by Bill Myers
Murkoski continued his lecture. “You’re right, though. Studies of identical twins raised apart, in entirely different environments, usually show they have similar characteristics. Not only in IQ, but in personality traits like boldness, aggressiveness, inhibition. In fact, the Center for Twin and Adoption Research at the University of Minnesota has data on twin brothers separated from birth who actually preferred the same cologne, the same hair cream, even the same imported toothpaste. Then there were the separated twin sisters who counted themselves to sleep in exactly the same manner.”
Murkoski produced a milky white pair of latex gloves and snapped them on. “Or the results from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development. Through selective breeding, they’ve managed to create different families of rhesus monkeys with entirely different personalities: some shy, others outgoing, and others aggressive.”
Coleman watched with a slight uneasiness as Murkoski inserted the needle into the vial and extracted a small amount of clear liquid. He was supposed to be receiving blood. Why the injection?
“There are dozens of other studies. But the one you’ll find most interesting is the Danish family with an abnormal history of violence. One of the brothers raped his sister, then stabbed the warden at his psychiatric prison. Another tried to run over his employer. Another forced his sisters to undress at knifepoint, and two more were arsonists.”
“Not exactly the Brady Bunch.”
“And the cause?” Murkoski didn’t wait for an answer. “An abnormally low level of serotonin.”
“Serotonin?”
“Yes.” He tapped the bubbles out and carefully inspected the syringe. “It’s a chemical, Mr. Coleman. A neurotransmitter that reduces aggression. One, I might point out, that is present in thirty percent lower quantities in men than women — which may explain why nine out of every ten violent crimes are committed by males. It also takes a dip during adolescence, which no doubt accounts for their erratic behavior. Pull up your shirtsleeve, please.”
Coleman obliged, pulling up his government-issued goldenrod shirt while watching Murkoski’s every move. “And all of this has been proven?”
“Absolutely. Unusually low amounts of serotonin have been linked to violent criminals, suicides, even arsonists. In fact, one researcher now at Columbia University was able to create a strain of mice lacking fourteen serotonin receptors.”
“And?”
Murkoski crossed to the glass-enclosed cupboard of drugs, laid the syringe down on a metal shelf, and reached for a cotton swab and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. “They became wildly impulsive. Incredibly violent. In fact, and you will appreciate this as well, they are often referred to as ‘Killer Mice.’ ” He smiled at his joke.
Coleman didn’t bother. “This Danish family, they all have low levels of serotonin?”
“Genetically, all the men lacked monoamine oxidase, MAO, an enzyme directly linked to the production of serotonin. And keep in mind that serotonin is just one of dozens of classical neurotransmitters that we inherit. And who knows how many undiscovered neuroreceptors we may have.” Murkoski stepped back toward him and began swabbing his arm with the alcohol. “We’ve discovered an ‘obese gene’ that tells us when to stop eating. We’ve even altered the genes in male fruit flies to make them behave like females.”
“Why isn’t all this publicized?”
“Oh, it is. But right now genetic behavior, the study of how we act because of our heredity, is a political hot potato. Everyone’s afraid to touch it because of the race and bigotry connotations. In fact, the National Institute of Mental Health has yanked funding from at least one study because they’re afraid of the repercussions.”
“That people will judge others because of their genes instead of who they are.”
Murkoski stepped back to the counter, dropped the alcohol swab in the trash can, and picked up the syringe. “You still don’t get it, do you? People are their genes, Mr. Coleman. You have no choice. You are the result of chemicals received from your parents, who received similar chemicals from their parents, and so on and so forth, all the way back to our primordial ancestors.”
“And you’re going to change all that?”
Murkoski shrugged and approached with the needle. “We’ll soon find out. It’s certainly been the case with our mice and with Freddy.”
“Freddy?”
“Our baboon. His behavior has dramatically shifted to something much less aggressive. But as far as what he or the mice or any other lab animals actually feel, we have no idea. We can measure their heart rate and blood pressure, but we don’t know what they’re thinking.”
