Darwin's Paradox

by Nina Munteanu

  Then the waves pounded from behind as well, knocking her forward. The room blazed, blinding her when someone turned on the overhead light. Following a brief scuffle Frank abruptly disengaged and lifted off of her. Amid her heaving breaths, she heard more than saw someone strike him hard in the face. He grunted and stumbled back, not quite falling. By then her eyes had adjusted and she saw Victor Burke, chest heaving and facing Frank with anger flashing in his eyes. But the moment passed and, as if he’d just now realized what he’d done, Victor cringed, terrified, and cradled his fist in his hand.

  Frank stared at him for a moment, then glanced briefly behind Victor. Julie followed his gaze and saw Zane, standing by the door, looking nervous. Both Victor and Zane avoided looking at her. They fixed their eyes on Frank, who by now had regained his balance and composure and had started to laugh.

  Standing unabashed in his nakedness, Frank turned back to Victor and dismissed the scrawny man with a look of contempt. It seemed as though the one robbed the strength from the other. As Frank drew himself up bold, Victor seemed to shrivel with humility. “You presume to dictate to me?” Frank bellowed. “You’re no longer mayor, you’re nobody now! I don’t take orders from you anymore. I’m the boss here. And you—” he turned pointedly to Zane “—a two-bit scientist with nothing to show for your miserable years of less-than-useless research. What are you going to do now? Beat me up? The Head Pol? Here, in the Pol Station? And for what?” Frank threw a glance down at Julie, still sprawled on the floor. He sneered at her two rescuers. “For playing with my former girlfriend?”

  Zane stared in confusion. Victor shuffled his feet nervously.

  “Why did you come?” Frank barked. “You idiots! This is my business. She’s my business! She used to be mine. Now she’s mine again. Get out!”

  The two men stepped back and Julie thought they might even leave. It was then that she recognized why Frank was Head Pol. Standing naked and vulnerable, he still commanded authority over these two men.

  Victor shuffled his feet as though he was fighting an internal battle to stay or leave. Frank lunged at him and struck Victor squarely in the jaw before he had a chance to decide. Victor crumpled to the floor in a daze.

  Zane hesitated forward with a nervous glance at Julie. She watched in horror as Frank dispatched him as easily. Zane had flung out a fist, trying to strike Frank’s face. But Frank easily dodged the swing, caught the scientist’s arm and reefed it hard sideways. Yelping, Zane stumbled and Frank hit him square in the jaw. Zane toppled over Victor in a heap of groaning.

  Frank assessed them with a sharp laugh. Satisfied that they weren’t moving for a while, he turned to where Julie had been. She was no longer on the floor by the door. As he spun around in sudden realization, Julie swung out from behind, leaning with all her weight and slammed the nightstand lamp into his head. He dropped like lead and thudded to the floor, unconscious.

  She took several deep breaths and hastily dressed. By the time she’d finished, her two would-be rescuers had managed to untangle themselves from the floor. They both stared from Frank’s prone body to her with awkward grins. She returned their grins with a grateful smile.

  “Thanks.” It came out in a weak croak. She cleared her throat and repeated herself as she embraced Zane. He squeezed back and patted her with a smile of affection. Then she turned and gave Victor an awkward hug. He stood stiff and wide eyed as if terrified of her, his wooden arms clamped to his side. “That was timely,” she added. Then she tilted her head and pulled back from Victor with furrowed brows. “Too timely...”

  “Victor called me,” Zane explained. “He said it was urgent. We had to get you out because—” He trailed, glancing at Frank’s naked body.

  “How did you...know?” Julie gazed hard at Victor.

  His face had coloured to an intense red and his eyes blinked with nervous tension. “I saw it...ah, felt it.” He grabbed his collar and pulled it from his neck then ran frenzied rakes through his burgundy mop.

  She stared at him. “Felt it?”

  Victor shuffled his feet.

  “Shouldn’t we get going?” Zane urged, casting nervous glances at the door.

