In the back seat of Grandfather's car, Zach peered out the window, trying to see Puget Sound. Surrounded as they were by other vehicles, he caught only the briefest glimpse of the water. They were on the ferry. Now, of all times, he was getting to ride the ferry! But it was not the experience he had imagined. Instead of standing on one of the upper decks with all the walk-on passengers, the cool wind whipping at his face as they sped across the open water—that was how Dad had described it—he was stuck in the car, where he could barely see the water at all, let alone feel the wind.
Grandfather held a second phone, drawn from his jacket. He had called two people already and now dialed a third. "The primary location has been compromised," he spoke into the phone after a moment, repeating what he had said in the previous calls. "We will rendezvous at the secondary location." He ended the call and stared silently out the windshield.
"Grandfather," Zach complained, "a whole bunch of people got out of their cars and went up those stairs. Why can't I?"
Grandfather huffed. "That's twice you've asked me. Do not ask again. This is not a sightseeing trip. Your safety is more important than your entertainment, and you are safer in here."
Zach rolled his eyes.
"The trip is short," Grandfather rumbled. "Wait quietly."
The trip was not short, at least not to Zach, as the ferry cruised across Puget Sound in the dullest possible manner. The waves being flat and the wind calm in spite of the rain, the boat barely even rocked. Zach frowned—he had hoped to find out if he got seasick.
After they had left the apartment, Grandfather had driven them through downtown to a line of cars near the water, and they had paid a fare and waited there until, as Zach had seen from a distance with Mom and Dad, they and all the cars around them had driven right up into the boat. That had been the end of the excitement, though. Now they were parked in what Zach guessed was the middle of the ferry's lower deck, doing nothing, surrounded by cars, trucks, and walls that all conspired to block his view.
"This is boring," Zach complained.
Grandfather remained motionless in the front seat. "Hush! You needn't jabber incessantly."
Zach closed his mouth and looked back out the window. But he didn't stay silent for long. "Why did you throw your other phone in the garbage?"
Grandfather glowered at Zach in the rearview mirror. "Did you talk this much at home? No wonder they sent you away." He turned his eyes back toward the water. "If you must know, the authorities can track the location of mobile phones, and I do not wish to be found by them today—not until I can discover your parents' true motives. It won't do for the police to arrest me and take you back to people who will simply hand you over to your abductors again. As for the phone itself, it was disposable. I keep this one for the most important calls." He tapped a finger idly on the second phone. "Now, Zechariah, about your inability to control your chatter—I had thought we might get breakfast when we arrive at Bainbridge, but I think instead we will wait until after my meeting. If you can control your tongue until then, I will get you something to eat."
Zach had forgotten how hungry he was. And thirsty, too. He'd had nothing to eat or drink since the little bit his kidnappers had given him last night. His mouth was dry and his stomach rumbled as if in reply to his thoughts. He sighed and stared out the window, silently rubbing his left arm, which was still sore.
Grandfather dialed a long number and returned the phone to his ear. Someone on the other end answered. "Digame," Grandfather said, speaking Spanish into the phone. Grandfather knew Spanish? Zach had never heard him speak it before—but then Grandfather and the nannies had never been around at the same time. Grandfather spoke Spanish well, it seemed; Zach could not keep up with his next few sentences except to make out a couple of words.
The man listened for a minute before he spoke again. "Sî… Sólo dos meses más… Sî… Sî, tengo el niño. Vamos a Caracas."
The conversation continued another minute. Zach didn't catch much more of what was said, but his thoughts locked onto the part he had understood: Tengo el niño… I have the child. We're going to Caracas… Did he mean he was taking Zach to Caracas, or was he referring to some other child? And where was Caracas? There were a lot of cities in Washington, even around Seattle, that Zach had never heard of. Wherever it was, Zach didn't want to go there. He wanted to go home…if Mom and Dad would take him.
Grandfather shut off his phone and replaced it in his pocket. He folded his arms and waited patiently, staring straight ahead again for several minutes. Zach fidgeted, craning his neck to see the water once more. He glimpsed land in the distance ahead of them—trees and houses overlooking the gray-blue of the Sound as it reflected the clouds above.
