Body by Blood

by Patrick Johnston

  I puff out my chest and leap to my feet, tempted to call it a lie.

  “Tut, tut, tut,” Guave Sealdor waves me back to my seat and flutters his eyelids at me. “We already arrested your three computer geeks in the basement for violating the President’s executive order and trying to reset your computer system. Now, President Sayder’s willing to let you modify the ethical policies in order to appease your conscience. She will have to clear all of your proposals, of course, but under the President’s directives, your control over your company will increase, not decrease. Don’t shoot yourself in the head for an impossible dream. Rather, steer the wheel of this great ship to make your dreams possible.”

  The metaphor of shooting myself in the head nauseates. Is it meant as a threat? “The technology is mine, Guave. It’s legally patented.”

  “And it will stay with your hand-picked team of engineers and scientists. We’re only taking over management.”

  Hmm. If I consider this man trustworthy, then by almost any standard, this is an ideal offer for me. I am tempted to take their offer before it is retracted, but for my mistrust of this savant that sits before me and the master politician that pulls his strings. “I want to speak to the President about this in person.”

  “This is why that is not possible.” He stands, walks around to my computer, and types in a code. The computer unfreezes. He accesses a dot-gov website, entering a username and password.

  He commands his team, “Exit, please.”

  He points to the door, and they all step outside.

  On the screen is a video box with a triangular “Play” icon at the bottom. In the box is an image of the surgical suite where Dr. Wilkes and those nurses lost their lives yesterday morning. I am in the bottom left corner of the image, and Jeremy Porter appears as if he’s about to push the button to make the transfer.

  What can he possibly show me that I don’t already know? Guave points behind me into the corner of the room. “Your security camera has been disabled, and so has the recording device Dr. Wilkes installed in the desk.”

  How did he know about Ivan Wilkes’ recording device? I didn’t even know about it.

  He clicks “Play” on the video. It begins with Jeremy Porter unveiling a handgun and shooting the anesthesiologist in the head. As he turns on the nurses, Dr. Wilkes lifts his shirt and reaches into a holster in the small of his back, removing a handgun. In the video, I reach for his weapon, and wrest it from his hands.

  My jaw drops. “That did not happen!”

  “Shh, just watch.” From the look of satisfaction on Guave’s face, he is entertained by my reaction.

  When Jeremy Porter has shot the nurses, he turns the weapon on Dr. Wilkes as I hold him by the scruff of his shirt with one hand and press his pistol into his abdomen with the other.

  “Raymond, why are you betraying me?” Ivan squirms.

  Blam!

  Ivan Wilkes goes limp when Jeremy Porter’s bullet pierces his forehead.

  “Thank you, Dr. Verity,” Dr. Porter is heard saying in the video.

  “He never said that!”

  In the video, I place Wilkes’ weapon under my belt as the security guards begin to frisk Dr. Porter.

  I turn to the attorney, shocked, frozen in disbelief. “That’s an absolute lie! That’s doctored footage. That did not happen!” I search his light brown eyes, and find no sympathy or vestige of conscience therein. “But you know that, don’t you?”

  He smiles warmly, as if I’d just offered him a compliment.

  “You know it’ll never hold up in a court of law . . . ”

  Guave crosses his arms over his chest. “With this footage, we don’t need it to hold up under court of law. The President could hold you as a terrorist. No trial, no charges, no rights. You’d never see the light of day again.”

  I sneer at his threat, but my mind goes blank of sensible words to rebut him.

  He takes a step away. “President Sayder has not seen this footage. If and when she does, do you think her friendship with you and her previous political alliance with you is going to mitigate the executive fury that she will level at you, just to save her political future?”

  He knows about our secret political alliance to pass the law that bears my name. I shake my head, as if I misunderstood him. “What?”

  He grins condescendingly. “Like all good Presidents, she surrounds herself with people who protect her from information that could be damaging to her. People like me, delegated to act in the best interests of the country, insulating her from the political and emotional consequences of difficult, heart-wrenching, yet absolutely necessary decisions.”

