That’s the word that haunts me long after I hang up.
* * *
My last scheduled meeting in front of the television cameras to defend my recently passed law goes off without a hitch. I toe the party line, just as I have in all previous engagements. I continue to repeat the false dichotomy that President Sayder and I are on different ends of the social spectrum on this issue, and I celebrate the historic compromise. I let the pro-family leaders and the pro-life leaders on the set defend me and my law as heroic and historic.
But for the first time, I feel guilty for it.
17
“IVAN, I WANT YOU TO show it to me.”
Ivan Wilkes frowns as he prepares for a putt he hopes will be his birdie putt on the ninth hole. I’ve asked him to let me observe a cerebral-ocular transfer. “No, you don’t.”
“I do. I want to see it.” My mood matches the weather perfectly—overcast, with a blistery chill in the erratic wind.
He turns and stares at me for a moment with a cock-eyed wince. “Why, Raymond?”
“Like you said, it’s my science. I pioneered it. I’m getting richer than a king off it. I spearheaded the passage of the law that legalizes it. I have more of a right to see it than any person on this planet.”
“It’s just what you expect it to be, Ray. We do a brain transplant, plain and simple. Now, it’s so streamlined, we just push a button on the supercomputer and let the robotics do it. It cuts, it sutures and re-unites miniscule arterioles, cauterizes the microscopic capillaries, and it does it all quickly in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.”
“I want to see it. I want to know what the dupes do—or are forced to do—to get physically fit. I want to know how they’re nurtured and educated.”
“They aren’t educated.” A gust of wind obscures his words.
“What?”
“They’re intentionally kept ignorant. Their emotions are medically modified to keep them docile and servile.”
“I want to see it for myself.”
He flips his putter upside down and uses it as a cane, just staring at me. “I’m worried about you, Raymond.”
I scowl, offended at his paternal condescension. “It’s my prerogative.”
“I’m worried. And not just because your golfing’s going down the tube.” He walks to the cart, grabs his towel to wipe the sweat from his face. “President Sayder called me.”
My heart skips a beat. The most powerful leader in the western world may have me in her sights, trying to pick off my allies. “Why would the President call you about me?”
“She read a transcript of your meeting with your sister at the prison.”
I gawk. “What?!”
“Oh, don’t act surprised.” He waves a hand my direction as if he’s swatting a fly. “You know that practically all information is at her disposal, thanks to heaps of anti-terrorist legislation.” He walks back to his ball and takes a practice swing with his putter next to the ball. “They could be listening to us by satellite right now, and it’s perfectly legal.” He smoothly hits his ball and it sinks in the hole. “Yes.”
He is quite proud of his nine-hole score. I do not, however, congratulate him.
“Well, what’d she say?” I line up to make my putt.
“She said not to let you see the closed section of the New Body lab.”
The President is apparently aware of my volatility. She doesn’t trust me to stay true to her if my conscience is further provoked. I defied her explicit order when I informed Thomas about the President’s conspiracy to get the Bill passed. Did she sit around with her secret counsel of assassin managers, listening to a recording of my phone call with Thomas? I imagine her ordering them to take me out of the equation and make it look like an accident, or suicide.
I fetch my ball and walk with Ivan toward the tenth hole, our caddies following a comfortable distance behind to allow us privacy. “I was the pioneer that paved the trail that led to our New Body monopoly. The wing where you raise dupes is named after me. Before I was cryo-preserved, you were subordinate to me, if you remember. I am a co-owner . . . ”
“Forty-nine percent owner, now.”
“So you’re going to shut me out?”
He takes a deep breath. “I didn’t say that. I said the President personally asked me to shut you out.”
“I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer, Ivan.”
“Oh, I’m Ivan Wilkes. Do you think I have any concern greater than that which suits my own fancy? I’ll play her, Raymond. I might first see what she’s willing to give to entice me to keep you out.”
“Don’t let her entice you, Ivan. That’ll quickly evolve to coercion if you threaten her ambition.”
“I’m enticeable, Raymond, but not coercible,” he assures me.
