedures had been worked out offsite independent of Jesse’s people, to immediately replace all codes the moment I wished. I had activated that change last night, but I knew that was not a permanent fix.
I would have preferred staying away from my office completely, but if I did not stay busy, I would only feel worse. The morning dragged on interminably. Early afternoon brought Grey.
Even as he entered my office, I could tell from Grey’s voice that he was going to be noisily emotional. I hated such displays, especially from men. But in fairness to Grey, I could not refuse to see him.
“Julie is leaving me over what your monster did to her.”
Grey’s voice nearly broke when he said that. I hoped he would not cry in front of me, the way he did at our old house. At least he wasted no time getting to the source of the problem.
“Jesse is not my monster,” I replied calmly, not raising my voice, trying to calm Grey so he would no longer remind me so much of his mother.
“He worked for you, didn’t he?”
“For a time. But I did not make him what he is, or instruct that it be done. Adam Kane and Paul Breedlove corrupted his genetics and made him what you saw.”
“None of that matters. Your involvement with these freaks caused this.” He was thinking purely with his emotions, with no restraint at all. He appeared on the edge of weeping like a child or weak woman. My disappointment with Grey knew no limits at that moment.
“Now you may begin to understand my work. My adult life has been dedicated to the control of renegade mutants, to prevent the horrors they could bring upon larger society.”
“Well, you failed to control this horror.”
“They’re not animals, Grey. Not most of them, anyway. Catherine is not an animal.”
“Damn Catherine. She’s a freak, too.”
“No, Grey. Catherine’s never done anything to harm you or your sisters. She did not choose to be what she is.” Speaking so of Catherine was infuriating. She had worked at gaining the acceptance of my older children. Up until this moment, I believed she had succeeded.
“How could you stay on here and work with these…creatures?”
“Grey, you should also know that following Adam’s attempt to murder me, Genomex settled a large sum of money on me. I could have lived comfortably ever after. But you, the twins, and Catherine would not have received first class educations. I continued working to stop these monsters, yes, but I also did it for you.”
“You only care about your damn mutants.”
You’re a self-focused, emotional fool, Grey.
“Your gratitude warms my heart.” Grey had gone on too long.
Miserable ingrate. Clearly, I was wasting any effort made with him.
I glared at him the way I had so often with employees, achieving the desired effect of putting fear of me into Grey’s heart. He had more insults to hurl at me, but I had him cowed. I wished it hadn’t worked so readily; at that moment I realized Grey would never be my equal. He lacked my courage and will. He had had too easy a time of it, and there was too much of Jackie in him.
How different you would have been had I been there with you. It’s too late to change you now. A waste.
“Grey, I am not belittling your loss, but understand: no one’s life proceeds as they imagined it. Except for a handful of people insulated from the world, pampered by indulgent souls who confuse such cosseting with love, everyone suffers some measure of tragedy.”
“I thought if I worked hard, worked honest, and stayed out of trouble that my life would fall into place.”
“Life is never that easy.” My son is a fool.
“I’ll never be able to replace Julie.”
Julie was no great loss. She had never struck me as even being particularly fond of Grey, but she did enjoy spending their earnings. “Have you considered that perhaps Julie did not have the character suited to go through life with anyone?”
“Don’t start tearing Julie apart. You never did like her.”
No, I never did like her. Julie is too much like Jackie.
“Consider what I’ve said.”
“What did you do to Jesse to make him do what he did? And how the hell did he do it?”
Grey deserved to know the truth. He was emotional, but he was not screaming at me as he had done last night.
“I don’t know how many laws and regulations I’m breaking by telling you, but you should know. Jesse can walk through walls as readily as you or I walk through doorways. Emma is probably the most dangerous Genomex mutant alive. She can induce emotions, create illusions, and destroy a mind with a thought. If they were not inherently good people, the two of them could have torn great, chaotic holes in society.”
“And you call them good people?”
“Grey, listen to me. They were not supposed to have children, but Emma conceived against the odds. Her daughter carried all the traits of both parents. I had Emma seized, sedated, given an involuntary abortion, and a tubal ligation. More than anything, they wanted that daughter.”
Grey stared at me with disgust. “How could you do anything so horrible?”
Perhaps I erred and told him too much detail. Clearly, he loathed me more. Didn’t he realize that unpleasant acts were sometimes unavoidable? That pleasant was not always a possibility?
“Because it had to be done. Such talents could not be passed down to later generations.”
“Who made you God over the lives of these people?”
“It’s not about being God, Grey. It’s about recognizing a dangerous taint in the human pedigree, and preventing that taint from spreading, or better yet, eliminating it altogether.”
