Reunion
Page 22
“See this,” Harry lowered his voice. “This is what you were fighting against. She’s our daughter. Are you going to deny her, too?”
By now, sweat was raining down Ulbricht’s face. The reporters were in the process of snapping the baby’s picture, and Harry shielded her face with his hand. It wasn’t as if he was ashamed of how she looked. He simply didn’t want anyone to start her on a crying jag.
“She’s... she’s a baby,” Ulbricht said with a touch of wonder.
“A human baby,” Anastasia corrected him and the look of feline yet human fury shone out from her eyes. “But even if she looked like us, she’d still be a citizen of this country. That’s all we ever wanted. And in the future, she might change. We don’t know. If she does, then she does. She’s our daughter, though, and she deserves the same chance as anyone. Are you going to tell the reporters here she doesn’t get it? If we have to make a federal case out of this, we will. Guess what? You’ll lose.”
Her words hit home and the cameramen swung their cameras in Ulbricht’s direction in order to capture the priceless moment. With a shaky hand, he squeezed out his handkerchief and ran it once more over his temples.
After swallowing hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, he said, “The United States government is fully aware of and supportive of your rights. I will back that motion in Congress. You have the freedom to work at any position with any company that will hire you.”
“Even the companies doing transgenic research?” Harry asked as he passed his daughter back to his wife, who cradled her, whispering loving words and cooing. Sara Emily did what all babies did. She snuggled close to her mother and fell asleep.
As for Harry, he was thinking about InterTech, the company he’d had an interview with only a short time ago. If they still wanted him, he’d go.
“Even them.”
Anastasia visibly brightened. “Well, isn’t that special.”
Her voice contained only the mildest trace of snark, although Harry felt a lot more was needed in this situation. His wife continued with, “Then I guess we can consider any current and possible future charges against my husband dropped?”
“Yes.”
State of being pissed off over this slimebag’s idiocy over, and now with a sense of growing amusement, Harry noted Ulbricht’s voice as being level. Inside, he had to be raging, but to his credit, he kept up the façade as well as anyone in this situation could. “And I take it we’re free to live anywhere we want?”
Once again, he got a Yes answer.
“Well, then, husband,” Anastasia said as she carefully tucked the baby back in the carriage. “I think we can go now.”
A cry from overhead made everyone look up. Harry trained his eyes and ears on the sound and Anastasia pointed. “We have visitors,” she said.
It was Linda, and she had her friends with her. Gracefully flapping their wings, they circled overhead and waved to the crowd below. The reporters trained their cameras on her and her crew as she cried, “Hey Harry, we’ll catch you guys later, okay?”
A moment later, they flew out of range and disappeared. “I guess we’ll have some company in the future,” Anastasia whispered.
This moment deserved a quick quip. “Guess I’ll have to go shopping.”
Overton had been looking on with a huge grin on his face. Now, he came forward to say, “I’ve booked a flight for us back to New York.”
Harry looked at his wife, who picked up the slack. “I think our daughter can make it.”
“To the airport it is,” Overton answered, and ushered them over to a waiting car.
They drove in silence to the airport. Once there, they boarded a commercial jet back to New York, all four of them. Their daughter slept all the way through, and obviously, a number of the passengers craned their necks over to see what the offspring looked like. They seemed rather disappointed, Harry thought, that the baby wasn’t a kitten.
When they arrived in New York, another car waited, and Overton took them back to their cabin. “I suppose it’s useless to ask you to come in for a briefing,” he said once he’d dropped them off. Inside the cabin, Anastasia went to put the baby in her crib and closed the bedroom door to allow the two men some privacy.
In turn, Harry had immediately checked his email. Sure enough, a message from InterTech was there. He read the email, and a sense of joy filled him. The last two lines said it all.
We are very open to having you work with us. Will Wednesday at noon be acceptable as your first day with our company?
Yes, most definitely, yes. Looking up, he offered a friendly smile to the agent. “You know what? A briefing sounds pretty good. How does Wednesday sound? I can come by in the morning. I have... somewhere to go in the afternoon.”
Overton’s gaze flicked briefly at the computer and then back to Harry. Maybe he knew and maybe he didn’t. He only offered a brief nod. “I’ll pick you up at eight. And you can bring your wife and baby, if you want. I’m sure Jason and Maze will want to see both of them.”
After he let himself out, Harry walked into the bedroom. Yes, he’d be seeing Jason and Maze soon enough and he’d also made a promise to visit Josephine. She’d done so much, and he looked forward to seeing her once again.
Anastasia sat beside the crib, staring intently at their daughter. In his mind, Sara Emily outranked every other newborn around. While right now she had the whitest skin and the sweetest little face, all that could change. If she did change, Harry thought, he had the technology at hand to help her—but it would be her choice, though.
And what of the others out there, what would they do and more importantly, would they accept aid? Linda had seemed hardheaded at first, but all the same, earlier on she seemed to be in tune with her body, and her friends seemed to share the same mindset. Watching them fly was a true wonder... and what they could do was equally wondrous.
Still, if they made the decision to transform back, it would be a crime not to help them. When they came forward—if they did—he’d do what he could. That, he silently vowed, would be his mission in life from now on, to help if needed. It was something his father had wanted to do. Now, it was time to continue the legacy...
A tap on his shoulder interrupted his thoughts. He blinked and looked up to find his wife staring at him, her yellow eyes deep and probing. “What are you thinking about?”
Her question snapped him back to reality. “Oh, the future, the past, the present... all of those things,” he answered, trying to introduce a little levity. The horrors of the past had passed. They were buried deep beneath the earth and would never see the light of day again.
A smile, wise and deep, appeared on her face. “For now, let’s think about the present and our little present in the crib.”
“Yeah, that’s the plan.”
Sara Emily chose that moment to wake up and offered a cheeky grin. Her mouth moved as though she wanted to speak. Harry thought it too early, but in this newly formed world of transgenic miracles, he’d learned things happened fast. “Do you want to talk to Mommy and Daddy?”
“Meow,” Sara Emily said, and giggled.
The End
About the Author
J.S. Frankel was born in Toronto, Canada, a good number of years ago, and managed to scrape through university, ending up with a BA in English Literature.
He moved to Japan in 1988, in order to teach English to anyone brave enough to step into his classroom. In 1997, he married the charming Akiko Koike, and their union produced two sons, Kai and Ray.
Frankel and his family live in Osaka where he teaches English by day and strives to write YA during the late hours of the evening. He is the author of the Catnip series, Mr. Taxi, Picture (Im)perfect, Just Another Quiet Little Town, and others novels courtesy of Devine Destinies. He is currently working on three other novels.
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