by Dan Wells
“Sure thing,” said Allgood. “Line by line, here we go: Name: Jon Ford. Age: twenty-two. Blood Type: O negative. Red cell count—”
“Wait,” said Lyle, staring at the paper spread awkwardly on his knee. “His blood type is A positive.”
“No,” said Allgood. “It’s right here on my printout: O negative.”
“The notes in the file said A positive.”
“What in the…” Lyle heard papers rustle and shuffle, then a low whistle. “Saints and angels, you’re right. Our last test with him was A positive.”
“Are you sure you have the right Jon Ford?”
“The patient numbers are identical,” said Allgood. “The address and phone number match. It’s even the same insurance policy number, he just has … two different blood types.”
“How is that possible?”
“It isn’t,” said Allgood, sounding eager, “but it is consistent. A positive is anathema to O negative; if he had enough A positive in his bloodstream it would attack the old blood and cause all the problems we talked about—the stroke, the hemolysis, the renal failure. It’s amazing he lived as long as he did.”
“But you said he hadn’t had a transfusion,” said Lyle, “you specifically checked into it.”
“Oh, goodness no,” said Dr. Allgood, “a full transfusion of A positive blood would have killed him in hours; we had him for almost a full day, and he was sick for quite a while before that. No, to react the way he did, the foreign blood would have to be introduced very slowly, over a very long time, or you’d get a sudden shock that overwhelms the system.”
“Was somebody trying to kill him?” asked Lyle.
“If they were, they hid it really well. I told you before, we couldn’t find any needle marks except the ones we made, and the first one of those was the A positive blood test.” The doctor whistled. “It’s almost as if it was all internal—like his body just decided out of the blue to make the wrong kind of blood. Maybe his DNA got confused; I don’t know.”
Lyle gasped, thoughts flashing in his mind like a hail of bullets. Blood type. DNA. Heterochromia. “I’m going to have to call you back.” He ended the call without saying goodbye, staring at nothing. Skin bleaching. Bone deformation. Weight loss. Lyle’s mind staggered as realization dawned. I couldn’t find a trend in the test subjects’ symptoms because they’re not trending in a single direction, they’re normalizing toward a central point.
Me.
Lyle rubbed his face, stared blankly, then rubbed it again.
“You okay back there?” asked Officer Woolf. “What was that all about—you said something about somebody trying to kill someone?”
Lyle ignored him, running through each case in his mind: Christopher Page was big and heavy, so he lost weight until he matched me. Pedro Trujillo was short, so he gained weight and mass and height until he matched me—and then his skin color changed to match mine, as well. William England has darker skin that got lighter; Tony Hicks had very light skin, practically white, that got darker. I bet if I call him back his hair color’s changed, as well.
They’re all becoming me.
It was something in the plasmids—he was sure of it. Changing DNA is their whole job; it wasn’t supposed to be this dramatic, but somehow it was. Lyle sat motionless, his jaw hanging open. Everyone who’s handled the lotion is turning into me. That’s why I’m the only one who never changed—or perhaps I’ve been changing all along, but I was changing into myself and didn’t notice. Except—
He paused.
Except I don’t have A positive blood. I’m O negative, which is a universal donor—that’s why the men turning into me aren’t having the same blood reaction that Jon Ford had. But then who was Ford turning into?
In a flash Lyle remembered the autopsy report: half-formed ovaries and mammary glands, high levels of estrogen, and even a semideveloped uterus. Susan applied Jon’s lotion directly—the first day of the test she rubbed it right onto his hands, skin to skin. He was turning into Susan.
So then who is Susan turning into?
“Hey, buddy,” said Officer Luckesen, practically shouting at him. “Wake up. Hey!” He banged on the protective grate between the front and back seats, and Lyle jerked out of his reverie.
“I have to make a phone call.”
“You have to answer my question,” said the policeman. “Who were you talking to, and what did you say about somebody trying to kill someone?”
“I was wrong,” said Lyle, “nobody was trying to kill anybody. It was all an accident.”
