“So what do you plan to do with us?” asked Devlin.
“Nothing. You wanted all this.” He gestured around the room, at the vault and the lab. “It’s yours.”
“You’re going to lock us down here?” asked Adam.
“Not you. Them. Adam, you’re young. In time you’ll see this is all for the best. We’ll rebuild, and, if you want, we can make you an Eve with her ashes.”
“You can’t do that. She saved my life!” Adam protested. “If not for me, neither of them would even be here.”
“You should have thought of that before you led them here. I’ve worked too hard and sacrificed too much to lose it all now. Their deaths will be on your conscience, not mine.” Neil nudged me forward and pointed at a spool of copper wire near Adam’s feet. “Bind their wrists and feet,” he ordered Adam. “Try anything and I’ll shoot her.”
Adam met my eyes but made no move to obey.
“I’m your father!” Neil thundered.
“I know what I am, and et ego filius tuus non sum. I’m not your son.”
“You may think you know what you are,” said Neil, with a wave of the pistol. “But there are things I never told you. Five years ago I sealed up the conversion chamber and initiated the first phase, unaware that you’d crawled into the capsule while I was away. By the time I discovered what happened, it was too late.”
I could see the marred interior surface of the copper vessel’s porthole out of the corner of my eye. I shuddered at the scene it conjured in my mind—a fifteen-year-old Adam, pounding and clawing at the porthole to make his presence known.
The pistol, which was no longer pointed at my head, trembled in Neil’s hand. Was this a sign of hesitation? Remorse? “You can’t imagine the guilt. I thought I’d done everything to keep you safe, and then to lose you like that? I couldn’t work. Your mother left me. The orchard withered to a wasteland. My life lost all meaning and purpose. Then one day, as I stared at the urn containing your ashes, I knew what I had to do.”
“You used your son’s ashes?” asked Devlin.
My mind reeled. “What about the grave in the orchard?”
“Found that, did you?” Neil shrugged. “We placed a handful of remains there so his mother would have a place to grieve. The rest, well . . . Adam, I was desperate to have you back, but my impatience . . . Rather than build a new capsule, I used the one in which you died. The stresses were more than it could handle, and I was forced to shut it down prematurely—it was that or risk losing you forever. At first you barely clung to life. I cared for you day and night and watched you grow stronger. I taught you how to better manage your temper, and with some . . . modifications, your body became like any normal boy’s.”
“Normal?” raged Adam. “You call this normal? You had no right.”
“I had every right. You are my son. I created you once; it was my right to do it again, so don’t give me any self-righteousness. If not for me, you’d still be dead.”
It all made sense now, in a warped sort of way. “Adam, that’s how you remember the day in the orchard. You—or a part of you, your spirit—were there. You really are Adam.”
“I—am—Adam,” he said, as if trying on a new suit to see if it fit. He met his father’s eyes. “I deserved the truth.”
“Perhaps, but fathers make mistakes. They’re not perfect. They’re human.”
“Unlike me,” said Adam.
“That’s not true,” I argued. “Adam, it’s not flesh and blood that makes us human. It’s heart.” I knew it now like I knew my own heart and how it felt about him.
“She’s right,” said Devlin. “Something magical happened in that capsule the day you were created. Some part of the Adam who died remained and became a part of you.”
“You have his soul,” I said, now sure of it.
“Magic? Souls?” Neil’s voice reverberated throughout the chamber. “Her I can understand, but you, Miles? You’re a man of science. Surely you can appreciate that Adam is a product of observation, reason, and deduction.”
“He is a product of grief,” said Devlin.
Neil shook his head. “Miles, what do you know of grief?”
Devlin had no answer, but I knew it had the power to knock even the most stoic of people to their knees.
Neil pinned my elbows to my sides with his free arm and dug the gun muzzle back into my skull. “Enough of this. Adam, tie them up.”
Adam glanced from Devlin to Neil to the weapon. “No,” he said. “I won’t let you kill them.”
“It’s not your decision.”
