Daughter of Nothing

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  Nurse Smith . . . Her uselessness enraged him. She’d been little help in caring for Janicka and Vaughan. She would have been happier if they had died. Dr. Carlhagen decided he might as well clean house.

  “Chax, inform Captain Wilcox that he’ll be taking Nurse Smith. And while he’s at it, Janicka should go as well.”

  Dr. Carlhagen would have to find replacements. But he didn’t think that would be too difficult. Wilcox knew what was going on at the school. He could keep the Scions under control for a short period while Dr. Carlhagen dealt with more pressing issues.

  He went through the door and hobbled to Janicka’s room. Her head twisted around as he walked in. The panic was gone from her eyes, replaced by a look of utter exhaustion. After Nurse Smith had forgotten to insert the IV, she’d spent a night screaming and thrashing against her restraints. The exertion seemed to have cured her of the worst aspects of her schizophrenia.

  “Am I addressing Janicka or Sarah?”

  “It seems more advantageous to go by Sarah,” she said. “It’s time for Janicka to die.”

  “Good,” Dr. Carlhagen said. “I don’t know how much of Janicka you can access, but are you aware that Janicka made no preparations for you? No will, no story about a long-lost daughter.”

  “I’m aware. I seem to recall Elizabeth inviting me to her island. She said she could help me invent the necessary paperwork.”

  “Yes, she did indeed.”

  “When can I leave?”

  “Soon. I have an associate who will helicopter you out in the next couple of hours.”

  “So you’ll unstrap me?”

  “Why not?” He loosened the straps securing her head and arms, letting her do the rest.

  Sarah eyed the dress draped over his arm. “Is that for me?”

  Dr. Carlhagen considered the gown for a moment. He had others Jacqueline could wear. He laid it on a side table and patted it. “I hope you get more enjoyment out of it than the previous owner.”

  He dropped the shoes next to her bed and left her room, making sure the door was locked. He had to pause momentarily as his vision swam.

  Perhaps he was overdue for his dose of pills. Yes. That had to be it. With trembling hands he opened the bottle, dumped a few into his palm, and popped them in his mouth.

  He tried to swallow them dry, but one got caught in his throat. He bent double coughing, vision blurring. The pill popped free and fell from his mouth. Dr. Carlhagen lunged for it, falling to his knees. Pain shot through them, bringing a groan from his lips. He plucked up the pill and put it his mouth. This time he chewed it, grimacing as the bitter dust dissolved.

  He caught his breath, then used the handle on Sarah’s door to pull himself to his feet. Sweat dripped from his brow and into his eyes. He wiped it away and crossed the hall to peer through the window of another room. Belle sat on a cot, eyes fixed on the floor. When she noticed his presence, her mouth started moving. He couldn’t hear what she said, didn’t much care to, either.

  Her Progenitor was the widow of an Italian racecar driver. He’d gotten killed before the final paperwork for his Scion had been completed. When she’d uncovered it and realized he had intended to start anew without her, she’d simply asked to have her DNA used instead of his. Dr. Carlhagen had been happy to oblige.

  He turned as the door from the main room of the medical ward opened to admit Humphrey. Mr. Justin followed, rifle in hand.

  Dr. Carlhagen opened the door across from Belle’s room. “In here.”

  Humphrey kept his haggard face down as he went in. His bearing gave every indication of one utterly defeated. A very receptive state of mind, as Dr. Carlhagen knew well. He’d found Sensei Rosa in just the same frame of mind all those years ago in the prison. “Don’t punish yourself too much, boy. Murder is hard to pull off.”

  Mr. Justin held out a small black key fob. “I found this on him.”

  Dr. Carlhagen took it. “This is for the Jeep.”

  “I think young Humphrey intended to leave the campus.”

  It all became clear. Humphrey had never intended to kill Jacqueline. He’d planned to take her with him. “So your disgust with Jacqueline was an act. Clever.”

  Humphrey didn’t respond. But he didn’t deny it either.

  “Where did you think you’d take her?”

  “There are boat docks somewhere, aren’t there?”

