Dues of Mortality
Page 40
“A lot of biotechs out there,” Xavier said. “I’ll bet Wallace wasn’t the only one afraid of that bill. For all we know, somebody a whole lot worse than him is throwing a victory party.”
“In that case, my job’s only just begun, said” Det. Andrew Roberts. He had stopped by the picnic to update Glenda on the details of her case ten minutes ago. He had a savory smile on this sunny day, looking very much the gentle patriarch he'd impressed upon her when they'd first met. He had told her and Xavier that the coroner’s office exhumed the remains of Peter Simonton’s clone with plans to do a targeted autopsy. He pointed out that there wasn’t much to play with, given the damage to the corpse, but there was always hope. Even if the coroner found nothing, investigators, at least, knew the implant existed and that it was assuredly not the real Peter Simonton, whom the police had found blown in half in the old Halite warehouse on the lakeshore. Roberts would never forget the look on Marcia and Amanda Simonton's faces when they learned that they would have to grieve all over again, not only for Peter, but for his seven-figure life insurance policy. All the facts of the case were yet to be revealed, but the insurance company's lawyers had so much ammo to tie it up in court, that by the time Marcia and her daughter saw a single dime, they could make their own fortune selling bootleg stickdrives.
“What happened to the real Perry Jones?” Glenda asked.
Roberts waxed sullen. He explained how an extensive search of Miles Gabriel’s home and office had produced some definitive leads to a group of H-ball dealers and money launderers with known connections to a one Sanford Bonanno. It seems they’d had a little get together in Florida around the same time of Jones's vacation. Roberts was already planning a trip to the area to confer with local law enforcement. He had also found the information that Jones's clone had delivered to Gabriel concerning the illegal dumping sites. Roberts's call to Camille Cosgrove had so elated her it had practically segued into phone sex.
Xavier, on the other hand, was much more interested in the case against a certain dirty cop named Marcus Northcutt. Thanks to his personal twist on the protect-and-serve policy, which he apparently applied to just his own ass, Northcutt had nearly gotten a pregnant Cassandra Hawkins killed. Xavier had taken an instant liking to his sister-in-law and even though no one was angrier than Benny about what had almost happened, Xavier was determined to see Northcutt hanging from the end of a rope...by his balls.
“So Glenda's officially in the clear?” Xavier asked Roberts. Roberts had already said as much, but Xavier wanted to hear it in more concrete terms.
Glenda blushed a tad. Even now, Xavier was hell bent on looking after her.
“Like a good lawyer, Gabriel kept records of everything, including his contacts in the department,” Roberts said. “We found a couple questionable money stashes and datapins in a lockbox at Northcutt's home. Makes the scandal worse by miles, but it also means he knows that the department will gladly toss him in the pile with the other bad apples, so no one will want to go to bat for him. He'll confess once he realizes he's out of options.”
“I’d like to take a bat to him,” Xavier grumbled.
“You’re not the only one,” Roberts said. He turned to Glenda. “I hear the Feds are making headway against Millenitech. Heard anything?”
“Yeah, I did,” she answered. “They’re saying that, so far, it looks like there might be enough trace elements and other physical evidence in the lab rubble, to match up with the data they retrieved. Xavier and I will be giving depositions until the cows come home, but other than that, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.” Glenda purposely left out exactly how the FBI had received the data. Since neither she nor Xavier were known for their central processing savvy, it was best not to give Roberts a reason to ask unnecessary questions.
Roberts tipped a glass of punch in Xavier’s direction. “You’ve got a real angel on your shoulder, son,” he said.
Xavier wasn’t sure why, but somehow he liked Roberts calling him “son.”
Roberts then gave Max Porter a hardy slap on the back. “If it hadn’t been for your friend over here, I don’t know what would’ve happened.”
“Yeah, he really came through,” Xavier replied.
“Oh, stop it. You’re embarrassing me,” Max said flippantly.
“Listen, I hate to nibble and run, but I just wanted to let you all in on the latest,” Roberts said.
“Oh, no, please stay,” Glenda pleaded. “You’ve done so much to help us. The least you can do is let us give you a good meal.”
Roberts smiled crookedly. “That’s nice of you, but I already have a good meal planned.”
