“To where the others went?”
“Yes.”
“Will you all come back here eventually?” I know the answer to this question, if Vandermill was speaking the truth.
There’s a very long silence as her fingers finish exploring my face and she removes my eye cover. She catches my good eye looking at her, and her face goes dark. “No,” she says.
“You’re totally in favor of this baby cloning, aren’t you?” Silence. “Doesn’t it concern you that maybe you’re playing God?”
“Have you ever thought that since we are one of God’s creations ourselves, that anything we do is in God’s will? Maybe we’re being directed by God to do this? He gave us an intelligence to use. Too many children start out in the hole with birth defects caused not only by drugs and alcohol but also by nutrition-starved and diseased parents. And then they are thrown out into the world to face even more dangers to their health and mentality. What’s wrong with creating babies with a fighting chance, and then having a little say in their diet and health for the first eighteen years?”
“Don’t they all look the same?”
“No. They are individuals in looks. We get male DNA donors from all over the world, although we use only a handful of female donors, depending on the nationality requested by the prospective parents. We never use the same male twice.”
“Breeding in variety,” I say.
“One way of looking at it. But, we don’t crossbreed. Whatever the nationality, the babies are pure blood.”
“Then many of them might have a common mother.”
“Right. But no two have the same father.”
“What happens when someday as adults these children want to know who their natural parents are?”
“That’ll never happen. They’ll always know that the parents they grow up with are their natural parents. There will be no reason to believe otherwise.”
“Shit happens, as they say. Families break up. Things get said. Secrets get revealed. Closets get opened.”
“That’ll never happen.”
“One should never say never.”
She finishes applying Zitnik’s formula to my eye-hole and then replaces the patch. “There are safeguards in place.”
“Like big brother watching them, just as we are watched all the time? All you need is one person to come along who gets a pang of guilt and throws a monkey wrench into the entire program.” Our voices have been low, as we are both conscious of the microphones. My voice drops even further. “Does the safeguard include murder? Assassinate the parent who starts to spill the beans.”
She gives me a hard, cold glare.
The Bolton music ends and I wait for the next one to start. When it does I say, “Not all of the recent deaths here were accidents.”
Her glare turns to ice and then she shifts to the packing of her materials. In under thirty seconds the bag straps are slipped over her shoulder. “Goodnight, Mister Price,” and she is gone.
I stare at the closed door and think about what I just dug up. She’s not part of the big picture. Her narrow view sees healthy and intelligent babies being born and passed to families who are monetarily and emotionally healthy and who will likely raise the children to reach their greatest potential. She sees future leaders. What she doesn’t see is the spilled blood.
Or does she? I try to reread the memory of her aura but it’s fading too fast, like waking from a dream. I do still get an impression that she either knew or suspected foul play; however she ignored it for fear of shattering her utopia-like vision. Now I’m not sure of that. Her anger surprises me and fills me with doubt.
I throw together one of Ulla’s shakes, which I like, suck down my prescription of nutritional supplements, which I don’t like, and return to my journal.
It’s just after two in the morning when I quit. My mental alertness is fading. This time I’ll not leave my journal on the computer. As part of my loose plan I had earlier retrieved a three-inch floppy disk from my bag. Making sure my body is between the camera and the computer, I pull the disk from my shirt pocket and insert it. After saving the journal and putting the disc back into my pocket, I delete the file and then empty the trash.
I go to bed. With the light out and while undressing I slip the disk between the mattresses. That’s about the extent of my loose plan. I lie awake in the cool dark trying to firm it up. At some point I’ll attempt to get the file to Charles Fleming, the newspaper editor I worked with in Seattle. I mentally walk through that scenario several times—dialing through the provider to the Internet, going straight to hotmail and setting up an account and then attaching the journal to an email with a lead-in for Charles.
I make a mental note to mention in the lead-in to contact the sheriff in Kalispell. I further formulate what I’ll say in that opening paragraph that will convince Charles that I’m on the up-and-up.
How long will it take me? Two minutes at least. Maybe ten. I could be shut down in thirty seconds if someone is watching.
When I awake, my eye pops open instantly. There’s someone in the apartment. I roll to my feet and go to the bedroom door and look out. It’s daylight, after eight o’clock. Ulla is in the kitchen, cleaning.
“Good morning,” she says when she sees me. “You didn’t rinse your blender when you were done last night. You really should do that immediately. Makes it much easier to clean.”
“Sorry. I’ll clean it.”
“Already done.” She comes into the living room and picks up my glass. “Same thing with this.” She walks up to me and looks at my face. “You’re looking very good. Most of your color has returned.” She looks down. “I like your underwear.”
I’m wearing boxers with images of old fashion typewriters on them. Tanya gave them to me for a birthday. She said I could wear them for inspiration while I write. “Thanks,” I say embarrassingly and head for the shower.
When I step out of the bathroom with the towel around my shoulders, Ulla is making the bed. This time I’m smart enough to put my boxers back on. My first thought is the disk. Will she find it as she tucks everything in? I start to say something and then shut my mouth. Don’t fix it if it might not be broken, runs through my head. “Let me help you with that,” I blurt.
