Project Cain (Project Cain)

by Geoffrey Girard

  Yes, she was lying.

  Castillo is alive. He lives here too.

  All the news stories about his death were a total falsehood, of course. These same stories claimed my father had died at DSTI that same day and that Castillo had shot him and some others in this work-rampage shooting thing.

  Just part of the story invented by the government to cover up all of it.

  A story that allowed us to vanish forever.

  • • •

  Just not completely vanish.

  Castillo has all my father’s notes still, and together we’ve even managed to find a couple more clones these last months. Clones my father had adopted out to parents who—well, to people who’d done bad things for money. Those kids are safe now also.

  They’re here too.

  And if anything bad ever happens to any of us, about a hundred newspapers and serious bloggers are gonna get a shitload of data and photos and facts—info about serial-killer clones and dead employees and abused children and bioweapons tested on civilians in Afghanistan.

  Not all of it.

  No one would believe all of it.

  But enough of what happened that the right people might.

  • • •

  Kristin supported and nurtured the lie to protect Castillo and me and all the others.

  Because she knew it was a lie that might help keep us all safe. A “deal” the government could maybe live with.

  Mostly. Maybe.

  Kristin visits here whenever she can. She talks to us. Helps us.

  She’s always afraid of being followed. And she should be.

  It’s been six months, but you never know.

  Maybe someday they will come for us all.

  • • •

  There are two missing pieces to the puzzle of this story that I will try to explain as best I can, but don’t expect too much. To me these pieces are also still missing.

  1. The Dark Man. Monster. Supersoldier. Bio-drone. Son of Cain. So many names I’ve heard used these last six months. But call them whatever you will, it doesn’t really matter. There is still this question of how I was hearing/seeing their thoughts and actions. Hearing the blood of the other clones through these dark men somehow. Some kind of psychic/mental/chromosomal/spiritual link between all of us, I cannot deny. That was real. How it worked—I don’t think even the scientists at DSTI or my father understood that. I learned that David Spanelli (one of the original six clones we’d been looking for) had been murdered by the Dark Man somewhere along the Jersey Shore and that what I’d imagined during my vision of his murder, when I’d dreamed of the beach, had not been that far off from what really happened. I know that part of me had been standing outside our motel room that night for just a second when we’d been attacked. How, again, I just can’t explain. But it had happened.

  2. Why did my dad leave clues in his journals that only I could solve? Did he want me to help him free the clones or stop him or . . . I’ve long since stopped worrying about this. I think the clues in his book made sense to me only because he and I shared a life for a while. For eight years, I figure. Eight years he’d included me in his world, and that had happened to include certain places and movies and pieces of art, and that’s that. Many of the doodles I still don’t understand at all. And I never will. Because the images probably weren’t for me. They were for him. And I knew my father only enough to figure out a few.

  • • •

  One thing I’ve learned from all of this is that there aren’t answers for everything.

  Science and logic and facts can’t cover all of it.

  Sometimes stuff just can’t be explained.

  • • •

  I am sorry my dad is dead.

  And, more than I should perhaps, I still both love and miss him.

  • • •

  Kristin is the one who suggested I try writing all this down.

  Another step in a long process. To both remember and forget.

  To come to terms with MY ghosts now.

  To understand more about WHAT I survived. WHO I am. WHY I am.

  The “Clone who Lived.” Piggy #10. The boy behind tank number two?

  My name is Jeff.

  For now, that should be enough, really.

  Because that’s the thing at the end of all of this. At the beginning too, I suppose.

  I’m me. You’re you.

  And I’m not gonna let someone else tell me who I “really am.”

  Not the counselors or newspapers or geneticists. Not my father.

  I’m not even gonna let ME tell me that.

  We are like little pieces of paper floating in the wind.

  Extreme for Life.

  But not powerless or accidental. Not something tossed carelessly into the air, not something that may fall or may fly depending on the whims of pure chance. Nor something hurled with purpose by another’s intrusive commanding hand either, our destinies somehow preset only by the stars above or some blood within.

