It made my life look easy. It made something bloom inside my heart for her: a soft, warm flower. I shook my head. Mickie wasn’t a person you could go around handing soft, warm heart–flowers to.
“Here comes the fourteenth century,” Will said.
Mickie back–handed his shoulder. “Will! Keep it down, already.”
Definitely not a warm heart–flower kind of girl.
“Bonjour Mesdemoiselles, Monsieur,” said Sir Walter.
“Was your meeting … profitable?” asked Will.
The French gentleman nodded, running his fingers down his pointed goatee. “I have given certain … friends … a great deal to think over, certainly. I believe things will heat up nicely once the authenticity of the book has been established.” He lifted his eyes, studying the Tour Eiffel. “And yourselves? You have been to the top already?”
“Actually we just finished lunch,” Mickie said. “Some of us can’t think without food in our bellies.”
“Shut up,” muttered Will.
“You want to go up with us?” I asked politely.
“Er, if you will pardon me,” said Sir Walter, shaking his head.
“Guess you’ve had a few chances,” Will said.
“No, no, it is not that.” Sir Walter looked bashfully at his shoes and then back at us. “I have a most shameful fear of heights.”
“That’s a common fear,” I said.
“For a chameleon, it is a ridiculous one,” he replied.
“Why?” asked Mickie, looking from Sir Walter to me and Will.
Will and I shrugged.
“Ah,” Sir Walter said. “You have perhaps not experimented as chameleons with … gravity?”
Mickie’s eyebrows raised. “No, you don’t want my brother messing with gravity.”
Sir Walter chuckled. “I misspoke. Your brother cannot influence the force of gravity. But a chameleon can operate outside of its influence upon him– or herself.”
“Because gravity only affects things that have mass,” Mickie said.
Sir Walter nodded but didn’t enlighten us further.
“But in our case,” I said, trying to draw him out, “We have no mass, right?”
Sir Walter’s head inclined once more.
“Okay,” said Will, “We give up. How’s it work?”
“Let us walk,” said Sir Walter. “Unless you would prefer to journey atop La Tour Eiffel?”
“Anyone here have to go up the tower?” asked Mickie.
We all agreed we could live without going to the top of the Eiffel Tower when the alternate activity was picking Sir Walter’s brain for information. We stood to walk back to our hotel, and a bit of late afternoon sun broke through the clouds.
As we strolled along broad boulevards, Sir Walter solved for us the equation of gravity. According to him, moving through air while in chameleon form mirrored moving through water while solid. Essentially, we could move up and down through air as well as up through ceilings and down through floors.
Will shrugged when I asked if he’d known all this. “I never tried leaving the ground. I mean, knew about passing down through the floor, but it never seemed useful to me.”
“As with swimming,” said Sir Walter, “you decide where it is you wish to go. Although you may upon occasion observe an unusual effect. If the day is very blustery, you may find yourself buffeted along because you expect the wind to move you. It is actually within your choice to move with the wind or not, but sometimes the mind is influenced into guiding you by the expectations created by what you can see.”
We nodded like this made perfect sense, which I’m not sure it did, but I just figured I’d stay away from tornadoes.
“When we have a measure of privacy, I really must attend to your education as ree–pillers,” said our friend, shaking his head sadly.
A sudden gust of wind, icy, blew past and passersby bent their heads low, pulled scarves more tightly.
“Would you prefer a more sheltered journey back to the hotel?” said Sir Walter, indicating a Métro entrance.
“What, and miss seeing la Belle France?” asked Mickie.
Sir Walter chuckled. Will snorted a laugh and flipped his jacket collar up, buttoning it close around his neck.
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling gloves on. “It’s no worse than back home.”
“No offense to la Belle France,” said Will, “I mean, I’m sure you could tell us lots of stuff about all these buildings, but I’ve been wondering about the black book. Did the Nazis make Helmann do that stuff to those kids?”
