I.D.

by Peter Lerangis

  Dr. Rudin quickly took a prescription pad from her jacket pocket, ripped off a sheet, and began writing on the back. “This is the address. Go now. See what you can find. Notes. Anything. Call me when you get there.”

  Eve felt an arm lift her on the right. Another on the left. She felt herself being walked outside. It was cold.

  Cold.

  Sleep.

  She thought she heard “Good night.” But it might have been “Good luck.” She wasn’t sure.

  By the time the back of her head hit the seat, she was unconscious.

  “Eve, wake up! We’re here!”

  Shoulder.

  Pain.

  Sharp.

  Eve’s eyes opened.

  “The new owners are the Feltons,” Martina continued. “Doctor Howard and Doctor Felicia. Both professors. I woke them up. They almost threw me out, but I told them what happened.”

  Martina began pulling Eve out of the car. Pain radiated fiercely across her back.

  The walk to the front door seemed like a mile uphill.

  The Doctors Felton were a balding man and a trim gray-haired woman. Standing in the front door in their pj’s, they looked at Eve with concern and fear.

  “I—I don’t know if we can help you,” Dr. Howard Felton said. “We turned Doctor Black’s lab into a dining room, which was its original function—?

  To the left. Wood paneling.

  He led them to the left, into a medium-sized room, paneled in oak.

  “I…know…this…place,” Eve murmured. “It was…different.”

  Glass. Lights. Liquid.

  So bright.

  So cold.

  “There was a lot of equipment here when we came to look at the house,” Dr. Felicia Felton said. “Test tubes, beakers, spectrometers, a magnetic resonance imaging machine—?

  “Did he leave any notes?” Martina asked. “Did you save anything?”

  “No.” Dr. Howard Felton shook his head. “It wasn’t relevant to our line of work.”

  Eve’s knees gave in. Her head began to spin.

  Martina grabbed her by the arm. Dr. Felicia Felton pulled out a dining room chair.

  Round and round and round she goes…

  “EVE!” Martina was shouting.

  This is what it’s like to die. A slow fade. Not too bad, really.

  “Eve, you have to concentrate!”

  Focus.

  “Is anything familiar, Eve?”

  Martina was running. In and out of sight. Pulling up the carpets. Knocking on the walls. Looking behind paintings. The professors were protesting. Telling her how expensive everything was.

  The door.

  It was right next to the painting of the row-boat.

  A brass handle and hinges. Hidden in the paneling.

  Speak.

  “What’s…inside?” Eve rasped, nodding toward the door.

  “Nothing,” said Dr. Felicia Felton. “An old dumbwaiter. Used to deliver food from the kitchen, which was once in the basement. It was broken when we moved in.”

  Dr. Howard Felton yanked open the door.

  Blackness. Two dangling ropes. Like a miniature elevator shaft.

  Martina reached in and pulled on a rope. “It’s stuck.”

  “Hasn’t been used in decades,” Dr. Howard Felton said.

  Button.

  It was by the corner. It looked like a light switch.

  Eve reached toward it. “Press.”

  “It doesn’t work—? Dr. Felicia Felton protested.

  But Martina was already there. She pounded the button, once. Twice.

  Nothing.

  The ropes.

  “Pull,” Eve said.

  “I did already.”

  “Pull.”

  Martina yanked the ropes again.

  Clink.

  “Glass,” Martina said. “There’s something in the dumbwaiter.”

  The Feltons reached in and helped her.

  Rrrrrrrrrrrr.

  A dull, rubbing sound.

  “Easy!” admonished Dr. Felicia Felton. “Don’t break anything.”

  RRRRRRRRR…

  There.

  A small platform was lowering into the opening. The floor of a small, boxlike enclosure. Martina wedged her fingers onto it and pulled down.

  The first thing Eve saw was the notebooks.

  A fallen pile of them. Scattered about.

  Behind them were tubes. Flasks. Diagrams pinned to the rear wall.

  Photos.

  Two of them. Framed.

