by Daniel Quinn
She reached for the phone and then pulled her hand back. What am I doing? Even if she had figured out how to fix the science problem, that didn’t fix the human one. After all, she didn’t know what they planned on doing with the being after he was born. Were they going to lock him up for his life, make him a lab rat? Would he have any semblance of a good life?
She stared down at Maeve, who had fallen back to sleep. She knew she was conflating Ben and her daughter, but she couldn’t see how to separate them. Her daughter deserved a good life. Didn’t this new creation deserve more than being a lab animal?
But even if you leave the project, they will try again. Another Ben would be created and doomed to die too soon. Or maybe they’d fix the problem and he’d live a longer life without comfort or kindness.
Alice bit her lip. There had to be a way to do something. She couldn’t just sit back and let them create another Ben for him to only suffer.
An idea began to form at the back of her mind. She stared at the phone, debating whether she had it in her to pull this off. Maeve gave a little cry, scrunching up her brow. Alice snuggled her into her shoulder, patting her back. “Sh, it’s okay. I’m here.”
And that simple statement answered her question. She was here for Maeve. Did the new being deserve any less?
Standing with Maeve snuggled to her chest, she reached for the phone. Maeve started to squirm and Alice jostled her as she dialed, trying to keep her from crying.
John answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“It’s Alice. I know how to make the trial successful.”
XII
Two months later, Alice carefully removed the egg from the young cow’s uterus. A month ago she had implanted modified stem cells into the cow’s uterus and now they were ready for harvesting. She felt nervous but excited. This is going to work. I know it.
The procedure had been moved to a surgical suite because today she had an audience. Behind the glass of the far wall stood over a dozen men. The colonel was there, along with John and a handful of scientists. Even Robert Buckley was in attendance, a tall creepy looking guy all in black shadowing him.
Alice ignored them all, focusing on the task at hand.
If she was right that stem cells could, in fact, create a new egg cell, a younger egg cell, it would change not only the B.E.G.I.N. project, but the world. The possibilities were staggering.
Taking the eggs to the microscope, she looked at them. Perfect healthy egg cells almost glowed under the light. Alice gave a small laugh and then stepped back. She looked toward the observatory window and nodded, her smile unable to be contained.
The men in the room beamed back at her and the scientists burst into applause. Alice looked back at the microscope but she was picturing her daughter. We did it, Maeve.
XIII
Nine months later, Alice strode quickly down the hall. Maeve had been a little testy this morning and it had been tough to leave her. But her mother had assured her she would call if there were any problems.
Of all the days to be late, she grumbled as she pushed through the OR doors. Frank looked up from the table. “Just in time,” he said. There was no smile but there was also no animosity.
Alice slipped on her gloves and pushed the warming tray over to him. “How’s it looking?”
“Good. Here we go.”
Alice tensed, watching as Frank carefully clamped and cut the umbilical cord. And then the little guy was free. Frank placed him on the warming tray and Alice pushed the tray away from the table, quickly taking the being’s vitals. He was grey like Ben had been, but it was a richer color. His heart beat was strong and his oxygen levels were good.
“Well?” Frank asked.
“He looks good—really good.”
Frank walked over, peering in at him. “That he does. So I think you should have the honors. What should we call him?”
Alice looked down at the little being in the tray. No surprise, he looked identical to Ben. She glanced down at the card attached to the tray, which read A.L.I.V.E. Subject #1. After the successful stem cell procedure, the program had been renamed the Alien Life In Vitro Experiment or A.L.I.V.E. for short.
“Alvie. His name is Alvie.”
Frank nodded before walking back to the table. “Alvie it is.”
Alice looked up and gave a thumbs up to Greta, who was standing outside the door. Greta smiled back and then disappeared from view. She’d call all the people who needed to know and inform them of the successful birth.
The doors opened and John walked in, all gowned up. He stood on the other side of the warming tray and looked down at Alvie. “How is he?”
Alice ran her hand gently over Alvie’s face. “He is perfect.”
“You’re sure you’re up for this?”
Alice narrowed her eyes as she pulled her gaze from Alvie. “We have a contract. It is ironclad. Is the government trying to weasel out of it?”
John put up his hands. “No. I’m speaking as your friend. Taking charge of the A.L.I.V.E. project, of him, is a huge endeavor.”
“Yes. But I owe him. We all owe him.”
“Okay then. Well, Dr. Leander, A.L.I.V.E. subject number 1 is officially moved into your care. You are in charge of determining what factors will best serve his well-being. You are expected to submit daily reports. Your new security is outside and will accompany you on the base and off. And any violation of your confidentiality contract will be met with the harshest of punishments.”
Alice felt the weight of her decision settle on her. She had agreed to come back only if they put her in charge of Alvie after birth. She wanted to be the one who looked out for him. Who determined how he was raised and how he was treated. The government would, of course, oversee and approve or disapprove of her choices, but she would fight to make sure he had the best life she could manage. And that meant she had just tied herself and Maeve to the government for the foreseeable future.
John walked around the tray and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Rick would be really proud of you.”