  Once airborne, WE choose the paths to follow. The currents to chase, elude.

  Because WE’RE ALL CAIN.

  And we’re all Abel, too.

  No, it won’t be from some blood test that I figure out who I really am.

  I’ll figure that out by the choices I make. I’ll figure it out later myself.

  We all will.

  You too.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Author Don DeLillo once described a book in progress as a hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around, dragging itself across the floor, noseless and flipper-armed, drooling, etc., wanting love until fully formed by the writer. The writer, however, is not the only one made to endure this insistent child care. And raising two books (Project Cain and brother Cain’s Blood) at the same time, all those extra hands/eyes/minds/hearts are much appreciated.

  Special thanks to: Jason Sizemore and Apex Magazine, who first carried my Cain fetus; Foundry Literary & Media’s Peter McGuigan and Stephen Barbara for suggesting twins and becoming steadfast godfathers, and Katie Hamblin and Matt Wise, the lads’ favorite/coolest babysitters; the devoted fostering of Megan Reid and Stacy Creamer, and Kristin Ostby (who discovered this peculiar child in a blanket on her doorstep and still cared for it as her own). To family and friends who’ve supported the process throughout (one son finally asking: “Will you please stop talking about Jeffrey Dahmer?”), in particular Mary for encouraging, and accommodating, my own lengthy and selfish parenting of the Cains.

  And now, an excerpt from Geoffrey Girard’s Cain’s Blood, an adult thriller that tells the story of Project Cain from the perspective of Sean Castillo.

  AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD

  When Ashley saw the clown, she knew for sure.

  Before that, it had only been a suspicion, prompted by that inimitable nervous tickle in her stomach that hinted that she might now be in a threatening situation, that something bad could happen. Could. But not fear. Not yet. Not nearly enough to make you grab your two children and run screaming for the car. That’d be too embarrassing.

  The two cars pulled in beside each other on the gravel parking lot. Both filled with kids, teenagers. Mostly all boys. Why come to a playground? A girl among them. Older. Dirty hair hung over her eyes. Moving strangely.

  Ashley turned back to find her daughter still winding through the top of the park’s small wooden castle. She absently handed little Michael another pretzel stick and looked back toward where two other mothers had been having a picnic lunch with their own children. Was overly relieved when she saw they were still there, chatting away.

  “Pox,” Michael burbled beside her. “Pox.” Pox, Tik, Mop. The ever-evolving official language of young Michael Steins, fifteen months. Made-up words she collected in a small diary to share with him someday.

  “Pox,” she smiled. “Pretzels.”

  Michael giggled.

  Two of the boys had already taken seats at the swings and were using their feet to twist themselves up in the
chains. Another pair was wrestling atop the seesaw. Fine, Ashley thought. Only trying to recapture some half-remembered joy of childhood. First weeks of summer vacation. Very Holden Caulfield. They’ll be bored in five minutes. The girl was probably just high.

  Ashley fumbled for her cellphone, half remembered she’d left it in the car. She started packing their things. “Honey,” she called out to Cassie. “Honey?” Wanting to get her attention without using her name. Why, she wondered, was that suddenly so important? Her daughter moving away from her deeper into the castle. Ashley stood and trailed after her. Clapped her hands. “Honey, come on now. Time to go.”

  Her daughter turned. “Whyyyyy?” she whined from the top parapet, her dark pigtails hanging over a yellow dress.

  “Come down, honey. Hurry up.”

  The four-year-old scrunched her face in displeasure.

  Closer, several of them looked older than teenagers. Young men.

  “Come on.” Ashley waved her down. Can’t get up there quick enough. “We’ll get ice creams on the way home.”

  “Mikey, too!”

  Don’t say his name, baby. Don’t say his damned name.

  “Yes, yes. Let’s go now, honey.”

  A horrible sound. Van doors shutting.

