by John Darnton
It fit perfectly from inside and turned the lock in no time.
She ran down the corridor, past the open door of Jude's cell, and outside onto the staircase. It was getting dark. In the distance, she thought she heard muffled noises, the sound of people, vague shadows running. She would have to be careful.
She crept down the stairs and ran to the perimeter of the base, following the fence until she came to the quartermaster's office. She rushed in, grabbed the phone, and dialed Washington, D.C., information. She got the number of the FBI.
What's the man's name? What is it? Jude mentioned it.
The phone was ringing.
Oh, no. It's late. He won't be there. No one will be there.
But someone picked up. The name came to her.
"Brantley. Mr. Brantley. Ed Brantley. It's urgent."
"One moment, please."
And then, to her amazement, she was talking to him. And if he sounded much closer than Washington, D.C., that's because he was much closer.
At the top of the stairs, Jude was assaulted by a smell. It wasn't a good smell. It was strong and medicinal.
Baptiste had led him up the staircase, pulling himself up with his right hand on the banister and guiding Jude under the elbow with his left—which was curious considering that he was the feebler of the two. The old man was excited. They turned a corner, down a corridor, and now Baptiste seemed to be hurrying, as if he feared being late. They came to a door. Baptiste leaned one ear toward it and listened for a moment; Jude thought he could hear strange sounds inside, a moaning perhaps. Then it was quiet. Carefully and slowly, Baptiste turned the doorknob. He went in first. Then Jude.
The room was flooded with light, so much so that at first Jude could hardly see. In the far corners were strong lights, mounted on stanchions, pointing toward the center of the room. There was a large bed, king-size, draped in sheets so white they seemed to be blazing. In the center of the bed, propped up halfway, was a large figure, a woman drenched in sweat, her hair spread out in long tangles on the pillow behind her like Medusa. Four people attended her, one wiping her brow with a cool rag.
It was a bizarre sight. To one side was a tripod upon which was set a video camera trained upon the bed. Against the wall to the right of the door was a large screen that showed the same view in color. Along the far wall was a sink and table spread with a receiving blanket and medical equipment, including an incubator. On the wall opposite, visible from the bed, was a four-foot-high terrarium filled with sand and branches and a cactus. To Jude's amazement, one of the branches moved—and he realized it was a large horned lizard.
The woman moaned and clenched her teeth. Jude's first thought had been that she was dying, but then he saw the gigantic belly that seemed to protrude from her chest all the way down to her thighs, a huge, hard mound of flesh. And it all fell into place. She was pregnant, in the throes of labor. This was the woman Tizzie had seen. And there was the doctor she had described, nervously checking the woman's pulse.
The woman looked at him. She did not smile, but she narrowed her aged eyes and furrowed her brow in recognition, and motioned to him to come closer. He stepped toward the bed, and now that haunting antiseptic smell grew stronger, and just as he got within two feet, suddenly the woman's body seemed to lunge upward as if an invisible wire were pulling her navel, and she screamed. She let out a long, hideous scream that began as a howl and rose in pitch until Jude's ear ached. He stepped back. The attendants moved closer, wiped her brow, touched her arm. The moment passed and the scream died away.
He stepped closer again. She looked up at him and their eyes locked, and suddenly Jude remembered something, Tizzie's description of coal black eyes that seemed to pierce to the very recesses of the soul, and he felt he was undergoing the same mesmerizing power. And it was then that the first rays of comprehension began to dawn and that soon he knew he was to see the whole sky light up with the horrible truth—and the magnitude of it would be blinding.
A voice behind him spoke. It was Baptiste's, heard dimly, as if he were far away.
"Jude, you are in the presence of Dr. Rincon."
This was Rincon.
"Come closer," said a deep, resonant voice from within the heap of flesh and sweat and pain. "Come closer, so that I can get a good look at you. It's been so long."
Rincon is a woman.
He did. His thigh rested against the bed. She reached over with a hand, a wide, thick hand, and touched his own. Her touch was not cold, but warm, almost—he thought—hot.
There was a strong smell—pungent, almost antiseptic.
"Do you understand?" she asked. Her tone was warm, almost loving. He shook his head no, unable to speak.
"I'm glad at least that you are here, that you are witness to this moment."
Another wave of pain seized her, and carried her up and held her suspended in the air for another long, ghastly scream, before it dropped her back on the shore, exhausted. She waited a few moments, then opened her eyes again and talked to him as if nothing had intervened.
"You were to have a special role, you know. All along, I thought of you and I planned it. That is why we reached out to you. That's why I protected you even when you were outside. That is why I wanted you with me now.
He was still confused.
Why me?
"I wanted you to witness the virgin birth."
Another paroxysm came and sent her away into the island of pain that seemed to be moving further and further away from the bedroom. This time she took even longer to open her eyes again.
"I don't like this," said the doctor. "I don't like the way this is going."
He attached a monitor to her heart and another to her belly. The sounds of the two machines beating separate rhythms filled the room. Jude turned and saw the movement of limbs and arms on the video screen, focused on the woman's abdomen.
They settled down, and now she held Jude's hand to her cheek.
