Lyon's Legacy: Catalyst Chronicles, Book One

by sandra ulbrich almazan

  You said forever,

  You said you’d stay,

  This boy trusted you,

  Then you went away.

  My spine turned to ice. Back in my world, I’d seen some of Sean’s handwritten songs, including an early one named “Dad’s Song.” When Sean was in his thirties, he rewrote it and released it as “Father, Farewell.” We had no record of him performing the early version. After hearing the anguish in his voice, I could understand why. Was this what it had felt like to have been abandoned? I remembered the day my dad left my mother, how I’d come home from school to find her slumped over in the kitchen, muttering over and over “What am I going to do?” She didn’t even glance at the perfect score I’d gotten on my spelling test. I felt like I’d lost both of them.

  Sean’s voice rose soulfully for the middle section:

  Why did you leave me,

  Won’t you come back home,

  Can’t you forgive me,

  And never more roam?

  It wasn’t your fault, I wanted to tell him. It wasn’t your fault that your father was too immature to cope with a baby and the doctors didn’t find your mother’s ovarian cancer in time. But why did I feel I should have done more to protect my own mother?

  I feel so guilty,

  Even though I was true,

  That was how I felt about my mom.

  I wish I could see you,

  And say, “I love you.”

  But I couldn’t say that to her anymore.

  I’d spent my life up to that point hiding from my deepest emotions behind a wall of anger raised the day my parents split. But Sean had honed his own pain into a knife only his voice could wield, and he sliced through my inner barrier as if it didn’t exist.

  I couldn’t keep my tears in any longer; they blended with the sweat on my face. I wiped them off, but I was helpless to stop them.

  Silence filled the White Knight for a minute when the song ended. Applause came slowly, as if no one else could appreciate what Sean had done. A scowl flashed over his face before he stepped back and gestured to his band. They ripped into a raucous version of “What’d I Say.” It was probably meant to diffuse the emotions Sean had stirred, but for me it wasn’t enough.

  I rose and pushed my way through the crowded tables. A few girls muttered as I blocked their view. I dashed up the steps leading from the club, past the surprised bouncer, to the street. Leaning against a cold lamppost, I sobbed out all the tears I’d been saving since I was a child.

  Chapter Six

  I wasn’t sure how long I wept before I heard Sean calling, “Jo? Joanna? Where are you?”

  I looked toward his voice. All I could see of him was his face and the orange glow from his cigarette. The trails of my tears chilled my face. What if he noticed them? He’d be sure to mock me. I gulped deep breaths of frigid air, trying to regain control. Damn; he homed in on me so quickly I couldn’t even find my handkerchief. The best I could do was shake my hair so that it curtained my face.

  “What are you doing out here by yourself?” Sean asked as he entered the lighted area. He scowled as if he’d been sent into a snowstorm to round up a naughty child. “This isn’t the best neighborhood.”

  “I’ll tell the muggers that if I see any.” I winced as I heard myself. I’d tried to sound confident and capable, but my voice came out strained.

  He stepped a little closer, and his scowl disappeared. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine. Peachy. Whatever you say around here.” I sniffed. “Why aren’t you on stage?”

  “We get a break between sets. I could sure use one after that song.” He shook his head. “I forgot what it does to me. What did you think?”

  “The slow one? It...it was very sad.” Trying to turn his attention away from me, I asked, “What is it about?”

  “My dad.” He dropped his cigarette stub and ground it out. “My bandmates say no one cares about that kind of stuff, that I should stick to love songs. But I got all these feelings inside me, and they just have to get out.”

  Why was he telling me this? Had he actually doubted himself? That was something left out of the biographies. But was I supposed to encourage him? Was that interfering with the way his life was supposed to develop?

  Sean stared at me as if waiting for a response, then snorted. “I guess a square like you wouldn’t understand. But I thought....”

  It shouldn’t have stung as much as it did; maybe he’d flayed all of my emotions raw. But I couldn’t let that challenge pass unanswered. I raised my head slowly and shook my hair away. “Your song...it made me think of my mom.”

