by JT Lawrence
The realisation hits Seth just before it does Kirsten, and he puts his forehead in his hands. She doesn’t understand his reaction, and then all of a sudden she does.
The memory comes back to her like a swift punch to the stomach, slams her back into her seat, takes all the air out of her lungs. She sees it as if she is back in that moment, that terrible moment, when the light went out of her life. A moment so long buried in her subconscious she’d think it would be decayed in some way, but it’s not. It’s cruelly vivid and so clear Kirsten can taste the colours.
She is playing a game with her twin brother on an emerald lawn in the front garden of a pretty little house. She remembers the building: rough ivory paint that scratches your skin if you brush up against it, curlicue burglar bars in the windows, cracked slasto leading up to a light blue (lemongrass-smelling?) front door. A brittle little letterbox on a pole with two red numbers on it (Lollipop)... red means two, so maybe it is twenty-two? The garden is bursting with colour, enough to make Kirsten giddy.
The sun is shining brightly but it is uncharacteristically cold that day, and they are dressed in warm boots and brightly coloured jackets: peppermint for Sam and mandarin for her. Her mother—her real mother—is leaning on the doorframe, watching them. She is pale and slim in a charcoal polo neck. She has on her gardening apron, and dirty gloves. A smear of soil on her cheek. Young, beautiful, with a long, thick braid of red hair. Kirsten gives her a toothy grin, and she responds with a smile and a thumbs-up. The phone rings from inside the house, and her mother peels off her gloves and goes to answer it.
Despite the warmth of the jacket, the skin on her hands is red when she looks down at them. Sam passes her something: a toy horse. No, a little pony, pink with a grubby white mane and tail. One of his action figures astride. A Thundercat. She zooms the pony over the grass and makes the appropriate sound effects, laughs. Sam doesn’t smile. Something has caught his attention in the street and he looks past her, frowning. He stands up on his chubby legs, toy still in hand, held against his round stomach.
A black kombi has pulled up and all of a sudden there is a blond-haired little boy right there, on their pavement. He seems only slightly older than they are. He beckons to them with his hands, his sweet face promising something fun and exciting. She babbles excitedly, starts to go towards him, but Sam puts his hand on her shoulder, wanting to hold her back. He looks at the boy then back at the house, for his mother, but the doorframe is empty. Kirsten keeps walking and is soon beside the rosy-cheeked stranger. Sam calls out: ‘Kitty!’ and runs to catch up with her.
As he reaches the walkway beside the kombi, the door slides open and a giant man swoops over them and there are meaty forearms squeezing the air out of them. Before they know what has happened, they are struggling in the car. The other boy, stricken, is shouted at and jumps in last, and the door is slammed shut. From light to darkness, like that. Like that, the light in her heart went out. Nothing but darkness and a shocked wail in her ears. She realises the wailing is coming from her. In the dim interior she sees the blond-haired beckoner also crying, his face contorted with silent tears.
The face she knows so well. James.
Chapter 35
The Ultimate Bloodless Revolution
Johannesburg, 2021
James opens the sliding door, flooding the car with light. Dust motes dance in the white air. Inspector Mouton stands beside him, gun drawn and pointed at the twins.
‘Is that necessary?’ James demands, anger gravelling his voice.
Mouton ignores him.
‘Come with us,’ Mouton says to Kirsten and Seth. ‘Come quietly and no one gets hurt.’
‘Fuck you,’ the twins say in unison. Kirsten can’t even look in James’s direction. She sees where the car’s paintwork has been touched up. James is the one who tried to run them off the road on the way back from the seed bank. James hid the letter from her mother. James tried to incapacitate her with pills.
Her heart is in shock, as if she has just been stung by a jellyfish. A swarm, a smack. His betrayal is a deep blue venom spreading throughout her body.
‘Your friend is very sick,’ says Mouton. ‘You don’t have much time. If you come with us, we’ll give you the medicine she needs.’
‘Go!’ Kirsten says to Seth, ‘I’ll see to Keke. You get out of here.’
‘No way,’ he says. ‘I’ve only just found you.’
‘The deal is for both of you,’ says Mouton. ‘Just one of you is useless to me.’
