by Pam Richter
"Oh God," Stephan said, his eye juddering erratically. "When are they arriving?"
"In three days," Alex said, smiling triumphantly. "We'll have to work fast."
* * * * *
Burgess Whitcomb did not believe the preposterous theory that was directing all the covert activity for a second. Two dipsy lawyers had reported to Acquisitions at the Defense Department that a reputed genius inventor/medical doctor had developed a computer that could be implanted into a human brain; that this human-computer could be used as a secret government weapon.
As if that were not enough rubbish, the lawyers also claimed the computer gave the implantee incredible strength and recuperative powers.
Burgess Whitcomb knew it was all a crock of mule manure, and he was extremely irritated that he had been assigned to oversee the investigation in California. He would be surprised if they even found some poor mutilated dead person with his cranium opened and some device inserted inside. Burgess was forced to take the allegations seriously though, even if he found them wacky. This was a top secret, Black Investigation.
Burgess Whitcomb had methodically began the investigation with the career of Ferd Steinbrenner, M.D., Ph.d., biochemist, computer whiz; the creator of numerous surgical and technical inventions currently in use today. In the past, Dr. Steinbrenner had supervised the most delicate brain surgeries, as he had been head of neurological surgery at the University of Chicago.
Dr. Steinbrenner had been awarded medical research grants by the National Institute of Health in Maryland. There was no doubt that the doctor, several times over, was a genius, but Burgess thought that maybe the old guy had gone bats and was raving in his old age about his ability to computerize a person. Still, one had to be impressed with Dr. Steinbrenner's past accomplishments.
Whitcomb was an old military man with a large barrel chest and the precise military bearing that went with the gray brush- cut hair and the large, red veined nose of a heavy whisky drinker. Whitcomb's hooded eyes, whose color remained a mystery because of heavy upper lids, which turned the eyes into permanent slits, were formidable. Even Willard Modert, his able administrator, who now was tapping on Whitcomb's office door, was leery of the man.
"What?" Whitcomb barked at the small, nearly bald man who was nervously fidgeting like an anxious schoolboy in need of a potty break.
"Ivar Cousin called," Willard Modert said. "A tall skinny blond went into the tanning salon and didn't come out. The doctor put a 'Closed' sign in his window. She's been there for hours."
"Tell Cousin and Stoner to follow her when she leaves. Then post another surveillance team."
Modert nodded and left.
In one way Burgess felt himself fortunate because if there was anything to the allegations, the government was not stinting. He had free rein in the amount of personnel he wished to use. First, of course, there had been the men assigned to Dr. Steinbrenner. The problem was, Dr. Steinbrenner seemed to have become a recluse, not leaving his apartment for days on end. Then there was the surprising development that the doctor had opened a tanning salon. At first Burgess thought that surveillance would be a problem, but there seemed to be little doing in the tanning business. The doctor tanned only a couple of people a day. People came out of the salon tinted golden brown, and the doctor had filled out all the necessary city forms to open the business. There was nothing illegal.
One of the investigators, Ivar Cousin, had gone into the tanning salon yesterday morning and exited a spectacular bronze color. He had managed to photograph the appointment book.
Of course, there was also surveillance on the two lawyers. Background data collected to see if they were the ones mentally disordered, but they seemed to be upstanding citizens. There was no aberrant behavior that the investigators could find. The two womanized a lot, but did not seem too kinky, except that they traded back and forth.
The only recourse was to keep the old doc under surveillance. The two lawyers later claimed that the human computer had died. If there had been an experiment that had failed, there should be a body.
The other possibility, preposterous as it seemed, was that there now was a person with a computer in his brain. No one screened in the investigation had had evidence of brain surgery. One would expect bandages or maybe a wig to cover the evidence.
Burgess Whitcomb had even gone so far as to ask Hollywood agents, providing people with special high intelligence in the Los Angeles area for T.V. game shows, to contact him if they found an exceptional genius. He thought it was impossible that such a scheme would come up with anything, but Burgess was a genius himself. At covering his ass. No one would ever say he hadn't capped all the bases. And no one could have risen so high in the government from the military who was not constantly addicted to watching his behind.
