Perfect People

by Peter James

  125

  Outside, in the blinding sunlight and searing midday heat, in air perfumed by hibiscus and bougainvillea, John and Naomi followed Dr Dettore along a green-painted path through the vast, silent campus. Dettore pointed out and named each of the buildings they passed, but they barely took anything in.

  Both of them were traumatized from their meeting with Luke and Phoebe. John squinted at his surroundings, wishing he had his sunglasses and lighter clothes. He felt sticky, grungy and unwashed, and his growth of stubble itched. But right now none of this was important. Nothing mattered except answers to all the questions he and Naomi wanted to put to Dettore. Answers that until today they had both despaired of ever getting.

  And, even more importantly, finding some way to reach into their children’s hearts and persuade them to come home. Which would involve putting Dettore’s word to the test, to see if he really would allow them to do this.

  The silence was spooky. It was like being in a ghost city. Or being back on the cruise ship, he thought. ‘Why do you have all this camouflage on the buildings – and this green paint on the runway and the paths, Dr Dettore?’ he asked. ‘Why do you want to be invisible?’

  ‘What are you scared of, Dr Dettore?’ Naomi asked.

  Dettore strode on, taking easy, confident strides, like a lion who knows he has no predator. The king of the jungle, king of this island, invincible. John loathed him more with every passing second. He loathed the man’s conceit, loathed him for the way he had deceived Naomi and himself, for destroying their lives, for taking their children. And yet despite all this, the scientist in John could not help being awed by aspects of the man.

  Dettore stopped and opened his arms expansively at their surroundings. ‘Let me tell you the point. Do you remember the Inquisitions in France, Italy and Spain, which terrorized free-thinking people for five centuries in the Middle Ages? Do you remember an Italian scientist called Galileo – a professor of mathematics at Pisa? He improved the telescope to the point where he was the first human to see Jupiter? In 1632, he published a book backing up Copernicus’s theory that the earth rotated around the sun, rather than the reverse. The Inquisition made him recant this absurd theory – or be put to death.’

  Neither John nor Naomi said anything.

  ‘Just like Hitler and Stalin, the Inquisition was indiscriminate. It put to death the intelligentsia along with the proletariat. Yet somehow, the Inquisition got away with it, because it was all done in the name of God. Religion gave it a cachet, and a legitimacy.’ Dettore paused, looking hard at John and Naomi for some moments. ‘You wonder why we need to be in hiding here – the reason is simple. Sooner or later a bunch of religious crazies with ideas that have not moved on since the dark ages would have hunted me down and killed me. If not the Disciples of the Third Millennium, then another group.’

  ‘And you wonder why?’ John said. ‘You’re using child labour and genetic engineering and it surprises you that people are against you?’

  Dettore pointed up at the sky. ‘There are satellites up there, photographing every inch of our planet, every hour, John and Naomi. American, Russian, Chinese and other nations, also. They’re looking for anything out of the norm, new structures, people in places that were once unoccupied. Everything gets logged, examined, questioned.’

  ‘Is that why your entire transportation system is underground?’ John asked.

  ‘Of course. We’re invisible here and we intend to remain that way until it is no longer necessary.’

  ‘Which will be when?’ said Naomi.

  ‘When the world is ready.’

  ‘For what?’ she demanded.

  ‘For the kind of wisdom and humanity we’re developing here. None of the kids here will grow up to be the kind of man who will put a bomb full of nails in a crowded London pub. Or Semtex in a car in a street market full of women and children. Do you both want to allow this mayhem of so-called civilization to go on and on and on, for ever? The world has lurched from the clutches of one fanatic or despot to another. Nero, Attila the Hun, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Hirohito, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Milosevic, Bin Laden, Mugabe. Where is it going to end? In some big party with balloons and crackers and everyone shaking hands and saying, Look, OK, guys, sorry, we’ve had a lousy few thousand years, let’s all be friends now so our kids can have a nice future? I don’t think so.’

  ‘Who’s financing all this, Dr Dettore?’ John asked, unmoved.