  Ignoring Zane, Julie leaned forward until her face was centimeters from Victor’s. “Felt it?” she repeated in a sharp voice, searching his timid eyes for the truth. His gaze flicked from side to side as if looking for an escape. She wouldn’t let him go.

  Then, like a dam breaking, “Sentech 2. I have it,” he said in a rush of words between convulsive intakes of air. “Through an implant on him,” he pointed to Frank. So Frank was a carrier, just like Aard, Julie thought. “Like all my Pols,” Victor went on. “Did it a long time ago. The Pols only thought it gave them an improved vee-com connection. But it gave me much more.” He made a painful grin, took in a shallow breath and continued, “A way to read their senses. Of course Langor doesn’t know, but I can see everything he sees, touch everything he touches. Feel...everything he feels.” He swallowed. “Including his deepest desires, his wildest anger and his...worst pain...How he wanted to hurt you and love you at the same time...and did.” He broke his gaze from her and looked down at his shoes.

  “You were using Sentech when he and I...?” she broke off as the words strangled in her throat.

  “It was awful. I had to do something.” His words rolled off his tongue in a gush of syllables that seemed to swirl in her aching brain. She stopped listening. The implications of Burke using the device this way repulsed her.

  Julie drew in a long breath. Stunned, she didn’t know what to say. How long had Victor been ‘sensing’ Frank? Frank had already had his implant by the time Julie and he met and became lovers...

  It didn’t matter. Victor’s disclosure, disturbing as it was, somehow paled next to the terrifying threat Proteus made to her in her dream and what had just happened here with Frank. Realizing that she was clenching her hands, she relaxed them and said in a cool voice aimed at either of her rescuers, “Does anyone have a plan to get us out of here?”

  Both looked at her in bemusement. Zane spoke first. “I got here because Victor made a diversion on the vee-com and he ‘walked’ me in. I don’t think that’ll get us out, though.” He paused and added, gazing at her with close to a grimace, “especially with you.” Then he looked at Victor hopefully. “You have a plan?”

  He shook his head. “I just knew we had to do something before—” He cut himself off, resting a vacant gaze on Frank lying on the floor.

  “We take him with us,” Julie said shortly.

  “What?” both men said in unison. They stared at her.

  “Collateral,” she said coolly before either could voice a complaint. “We’ll use him as a hostage.”

  “But he just tried to rape you “

  “Did rape me,” she corrected in a sharp voice that cut through the painful emotions catching in her throat. She’d sounded shriller than she liked and felt herself sliding on the edge of insanity.

  Confused and embarrassed, Zane looked away and shuffled his feet. Victor avoided her eyes in an awkward pause thick with regret. She closed her eyes for a moment and took several deep breaths before saying, “Look, it’s our only chance of getting out of here. With him we have something to bargain with.”

  “We’re in enough trouble as it is,” Zane whined, gaze darting from Frank’s naked figure to the door. His eyes flashed at her with challenge, “You’re talking about kidnapping and ransoming the Head Pol!”

  She set her jaw and returned him a fierce look of determination.

  “She’s right,” Victor said, surprising Julie. She saw fierce resolution temper the terror on his face. Maybe there was more to this man after all. “He may be useful. I have an idea.” Then an awkward smile flickered over his lips. “I learned a few tricks while in office.”

  “Okay,” Julie agreed. “Let’s get him dressed.”

  Reluctant
to help, Zane stood by as Julie and Victor looked frantically for some clothes to put on Frank. Remembering that she’d first seen him standing naked at the doorway, and wondering if indeed he’d wandered the hallway that way, Julie found a pile of discarded clothes in the corner nearest to the door. So he’d undressed there while watching her raving in nightmare. “Here.” She flung Frank’s clothes to Victor. He struggled to dress the still unconscious Pol and she scrambled to his side to help.

  “What if he’s dead?” Zane asked in a low voice, not moving to help. “You cracked him on the head pretty hard.”

  Julie’s eyes shot up as she pulled one of Frank’s socks on his limp foot. She’d lost her patience with Zane. “Make yourself useful and find out, then,” she hissed.

  Zane bent next to her and checked Frank’s pulse. “The bastard’s still alive,” he muttered.

