Body by Blood

by Patrick Johnston

  “You mean, you would actually consider putting down a dupe because of —”

  “Shh!” He leans close to whisper to me. “A ‘transfer’ is an upgrade to a better life.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Hope motivates them,” he whispers. “Helps ensure compliance. The step up to their new life is called a ‘process.’”

  I nod. “A transfer, and a process.”

  20

  WHEN WE ENTER VERITY WING’S clinic, one young man is sitting in a chair holding his abdomen, and a toddler is lying prone in a crib, resting. A brunette nurse with graying roots types on a computer at her desk. Redd Cranton introduces me to her. “This is Serena. This is Dr. Verity.”

  She stands and shakes my hand. “So nice to meet you. I’ve heard so much about you.”

  She looks at the young female dupe beside me. “Sixty-two? What happened?”

  “It’s nothing,” I assure her. “Just a broken metacarpal.”

  “What?”

  “It was my fault. I’ll set it.” I rest a comforting hand on Sixty-Two’s shoulder. “Bring me a small ice bag as soon as possible. And get me three cc’s of lidocaine in a syringe with a 23 gauge, 1-inch needle . . . ”

  “No, no,” Redd interrupts. “Consult ortho,” he orders Serena. He turns to me. “You wouldn’t get an internist to take care of the joints of a Heisman trophy winner, would you? No. Sixty-two’s special. She needs a specialist. But fetch the ice immediately.”

  “Yes, sir.” Serena types hurriedly on her computer.

  Sixty-two quietly takes a seat and I glance at the young man who sits in the chair holding his abdomen. “Serena, tell me about your other two patients here?”

  “They’re not patients.” She furrows her brows.

  I growl at their nonsensical, politically correct euphemisms. “Excuse me, ma’am, where did you go to school?”

  “Mandalay Nursing School in Jersey. Why?”

  “Did they have a vet nursing program?”

  She shakes her head. “No.”

  “No? They trained you to care for humans, right?”

  She nods. “Dupes and humans.”

  “Human dupes, or what? Snake dupes, sheep dupes, mouse dupes . . . ”

  “Quit messing with her head, Ray.” Cranton leans close to the nurse, and whispers, “He may have founded the company and pioneered the science, Serena, but he’s new to this wing.”

  “New body, new hearing, Redd.” I tap my ears. “I can hear you well.”

  Cranton nods. “Serena, just inform Dr. Verity of their injuries.”

  “This is Seventy-Seven.” She points to the thick-chested young man who looks to be about 16, which would make him eight years old. This means he’s close to the age of transfer. The young man is holding his stomach with sullen downcast eyes. “Initial scan reveals an acute appendicitis. Momentarily, we’re going to process him to another facility for care.”

  I glance at Dr. Cranton, and he mouths the word process.

  I nod.

  “This dupe,” the nurse points to the toddler in a crib, “has a cold.”

  The child has dark hair and is sleeping comfortably, facing the wall.

  “Unfortunately, a perfect immune system does not necessarily result in a disease-free existence, thanks to pathogens we have not yet conquered.” Cranton shrugs. “All in due time.”

  “Is she going to be processed, Redd?”

  “No. She just needs to be kept away from the others until she’s symptom-free.”

  The nurse stands and walks to the crib, gesturing to the resting child. “This dupe falls under our handicapped donor protocol.”

  Handicapped donor protocol?

  I walk to the other side of the crib as Cranton informs me, “One of our two-year-olds is a clone of Albert Einstein, and we cannot afford viruses roaming freely among the population, threatening our investments”—he glances at the dupe with appendicitis—“or, um, making others ill.”

  I am more fascinated by the little girl in the crib than the idea of Einstein’s cloning. She looks just like I could imagine Mary Nell looking if she didn’t have Down Syndrome. My heart rate begins to speed up. “Who’s the host?”

  “Einstein, of course,” Cranton frowns. “The DNA was retrieved from . . . ”

  “No, no, no. Who’s this dupe’s donor?” I point at the girl in the crib.

