The Gifted by Steve Wilson - Book 1 - In the Beginning - Chapter 2

TWO

Trial by Error

  

2063. May 25^th.

As Magus crawled out of the burning Geyr ship and Lucy labored to deliver Gretchen, Luca Temlane sat in Lacey’s Pub in New Haven, Connecticut, desperately trying to get his friend, Susan Halim, to see reason. “Will you hear me out?” Luca yelled, somewhat drunkenly. “Please! I’m going to need your help with this!”

“No, Luca! You’re talking about kidnapping kids! Do you realize that? Kids! Kidnapping them!”

“I’m talking about finally figuring this out! Making an impact!”

“Figuring what out? Nature versus nurture? You’re going to kidnap kids to figure that out? Really? You’re drunk! Think about it!”

“Susan, look! On one side. you’ve got all these researchers debating for behavior and psychology and how a person was raised and all that bull, and on the other side, you’ve got DNA! Okay? If we could finally prove, scientifically, once and for all, that genetics are what make us who we are, do you know how huge that would be? How huge we would be?”

“Do you know how imprisoned we would be?”

“We won’t tell ‘em how we figured it out, Susan! We’ll make up a record of fake test subjects or something. Kids that have been abandoned or abused or whatever.” Susan was silent, so Luca continued. “I mean, think about it. It’s not going to make any difference to the kids, right? They would’ve died anyway. Starved or been killed on the street somewhere or made into slaves or prostitutes. You name it. At least we’ll be giving them a chance. They’ll get to live life the way they want to live life, the way they would choose to live without any outside influences. No parents. No modern world around them. No TV. Take ‘em back to our ancestors. The first people. How would they have lived? That’s what we’re trying to get at, Susan. We could watch history unfold.”

“It’s…il…legal,” Susan said slowly, afraid he might miss the point otherwise.

“So what? It wasn’t illegal back then! No one told Neanderthal he couldn’t live how he wanted to, right?”

Susan wasn’t sure he was right. The problem was that she wasn’t sure he was wrong, either. She hadn’t worked this hard, this long, just to be thrown in jail the second she finally got out of school, but if anyone could pull this off, it would be Luca. He wanted it bad enough, and he had the money.

His father, the late, great Jeim Temlane had seen to that. Jeim had been the geneticist who had cured cancer – all of it, every strain. Susan knew that Luca wanted to do something big like that, something that his dad, and the world, would be proud of, something that would help.

She didn’t know how long Luca had been dreaming up this little experiment, but she could see why he was pitching it so desperately now. They were sitting in Lacey’s, their favorite hang-out for the last two years, and they were dressed in their best black clothes, having come straight from Dr. Temlane’s funeral. Graduation from their doctoral program at Yale was a week away. Luca and Susan had their degrees in the bag, and now Luca also had a fortune: the entirety of the Temlane Estate, including his father’s expansive research company, GenRes. But, other than his plan to steal children and place them in a controlled, isolated environment for years on end and observe how they lived, he had no idea what to do with his education, funds, and business conglomerate.

“Luc,” Susan said, leaning forward and making her voice soft, “it’s been a hard day. Your father’s funeral and all. You’ve – we’ve – been drinking. Why don’t we talk about this later? Get a little sleep first.”

Luca leaned back in the booth, a sudden look of disgust on his face. “Aw, Susan, don’t do that!”

“What?”

“Don’t patronize me like that! Yeah, I’ve been drinking, but don’t do that!”

“Ugh! Fine! Luca, you’re…”

“I think it’s a good idea,” Charlie said. He had been sitting next to Susan, taking in the entire conversation before weighing in.

“What?” Now it was Susan’s turn to look disgusted.

“What?” Charlie laughed, trying to diffuse Susan’s temper. The last thing he wanted was his fiancé mad at him. “Luca has a plan. What are we gonna do? Go work for some lab? Teach college classes? This is our chance, Suse!”

“Yeah, it’s a chance!” Susan agreed. “That’s what it is exactly, and we’re going to end up losing everything on it!”

  

December 4^th.

Six and a half months later. “Are you sure about this?” Frank asked seriously.

Shawn sighed and turned around to face the children and youth associate. Frank was a young white man, short and skinny, straight out of seminary. He’s so naïve, Shawn thought. But he’ll learn. Give him a few years in ministry, and he’ll learn. Shawn set his box of books down on the desk. “I’m sure,” he said confidently.

“No one wants you to go,” Frank offered. “The board…”

“I know what the board wants,” Shawn interrupted. He was a tall black man, well-built, muscular, with a commanding presence. “They want me to stay so they don’t have to look for another pastor. But I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. I mean, what are we doing here? Nothing. We’re just spinning our wheels!”

Frank looked at the older man blankly for a moment. There was no denying that the church was going through hard times. Attendance was down. Giving was down. And yet Frank refused to give up. “We have to keep trying, staying faithful. God will bring people…”

“God will bring people tomorrow,” Shawn interrupted again. “You’ll open your doors like the church does every Saturday and everyone’ll come and get a free meal like they do every Saturday. But then what? The church will still be empty Sunday morning and those same people who were here for a free lunch will be out on the streets again or doing drugs and completely ignoring God and His Church until next Saturday when it’s time for the next handout.”

Frank didn’t have an answer. Everything that Shawn had said was probably true.

“If we want to help these people, we’ve gotta stop making it easy for them to keep doing what they’re doing. No more handouts. Tell ‘em to suck it up, get a job, and get in church! But the board doesn’t want to do that.”

“I understand what you’re saying, Shawn. I do. But at least the people are coming here for something, right? I mean, at least they know this is a place where they can get help when they need it. And who knows? Maybe at some point, someone will want to take it to a deeper level. We have to wait for God to give us that opportunity.”

Shawn sighed. “That’s fine. I hope they do. I hope the church grows and is incredibly successful in evangelizing. But I’m tired of waiting for that to happen.” And with that, Shawn stacked his last box of books on top of the one on the desk, picked them both up, and walked past Frank out of his office.

Frank stood there for a moment, his heart tight. He couldn’t believe this was happening. A year ago, when the board had hired him, everyone had seemed so optimistic. Shawn had welcomed him with a smile and open arms. Now that same pastor had given up and quit the ministry. Who was to say it wouldn’t happen to him at some point? Shawn hadn’t been pastoring that long. Five years maybe? If God had called him to ministry, then how could he quit like that?

Frank sucked in a deep breath and felt a surge of energy course through him, steeling him, strengthening his faith. No, it wouldn’t happen to him. God had called him, and he was in this thing for the long haul. With Shawn gone, he was going to have to step up his game until the church called another head pastor. God had planted this church here in the middle of Base City and had always sustained it over the years when so many other churches had shut their doors. God still had something He wanted to do with this place and He had placed Frank here, now, to do his part.

He looked down at the desk. Shawn had forgotten his nameplate. “Shawn Dybek, Pastor.” Frank picked up the nameplate and dropped it in the trashcan. Shawn probably wouldn’t be coming back for it. Frank turned and walked back to his own office. He had some ideas that he wanted to start working on.

 

Shawn opened the door to the house and walked in. It wasn’t his. He was renting it. The church couldn’t afford to pay him enough to buy a house. He guessed he’d have to start looking for an apartment now. And get a job. But…maybe not. He set the box of books down on the kitchen table and flipped on the TV. He could get the rest of the boxes from the car later.

The noon news was coming on, and the reporter was talking about a new drug called Cruise. “Authorities say they’ve traced the narcotic to the Chinese mainland, but still have no idea how its makers produce the drug. Base City’s Protector General Willoughby has gone on record as saying that the drug cannot be broken down into its component chemicals with any current modes of analysis, but wants the public to rest assured that it’s only a matter of time before Force authorities crack the mystery.”

Shawn turned the TV off again and glanced over at the chair. His costume lay draped over its back. It was shaped like a traditional cloth ninja’s outfit but made of thick rubber with thin, reinforced tungsten plates embedded into it. If he was shot, it would sting and bruise pretty badly, but he’d be able to move in the suit, and the metal would at least keep the bullets from penetrating his skin in most parts. The only gaps were at his joints, but that was necessary for movement. On the chest of the suit was a blood-red cross with two lightning ‘S’s below it. The ‘S’s stood for the name he would adopt, Shadowstar, and the cross was his war banner. He joked to himself that the double ‘S’ also stood for Super Shawn.

‘Cruise,’ Shawn thought. Makes it sound fun, like a joy ride. Maybe it is, while you’re on it. But what happens when the ride’s over? How do you feel then? And what are people willing to do for another trip?

Protector Willoughby was acting tough, saying that the Force would stop the drug trafficking, but Shawn knew that was only for show. What could the Force do? What had the Force ever done in its ‘War on Drugs’? They made some arrests, but the drugs still got out there, didn’t they? And too many people were still stupid enough to take them, even when they knew the risks.

The problem was that there were kids out there, too. Kids who were being raised by their stupid junkie parents and who would most likely get hooked on the same crap they were on before they knew any better. That was the cycle; kids of junkies became junkies. And this new drug, whatever it was, would only feed the problem. The cycle had to break. He had to break it.

But drugs were only the second issue on Shawn’s hit list. Cruise would end up killing kids, no doubt about that. But as many kids as were killed or ruined by drugs, abortion killed more. Abortion killed more kids in a week than Cruise would in a year. So yes, he’d take on Cruise. He’d run every dealer into the ground and wipe it out of Base City if he could. But his first priority was abortion. That had to stop. And tonight was the night. Tonight was the beginning of the end.

  

December 5^th.

The next day. The GenRes (short for Genetic Research) complex sprawled wide and tall in uptown Base City. Luca’s father had admittedly not been very creative in naming the company, preferring to save any strokes of creative inspiration for his lab work.

The mission of GenRes was simple: find cures. Jeim used to rally his employees – his troops – by saying things like, “I don’t want there to be anymore Down’s Syndrome! No more Turner’s or Klinefelter’s! No more Mao’s! Get rid of Cystic Fibrosis! Wipe out color-blindness!”

Luca had continued that mantra when he took over his father’s company. And, in addition to running the business, he had even taken over his father’s old lab and was working on a medical project of his own. But more than that, he had the LifeSpace to focus on.

 “Doc?” a voice called. “You here?” The voice belonged to a young man named Nick Santori. It was dark in the warehouse, and he was having trouble seeing. The ‘Doc’ liked it that way. He always told Nick to meet him in dark places, and he always stayed in the shadows, never letting Nick see his face. Nick was hoping that the Doc was already here somewhere because he was eager to get rid of the crying baby in his arms.

“Just set him down on the floor there, Mr. Santori. I’ll transfer your money first thing tomorrow morning.”

“Ten thousand, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Santori. Ten thousand. Same as all the other times.”

“Okay, then. He’s all yours.”

“I’ll call you if I need you.”

 

When he was sure that Nick was gone, ‘Doc’ Luca stepped out of the shadows, scooped up the crying baby, and drove back to GenRes, watching his tail the whole time.

Parking in the rear, Luca keyed in his security code and entered through the back door. He walked down a flight of stairs and then opened the door to the basement level. There wouldn’t be many personnel, not even maintenance people, down here at this time of night, especially not on a Saturday. He pressed the button for the elevator, and when it opened, he carried the baby into the car and inserted a small key into the emergency release.

When the doors opened again, they were far below any floor registered on the elevator’s menu. Jeim Temlane had requested the builders to construct this area as a radioactive storage shelter for any unstable materials the company might be working with. So far, there had never been a need to use it. So, the first thing Luca, Susan, and Charlie had done was convert the space into their experiment center. Now they and their project’s ‘nanny,’ Roger, were the only four people who knew what the area’s current purpose was.

Charlie heard the elevator doors open and turned his chair to look at Luca. Susan did not. She kept sitting at the control board, staring at the nine babies in the Isolation Room.

Holding the newborn out in front of him, Luca said, “Charlie Stoller, Susan Halim, meet Number Ten.” When Susan turned to face him, he continued. “Straight from New Korea and less than a month old.”

Susan sighed quietly before dourly saying, “I’ll get the lights. Charlie, you get the door.”

“Okey-dokey, gorgeous,” Charlie said, getting up from his chair.

When Luca had stripped the clothes off Number Ten, Susan turned off the lights, and Charlie opened the door to the Isolation Room. Luca quickly laid their new test subject inside the room. Charlie closed the door, Susan flicked the lights back on, and the task was complete.

Now, with the addition of Number Ten, the Isolation Room held five boys and five girls of mixed ethnicity, all under five months old. If subjects one through nine even noticed the addition of Number Ten, they would soon forget that he had ever not been among them.

The idea was to isolate this initial group of ten for two years before transferring them to the main LifeSpace. To cause as little cognitive disruption as possible, they set up the Isolation Room as an identical miniature of the larger LifeSpace area, only it was fifty feet square instead of a square mile. Like the LifeSpace, they covered the ground and walls with a thick layer of soil topped with grass and different types of foliage. If the children ever dug far enough into the soil, they would eventually meet the concrete encasement of their facility, but, having never experienced anything different, the subjects would never know that the concrete wasn’t perfectly natural.

