by Ryan Schow
“He may not be human,” Gerhard says, “but I am. Flesh and blood with a soul, a social security number and a purpose.”
“Right now your only job is to shut your freaking pie hole.”
He doesn’t say a word. He just smiles.
“Now, as far as I’m concerned, you have a bigger problem than introducing Kaitlyn into society. You have me to deal with. And Damien and Brayden, too. Well, at present moment, I guess it’s just me and Brayden. Will Damien be okay?”
He shrugs his shoulders.
“You better hope so. And who are these people?” I ask. “The ones in the tanks?”
“The girls are from Ukraine, Prague and Hungary, except for Kaitlyn. The boys are from our labs in Germany and Sweden. They’re working models. Most are new to us in the States.”
Their beauty is almost androgynous.
“Brand new?”
“Actually, most are new to me. On loan from various corporations around the globe.”
“Why?” Brayden asks. He clears his throat, then: “Why are they here?”
“Three students this next semester. They’ll be getting the same full-scale transformation as your little girlfriend here. These models, we’re now pooling DNA. No longer pulling from a single source.”
“Like with the non-triplets?” I hear myself say.
“You mean, your friends?”
“Of course that’s who I mean!” I all but shout.
He tries to back away from me, but I step with him, never letting the gun leave his skull. He stops. I stop. The look on my face is all business. It’s the most serious I’ve ever been.
“Yes,” he finally admits. “Instead of utilizing the host DNA for multiple subjects, which we only did because it is the most stable across all lines, I’m now able to separate and combine characteristics. Like what we did with you, Savannah. We pulled mostly from 452 from Prague, but also from Kaitlyn’s model, 318 from Ukraine.”
“So, no more synthetics?” I ask. “No more identicals? As in I’m the last?”
“You’re the first of your kind, and the last of your friends’ kind here. Perhaps you’re the new blend. My brand new mutt,” he spits with vigor. I frown, but he continues. “Your mother is part Spanish, so I had a separate strain of DNA shipped from Prague and that was part of your initial regimen. When you’re done—when you were supposed to be done with your treatments, you would in some ways resemble your friends, and Kaitlyn, but you would not be identical to them. With your darker skin, your soon to be green eyes and your black hair, I expect many of these similarities will be lost on others.”
“Tell that to everyone calling me ‘Number Four,’ as in the fourth clone.”
“It won’t always be like this,” he says.
“So you took from the other two Kaitlyn’s to make Bridget, Georgia, Victoria and part of me and only now are you realizing you can’t just make us all look like the same person?”
“This is an imperfect world we live in. And I am an imperfect man working with what I have.”
I look at Brayden and say, “Pick, if you want.”
“Pick what?” Brayden asks, confused.
“Pick a boy. No, pick two.”
“What are you doing?” Gerhard says.
“Making a deal with you. Here it is: You can continue your research, but Kaitlyn goes free—like right now—and I finish my treatments, but with one specific modification.”
“That’s it?” he says.
“No, that’s not it. In addition to satisfying my own requirements for this arrangement, you will treat Brayden at no charge. He’s not to be a clone of next semester’s students, though. He’ll be his own person.”
“I can’t—” Gerhard says.
“You can and you will. Also, you are going to combine several other strands of DNA from these other girls and you’re going to make my friends unique from each other again. So much so that they will no longer be referred to as the Clones, or the Synthetics. In return, this will buy my silence, Damien’s silence, and Brayden’s silence. It will also buy our cooperation.”
I look at Brayden and he says, “For real?”
“If you want.”
“So, will you be attracted to me then?” he asks. It’s such a serious question I nearly burst into laughter, but the way I’m shaking inside, I manage to contain myself.
Remembering how devastatingly good looking the male models are, I say, “Yes.”
“And we can be together? I mean, you would like me like that?”
Something in my heart stirs. Good looks combined with his unpredictable personality will either make him a boy-God or a freaking egomaniac. “If you don’t let your new looks go to your head, maybe.”