  Ashley spun around. The other table suddenly empty. The other mothers VANISHED. The other children already somehow collected, small bags of books, toys, McCalls and Pringles already packed. Their SUV somehow at this very moment backing slowly out of the long gravel parking lot. Leaving her alone.

  With them.

  She turned back to her daughter and almost collapsed to the ground as the whole park seemed to tilt. She was gone. Her daughter. Where once there’d been a little girl, there was now nothing. What do I . . . dear God, this is really happening.

  Ashley approached the castle like a half-formed ghost.

  She’s gone. She’s really gone. What have these monsters done to my—

  “Shit!”

  Her daughter appeared with a squeal at the bottom of the green tube, sliding to the end until her feet dangled above the mulched ground.

  “Cassie . . . God damn it!”

  “What, Mommy?” She climbed off the slide.

  “Nothing.” Ashley fought the urge to collapse again. “I’m sorry, baby. Come on, let’s go.” Yanking her back toward the picnic table.

  She saw the clown then. Standing perfectly still by the cars. A demonic scarecrow.

  Watching her. And her children. My children.

  A red suit with white frills and buttons and a matching red hat. Huge blue triangular eyes like a jack-o’-lantern. Its mouth bloodred and covering the entire bottom half of the face. In the shape of an enormous smile.

  Now, she knew.

  Scooping up the rest of their things and slinging the bag over her shoulder. Dragging little Michael in one arm, pulling her daughter with the other.

  “Pox,” Michael said. “Pox!”

  “In the car, baby. Hush now.”

  She looked up at the swing set, clearly saw the girl there for the first time. A woman. Her “boyfriend” slowly and mechanically pushing her swing from behind. The woman’s face masked behind grimy hair, head drooped to the side. What Ashley had thought was a shirt was not. The woman was nude from the waist up. What she’d figured was a shirt’s pattern was dried blood.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

  Ashley staggered forward to her car. Michael started crying.

  “Mommy, what’s wrong?”

  “Shut up,” she hissed, wrenching her daughter closer. “Please, baby, just . . .”

  One of the boys laughed.

  She’d reached the car.

  “Pox,” Michael yelped again. “Pox!”

  “Pox,” Ashley replied in a half laugh that shuddered through her whole body. “Pretzels. That’s right, baby.”

  She had the door half open when they finally stopped her.

  The first boy squatted down to playfully wave a finger at her daughter. The girl’s eyes were wide, her grip on Ashley’s hand like a vise.

  Another boy reached out and touched Ashley’s mouth.

  “Please . . . ,” she stammered over his probing fingers.

  Around the back of the car, a third shape moving toward them.

  A horrible thing made of white and blue and red. One she’d somehow been waiting for.

  “Pox.” The clown smiled at them in a bloody grin that now filled the whole world. “Pox?”

  Michael giggled.

  DNA n.

  short for deoxyribonucleic acid

  (1) A nucleic acid capable of self-replication and synthesis which carries genetic information in every cell; (2) Two long chains of nucleotides twisted into a double helix and joined by hydrogen bonds between the complementary bases adenine and thymine or cytosine and guanine; (3) Sequence which determines and transmits individual hereditary characteristics from parents to offspring: see also genetic code; (4) DNA: see also Do Not Alter; (5) DNA: see also Do Not Ask

  While Odysseus pondered thus in mind and heart,

  Poseidon, the earth-shaker, rose up a great wave,

  dread and grievous, arching over from above,

  and drove down it upon him.

  And the wave scattered the long timbers of his raft

  but Odysseus bestrode one plank.

  THE ODYSSEY

  DSTI was founded by Dr. William Asbury and incorporated in 1977. Its chief executive officer was Dr. Thomas Rolich, M.D., Ph.D. Its director of research was Dr. Gregory Jacobson, recipient of the Zonta Science Award and The Genetics Society of America’s prestigious Novitski Prize for “exhibiting an extraordinary level of creativity and intellectual ingenuity in genetic scholarship and application.” Castillo lifted this from DSTI’s corporate website.