“Enter Michael Coleman.”
“Precisely.” He took Coleman’s arm with his left hand and prepared to insert the needle with his right.
“What’s in there?”
“A retrovirus.”
“A what?”
“A retrovirus. Like HIV.”
“Hold it.” Coleman pulled away.
“Relax. All of the harmful elements have been genetically removed.”
“You’re injecting me with the AIDS virus.”
Murkoski laughed. “No, I’m injecting you with a virus that works in a way similar to the AIDS virus. But it has been genetically altered. There’s no way it can reproduce itself inside you.”
“I thought you were giving me blood. What happened to the blood of Christ?” Coleman looked and sounded like a little boy making excuses not to get his shot, but at the moment he didn’t much care.
“For starters there’s no guarantee whose blood we’ve discovered. But for argument’s sake let’s say it is Christ’s. This virus holds the code for one of the genes of his blood. We inserted that code into this virus, so that when the virus attacks your own blood, your T cells, it will infect them with his DNA. And that’s the crux of it. For reasons we don’t fully understand, this new blood alters the function of certain neurotransmitters and receptors. As a result, we wind up with a brand-new Michael Coleman. Now will you hold still, please.”
Coleman hesitated a moment longer before finally submitting. The tiny prick of the needle was barely noticeable. And the burn of five cc’s being pumped into his vein was over before it began.
“So you’re not giving me his blood, you’re changing my blood into his.”
Murkoski nodded. “You’re receiving part of his genetic code.”
“But not all of it.”
Again Murkoski nodded. “That’s correct. You’ll receive one gene in particular, along with the usual junk DNA.”
“Junk DNA?”
“Portions of DNA we don’t understand. Probably mistakes in nature left over from when we were swinging in the trees as apes.”
“When will it start?”
“Start, Mr. Coleman?”
“When will his DNA start infecting me?”
“Why, Mr. Coleman, it’s already begun.”
CHAPTER 4
A FIVE-YEAR-OLD five-year-old face looks through the rectangular holes of a wire fence. He shivers violently; tears stream down smudged cheeks, leaving tracks through the dirt. He looks like a younger Michael Coleman, but he isn’t. He is wearing only his underwear.
“Please,” he cries, “please don’t leave me here!”
He’s outside, and it’s winter. There are no colors. Everything is black and gray and white. The rolling hills are covered with hundreds of acres of cornstalks sheered off at their base. It is near Coleman’s home.
“Please, Mikey, don’t leave me here. Please!”
Coleman is there. He’s sitting on a thick tree branch fifteen feet above the boy. It’s his little brother, Eddie, trapped inside an empty corncrib. The floor is concrete, about twelve feet in diameter, with a wire fence rising high above him and topped by a cone-shaped aluminum roof. Someone has shoved a large log up against the gate. They are the only ones there. The nearest farmhouse is over a mile away. The winter wind howls and bites.
“Please, Mikey…”
But Coleman doesn’t notice the wind as much as he notices the smell. Raw chicken. The disgusting smell of uncooked chicken fat and flesh, an odor Mom can never completely wash from her hands. Some adults have vivid childhood memories of smells: their father’s aftershave, the mixture of cut grass and gasoline from mowing the lawn, Grandma’s musty basement. Coleman’s only memory is the smell of his mother’s hands after she has put in eight grueling hours at the Campbell’s Soup factory. Like many of the poorer women in Tecumseh, Nebraska, her job is to debone and eviscerate the birds, removing their skeletons and scooping out their guts.
“Please…”
Coleman looks back down. His brother is small and frail, shivering in the crib. In fact, he looks so helpless that Coleman has to laugh. He can’t help himself. It serves Eddie right. If Dad always beats Coleman and lets Eddie go, then this is only fair. Eddie’s perfect little world must be shattered from time to time. Of course this isn’t Eddie’s first wake-up call, nor will it be the last. It is Coleman’s self-appointed task to even the score and prepare his sibling for the hardships of the real world, a task in which Coleman revels.