Sir Walter frowned and turned his eyes to the ground. Another gust tossed leaves and bits of paper across our path.
“Alas,” said Sir Walter. “No one has forced my cousin to do anything for many centuries. The idea was his alone.” Our French friend sighed heavily, leading us onto a sanded path running through a large park.
“His plans have been centuries in the making.” Sir Walter broke off as if deciding the best way to present these plans to us.
Clearing his throat, he began again. “Let us suppose you were to offer a group of dedicated followers the possibility that their offspring could live a thousand years as leaders of a new world. I have lived a long while, and believe me when I say to you there are few offers more compelling than the ones promised to your children. This much, my cousin recognized and decided to exploit.
“Because eventually we all realize we will not live forever, and most of us begin to dream of a legacy, a hope that allows us to leave some part of ourselves behind. A great painting, a body of written work or of research, these are the choices of those who eschew reproducing or who have been disappointed in their hopes for their progeny. But the real siren–call has always been that the flesh–of–my–flesh will live on in glory when I am gone.”
“Immortality for those not planning on getting into Heaven,” said Mickie.
“In a manner of speaking,” agreed Sir Walter. “To convince others that he could offer thousand–year–life spans to their children proved impossible in previous ages. I know that he tried during the Napoleonic era; he gave impassioned speeches to select circles about the creation, from their loins, of a new breed of man. But none believed him; thanks to a whispered word here and there, they saw his abilities as the tricks of a charlatan.” The old gentleman smiled complacently.
“Thanks to you,” I said softly.
He dipped his head in acknowledgment.
“Are you saying back then he was offering to pass out the chameleon gene like candy?” asked Will. “It doesn’t make sense. If he made chameleons, how would he possibly control them?” Will asked.
“Jurassic Park,” I murmured. “You engineer into the cell a need for something that only you can provide. Something that would cause a chameleon to die without receiving it on a regular basis.”
“That’s something he could do now, but it would have been quite a challenge with earlier technologies,” said Mickie. “Although I guess you could have fed them addictive substances.”
“Neuroprine was his first modern attempt,” Sir Walter explained. “He’s spent untold millions upon the problem since then. His bid for power with Napoleon and again with the National Socialists in Germany were but trial runs. He has learned from his mistakes as well as from his successes.”
“With all the advances in genetics, and Helmann controlling Geneses, we’re talking about something happening within our lifetime,” Will said, a grim expression upon his face.
“I should think he will act within the normal span of your lives, even,” Sir Walter agreed, as though he took it for granted Will and I would choose longer–than–usual lives as chameleons.
“Okay,” said Will. “So back up to what you said about proving he could offer long lives to anyone who’d turn to the dark side. Did he make a bunch of chameleons? Was this what he was up to with the children in Nazi Germany?”
“In part, my inquisitive friend,” said Sir Walter, looking grave. He sighed heav
ily. “You have perhaps heard of the Lebensborn project?”
“Sure,” said Mickie. “Himmler’s program to increase the birth rate within so–called racially desirable bloodlines. Financial incentives, assistance for wed or unwed blond–haired blue–eyed women who’d become pregnant and provide Aryan children for the Fatherland. Wasn’t there something about SS officers having first crack at impregnating volunteers or is that urban myth?”
“It’s debated,” Will replied.
Sir Walter nodded. “Controversial, yes, but it is fact that Girard gained access to many such willing women in order to reproduce children born with his genetic information. And to make doubly sure, the children were conceived under special circumstances—you recall in my letter that I asked you where Will was conceived?”
“Shelokum Hot Springs in Alaska,” said Mickie.
“Dude,” said Will. “Enough said. Seriously.”
I flushed, thinking about my conception at Bella Fria Hot Springs. Mickie had theorized and Sir Walter had confirmed that along with inheriting the genes to ripple, conception in a hot springs with the presence of gold and tobiasite tweaked the chromosomes to produce the strange genes we carried.
