by John Saul
“I know who you are,” Sally said, withdrawing her hand from his grasp and slipping it under the sheet “What I don’t understand is why you want to talk to me.”
“I need help,” Randolph said. “May I sit down?”
Sally nodded.
“I need to know exactly what you found out about what you’ve been calling Group Twenty-one. I gather you found evidence that their flaw may have been caused by some external stimulus.”
“You know that better than I, Mr. Randolph.”
“All I know, Mrs. Montgomery,” Randolph said earnestly, “is that a number of years ago our Institute came upon a genetic irregularity which we’ve recently named the GT-active factor. It’s very complicated, but basically what it means is that in certain children there is a normally functionless genetic combination called an intron that for some reason has become functional. It has to do with the enzyme bases that mark the beginning and end of the intron sequences in DNA. For some reason, the guanine-thymine sequence, which normally marks the beginning of an intron, has failed in these children. We’ve only recently identified which intron it is that has become active.”
Sally’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “But you’ve been tracking these children for years, she pointed out.”
“Because of a hormone present in their bodies in higher quantities than is normal,” Bandolph explained. “Hormones, as you may know, are produced under the direction of DNA, Just as are all the other compounds in the body. We suspected a genetic irregularity because of the hormone, but it was only recently that we were able to trace it to the GT-active factor. Our next step will be to determine the source of the factor itself, which, until now, we’ve assumed was hereditary—a combination of the genetic structures of the parents that produces the GT-active factor. But apparently you’ve discovered evidence to the contrary.”
“Yes,” Sally said, “I have.” Slowly, she began to repeat the story that had begun the night her daughter had died. She talked steadily for nearly an hour, while Paul Randolph sat listening to her, taking occasional notes, but never interrupting her. When she finished, she sank, exhausted, into the pillows, then stared bitterly at Randolph. “But you knew all about it,” she said. “It was all there, and it all pointed directly to CHILD. You killed our children, and you kidnaped them, Mr. Randolph.”
Paul Randolph avoided her gaze, rose, and drifted distractedly toward the window. When he finally began speaking, his back was still to the room. “You’re partly right, of course. We did kidnap some children, Mrs. Montgomery. In fact, the next child we intended to take is your son, Jason.”
As Sally gasped, Steve rose to his feet, his hands clenched into white-knuckled fists. But then Randolph turned around, his face slack and his eyes bleak. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” he said softly, “but your son is dying.”
Sally flinched. “No!” she cried. “Jason’s not dying. He’s fine! He’s never been sick a day in—”
“None of them are, Mrs. Montgomery,” Randolph said quietly. Though his voice was soft, there was a tone to it that demanded the attention of everyone in the room. “That’s what makes the whole thing so incredibly difficult. These children, the children with the GT-active factor, seem healthy. They are healthy, incredibly so. The hormone appears to be triggered by trauma. That is, any damage to the tissue of these children from any source whatsoever—germs, viruses, injuries—triggers production of the hormone. And the hormone, in turn, spurs tissue regeneration. These children have a regenerative ability that is nothing short of miraculous. Damaged tissue which should normally take days or weeks to repair itself regenerates in a matter of minutes, sometimes even seconds.”
Sally’s eyes met Steve’s as they each remembered the incidents with Jason—the acid, the boiling fudge, the fight with Joey Connors. The unexplainable was suddenly explained.
Reluctantly, she turned her attention back to Randolph. “But you said Jason was—was dying.”
“And he is, Mrs. Montgomery. That’s the other side of the coin. Although the hormone makes the children appear abnormally healthy, in the end it kills them. It’s as if at some point the hormone has drawn on every bit of energy these children possess, and they die. From what we know, they simply seem to burn out. With the little girls it happens very quickly. So far none of them have survived past the age of one year. With the boys the process is slower. Some of them have lived to be nine. None has lived to see his tenth birthday. And that’s why we kidnaped some of them.”