“Then, yes. I’ll do it if he does it,” he says, looking at Gerhard.
“Oh, he’ll do it,” I say, not taking my eyes off the good doctor. “Of course, we’ll need to see if that’s okay with Damien before finalizing our agreement. Assuming he’s still alive.”
“This modification you want,” Gerhard says, his voice humorless and thick with sarcasm, “let me guess, you want a bigger bust?”
I laugh, and it’s deeply cynical and short lived. “No. What I want are Nurse Arabelle’s eyes.”
“You should just shoot me now because there’s no way in hell I’m going to—”
I point the gun at his thigh and pull the trigger. Screaming, he hobbles a couple of steps, hand to the wound, then collapses to the floor.
Kneeling beside him, jamming the smoking barrel to his scalp, I say, “Perhaps you’d like to rethink your answer, Dr. Gerhard?”
Gerhard’s answer is a lot of moaning, a violence of cursing, and him fixing me with the mother of all death stares. I let his anger run its course, and then I tell him to put pressure on the wound. He practically hisses at me.
“The corporation’s going to find out about this, you know!” he snarls, his hand still over the wound. “Do you know what kind of trouble they will make for me? For you?”
“You’d best worry about me right now, Gerhard. I’ve still got bullets left in this gun.”
Tears well in his eyes, and after a moment, he swipes them away, streaking his face with blood. He offers a resigned nod. I’ve never seen his skin so pale.
“Cooperate and you’ll never have to worry about us divulging yours or the corporation’s secrets. We will be friends again. Well, not really friends, but not enemies either. This will be our little Geneva Convention, a cease fire, if you will. Between all of us.”
“You know we’re dead,” Gerhard says. “Someone’s going to find out about Brayden and then everything is going to unravel. I’ll be ruined before the first word of it even hits the news. And you’ll be dead. All of us, it’s just a matter of time.”
“I suggest you embrace the power of positive thinking, because this isn’t an option. It’s a requirement of your survival.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking! What you’re risking!”
“I told you, I’m not asking.”
“Fine, you little terrorist bitch! But you’re going to need consent from Brayden’s father. And I won’t do it during the current semester.”
“Winter break is coming up.”
“He won’t be ready for school. I can’t get him done in time.”
“Jesus, Gerhard, you’re a certified genius,” I say, my eyes rolling. “Figure it out!”
“Brayden will have to change identities completely. All of them will. Jesus, Savannah, don’t you get how complicated this is?! You can’t just order this up like a hot meal. What I do, what will be done to him—to them—this completely undoes the previous existence of four Astor Academy students. All at once! Your friends, they can’t come back as themselves.”
For a second I wonder about my own life, who I will be when I return home, how I will explain myself to people like Netty, and Margaret.
Brayden says, “I have a grandmother I can stay with.”
“I don’t give t
wo shits about your fatheaded grandmother!” Gerhard snarls. Finally he undoes his belt, reclines on his hip and loops the belt over the wound, pulling it tight. His face blisters with pain, and he clenches his jaw tight enough to crack teeth. “This is all on you, you rotten, scheming little slag. My end, your end, all their ends! It’s not if the corporation learns about this, you thankless little shit, it’s when they learn about it. And they will.”
Satisfied, putting away my gun, I say, “Stop being so dramatic.”
He laughs. It’s a horrible, desperate sound.
“If you break your word at any point during our arrangement, Gerhard, I will kill you.”
Gerhard looks like he wants to say something more, but thinks better of it. Damien is finally coming around. His flickering eyes start to clear. He looks like he doesn’t know where he is for a moment, then he sees the dead monster sprawled out next to him and something like recognition wanders through his eyes. It’s all coming back.
He utters her name: “Kaitlyn.”
“Kaitlyn,” I echo, looking from Damien to Gerhard. “How long to get her out of there?”
“A few minutes to purge her fluids, maybe an hour or two for her to be cognitive, but we’ll need to watch her for twenty-four hours before we release her. If I even last that long without bleeding to death.”
“You sound like you’re guessing.”
