Blood Ties

by Sophie McKenzie

  ‘As you can see, I did not die in the firebomb attack.’ The man smiled. ‘The press were as easy to fool as the police were co-operative.’

  I realised my mouth had fallen open. I closed it.

  ‘Call me Elijah,’ he said. ‘I think I would prefer it to Daddy.’

  ‘But . . .’ I didn’t know what to say.

  You’re not my father.

  ‘You know me as James Lawson.’

  ‘But you’re not him,’ I said. ‘I have . . . I had a picture. He . . . he looked different.’

  ‘James Lawson was a cover. Always.’

  I stared at him.

  ‘Do you understand, Theodore? James Lawson. Elijah Lazio. A different face. A different name. A different past. But the same person.’

  ‘The same person?’ The world started spinning inside my head. What was he saying? ‘You mean, my . . . my . . .?’

  A lazy smile crept across Elijah Lazio’s face. ‘Ah, the ego-centricity of youth. All others are the planets around your sun. Still, yes, I do mean partly that.’ He chuckled. ‘Anyway, you are the sun. Apollo. The god of the sun. And therefore, in a way, truly my son.’

  I had no idea what he was talking about. I gritted my teeth.

  Elijah Lazio leaned forwards in his chair. ‘Do you not see it, Theodore? Do you not see it in my face?’

  His eyes laughed at me.

  Suddenly my temper reared up. How dare this man talk in riddles to me? I’d been sold a pack of lies about who he was for years, then nearly killed when I tried to find him. At the very least I was owed a straight explanation of who he was and why – thanks to something he had done – RAGE wanted me dead.

  ‘No. I don’t see it,’ I snapped. ‘I don’t see at all. Who are you? What did you do to me and Rachel when we were babies? And if you are my dad, why has everyone been lying to me about you all my life?’

  Elijah Lazio’s eyes widened. For a second he looked shocked. Furious, even. And then he laughed. A deep, rich belly laugh.

  ‘Perfect,’ he grinned. ‘You are perfect. And I am, truly, a genius.’

  ‘Yeah, and modest with it,’ I spat.

  ‘Okay. Vale.’ Elijah Lazio ran his hand through his hair again. ‘Let us begin at the beginning. In this sense you are my son: since you were born I have cherished you. Provided for you. Protected you. But genetically no, you are not my child . . .’

  ‘Then who . . .?’

  ‘Genetically we are more like twins.’

  I stared at him. How could we be twins? The man was at least forty years older than me.

  ‘Don’t you see, Theodore? The truth is in your name – it means “Gift from God”. I am far more than your father. I am your creator. I gave you life in a way no father could.’

  What the hell was he talking about?

  ‘Come on, Theodore. I know you have nearly guessed the truth. You know something special happened around your birth. Yours and Rachel’s.’

  ‘Rachel?’ My mind was spinning.

  ‘Yes. In fact . . .’ Elijah turned towards the closed kitchen door. ‘Mel,’ he barked.

  Mel poked her head round.

  ‘Send Rachel out.’

  A few seconds later, Rachel stumbled into the living room, her head bowed. Mel stood behind her, her hand on Rachel’s shoulder.

  Elijah introduced himself, then stood up.

  ‘I shall tell you together,’ he grinned. ‘Oh, Theodore. My first full success. My bright, shining boy. My past, my present and my future. Do you not see how alike we are?’

  I stared at his lined face. What did he mean? Then I looked into his eyes. And I saw.

  It was like looking into a mirror.

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Yes. You are a clone, Theodore. My clone. A clone of me.’

  38

  Rachel

  I stood there, shaking, vaguely aware of Theo sitting on the sofa, his mouth open in shock. Mel squeezed my shoulder.

  Theo was a clone? A genetic replica of this man? It was crazy. Ridiculous. And yet the way Elijah had run his hand through his hair before – it had made me gasp precisely because I’d so often seen Theo make the exact same gesture.

  I looked into Elijah’s eyes. I didn’t need to look over at Theo to make the comparison. They were exactly the same colour.

  Elijah moved closer to me. ‘How are you, Rachel?’ His voice was smooth and confident.