There was also a little stream running through the Isolation Room, just like the River in the LifeSpace. Both the Isolation Room and the LifeSpace used full-spectrum, artificial lights to mimic sunlight. The only other difference besides size between the Isolation Room and the actual LifeSpace was that the Isolation Room had one-way windows installed so that the scientists could watch the children. The only way to monitor the LifeSpace was by closed-circuit cameras, which the three hoped they had placed high enough and hidden well enough in the walls and on the ceiling for the subjects not to bother them.

Luca, Susan, and Charlie acknowledged that there were a couple of unavoidable flaws in their experiment. Although the goal was to keep the children from having as much outside contact as possible and so let them develop on their own, that was not entirely feasible. The newborns could not be expected to feed themselves, for instance, or bathe or clean up after themselves. That was where Roger, the ‘nanny,’ came in.

To free the three scientists from having to care for the children, it was Roger’s job to feed and wash them, as well as clean the room, until the children were a little more independent. Even when Roger was with them, though, the lights were turned off – Roger wore a pair of night-vision goggles – and Roger was forbidden to talk while he was in the room with them or show any affection toward them. He was to do his job as quickly as possible and get out. The kids were not to pick up anything from him. No learning by example. The project was all about determining what their instincts would tell them to do, not another person. Let nature have free reign. No nurture.

Of course, the children would inevitably learn from each other, but peer-nurture was okay. Even the very first humans were most likely very social creatures, having evolved as they did from other primates. The only question was when to end the experiment. Would they let the children grow up completely in the LifeSpace? Would they let them eventually have their own children in there? Conceivably, they could continue watching their civilization grow and develop until the population outgrew the space. And even then they could transfer them to a larger facility.

Between the Isolation Room and the LifeSpace was a central control and observation room, which was where the three scientists now were.

“Okay,” Luca said after depositing Number Ten in the Isolation Room. “I’m going to head out. Which one of you is staying?” One of the three – Luca, Susan, or Charlie – always had to be present in the control room to make sure nothing went wrong.

“That would be me,” Susan sighed. Then, smiling, “And Charlie here isn’t even going to stay and keep me company!”

“Hey, I gotta go home some time!” Charlie chuckled.

“Okay,” Luca acknowledged. “I’ll be in first thing in the morning. Good night, Susan.”

“‘Night.”

Then Charlie leaned over and gave his fiancé a long kiss before following Luca out.

 

Luca exited the rear entrance where he had parked his car. “Hey!” someone barked. The voice was loud and commanding, like a drill sergeant’s. It startled Luca and made his heart skip a beat before immediately picking up its pace. It’s the Force! he thought. They know I just brought Number Ten in! Imagining handcuffs clicking tight around his wrists, he turned around slowly, preparing for the inevitable.

But there was no one there. He looked around the parking lot. Had he imagined it?

“Hey!” the voice boomed again. And Luca located the source. Up on a window ledge was a dark figure, clothed all in black except for a red cross and two jagged lightning streaks on his chest. No, not lightning – ‘S’s. Seeing him made Luca even more afraid. Who was this guy and what did he want?

“How many babies did you kill today?” the figure demanded.

Luca squinted in confusion. What?

“I asked you how many babies you killed today.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Fetuses! Embryos! Fertilized human eggs!” the man roared. “How many? How many were destroyed in your labs today?”

And then Luca made the connection. This…person…wasn’t here about the kids in the LifeSpace. He was here about the company’s research, their legitimate research.

The cross on his chest said it all. Most religious people were easy to get along with, but there were still a few nutjobs out there who protested the progress of real science.

“I don’t know,” Luca answered honestly. Did this guy expect him to count every discarded embryo? They grew them constantly and used the DNA for all kinds of things.

“Too many for you to count,” the figure growled.

 “It’s all legal.”

“I don’t care what’s legal!” the man snapped. “It’s wrong! You’re aborting human babies!”

Technically, he was right. GenRes took donated eggs from women and donated sperm from men, put them together, and had the beginnings of human life. It wasn’t a person, yet, of course, but it was the biological beginnings of one. And when they used the DNA from that beginnings-of-a-person, that person was no longer viable. “Abortion is legal,” Luca affirmed.

“You’re going to stop.”

Luca squinted at him again. Who did this guy think he was? He didn’t make the laws. He didn’t set ethical norms for research. “What if I don’t?”

“Watch the news tomorrow,” he answered, and then threw something at Luca.

Luca jumped out of the way, but it was too late. The canister exploded at his feet, and engulfed him in gas. Luca immediately began coughing, snotting, and watering uncontrollably from his eyes. Tear gas. Luca thought.

  

December 6^th.

 The next morning. “Slate!”

“That’s my cue,” Jim said, smiling at Amber. Amber Parks was the cute, little day secretary in the LandForce Headquarters. Deputy Jim Slate had been leaning over her desk talking to her for the last half hour. He gave her a wink and then walked toward the bellowing voice. “Coming, Don!” he called. It was only six-thirty in the morning, and it seemed that Base City was already making trouble.

Jim found his boss, Protector General Don Willoughby, in his office, scanning his computer screen. Willoughby’s hair was graying, and his stomach was growing. As Jim sat down across from him, he wondered for the thousandth time when the older man would retire so that he could take his job.

Willoughby looked up for a moment and glanced at Jim before looking back down at his computer. “I need you to head over to the Women’s Medical Center,” he said. “There’s been a bombing.”

Jim nodded. Must be some religious, anti-abortion freak.

“Darcey’s already there,” the PG said. “She says there’s a mark on the sidewalk in front of the building. A cross on top of two ‘S’s. A calling card. Which means this group, or this guy, is probably going to hit something else. Building a reputation with the symbol.” Jim nodded again as Willoughby looked up and fixed him with his gaze. “The Center was empty, but I want you to bring these people down before they hurt anyone. Understand?”

“Yes, sir. Got it.”

“All right, then,” Willoughby smiled. “Get to it.”

Jim smiled at Amber again on his way out of the building.

As Jim’s hovercar took off toward the Women’s Center, an image of his wife, Doranne, flashed through his mind. What was he doing flirting with Amber? Was he going to have an affair with her? Of course not. He might want to, but he could never hurt Doranne like that. He loved Doranne, always had, ever since they met in high school. He had been in the Junior Force Academy, and she had been in public school across town, but that hadn’t stopped him from going after her. He had even snuck off Academy grounds a few times to spend time with her.

So why was he flirting with Amber? Why did he always have to flirt with the next pretty girl that looked at him? He should be stronger than that! He was a Deputy Protector General, for crying out loud! Where was his strength?

He had to be professional. He wanted to be the Protector General someday, didn’t he? Well, he never would be if he kept up as the office playboy. He needed to be firm, someone that commanded respect, not a wink and a smile.

He nodded to himself, resolving to be better, and started thinking about this new case. Darcey was waiting for him at the Women’s Center and… Darcey. Now she was a good-looking woman…

 

December 7^th.

The next day. Four guards in the back, all carrying semi-automatics and wearing Kevlar vests. Looks like Temlane’s beefed up security since my visit. No problem. Shadowstar picked up his rifle, centered on the guard furthest to his left through the scope, and fired.

The man clutched at his neck and then went down. The tranquilizer dart had found its mark. Before the next guard could react, he, too, had a dart in his neck. The third guard had time to look around, but couldn’t see Shadowstar crouched behind the bushes across the GenRes parking lot.

The fourth guard, however, had spotted him and was running right for him, gun blazing.

No more time to play nice. Shadowstar slung the rifle around his back and leaped out from his hiding place.

Three Chinese stars hit the guard, one sticking into his Kevlar, but the other two landing in his leg and the side of his throat. Suddenly unable to breathe, the man immediately realized what had happened, realized that he was going to die, and became even more determined to take his assailant with him.

But Shadowstar remained a moving target, jumping and rolling around the man and successfully avoiding the spray of bullets. The barrage finally ended when Shadowstar rolled behind the guard and slammed a nunchuck into the back of his head.

From there, it was fairly easy to get into the building. A homemade bomb duct-taped to the back door took care of the lock.

Another guard rounded the corner of the hallway and opened fire. A Chinese star to the forehead took him out.

Shadowstar had no way of knowing how many guards were in the building and was sure that LandForce would be on their way soon. He had to be quick, had to get to the labs, throw his bombs, and get out.

Luca was headed up in the elevator to his office when he heard the commotion. Gunfire! Coming from somewhere in the building! And Luca knew what it meant. Shadowstar!

Well, that was why he had hired 25 more security guards today. After hearing about the Women’s Center bombing, he wasn’t taking any chances. The gunfire was probably the guards killing Shadowstar.

But to be safe, Luca stopped the car and started it going back down.

A second later, Luca heard a loud blast and felt himself flying backward into the wall of the elevator. What was that? An explosion? And the elevator’s stopped!

He imagined the elevator cables fraying above him, imagined the car breaking free and hurtling down the shaft.

Luca scrambled to the front of the car, gripped the crease of the doors with the tips of his fingers, and pulled. The doors opened slowly at first but then slid open automatically.

Luca looked out and saw brick. I’m stuck!

Then he looked down and saw carpet. He was halfway between floors. Was there enough room for him to get down to that lower level? He decided to try.

He crouched and laid on his stomach, looking out into the hallway of the lower level. No one was there. He couldn’t hear anything, either. Okay; here we go.

Luca turned around and stuck his legs out through the opening. Slowly, he slid himself backward, stretching to find the floor.

He was too short. He’d have to let the rest of his body out and hang there with his arms fully extended before he could reach.

There! Got it! And he still didn’t hear anything.

He looked around and saw that he was on the eighth floor. But where is everybody? Did they get out already? No, they’re probably all hiding in their labs, waiting for LandForce. Or security. Not a bad idea.

He started down the hall toward one of the rooms, but then it was too late. A doorknob suddenly hit brick behind him as the door crashed open.

Luca whirled around and saw the open doorway of the stairwell. And he heard yelling, the voices of the security guards echoing as they ran up the stairs.

But who had come out of the door?

“Hello, Doctor.”

Luca jumped, his heart stopping for a moment, and started to turn toward the voice. It was right behind him. But then he felt a strong arm reach around his neck, pulling him close. The grip was tight, cutting off his air. But there was something else too. Something pressed against the side of his head. A gun.

And then the security team crashed the door open again. They stopped immediately when they saw that the intruder had a hostage.

Luca’s heart was pounding uncontrollably, and his head ached. Ten security officers and Shadowstar were in a standoff, and the criminat had put him in the middle.

Luca forced himself to breathe. Then he deliberately worked up some saliva and swallowed it. His tongue still felt thick and dry, but he couldn’t worry about that now. He cleared his throat and spoke, the words coming out as a husky whisper. “What are you going to do?”

“Tell your men to stand down,” Shadowstar ordered.

But Luca hesitated. He didn’t want them to stand down. He wanted them to take the shot. If they fired, the man behind him would be dead before he knew it. There was no way Shadowstar could shoot Luca before he died. At this range, the bullet would be through his head before anyone even heard the crack of the gun.

But when Shadowstar yelled, “Drop ‘em!” the security team reluctantly obeyed.

 “What are you going to do?” Luca asked again.

“Did you watch the news?” Shadowstar asked, dragging Luca backward as he walked away from the security team.

“Yes.”

“The abortion clinic didn’t listen when I told them to stop. And neither did you.”

“I… You didn’t give me enough time!” Luca protested.

“You had two days!” Shadowstar yelled. “And what did you do with it? Nothing! Business as usual. Hired some more guards and keep killing kids! You’re done!”

“So what are you going to do? Kill me and blow up this building too? Like you did the Women’s Clinic?”

“That’s right.”

“Okay. And how many embryos do you think that’s going to kill in the process?” Luca yelled.

Luca felt a sudden lightning spike of pain shoot through his body as Shadowstar clubbed the side of his head with his gun. “I don’t know. A lot probably. But at least you won’t be able to make any more.”

And with that, Shadowstar pulled a crudely fashioned grenade off his belt, drew the pin out with his teeth, and threw it through the open door of the lab they were passing.

The bomb exploded as the two of them continued down the hallway toward the next lab. The security officers were behind them, keeping their distance.

Luca glanced behind him and saw that this next door was closed. Is someone in there? Luca frantically wondered.

Shadowstar pulled another grenade out, opened the door, stuck his foot in to keep it propped open, gripped the pin in his mouth, and tossed.

The vigilante drew back his foot, and Luca heard a woman scream. Dr. Wezel’s lab assistant, he thought as the bomb blew.

“You’re crazy!” Luca screamed.

“No, you’re crazy!” Shadowstar countered. “You think you can do what you want and not have to pay for it! That’s crazy! I’m here to tell you that there is justice! There is right and wrong!”

“And you don’t know the difference,” a new voice cut in.

Luca felt Shadowstar’s arm slide away, and he spun to see who the speaker was.

It was a Forceman, already running into the next room, where Shadowstar had disappeared. The name on the back of the Forceman’s jacket read “Dpty. Slate”.

  

2064. January 2^nd.

 A month later. The cab pulled up in front of Bill’s Tavern and Lucy got out. Blast, it’s cold! she thought.

