Flesh and Blood

by French, Jackie

  Finally I looked up. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  Neither of them asked me what I was sorry for. Neither said, ‘If he’d never met you he wouldn’t have tried this stupid, hopeless thing.’

  They didn’t need to say the words. I knew it too.

  Elaine just said, ‘Hush now. Hush.’ She looked pale and dark-eyed, as though she, too, hadn’t slept for days. Theo looked frail and tired. He was the same age as Elaine, but the vampire modification he had been cursed with made him resistant to regeneration and even rejuve. He was only 86, but looked infinitely old.

  He made a move as though to touch me too, then checked it. Since the tragic time his blood lust had killed a girl two years ago, he had never touched me. I had never seen him touch Elaine since that time either. He just said, ‘I wish you’d come to us before.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘I didn’t … I thought you’d …’

  ‘No,’ said Elaine. And said no more.

  We watched together after that, apart from brief intervals when I slept or ate, and even then either Theo or Elaine was with him: mostly Theo, as Elaine’s duties as the utopia’s Meditech meant she was on call. Theo was the utopia’s Administrator; he was able to do most of his work from the same terminal that Linked him to us in Virtual.

  Tubes ran into Neil’s arm and more tubes took waste from his body. Machinery kept his breathing even, his temperature slightly lowered to help healing, the oxygen mix in the air slightly richer than Norm.

  On the sixth night I fled to Dr Meredith’s kitchen and found her stuffing turkey with green herbs.

  ‘Grow another clone!’ I yelled at her. ‘A Norm clone! If this fails at least you can transplant its brain to him.’

  ‘No,’ she said calmly. ‘I won’t do that. A clone’s brain wouldn’t be Neil.’

  ‘But …’ I began. I had been going to say that at least a new Neil would be something to give Theo and Elaine. But suddenly I knew they would find no consolation in a child’s brain in the body of their son.

  Seven days from our meeting in the kitchen, Dr Meredith nodded at her son–grandson–descendant and he switched the Link into wake mode.

  I sat beside the bed, with Theo and Elaine next to me. Elaine held my hand; my other hand held Neil’s. For a moment I thought his eyelids flickered. But they didn’t. The screen by the bed showed no difference in his brain waves.

  ‘Not getting through,’ said the son–grandson–descendant.

  Part of my mind frantically searched the Clinic’s Net for more data; the other half heard Dr Meredith say to me and to the Realtime images of Theo and Elaine, ‘We’ll try again tomorrow.’

  ‘He’s brain dead!’ I cried. Elaine flinched. Theo’s arms went round her automatically, then broke away. I don’t think she even noticed.

  ‘No,’ said Dr Meredith. ‘There’s still mental activity. He just isn’t responding to the Link.’

  ‘But he should! He responded to Link anaesthesia!’

  ‘Yes. This could be a good sign or a bad. Perhaps he has gained enough control to be able to counteract the Link.’

  ‘Or?’ whispered Elaine.

  ‘Or brain function has deteriorated. But I’m optimistic,’ said Dr Meredith.

  She left the room.

  I sat watching Neil, trying not to look at Theo and Elaine. We didn’t speak. Finally Theo broke the silence. ‘Danny.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Come home.’

  I looked up. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Come back to the utopia. They’ll let you know if there is any change.’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Danny, please.’ It was Elaine’s voice now.

  ‘I’m staying here.’

  I felt rather than saw them glance at each other. Theo spoke clearly. ‘We love you very much, Danny. We wouldn’t want you to think … to feel … not to think you aren’t welcome here. No matter what happens …’ his voice broke off.

  ‘Come home. Please,’ said Elaine.

  ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You know,’ said Theo, almost conversationally, ‘since I have lived here at the utopia I believe I have found one thing that makes humans stand apart from animals. No, two things. Humans keep going, even when it seems they can’t. And they come together when things are bad. That is how they keep on going.’

  I looked at him. Dear Theo, who spoke of humans as a race apart, a species he could never completely reach. Theo, the most human of all humans, even if he was a vampire too.