Adam straightened; he nearly towered over Neil. He began speaking in a firm voice, his language shifting to something more archaic. “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit?” With a pang of recognition, I realized it was a verse—the verse I’d found marked in the Bible on the day I discovered Adam. “Shall the dust praise thee? Shall it declare thy truth?” His resolve seemed to strengthen. “The truth is you are not a god. You don’t get to decide who lives and who dies. If they die, then so do I.”
Neil’s expression was not so different than the one that appeared on my father’s face when he first learned I had no intention of taking over the business. At least in time Dad had accepted that I needed to make my own decisions. Unfortunately it took a heart attack and losing our livelihood, but he got there.
Neil had yet to figure it out. I could tell it had never occurred to him that his creation might have a mind—a heart—of his own.
Neil shifted the gun away from my temple and aimed directly at Adam’s chest. “You forget I can build you again.”
“No!” I shouted, and swung at Neil’s arm, knocking it upward. The pistol went off, the sound like the firing of a cannon at close range. With my ears ringing, I watched in horror as the entire chamber shuddered. There was an eerie moment when the world seemed suspended in time and space—followed by the inevitable chain reaction we all sensed was coming.
Supports rumbled and groaned. With a loud, splintering crack, a steel beam set into the ceiling tore away from its moorings. Suspended by a cluster of cables and secured by only one brace, it swung perilously over our heads. It wouldn’t hold for long.
“Run!” Devlin shouted. Neil shifted his aim at his ex-partner and fired just as Devlin dove to the side. The bullet grazed Devlin’s scalp and ricocheted, striking an electrical panel. Sparks flew. Ducting and soil tumbled to the floor, filling the entire laboratory with billowing clouds of dust. Another shot rang out.
With a thunderous groan the vault’s ceiling began to collapse under the unsupported weight of the earth above. Shelves splintered like matchsticks. The single illuminated lightbulb exploded in a shower of glass. In seconds Neil’s precious research lay underneath a mountain of rubble.
Other side rooms soon followed suit. Devlin scrambled toward the exit on all fours, Adam yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” I stumbled through the main laboratory and from behind me heard what could only be the last remaining brace shearing away from the ceiling—ending in an agonizing scream. I spun around. Squinting against the fallout, I made out the contorted shapes of toppled beams, twisted ducting—and Neil, pinned to the concrete slab beneath the wreckage. The pistol had flown from his hand and skittered through trails of earthy minerals.
Adam fought his way to his father’s side through the downpour of debris.
“Adam!” I screamed, scrambling back to them. With one hand over my mouth and nose and the other protecting my head, I fell to my knees beside them.
“Leave me,” gasped Neil.
“I can’t. I’m not like you,” said Adam.
He directed me to the other end of the main beam pinning Neil, and together we heaved. Neil groaned in agony, but the massive post wouldn’t budge.
“Again!” shouted Adam. We straightened our knees and strained against the weight. I pulled until my arms were ready to give out, but Adam kept at it.
“Stop! It’s no use,” I cried.
“Listen t
o her.” Neil coughed, and a trickle of crimson oozed from his mouth. Adam started to argue, but his father lifted a bloody hand to stop him. “You need to go!”
At that moment a light fixture slammed onto the table next to me, barely missing my head. Near-blinded by the deluge of dust and debris, I looked in the direction of the door, searching for the way out. I lost sight of Adam for a moment in the chaos, but a second later he was at my side, panting and shoving me toward the exit leading into the corridor.
Racing barefoot through the narrow passage—when did I lose my shoes?—I ran into Devlin at the bottom of the stairwell. I waited for Adam to appear, but he didn’t. “I don’t understand. He was right behind me!”
“Climb!” shouted Devlin. The sound of the fallout shelter collapsing was growing into a deafening roar.
“No—I have to go back!”
Devlin gripped my arm and started dragging me up the stairs—
A shot rang out.
