The Unborn

by Brian Herbert

  Before Riggio’s birth, tests in the womb of the surrogate mother had shown—inexplicably—that he was one of five fetuses. But shortly after that apparent discovery, four of the fetuses vanished, as if they had never been there. Yordanius had always assumed that the early tests were errors, and had not looked into the matter further. He’d been busy with so many other matters that he had never performed gender tests on the missing fetuses, if they ever existed in the first place.

  Einell had always been the most pleasant and charming of women, and regularly she inquired to see if Riggio had been located yet, and if he had been placed under strict laboratory control. Yordanius had always had to answer no, and always he’d been moved by her sense of personal guilt over carrying such a violent child, even though she’d only been a surrogate and it had not been her fault at all. She was a good person as far as Yordanius could determine, and one of his favorites.

  Yet something had gone wrong, and Dr. Yordanius needed to re-analyze the genetics to figure it out. He’d spent so much time developing his new Homo Pax race that he had not been able to pay enough attention to the Riggio problem. Now he was almost ready to release Homo Pax into society, and after that he would research the other matter in depth.

  In this section, most of the mothers had been grown in the laboratory, without ever living in society, so Einell was of a different sort, having come to him in a different way. Dr. Yordanius had explored many avenues in his researches, many possibilities.

  Entering another large room, he smelled the powerful odor of chemicals, and heard the bubbling fluids of nutrients that were being fed automatically into more than fifty womb stations. He walked down one row of wombs after another, making sure everything was going well. The loyal and competent Manga Vetti ran this section. The lab-created woman nodded as he passed, looking at him with those dull brown but intelligent eyes. He always thought they were soulful, and had noticed that she was an exceedingly kind person. Manga wore a pale yellow lab coat, with a matching scarf tied over her hair, so that none of her hair showed, and no loose strands could fall out to contaminate the wombs.

  Each womb station was an oval-shaped container with a clearplaz lid so that he could see the pink flesh of the womb and its birth canal in the center, floating in bubbling fluids and connected to various intravenous lines. The fluids pulsed slightly, rhythmically. All of these wombs were with child, and would deliver at varying times over the next few months.

  In his heart of hearts, Dr. Yordanius did not feel good about what he had done to womanhood, with the docile females in the other section and the wombs in here, but he had no choice. He needed an efficient system of growing and delivering babies. He’d tried to be as humane as possible, such as in educating the women in the other section and being kind to them, but he knew full well that this did not completely make up for what he had done to them, and how he was exploiting them.

  It was another feeling of sadness and guilt that he constantly had to set aside, and he never failed to think with compassion and appreciation about each of the women in his facility, and even about the disembodied wombs that had been grown from cellular material.

  Outsiders would say this laboratory complex was a horror and an abomination, that he was a modern-day Dr. Joseph Mengele or even the literary Dr. Victor Frankenstein, and Yordanius had to admit he cared about what people thought of him. Yet, he was sacrificing his own good name in order to achieve the result he so desperately needed to achieve.

  I am like these females, and female parts, he thought. I must sacrifice myself for the greater good.

  It wasn’t a rationalization. Previously, he’d examined such thoughts from every angle, and knew deep in his soul that he was not taking advantage of anyone or any living thing for his own pleasure or self-aggrandizement. He didn’t even care if history realized what he had done—just so long as his creations were released into the populace, exerting their influence to eliminate violence.

  CHAPTER 25

  Tatsy was more than a fetus floating in the abdominal cavity of her twin brother, much more. Given enough time, she might succeed in what she had been seeking for her entire life. Actually, for Riggio’s entire life, because she and her twin sisters Lizbeth, Callie and Anneya had not been allowed to be born. Their brother had blocked them in the womb, had tried to take everything for himself and murder them.

  There had been so many lost opportunities for the four sisters, so much lost time they could have enjoyed as girls and as women. Loves, marriages, children, life’s ups and downs, all had been taken from them by Riggio. Tatsy was by far the strongest of the sisters, the dominant one, and below her, Lizbeth was the second strongest—a distant second; she had coherent thought processes, as well as eyes and stunted arms, but no legs.

  Whenever Tatsy wanted to rest, to actually go into her own sleep, Lizbeth remained vigilant with the connection she and Tatsy had to Riggio’s eyes, ears and brain—and Lizbeth would send her an alarm signal across their secret psychic linkage if she detected any problem that might threaten them, or if she saw an opportunity to make Riggio suffer. It was not a perfect arrangement, but was the best Tatsy could devise so that she could rest on occasion, and so far Lizbeth, while remaining as vigilant as she could, had not contributed more than that. But it was enough.

  As if she were a parent, Tatsy had named herself and all of her sisters. And in her imagination, she’d come up with imaginary lives for herself and for the other three, the men they would have loved, the names of their children and what they would look like, even professional careers for herself and for Lizbeth. In her own imaginary life, Tatsy would have risen high in politics and become an admired leader, while Lizbeth would have become a wealthy businesswoman, after making a huge technological breakthrough in computer technology.