  The nurse shrugs as she opens the door and ushers in a pregnant dupe, who appears to be at least mid-trimester. “I can check in a minute, as soon as I get Twenty-One settled.”

  “The dupes for handicapped children and for cloned savants and geniuses get the highest quality education possible.” Cranton beams with pride. “They are transferred into their host’s home as quickly as the host wishes.”

  “As I understand it, in the handicapped protocol, it’s basically a trade, right? Child for child?”

  He winces. “Child for dupe.”

  “When the parents make the trade, do we always process the child?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Well, we don’t call it a child after the trade.”

  I cock my head to the side. He’s smarter than this.

  He shrugs. “The terminology is in flux.”

  “Does the dupe put into the home suddenly become a child?”

  “Legally, yes.”

  “So we let the judges decide whether they are human or not? Not science?”

  For a brief second, I see his eyes light up with a flash of awakening. Then his eyes dart quickly toward his feet. Not in shame, for his jaw clenches in anger. It is denial.

  “What are we? Prostitutes for politicians, or objective scientists dedicated to observed facts?”

  He sighs noisily and ignores my question. Pointing to the pregnant dupe, who appears to be having a contraction, he lectures, “This is Twenty-One’s seventh pregnancy. All genetically-perfected, IVF-conceived embryos are placed in dupes for maturation. We’ve modified the carriers’ genome to allow pregnancy at a much earlier age, a much shorter gestation, and much easier deliveries. There are only seven months of gestation for a fully mature dupe delivery. After seven deliveries in seven years, Twenty-One is three to four pregnancies from being done. Then she’ll be processed out of here.”

  “Wouldn’t ectogenesis be more profitable and more socially acceptable for the maturation of human embryos?”

  “You kidding me?”

  “They’ve been growing human embryos via ectogenesis at Cornell since 2011.”

  He plants his hands on his hips and turns square to face me. “Growing embryos in artificial wombs only matures them so far, Ray. They require a human host. As far as what’s socially acceptable, out of sight, out of mind. Americans don’t care about what they don’t know about, and they don’t want to know about what they don’t care about.”

  Twenty-One looks up at me, and gives me a faint grin. Her eyes are full of hope. She sees processing as liberation, not exploitation.

  An aid enters with a bag of ice for the girl’s broken metacarpal. I show her how to hold it to prevent swelling.

  “Tell me about the dupe in the crib,” I remind Serena.

  “That dupe,”—she motions to the crib—“is going to replace a Down Syndrome girl in Jeffersonville, Maine.”

  That’s where Savannah lives! This must be Mary Nell’s replacement! “What’s her number?”

  “The special protocol lets the donor’s family give it a name from birth. They picked the same name as the defective daughter they’re replacing—Mary Nell.”

  I suck in a deep breath but there are still stars floating on the edges of my vision.

  Dr. Cranton steps forward. “Dr. Verity? Are you all right? Do you know this dupe or something?”

  I do not answer. I am in shock.

  The girl coughs and rouses. She sits up and turns to me, her brown hair matted to her cheeks. Her face looks more mature than her small body. Her eyes meet mine. They are big and brown just like Mary Nell’s, except without the
teardrop shape and the reticulated iris pattern characteristic in Downs patients.

  “Hello, Mary Nell.” I smile to make her feel more comfortable.

  Her eyes still droop with tiredness. She smiles at me briefly. She takes a deep breath and lays back down, turning her face away from me.

  “Hello,” I hear her tiny voice say, just before she drifts back to sleep.

  21

  WE ENTER THE DOCTOR’S LOUNGE. Several docs and residents are gathered around the television on the wall. It is a 3-D HD holographic image against a white wall, featuring Jeremy Porter, the resident who shot Ivan and all those nurses. Redd’s face drains of color as a video of the runaway dupe testifies to a camera with a dark background.

