“I know,” said Val. She grasped his hand. It was cold. “I’m the one who should be sorry. You’re right. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. What I can promise you is that if anybody like that did come here, your daddy and I would kill them. Nobody is ever going to take you—”
But Braden was shaking his head.
“What is it?” said Kim.
“I don’t want you to be killers. Heroes don’t kill. You told me that, Dad.”
In her mind, Val saw the face of the Iranian woman, the one with the bombs hidden under her burqa and the terrified girl with a dirty face by her side. One bullet had put the woman down, and the girl had spat on Val’s uniform for saving her life.
“Good people do what they have to do to,” said Val, more sternly than she meant to.
Kim put his hand on her back as if to calm her down, but she wasn’t going to give in on this.
“They’re the ones,” she said, pointing outside the house to some unseen enemy. “They’re attacking American families on American soil. They’re the ones terrorizing people in their own homes. Not to protect anyone, not to save lives, but because the government told them to.” She grasped Braden’s forearm, willing him to understand, to read her mind and feel her feelings so he could understand her anger. “We are just a family. I’m just a mother protecting her family. He’s just a father who risks everything. We will do whatever it takes to protect you.”
Braden had his eyes closed and his head down. His messy brown hair, rounded ears, and strong jaw all came from her father’s people. Even though he had clearly inherited much of his looks from his Japanese father, Val’s family heritage hadn’t been lost in him. She could see her favorite uncle every time she looked at him, a great uncle who had been old before “Safe Reproductive Practices” had become the law. At eighty-five, that uncle and his wife had stood outside the U.S. Supreme Court in freezing weather to protest the ruling on the Susan Wade Act and had been attacked by counter protesters. He died a year later, followed quickly by his wife.
“I’m sorry you ever had me,” said Braden.
This hit Val like an elbow to her solar plexus. For a moment she didn’t breathe.
“You don’t mean that,” said Kim. “You’re the best thing that ever happened to us.”
Braden looked at them, his eyes wet with angry tears. “You wouldn’t have to do this if not for me! You could live how you want if not for me!”
“Don’t do that,” said Val, her heart beginning to pound again. We’re terrible people for doing this, she thought before she could stop herself. Making him live this way.
“How do you think we want to live?” said Kim.
“You could live near work instead of having to drive a long way!” said the boy, his body trembling now. “You could have a job at a better hospital. You could get the awards you want to win.”
Kim rubbed his face with his hands. “Son...”
But Braden turned to Val. “You could have a job instead of being stuck here with me all the time!”
Val couldn’t stop herself from thinking about her first miscarriage after Kim had removed her contraceptive implant. There had been a lot of blood and cramping—worse than any period she’d ever had. She could still see the baby, small enough to rest comfortably in the palm of her hand. There had been five more miscarriages before she finally carried Braden to term. Kim said they were caused by residual effects of the implant. Sometimes Val thought she could kill every last person who had forced those implants on women.
She took a deep breath. She couldn’t let herself be angry at him.
“You might be able to hear people’s thoughts, but you don’t see everything,” she said. “Yes, there are things that I wanted to do with my life when I was younger. I wanted to be a commercial pilot like my Uncle Red. I wanted to teach hapkido. And I’ll never do those things. I chose this instead.”
Braden stared back at her, almost defiant. It was a look that said, I know when you’re lying to me. Or worse, I know when you’re lying to yourself.
“That’s what love is,” said Val, still thinking of the dead baby. “Choosing.”
Braden’s hands were in his lap, clasped together so tightly they were turning white. “What about Asa?”
Val’s throat tightened. Kim’s leg, which had been pressed against her forearm on the bed, also tensed.
Val couldn’t speak.
“What about him?” said Kim.
But Braden only gazed at Val, his face stricken, his eyes wide.
She looked back at her son, trying to remember the last time she had thought of Asa... and what she had thought about him. It had been months. A year, even.
How dare you? she thought, hoping Braden would hear it.
He didn’t speak, but suddenly his face slackened a little, and a tear dripped down his cheek. She tried to remind herself what life was like for him. But this was too much.
“You’re going to have to finish this,” she said to Kim. She stood and left the room. Behind her, Braden began to sob.
We Should Take Clone Pedophilia Seriously
by Jessica Brantley
Jonas Freeman is as conventional a person as you might find in the United States today. An IT specialist at an energy contractor for the U.S. government, he lives in a suburban Seattle neighborhood, rides public self-drivers to work four days a week, and coaches city league soccer. He and his son spend many of their afternoons together designing virtual-reality environments.
Until two weeks ago, that is. When Freeman was arrested for pedophilia, his previous life was effectively over. His victim? His cloned son.
Freeman's case is one of at least ten that have come to light in the last three years, igniting a far-ranging clash of civil rights groups from every side, including reproductive freedom, LGBTQA, clone equality, and even journalistic integrity.