* * * * *
There was proof the woman was not human, Sabrina thought as she watched the woman's hand heal. Except she bled bright red blood, not blue or yellow, which would have been more telling.
"Ferd said I was immune to viruses. He was quite stimulated when he said I couldn't catch the 'common cold.' His heart rate went up to ninety. Evidently my hearing is also excellent."
"Did Ferd say why he made you?" Sabrina asked.
"To be a new offshoot of mankind and to obey. But I'm not an offshoot of man. I am a descendent of woman. You specifically."
"Right," Sabrina said, and smiled genuinely for the first time since waking up in the tanning salon. "The concept that mankind came from women first is one that many find hard to accept."
"Why?"
"It's like the chicken and the egg. Which came first. One religion teaches that the first woman was made from a man's rib."
"The egg came first. And I read about the rib. It must be a myth because the theory does not seem very probable, although I had the capacity to be either man or women. But Ferd had to use a whole person, not a rib, to make the body."
"Tell me about your life."
"Mine? My purpose is to be an offshoot."
"I want to know all about you," Sabrina said. "But first let's name you."
"What will we name me?"
Sabrina had already decided on the name. "Eve."
"I understand."
"You're the first of your kind, Eve," Sabrina said, and without thinking held up her tea cup for a toast.
"I can smile, too," Eve demonstrated with a big grin. She looked very charming to Sabrina, even knowing she must resemble Eve when she smiled.
"But," Eve continued, the smile instantly vanishing, "I don't feel smiles. Or sads."
"No emotions?" Sabrina asked.
"Ferd said I would function in a superior manner intellectually, since I do not have feelings or emotions."
"You won't have much fun," Sabrina said.
"I don't think I will have fun, either," Eve stated flatly. "And because my body is based on yours, the hormones necessary to make my body function will eventually affect the brain."
It sounded like a dire event from Eve.
"Then you will have emotions?"
Eve nodded. "Ferd said I was not a fail-safe experiment, but he could not make the body function without hormones. He said eliminating peripheral pain receptors was easy, but making the body work without hormones was impossible. So I am still experimental. And unpredictable. Of course, I am highly intelligent, so I will control myself if the hormones cause irrational instability in cognitive functioning."
"I see. Um...how old are you?" Sabrina asked.
"I don't know. The first thing I remember was my bottle. Ferd used it to give milk to me. And he helped me learn to walk. That was when I was falling down a lot. When I was so large. Then there was a blank time. For a while I could not hear or see and that time is fuzzy, but I think it was after Ferd implanted the computer. I remember Ferd talking to me. He called me his Big Baby. He played tapes. The alphabet. Words and spelling. He also read to me. I could make sounds, so I copied the word sounds and the alphabet. Ferd also called me his 'Comput
er Brain Baby.' I like Eve better, though. The fifth and twenty second letters of the alphabet. Eve."
She repeated the name several times, as though trying out the sound.
"Then what happened?"
"About 288 hours ago, twelve days, I could see. First fuzzy light. Then blurry colors. Ferd kept talking about rods and cones and true colors. Evidently I did not see correctly and distinctly because he had used hormones on me that damaged my eyes. And made me large. Now I see colors differently than just a few hours ago. From the copy of your retina. After I could see, I learned to read from a computer reading disc. I read many books, three dictionaries and a set of Britannica Encyclopedias. I don't forget anything. Ferd said he wanted me to fit in, so I had to study the way people walk and talk and act. I watched lots of television. I know it bothers you that I study you, but you are the first woman people, excuse me, person, I have met, so I have to research you. I learned to blink just like you. Each person blinks differently, so I thought I should learn yours."
"I wondered about that."
Eve gazed at Sabrina like a small child, looking straight at her without avoiding her eyes, totally without guile or self-consciousness. Adults had the habit of glancing at people in the eye only for a second, but Eve had not learned that yet. In a way it was kind of nice. One would never get the feeling that Eve was trying to hide anything. Or would lie. It was also extremely disconcerting in an adult.
