by Robin Craig
He stopped talking, gazing into a distance only he could see. Finally he continued. “Years ago I was an ally of Lyn Felton in her campaign against the genetic engineers. You will remember how spectacularly successful she was, on a global scale. You don’t get success like that in politics just through sheer brilliance and hard work, despite what the politicians say later in their memoirs. She made a lot of dirty deals in a lot of dirty countries so what had to be done, was done. And you are probably aware that GenInt, the child of her labors, has secret charters, charters that are secret for a reason. The common people would not understand. I speak of their power to summarily execute genetic monsters and clones, even babies.”
Miriam was staring at him, open-mouthed. Stone had more control: he kept his mouth closed.
Tang misunderstood, and shook his head sadly. “Do not judge us too harshly. GenInt fight the Devil’s work, officers, as you do in your own way. What they do is right and just, but in order to do it some things must remain hidden. The people as a mass do not think. They would see a baby and let it live, unable to see the monster that would rise up to slay them in years to come. Indeed, they would rise up against GenInt for trying to save their own lives at the baby’s expense. Don’t you see? The people must be protected from themselves. The art of government has always been thus. And Felton especially was doing the Lord’s work, against great odds. Perhaps she sold pieces of her own soul in order to do it. But what greater, what more noble, sacrifice could a person make?”
“And... the material you gave the blackmailers?”
“I believed in Felton’s work. I was one of her key operatives, and not for money but for principle. But I have always been what people call a sharp operator. Always playing the angles, always on the lookout for an advantage; always with backup plans and backups for the backups. There are some things I cannot help doing. I kept physical evidence of all the dirty dealings I was privy too. I had no thought of blackmail; if I had any specific thoughts at all they were for self-preservation: insurance if things went bad or I was in danger of being betrayed myself. And I kept details of GenInt’s secret charters. Details of their activities in the early years. At the time I assumed I was not the only one, and probably I was right. Dangerous men gather around dangerous activities, after all, and to such men what I did was simple prudence, almost second nature. However it has become my eternal shame, because that is what I gave the blackmailers to save my own fleeting skin.”
He lifted his eyes to look directly at them. “In my earlier days I worked to do a great thing, and I was proud, prouder than I have been of anything else I have ever done. I have made a great deal of money, but nothing compares to simply making something that is great. And then I betrayed it all, in a moment of weakness, cowardice and greed. And that is what now defines my life, officers. Perhaps God will forgive me even if I cannot forgive myself.”
He looked away and added emptily, “I will find out soon enough. I hope to live long enough to see these villains brought to justice and their plans fallen to ruins. That is why I am telling you this. But what I dread above death is living long enough to see them succeed.”
Miriam didn’t think there was anything more to say, except for the one question burning in her mind in dread certainty of the answer. “Mr Tang, you mentioned that the blackmailers contacted you through your AI. Could you ask it a question for me?”
He glanced at her, somewhat startled at the request. “Of course, if you think it would help. Though as I said, I have already done a thorough investigation of that side of things and found nothing.”
“Could you ask it if it knows the phrase ‘Kilroy was here’ and if so, how it became aware of it?”
Tang stared at her with a puzzled frown. Miriam could practically read his thoughts in his expression: What the hell kind of question is that? But he shrugged and complied. Then his frown deepened. “Apparently that is an encryption hash salt it used a long time ago. Innocuous enough in itself – but... how could you know?”
Miriam stared back, heart thumping. Oh dear God, she thought. After a moment she said simply, “I didn’t know, Mr Tang. It’s just a strange lead we’ve been following.”
He looked at her inquiringly, hoping she would elaborate, but now she was just looking off into the space beyond his shoulder, a worried frown on her face. What deep waters are we wading in? he wondered. But he stayed silent. There are secrets here, he thought, dangerous secrets; this is larger than I knew. Larger than I want to know. Perhaps I was wrong to bare my soul and my shame. But if the waters are truly that deep – perhaps I was right to do it. Perhaps I have saved my soul after all.