  Guave logs out of the website, and walks around to take a seat in the chair across from my desk. “Now, have I just sweetened the deal for you, or what?”

  Friendless, without direction, without hope of ever accomplishing that which my conscience appears to demand, I find myself in a mental purgatory. How can I ever get out of this dilemma? With the stakes so high, the President’s offer is the equivalent of a presidential pardon for a capital crime of which she accuses me, simultaneously merciful and cruel. How can I not consent? Who would not raise an arm to block the striking fist of a powerful assailant? Am I not expected to preserve my own life? I tried to do the right thing, but now it appears I must accept the inevitable. Forced to choose between being 49% responsible for the bloodguilt of the New Body Research Center—and a recipient of 49% of the immense wealth—or to be locked away in a maximum-security facility like a despised terrorist for the rest of my life for a crime I did not commit, what can I do?

  “I accept the President’s offer.”

  Guave Sealdor nods and clasps his hands. “Of course you do.”

  “Upon one condition.”

  He snarls at me bitterly, as if I do not have the right to amend the President’s deal. “I’ll have to take it up with the President, and I can make no promises.”

  “Drop all charges against my sister, and I’ll consent.” I cannot tell you how good it makes me feel to make a demand, however inconsequential, of this demon in human skin.

  Guave Sealdor presses his lips together and nods. I know they must do it. With Ivan Wilkes dead and Redd Cranton publicly disgraced, they’ll need my help to manage the transition and the predictable backlash of the public.

  “I’ll discuss it with the President.”

  25

  MY BROTHER, THOMAS, IS KIND enough to come to Dr. Wilkes’ funeral to offer me comfort. I wish I could tell him—anybody—about the doctored video footage. In the several days since the threat to extort me, I stayed up most nights, pacing the floor, looking for a way out of this trap. With Morgan’s abandonment, I feel deserted, isolated, confined to a sequestered pit of self-loathing and self-pity. But Thomas would think me mad and the President’s attorney insisted that strict secrecy was essential to keep me out of the Bureau’s interrogation cells.

  Thomas hugs me warmly. “Brother, I’m sorry.”

  The backslapping that characterizes the conclusion of his greeting embrace usually irritates me, but today I appreciate it. It’s surprising he is kind to me, given the verbal thrashing I gave him the last time we spoke.

  “I’m fine, Thomas.” By his raised eyebrows, he knows I’m not. “I hope you can forgive me for speaking to you so cruelly.”

  He smiles at me and rests a hand on my shoulder. “Almost everyone who gets involved in politics for the right reason has an idealistic vision that is admirable, though impractical. It’s time and patience that tempers the ideals and accomplishes long-term success.”

  I nod.

  “Do you have a counselor you can trust? Maybe a grief counselor?”

  I swallow hard. The last thing I want to do is cry in a room full of friends and family. I have to be strong.

  “Ray, can we spend a few minutes together before I head home?”

  “Maybe after the funeral.”

  Morgan stands in the back of the funeral home, holding Savannah’s ha
nd.

  I walk several steps toward them and then pause in a cloud of perfume and flaunted tanned skin. It’s been a long eight days since I laid eyes on Morgan, and I drink in her beauty. She drives me crazy, but beneath all that vanity and indiscretion is a woman I committed to love forever.

  She and Savannah dab tissues in the corners of their eyes to absorb their tears. Their manufactured grief distracts me from more pleasurable thoughts. Their sadness—it’s all manufactured. Savannah was not close enough to Ivan Wilkes to mourn his loss so. But was Morgan close to Ivan Wilkes? She might have partied with him and slept with him when I was a withered old man on ice, but in the days since my resurrection she obviously was not so close to Wilkes to grieve his passing so pitifully. They’re probably faking their tears to elicit the sympathy of friends and neighbors—and mine. They are so much alike, always craving to be the center of attention.

  I am so emotionally isolated right now, going to an empty home seems more excruciating than a home with my nag of a wife. With our distance, maybe she’ll be warm up to me.

