He saw the new bandaging taped around his side, and all around it, the pale scars that almost completely covered his stomach and chest.
The marks crisscrossed the defined muscles in continuous disfigurement and design, wrapped over his shoulders and arms. Many letters were Perso-Arabic, naturally. Others something else, symbols no one had ever determined. The man had cut snakes and trees into him. And eyes, staring eyes etched in flesh.
The Illustrated Man, Castillo thought for the hundredth time. He studied himself awhile. Curiously, almost, as he often had over the last two years. As if he was looking at someone else. He stared back into those other eyes. First, the ones that had been cut into him. Then, the pair in the mirror. His own. Behind him, the shadows of the room assumed their own shapes. Almost human.
Your old pal Jacky.
Castillo turned away from his reflection and reached for his phone. His call was answered on the first ring.
“I’m glad you called,” Stanforth said. “We’re in a new place here.”
“Very true.”
“And it’s not a good one.”
“Also true.”
“You need to come in, Castillo, and you need to come in right now. This one’s over. That’s an order.”
“Not yet.”
“Shawn, if you continue—”
“Not yet.”
“What do you want?”
Castillo flipped open his laptop. “I want you to release more of those things.”
“I don’t know what—”
“Sure you do,” Castillo stopped him. “Super-soldier type, genetically fucked with artificial violence. Like the one that murdered Jacobson for you. Or all those kids in Orchard City. The same one you sent into Iran two years ago?”
“When I saved your damn ass?”
“Do this,” Castillo said. “Or I go to the press with everything.”
“Would you really?”
Castillo honestly didn’t know. “Yes.”
“But would they believe you?”
“Considering the current popular opinion of our bosses, I have a feeling they might. Release them.”
“To what end?”
“What end do you think? So they can find the last few boys. Like the other one did. How’d he track them down before? Made somehow from the same stuff, I imagine. Some kind of psychic or chemical connection or . . . What the fuck does it matter? Just get it done.”
“You killed him, Shawn. There are no others.”
“Sure there are, Brad. You’re the guys who love to make copies, right? Death’s very own Kinko’s.”
Stanforth grunted a half laugh. “I don’t know if we can do that now. You saw what happened in Orchard—”
“We can do it.” Castillo moved back to his laptop. “Risk it. And I need to know exactly when they’re found. I want to be there.”
“Why? To end this yourself ? Save the day? Everyone told me you’d lost your fucking mind over there. I should have listened more.”
Castillo ignored him, tapped at his keyboard. “I’m sending you a private ICR to contact the moment you know something. Do that, and you won’t have to worry about me ever again.”
“It’s my job to worry. And what about Jeffrey? Do I need to worry about him?”
“Who?”
“Jeffrey Jacobson. Jeff Dahmer. Whatever name he’s going by. Jeff/82. His DNA’s all over Jacobson’s house. In your hotel room in Olney. It was only a matter of time before we realized where he’d gotten to. How long have you—”
“Kid helped me do my damn job,” Castillo said. “He’s not an issue. Never was. Besides, I’m pretty sure he’s already dead.” He almost hoped as much. “Just fucking get it done.”
“I understand your request, but Castillo . . .”
“Yes.”
“If we do this. If we do this your way . . . and if it goes bad, I can’t help you when this is over. You’ll be on your own. You understand?”
If it goes bad . . .
“One hundred percent,” Castillo said and ended the call.
“And there will be more of your children dead tomorrow.” Bundy’s quote echoed in his mind. But how many? Castillo wondered aloud, and his body trembled in the empty room. How many?
As he flipped off the light to let the darkness cover him completely, he could only think of one.
JEFFS
JUNE 13, MONDAY—LA VERKIN, UTAH
Jeffrey Dahmer sat in a chair before a rusted metal table, a small pile of bones spread before his hands.
Jeffrey Dahmer stood closely behind the chair, watching him.
The first, the one Jacobson had raised, had been stripped naked and looked as if he’d been crying. He had been. There were abrasions on his wrists and legs from the duct tape.
