A little pride crept into Max's voice. "This is my station, Frannie.
Come look. I was taught to make myself useful. So I did. I was a good worker."
"I'll bet you were, sweetie."
Max climbed up and sat proudly on a tall metal stool. Her workstation.
She switched on an overhead fluorescent light. There was a small sign on the desk: TINKERBELL LIVES.
She showed me how she had used a glass pipette to transfer droplets of DNA cocktail from a tray of small wells onto plates of growing medium.
"We run out the chromosomes by cooking them in here," she explained.
I didn't recognize the chrome-plated unit she pointed to, but it was a brand-new model. Before I could question her further, Max slid down from the stool.
"Let's go," she said. "There's a lot more to see."
I followed her. "I'm right behind you."
"I know you are. I have a really good sense of hearing."
"So I've noticed. Who's Tinkerbell?"
Max turned to me. She looked upset. "Nobody, really. She's dead."
Tinkerbell, I was thinking. Was that what they called Max here at the School? I suspected it was, and that she didn't like it. Tinkerbell was her lab name, wasn't it?
We passed through a smaller room filled with shiny steel cryogenic tanks. What in hell had they been freezing in there? Another, even smaller room, contained half a dozen blood diagnostic machines.
No worn-out university equipment for these folks. They were extremely well funded. By whom? To do what?
"Mice," said Max, pointing toward an enclosed room. "This is the Mickey Mouse room. It's gross. Hold your nose, Frannie. I'm not kidding. You were warned."
The smell of death seemed to be concentrated in here. I tried to catch my breath; I did hold my breath, but even that didn't help much. I thought I was going to be sick. I held back a dry heave.
I peered into a windowed door and saw innumerable metal racks, each with a dozen shelves; each shelf was packed with dozens of plastic cages.
As far as I could see there were cages, thousands of them filled with mice curled tightly in cedar-chip bedding.
The Mickey Mouse room was a rip-roaring horror show, the scariest thing I had ever seen in my life. Nothing even came close to this. There was high color in Max's face now. She seemed unaware of my presence.
She was talking to herself, all sibilant phrasing, her speech lapsing into unintelligible phrases.
All I could make out was "skitters" and "put to sleep."
We entered the Mouse room. I saw immediately that the mice weren't ordinary lab animals. Knobs of flesh protruded from unlikely junctures.
Some of the mice had extra limbs and strange markings.
Mice are so genetically close to humans, it's a little scary. Eighty-five percent of their genes are identical to ours, which is why they make perfect lab animals. It's why you can give them human diseases: cancer, heart disease, muscular dystrophy - and from their reactions possibly learn how to cure these diseases in humans.
I love animals, and I'm also a doctor who's benefited from animal research. I can argue both sides of the animal-research issue passionately.
But either way, I cannot abide cruelty. No matter what your reasons, you take responsibility for the animals.
I began pulling down the cages one at a time, shaking them. "There's no food in these cages. All Of these animals are dead. Son of a bitch," I whispered.
"Put to sleep," Max said. Tears welled up in her eyes.
It was something to see - this beautiful little girl crying over the fate of dead mice.
Chapter 79
MAX HATED IT when she cried, hated to show weakness. She wouldn't let on to Frannie, but she was freaking out, creeping out real bad, scaring herself with her own thoughts, but the worst thing was the anger she felt.
The rage inside of her. No one should be allowed to do these things.
Her senses were incredibly alive right now. Sight, hearing, smell, tactile. She'd felt this way when she was running away from the School. She hadn't known how powerful her senses were until then.
Her nostrils differentiated the smells of burnt coffee, various chemicals, heated metal, and somewhere nearby - decaying flesh.
This was all wrong. It was so wrong. How could Harding Thomas and the other cretins do this? Was it because she had run away? Had she caused these deaths? Oh please, don't let it be that. Not because of me.
The second hand of the clock hanging above the cryogenic tanks had stopped, and that made her think maybe time had died.
She kept moving, She entered the familiar Main Office Control, and was seized with quick, flashing memories. Memories of Uncle Thomas, his large hand protectively on her head. He liked to remind her that he was "a scientist at heart." He loved his little Tinkerbell, or so he always told her. She was such a smart girl. Precious little Tink.
Liar! she thought. Murderer. Creep - lower than amoebae.
She felt like curling up and having a good cry. Where was everyone?
Uncle Thomas and the others? Were they hiding on her? Were they watching? They loved to watch, then spring out and catch you when you least expected it.
Her life here had been like a military school, or what she knew about them. Her days were always organized and controlled. She studied, worked, underwent tests, exercised or watched TV. She never received love, encouragement, satisfaction. She was one of their specimens, except she was smart enough to make herself useful. And to know, somewhere inside her, that she wasn't a specimen.