  I make my way to Morgan. She turns away, but I pick up my pace and wrap my arms around her. “Morgan,” I whisper into her ear, “please forgive me for being such a, such a . . . ”

  “Jerk!” Her tone is loud and harsh. She pulls away and, surprisingly, smiles broadly at me. By the glint in her eyes, that’s all the punishment I’ve got coming. At least she forgives me.

  I hug her again, giving her what she craves, groveling in her arms, letting her be the center of attention and the envy of the party. It’s better than being alone. “I’m sorry, Morgan. I do care about your opinion. I’m sorry for shutting you out.”

  “Just promise me you’ll meet with Dr. Devonaire.”

  I groan my disapproval.

  “Please?” She kisses me on the cheek. “I’ll go with you.”

  Savannah lays a comforting arm over my shoulder.

  I almost ask her how Mary Nell is doing, but that will provoke some unresolved, ill feelings, and I don’t want to do anything to upset either of them. I need to strengthen Morgan’s and Savannah’s trust before I dare to assert anything to them again.

  A vaguely familiar effeminate man standing before a microphone on a stand offers me the opportunity to say some words about my departed colleague, Ivan Wilkes. I cannot bring myself to do it. In my stead, Dr. Cranton heads to the microphone. He is not treated with the respect I’m sure he feels like he has earned with the company, not after the slander Jeremy Porter publicized about him. Morgan and Savannah whisper their suspicion to one another as he begins to reminisce.

  “It would be easy to speak of Dr. Wilkes’ awards and Nobel prizes, his degrees, both earned and honorary, his breakthroughs and the unparalleled wealth that his hard work and visionary determination amassed, but that is not the Dr. Wilkes that impacted me most. That is not the Dr. Wilkes that elevated him to angelic heights in my mind. No. I think of the time,” Cranton thrusts out his chest with pride, “that Dr. Wilkes and I presided over the passing of Raymond Verity.” He motions to me, and all eyes turn to me. Cranton’s eyes glisten with nostalgia, while my gut twists with some vague disapproval of all the attention.

  “Did you know that Dr. Verity changed his mind at the last minute, deciding that he didn’t want to be preserved?” The room gasps, surprised at my heretofore undisclosed weakness of mind. “It’s true,” he assures them in his charismatic fashion. “In the dimness of his final moments, he wanted to live, even if it was just a few moments longer, and even if it made his cryo-preservation and future resurrection impossible.

  “Dr. Ivan Wilkes had the courage, and the love to make the tough call to honor Dr. Verity’s original wishes. Dr. Verity had signed a contract that made the decision to cryo-preserve his body practically irreversible, even by him. A feebler friend would have given in to the unreasonable wishes of a cancer-ridden, delirious old friend in misery in a hospital bed, but not Ivan Wilkes. He knew what was best for his friend and colleague, he knew what needed to be done to bring him back, and he braved the criticism of lesser mortals and made the right call, as time has proven over and over again. Now, look what he has resurrected!” He points to me, and all eyes fasten on me again. “Look at the path he forged and the company he founded!”

  There is a flurry of applause, but Redd calms it with a wave of his hand. He turns to look upon the stiff, makeup-dyed cheeks of Ivan Wilkes, spread out in his coffin, his bangs covering the hole in his forehead, and Redd raises his voice like a preacher, “As a famous man once said, ‘Wisdom is justified of its children.’ Dr. Ivan Wilkes, we who are your children, your friends, and your admirers, we applaud you.”

  He begins to clap, slowly and softly at first, and the whole room full of friends and family imitates his praise until there is a rigorous clamor of applause and hoots of praise.

  I, however, cannot. I remain as stiff as a stone statue. Cranton’s speech affected me, but not as it did the others in the room. The memory Cranton shared made me despise myself, even my own flesh. I am growing to hate myself.

  Thomas’ firm hand on my shoulder turns me toward the door. “Let’s get outta here.”

  26

  IN MY HOVER-LIMO ON THE way to the restaurant where we have made reservations, I begin to open up. “Guilt, Thomas. I feel guilt.”

  My eyes roam the streets of Baltimore’s inner city outside the reflective window, but my brother keeps his eyes fixed on me. “We all feel guilt, Ray. It’s in the nature of things.”