  I forced myself to hold his gaze.

  ‘Do you know who you are?’

  I shook my head, my mind spinning.

  ‘Well . . .’ He smiled. ‘I created you too. I cloned you from your parent’s dead child, Rebecca. I did it for them. They were my friends and they had suffered such a terrible loss.’

  I stared at him, unable to speak. Unable to take in what he was saying.

  ‘I was at your birth. That is how I avoided the firebomb.’ Elijah glanced at Theo. He was still sitting on the sofa, his head in his hands.

  ‘Guapa?’ Elijah nodded at Mel.

  Mel nodded back, then glided away, towards the sofa.

  Elijah put his arm round my shoulders. His presence was overpowering. Like a tidal wave.

  ‘You must have wondered about your sister, no?’ he said. ‘How alike you are?’

  I stared at him. No way. Rebecca had been beautiful. I wasn’t. Even if cloning was possible, we simply didn’t look the same. At least . . . I remembered how much like her I had been as a little girl.

  ‘I didn’t think it . . . that you could . . . that it was . . .’ I tailed off.

  Elijah glanced at Theo again. Mel was talking to him, but his hands were over his ears, his eyes cast down at the floor.

  Elijah cleared his throat. ‘All my life I wanted to be someone who made a difference. I became a doctor. A specialist . . . driven to help people who are denied the greatest gift of life – a child. I became obsessed with the power and the beauty of somatic cell nuclear transplantation – what the world knows as cloning. I was the first scientist to clone a primate – and I knew that I was close to creating a human embryo.’ He sat back in his chair. ‘Despite the creation of embryos used for stem cell research, no one else has yet successfully managed full reproductive cloning of a human. Do you know why that is?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Because it is hard.’ Elijah smiled. ‘The understanding is there. The technology . . . though making it work is another matter . . . But what really held – holds – science back is fear: fear of the genetic and physical defects that all cloned animals so far have demonstrated – chromosomes with shortened telomeres or . . .’ He flicked his fingers impatiently. ‘But never mind that. The important area is that of methyl molecules. These are molecules which attach to DNA in all cells, controlling the functions of the DNA to an extent. Do you understand?’

  ‘Er . . . not really.’ I blushed, feeling stupid.

  ‘Well, anyway.’ Elijah took a deep breath. ‘This process – the methylation of DNA in adult cells – happens unpredictably. Not at all like the way DNA is formatted in eggs and sperm. I knew that if I could find a way to control this process I could control the vulnerability of cloned subjects to genetic deformities.’

  I frowned, trying to make sense of what he’d just said. ‘You mean . . . you mean you worked out how to stop the clones you made from being deformed?’

  ‘Yes, the discovery . . . I did it almost by accident,’ he said. ‘Of course this now minimised the risk of the human cloning, and I pressed on with my experiments until finally Theodore – and then you – were created.’

  My head felt like it was too full, like I couldn’t take in what he was saying. I was only dimly aware of Theo standing up, crossing the room and disappearing up the stairs.

  Elijah and Mel exchanged looks. ‘Leave him for a minute,’ Elijah said. He took my arm and led me over to the sofa. We sat down.

  Elijah sighed. ‘I did not want to make any claims for my creation until I was sure Theodore was viable. I wanted my work to be properly verifi
ed by independent experts, of course, but I knew my life would change forever if I had succeeded. Look at the controversy surrounding the unsubstantiated claims of Pavel and Andropovich in past years, for example. And of course reproductive cloning is also illegal in the UK – though the initial stages of the process are identical to therapeutic cloning, which is not. Anyway, I tried to keep what I was doing a secret. But even before Theodore was viable, RAGE discovered his existence. They tried to alert the press but their claims were ridiculed. The death threats started. But I kept going. I created you, for your parents. My friends.’