Alice smiled even as tears sprang to her eyes. “Yeah. I think he would be.” John squeezed her shoulder before walking out.
Alice turned her focus to the little guy lying in front of her: the guy she had helped bring into the world with the aid of her daughter’s stem cells. And now you, my little friend, are right in the middle of the military industrial complex. A frown crossed Alvie’s face and Alice reached over to touch him. The frown disappeared. And right then and there, Alvie stole her heart.
She leaned down, speaking quietly, so Frank wouldn’t overhear. “Hi, Alvie. My name’s Alice and I’m going to make sure you’re protected.”
She ran a hand over his head, feeling a burst of protectiveness that she recognized; she’d felt the same way when Maeve had been born. She looked at the door, picturing the soldiers at the end of the hall, and a chill settled over her. Now I just have to figure out how to do that.
EPILOGUE
Langley, Virginia
Robert Buckley looked up with a grin as Martin Drummond appeared in the doorway. “Just the man I was looking for.” He nodded to the brandy snifters on his desk. “Take one.”
Martin walked over to the desk, wondering what was going on. He’d never seen Buckley so excited. He picked up a glass as Buckley stood, picking up the other one. “To the first successful A.L.I.V.E. subject.”
“It survived?”
“Born thirty minutes ago and healthy.” Buckley clinked his glass with Martin’s before taking a sip.
“And Dr. Leander will be taking over its care?”
Buckley nodded. “Yup. You were right. She bonded to the last one. And this one, she demanded to be able to oversee the project or else she walked.”
Martin nodded. Not that he cared about the bonding, but the A.L.I.V.E. subject was an experiment and they needed to know how the thing related to humans. They had to see if it could care about humans. “What about the daughter?”
B
uckley frowned. “So far, that hasn’t been an issue. I think the daughter has actually helped her bond with the subject.”
“It won’t divide her attention?”
Buckley shrugged. “If that happens, it can be handled. The same way the husband was.”
Martin raised the glass to his lips, barely tasting the scotch as it made its way down his throat. He’d prefer to remove the daughter, but the grief might work against them. He’d just have to wait and see.
“You know what this means?” Buckley smiled, nodding toward the stack of folders on his desk: the files on all the other species of aliens whose bodies were currently in the custody of the US government, all thirty-three of them. DNA had been harvested from each of them. And it was only a matter of time before the process was adapted for their more foreign DNA.
A genuine smile broke across Martin’s face. “Now the real fun can begin.”
~*~
A Word from R.D. Brady
FACT OR FICTION?
Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed B.E.G.I.N. At the end of my novels, I like to take a minute to talk about what is real and what is imagination. For B.E.G.I.N., that proves a little difficult as many of the ideas used are believed to be facts by some and denied by others. With that in mind, here we go!
Alien Crashes. All the sites mentioned in B.E.G.I.N.—Roswell; Crecksburg, PA; Aztec, NM; and Laredo, Texas—are alleged to have been the locations of alien crashes. In each case, there are multiple eyewitnesses, although officially all of the occurrences have been disavowed by the U.S. government.
Alien Abductions. In 1961, Barney and Betty Hill became the first highly publicized alleged alien abduction. Under hypnosis, the couple recounted medical experiments they had received at the hands of grey aliens. Their stepping forward opened the door to more and more people publically speaking about their experiences. In a small number of those cases, there have been reports of a small metal object being left behind within the subject.
Project Blue Book. There was a government-run Project Blue Book based at Wright Patterson Air Force Base. Ostensibly, the group’s objective was to evaluate the truthfulness of any UFO claims. Needless to say, they found no claims to be valid.
Foreign Technology Division. There was a Foreign Technology Division at Wright Patterson Air Force base. The FTD’s mission is to re-engineer any and all foreign tech.
Cloning. Cloning did not become a reality until 1996. The technique described in B.E.G.I.N, i.e., the replacing of the nucleus of a cell with foreign DNA, is, however, one of the processes through which cloning can be successfully accomplished.
Roswell Aliens. According to some eyewitnesses, there were actually aliens found at the Roswell crash, one of whom was said to still be alive.
Majestic 12. There are some papers floating around the internet which purport to show that Harry S. Truman did in fact create a committee of twelve individuals to look into the alien problem. Official word is that the Majestic 12 paperwork is a hoax.
Ben and Alvie. Ben and Alvie are, of course, products of my imagination. However, the skull from which I imagined Alvie and Ben being cloned does exist. It is called the Star Child Skull. You can find information on that skull here.
~*~
RD Brady is a former criminologist who began writing full-time in 2013. A.L.I.V.E., the full-length novel follow-up to B.E.G.I.N., will be available in July 2016. Her Belial series is currently available on Amazon. You can sign up to be notified about her new releases here.
~*~
Splinter
Rysa Walker
~*~
Boston, Massachusetts
07161905_11:23:00
A flash of green pulls my eyes to the corner of the room. As always, my heart jumps, praying it will be Kate. Knowing it won’t be, can’t be. The heart keeps looking for miracles, long after the mind has abandoned hope.
