The Master Key

by T. K. Toppin

  He knew me well enough to know what it meant to see it to the finish. He would also want—no, need—to see it end. We were so alike in that respect. And he knew that if he didn’t take me, I’d find a way to get there on my own. He’d rather keep me close to him, under a watchful eye, than have me let loose to my own devices.

  * * *

  Aline gave them a moment—they would need it. She needed it.

  They’d been whispering fervently, oblivious to those around them. For a while it looked like a heated argument, yet they clung to each other as though their lives depended on it. Though she and Rand were intensely bonded, she envied the bond between her brother and Josie—they were so alike. And their connection was like a livewire, grounded, but bucking and kicking with unexpected twists and turns.

  To give them some privacy, she engaged Ho’s computer and scrolled through to the downloaded data. Then her blood chilled to the bone. It wasn’t the research data that froze her—fusing machine to man, going past the normal realms of fusion was abhorrent in itself. It was the message embedded at the end that had her clutching her stomach.

  She darted a quick glance at Josie, whose mental state seemed fragile. Would she be able to handle this? Should she just delete the message? It was tempting…

  No, that was wrong. Josie had been searching for the truth for so long. She needed to know, needed to see for herself.

  “John,” Aline called out, her voice hollow and flat, spooked. It brought John’s attention whipping around to her, his tired face transforming to that of a savage wolf about to protect its mate.

  “John. Hold her close, will you. She’s going to need you.”

  Aline brought the compact computer orb and placed it before them, instructing it to play back the hologram.

  Josie’s face clouded over with a frown. As the messaged played, it grew dark and blank. Josie seemed almost transparent, as if at any moment she would float away like mist.

  Aline gripped her hands together and brought them to her mouth. Maybe, if she prayed, Josie wouldn’t lose her mind.

  She prayed.

  Chapter 27

  In 2034, Fern Bettencourt was five. For as long as she could remember, her father had spoken about Aunt Josie. And for as long as Fern could remember, Aunt Josie lived downstairs in the cellar.

  Fern had seen her aunt countless times, floating like a serene angel, her hair framed around her sleeping face like a halo. And her father would lovingly wipe away any dust that settled on Aunt Josie’s “bed.” Sometimes he’d talk to Josie’s slumbering form. Sometimes he would just sit in silence and stare.

  Fern’s father said Aunt Josie slept because she was very, very tired. For a time, Fern thought her aunt was sick. Only sick people slept for so long. Fern was never allowed to touch the bed, nor was she ever, ever allowed to tell anyone. Especially that! It was a big secret.

  Sometimes Fern forgot and would tell her friends. Her older brother, Conrad, would quarrel with her and say she talked too much. Sometimes she would sneak downstairs at night and watch her aunt sleeping, and wonder what it would be like to be always sleeping.

  She also wondered what sort of person her aunt was. Her dad would never speak much about Josie. Was she a nice person, a bad person? But whatever the thoughts, the one Fern dwelled on the most was that Aunt Josie never seemed to age. Only her hair and nails grew and grew and…grew.

  When Fern was eight, she overheard her father speaking with her mother. They always argued a lot, very angrily, about Aunt Josie. But this time, Mumma screamed and threw things around the house; she didn’t want Dadsie to wake up Aunt Josie. Mumma kept saying it was far too dangerous; someone would find out and kill them all. Then she used terrible words—bad, foul words—to describe Granddadsie and his stupid experiments and how he’d put everyone in danger. Fern only knew Granddadsie from pictures. He’d died when she was still a baby.

  The next day, Mumma left and didn’t return for a long time. Fern went straight downstairs and hit Aunt Josie’s bed until her small fists hurt. Then she said she was sorry, and lovingly stroked her aunt’s sleeping chamber. It wasn’t Aunt Josie’s fault—it was Dadsie’s.

  He wanted to wake her up.

  Fern hated Dadsie after that. He’d made Mumma leave. Aunt Josie was blameless; why didn’t he just leave her alone and let her sleep. She wasn’t troubling anyone, just tired. And Fern hated Conrad too, because after she told him how she hated Dadsie, her brother told her to shut up and grow up, that she knew nothing.