  Without slowing his pace, he answered, ‘Concerned people. Philanthropists around the globe who don’t want to see civilization fall back into the hands of religious fanaticism and despots, the way it was in the dark ages. Who want to secure a future for humankind based on solid science.’

  ‘I want to know something,’ Naomi said. ‘Why, when we came to you wanting a boy, did you deceive us and give us twins?’

  Dettore stopped and faced them. ‘Because you would never have understood. Simple as that.’

  ‘Understood what?’ John said.

  He looked at each of them in turn. ‘Your child would have been lonely without someone to share his superior intellect with. He would have felt like a freak among other kids. By having two, they were able to bond and see the world clearly, in perspective.’

  ‘Don’t you think that should have been our decision?’ Naomi said.

  ‘I didn’t feel you were ready to understand,’ he replied.

  John felt his anger rising. ‘That is an incredibly arrogant thing to say.’

  Dettore shrugged. ‘The truth is often hard to accept.’

  ‘I can’t believe what I’m hearing. We agreed – you, Naomi and I – a list of enhancements for our child. How much more did you add that you never told us about?’

  ‘Important things that I felt you were overlooking.’

  ‘And what the hell gave you the right to do that?’ Naomi said, her voice rising.

  ‘Let’s go back to my office,’ Dettore said. ‘You look hot and uncomfortable. You guys need a shower and a change of clothes, and some food and some rest. You’ve had a long journey and you’re tired. Let’s get you freshened up and rested, and we’ll talk more.’

  ‘I don’t need to freshen up,’ Naomi said. ‘I don’t want to rest. I want to get on a plane back home with my children. That’s all I need. Don’t tell me what I need.’

  Dettore’s expression hardened. ‘There are a load of smart people here, Naomi. All of us with one common interest: the future of the human species.’ He turned to John, then Naomi again, to include both of them. ‘We have three Nobel Prize-winning scientists and eight McArthur Award-winners here. And twenty-eight scientists who have been put forward for Nobel Prizes. I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to think I’m just a lone charlatan working in the dark here, or some kind of lone crazy voice in the scientific wilderness.’

  ‘You’re entitled to whatever vision you want, Dr Dettore,’ Naomi said. ‘But you are not entitled to abduct children and turn them against their parents.’

  ‘Then, for the moment, we’ll have to agree to disagree.’ He smiled, and walked on.

  John followed him, angry at Dettore, angry at himself for feeling so damned helpless and useless here, his brain churning. Then he heard a thud.

  He looked up. For an instant he thought part of the back of Dettore’s head had been blown off; something fell away from it, taking a chunk of hair and skin with it. A lump of rock, he realized, turning for an instant in horror to Naomi, who was standing, her arms outstretched, with an expression of grim satisfaction on her face.

  Then he turned back to Dettore, who sagged onto his knees, almost in slow motion, then fell headlong forward and lay still. For an instant the exposed patch on his head looked pale grey, like cracked slate, then blood rapidly began covering it over and spreading into the hair beyond.

  126

  Naomi bolted, sprinting back down the path. The fading slap of her shoes, the drumming of his own heart and the roar of panic in John’
s ears were the only sounds.

  John ran over to Dettore and knelt beside him. He stared at the blood spreading across the collar and shoulders of Dettore’s jumpsuit. Panic spread deeper through him.

  He scrambled to his feet and ran after her. When he was a few steps behind, he called out, ‘Naomi! Stop! Stop! Where are you going?’

  ‘To get my children,’ she said without turning her head.

  He grabbed her arm and jerked her to a halt. ‘Naomi! Hon!’

  She stared at him with eyes that were barely focusing. She was shaking, hysterical. ‘Let me go!’

  ‘You might have killed him.’

  ‘I’ll kill you, too,’ she said. ‘I’ll kill anyone who tries to stop me taking my children home.’

  John looked over his shoulder at the distant, motionless figure. Then up at the windows of the buildings all around. Any moment doors would open and people would be running towards them. They had to get out of sight, that was their first priority. Beyond that, he had no thoughts, no ideas, no plan. All his instincts told him that Dettore had been their one lifeline here. This wasn’t about taking their children home any more. It was about trying to survive.