“Accidental death still sounds like the kind of thing you ought to tell us about.”
“It was an acute hemolytic reaction, but drawn out over time,” said Lyle. “That’s why none of us saw it. His body was literally giving itself a blood transfusion cell by cell over the last five weeks. Do you realize how impossible that is?”
“Who are you talking about?”
“I need to call a lot of people,” said Lyle. “We have to deal with this immediately. What if Susan has the wrong blood type, too?”
“Who’s Susan?”
“Just let me make a phone call,” said Lyle, bringing up his phone. “I have to call and find out how she is.”
The cops slammed on the brakes and dove out of their seats, bolting around to the back. Lyle found Susan’s number and hit send just before the cops swarmed through the rear doors and tackled him.
“Put down the phone! Do not touch that phone!”
“I’m just calling a friend!”
Ring.
“That’s her,” shouted Lyle. “Just let me talk for five seconds!”
Ring.
“Calm down,” shouted Woolf. “You’re talking about killing people and giving people blood and we cannot allow you to make a phone call until you answer our questions!”
The phone on the floor clicked softly, and a woman’s voice spoke. “Hi, Susan’s phone.”
Lyle shouted. “Is Susan there—oof.” One of the officers hit him in the gut, and he doubled over as much as he could with two policemen holding him down.
“What do we do?” asked Woolf.
Luckesen shook his head. “I have no idea.”
“I’m sorry,” said the woman on the phone, “Susan’s not available right now. She’s in the hospital.”
“I told you,” Lyle wheezed, gasping for breath. “Find out if she’s okay.”
Woolf adjusted his grip on Lyle, keeping one hand tightly on his wrist while reaching down with the other to pick up the phone. He held the phone to his ear.
“Hello, ma’am, this is Detective Woolf, NYPD. Do you know a man named Lyle Fontanelle?”
Lyle couldn’t hear the answer.
“I see. Does your friend Susan know anyone named Lyle Fontanelle?” Pause. “No, I don’t know anything about Susan, it’s…” He glanced at Lyle. “It’s kind of a weird situation; we witnessed some suspicious behavior and stopped it while the phone was already ringing. Tell me, ma’am, why is this Susan in the hospital?” There was another pause, and the officer’s eyes went wide. “Seriously?” Pause. “Seriously?” He pulled the phone away, glanced at it, then held it back to his ear. “I may need to call back tonight or tomorrow with some more questions. Will you keep this phone on you? Thank you.” He hung up and looked at Lyle. “Who is Susan?”
“My assistant at work,” said Lyle. “I’m the vice president of Research at NewYew Incorporated. Chief science officer. She’s a lab intern.”
“Looks like you might need a new intern pretty soon,” said Woolf. He looked at his partner. “Susan has leprosy.”
12
Wednesday, May 2
5:52 A.M.
Central Booking, Brooklyn
226 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
Sunny sat down next to Lyle on the bench outside the police station, rubbing his eyes with one hand and clutching his coffee with the other. “I’ve cleared up the robbery issue: they’re convinced, for now, that you were at work when t
he crime was committed, but the investigation is ongoing.” Sunny twisted his neck, stretching until it cracked quietly. “They’re somewhat more concerned about, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, alleged chemical weapons testing.” He looked at Lyle. “What in the bright blue hell do you do on your weekends? Is there anything else I should know about?”
“You and the entire executive staff,” said Lyle. “Can we go?” He had already called the hospital again, asking about Susan; her body was sloughing tissue from the chest and groin, which they had preliminarily diagnosed as leprosy. Lyle knew better. “We have a lot to do.”
“Yeah, we can go,” said Sunny. “Just give me a minute with this coffee first, okay? I’m a corporate legal counsel, not a divorce lawyer—I’m not used to these emergency police station visits at four a.m. And in Brooklyn, no less—why’d you have to get arrested in Brooklyn?”
Lyle stood up. “I know who it was.”
“Who what was?”
“The guy who robbed the house was named Tony Hicks. He was one of our test subjects for 14G.”