  I looked at Elaine. Yes, she would always blame me for what had happened to her son. But you can love and blame too. For the first time I realised how much I loved them as well. I’d been part of the Forest, able to scan data with the speed of a computer, communicate with my peers more closely than any humans had before. But I’d never quite understood love.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll come home. Soon. For a little while, anyway.’

  But there was something I had to do first.

  chapter 6

  ‘A baby?’ Dr Meredith stared at me.

  ‘Yes. A baby. You know, goo-goo, bub-bub. It’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course it’s possible. His sperm, your egg.’ Her eyes were watchful suddenly. ‘Neil’s sperm are still Norm, despite the modification to his brain. If you have a baby by him the child won’t inherit your abilities.’

  ‘But if I had a child by his modified clone, it would,’ I said slowly. Did I want that? Yes, absolutely. I refused to be ashamed of what I had been, what I was again. Illegal modification or not, what I had was good. That was why I had been restored, why Neil had tried to gain the same abilities.

  ‘A normal child? Not bio-Engineered?’

  I thought briefly about that. ‘Any defectives removed, the usual enhancers. Eyesight, immunity to whatever diseases you can manage and UV overload. That sort of thing. Nothing more.’ I smiled briefly. ‘No wings or gills.’

  ‘Very well.’ She spoke slowly. ‘I’ll call Andrew in. He’s the best at that type of procedure. He’ll need to see …’

  ‘I’m fertile today,’ I said.

  ‘How do you …’ she stopped. ‘I suppose you can Link in and check your own biofeedback now?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Very well then,’ Dr Meredith said again. ‘We’ll do it now.’

  chapter 7

  It didn’t feel any different. A few new cells, nestling in my uterus. But some of them were Neil’s.

  No, I couldn’t give Theo and Elaine their son back. But I could give them a grandchild. Somehow I knew that a grandchild — a natural grandchild, or what this century accepted as natural anyway — would be a far greater gift than his clone.

  They had moved my bed into Neil’s room now. I would have liked to share his bed, feel his warmth against me, feel that just by being close I might give some of my strength to him. But he needed to remain as still as possible. A bed next to his was the best they could do.

  The room was dim. The screens were Link sensitive; they only lit up when someone looked at them. I could hear Neil’s breathing soft and steady beside me. It was a comfort of a sort.

  I shut my eyes. I tried to sleep. Sleep was necessary, like eating. You had to sleep and eat to go on. And I had a reason to go on now.

  I wondered what she would look like. It would be a girl, Dr Andrew had said. Tall and fair like Neil? Small and dark like me? Or tall and dark or small and fair, scientist or artist?

  I’d wait a month before I told Theo and Elaine, I thought drowsily. How big would she be by then …

  I was almost asleep when the voice reached me.

  ‘Dan … Dan …’

  For a moment I thought Neil had woken. Then I realised the voice was in my brain — a mental Link, the sort I’d never had since the Forest died and left me alone.

  ‘Neil,’ I whispered, because that is the only way to put it, the only way to explain to someone who has never felt a Link like mine. ‘It’s you,
isn’t it?’

  ‘Me,’ whispered Neil.

  ‘What the shit did you think you were doing! How dare you take that risk? It wasn’t fair to me, to Theo or Elaine.’

  ‘Danny …’

  Suddenly my fury disappeared. ‘You are there, aren’t you?’ I whispered. ‘You’re alive!’

  ‘Tired,’ said Neil’s voice. ‘See you in the morning …’

  ‘Neil? Neil?’

  No answer. I flung myself out of bed, stared at the brightening screens. There was no need to Link with the Clinic’s data to interpret the new peaks.

  The door swung open. Dr Meredith, a short oval shape in a purple dressing gown and slippers with rabbits’ ears. They looked like they’d been made by a great-something-grandchild.

  ‘Good,’ she said with great satisfaction.

  ‘I heard …’ I said. ‘I thought I heard …’

  ‘He Linked with you?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Good, I thought that might happen first,’ she said.