Keke’s phone starts vibrating and wailing, the SugarApp counter is at 0: ‘DANGER ZONE.’
‘Fine,’ says Kirsten, ‘we’re wasting time. Let’s go!’
Mouton halts them, pats them both down, takes their guns, including the sling-smuggled Ruger. He finds the pocketknife and magic wand. Puts the knife in his pocket and looks at the lipstick, undecided. He’s about to inspect it when James makes an agitated sound.
‘Come on,’ he says, ‘we need to move.’
Mouton hands the tube back to Kirsten. ‘Go.’
He pushes the pair in front of him. They walk into the main entrance, which the regular security detail has deserted, and head to the elevator. James tries to take Kirsten’s hand but she stands as far away from him as she can, squashing herself into the cool corner. The mirror, meant to make the small space seem bigger, reflects their taut faces and the result is claustrophobic.
Worried that she will get sick again, Kirsten closes her eyes and breathes into her corner, resting her forehead on the mirror. Her breath and sweat mist up the glass, veiling her reflection. Mouton inserts a wafer-key and they start moving down—past ground level and two levels of basement parking listed as the bottom floors—and still further, until they are deep in the ground and Seth can almost feel the weight of the earth above them.
‘Kitty,’ says James.
Shut the fuck up, she wants to say. Your words are poison darts.
‘Let me explain.’
‘There is not an explanation that would make this okay.’
‘Van der Heever said to bring you in or he’d kill you.’
‘And you believed him?’
‘I know what he is capable of.’
‘And yet you are delivering us to him.’
‘Don’t you see? I didn’t have a choice.’
Kirsten sneers at him. ‘I can’t believe I ever let you touch me.’
‘How long have you worked for the Genesis Project?’ asks Seth.
‘It’s not like that,’ answers James. ‘That day, in 1988, when you were taken—’
‘You mean when you took us,’ says Kirsten.
‘Just like you did today,’ says Seth. ‘Deja-fucking-vu.’
‘After that day,’ says James, ‘I kept tabs on you. I made sure you were okay. I watched you from afar. Watched you grow up, as I grew up. I loved you—I did, I loved you—from the very beginning. We were meant to be together. Don’t you see? We’re a family. A different kind of family... that day we met—’
‘Oh my God,’ says Kirsten, ‘everything was a lie.’
They step out of the lift and stand before a massive security door, like something out of a high tech bank. It reminds Kirsten of the Doomsday Vault. Mouton keys in a five-digit code and puts his thumb to the scanner pad, two green lights glow (Serpent Eyes) and the door unlocks with a decisive pop. Kirsten lifts her hand to her face and narrows her eyes to cope with the intense light.
Everything is white: a passage with many inter-leading doors is made up of clean white floor tiles, white painted walls, a whitewashed cement ceiling. They walk along the passage and make a few turns. Every corner looks the same and Kirsten wonders how they’ll ever find their way out again. They are rats in a 4D maze. She takes as many photos as she can with her locket. Some of the doors seem to lead to more passages; others open up to deserted labs. Huge machines whirr away. Ivory Bead. Wet Sugar. Coconut Treat. A hundred shades of white. Stuttering holograms of static. Glass upon glass upon glass
.
The employees seem to have left in a hurry: Seth sees half-drunk cups of tea, open desk drawers, an out-of-joint stapler, an abandoned cardigan. Air sanitiser streams in through the air vents, sounding like the sea. It reminds Kirsten of being on one of the ghost ships floating endlessly on the Indian Ocean, many of which she explored and looted. Why had she been so captivated by stories of the Somali pirates? Because she had known all along, had a deeply buried awareness, that she, herself, had been kidnapped. Her life had been seized, snatched, carried off. It left her an empty vessel, unmoored. Haunted.
‘That book I gave you,’ says James, ‘The fairy tale. “Hansel and Gretel”. I gave it to you for a reason. Do you understand, Kitty? It was for a reason. I have a file on your real parents. I’ve tried to give it to you a thousand times, but every time I... I knew if I gave it to you we’d end up here.’