“Hot date?” Xavier asked, recognizing the countenance.
“Uh, actually, yes.”
“I knew it. Lady cops are always hot.”
“I don’t date inside the job. She’s a researcher I met at BioCore. Spicy little number.”
“You mean to tell me while we were running for our lives, you were busy making time with potential witnesses?”
“And I'm just getting started.”
They all smiled.
“Gotta go,” Roberts said and took his leave with a strut that threatened to turn reminiscent of West Side Story.
Two hours later, Xavier was still soaking in the ambiance of the day and watching little Patrick Porter kick around the play-ball in the backyard. The boy was playing forward to Cassandra Hawkins's goalie and was stumbling over himself like a circus clown. Cassandra was enraptured. After today she'd be wishing for a boy in six months and sitting at her webscreen shopping for those horrid little sailor suits.
“What’re you thinking?” Glenda asked, slipping an arm around Xavier's trunk.
Xavier waited until he was sure of his answer. He regarded the sheer blessedness of everything and everyone around him. His chest swelled with pride. “I was thinking how much I wished Momma was here.”
Chapter 60
Richard ceremoniously placed the sealed urn in the trunk of Dana Holliman's car. The parking lot of the Dine & Dessert was all but empty now and the sun was just skimming the far off rural horizon. Dana Holliman, herself, sat quietly in the front seat, sopping her tears, and hoping no one really noticed. But they all had. Glenda especially. She had cried, too. She really liked Kelmer and genuinely felt his loss.
“I guess she’s not taking it very well,” Glenda said.
“No,” Richard answered. “She regrets not having told me...” He bit down and snapped his fingers, “...him, how she really felt.”
This wasn’t going to be easy for Richard, Glenda thought. He had every one of the original Richard Kelmer's memories. How in the world would he ever be able to accept being a copy of someone else when he was so certain of his own identity? What he probably wouldn't give for a textbook on the subject.
“But she’s agreed to help me, you know, get...reoriented with myself,” he said. “I’m not sure if that’s the right word...or for that matter, the right thing—letting her get so involved.”
“Sure you're not just wasting your time?” Xavier interjected. “People are already learning the truth about Perry Jones. And while I realize you didn’t ask my opinion, it seems to me that you really don’t have any obligation to live Kelmer’s life for him. Contrary to what you might think or even feel about who you are, you have every right to be your own person.”
“You’re right; I didn’t ask your opinion,” Richard gibed.
Xavier cocked an eyebrow.
“Just kidding,” Richard said.
Glenda chuckled.
“Maybe he is,” she said to Xavier. “I don’t recall Richard Kelmer having much of a sense of humor, God love him.”
“I know what you’re saying is true,” Richard said. “The real Richard would’ve said the same thing. Maybe one day I will decide to...live my own life. But for now, things have to be this way. Jones was still technically a failure and as long as that remains the case...at least, it could slow things down, give humanity a cha
nce to catch up to the science. If people found out that this type of human cloning was already possible, memories and all...the potential for abuse...it makes everything we went through just the start. Besides, I want very much to continue his work. It was important to him. It’s important to me.”
Glenda touched Richard's cheek, overcome by his courage. It was hard to believe that the real Kelmer was dead and this marvel of technology stood in his place. Kelmer had created Richard in less than twenty-four hours, pure and perfect, in a solar-powered, basement laboratory as a last resort in the event Wallace had succeeded at destroying Kelmer and everything he'd worked for. Not only would the knowledge of the implant be inside the clone, but the integrity to implement it responsibly. Kelmer's growing ambiguity towards his research had apparently not impinged on his advancements in the filtering and maturation process. But it had behooved him to keep such progress a secret from Wallace for the foreseeable future. Kelmer had kept Richard hidden behind “the bubble”, as he called it, from the moment Glenda and Xavier had arrived on the Seattle property. The second the motion detectors went off, Kelmer ushered his clone through the door marked CAUTION in the big basement lab, where it/he remained until the fracas was over. Something the clone didn't actually have to do. Richard was completely individual and sovereign unto himself. There were no implants or psychological manipulation. Kelmer would have it no other way. He had even asked Richard, begged him like an old friend, to help, while going out of his way to make it clear that his clone was under no obligation. But obligated or not, Richard could not say no to his creator. Simply put, it was not in his “nature”. He knew the stakes, felt them. Kelmer had come to an unshakable conclusion that imprinted unequivocally upon Richard: when technological evolution precedes spiritual evolution, the result is utter disaster.