“Everyone’s coercible. She can do practically anything in the name of national security.”
“I’ll bet. Even take her pink flying supercar for joy rides.” We laugh. “Ray, you’re a good face for the New Body industry, but I worry that its inner workings would disgust you as much as a non-hunter disemboweling a deer. Just because you enjoy the venison doesn’t mean you can handle the butchering. Remember that med student that puked when she assisted you with her first hysterotomy abortion?”
The memory does not provoke the same sense of nostalgia in me as it apparently does in him, judging by his raspy cackle and my turning stomach. We were attempting a repeat of the 1973 study by Dr. Peter Adam of Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, who decapitated twelve fetuses that survived hysterotomy abortions. We inserted tubes into their carotid arteries to continue oxygenating the brains after cutting the umbilical cords, and withdrew samples of blood from a vein in the top of the cranium to determine how well the decapitated brain metabolized nutrients. It was part of our mission to better oxygenate brain tissue isolated from the rest of the body. In commenting on his study in the American Medical News, Dr. Adam said that if society is going to deny the right to life of the human fetus, upon what basis could it protect its right to health, or any other right? The rights of non-persons are like the rights of dogs; for the greater good, they can be subjected to experiments the average person might find abhorrent, although those people have no objection to enjoying the technological benefits of those experiments.
“I remember.” I swallow hard.
Ivan puts his golf ball on the tee and nails it. “Yes. On the green in one shot.”
He extends his club toward the golf cart, and the caddie gets out and begins to walk over toward him. “It’s no different than what we did with stem cell research,” he reminds me, “extracting fresh tissue and stem cells from aborted fetuses while some of them were alive and writhing. No one was more vigilant in the face of protest than you.”
“I know, I know.”
“Look at all the good we’ve done, Raymond. A dupe is just another non-person at a different stage of gestation. As you used to say, we never really know when life begins.”
“I think when they’re breathing air, have a, a, a spontaneous heart rhythm, and have the ability to feel pain, I think it’s safe to say they’re, uh, they’re alive.” I am beginning to hate it when my stroke-associated speech impediment worsens under stress.
“Oh, please, Raymond. The fetuses on which we did hysterotomy abortions breathed air just fine, at least for a while, and so did the late term abortions that survived. You didn’t protest when we made a fortune off marketing their tissue. And you know they felt pain—we proved it over and over. You’re just being arbitrary. Just accept the Supreme-Court-dictated fact that dupes are non-people, their respirations and spontaneous heart rhythm notwithstanding. Can you do that? For the greater good?”
I nod reluctantly. Why do I sense that I must now make a choice I feel is wrong, simply to save face for yesterday’s wrong choices? I feel like I’m trying to dig myself out of a mud pit but can only get deeper with the digging. “Yes, Ivan, I can do that. But you’re still going to show me the Verity wing.”
“Tell you what. Beat me by the eighteenth, I’ll show you. If I beat you, you shut up about it.”
“But you got a three hole lead on the ninth and a killer first stroke on the tenth!”
“That’s my deal. Take it or leave it.”
By the eighteenth hole, I catch up and beat him by one, which never happens. I don’t feel the ecstasy I would expect.
18
MY WHOLE BODY TREMBLES AS we enter the maximum security section of the New Body lab. Ivan keeps my name off the manifest, and disables the security cameras in the areas he plans to take me.
I scrub into his first surgery of the day with him.
“It’s an 89-year-old Caucasian, the eldest aunt of the Princess of Wales. She has a medically-controlled epilepsy disorder, so we have gradually increased the tolerance of her dupe to anti-seizure medication so her transition will be seamless, compensating the dose in consideration of the superior metabolism of the dupe’s liver. She also has moderate dementia . . . ”
“Dementia? What good’s a new body with a demented brain?”
“Good enough for her to pay for it.”
Ivan leads the way into the surgery suite.