The other one, the one Ted knew from school, was a couple years older. Heavier, too. The young one’s hair was brown. But there was no question about it: These two little dirty birdies came from the same dirty nest.
It really was something to see. And Ted could hardly take his eyes off it. Any of it.
When they’d first grabbed the kid in Scofield, it had been a pretty random act. But when they saw, when they really understood who this kid was . . . they thought it was AMAZING.
Another version of Jeff. 2.0 or 3.0 or 40.1. They hadn’t a clue.
And the real kicker was this pussy had lived with Jacobson most of his life.
Al totally recognized him. Another lab rat who’d apparently been snuck into DSTI a couple times for counseling and testing over the years. One of the lab rats who’d gotten off way too easy. Didn’t even have a tracking chip in him, when they looked—cutting him in the same places they’d been cut, and a few others, too. Not too much, though. Williford had other plans.
The bones were only animal bones. Small stuff, too. Mice and birds, mostly. A squirrel Jeff had found in Mt. Sterling. And a cat, that one family’s cat. A fun little pile of tiny vertebrae, ribs, tibia, and skulls that Jeff had pulled together over the last few weeks. He usually kept ’em in an emptied box of Frosted Flakes, a box he’d recently had to reinforce with silver duct tape. Now they were dumped out onto the table again so the other kid, the other Jeff, could play with them.
Would play with them. Had to. Or be punished.
When Jeff’d been five, the crew at Massey made damn sure he’d find the bones behind the facility one morning, in the hope that he’d find them amusing and play with them. That’s exactly what another Jeffrey Dahmer, the “real” one, had done when he was a kid. They must have been quite pleased with the results. But this other kid, this other Jeff, hadn’t gotten any of that. He’d been in another test group. Until now.
“It’s the sound,” the older Jeff said. “When they rub together. Or when the pile collapses and they roll off each other. That click, click, click.” He leaned in close behind the second Jeff as he spoke. “I don’t think they ever understood that, the ones who were watching me all these years. Click, click, click. They’d call it something else, some psychobabble about a God complex, I suppose. Playing God. A power trip. But it was never that.” He picked up some of the pile and let the tiny bones trickle back off his fingers onto the table.
Click, click, click.
Ted listened too, but he couldn’t understand what the big deal was. To him, it sounded like dice rolling on a table. But he could see the look on his new pal’s face. And he recognized THAT completely.
“Do you hear it?” Old Jeff asked New Jeff. “Do you?” He picked up and dropped another handful.
Click, click, click.
New Jeff didn’t answer.
“Are you playin’?” Old Jeff’s face sharpened like a knife blade. “Maybe you need another beer first.” There was a half-emptied case of Budweiser on the table, and he angrily reached for a can. “Go for it, faggot.” He pushed the kid’s head back and poured.
Jacobson’s kid spurted and choked as the beer ran over his throat and chin and piss-colored streaks traced d
own his bare chest. He thrashed against the weight of Old Jeff’s hand, but throughout, Old Jeff held him in place.
Ted reached to scratch his arm again. It stung, and he reluctantly pushed back the shirtsleeve to get a better look. The blotch looked even worse than before. A rounded stain that today ran from the lower half of his bicep past the crook of his arm toward his wrist. Growing. It had bubbled up in the center with what looked like several giant whiteheads, but yellowy and the size of quarters. The skin was darker than brown now, almost black. A week before, it had been a small smudge. He’d thought it was a bruise.
But there were others now. A small one on his chest. And another growing up his calf, multiplying by the day, hour. He didn’t know what it was, but thinking about it made him want to scratch it again. Made him want to cut it out.
Ted turned his attention back to the Jeffs.
“No?” the older Jeff was shouting. “Then we better give it some time, I guess.” He tossed the empty can across the room. “You’ll get used to it. Even start to like it, I bet.”
The boy coughed, gagged as some of the beer spewed from his mouth.