  ‘Then why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘Because it mightn’t’ve. Didn’t want you Linking and probing at him either. You can now though, if you like. Not too much.’

  I let my mind wander to his again. No words came back, or images. But there was a presence, a warm and glowing presence that was unmistakably Neil.

  chapter 8

  She called one of the boys to help me from the room. The sobs were too strong for me to walk, much less talk.

  They took me to the kitchen. She held the cup of hot sweet tea to my lips till I sipped, and sipped again. Gradually the sobs lessened.

  ‘I thought … I thought I’d killed him.’ I took another sip. ‘I thought I’d never Link like that again. Feel someone else’s mind with mine. You don’t know … you can’t know.’

  ‘No, my dear,’ said Dr Meredith, and there was a touch of sadness in her voice, ‘I can’t know.’ She smiled at me, and opened a tin of raspberry shortbread. She handed me a piece. I bit it under her sharp gaze.

  ‘But the next generation will know.’ She caught my shocked look. ‘I’ve given three embryos your modification so far. The first one should be born in about two months. You’ll have your Forest again, if you can wait for them to grow up.’ She nodded at my stomach, ‘Your daughter will have company too.’

  My daughter. I’d got myself pregnant and Neil didn’t know.

  How the hell was I going to explain this?

  chapter 9

  He was looking at me when I woke up.

  ‘Hi,’ I said stupidly.

  ‘Hi, yourself.’ He looked pale, his face pinched from so many days on the drip, but otherwise himself. I opened my mind slightly.

  His eyes opened wider. ‘Shit!’ Then on MindLink, ‘Is this what it’s like?’

  ‘Yes. No, much deeper, faster sometimes. Didn’t want to rush you.’

  ‘Shit,’ he said again, then thought at me. ‘I expected … I don’t know what I expected. Just words. But I’m … I’m thinking with you.’ He was panting now. ‘Dan — stop it please. I can’t take it. It’s too much. Much too much.’

  I broke the Link. ‘You probably just need practice.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘I was born like this! I learnt to Link at the same time I learnt to see or listen. I’ve no idea how I learnt. And the others learnt with me.’

  ‘The others … there are no others now.’

  ‘No. Just us.’ Once there had been many of us. But the others had been killed, except for Melanie, violently brainwiped, and Michael, who’d voluntarily had his ability removed so that he wouldn’t have to sacrifice his City career. And the babies, I thought.

  ‘Babies? What babies?’ The Link had been broken, but he must have caught an echo of it anyway.

  ‘Dr Meredith’s great-something-grandkids. She’s had them modified with our ability.’

  ‘You mean we’ll hear them think all the time too?’ The tone was distinctly uneasy.

  I laughed. ‘No, of course not. It’s not like telepathy. We have to be connected through a computer Network, remember? And we can go into private MindLink, just as you’d scroll up data by yourself.’

  ‘I see. Dan?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I felt something — you thought about babies but it wasn’t Dr Meredith’s grandchildren … It was something else.’

  ‘Neil …’ I didn’t know how to say it. We had lived together for two years but I still had no idea how he would react, either to the idea of a child or the fact that I’d gone ahead and had one made, modified and implanted while he was asleep.

  I don’t know whether he MindLinked up the ghost of my emotion, or whether he simply read the news on my face. Neil and I had never known the mental world I’d shared with the Forest. We’d been Trees, separate and apart. Nonetheless, he knew me well. ‘Dan … Dan you didn’t …’

  I nodded. ‘My egg. Sperm from your modified clone.’ I tried to read the emotions on his face, but they were too confused. I wasn’t even sure of my own emotions, much less his. Then suddenly his face cleared. His eyes blazed with a blinding joy.

  ‘Neil!’ It was Elaine, her Virtual presence suddenly appearing by the bed. ‘Oh Neil, Neil …’

  Neil’s face grinned at her from his pillow.

  ‘Guess what?’ he said. ‘We’re going to have a baby.’

  chapter 10

  The Centaur was waiting for us at the house. It seemed right, somehow. The Centaur had been the first inhabitant of the utopia I’d met when I’d come here two years ago.

