by Glenn Kleier
“Except that with virtual reality, you have actual, physical stimuli working in concert with tactile, visual and audio cues. With Jozef's system, it all occurs in the mind. Probably much like having a very vivid dream. After birth, all these prelearned capabilities would allow the girls to relate much more easily and faster to the real world.”
“Did you include religious instruction in your intelligence infusions?” Feldman asked.
“Yes,” the widow replied. “The Bible, the Talmud and New Testament, of course. But also the books of the other great religions—the Koran, the Torah, the Avesta and so forth. Realizing that it was religious intolerance behind the attack that injured our first Marie, we felt it important that our new Maries have an understanding of all the major theological doctrines.”
Feldman was about to ask Mrs. Leveque another question when she raised a hand in the air to signal a hiatus. She placed the other hand to her heart and closed her eyes.
Alarmed, Feldman and Anke sprang up and moved toward her.
“Anne, are you feeling ill?” Feldman asked.
She waved her hand slightly in the air. “Just—just a little tired, I think.”
“Can I get you some water?” Feldman offered.
“Perhaps a little something to eat,” Anke suggested.
The widow opened her eyes. “Today has been a little stressful for me,” she recognized. “I've never spoken of this to anyone before. Maybe if I could lie down for a moment. But only for a moment. It's important that you hear everything as soon as possible, so the world can know the truth. Before this tragedy grows far worse.”
44
Nordau Towers, Tel Aviv, Israel 10:00 A.M., Saturday, January 22, 2000
It was an ill-humored Bollinger taking Feldman's call. “Where the hell have you been?” the bureau chief railed. “We've been looking all over for you. Why weren't you at this morning's meeting?”
“I'm in Tel Aviv with Anke,” Feldman tried to explain, “I’ m—”
“Dammit Feldman!” Bollinger exploded. “You're off recreating while the rest of us are busting our humps trying to scare up leads!”
“Calm down, Arnie,” Feldman pleaded, “it's not what you think. I'm on to something really big down here. You won't believe it. Something that just might vault us right back into the spotlight!”
Bollinger's tone switched instantly to one of apologetic curiosity. “Oh yeah? Seriously? What have you got, Jon?”
“I've got the inside scoop on that Negev installation,” Feldman said. “And it's mind-boggling.”
“Jesus Christ! No kidding! Wonderful! Well, damn, let's hear it!”
“I don't have the whole story yet, Arnie. I'm still working on it. But I'll get back with you directly.”
“But—”
“Trust me. Gotta go!”
“But—”
Hanging up, Feldman left the phone off the cradle to ensure Mrs. Leveque's rest would be undisturbed. But it was unnecessary. At that moment she emerged from the bedroom, looking more composed, to rejoin the reporter and Anke in the living room.
“Are you sure you feel up to this, Anne?” Feldman asked. “We can postpone things to a better time.”
“No, no.” Mrs. Leveque smiled slightly and patted his hand. “I'm feeling better. Besides, it's vital that I tell you the rest of this now, for reasons you'll soon understand.”
Settling back in her chair, the widow picked up where she left off.
“For a little more than a year, Jozef was able to continue the gestation process with our daughters, undisturbed, in a restricted section of the Negev Research Institute. Over time, however, Jozef began borrowing more and more heavily on the laboratory's enormous computer capacity. To develop and control the increasingly complicated and delicate infusion process properly, Jozef was forced to pirate increasing amounts of time and memory from the central computer system.
“Ultimately, this began interfering with the service platforms regulating the bovine gestation program. And that as a consequence, attracted the curiosity of Giyam Karmi. Giyam naturally wanted to learn what powerful addendums to the bovine procedures Jozef was working on.
“Finally, after Jozef exhausted every possible guile, things turned ugly and Giyam literally had to force his way into the department. When he discovered the true nature of our work, Giyam became hysterical, sacked Jozef immediately and prepared to shut down our systems.
“In desperation, Jozef appealed to Defense Minister Shaul Tamin. Jozef had met Tamin through the university, having consulted on several defense projects for him at one time. After Marie's accident, however, both Jozef and I had taken a solemn oath renouncing all military research. Jozef refused to assist Tamin further and we had not seen him in years.
“But we had nowhere else to turn. Tamin was the only person in a position to offer us help in time. So, despite our vows, we told the defense minister all about Jozef's infusion process and its military applications. And how Giyam's shortsightedness was placing the technology in immediate jeopardy.”
“Pardon me, Anne,” Feldman interrupted once more, “but I fail to see any defense applications in Jozef's experiments.”
“As Jozef presented it, there were two major potentials: first, the ability to infuse legions of future Israeli soldiers with enhanced, autonomic military training. In an emergency, even civilians, if they carried transmitter-receiver implants, could be automatically summoned up, infused with the latest technical schooling and combat training, and immediately activated.
“Second, and more important, each and every soldier would have instantaneous, silent, two-way communications capabilities, virtually anywhere, anytime.”
Feldman nodded his head, beginning to comprehend.
