by Joseph Evans
“They were the scientists that made those babies?” Seckry said. “The mutilated ones that died when they were teenagers?”
“Yes they were,” Vance explained. “But there is one big flaw in the story that the media have chosen to believe. Within the scientific circle, we have a slightly different account of what happened. Seckry . . . the bodies of the two boys were never found. The boys never died.”
“What? They’re still alive now?”
“Seckry do you know what Rikard Ringold named his child?”
Seckry said nothing but he knew what was coming.
“It was Pawl. Pawl Ringold.”
“My dad was made in a lab?” Seckry said, more to himself than Vance. “My mum said that whenever my dad used to hear anything about the lab baby affair, he'd have to leave the room because he was uncomfortable. That's why . . . it was . . . him.”
Vance stayed silent for a moment.
“Seckry . . . what this means is . . . I think I may know why your father left you when you were six years old.”
Seckry sat down, his eyes wild with anticipation, fear, and shock.
“Seckry, Adelbert Endoman and Rikard Ringold were scientists involved in very experimental procedures. Very experimental procedures. They were both infertile, yet they both wanted sons. They began research into a technique that would allow them to use their own DNA to grow their own children in incubation tanks. Not many people knew what they were doing; Endrin was always Endrin right from the very beginning, full of lies and cover ups. The people who did know warned them against it. But Endoman and Ringold were both convinced that they could have children.
“The lab was in a secret location. To this day nobody knows where it was, or still is. All of this information was relayed to their colleagues via secure internet updates.
“Forty two years ago, Pawl Ringold and Lux Endoman were taken out of their incubators, and were born to the world. But this was ‘49. Technology wasn’t the same as it is now, they were mavericks experimenting with things way beyond their grasp.”
“What happened?”
“The boys never left the lab, probably because of the public outcry that would have ensued if the boys had been revealed at the time. We have to assume, from the little knowledge we have of its size or location, that it was big enough for a group of people to live in. It’s recorded that Endoman and Ringold were also growing their own fruit and vegetables in there somehow, and they must have set up a water supply, so they had an entirely self confined existence. But the boys were ill, terribly ill. The health problems they had seemed to have no end. And mentally they were incredibly unstable.
“The thing is, Ringold’s child had fared better than Endoman’s. They say that Pawl, over time, began to develop more like any other normal child whilst Lux . . . well Lux, he began to descend into madness.
“It’s reported that Lux would have seizures in which he’d scream and foam at the mouth until they thought he was going to choke or suffocate, and he’d thrash around so wildly that they had to restrain him with leather straps. And he used to have terrible nightmares and hallucinations. He thought that they were all tricking him, and he couldn’t understand why they couldn’t see what he could see. But they were just hallucinations, unfinished components of his brain, glitches in Endoman’s botched experiment. His brain wasn’t fully formed, it was missing things, there were things in places that there shouldn’t have been.
“They lived down there for sixteen years, oblivious to the outside world. But the boys should have been told what they were from the very beginning. They grew up thinking that their mothers had died in childbirth. When Lux found out that this wasn’t true, something inside him erupted. He thought he was a monster. He became obsessed with self loathing.
“The last contact that either Endoman or Ringold had with the outside world was a post in which Endoman expressed his fears that Lux was going to kill them. He said that Lux had become something else, something had changed inside of him, and he had become a monster.
“Now the rest . . . the rest may just be speculation. I don’t know how anyone could know what happened after that, but there are rumours about what did. Maybe there were cameras inside the lab that were being fed to an undisclosed location, maybe there were people stationed close by, who knows? But it’s said that Lux did, indeed, murder both Adelbert and Rikard, and he turned against Pawl.
“Pawl defended himself, but he was terrified by the monstrous nature of his, let’s say, brother. He said to Pawl that they should kill themselves. They shouldn’t have been allowed to be created. Pawl tried to calm Lux down but this just riled Lux even more.
“Pawl managed to escape from the lab because Lux was developing serious walking difficulties, and he bolted the door behind him. He survived the night in the open air but when he returned to the lab entrance in the morning there was a message written on the inside of the glass. It said:
I will kill you one day and I will kill any child you bring into this world. We should not exist, and I will not rest until we are both dead.
“That was when Pawl knew that Lux had to be locked away in that chamber for the rest of his life. There was renewable food in there, he’d survive. It would be the loneliest existence, but it was necessary. Pawl knew that he could never let Lux out if he wanted to survive himself.
“He fitted the door with the most secure lock he could find and he synced the lock to a simple device he invented that he named a xinary. While the xinary showed green it indicated that the lock was secure. If the xinary showed red, it meant that the lock had been opened.”
“His watch . . .” Seckry said to himself. “That’s why he disappeared, wasn’t it? The xinary turned red. I’ve seen it in my dreams, and I remember. I remember him having this watch. And I remember it glowing green. But . . . it turned red. Lux escaped.”
“It would seem so. I imagine your father would have done anything to protect you and your sister. That’s why he disappeared. So that when Lux came looking for him, he wouldn’t find you.”
“Do you think Lux found him? Do you think my dad . . . do you think my dad is dead?”
Seckry barely remembered the rest of that day afterwards. He drifted from lesson to lesson like a ghost. His body was there, but his mind was far, far away.
His dad had disappeared because he knew Lux would come after him. He knew Lux would murder him and Leena. His dad had been . . . protecting them.