“No! No! No!” I screamed. I ripped free of Devlin’s grasp and raced back down the corridor. I reached the utility room just as Adam appeared out of the churning dust, hunched over and carrying a body on his back.
“Thank god you’re alive!” I gasped, my sides heaving. “I heard the shot and—” That’s when I realized the body Adam was carrying was not Neil. It was one of the murdered ex-feds.
One look at Adam’s grim face told me enough. I knew what had happened before he could say the words.
Neil was dead.
RULE #39
LEARN TO ACCEPT THAT SOME BODILY DAMAGE IS BEYOND FIXING.
Adam shifted the weight of the lifeless body higher onto his back as an avalanche of debris plunged to the ground, blocking the passageway behind us. How could I have ever thought he had killed those two men? I tugged his sleeve. “Adam, you have to leave him. You’re too weak—we’ll never make it out in time.”
Reluctantly he let the body slide to the floor.
Together we hobbled toward the stairs, the sounds of Armageddon all around us. Each time Adam slowed, I turned back to urge him on. I wasn’t leaving here without him.
When we reached the stairs he insisted I go first. Coughing and heaving, we climbed toward the exit. I emerged from the hatch, and, to my relief, Adam’s head cleared it a moment later.
“Don’t stop!” shouted Devlin, frantically waving us forward.
The ground buckled beneath our feet and began to sink. Adam grabbed me under both arms and hurled our bodies clear. The earth belched up a foul-smelling cloud, then slumped back down. There was nothing left but a pit to mark what was now a grave.
I lay stunned in the dirt. Slowly I sat up, testing to see if anything was broken. Everything ached, but otherwise I was in one piece. Beside me, Adam stared blankly ahead into the dark. “Neil?” I asked him, dreading the answer.
“He begged me for a quick death. I picked up his pistol but couldn’t pull the trigger, so I gave him a choice. He chose the gun.”
“It was the humane thing to do.”
He’d lost his father all over again, but this time I imagined it was so much worse. Neil Lassiter’s death stood in the face of all the man had done to give Adam life.
The moon had risen while we were below. Huffing and wheezing, Devlin sagged to the ground beside a tree stump. His long shadow sagged with him. “I never meant for Neil to die—not the night I confronted him in the house, not now. I only wanted to ensure that his research stayed out of the wrong hands.”
“I know,” I said. “He didn’t leave us much choice, did he? But you accomplished what you set out to do—although probably not in the way you intended. At least now you know you’re not a murderer.”
Devlin sighed and, with a frail hand, lifted a corner of his shirt to wipe the grime from the hollows of his cheeks. “Small consolation when all my years of work and sacrifice are buried, along with every shred of the evidence of what we accomplished.” He tipped his head toward Adam. “Well, almost every shred. But it’s better this way. Greed tends to bring out the worst in people.” He reached into his front shirt pocket and produced a creased slip of paper. “Fortunately for you, though, not all people are beholden to greed. Here.”
I took the paper from his hand and unfolded it. “A check.”
“You did fulfill your end of the bargain, after all.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. “I thought you said you didn’t bring the money.”
Devlin shrugged. “Shoot me. I lied.”
That piece of paper, with its many zeroes, represented all my hopes for saving the family business. Even so, I passed it back. “It isn’t—”
Devlin held up a hand. “Don’t worry. That’s not all of it, but it’ll get you by for now.”
“No. It’s not that. It’s more than enough—generous, in fact. It’s—”
“Please.” Devlin’s eyes shone dull in the moonlight. “I want you to have it.”
It didn’t feel right to take it, not even my share. I thrust the check at Adam. “You take it. It rightly belongs to you, and who knows how long it will take to settle your father’s affairs? You need the money for a fresh start.”
“It’s too late for that.”
Too late? A lump formed in my throat at what that might mean.
“I came here tonight for reasons,” Adam began, casting a glance at Devlin, “I’m not proud of, but I always meant for you to have the money. Use it to get the mortuary out of debt, if that’s what you decide you want to do. But, no matter what you choose, for once, Lily, do it because it’s what you want and not because it’s what’s expected of you.” Adam turned to Devlin. “Tell her she has to accept it, Miles. Tell her it’s the only way.”