The chime connected to the lobby rang.
"That's Mark. My friend. I want him to meet you," Sabrina said. She went into the hallway and pressed the Listen button.
"Mark is here, Sabrina. Should I send him up?"
"Yes, Jack. Thanks."
Sabrina went back into the kitchen. "Maybe I should have you answer the door, Eve, but I think he might faint."
"Shock? Surprise? Trauma?"
"You'd knock his socks off," Sabrina said, smiling.
"You're being funny?"
"Yes. Let's both go to the door."
Sabrina looked through the peephole. She saw Mark glance anxiously at his watch. Whether he was late for another date or just concerned about her emotional state, Sabrina could only guess.
Sabrina opened the door and Mark stepped inside, looking at Sabrina intently and leaning forward to kiss her.
"Hi, sweetie," Mark said. Then he saw Eve.
Mark stared for a second in shocked surprise. "Hi."
Eve said Hi to Mark and turned to Sabrina. "His pulse went from 72 to 89."
Sabrina looked at Mark with concern, who was looking with amazement at Eve. His face did look white.
"You must be a relative of Sabrina's, although I thought Sabrina was an orphan," Mark said, smiling at Eve.
"I'm not a relative," Eve said. "I am copied, cloned, to Sabrina's body."
Sabrina thought Mark was probably as surprised by Eve's lack of emotional affect when she spoke as he was to the content of her words. She really did sound like a robot and she was almost too stiff looking to be human. When she was not talking or deliberately moving, Eve was still as a rock, except for her eyes, which seemed to move independently and take in everything without blinking for minutes on end.
"Cloned?"
"You better sit down, Mark," Sabrina said, leading him into the living room.
"Cloned?" Mark repeated as he sat on the couch.
"I would look just like Eve, without all the trimmings," Sabrina said to Mark.
"Trimmings?" Eve asked. She looked extremely alert.
"I mean fixing my hair and make-up," Sabrina explained to Eve. She sat down in a chair across from Mark. Eve, watching Sabrina, sat down in another chair opposite the couch.
"I must learn trimmings," Eve said.
Mark looked back and forth at the two women. "Your voices are alike, too. Stereophonic sound."
"I'll try to explain," Sabrina said. She told him about the toothpaste commercial and going to Ferd's Tanning Salon. Sabrina continued on about Eve and the men who intended to kill her.
Mark looked stupefied.
"Evidently Eve is an experiment and they used my body to make her. But Eve's brain is a computer."
"They called it a chemical computer," Eve said. "Actually, part mechanical, too."
Sabrina glanced at Mark, who was looking with a kind of dazed expression at Eve, who was again still as a statue. She explained to Mark about Eve's lack of emotions and physical sensations.
"This is a joke?" Mark asked.
"At first I thought I was crazy. But it's all true."
"I can't believe it." Mark shook his head, looking back and forth. "Is your hair that light?"
Sabrina nodded and wondered what Mark thought of Eve's white hair. He surprised her by saying it was beautiful; like angel hair pasta, or spun sugar.
Mark took a deep breath. "It sounds like the Stepford Wives. Or the mad scientist making Frankenstein." Then he turned to Eve, "No offense, Eve. But it does sound rather fantastic. Like that scary movie about pods from outer-space replacing people by duplicating them, killing them, and taking over the world."
"Eve's existence is proof that it's true."
"All I know for sure is that Eve looks exactly like you."
Eve had been watching Sabrina and Mark "Would you like to see accelerated healing, Mark? I will cut myself. Or I can set myself on fire."
Eve got up and started walking toward the kitchen.
Oh no, Sabrina thought, she's going for the knife. "No, Eve. Come back and sit down. I'll tell Mark about it."
Eve returned and sat down obediently.
Sabrina told Mark about the healing. He looked at her dubiously.
"Eve, do you have a mole on your right thigh, behind the knee?" Mark asked.