  Dr. Carlhagen laughed. “And did you think taking her at gunpoint would make her love you? She would have run at the first chance. As soon as it became clear you had no intention of killing her.”

  “You’re right. I wouldn’t have harmed her. Not like you, Father. I don’t express love by inflicting pain.”

  Dr. Carlhagen swung his cane, striking Humphrey across the shins. The boy fell to his knees, grimacing.

  “I inflict pain in order to teach. But it seems you are unteachable. Had you done as I asked, that girl would be yours. She respects strength, but you showed only weakness.”

  Humphrey struggled to stand. “How can you say that? After everything you’ve done, she’s only learned to hate you.”

  “Hate does not preclude love, young fool. She loved Charles because he was a confident bastard. He bulldozed people who stood in his way, and it made him rich. She saw him walk all over me, and he treated her like a plaything, and yet she married him! And what did I do in response? I wrote her poetry. Bought her flowers. She called me her ‘dear friend’ and confided in me all the terrible things Charles did to her. But when I confessed my feelings and asked her to run away with me, she laughed. Women always chose the alpha, boy.”

  Dr. Carlhagen put a hand to his head as another bout of dizziness struck. “I guess the genetics bred true. For you are anything but the alpha.”

  Humphrey glared up at Dr. Carlhagen. “Yes, Father.”

  “I’m not your father!” He slammed the door shut. “Lock him in.”

  His hands trembled, and he had to lean against the wall momentarily to catch his breath. The hallway seemed to spin around him. He reached for his pills, but the bottle was empty.

  “Mr. Justin, could you retrieve my andleprixen for me when you go back? It’s in the top left drawer of my desk.”

  “Of course.”

  “And bring my Scion to the transfer machine when you return.”

  Mr. Justin gave a sharp bow and darted away.

  Dr. Carlhagen staggered the other direction and pushed into the transfer room. He fell sideways onto one of the cots, landing half on and half off. He squirmed all the way onto it and moaned. The whole room seemed to spin around him. His heart pounded in his chest, and the world seemed to lose saturation, as if it were fading into one of those terrible black-and-white movies his father had loved.

  “Michael!” he moaned.

  He couldn’t see the holo table from where he lay, but the professor’s voice came to him. “How can I help you, Doctor?”

  “I’m going to transfer tonight. I’m running out of time.”

  “I see. Shall I begin synaptic mapping on you?”

  “I’m no fool, Michael. I don’t trust you for one instant.”

  “Then why summon me?”

  “To let you know I won’t be needing your services any further. I hereby invoke Protocol Hemlock. Authorization code Shelley, Sigma, Coleridge, Delta, Wordsworth.”

  “Authorization code confirmed. Cheers, Doctor. May your next life be painful and short.”

  “Damn you, Michael, just do it.”

  Socrates did not reply.

  Dr. Carlhagen strained to lift his head and discovered the Socrates holo had disappeared. “Greta?”

  A holo of a buxom young woman in a lab coat appeared. “Sir?”

  “Can you confirm that Michael’s server has been wiped?”

  “One moment.”

  Dr. Carlhagen lowered his head. The room still spun, but it moved slower. And his heart calmed somewhat.

  “Socrates’s server is clean.”

  “Please begin neur
al synaptic mapping of my brain. I plan to transfer as soon as my Scion is brought in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The wheel began to turn.

  32

  A Stranger's Womb

  The rungs of the iron ladder dug into Jacey’s flesh as she hung just above the surface of the water at the bottom of the pit. The black liquid lay inches from her toes. She only knew it was there because she had gone down one rung too far, sinking knee-deep in the chilly blackness.

  Clouds had obliterated the starlight, and the rain fell in sheets, dimming the weak light from the dojo. Even the crisscross of the grating overhead was difficult to make out.

  Rainwater poured in along the lip of the grate, cascading in a continuous torrent from rung to rung down the ladder, chilling Jacey’s hands until they ached.