  Fern was eleven when her father decided Aunt Josie needed to wake up. It had to be done, he said. Then he used words like “safe” and “another prototype” and “government sanctioned.” It had already been ten years, and people had begun to forget about Granddadsie and his work. It was safe, her father kept on saying. It was safe…

  The day Dadsie chose to awaken Aunt Josie, Fern decided to stop him. She liked her aunt sleeping. She wasn’t bothering anyone, so why wake her? While her aunt slept, Fern could pretend Josie was anything. Josie had become Fern’s best friend. She could tell her anything—and everything. And what if, when Josie woke up, she was really a bad person? What if she was scary and had done something bad? What if she didn’t like Fern? Maybe that’s why she was put to sleep.

  But Dadsie was insistent and, despite all Fern’s protests—he said she was starting to sound so much like Mumma—he ignored her and went downstairs. Fern followed, anger burning inside her, and pushed Dadsie down the stairs. She’d only meant to hurt him, maybe give him a broken leg, like in the cartoons.

  But when he fell to the floor after slamming and bouncing off the steps and narrow walls, he didn’t get back up again. And his head was on backward.

  Conrad came after she screamed. He didn’t ask what happened, even though he was older and knew a lot of things she did not. He told her they needed to call the ambulance, but first, they had to cover Aunt Josie. No one must know she was there.

  After Dadsie died, Mumma came back and looked after them again. It was good, and Fern was happy. She had Mumma back, and Mumma wanted nothing more than to keep Aunt Josie sleeping. Life returned to normal.

  But sometimes Fern missed Dadsie. Very much.

  Fern was a smart girl. An academic, she excelled in sciences, just like her Granddadsie, she was told. Although, when Mumma said so, it was always with a sneer.

  Fern was only sixteen when she was accepted into university and, like her grandfather, decided to study genetics. But a new subject attracted her like a magnet, a new and radical subject called bio-fusion. It wasn’t unheard of, as it had been accepted and used medically, but people still raised an eyebrow over it.

  Fern loved bio-fusion and, for a while, forgot all about Aunt Josie, even though it had been her aunt who’d inspired her to pursue the field. Fern became obsessed with immortality. Aunt Josie never aged. Fern wanted that also. So she studied hard and did very well.

  At twenty-three, Fern was in an accident. She lost control of the car she’d been driving, slamming into a pole late one night. She lost her left hand and received a new one through the first primitive efforts of bio-fusion. Despite the loss, she found her new hand was stronger, and it gave her the first spark of inspiration. For the next ten years, she dedicated her life to the study of mechanics and cell-fusion. It became an obsession.

  Conrad looked after Aunt Josie now. He never dared to wake her; he didn’t know how. Like his father, Kellan Bettencourt, all he knew was potatoes. Many times he asked Fern to help him wake their aunt, but she never did. Fern always had more important things to do. So Conrad waited.

  Their mother, Verity, died of a massive stroke when Fern was thirty. It was triggered when she uncovered the sheet hiding Josie. Verity had forgotten that Josie still lay there. It was said she shrieked and shrieked until her throat was ragged and hoarse—even the farthest neighbor heard the screams. Then Verity collapsed and died on the spot. Conrad could do nothing to calm or help his mother.

  Conrad d
idn’t mention to Fern what really happened, but she found out later. He’d said Mumma’s death came from the constant worry of keeping Josie hidden. Fern laughed at him, told him he was silly. He promised Fern he would look after the house and their aunt. He would take over from Mumma. No one must know of Josie’s existence.

  Sometimes Fern would visit her aunt and spend whole nights just staring at her. Some days Conrad thought Fern was losing her mind, but he said nothing. Fern had a violent temper. He didn’t dare try to remind her that their aunt needed to awaken. Sometimes Fern looked like Mumma, just before she died. It scared Conrad.

  And then, one day, Fern disappeared. It made the local news. ‘Prominent Geneticist Goes Missing’ the headlines said. ‘Believed to have been abducted by a new extremist organization’ it went on.