  Julie sighed and nodded to him. “Let’s go, then.”

  33

  The place was stark and smelled like a bog in summer. Angel suppressed the urge to wrinkle her nose as Manfred led her inside and shut the door behind them.

  It was a single room with a filthy torn-up couch that sagged in the middle, one ragged chair and a stained duraplastic table that stood mostly on three legs. On it sat a vee-com, an older style than the ones Angel saw in Carl’s lab and office. The walls were bare and looked in need of something, but Angel wasn’t sure what.

  “It’s not much but at least it’s a long way from Gaia,” Manfred said with a conspiratorial grin. His eyes sparkled like a silver sea.

  Angel smiled back at him, truly appreciative. They’d descended to the lower levels of the city through dark hallways that smelled like a stagnant pond choked with algae in summer.

  “Po’s uncle used to use this place when he worked for the Enviro-Center as a maintenance technician. When he moved to Icaria-9 he gave it to Po, and now we use it to get away from everyone. Don’t be fooled by the look of the vee-com. Po’s jury-rigged it so it’s state of the art. Between the two of us, we can do just about anything on it.” Now he was grinning smugly.

  Angel decided she should look impressed and gave him a nod of respect.

  He pointed to the couch. “You can sleep there. Po, Tim and Jenna are anxious to meet you. They’ll be here in the morning.”

  Angel felt suddenly awkward. Did that mean that he was staying? “Thanks for helping me escape from Gaia,” she finally said. “But aren’t you going home? You don’t need to stay on my account—I’ll be okay.”

  “I know. I just thought we could talk for a bit. I often crash here.” He flopped on the couch.

  “Doesn’t your father get worried?” she said, taking the tattered seat across from the saggy couch.

  “Nah,” he responded with a sad smile. “He never even notices. He’s probably still working in the lab anyway.” Manfred fished out two soisticks and handed one to Angel.

  Realizing that she was hungry, she gratefully pulled off the wrapper and took a bite, then frowned down at the bar. “What is this, anyway?”

  Manfred laughed. “It’s a balanced protein, carbohydrate, nutrient mix. Mostly from soy.”

  She felt the bar choke in her throat and fought down tears. Looking down to avoid Manfred’s eyes, she offered, “The food here is great and I’ve tasted some wild flavours.” She looked down at the bar and it sparkled in the tears pooling in her eyes. “I thought I’d never miss my mother’s cooking, especially her sweet yams, but what I’d give for some now...”

  They were silent for a while until Manfred broke in. “You miss the heath, don’t you?” Then he added, “and your mother too.”

  She jerked her head up and Manfred swept an arm toward the vee-com. “So, maybe I can help you find her. I’m pretty handy with vee-coms and it’s the best place to start—”

  “I’m not looking for her anymore,” Angel cut him short.

  Manfred gave her a puzzled frown. “But, why the sudden change? I thought, well...” he trailed off, thinking of his own mother.

  “I found out that she did some horrible things.” She didn’t want to explain the part about her mother murdering Aard or those Pols. “She even did illegal things for Gaia, like shutting down the A.I.-core—”

  “But Gaia brought in the legendary Julie Crane to do that.”

  “Yes,” she snapped back sarcastically. “My legendary mother.”

  “Chaos!” Manfred exclaimed, leaping off the couch and staring at her. “Julie Crane’s your mother? She’s the best damn vee-com hacker of all time! I learned all my best tricks from the stuff she used to do. She’s amazing!” His voice was filled with awe.

  Learning this, somehow, was in keeping with her mother’s tainted character, thought Angel. It seemed that with every turn, she learned yet another flawed facet of her mother’s behavior that blurred her character into something Angel hardly recognized any more. The benevolent image of a mother who smelled of heath and lilac was swiftly ebbing beneath a frightful tide of a dark techno-evil.

  “Why didn’t you tell me your mother was Julie Crane?” Manfred asked, looking exasperated and pacing the room.

  Now it was her turn to look confused. “I...thought you knew...” she stammered, straightening in the chair.