  “ . . . He kept me in a cage and molested me from six to nine years of age. Called me his pet. Said he was saving my life by experimenting on me, testing the limits of my endurance. Kept me medicated so I couldn’t fight him off. When I finally managed to escape, hacked into the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and assumed a new identity, I lived for the day when I would expose the New Body Research Center, and expose this nation’s corruption and hypocrisy for what you have tolerated.” He clears his throat. The resident with the remote realizes that Dr. Redd Cranton has entered the room, and all eyes turn to him.

  “If I have survived the attempt to save my friend, I suspect you are prosecuting me for murder: evidence of the fact that you know I am a real person. You wouldn’t prosecute a horse for murder, but you’re prosecuting me because I am a person. And it was a real person I was defending with each pull of my trigger. I saved the life of a loving, gentle young woman named Forty, my dearest friend, an eight-year-old who loved to draw, talk, and had grand dreams, all your attempts to medicate the humanity out of our minds notwithstanding. You may have killed her by the time you see this video, but it cannot be denied that I saved her life, at least for a span. Lethal force is legally justified to save a person from threats to life or limb . . . ”

  Dr. Cranton steps forward and snatches the remote out of the hand of a resident. He mutes the report, but continues to stare at the TV.

  Thankfully, there are closed-captioned comments. Two news reporters come on and discuss how this video was launched all over the internet through a rapidly spreading virus, making the government-mandated censorship of this suspect moot.

  Cranton grabs the corner of my shirt and pulls me to the corner of the room, where he whispers to me, out of earshot of the residents. “I didn’t do anything illegal.” His face is stormy. “But I can’t see how this could be anything but devastatingly bad for my reputation and, by extension, our business.”

  I don’t feel sorry for him in the slightest.

  Upon leaving the research wing, I bump into Forty, the young female dupe that Jeremy Porter saved this morning. She’s alive? What is she doing out of the locked wing?

  Beside her stands a tall, handsome man who looks about fifty years of age, with a firm build and pepper gray hair. I grab her hand with both of mine and lean in to whisper, “Did someone help you escape?” I glance at the man. “How did you do it?”

  My eyes dart past them, eyeing suspiciously the ubiquitous security cameras in the corners of the halls.

  She looks at me like she doesn’t recognize me. “What? What are you talking about?”

  I frown. I look more carefully and find the light pink scar between the part in her bangs. “Mrs. Pennington?”

  “Yes? Who are you?”

  I take a step back. “I’m one of the physicians that helped with your surgery.” I glance at the man. “Who are you?”

  “Her grandson.”

  “Did you hear about what happened during your surgery?”

  The man wags his head fretfully, but Mrs. Pennington ignores the question and turns her gaze to her grandson. “Oh, I feel like a billion ameros, so I am not going to worry about anything.” She flashes a wide, toothy smile. “I haven’t felt this good in forty years.”

  As she struts out of the side door of the building, a tear drips down my cheek.

  22

  I BELT MYSELF IN THE back seat of my hover-limo and the driver starts heading home. But before I can tap the subcutaneous button behind my ear to call Savannah, President Sayder’s voice sounds over the radio.

  The sky releases a downpour and I can barely make out her words. I hit a button on the dash. “Turn the radio up, Jim.”

  Jim, the driver on the other side of the glass window, doubles as my bodyguard. He drove a five-ton-truck in the Marine Corps for several years, and then was a personal bodyguard to a Special Forces general before receiving a medical discharge. So he was an ideal candidate for my limo driver, though I’m sure he finds this occupation boring by comparison.

  Jim turns up the radio, but reminds me, “You can turn it up yourself from the back, Dr. Verity, and watch it if you want.”

  I nod.

  “ . . . such right-wing extremism will not be tolerated!”

  I touch a button on the ceiling and a small screen drops down to show the news conference. President Sayder’s tone is bold and confident as she’s flanked by a dozen bipartisan leaders in Congress and the Senate.

  “The radical Personhood advocate Jeremy Porter may have thought that his cold-blooded execution of the founder of the New Body Science, an anesthesiologist, and four nurses, would provoke a right-wing revolution, but I am here to tell you today that it will have the opposite effect.” A crowd of journalists applauds.