“That’s insane.”
“Insanity is the belief that if nothing is done all the outcomes will be happy ones. One of these anomalies can black out an entire city at will. A few hundred of them, bent on destruction, could destroy civilization.”
Grey was silent for a moment. Like most people, he did not think anything bad could happen to him. Bad things happened to other people, far away. Most likely, he was rejecting what I said as too grim and unpleasant. Catastrophes several generations away were too distant for worry and concern.
“So Jesse killed my baby to avenge the murder of his own?”
“Yes. Short of reading his mind, that is the most reasonable guess.”
“Are you proud of what you’ve done?”
“I’m proud of doing a difficult, distasteful job…very well. There are tasks that must be done…that sicken the heart of any sane man. If no one fought off the barbarians, if no police kept criminals at bay, society would collapse.”
I could tell by his eyes that I was getting nowhere with Grey. He was still in that unfortunate mode of thinking that believes all the woes of mankind can be erased with the application of more niceness. With any luck, life would teach him otherwise, and soon.
“How do you know you’re not one of the barbarians?” Grey accused.
Fortunately, I have a great deal of personal control, or I would have struck my own son.
“That’s enough, Grey.”
“Do you think you can tell me to shut up, like a child?”
“You have a lot of learning to do before you’re a man.”
Talking to Grey was costing more energy than I possessed. I had to get my disappointing son ouit of my sight. I did not care whether I ever spoke to him again. I had failed him, and I did not wish to be reminded of my failure.
“You’re the freak, Dad. Your obsession with these people is sick.”
“Grey, please leave now, or I will have security carry you out.”
He turned and walked towards the door, stopping just short of it, and turned back towards me. “The truth hurts, doesn’t it?”
“The truth does, but not the truth you think you know.”
Grey left. He had no idea what I meant.
Could I have done anything differently to raise Grey to be more like myself? No. Not without being there, and I could not take Jackie back after her betrayal, and I could not spend much time in the open world, not with compromised immune system. Damn. What surprises do Deidre and Michelle have waiting for me?
I returned to my stainless steel cave, reviewed email and voice messages, and decided this would be a biopolymer-free night. I stripped away my faux skin, and after showering did not replace it. These quarters were so clean I could dare to do this a few nights out of each month without adverse effects. There were times when I could not stand the feeling of otherness, of difference, of being set apart. I needed to feel I was still human.
All of my illusions about Grey are shattered. I’ve falsely believed he was like me, a hawk. He is a canary.
Rebecca
I’m not sure which one of us was most horrified by Jesse’s incredible act. Up until I saw him do it, I honestly believed that most of the Genomex mutants were people much like myself, just ever so slightly blessed or cursed with some peculiar trait or ability. I knew several of them whom I had considered fine people, and among that number I had included Jesse.
Now, I was not so sure. Pushed emotionally, Jesse had reacted visciously against a woman he hardly knew, and against Grey, whom he did know, and who had never brought Jesse a negative moment, all for the sake of revenge against Mason.
I was no stranger to the insane or violent acts of Genomex mutants. Gabriel Ashlocke destroyed my first baby, willfully, intentionally, with emotional cruelty. He did not know me, but he hurt me anyway.
I had thought Ashlocke was an oddity, but perhaps I had been too generous with these people all along. Maybe I should be afraid of them all. I didn’t like that possibility, but between what I had seen and what Mason had told me, wasn’t such fear realistic?
I loved Catherine. She was the closest I would ever come to having a daughter, and thinking of her as other-than-human was difficult.
But what proof is there that in the right circumstances Catherine would not turn on Mason and on me, using her stealthiness to harm us? None at all.
No. Catherine knows she is loved by us both. She would never harm us.
Are you sure? How can you possibly be sure?
You cannot be certain. Or, as Mason says when this ugly mess is consuming his attention, damn Breedlove, damn Adam.
Maybe Mason had been correct in his initial approach of containing and even podding as many of the Genomex mutants as possible. The approach was heavy handed, expensive, and would have been a public relations disaster if the general public had ever found out. But a podded mutant harmed no one.
Then there was Emma. Mason had always considered her among the most dangerous of mutants. He was also certain she was capable of more than she disclosed, and that only her own decency and ethics kept her from manipulating people constantly.
I was confused and conflicted. And these were only my thoughts as I walked to my lab.
Mason had turned off the muffle oven hours ago. The contents had cooled enough to be handled.
Handled? With what, to be placed into what?
I opened the oven door and took in the sight of the meager residue of ash on the oven floor, three generations reduced to this.