“Thanks, but I’m accustomed to working alone.”
When she’s done she goes into the bathroom to continue her cleaning. I pick out some clean clothes and dress quickly, sitting down with my back to the camera. I lean forward to put on one sock and fish between the mattresses. I don’t find the disk. I grab the other sock, lean forward and fish some more.
“You shouldn’t do that.”
I jerk up straight with only the sock in my hand. “What!”
“You shouldn’t bend over that way to put on your socks. Bring your foot up to you. It’s better on your back and the blood won’t rush to your head.”
“Sure. Thank you.” I finish with the sock. When I stand and turn around, she’s not in the bedroom or in the bathroom. I find her in the kitchen inventorying my stores.
“You’re able to handle more solid foods, I gather,” she says. “Is there anything special you’d like?”
“A couple rib-eyes,” I say.
“Don’t think you’re ready for that. How about some fish? Maybe a salmon.”
That actually sounds good. “Or lobster.”
“I’ll see what I can get.”
“I was only joking.”
“I’m not. You’ll have one or the other for dinner tonight.”
My last meal? Give him anything he requests. But not a rib-eye.
When she’s gone I make myself another of those great hash and cheese omelets. I’m not supposed to take my pain medication after eight o’clock. Screw it! I take two with my breakfast and try to figure out how I’m going to check for the disk without being observed.
There are grapes in the refrigerator. I strip several dozen from their vine and put them in a bowl. Carry that to the bedside table where there is a magazine,
half read from when I had two eyes. Not that the number of eyes makes much difference as I have finally adjusted as best I can to that situation, but I just haven’t gotten around to finishing the magazine. I have absolutely no intention of finishing it now. I pick it up and set the bowl of grapes down as close as possible to the edge of the bed. This becomes a bit more challenging than I thought without appearing premeditated, which of course it is. I release the bowl but it remains perched on the edge of the bed. I turn and sit next to it hoping it’ll than flip upside-down onto the floor. It does not. I stop paging through the magazine, fold it back to an article and then reach for a couple grapes. Clumsy, I knock the bowl to the floor. The grapes scatter every which way.
“Shit!” I say loudly and get down on my hands and knees. I recover a couple of grapes with one hand and then shove the other between the mattresses. No disk. I pick up the grapes one at time while sliding my hand back and forth. Still no disk. Where exactly did I put it? I try to picture myself in the middle of the night sliding it between the mattresses. I didn’t push it in very far. I run my hand all the way from the head to halfway to the foot. It’s gone. Ulla is probably delivering it to Victor.
I sit with my back to the bed and slide into depression. I don’t know how long it is before I turn and look under the bed for the rest of the grapes. It’s too dark to see anything so I reach in and brush across the carpet in hopes of snagging the stragglers. I find no grapes but instead I find the disk. My heart leaps a beat. Ulla must have unknowingly pulled it out and then kicked it under the bed. I take it and my bowl of grapes to the kitchen. After rinsing the grapes I settle onto my perch overlooking the Montana landscape, insert the disk into the laptop and go back to work.
By the time Nurse Peterson arrives for my final session I’m editing the journal. I’ve decided against making a pdf. Some people are leery of opening attachments, so I’ll copy/paste it into an email. I start an email draft. I decide to do it tonight. I figure with only two guards I can’t be monitored every minute of the day. I’ll wait until I’ve supposedly been asleep for two hours. Being short staffed, I can’t imagine they watch me sleep.
The final massage session is short. Nurse Peterson says I’m healing amazingly fast. She applies the ointment to my eye socket and instructs me on how to do that myself. She’s nervous. It’s as though her aura is vibrating against a semitransparent barrier, giving me only weak images. The Beatles are playing at medium volume. Keeping my voice below the lyrics of Hey Jude I ask, “What’s wrong?”
She stops and looks at me. “What do you mean?”
“There’s something you want to tell me, but you’re scared.”
Her face sets and she starts packing up.
“You’re wondering what the point is in showing me how to take care of myself when you know I won’t be alive all that much longer.” Instinctively I use a reporter technique to reach the truth. Suggest something that is not the truth—in this case may be the truth—and then wait.
“What gives you that kind of idea?” Her attempt at putting denial in her voice does nothing to mask what I suddenly see flowing off of her like waves onto a beach. My suggestion is in fact the truth. I don’t give her room for more deniability.
“When? How much longer do I have?”
But she still tries. “You can’t seriously think that . . .”
“Marie,” I say. “I told you that I have a psychic talent.”
“I don’t believe you any more than I did Aileen. If you’re psychic, what am I thinking right now?”
“It doesn’t work that way with me. I get feelings and sometimes images based on a person’s aura. It’s kind of like a signal that I can tune into. Most of the time it’s weak and all I pick up are emotional feelings; anger, jealousy, distrust, fear. I don’t pick up thoughts, at least not directly. I do know that you have two children. They are both boys. I don’t know their ages but I feel that they are young. You’re divorced and he has them somewhere in the south—Texas or Louisiana—and you greatly regret making that decision, a decision you feel you cannot undo. I don’t know what put you under Victor Vandermill’s thumb but you regret it immensely.”