“Did it occur to you that kidnaping is a federal crime, Mr. Randolph?” Steve asked, his voice crackling with indignation.
“Of course it did,” Randolph snapped. “But in the end, it was the only possible course of action.”
Steve stared at the distinguished-looking man with a mixture of revulsion and curiosity. “In the end?”
“When we began to understand what was happening, we tried to explain the situation to some of the parents. We wanted to put the children under twenty-four-hour-a-day observation. Needless to say, the parents refused. And why wouldn’t they? There was nothing wrong with their children, nothing at all. It was impossible to make them understand what the problem was.”
“So you began stealing the children?” Sally asked.
“Not at first. We simply kept track of them. You know how—you discovered our tracking system. But two years ago it became obvious to us that all the children were going to die. One way or another, the parents were going to lose them. So we took them, hoping that we could eventually discover how the burn-out phenomenon was triggered. So far, we haven’t succeeded. But at least now we seem to know the source of the problem.” He paused. “Wiseman.”
“No,” Sally objected. “It wasn’t Dr. Wiseman. It couldn’t have been. When he found out what was happening, he killed himself.”
“Because he thought he’d been used, or because he knew he’d been caught?” Randolph countered.
“What are you saying?”
“Did you know that Arthur Wiseman was something of an expert in genetics?”
Sally looked puzzled, and Mark Malone frowned. “Even I didn’t know that,” he said.
“I don’t see what—” Sally began, but Randolph interrupted her.
“If these children were somehow made the victims of some form of recombinant DNA, and apparently they were, it happened in Arthur Wiseman’s office. He told Malone about a salve he used, which he claimed he got from PharMax. PharMax has never heard of it. It seems to me that Wiseman must have devised it himself.”
“But why?” Sally flared. “Why would he do it?”
“Science,” Randolph told her. “There are people in the world, Mrs. Montgomery, for whom research and experimentation exist for their own sake. They feel no responsibility for whatever they might create. For them, creation and discovery are fulfillment in themselves. Such people have no thoughts about the final results of what they are doing, no concern about any possible moral issues. Knowledge is to be sought, and used. If you can do something, you must do it. And if Wiseman found a way to alter the human form, the temptation to do so must have been overwhelming. It probably wasn’t until this morning that the consequences of what he’d done became clear to him. And so he buried the evidence. There’s nothing in the computer anymore, Mrs. Montgomery. No records of which children bear the GT-active factor, no records of which women were treated with Wiseman’s compound. Nothing.” He sank into a chair and shook his head. “I’m not sure we can ever rebuild those records.”
Sally lay still, trying to sort it all out. Was he telling her the truth?
He wasn’t. Deep inside, Sally was sure that he was lying to her, or, if not lying, then telling her only a part of the truth. After all, she reflected, he had admitted to having kidnaped Randy Corliss.
Had he also, somehow, killed Randy’s parents and Carl Bronski?
Again, she wasn’t certain. Of one thing, though, she was very sure.
What she had found out, or thought
she had found out, had been taken away from her. There was no way she could get it back again. It was all probably still there, buried somewhere in the memory bank of a computer, but so deeply buried and expertly covered that she would never be able to dig it up.
And if she tried, she would very likely be killed.
And I, Sally thought silently to herself, am not going to be killed. I am going to tell this man whatever he wants to hear, and I am going to stay alive and raise my son.
My son.
Jason. Was he dying? Or was that, too, a lie? For that question, only time itself would provide an answer.
Sally pulled herself into a sitting position and carefully smoothed the sheets over her torso. Then she made herself meet Paul Randolph’s eyes.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Thank you for coming here and telling me all this. You can’t know what it’s been like. “It’s been a nightmare.”
“One that’s over now, Mrs. Montgomery.” He paused. “Except for the children.”
“Yes,” Sally breathed. “Except for the children. What can we do?”
Randolph made a helpless gesture. “I wish I could tell you. Watch them. Love them. Try to make their lives as happy as you can. And hope.”