After a few moments Stone stood and said, “Well, thank you, Mr Tang. If there are any details that you think will help our investigation, please let us know. If we have any further questions or information, we’ll contact you. Good day, sir.”
Tang gestured in farewell, following them with his sad eyes as they took their leave.
On their way out, all Miriam said to Jack was, “At least this explains why so many of the victims don’t want to talk to us.”
“Yeah, blackmail has a way of keeping people’s mouths shut. But we caught a break this time. Maybe enough of a break to get us that warrant for your DNA search.”
Miriam nodded thoughtfully. They spent the rest of the trip back in silence, lost in their own private thoughts, all wanting to lead somewhere but leading nowhere.
Chapter 40 – Jenny
It was getting late and long shadows stretched across the floor from the reddening sun beyond the windows of the offices beyond hers. Miriam was tired. She rubbed her eyes and thought, time to go home. Though it was not yet five she had come in early today and was already into overtime. She was reaching for her coat when a ping alerted her: the AI had decided it had something worthy of her attention even at this late hour.
It had found a match to the DNA from the fire. A blackmail scheme involving the President and GenInt had proved enough – just – to get a warrant for searches that preserved the privacy of any non-matching DNA sequences. But after a week had passed without anything, Miriam had stopped hoping; it had always been a long shot. Now she was energized anew.
“Bring it up,” she commanded. She quickly scanned the data. Allowing for the ambiguities in the sequence it was a perfect match and the AI calculated a 94% chance that the DNA came from the same person. Her pulse quickened but she frowned with puzzlement when she saw that the record was from a scientific paper a quarter of a century old. Then Miriam saw the name.
“Grendel’s Mother!” she swore. The person whose sequence matched was a Jenny Alderton, but the AI had used its initiative to ferret out a one-line bio ending with the notation: Later Jenny Tagarin. “Summarize all biographical information you can find on this Jenny Tagarin and why her genome is recorded!”
Miriam waited impatiently. After a few tense minutes, a couple of pages of summary appeared. Miriam swiftly scanned the document, taking in whole paragraphs in one mental gulp. Sweet baby Jesus! Grendel’s Mother indeed! she thought. Her subconscious had made the connection immediately, she realized, bringing that particular curse to her lips. But not the mother of the ancient monster Grendel: the mother, of sorts, of the modern monster Katlyn. The DNA might indicate a 94% chance but Miriam was sure of it. She re-read the biography more closely.
Jennifer Alderton had been a bright, attractive woman with one flaw: a deadly genetic disease that had not made itself known until her late teens. It had soon become evident that her deterioration was accelerating and she would not survive her twenties. A young Dr Tagarin had been called in to investigate what the problem was and what could be done. The disease was rare and little was known about it; Tagarin had written a paper on her and her condition, and in the paper’s confidential archival data was where her genome sequence had resided until the AI ferreted it out. But in the course of the study the two had fallen in love, and despite her condition had married. Tagarin thought he could save her. He hoped he could save
her. But the technology was too young and her disease too deadly. He had failed.
“Can you find any photos of this woman?”
Another minute or so later her screen pinged and a photo of a smiling young woman appeared. Miriam stared at it. Katlyn: minus the eyes, a bit different in proportions, but Katlyn. Oh God, thought Miriam. Oh God, Tagarin, what have you done? But she knew what he had done. The sheer brilliant insanity of it made her head spin. Then another idea hit her. Oh no, she thought. Oh no. It can’t be. Not that as well. The database would not be open to her fishing expedition; but it should open itself to an official targeted query. She did a quick search through her records, marked a case file number and instructed the AI to access and analyze.