Marshall was out of town on a job this week. Down south somewhere this time – Georgia, she thought. And it had been a long, busy day at Korisher’s. Everybody got their assistance funds from the government the first day of the month, and they couldn’t wait to spend it. But at least she was off now. A month ago, she would’ve had to work all night. But since the store was downtown, they had been getting too many drunks, druggies, and crazies coming in off the street. So, as of the first of the year, Korisher’s closed at midnight. Which was good, Lucy thought, because now she could stop in at Bill’s and have a drink before heading home.

A man in a long, wool, dress coat walked around the cab as she was getting out. He stopped at the bar’s door and waited for her to catch up so he could open it for her. “Thanks,” Lucy said, smiling at him.

“No problem.”

Lucy walked up to the bar and took a seat, hanging her purse and coat over the back of the chair. The man claimed the seat next to her.

“Korisher’s,” the man said, reading her shirt. “That’s that grocery store, right?”

“Yep,” Lucy nodded.

“How do you like it?”

“Oh, it’s not bad,” Lucy lied. “Not very much money though.”

The man nodded.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a geneticist. Tell you what. Since you don’t make a lot of money and I do, why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

Lucy thought she should be offended, but wasn’t. “Okay. Sure.” The elderly bartender came over, and they gave him their orders.

After Lucy had four drinks and the man five, he said, “Name’s Charlie, by the way.”

“Lucy.”

“Well, Lucy, how’re you gettin’ home? You gotta call another cab?”

“Um…yeah, I guess so. My car’s not running right now, and my husband has the truck.”

“You’re married?”

Lucy nodded. The two of them had been talking and laughing together for about an hour and a half now, and she wasn’t sure how he would react to the news of her being a married woman. He had been showing some interest in her, but now maybe he’d back down.

“Well, why don’t I just drop you off, then?” Her marriage didn’t bother him.

“Okay.” She had let him buy her drinks. Why not take a little more advantage and let him save her from paying the cab fare?

Lucy was nervous the whole ride home. What was this man, Charlie, expecting? Should she invite him in? Give him a couple of dollars and thank him for the ride? What about Marshall? But Marshall wouldn’t know. And it had been a long time since any other man had shown an interest in her. What if she invited him in for some coffee and then left it up to him?

The car stopped on the curb in front of her house. This was it. “Do you want to come in for some coffee?” she asked.

“Sure.”

Charlie was opening his door when Lucy said, “Hang on a minute. Let me tell the babysitter she can go. I don’t want her getting the wrong idea.”

“Okay,” Charlie said, closing the door again. She has kids? he thought. Kids were not sexy to Charlie. He saw the babysitter leave and get into her car. A minute later, Lucy was waving him in. Should I go? he wondered. She’s not very pretty. Chubby too. Susan and Amy are both a lot better. But I told her I would. I guess I’m feeling lazy tonight. Don’t want to put the time into anything better.

Charlie walked up the drive and into the house. The living room light was on, and Charlie saw it all. A playpen in the corner. A faux wooden coffee-table with water stains all over it. Stained couches that looked twenty years old. What am I doing here? He closed the door behind him. Almost. It was stuck on the frame.

“Just give it a little push,” Lucy said. “It’ll be fine.”

Charlie pushed the door closed with a bit of a thud and almost immediately heard the sound of a baby fussing in the other room.

“Oh, that’s Gretchen,” Lucy explained. “Be right back,” and off she went.

When Lucy came back into the living room, the front door was cracked open, and Charlie was gone.

 

About four hours later, Luca walked the halls of Floor Eight, inspecting the construction crew’s repair job. They had filled in the bullet holes and Chinese star marks in the lower levels and the stairwells. Now, these labs also looked new, ready to be used again. It had been expensive replacing all the equipment, but it had been worth it. Anything to forget the attack and move on.

LandForce Deputy Slate had volunteered to post men around the facility in case Shadowstar returned – the vigilante had somehow escaped that night – but Luca had refused the offer. The last thing he wanted was a regular detachment of Forcepeople hanging around.

So instead, he had decided to take the path of least resistance and do what Shadowstar wanted. Over the next two weeks after the attack, Luca began sending out orders throughout the company, ordering teams to phase out their use of human embryos for any project within GenRes walls. They would have to use other stem cells or otherwise non-embryonic human tissue.

Pleased with what he had seen of the repairs, Luca headed for the elevator. It was six a.m. now. Time to relieve Susan in the control room.

When the elevator doors opened again, Susan was there, asleep. She was slouching in her chair with her mouth hanging open and a little line of drool running down her chin. She had pulled another all-nighter. She had been doing that a lot lately.

Luca cleared his throat, loudly. Susan stirred and wiped the spit off her face.

“Morning!” Luca greeted.

“Morning,” Susan returned as she stretched and yawned.

“Another long night, huh?”

“Oh. Yeah.”

“Wasn’t last night Charlie’s turn? Again?” Luca said jokingly. He didn’t care who was here in the control room as long as one of them was, but he was curious as to why Susan had been the one to stay so often lately.

“Um…yes, it was,” she answered seriously. She held his gaze for a moment.

Luca thought she wanted to tell him something, but wasn’t sure how to ask. “Okay.”

“Luca,” Susan began, “has Charlie said anything to you…about us?”

“About you and Charlie?”

Susan nodded.

“No. Why? Is everything all right?” Susan and Charlie used to be Luca’s best friends – Susan first and then Charlie more by association than anything else – all through graduate school. But then, when they started the company, Luca started acting like he had to be more professional, had to play the executive businessman and distance himself personally from his associates. That and the fact that he was having a hard time dealing with the seriousness of Susan and Charlie’s relationship. Now, he felt like he hardly knew the couple.

“Luca, I think… I don’t know… I think maybe he’s seeing someone else.”

“Oh?”

“Do you think he could be?”

Luca leaned against the console. “I don’t know, Suse. I haven’t talked to him. I mean, if he were, he wouldn’t tell me.”

Susan nodded.

“I guess I can ask him,” Luca offered.

“No, that’s okay.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“And you two just set a date for the wedding, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. That’s the thing I don’t understand. Anyway…”

Susan trailed off, and Luca didn’t know what else to say. He wanted to say something comforting. He felt like he should. They were friends, after all, or at least they had been a year ago. And though he would never say it out loud, especially not to her, he still loved her. He had always loved her. He hated Charlie for snatching her up when he hadn't dared to ask her out himself. Now, this little bit of news about Charlie’s possible affair had awakened a hope in Luca that he would never have imagined feeling again.

Susan gathered her coat and walked out, leaving Luca wondering. Is she going to talk to Charlie now? They shared a condo and it was still two hours before Charlie was due in at the control room.

 

Charlie came in on time two hours later. “Hey, Doc!” he said.

“Hey, Doc,” Luca returned, following the pattern of their normal greeting to one another.

“Anything new?” Charlie asked, taking a seat and signing on to the console computer.

Anything new with you? Luca wanted to ask. But instead, he simply turned to his printout that he was pretending to read and answered, “Nope. Everything’s fine.”

“Okey-dokey.”

Then, after a pause, Luca asked, “Have you seen Susan today?” His eyes were glued to the computer sheet, and he was trying his best to sound uninterested in his own question.

“What? Oh, no. I left before she got in. Went out and had some breakfast. Why?”

“Oh…no reason. I think she mentioned wanting to ask you about something.”

“Oh. Well, I’ll see her tonight.”

“All right. I’m heading up. See you at six.”

“Later.”

Luca stepped into the elevator, inserted his key, and pressed the button for the top floor office suite.

 “Good morning, Dr. Temlane,” greeted Lois Pearney, Luca’s always-too-cheery administrative assistant.

“Good morning, Lois. How are you today?”

Lois had learned by now that Luca did not care how she was – he was far too busy for that – so she simply dismissed his question and enthusiastically launched into the morning’s messages and then the day’s itinerary. “I tried calling you. You must have turned your phone off again.” Luca’s phone was always ‘turned off’ when he was in the control room. Cellular signals couldn’t reach that far below ground. “Dr. Wezel would like to know if you could give him another day’s extension before he presents his progress. He said something about wanting to redo the configuration for the thumb.”

“Fine. Give him the day.” Luca did not care about Dr. Wezel’s project. DNA coding to make everyone double-jointed in their thumbs was neat – useful even – but not a necessity. Luca wanted cures before enhancements. “But do me a favor and ask Strom how he’s doing on those lymphocytes.” Now that – strengthening the immune system – was a worthwhile project.

“Very well. And you have a videocon with Mr. Patel at ten, and then Senator Dickinson is coming for DNA testing at eleven-fifty.” DNA testing was old. Genetics companies had been doing it for years. All you needed was a sample of someone’s saliva cells, and the computer could map their DNA and print out a detailed, personal analysis for them. You could tell your customer all the genetic quirks they had: whether they were at risk for Crohn’s disease or macular degeneration, what their possibility was for developing osteoarthritis or having healthy children. It was an old service, but it was easy, and it brought in money. Luca usually had one of the hired lab technicians run the test, but he always insisted on doing it himself when someone important was coming in, such as Senator Dickinson from the County Senate. It never hurt to have people like that knowing who you were and having something that you had done for them. “Then you have….” Lois continued, but, by now, Luca had stopped listening. She went on like this every day. And then this and then you have to do this, and then we scheduled that, and please sign these papers. Luca hated the administrative stuff, but he knew that it was the cost of doing business. It was the cost of being his own boss and being able to work on the projects – both legal and illegal – that he wanted to.

Is Charlie cheating on Susan? Luca wondered. He hoped he was. Not that he wanted Susan to get hurt, but he would be very glad to have her break her engagement with Charlie. How long do I have to wait after they break up before I can ask her out?

One o’clock finally rolled around, and the administrative/P.R. garbage was over with. Senator Dickinson had left, happy and grateful for the results of her test. Luca had had to fudge the analysis a little bit for that.  Now, Luca was free to work in his lab. His current project was what he called the Distrahant Gland, a genetically fabricated gland that doctors could surgically place – and then hopefully DNA code for – beside the human heart. Once implanted into a person’s body, it would continually release a small amount of distrahant, a dissolving agent, that would target cholesterol and systematically rid the circulatory system of any harmful build-up.

At five ‘til six, Luca locked up his lab and headed for the elevator. Charlie’s shift was over.

“Hey,” said Luca.

“Hey,” said Charlie.

“Anything new?”

“Nah, not really.”

Luca looked through the window into the Isolation Room. Most of the kids were sleeping. A couple of them were lying down, staring off in front of them. One was crying.

“Susan’s not here yet, huh?” Luca asked, turning around. Charlie and Susan were on ten-hour shifts. Lately, Susan had been working the nights and Charlie had been working the days with Luca filling the gaps in between.

“She should be here soon.”

Luca nodded.

Just then, Susan did walk in. “Hello!” she greeted Luca. Then, “Hey, babe!” and stooped to kiss Charlie. She had Chinese take-out with her and Luca was suddenly reminded that he had worked through lunch to get some more time in his lab.

“Smells good,” Charlie smiled. “But…um…I wonder if you could do me a favor, Suse.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Well, now that you’re here, I was wondering if you could relieve me and let me go home. I’m bushed.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Are you sure that’s okay? I’m really sorry, hon.”

“No, it’s fine,” Susan said. “Do you at least want to eat first?”

Charlie rubbed his stomach. “I’d like to, but I just ate. I didn’t know you were bringing stuff or I would have…”

“Oh. Well, okay, then. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Charlie stood, grabbed his jacket off the hook, and gave Susan a peck on the cheek as walked to the elevator.

Susan quickly set her food down on the edge of the console and asked, “Luca, could you do me a favor?” Her voice was desperate and conspiratorial.

Luca turned around. “Sure, Suse.”

“Could you cover for me for a while? I’ll be back, but…” She paused.

“But what?”

“I want to go see what Charlie’s up to.”

 “You think he’s going to…”

“I don’t know. I mean, maybe, right? I need to know.”

“Okay,” Luca nodded. “No problem.”

The elevator doors were opening when Susan turned around. “Oh! Luca! You can have that Chinese if you want.”

The elevator doors closed and Luca was left alone. His stomach growled as he reached for the take-out. He hoped Susan would discover the worst tonight.

 Being careful to stay a few cars behind him, Susan followed Charlie’s car downtown and watched as he stopped in front of the Emergency Wing of Mercy First Hospital. What is he doing? Susan wondered as she parked behind an ambulance to stay out of sight. And then she knew. A young red-headed woman came half-running out of the hospital and got into the passenger seat of Charlie’s car. The redhead had a folded nurse’s uniform under her arm. When she got in, Charlie leaned over, put an arm around her, and kissed her on the mouth.

Susan couldn’t believe it. How could he do this to her? Angry and forcing herself not to cry, she commanded her car to continue following Charlie’s at a distance.

She waited in the parking lot for almost two hours while Charlie and his date ate at El Perro, a Mexican restaurant, no doubt spending a lot of time at the bar if she knew Charlie. When they came out, Charlie drove the girl to his condo. Correction. To Susan’s condo. Their condo.

Had Charlie brought her home before? Susan couldn’t say. If he had, he had covered it up pretty well because Susan had never noticed anything out of place before. She had never noticed any strange perfumes or found any leftover clothing. The reason she had begun to suspect Charlie wasn’t because of any physical evidence left by a girlfriend, but because of his distant attitude toward her lately. They had finally set a date for the wedding… That was it! Susan realized. She had been on him for months to finalize wedding plans, and when he had finally agreed to, this was what he did! He didn’t want marriage at all! Well, fine! He won’t have one, then! Not with me! Susan concluded.