  One was of a teenage girl, someone Eve had never seen before.

  The other was Eve.

  She has to find the serum.

  Four more cases reported, in America. Sick but still alive.

  Two in the same family. In Australia.

  She must read the lab reports first.

  Sweden. The first report there.

  Does she have enough time?

  Zaire…Portugal…

  Pakistan…

  Well? Does she?

  15

  “ ‘I’D THOUGHT THE DEATH of a wife was the worst a man could bear,’ ” read Martina from a yellowed spiral notebook. “ ‘Now my dear Laura is gone, too, and I find depths of grief I’ve never known. Whitney is all I have left—and today I discover that she has the gene, too! That she, too, may not reach adolescence. I can barely think. But I must. I have to redouble my efforts at a cure. I believe the defective gene is appearing in other areas of the country.’ ”

  “That was nineteen years ago,” Dr. Howard Fenton said, looking over her shoulder.

  Fading…falling.

  Keep. Your. Eyes. Open.

  “What…cure?” Eve said.

  Martina flipped through the book, scanning the pages. “ ‘Not sure treatments will work. Don’t seem to be affecting Whitney. Have made major breakthrough today in replication technique. Am now ready to incubate somatic cell taken from Whitney last week. Perhaps I will be able to correct the defect on a genetic level.’ This is it! Eve, he cloned his second daughter! That’s who you are!”

  The photo. Not me. Another daughter. Whitney.

  “This is incredible!” Martina was skimming like crazy. “Here’s Alexis. The first success. He’s, like, ecstatic. Here’s Bryann. And Caroline. Danielle…”

  “Go…to the end,” Eve said.

  Martina flipped to the last entry and read: “ ‘Can’t bear it. A life of total, abject failure. Whitney is gone now. The cures were of no use. The clones have the mutation—all of them. Was not able to manipulate their genes at all. Fortunately they do not know. Neither do the parents. Some of them suspect the fake adoption agency, but my talent at deception never fails to amaze me.

  “ ‘I must not give up on the girls. If I do, their deaths are my fault. If I do, I give up on all humanity. Others should not have to go through what I have.

  “ ‘One of the new treatments has worked perfectly in the experimental trials. Had planned to try each treatment on a different girl. Instead I will change the vials. Give them all the same. The new one. Will contact the parents tomorrow.’ ”

  Martina fell silent.

  “Yes?” Dr. Felicia Felton asked.

  “That’s it,” Martina said. “The rest of the pages are blank.”

  Dr. Howard Felton took the book and flipped back a page. “February twenty-one. If I remember correctly, he died that month.”

  “Where are the new treatments?” Martina was pulling down test tubes, reading labels.

  The Feltons reached in, grabbing at whatever they could.

  Stand.

  Eve struggled to her feet. Holding the edge of the table, she dragged herself closer to the dumbwaiter.

  She had her eye on the corner of the enclosure.

  On a small cardboard box marked VACUUM CLEANER BAGS.

  She put her hand on Martina’s shoulder. For support.

  “What are you doing?” Martina cried out. “Sit!”

  Eve reached in. She pulled ou
t the box and fell backward.

  The Feltons caught her and sat her down.

  “What? What?” Martina ripped open the box. She pulled out decayed newspaper padding.

  At the bottom, mixed with shreds of paper, were a few small vials. Each had a dull-colored liquid inside it.

  Martina picked up one of the vials and read the label. “Bryann.”

  “All the treatments are different,” Dr. Felicia Felton remarked. “Which is the one that works?”

  “He didn’t say!” Martina replied.

  Eve reached in. She turned other vials and read the labels. CAROLINE. ALEXIS.

  EVE.

  The one meant for her.

  She lifted it out.

  “Wait!” Martina cried. “What if it’s not the right one?”

  Eve paused.

  Her mind was clouded.

  What if?

  The wrong one meant death.

  But how to pick?

  The clearest one? That was Alexis’s.

  The strongest looking? Caroline’s. It was dark green.

  The fullest vial? Bryann’s.

  No.