Sir Walter continued. “It is still a mystery why some of his offspring exhibited chameleon–behavior, while others did not. All carried the Helmann’s gene, certainly. Pfeffer reported to me that he’d seen documentation of this. Pfeffer said he had a theory of why some rippled and others only experienced numbness. He never told me his idea, and I suppose it perished with him.”
“So these kids were ripplers, some of them, and they didn’t run away?” asked Will.
“It is, alas, a simple matter to deceive a child—to frighten them from attempting to escape. It was even true the children would likely have starved had they escaped. It was wartime and food was in scarce supply.”
I shivered. I would have faced starvation, given the choice between hunger and those evil rooms. We crossed a busy boulevard into another park, lush and green even in December.
“Moreover,” continued Sir Walter, “as soon as a child could ripple, Helmann began the medicinal treatment which suppressed the ability.”
“So, what, Pfeffer didn’t take his meds?” Mickie asked.
Sir Walter laughed. “He was even more clever than that. Unlike the other children, Pfeffer never revealed what he could do. I was the first in whom he confided, once he trusted me.”
“Sir Walter,” said Mickie. “Back to the ‘why did some kids ripple’ question—Pfeffer said something once.”
“Yes?”
“He said that Will would not be who he is without the way our dad treated him while he was still under the age of eight. When I asked Pfeffer about it, he seemed upset that he’d spoken aloud and tried to make nothing of his statement. I’ve been thinking, though, what if the numbness–producing response changed to an invisibility–producing response in individuals traumatized prior to a certain age, say, eight years of age?
“As an adaptation, this could exist to give an individual a greater chance for survival. It’s well–documented that kids’ brains go to a lot of trouble to protect them from the full experience of abuse or torture; kids will report retreating into a mind–space where they ‘leave’ their bodies while their abusers harm them. When I asked Pfeffer, he wouldn’t comment, other than to say it was dangerous to try to learn what I wanted to know.”
“Fascinating,” said Sir Walter. “Yes, I think perhaps … this is most interesting, and disturbing, in light of what we know of my cousin’s activities.”
“It’s true for Sam, too,” Mickie said quietly. “She had trauma prior to age eight.”
She was right. And some days I still felt like I was recovering from the day I saw my friend and my mother killed.
“Of course, some of the children upon whom Helmann experimented never made it to eight years old. But, yes. Perhaps my cousin intended to traumatize the children with the experiments.”
The sun sank behind a thick band of clouds upon the horizon as it hit me what Mickie and Sir Walter were suggesting. All the children upon whom Helmann had experimented, the ones he had traumatized, had abused—they were all his offspring. His own children.
This was beyond wrong. My stomach roiled at the thought, and I could not pull my mind back from the horrors of the black book. Once more, words and images from the dark tales rose before me. Hunger. Fighting. The desperate cold. The bowl of poison. All while Helmann stood by, invisibly, taking careful notes.
“Sir Walter,” called Will. “Hold up. I think Sam’s going to yack.”
I barely made it off the sanded path, behind a row of manicured bushes. I fell, gloved hands smacking onto the cold, hard earth, gravel imbedding itself right through my jeans and into my knees. Mickie dropped beside me, holding back my hair. I heaved until my stomach emptied, and then my eyes poured out what liquid remained while Mickie passed tissues to me. It was all too much: the Lebensborn children; the experiments in the black book; the cruelty and determination of our enemy.
For the first time, I began to see the full force of what we were up against. How could we possibly hope to prevail?
At last, with Mickie’s help, I stood. Before us, the sun settled for the night, a bloated red ball that hovered ominously over the horizon of Paris before giving up at last and vanishing.
“Earliest sunset of the year,” said Mickie, quietly.
“Perhaps we have dwelt enough for one day upon the darkness in this world,” said Sir Walter, looking sorrowfully my direction. “If you have no objections to the consolations of the Holy Church, we might attend a sung mass.”
“We’re Catholic,” Will said.
