Beginnings

by J. S. Frankel

  She gave him a look of concern, but said nothing. Forty minutes later, they stopped outside Mount Nebo Nursing Home. The sign outside read Palliative Care Center and as had been the case at his old house, Paul pulled up short.

  Her voice came like a whisper of reassurance in his ear. “If this makes you feel bad, you don’t have to go inside,” she urged. “I don’t have much experience with people, but I know what it’s like to lose someone. You know what kind of place this is, don’t you?”

  Paul nodded and swallowed. His throat had suddenly gone dry. “I’ll be fine on my own,” he said. Half of him said to go inside while the other half told him to stay in the car. He ended up at the reception desk where he asked the nurse on duty if there was a Paul Wiseman, Senior, as a patient.

  The nurse looked at him carefully, nodded, and gave him the room number. A minute later, Paul sat on a decrepit wooden chair next to the bed where a sallow-skinned and shriveled up man lay on the sheets, a breathing tube up his nose. A small birthmark on his cheek stood out. Paul began to breathe faster.

  Although the man appeared to be asleep, after a moment, he opened his eyes as if sensing the presence of someone. Seconds later, a look of recognition crept in and he nodded.

  “I thought…I thought I’d never see you again,” Paul Wiseman, Senior, said with difficulty.

  “I’m here,” said Paul and as he listened to the man rasp and heard the oncoming rattle in his throat, he wondered how long this person had to live. He really didn’t want to know. Finally, he asked, “Are you my father? I mean, my real father. Are you?”

  With a slight grunt coupled with a moan of pain, the man in the bed pulled out the tube from his nose. His eyes, formerly rheumy and half-closed, grew clear. “I see the birthmark on your face,” he wheezed out. “When I first held you, that’s all I noticed. Your mother did, too.” He pointed at his own birthmark.

  His father’s admission of the truth caused Paul’s heart to jump in his chest. He sat back in his chair and tried to stem the flood of tears that threatened to flow at any moment. After heaving in a deep breath to calm down, he pressed on. “What’s wrong with you?” It may have sounded rude, but he had to find out as much as he could.

  “Lung cancer,” the man replied. “Funny thing is, I never smoked. I never drank, either. That’s what you get for having bad genes. We look the same. Your voice even sounds like mine did when I was your age…” His voice died away as a coughing fit overcame him.

  With an effort, he turned over and grabbed a box of tissues from the nightstand. He pulled out a handful then spat out a wad of phlegm. He balled up the tissue then tossed it into a trash basket at the side of the bed. “Chemotherapy only delays the inevitable. I’d been…been feeling bad, coughing…and the doctors gave me the verdict three months back. I’d come back from…from California…over two years ago.” He heaved in a deep, rattling breath. “I rented out my house here while I was living on the West Coast, but…I wanted to come back. It’s where I was born, so…only right that it ends here.”

  Listening to the explanation of impending death didn’t matter, but he did ask, “Are you going to get better?”

  His father shook his head. “The doctors say…there’s a chance of remission. They’re full of it.”

  He wheezed again, a painful inhalation and exhalation of breath. “Some days I feel like choking and don’t want to breathe, just let it all end,” he said between puffs of air. “Other days, I want to live so badly it hurts. I don’t have very much time left, if that’s of any use to you.”

  Paul wasn’t startled by the news, yet it still hit him hard. This man, however much a stranger he was, was still his father. He couldn’t have been more than forty-five at most, but he looked seventy. His body was rapidly wasting away, eaten up by the illness. Used, spent and dying, his father deserved pity, but at the same time angst ruled and Paul cried out, “Why did you get rid of me? What did I do to you?”

  His father started to say something, coughed and hurriedly ripped out some more tissues. Paul started to go over to help, but the older man waved him off. “I can do this.”

  Once again, he went through the ritual of spitting out his bodily waste. When he recovered his breath, a whisper of his voice emerged from a throat ravaged by his disease and it was a cry of agony and of fading life. “You didn’t do anything wrong, son. It was me and your mother, and even then, it wasn’t her fault.”