“Pussy,” Old Jeff laughed. “They had me drinking by ten. Wanted a genuine alcoholic. Like the original.” He moved behind the boy again but kept his hand on his face. “Of course, you’re really only a baby, aren’t you? Still wet behind the ears with formaldehyde and whatnot. New and improved insta-clone.” His fingers moved steadily over the chin, forced their way into the boy’s mouth, where he slipped them in, long and wet, again and again. “I can tell from your look you have some idea what I’m talking about. Your daddy told me all about it. And since Daddy’s all dead now, good-bye Daddy, I guess it’s up to me to make sure you really get the whole picture. Ted, you think our boy here can handle this shit?”
“Whatever,” Ted replied.
“Exactly.” Old Jeff leaned closer. “Here’s the thing, kid. You were made in a lab about nine years ago. Jacobson, your pretend daddy, and the other paragons of science at DSTI figured out how to alter gestation rates. How to accelerate the speed of clone production. . . . AH! Ted, I think our boy might already know all this.”
Jacobson’s kid tried speaking. Nothing came out.
“Save your strength, Jeff.” He patted the boy’s face. “You’re gonna need it. So, while some of us have been here like real people from the beginning, you and another batch of clones have been alive for only ten or even three years. Daddy took one home, told it some lies, used an army of tutors and top-of-the-line learning modules to stuff your head with everything an average fifteen-year-old should know. And voilà! You got a kid. They could have as easily made you thirty. Which, technically, considering that your DNA was copied from a guy in his thirties, you already are.”
“Just . . . ,” the pathetic kid managed, “stop. . . .”
“Face it, you got any real memories from when you were a little kid? Anything? First Christmas, maybe? Learning to tie your little shoes?” Old Jeff said, his voice deep, like a god’s. “Like I said, love. Clone in a box. Just add water.”
“Please . . . I—”
“Relax, brotha. You’re cool here. You’re still one of us, right? Shouldn’t care if you were made yesterday, love. Right here and right now, you and I are exactly the same. We are one.”
“I’m . . .”
“You’re what, Jeff ?”
“I’m nothing like you.”
Old Jeff grabbed the kid’s face in both hands. “All evidence to the contrary.” He smiled.
Jacobson’s kid tried to wrench himself away.
Old Jeff held tightly. “Do you love me?” he asked. His voice had taken on a different emotion. And it was another that Ted was familiar with. Old Jeff’s other hand moved down New Jeff’s chest. “Because I love you,” he said. It came out like a whisper as his hand slipped lower. “But you know what?” He pulled his hand away from New Jeff’s mouth and leaned closer so their two faces were pressed together. It looked like one of them had mashed up against a mirror. “I fucking hate you, too.”
Old Jeff’s lips brushed across the boy’s cheek, and Ted wondered if New Jeff was even listening anymore. If he was even there. He also wondered if it really mattered.
Ted smiled and stepped slowly from the room.
It was clear that Jeff needed some more time alone with himself.
THE EYE OF GOD
JUNE 13, MONDAY—RADNOR, PA
Stanforth, that Army Guy, was an asshole.
Even more so than the other stock Nazi Big Brother Dogs-of-War who sporadically appeared at the lab. This guy was another breed altogether.
Seven letters for Stanforth?
ASSHOLE. GESTAPO. CERTAIN. UNMOVED. MONSTER.
Ten letters for the current situation?
PRECARIOUS. INIQUITOUS. INEVITABLE. FUCKEDCITY.
An old word game DSTI’s Dr. Robert Feinberg used to take his mind off the real task at hand. Not quite the same as his customary morning routine of the New York Times crossword puzzle, but it usually got the job done all the same. His hands were hardly shaking anymore. He looked across the lab to where Stanforth and some other Defense Department clown stood with Dr. Erdman. Watching him from the relative safety of the control room. Dr. Mohlenbrock was at the console next to his, reading out the latest vitals.
The specimen in the tank twisted again. Moved with new life. A single dark hand suddenly slammed against the side of the Plexiglas, and Feinberg instinctively stepped back. Snot-colored bubbles rolled between the long, skeletal fingers as it dragged the hand across the inside surface. Feinberg would not look up. He knew that if he did, it would be looking straight at him. They always did that.