"I don't know." She started to unbutton the coat.
"No!" Mark said.
"Wait," Sabrina said. "Don't take off the coat. Just raise it up in back."
Eve stood, pulled up the back of the coat and looked at her leg. "It's there." She turned around so Mark and Sabrina could see.
"Eve," Mark said, "Do you mind if I touch your leg there?"
"No, Mark. You can touch my leg there."
Mark got up and walked to where Eve was standing, back toward him, and knelt down. "I feel silly." He looked closely at the mole and touched it. "It's real," he said and got up. "Just like yours, Sabrina."
Mark returned to the sofa frowning for a minute. "What you are implying is very serious, Sabrina. Maybe your mother had twins and the two of you were separated at birth. I admit that the physical resemblance is totally uncanny. Either you two are twins, or what you're saying is true. And if it is true, Eve is not just the six million dollar bionic man. She must be worth billions. And she could be very dangerous to you, Sabrina. Whoever made her, if it's truly true, will stop at nothing to get her back. So it's time to see her accelerated healing and any other tricks she can perform to make absolutely certain."
"Mark," Sabrina said quietly, "don't you believe me?"
"I hope Eve is your twin. The other alternative is too frightening to fool around with."
"I don't want her to cut herself again," Sabrina said stubbornly.
"We have to know. I don't disbelieve you, but I want to be sure."
Eve got up, went to the kitchen and came back holding the knife. What Mark was doing was, to her, an implied command. She had been made to obey.
"I have to cut deep, the body heals quickly," Eve said. She pushed up the sleeve of the coat.
"I don't want to make you hurt yourself, Eve," Mark frowned.
"I will cut the artery, so you know for sure."
Sabrina jumped up to stop her and Mark yelled, 'Wait!' but Eve had already slashed her wrist twice, once horizontally and once vertically. They were both shocked at the violence of the self-destructive action, as she slashed deeply and very quickly. She hit the artery and blood spurted out of the slashed wrist twice, in time to her pulse, and splashed on the table in front of the couch. The blood sprayed over books and
magazines and several crystal figurines.
Mark shuddered and jumped up to help Eve, but the blood stopped pumping from Eve's arm. They watched as the skin flaps, which had been detached into four separate pieces, seemed to pull toward each other, then meet, and grow together before their eyes.
Sabrina felt tears running down her cheeks.
"You don't have to feel sad emotions. I'm not hurt."
"Let's wash off the blood." Sabrina walked with Eve into the kitchen. On the way Eve staggered for a moment and almost fell. Sabrina tried to grab her and help, but Eve straightened up and resumed moving stiffly to the sink. When the blood was rinsed away there were only two small scars, which looked like they were being erased. Mark had followed, and peered over their shoulders.
"I don't believe it," Mark said in wonder.
"It's about time you started believing." Sabrina spoke tartly.
"I'm sorry, Sabrina. And Eve, I apologize. Let's sit down and figure out what to do."
They all sat down silently at the kitchen table. Eve got up and went to the refrigerator to drink syrup. She appeared a little shaky.
"Eve, you said you could remember everything you read. Will you start reciting from the dictionary?" Sabrina asked.
Eve nodded.
"Wait. Start from the letter Q."
Eve nodded and started reciting, almost too quickly to understand, "Q. Seventeenth letter. Qu pronounced as Kw. First word. Quack. Duck sound. False professional practitioner. Quadrangle. Figure with four sides....."
"Okay." Mark said, interrupting her when she got to Quirk. "You can stop. I'm going to order us a pizza. I have to make a phone call."
"The police?" Sabrina asked.
Mark smiled, "No. I'm going to cancel my plans for tonight."
Sabrina took Eve into her bedroom and gave her a pink running suit to wear. She didn't want to hear Mark cancel his date. Then she took Eve into the bathroom and showed her how to brush the tangles out of her hair.
As Sabrina brushed her own hair, she noticed strange rusty flakes in the brush. She leaned over the sink, threw her hair over it, and shook vigorously. More brownish flakes. Blood?