  He looked much the same now: the shaggy brown horse half, the paler human, the face with its long, slightly furred forehead that looked both equine and human. He raised his tail as our floater approached. A pile of droppings fell onto the shaly ground.

  I Linked the floater window open. ‘Hello,’ I said.

  He grinned, showing wide yellow teeth. ‘Hello hello hello.’

  It was impossible to tell if he was really greeting us, or just repeating what I’d said. But the grin was welcoming anyway. He raised his hand in a sort of salute, and galloped off into the trees as the floater landed by the house.

  The house was waiting for us too.

  It was a good house they’d found for me when they’d cast me out of the City. Old weathered stone that had sheltered many lives and accepted me as well.

  I’d made changes in the past year, using a small part of the money accumulating in my City account, the royalties from my Virtual designs. There were new water tanks behind the house, and a membrane trickle-irrigation system sustained a garden that was no longer tangled and abandoned. Now roses and pineapple sage, jasmine and wisteria bloomed, a lilypond where the centaurs sometimes drank, gleamed in the dappled light and a vegetable garden, walled with stone to keep the Wombat out, provided Realfood for our kitchen.

  There were changes inside as well. More books, bought on the antique market CityNet, and bright rugs on the polished wooden floors, found at a utopia up the coast that Ophelia had told me about.

  Ophelia. I hadn’t told anyone at Black Stump that I was having my power restored. How can you say, ‘Guess what? My mind can now whirl 1000 times faster than yours,’ to your friends?

  But I’d tell them about the baby. Soon.

  There was food waiting for us in the kitchen, just as it had been waiting for me when I had first come here, hurt and alone, two years ago. A loaf of bread, still warm and wrapped in a tea towel, fresh eggs, a roast chicken in the fridge, its stuffing oozing out in the slightly charred, non-perfect way that no Virtual could get quite right — even mine. A fruitcake, Neil’s favourite chocolate chip biscuits with peanuts in them, an apple pie. Elaine must have spent all yesterday baking.

  I got Neil settled on the sofa (he refused to go to bed), called Theo and Elaine to say we’d arrived (it was incredibly good to hands-free Link again, to use my mind to set the parameters instead of my fingers to type in commands), set water onto ultrawave for the tea I�
��d serve them when they got here.

  I had just heard the putter of the dikdik over the hill when the faint chime of a call coming in sounded in my head.

  I shoved it onto message mode. Another chime sounded an emergency override.

  I hesitated. I didn’t want to speak to anyone now. I wanted to sit with the people I loved and talk about the future, the incredibly bright future. I wanted to watch Theo and Elaine’s faces as we discussed baby names, baby plans. I wanted to glory in their emotions and my own.

  On the other hand it might be Dr Meredith with a medical warning, symptoms to watch out for. Or a call for Elaine. As the utopia’s Meditech she was constantly on call. Perhaps there had been an accident.

  Now my ability had been restored I no longer had to watch a screen to see the faces of those who called me. I could simply shut my eyes, or even multitask and see the image in my mind while I did other things.

  Not handle boiling water though. I sat down at the kitchen table and let the call take over.

  It was Michael.

  Once my lover, then my enemy when I believed he had betrayed the Forest to further his career in City Admin, and now, perhaps, my friend, though I wondered sometimes if the remnants of a closeness such as ours could really be called friendship.

  He didn’t say hello. We’d never had to use a verbal form of greeting in the old days. He just looked at me for a few seconds then said, ‘Did it work?’

  My skin went cold. I sat back slowly, to give myself time to think. ‘Did what work?’

  ‘Restoration.’

  I stared at him. ‘Has the City been spying on me?’ And what action would they take against me, I wondered, now I’d had a Proclaimed ability restored. What action might they take against Dr Meredith and the others at the Clinic; against Neil if they knew he had been modified too.

  ‘Stop panicking,’ said Michael. Even without MindLink Michael knew me well. ‘The City knows nothing about it. Yet.’