At the end of a nondescript passage Mouton pushes them into a room. The sound of a dog barking shocks them. A beagle rushes to Mouton and nuzzles his shin with a low whine and a wet nose. Mouton opens a drawer, takes out a treat, and feeds it to the hound. Gives her a cursory pat on the head, gives her loose skin a gentle shake. Locks Seth’s and Kirsten’s guns away in a safe full of meticulously arranged weapons.
Kirsten recalls the image of dog hair on Betty/Barbara’s jersey, remembers the journo telling her that Betty/Barbara’s flat had dog food bowls, but no dog. Seth looks up, at the opposite wall, and Kirsten raises her eyes too. They stand and stare.
Pinned, stapled, and tied to the vast wall are hundreds of objects. Rings, coins, photographs, pieces of jewellery, dead flowers, frayed ribbons, candy, baby shoes, old toys. Like a vast artwork, a collage of found objects, except they know as they are looking that these objects were not found, but taken. Special things stolen from the people he has killed. Objets d’amour. Not just a regular serial killer’s bounty of murder mementoes. Not just a random hairclip or sweater or cufflink, but tokens of genuine affection. Layer upon layer of love, lost.
A love letter engraved on an antique piano key. A muddied toy rabbit. An Olympic gold medal. She sees the holograph photo-projector she gave to her parents. Both feel their rage build. The beagle barks. Mouton ushers them out of the room and raps loudly on the adjacent double door. A voice inside instructs him to enter, and they tumble in.
The room can’t be more different than the bleached Matrix of the way in: soft light, warm colours, wood and gold, linen, organic textures. It’s someone’s office. No, more intimate than that: someone’s den. Keke is lying on the couch, as pale as Kirsten has ever seen her. She runs over, puts her hand over her mouth to see if she is still breathing, and she is, but the movements are shallow. How long has she been unconscious? Her nano-ink tattoo is so vivid it looks as if it is embossed, and her body is slick with perspiration. James hands her a black clamshell kit (New Tyre) that she unzips. Three brand new vials of insulin stare back at her. Kirsten fumbles with the case with shaking hands, can’t seem to co-ordinate her fingers. Eventually she gets a vial out, then looks for syringes, needles, but can’t find them. She hadn’t even considered this part: that she would have to load the syringe and inject her friend. Her trembling hands are all but useless.
‘Let me do it,’ says James. He finds something that looks like a pen in the side pouch, snaps the vial of insulin into it, and presses it against Keke’s thigh. He clicks a button and Kirsten hears the hiss of the jab, watches as the vial empties. He puts the back of his hand to her forehead then measures her blood sugar, pressure and pulse with his phone.
‘She’s going to be okay,’ he says.
Kirsten pushes him out of the way and grabs Keke’s hand, bunches it into a tight fist around the magic wand, and covers it with a blanket.
‘We wouldn’t have let her die,’ comes a voice from behind the mahogany desk. Dr Van der Heever swirls around in his chair and Kirsten recognises the icy irises behind his black-rimmed glasses (Wet Pebble).
‘You,’ says Kirsten. The word comes out the colour of trailing seaweed.
The doctor nods at Mouton, who forces Seth’s hands behind his body and clicks handcuffs on him. James takes Kirsten’s arm out of her sling to handcuff her. He does it as gently as possible, trying not to hurt her. She winces and squirms at his touch, as if his skin burns hers. There is a neat, metallic click, a perfect aqua-coloured square. She doesn’t see the second click, the bracelet for her injured arm, and James squeezes that same hand. She glares at him and he looks away. Slowly she tests the cuffs, and it’s true: he has left one open.
The doctor notices her hostility.
‘Dear Kate, don’t blame James,’ he says. ‘He had no choice but to bring you in.’
‘There’s always a choice,’ says Kirsten.
‘True. His options were: find a way of bringing you two in, or see you die. He has seen Inspector Mouton’s... convincing... work. He chose to bring you in.’
‘Mouton has been the one killing for you? A policeman?’ she asks the doctor. Then, to Mouton: ‘You killed those people? A sick woman, a young mother?’
‘He was simply following orders. He is extremely good at his line of work.’
‘Plus he gets to clean up the mess when he walks in as an inspector. I bet he’s really good at covering his tracks,’ says Seth.
‘Just one of his many talents,’ says the doctor.