  “Not only will financial compensation be made available to Ivan Wilkes’ family and the families of the nurses who were killed at the New Body Research Center this morning, but I have submitted to Congress legislation that will categorize as terrorist groups the organizations that light the fire under fanatics like Jeremy Porter. These groups motivate them to take up arms to try to hinder the life-saving technologies that promise a brighter future. Moreover, I have declared his trial off-limits to the American public. This terrorist sabotaged the Internet, flooding the web with his propaganda, trying to garnish sympathy and ruining the chances of finding an objective jury. He has announced that he wants to defend himself in court, to exploit his trial as an opportunity to air his grievances and slander the life-saving heroes of New Body Science like Dr. Ivan Wilkes. It would dishonor the memory of the deceased to let that happen . . . ”

  My nanophone informs me that Morgan’s calling. I tap behind my right ear. “Disconnect, and call Savannah’s cell.”

  While the phone is ringing, I turn down the volume of the President’s news conference. “On screen,” I order the computer.

  In a moment, I hear my daughter’s voice and see her three dimensional holographic image in front of me. “Oh, Daddy, I’m so glad you’re all right.”

  Her voice, and the smile on her face refreshes me. “Hello, Savannah.”

  “What happened?”

  How do I put the trauma of the day into intelligible words? “What do the news reports say?”

  “That some runaway, crazy dupe opened fire on some employees, killing six, including Dr. Wilkes. That you were in the room.”

  “That’s correct. Have you seen the Internet footage of the shooter’s self-interview?”

  “Everyone has. He’s absolutely insane, Dad.” By my slowness to agree with her, Savannah must realize that I am not so sure. “Daddy, you know he’s crazy. He said he was defending people. Dad, they were clones.”

  “’She’, not ‘they’. It was a young girl named Forty.”

  “Daddy!” Her tone is sharp and critical. She crosses her arms over her chest. “The Supreme Court has ruled they’re not people several times.”

  “And is the Supreme Court never wrong, Savannah?”

  “They know more than we do, Daddy. We’re a nation of laws. We’ve got to obey the law. One of the laws is named after you, you know? You know the law better than anybody. Why are you doing this?”

  I take a deep breath. Do I really want to get into this with her over the phone?


  “Just trust them, Daddy.”

  “So, Savannah, when the Supreme Court, in 1857, ruled that a runaway black slave was property, not a person, were they right or wrong?” She is silent. “When the Supreme Court said in 1893 that we were and should be a Christian nation, were they right or wrong?”

  “They were wrong,” she finally admits. “But Americans obeyed the Supreme Court until they came to their senses and reversed their decision.”

  “They never reversed their decision, not the 1857 Dred Scott decision anyway. Abraham Lincoln banned slavery in defiance of their decision.”

  “Daddy, what’s going on with you? Please tell me that these are just some devil’s advocate positions you’re throwing at me, and that you don’t really believe this junk.”

  I fix my eyes on the passing homes as I consider the answer to that question. A half dozen children get off a yellow school bus. They look so happy, so oblivious to what is happening behind closed doors just three-quarters of a mile away. How will the culture we’re passing down to them affect them some day? Or their children? When politics trumps science, and right and wrong comes down to a vote of wealthy elitists, my mind buzzes with the potential threats to the well-being of these children and their posterity.

  “Daddy?”

  “Savannah, I saw Mary Nell’s dupe today.”

  Immediately, her tone changes. Brimming with excitement and glee, she is insistent, “Oh, Daddy, you must tell me about her!”

  “She’s, she’s lovely. She’s a spitting image of your daughter.”

  “Minus the congenital deformities, right?”

  I nod. “Um . . . ”

  “Right, Daddy?”

  “Yes, yes, of course.”

  “Oh, I can’t wait to meet her. Did you talk to her?”

  “I just said, ‘Hello.’ She said, ‘Hello’ back to me.”

  “We’re supposed to do the transfer in two months.”

  Transfer. There’s that horrifying euphemism again.

  “For Mary Nell, it’s more like a process,” I mumble.