by Mark Wilson
She indicated again that he should get in the back. Alex gave a resigned shrug, threw his small holdall onto the rear seat and took the front passenger seat, next to the professor.
Throwing him a scowl, she crunched the gearstick into first and screeched the jeep around one hundred and eighty degrees, sending Alex clambering for purchase and a cloud of dust up behind the vehicle. Alex smiled at getting a reaction from her. He could’ve sworn that she had almost revealed the tiniest trace of amusement at his struggling to stay seated.
“Imbecile,” she grunted at him. This time she did let him see a begrudged smile.
“Can I drive?” he asked with a laugh as she tore along and slipped through a gap into the jungle.
Professor Roberson’s expression changed to one that a parent would use with an incorrigible child.
“Maybe next time.”
13
“I’ve prepared a space for you in the rear of the lab, Doctor.”
Gayle swept into the main laboratory, Dr Kinsella following behind, scanning his surroundings. Despite her expectations of him, Gayle had been surprised by how young he looked. At six-two, with blond hair and large, very green eyes, he was an odd blend of confidence and vulnerability. He looked far too much like… Gayle shoved the name away from her thoughts before it fully emerged.
The man radiated good-natured humour and affability, despite being so obviously a fish out of water in his new role. From what Mr Ennis had told her of him, she’d expected a cold, much less approachable person. She hadn’t expected to like him at all, but within minutes of meeting the young doctor, his tenacious humour had her smiling, despite herself. She reminded herself that he’d been only too happy to leave his family behind to take a highly paid job and that, despite his personality, she abhorred people like him. Still. There’s something about him.
She considered him some more as he walked excitedly around the lab expressing delight at finding various pieces of equipment and technology. It was refreshing to have his energy in the lab.
“Yes,” Gayle replied, as he chattered on about a data analysis device. “Mr Ennis spares no expense for this project.”
She watched as Alex’s face darkened and his eyes locked on her. His whole demeanour had changed. He looked very angry but his eyes had filled with tears and pain. He was plainly struggling to stay in control of himself. Gayle felt a pang of… she wasn’t sure what. Not fear, not anger, something simpler perhaps? Concern for him?
His voice was low and shaky.
“Do you know how I was,” he searched for a word as the tears spilled. Kinsella closed his eyes making a river splash onto the clean, white tiles. “How I was… recruited?”
Kinsella lifted his reddening, miserable eyes to her face, reading her reaction.
Gayle didn’t know what to say and was in deepest shock at the change in the young man before her. She felt her own eyes mist, but had no idea why. She returned his stare, trying to get a better sense of who he was and why he was so upset. She looked at him, properly now.
He hadn’t slept in days. He was miserable and sagging and weak. Someone had broken this young man. This wasn’t a man who had left his family willingly. Her mind flicked through half-heard conversations, along barbed comments and analysed instances and occasions when she’d witnessed Ennis manipulating events or people, sometimes ruthlessly, to get his way. Whatever Ennis had done to this man, however he came to be here, this was a good man standing here and one that was near to breaking.
“Do you?” he roared at her, making her start.
Gayle let the tears that had been threatening fall down her cheeks.
“No. I don’t,” she said, quietly. Gayle moved her right hand in front of her body, shielding it and jabbed a finger up towards a Holo-Cam in the corner of the room. She then made a flat gesture with her hand. Calm down.
Gayle watched as Kinsella composed himself somewhat. Straightening his back, relaxing his hunched shoulders, his face took on a frighteningly placid expression. A hint of a smile stretched unnaturally across his lips, totally at odds with the agony in his eyes. Alex made a nonchalant-looking movement and stole a quick glance to the cam she’d pointed at.
His eyes snapped back to hers. With the camera behind him, he was free to mouth the words, “Thank you.”
Gayle gave him a small nod of reassurance and composed herself again, never once taking her eyes from his. His pain was a bridge between them and the dormant mother in her had latched desperately, unexpectedly, onto this young man, so in need of comfort. His hair and his face so very much like those of the son she’d shut all memory of away for twenty-five years.