“Needless to say, this would allow tremendous communications advantages. Instant mass troop mobilization and response to last-second field commands; mental maps by which every soldier could always be apprised of his or her position and direction; the ability for any soldier to immediately identify friend or foe; to instantly transmit exact coordinates for artillery telemetry, and so forth.”
She paused and lowered her eyes. “In order to save our daughters, Jozef and I broke the sacred vow we'd made. We offered our technology to the IDF.”
Her brow creased and she looked on the verge of tears. “We were so possessed of our dream, Jozef and I, we could no longer pull back from it. We had watched our three beautiful Maries develop from infants into little girls, all in less than a year! We had stared daily through the glass into each of those dark chambers, gazing at our daughters as they slept, unable to hold them or caress them or kiss them.
“Because of their sterile environment, we dared touch them only when absolutely necessary. To perform quick maintenance functions, like replacing their cranial monitors, or shaving the little electrode patches on their scalps. That's the only time we could see their sweet little faces. Not the accustomed, sentimental moments a parent treasures with a child, perhaps, but precious to us, all the same. We loved them so much. We would have sold our souls to keep them.
“But instead, we did something far worse. And for this, God cursed us.
“Shaul Tamin made Jozef a wicked proposal. He said he would allow Jozef to continue the project on one condition only: that Jozef agree to alter the current infusion process for military applications.
“The idea was abhorrent and appalling to us. After the horrible violence our first Marie had been subjected to, it was inconceivable that we should now turn our innocent daughters into soldiers.
“We had to think of something quickly or all would be lost. In desperation, Jozef struck a deal with Tamin. A devil's deal. Jozef knew that the defense minister was most interested in our daughter who carried the special reception-transmission microchip. In order to save the others, Jozef felt he had no choice but to offer her up to Tamin. We would give over this one special child, alone, to military intelligence infusion. And we would remove the other daughter from the infusion pro
cess and gestate her separately with her control sister. Tamin agreed to this.”
Anke and Feldman were stunned. No one said anything until Feldman finally broke the silence.
“Wouldn't removing the other daughter from the intelligence transfer halt her mental development?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Leveque confirmed. “At the time Tamin took control of our operation, she was perhaps seven years of age, intellectually. We'd have initiated her birth and that of her unaltered sister right then, except Tamin insisted they continue in the gestation process. That's how he kept Jozef tied to the project.
“Obviously, ending up with adult daughters with arrested mental maturity was a great concern to us, but at least we felt we'd have healthy minds to work with. Minds uncorrupted by Tamin's secret military schemes and conspiracies!
“As much as Jozef and I had been obsessed by our project, Shaul Tamin was possessed. To him, this program offered Israel an area of tactical superiority no other military force could hope to equal. Not even the United States. He was completely taken by the infusion process and its seemingly limitless applications. He had the IDF assume complete jurisdiction over the operation, under the strictest confidence and security. The bovine experiments were discontinued indefinitely, and from that point forward, the huge Negev Research Institute in its entirety was devoted to his project.”
“What became of Dr. Karmi?” Feldman asked.
“Because Tamin did not trust him, Giyam was removed from his directorship. It was a terrible blow to Giyam and, I'm sorry to say, he succumbed to a heart attack not long afterward.”
Feldman sighed. “So how close did you come to completion before the explosion?”
“A week,” the widow said. “Military encoding for our special daughter was to be completed the end of last month. Birth for her and her two sisters was set for the first day of the new millennium.”
Mrs. Leveque shook her head forlornly. “God allowed us to get that close, to come all that way, to be utterly convinced in the viability of our methods. And then, without warning, He brought down His hand upon us in righteous indignation, taking away everything in an instant!”
She paused and looked off in the distance for a moment of introspection, then returned her watery gaze to Feldman. “But God does work in mysterious ways, and I never lost my faith in Him. Thursday morning, January 6, in the most mysterious way imaginable, God restored some of what He'd taken from me. In your newscast at the Mount of the Beatitudes, Jon, I saw in the face of the New Messiah an undeniable resemblance to my Marie. Jeza, the lone survivor of the Negev disaster, is my daughter.”
This came as no surprise to Feldman. The moment Mrs. Leveque had mentioned shaving small circles in her daughters’ hair to attach electrodes, Feldman had made the connection. He'd recalled the little circular welts he'd seen in the Messiah's scalp at her Mount of the Beatitudes appearance. But to have the widow confirm his suspicions still set Feldman's adrenaline coursing. Another incredible scoop. And the credit for this one went to Anke. He squeezed her hand.
“You said a ‘resemblance’ to your Marie,” Feldman observed. “Isn't she identical to your original daughter? I thought they shared the same chromosomes.”
“They do. But even with identical twins, there are always differences. Sometimes very noticeable ones. In this instance, the distinctions were fairly pronounced. In the eyes, voice, demeanor.”
“Then, forgive me, Anne, but isn't it just possible that this Jeza is someone who merely resembles your daughter closely?”
“I knew it was my Marie from the moment I first saw her, as only a mother can know,” she responded with a calm of conviction. The widow then placed on the coffee table the album diary she'd been clutching and opened to photographs of a beautiful dark-haired young woman.
“These were taken before the accident, when Marie was approximately twenty-one years of age, the same age as her new siblings would be now.”
