Generations (The Nimbus Collection Book 3)

by Clemens, D. C.

  “Nothing you’ve said has upset me. I know you try your best, but you can’t shoulder your past on your own anymore. You have to tell me every detail.”

  “You’re right, but I will not dump everything on you now. The night has been rousing enough.”

  “Really? I feel like the night could use a bit more ‘rousing,’ if you ask me.” One of my hands settled on his inner thigh.

  He cocked an eyebrow, watching as I bit my lower lip and moved in for a kiss. Now that I was free from a dangerous person, my adrenaline and wacky pregnancy hormones turned the deeper connection I felt toward George into a honeyed cocktail of affection and lust. He ended up taking a day off so that we could rest and enjoy one another in various positions.

  Using the recording I had of Zach, I searched his old face through the net. There was really nothing that showed up until a police report was published half a day later. It didn’t take long to see why Zach needed a new disguise. A home he had owned under the alias of Gary Dunbar had been discovered on Earth once his connections to a Depraved cult had been verified by police. He was still at large and considered extremely dangerous. He was wanted for horrific crimes, which included but were not restricted to human/alien trafficking, human/alien experimentation, creating clones for the purpose of these experiments, and murder. George told me he had actually never witnessed Zach performing these disturbing deeds, but likely oversaw and directed them. He had little idea just how high-ranking Zach had been in the cult. He felt guilty about aiding in his escape, but at this point, going to the police would only bring trouble from both the authorities and a powerful cult. In any case, he told me he would rather die than help them again. As far as he was concerned, they were truly even now and he would not compromise his soul out of fear.

  I felt terrible for him. He had simply wanted a life away from these evil influences, but they kept hounding him. Maybe he did make a mistake turning to the Depraved cult for help, but he was young and naive at the time. I assured him that remorseful prayers to the Sacred Seven from the both of us would have the gods of light understand his plight and forgive any sin he committed out of youthful ignorance. He replied that I was his goddess of forgiveness and we made love again.

  I was close to my due date, so I didn’t even do the work I could do over the net. I spent the days just feeling my child move, getting as much information from friends who already had kids, and otherwise waiting for the special moment to push through me.

  At one particularly lazy afternoon, as I ate some leftover seafood from the previous night, a news update popped up at the corner of the holoscreen I was watching in the living room. With a sluggish thought, I choose to blow it up over some dumb comedy show that was making me laugh harder than it should have. The news bulletin originated from Earth and it apparently pinged me due to a previous search I had made on the net. It took me a moment of reading the report to realize it was related to Zach Pillar. It discussed several discoveries authorities had recently made about his prior crimes and it was asking for the public’s help in coming forward with information that could lead to more evidence or his capture. Guilt and curiosity made me look further into these listed crimes. I knew it was a long shot, but I thought there might be something that could catch my eye and possibly allow me to give information to the police without exposing George and I to any repercussions.

  I scanned through what must have been a dozen separate major crimes he was suspected of either being directly involved or helped fund. He was affiliated with so many that the report was given different links to keep it all in order. One of the last links was to missing persons. Dozens of people and a few aliens popped up on the left side of the screen. Then, a face in the middle of the list made both my heart and the heart of my baby skip a beat. It was George. For a split second I thought the police were on to him, but I then remembered the category this was supposed to be. Missing persons? A more dissecting glare at the screen told me the face belonged to a Dr. Maximus Winter. A look back at the picture showed a blonde haired man with some other features that distinguished this picture from George. I blew up the face until it took up most of the screen. Yes, this doctor had a slightly smaller forehead, gaunt cheekbones, a slimmer jawline, and more nose. Someone seeing George and this picture side by side might not even have seen that much of a resemblance. Still, why did I see so much?

  The report went on to describe Dr. Winter as being reported missing on March 13, 3310 S.E. and last seen by his family on Arcadia. A man that could have been him was also caught on camera taking a transport heading for Earth. I don’t know why, but I began pacing the room. Why was I suddenly so nervous? It was just a freak coincidence. Not even that, really. There were tens of billions of people, of course some would look similar to each other. But was it a coincidence that Zach and my George knew each other around the same time? George even said his name didn’t have to be changed to escape his family, much less his face. This would mean he was lying to me, but why would he do that? Maybe he did more than just some remedial work for the Depr… No! Of course not! Gods, that didn’t even make sense. You couldn’t just leave a Depraved cult if you were a real worshiper. You would have seen and learned too much to just be allowed to walk freely for so long. Zach tracked him easily enough when he needed to, so it wasn’t a matter of George running away from them.

  I started to feel better. I knew George too well and no theory I could think of made him Dr. Winter. That didn’t stop me from looking deeper in Dr. Winter’s life. There was actually not very much on him on the net. He had apparently owned a clinic in Arcadia for about a decade, and he didn’t have children or a wife. The few pics and vids I did see were just of him with some family and friends, but the meagerness of this was odd to me. I suppose he wasn’t the most social of people, another reason he was not like George. What did re-tingle my notion that something was off was seeing his four siblings and parents, especially the father and oldest brother. They too emitted some hue of George. Most of these pictures and videos came from an old dedication site set up by his family, but the page appeared unkempt and several links were either broken or led nowhere.