  What they didn’t know was that Fern had, in secret, constructed her own stasis-pod and entered it. She’d programmed it to wake her in exactly one hundred years. She had grown frustrated with the limitations of science in her century. And, above all, she didn’t want to grow old. Thirty-four was already too old.

  Conrad lived until he was eighty-nine. The year was 2115 and the world teetered on the edge of a massive economic recession. People panicked, ran scared. But Conrad was too old to care. The only thing Conrad ever cared about was his aunt. And as he got older, he even started to have his dinners in the basement and sit with her, talking to her, telling her about his day. It didn’t bother him how sad the situation was. Josie was his responsibility. And it was his way of letting her know she wasn’t forgotten.

  But mostly, he worried over her. What would happen to her if he died?

  He was old-fashioned. He didn’t care about life-prolonging medicines or vaccines, nor did he care for physical enhancements. All he’d ever wanted was a quiet life, and maybe to one day speak with Josie again. But that day seemed likely to never come. Instead he poured his thoughts and his heart out into his journals, as though his life were a detailed account of growth spurts and pest infestations, like the potatoes he grew.

  Conrad knew about potatoes and how to make them into food and fuel; people wanted both of those. But he’d grown tired—old. He wanted to die and forget that he’d lived. Fern was lost—gone. And there was no one else in his life. No one even remembered who Dr. Peter Bettencourt was, or his daughter who had disappeared almost ninety years ago. No one wanted to kill them anymore. It was ancient history. A history that seemed to be repeating itself now that Fern had gone missing. Conrad was very, very tired.

  Conrad never married. How would he ever explain to any future wife about his aunt? Now he had no one to pass her onto. But he made arrangements. Before he died, he left the entire house to the farm’s overseer, the kindly Arthur Cutts, and his family.

  Arthur Cutts was rather simple, but he was trustworthy and loved a good secret at the best of times. In fact, Arthur Cutts hoarded a lifetime of secrets. Conrad knew Arthur would be the perfect man to care for his aunt.

  In his will, Conrad insisted that should an opportunity ever come, Arthur Cutts or his descendents must find someone willing and able to try to awaken Josie—if, by then, it wasn’t too late. And if it was, to make sure his aunt had a proper funeral. He’d also told Cutts everything he remembered about his aunt and why she’d been put to sleep in the first place. The threat to her life had long since passed, but the dangers in trying to wake her after all these years were far greater. He begged Cutts to find someone capable and knowledgeable enough to risk an attempt but emphasized that he must not make it public. It was a secret. And if Cutts couldn’t find anyone suitable, then could he please keep her safe for as long as possible.

  In 2163, Fern awoke. The world was indeed different, and dangerous. A war had come and gone, famines and strife too. Yet another war brewed on the horizon, but science had advanced in leaps and bounds. And what was available to her now had been unimaginable in her time. Fern was happy—deliriously happy. But first, she needed to become someone else. So she changed her name and became Dr. Zara Sozanski, borrowing the names of her two adversaries from university.

  Fern continued to experiment on herself, using money she’d hoarded away in a bank vault and from clever investments she’d made a century ago. She even began to make a name for herself again.

  Aunt Josie still lay sleeping, in the care of some simpletons who treated her like a ghost—the ghost that haunts the cellar downstairs. Fern didn’t have any trouble buying back the farmhouse from them. They’d been more than willing to give it up. They even threw in the ludicrous story about the ghost in the cellar for free and tossed in the last will and testament of Conrad Bettencourt, along with the deeds to the house and some old disks that were his journals. She read them with disdain before tossing them in a corner.

  Potatoes were no longer in demand. Farming was a dying trade even though people needed to eat. Money was more valuable now than ever before. Whoever had it had power. And Dr. Zara Sozanski had lots of power.

  In the safety and privacy of the old farmhouse, Fern began her transformation into a strange entity. She experimented on herself with abandon, becoming more machine than human. Her basement offices and lab began to look like a clinic or a sophisticated butcher’s shop. All the while, Josie lay sleeping in a corner.