After another few tense minutes, a file came through with the AI’s analysis. Miriam stared at it. She did not know whether to feel elated or sick. She put her head in her hands. No, no, no, she thought. The enormity of it appalled her. Unbidden, the memory of Tagarin conducting his dance of life came back to her. But now the three of them were locked in a dance of death, and she was afraid to go forward but unable to turn back. She did not know if she would have the strength to do what she had to do; but she knew that she had to do it.
I joined the law to fight for what is right. But where is the right here? There is no right, and no path to find it.
Numbly, she connected to Stone. “Jack, I’ve got something. Something big. Meet me in the Chief’s office.” She disconnected without waiting for a reply then called Ramos to tell him they were coming.
*
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” observed Stone when she came in.
“I think I have. Literally. Or as literal as a ghost can be. The AI got a match on the DNA fragments from the fire in a 23-year-old scientific paper. The DNA isn’t good enough to be certain based on the sequence alone, but wait until you find out who it was. Jenny Tagarin! Our good doctor’s dead wife! And look at this photo of her. Who does that look like?”
They both stared at it, then at her. Stone let out a low whistle. “Christ.”
“And would you believe – there’s more. I got the AI to access GenInt’s records. The geneh infant GenInt killed in Tagarin’s lab – she was a match too.”
She paused, letting them digest it. Then she went on. “I don’t think there’s any doubt. Tagarin married this girl but he couldn’t save her. And he couldn’t forget her, or his failure. He kept a sample of her tissues and when he could, he fixed her DNA and brought her back to life. Well, not her, but you know what I mean. Then GenInt found her and killed her. And now he’s done it again, only this time as a new, improved model. I don’t know if what we’re dealing with is Phantom of the Opera or The Greatest Love Story Ever Told, but Katlyn is the third incarnation of Jenny Tagarin!”
“Wait... wait,” said Stone. “What about that other possibility you said earlier? Remember you thought that maybe Tagarin’s first infant might not have been killed after all? That fits this new information just as well. Maybe better.”
Miriam shook her head. “I thought of that too. But it doesn’t make sense. You said several GenInt agents took the baby away. One having a fit of mercy I could imagine – barely – but four or five of them? So if our thief is that baby grown up, it means GenInt kept her deliberately. But if they’d done that there’s no way in hell they’d have left her genome sequence in their records where I could find it with our modest little warrant and a case code. They’d have deleted it, or faked it, or hidden it under a blanket of top security.”
Stone nodded. Then he turned to Ramos. “Well Chief, that leaves us with one prime suspect. If this isn’t enough to get us a search warrant, if not an arrest warrant, nothing is.”
Ramos nodded. “Good work, Hunter. I’ll get on to it. It’ll take an hour or so but you two get ready. Stone, arrange a team.” He paused. “We’re under no legal obligation to bring GenInt into this yet. They’ll complain later if we don’t, but that’s all they can do: we still have jurisdiction for now. I am sure they would prefer being brought in on it now, which means they would like to take over, but they can prefer what they like. They’d just get in our way and we certainly don’t want them getting there before we do. If either of you has a problem with that, now’s the time to tell me.”
Stone glanced at Miriam, who shook her head, then commented, “We’re with you boss. As you say, all they can do is complain. Let’s keep control of this. If GenInt take over who knows how many people will just disappear.”
Chapter 41 – Plans
Daniel watched Katlyn attacking her dinner with her usual gusto. Tonight they were enjoying a superbly tender eye fillet steak on a potato-celeriac mash with crisply tender vegetables on the side, chased down with a well-aged shiraz. But he knew she would approach pizza and beer with just as much enthusiasm. He had given her a hard life, he knew, yet she had faced it with the same joy with which she attacked her food; and she had done so much with it, accomplished so much. He was so painfully proud of her that he didn’t know whether what he felt was pride or love; perhaps there was no difference. No, he thought, there is a difference: but they are two faces of the same thing.
Katlyn noticed him watching her and smiled. “What are you thinking about, Mr Serious?” she asked.
“I was thinking I haven’t given you much of a life, have I?”