“Hello, Dr. Wilkes, Dr. Verity.” One of the residents greets us as soon as I enter the room. I’m surprised he recognizes me, as I was careful to conceal my identity from passers-by when I scrubbed for surgery and donned my mask. Even through the resident’s surgical mask, I recognize him and he seems to be a brilliant scientist from my limited dealings with him. Of course, only the best and brightest one percent of the thousands of applicants are accepted to rotate here, with even fewer landing a position on the resident surgical team.
As the nurse helps Wilkes don his surgical gloves, he glances at the resident. “Dr. Porter, right?”
“Yes, sir.” The resident keeps his gloved hands folded over his chest to preserve his sterility.
“Dr. Cranton’s letting you scrub in on your first case, huh?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s quite an honor for a first year resident,” Wilkes acknowledges.
“Yes, sir.” There is a wide smile in the resident’s tone of voice and a glint of pride in his pale blue eyes.
“Probably breaking a record at the facility,” Ivan suggests.
“Like Marx said, in order to make an omelet, you’ve got to break a few eggs.”
I chuckle at the irrelevance of the quote. Kids this smart don’t usually have it all together socially.
Two patients are intubated on two parallel gurneys, their heads concealed by an awkwardly shaped metallic box that appears to unite them. There are windows on each side of the box that allow us to watch, or to remove them if we must intervene manually during the surgery. Several holographic projectors on the walls of the surgery suite allow us to monitor the surgery from several different angles. The elderly patient has a drape over her torso, but from the looks of her sagging, obese body, she did not take very good care of herself. The dupe appears thin and long, almost prepubescent.
“Do you have any questions about your required reading, Dr. Porter?”
“No, sir.”
“Give us the medical history. Just the pertinents.”
The resident clears his throat and, without even glancing at the medical record, which is projected on one wall of the surgical suite, he quickly recites the history from memory. “Eighty-nine-year-old Caucasian female Martha Pennington. Well-controlled epilepsy, type 2 diabetes, hyperlipidemia, atherosclerotic heart disease, and hypertension. Coronary stent in the LAD in 2019, bilateral knee replacements in 2024, laser surgery for diabetic retinopathy in 2025. Aspirin 81 discontinued seven days ago. On Repakote 500 thrice daily since seven-years-of-age. Mild to moderate dementia, controlled on our proprietary blend since her initial visit. Widowed non-smoker without drug allergies.”
“And the breast cancer?”
“Yes, sir. I had to take a breath.”
Dr. Wilkes laughs. “Of course, Jeremy.”
“Right ductal carcinoma in situ, but no mets as of bone scan and CT scan of lungs and brain three weeks ago.”
“They’re getting smarter and smarter now-a-days, aren’t they Dr. Verity?”
I nod. “Remind me, Dr. Porter, what exactly is in our proprietary blend?”
“Glyconutrients, gingko biloba, coconut oil, L-methyl folate, coenzyme Q10, EPA fatty acid, and other anti-oxidant supplements that may improve neurodegenerative diseases.”
Wilkes nods at him as the nurse, upon his order, repositions his mask.
“No double-blinded proof of efficacy,” the resident continues, “just anecdotal evidence.”
I nod, and add, “With the brain being the only part of our bodies we transplant to the new person, maximizing cerebral health is a priority.” I smack my lips. “The miracle is how they can make the concoction taste so sweet and lemony.”
“Yes,” Ivan agrees, motioning toward my head. “It’s probably why your cognition is better now than when you were in your final days with your ischemic microvascular brain disease. Even after your stroke.”
I flinch. “I think you just violated HIPPA regulations, Ivan, revealing my medical problems to the staff.”
“Sue me. We’ll settle out of court and split the proceeds from the insurance company.”
The room bursts out in laughter. Ivan leans close to me. “All your health details have riddled the paper the past several months, so I’m not telling them anything they don’t already know.”
“I suppose so.” I pat him on the shoulder amiably.
“Except about your herpes . . . ”
“Hey!”
Laughter fills the room. This was just the remedy my nerves required. I fix my eyes on the patient, feeling less repulsed by the thought of the procedure.