  I was thinking about telling George about this man, wanting to see if he saw what I saw, but two things made me shut off the hologram when he walked in. First, this was linked with Zach’s victim, which on its own basis would not put him in a good humor. Second… Well, there was a second, but it was one I did not want to consider just then.

  Maybe it was my zany hormones doing the thinking for me, and the fact that I had so much free time on my hands, but the following few days had me itching to ease my mind completely from the nonsensical notions floating in my head. So little by little, I looked into Dr. Winter’s family some more. They seemed exceptionally normal to me. Most of the Winter children were married and had children of their own. Their occupations ranged from Arcadian soldier to software engineer. They posted pics and vids of vacations and daily life to share with whomever was interested. Nothing smelled fishy about the family itself. In fact, their closeness and seemingly joyful get-togethers made me think of growing my own family a little faster than planned.

  There came a point when I was looking into the Winter Family more because I was bored, not due to my misgivings about who Dr. Winter was. They returned, however, when I read a public conversation between Sean, the oldest brother, and a friend of his named Carlos, which went like this.

  Sean: And be sure to send that link I sent you to everyone you know.

  Carlos: It was the first thing I did.

  Sean: Thanks.

  Carlos: It’s hard to believe they only found out about this Gary guy just now. You okay by the way?

  Sean: Yeah, sure. I would just like some closure after all this time, especially for Mom. She’s glad that the suicide theory seems to be wrong, but she now thinks he could actually still be alive out there. Gods, this new report just brought everything back, you know?

  Carlos: He was pretty depressed when I last saw him. Y
ou don’t think he could have, you know, joined up with them?

  Sean: I honestly don’t know. He was never the same after Vicki died. I hope to never find out how I’d react if my wife died, but the Depraved? The report doesn’t really say if he was taken voluntarily or not, but I’m sure it was by force, at least at first. I’ve heard they can be pretty persuasive if you’re already desperate. Who knows what they promised him?

  The rest of the conversation turned away from the new report, though Sean had it linked so anyone looking in on the dialogue could see it and spread the news.

  What got me was the news that Dr. Winter did actually have a wife. Then why did I not see a pic or vid of her with Dr. Winter? Was she not liked by the family and removed from their site? She had evidently died herself, leading to a depression severe enough where his own brother would not find it so outlandish that Dr. Winter could join with the Depraved at some point.

  I looked for her on the net. I searched by imputing every variation of the name Vicki I could alongside a picture of Maximus. Thousands of results appeared, but they were not exact matches. How was that possible? How could a woman whose death drove someone to depression not exist in a pic or vid in the net? It was as though someone deliberately stripped her away from reality.

  I had to see her. The sensation to do so was even stronger than my baby’s kicking. There was a way. There was a chance his family kept some evidence of her existence on their private accounts. I sent Sean a message, saying I saw the report and wanted to know more about Dr. Winter, giving the pretense that it was possible I saw him and his wife at some point. As I expected, Sean was quick to point out that Dr. Winter’s wife, Victoria Genet, was dead. She had been killed fifty years ago when a transport’s jump-engine failed and its explosion destroyed the craft. I asked to see a picture of her, just to be sure.

  If it weren’t for the nanotech in my blood preventing it, I would have fainted from the shockwave of disbelief. I was looking at me. I as looking at a picture of me with Dr. Winter. The couple were on top of a skytower, their backs to an evening city skyline in Arcadia. She was wearing her hair shorter than I usually did, and her purple dress was more formal than I would have worn it, but it was like I was staring at my twin. What would Sean think if I sent him a picture of myself with George? What would George say when I showed him this photo? I had to think. Think. What was there to think about? Who was she? Who was I? What was I? Gods, who was George?

  It was just after lunch, meaning George, or perhaps Dr. Winter, wouldn’t be home for another few hours. I didn’t feel like seeing him for another few days, maybe longer. I didn’t feel right being alone in a house that suddenly seemed so alien to me. I left for a friend’s home, located sixteen stories above mine. She was working, but she wirelessly unlocked the door when I asked to enter it. When she asked why I wanted to stay over at her apartment, I answered that George and I had a fight and I wanted to punish him, so I also requested she not open the door for him if he asked to see me. I was glad to tell her something that was not far from the truth.

  I restarted my search for more answers from her apartment. It didn’t take me long to find out that the public net had little more to offer me. I did find a fifty year old story about a transport suffering from a jump-engine explosion after it made an emergency jump to escape some pirates, but I could not find her name anywhere. It was like someone had went through a lot of trouble of erasing her digital memory. I came close to trying to reconnect with Sean, but I never could figure out a good angle to approach him, not without giving him more of who I was, or who I thought I could be. Being in another place did help me to think better, to think with purpose. I cried after realizing how well everything fit. How I couldn’t refute the theory that George was Dr. Winter, that George was the fake priest, and that my husband went to a Depraved cult to… to make me.