Katlyn laughed, the tinkling musical bells so characteristic of her. That had not been designed; he occasionally wondered what unexpected genetic interaction had produced it. “Pfft! Who was it who told me, ‘Fate deals us all a hand but what we do with it is up to us’?” she quoted. “Oh! It was you!”
She smiled, and he wasn’t sure if it was a child’s trusting smile at her father or a woman’s smile to her equal. “And you were right. And I know you know it, when you’re not feeling sorry for me. Life is a gift, the greatest gift there is. If Fate decides to deal you a really bad hand, then you might feel otherwise: but there’s an easy solution to that, isn’t there?”
She looked at him seriously. “You know there have been plenty of times when I’ve been sad or angry about things. But those are the fault of the people who made it so, not you. You gave me life, Daniel. And I’m happy that I’m alive. I’m happy I lived through the hard times. I hope I live for a long time yet. But If I were to die tonight, I would die without any regrets for the life I’ve lived.” She reached across the table, gently took his hand, and kissed it.
He smiled and returned to his own food; there seemed to be something in his eye. He remembered when he was a boy and his parents had taken him on a trek in Nepal. Out in those high mountainous wilds he had met a couple of other young kids, dirty and dirt poor, living it tough with no anticipation of a better life. Despite that they had been happy, laughing and playing like kids anywhere. But so many people living with all the benefits of a technological civilization were miserable in their lives, when all they needed for happiness was at their call: all they had to do was get up and do something about it.
He frowned as that reminded him of an even worse sin, the cases of ‘wrongful life’ brought to the courts early in the century: people who reckoned their lives were so miserable that their parents, or society, or someone, should never have let them be born. He thought of the contrast with Katlyn, this happy spirit who had borne so much and done so much in her brief life. He looked up at her. It will all be over soon, dearest Katlyn, he thought; one way or another, it will soon be over.
“You’re thinking again,” she noted. “I hope you’re not still feeling sorry for me.”
He smiled. “I am thinking that all of this will soon be over. A few weeks, and we should be done. I think we’ve done enough already but the more the better. However you shouldn’t go out any more for a while, for any reason: the risks are too high now. And we’re too close.”
“What’s the latest status?”
Daniel leaned back and put his fingers to his chin. “Well, as you know the original strategy predictions g
ave us a good chance of getting through all this without anyone suspecting who was behind it. Then we could have just gone on with our lives with nobody the wiser. But the police got on to the case sooner than they should have. There’s still a chance they’ll give up when their leads dry up, but the latest simulations show that the most likely outcome is they’ll cobble together enough clues for a warrant within a few weeks. If they do we’ll have to cut and run.”
“Will we be ready?”
“They’ve been so troublesome – for which I’m inclined to place most blame on the well-named Det. Hunter – that it’s not safe to rely on even that much time. So I’ve already put what we need in place just in case. In other words, while I’m still hoping we can get away with Plan A, it’s really looking like we’re going to have to take the plunge into Plan C. And sooner rather than later.”
Katlyn’s eyes showed a mixture of fear and excitement. They could have simply fled to continue living much as they had been, hiding from the world, only with less resources and greater risk that the world would notice them. That was Plan B: short term safety at the price of long-term risk, paid for with nothing but hope. The alternative was far more dangerous and could quickly end with Katlyn dead and Daniel in prison or dead himself: but the potential reward was much greater. For all of Katlyn’s life, safety had lain in hiding and concealment, whereas Plan C would reveal her to the world. The prospect filled her with instinctive dread, like an animal whose survival depended on camouflage that was suddenly thrust onto a sunlit plain. But if it worked she would no longer need to hide.
Daniel saw in her eyes that she was willing to risk death for a chance at that prize and they both knew she was risking death. For all that the chances looked good, they could not find out more certainly without the risk of tipping their hand, which in itself could be more quickly and certainly fatal. If anyone suspected their plan it literally would not get off the ground.
