The Best of All Possible Worlds

by Richard D. Parker

  The boy, Galen…they called him Galen…was talking animatedly to the crowd and every now and then someone would venture close, reach out and try to touch the young man. Torres could tell by their demeanor that a few of his supporters were very nervous, but the boy seemed relaxed and occasionally would even bend in close to someone from the crowd as if whispering a secret. Torres was intrigued, but if he was to succeed today he could not waste time on idle curiosity. He walked past the growing crowd and was nearly to the trees when he finally heard the sound he’d so feared, the roar of an angry mob. He spun and saw a massive group of protestors rush toward Galen and his group. As he watched, the policemen in the area quickly spread out in the hopes of dispersing the crowd, a few of them even drew their side arms, but the impassioned group hurried past the outnumbered police, who only managed to stop a handful.

  Loud and angry shouts echoed across the open field. Torres cursed again and then turned and hurried toward the trees, but then he spotted the steeple, rising high over the treetops. To his trained eye he immediately realized the spot was perfect, if only he could reach it in time. Torres glanced once more at the growing crowd around the mark. Some appeared friendly to the boy and some not so much. There was some pushing and shoving between the opposing groups and a lot of shouting, but for the moment it appeared that Galen and his inner group were holding their own, so without any more hesitation Torres turned and sprinted toward the old, stone church that sat on the western edge of the grounds.

  †

  “Clone!” The protesters screamed as they made their way through the more peaceful group of onlookers. Galen smiled at them all and opened his arms.

  “Welcome,” he said and somehow his voice carried over the noise of the crowd.

  “He’s not a clone!” Christine yelled out in exasperation. Galen glanced at her and shook his head ever so slightly, indicating that she was not helping.

  “Clone!” The protesters insisted, this time louder, and some of Galen’s supporters began to shout and push back. Somewhere near the edge of the pack a small scrum erupted between two policemen and a half dozen of the more emotional arrivals.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Agent Garcia remarked to no one in particular. Collier, Sanders and three additional federal agents were near the center of the group along with two St. Louis patrolmen. The officers were growing anxious as the tone and size of the crowd swelled, and while one was on his radio calling for back up, no one near Galen had drawn their weapons. Even with the growing tension, the FBI agents and the police officers in Galen’s vicinity remained relatively calm. After being near the young man and listening to his voice, they all believed he could handle the crowd. It was an unsubstantiated feeling, but they all shared it and trusted the boy’s ability implicitly, though not one could have truly said why.

  “Please hear me,” Galen pleaded and held up his hands. Surprisingly the protestors went quiet, though there was still a low buzz in the air, and then a loud grunt as a police officer struck one rowdy agitator with his baton. “Please…stop that,” Galen added and this time even the cops calmed and did as he asked.

  Galen glanced about, making eye contact with as many people as he could. A good many near the front were smiling at him, somehow calm and happy to be in his presence, but a lot of faces farther back showed only fear and loathing, with a sprinkle of hate mixed in.

  “It is true,” Galen began, and the crowd fell silent, “that I am not like you. I have no biological mother…no father. I was born in a lab. It was a sterile, logical place to be sure, and my earliest memories consist of a place more akin to a hospital than a home, but I have known love,” he added with a glance at Christine, “and friendship.” His eyes swept the rest of the people in his group and at that moment any one of them would have gladly laid down their lives for this mysterious engineered young man.

  “You’re a clone!” someone shouted emotionally from the back of the crowd and for a moment Christine thought the comment might reignite the crowd, but the interruption just echoed off the grounds and was gone.

  Galen smiled. “Strictly speaking, I am not,” he answered. “I am not a copy of anyone. But I have been artificially created…engineered by the very science you so fear…and perhaps rightly so. I was made in Cryogen’s labs. I was constructed…engineered from several donated samples of DNA, some of it thought to be long lost, but I am no clone…no copy.”

  A soft rumble coursed through the crowd.

  “I was created from DNA supplied by a man and a woman…just like all of you, but the scientists at Cryogen added a few things here and a few things there. They manipulated the information of the genetic strand far more than they expected, and in ways they did not understand. My DNA was altered in a very fundamental way,” Galen explained and began to move around in a large circle allowing those in the very front to reach out and touch him. Later, everyone who did so would testify that Galen was not a threat to anyone, though such opinions would be dismissed as lacking credibility.

  “Frankenstein monster!” A woman yelled from the right and Galen chuckled, genuinely amused by her admonishment.

  “Closer to the truth,” he replied happily, “much closer. And that would make you the mad scientist,” he accused Christine in a soft, playful voice so that only those in the first couple of rows could hear. Both Christine and Adam gasped, but then Galen was smiling at the crowd once more.

  “And like Frankenstein,” he continued, turning back to the crowd, “I was created out of the need for knowledge, the need to learn and the need to extend human life.”

  “Bullshit!” A man yelled and the crowd surged forward a few feet before once again falling back. Chad Adams, a third year patrolmen for the city of St Louis had a moment of panic, but Galen was close and reached out and put a hand on the man’s shoulder.