  He sank back into the sheets, his withered and sunken chest rising and falling in a series of rapid pants. “We got married young. I was…twenty and she was a year younger. We thought we were doing the right thing at the time.” He softened his gaze, perhaps reflecting on his past. “Hell…we were too young. She got pregnant and you came along about a year later.”

  He rubbed his eyes. “We raised you until you were about four years old. Your mother got sick—ovarian cancer. She died six weeks later. I spent everything I had on treatment. It wasn’t enough. She died, anyway. Then my company downsized me and I had no choice. I couldn’t make payments on the house we’d bought. The bank said they understood, but…” He paused to draw in a rattling breath. “They also wanted their money. I had to make a choice and so I rented it out in order to pay for things. I had to make a fresh start, so when the offer of a job came up in California, I took it.”

  Paul heard the words, digested their meaning, then asked, “What did you do in California?”

  “I was an insurance adjuster, a paper pusher,” the reply came. “It was a desk job, but it was okay.”

  Hearing the word “okay” sounded like his father had done well financially, and the contempt came out loud and clear. “You gave me away,” Paul said, barely able to keep the anger in check. “You got your job, but you couldn’t take me along. People always tell young kids to be responsible. You made me with my mother then you decided to dump me, just like everyone else.”

  The desiccated and dried-up semi-corpse in the bed nodded, now teary-eyed. His lips trembled as he spoke. “I never wanted to, but I had to make a choice. I had no money, no future…nothing. It was the hardest and worst decision I ever made.”

  Paul lost it then and rivulets of water burst from his eyes and blurred his vision. No matter how much he wiped them, the tears kept coming. “So once you got set out west, why didn’t you come back for me?”

  When his father didn’t answer, he repeated the question, but just as quickly his voice dried up. He wanted to continue berating his father, wanted to tell him what kind of rotten life he’d had—the beatings, the hazing and the misery associated with the foster and orphanage life—but decided it wasn’t worth it. In an abrupt reality check, he realized this man had ceased to be his father long ago.

  “I don’t know,” the senior Wiseman answered after a few seconds of erratic breathing. “Once I got out there, I started working and told myself that when things were better, when I had money, I’d come back and find you. I’d bring you home.”

  A sigh emerged from his damaged lungs. It was a wet sound, one laden with chemicals and blood and impending death. “One day turned into the next, then a week, then a month…then longer.”

  Another ratchety cough burst from his decaying body. “Finally, I got enough money to come back here. I moved into my old house, the one you might remember when you were a child. Then…I got sick and had to sell it in order to pay for this place.” He waved his hand weakly at the wall.

  That explained the flip-flop on the house deal, but it didn’t explain the most important thing. “Why didn’t you come back for me?” asked Paul and tried very hard to keep his voice from cracking.

  It didn’t work, but the man in the bed didn’t notice. Instead, he stared at his fingers. The skin on the backs of his hands was black and his fingertips were turning the same color. “It became easy to convince myself someone else was doing a better job of parenting than me,” he finally said.

  “Yeah, you were a wonderful parent.”

  Sarcasm combined with anger
ruled as Paul spit out his response. He wanted to say something worse, but couldn’t bring himself to utter the filthy and vicious words that churned in his mind. He got up to leave. “Don’t worry. I didn’t come to ask you for money or anything. I just wanted to come back and find out why you got rid of me. Now I know.”

  As he reached the door, his father’s voice stopped him. “For what it’s worth…you’re still my son. I wasn’t there for you and I’m sorry, but…to me…you’re still my son. I want you to know that.”

  Paul hesitated, but only for a moment. “You’re my father,” he managed to get out. As hard as this was to say, it had to be said. “But you’re not my family. I have a different one now.”

  He didn’t bother turning around. Instead, he slid the door open and walked out. In the hallway, he leaned against the wall and the tears began to fall once more.

  A few people shuffled by and Paul hid his face as he ran into the washroom to clean up. After he’d washed his face, he took out the picture of his father from his pocket and stared at it until the tears started to fall once again and blinded him. With shaky hands, he tore the picture up into little pieces and dumped them into the trash can. It was time for him to leave this place of death and begin living again.

