Dues of Mortality

by Jason Austin

  Xavier just sat there, stone-faced. He was desperate for options. Maybe he could convince Wallace his information was faulty. “Who the hell are you talking about?”

  Wallace looked curiously at him. “Very convincing,” he said quite honestly. He glanced at Gabriel. “Miles?”

  Gabriel reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the old .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. He tossed it over to Wallace, who nearly missed the catch. Wallace then cocked the gun and aimed it straight at Xavier’s head.

  “Your fingerprints, Mr. Hawkins,” he said. “That’s how we found out who you are. And since the police aren't the ones who found the gun, I wouldn't expect them to come running to your rescue at the last second.”

  Xavier tugged at his restraints. “The Cleveland police not doing their job; go figure.”

  “Then you're beginning to understand, Mr. Hawkins. Should anything happen to your brother or any member of your family, no one will have reason to suspect me.” Wallace beamed, secure in the knowledge that Bennet Hawkins and his wife were already dead. “But I don't think we'll have to go there, will we? You’ve gone above and beyond the call trying to protect Glenda Jameson. It only seems natural you’d tell me what I need to know just to keep her in perfect health.” Wallace clasped his hands. “By the way, we also found the implant that Richard Kelmer gave you. Thank you. It will come in handy.”

  Xavier just stared at the floor, practically concussed with shame. A week’s worth of running and this is what it had come to: tied up, helpless, and no where left to turn. Benny and his family were the only ones he could protect now. Damn it, he should have walked away when he had the chance. What the hell made him think he could ever...He knew the answer before he finished the question. Glenda. That woman could make him believe in the Easter bunny with just a wink and a smile. Sorry, kiddo, he thought. I tried. He started to say something.

  “Who?” Gabriel said, breaking the silence. He had two fingers pressed to an ear. A call had come through on his comwatch and he looked beside himself.

  Jerome Wallace acknowledged the apparent excitement and Gabriel waved him over. Gabriel switched his comwatch to video and the two of them stood huddled over the screen.

  Wallace took one look and said, “You’re shitting me.”

  Chapter 54

  The two uniformed guards frog-marched Richard Kelmer down to Wallace's office per instruction. Wallace wanted him sufficiently humbled, before the meeting. They hadn't even used one of the four-seated powered transports designed to expediently traverse the facility's vast hallways. They gave him no quarter, even going so far as to “help” him into the single chair facing Wallace's desk. Wallace himself was already in the office, standing off in front of a full length mirror. He was rallying his game-face so as not to let on that he was as much ready to strangle Kelmer as look at him. He had barely gotten it together when the good doctor was delivered.

  “Thank you, gentlemen,” Wallace said formally to the guards. “That will be all.”

  When the guards left, Wallace aimed a tiny remote at the door. With the press of his thumb, the door beeped twice followed by an ominous click.

  Kelmer’s eyes broadsided. Wallace eased up behind him and gingerly placed his hands on the timid doctor’s shoulders. Kelmer could feel Wallace’s eyes burning through the back of his skull. Wallace moved his hands closer to the doctor’s neck and gave him an avuncular rub. He then stopped abruptly, took a seat behind his desk, and unnaturally massaged the chair’s armrests.

  “Well, I suppose it would be an understatement to say that I’m happy as hell to see you,” Wallace said with a painted smile.

  “I...I c...can’t say the same,” Kelmer said.

  “Don't be nervous, Richard. I know I’m the boss and everything, but we’ve spent so much time working together. You should be more comfortable around me.”

  Just then Wallace's desk com trilled and he gave the open command.

  “Security sweeps are coming up clear, so far,” Gabriel said. “It looks like Kelmer came alone. We’ll run a couple more and expand past the outer checkpoint. I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “Good,” Wallace said and commed out. “He’s wasting his time, I’m sure,” he said to Kelmer. “You don’t want the police here anymore than I do. Your legacy is on practically every test tube in the place. I mean, we wouldn’t even need to keep so much of this facility off the grid if it weren’t for you.” He paused. “Oh, and the implant you gave to Glenda Jameson looks like a real improvement over the prototype.” He smiled. “I knew you could do it.”

