Sins of the Father

by Mitchel Scanlon

  "It's a long shot, I'll admit," Anderson said. "But it comes back to the fact that we've got a boy and giant working hand-in-hand to commit a series of murders. That's an unusual combo, even by Big Meg standards. And, with a face like the giant's got, there's no way you'd forget him after you saw him. No matter how good they are at keeping out of the limelight, they need food and shelter just like everybody else. The chances are, they have somebody helping them. It's hard to stay hidden in a city of four hundred million people, never mind when you look like an escapee from an old-time freak show.

  "Somebody, somewhere, must know what they are about."

  FOURTEEN

  MOTHER STANDS FOR COMFORT

  I: The William Gull Memorial Med-Centre, Mega-City One, 2102

  "I realise this is bad news," the doctor said as he looked at the young woman seated on the other side of his desk. "But you have to understand that no one will think any worse of you because of it. Sometimes, these things just happen. I wish we could prevent them. But what with all the radiation left over from the war..." He paused and shook his head sadly. "Really, there's nothing we can do."

  "It must be a mistake," the woman said. She seemed dulled by grief, as though the news he had delivered had robbed her of feeling. Only her fingers, picking fretfully at the thin white smock she had worn during the examination, betrayed her agitation. "There's been a mix-up at the lab. This can't be right..."

  "It's all done by computer," the doctor shook his head again. "And there are safeguards built into the system. The results have been checked and re-checked a half-dozen times. There's no mistake."

  "But there must be," the woman protested. "You have to check the results again. There's nothing like this in my family. And my husband Leonard, he was normal."

  "I'm sorry," the doctor said. "I know this all must come as a shock, but you just have to accept it. Honestly, we see this all time. Heredity is no guide in these matters. There's nothing unusual about two perfectly healthy parents conceiving a mutant." His eyes strayed briefly to the screen of the computer on his desk as he skimmed through her records. "Now, am I right in thinking your husband is no longer with us?"

  "He was a geotherm technician," the woman muttered. She had bowed her head and, though he could no longer see her eyes, from the tone of her voice the doctor was sure she had started crying. "He was killed in the terrorist attack on the Power Tower, two months ago."

  "Yes, of course, I read about it in the news-zines," the doctor nodded sagely and tutted in sympathy. "I'm sure right now it must seem like your world has turned upside down. First, your husband's death. Then, this. It's terrible, I know."

  There was a box of tissues on his desk, intended for use by his patients. As the woman began to sob quietly in her chair, the doctor slid the box towards the edge of the desk until it was within her reach.

  "I could arrange for you to see a bereavement counsellor," he said. "Actually, it's mandatory in these cases anyway. You can make an appointment now if you'd like, along with the appointment for the termination."

  "Termination?" The words cutting through the fog of her grief, the woman gave a start and raised her head to look back at the doctor. "You want me to have an abortion?"

  "That's mandatory too, I'm afraid," the doctor said. As he returned his attention to his computer screen and began to type on the keyboard, he gave the impression their consultation had dragged on too long and he was eager to end it. "It's the law. Under the Genetic Purity Act, when a pre-natal gene-scan indicates evidence of foetal mutation, termination is the only option." He shrugged his shoulders and gazed towards her in sympathy once more. "I know it seems harsh. But it's the price we have to pay for genetic stability. The incidence of mutation has been increasing ever since the Great Atom War ended. If we let things go unchecked, it would only be a matter of time before there would be as many mutants in the city as there are in the Cursed Earth. And no one wants that."

  "But there has to be another way... You can't just kill my baby..."

  "I'm sorry," the doctor said. "But the law is very clear in these matters. I suppose, strictly speaking, you could choose to go into voluntary exile in the Cursed Earth rather than comply. But, really, that's hardly an option. A normal person would be lucky to last a week in that rad-infested hellhole, never mind a woman in your condition. I wish there was another alternative. But, realistically, you have no choice other than to terminate the pregnancy."

  For a moment they sat there in silence as the doctor gave the woman time to let his words to sink in. Then, checking his wristwatch as though he was late for an appointment elsewhere, he spoke again.

  "Listen, I realise this is a lot to handle. Why don't I leave you alone for a few minutes here while you think it all through?" He rose from his chair, and began to head towards the door.

  "Is it a boy or girl?" the woman asked, her voice calling out to him as he reached the door and opened it.

  "I... I don't really see how that can help things," the doctor said. Caught half in-between his office and the corridor outside, he seemed ill at ease as he turned back towards her. "You have to remember we're talking about a ball of foetal tissue no bigger than your fingernail. To talk about its potential gender at this stage is hardly relevant..."

  "Please," the woman said. She looked up at him with sorrowful eyes, tears running through her mascara to stain her cheeks. "I just to need to know. It will make things easier. Please."

  "It's a boy," the doctor replied. He shifted uneasily on the threshold, then left the room and closed the door behind him.

  Again, there was silence. The woman sat in her chair, tears streaming, her head downcast. Finally, she put the palm of her hand flat across her belly.

  "A boy," she said. The words were hushed and quiet, their tone reverential as though she was praying aloud to any god who would listen. "A baby boy."