“Congratulations on your quick stroke recovery, Dr. Verity and on yet another stem cell breakthrough in procuring it, Dr. Wilkes.” The handsome resident’s voice is squeaky young and innocent, reminding me of my younger days.
“Thank you,” Wilkes responds, turning to me. “Can you imagine being her, going from a cancer-riddled, demented body like this,” he snatches the drape off the elderly patient’s torso, “to this?”
He crudely removes the drape off the dupe body.
The contrast is striking: before me lies one of the most grotesque bodies I have ever seen, riddled with skin cancers and fungal rashes, sagging skin, with a protuberant, pale abdomen, thin, emaciated extremities, hypertrophic nails, and swollen, contorted joints. The dupe’s body has the look of the girl on a magazine cover—thin, toned, long-limbed, and tanned, flawless skin. It is doubtless the most striking contrast I have ever seen in my life, as distinct as heaven from hell. Dr. Ivan sighs and then steps toward the foot of the dupe’s gurney.
The resident turns from the naked bodies and from Ivan’s tasteless gawking of the nude body of the dupe. He feigns he’s studying the medical record projected on the wall, but is he just trying not to look, or to conceal a blush?
“Oh, to be Mrs. Pennington’s man, huh?” Ivan glances at the nurses, as if expecting them to chuckle at his attempt at humor. They act like they’re chatting with each other, trying to ignore Ivan’s lack of discretion. “The wonders of genetic modification.” Ivan spreads out his hands as if he were Moses reveling in the split Red Sea. “Can you believe we can make this”—he points at the dupe—“out of this pathetic human being’s DNA?”
He’s really dragging this comparison out. I want to say what everyone else is thinking: Get on with it already! But I keep silent.
He removes forceps off the table of medical tools and pinches a roll of cellulite on the old woman’s thigh. Having ruined the sterility of the forceps, he drops it on the floor, clasps his hands, and gazes idly around the room, appearing to bask in his power over the two people on the gurneys before him. He’s impressed with himself. The nurses appear tolerantly resigned, as if they are accustomed to Ivan’s moments of grandeur. But Dr
. Porter’s face evolves to deep red, as if his patience is being severely strained by the god-complex of his superior.
“She’s thinner than my taste,” I say.
“Mine too,” Ivan chuckles. “But we try to cater to the needs of the donor. The old lady wants an anorexic new body, so we give her one. She wants to be three to four inches taller, and besides her scalp, eyebrows, and eyelashes, she wants to have a perpetually hairless body, so we have modified her genome to suit her specific tastes. She also wants to run a four-minute mile.”
“Four minutes?” I exaggerate raising my eyebrows—it being the only part of my facial inflection that others can see. “Whoa, that’s fast.”
Ivan chuckles. “Yes. They pay extra for athletically trained dupes. This dupe suffered immensely to meet its host’s demands.”
“How do they get them to do what they need to do?”
“The same way you get a horse to do what you need it to do. Training. Coercion. Tricks and treats.”
Ivan points to four coolers in the corner of the room. “When we’re done with the transplant, we let the residents scavenge the donor’s body for salvageable body parts for research, and then, of course, the dupe’s genetically-perfected brain and eyes. That’s where the profit is. Now, if we get a cancellation due to, for example, the death of the donor, then the dupe is fair game for experiments requiring live bodies. Now, that’s like hitting the lottery!”
Given the squinting of his eyes, his smile has widened to the edges of his face.
“Two hours and 15 minutes,” a nurse reminds Dr. Wilkes, “until your next surgery.” That is her gentle way of urging him to get along with the procedure.
Ivan turns to the resident. “Dr. Jeremy Porter, you may commence with your first cerebral-ocular transfer.”
Dr. Porter clears his throat. “Aren’t you going to ask about the history of Forty, the cloned girl?”
“The dupe? What’s this, the dumbest question in the history of New Body Research Center?” His gaze darts between me and the resident. “No, Dr. Porter. The dupe meets the host’s criteria for the service the host is paying us for. That’s all we need to know.”
Body by Blood Page 11