  Frantically, he looked around, trying to get his bearings. He stared at the red-brick structure that he thought Dettore had said, just a few minutes before, housed the Department of Astrophysics. Then at another housing the Library and General Research Facility. As his eyes roamed from building to building, he simply had no idea which was the one they’d seen Luke and Phoebe in – it could have been any of two dozen different ones. A voice inside his head screamed:

  Get inside! Got to get inside! Out of the open! Under cover!

  Shelter!

  Hide!

  The Department of Astrophysics was the nearest. Holding Naomi’s hand, he dragged her, half running, half stumbling towards it.

  Where the hell’s the door?

  They ran along the front of the building, past huge darkened-glass windows, past flower beds and a pond, and around the side. A small glass door in front of them was marked FIRE EXIT ONLY. He tried to pull it open, but could get no purchase; there was no handle on the outside, no gap big enough to get his fingers inside.

  ‘Are they in here?’ Naomi said. ‘Is this where Luke and Phoebe are?’

  ‘Maybe. We’ll start here.’

  She was sobbing. ‘John, I want my children. I want Luke and Phoebe.’

  ‘We’ll find them.’ He dragged her further along and round to the far side, and realized this must be the main entrance. Ahead of them two children, a boy and a girl of about six, walking hand-in-hand in their white outfits, skipped up some steps then carried on straight towards a window in the centre of the building. When they were a couple of yards from it, a section of the glass rose, then dropped seamlessly behind them after they had entered.

  John led Naomi towards the window, and the section rose up for them as they approached. They went through into the air-conditioned chill of a huge, deserted atrium with a marble floor, and a massive Foucault pendulum suspended from the ceiling. It felt like the lobby of a grand hotel, except there was no front desk, no staff. Just twin elevator doors on the far side. The children had disappeared.

  Where?

  The elevators? It was the only possible place they could have gone, John thought, and, still holding Naomi’s hand, dragged her over. He couldn’t see any buttons. He looked up and down. Nothing, no apparent means of summoning the damned thing. There must be! He turned and looked behind them. The place was still deserted. There must be a staircase, a fire exit route. Moments later there was a chime, and a light went on above the right-hand elevator door.

  John tightened his grip on Naomi’s hand. The door opened.

  The car was empty. They went in; John looked at the panel and pressed the bottom button.

  Then from across the atrium he heard a shout. Two figures in white jumpsuits, teenagers, were running across the floor towards them. More were coming in through the glass door.

  Panicking, John stabbed the button again, then again. The first two were getting nearer, yards away. Then the doors closed.

  Furious banging on them.

  Naomi was staring at him like a zombie. The car started sinking. John pulled out his phone, stared futilely at the display. As before, it said, NO SIGNAL.

  There had to be some means of getting through to the outside world. There had been a phone in Dettore’s office, must be satellite phones around. There must be supplies coming in by plane or boat, or both; there had to be some way of getting word out, or getting away from here.

  How?

  The doors opened onto a deserted monorail platform. He pulled Naomi out, looked right and left. Two dark tunnels. A narrow gridded inspection sidewalk went into the tunnel in both directions. He pulled her to the left, into the tunnel, running as fast as he could into the darkness.

  They covered a few hundred yards, then heard shouting behind them. He turned and saw several flashlight beams following them. Naomi stumbled, recovered. There was light ahead of them, a long way in the distance. The flashlights behind them were getting closer. His lungs were aching, Naomi was silent, following him, clinging to his hand. He ran even faster now.

  The light ahead was getting closer. The voices behind them getting closer, too. Gaining on them. They burst out of the darkness onto another platform. An elevator door, and beside it, an emergency exit door. He pulled it and led her through into a dimly lit concrete stairwell that only went up.