When he arrived home that evening, he sat his mum and Leena down in the living area and said, “There’s something you both need to know. It’s about dad.”
Coralle took the information with a calm intensity, soaking up everything Seckry was saying in silence and not giving any indication on what she thought about it. Leena, on the other hand, burst into tears and started screaming at Seckry.
“Who does this guy think he is? Your teacher? How is he supposed to know anything about our dad? He doesn’t know the half of it! He’s making it all up! Dad left us, Seck! He dumped us for another family. You can believe all this artificial baby nonsense yourself but I’m not having it!”
She continued to cry off and on for days afterwards and Coralle remained mostly silent.
“Do you believe that’s what happened?” Seckry asked his mum.
“The truth is, Seckry, my love, I don’t know. I do not know the answer to that question. After nine years of accepting something, to have what you believe to be true shaken up like this, it’s just . . . hard to comprehend.”
Even though Seckry’s thoughts were filled with his father, he had to stop himself talking about him at home because Leena was on the brink of a breakdown.
While at school, Seckry told Eiya everything Vance had said, and even though the conversation was awkward, she was still genuinely interested and concerned.
Seckry was desperate to know if his dad was still alive or not, but Vance had assured him there was no way of knowing. If his dad was still alive, he would never allow himself to
be found by his children because it would put them in danger from Lux.
Seckry also thought about Lux. He had no idea what he looked like, but in his mind he saw a hooded man stalking the streets with a concealed knife, ready to slit the throat of his father and then to come looking for any traces of his family.
Over the following few days, Coralle and Leena began packing for a work trip that was going to last two weeks. They were heading down south, to Arivel, in order to research into new ways of recycling paper. When the time came for them to leave, Leena left without saying goodbye, but Coralle hugged Seckry tightly and said, “You’ll be okay love, won’t you? I’ve stocked up the fridge, you know how to use the cooker. Just make sure you lock this door at night and switch all plugs off before going to bed. See you soon, hey? And despite everything, I hope you can . . . enjoy this ball of yours.”
Seckry had been thinking about his dad so much that the ball had completely slipped out of his mind. It seemed so trivial in comparison now, but he knew he had to drag himself out of his daze to carry on with life. He wasn’t about to forget any of this, but he had to think about something else for a while, for the sake of his own sanity.
“Well, I’ve got my date sorted,” whispered Tenk, during an astronomy lecture in the planetarium tower. “Poola Pinyada, from the year below us. But man, what are you gonna do? The ball is, like, two days away,”
“I know, you don’t have to remind me,” Seckry said.
“There’s only one girl left who hasn’t got a date,” Tippian joined in.
“Really? Who is it?” Seckry asked.
“You’re not going to like this.”
“Just tell me, Tipps.”
“Natania Linse.”
Seckry’s face dropped. He couldn’t think of anyone worse. His contempt for Natania had, if anything, grown stronger and stronger since the day she had tricked him into meeting her so she could get drugs from Snibble. The thought of taking her to the ball was beyond ridiculous. He couldn’t even comprehend it. He almost stifled a laugh.
“It’s no wonder she hasn’t got a date,” Seckry said vehemently. “She’s vile.”
“It’s either her, or you don’t go to the ball,” Tippian said, matter-of-factly. “They don’t let you in without a date, they say it’s to try to stop rowdy gangs of guys coming in together and starting trouble.”
“I can’t go with Natania. I can’t even bear to look at her.”
“Just think about it, Seck. You can turn up with her and then just hang around with us. Do you think I’m gonna be staying with Curly Hetchings all night?”
“I suppose I never thought about it,” Seckry said.
“Well I’m not. I’m gonna be chilling with Tenk.”
The middle of the week was plagued with more torrential rain and Seckry had resigned himself to the library where he knew he’d be able to be left alone. Mr Nebrio had given them a substantial piece of homework the day before and Seckry used this as a good excuse to separate himself from the group. If he buried his head in his homework, maybe this whole ball thing would just go away.
He was running his finger across the dusty astronomy shelf, trying to spot Milkiny’s Maelstrom Mathematical, when he heard the sound of ruffling fabric behind him.
“Hey.”
Seckry turned around and immediately scowled. It was Natania.
“What are you doing in here?” Seckry said spitefully. “I thought you’d never be seen dead in a library.”
“I know, the place is making me sick. Look, Seckry, I know it ain’t ideal, but we’re the only ones without a date. Are you gonna do anything about it or aren’t you?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” Seckry shook his head in disbelief.
“Well there’s nobody else to take me.”
“Looks like you’re not going to the ball then,” Seckry said simply. He couldn’t believe she actually expected him to ask her to the ball after everything that had happened.
Natania huffed.
“Seckry, come on. Can’t you just forget about that night? It was such a long time ago. And besides, I had no idea Snibble was gonna beat you up like that. I thought he just wanted to rough you up a bit. Shove you around.”
“And that would have been okay, would it?” Seckry said angrily. “I get shoved around by Snibble, you get your drugs, and everyone’s happy?”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have led you on. Can you accept an apology from me, at least?”
Seckry breathed out exasperatedly.
“Sure,” he said. “Apology accepted,” and he turned around.
“If you change your mind, just let me know, okay?”
He heard her walk away and he let his head slump into the shelf of books.
Chapter Twenty Four
The Estergate Ball