“You want to honor his memory,” Glenda said.
“I suppose it’s what any son would do for his father,” Richard replied.
Glenda peered at the top of his skull. “Is your hair growing in?” she asked.
Richard smoothed the thin spot. “Oh, that. It’s a little adjustment he made when he created me. He always hated that he was losing his hair.” Richard looked into Glenda's eyes and palmed her cheek in return, as if the real Kelmer were saying goodbye. Had some of Kelmer’s attraction to her been imprinted, too? “Good-bye, Glenda. And thank you.”
Richard then got into the passenger seat of Dana’s car, where he took her free hand in his and they drove away.
****
Chocolate custard with praline crunch was another one of Xavier’s favorite desserts. He hadn’t had it since he was a teenager. The Dine & Dessert was the only place left in town that made it decent. Glenda ordered it up with her banana split and they indulged in their frosty treats like twelve-year-olds on a first date. The custard tasted different though. Either they had changed the recipe or Xavier's taste buds had rearranged over the years. Some things just never stay the same no matter how much you want them to, he thought.
Later, after they'd finished their dessert, Xavier stood at the diner's counter, waiting for Glenda to emerge from the ladies' room. The diner's lone waitress approached him, setting dishes aside to tend the register.
“Can I get you anything else, honey?” she asked.
Xavier did a double take of the waitress. Was he seeing what he was seeing? Her hair was platinum blonde and bone straight. The eyes were crystal blue. But everything else—the shape of the face, the toothy smile, the knobby nodule of a chin—was exactly as he'd remembered. Hell, he'd compared them with his own features for years. It was like he was ten years old again—swept up in an embrace of security he had long reconciled to let go of.
Momma, he exclaimed to himself.
He crumbled, hanging his head. The self hatred came roaring back, hitting him right between the eyes. He felt a resurgence of anger over the fact that the truth had eluded him for so long; that he couldn't see it...until she was gone.
Where everyone else was made of flesh and bone, mothers were made of forgiveness. They were the physical manifestation of the very concept. Momma had forgiven him so many times that his guilt became a raging beast eating away at Xavier. He'd resented her for making him feel that guilt—a resentment that turned horribly inward when he realized...he’d done it to himself. There was never any reason to run from her. She was his momma. She would never have judged him, and certainly never have condemned him. I guess you'll have to forgive me one last time, Momma, he thought. Nice to know some things never change.
“Are you all right, honey?” the waitress asked concernedly. She noticed Xavier's expression. He looked like he was standing on an upturned nail in bare feet.
Jeez, was he going to cry right there?
“Xavier?” Glenda asked. She had debuted from the ladies' room and approached him completely unnoticed. “What is it?”
Shit, he was going to cry.
“Nothing,” he said and settled himself. He regarded the waitress warmly. “You just remind me of my mother.”
Glenda then looked at her as the waitress put her fingers to her own face—checking for wrinkles, perhaps.
Xavier labored to smile. “She was the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”
The waitress smiled back, detecting the obvious sense of loss. “Thank you.”
“Xavier, are you ready to go?” Glenda asked softly. Sentimental as it all was, too much staring and Xavier might begin to give their very understanding waitress the heebie-jeebies.
“Yeah,” he said suspiring. He slipped the waitress a twenty-dollar bill. “Keep it. I know how much you all rely on tips.” He paused, recalling his words to Wallace: “Live long enough and you'll bump into yourself, fresh out of the test tube.”
He shook it off, refusing to ruin the moment. “Thanks for the memories,” he said.
Ten minutes later Glenda and Xavier were coasting down the highway in Bennet Hawkins's 2020 Mercedes. It had taken Xavier that long to come back to earth.
“Where are we going now?” he asked.
“The park,” Glenda answered.
Xavier got the most oddball look on his face. “You’re not going to make me steal a car, are you?”
“Maybe.”
THE END
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
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