“Clone pedophilia is horrible. Pedophilia of any kind is horrible. That shouldn't be understated,” said Jean Bautista, chair of the National Endowment for the Arts and a long-time advocate for both women's rights and the rights of cloned humans. “The problem with shining a spotlight on these crimes is the disgust and revulsion it evokes are too often misdirected toward clones in general, as well as their parents, or even their partners and spouses. It’s reminiscent of how pedophilia was used as a scare tactic during the early days of the gay rights movement.”
“They’re trying to hush it up, silence the people, kill the free press,” said Samir Ashton, national spokesperson for Never Backward Always Forward, a government watchdog agency. “It’s the same sort of kneejerk reaction you see from federal agencies and their apologists anytime a news story might reflect negatively on SPR, no matter how tangentially.”
CONTINUE READING ON PAGE 2
VIEW COMMENTS
JonasMoses: Oh, for Christ's sake.
reelgirl: the auther of this article is clearly intolerent what a didunophobe
samanthaclearwater: she's got a point
jeka109: Oh, really? She has a point? Should we start asking “hard questions” about teachers because of the actions of a few perverts? Should we “reevaluate” the teaching profession because of a few who abuse their position and profession?
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4
The coalition took Tehran two days ago, and much of the city is empty. Val and Asa steal an hour to separate from their unit and find an abandoned men’s shop. Suit coats and dress pants lie scattered on the floor, dusty with broken drywall. They tread on the debris of someone’s life. Glass. Paper. Wood.
Asa shakes the dust off of several jackets. Spreads them across
a table in what had been the store’s backroom before most of the wall was knocked down. His hands shaking, he strips Val’s clothes off her almost frantically. Now she stands naked in the bombed-out store, not a soldier and a pilot but a woman. Completely exposed in a place where women have spent their entire public lives buried under hijabs and burqas. Then he lifts her onto the table and makes love to her so hard that the table inches across the tile floor until it strikes a wall. The table legs creak and groan underneath them, and at any moment Val expects to come crashing down in a heap of wood with Asa on top of her. She has craved him for weeks, and nothing is going to stop it. He has pleasured her before, but not like this. This was what she has ached for. Him. All of him.
When it is over, she holds him against her, arms and legs wrapped around his body, which is hard and moist with sweat. She buries her face in his neck and feels his pulse with her lips. Even though the sex is over, she doesn’t want to let go of him. She pulls him so tight against her that her arm and leg muscles ache and tremble. Finally, he pulls away, and she lets him go.
“I love you,” she says, going slightly dizzy. Even though they both know it, this is the first time either of them has said it.
“I...” he says. He bends over and pulls up his pants. Val admires his muscled shoulders and back, the way his triceps and chest flex as he works at the button and zipper of his pants. “I love you, too.”
Val looks at him, her hands gripping the edge of the table. It creaks again under her weight. In the quiet of downtown Tehran, the sound seems as loud as a mortar shell. Something is wrong. His face is wrong. His eyes are downturned.
“But?”
He fastens his belt. He won’t look at her. “I do love you,” he says. “But when I get home, I’m going to try to work things out with my wife.”
Wife.
The word feels like a sliver of ice sliding down her throat—the kind that gets caught in your gullet and cuts like a knife until it melts.
“Wife,” she says.
Just minutes ago, she ached for him, wanted nothing else except to feel his hands on her bare skin, for his fingers to dig into her flesh with the pleasure of her. Now she sits naked on a table a thousand miles from her home in Georgia, the light of the Iranian sun shining on her exposed body and the fragments of some shop owner’s life scattered around her, and she feels worse than ridiculous. At any moment, someone could walk by the front of the store and turn to see her staring wide-eyed at the man who just fucked her, his semen still leaking out of her onto a suit coat that will never be sold. Ten minutes ago, the risk of being caught and the feeling of exposure only increased the craving she had for him. Now it makes her hate him—and hate herself even more.
Sitting on the front porch, Val sipped her coffee and looked out at the sky over the trees. In the east, the first orange hint of dawn had appeared.
I’m so sorry, said Braden’s voice in her head. He sounded stricken, even in his thought-voice.
She stifled a fresh wave of annoyance that he had apologized telepathically instead of coming out to her. He was still a child, after all, and was probably afraid to see her right now. Like her and Kim, he could only do the best he could with the life he had been handed—the life they had handed him.
Now’s not the time, Val thought. I need you to stay away for now.
She waited for a response, but when there was only silence, she felt guilty. In a way, she hoped that he was still listening so he would know she felt guilty.
She drained her coffee and resisted the urge to throw the mug. It was an antique Star Wars mug that Kim had found for her on an online auction—probably close to a hundred years old, as best as she and Kim could tell. She set it down beside her and hugged her knees tight against her chest.
The screen door opened behind her with a slow creak. She didn’t have to turn to know it was Kim.
“I think he’s asleep,” he said.
“No such luck,” she said. “He was just talking to me. He apologized.”
Kim walked down the porch steps and leaned against the wooden post that supported the handrail. “Good. I know he was scared, but...”