Feldman and Anke could certainly see the resemblance. The first Marie was most definitely an attractive woman. With features very close to those of Jeza. But the similarity was more familial than identical. The small young woman in the photographs looked more like a sister than an identical twin.
Not to be unkind, Feldman thought to himself, but Marie's eyes were not the least piercing or authoritative. She was a bit heavier, her complexion much darker. It occurred to him that perhaps the Messiah was this Marie, only more so. All the best qualities of the original Marie, but improved. Taken to perfection. Face, figure, eyes. And Jeza's skin. Absolutely glowing, angelic, pearlescent.
“Anne,” Feldman commented after examining the photos, “I have to admit I see a strong resemblance, but in all honesty, I'd be hard pressed to identify them as identical twins. The eyes, the complexion. There's a questionable difference there.”
Mrs. Leveque nodded her head in understanding. “Beyond the often wide distinctions you will find in natural identical twins,” she explained, “you must also take into consideration the effects our unusual gestation process would have on the body.
“The skin of all of our gestated daughters possessed an unusual lack of pigmentation. Remember, in their entire existence, they had never been exposed to a single ray of sunlight. That, coupled with the artificial amniotic fluid, affected the appearance of their skin and their eyes.
“Recognize, too, that any normally aging person experiences the effects of gravity and the continuing erosion that life visits on physical features. These influences result in uneven distributions of body fat, and help accentuate an asymmetry of the face and body. These factors would account for any of the more pronounced differences you noted.”
“Still,” Feldman persisted, “how can you be absolutely certain this Jeza woman is one of your daughters from the Negev lab?”
The widow Leveque beamed with pride. “Because I met her.”
This took Feldman completely by surprise. “You met the Messiah? When? How?”
“Friday a week ago, the fourteenth. I had to leave Marie alone at home temporarily that morning while I went to the market. I was only gone about a half an hour, and when I returned I saw that our front door was standing wide open. I knew I had secured it before I left.
“I was so fearful, I just rushed inside without even considering that an intruder might be there. But when I got to Marie's room, I saw this young woman in a white robe, standing at the foot of Marie's bed, just staring at her. I knew immediately who it was. She turned to me and smiled a small, sweet smile—my Marie's smile—and she said, ‘Do not be afraid, for I come from the Father.’
“It was such a shock, I couldn't contain myself and fell to my knees before her, my arms around her waist, and I cried out all the tears and anguish and pain I'd kept inside me through all my tragedies. She held my head to her and stroked my hair and brought me such great comfort and inner peace.”
The elderly woman closed her eyes and tilted back her head, revisiting the moment with an aura of complete serenity. “After a while, she lifted me to my feet and I saw such wisdom and peace and grace in her eyes that I no longer felt the need to cry. My only thought at the time was to keep her there with me and just revel in the love of my newly found daughter.
“But she told me she had to go. I begged her to stay just one night. She simply said, Woman, I must be about my Father's business.’ Then she touched my face once more, smiled again that precious smile, and left. I delayed following her for the barest second or two, I'm certain. But by the time I rushed out of the house to find her, she was already gone. Vanished.”
“Anne,” Feldman asked, “do you have any idea how Jeza knew about you or where you lived?”
“I don't really know. Perhaps it was another of the many eclectic things Jozef implanted in her memory with the intelligence infusion. I have no idea all of the information Jozef provided her. Then again, it could have been some sort of instinctive or spiritual cognition that led her home. I just don't know. There's a far deeper wisdom inside h
er than I can account for.”
The widow Leveque closed her eyes once more and fell silent, the tremendous emotional expenditure of her story an obvious drain. After a time she looked up and smiled.
“When you called me last week, Anke,” she said, “of course I didn't know at first that you were involved with Jon. All of us who had connections with the Negev Institute had been warned by the IDF that the operations there were top secret, and that the consequences for divulging information would be severe. When you happened to mention Jon and WNN, I realized I'd said too much and panicked.”
“So, after you were visited by Jeza, you changed your mind?” Anke speculated.
“No, Anke. It was after I was visited by the IDF that I knew I had no choice but to talk with you.”
“The IDF came to see you?” Feldman questioned. “When?”
“Last Thursday morning. General Alleza Goene and some of his staff officers.”
“What did General Goene want with you, Anne?”
“I'd never met him before, although I'd heard his name from Jozef in connection with the work at the Negev. General Goene was in charge of security for the operation and would visit the facility on occasion. Jozef was mindful to have things in tight order. General Goene was one of Tamin's cronies, and a rather intolerant individual who took security issues very seriously.
“When he visited me, the general seemed kind at first. He gave his condolences over my losses and asked me a number of questions about Jozef and the operations at the Negev. First he asked about any records or notes Jozef might have kept at home. I told him that all such documents had been classified by the IDF and that Jozef was required to store all of them at the laboratory. I didn't tell him about the diary.
“But in particular, he was interested in my daughters. He wanted to know if they were viable enough to have survived outside the gestation chambers at the time of the accident; if they would've been able to see or walk at the time; what negative effects the explosion and short-circuiting of the infusion system might have had on them mentally and physically, and so forth.