  To relieve the strain on her hands, she hooked her right leg through a lower rung and tried to brace herself on the ladder. Her sodden hair was plastered to her face and neck, and her whole body shook. Not just from the cold, but also from the horror of what was happening somewhere in the medical ward. Dr. Carlhagen had said he would return reinvigorated. It could only mean that he planned to use the machine in the white-tiled room.

  He meant to overwrite Humphrey.

  “Sensei!” she screamed. Her call reverberated in the pit, but sounded small compared to the cacophony of thunder, lashing rain, and the plunge of water into the cesspool below her. No one would hear her above all that. Even if Sensei heard, he would do nothing. He had abandoned her. The whole world had abandoned her.

  Dr. Carlhagen had saved his final taunt for when she was at her most helpless. “Your Progenitor is dead.”

  A sob broke from her lips. Her eyes squeezed shut, but nothing could hold back the tears. She rested her forehead against the cold iron ladder and cried with the realization that she was truly motherless. That even if she found the woman who had carried her to term, she would find no reflection of herself, would find nothing more than a surrogate. A stranger’s womb. A heart as loving and tender as the very pit that held her now.

  She cried for the loss of her Progenitor, that unknown and immoral woman to whom Jacey had been nothing but an empty vessel, a receptacle designed to receive her aging and greedy mind. Jacey cried for that loss, because as horrific as that person was, she was Jacey’s only link to her lineage, and without her, Jacey feared she would never learn the truth of who she really was.

  She clung to the ladder above the black water, spilling her grief into it.

  A small voice called down. “Jacey!”

  Jacey looked up but could see nothing but the faintest shadow of the grate.

  “Jacey, climb up.”

  She painfully unwound herself from the ladder and climbed until her forehead pressed against the grate. She peered through and saw Livy crouching at the edge of the pit.

  Jacey poked three fingers through and Livy took hold of them. “It’ll be okay, Jacey. I’ll stay with you.”

  “You can’t stay out in the rain. Go inside. At least one of us should be dry and warm.”

  “I don’t abandon those I love.”

  Jacey wept as she clung to Livy’s fingers. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  33

  As Much as I Love You

  “Is the Scion in place, Mr. Justin?” Dr. Carlhagen asked. The butler stood at the side of his cot, looking down at the boy. His customary smile was gone, replaced with a worried frown.

  “He is, but shouldn’t you have Nurse Smith assisting?”

  “I don’t trust her. I’ll be particularly vulnerable during this period.”

  “I thought you had contingencies in place to guard against just such concerns.”

  “Oh, they’re all in place, but I don’t trust that woman’s intelligence. She might forget the consequences of harming me in a fit of righteous pique. I never should have recruited someone so mystical.”

  Mr. Justin glanced around the room and raised his hands helplessly. “I don’t know what to do, sir.”

  “You’ll do nothing. The computer handles the entire transfer. Your job is to make sure no one comes in and interrupts.”

  Mr. Justin hefted his rifle. “I can do that. Should I expect someone?”

  “I don’t think so,” Dr. Carlhagen said. “I made sure Jacqueline was secure, and I’m confident Sensei values his freedom and his family’s lives enough to stay away. Now wheel that holo table over where I can see it.”

  The butler complied.

  “Greta?” Dr. Carlhagen called, summoning the AI persona.

  The holo appeared above the table. She didn’t offer any greeting before getting down to business. “I’ve done an initial scan of the Scion. Shall we begin?”

  Dr. Carlhagen held up his cane. “Mr. Justin? I won’t be needing this anymore.” Mr. Justin took it and then stepped aside. “I’ll take the sedatives, Greta. I don’t want to know when it’s happening.”

  “Of course, sir. What about the Scion?”

  “No. I need to be alert on the other side.”

  Dr. Carlhagen didn’t feel the injection, but he felt the effects right away, as if his muscles had turned to jelly. A warmth passed across his whole body, easing the ache in his limbs, his joints. The balled-up stress in his mind relaxed. He felt afloat, as if he had no body at all, the most peaceful sensation he’d ever experienced.

  The room dimmed, went black.

  All at once, the feeling of peace disappeared. His eyes snapped open, and vertigo struck as the orientation of the room had suddenly flipped. He gripped the rails of the bed until the spinning subsided.