"Why me?" he asked.
She looked up at him. "Because you were the first. Because you were my prince. I hated it when your father took you from me."
And at that moment the whole truth came crashing down upon him, like a wave. He had seen it coming in the distance, but he had refused to look, and now it rose up seemingly out of nowhere and knocked him off his feet.
"My son," she said. "You were such a lovely baby. Your hands were so small then—I loved the way your fingers curved around my own."
She lifted a single forefinger into the air.
"Hold my hand again."
He did, horrified.
She started screaming again. He felt her hand dig into his, the fingernails cutting the back of his hand. The monitors banged like drums.
The doctor pushed him to one side. "Move away. This is serious."
He stepped into a corner and looked at the backs of the doctors and nurses huddled around the bed and the blur of movement on the screen. Baptiste stood beside him.
"So now you know."
He was looking distracted, worried.
"She said virgin birth. What did she mean?"
"Just that. There is no father. She impregnated herself with an embryo containing her own DNA."
"What! That can't be. It's impossible."
"Not at all."
"But that means—she's giving birth to..."
"Go on."
"She's giving birth to herself."
"Precisely. An exact replica. Another self. She is going to start all over again. It will be a wonderful moment for the Lab—the supreme moment." And at that moment Rincon groaned and heaved again and was suddenly quiet as she puffed out her cheeks and dug in her heels and pushed with all her might. Nothing happened.
"She's too old," the doctor yelled. "The baby's too big. It's huge."
Jude looked at the screen. Between her wrinkled legs, a darkened crest appeared, the top of a head. It fell back, and out came waves of blood and water. Rincon made a strangled, gasping sound.
Baptiste g
rabbed Jude's arm.
* * *
Five minutes later, the doctor decided to operate. They gave Rincon an anesthetic and cut her open and lifted the baby out as carefully as if it were a bundle of dynamite. Jude could not bear to watch on the video screen, and Baptiste was slumped in a chair, holding his head between his hands.
The large monitor slowed and then stopped. The room sounded strangely quiet without it. The doctor tried everything to save Rincon. He gave her extra oxygen and shots of adrenaline. He even tried thumping her chest to revive the heart, but that proved gruesome, since it sent more blood streaming from her open cavity.
"Turn off the camera," shouted Baptiste.
Ricon was not yet dead.
She opened her eyes, halfway now, and looked once again into Jude's eyes. There was more there than pain. He tried to read the look. The mesmerizing stare was gone, replaced by something else—simple and more human. But what? Regret? Shame? Pride? Fear? Love?
Maybe all of them.
The eyes closed, there was a final shudder, the head fell to one side.
The doctor looked down, his eyes wide now. She was gone. He gave up.
The nurses were gathered around the baby. It was obvious from their movements—a sort of reluctance to get too close, quick glances and then looking away—that something was terribly wrong. Jude went over and caught a hurried glimpse, but his view was blocked by a nurse's uniform and he did not try a second time. He had seen enough of the large, misshapen thing that had emerged, its eyes closed as if in fury.
And he thought it odd that no one paid any more attention to Rincon, even though she was dead.
He looked at her for a while and thought she had a certain beauty. Then he raised the sheet and placed it over his mother's face.
The clones followed Skyler's instructions to the letter. They ran to the assembly hall and barricaded the doors, holding the protos inside. They piled so many things upon the doors—desks and chairs, logs, cinder blocks, car engines from the dump—that escape was out of the question.
Some of the clones climbed up the side of the building to look through the windows. They tried to pick out their prototypes, and when they found them, they pointed excitedly.
When Tizzie and Jude appeared, walking out of the evening shadows from different directions, they created a sensation. The clones gathered around them, staring at them and talking among themselves.
They were still doing that when sirens screamed and cars speeded into the base with their lights flashing and stopped with a screech of brakes. Police in uniform and men in suits jumped out.
One of them walked over to Jude and Tizzie.
"You two all right?"
"In a manner of speaking," replied Jude.
"I'm Brantley," said the agent, sticking out his hand.
"I'm Jude."
"I figured."
"And I'm Tizzie."
"I know. Good thing you called."
"How did you get here so fast?" asked Jude.
"We were in Savannah when she called," he said, gesturing toward Tizzie. "We saw that thing in the paper for the Millennium group. Good thing you mentioned the group's name. You told Raymond and he told me."
"He didn't miss much."
"No, he didn't."
"And the other guys?" asked Jude. "The Eagleton group."
"After they killed Raymond, they tried to lay low. But we got them now, I'm sure. The records will tell us who they are and put them away for a long time."
He added an afterthought: "And New York's got the death penalty now. I'd like to see it used—I'd like the guy who murdered Raymond to be the first one."
The police took apart the barricade, opened the doors and made the arrests. One by one the prototypes came out, hands in cuffs, to be placed in squad cars. There were so many of them the cars would have to make several trips. A group of them sat under an oak tree, including the surgeons and nurses, all chained together. They looked strange there, as if they were getting ready for a Sunday outing.