And he knew it would be smiling.
He refocused.
Nine letters for the things in the tanks?
PROCEDURE. EVOLUTION. DESTROYER. PAYCHECK.
They’d used these before in Afghanistan and Yemen. Lots of tests in Central America. Short shelf life on these fellas, they—
No, he realized suddenly. “Paycheck” is only eight letters. And then moved to the tank itself and typed in the last codes, unable to drown out the whirr and spurt of the remaining dark fluids. I should be home playing my guitar, he thought. Rolling a nice big fatty and crankin’ those new speakers. Feinberg patted the release check, and the sealed hinges of the front panel hissed back at him like something alive. I should be hunched over a binocular microscope, making better deodorant for P&G. He could almost hear the other men talking behind him. Stanforth’s and Dr. Erdman’s words muffled, but about killing more children, no doubt.
By now, word among the staff was that DSTI had already eliminated the other waiting embryos, and that some of the developed specimens had been destroyed or chemically lobotomized. There’d been a million rumors after Jacobson had up and vanished. Some kind of accident in the “Cain” tests. Rumors, he told himself. Nothing more than that. He wondered again why he hadn’t been sent home with the others. Most of DSTI was temporarily shut down, the employees shipped off to various university study or interim assignments in other development branches within the corporate mother ship. Instead, he remained part of the skeleton crew. For cleanup. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in nine years. Nine years. His shrink felt that his anxiety attacks were induced by “stress” from work. Stress? No shit.
Legs wobbling like a newborn deer or someone who’d just cum for a third time, the figure stepped from the tank and grabbed the sides of the hatchway to steady itself.
The man—and it was categorically a man by all touchstones of the definition—was a by-product of biopharming. The use of recombinant DNA technology to introduce genes into organisms, thus manipulating their genomic structure and function into a form not otherwise found in nature. Companies had been doing it with plants and livestock for almost thirty years to the tune of a hundred billion dollars a year. This organism—this man—here was merely another single step forward.
Feinberg thought again of a book
he’d recently read all about the Nazis’ work on V-1 and V-2 rockets at the Dora concentration camp. The mountain hideaway in Thuringia with its endless secret tunnels and twenty thousand slave laborers. The torture and hangings in the name of science. Fifteen thousand corpses to help “improve” mankind. How many corpses will this one make? Feinberg wondered.
Dr. Feinberg half closed his eyes to the thought and stepped aside to let the specimen pass by. But it didn’t. It had stopped. And now stood beside him, watching him. Feinberg could hear the fluids dripping off its charcoal skin onto the floor. He could smell the synthetic stench of something between cheap fruity wine and formaldehyde.
A twelve-letter word for—
Then it opened the mouth. Fetid breath blew rank and hot over Feinberg’s face. No words came to mind. He gagged, and a deep gargle burbled down the specimen’s throat. He assumed it was laughing. Something gently touched his arm, tugging him closer, and he turned slightly.
A single eye caught his own, and he stood frozen before it again. His body trembled, yet he was too terrified to move a single step away. In that one glance, Feinberg would have sworn he’d seen everything behind the stare. In the novels he loved to read, the killers always had uncaring, vacant eyes. Shark eyes, glossy doll eyes. But in this gaze was something else. This eye was the collective refined chromosomes of men named Bundy, DeSalvo, Dahmer, Gacy, Ramirez, and a dozen others. This eye was the authentic “all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world” and empowered by that same truth. And this eye wasn’t vacant at all. It was totally aware. It was all-knowing. This eye was the eye of God. And God clearly wanted Robert Feinberg dead.
The mouth opened, showing teeth, and moved toward Feinberg’s throat.
“No,” someone said behind them. It was Stanforth.
Jaws cracked, widening. Something sticky dripped down Feinberg’s neck.
His mind racing, Feinberg thought, Would there be a space age without the extraordinary work the Nazi scientists accomplished at Dora? Would . . . He knew then he would die.
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