She makes no comment, just stares open mouthed.
“You’re trapped by Victor Vandermill just as every other person in the employment of Sans Sanssabre. Anyone who expresses an opinion contrary to the company’s true mission is eventually allowed to leave. Unfortunately for them Victor sees them as loose cannons and cannot sleep until the canons are disabled.” I lean forward, close to her ear. “You’re nervous because you know I’m a dead man walking and you wanted to find a way of warning me. I thank you for your concern.”
She moves away and then looks at her watch. “I must go now.” She slings her bag over her shoulder, pauses and then steps close to me. She places her hand on my arm. “I feel sorry for you.”
“And I for you.”
She turns and walks out. No more denials. She doesn’t know when. She doesn’t know how. She only knows that I’ll never leave Sans Sanssabre alive.
Chapter 39
If you find yourself face to face with the sabre at a distance of 30 yards, beware of your back.
–from the journals of Zechariah Price
When Nurse Peterson arrived I had already saved the file back onto the floppy disk and then ejected it and dropped it into my pocket. Now I plop myself back onto the easy chair, slip the disk in and read all that I wrote. There’s nothing more to add. I’m done. It’s a hell of a novella. My worry is that it’ll be treated just as that—a long short story. Will Charles Fleming take it seriously enough to do a little investigating? Will he call Sheriff Shwartzberg? If he does will the sheriff take Charles seriously? Will anyone take any part of it seriously or will it all wind up in my unpublished archives after I’m dead? Maybe someday my daughters will market it as unpublished work by their late father, if they ever find it.
I haven’t fed the animals yet. I also haven’t asked about feed for the pigs. Why should I care?
Because you have to keep up pretenses.
I eject the disk and put it back in my pocket. Instead of erasing the file from the computer, I change the name, give it a weird extension, and then bury it again. After placing the computer on charge I grab my coat and go to the gardens.
I drop hay for the cows and give all the animals water. There is no food for the pigs. I no longer care. The key to the truck is still where I hid it. The urge comes over me again to get in the truck and drive out. I resist and close the barn doors—as though that’s going to stifle any temptation.
Since my conversation with the nurse, I’ve been feeling depressed. I wander over to the lookout of number three garden and get the treat of all four adult sabre-toothed cats, and the two kittens, lying around being lazy. I watch them for a time with the binoculars but they do not perform for me. They must have recently enjoyed a beef snack; the males look almost as bloated as the pregnant females. The difference in the two is the size and the amount of hair on the male. His mane lies straight back off his forehead and runs halfway down his back. It’s dark and thick. For what purpose I don’t know. Maybe the ladies find it appealing. Being at the top of the food chain, he has no natural predators so I can’t imagine the hair standing on end to make him look larger than he already is. The hair likely assists in camouflage as they lie in wait for a meal on the hoof. I leave them and go check out their younger siblings.
The triplets are lounging around their pond. They also are appearing fat and lazy. Their heads are up; all are looking in a different direction. I look out the other side of the path, where the water flows over the small dam. There is another snake, or maybe the same snake. This time I’m not startled as he is a good three feet away. Without thinking I tap on the glass. The snake doesn’t appear to notice or care. When I turn around all three cats are on their feet, alert and looking my way. I look again at the snake that is now on the move. Its slithering body captures my attention too long. When the tip of
the tail disappears into the foliage, I look to the cats again.
One cat is gone. The other two are still focused on me, or rather the source of the tapping noise that I made. We do a stare-down, although I’m sure they can’t make out even a shadow of my form through the mirror-like surface on their side. Maybe they have special vision capabilities and I and their keepers haven’t fooled them a bit.
Neither of us move. I feel as though I’m being mesmerized by them, as by the snake. Suddenly the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and a chill runs down my back. Without looking, I know the other cat is standing above me, probably drooling at the sight of my neck. A delectable desert following a main course of ham. I turn with deliberate slowness and raise my chin until we are eye to eye through the heavy-gage wire ceiling. The chill down my back runs straight to my legs while my groin shrivels and tries to pull itself inside. My legs and my mind fight for whether to run or hold my ground.
He cannot get you, the mind reminds me.
Who cares, the legs declare but remain frozen in place, petrified with fear.
My mind takes over and I hold the eye contact. It seems like minutes but I’m sure it is only seconds before the cat backs up. There certainly is something inside of him that is disgusted with my face, and like myself, he is battling it. However, having no reasoning logic, he loses and gradually backs out of sight. With something just short of a run I make my way out of the triplet’s garden.
Immediately to my right is the short path that leads to the barn. Continuing beyond that is garden three and the climb up to its overlook. Forward and angled a tad to the right is the way to the path through garden one. Straight ahead is the gate that leads to the bypass along the side the Bengal garden. This is the maintenance area for the entire animal complex and where tools and sinks and large tables are available for working with the various plants. I have no desire to go through the center of the Bengal garden. It’s where Thomas Holm lost his life and the last place I saw Lester before he became Bengal dinner. I return through the maintenance area.
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 34