  “Not yet Chad,” he told him gently and Chad relaxed, suddenly content just to see how this would play out.

  “You’ll destroy us!” Another person yelled, this time the voice came from much closer in the crowd than before.

  Galen shook his head. “I will not,” he announced just as a woman pushed her way to the front. She was carrying a small child, a little girl with white blonde hair and large green eyes.

  “Move!” The mother insisted to those blocking her way and once through the line of onlookers, Galen and the others could tell that though the child was small, she not so very young. There were braces on the girl’s legs, which were thin and undersized. The child, though nearly crippled, was neither sad nor was she afraid, instead she looked around at the crowd with an open, honest wonder, an expression only found on the faces of the young and very innocent.

  “Help her!” The mother pleaded and rushed toward Galen. “They said…people said back there that you helped them…they feel better! Help her!” She blurted and thrust her child into Galen’s arms. He had no choice but to take the girl or let her drop to the ground, so he held her gently in his arms and looked down with a smile.

  “Hello Kirstin,” he said, surprising her, not by knowing her name but by getting the pronunciation just right. Most strangers called her Kristin at first, which always hurt her little heart.

  “Hello,” the little girl replied and once again the crowd grew utterly quiet, wanting a miracle…suddenly needing one. The world had become a cruel, sterile place and the crowd yearned for a bit of magic, a bit of wonder. Galen held the girl for a moment and then handed her back to her mother with a smile.

  “She may feel better but I can help her no more than that,” he told her just above a whisper, “she may never walk, but she will be happy and live a long productive life. You’re lucky Kirstin,” he added gazing once more into the small girl’s large eyes, “you’re sick, but someday soon you’ll be fine. Be glad, there are some things beyond helping.”

  The woman retreated slightly, the tears in her eyes making it hard for her to see clearly. She was confused but for some reason happy and satisfied. She’d hoped for a miracle
for her daughter, that her legs would instantly grow strong, but for some reason she believed the strange young man when he said that Kirstin would grow up happy and productive. For now that was enough. But for the crowd, the moment was a bit anticlimactic and they grew restless again.

  “Fraud!” Came a cry from the crowd but Galen ignored the slander.

  “Mama,” Kirstin said so quietly that only those very close to her could hear, “his hands were very warm.”

  “You are the Beast!” Another shout came out of the crowd, which had grown into the hundreds, very near a thousand and all the while more people were pouring onto the grassy hillside. A few police officers also joined the perimeter but by now they were hopelessly outnumbered and many were frantically putting in calls for more back up.

  Sirens wailed in the distance just as the first rock sailed over the crowd toward Galen and his group. It was poorly aimed and went wide by ten feet or more and struck a man in the shoulder. Another rock soon followed, this time falling at the feet of Galen.

  “Please!” he pleaded with the crowd, but he could barely be heard now over the angry shouts and the pushing and shoving. Hate and fear rippled through the crowd and the emotions were quickly gaining momentum. Another rock sailed through the bright, clear sky, this time striking a woman in the front row directly in the back of the head. She cried out and went down, immediately her hand went to the injury and when she pulled it away it was bright red. Several people gasped at the sight, and panic ensued at the sight of blood. Without warning the police in the area drew their side arms.

  Galen shook his head; his smile was gone, but there was still bright anticipation in his eyes.

  “I’m almost ready. I need Vio and Avigail,” he told those in his general group and then promptly closed his eyes.

  †

  Vio gave a contented sigh as she finished off one last apple. She was beginning to feel sated, not full, but satisfied.

  “You done?” Cal asked in surprise, having grown accustomed to her asking for more. The woman had been eating nonstop for the last hour and he already had his next batch of fruit lined up and ready for her. No matter, it’d already been a record day…but hell, he kind of wanted to see if she could eat it all…every bit.

  “You two…” Wilton started as Vio wiped her mouth on her shirt. He paused, eyeing the swords that hung at her waist for a split second before continuing. “You two ain’t exactly human are ya?”

  Armstrong tensed but Vio and Avigail just laughed.

  “We’re human,” Avigail told him, smiling radiantly.

  Wilton nodded but remained unconvinced. Oh, they looked human enough; as a matter of fact both were uncommonly beautiful. Best damned looking aliens in creation Wilton reckoned, but no human could eat like the older woman…hell a damned lion couldn’t eat like her.

  “Can you Travel?” Vio asked Avigail, leaving Wilton and Cal to their extraterrestrial musings.

  Avigail hesitated as Vio climbed to her feet. Her legs were rubbery as if she’d just run a very long race, but they held her. She walked a few steps in a circle. She was quickly gaining strength but Traveling anytime soon was out of the question…at least for her. If they were to reach St. Louis today it would be up to Avigail, but the girl shook her head in dismay.