Beyond the Main Office Control, the corridor branched two ways. Automatically, Max turned right. She knew the way, every inch of this place. She could find her way around it blindfolded.
Twenty paces became ten, became five. Ready for countdown.
And finally she came to the heavy metal door of the Nursery.
She heard something behind her and her breathing stopped. Her mind was racing like crazy. She definitely heard - footsteps. Running! Fast!
More than one person was coming in a hurry.
She turned to Frannie, fear in her eyes. Prepared for the worst. Then she laughed. It was only Kit and Pip. What a relief. She could breathe again. She felt like they should all be together for whatever was going to happen next, "We got in farther down the fence," Kit said between gasps.
Max didn't know what to think. Right now she didn't care. "Kit, Frannie," she said. "Look here. This is important. Please. It's why I came back."
Max opened the door to the Nursery, and she screamed.
Chapter 80
I JUMPED BACK.
What I saw inside the door made me want to scream, too, and strange as it may seem, to thank God at the same time.
There were four little ones lying in soiled blankets inside cages in the Nursery. The small children were alive and each one had wings.
"Peter, Ic, Wendy!" Max shrieked, as she ran to them.
Oh poor Petey. Wendy!" she shrieked as she opened the cage that held two of the little ones. Peter and Wendy were entwined, hunched in the far corner, blinking against the sudden intrusion of light.
"Come to me," Max called to them softly. "Come to Max." The sounds they made together were barely audible, but loving, a little like bird songs.
Max went to the next cage. She opened the doors. A little boy came crouching forward, then staggered out of the terrible cage. "Ic!" she said.
"Icarus!"
I brought help," she told him.
"Where's Matthew?" he asked.
"I don't know. Let's not talk about it now. How are you? You okay?"
"Cool as a ghoul," said Ic. Finally, he smiled. Amazing.
The little ones fell over one another trying to reach Max. Once they found her, they clung to her. They whispered parched greetings, uttered sharp, high-pitched cries. And then in a burst of relief all the bird-children began to cry.
They cried as one.
As I helped Max free the children from their ca
ges, I was overcome with the shakes. The children were so beautiful, so exquisite in every way. It was like finding priceless treasure in the least expected place.
Each of them was a miracle.
I controlled my own nerves and astonishment long enough to evaluate the kids; they were malnourished and dehydrated, but that seemed to be all. It wasn't too bad, though it would have been soon. I ran to the sink and got them some water, they had been locked in here to die like the others. Four beautiful little kids, left to die in cages.
My eyes fell on a little boy who looked to be about seven. He had a stocky build, most of his bulk was in his upper body. His wings were feathered dark brown and pinfeathers of the same color covered his neck and shoulders, merging at the hairline with glossy chestnut-brown hair.
The boy's skin was damp, and his face was livid from crying. But his huge round eyes were bright and unafraid.
"I'm Ozymandias," he said, with a belligerent thrust to his chin. "Who the heck are you? Are you a scientist? A stinking doctor?"
"I'm Frannie," I told him, "and this is my friend, Kit. We came here with Max."
"They're friends, Oz," Max said. "Hard as it might be to believe."
"Hello, Oz. Ozymandias." Kit offered his hand to the little boy who, after a slight hesitation, shook it.
Max pushed the little girl forward. She was a rosy-cheeked cherub of four or so, with black, bowl-cut hair and almond-shaped eyes. The girl was wearing a sleeveless smock like the one Max had worn the first time I saw her. She stretched out her wings toward me. They were white, tipped with blue. Beautiful.
Her wing feathers made a swishing sound, like a taffeta skirt swirling around a dancer's legs.
"Mama?" she said, in the most heartbreaking way.
"She calls all older women "Mama,"' Max explained. "She never had one. None of us did."
My heart leaped toward the little girl. Tears came to my eyes again. I would never be able to explain to anyone what I felt at this moment.
"She's Wendy. This is Frannie." Max made polite, almost formal introductions.
Then Wendy spoke in a soft, squeaky voice. "You should see my twin!"
She pointed to her brother, Peter, who was a nearly perfect copy of his sister, another masterpiece.
An older boy, close to Max's age, hung back. His hair was fine ash blond and it hung all around his face and down to his shoulders. His frame was lean, his bones fine and long.
It occurred to me that although these children had wings in common, their lineage was different. What could that mean? It meant something important, but I couldn't figure out what.
I reached out to the boy, but he hissed when I touched his arm. Of course the boy was afraid of me. How could he trust anyone? How could any of the children trust us?
Only with assurances from Max did this little boy named Icarus allow me to approach him.
"I would never hurt you," I told him.
"Heard that one before," he said. "That's how they all talk. Liars!"