  The answer worked its way up. It shot through the murk in her brain.

  Each vial was meant for one girl. Each a different fate. Assigned by Dr. Black.

  Fate.

  It was something Eve understood.

  It had guided her here.

  It would guide her now.

  She would not steal anyone else’s.

  She had to face her own.

  Eve looked at Martina. She tried to speak, but even that took too much effort.

  Martina was not crying. Her eyes were locked on Eve’s.

  She knew.

  Somehow, she knew.

  No.

  More.

  Time.

  She tried twisting off the top of the vial, but her fingers wouldn’t grip.

  I’m going.

  Like Danielle.

  Away from home.

  Missing in action.

  The room was swirling.

  The air was leaking from her lungs.

  The lights were dimming.

  Take it.

  A white light formed in the center of the room. Or was it in her brain? Her imagination? She couldn’t tell.

  In the center of the light were faces. Blurry but slowly assuming familiar shapes.

  Alexis.

  Bryann.

  Caroline.

  Danielle.

  Eve smiled. “Hey, guys…”

  “EVE! EEEEEEEVE!”

  Martina’s voice.

  Eve felt something pour into her mouth.

  And all went black.

  A. Deceased.

  B. Deceased.

  C. Deceased.

  D. Deceased.

  E. Pending.

  16

  OUT OF THE BLACKNESS.

  Light.

  White light.

  Objects, too. Blurry. Moving. Hovering.

  (Faces.)

  Mom.

  Dad.

  Kate.

  Martina. (Why is SHE with them?)

  Looking at me. (Mad. They must be.)

  I never said good-bye.

  SORRY!

  (You failed. You should have stayed home.)

  “Eve?”

  Dr. Rudin.

  TELL THEM! TELL THEM WHAT HAPPENED—

  “Eve, wake up!”

  Eve’s eyes flickered open.

  “Yo, is she alive?” (Kate.)

  “Haaaagerrrfffol…” Moving her mouth felt like lifting weights.

  Swallow. Cough.

  “What’d she say?” (Martina.)

  “Give her a chance. She’s been out a long time.” (Dr. Rudin.)

  Eve blinked.

  The room came into focus.

  White walls. Fluorescent lights. IV tubes.

  She slowly scanned the room.

  They were smiling. All of them.

  Her parents. Her two friends. Dr. Rudin.

  Real.

  Alive.

  “Eve?” said Mrs. Hardy, taking her hand.

  “I—I’m sorry, Mom. I didn’t mean to—?

  “Shhhh,” said her dad. “You did the right thing. Dr. Rudin told us what happened.”

  “She did? How did you all get here so fast?”

  “You’ve been unconscious for three days,” Dr. Rudin replied.

  The serum.

  “It—worked?” Eve asked.

  Dr. Rudin nodded. “I thought we’d lost you at first. But your blood seems to be stabilizing, and the symptoms are slowly going away. I have one team running a check on the telomere activity of your chromosomes—and I’ve hired a lab to replicate the serum. This is huge, Eve. This will be public news very soon.”

  “Which means no one else will have to suffer like you did,” Martina said.

  And Danielle.

  And Alexis and Bryann and Caroline.

  Whitney, too. The first. The donor.

  All a part of Eve.

  All gone.

  Sacrificed.

  For the love of Dr. Black’s daughter.

  “It was wrong for him to do that,” Eve said.

  Dr. Rudin touched her hand. “But look what came out of it. A treatment for a new disease, something that no one has understood. Except Dr. Black.”

  “But the cloning—?

  “Perhaps someday we’ll find Dr. Black’s notes about that, too. So…many good consequences, right?”

  Eve turned away.

  She wasn’t so sure.

  “Danielle is still alive, Eve,” Martina said, “in you.”

  “So are the others,” Kate added.

  And they would stay alive. In Eve’s brain. Their memories flashing in and out at odd times. Haunting her the rest of her life.

  “Guess I’m the end of the line, huh?” Eve said.

  “The survivor,” her dad replied.