  A rumble of thunder shook the room. He tried to sit up, but he was strapped down. “Mr. Justin, release me.” The butler appeared and started undoing the straps. “How long did it take?”

  “About forty-five minutes.”

  He had time. The helicopter would arrive soon, but now came the most essential part of his plan. What he’d looked forward to for so long.

  Jacqueline.

  Mr. Justin offered a hand to help Dr. Carlhagen stand, but he refused it. He sprang to his feet. Too hard. His limbs thrust him into the air. He landed awkwardly, staggering. He wasn’t used to the sensations of a youthful body. He stretched his arms and bounced on his toes and took a deep breath.

  “It feels wonderful,” he said. His old body lay on the other bed, head still inside the wheel. Dr. Carlhagen studied the shriveled form, suppressed the urge to spit on the gaunt, lifeless face. He gave the beard a contemptuous tug. He’d been a prisoner in that ancient form far too long.

  He marveled at the mere absence of pain. He hadn’t remembered what it felt like to move freely. Something glinted from the pocket of his old white coat. He pulled the pocket watch out, gave a grunt of disgust, and tossed it back onto the cot. He was done with old things.

  He dug in the other pocket and pulled out a bottle. Empty. He tossed it away.

  “Mr. Justin, did you bring the pills as I ordered?”

  “I did.” The butler handed the bottle to Dr. Carlhagen. He popped the lid and poured four or five into his palm. With his youthful liver, what did a little extra matter? He swallowed them dry, then tucked the bottle into his pants pocket.

  Thunder crashed again. “That’s quite a storm kicking up,” he said. He’d forgotten to check the forecast before dinner, but big storms were common at this time of year.

  He left the transfer room and walked down the hallway toward the main room of the ward. Belle’s face appeared in the door window where she was being held. Her hand went over her mouth at the sight of him. He winked and kept going, ignoring the girl’s screams.

  “Mr. Justin, the key.”

  The butler handed him the heavy key, the same one he had told Jacqueline wasn’t the real one. What a delicious lie that had been. Oh, how she’d sagged. If only she’d known.

  “Will you require my assistance outdoors?” Mr. Justin asked.

  “No. You’ll just be in my way.”

  “V
ery well. I shall return to the hacienda.”

  Dr. Carlhagen pushed out the front door and into the squalling rain. He welcomed the downpour, exhilarated in it, and in the power of the wind, as vigorous as the blood in his new body. He felt he could run all the way around the island without breaking a sweat.

  A small figure huddled next to the grate. The girl Livy, it appeared.

  Yes, Charles. Everything that was once yours is now mine.

  “Who are you?” she asked as he approached.

  “A friend.” He crouched before the grate, unlocked it, grasped the steel in his hands, and with a great groan, heaved up and pushed it aside. It clanged to the ground.

  “Come up quick!” he shouted into the black depths.

  He crouched by the ladder, heart racing with expectation. Jacqueline’s face appeared as she climbed up. She was soaked, of course, and half naked. The sight of her lithe body stirred in him all the emotions and base urges he’d suppressed for decades.

  Not much longer!

  He held a hand out to her.

  ° ° °

  JACEY STARED AT THE SHADOWY FIGURE reaching for her. When Livy said a stranger was coming, she’d been sure it was Mr. Justin. But it wasn’t him. Or Sensei. The shape was wrong for Humphrey.

  And that voice . . .

  She took the proffered hand, allowed herself to be lifted like a doll and set on her feet. Her legs gave way, still cramped from her awkward position on the ladder.

  The figure caught her waist, supported her. “I’ve got you.”

  He lifted his face, and the light from the dojo lit it up.

  The breath went out of Jacey. “Vaughan!”

  She fell into him, let his arms enfold her. “I was so worried about you.” She pulled back and reached for his face. “Are you okay?”

  “Never mind that. Let’s get you out of the rain.” Keeping one arm around her naked waist, he guided her back into the medical ward. “Livy, run to Girls’ Hall and let them know that I’ve got her out of the pit.”

  Livy darted away, legs blurring with speed.