  Callie and Anneya would be more ordinary women, raising families, but being loved and giving love.

  But all of these wonderful possibilities had not occurred, except in Tatsy’s thoughts and longings, and in some of the paranormal discussions she’d had with Lizbeth.

  Tatsy had been attempting to get even ever since, not only for herself, but for her sisters. Almost thirty years later, they still floated beside her, tiny unborn fetuses that were chronically weak and undeveloped, and only marginally alive, even Lizbeth. But if Tatsy could succeed in her goal, that would all change. Every one of them would benefit if she took control of the body, while Riggio would become a non-entity.

  And even if the body remained male for all outward appearances, the brain would become entirely female, and that mattered more to Tatsy than anything else. She wanted the thoughts and motor impulses generating in that brain to be hers, not his. If she decided to eliminate someone, she didn’t want to have to influence Riggio in his dreams to get it accomplished. She was tired of only being able to take control of him when she put him in sleeptrance, ordering him to kill his lovers when he was in that state of consciousness. They were violent acts that he had no memory of committing after he awoke, though he did recall patchy visions of grisly murder scenes.

  She didn’t want to use her brother as a surrogate anymore. She would prefer to commit the violence herself, and intended to kill a lot of people, more than just lovers. Tatsy had come to realize that she enjoyed seeing humans die, and would enjoy it more if she was more personally involved. She wanted to do it herself, to touch and feel the life flowing out of each of her victims.

  In the past few days, there were intriguing indications that Tatsy’s power was beginning to increase. First she’d managed to give her brother a headache when he was revealing his memory lapses while applying for a job in Johansen’s agency, a revelation that displeased Tatsy, for the attention it might draw to Riggio. After that she’d whispered something to him as he slept, following his strange sex date with Nicole, telling him he had killed numerous women, that he had essentially left a trail of bodies in his wake. And upon awakening he’d remembered Tatsy saying this, though he had no idea who she was, o
r where the voice came from.

  Then last evening, when Tatsy discovered that Riggio and Meredith were about to leave on a thrill ride, the danger had worried her, and she’d managed to show her displeasure by giving him a severe headache, much worse than the earlier one. Her ability to transmit physical pain to him had lasted for only a few minutes, but it was better than anything she had done before. The two events meant that she could send messages to her dominant twin when he was fully conscious—but so far, not in words. Only when he was asleep could she actually speak to him and command him to commit specific acts of violence.

  Now it was morning, and she was with Riggio in his hotel room as he stood at the bathroom sink, staring down at the straight razor in his hand. He had not put shaving lotion on his face yet, seemed to be entranced by the blade. He touched it with a finger, drew a little blood.

  His thoughts were not good. He lifted the blade to his neck, and considered making a sharp cut across his throat. It would only take a second or two....

  Terrified, Tatsy focused all of her energy on the hand that held the razor, trying to prevent him from completing the deadly task. She had attempted to influence his muscles and movements before, but to no avail. Now she had to, or it would be over for her, too—and for her three sisters. He seemed determined to use the razor.

  Then his thoughts shifted, the tension relaxed, and he began to lower his hand, taking the razor away from his neck. But he paused, and thought about it, thought about how much he loathed himself.

  Tatsy continued to focus on the hand, and now she saw his fingers release their grip and drop the razor. It clattered into the sink. This pleased her, but now she needed to get him out of the bathroom and away from the razor.

  But he managed to use his own determination to overcome her efforts... without knowing she was responsible. He scowled in confusion, spread shaving lotion on his face, and picked up the razor again. This time he seemed to have decided not to harm himself, because he shaved, and put the razor away. But she remained worried.

  Tatsy had accomplished a little something in the muscles, an important alteration of his motions that caused him to release his hold, and it required all the energy she had to manage it. For now. She vowed to do more.

  She had a strong feeling that she could eventually gain control of Riggio’s body and keep it. She needed to look for opportunities, and take advantage of them. She could read his thoughts and now she needed to take charge of them, and the body.

  And it seemed to Tatsy, in her uncommon way of looking at things, that Meredith Lamour, the non-lover who might one day become Riggio’s lover, would be the perfect place for her to start, the first one for her to kill with her own hands when she was in full control of Riggio. There was something about the woman that Tatsy didn’t like, more than the attraction Riggio felt for her, and which he kept fighting off. Meredith had an irritating air of superiority about her, that she knew she was beautiful and attractive to men, and that from her place-on-high she could help the less fortunate—the kitten she’d rescued, the young man with memory gaps who now had a job, thanks to her. Noblesse oblige. The superior helping the inferior.

  Tatsy just didn’t like her, nor had she ever liked anything about Riggio.

  For almost three decades Tatsy had been upset that he was born, while she was not, and her sisters were not. In the womb, there had been quintuplets—one boy and four girls. Riggio’s body had proceeded to absorb the cellular nutrients intended for the fetuses of the girls, and in her last-ditch, heroic attempt to save them, Tatsy had taken refuge in their predatory brother’s abdomen. There he could do no more to harm them, and the four girls connected to his blood supply, so that any nutrients he gobbled up would also benefit his unborn twin sisters. He had pulled a nasty trick on them in the womb, trying to finish them off, but Tatsy had survived through a trick of her own.