  Eve’s mind was beginning to drift. “Do me a favor, Dr. Rudin,” she said. “If you do find the notes—about the cloning—destroy them.”

  She didn’t hear the answer.

  Her eyes were closing. Words from the real world were fading, mingling with dreams.

  “…give her some time…” (Dr. Rudin.)

  “…so drained…” (Mom.)

  Then, sudden footsteps.

  Agitated voices.

  “Miss, you can’t go in there!”

  Wake up.

  A new voice.

  Urgent. Confused.

  Eve’s eyes blinked open.

  “Eve!”

  She turned, slowly, painfully, to the person standing by the bed.

  A down coat, a wool scarf.

  A face.

  No.

  Impossible.

  “Hi,” the girl said. “You don’t know me…”

  A dream.

  ABCDE. No one left. I am the end of the line.

  “…but my name is Francesca…”

  A Biography of Peter Lerangis

  Peter Lerangis (b. 1955) is a bestselling author of young adult fiction; his novels have sold more than four million copies worldwide. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Lerangis began writing in elementary school, inventing stories during math class—after finishing the problems, he claims. His first piece of published writing was an anonymous humor article for the April Fools’ Day edition of his high school newspaper. Seeing the other students laughing in the corridors as they read it, planted the idea in his head that he could be a writer. After high school he attended Harvard University, where he majored in biochemistry and sang in an a cappella group, the Harvard Krokodiloes. Intending to go on to law school, Lerangis took a job as a paralegal post-graduation. But after a summer job as a singing waiter, he changed his path and became a musical theater actor.

  Lerangis found theatrical work on Broadway, appearing in They’re Playing Our Song, and he toured the country in such shows as Cabaret, West Side Story, and Fiddler on the Roof, acting alongside theatrical
greats such as Jack Lemmon, John Lithgow, Jane Powell, John Raitt, and Victor Garber. During these years, Lerangis met his future wife, Tina deVaron, and began editing fiction, a job that would eventually lead him to writing novels of his own.

  Lerangis got his start writing novelizations under the penname A. L. Singer, as well as installments of long-running series, such as the Hardy Boys and the Baby-sitters Club. He eventually began writing under his own name with 1994’s The Yearbook and Driver’s Dead, two high-school horror novels that are part of the Point Horror series of young-adult thrillers.

  In 1998, Lerangis debuted Watchers, a six-novel sci-fi series, which won Children’s Choice and Quick Picks for Reluctant Readers awards. The first book in the Abracadabra series, Poof! Rabbits Everywhere (2002), introduced Max, an aspiring magician who struggles to keep a lid on the supernatural happenings at his school. Lerangis followed that eight-book series with the immensely popular Spy X novels, about a pair of twins drawn into international espionage.

  The stand-alone novel Smiler’s Bones (2005), based on the true story of an Eskimo brought to New York City in 1897, won critical acclaim and a number of awards. Most recently, Lerangis has collaborated with a group of high-profile children’s authors on Scholastic’s the 39 Clues, a sprawling ten-novel adventure series.

  At times, Lerangis’s life has been as thrilling as one of his stories. He has run a marathon, rock-climbed during an earthquake, gone on-stage as a last-minute replacement for Broadway legend Alan Jay Lerner, and visited Russia as part of a literary delegation that included First Lady Laura Bush. He lives with his family in New York City, not far from Central Park.

  In an apartment in Brooklyn, shortly after giving birth, Mary Lerangis urges her first-born son to become a writer.

  In Prospect Park, Nicholas Lerangis entertains a son so obsessed with books that, by sixteen months, he had yet to learn to walk.

  Lerangis, stylish even at four years old.

  Lerangis (in back) with his younger sister and brother. He promised them that if they learned to play well enough, the little man on the piano would start to dance. . . . They are still practicing.

  To this day, Lerangis refuses to admit that this early work was created during sixth-grade math class.

  Lerangis as a freshman at Freeport High School in 1970. Here, he shows off his writing style and his mustache, both of which were to develop quite a bit in the future.