by T. R. Harris
Skor’s face turned clouded. “In that scenario, it will be the protestors against the conspirators. That will lead to an insurrection against the government.”
Darion smiled. “And you would be against that after what you have seen?”
Skor looked at her for a long moment before answering. “No, I would not; in fact, I would welcome such an action. A great sin has been committed, not only on our people but also on the Humans. I said before; they were simply a tool, not the hand that wielded it. Since when do we blame the instrument for the crimes of the operator? But I must ask, why have others not seen the inconsistencies as you have?”
“Because we are all blinded with hurt and anger. Perhaps in time, others will, but by then, we will be fighting the Humans on multiple fronts.” She sighed. “I see no one else with a way to expose the truth. It is up to me—to us.”
Skor pulled Darion in close to him. “Please promise you will be careful. As evidenced by the involvement of a high-level Inquisitor, the tentacles of this conspiracy are everywhere. I would not want to lose you before we commit to the third stage, or ever.”
“Nor I,” said Darion, the tears again feeding her reclamation glands. She had indeed found her procreation mate. All they had to do now was live long enough to make it official.
Chapter 6
David Cross was ecstatic. The meeting had gone off even better than he’d hoped. And why not? Everything he said was true. His REVs had done an amazing job, proving they were more than just brute strength; however, what he left out of his presentation was that not all his Zetas contributed to the technological breakthroughs; in fact, they weren’t even Zetas at all. They were something else.
His personal line rang; in his animated state, he punched the button without checking the caller ID. The moment he heard the voice and saw the ginger fuzz on the caller’s head, he regretted his impulsiveness.
“David, I want one of your jump-ships,” said the man with the thick Cockney accent.
“You know I can’t do that, Angus.”
“I don’t give a shite what the World Government says. This is Zac we’re talking about.”
“And you, too, if you’ve forgotten,” Cross countered. “It’s bad enough that we’ve already lost one Delta. I don’t want to lose the other.”
“That’s pretty fatalistic, isn’t it, assuming the worst?”
“Don’t play that game with me, Angus. You’re too smart not to see how ridiculous a rescue operation would be. It wouldn’t be as simple as disguising yourself like an Antaerean by coloring your skin yellow and putting in some golden contact lenses. There’s no way you could pass for an Azlorean. And if you did get to the surface, you’d spend too much time trying to find Zac and figure a way to break him out of the jail he’s undoubtedly in. And if you managed to do that, then you have a few thousand light-years to travel before you’d be truly safe.”
“I can’t let him rot there. Besides, you owe me—and Zac—for what you did to us with the children.”
“The children?” Cross snapped. “Are you still blaming me for that?”
“Of course, I am!”
“I didn’t force the four of you to engage in carnal lust like a bunch of rabbits.”
“But you did make it so that Joanie and Ashley would get pregnant.”
“There was a time when you and Zac were excited about becoming dads.”
“Right up to the time the babies killed Joanie and nearly killed Ashley.”
“I’ve apologized for that countless times already. The rapid growth was something I didn’t foresee. What I did at the time was designed to save lives, not to make things worse.”
“And so the famous Doctor David Cross screwed up, and of the two mothers and two babies, only one mother survived. That’s a terrible batting average if you ask me. And if you hadn’t been playing around with your bloody experiment in the first place, none of that would have happened.”
“There was nothing preventing Joanie and Ashley from getting pregnant later on, after you returned from Antara, even without me messing with the contraceptives aboard the Zanzibar. And the babies still would have forced emergency C-Sections. Now get off my back. What’s done is done. I’m not going to let you hold that over my head any longer. You’re not getting a damn jump-ship, and that’s final. Accept reality, Angus. Your son is dead, Zac’s daughter is dead, and Joanie’s dead. And if he isn’t already, Zac is dead, too. You’re the only one left. The only Delta REV.”
“What about you?”
“You know what I am,” Cross said. “I’m close, but no cigar. A slow-motion Delta, if anything. Don’t waste your special place in history on a lost cause. I care for Zac, just like you do—”
“Bullshit!”
“I may not have always shown it, but I’ve had his back, running interference between him and Jack Diamond. Zac was the first natural REV, the culmination of decades of research and experimentation. Of course, I care for him. But he’s gone, and you’re now in the first chair.”
Angus laughed. “Someone you can experiment on in my old age?”
“If you haven’t noticed, you’re getting younger, not older. That’s still a feature none of my other REVs have been able to accomplish. I can’t afford to lose you.”
“It’s all about you, isn’t it, Doctor Cross, you and your precious dream of reinventing mankind?”
“Don’t knock it. We’ve come a long way since Cliff Slater’s time. The fact that you’re talking to me now is proof of that.”
Angus bit his bottom lip out of frustration. Cross could see he’d made his point; there would be no jump-ships headed his way.
“I have to go now,” Angus barked. “I have a rescue mission to plan, with or without your help.”
“Dammit, Angus, don’t do anything stupid…” but the big, red-headed REV had already cut the link.