  “Not me. Not since I was a kid.”

  He reflects for a moment. “When did you stop feeling the guilt you felt as a kid?”

  I lean my head back and look up at the raindrop-speckled window in the roof of the hover-limo. “When I was in high school. When I stopped going to church and started sleeping around.”

  Thomas nods. “When did you start feeling it again?”

  “Acutely? On my deathbed.”

  Thomas nods sympathetically. “That would have been hard, yes, I can see that.”

  “Then I saw Tamara get arrested. Then my daughter’s dupe in the Verity Wing was liquidated because of a head laceration.” A lump wells up in my throat, but I swallow it away. “They were rolling her into a Medical Waste room, Thomas. They put her down over a cut ten stitches would have cured.”

  He squinted, a shroud of disbelief about him. “Because of a cut on her head?”

  I nod. “That and a violation of a stupid policy against dupe emotions. All of this has very personal implications for my family. My daughter has a Down Syndrome daughter—”

  “Mary Nell. I know her.”

  “Savannah’s planning to replace Mary Nell with a cloned, genetically perfected replica.”

  “Replace her? What’s going to happen to Mary Nell?”

  “The highest bidder.”

  His face contorts in utter disapproval, but he keeps his criticism to himself.

  “Pure gold for a research company. I tried to dissuade Savannah, but to no avail.”

  “Well, there’s no reason to feel guilt for that. You tried.”

  I glance at him like he’s an idiot. “She’ll be dissected and divvied out to research contractors in my company, with the technology I pioneered.” I tap my chest with my thumb. “I profit off it.”

  “But what can you do about it? Donate the profit to charity, or something.”

  I roll my eyes at his proposal. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “Ray, why beat yourself up about something you can’t change? Did you speak to Tamara?”

  “I visited her in jail.”

  “She has a liking for that girl. Did you tell her what’s going to happen to her?”

  “I couldn’t lie to her when she asked.”

  “I suppose your guilt trip got worse after that, didn’t it?”

  I chuckle. “You know it did.”

  He crosses his arms over his protuberant belly. “Just like those Personhood purists. They are good at preach
ing law and prophesying doom and judgment. They may go to jail and even die for the cause, but it’s the pragmatists that actually accomplish something for the good. The abolitionists would rather die than get only 99% of what they want. Our sister has put you on a head-trip. I don’t even read her letters anymore.”

  “She’s got a good heart.”

  He harrumphs as if he disagrees. “She slams God’s gavel harder than He does. If she was God, she’d have destroyed us all by now.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Ray, you’re the head of this company now. You can do something short of jail to right some wrongs, to improve the ethics of your company.”

  “You heard the news reports this morning, right?” He nods. “I’m not the head of this company. Not anymore. The President is taking control by executive order, until the stock price levels out in the proximity of last week’s peak. Apparently, we’re considered too big to fail.”

  “Even so, you are in a unique position to use your power to do some good for the clones, to help them, to protect them as much as the law allows. To affect the culture in a positive way.”

  I take a deep breath. “The Administration’s attorney did give me the freedom to propose some modifications to the ethics rules and policies.” I wince at Thomas’ hopeful grin. “Aren’t you against cloning, Thomas?”

  He nods. “For religious reasons. But we have a separation of church and state. I’m glad we do. History shows that religious governments tend to be more godless than secular ones.”

  I squint my eyes at his apparent ignorance of history. “You cannot be that ignorant of the hundred million killed in communist massacres during the last century.”

  “I’m not a purist, Ray,” he continues, changing the topic. “Ideals are like the Ten Commandments. We aim for it, but nobody reaches it. That’s why we all need grace. Ideals like the right to life and liberty are the target for which we are aiming, but what society reaches it perfectly? We’re all sinners, Ray. Just do the best you can, accept grace for your failures, and stop feeling guilty about what you can’t do. Jesus bore my guilt, so I don’t have to. It is inevitable that circumstances transpire requiring a pragmatic approach to bring about improvements for the better. My actions may violate the letter of the law, but not the spirit, because my motive, my end game, is always the ideal, knowing we may never reach it until heaven.”