  Wiping his eyes, he walked outside only to find Angela waiting for him. More patients shuffled by on their way to nowhere, and they didn’t bother looking in his direction. Paul was grateful for the anonymity.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I, uh, got tired of waiting in the car,” she said, her voice soft and caring. “I thought you might want to talk about things.”

  Shrugging, he took a seat on a nearby bench. “I found out what I needed to know,” he said after a time. “I found out why people leave and why they don’t come back.” He looked at her. “I guess you know all about that, don’t you?”

  Angela offered a sad smile. “Our maker was very ill. When I came out of the chamber, because of the information he’d downloaded into me, I knew about his condition. Ooze and Sandstorm did as well. CF, well”—she shrugged—“he’s not so bad. He doesn’t know and maybe it’s better that way.”

  “He is sort of dense,” Paul agreed, “but I like the guy.”

  “Yeah, he’s sort of likeable.”

  They fell silent, and Paul began to cry once more. He hated himself for being weak, hated the fact he’d come to this place of misery and death only to be turned away by the person who’d helped to give him life, and hated admitting that he needed help. Angela reached over and pulled him to her, rocked him gently, and whispered things would be okay.

  “You know, I was thinking about what you told me, that we all die someday,” she said in a voice laden with introspection. “I mean, I don’t know when I will or not and Ooze…I’m not sure, unless someone turns a heating lamp on him or something. CF…he will, but he doesn’t know it, yet.” Her eyes began to moisten. “I’ll be sad when that happens. I’m sad now, for you.”

  Paul lifted his head and saw a single tear trace its way from her right eye down to her mouth. He wiped it away and in a move, impulsive and strange for him, he kissed her on the lips. They were warm and supple, and her eyes widened with surprise. “Why…why did you do that?” she asked after touching her hand to her mouth. “This isn’t a date. I mean, I thought people only did that on dates.”

  “Uh, well, humans kiss whenever and wherever they want,” he answered, feeling foolish yet not feeling so alone anymore. “And if I’m going to teach you about being a human, then this is part of it. If you like it, that is,” he added hastily, wondering if he’d messed up.

  “I do,” she answered, and got up holding his hand. “Do you want to go home now?”

  He nodded. He had a home to go to. “Yeah, let’s go. CF has probably eaten all the synthetic brains in the fridge and Ooze won’t be able to handle it.”

  They walked outside hand in hand, and Paul considered that whatever came his way, he’d be able to deal with it. He had a family now, unconventional as they might have seemed to anyone else.

  His notion, though, of having a happy ending faded when two black vans shot over to their position from up the street and screeched to a halt in front of them. Men in black suits piled out on the sidewalk, ten in all. The last three people to exit were Mr. Finger and Mr. Hand, with Simpson in the lead. “Fan out,” he ordered his men.

  They immediately took up positions on either side of Simpson, their guns drawn and ready, and they kept the crowd back. Someone called for the police and in the distance, the wail of sirens began to sound. “Hurry it up,” Simpson shouted.

  “Get out of here, Angela,” Paul whispered fiercely. “Just take off.”

  She shook her head. “I won’t leave you. And I can’t fly in daylight, remember?”

  Damn it, her loyalty was infuriating and he tried pushing her away. “So run. I’ll be okay. You have to leave.”

  She didn’t budge an inch, and Simpson called out, “I hate to break up your romantic interlude, but the girl belongs to us. You can leave. I’ll give you your chance right now and you’ve got five seconds to decide.”

  Angela hissed and her skin went even whiter. Her fangs came out, and when one man ran over, she quickly seized him, bit his face, and hurled him into the crowd. Mass panic ensued and the onlookers ran off screaming in every direction. The guards pushed the frantic pedestrians aside, but kept their guns down. “No shooting!” Simpson yelled. “Take her down. Use the Tasers!”

  The men surged forward like a tidal wave. Angela met the surge head-on, and took on the lackeys by evading their grasp, smacking them around and generally causing mass bodily damage.