  He snorted. “My father introduced you as Angel Woods.” He shook his head and continued to pace the room, letting his eyes roam past her as he pounded a fist into the palm of his hand. “I should’ve guessed though.”

  “Why?” she challenged and he reeled to look directly at her. “I’m nothing like her,” she spat out, her face blazing with confusion and pain.

  He flashed her a lopsided smile. It reminded her of her mother’s disarming smile and she felt a deep ache inside her. “You don’t think so?” He looked mildly amused and it annoyed her. “I’ve heard her described as ‘the woman with savage hair and bright eyes.’” Then he pointedly stared at Angel.

  Angel blushed, acutely aware of the disarray of her own wild mop. “I wish she wasn’t my mother,” her voice lashed out like a knife. “I wish she was dead.”

  He frowned at her. “You don’t mean that.”

  “She’s a murderer.”

  “Oh.” His frown grew. “Yeah. She killed a Pol twelve years ago, but most people think it was an accident, that he tried to get the gun away from her and—”

  “She killed a hundred million people with Darwin!”

  Manfred pursed his lips. “Come on, you can’t honestly think that a five year old could be responsible for that. Do you think she knew what she was doing? My dad’s been studying the history of this thing and found out that your mother was investigating Darwin shortly before she was implicated in murdering the Head Pol, and she was trying to find out who Prometheus was. Why would she be doing that if she already knew she was Prometheus, huh?” He hiked up his brows with a victorious smirk as he sized up her cracking resolve. “Besides,” he went on, “she might not have been responsible at all. I know people blame her for it, but there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that she couldn’t spread the disease, even if she wanted to.”

  “But how could she not know? Her father was involved—”

  He scoffed. “Do you think he told her? He was a scientist like the rest of them. Whatever they were doing, I’m betting he never told her. She was five years old, for Vee’s sake. Chaos, my dad doesn’t tell me a thing!”

  Angel was growing more confused. “She killed my best and only friend. In the heath, before she came here to destroy the A.I.-core.”

  He narrowed his eyes with skepticism. “Is this something Gaia told you?”

  “Showed me,” she said pointedly. “I saw it with my own eyes. On a vid-clip.”

  His frown deepened then he suddenly smiled grimly. “Let me show you something.” He slid to the vee-com and she dragged over the chair for him to sit on. Within moments he’d swiftly pulled up a number of imag
es and databases. Probably classified ones he wasn’t allowed to access, Angel thought.

  “Look,” he said, casting a quick glance over his shoulder at her as she stood behind him, “my father could tell you a lot about that particular vid-clip on your mom when she shot the Pol. She didn’t say those awful things. More like she was a scapegoat for someone else’s dirty work.”

  “How do you know all this?” she glowered.

  “About the vid-clip? Dad has specialists who work for him in linguistics. They figured it was a personal quarrel with that Pol. Langor used to be her boyfriend and she’d just broken up with him and he arrested her uncle, who was peddling Luddite literature, Dystopian stuff. He killed himself in the Pol Station.” Manfred frowned sadly. “She aimed for Langor’s nuts, for vee sake, Angel.” He shrugged. “Chaos, if my girlfriend had done that to my uncle I’d have probably done the same thing too.”

  “You sure know a lot about this,” she said.

  “Chaos, of course I do!” Manfred smirked to hide his own embarrassment. “She’s my hero, my virtual queen.” It suddenly made sense to Angel that Manfred, the rebel, would choose to idolize a criminal. But why did it have to be her own mother? “And like I said, she’s one of my dad’s pet projects too. He figured your mother was set up and he was right. After she wounded her ex-boyfriend, the second Pol tried to get the gun away from her and she accidentally shot him in the struggle. The official vid-clips purposefully didn’t show that part but my dad found the master file. As for the killing of the Head Pol, there are lots of holes in that story too—ah,” he stopped himself. “Is it this?” He turned to her this time and pointed to the vee-com holo.

  Angel leaned forward and confirmed the vid-clip that showed Aard running in the heath and Julie giving chase. Then she stepped back with a scowl, not wishing to see the clip again and wondered what use it was for Manfred to see it.