  My heart thudded. Elijah smiled at me again. ‘You know your mother was a beautiful woman, Rachel. And your father was a good friend to me. Not a geneticist. That is why he was never, individually, a RAGE target. But a good friend, nevertheless. He knew much of what happened, though not the details of where I sent Apollo. And he told no one. So, then the firebomb, which I escaped, and the running away to Germany where RAGE found me and tried again to kill me. And I realised that I would be running for the rest of my life. And I nearly killed myself, Rachel. Maybe you cannot imagine that suffering. I was alone and despised with no money, no backing, no resources. No life. It took me nearly ten years to find a way to build back my research. And all the time I thought of Theodore, whom I was keeping carefully hidden from RAGE – and of you, whom they didn’t realise even existed. My two precious creations.’

  There was a long pause. Elijah Lazio held me with his eyes. They were like laser beams, probing right inside my head.

  ‘Why do you not believe, Rachel?’ he said softly.

  His eyes were somehow drawing the truth out of me.

  ‘Because Rebecca was beautiful.’ Tears welled up, a twisting, miserable sensation in the pit of my stomach. Mel had been standing near the kitchen door. Now she walked over and squatted down beside me. She squeezed my hand.

  Elijah sat back in his chair. ‘Interesting,’ he said. ‘I wish I could show you to those idiotas at RAGE. You are proof, all the proof needed, that a clone is not a carbon copy of another individual. That each fresh unit is a new creation and that, if given a different environment to grow in, even one where the parents are the same, it will develop differently from the original – both physically and mentally.’

  Each fresh unit?

  He sounded as if he was delivering a lecture or something. I stared at him uncertainly. His eyes had glazed over, as if he were thinking about something far, far away. Then he snapped back to attention and I felt the full force of his gaze again. Mel let go of my hand and stood up.

  ‘Go to the bathroom, Rachel,’ he ordered. ‘And this time look – really look – in the mirror.’

  I did as I was told. The way Elijah spoke, you didn’t feel you had much choice. There was no sign of Theo on the landing – his bedroom door was shut. I wondered vaguely how he was feeling – but my mind was mostly focused on Elijah’s command.

  In the bathroom I stared at the dark-edged mirror above the cracked enamel sink. An anxious, plump-faced girl with lank, skank hair stared back at me.

  My heart sank. Somehow Elijah’s words had sounded so powerful I’d almost imagined I would look in the glass and see Rebecca. But it was just me.

  A clone.

  I let the word sink in.

  What did it mean? That I was a copy of another life? Second-hand? Yes. I was a replacement for my dead sister – never wanted in my own right.

  It was hard to feel those things. And yet, they made sense. They made sense of my life up to now. The way I was always being compared to Rebecca. The way I didn’t really fit in at home. Or anywhere.

  There was a soft rap at the door. Mel appeared. She smiled sympathetically. ‘You okay?’ she said.

  I shrugged. I didn’t know what to say.

  ‘This isn’t easy stuff to deal with,’ she said hesitantly. ‘For either of you.’ She paused. ‘I think Theo’s having a hard time with it, too.’

  I nodded. ‘It is hard. But in a funny kind of way it’s like, somehow, I’ve always known too.’

  Mel came over and put her arm round me. She was holding a piece of thin white card in her hand.

  ‘Elijah’s an amazing man,’ she said. ‘He found me on the streets. He turned everything around for me.’

  There was something hollow in her voice, but I was too preocupied to think about it. She turned the card in her hand round. On the other side was a photograph of Rebecca – a copy of the one on our kitchen wall at home. In it Rebecca looked smiling and glamorous, with all her hair swept back.

  ‘Elijah gave me this to show you. Here.’ Mel handed me the photo. I held it under my chin so that it was reflected in the mirror, next to my own face.

  Then Mel stood behind me and pulled my hair away from my head, like Rebecca’s was in the picture. ‘Smile,’ she said.

  I forced my mouth into a curve. I stared at our faces. Mine and Rebecca’s.

  Mel tilted her head to one side. ‘Mmmn,’ she said. ‘Your face is a little fuller, of course, and your eyes are greener, though that could be the top you’ve got on, and the different light. Maybe you just look prettier because you’re alive and she’s only in a photo.’

  I stared at her. She thought I was prettier than Rebecca?

  Mel let go of my hair. ‘You should wear it off your face more,’ she said. ‘You have great bone structure.’

  She grinned at me, then walked out of the room.

  I turned back to the mirror and stood there staring for a long time.