  Something somber flickered in his eyes. “Your mother?”

  “Yeah. She’s been ill for a long time. I didn’t want to leave her alone and come here, but I had to. Then I found out she...she died.” Fresh tears sprung up from the inexhaustible well inside of me. I wanted to wipe them away, but I didn’t want to draw attention to them.

  Sean touched a rough finger to my damp cheek. “Go ahead, cry for both of us.” His voice had an odd note in it. “I lost my mother too.”

  He pulled me to him. I leaned on his shoulder, put my face on his sweat-soaked leather jacket, and washed it with my tears. He held me awkwardly, as if he didn’t console others often, but I didn’t mind. I knew he had a hard time showing his own emotions at this point in his life, but I also knew he shared mine. And at least for those few moments, the similarity was a comfort, not a bother.

  “Feeling better?” he asked after I stopped.

  “Yeah,” I answered. I felt exhausted but also relieved, like I’d put down a heavy burden. I fumbled around in my purse for a handkerchief.

  “We’ve got to go back in there, you know. I’ve got another set to do.” He wiped a tear track roughly with his thumb. “And you’ve got to get on with your own life. Think you’re up to it?”

  I shrugged. “Don’t have much choice, do I?”

  “The way I see it, you have two choices, you can live or die.” He spat in the street. “Me, I’m going to live, no matter what my parents did to me.”

  He turned, put his hands in his pockets, and sauntered back to the club entrance. I watched him disappear below the street, annoyed with him. Maybe we’d shared a couple moments of sympathy, but he’d returned to his macho, tough guy pose pretty fast. And thanks to him, I’d never be able to trust my own armor of anger again. Now that I’d cried once, it’d be much easier to do it some other time.

  But Sean was right about one thing; protected or vulnerable, I had to get on with my life. And right now, that meant dealing with Sean long enough to steal his DNA so I could return home. I followed him downstairs for the second half of the show.

  * * *

  I bought myself a cup of coffee to warm up. Someone had taken my seat, so I stood in back and listened to the second set. It went much like the first, except Sean was even rowdier, as if he were compensating for his sympathy for me during the break. He jumped around the stage, traded insults with the other musicians, and swore a blue streak when the amps died during a Buddy Holly cover. Cole jury-rigged the amps back to life, and they closed with a wild version of “Shout,” with everyone sharing vocals. They stretched it out to nearly ten minutes and got the audience to join them.

  I didn’t know what to do once the show was over, so I hung around by the stage while Sean and the others put their instruments away. Several other girls waited with me; I discovered they were Cole’s, Willie’s, and Paul’s girlfriends. “We’re going to check out another group playing at a bar near Wrigley,” Paul’s girlfriend said. “Are you and Sean coming?”

  I looked at him, willing to go along with what he wanted. But after staring at me for a minute, he shrugged. “Maybe not tonight. I better get my cousin home before my grandma complains I’m corrupting her.”

  The others teased him a bit, but he ignored them. I have to admit I was glad to go back. Between the traveling, the show, and my breakdown, I was drained enough to sleep for a week. I nearly
nodded off on the bus, but walking to Sean’s house from the bus stop revived me a bit, enough to wonder when I should take the DNA sample. The house was dark; Grandma Mary must have been in bed. Good; one less witness. But could I outlast Sean? He still looked lively enough to dance a jig.

  Sean let us into the kitchen and turned on a light. In the still, dark room, he seemed a menacing figure in his black outfit. I was suddenly conscious of being alone with him. He’d already breached my defenses once tonight; God knew what else he would do to mess up my mind.

  I bundled up my overcoat and purse in my arms. “Thanks for taking me to your show,” I said. “It was really great.”

  “I know,” he said. “The four of us work well together, and people aren’t complaining too much anymore when I slip in my own songs.” He grinned. “Now all I need to do is find a record company that likes them too.”