Sunny frowned. “The last ReBirth test? How do you know it was him?”
“Because he has a criminal record,” said Lyle. “And my DNA.” Lyle identified Sunny’s Mercedes and walked toward it. He stopped at the curb and looked back; Sunny was still standing by the police station doors. “I need your help on this, Sunny. You know they don’t listen to me.”
“Who has your DNA?” asked Sunny. “And how?”
“It’s the lotion,” said Lyle, “it’s ReBirth.” Lyle lowered his voice, glancing nervously at the police station. “We killed Jon Ford, do you realize that? The allegations of chemical weapons testing are not far off. Do you have any idea what ReBirth is doing?”
“I might,” said Sunny, walking toward the car, “if you’d cut the histrionics and just tell me.”
They climbed in the car, and Lyle scanned the parking lot nervously before saying it out loud for the first time. “It clones people.”
Sunny raised an eyebrow. “You’re joking.”
“I’m deadly serious,” said Lyle. “Somehow the plasmids in the lotion are getting into the test subjects’ DNA and changing it, literally overwriting it, so that your DNA becomes my DNA. You become a clone of me.”
“Why you?”
“I don’t know,” said Lyle, “obviously it has to get the DNA from somewhere, I guess it just got it from me because I was the first person to touch it.”
Sunny started the car. “You’re insane, Lyle. You’re talking about this lotion like it’s alive.”
“It is alive, in a way—it has self-replicating genetic matter, so it’s just as alive as any virus or bacteria.”
“But it’s not sentient,” said Sunny, pulling onto the street, “it’s not some kind of blobby lotion monster that’s going to eat everyone.”
“I’m not saying that,” said Lyle, frustrated. “I’m saying that it is cloning people—right now it’s cloning me. By my count there are currently six people who share my DNA, walking around right now in New York City.”
“Probably not walking,” said Sunny, “it’s six in the morning.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“That’s because it’s ridiculous! You can’t expect me to believe something like this, Lyle, it’s … it’s unbelievable. It is not mentally possible to believe it.”
“I’ll prove it to you,” said Lyle, pulling out his cell phone. “I’m going to call the hospital.”
“Whoa,” said Sunny, catching Lyle’s hand in his own, “let’s not involve any hospitals just yet, okay? The last thing we need is for this story to go public, whether it’s true or not.”
“Don’t worry,” said Lyle, pulling his hand free, “that’s exactly why I’m calling.” He dialed Bellevue and hit send.
“Bellevue Hospital, how may I direct your call?”
“I need to reach a patient admitted last night,” said Lyle. “Pedro Trujillo.”
13
Wednesday, May 2
8:01 A.M.
NewYew headquarters, Manhattan
226 DAYS TO THE END OF THE WORLD
“I don’t believe it,” Kerry whispered.
The full executive staff sat in the conference room, staring slack jawed at Lyle and Pedro standing side by side. They were almost indistinguishable.
“I don’t believe it,” Kerry said again.
“I haven’t fully figured out how it happened,” said Lyle, “but I’m working on it.”
“So he looks like you,” said Cynthia, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. “That doesn’t prove anything. He could be wearing a disguise, trying to bilk us out of a few million in fake damages.”
“He’s not the first one I’ve seen,” said Lyle. “Plus, look at this.” He leaned forward, opening his eyes as wide as he could. “See this, in my right eye? That’s called a partial heterochromia—a patch of one color in an iris of a different color. It’s a genetic trait, encoded in my DNA, and look at Pedro’s eyes”—Lyle pulled Pedro forward, pointing at his face—“he has the same thing. He doesn’t just look like me, he is me, genetically speaking.”
“But what are you going to do about it?” Pedro demanded, pulling away.
Carl frowned. “You say the lotion did this? Your lotion?”
“It’s hard to believe, but yes,” said Lyle. “It didn’t start happening until the most recent formulation, 14G. My best guess is … well, I honestly have no idea. We added a retrovirus in that batch, but they’re supposed to regulate the plasmid activity, and this is exactly the opposite of that.” Lyle shrugged. “ReBirth is supposed to be producing collagen, and I don’t know why or even how it started doing this instead. I don’t even know what it’s doing instead.”