“Hope?” Sally asked. “Hope for what? You said none of them has lived to reach the age of ten.”
“And so they haven’t, Mrs. Montgomery. But we know practically nothing about this. Maybe some of them will live. Maybe your son, maybe Randy Corliss. All we can do is watch and hope.”
“Randy Corliss.” Sally repeated the name, then looked to Steve. “What’s going to happen to him?”
Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. He probably has relatives—”
“I want him.”
“Sally—”
“Steve, I want us to take care of him. I—well, I feel as though he almost belongs to us now. The way he is, and Jason. Oh, Steve, we’ve got to take care of him. We owe it to Lucy and Jim.”
“Sally, we’ve got to think about this—”
“No, Steve. We’ve got to do it. And if you don’t want to, then I’ll do it alone.” Her voice suddenly dropped to a whisper. “Besides, it’s only going to be for a little while.”
Steve swallowed hard, knowing he wouldn’t refuse Sally’s request And yet, even as he gave in, he began to wonder what was going to happen to him when each of the boys died. Would it be as it had been with Julie?
He had to talk to Sally about it, and he had to talk to her alone. He glanced up at Mark Malone, and the young doctor, reading the look, signaled to Paul Randolph. “I think we’d better leave these two alone for a while, Mr. Randolph.”
Paul Randolph rose. “Of course,” he said gently. He moved to offer his hand to Steve, but the gesture was refused. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry to have had to tell you all this, but sooner or later, it had to come out.” Then, with Malone following him, he left the room.
As soon as they were alone, Sally’s eyes locked onto Steve’s.
“He’s lying,” she said. “He’s lying about everything.”
“Sally—”
She ignored his interruption. “It’s over, Steve. I’ve lost. There’s nothing I can do except take care of those boys and pretend nothing’s wrong. Otherwise they’ll kill me. Just like they killed Lucy and Jim and Carl.”
“And what about me?” Steve asked.
Sally avoided his eyes. “I don’t know, Steve. I don’t expect you to believe me. I know what Randolph said sounded reasonable. But I simply do not believe him.”
“Then we’ll do it your way,” Steve said. He sat down on the bed and gathered Sally into his arms. “Whatever happens from here on out, we’ll do it your way.” He drew her closer and felt her body stiffen. Then suddenly Sally relaxed. Her arms slid around Steve’s neck.
“Hold me,” she whispered. “Oh, please, just hold me for a minute.”
They clung to each other, wondering what pain the future held for them, and how they would cope with it.
Whatever it was, they would face it together.
Mark Malone led Paul Randolph into his office and closed the door behind him.
“They didn’t buy it,” he said. “At least she didn’t.”
“No,” Randolph replied. “She didn’t. But I let her know that she’ll never prove a thing, and I gave her Wiseman. There’ll be just enough doubt in her mind to keep her quiet.”
“Until Jason dies.”
For the first time that day, Paul Randolph smiled.
“That’s the most beautiful part of it,” he said. “Hamlin doesn’t think Jason Montgomery or Randy Corliss is going to die. It looks like the project’s a success, Mark.”
Mark Malone opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the thick stack of printouts that Sally had gleaned from the computer. He handed them to Randolph, his expression serious.
“You and Hamlin might be interested in seeing just how far Sally’d gotten,” he said. “Next time, I think you’d better make sure no one can trace you.” Then his face brightened, and he reached into the drawer once more, this time bringing out the bottle of Cognac he’d bought on the day the God Project had begun. For ten long years he’d been the project’s watchdog. Today he was its savior. He broke the seal and poured them each a generous shot.
“Here’s to the future,” he said. “And all the wonderful creatures man is about to become.”
Epilogue
Three Years Later
SALLY MONTGOMERY FACED HER REFLECTION in the mirror with resignation. Her eyes seemed to have sunk deep within their sockets, and her hair, only three years ago a deep and luxuriant brown, had faded to a lifeless gray. Around her eyes, crow’s feet had taken hold and her forehead was creased with worry. And yet, even as she examined the deterioration, she felt no urge to fight it, but only a sense of relief that for her, the pain might soon be over.