  “I’m sure you will someday.” I tried to make it sound like casual encouragement, not prophecy. I mimed a yawn. “Now, good night.” I started to leave.

  “Are you really that tired? It’s still early.”

  I turned around and gave him my best are-you-kidding stare. “Not all of us are night owls, Sean. You won’t believe how far I’ve traveled today.”

  “So? Do you have somewhere you have to be tomorrow?” He leered at me. “Or are you afraid I lured you back here under false pretenses?”

  Oh, please. I raised my knee. “You try anything, Sean Franklin Lyon, and you’ll be singing in a higher register at your next show.”

  “You wouldn’t!”

  As tempting as it was, I couldn’t, not with my family’s future in this universe at stake. But he didn’t have to know that. “Are you sure you want to risk it?”

  He chuckled. “I like feisty women, but not when they’re related to me. God knows I have enough of that with my Grandma.” His expression grew solemn. “I just wanted to have a talk. It’s not every day I meet someone with parents as messed up as mine.”

  If he only knew.

  Sean filled a kettle with water and placed it in a ring of flame on the gas stove. Then we sat down at the table. He leaned forward, peering at me as if he had trouble seeing me even at this short distance. “So, wanna talk about them?”

  I took a deep breath, then told him a carefully edited version of my life. The words came easier than I thought they would. Perhaps that was because Sean wasn’t mocking me the way I’d expected him to. He listened closely, occasionally adding his own anecdotes. There were a few times when tears welled in my eyes again, but even though he watched me, I wiped them away and continued with my story. At one point he brought me some strong Irish tea, and it was comforting to hold the steaming mug between my hands.

  “Well, at least this is a good place to make a new start,” Sean said when I’d finished. “What did you say you were going to study again?”

  I decided to be more general this time. “Science.”

  “So you can become a nurse?”

  “No, I want to do research.”

  “Like Einstein?” Sean snorted weakly, as if he were losing energy. “You don’t look much like him.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Irritation chased away my own fatigue. “Women can be scientists too.” I had to stop myself before I added “even in your time.” “Look at Marie Curie. She and her husband isolated radium from pitchblende. She won two Nobel prizes for her work. And Rosalind Franklin, she’s my favorite. I bet you never heard of her, but she managed to take some pictures of DNA that helped Watson and Crick figure out how it was put together.”

  “DNA? What’s that? Desperately Needing Amour?”

  “Not quite. DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. It’s the stuff our genes are made of, the stuff that makes us us.” The stuff that made me so much like him.

  He yawned. “Sounds dull, science. All test tubes and white coats and regular routine jobs. There’s no art in it.”

  “Oh, yes there is.” I set my cup down and leaned forward. “Yeah, sometimes it does get dull, running the same experiment over and over, looking for the answer you want. Most of the time you can’t tell for sure, so you have to change the design of your experiment. Sometimes the experiment works out completely opposite from what you predicted; then you have to change your working theory. But sometimes you get a result that actually tells you something, something that takes you a little farther than you were before, or joins two things you thought were unrelated. That’s the joy in science. And science itself is an art, just like your guitar playing. I had to practice the techniques over and over until I got good at them, and I’m always trying to learn new ones. And then you have to learn how to work with other scientists too, so your combined efforts make sense, not a bunch of noise….” I realized I’d gone on too long. “Anyway, maybe you don’t see much beauty in science, but if you knew as much about it as I do, you would.”

  Sean stared at me, eyes wide, for what felt like a long time. One hand crept towards the pocket of his jacket, as if he wanted a cigarette, but he jerked it back. “Maybe you’re not so much like me after all,” he said finally.

  Maybe you’re not so much like me… it was like hearing the key open the lock of my prison door. I’d told George I was different from Sean, but I hadn’t been sure. But now, after having experienced him and his world, I knew I wasn’t him. Hearing it directly from Sean, from an unkempt, shortsighted, witty, and dominating Sean, still smelling of smoke and sweat, weariness showing on his face, confirmed it. No matter how many times people had compared me to Sean before, or how many times they would do it for the rest of my life, I would know the truth. And the truth would set me free.