Furious, Susan got out of the car, started to slam the door shut behind her, but then caught it. No reason to alert them yet. She wanted to surprise them. She tiptoed to the front door, typed in her code to the alarm system, and pressed her forefinger onto the sensor. The system recognized her and unlocked the door. She gently pushed it open, and there were Charlie and the redhead on the couch together.

“Charlie!” Susan screeched.

Charlie and the girl jumped, both of them immediately snatching for recently discarded garments.

“Suse…,” Charlie began, not sure what to say next.

Susan wanted to yell at him, wanted to scream and rant and rave and drive him into the ground for the slug that he was, but this was too much. Sudden tears blinded her and stopped her throat. The only thing she could do was turn and run back out to her car.

  

January 3^rd.

 Charlie came in as usual at eight a.m. the next morning. “Hey, Luca,” Charlie muttered. He was looking pretty haggard and went straight to the coffee pot.

“Good morning, Charlie. You doing all right?” Luca made the question sound like he was concerned about Charlie rather than the status of Charlie and Susan’s relationship. Susan hadn’t come back last night, so Luca knew that something had happened. Had Susan caught Charlie cheating? Had she dumped him?

“Oh. Well, you know. I’ll be all right.”

“You sure? You don’t sound too…happy this morning.”

“Yeah. Don’t worry. I’ll be okay.”

Luca wanted to press him, but he knew he wasn’t going to get anything more.

 

That evening, when Luca went down to relieve Charlie from his shift, Susan was already there. The two of them were talking quietly and barely looked up when the elevator doors opened. This isn’t good, Luca thought. Why aren’t they yelling? It could have been a calm break-up talk, Luca reasoned, but this could also be a getting-back-together talk. Either way, Luca didn’t even bother to step off the elevator. He pressed the button for the ground level and went home. If he were going to have his chance with Susan, he would have to give the two of them their space and wait to find out what was happening.

  

January 4^th.

 The next morning, when Luca went down to the LifeSpace, Susan was sleeping in her chair again. Luca watched her for a moment, staring at her, studying her, thinking how beautiful she was.

“Hey,” she said, waking up.

“Hey. How are you?” He meant it this time but wanted information none the less.

“I’m okay,” she nodded. “Thanks for staying the other night. I was right. Charlie was seeing someone.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. But it’s all right now.”

Luca just looked at her, hoping that she would go on.

“We talked and, I don’t know, I figured that if you love someone, you’ve got to forgive them, right? I mean Charlie was having sex with another woman. It’s not like he loved her. He loves me. And it’s not like it’s entirely his fault. I mean we have, what? One day a week together at home? The rest of the time we’re here. And that day that we are home, we’re so busy doing chores and taking care of the house and doing wedding stuff that even then, we don’t get to spend that much time together.”

“You’re saying you forgave Charlie?” His voice betrayed his shock. He couldn’t help it.

“Well, we decided to put the wedding off for now, but, yes, I forgave him. We’re gonna try to…”

“I can’t believe you forgave him!” Luca was getting indignant now.

“Luca, what’s the matter? Charlie and I love each other.”

“Really? Charlie loves you? Is that why he cheated on you? Because he loves you?”

“Luca…” Susan protested.

“I would never cheat on you, Susan!

“Luca…” Susan didn’t know what else to say.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment. “I’m sorry, Susan,” Luca said. He was calm again and the professionalism was back in his voice.

“I..”

“It’s okay,” he cut her off. “I’m going to go back up to my office for a minute. You can go home. I’ll be right down.”

  

May 26^th.

 About five months later, Shawn Dybek – Shadowstar – was crouching in the shadows on the roof of an abandoned warehouse. He had stayed busy these last few months. Some big things, such as the Al-Jafaari Mosque downtown. Let them experience some terrorism for once, he thought. Some small things, including following known criminals who had gotten off on technicalities or a lack of evidence or through the skill of their smooth-talking lawyers, and punishing them.

Now, he was tailing Bobby Fraley, a small-time drug dealer who was gunning for the big-time. Moments before, Fraley had carried a large briefcase, presumably full of cash, into a warehouse on Stanley Avenue. Shadowstar knew that Fraley didn’t have enough money to fill a case that large, so somebody must be backing him.

The question was, Where was the seller? If he could, Shadowstar wanted to take down Fraley and whoever he was buying from, but what if the seller wasn’t here yet? If he went crashing in now, with only Fraley in the building, he would get only him. Better to wait until he knew he could get everyone involved.

A car pulled up, and four guys got out. Three of them were carrying machine guns, one another briefcase. They walked into the building, and Shadowstar knew the sellers were here.

He couldn’t go crashing in with those machine guns there though. That would make him a target, and that wasn’t smart.

No, a subtle approach would be better for this situation.

He lowered himself by a rope down from the roof and went around to the side of the building. He found a window there and listened. There was no sound and no lights on in the room where the window was. Perfect.

Shadowstar quickly pulled four long strips of duct tape off of his belt and stuck them in a large rectangle around the inside edges of the window. Then he took out his glass cutter and slowly sliced along the center of each strip of tape.

The glass of the window came out almost noiselessly in a perfect rectangle. Shadowstar set the pane down outside and slipped in through the hole.

A minute later, he found them. They were two rooms down from where he had entered, and Bobby Fraley was handing over the money and reaching for the other briefcase. That one was probably filled with drugs. Maybe cocaine, maybe heroin, but most likely Cruise. That was what most of these people were interested in now.

The exchange was over, and Fraley was walking toward the door. They had decided that he would be the first to leave. If Shadowstar was going to get all of them, he had to do it now.

He flicked three Chinese stars, one for each automatic-wielder, and rolled out. He had to stop Fraley’s exit. He could have thrown two more stars at Fraley and the seller and brought them all down, but he wanted to ask them a couple of questions first. He wanted to know who was backing Fraley and who was supplying the seller? That way, he would know who to go after next.

But as he rolled out, a spray of machine gun bullets ricocheted off the cement floor in front of him, and he had to stop short and jump in another direction. He found cover behind a scrapped fork-lift and checked the scene.

Had he missed one of the gunners? No, they were all down. The seller was scrambling to pick up one of their guns, but he couldn’t have been the one shooting yet. And Fraley was already running out the door. He hadn’t turned around long enough to pull a weapon.

So who had shot at him?

He had to find out. He jumped out of his hiding place and heard the hidden machine gun blare again. He ran to the seller, grabbing him from behind and around the throat, just as he had Luca, hoping to use him as a hostage.

But the bullets didn’t stop. Metal slugs tore through the seller’s body and hit Shadowstar, his metal armor barely stopping them from piercing his skin.

He had to get out. He knew now what direction the fire was coming from, but he would never be able to get over there before one of the bullets finally pierced his armor.

Throwing down the seller’s body, Shadowstar made a break for it, running back the way he had come.

Thirty seconds later, Deputy Slate and a squad of Forcepeople came running in through the front door.

“Blast!” Jim cursed. There was no one in the warehouse except for the four dead gangsters.

 

It was late when Jim walked in the door. Doranne was already asleep. She used to wait up for him, used to worry about him, used to beg him to quit the Force, but not anymore. She still worried about him, but she no longer bothered him with her worries. Instead, she went about her day and hoped he came home at night. If he didn’t come home for dinner, she would call his phone to check on him. If he didn’t answer, she would wait and hope he came home later that night. If not, she would go to bed and hope he came home by morning. Most nights he did. Some nights he didn’t. But that was the job. That was what he had signed up for when he had joined the Force, and that was what she had signed up for, whether she knew it or not, when she had married him.

Tonight, when Jim came home, she heard him. Kicking back the covers, she went out to meet him.

Jim was warming a cup of coffee in the microwave, the last in the pot from this morning’s brew. “Hey,” he said when Doranne rounded the corner into the kitchen.

“Hey,” she smiled at him. “Hard day?”

Jim sighed. He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. Doranne sat next to him. “We were working a case,” Jim said. “Following this drug dealer, trying to find out where he was getting his Cruise. We had one of his guys tapped and were tailing him on a buy. He was selling to this small-timer, not buying, but we figured we’d stay with him. Maybe he’d say something, you know?

“But then Shadowstar’s suddenly in with ‘em. At least that’s what the buyer, this punk named Fraley, said. We nabbed Fraley running out of the building. And we found the window that Shadowstar must have gone in through. Anyway, someone starts shooting and now my guy and the dealer are both dead.”

“You think Shadowstar killed them?” Doranne asked.

“I don’t know. He would. I don’t think they killed themselves,” he said, a touch of sarcasm coming into his voice. “And Shadowstar’s gone. He completely ruins my investigation and, once again, somehow vanishes into thin air.”

“I’m sorry,” Doranne said, getting up from her seat and moving behind him to rub his shoulders. “But at least the guy, the drug dealer, can’t sell anymore now, right?”

Jim sighed again. “Some other moron’ll take his place. The drugs are still gonna get out there.”

“I know. But if Shadowstar gets all the small guys out of the way, then there won’t be anyone for the big guys to sell to. He’s at least slowing them down, right?”

Jim turned around in his chair to face her. “What are you saying? You like Shadowstar?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying…” Doranne stopped talking and smiled at him for a moment. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m just trying to make you feel better.”

 

October 1^st.

Four months later. “Number Ten crawled last night,” said Charlie.

 “Oh! Great!” Luca said. “Tonight’s the night, then.”

Roger would not want to hear this, but his services would not be needed now for at least a year and a half. At about four months, children normally begin teething, and once those first little chomper bones come in, kids will start putting things – anything – into their mouths. It’s the first step to self-sufficiency. Now the youngest subject was in his ninth month, and all ten of the kids had begun to crawl. Some of the older ones were already using the room’s décor to pull themselves up and take their first few steps.

Tonight, with all of the kids being at least partially mobile, they would tell Roger to stop hand-feeding them.

Instead, one of the three observers, whoever was on duty at the time, would switch the lights off, open the door, and hurriedly throw in some food. It was going to be all natural, of course: raw fruits, nuts, vegetables, and grains. The kids would then have to learn to feed themselves. The theory was that the subjects would crawl or walk to the food, put things in their mouths as normal, and eventually learn what was edible and what was not, what was food and what was dirt or leaves or a rock or something nastier. If one of the children did not learn to eat on their own or if one of them began choking on something, the team would intervene.

“I’ll go up and call Roger in a minute.”

“Poor queer’ll be heart-broken,” Charlie said. “He loves those kids. At least it’ll give him more time to spend with his boyfriend.”

Luca looked at Charlie out of the corner of his eye. ‘Queer’? Did I hear him right? What year was this? And Roger doesn’t have a boyfriend. “Husband,” Luca corrected.

“What?”

“Louie’s his husband. They’re married.”

“Same difference, Doc. It’s sick, either way. The way I see it is if they have the freedom to do it, I have the freedom to be disgusted by it. Know what I mean?”

Luca laughed. “Okay.” Charlie was a bit outdated on this one, but he wasn’t going to argue with him.

Charlie left, and a few minutes later, Luca was on the elevator. Once he had cleared the basement, he pulled out his handheld and made the call to Roger. “Yeah. Roger. This is Dr. Temlane. Listen, don’t bother coming in tonight. We’re moving on to the next phase of the experiment… No, don’t worry, the kids’ll be fine. Trust me. We’ve got it all under control… Yes, I’m sure. Listen, I’ll call you in about a year or so when I need you again, all right? And Roger, I probably don’t need to tell you this, but remember; the research this company does is to be kept strictly confidential… Okay. I know you know. I’m only making sure. Now, I’m going to keep you on retainer as we talked about so money shouldn’t be an issue for you, okay? As long as you understand that you still can’t talk about your work here... Okay, Roger. Take care.”

Luca pressed the End button and rode the elevator back down.

 

It had been six o’clock in the evening when Charlie left, but at nine, Susan still hadn’t shown up. Luca waited, but she never came in. He called her. He called Charlie. But neither one of them answered.

  

October 2^nd.

 Six a.m. Neither Susan nor Charlie had ever shown up last night. Luca was taking his first sip of morning coffee when he heard the elevator go up and then come back down.

Finally, Luca thought, exhaling in relief as the door opened and Susan stepped out. Then, seeing that he knew she was okay, a surge of anger welled up in him. He nearly asked where she had been all night when he noticed that her eyes were puffy and red. “What’s the matter?” he asked, his mood instantly softening.

Susan ran to him and embraced him, making some of the coffee in his hand slosh out and spill onto his fingers. It burned a little, but he didn’t mind. He hugged her back. “What’s up?” he asked again. “Are you all right?”

“You were right, Luca,” she sobbed, her face pressed against his shoulder. “He did it again.”

“Who did what again?” He thought he knew, but he wanted to hear her say it.

“Charlie. He cheated on me again. With some blonde he met at the bar.”

“Oh, Suse,” he said, squeezing her tighter. “I’m sorry.”

She pulled away then and dabbed her eyes with the end of her sleeves. “I’m sorry I didn’t come in last night,” she said. “I waited for Charlie to get home. I told him it was over and then I drove around all night. He called me a couple of hours ago. Said he was sorry. Said he was quitting the experiment too. Probably wanted to get away from me.” Then she laughed, and Luca thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, puffy eyes and all. “It’s not like we have to see each other a lot here, anyway!”