“I don’t care why it happened,” said Pedro, “I want to know what you’re going to do about it!”
“Obviously we’ll make what reparations we can,” said Sunny, “but we’re going to have to work together on this—this is new territory for all of us—”
Carl leaned forward, and everyone stopped to look at him. Even Pedro grew hushed.
“Get Marcus in here,” Carl rumbled.
Cynthia opened the door and Marcus Eads stepped in, followed by two suited men from the security staff. Carl pointed at Lyle and attempted to smile warmly. “Please take our friend here to my private lounge upstairs. Get him some breakfast, and treat him well.” The men moved toward him, but Lyle shook his head and pointed at Pedro.
“I’m the real Lyle; you want him.” He glanced at Carl, suddenly uncertain. “Don’t you?”
The men looked at Carl, who frowned at the two Lyles, then nodded. The suited men led Pedro into the hall, but Marcus hung back. Cynthia closed the door, and Carl spoke in a low voice.
“Keep him here for now,” said Carl, “and keep this as quiet as possible. I don’t want one word of this to get out until we’re good and ready for it.”
“Bellevue Hospital knows,” said Lyle.
“Everyone in the whole hospital?”
Lyle grimaced. “A handful of orderlies, the hospital administrator, and anyone else Pedro may have talked to. A crowd of people from the lobby. I don’t know if any of them understand what’s going on, but they did hear some of the details.”
“The Brooklyn police know about it, too,” said Sunny, “though again, they don’t know everything and they probably don’t understand the full implications of it.”
“Then we keep it that way as long as we can,” said Carl. “If they don’t hear about it again, they won’t think about it again. Now, let’s be very frank here: what kind of fallout are we expecting from this? How many people?”
Kerry’s face was white with fear. “I … I’ve been using it. So has Carrie.”
Jeffrey laughed nervously. “You’re talking in the third person now?” He looked at Lyle. “Is that normal?”
“Carrie’s my wife,” said Kerry.
“You married someon
e with your own name?”
“It’s spelled differently!”
“I’ve used it,” said Lyle, “long before anybody else, which is probably how it got imprinted with my DNA. Six test subjects used it; one of them is dead now. My assistant Susan used it; she’s currently in the hospital.”
“This can’t be true, though,” said Kerry. “There’s got to be another explanation. I mean, I started using it…,” Kerry counted in his head, “two, maybe three weeks ago. And I don’t look anything like you.”
Lyle leaned in close to him, peering at his face. “You have the heterochromia. And your hair’s coming in lighter.”
“It is?”
“I can see it, too,” said Cynthia, walking to Kerry’s chair. She stared at him, fascinated. “You have black hair, but all the roots are brown—about the color of Lyle’s.”
Lyle picked up Kerry’s hands, examining them closely, then looked back at his face. “The human body completely replaces its own skin about every three weeks. Odds are good that all of your skin is mine by now.”
“It’s not the same color, though,” said Cynthia, “it’s darker than Lyle’s.”
Kerry swallowed nervously. “I tan,” he whispered. He looked at Lyle pleadingly. “I started last week. My wife said I looked kind of pale.”
“So he has your skin and he’s growing your hair,” said Sunny, “but he doesn’t look like you. Pedro could have been your twin—why is Kerry different?”
“Because bone and muscle take longer,” said Lyle. “Change his skin and he just has different skin. He won’t look like me until his body has time to rebuild the muscles on his face, and the bone structure underneath. Those are the features we recognize.”
Carl growled. “How long does that take?”
Lyle shrugged. “Normally it doesn’t happen at all—you’ll keep your same bone cells all your life if they don’t get injured. They don’t replace themselves like skin cells. But if something tells your body to regrow them, like an injury or some kind of … insane hand lotion, a healthy adult can fully rebuild bone tissue in about six weeks.”
“Pedro did it in four,” said Sunny.