But as he sits in the tree laughing, a cold shiver runs through him — a shiver that has nothing to do with the wind. He isn’t sure whether he hears it or senses it. But somebody is there.
“Mikey, my feet don’t got no feeling.”
He squints into the wind, searching the field. He and Eddie are the only ones there. And yet — there it is again. A cracking sound, below him and behind. He twists around until he can see behind the tree. Nothing. Just a rusting, ’58 Ford pickup with one door sprung, the other missing.
“Please, Mikey. I won’t tell, I promise.”
There it is again. Twigs snapping. Right below him. He looks underneath.
Nothing.
Now he hears grunting. Grunting and the sound of heavy boots scraping against bark.
“Please, Mikey…”
It’s coming after him. Whoever is there is climbing the tree and coming after him. The grunting grows louder. But Coleman sees no one. He can only hear the scraping bark and the grunting. He panics, scrambling to his feet.
“Mikey …”
He nearly loses his balance and throws himself against the trunk for support. The noise approaches. He frantically searches for a getaway. There is none.
Now, all at once, he feels a different cold. Harsher. It’s no longer the cold of his fear, but the cold of the wind. Eddie’s cold. He shivers violently. The sound is closer. He thinks he hears breathing. His father’s breathing. He is certain of it.
“Mikey…”
His teeth chatter. He shivers so hard that he must cling to the tree for balance. He hears clothes flapping in the wind. But not Coleman’s clothes. They belong to the father he can neither see nor hear. The cold is intense. Before he knows it, he is also crying.
He looks back down at Eddie. Amazing. Their sobs are in perfect synchronization. As his little brother gasps, he gasps. As Eddie sobs, Coleman sobs. He is sharing his brother’s fear, his loneliness, and feeling the icy wind — the awful, icy wind that will not stop until —
Coleman awoke. It took a moment for him to catch his breath and realize that he’d been dreaming. He tried to move, but the blanket had wrapped around him in a knot. Angrily, he untangled it and flung it aside. Throwing his feet over the edge of the bed, he took another deep breath, forcing reality to return.
The incident was real, though he hadn’t thought of it in years. Nor had he ever had a dream quite so vivid. Yet what really unnerved him was the empathy, the remorse. Michael Coleman had never felt anything for any of his victims. But now, he had experienced his brother’s emotions — the cold, the terror, the unbearable ache of being alone and abandoned.
Coleman ran his hands over his face and noticed something even more startling. His cheeks were wet. But not from sweat. Moisture had filled his eyes and spilled onto his face. And when he swallowed, his throat was tight and constricted.
He rose and stepped across to the window. The moon hung over the horizon. It was full and flooded the yard with a serene stillness. Its stark light glinted off the rolls of razor wire atop the fence and bathed the distant highway in silence. Nearly two miles across the road, grain elevators he had never noticed before glowed in the moonlight. It was the most beautiful thing Coleman had ever seen. The ache in his throat grew stronger.
“Don’t tell me you’re going like that.”
“Why not?” Katherine shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny of Lisa. The downstairs neighbor was a disgustingly slender twenty-five-year-old, with rich, ebony skin. She stood in the bathroom doorway carefully checking Katherine out. Lisa had agreed to watch Eric while Katherine had her evening on the town with Mr. Paris.
“It’s a new world out there, girl. If you want his interest, you’ve got to advertise.”
Katherine turned to check her profile in the bathroom mirror. The moderately cut dress of burgundy crepe hung well, accenting her figure and covering the slightest trace of a pooch she’d been fighting. “It’s the best thing I own. Besides, I think it’s flattering.”
“Flattering?”
“Yeah.”
“Flattering? Nobody wants flattering. When’s the last time you were on the dating scene?”
“I, uh —” Katherine resumed fluffing her cropped hair, trying her best to give it some body. “I grew up pretty sheltered, being a preacher’s kid and all.”