“You said Charlie’s quitting?” Luca sounded worried now.

“Yeah. But don’t worry. He promised to keep our secret. I mean he’d get in almost as much trouble as anyone if he told, right?”

“Susan, he can’t quit.”

Susan looked down at the floor. She knew Charlie couldn’t quit. None of them could. They were bound together in this until it was over, and none of them knew when “over” would be.

“Can you stay here?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly

“I’ll be back. I have to go take care of this.”

“Okay.” She didn’t know how he was going to ‘take care’ of Charlie. As angry as she was right now, she still hoped he would listen to reason. She hoped that he would come back to the project and not push Luca to do anything too drastic. Luca had ties to criminals now, after all. How else could he have gotten the kids? And it seemed as if he had enough money and will to do almost anything.

 

Luca rode the elevator up to his office, stewing over what to do about Charlie. He couldn’t let him leave, could he? That would mean that only he, Susan, and Roger would be left on the project, and Roger wasn’t a scientist; he was a nurse. He and Susan couldn’t cover the project by themselves. It was hard enough splitting the hours between the three of them. He would have to bring in someone else to help them, and that would mean escalating his risk of being caught. No, he wouldn’t do that. And he couldn’t risk having Charlie out there, knowing what they were doing and not being involved himself. If he quit, he might do anything. He might turn them in to LandForce and expect immunity now that he was no longer a part of it. Luca couldn’t let that happen. Charlie had to stay on the team.

The elevator opened and Luca walked into his office. Thankfully, Lois wasn’t there yet to bother him. He pulled out his handheld and scrolled down to “Santori.” As the phone dialed, Luca’s mind turned to another subject.

Susan had hugged him. Susan had come to him with the news of her break-up with Charlie, and she had hugged him. Why? Was she willing to date him now? They hadn’t talked about Luca’s outburst the last time they found out Charlie was cheating on her. Very interesti-

“Doc?” It was Nick Santori’s sleepy voice on the other end of the line.

“Mr. Santori, I need you to do something for me.”

“How have you been, Doc? Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

“Are you listening?”

“Yeah, I’m listening.”

“There is a man named Charlie Stoller. I’ll send you a picture and his address in a moment. I want you to pay him a visit today. Tell him that he needs to keep his commitments.”

“What if he doesn’t wanna keep his commitments?”

“Persuade him. If he refuses, do what you have to. It is imperative that he talks to no one.”

“Okay. And what, uh, what am I getting paid for this ‘persuasion’?”

“You get to stay out of jail.” Click.

Luca sent the picture and address and then sat for a moment, breathing in and breathing out. Calm down, Luca, he told himself. Get your heart rate back to normal and then go back downstairs. Don’t miss your chance. Susan is finally finished with him.

 

October 3^rd.

 Charlie came in the next morning at his regular eight a.m. time. He stepped off the elevator and did not greet or even look at Luca. He simply sat down in his chair and quietly began reviewing the previous days’ computer log.

When Luca glanced over at him, he saw that Charlie was wearing a large bandage on his nose and that there was some bruising under his eyes. He had a cut on his cheek, and he had wrapped one of his wrists in gauze. Nick must’ve worked him over pretty good, including breaking his nose and possibly his wrist. Well, it was nothing permanent, Luca told himself, and it was what I had to do to keep the project – and Susan – safe.

 

December 24^th.

 About three months later, Jim Slate was staring at his computer screen, looking back over all of his notes on the Shadowstar case. It had been about a month since the vigilante had been active, and Jim was starting to wonder if some drug dealer had finally killed or wounded him. Either way, things were quiet on the Shadowstar front. So, for now, the ‘SS’ ninja troublemaker was no longer Jim’s top priority. It was a big city, and other issues were pressing for attention.

“Hey, Jim.”

He didn’t need to look up to know who it was. He recognized her voice. He looked up anyway though. He didn’t want to miss the sight. Darcey was walking past his desk on the way back to her own. “Hey, yourself,” he said, watching her behind as she moved. What a babe!

 

Shawn Dybek had made a decision. He was going in. It would be weird, unconventional certainly, but what could they do? They’d have to welcome him. It wasn’t as if they could keep him out or ask him to leave, could they?

He sat up in his seat, opened the car door, and walked around the side of the building toward the main entrance.

“Hey! Pastor Shawn!”

Blast! Someone had recognized him already. He had tried to come in late so that he could avoid talking to people for a while. He looked across the parking lot and waved. It was the Fortners. They were smiling and looked happy to see him, but he darted in the door before they could catch up to him.

A sea of faces greeted him. People were milling around, talking and drinking coffee and cider in the foyer. Panic-stricken, he glanced down at his watch. Seven o’clock. Time for the worship service to start.

So what was everyone doing out here instead of in the sanctuary? And who were all these new people?

“It’s so good to see you again! How have you been?” It was Mrs. Fortner behind him.

Shawn turned and shook her hand. While he was talking to her, he noticed that a crowd was starting to form around him.

Shawn saw Frank making his way through the crowd and was surprised to see him wearing a robe. “Shawn,” Frank greeted. He was smiling and reaching out his hand, but he sounded serious, “what are you doing here?”

Shawn shook the younger man’s hand and cleared his throat, very aware of the crowd. “Don’t worry, Frank. I’m not here to cause any trouble. I’m just coming to church. Christmas Eve, you know.”

“Great! It’s good to see you again. We should talk after the service.”

“Sure,” Shawn nodded.

And then Frank was off again, greeting other people as they came in. Shawn realized then that Frank had become the church’s new pastor and that, as the new pastor, he had changed the Christmas Eve service time. He had also succeeded in bringing in a lot of new guests. At that, Shawn felt a twinge of jealousy stab his heart but then thought, Good. Good for him. He was right, and I was wrong. I’ve been wrong about a lot of things lately.

And then he saw her coming out of one of the Sunday School rooms off of the foyer with Peggy Kines. Peggy had been a church member and a member of the board a year and a half ago when he was pastoring here.  It seemed as if it were longer ago than that. The woman with Peggy was new to the church since he had left. But he recognized her. And to a large degree, she was the reason he was here.

About a month ago, he had been out on the town as Shadowstar, looking for some trouble to stop, when he had heard a woman screaming for help. He had rushed out into an alley and found her, a black woman cornered by some greasy, long-haired white guy holding a knife to her throat.

He dived in and was beating the guy pretty badly, punishing him, when the woman jumped on him, trying to pull him off her attacker.

“Stop it!” she had screamed. “You’re killing him!”

“It’s what he deserves!” Shadowstar yelled back. “He was going to kill you! Or worse! Think of what he’s done to other women!”

“That’s not the way,” she had said. “Look at that cross on your chest. Do you think Jesus went around beating people? He loved people, no matter what they had done. He even let people crucify Him, and He didn’t fight back! He just prayed that God would forgive them.”

“God is also a God of justice,” Shadowstar argued.

“Which He,” – she emphasized ‘He,’ – “will take care of in the end. Not you. What happens if you kill him now?” She pointed at her attacker, unconscious and lying sprawled out on the ground. “He dies, and God judges him the way he is now. He goes to Hell. But if you let him live, then who knows?”

“Exactly! Who knows? Who knows how many people he’ll hurt before he finally dies?”

“Or maybe something will happen, and he will get saved. God could completely change his life.”

“Do you know what the chances are of that happening?”

“You don’t think God can reach out to this man?”

And then Shadowstar understood. He had been fighting a war on God’s behalf that God had never asked him to fight. What she had said about Jesus’ crucifixion reminded him of when Jesus told Peter to put his sword back in its sheath, that He could call down all the angels of Heaven to fight for Him if He wanted to. But He didn’t want to. He wanted to love. He wanted to sacrifice. He still had a standard, He was still holy, but He wasn’t going to convince people of that with a sword. Or a Chinese star. Or a gun. Jesus could’ve called down the army of Heaven, but He didn’t. He didn’t need or want the Apostle Peter – He didn’t need or want Shawn Dybek – fighting His battles for Him, delivering their own form of justice.

Jesus simply wanted Shawn to love – to love God and to love people. And to love them by trying to help them turn to and embrace His love, forgiveness, and peace.

He understood. ‘Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of this dark World.’ But he couldn’t tell her that then. He was too off-balance, too ashamed. So he left her there in the alley.

Now, here she was at God’s Love Christian Church, the place he had left a year and a half earlier to begin his wrong-headed crusade. It made perfect sense. He should never have left. Seeing this woman here now proved it.

Peggy and the woman walked up to him. “Hi, Pastor Dybek!” Peggy greeted.

“Hi, Peggy! But it’s not ‘Pastor’ anymore. Just Shawn.”

“Okay,” Peggy nodded. “Shawn, then. This is Viola.” Shawn shook Viola’s hand and noticed how soft it was. She was smiling at him, and he couldn’t help but think how beautiful she was, inside and out. “She’s new in town,” Peggy continued. “Moved in from Newsprings about…what?” She looked at Viola. “A month ago?” Viola nodded. “She works with me over at County Family Services.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Viola” Shawn smiled.

 

That same night, in the GenRes LifeSpace control room, Luca was getting nervous. It had been almost three months since Susan and Charlie’s break-up. Three months. A quarter of a year! A full trimester of a pregnancy! Yet Luca had still not asked Susan out. What if she isn’t ready? he kept asking himself. And so he had waited.

But not anymore. Tonight was the night. It was Holiday, and he knew that she didn’t have anyone else to spend it with. She and Charlie had both moved to Base City after Yale to work with him. And whereas Charlie had gone out and started multiple relationships without a problem, Susan had never even made another friend in the City. So he had decided to set a feast for Susan when she came in tonight. He had his maid, Ida, cook him up every Holiday favorite – ham, turkey, corn, peas, candied yams, croissants, pies, champagne – and bring it to him at the office. He would tell Susan that he had prepared it for her and would stay and eat with her. Then he would ask her if she minded if he stayed and gave her some company for the evening. With any luck, she would say yes. He even had some old Christmas movies saved on his computer for them to watch.

  “Oh, thank you!” Susan squealed when she saw the food. She gave Luca a quick hug.

“I’m glad you like it,” he smiled.

“Love it!”

 

Later that night, stuffed and happy, Susan and Luca were sitting in front of the console watching a holographic projection of It’s A Wonderful Life. Luca had scooted his chair progressively closer to hers. and she had let him put his arm around her.

In the movie, George Bailey (played by Christian James) was begging to get his life back when Luca and Susan heard the elevator start to go up. Someone was coming down, but who? Charlie wasn’t due in until the morning.

The doors opened, and it was Charlie. His eyes narrowed when he took in the scene: the food, Luca, the movie. “Susah,” he said, his voice slurring from too much alcohol. “I’na talk ta you.”

“Charlie, what are you doing here?” she asked, standing. “We don’t have anything to talk about.”

“C’mon! It’s Holiday!” he rebutted. He grabbed her arm, pulling her toward him.

Without thinking about it, Luca jumped up and decked Charlie in the mouth. It wasn’t a good punch. Susan was in the way, and Luca wouldn’t have known how to throw a punch even if she hadn’t been. But Charlie sprawled back anyway. “She said she doesn’t want to talk to you! Now get out of here!”

Charlie caught himself against the elevator doors. His hand accidentally hit the button because the doors opened behind him. Steadying himself, Charlie looked up and glared at Luca. He had murder in his eyes and looked as if he were going to lunge for him.

Then he thought better of it. “What’a ya gonna do, Luca?” he asked, his voice full of contempt. “What’a ya gonna do, huh? Send your thug to rough me up again? You gonna have me killed? I know what you want. You think I never noticed you looking at her? You’ve always wanted Susan. Haven’t you?”

Luca took a step closer, hoping that Charlie wouldn’t strike out at him. “Charlie, get out of here,” he commanded. “Don’t come down here again when she’s on duty.”

The two men stared at each other for a moment. Charlie cursed Luca and then Susan and stepped onto the elevator. A moment later, the doors shut and he was gone.

Shaking from the adrenaline, Luca turned around and sat back down in his chair. He looked at Susan and noticed she was shaking too. Luca forced a laugh and said, “I don’t know what he was talking about. Too drunk, I guess.”

Susan smiled, putting one of her hands on his in his lap. “You don’t have to lie.”

Luca pursed his lips and nodded. He slept there that night, in case Charlie decided to make a repeat appearance.

 

2065. January 2^nd.

A week later. Six a.m. “I had to throw in some more food to get it close enough to some of the crawlers, but everyone’s good now,” Charlie said.

Luca nodded. He was looking through the window into the Isolation Room. Two of the children, Number Nine, a blonde female, and Ten, the oriental boy, were sleeping next to each other in the corner by the door. Others were amusing themselves by splashing in the stream or munching on the food they picked up off the floor. He was waiting for Charlie to leave before turning around – things were still awkward between them – but Luca didn’t hear any sounds of Charlie gathering his things. It sounded as if he was just standing there.

After a moment, Charlie said, “Listen, Luca, I need to talk to Susan.”

“…About what?” Again there was silence behind him. Luca watched as Number One, a boy with jet black hair and the oldest subject in the room, lumbered over to Number Five, and deftly slapped her on the back. Number Five began to cry and dropped the already mushed banana she was holding.