She coughed to clear her throat. “Come on, Dr Kinsella.”
“Call me Alex.” He choked the words out.
Gayle ignored another pang of hurt from somewhere deep inside, long ago locked away to gather dust, and forced a lightness she did not feel into her voice.
“Okay. Come on, Alex. I’ll show you where your apartment is. You can get some rest and some privacy.”
Leading Alex through the maze of corridors riddling the main building, she emerged into a large foyer area. Looking more like the lobby of a very plush hotel than a scientific facility, the area bustled with staff criss-crossing the main reception area. She gave Alex a few moments to take in his surroundings before guiding him to the reception desk.
Smiling at the receptionist, Gayle said, “Good morning, Richard. I have Dr Alex Kinsella here, newly arrived.”
The young man tapped a key and lifted his eyes in surprise. “Ah, Dr Kinsella has been allocated Mr Ennis’s cabin. Indefinitely.”
He gave an expression conveying that he was impressed.
“If you would place your palm on the scanner, Dr Kinsella.” Richard indicated the green-lit panel.
As the scanner slid over Alex hand, recording his unique fingerprints for entry to the cabin, and presumably the rest of the facility, he managed to smile pleasantly at the young receptionist. Gayle watched with concern.
Ennis’s cabin came with a full staff of housekeeper, butler, chef, secretary and maid. Assigning Alex his own cabin meant simply that Ennis wanted his staff to keep an eye on him. Not that it would be an uncomfortable experience. The cabin was, in fact, a mansion of sorts, complete with state-of-the-art entertainment rooms and facilities, sauna, steam room, hot tub, deck with access to the ocean and its own bar. As prisons went, it was exceptional, but a prison it remained. Gayle resolved to keep the young doctor busy enough to spend minimal time under the cabin staff’s watchful eye.
After listening to Richard’s instructions on navigating the complex and accepting a Holo-Map, Alex thanked him and turned to Gayle.
“Shall we?” Gayle made a gesture towards the south exit, through which the intense late-morning sun shone.
Leading him to Ennis’s cabin, she left him at the entrance to the residence.
“Get settled in, a rest if you need it, then come to the lab whenever you’re ready. We’ll get you started straight away.”
“Anxious to get my blood?” Alex asked bitterly.
She could see that he regretted the remark almost as soon as he’d voiced it. Gayle ignored it. Placing a hand gently on his forearm, she said, “Despite how you may have come to be here, I’m glad that you are here, Alex. You’ll be helping to make a hugely significant improvement to hundreds of millions of people’s lives. Focus on that.”
Alex gave her a tight smile and disappeared through the gate.
14
“Those durty basturts,” Tom yelled for around the eighteenth time since Sarah had begun explaining to him what had brought Thomas and her to New York. Noticing Sarah wince at his language, Tom sighed and sat back on the sofa beside her.
“Och, I’m sorry, hen. I’m starting tae sound like my Uncle Alec in my old age.” Despite the tension they both smiled at the memory of Uncle Alec.
Tom rose from sitting once more, the slight stiffness in his movement betraying subtly his adv
anced age. Sarah watched as he lifted a framed photo of Uncle Alec from the mantel.
“You remember my Uncle Alec?”
Sarah nodded. He’d been an old man on the single occasion she’d met him, but Alec had simply been the funniest person she’d ever met. He was a lovely person and swore with such vigour and frequency that kids loved him for his irreverence.
Tom looked wistfully at his photograph. “Christ knows what Alec would have to say about this.”
“Probably a long string of very colourful suggestions,” Sarah laughed.
Tom nodded and replaced the photo, still staring at his uncle’s face.
“Aye. He wouldn’t have been short of advice, that’s for sure,” he replied.