  The rest came from Brody. Pete Brody had worked on half a dozen missions with Castillo as the chief analyst from the DI, the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence, and was now working in the private sector, something to do with Wall Street. His choice, but he’d still seemed genuinely interested when Castillo had called earlier. “I’ll see what I can find,” he’d said.

  Ten hours later, and Castillo had info DSTI had not quite included on its website. “They were acquired as a subsidiary by BioStar in 1990 to obtain several of DSTI’s cloning patents,” Pete reported. “BioStar is a subsidiary of Goodwin Bio-Med, formed by the Nerney Institute in ’87. Nerney’s a sister company of Terngo Engineering, who designs and builds vehicles and industrial machinery for the U.S. Defense Department.”

  “Go on,” Castillo said. He’d stopped taking notes.

  The boy, Jeffrey, still lay asleep in a bed across the room. At least he looked asleep. Castillo wasn’t sure. The kid had dozed off a couple times in the car, but for no more than a couple minutes. Probably needed to sleep for a week. It had been a long day crisscrossing Pennsylvania to search the local malls, convenience stores, and high schools. They’d even checked out several local paintball fields. Shown pictures of the six escapees and Dr. Jacobson to fifty-plus kids. Questioned various store managers. Nothing.

  He’d gotten maybe an hour of sleep himself. Maybe. He wasn’t sure. Like that, his chronic insomnia had reverted from being a disorder worth fighting back to an occupational advantage.

  He’d pulled into the motel around 1900. Dyed and cut the Jacobson kid’s hair. Wasn’t sure if DSTI or anyone else would be looking for him, but the kid’s father had convinced him he was dead meat—a “liability,” the kid had quoted—if he was caught. Maybe the boy took some comfort in the fact that Castillo hadn’t killed him yet. Castillo doubted it. Since Erdman hadn’t been particularly forthcoming with the knowledge of Jeff Jacobson’s existence, Castillo felt no real compunction to share with Erdman what, or who, he’d found. For now, he’d get what he could out of the kid and turn him back over to DSTI when the idea wasn’t so repugnant.

  If he could get anything at all, that is. The malls and paintball fields had been a bust, a
nd the kid’d looked catatonic throughout, in full-blown, understandable shock. After the haircut and dye job, Castillo had had him look at some more of his father’s journals, see if anything made any sense, and that hadn’t gone much better than the first time. The boy barely read them, had mostly looked like he’d wanted to throw up. Who could blame him? Castillo felt the same way and had never even met Gregory Jacobson. While this lunatic was this fucking kid’s father and the guy—

  “Terngo’s prime shareholder,” Pete was saying, “is Plainview Inc. I’ve no doubt you know them.”

  “Intimately.” Castillo had lived within their version of reality for ten years. Everything from lodging and meals to laundry, Internet access and gym equipment. They were Halliburton’s little brother, but with a forty-thousand-person staff, including foreign mercenaries, not by much.

  “Annual revenue of one hundred billion dollars,” Brody said, “including an additional ten billion a year from the U.S. Department of Defense.”

  “That’s a lot of money to trickle down.”

  “ ‘Tis. DSTI is also partially and directly funded by Johns Hopkins University, which receives another two billion annually for federally funded research and development. Mostly, again, from the DOD.”

  “Incredible.”

  “Remember, Castillo, it’s simply a giant global shell game meant to hide one thing from all of us: The money.”

  “And the monsters,” Castillo said. “Anything else?”

  “There’ve been some deaths.”

  “Go on.”

  “There was a plane crash ten years ago. Three DSTI geneticists and a marketing VP. Twin-engine Beechcraft King Air over Kentucky heading to a conference in Nashville. The NTSB concluded likely cause was the flight crew’s failure to maintain adequate airspeed, which led to an aerodynamic stall. None of the other typical causes of a small-plane accident—engine failure, icing, pilot error—appeared to have been involved. The company plane was not required to have a cockpit voice recorder.”