It was The Boys who had done it to her.
She no longer thought of Jason as her son, nor of Randy Corliss as her foster son. To her, they had become The Boys. Strange, alien beings she neither knew nor trusted.
It had not been that way at first. At first they had been her children, both of them, with Randy Corliss filling the void in her life that had been left when Julie died. Even now she could remember the flood of emotion that had nearly overwhelmed her when she had gone to see Randy in his room at Eastbury Community Hospital.
He had lain still in bed, his eyes wide, his face expressionless. An image had flashed through her mind of pictures she had seen of children rescued from the concentration camps after World War II, their bodies emaciated, their hair fallen out from starvation, their eyes vacant, bodies and minds numbed by years of unspeakable abuse.
But Randy’s skin had been ruddy that day, and the lack of hair had given his head an oddly inhuman appearance. And in his eyes, instead of the look of pain and sorrow that Sally had expected, there had been curiosity, and a certain strange detachment.
“They’re dead, aren’t they?” he had asked. “Mom and Dad got killed in the fire, didn’t they?”
“Yes,” she had said, sitting by his bed and taking his hand in hers. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Randy.”
“What’s going to happen to me?”
At the time, Sally had attributed the question, and the lack of response to his parents’ deaths, to shock. She had explained to him that she and Steve were going to take care of him, and that he and Jason would be like brothers now.
Randy had smiled, then gone to sleep.
That had been the beginning.
The next day, she and Steve had taken Randy home and begun the wait. Every moment of every day and night they kept the vigil, waiting for the moment when Jason or Randy would suddenly, with no warning whatever, stop breathing and die.
But it hadn’t happened. First the days, then the weeks and months, had slipped by and the boys grew and appeared to thrive. Slowly, imperceptibly, Sally and Steve began to let their guard down. Instead
of watching for the boys’ deaths, they began planning for their lives. After the end of the first year, when Randy turned eleven, and Jason was just past ten, they took them to Mark Malone for their monthly examination. When he was done with the boys, Dr. Malone spoke to Steve and Sally in his office.
“They’re remarkable in every way,” he said. “They’re both large for their age and unusually well developed. It seems almost as if the GT-active factor, as well as protecting them, allows them to mature more quickly than normal children.”
“What does that mean?” Sally asked. “I mean, for them?”
“I’m not sure,” Malone admitted. “It could mean nothing, but it could be a first sign of premature aging. It could be that while they’ll live very healthy lives, they’ll live short lives, even if the burn-out syndrome is never triggered. But that’s just speculation,” he assured them. “Frankly, with these boys, there’s no way of telling what might happen. All we can do is wait and see.”
The waiting had gone on for two more years. During those years the boys had grown closer and closer, their personalities taking on each other’s traits, until both Sally and Steve had unconsciously fallen into the habit of speaking to them as if they were a single unit. What was told to one would be passed on to the other. The blame for things gone wrong that was assigned to one was assumed by the other. What Randy did, Jason did, and vice versa.
They had no friends, being sufficient unto themselves, but Sally and Steve were never sure whether it was merely that the boys had no need for outside stimulation or whether such stimulation had become unavailable to them.
There had been incidents.
The worst of them had been what Sally had come to think of as The Circus.
It had occurred after the Barnum & Bailey extravaganza had played in Boston, and all the children of the neighborhood had decided to duplicate the show. Most of them, in the end, had decided that being a clown was the better part of valor, but Jason and Randy, though not invited to participate, had provided the thrills.
Their slack-rope act had not bothered Sally, for she had watched them prepare it, worried at first that they might hurt themselves, but impressed in the end that they had had the foresight to learn the trick of balancing on a rope at a low level. Only when they had become confident of themselves had they begun raising the rope, until eventually both of them were able to walk it with ease at a height of ten feet.