‘Why?’ asks Kirsten, ‘Why the list, why the murders?’
Doctor Van der Heever pauses, as if considering whether to answer.
‘It’s complicated,’ he says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.
Keke’s breathing seems to get deeper; her sheen is disappearing.
‘The truth is,’ says the doctor, ‘the truth is that deletion is always a last resort. We did everything we could to stop it from getting to this stage. Unfortunately, people don’t always know what is good for them. Or their daughters.’
‘You mean my parents? My so-called parents?’
‘Your—adoptive—mother. After being loyal for over thirty years she suddenly decided that she wanted to tell you about your past. She was a brilliant scientist, a real asset to the Project. Her decline was most unfortunate. If she had just been quiet, as she had been all these years... so many lives could have been spared.’
‘Including hers?’
‘Including hers. Your father’s. And your cell’s.’
‘What? Cell?’
‘Your mother deciding to tell you about the Genesis Project compromised the cell. We don’t take chances. Compromised cells are closed down, their members removed from the programme.’
‘Killed,’ says Seth.
‘Deleted is our preferred term.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ says Kirsten.
‘Every generation,’ says the doctor, interlacing his fingers in front of him on the desk, ‘the Genesis Project selects seven very special infants to join the programme. We are very rigorous when it comes to this selection and hundreds of babies all over the country are considered. They need to match certain—strict—criteria. They must be absolutely healthy, highly intelligent, and have some special talent or gift. Also, during their gestation, their parents must have at some time seriously considered family planning—’
Kirsten: ‘Family planning while pregnant? You mean... abortion?’
‘Abortion, or adoption. They must have gone as far as signing the papers: a demonstration that they were not 100% committed to raising the child themselves for whatever reason.’
This stings Kirsten and Seth equally: they were not wanted in the first place anyway. When they discovered they had been abducted a little flame had ignited in their hearts: they were once loved, once cherished, before they were stolen away. Now that flame is snuffed out. Not one, but two sets of parents who didn’t truly want them. Kirsten knows she shouldn’t be surprised. After all, in the original story, Hansel and Gretel’s parents lost them in the woods on purpose.
‘Why?’ asks Kirsten, ‘why would th
e Genesis Project steal children?’
‘The Project is concerned with far more than seven little children. In fact, the clonotype programme was really just a small hobby of mine in which the others indulged me. Our vision is far more all-encompassing than that.’
‘You wanted to clone us?’ asks Seth.
‘Not clone you as such... more like, try to isolate the genes you carry that makes you... different. Special. Then we could recreate those genes in a lab and, well, graft them into new babies being born. Can you imagine?’ His eyes sparkle. ‘Can you imagine what our country could be if all our citizens were healthy, clever, strong, creative?’
‘So that’s what the Fontus thing is about,’ says Seth.
The doctor throws him a sharp glance.
‘GeniX. Eugenics. You audacious motherfucker.’
Van der Heever shifts in his chair. ‘The word eugenics has become unpopular of late.’
‘Perhaps because it’s an archaic, racist, ethically reprehensible practice,’ says Kirsten.
‘What we do isn’t racist,’ he says.
‘Really?’ asks Kirsten. ‘Is that why you are using the country’s drinking water to practically wipe out South Africa’s black population?’
‘No,’ says the doctor, ‘not the black population. The poor, uneducated population.’
‘This is post-apartheid South Africa. Most of the poor people are black.’
‘Merely coincidence.’ The doctor shrugs. ‘Many non-whites are rich. In fact, very rich, not so?’
‘Coincidence?’ says Seth. ‘We have that fucked-up legacy because of people like you who dabble in social engineering.’
James manages to get Kirsten’s attention.
‘Listen,’ Dr Van der Heever says. ‘Fertility rates are plummeting the world over. It’s a well-known fact that in first world countries infertility is most prevalent in the educated and employed strata—we may even go as far as to say—the intelligentsia. The higher IQs go, the less chance of procreation. We also have the Childfree Movement: Ambitious couples are choosing to prioritise their careers and lifestyles over starting families. And yet the world’s population is still mushrooming out of control. People with limited resources, limited faculties, are reproducing, putting a huge strain on the world’s—finite—reserves.’