Sarah walked over to where Tom stood. Scanning the mantel she found only photos, no Holo-Images. It was comforting. Photographs felt more real somehow, more personal. The mantel was filled with images Tom had taken during his career as a photo-journalist. Also there, pushed into the back of the display, were images showing his success as a novelist. Sarah reached out to lift one of the older-looking frames.
“This is your wife?”
She caught a flash of pain flitting across the old man’s eyes.
“Aye. That’s my Cathy,” he said quietly, taking the photograph from her and placing it gently back on the mantel. “Twenty-eight years old.”
The image showed a young girl, with very dark hair and laser-green eyes, with two girls on her knees. The twins looked around four years old and were sticking their tongues out at the camera. Cathy had an arm around each of them and was laughing.
Tom reached out and touched her face. “She was dead a week after I took that photo,” he said softly.
“How did you manage with two four-year-olds?”
More than fifty years had passed since Cathy had died, but for Tom it might as well have been yesterday.
“I just had to, Sarah. That’s what my girls needed.”
Sarah, silently, slipped her hand into his. He gave it a gentle squeeze in appreciation. “You’d have liked her.” Tom smiled at the thought, and then turned to Sarah. “She’d have loved you and Thomas. And of course Alex.”
Sarah’s resilience finally broke at mention of his name. She wrapped her arms around Tom and cried against his chest. Tom rubbed her back gently as she wept and gave her time to get it all out.
Finally she pulled away to look up at him. “What are we going to do, Tom?”
Since putting an over-excited Thomas to bed hours earlier, they’d been talking the evening and the early hours away – Sarah explaining what had happened, Tom swearing loudly. Neither had come up with any ideas beyond get him back.
They had no clue as to where Alex was at present, outwith that he was perhaps in China. Alex had seemed certain that he was boarding a flight to China. They’d done some research and hadn’t found any company of Ennis that screamed this is where Alex would be at them. He had so many facilities in that vast country and all of them were tied to the field of reproductive genetics in one way or another. It’d take them decades to check each of them. Even with a fortune in the bank, it didn’t seem achievable. Sarah was beginning to realise, to accept, that it seemed unlikely that they could find Alex without outside help.
Also of concern was the new legislation being passed through the World Government. Sarah didn’t trust Ennis to keep his word about helping Thomas, but aside from that, she wanted to take steps of her own to keep her son off the radar. Their safety, Thomas’s safety, had to be her first concern. Giving him a good life came next, and finding Alex came third. Hard to accept but true, and the task of finding her husband could only be undertaken as and when it didn’t affect Thomas’s security.
Tom’s eyes hardened. “Right.”
He turned to lift another frame from the mantel and handed it to Sarah.
“See this guy here?” He gave Sarah a moment or two to take in the image. It was a picture of Tom with another man. Obviously close friends, the man had his arm around Tom, who looked to be in his late fifties when the shot was taken. The men were sharing a joke, their smiles caught naturally by the camera. Despite the situation, the image made Sarah smile. She looked up to see that Tom was too. He nodded down at the photo.
“That’s an old friend.”
“I can see that,” Sara replied. “He’s huge.”
The man was massive. Tom stood at six-three, around the same height as Alex, but the guy beside him looked around another six inches taller again.
“Aye. He’s a big unit, right enough. He’s also been my best friend my whole life.”
Sarah nodded and smiled again. “He can help us?”
“Yes. Robert used to have…” Tom searched for the right description, “…he used to have special skills and made a lot of contacts throughout his career.”
“What kind of contacts?” Sarah asked.
Tom smiled. “Every kind of contact, but mostly in the intelligence community. Robert will get new identities arranged. Background history, social security, school records, employment history, driving licence, and passport. Whatever we need.”
“Do you think we need to go that far, Tom.”
“Aye, I do. This bastard Ennis, he’s not the sort to leave loose ends. The three of us,” Tom nodded off to Thomas’s bedroom, “we’re some pretty dangerous loose ends.”
Sarah placed the photo gently back onto the mantel. “I’m so sorry to involve you in this, Tom. This is your home. You shouldn’t have to leave because of us.”