  All five of them should have been born!

  Riggio had never taken their souls, their consciousness. They had always kept something of themselves away from him, not so much their own physical identities, but remnants of their rights as human beings, enough to continue and lie in wait for their big chance.

  Thanks to Tatsy, her three sisters had been hanging on for all these years, and they had a sense of awareness, one of them enough to help her. They had even displayed rudimentary personalities, and whenever Tatsy needed sleep, Lizbeth remained hyper aware and protective, alert to any danger and ready to awaken Tatsy if there were any problem from Riggio or a doctor who might find them in the abdomen.

  Thankfully Riggio had an aversion to doctors, and had not gone in for many medical examinations. There had only been a handful of them in his entire life, all when he was young and still under the control of Dr. Kato Yordanius and his laboratory staff. That seemed like a long time ago.

  Tatsy went through conflicting feelings whenever she exerted her influence on Riggio. For the murders, she always needed to make certain he could escape, so that he would not be put to death, and so that all of the siblings could stay alive, too. She wanted to hurt him, and hurt him badly, but she didn’t want him to die.

  Perhaps she could cause him to sustain a serious injury, one that would put him on the verge of death, making him so weak that she could make her big move into his brain and consciousness, taking over completely. But injuring him so severely carried risks Tatsy did not want to assume, at least not yet. It might be something she could do as a desperate, last-ditch measure, if necessary, but she hoped it did not come to that.

  And yet, from the moment Riggio was born, from the moment anyone was born for that matter, they were given a death sentence. Their lives would not last forever, were not infinite. If her loathsome brother lived a normal lifetime she only had that much time to attain her own goals, and the sooner she accomplished that, the more time she would have, and the less Riggio would have.

  If Tatsy got that time, she would find a way to share it with her sisters, and nourish them in any way she could. A bizarre thought had occurred to her, that she might one day have her sisters’ three fetuses removed from the abdomen and allow them to grow to the women they deserved to be. That scenario begged the question of who to trust for the operation, and what to do with Tatsy’s fetus, which was also in the abdomen.

  Sometimes Tatsy could not help herself. Years ago, when she and her siblings were in their mother’s womb, Riggio must have been aware of the growing fetuses of his sisters, and such information might still be in his subconscious. Tatsy did not want him to become aware of her again and take action to thwart or destroy her, but it thrilled her that she had been able to whisper something to him that he remembered later, that he was a murderer, and that she had been able to give him a headache when he did something that displeased her, and to make his fingers fumble with buttons. But those actions, like the sleeptrance murders she caused him to commit, including the killing of the dog, carried inherent risks.

  She’d even caused him to drop the razor, keeping it away from his throat, but suicide was only one thing to worry about. For another, Tatsy did not want to drive Riggio so crazy that he went to a psychiatrist, or give him such pain that he went to a medical doctor. She didn’t want any doctor to explore around in her brother’s body, because that would be dangerous to her and her sisters.

  Even so, Tatsy needed to keep increasing the pressure on his consciousness, needed to keep pushing forward, amassing whatever potency she could in order to assert herself, in order to grow stronger at his expense.

  Above all, Tatsy needed to be born.

  CHAPTER 26

  Sometimes Riggio didn’t like to fall asleep. For months now, he’d been sensing something bad in his dreams, something waiting for him there in the shadows of his consciousness, intending to harm him the moment he fell asleep. Being human, there was no way to entirely avoid sleep; it always came, and too often, the bad things came, too.

  Maybe General Neron’s investigation would turn something up, and even if it was bad, at
least Riggio would finally know what it was and perhaps feel some relief over that—as long as Meredith didn’t get in trouble over it.

  In his hotel room bed on the far-off moon he found himself caught in another dream, a nightmare. Riggio saw a vast army filled with himself in female form—one after another, identical in all respects, wearing red uniforms, dripping with blood, carrying shields and swords. They marched toward him, beating drums, rattling their weapons on the shields, and shouting battle cries. But though they looked like women, they were ferocious, and all sounded like him.

  There were so many of these strange soldiers that they were beyond counting, and the voices rose from their mouths like deafening claps of thunder and cannon fire. They increased their marching speed to a trot, and passed right through the dreaming Riggio as he watched.

  Turning as they went by, he saw them heading toward a blood-red horizon, a flaming sky. Gradually the female army receded into the distance, until he saw them no more.

  Then, from the other direction, a new army marched forward, all women again, shouting and rattling their weapons on shields, and all looking like him. They were identical in all respects to the earlier force, and again they marched right through them, and then off toward a blood-red horizon.

  This happened over and over, and when yet another army marched toward Riggio, he cried out above their collective voices and marching sounds, and as he shouted louder and louder, the army vanished, and he awoke.

  He sat up in the low light of the hotel room, confused and trying to interpret the nightmare.