Devlin rubbed his chin. “Lily, let me tell you a story. You like stories, don’t you?”
I nodded. For me, working with the dead had always been about the stories. It doesn’t matter how destitute, cantankerous, or loathsome a person might be; everyone leaves behind a tale when they go. I’d never seen otherwise.
Maybe Miles Devlin knew me better than I thought.
“My mother abandoned me at the local five-and-dime when I was six years old. A neighbor—a widow—took me in, raised me as her own. She was the dearest woman you’d ever hope to meet. Gave me my bike. But she was also tough. Growing up I needed that, too.” Devlin beamed as he recalled his memories of her.
“She stood by me throughout the trial when no one else would,” he continued more slowly now, “and she was perhaps the only person who ever believed in my innocence. I lost contact with her in prison. Word reached me that she’d lost her house and was livin’ on the streets, but by the time I knew about her circumstances, she’d died. I didn’t make it to her viewing. But I heard about a young woman who worked at the funeral home, a young woman who went out of her way to honor dear Helen in my absence. That girl was you.”
“Me? Wait. Helen? What was her full name, the woman who raised you?”
“Helen Delaney.”
It clicked. The scrappy little kid in her photos—that was Devlin. Funny, I hadn’t noticed the resemblance until now. I smiled. Caribbean Coral and a string of pearls. “She was a great listener.”
“Yes, she was,” agreed Devlin, with a smile all his own.
“Thanks, Helen,” I said, and patted the earth beside me because it was all one and the same. “And you too, Miles.” He nodded his approval. Convinced at last that I was deserving, I slipped the check into my back pocket.
With the aid of the tree stump, Devlin rose to his feet, so thin that a sudden gust of wind might blow him away. “I’d best be going. I suggest you two do the same. Neighbors are sure to call in a disturbance if they haven’t already.” He retrieved his battered bike from where it lay in the weeds that had sprouted over the summer, strapped on his helmet, and pedaled off into the night.
“I wonder if we’ll ever see him again.” Adam mused, getting to his feet. It seemed to take much more effort than it should have. “We better be going, too.”
<
br /> I stood and brushed myself off. “Not yet. There’s something I have to say first.”
“It can wait.”
I took his hands in mine. “We’ve both said that before, and both times it cost us dearly. Some things shouldn’t wait. If I’ve learned anything these past two months, it’s that keeping things to myself is as risky as speaking my mind—maybe more so.”
Time to throw out the rulebook and wing it. I took a deep breath.
“Adam, I love you.”
If we’d been playing Name That Expression right then, I’d forfeit; I couldn’t read his face at all. But I’d already laid my heart on the table, so I figured I might as well go on. “I admit, in the beginning I was obsessed with the idea of you—the boy who saved me that day in the orchard, the boy at the heart of you—but today, this night, I love you for who you are now.”
“How could you possibly love a thing like me?”
“Because I don’t see the monster you claim to be. I see a man.”
He stared into my eyes as if measuring the depth of my sincerity, but I could not have meant it more.
“Ego te amo,” he said. “With all my heart and—” He couldn’t finish it, couldn’t make himself say the word, but I heard it in the silence.
Soul.
“Adam, are you crying?” I touched the bridge of his nose, which was miraculously moist. It was another first, one among many since he’d come back into my life.
“No,” he lied, his eyes blurry.
“That’s what I thought,” I said, wondering again how he could so easily defy the word etched into his flesh.
A far-off whine of sirens rose above the sporadic moans of settling earth.
“Come on,” I said. “We need to get you home.”
“Yeah. Home,” he repeated, sounding like he hadn’t understood its meaning before now.
We made for the street beyond the fallen gates. Adam’s feet dragged through the dust. I let him lean against me, but each of his steps came slower than the one before. I saw red lights flash in the distance; the police were close now.
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