Well, now what do I do?
Analytical labs don’t commonly stock funeral urns. I found a small glass jar with a half-dozen low-bleed septa still in it, transferred them to a capped plastic tube. Using paper towels I swept out the floor of the oven onto a sheet of quadrille paper, and used that to funnel the ashes into the jar.
I knew Mason would want this sad little jar, so I slipped it into a labcoat pocket and set off for his office.
He was staring down into Podding Operations when I arrived. No one had been podded for months. A group of technicians were testing a pod, and preparing it for use.
“That’s for Jesse, isn’t it?”
“Yes. If I can catch him. What else can I do with him, Rebecca?”
“I cannot imagine.” I reached into my pocket. “I meant no disrespect using this jar, Mason. It was the cleanest, most secure container I had.” I tamed my tears as he took it from my hand.
“That’s all there is?”
“Yes. There isn’t that much left once you take away the water, and oxidize the organics.”
“I can take it to our quarters. I just wanted you to know the ashes were…safe.”
“Would you do that, please?”
“Of course.”
I did not say it, but knowing Mason’s fastidious nature, someone might find the jar and assume they were doing the proper thing in throwing it out.
I took back the jar. “Do you have any idea where Jesse is?”
“None. I suppose I’ll have to have Emma monitored and watched. How distasteful. She’ll know she’s being surveilled.”
“Do that electronically. She cannot throw out illusions when she does not know who she is deceiving.”
“A good point. Ordinarily, I prefer agents on the ground.”
“There is nothing ordinary about Emma.”
“True.”
We were both startled when the office door opened, admitting Emma.
“I haven’t come to hurt you, Mason. Enough hurt has been going around. I’m not adding to it.”
I must have looked worried.
“I really mean it, Rebecca. I could blast both of you through that glass and down into the floor below, but I’m not about to do that.” She stared down at the pod below. “Is that for Jesse?”
“I’m sorry, Emma. If I capture him, I have to treat him as if he’s insane.”
Emma sighed. “I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but if you catch Jesse, I think he should be podded.”
“Emma?” I was stunned. Emma looked serious.
“After Jesse murdered your grandson, he came to me and told me what he had done. He thought I would approve, or even be happy about it. I was horrified.”
“I have an active search for him.”
“I assumed you would. I told Jesse that we were finished, that no matter how hideous one considers your crime against me, destroying an innocent changed nothing, and hurt people who were uninvolved and not responsible.”
“Emma, he was crazy with grief,” Mason said.
“I’m surprised to hear you defend him, but I think you’re wrong. Anyone can know the right thing to do in calm moments. Knowing the right thing at times of stress, and acting accordingly, that really sorts out individuals.”
“Exactly so,” Mason said softly.
“Grey never did anything to me, I never even met Julie. So, I sent Jesse away. If I had any idea where he would go, I think I’d tell you.”
“I think I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Do you think he would go to Adam if he could discover where he is?” I asked.
“Ordinarily, I would think not. Adam used Jesse. But in his present state of mind, guessing what he might do is difficult. Jesse doesn’t have many places to turn. He doesn’t have many relatives and he was never close to any of them.”
“Part of me doesn’t want to find him. I thought a lot of Jesse.”
“You are cursed, Mason.”
“When I find him, if I find him, do you want to know. I would allow you visitation prior to podding. Wherever you are, I could send the company plane to bring you. Just make certain I have a way of getting a message to you.”
“You can’t make things all better no matter what you do.”
“I know that. I’m merely trying to make the act I committed against you slightly more humane. I owe you my life and anything good that has come to me since you freed me from stasis.”
I was nearly in tears when he finished. Emma felt my emotions, just barely kept in check. She glanced at me.”
“I’m sorry. I was being unfair.”
Mason shook his white head. “After what I have done to you, I do not deserve your understanding.”
“But you have it. That’s the amazing lesson I’ve learned from you, how complicated people can be, and how many secrets have to be unwound before understanding them. I don’t regret giving you back your life. For several years, you were a good surrogate father for Jesse and me.”
“Thank you.”
“But, would I want to see Jesse? I don’t know. I’ll make sure you have a way to reach me. I don’t know what I’ll think in a year, or two years or even two weeks. I don’t want to see the crazy man who gleefully described his revenge to me. I’d rather remember Jesse as he was.”
“What are you going to do, Emma?” I asked.
“Well, I can’t stay here.”
You’re not the only one.
“One thing the world has plenty of is unhappy people. Laura and I are going to set up a counseling practice. We just don’t know what part of the country yet.”