“I have AIDS. That’s what I was trying to tell her the other night.”

Number One sat down, picked up the banana, and put it in his own mouth. Number Five then angrily smacked him back on the side of the head. Now it was Number One’s turn to start crying, but before he could react any further, Luca turned around to face Charlie.

He wanted to yell at the man. You slept around and cheated on Susan, and now you have AIDS! You probably gave it to her too! The woman I love! He wanted to smack him and punch him and kick him to the ground, but he knew that none of that would do any good. So he took in a deep breath, let it out, and said, “Okay.”

That night, when Susan came down to the control room for her shift, Luca and Charlie were both waiting for her. “What’s going on?” Susan asked, afraid that something had happened to one of their child test subjects.

Charlie didn’t say anything. He was busy looking down at the floor, so Luca explained. “Charlie came back a few minutes ago. He has something he needs to tell you.”

“I have AIDS,” Charlie said, looking into Susan’s eyes for a brief moment before dropping them again.

Susan was silent, staring at Charlie, taking in the implications. She could have the disease too. “How long?” she asked, but she knew it was a stupid question. It had been a little over three months since she and Charlie were together and modern diagnostics couldn’t detect the HIV virus in someone’s bloodstream for at least that long after they contracted it. Charlie, the scientist, hated going to doctors anyway so who knew how long it had been since he contracted it? It usually took years for a person to notice any symptoms.

Charlie, still studying the floor, answered, “I don’t know.”

“He’s getting sick now,” Luca said. So it had been years. “We want to take your blood if you’ll let us to see…” He was going to say, “to see if you have it,” but thought better of it.

Susan took off her coat, hung it over a chair, and rolled up her right sleeve. She felt numb except for the tightness in her chest. It was as if someone was holding her heart and squeezing it just hard enough not to let her take a full breath.

Luca stuck the needle in the crook of her arm and drew the blood. He handed her a cotton swab and turned to the console where he deposited a few drops of the blood onto the computer’s scanner. He pressed a button, and the computer began to read the sample.

A few minutes later, the computer screen registered a list of all the components present in Susan’s blood. HIV wasn’t on the list. She had tested negative.

Three months since she and Charlie had been together and she was negative. All three of them breathed a little easier. It was a good sign. Not conclusive, but good. She would have to wait another three months to be sure, but after being with Charlie for the better part of four years, she would have contracted it by now if she was going to get it, right? Probably, but not if he had contracted it in the last six months from one of those girls he was cheating on her with.

“We’ll test as often as you want,” Luca told her.

Susan nodded, but she knew she would be testing herself from now on.

Charlie mumbled “Sorry” as he walked past her and left.

Luca stayed the night with her that night, but neither one of them said much. They were both still weighing Susan’s chances of contraction and thinking about Charlie’s inevitable decline and eventual death.

 

August 16^th.

Luca and Susan had been dating for almost nine months now. They spent a lot of time in the control room together and would sometimes go out to dinner or a show or spend the evening at her condo.

Tonight was the first time Luca had invited her to his house. And he was excited about it. He knew she’d be impressed, but he was also a little nervous. It felt weird bringing someone else into the house. It was the house where he had grown up. It was his. No one lived there now except for him, Tom, and Ida, the two elderly people who had served his father and taken care of him when he was younger. They were supposed to be there. They were part of the house. Susan was not. She was new.

But maybe, in time, Luca mused, she would become part of the house. All in all, things were going well between them. He would probably ask her to marry him soon.

Then, again, maybe he wouldn’t. Susan did have AIDS, didn’t she? No, it had been almost a year now since she could have contracted it and she was still testing negative. The virus would have shown up by now.

Still, he couldn’t get the possibility of the disease out of his mind. That’s why he hadn’t slept with her yet. They had been together for nine months and, physically, not much had happened. Susan brought his reluctance up once, and Luca couldn’t think of anything to say. They both knew it was because he was afraid.

But not tonight, Luca told himself. Tonight he was going to conquer his fear. It was silly. He liked her, no, loved her, and she didn’t have the disease. Right?

Luca looked over at Susan as they pulled up to the front gate of his estate. No, someone as beautiful and as perfect as her couldn’t have it.

 

2066. January 1^st.

Four and a half months later. Today was the day they had all been waiting for, and, despite the tension in the group, they were all in attendance.

Their ten subjects were all two years old now and were about to graduate to the LifeSpace.

“Lights!” Luca called. And they all turned on their night-vision goggles while Charlie flipped the main light switch.

“Camera!” Luca called, and Susan hit a button.

After checking the monitor screens on the console, Susan confirmed, “LifeSpace live.”

“Action!” And Charlie opened the Isolation Room door while Luca swung the wheel-lock on the LifeSpace door. It was heavy with a foot of solid moss and hanging vines covering the other side, but he pulled it open easily enough.

One by one or sometimes with one under each arm, Luca, Susan, and Charlie picked up and carried each of the ten toddler subjects from the Isolation Room and set them down inside the LifeSpace.

When the transfer was complete, Luca pulled the door shut and the three observers went to stare at the monitors.

They had plopped the ten two-year-olds down in the very back right corner of the LifeSpace. At first, the kids didn’t seem to notice the change. They went on playing or sleeping or doing whatever came to their minds.

But then something caught Number Ten’s attention. The three scientists watched on their screen as the oriental boy stared off at a pear tree. “He’s found something,” Susan chuckled.

After a moment, the boy stood and walked toward the massive tree. It was certainly bigger than anything he had ever seen. There had been shrubs, and even tree starts in the Isolation Room, but not a full-grown tree. At first, he merely walked toward it – slowly, curiously. Then, he started running for it, but only in short bursts. Running was a skill he was not quite comfortable with yet, and he had to stop every few steps to regain his confidence.

When he did reach the tree, he extended his hand and touched its bark. He walked around the trunk and stared up at its height. He recognized the red fruit and stretched to take some, but it was out of range. He was working up his frustration when he saw a pear that had already fallen on the ground. He went to it and began nibbling.

He looked up again after a moment and saw that there was another tree in front of him. Beyond that was another and another. So he got up, took his pear with him, and began walking.

 When Number Ten looked around again, he was shocked to notice that he could no longer see the other children. What had happened? Where were they? He couldn’t remember them ever being out of his sight before, and now they were gone!

 “Aw, he’s lost,” moaned Susan as she watched Number Ten begin to cry on the screen.

“Don’t tell him that!” Charlie laughed. “You’ll make him cry even more!”

Number Ten dropped his half-eaten pear, made a quarter turn, and walked slowly onward, whimpering.

“He’s going the wrong way!” Susan said.

“Let’s see what he does,” Luca replied.

 

Number Ten kept wandering. Soon, he had walked half a mile with still no sign of the others! It was then that he saw the River.

It was much bigger than the shallow Isolation Room stream he knew. It fascinated him, but it also scared him somehow, making him take a few cautious steps back. He still wanted to see it, to watch it, to hear it, but he also wanted to make sure he was well out of its reach.

Once he felt safe again, he lied down on the grass and let the sound of the River’s flow put him to sleep.

 

Number Ten woke up a little less than an hour later. The nine had begun to move as well, exploring their surroundings as a group, but they were nowhere near him. They had gone off straight from the corner, and he was halfway across the LifeSpace to the left.

Number Ten followed the River at a safe distance and after another quarter mile came to a wooden bridge. He studied it for a moment, wary, but decided to cross. Soon, the River was on his other side.

 

It was getting late when Number Ten finally reached the far wall. Luca and Susan had left the control room an hour ago, and Charlie was left to work the overnight shift. He was happy to note that he was still feeling well despite the mucus flare-up he was having in his throat. He knew that was normal for AIDS victims, but he was taking all his medicines, self-prescribed, and didn’t feel much different than he ever had. Maybe AIDS wasn’t so bad after all. What was a little mucus once in a while? Maybe he could beat this thing.

Charlie turned his attention back to the monitors and the lost Number Ten. He had to give the little guy credit. Number Ten had started in one corner of the LifeSpace and had walked its entire length and over half of its width in one day! A two-year-old!

Now, the lights, programmed to follow the rising and setting of the outside sun, were almost completely dimmed. Number Ten had not seen any of his companions, his brothers and sisters, for hours. Lonely and unable to see more than a foot or two in front of him, he huddled against the back wall and cried himself to sleep.

 

January 2^nd.

Day two of the new year and day two of life inside the LifeSpace. Number Ten had woken up early and, after inspecting the far wall, had concluded that it was impossible for him to continue in that direction. He was now heading back the way he had come, still using the River as his guide.

 

He reached the bridge at midmorning and was trying to decide whether or not to cross again when he heard a noise. He froze, straining his ears. A second later, he heard it again. Yells! Screaming! Excited screaming! It was the other kids! He had found them!

Number Ten forgot the bridge and ran further upriver toward the direction of the control room. A moment later, he had the group in sight. They were on the opposite bank. His whole body tensed in exultation as a happy, high-pitched yell forced its way up from his diaphragm.

The nine companions saw him now and returned the rudimentary greeting. Charlie, in the control room, still waiting for either Luca or Susan to relieve him – apparently they had forgotten about him down here – couldn’t help but laugh at the kids’ sudden joy.

But the next second, Charlie’s amusement was cut short. His eyes popping wide, he shot up from his chair and gasped.

Excited to see their lost brother, two of the nine – Number Six, a boy, and Number Seven, a girl – cheerily ran into the River’s water, expecting to cross it as easily as they always had the Isolation Room’s shallow stream.

But as soon as they hit the water, they sank and were swept away by the River’s current.

Charlie ran for the LifeSpace door and frantically spun the wheel-lock. Maybe he could still save them! An alarm sounded inside the control room, indicating that the door had been opened unscheduled. The clanging of the alarm pierced through Charlie’s mind, and he realized the truth. The two kids were gone. There was no way he could get to them in time. They were half a mile from where he was when they fell in, and they were probably halfway to the back grate by now. Going back to his chair, he slumped down and buried his face in his hands. He didn’t bother shutting the door or turning off the alarm. He would still have to go in.

 Sudden surprise, followed quickly by horror, registered on the faces of all the kids left on the bank. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Number Ten, staring at the spot where his companions had tried to cross, realized how right he had been to fear the River and that fear was now increased a hundred-fold.

 

Susan and Luca came in together about an hour later, holding hands and laughing. They quickly stopped and let their hands fall when they saw Charlie’s face. They could both tell that he was more than perturbed at having been stuck there waiting for them.

“Charlie?” Susan ventured.

Charlie was staring into the empty Isolation Room, his face slack, his eyes wet. He cleared his throat and stoically, announced, “Numbers Six and Seven are deceased.”

“What?” Susan gasped. “How?”

“They tried to cross the River. They hadn’t found the bridge yet and . didn’t know that they couldn’t cross the water.”

Luca nodded while Susan collapsed into one of the chairs, weeping.

“I had to go in and retrieve them. The grate caught them.”

“You destroyed the evidence?” Luca asked.

“Yes, I destroyed the evidence!” Charlie yelled, suddenly losing his clinical calm. “I fished ‘em out, carried them all the way back here, and threw ‘em in the incinerator!”

“Oh, Charlie!” Susan said. She moved to hug him, but he pushed her away and stormed into the elevator without saying another word.

“All right, Charlie,” Luca said as Charlie yanked his key out and shoved it into the elevator control panel, “go home and get some sleep.”

Charlie did go home and went to sleep, but not before he got ridiculously drunk, weeping and sitting on the floor by his bed.

 

Inside the LifeSpace, Number Ten had guided the remaining seven toddlers to the bridge, walking parallel to them across the River. When they were all reunited, they embraced and then went about their business playing, napping, and foraging for food.

To look at them, you would think that they had all forgotten the events of the past hour, but that wasn’t true. Though they could not express their loss, the image of their brother and sister plunging into and being dragged away by the River was a picture that none of them would ever forget.

 

November 12^th.

Ten and a half months later. Luca needed a break. He had been working in his lab for three and a half hours already today, and he wasn’t getting anywhere. Time to roam the halls for a bit. That’s what he usually did when he was bored or stuck. He’d pick a floor or two and walk around, talking to the other scientists, checking on their progress. He thought it gave him a good sense of presence in the building for his employees to see him taking an interest in them.

Today, he decided to start at the bottom. Floor One. The Med Floor.

The first person he saw as he walked off the elevator was Brandie Mills, the Med Floor’s overweight Head Nurse. “Brandie! How are you, today?”

Brandie looked up from the papers she was carrying. “Fine.” Brandie was not the most cheery person in the building.

“Well, what’ve you got there? What are we working on?”

“DNA analysis. The kid has Tay-Sachs’.”

“A child?”

“No. Fetus. I’m on my way to tell the mother. No one else wanted to.”

And who would? Luca thought. What would they say? ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but your child’s going to start going blind, deaf, and losing all muscle control at approximately six months of age. It’ll die by the age of five. Of course, there’s always hope. There’s always the chance that someone’ll come up with a cure by then, but it’s very unlikely that that will happen. You see, Tay-Sachs’ isn’t a common enough problem to warrant much research, not even by us. Well, thank you for visiting GenRes and have a great day!’