  39

  Theo

  It was like the world was spinning round and round and my feet couldn’t find the ground. Mel came into the bedroom. Tried to talk to me. But I couldn’t focus on what she was saying. I pushed past her and went downstairs. I could hear Elijah and Lewis in the kitchen. No sign of Rachel. She must be as freaked out as I was.

  Man.

  I sat on the sofa for a minute, but the living room was closing in on me. I had to get out of the house.

  The front door was no longer bolted shut. I guessed there was no need. I’d seen at least three security guards staked outside the house. I opened it and stepped outside. It was freezing. My breath rose in a mist around my face.

  This was what I needed. Cold, clear air. One of Elijah’s security guards was standing beside the front door. He looked at me suspiciously. I could hear him talking in his radio, asking for orders, as I stomped off across the gravel.

  I hadn’t been out of the house all day – and now it was night time again. Away from the house, tramping across the nearest field, the darkness closed down around me like a net. I could hear footsteps behind me.

  ‘Go away,’ I yelled.

  The footsteps stopped. More muttering into a radio.

  I sank down onto the damp ground. What was the point in walking any further? I didn’t know where I was or where I was going.

  I put my head in my hands.

  My dad was not my dad.

  I had no dad.

  My mum had lied to me all my life. My heart clenched up like a fist when I thought of how often I’d stared at that photo of James Lawson – the face of my made-up father. A man who didn’t even exist. Or maybe did exist, but who had nothing to do with me.

  And then another thought struck me like a blow, almost winding me. My mother wasn’t really my mother. If I was a clone of Elijah, then I wasn’t even related to her. Was I? I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. It was too much. Everything I thought I knew was being taken away from me.

  More footsteps behind me.

  ‘Theodore.’ Elijah’s voice was low and calm.

  I ignored him.

  ‘Theodore. Please come inside. I do not want to talk in the freezing cold.’

  ‘Tough,’ I muttered. ‘And it’s Theo.’

  Elijah gave a heavy sigh. ‘You have questions, no? Well, ask.’

  I turned round. He was standing a few metres away from me, silhouetted against the lights from the cottage. There was no sign
of the security guard who’d followed me.

  ‘Why did you do it?’ I got up and walked over to him.

  Elijah looked surprised. ‘Because I could,’ he said. ‘And because it is beautiful science.’ He paused. ‘You know, RAGE and many people think I am a monster because I play God. And in some ways I like this. I play along. Like with the code names. Did you work those out?’

  I stared at him.

  ‘I am Zeus, the father of heaven. Apollo and Artemis are two of Zeus’s children. My creations. But it is a joke. What I do, really, is not so different from any fertility treatment. It is to—’

  ‘How can you say that? I don’t know who I am any more. My mother isn’t even my mother.’ My voice cracked.

  ‘Of course she is your mother,’ Elijah said crossly. ‘You saw in the email – Leto, Apollo’s mother.’

  I stared at him blankly. He rolled his eyes.

  ‘For what am I paying out all that money on your education if you do not have the most basic knowledge of classical culture?’

  I looked away. ‘I still don’t see how she’s my mother,’ I said stubbornly.

  Elijah sighed. ‘Because she cares for you. And because she bore you in her womb – gave birth to you. What did you think? That I grew you in some sort of bell-jar?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ I snapped. ‘I don’t even know who that man is in the picture that I thought was my dad for fifteen years.’

  Fury boiled in my stomach. Mum had lied to me. Lied and lied. And it was this man’s fault.

  I clenched my fists, barely containing the impulse to hit out at him.

  Elijah waved his hand dismissively. ‘A man from a magazine. Some photo agency. A nobody your mother and I picked to—’

  ‘Did you care about her?’ I said, suddenly gripped by a new thought. ‘I mean, was she just a . . . a place to put me, or . . . or . . .?’

  Since Mum had told me my dad was alive I’d imagined them as a couple. Kept apart by forces outside their control, maybe, but still a couple.

  I ground my teeth. Man, how stupid was I?

  Elijah sighed again. ‘Your mother and I were something,’ he said evasively. ‘I think maybe she loved me once. Women do. Like they will you.’