"I have more to tell you about your mother, Zechariah," Grandfather broke the silence. His voice was soft, though not tender—Grandfather was never tender. He reached across to the front passenger seat and opened his briefcase there. He lifted a small photo album out. "I know it is hard for you to believe what I have said about her, but what I tell you next will prove it to you. You deserve to know why your mother cannot truly love you."
Zach's throat tightened. She does love me, he argued back silently. He dared not say it aloud—he was hungry, and Grandfather would make good on his threat to starve Zach if he talked too much.
"You are aware, I suppose, that your mother did not give birth to you?" Grandfather asked.
Zach nodded. "She said another woman did."
"Ah. Your mother is wrong, Zechariah. You were never actually born."
"Ha!" Zach blurted out before he could stop himself.
He quickly cowered as Grandfather spun his head angrily, but the man merely slipped one of the album's photographs out of its pouch and handed it over the seat to him. "Look at this machine."
Zach took the photograph. It showed some kind of laboratory stocked with all sorts of scientific-looking devices—tubes, wires, video screens. In the center stood a table with a transparent box on top of it. The box was made of glass or some kind of clear plastic, its edges rounded, and most of the tubes in the picture led to it. It was filled with a clear liquid; a translucent sort of bag floated inside it. Something small and pale, a blob, floated within the bag, in the middle of the box. A tube the same pale color extended from the blob and joined another, clear tube that entered the box through its top.
"This," Grandfather said—"this is your mother, Zechariah. I created it, and I placed you inside it when you were nothing more than a little ball of cells. This is where you grew, in that sack within the tank. Do you see that scrawny thing floating there? That, Zechariah, is you."
Zach studied the picture with increasing awe—and repulsion. That was me? I was grown in a tank?
"It is arguably the greatest invention ever, the world's first fully-functioning artificial human womb," Grandfather intoned affectionately. "A miserable thing compared to a human mother, to be sure—hard and indifferent. But it worked. It was a miracle. And there will be more miracles."
Zach touched the photograph, gingerly placing his finger on himself ten years ago—just a tiny, pale blob in a tank… No mother getting fat and feeling him wiggle and kick inside, no mom and dad waiting excitedly for the day when they would give birth to their new son.
"Why did you do this to me?" Zach breathed.
"Someone had to be the first," Grandfather replied matter-of-factly. "Consider yourself lucky. One day, Zechariah, your name and mine will be known by people around the world—Zechariah Fleming, the first child developed entirely within an artificial womb, and Dr. William Lerwick, the genius who made it possible. You and I inaugurated a grand, new era in human history, an unprecedented step in mankind's quest to conquer its own biological limitations. I have achieved the greatest medical feat known to humanity, and you, Zechariah, are my greatest accomplishment."
"I don't want to be an accomplishment," Zach muttered. "I just want to go home."
"Ah," Grandfather grimaced. "Hence our problem." He took the photograph back from Zach. "Zechariah, a fascinating thing happens when a woman carries a child in her womb and gives birth. I saw it with my own wife and son. A bonding takes place between the mother and child that they cannot share any other way. She feels the baby roll over within her, and she loves the creature because she and her child are one for a time. Its life is utterly intertwined with hers. When it is born, she holds it in her arms and thinks to herself, 'I brought this creature into the world; it is mine.'" Grandfather looked intently into Zach's eyes. "Kara Fleming never shared that bond with you, Zechariah. Your mother was a machine. Only by genetics is Kara Fleming your mother. For that reason, she can never truly love you, not like a real mother."
Zach stared in stunned disbelief as Grandfather held his eyes for seconds that felt like hours. How many times had Mom told Zach, "I never got pregnant, I never had a baby in my tummy"?
He slumped back against the seat, suddenly overwhelmed by the exhaustion of the past day, by hunger and thirst, by fear—not fear that the kidnappers would return, not anymore. Fear that Mom and Dad really, truly would not want him back, that they had said it on the phone but could never mean it. His life might have come from their cells, but he had been grown in a transparent box with tubes running into it. They could never completely accept him as their son.
Grandfather turned to stare out through the windshield again. "So you see, Zechariah—the only person in this world who can truly love you, your only real parent, is me. I made you. And now," he smiled to himself, "I will keep you safe."
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 95