“The solution is new. It’s not just preservation fluid. There are healing capabilities in the solution that are new because of her. Because of her…situation.”
“Fine, sure. Just do it. Oh, and that cover story you and Damien’s father are working on, I hope it’s bullet proof.”
“It’s not.”
He struggles to get up, using a nearby table to steady himself. When he’s finally on his feet, he tries putting a little weight on his leg, and though it holds, it’s plain to see how much it hurts. I want to say I’m sorry, but really I’m not, so the apology would be a lie anyway.
“I’ll call Nurse Arabelle,” I offer. “Just keep that belt tight and you’ll be fine. Oh, and you have twenty-four hours to get your story in order.”
He huffs out a pained sigh, his eyes swimming with hatred. Damien watches closely, not making mention of the beast or Gerhard’s shot leg as the doctor prepares to release Kaitlyn from her glass tank. I glance down at Gerhard’s leg; the bullet hole is still seeping. He’s doing a good job masking the pain, though. Now that Damien is halfway cognizant, I tell him about the deal I struck and ask if there’s anything he wants to add.
To Gerhard, he says, “If you screw us—”
“I healed her,” Gerhard says, interrupting him. “All of your animosity is wasted on me. I saved your step-sister’s life, you ignorant Keck. I saved her life and made her beautiful.”
“I grieved her death for years,” Damien snaps.
“Well you can stop now.”
“My step-mother is about to be institutionalized again. My family is broken. Don’t you get it? No matter your how bold your accomplishments are, my family has been destroyed.”
“Take that up with your father,” he says, Kaitlyn’s canister now starting to drain.
4
Minutes later, Brayden and Gerhard lift a sopping wet Kaitlyn out of the capsule and lay her out on a steel gurney. Damien covers her with a sheet. I just stand there marveling at her pale skin, the goose bumps peppering her body, how her face looks alive but lifeless. Beneath the sheets, her chest expands, contracts. I breathe a sigh of relief.
As I watch Damien brush damp strands of hair from her face and caress her pale cheek, I realize there’s something beautiful and sweet in him that will always hobble my Damien Rhodes defenses.
I suspect because Damien wants to preserve his step-sister’s dignity, Brayden keeps his eyes on Gerhard, watching as Arabelle helps Gerhard tend to his injury. On me, she uses words like ungrateful, arrogant and bitch. Mostly, however, she curses me in her native tongue.
I understand her anger.
Kaitlyn finally opens her eyes, and Damien is at her side, holding her hand. He sees her and she sees him and he starts sobbing. I put my hand on his shoulder, then leave them alone. Nurse Arabelle never stops glaring at us. The way she so tenderly cares for Gerhard would be touching if not for her otherwise frostbitten exterior. In the midst of even the most animated tirade, I can’t stop thinking Arabelle’s eyes are going to look so good on me.
Patched up, Gerhard phones Damien’s father, tells him the situation, then pulls his ear away from the phone. We all hear the shouting. After being hung up on, Gerhard tries talking to me, telling me Kaitlyn must be smuggled out of here. He says Damien’s father isn’t happy about how we muscled her release. He says he’s coming down.
“I don’t give a damn about his emotional state,” I say. “And he can come down here all he wants, but she’s leaving this place and that’s that.”
Brayden shows up at my side and says, “I’ve picked my models.” He tells Gerhard the numbers, and Gerhard frowns with disgust. Like he’d just as soon eat Brayden’s soul as look at him another second.
“You two will be very happy together,” he mumbles. The way he says it—almost like he’s trying to mask a deep seated loathing—it’s fingers on a chalkboard to my ears.
Nurse Arabelle says, “Boy is doing world a favor, not being so ugly.” Gerhard nods and Arabelle says, “He’s very, very ugly child.”
Brayden looks petrified, but I pay the two of them no mind. “You just remember what I said. No harm comes to any of us.”
“Remind me again and I’ll kill myself and then you’ll be stuck with that horrifying little troll creature just the way he is.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow to resume my treatments. And I want my new eyes.”