But wait for a second. Tay-Sachs’. I can fix that! Tay-Sachs’ would be easy.

“Brandie, could I see that printout?”

“If you want,” she said, handing the analysis over. “What? You want to tell her?”

Luca glanced through the papers. Normal. Normal. He skipped to the last page, the one with the abnormality risks. There it was; Tay-Sachs’.

But he could fix it. He didn’t know how he knew how to fix it. But he knew he could. It was as if a lightbulb had suddenly flashed on in his head. The knowledge was there.

“I want to try something,” he mumbled and started to head back down the hallway toward the DNA lab. Brandie reluctantly followed.

Once they were in the lab, Luca said, “Brandie, do me a favor and pull up the computer model of this. I want to see something.”

Looking at the DNA sequence on the screen confirmed Luca’s idea. He could fix that little mutation that caused Tay-Sachs’. No problem. In fact…Oh, this is too good! he thought. If I made a few more tweaks, I could completely revolutionize this little girl’s life! He was going to do it. He had to. How could he not? This girl would never, ever be like any other little girl in the history of the world.

Luca cleared his throat. “Where is this patient?”

“Ms. Kines,” Brandie answered. “Room Five.”

A few seconds later, Luca was speaking to the pregnant woman. “Ms. Kines –”

“Call me Bethany,” she said.

“Okay, Bethany,” Luca agreed. “Are you alone here today?” He thought that she was. There was no one with her in the room, but he wanted to make sure.

“Um…yeah. My boyfriend… Well, the baby’s father… He isn’t around anymore. And my sister doesn’t know yet. Why? Is there something wrong?”

“I do have some…uncomfortable news for you. Your baby has Ryson’s. I’m not sure if you know anything about that condition, but depending on the child, it can lead to some fairly major learning difficulties. The good news is that it is curable. We caught it early enough to administer the corrective DNA for you here today if you’d like us to do that.”

Bethany had gone through both worry and confusion in the few seconds that he had been talking to her and now all she could say was, “Yes!”

“Okay. You want to do it, then?”

Bethany nodded. “Yes, if you can. What do you have to do?”

“Oh, nothing too invasive. We’ll have to inject the baby with the corrective. We can do that by going through the vagina. No incisions or pain at all.”

“Okay,” Bethany agreed.

A few minutes later, she was changing out of her medical gown and putting her clothes back on. Her baby girl never had Ryson’s. Her condition had been Tay-Sach’s, and now she didn’t have that either. The virus Luca had injected her with would slowly take over and alter her own cells, eventually entirely replacing her natural DNA with Luca’s concocted strain.

Riding back up the elevator to his office, Luca pulled out his phone. “Mr. Santori, I have a woman I want you to watch. And her child, too, when it’s born…”

 

Luca spent the rest of that day working out various computer models and then splicing and reconstructing DNA virus sequences. The ideas were coming to him faster than he could work, possibility after possibility exploding into his mind.

When he had finished, he hurried down to the LifeSpace control room. “Hey, Hon!

“Hey,” Susan replied, looking up from her magazine. “What are you so excited about?”

“Hmm? Oh, nothing,” Luca said grinning. “How are things going down here?”

“Fine. Are you sure you’re okay? You’re looking mighty happy about something.”

“No. I’ve just been having a good day. Listen, I’ve finished everything I need to upstairs so if you want, I can take over here.”

“Really?” It was very unusual for one of them to be able to leave the control room early, and she didn’t want to miss her chance. Still, maybe she should stay and spend some time with Luca. “Charlie doesn’t come in for another three hours. We could hang out down here for a while.”

“No, no. That’s okay. You go. Take advantage of your extra hour. I’ll call you when Charlie gets here, and we’ll do something.”

“Well, okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

As soon as she was gone, Luca turned the wheel-lock on the LifeSpace door and stepped inside, eight fresh syringes filling his lab coat pocket. He knew he was breaking all the rules of the LifeSpace by doing this, but they were his rules, and he could break them if he wanted. Besides, the ideas he was having now certainly trumped any of the experiment’s previous protocols.

  

November 14^th.

 Two days later. Nick Santori and Bobby Fraley were pulling up to an abandoned warehouse, the same warehouse where Fraley had been arrested a year and a half earlier during his encounter with Shadowstar, the same warehouse where Nick always met ‘the Doc.’ A white newborn boy lay sleeping on the back seat.

“What are we doin’ here?” Fraley asked. “You ain’t settin’ me up again, are ya?” Bobby laughed nervously. He had started working with Nick a couple of years ago. Mostly they had dealt in drugs back then and were getting into the Cruise trade when Bobby got arrested. He had been out of Detention for a week now and was immediately back at it. He had helped Nick burn down some family’s house a couple of days ago. The parents of these two little girls had made a deal with Nick to sell a bunch of Cruise for him, but then they had taken it all themselves. To get the money back, Nick had burned down their house and ordered them to pay him the insurance money for it. Now, here they were, back at the last place he had been arrested with a kidnapped baby boy laying on the back seat.

“I never set you up,” Nick answered. “I told you. I didn’t know LandForce was gonna be here. They were following that Markus Brown guy.”

“Yeah, I know. But I also know that you’re the one that told me to lead Shadowstar here and then I was the one who got arrested.”

“You got paid, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but…” After a pause, Fraley asked, “Well, did you at least get the guy? I never heard anything about him after that. That’s what you were tryin’ to do, right? I lead him here and you off ‘im. That was the plan.”

Nick wanted to lie, wanted to say that he had killed Shadowstar that night, that he had fired his machine gun from his hiding spot inside the warehouse and had kept firing until Shadowstar’s body was full of holes, but that’s not what had happened. He had killed someone that night –Markus Brown – when Shadowstar had used him as a shield – but since Santori wasn’t there with Brown, he could care less if he died. He shot right through Brown, but still, Shadowstar hadn’t fallen. Then, LandForce came running in, and Nick had to make his escape through a window to the roof.

“No,” Nick answered, “I never got ‘im. But somebody else must’ve. He was making a lotta enemies.”

Fraley laughed. “All right. So what are we doin’ here, then?”

“Meeting the guy who paid you, the one who wanted Shadowstar dead.”

“Oh, yeah? And who’s that?”

“The Doc.”

Fraley nodded. Nick probably didn’t know the ‘Doc’s’ real name. It was common for people to want to stay anonymous in this line of work.

“I guess this is his building,” Nick said. “At least this is where we always have our meets.”

 “All right. So what’s with the kid?”

“You’ll see.”

The car stopped, and the two men got out. Santori carried the sleeping baby into the warehouse.

“Who’s this?” Luca asked.

It was dark inside, as always. Nick and Fraley couldn’t see the person speaking.

“This is Bobby,” Nick answered. “Bobby Fraley. He’s my associate.”

Luca recognized the name, knew who he was, and knew the fall he had taken for him. “I told you always to come alone, Mr. Santori.”

“He’s going to be doing some more work for me,” Nick answered.

Luca didn’t like having someone else involved in these things, but as long as neither of the men knew who he was, it didn’t matter. “Fine. But you come alone. No exceptions. Anything you want Mr. Fraley to do is between you. Now, set the baby down against the far wall there and leave.”

Exiting the building, Nick knew that he would receive his money the next day.

 

 December 27^th.

A month and a half later. The elevator started up. A minute later, down came Roger, the ‘fag nanny,’ as Charlie called him, here to take care of the new arrival Luca had recently deposited in the Isolation Room. Luca intended to keep adding more newborns to the Isolation Room, forming them into a full-sized Class B, and introducing them to the LifeSpace at the beginning of the next year. The question then was, What would the two groups do when they met? Would the originals help the new ones? Would they take them under their collective wing and begin to nurture them? Or, because no one had ever nurtured them, would they stand aloof from the younger group? Ignore them, maybe? Or become territorial? What if the two groups formed separate tribes and began fighting one another?

“Hey, Rodge!” Charlie greeted hoarsely between coughing spasms. It had been almost a year since Charlie found out he had AIDS and he was deteriorating quickly. He felt weak all the time now, and his cough was the sign of perpetual pneumonia.

“Uh…Hi, Charlie.”

Charlie cleared his throat and took a couple of seconds to catch his breath before asking, “Still gay?”

Roger sighed. He loved working with the kids, but he hated it when Charlie was on duty. Why couldn’t Susan be on tonight? At least she was nice. “Yes, Charlie, I’m still gay.” He wanted to say, “And you’re still the one with AIDS, not me,” but couldn’t bring himself to be that mean, not even to a bigot like Charlie.

“Okay. Only checking. Kids are in there waiting for you.”

Roger shook his head and began filling a bottle with formula. When it was done heating in the microwave, he took it, grabbed the night-vision goggles, flipped the switch for the Isolation Room, and entered.

As soon as Roger saw Number Twelve, a black, newborn girl, he forgot all about Charlie in the next room. His face lit up, and he reached down to take hold of her. As soon as he had her in his arms, nestled against his chest, Twelve stopped crying and relaxed. He gently rocked her, and when he offered her the bottle, she sucked hungrily.

After the feeding, Roger began rocking her to sleep, but then heard Charlie knocking on the window. Holding the kids or helping them get to sleep was against the rules. Minimum adult contact, Luca had said. Feed ‘em, water ‘em, and then get out. The kids would eventually fall asleep on their own. Reluctantly, and with a sigh, Roger set Number Twelve down and reached for the next infant.

  

December 29^th.

 Two days later. After the two deaths in the River, events in the LifeSpace had gone wonderfully for the next twelve months. With the twice-daily ‘rain’ from the sprinkler system and the abundant supply of always-growing fresh fruit, vegetables, and grains, the children were all as healthy and as happy as they could be.

They had made one of the back corners, diagonal from the control room, their permanent camp, and were becoming more and more confident in their abilities to go out into the surrounding areas and find their way back.

Today, Numbers Ten, Nine, and Four had gone a little distance toward the front wall to gather what food their little hands could carry. On their way, they had found a peach tree, ripe with fruit that had not yet fallen. Number Four, a red-headed girl, had grown very adept for her young age at climbing trees and was now working her way high up into its branches. Once she reached a cluster of the velvety fruit, she would pull it free and drop it down to her companions. A bunch of three peaches hung a little further up. She had dropped many already, but decided she would get this last bunch too. She climbed up two more branches and reached. She couldn’t get them. They were too far out.

Balancing herself on the branch below her and holding on to the branch above, Number Four eased herself out and reached again. Still too far. A couple more steps and she would have them. But the branch she was standing on wasn’t sturdy enough this far out from the trunk. It bent under her weight, and she felt her hands slip from the branch above. Pain exploded in her back as she hit a branch a foot below her and she realized she was falling.

The Asian Number Ten and blonde Number Nine watched her bouncing like a pinball from one branch to another as she fell. There was a loud, nauseating crack when Number Four finally hit the ground.

Susan, who had watched the whole thing from the control room, knew, even if the kids didn’t, that Number Four was dead. Their third casualty.

 

It was nine-thirty a.m. when Number Four hit the ground. Luca did not come down to bring Susan lunch until one.

Susan had not moved. She had kept staring at the screen, watching, hoping that the almost three-year-old would get up. Or twitch. Or something. Numbers Ten and Nine had stared as well, and then had tried to rouse their sister, but to no avail. After an hour, they had finally given up and returned to camp, a sweet peach in each of their grubby hands.

“Hey, Babe!” Luca greeted.

Susan looked up at him, finally managing to unglue her eyes from the monitor. “Luca, we have to stop this,” she declared.

Luca set the plates of fried chicken he had brought down on the counter. “Stop what?” he asked warily. He thought maybe she was talking about their relationship.

“This!” she cried and flung her hand out toward the monitors.

“What?” Luca asked irritably. He hated it when she talked in riddles.

“Look!” She started to cry in frustration. “I told you we shouldn’t do this!”

Luca saw what had happened and was silent.

“Another one, Luca!” she yelled. “Dead! How many more? How many have to die before you stop this stupid experiment?”

“Stupid experiment?” he echoed, offended by her words.

“Yes. Stupid,” she repeated. “We have to stop. Now. Get rid of the kids. Have whoever you had bring ‘em here take ‘em back. The new ones, too. You never said there would be a ‘Class B’ anyway. That was never part of the plan.”

“Susan,” Luca paused to take a deep breath and then let it out, “I understand you’re upset. I do. Watching her die must have been hard, the same as when Charlie saw the other two drown. But shutting down the project at this point is not an option. We’re just getting started. They’ve been in the LifeSpace for a year now, and no one else has drowned, right? They learned from what happened to the others, and they’ll learn from this. It’s all part of….”

“I don’t care, Luca! I’m tired of this! You have to shut it down!”

“I’m…not…going…to shut it down. What would’ve happened to that girl in her own country? Do you think I got her from some nice American family? No. She probably would’ve starved to death where she was and died anyway. Here, in the LifeSpace, she’s serving a purpose. And if she dies, we’re letting nature take its course. It doesn’t matter if she dies here or out there,” he flung his arms eastward, presumably toward Number Four’s home country.

The two of them stood there then, staring at each other. “How did I ever let myself get involved in this?” Susan wondered out loud. “How did I ever let myself get involved with you?” Her voice was like ice.