Mick made a small noise that might have been a laugh, but she raised no objection.
“My family doesn’t really go to mass,” I said. “But it sounds fine by me.” I thought I could use some Lord, have mercy right now.
“Sir Walter, I just have one last question. Sam, do you mind?” Will turned his dark eyes upon me.
“No problem,” I murmured. Like I could say no to him.
He turned back to Sir Walter. “The black book, those experiments? It seemed so purposeful, like he was after something more than traumatizing them,” said Will.
“Of course, my friend. He broke their spirits in order to train his army,” said Sir Walter.
Mickie spoke in a crisp tone. “Enough. We’re done for today.” Protectively, she placed an arm around me.
All conversation was at an end, and we stood quietly with our own dismal thoughts. Sir Walter conjured a taxi out of a mass of yellow headlights streaming towards us, and we rode in silence to a building marked Palais de Justice.
Will took a long, hard look at me as we parked. “Do you want to just go back to the hotel?”
“I don’t want to offend Sir Walter,” I whispered.
The French gentleman overheard us and chuckled softly. “God cares not, child. Perhaps rest is what you need now, more than the celebration of the Mass.”
Mickie and Will exited the cab as Sir Walter spoke to the driver in rapid French. Winking at me, Sir Walter shut the door, my driver departed, and I collapsed once more into the back seat, exhausted. I rested my gaze on shuffling pedestrians as the taxi crept along the boulevard. The traffic reminded me of times I’d visited San Francisco; people on the sidewalks made better time than we could driving in a car. But it felt so good to be sitting.
I watched the faces of the pedestrians moving past. I smiled, imagining the stories Gwyn would make up if she were with me.
If we were friends.
I sighed. Gwyn’s voice tickled inside my head. This guy has to go home and tell his wife they’re being relocated to Iceland in the dead of winter; that woman just found out she’s pregnant with octuplets; that guy won the national lottery and spent it all on cheap whiskey … I heard her laughter in my head and tried to play the game myself for awhile. But my own mood was too somber. This girl just found out th
at there was a dad in World War II Germany who tortured his own children.
My eyes landed on a burly man with white–blond hair. For the most part, Parisians seemed to be dark–haired, so this guy stuck out. I watched him as he drew nearer, his expression a dour transferred–to–Iceland. My taxi driver slowed, causing the brakes to squeal noisily. The pedestrian looked up as he passed us. I twisted away just as he met my eyes, certain of who I’d seen: the blue–eyed man from Helga’s lab—Ivanovich!
I shrunk down into the seat, fear filling my veins like ice.
He doesn’t know you, I said to myself. He’d seen me last with a black nylon stocking that smashed my face beyond recognition. As proof that I wasn’t recognizable, he hadn’t connected my stocking–ed face with the drawing of me advertising my supposed “lost purse.”
But that didn’t matter, I realized. He did know what I looked like. He might not realize we’d met three weeks ago in Helga’s lab, but he knew me as “Jane Smith,” the fake name I’d given the first time I visited UC Merced. And from the poster, he knew his employer wanted me.
I snuck a peek out the back window of the taxi. Would he double back and pursue me? In the deepening twilight, it was impossible to be sure, but I didn’t locate anyone with blond hair looking back at my taxi.
I let out a huge sigh of relief.
And then I took in a gasp of air, ready to scream as the man with ice–blue eyes materialized in the taxi beside me.
Chapter Thirteen
NEEDLES
My scream never came. Before I had a chance, my pursuer threw large arms around me and rippled away, taking me with him. I quickly lost all sense of direction as he began a mad, invisible race through Paris with me locked in his arms.
At first I had no thought of struggling free; the crazy–fast speed at which we moved disoriented me. Then we slowed and dove underground passing through floors, rock, soil, and I didn’t know what–all. I grew afraid that if I tried to materialize, I would end up doing so within something solid.
Chameleon (The Ripple Series) Page 8