An ambulance carried away Rincon. Baptiste required a stretcher. The two Orderlies submitted meekly and sat together in the back of a squad car, handcuffed together, mirror images.
Brantley went into the basement and came back looking concerned. "They raided the computers," he said. "They erased everything, whatever files there were. They even smashed the machines. That'll make it harder to build a case against them."
Jude smiled—for the first time in a long while.
"I've saved the important stuff on a disk. But it'll cost you."
"Name your conditions."
And so he did. Then they shook hands, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out the disk.
Tizzie was worried that Skyler had not turned up. She looked for him everywhere—in the barracks, the hospital, the mess hall, the offices. Jude helped her search, and the FBI joined in, but they could not find him anywhere.
It was dark now, with a large yellow moon rising in the sky. A thin sheaf of clouds swept across it from time to time.
Jude had just lighted a cigarette, Brantley was talking over a cell phone and Tizzie was standing next to them nervously, when the figure of a large man appeared out of the darkness and motioned to them to follow him. It was the Gullah cook.
He led them along a pathway to the base commander's house, then around back, where there was a basement door set in the side of the building. Down a flight of concrete steps, they entered the basement and followed him across it to a door. Inside was his room, neatly furnished, and against a wall was a bed with a quilt upon it. Lying in the bed with his eyes closed was Skyler.
Tizzie rushed over to him. Jude felt his forehead and Brantley took his pulse. Then the FBI man pulled out his phone again and dialed a number. He called for the ambulance.
"He don't look too good," he said.
Jude had to agree. Tizzie just sat on the edge of the bed, holding Skyler's hand and making a silent prayer.
When the ambulance came, she got into it with him and sat down on a bench in the rear as it drove off. Brantley drove Jude to the hospital.
He stayed that night and the next night, side by side with Tizzie, as the doctors gave Skyler heavy doses of heart medication. They didn't know what would happen, the doctors said. It was all too new to them. They could only wait.
In the middle of one of the long hours, Jude looked at Tizzie, her face drawn, her eyes closed. He wanted more than anything for Skyler to recover. But he also knew there was a question he had to ask.
"Tizzie," he said.
She opened her eyes.
"I'll have to go back soon. Do you know what you're going to do?"
She shook her head, but her shining eyes told him the answer.
Jude thought he'd feel worse, but somehow he didn't. It was no surprise, after all. In fact, it was only fitting. He had always known she was drawn to Skyler. He had hoped it was because Skyler was so much like him.
It had turned out it was because he was different.
Epilogue
Two years later, Jude's life had returned to a semblance of normality. Like many people his age, he'd moved out to the suburbs—to Larchmont in Westchester, New York. He could be seen leaving Grand Central every evening on the 6:40 or 7:20, one of that army of commuters who scrambled for seats in order to sleep on the way home. His house, on a treelined street, was within walking distance of the station. It was small but tidy, and on weekends he enjoyed puttering around the garden, planting and weeding and, most of all, harvesting vegetables except for the tomatoes, which invariably failed him. He was becoming a more than passable cook.
He was still at the Mirror, not traveling as much as he used to, but it was partly through his choice. He was halfway through his second novel, this one called Double Exposure. Pure fiction, but the subject—a pair of identical twins who run a detective agency—drew on what might reasonably be called firsthand experience. His agent seemed to be enthusiastic about what he had written so far, but Jude wa
s still worried—in darker moments, he was convinced that his first book had succeeded only because the full muscle of Tibbett's empire had been behind it.
Tibbett himself had died of a rapidly advancing disease that had been mysterious to all but Jude and half a dozen others. Rumors among the uninformed said it was AIDS. He'd spent his last days in prison, where he had been consigned for insider trading. A surprising number of other big names in politics, finance and science had found their way behind bars for crimes whose sheer variety was surprising; they ranged from political corruption to—in the case of a thirty-year-old redheaded medical researcher—mail fraud. So many of them had died that the Mirror was nervously updating its obits on just about everyone. Jude, of course, could have told them which ones to concentrate on, but he derived a secret pleasure in witholding the information. After all, he'd never gotten to write the big story. That was a condition that had been set down by the FBI.
The agency had insisted upon his silence as the price for meeting his demands, which were straightforward enough: punishment of the Lab members and the W conspirators, and seizure of the Group's assets for the establishment of a huge trust fund. The fund was held on behalf of recipients in two categories. One was a group of bright but unsophisticated young people in their late twenties who needed special education to adjust to the fast-paced modern world. The other consisted of young children who had been placed in foster care around the country—and who, a gifted observer might have noted, bore uncanny physical resemblances to those movers and shakers who were doing their moving and shaking in prison. These youngsters were adopted by good families and slotted to eventually receive Raymond La Barrett scholarships to elite Eastern prep schools.
The FBI itself underwent a mysterious and dramatic shakeup. It followed the abrupt resignation and suicide of the powerful deputy director, Frederick C. Eagleton. Some fourteen men and one woman were booted unceremoniously out of the agency—all of them ending up behind bars. Acres of newsprint were devoted to explaining the "house cleaning," but the root cause—something to do with a wiretap scandal—remained vague in the public mind.