“Fuck that,” Tom roared, a little louder than he’d intended, causing Sarah to jump. “Sorry, hen, but fuck that. All this shite,” he waved his hand around the room, “can go into storage, or burn for all I care. Family comes first, you hear me?”
“Thank you, Tom.”
The old man waved her off. “Nae bother, love. I’ll call Robert in the morning. He’ll sort everything for us. Bank accounts and everything. You have a wee think about how to explain it all to wee Tommy.”
“Okay,” Sarah said. “But I’m not using a different Christian name for myself or Tommy. That’s non-negotiable. A new surname is fine, but we stay ourselves as much as we can, especially that boy. We gave him that name for a reason. He was named after my husband’s hero.”
Tom smiled. “Whatever you want, Sarah.”
As Sarah made her way through the hall to her bedroom, she heard Tommy shuffling around in his bed. Creaking the door open slowly she poked her head through.
“You should be sleeping, son,” she whispered.
A dazed-looking Thomas rose from under the covers.
“Sorry, Mum. I was asleep but I woke up a few minutes ago and can’t get back to sleep.”
Sarah entered the room and sat beside him on the edge of his bed. Reaching out to smooth his hair away from his eyes, she asked, “What’s troubling you, Tommy?”
A look of discomfort crossed his face. “I want to know what’s happening, Mum. What’s really happening?”
Sarah sighed. She’d have to tell him something, sooner or later. They’d be getting images and prints taken for new IDs in the morning. He’d soon be asking where his father was and why they weren’t going home as planned.
“The family is in a little trouble, Tommy,” she began, watching him sit upright and wrap his arms around his knees.
“It’s difficult to explain, but Dad’s taken a new job to help us out of trouble. It’s very far away and we won’t see him… for a while.”
Tommy’s eyes had misted over. Sarah pretended to not notice and pressed on.
“We have to keep a low profile whilst Dad works. I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow, but the good thing is that we have lots of money ‘cos Daddy’s working so hard. We can live anywhere we want to.” She was reaching, hoping that Tommy’s interest in other countries would soften the blow.
Tommy’s eyes drilled into his bedcovers. He couldn’t look at her. “Mum. Who’s going to look after me?”
Sarah f
ought off a wave of grief and guilt. “I am, Tommy, with some help from Granda Tom.”
The boy stayed silent for several long, uncomfortable moments before lifting his eyes back to hers. They were filled with tears. It hurt him to ask.
“Can you do that, Mum?” He looked in agony, having to ask, but he couldn’t not ask.
The trust between them had been shattered by hundreds of cutting remarks from Sarah, countless occasions when she’d let him know he wasn’t wanted, dozens of hours spent in a vaped-out heap on the couch whilst he looked after himself. They’d only just begun to know each other and to form web-thin tendrils of trust once more. It was a big ask; rebuilding their relationship had been going well, but this was a big leap forward that he just wasn’t ready for.
Sarah wrapped her arms around her son and let him cry against her breast in a pose that mirrored hers and Granda Tom’s a few minutes previously.
“Tommy, I know that I’ve let you down, but for now, it’s just you and me and Granda. I promise you, I swear with all of my heart, that I’ll never let you down ever again. Not if we live to be a thousand years old.”
Tommy clung tightly to her. Saying nothing he just hung on and wept.
The next afternoon found them in a deli named Maize & Blues in Ann Arbor, Michigan, eating sandwiches and listening to Tom’s friend describe the process of forging new identities for the three of them. Sarah listened absent-mindedly, whilst she watched the waitress and some local kids chatting to Tommy. The kid seemed a little happier since their late night chat and seemed, on the surface at least, to be processing their situations. How he would cope in the coming days and weeks without his father remained to be seen. Alex hadn’t missed a day of their son’s life until now. Every bedtime, breakfast, grazed knee, or worry, Alex had been the one who Tommy went to, who Tommy needed. It was going to be difficult on all three of them, the adjustment. Sarah was determined to be up to the task.