  “I don’t think so…I don’t think I can make it the entire way,” she replied, but instead of completely giving up she closed her eyes. She immediately began to move through the twenty-nine steps, waving her arms about in front of her in an oddly exotic way, reinforcing Wilton’s notion that the two were aliens. After watching a moment the old man took a few steps farther back from the pair. He shot a quick look at Cal, but the horny old bastard was just staring at the young one’s backside. Well alien or not, they were easier to look at than most in these parts…including Estelle.

  It only took moments for Avigail to project but she quickly realized that she was far too weak to make it to Galen; she was however, very determined to get them as close as possible. She immediately flew off toward the east, straining to get just as far as she could. But she was not even halfway before the pressure to join her two halves became unbearable and just when she decided it was too much, she felt another presence…someone familiar and yet strange…someone exceptionally powerful. Avigail felt the newcomer envelop her, calming her, giving her strength and then together they streaked back to her body. They arrived in a blink. Avigail’s projection rejoined her body with such power that she stumbled backward, rocked by the collision. She staggered and landed on the seat of her pants, depriving Cal of his view.

  “He’s here!” Avigail shouted excitedly from her place on the ground but before she could explain further a large bridge suddenly opened up revealing Galen and the rest of the group. They were surrounded by a mass of people and in the distance the St. Louis Arch loomed above everything. The crowd, which was pressing close to the core group now retreated slightly, some near the back even ran away as the bridge sprang into existence. Galen was smiling warmly at Avigail and held out his hands in welcome, but Vio only had eyes for Adam, who, without the slightest trace of fear was moving toward her, a look of relief on his face.

  Though he’d seen such things before, Agent Cord Armstrong still gasped and withdrew behind Vio a few steps, his heart pounding wildly. But a few seconds later his courage returned and he moved to the left just as a bullet whizzed past his head and buried itself in one of the posts holding up Cal’s produce stand. Agent Armstrong ducked instinctively.

  “What the hell…” he yelled as Wilton retreated, knocking over several boxes of apples in his haste to get away.

  “Travel!” Galen encouraged them as Avigail hopped to her feet. The two Noble women moved forward quickly and actually leaped from one side of Missouri to the other in an instant, leaving Armstrong standing stock-still and gaping at the link between the two places. For a moment he was convinced the bubble would pop closed and the two fascinating women would be lost to him forever, but then Galen smiled directly at him.

  The boy was some kind of freak, but for some reason Armstrong felt a warm glow emanating from deep inside while Galen’s smile was aimed at him. He smiled back automatically.

  “Come Cord,” Galen instructed and held out his right hand in welcome. “Now!” He urged as another bullet streaked through the bridge, but this time it flew over the roadside stand harmlessly. Armstrong was grinning crazily, though he was completely unaware of his expression as he took his first step forward. He laughed despite the obvious danger, but he prudently moved from Skidmore, Missouri to downtown St. Louis in a crouch nevertheless. Galen’s core followers were still gathered around closely but some of the crowd panicked at the sound of gunfire and rushed away from the area.

  Once Armstrong was through Galen closed the bridge quickly and a small pop reverberated over the grassy field. Almost immediately they heard another gunshot and a cop went down with a scream, wounded in the right shoulder. All at once chaos erupted and the crowd exploded in all directions. And while most fled, a few of the more zealous actually rushed toward Galen and his protectors.

  “Death to the clone!” Someone in the crowd yelled. But the surrounding police were ignoring the nearby crowd at the moment, busy searching for the gunman. They all had their weapons drawn, but in the chaos it was nearly impossible to tell where the shots were coming from. A few officers near Galen tried to keep order but the hostile crowd quickly overwhelmed them and rushed forward. Every one ducked as more gunshots rang out. Vio, who was off to Galen’s right, spun her swords absently. She was still very weak, but as a man wielding a 2-iron reached her, she launched herself at him with all the grace and skill she possessed. The amateur golfer had little chance and soon lost his right arm. He screamed; his blood and shrieks adding to the bedlam.

  Galen sighed, glad his protectors were by his side, but he wasted little time in greeting them; instead he immediately opened another, much smaller portal, revealing a man with a gun crouching behind a low wall. As
Avigail watched the man fired another shot and an instant later Melissa Young from Oregon went down without a sound.

  Avi hesitated for a moment, looking at the back of the man’s head through the bridge. The arch was just visible off to the man’s right. Cord Armstrong, who was also watching, felt a wave of vertigo but Avigail knew exactly what she was looking at…a shooter…a shooter with a long gun. She could not see the man’s face, his head was bent, and he was pressing his right eye against a scope, but she knew he meant to kill.

  “Avi!” Galen shouted which was all the encouragement she needed. She rushed forward, drawing her swords smoothly, and then she dived through the opening, which was no more than two feet in diameter. She tucked and rolled as she struck the roof and was on her feet again in an instant. She found herself on the flat roof of a nearby cathedral standing directly behind the man with the gun. The massive crowd was spread out below the building, still hostile, still filled with irrational hate and anger despite the danger, and the arch towered over them all. Avigail was delighted and amazed; Galen’s control was astounding for one just learning.