  "Leonard," she said. "I'll call him Leonard. Just like his father."

  II: Apartment 39-B, Anne Frank Block, Mega-City One, 2103

  "Hush now," she whispered softly to her baby. It was the middle of the night, and she had woken from sleep to the sound of his crying. She crooned to him, gently cradling him in her arms as she sat beside his crib in the apartment's single bedroom. "Hush now, Leonard. You are my special little boy. Hush now, and let momma rock you back to sleep."

  She would not let them kill her child. Sitting in the doctor's office after she had been told the news, she had realised the baby was all she had left of her husband. She was no saint, nor was she free of the prejudices so commonplace among her fellow citizens in Mega-City One. Like most people, she had always been sickened and horrified by mutants in equal measure. To be told her own child was a mutant, though, had made all the difference. She would not give him up. Something deep inside her had refused to concede to the doctor's blithe assurances it was all for the best. They had wanted to kill her baby. She would not allow it. Come what may, whatever hardships awaited her, she had known at once she would do everything in her power to protect her son.

  In the year since she had made her decision, her life had changed beyond all recognition. She had been lucky in some respects. Grud knew that no amount of money could compensate for the loss of her husband, but the death benefit from his life insurance policy had given her the funds to do what she needed. Liquidating her savings, she had asked around and made contact with an identity broker via an introduction from a friend of a friend. The broker had sold her a complete new identity: false papers, a driving licence, a new citizen ID number to allow her to claim social security and be granted an apartment by the Housing Department. She had moved to a different part of the city, discarding her birth name and her old life with the same finality with which she had abandoned all contact with her family and former friends. It was hard creating a new life from nothing, but she knew the doctor would be required to notify the Judges once she failed to attend the appointment to have her pregnancy aborted.

  She was hunted; a fugitive from the
inhuman decrees of Judges who had so lost sight of their own humanity they now cared little for concepts of pity or mercy. If she was a criminal, she was a criminal of conscience, compelled to break the law simply because the law was wrong. Still, at least in some regards, the odds were in her favour. The Judges were hardly likely to make it a priority to track her down. In a city with a population in the hundreds of millions, it was easier than most people thought for a person to simply disappear.

  In the end, her greatest difficulties had been financial. First, there had been the cost of buying a new identity. Then, the expenses of finding a doctor who was willing to help deliver her baby without alerting the Judges to his birth. Together, they had used up her resources. Her savings and the money from her husband's insurance were gone: without the safety net of social security her new identity had brought her, she would have been destitute even without the added costs of raising a child. Social security paid her two hundred and ninety-nine credits a week. It was enough to sustain one person, but there were two of them and she could not risk trying to claim additional benefits on her son's behalf. His birth had never been registered: if she tried to claim social security for him it would have led the Judges right to them.

  In its place, she was forced to live frugally. She lived in a tiny, poorly heated apartment in a cheap housing block in what was considered a bad neighbourhood. In everything, she put her son's welfare first. If money was tight in any given week, she neglected herself in favour of her child. She wore the same set of clothes until they were threadbare and little better than rags. She owned only one pair of shoes, walking barefoot inside the apartment to avoid wearing them out. When times were hard, she even went without food. Anything to ensure her son Leonard received the best care she could give him. She had sacrificed so much for the boy already; it would not have been right to damn him by half-measures now.

  If she had one fear, beyond the recurring nightmare that one day the Judges would come for them, it was that Leonard might fall ill. The doctor who had delivered the boy had made it clear he did not wish to see them again; yet, even if she could have found another doctor willing to deal with mutants, she would have been unable to afford any treatment. Thankfully, Leonard seemed strong and healthy. He seemed immune to the colds and sniffles that afflicted other infants, and given he had not been inoculated against the common childhood illnesses she could only hope he would prove immune to them as well.

  At times, she worried about the effect their life might have on his development. Leonard had never been outside. He did not know what it was to feel sunlight on his face or breathe in clean fresh air. On those brief occasions when she left the apartment, she always went alone. Her son's appearance was distinctive. His skin was leathery and grey; bony ridges jutted from his forehead and across his cheeks; his nose was broad and oddly shaped, with an open fissure in its centre. No one could look at him without instantly realising he was a mutant. Wary of the consequences if someone saw him, she kept him inside the apartment, keeping the curtains on the windows closed at all times. It broke her heart to do it. It felt as though she was keeping her son a prisoner; as though he had committed some crime, when in fact the sins he suffered for were the sins of an uncaring world. Still, she had no choice. At least if there was one advantage to living in a bad neighbourhood it was that people tended to mind their own business.

  Snug in the nook of her arms, Leonard had finally stopped crying. Careful not to wake him, she eased him gently back into the crib and pulled a blanket over him to keep him warm. Where others might recoil from him and see him as a monster, she looked down at her son and saw something different. In sleep, his face was so beautiful. Admittedly, Leonard took after neither of his parents when it came to his appearance, but she saw in him the continuation of all that had been good in his father. The continuation of all, she hoped, that was good within her. Others might hate him and call him a mutant, but to her Leonard would always be her perfect, special angel.