  I was now sure that George’s syndicate family was just a ruse and a reason to scare me away from his past. Who knows how extensive his web was? Yet, even if it was all true, even if I was nothing more than a clone made to replace a lost love, that did not mean I suddenly lost all of my love for him. But that’s what gave anguish to every beat. He had forced me to love him. It was as though he twisted my life to fit his needs. He had been watching from a distance, probably analyzing every word and movement of mine, comparing everything I did to his first wife.

  I sent George a composed message, telling him I was going to stay over at Shannon’s for the night. I was sure he was a little confused, but he did not refute the idea. By the time my unattached friend came home, I was able to soothe myself enough to not declare just how in shambles I was. We spoke, but only my subconscious responded to her. The rest of me was numb. The three moons had returned and I was looking up at the ceiling from Shannon’s spare bedroom before I became a full person again. It was actually my son’s intense kicking that stirred me. He calmed down when I willfully rubbed my stomach. A planned formed at some point in the night. I wasn’t sure it was a good one, but I didn’t care at that point. Anything was better than waiting any longer in misery.

  I was positive Pearl Paterson’s account was a fake profile that led directly to George, so I decided to send him an ultimatum through it. The rest of the night I spent editing this ultimatum before ultimately sending it an hour after George notified me that he was going to work.

  The message said: How many names do you use? How many have you forsaken? How many lies have you created to protect your secret? I can’t imagine how desperate you were after you lost her, but what you did… I don’t know if I or the gods can forgive you. You couldn’t have truly believed you were going to get away with it, did you? Or will you say that you would have eventually told me after just a little more time? I honestly don’t know where to go from here. What I do know is that you will admit everything to me. I will be waiting at the apartment when you return from work. I will have the apartment’s cameras recording (do you know how difficult it is for me to confess to myself that I can’t trust your reaction?) and this recording will immediately be sent to your brother Sean if I think you are lying to me at any point of your explanation. Please don’t force me to do something we both know needs to be done much more delicately. I think I’ll have to be with my parents afterward. I don’t know. I do know that I don’t want our son anywhere near you at the moment. Don’t reply to this message. Reply to me.

  The morning and afternoon hours were mostly spent in quiet infinity. The only thing I did of note was packing some things I was going to take with me to Shannon’s place. I was planning to have my baby and then moving with my parents, but everything else was a blank slate, including what information I was going to impart to my family about my circumstances.

  I was sitting on a chair that faced the door when he came in. Tears slid down my face, but I was not audibly distressed. I actually felt sorry for him for a split second. He looked like he had been in a long battle in the trenches of some ancient war. He placed his back against the closed door and basically crumpled to the ground. His hollow eyes simply stared at the wooden floor for a good while. I finally started crying more loudly when his forlorn state confirmed all my fears.

  When he noticed that I had quelled myself somewhat, he said, “No, I didn’t think I could get away with it forever. Really, the day Zach found me, I knew it was over.”

  “Who was she?”

  “Victoria Genet.” He said her name as though saying it brought her back to life. “She was a strong-willed only child of some hard-hearted people. Her parents divorced soon after she was born and she stayed with her mother, whose central love was gambling away the little living she earned at the very casino she worked at. This did not deter Vicki. Her smarts had her accepted to the same university I attended to earn my basics. I doubt we were apart for more than a day after we met at the debate club. She had a boyfriend, but after our first couple of weeks of being friends, it was obvious to the both of us that we were right for each other. She became a veterinarian and
we married soon after she secured a job. For three decades we were together, three decades before the gods wanted her as much as I did. Do you know how she died?”

  “Just tell me everything.”

  “She was going to visit her father on Earth. The bum wanted some credits form her. She could have just transferred some and be done with it, but her compassion wouldn’t have her stop there. She decided to go beyond the token donation and see if she could reconnect with her long lost father. I would have went with her if I wasn’t busy starting my own practice. I asked her to wait until I was settled, but she convinced me she wouldn’t be long and to focus on my own vision of professional happiness.”

  He rested his head on the door and looked up at the ceiling for a long moment. I let him regather himself.

  Still looking at the ceiling, he said, “Her transport was cooling down for its next jump when it was beset by pirates. The captain apparently took the chance to escape via a jump, but the engine was not sufficiently cool enough and a catastrophic rupture ripped the ship apart. I died at that moment, too. I tried to move on, I really did, but years came and went and it never got any easier. Never. For three years straight I couldn’t even sleep more than an hour until every physical and mental part of me was drained. Even then that was only good for three or so hours of sleep at a time. I was this zombie being controlled by obligation, nothing more. I didn’t want to live anymore…” He looked back at me. “Then I saw a news story. It was about a space station discovered by the Arcadian military, a station used by a Depraved cult. This one was being used to produce clones. That word was the last scrap of hope I had left. I knew I was insane, but I didn’t care. I also knew a clone was only a genetic match, not an emotional one. As soon as a clone experienced a different internal or external stimuli to the original it would be a different person. That also didn’t matter to me. I had to see her again. It was never a question of whether I should do it, but how. If there is one thing I’m sorry for, Odet, it was for thinking so selfishly. By the time I realized I was going to hurt you someday, it was too late.”