  The final step for complete immortality, Fern reckoned, was to clone herself. How ignorant she was. It was against the law to do so, with strict guidelines enjoining scientists to refrain from its research. Unstable and unpredictable, the authorities ranted. Abominations! Ungodly and sinful, the religious groups said. But people still did it in secret. All the technology was there, needing only for someone to actually do it—and succeed.

  So she did it. It took time and many experiments, many failures resulting in discarded test tubes with mutated cells and hideous half-human fetuses, until finally, Fern reached a decision she’d been avoiding. She impregnated herself with her own cloned egg, “fertilized” by a process of cell-mutation and the removal of any foreign DNA strands. She embedded the egg in her uterus, the most natural vessel to carry her clone—Mother Nature’s own test tube. And waited.

  But something went wrong—terribly wrong. Instead of a girl, instead of herself, she gave birth to a boy!

  She screamed and screamed in horror, the tranquility of the silent farmhouse shattering with the unthinkable that had unfolded within its walls. Bloodied and torn, she lay staring transfixed at the creature she’d given birth to.

  Herself—but a boy!

  As a cruel joke, she named him Brandon, because she’d been tempted to abandon the creature down the recycling chute. She didn’t want it. She was eager to try again, fix her mistakes. But curiosity had her intrigued. Besides, it rhymed. Abandon—Brandon. Fern laughed at that. She laughed and laughed, uncontrollably. She laughed until she cried and cowered in fear in a corner, watching the baby tremble in shrieking cries of hunger and the need for human touch. Something inside Fern revolted…repulsed.

  And when at last she put the baby to her breast to feed him, something inside cracked, fractured. Rocking herself for comfort, repeating Abandon-Brandon over and over, she pulled her hair out strand by strand until her son had drunk his fill…

  * * *

  Brandon was a strange, distant boy and grew up unloved, like the science experiment he was. At school, the other kids teased him because his mother was the mad scientist and they lived in that tumbled-down old farmhouse. No one ever went to that farmhouse. He had no friends. His mother was cold and uncaring. He’d even asked to be homeschooled, but she’d ignored him.

  Brandon was very odd, sullen at times, charming and beguiling at other times. But his moods were, at best, dangerous. He was a violent boy and loved violence. It was no surprise when the military attracted him, as it did many others at that time. The world had fallen head over heels into another major war over food, money, and power. The causes and the reasons were just too great or too obscure to specify. But people were angry, tired, the governments fru
strated. War was the answer, and Brandon reveled in it. He had even found love, or so he thought.

  He married the woman, a corporal in the military, just like him. Though she managed to calm him, however slightly, they were the same—violent. For a while, they seemed at peace, content.

  They had three children in quick succession, and Fern studied her “offspring” with distant interest. They intrigued her, and frightened her. They looked normal, but they looked too much like her, as if she had birthed them.

  One day, Fern quietly took their DNA samples and continued with her experiments. But she no longer wanted to clone herself; it was too risky, too scary. That horrible night alone in the farmhouse, the night she had given birth to herself… The memory haunted her, and the small part of her that remained somewhat normal—sane—was repulsed.

  No, she decided, she would just keep herself alive, forever. That way, it would only ever be her. Just her…and no one else.

  Then one day, Brandon lost his head, literally. He got up from yet another restless night and decided to kill his wife and children. He’d grown bored of them, he didn’t like them anymore, and he didn’t like himself either. They talked too much, they wanted too much. They didn’t care what he wanted. No one ever cared what he wanted.

  And something wasn’t right with him—he knew it. He’d always known it. He’d talked with the military psychologists and therapists, but no one seemed to understand.

  He was sick; he ached inside, right down to his bones. His blood felt thick and crawling with infestations. But mostly it was his head; it always hurt. Throbbed with pulsing visions and thoughts. Memories meshed and mixed with events and places he had no recollection of being in or people he’d never met. He didn’t know if they were real or not, whether he’d dreamed of these people and events or just imagined them. He used to complain to his mother, and she always seemed to know what he talked about. Like she’d been there too, seen what he’d seen. She always seemed to understand, but she never helped. She just stared at him, like he was filthy. Tainted.