  He pounded up the stairs, two, sometimes three at a time; Naomi, close to collapse, tripped repeatedly so that he was almost dragging her up by her hand. He could hear voices at the bottom. Then they reached the top and a door with a push-bar. He jerked the bar and shoved the door, and they both stumbled forward into a long, brightly lit corridor with a tiled floor and walls that looked like they were made of brushed aluminium. There was a double door with two glass portholes, like a hospital ER entrance, at the far end.

  They raced down towards it, but a few yards before they reached it, two figures came through.

  Luke and Phoebe.

  More small figures began crowding in behind them.

  127

  Luke spoke sharply. ‘You have done a terrible thing, Parent People. You have brought your old ways to this place. You have shamed us. You have only been here a few hours and already you have sullied the place. No one has ever been violent on this island. The New People here didn’t even know what violence is. Now you’ve shown them. Are you proud of that?’

  ‘We . . .’ John started to reply, not sure what he was going to say, then his voice trailed away.

  Naomi was trembling in shock at what she had done. ‘Where are we?’ she asked in a faltering voice. ‘What is this place? What is going on?’

  ‘You are not capable of understanding even if we were to explain it to you.’

  ‘You brought us into the world,’ Luke said. ‘Would you like to tell us why you did that?’

  ‘Yes, what exactly was your agenda?’ Phoebe added.

  ‘We wanted to have a healthy child, one that did not have the disease genes your mother and I were both carrying – that was our agenda, nothing else,’ John said, scarcely believing he was having this conversation.

  ‘Fine, here we are, you succeeded. We are healthy,’ Luke said. ‘Would you like to see our medical records? They are really quite exemplary. We are very much healthier than the world you have brought us into.’

  Then Phoebe said, ‘Everyone seems to be afraid of genetics. We read that people are saying that Mother Nature isn’t great, but she’s better than the alternatives. Oh yes, hallo, what planet are you on? Mother Nature has dominated Homo sapiens since the species first appeared five hundred thousand years ago. And what a screw up! If Mother Nature was a political leader, she should have been executed for genocide! If she was chief executive officer of a multinational company, she’d have been fired for incompetence. Why not give science a chance at the helm? Is
science, in the right hands, going to make an even bigger mess?’

  ‘What do you call the right hands?’ John replied.

  ‘The man you have just tried to murder,’ Luke said, staring at Naomi. ‘Dr Dettore. The biggest visionary this planet has ever seen. The man you just tried to kill.’

  ‘You need to leave now, Parent People,’ Phoebe said darkly. ‘Before too many people here find out what you have done. We will take you to your plane. You need to know that everything on this island is recorded. If you go now, we’ll erase the tape showing you trying to commit murder, Mother, which is more than you deserve, but you are our parents . . .’

  ‘We don’t really want to kill you,’ Luke said. ‘That would just bring us down to your level. We want you to leave. Forget you were ever here. Forget all about us and everything you saw.’

  ‘I can never forget you both,’ Naomi said.

  ‘Why not?’ Luke replied.

  Naomi blinked tears from her eyes. ‘You are our children and you always will be. Our home will always be your home. Maybe, one day, when you are older you might come and visit us.’ Her voice faltered. ‘Perhaps you have things you’ll be able to teach us.’

  John nodded, then added, ‘Our doors will always be open. I just want you to understand that there will always be a home for you with us, if you ever want or need it. Always.’

  ‘We understand you very clearly,’ Phoebe said.

  128

  Naomi’s Diary

  Once upon a time I nearly killed a man.

  I write it this way because it makes it feel less real to me. That’s one good thing about the human brain, it constantly revises the past, cutting bits here, adding bits there, presenting it in an ever more palatable way – the way we would have liked things to have been, rather than the way they really were.

  Sören Kierkegaard wrote that life must be lived forwards but that it can only be understood backwards. I wind back the tape inside my head all the time. Returning to Halley’s death. Returning to that decision John and I made to go to Dr Dettore’s Clinic. Returning to that moment – incredible that it was eight years ago – when I was following John and Dr Dettore up the path, in the bright sunlight. That moment I knelt and picked up the rock and threw it.