Val didn’t say anything. She looked down at the ground at the base of the steps, at the overgrown grass around the edges of the porch. She needed to weed this part of the yard.
After a while, Kim said, “It’s okay.”
Now she looked at him. He wore a patient expression.
“I know it’s okay.”
She hadn’t meant for it to, but that stung him. He winced.
“I just...” he said. “I just didn’t want you to worry about me being angry.”
Her face burned, only partly from having downed almost an entire mug of hot coffee.
“I’m sorry,” she said. She had been worried that Kim would be hurt, but she had also been preparing herself to be angry that he was angry. He had no right to be bitter at her for the feelings she’d once had for Asa.
Or did he? If she were being honest with herself, she couldn’t say for sure. Val had it in her to be a jealous person, but Kim had no past loves. He’d never really even dated anyone before he met Val. Hell, he had been a virgin when they met.
She stood, descended the steps, and put her arms around his thin waist, which even after a decade and a half of marriage was still hard. “I don’t think... I don’t think about him very often.”
“I know,” said Kim, but his heart was beating harder than normal.
She stepped back, keeping her hands on his waist, and looked right at him.
“And I never wish I could have...” What was wrong with her? She couldn’t even bring herself to say that I could be with him.
“I know that, too,” said Kim.
She put her arms around him again and laid her head on his shoulder. Her face nuzzled in his throat, she breathed him in. That was when she heard the buzzing noise.
“Do you hear that?” she said. It sounded like a saw in the distance.
“What is that?” said Kim. He let go of her and turned.
It wasn’t a saw. It was a whining sound like a propeller coming up the drive through the woods. A pair of slowly blinking red lights appeared, following the driveway toward the house.
“Oh, fuck,” said Val.
“Hello,” said a male voice. “Hello? Dr. Kimiya Hara? Valerie Hara? My name is Austin Wayne.” The voice sounded tinny, like it was coming from a small speaker.
“Drone,” said Val. The lights drew closer. In the dim morning light, Val could barely make out the small black and gray shape moving toward them.
“My name is Austin Wayne, and I’m—”
“We heard you the first time,” Val said. “What do you want?”
The drone stopped about ten yards from them, hovering at eye level. A camera lens on the front stared at them. “I’d like to talk to you for just a minute. I won’t take much of your time. Would you mind opening the front gate?” Another pause. “I don’t see a... a... I don’t see a way to open it unless you come down here. I hate to put you to a lot of trouble.”
“We’re talking right now,” said Kim. “What can we do for you?”
“At this time of morning,” added Val.
Pause. The drone shifted backwards and to the left slightly.
“We had an anonymous report that there was a child wandering the woods in this area,” said the voice. “I know that you don’t have any children. We were just wondering if you’d seen anyone—”
“My cousin’s son was here with us recently,” Val said. “Just visiting. He’s the only child we’ve had on our property.”
Another pause.
“Do you have a cousin, Ms. Hara?” said the voice. The drone turned its eye directly at her again. “Our records show both your parents were only children.”
Dammit. “Our records.” Val had fought, suffered, and nearly died for a country that kept records on its own people and sent drones over fences to interr
ogate them. To make sure that they don’t have kids. The same country that had forced contraceptive implants on teenage girls and “Safe Reproductive Practices” on the world.
“She’s my friend,” said Val, the correction sounding lame. “I’ve always thought of her as my cousin.”
“I see,” said the voice, a pleasant lift in his tone suddenly. “What is your friend’s name?”
“I think it’s time for you to go,” said Kim. “We’ve got a lot of work to do this morning.”
The camera pointed at him for a moment. Then it turned toward the house. Val imagined she could see an eye behind it. It aimed at the upper floor and seemed to scan from one side to the other. Then it did the same with the bottom floor.
“I’m sorry to take up so much of your time,” said the voice, but the camera was still aimed at the house. “Have a good day.”
The drone backed away. It turned around slowly, scanning the yard, and then headed back down the dirt drive until it disappeared into the woods.
Only now did Val realize that her knees were trembling.
Janna Kord. That stupid fucking bitch.
5
Bowen didn’t like keeping the Anomalies locked up in a bunker. A hundred feet underground. He didn’t like that they had to live in cells. Cells that could put them to sleep instantly with a sedative gas. He didn’t like that they mostly interacted with people through a video monitor. He didn’t like it that two beautiful women like Celina and Theresa were going to waste underground. He didn’t like the fact that he would die in a little less than a year. June 17. 9:00 a.m.
Bowen didn’t like a lot of things.
Situated in the deep part of the Appalachians a few hours northwest of Durham, the Paul Singer Institute for Genetics and Mental Health Research was a good place for someone like Bowen. Away from the distractions of the city. Completely off the grid. No cell phones or wearables. No internet access. No outside phone calls. Away from his wife, Kelly, whom he had married mostly because she was the kind of woman who wouldn’t mind a busy husband. She wanted affairs without having to come home and feel guilty, so it wasn’t a problem that he dedicated himself to his work.
The Way Out Page 2