“I’ll be here. Ever so unhappy to see you.”
It’s not a pleasant arrangement, but it’s the best I can manage. That’s when I remember Brayden used my phone to capture everything on film, and that tiny place of peace, or resolve, inside me opens up. That I didn’t have to use it for leverage is a miracle; that I have it in case I need to use it in the future…now that’s a blessing I will graciously accept.
Epilogue
1
OMG, I can hardly believe it. I’m going home. I wasn’t going initially because the idea of it has me feeling sick to my stomach. Still, it’s visitors weekend at Margaret’s rehab clinic and I have some things I’m dying to say to her.
On the Friday before leaving, Julie Satan and the Diabolical Two plus Maggie stroll into the cafeteria, brushing by me. Cameron bumps my shoulder.
Theresa snaps a photo of me and it irritates me the same way it did when Julie took my picture, and whenever anyone from the press took my picture. I snatch the camera from her hands, throw it in the same trash can I puked in when I first arrived. She gasps, but whatever. Already my eyes are changing and it has me on edge the way everyone keeps staring.
“Stupid quadruplet,” Cameron snarls, meaning the fourth clone.
“All of you, you’re nothing,” I say to the three of them. “Less than nothing. And nothing you ever do in life will mean shit because you’re cruel and unstable, and so disgusting inside that this”—I make a gesture to say I’m referring to their faces and bodies—“can’t make up for any of it.”
Cameron steps forward and tries to slap me; I catch her wrist. 452 from Prague was bred with incredible looks, but lately I’m convinced she also has the genetic coding for strength and agility, two traits I never imagined having. Cameron struggles to break free. I tighten my grip. By now everyone is watching. Especially Julie.
I say, “What are you going to do, bitch? Huh? What are you ever going to do to me again? Nothing.”
Cameron doubles her efforts, struggling mightily against my grip. I let go the minute she tries to pull back and she falls flat on her ass. People laugh. Then everyone gets quiet. I’m sure they’re all remembering the food fight last time, Bridget’s confrontation with Julie and
Cameron, Julie punching me in the face and cracking my eye orbital.
In a loud, proud voice I say to her, “My name is Savannah Van Duyn you cancerous scab. Not quadruplet, not clone, not Number Four, not anything but Savannah. That goes for you, too, skank,” I say eyeballing Julie. Julie and Theresa just stare at me, their eyes as hard as diamonds. I take a threatening step toward Julie. “Cat got your tongue?”
Cameron is getting up, rubbing her injured wrist. She stands behind Julie, her expression angry/wounded. “Let’s go girls,” Julie says.
For a moment Maggie meets my eyes. I give her the slightest nod; she gives me a nod in return. In confidence, I told her that her DNA source is beautiful, and that her secret is safe with me. She never said anything about me knowing. She didn’t really have to. I think Damien told her everything. I think they might be dating, or maybe they were about to before Kaitlyn came back into the picture. Lately he hasn’t been around much, and I sort of miss him. He’s an idiot, but he’s so damn easy on the eyes. So I guess that makes me an idiot, too.
Looking at Maggie, ignoring the fact that right now she’s the one getting his attention, I let myself daydream. I see him taking my face, kissing me on the lips, telling me he loves me. Then my eyes clear and all I can do is feel sad, and maybe a bit angry. Why am I so desperate to hear him say those three words? I love you. If he said it, my life would be complete. I know this. And I know I will never have this. At least I’ll have Brayden.
If he gets hot after his treatments, he’ll be so much better anyway.
2
Saturday morning comes too quickly, but I’m committed to going home, to visiting Margaret, so there’s no way I’m about to chicken out. The drive home feels quicker than it is and I go straight to Cedar Grove Rehabilitation where I sign in to see her. A nurse says, “I didn’t know she had a niece.” Yep, that’s what I say as my cover. The nurse, she’s staring at my eyes, looking for the circular tell of contact lenses.
“She’s good at keeping secrets,” I say.