“Susan…”

“You want to continue this,” she pointed at the toddler’s dead body on the screen, “fine. But I won’t do it anymore.”

“Susan…” The elevator door was already closing. “Susan! You can’t leave!”

Luca cursed, turned, grabbed the night-vision goggles off the console, and flipped the switch for the LifeSpace. On his mile walk to Number Four’s body and his mile trek back, he decided what to do. He loved Susan. He did. But this was the same situation as it had been with Charlie. Susan could not be allowed to leave the project.

When he got back to the control room, he disposed of Number Four’s body and then rode the elevator up to the basement level. He spent the whole afternoon riding up and down from control room to the basement, trying to get Susan to answer her handheld, but she never did.

Finally, at seven-thirty, Luca dialed another number. “Mr. Santori. I need you to watch a woman named Susan Halim for me… Oh. No, that’s fine. I still want him.” Luca had forgotten that Nick was currently in the process of smuggling another kidnapped newborn into the country for him. “Yes, Mr. Fraley can watch her, but make sure you tell him not to hurt her. I only want him to keep an eye on her, you understand? Nothing more. Twenty-four-hour surveillance. Make sure she doesn’t talk to the Force.”

 

December 30^th.

Luca came in the next day at the end of Charlie’s shift, carrying a white, newborn boy. Charlie reached for his cane, bracing himself to stand, but then started coughing violently and had to fall back into the chair. When he was finished coughing, Charlie wiped his mouth with his handkerchief, took a couple of breaths, and said, “I’m dying, Doc.”

Luca nodded sympathetically. He and Charlie had their problems in the past, but that was over now. Luca had known Charlie as the partier, the womanizer, in the prime of his life. Now that Charlie was losing his life, Luca could only pity him.

At the same time, Luca had his own problems to think about. Susan had left, at least for now, and with Charlie’s health, he wouldn’t be on the project for very much longer, either. What would Luca do then? He couldn’t cover the control room himself. He had a company to run. Could he risk bringing someone new in? Maybe he could train Roger to do some more things.

Charlie rallied his strength and pushed himself up out of his chair. “Ah. All right. I’ll be back tonight. If you’re lucky.”

 

Luca injected Number Twelve and put him in the Isolation Room with the other Class B subjects, but didn’t know what to do after that. Without Susan around, it was going to be a long night. At least they kept movies and current reading material in the control room. And there were always computer games if he was desperate. Luca didn’t usually get into games. That was more Susan and Charlie’s thing.

Just then, the elevator started coming down again. Susan? He looked at his watch. No. Not Susan. Roger. It’s feeding time again.

The elevator doors opened and out stepped the subjects’ caretaker.

“Evening, Roger” Luca greeted.

“Dr. Temlane,” Roger nodded respectfully on his way to the Isolation Room.

When he had finished taking care of the children, Roger came out and was heading back toward the elevator when he turned back around. It had been almost a year to the day since he had seen any of the original kids and it was an unspoken rule that he wasn’t supposed to ask about anything beyond his own duties. But now, with more and more newborns coming in, he couldn’t help it. He wanted to make sure ‘his kids’ were okay. “Dr. Temlane, how are the other kids doing, in there?” He nodded toward the LifeSpace door.

“Oh, they’re fine, fine.” Luca was going to leave it at that, but he had been thinking about promoting Roger, hadn’t he? “Why don’t you come have a look?”

“Oh…Okay.” Roger walked over and looked at the array of screens in front of him, each one showing a different area inside the LifeSpace. Most of the monitors showed only foliage, but two showed children.

He saw the older kids – everyone in Class A was three years old now – mostly huddled together in the back corner, eating and milling around. He was thinking how peaceful the LifeSpace looked when something caught his attention.

How many kids are there? There’s supposed to be ten, but it looks like there’s less than that. Count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yes, there were only seven there. He scanned the other screens. No. No more kids on any of them. “What happened to the others?”

Luca, not answering, knew in his gut that he had made a mistake in letting Roger look at the monitors.

“There’s supposed to be ten in each group. I only see seven.”

 “Well, unfortunately, three of them didn’t make it,” Luca explained. We had to burn them in the incinerator.

Roger collapsed into one of the chairs. “How?”

“Well…, two died in the River, and one died falling out of a tree.”

Roger was staring at the screens as Luca talked. He found the River, seven different shots of it as it snaked through the LifeSpace, and tried to focus on breathing. In. Out. Stay calm, he told himself. But, no, that wasn’t going to work. “You people are monsters,” he said, gritting his teeth.

“Excuse me?” Luca asked.

“Treating kids like that!” Roger continued. “You’re monsters!”

“Roger. Shut your mouth,” Luca commanded. And Roger did. “I will remind you that you are my employee? You work for this project.” He was trying to remind Roger that he was involved, that if he went to the Force or told anyone, he would also be in trouble for helping them.

 “I’m trying to provide as much care to these kids as I can!” Roger exploded.

“You’re an accomplice! You’re in it!”

Again, Roger sat back in his chair. “I’m trying to help…”

“You have helped,” Luca answered coldly. “Now, you’re done. So don’t worry about it.”

Roger sat for a few more seconds and then slowly got to his feet. “No,” he said, “not yet. I’m getting those kids outta there.” And he quickly walked to the LifeSpace door and began spinning the wheel-lock.

“Roger!” Luca boomed, suddenly on his feet. “Roger!”

Roger turned to look at him and saw that Luca had a gun in his hand, aimed straight at Roger’s chest. He let go of the door.

“Get out!” Luca yelled. “You’re done! You hear me? You’re done here!”

Roger slowly walked around him, his hands up, and stepped into the elevator.

Blast! Luca thought. His gun was still in his hand, and he was leaning over the console, waiting for the adrenaline to dissipate in his body. Should have shot Roger right there, he thought. He’s obviously going to LandForce now. It’s over. Susan’s gone, Charlie’s as good as dead, and Roger’s stupid enough to turn himself in to shut us down. Blast! Luca pounded the console with his fist and pulled out his phone. He had to make this quick.

 

Luca was at the warehouse an hour later, hiding in the shadows and watching the seven three-year-olds from the LifeSpace explore the room. The car ride over and the warehouse was unlike anything the kids had ever seen. They were busy walking around, staring at, and touching everything they could. The most curious thing in the warehouse, though, was the two newborns, the children from Class B that Luca had taken back out of the Isolation Room and brought over to the warehouse before the LifeSpacers. The newborns were lying on the floor with a group of three-year-olds huddled around looking down on them.

After a moment, the Asian Number Ten kneeled down and gingerly began stroking the hair of one of the newborn boys. The infant, looking up at him, reached his hand toward him and grabbed onto one of his hands, two of Ten’s fingers wrapped in the infant’s. Ten was surprised for a moment and almost pulled away from the boy’s grip, but then decided he was content to let the newborn hold him.

Black-haired Number One, seeing what had happened with Ten and the newborn, decided to make a game out of it. Bending down, he pointed one of his fingers right in the face of the other newborn boys. When the newborn reached up to take it, One quickly pulled his hand back. A second later, he stuck his finger back in the face of the newborn. The boy reached up again and, again, One snatched his hand away, laughing.

Reaching down a third time, One was disappointed to find that the newborn did not immediately stick his hand up, but had turned his head to the side and was looking at something else. One tapped the boy on the nose with his finger to get his attention, and the newborn’s eyes flitted up but then returned to the side. Number One, starting to get angry at the newborn’s slight, brought his finger down harder on the boy’s nose and the boy began to cry. One reeled back, surprised, but also pleased at this sudden reaction.

Number One would have experimented further with the boy, but a door on the other side of the room opened and in stepped Nick Santori and Bobby Fraley. Bobby, looking around the room and seeing all the kids, wondered, “What the what?”

Nick, a little more reserved, came to the center of the room and, peering into the shadows, asked, “What now, Doc?”

“It’s time to unload the kids,” Luca answered. “I want you and Mr. Fraley to take them and drop them off at various adoption agencies and orphanages throughout the city. I’ve made you a list. Don’t let anyone see you and get it done as quickly as possible. Once you’ve deposited the kids, I want you to keep tabs on them. Note if they’re moved to another agency or if they’re adopted and who is adopting them. Follow them. I will continue to pay you for this and will call you when I want an update. Do you understand?”

“Um…sure, I guess.”

“Good.” Luca tossed a file folder out of the shadows and onto the floor. “There’s your list of where to take them. Get started.”

 

December 31^st.

The next morning, a little after ten a.m., Deputy PG Jim Slate was at the front door of GenRes, demanding to see the owner, Luca Temlane. He had a search warrant in his hand and a team of Forcepeople behind him. Behind them was Roger Beehri.

The head of security, Milo Bresee, and Lois Pearney, Luca’s personal assistant, were informing Deputy Slate that Dr. Temlane had not come in yet, but that they would call him, and that, no, they had no knowledge of a sub-basement or what it might be used for, nor did they recognize Mr. Beehri and that, no, there was no record of him an employee of the company.

By the time Luca arrived – he had been up late the night before – Forcepeople were already milling around the LifeSpace. Luca cursed himself for forgetting to take Roger’s key the other day.

“Can I help you?” Luca asked, sticking his head in through the wheel-lock door of the LifeSpace.

Jim was standing close to the door while his team searched the area. “Dr. Temlane,” Jim greeted coldly.

Luca nodded. He recognized Jim both from the news and from the events of three years ago when Shadowstar had broken into GenRes’ upper floors.

“Why has this area been burned?” Jim asked.

Luca had torched the LifeSpace and the Isolation Rooms last night after delivering the kids to Nick and Bobby. “We have to burn the area after every project,” Luca explained. “To sterilize it.”

“What project? What is this area used for?”

“Animal testing mostly. We create an environment for them down here and then observe how they behave. Most of the time, we have a normal control group and a test group that we’ve given medication to or exposed to radiation or cloned or some sort of thing like that.”

“You’re lying!” Roger yelled.

“Do you know this man?” Jim asked, nodding to Roger.

Luca pursed his lips. “He looks familiar. Maybe he was one of the delivery persons bringing the animals in a couple of times?”

“You’re lying! I worked for you! You tried to shoot me!”

Luca tried his best to look shocked.

“Do you carry a gun, Doctor?” Jim asked.

“Yes, of course, I do,” Luca said. “Ever since that Shadowstar character broke in here.”

“Do you have anyone else who can corroborate your story of what you do down here? Your chief security officer and your own secretary said they couldn’t vouch for it. They said they didn’t even know this area existed.”

“Well,” Luca chuckled, “no, they wouldn’t. That’s by design. You see, this area is my own private lab. I’m sure you understand that even within my own company, there might be persons willing to steal another person’s work. So, no, I normally work alone down here.”

“Do you have records of your work?”

“Certainly.”

“May I see them?”

Luca hesitated. He had pulled and altered some of the records of other animal testing projects the company was doing but wasn’t sure that they would stand up to much scrutiny. It had been late when he was working on them, and the scientists who were working on those projects wouldn’t hesitate to claim ownership if the Force asked about them.

“I promise I won’t steal any of your breakthroughs, Doctor. I probably wouldn’t understand your notes well enough for that. And I do have a search warrant.”

“Of course, Deputy. I’ll go upstairs to my office to retrieve them. Since the project closed, I’ve transferred my records to file for the time being.”

“That’s fine. One more question, though. If no one else worked with you down here, how did Mr. Beehri have a key for the elevator?”

“Ah, now there’s an excellent question.” Luca did his best to look at Roger suspiciously. “As I said, if he was a delivery person from time to time, he might have stolen the key from me at some point.”

“I never…” Roger began. “You gave me the key! He’s lying!”

“Okay. You don’t mind if we look around a little longer, do you, Doctor Temlane?”

“No, not at all. Let me go get you those records.”

 

2067. January 8^th.

A week later. “Doctor Temlane, sir?”

“Yes, Lois?”

“There is a Susan Halim here to see you.”

Susan? “Send her in, please.”

Luca stood and stepped around his desk to greet her. “Susan!” Luca beamed. “It’s good to see you.”

“Luca!” Susan hissed. “What’s going on? My keycard to the building wouldn’t work. I was trying to go down to the control room talk to you. A Deputy Slate from LandForce came by my condo asking about the LifeSpace and Roger and Charlie and…”

“When?”

“A week ago.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. I said I didn’t work here and that I didn’t know you or Charlie or Roger. I would have told you, but I thought I’d better stay away for a while after that. They haven’t been here, have they?”

“They were here. With Roger.”

“Roger!” Susan gasped, hearing for the first time who their betrayer was.

“Don’t worry. They didn’t find anything. They were here a week ago, too, and they haven’t been back since.”

“What do you mean? Did they go downstairs?”

“The project’s over, Susan. You were right. After that third death…”

“But Roger…”

“Was upset at having lost his job when the project ended.”

“The kids…”

“Are fine. Or at least they will be. They’ve been delivered into the adoption system.”

“Luca!” Susan breathed.

“What? I thought you’d be happy.”

“I am.” Susan was almost crying now. “I thought…I thought we were all going to jail. Or that you’d killed the kids to get rid of them or…”

“Susan!” Luca exclaimed indignantly.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. And I was coming back… I didn’t know if I was going to tell you…”

“Tell me what?”

Susan couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. “…Luca, I’m pregnant.”

 

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