Icarus pushed his blond hair away from his face, and I saw then that his irises were an opaque bluish-gray. I looked at Max and she told me what I already knew.
"Icarus is blind," she said.
"Yeah, I'm kind of a mistake," said the boy. "We all are."
Chapter 81
KIT HAD LEFT Frannie and Max with the smaller children. There was so much that he needed to know about this place. He entered an executive office. Some kind of higher-up worked here. A bold sign in Helvetica type caught his eye: Assume nothing. Question everything.
"I'm already there," he whispered under his breath.
Kit continued to be afraid for the children, and for Frannie. The fear was growing exponentially inside him. He felt that he'd been given responsibility for another family, to make sure they got through this safely.
He took the responsibility seriously, and it scared him more than anything else could.
He surveyed the office. There were no photographs, no mementos on any of the table surfaces. Nothing personal was left out in plain sight' Whose office was it? It had to be somebody important in the scheme of things. The room was about twenty feet square with a picture window opening out onto the lab. The floors were covered with plush, silver-gray carpet. The desk was old blond oak. There was a corkboard on the wall above it.
The papers on the corkboard mesmerized him. He stared at an amazing collection of pen-and-ink drawings of what looked to be theoretical improvements on human parts and organs. Whoever had done the drawings was a very good artist, he was thinking. He shuddered. A cold chill raced up his spine. Whoever did these line drawings - wants to be God He took down a manila envelope. Inside the packet were drawings of eyes of different shapes with cross-section illustrations, both lateral and transverse.
Da Vinci would have been proud of this artwork, Kit thought.
There was a complex sequence of drawings of a human leg. The leg was shown in various positions, some requiring a flexibility that seemed impossible to Kit. There was a tight line drawing of an arm, the fingers outstretched. Over the arm was a transparency upon which a new arm had been sketched.
A new arm? A better human arm? Is that what I'm looking at?
The new drawing showed longer muscles, and more streamlined digits. It certainly looked like an improvement on the current model. He hated to admit it, but it was actually quite thrilling.
It seemed as if some kind of extremely talented corporate body-part designer were sketching the new models for the coming season.
He was so immersed in studying the drawings that he almost missed the bunch of little keys hanging from a metal pushpin. They'd been right in front of him all the time. He grabbed them, and the corkboard almost came off the wall. The keys were labeled in small, meticulous print.
The first key was to the desk drawer. Kit pulled it so hard, it fell out of the desk, its contents spilling all over the floor.
He bent and rifled through the litter: paper clips and coins and stamps and pens - the usual universal desk debris. There was a Swiss Army knife amid the clutter. He pocketed it. It could come in handy.
The next key opened a long gray metal cabinet beside the corkboard.
Inside the dark recess were quart bottles, tightly sealed from the look of them.
He took down the first, labeled "AGE I," and held it up to the light.
Floating in dark fluid were a dozen embryos no larger than marbles.
Kit thought he might lose it. Right there in somebody's fancy office.
He turned away and blew out hard. He finally calmed down a little. He looked back at the embryos.
Human, he thought. Little dead babies kept in a closet? God damn them!
He forced himself to study the embryonic heads, minuscule fingers and toes sloshing in the liquid. Silent and dead. His stomach was sloshing around pretty good, too.
Kit reached into the cabinet again and took out another large jar. He held it carefully in both hands. This one was marked "AGE2." It contained another embryo collection much the same as the first. AGE3 and AGE4
were identical to the first jars.
The entire cabinet was filled to capacity with jars of embryos so similar that he couldn't really differentiate between them.
He took up the third key and slipped it into the lock of a file cabinet standing to the left of the desk. The lock clicked. Kit slid open the top drawer, Inside was an alphabetical arrangement of files: mundane interoffice memorandums, drafts of an untitled manuscript of some sort.
The middle drawer contained medical magazines dating back to the eighties and clippings from Der Spiegel, a German magazine, a clipping from the Times of London.
In the back of the bottom drawer, he found notebooks filled with formulas and data in scientific techese. It was frustratingly incomprehensible, but looked important. He decided to take a few of the smaller notebooks with him.
As he leafed through the papers, Kit felt a cold prickling at his back. It was too quiet in here, too q
uiet in general. Why had the lab suddenly been deserted? Abandoned? Why had the bird-children been left behind?
The embryos in the bottles looked long dead. Some of the drawings were flyspecked. Each manuscript was annotated, so marked up and crossed off, it looked as if the author had started, stopped, started again, then finally given up.
And how did all of this link up with Max and the four other children?
The ones they'd found lying in their own waste, starving in the cages down the hall? The ones who were probably being put to sleep.
James Patterson - When the Wind Blows Page 19