The pair was still twenty feet away from Cross’s office door when they heard the link come through. Their exceptional hearing allowed them to eavesdrop on the conversation without trying. They stopped in the hallway, waiting at first for the call to end out of courtesy to their father, and then later—as familiar names were dropped and implications surfaced—they moved closer to make sure they could hear every word. There was no doubt they would remember the conversation accurately since each had off-the-chart hyperthymesia or the ability to remember everything they hear. Coupled with their eidetic memory, there was very little that got past the pair.
Once the conversation was over, they left the hallway and went outside. They ignored the cold, high mountain air of this part of Borin-Noc, as they were lost in their conflicted thoughts. There was very little actual conversation between them as their thoughts often matched that of the other. After all, they were half-brother and -sister; this intimacy was to be expected, especially considering what they were.
“We have to confront him,” said Monica Cross, a stunning blonde beauty looking to be in her late teens or early twenties. “You heard the names, names we know.”
“But never in this context,” said her equally handsome but ginger-haired brother, Anton. “Could it all have been a lie?”
“Speculation won’t do anything to answer that question. We have to face him.”
Monica was the most impulsive of the pair. Anton knew there was no holding her back once her mind was made up.
“I agree, but we have to maintain control. This has the potential to get out of hand if what we suspect is true.”
Monica nodded. “You’re right. I promise to behave. Now, let’s go talk to father.”
“Or whoever he is,” her half-brother pointed out.
But even that was now in question.
Chapter 7
There were very few people who could enter David Cross’s office without permission—in fact, no one was. The Chief Scientist for the REV program was a man of secrets, and he couldn’t afford even an inadvertently overheard word opening a can of worms. But when his children barged into his off
ice without knocking, he could tell from their stern—even hurt—expressions that this was to be a meeting of momentous importance and one he knew was inevitable.
Still, he smiled at Monica and Anton as they entered. They stepped up to his desk and remained standing, another tell-tale sign this was going to be a disaster for the good doctor.
“We heard the last conversation,” Monica began without preamble, her voice trembling. “The one between you and Angus Price.”
David leaned back in his chair. Any normal person who knew the truth about the pair would have been paralyzed with fear. But not him. This was about to get dicey, but it wouldn’t get physical. At least he hoped not.
“Yes, he was pleading his case for a jump-ship so he could go off on some quixotic quest to save General Zac Murphy. I advised him not to try.”
“We know who Price and Murphy are,” Monica barked. “The question now is who are they to us.” She waved a hand at her brother.
“What do you mean?”
David’s feigned ignorance only made the children angrier.
“You know what we mean,” Anton snapped, picking up the debate. “We heard the names of Joanie Hollis and Ashley Hunter—our mothers—and not as it related to you being our birth father, but of that being Murphy and Price instead. Tell us the truth. You are not our father, are you?”
David puffed out his cheeks and let out a big breath of air. “No, I am not, at least not in a traditional sense.”
“What does that mean?” Monica barked.
“It’s in the same context as I feel about all REVs, past and present. You are all my children. I created you through a series of calculated experiments over the past seventy years. What birth vessels I used over the years have been incidental. It was the progression that counted. And now, as I look at the two of you, I see I am almost at the end of my noble quest—the perfection of the Human race.”
“So, Zac and Angus are our fathers,” Monica stated. Her face was still hard as stone, but the eyes had softened, not from a lessening of emotion, but the revelation.
“And we aren’t brother and sister,” Anton stated with equal certainty.
“No, you are not,” David admitted.
“Then why all the, the manipulations if we aren’t blood relatives?” Monica asked, having to search for the word as her REV genius failed her in the heat of the moment.
“Because I could only make one pure bloodline from the two of you. As you know, I need many more if I’m to create a viable, self-sustaining breed. It also explained why I kept harvesting your genetic material. I’ve been able to modify the DNA in both your eggs and spermatozoa to establish seventy-one distinct variations capable of intermixing without major side effects. If you don’t know it already, you’re the parents of one hundred eighty-one near-perfect REVs, each growing rapidly to maturity. Although the two of you are the best REVs made to this point, you are the product of Delta REVs on your paternal side and Alpha REVs on the maternal. The ultimate goal is to have two equivalent Delta REVs pairing, both male and female. Once these new children reach sexual maturity, I will be able to achieve that. Once I have, the experiment will be over. I will have created the most-perfect version of the New Human possible. The rest will take care of itself over time.”
David watched the faces of the unclassified REVs, watching their eyes as they digested the data he’d just revealed. They were unclassified because he had always referred to them as The Children. That was fine when they actually were children. But with REVs—and especially REVs of this level, evolution was playing around. The unique Rev in their systems was in a hurry for them to reach the optimum point in their growth to assure maximum survivability. They reached that stage rapidly, to what would be around twenty years old for a normal Human. They reached it in only ten years before the Rev dug in its heels and tried to maintain that perfect balance.
“I still don’t understand why you lied to us?” Anton asked. “Did you not trust us to understand how important your work is for the future of the Human race?”
“It was not you I didn’t trust,” David said. “It was everyone else.”