Nothing will ever be remotely the same again. But when does this raw, fresh, acute agony stop?
“Well, I’m out the door for the last time.”
“Emma, please, allow me to help you whenever you think I could.”
“Poor Mason. I will. You need to do something right now for Rebecca. She’s doing everything to appear tough and strong so you’ll have one less worry. Rebecca, I had to make sure he knew how much you were hurting.”
“I understand.”
“Take care of each other.”
With that, Emma turned and left.
Mason
Emma was right about Rebecca. I had not ignored signs of her pain so much as I had taken her pose of fortitude and strength at face value. She had taken on a lot and not complained, but no one can keep absorbing emotional pain indefinitely. We all have limits.
“What do you need me to do?”
“One thing, and one thing only. Leave this place.”
“I cannot do that with Jesse free.”
“You might never find him.”
“True. But shouldn’t I try?”
“It would be hard for you to do otherwise.”
“I have not obsessed over finding Adam. I’ve left that task to others, haven’t I?”
“I’ll give you that. Adam’s always been more obsessed with you than you have been with him.”
“Allow me a chance, not an open-ended one, to run down Jesse, and then, I swear, I will look seriously at leaving.”
“That’s fair. I’m going to go hide in the dark for a while before going back to my lab. I don’t want anyone to see me after I’ve been crying.”
Rebecca
“Do you ever have any guilt about the work you used to do here?” Rob asked.
I hesitated before answering, wondering where my answer was intended to take the conversation. I had come to the cafeteria to consume a salad, not for a serious discussion of the sins of Genomex with Rob.
“Some. Even in the first weeks I was here, I had suspicions about what was going on. Things weren’t completely right. You can’t work in a place like this and not notice things going on just beneath the surface.”
“You weren’t here in the late 1970s and early 1980s when we were actively making the Children of Genomex. You can honestly claim not to have been part of that.”
“Unlike some.”
Rob shook his head. “Adam’s claim that his research was hijacked and perverted in ways he knew nothing about is one of the most absurd lies I’ve heard in my life. Adam and Breedlove ran Genomex. Adam knew everything. Adam worked with Ashlocke the first month he was here.”
“Of course he did. But I think he eventually talked himself into believing his own lie. Maybe he could not live with himself any other way. Even Breedlove’s guilt caught up with him at the end.”
“For me, the worst part was going home after what I did all day long, and seeing my perfect, healthy daughters with their uncorrupted DNA. After a day of determining the best way to alter the DNA of other peoples’ children-to-be, I could barely look at my own.”
“What are your girls doing now?”
“I don’t know. My ex-wife managed something of a vanishing act. After 1994, I could not find them anywhere.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“It probably is. My child support checks went uncashed. After a while, I deposited the money into accounts that have accumulated interest all these years, and kept them in the girls’ names. They’ve never surfaced to claim anything.”
I hesitated for a moment, then made what to me was an obvious suggestion. “You should ask Mason to look for them. He can find all kinds of things and people.”
I was sure of this. I would never have said anything otherwise. After seeing the way Mason brought Catherine into his family, yes, he would help Rob look for his lost daughters. Even if he discovered they had died with their mother in an accident in 1994, Rob would be better off knowing what happened.
“I’m sorry, Rebecca, but when I interviewed here, he seemed so…cold. I can’t imagine him helping anybody. Do you really think he would help? ”
I sighed. “I assure you, if you tell him you’re looking for your daughters, he will help you. He’ll be very formal, but family means a great deal to him.”
“Company lore said he had nothing to do with his kids after the divorce.”
“That isn’t true. Not at all true. Mason maintained close, almost daily contact while they were growing up. I saw this. He’s very complicated, Rob. And very private.”
“Why would he want people to believe he abandoned them, except for the money? When we were neighbors, he lived for those kids. I could never understand the change.”
“He had good reasons for creating that impression.”
Rob digested that idea. Even though it ran counter to what he believed for more than 20 years, it made sense. Rob could be persuaded if presented with evidence.
I continued. “Nothing changed, just appearances. He did not want his enemies to be able to threaten his children as a means of manipulating him. He wanted to be unassailable.”
“There is some sense to that. Are you sure you of this? How did he communicate?”
“Communication was the easiest part. They all had webcams. He even helped them with their homework.”
“That sounds like my old neighbor.”
“Mason’s children never ceased being important to him.” Ordinarily I did not volunteer so much information about Mason, but Rob had known him years before Incident X, and the current visits of the children were not a secret, but openly conducted.
“Now that they’re grown, they visit us. I know what they tell me about the years before I knew them. Rob, Mason will help you.”