“Your daddy was a minister?”
Katherine ignored Lisa’s surprised tone. “That was long ago and far away.”
“I should say so, girl. What about your old man?”
“Gary and I, we met as freshmen in Bible college, so —”
“So you don’t know nothing, do you?”
Katherine continued working her hair, pretending not to hear.
Lisa glanced at her watch. “What time are you meeting him?”
“He’ll be here at 8:00 to pick me up.”
“Here?”
“Well, yeah.”
“You invited him here?”
“It’s not like I’m not going to ask him inside.”
“Girl, have you ever heard of stalkers, rapists —”
“Sure, but —”
“Muggers, perverts? You think he’s going to wait for an invitation if he wants to assault you?”
Katherine reached for the half-empty glass of wine on the counter. Lisa was immediately at her side, removing it from her hands and setting it beside the sink. “And this you save for later. Till you make the decision. Otherwise, you need all your wits about you.”
“Lisa —”
“It’s a jungle out there, survival of the fittest. And you never let some man know where you live. Not till you check him out. Even then you don’t invite him back here. Always go to his place.”
“He lives on a boat in the marina.”
“I don’t care if he lives in a pup tent. You never, never invite a guy to your place. At least not till the second or third date.”
“It’s a little late now,” Katherine said as she reached for her glass. “He’s going to be here in fifteen minutes.”
Lisa shook her head. “All right, all right.” She raised her hands as if making a magnanimous offer. “I’ll stay till the two of you leave. That way he’ll think I’m baby-sitting here.”
“Thanks.”
“But that dress…”
“The dress is perfect.”
“Have it your way. What about that makeup?”
Katherine gave her a look.
Lisa folded her arms and waited for an answer.
“I always use this mascara, and I bought the lipstick special to highlight the dress.”
“That’s it? Lipstick and mascara?”
“And blush.”
“Don’t go away, I’ll be right back.”
Ten minutes later, Lisa finished applying a hasty combination of concealer, found
ation cream, powder, blush, eyeliner, lipstick liner, lipstick, and peach, emerald, and almond-roast eye shadows. “Now put your finger in your mouth, wrap your lips around it, and pop it out.”
Katherine followed her order, making a little popping sound. “Like this?”
“Perfect.”
“What does that do?”
“Keeps the lipstick off your teeth.” Finally Lisa stepped back to carefully inspect her work.
“So what do you think?” Katherine asked skeptically.
“See for yourself.”
Katherine rose from the edge of the bathtub, crossed to the mirror, and gasped. “I look like a hooker!”
Lisa grinned. “Exactly.”
The doorbell rang. Instant panic. “Oh, my gosh, he’s here.” For the briefest second the two women were fourteen years old again.
“I’ll get it,” Eric called from the bedroom where he was working on his computer.
“No, sweetheart, let me get that.” Dashing into her bedroom, she grabbed her white shawl, threw it on, and spun around to Lisa, who had followed her in. “What do you think?”
Lisa tried to smile while reaching out to adjust the bottom of the shawl. “Well, at least he won’t try anything.”
“Lisa —”
The doorbell rang again.
Lisa pushed her toward the door. “Go go go.”
One last adjustment of the hair, and Katherine headed down the hallway of the apartment, into the living room, and to the front door. “Who is it?”
“Thaddeus Paris.”
Katherine threw a forlorn look back at Lisa, mouthing, “Thaddeus?”
Lisa shrugged, and Katherine motioned for her to step back out of sight. Reluctantly, Lisa agreed.
“Hello?” came the voice.
Katherine reached for the dead bolt and slid it back. She could hear her heart pounding in her ears. Then, with a breath to steady herself, she opened the door.
Mr. Paris stood in the hall wearing white Reeboks, designer jeans a couple sizes too small, and a burgundy sweatshirt with Just Do It printed across the front. To complete the ensemble, a laptop computer hung from his shoulder.