“Like our real parents,” Monica said.
David shook his head. “The two of you could not imagine the obstacles I’ve faced over the years to reach this point. No one, and I mean no one, understood what I was trying to do. Not even Clifford Slater could see my vision. They called me Doctor Frankenstein, the mad scientist, the crazy genius working away in his dark basement creating monsters. And in the early days, REVs were monsters but very useful monsters. You’re even more useful these days, but you’ve evolved far beyond monsters. You are the most advanced form of Human to have ever existed. And the two of you have been providing the genetic material that will lead to the ultimate Human. We’re almost there.”
“And our parents?”
“Do you think they would have let me do what I’ve had to do to you to this point? Yes, your bodies matured much sooner than any of the others, but still, I violated you to extract the material I needed. Your parents would not have allowed that.”
“And what of this story you told them at the time, about us dying?” Monica asked. “You spoke of rapid growth. That does not happen in the womb.”
“But they didn’t know that,” David pointed out. “I needed an excuse to get control of the fetuses, and when you reached a point where you could survive—with expert care—I have you removed. Through drugs, I created the pain your mothers experienced to give the illusion that the fetuses caused it.”
“Joanie Hollis died,” Monica said, her voice trembling again. “My mother died during this charade.”
David grimaced. “That was unfortunate. Although she was an Alpha REV, the base body wasn’t as strong as Ashley’s. I’m terribly sorry.”
“You killed my mother, the woman I’ve always known as my mother, even as I now know who my real father is.”
David tensed. He knew Monica was the smartest woman in the Human race; he also knew she had volatile emotions. All REVs did.
“I apologize, sincerely. I liked Joanie. I asked her to undergo the treatments to become the first female REV. She was special. Unfortunately, she wasn’t strong enough to survive the operation.”
“But my mother did,” Anton said. “Where is she?”
David shook his head. “I have no idea. She was never based in any one location for long; her job didn’t allow for it.”
“As a nurse?” Anton questioned.
David smirked. “In reality, she worked for the government as an intelligence officer.”
“A spy?”
The scientist nodded. “And a damn good one, too. After she recovered, she went back to her old life, while Zac and Angus did the same.”
“Is there anything you have told us over the past twelve years that has been the truth?” Monica asked. She was leaning over the desk now, her brilliant blue eyes almost shimmering from the intensity of the Rev coursing through her body.
“I told you what I thought was necessary. The two of you are the most valuable beings in the Human race. You are the most advanced—”
Monica laughed as she sat in a chair, shaking her head. Anton took a clue from her and sat down as well.
“Most advanced? You can’t be serious, father,” she said facetiously. “You don’t even realize what kind of creatures you’ve been creating all these years, do you? You call us advanced, and in a way, you’re correct. Mentally we are progressing, even as our bodies are growing more primitive.”
“What are you talking about?” David asked. He didn’t know where she was going with this.
“Just think, REVs—especially REVs of our level—have heightened senses, including the hearing that allowed us to overhear your conversation with Anton’s real father. Some animals also have such hearing. And falcons have the eyesight of a REV. Lions and other beasts of the Savanah have incredible strength and toughness. Others have reactions comparable to us. Don’t you see, you have sent Humanity b
ack to a primeval time when all these traits were required for survival. As we advanced as a civilization, we learned to rely more on our intelligence than our instincts. We—I mean normal Humans—still have them, but they’re only shadows of what they once were. Neanderthal man could take a baseball bat hit to his arm, and it wouldn’t break. He needed such tenacity to prevent injury, injury which in his time would have meant death. Only with these abilities was mankind able to evolve to a point where technology could take over most of the heavy lifting. All you have done is returned man to the way he used to be, albeit with a much more advanced brain. I’m not being critical. What you have done is create the best of both worlds. A super-intelligent beast.”
“Thank you, I think,” David said, at a loss for words. Of course, he understood what she was saying. He already knew this, although he seldom admitted it. He hadn’t given REVs anything they didn’t already have. As it was in the beginning, performance-enhancing drugs augmented a person’s natural abilities. Without the base abilities, the drugs did very little. There had to be something to work with.
“I don’t know why you have brought this up,” David said. “It doesn’t change anything. So, you’re the most advanced-primitive in the Human race. It still makes you special.”
“It makes me Human, just more so,” Monica stated. “You consider us something new, when in fact, we are a hybrid of both the new and the old.”
“Unfortunately, the rest of Humanity will not see it that way. They already recognize your superiority, and that’s why they fear you. That’s why the two of you were raised on Borin-Noc, and why the others are being raised on Menkar. It’s to protect you while also preventing the people of Earth from knowing how far behind they’ve fallen behind.”
The conversation lagged as the three REVs were lost in their internal thoughts. David knew Monica and Anton had just been exposed to a lot of life-altering information over the last half hour. How they dealt with it would be a work in progress. He also knew this time would come. They were too smart, too inquisitive not to start questioning their past. And they were becoming more involved in the science of the REVs. Eventually, they would have discovered that they weren’t blood relatives, and then everything would come out, as it had today.