  “I’m not you.” I grinned as I looked Sean in the eyes. “I’m not you.”

  He frowned. “Well, you needn’t sound so pleased about it.”

  I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “Never mind,” I said as he raised his eyebrows. “It’s a personal matter.”

  We finished our tea and talked about everything: books, music, and the differences between California and Chicago. He was an excellent conversationalist; if he didn’t have something intelligent to say about a topic, he’d crack a joke. I had a hard time keeping up with him, especially since I didn’t want to talk about things that didn’t exist yet and didn’t know much about California in this time period.

  Sean seemed more open and friendly during our talk than he had before. I wanted to confide in him, tell him who I really was and what I was doing here. But I didn’t dare. For one thing, he might not have believed me, and if he did, I couldn’t believe he’d agree to let me sample his DNA. Everything I knew about him suggested he wouldn’t like the idea of being cloned. Sean changed his mind more often than he did his clothes, but on something like this I couldn’t expect him to agree at any time. Odds were, he’d only get furious at me and kick me out, leaving me stranded here.

  Our conversation slowed. I pushed my exhausted brain cells to the limit, trying to think of a way I could feel out Sean’s opinions on a procedure that for him existed only in science fiction. Suddenly I realized he was breathing heavily. “Sean?”

  He was slumped forward, head resting against his arm, lips slightly open as he blew air through them. He’d taken off his leather jacket; maybe that’s why he seemed younger than he really was.

  Even legends of rock and roll have to sleep sometime.

  I couldn’t believe I’d outlasted him. This would be my best chance to sample him without his knowledge—assuming he didn’t wake up. I watched him for several moments to make sure he didn’t. I tried to think of other alternatives to this—sampling someone else, or even doing a little genetic surgery on my own DNA to pass it off as his. But I didn’t have the equipment to do that. More importantly, it was just as unethical to falsify a sample as it was to take it without his permission. I’d known all along I’d have to do this; I might as well get the dirty deed over with.

  I pulled a sampler out of my purse, then rose and approached him. “Forgi
ve me,” I whispered. “You’re still unique no matter how many copies my uncle wants.”

  He slept on, offering me no absolution.

  I clicked the sampler open, exposing the tip. I gently pried Sean’s lips apart with one hand and ran the tip over the lining of his mouth. There were plenty of freshly-shed cells there. Some of the cells would still be alive and proliferate in the human-cell-specific medium stored in the sampler. For good measure, I opened the other end of the sample, which contained a preservative, and collected more cells. I covered both ends to prevent contamination, then opened a slit in the center for airflow.

  Sean didn’t feel a thing.

  I contemplated the sampler, admiring its microscopic contents. The cells I had just gathered contained forty-six chromosomes in twenty-three pairs. If I took all the chromosomes from just one cell and carefully laid them end to end, they’d stretch out to about two meters, a little longer than Sean himself. But evolution had packaged the DNA so neatly it all fit in a space just a millionth of a meter across. And in the approximately 30,000 genes encoded in all this DNA were instructions for making one human Caucasian male, thin, black-haired and blue-eyed, with a long nose, bad eyesight, and musical and linguistic gifts.

  Who says there’s no poetry in science?

  I collected a second sample as a backup, then labeled both samplers with Sean’s name, my own, and the date. All I had to do now was make sure they were kept at room temperature and received adequate airflow. And turn them over to Pluckenreck so my uncle could create a clone to exploit. I grimaced at the thought.

  I hid the samplers back in my purse, then shook Sean. “Sean, Sean, wake up! Wake up and go to bed.”

  When I did rouse him, he was too tired to appreciate the joke. I helped him make his way over to the sofa, where Grandma Mary had laid out a blanket, pillow, and a change of clothes for him. He lay down, still fully clothed. “Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?” he mumbled as I tucked him in.