  It all looked good, but their plans of escape went out of the window when Mr. Hand, a huge grin on his face, fired something at Angela. A field of blue electricity surrounded her and she writhed for a moment before falling to the ground in a heap. Paul ran over to her, but Simpson moved quickly for a fat man and clubbed him on the back of his neck.

  As Paul hit the ground, he caught a glimpse of the older man’s face. Simpson’s eyes, cold and green, held nothing but emptiness. However, he wore a grin. It was a sly and malicious grin that said he could take them down anytime and he wanted nothing more than to do it in front of a crowd. In fact, he already had.

  “Did you miss me?” he asked.

  Chapter Twelve

  A Little Talk

  Two of Simpson’s men loaded Angela’s unconscious form into one of the vans. Hand, Finger and five others went with them. Simpson grabbed Paul’s arm and heaved him inside a second van and got in with him along with two other faceless drones. They drove off at high speed through the startled crowd.

  “Floor it,” said Simpson, looking out of the window. “The authorities are here. Head for Angelica.”

  Three police cruisers had pulled up to the scene, sirens wailing, but in a movement resembling a wave cresting on the shore, the crowd surged in and around the cars and made it impossible for them to move. Simpson laughed as if to underscore the moment. “Our vans aren’t carrying any plates. Forget about the cavalry, kid.”

  The van sped up, the miles passed, and Paul finally got up the nerve to ask “Why are you doing this?”

  A tight smile emerged from the fat man’s lips. “You don’t know what this program is for, do you?”

  “I know enough,” Paul replied, still steamed at being caught and doubly steamed at his inability to do anything about it. “I know Dr. Bolson created them. I know he made them people. That’s it.”

  Simpson didn’t appear to be impressed. Instead, he gave a snort of what had to be contempt. “You’re only a kid, so I’ll cut you some slack. Y’see, Bolson was one of our own. Our organization gave him a lot of leeway in creating what he did. We’re a private company attached to the armed forces—all very hush-hush, you understand.”

  As if reading his mind, he snapped his fingers. “My guess is right now you’re probably wondering why we’re going to all this tr
ouble for these things.”

  Things, they weren’t things. They were people. Well…at least one of them was. Paul saw red, but he kept a lid on his temper. “Yeah, I was, sort of.” Maybe this tool would spill a few more details. The bad guys usually did when they felt they were in control.

  In a gesture of total nonchalance, Simpson leaned back against the wall of the van and allowed his belly to sag. “Kid, these days armed combat is too impersonal. They use drones. They use bombs, but the problem is intelligence can only go on what they know at the moment they get the information. They don’t know what can change in a few minutes, who can walk in, who’s innocent and who isn’t. Every presidential administration has struggled with this.”

  He rubbed his chin, pulled out a pack of gum, and after peeling off the wrappers of three sticks, popped them into his mouth and chewed noisily, blowing a bubble here and there and wearing a smirk a mile wide.

  “So you make weapons to go where the army can’t,” replied Paul, not bothering to hide his contempt for someone who thought of war as a game and discussed death so casually.

  “Basically, yeah.” Simpson nodded as he spit out the used wad of gum onto the floor. Taking a few more sticks, he stuffed them in his mouth and proceeded to masticate them. “You’re a pretty bright kid. And to answer your question, I’m going to say ‘can’t or won’t’. Like I said, the bad thing about a bomb is that it takes out too many people and collateral damage is something no president wants. So, the government—that is, Homeland Security—arranged to have the army develop a program to counteract public opinion on drone usage.”

  In a leisurely movement, he leaned back to blow out another large bubble the size of an oversized melon, popped it and folded the wad with his enormous tongue back into his mouth. “In turn, the army made a deal with us to create super-soldiers, people who could go in, spot the enemy and inform us of their whereabouts, take the hits if necessary then take out specific targets if ordered to.”

  It would certainly be easy enough. Ooze could seep into a water supply. No one would know. Someone like CF would be the shield and kill as many of the enemy as possible, and a vampiric assassin like Angela would murder whoever she was programmed to kill.