“Sounds like you’ve gotten yourself a complicated life.”
“It’s not the life I thought I would live, but things rarely work as we planned them.”
Mason
I ignored my sudden weight loss, hoping it would stop without intervention. I knew better, of course, but I did not want to admit to myself what my loss implied.
Keeping weight on or gaining it required me to consume ordinary foods, richly laden with fats and oils. To achieve the same effect with the pink slurry required me to drink great quantities, and that I could not do. Nausea was a commonplace of my life, but now I was having trouble keeping down the pink slurry.
All of this implied a relapse.
Dr Prodana appeared bored as I related symptoms.
We’re talking about my life slipping away, doctor. Couldn’t you feign a small measure of interest or curiosity?
“Anything else?” she yawned.
“Am I boring you, doctor?”
“No.”
“Try not to appear as if I’m putting you to sleep. I’m developing the same symptoms presented when I nearly died in 1991. This is a matter of deep interest to me.”
Dr Prodana’s duties were light. Her primary responsibility was monitoring and managing my health.
“Very well. Let’s assume you are going into a serious relapse. I want to weigh you three times a day, start you on some newer antibiotics, and ask that you maintain your distance from people. I will review Breedlove’s treatments again to be sure I am not missing something.”
The passage of time generates curious effects. Those people we once saw daily leave our lives, and upon returning, seeing them once again becomes an extraordinary event.
Robert Abelmann, many lifetimes ago, had been my neighbor when we both had lawns to mow and bedding flowers to plant. I could hardly imagine that ancient time, when Grey played with Rob’s two daughters. Recalling that life now with clarity was impossible; all of it comes back to me soft and worn around the edges. I do not think of those days much anymore than I must, because the memories inevitably lead to recall of the night I came home late from Genomex to a house stripped of furnishings and family, stripped of everything but my clothes.
By that time, Rob had gone through his own divorce hell and had left the neighborhood.
I avoid reminders of those days. Some memories are like abcesses that never heal.
I had avoided Rob since his return to Genomex for that reason, and for one other. I had once abused my authority, and delved into Rob’s relationship with Rebecca, misusing company resources to answer my own questions. The records were long since destroyed, and my misdeeds were 20 years in the past, but my memory was intact and whole.
I could rationalize what I had done as the ill-considered action of a man whose cells were swimming in pharmaceuticals. Breedlove at one time had me taking 19 distinct medications daily. However, that is less than honest. I was quite simply, quite humanly jealous. But that did not justify what I did.
Rob had requested an appointment with me and I had granted it. Now, I wanted to get the meeting over with as quickly as possible.
Rob presented himself promptly at the appointed hour. I was relieved when he entered my office without a corporate grin. We didn’t need to begin the meeting with a lie.
He looked better than he had at his interview. Some of the uncertainty was gone from his eyes. He might never regain the personal confidence he owned in the days when he rivaled Adam.
“Good morning, Mason.”
Shaking my gloved hand disturbed him, as it did most people. Maybe they would feel better if they knew how frequently I changed them. Or maybe not.
“Rebecca thought you could help me.”
Unpleasant thoughts rose unbidden. I said nothing, but fixed my gaze on him. That was sufficient to throw most people off balance and leave me in peace soon after.
“You remember my daughters?”
“Of course.”
“I want to find them. I haven’t had contact in 17 years. My ex-wife vanished about that time and took my daughters with her.”
Rob loved those girls. Had things happened as he said, that explained part of his earlier unraveling at Genomex.
“They’re adults now, closer to 30 than 20.”
“Yes.”
If anyone could find lost daughters for Rob, it’s me. I can find almost anyone.
“What if they don’t want you to find them?”
“Even if my ex-wife lied and told them that I cut off support, I can prove otherwise. When they vanished, I had an attorney set up accounts for them that I could not touch. The dates and amounts I paid in are carefully documented.”
“You might need that kind of documentation to get them to listen to you.”
“How do you cope with Jackie?”
“I don’t. She’s dead.”
I will not even pretend any sorrow. Miserable, shallow woman. Not even her gold seahorse bathroom fixtures made her happy.
The silence was awkward for Rob. I did not care.
“Do you think you can help?”
“Get me a list, as detailed as you can manage, of complete names, past addresses, and Social Security numbers. I will do what I can, but I cannot promise a happy ending. Have you considered that something may have happened to all three of them at the same time?”
“I’ve considered that.”
“That’s an unlikely finding, but it is best to be prepared.”
“I’ve exhausted every public source of information.”
“I have many other sources.”
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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
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