  In his crib Leonard stirred briefly in his sleep as though he was dreaming. She found herself wishing it would be within her power to see to it that all his dreams came true. The future lay before them both, its pathways obscure and uncertain, but she reiterated the promise she had made to herself that day in the doctor's office when she had named him. She would live and breathe to protect him, giving freely of her own life if need be to ensure no harm would befall him. If called upon she would sacrifice everything to keep him safe. She had already sacrificed her old life; her family; her name. She had given up so much, but the well of her love would never run dry. He was her son, and until the day she died he would be her first thought in the morning and her last thought at night. Her love for him transcended every boundary. It was locked within her heart forever; written fiercely in every fibre of her being; imprinted into her soul. Again, she promised herself she would never let them take him from her. It felt like a prayer.

  She could only hope someone was listening.

  III: Apartment 39-B, Anne Frank Block, Mega-City One, 2106

  She was asleep when they kicked in her door.

  Hearing the sound, she had awoken from sleep with a start. A thousand frantic thoughts whirled within her mind, but one lay paramount above the rest. A thought that brought with it a chill to her heart.

  The Judges had found them.

  "Grace Truli, you are under arrest!" Someone shone a flashlight into her face, blinding her. A woman's voice barked out orders. "Don't move! Keep your hands where I can see them!"

  Grace Truli. They knew her name. Her real name. She felt a sinking feeling of despair as the last of her desperate hopes was extinguished. This was no random crime swoop or case of mistaken identity. They knew exactly who they were looking for. They had come to take Leonard away.

  "Where's the mutie, Truli?" the woman's voice said. "Give him up now and maybe we'll go easy on you."

  "I found him," she heard another voice call out. A male Judge. "Grud, but he's one ugly little drokker."

  Still blinded by the beam of the flashlight, she heard the clump of the male Judge's boots as he moved towards Leonard's bed. Frightened, Leonard was crying. Then, as the Judge grabbed him, she heard her son call to her.

  "Momma!"

  "Leave him alone!" Her mother's instincts outweighing her fear of the Judges, she leapt from the bed towards them. "He's my son! You can't take him away-"

  Someone hit her with a daystick. Then, everything went black.

  IV: Mutant Detention Area 21, The West Wall, Mega-City One, 2106

  "Let me see if I got this right," the mutant said. His face looked normal, but he had a series of gill-like wattles either side of his neck that opened and closed in time with his breathing. "You're saying you want to give me a child?"

  "Think of it as an adoption," Judge Isabel Ruiz replied. She gazed back at him coolly, trying hard not to be distracted by the distaste she felt at the creature's deformities. "The kid's a mutie and the Law says he has to be deported to the Cursed Earth with the rest of you. But he's three and a half years old. He wouldn't last an hour alone out there. He needs someone to look out for him."

  They were standing by the holding pens, where mutie wall-hoppers caught trying to cross the West Wall into the city were held in temporary detention pending deportation back to the Cursed Earth. As she stood talking to the mutant outside the pens, Ruiz could feel thousands of eyes sullenly glaring at her from the detainees on the other side of the las-mesh fence. It was raining slightly, and she could hear the tiny droplets of water sizzle as they hit the mesh.

  "Why me?" the mutant asked. His expression indicated the question was born of curiosity rather than belligerence, but Ruiz experienced a brief sensation of annoyance all the same. She wanted the interview to be over. She had always been sickened by the sight of mutants; to be standing close to so many of them was enough to make her feel queasy.

  "I talked to the guards on Wall Watch," Ruiz told him. "They say you came over the wall with a woman. The ki
d needs parents. You seemed to fit the bill."

  "You picked me just 'cause I got a wife?" The mutant raised an eyebrow. "Glad to see you put so much thought into this, Judge. Wouldn't want you going off half-cocked, after all, handing the kid over to the first mutant you saw that you didn't think might eat him." As the mutant shook his head in disbelief, Ruiz heard a whistling noise come from his neck wattles. "Hnn. You Judges sure do take the biscuit. First, you halfway beat the crap outta me and the wife 'cause we tried to cross into the city. Then, you pen us up like we was animals. Now, you want we should take this boy just so it don't have to trouble your conscience when you kick him out into the wastelands. Yup, I've know some sorry sons-a-bitches. But, beat me like a rad-mule if you ain't the sorriest one I ever met by a good Cursed Earth mile."

  "You want another taste of daystick, mutie?" As Ruiz's hand went to the handle of the slim club held in her belt loop, she spat the last word out like a curse. "If so, just keep on talking the way you have been. Now, if you're finished with the speeches, I'm still waiting for an answer to my original question. Are you going to take the kid?"

  A handful of seconds passed in silence as the mutant stood watching her. Despite her threat, he did not drop his eyes or avoid her gaze. Instead, he stared at her with what might almost have been a look of sadness. It made her feel uncomfortable. It was as though the mutant had judged her somehow, and now found her only worthy of pity.

  "I have to ask the missus," the mutant said finally, breaking the silence. He nodded towards the pens, where a woman with three arms stood among the other mutants crowded up against the mesh. "But, so long as she ain't against it, I guess we'll take him. I wouldn't be right, leaving a kid to die in the Cursed Earth."