The new arrival stares back at me, CHRONOS key still in his hand. Or rather, still in my hand, since he’s clearly a version of me. A future me, most likely, since I don’t remember any circumstances from my past that could have put another me here. Something is smudged in black on his forehead. It looks like one of those… can’t remember the name, but it’s the symbol Hitler and his Nazi thugs will use in a few decades.
And Future-Me is bleeding. The right side of his white shirt is drenched, the red appearing almost black in the green glow of his CHRONOS key.
Bloody hell. I’ve got a double memory coming.
When presented with a future version of myself who is injured, possibly seriously, the fact that I’m about to get hit with a double memory probably shouldn’t be my first concern. But it is. I can feel it starting already, gnawing away at my brain.
In memory number one, I’m sitting here all alone, flipping back to the front of my notepad, to see if there’s anything I missed the first few times I tried to reconstruct that night in 1893. It’s a tougher task than I’d imagined it would be, given that I’ve dreamed about running through that burning hotel hundreds of times in the years since. Or maybe that’s why it’s tough—the memories from eight-year-old me are all mixed up with the nightmares.
In memory number two, which is growing by the second, the notepad in my hands is still closed. And I’m staring at this second version of me who’s popped in out of thin air. Who I’m pretty sure has been shot.
The two realities feel equally real, equally true, but since I’m in the middle of the second reality where there are two Kiernan Dunnes in my room, that’s the one I have to run with.
“What happened?” I ask, as I reach under the bed to grab my makeshift first aid kit.
“Tried taking his gun away. Doesn’t work. And don’t bother with bandages. I won’t last that long.” He registers my expression and then adds, “No, I’m not dyin’. Hurts like hell, but I don’t think it’s gonna kill me.”
“What’s that on your forehead?”
“A four.”
I squint, and I can see it now. Kind of. “It’s backwards.”
“Try writin’ a number on your own forehead when you’re in a hurry. I’m livin’ proof that you suck at it.”
I don’t even bother to ask why the number is a four. I’m pretty sure I know the answer and it makes me physically ill to think that it’s not just a double memory I’ll have to reconcile, but a quadruple or maybe even quintuple memory. Never had one of those. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it.
“No,” he says, reading my expression. “It’s only a double memory. We just needed to keep track of which double I am.”
I open my mouth, but then close it again, pretty sure that any clarification on that point is going to make things worse.
“And stop askin’ questions. I don’t have much time.”
“How far in my future are you?”
He gives me an exasperated look, probably because I’ve just asked another question. But this one is kind of important, since it’s the best indicator I have of whether I’m going to still be here ten minutes from now—whether he’s the splinter or I am. The amount of time a splinter has varies, but Simon says twelve minutes is the longest he’s seen.
That’s the thing with splinters. They’re really easy to create, although I can’t say I understand the temporal physics or whatever that’s behind it. To create a splinter, you just jump back a few minutes into your own timeline and change some little thing. Keep yourself from doing whatever you were about to do. The version you see when you arrive in the past—he’s usually the splinter and his clock starts ticking as soon as you arrive.
The key word there is usually. Under some circumstances, the one who created the splinter is the one who ceases to exist. No one seems certain as to why, but Simon thinks it has something to do with how far you jump back. Twenty minutes or so, and most likely, the other guy is the splinter. Longer than that, and the odds are reversed. I’ve only splintered myself once, and Simon didn’t mention that there was any ambiguity on this point until after we were both
staring at our duplicates.
But then, that’s typical of Simon. He’s never been bothered by existential questions. Me, I’m not too fond of looking at an identical version of myself and wondering exactly what’s going to happen when time’s up. Simon treats splintering—and every other aspect of time travel—as a game. He once splintered himself so he’d have company on a roller coaster that looked like it was made of spit and twigs after I refused to get on the deathtrap with him.
In one sense, I guess Simon has a point when he says it doesn’t matter who’s the splinter. The other guy is still you. But it gives me a god-awful headache. Judging from the expression on the face in front of me, Future-Me feels the same.
“I’m twenty-five days in your future. I’m pretty sure that makes me the splinter, but if I’m still here five minutes from now, you can pull out the first aid kit. For now, just shut up and listen, okay?” He reaches behind him, grimacing as he pulls something from under his belt. A few drops of blood spatter onto the wooden slats of the floor, and then he shoves a handful of papers toward me. “Most… of the information you’ll need is here. Skip the stuff we already tried. Any attempt to rescue Kate before we get her grandmother to safety will fail, and it’s getting crowded in that room. And—obviously—don’t try for the bastard’s gun. He’s got more than one bullet. Me takin’ this one didn’t save her.”
The confusion I’ve been feeling for the past few hours makes perfect sense now. This is the reason I’ve scratched through seven pages in my notebook. Earlier today, I’d have sworn I knew exactly what happened that night in Chicago, at least up to the point where my eight-year-old self, along with a much younger version of Kate’s grandmother, dropped out the window onto the fire escape. But tonight, when I began writing things down, my memories were jumbled, out of sequence.
