Chapter Thirty
Collections
Three months later in the basement’s secret seventh floor Bakman and Dee, now starting to show her expectancy, stand waiting for Woll the Clone. They watch the long awaited elevator yellow and then its red lights flash on. In a few seconds, the door opens. They step forward and both shake hands with Woll, and Bakman motions him into the conference room.
Inside Bakman asks, "Why did you want a face-to-face meeting?"
“It's still too hot, too dangerous, to hit another lab. Still after three months they are watching everyone, every lab, around the clock this time. It is not possible to hit anymore. Even the ones we have already hit have the same security. Dr. Chondrin’s stirring things up on all the local Screens demanding action—demanding arrests. To stop us they use a security system not connected to the main system as before but now all labs have twenty-four hour security. We can't patch in."
"We need at least a few more jobs or we've wasted a lot of time and money," Bakman glares at Woll in frustration.
A determined Woll just shakes his head. "If we go ahead, we will lose people. They might talk and then where will everything be! I'll tell you. We’ll all be in prison."
"Even the more distant ones in smaller cities," Bakman asks.
"All by order of the U.N. and millions are being spent on this by each local unit too. In hardship cases, the U.N. has agreed to pick up some of the costs. I bet, they'll all try for a hardship . . . you know they will." In frustration Woll laughs.
"There is no way," repeats Bakman.
"No way," echoes Woll, and a long deep gloomy silence falls over the room.
Finally, Dee speaks ending a long awkward silence. “There is a way.”
"Have we overlooked something?" Duffy asks his wife with a puzzled frown and Woll the Clone only stares at Bakman’s wife.
"I've not yet make a large contribution to this project. I believe in it, but I am selfish. I wanted to be the only woman with offspring on four planets. I'll donate this idea to the cause," Dee told them.
Both Bakman and Woll frowned, puzzled, not comprehending her offer. Neither of them had the slightest glimmer of any understanding of her sacrifice or the idea Dee was offering.
After a long silence a deeply frowning Bakman asks his wife, "Dee, I don't understand. We don’t understand."
"Local collection," Dee answers.
Still not understanding Bakman demands, "Woman, what are you talking about?"
“Don’t lots of people work in this building, work on this project, and work for Woll. They are people we can trust. We can use the clinic on the 27th floor for our people and Woll’s can come down here or Doctor Tjercks can go to them. Harry won't mind and the doctor won’t either. I’m offering the idea . . . that we ask the people working on this project to donate their eggs or sperm. Before, this project to them was just money and loyalty to you, Harry, or Woll. After they donate, they will be part of it too. If we succeed, their people, their offspring, will live on other planets—the first humans ever. Once they have donated, no one will ever say a word no matter what the offered price, threat made, or torture tired. Any normal person will protect their offspring and future offspring on this world or any other to their death. Explain to them that if word leaks out about our project the government will destroy all DNA saying they were contaminated or damaged by us not keeping them at the proper temperature. Their eggs and sperm will never be returned to labs. With local collections we will have solved both our needed supply and leak problem . . . I believe."
"My people are mostly Clones. When we escaped from Clone Detention Centers what other kind of work could we get but crime? Clones can’t donate," Woll said with a trace of anger and frustration in his voice.
"Why not? I donate. I'm a clone," Dee answers Woll sharply.
Bakman and Woll look at each other and a grin breaks out on both faces. Warmly Bakman hugs and kisses Dee. A smiling Woll steps forward, bows with an old ReRun movie exaggerated sweep of his arm, and reaches forward to kiss the back of Dee’s hand. Giggling at all their attention Dee tells her husband, "Duff, you had better go talk to Doctor Tjercks."
Bakman nods and disappears out the door.
Woll looks at her closely as if he were seeing Dee for the first time. "I didn't know you were a Clone."
"I am. The police captured me as a baby. Harry OpDyke’s crew rescued me then and twice later. His wife Mary was always kind to me, protected me, and worried about me. If she had dared, Mary would have adopted me. My maiden name, the name Mrs. OpDyke gave me, was Dee Dae Iversen. Harry’s wife was Mary Dae Iversen before she married. It was as close as Mary or Harry OpDyke dared get to legal adoption." As Dee spoke about and remembered Mary Dae Iversen-OpDyke her eyes mist, water, and tears run over her cheeks. But, Dee wins the battle over bawling.
Woll confused over the sudden misty and teary eyes, realizes instantly that Dee loves Mary and Harry OpDyke, but was not sure what to say or do. He also realizes that Dee looks on Harry as her father and Mary as her mother. Just then Bakman rushed back in to rescue a relieved Woll.
"Woll, Dr. Tjercks has a team and equipment almost ready for you to take with you. I'm going to let the managers of the departments make the announcement quietly in this building. Emmert will see all others posted outside are notified, and Mary or Dee the mechanical will guard the 27th floor."
Bakman, unsure of his wife’s emotions, takes Dee's hand to lead his teary and sniffling wife out, half-yells over his shoulder at Woll, "Wait here for Doctor Tjercks' team."
In the elevator as Bakman turned toward his wife to Comfort her, Dee manages a smile. “I was remembering Mary . . . Harry’s wife . . . my mother.”
Bakman and Dee were both filled with feelings of excitement over getting closer to putting another piece of this puzzle put together, and they kiss and hug all the way up to Harry's office like newlyweds.
After Dee explains it, Harry coughed, laughed, and answered. "Do it."
The Centauri Conspiracy Page 32