  Kelmer averted his eyes. He was a terrible liar and had a strange way of drawing attention to himself at the most inopportune moments. If he wasn't careful, Wallace might begin to read him. He was damn lucky he hadn't given himself away to Glenda Jameson back in Seattle. He could more easily give himself a tongue stud than lie to her. That's why he'd never said a word about following them to Cleveland after her handsome companion had decided otherwise for all three of them. Instead, Kelmer was forced to hop a flight some thirty minutes behind with a connection in Chicago as opposed to theirs in Denver. But the minute Kelmer and his companion touched down in Cleveland he was hot on the trail he'd been following since they'd left. Kelmer had arrived too late to be of any use at the salt mines, although he'd probably have just gotten killed anyway. He wasn't at all certain what tactics were available to him, but when he realized where the signal was headed, he'd decided, on the spot, exactly what to do and how to do it.

  “You’re an exceptional scientist, Richard,” Wallace said. “And a formidable mind. That’s why I knew you’d believe in our work.”

  Kelmer’s stomach knotted. Wallace disgusted him, looking so superior, hip deep in his own sin. Why had Kelmer waited so long to leave? That Hawkins fellow was right: Kelmer was completely blind when it came to his work.

  “C...cut the bullshit, you fucking pig,” Kelmer said defiantly. He swallowed hard as his former employer's counterfeit smile flattened out. It took a lot for Kelmer to say those words. Hell, it took everything he had just to keep from vomiting before he’d gotten to the front gate. But the line in the sand was drawn now, if it wasn’t before, and there was no turning back. “I...I believed...in my work...my plans. I believed in what you stole from me. I believed in what people could become with the aid of science, not through its abuse.”

  Wallace smirked. “I’m shocked, Richard. I had no idea you felt we were misusing anything.” He leaned forward. “I wonder how long you’ve felt this way; how long you’ve been holding back your displeasure. I must say, I had no idea you were such a hypocrite.”

  Kelmer held his ground. “You’re right. I...I am a hypocrite. I’d heard the s...stories about people like you, and about ArtiGen. I heard about the clone they created for that oil baron.”

  Wallace looked surprised.

  “That was the most popular of the stories and I...I still ignored it—a twelve-year-old boy with advanced arthritis and a prostate the size of a grapefruit, being allowed to suffer and die in an underground lab, just so they could keep poking him to figure out what went wrong. A...And how you paid a lot of money to get your hands on that research. You’re right. I went along with every bit of it. So you w...won’t get any argument from me on whose morality is superior.” Kelmer paused, having to accept what he’d just said. “But you won’t get a free pass on k...killing anymore people for it either. You’ve got me. There’s nothing left to gain by k...killing Glenda Jameson and her friend.”

  Wallace sat back and stroked one of his overgrown eyebrows. “Well now, I’m afraid this all doesn’t just end with you,” he informed Kelmer. “Some very vital information is yet to be had. Wouldn’t you know it, those two are now the only ones left who can give it to me. So you see, Richard, although your coming here was a cavalier gesture, it was nonetheless, pointless...unless you consider that it saves me the time of having you...'found'.”

  ****

  Calvin Ross
still kept predicting a trap the entire way. Although the floor plan and security codes he'd been given were genuine, an eight-figure paycheck and access to a cloning factory he never knew existed was, for sure, too good to be true. Who would’ve thought that sleaze could be trusted? he thought. The guy had even been kind enough to remind Ross that he was considered public enemy number one in every biotech property in the country and wouldn't be able to simply waltz through the front door of the octahedron without being shot on sight. Ross rounded another corner inside the vent and referred again to the 3D blueprint on his watch-face. His route of entry through the duct-work had turned most of the building's security into a virtual non-issue. And the emergency exhaust shafts would take him the rest of the way with only a minor chance of being spotted. He stopped to take a breather and slipped off a strap to give his shoulder a quick massage. The DG9 compact explosive was a little heavier than he expected and he certainly had no idea he'd be using all of it in one job. For a building this size, though, he had no choice. He wouldn't have thought cheating Trineer would allow him enough cash to get a start on stockpiling the stuff, but he'd lucked up and found a seller through one of his shadier contacts that did business down south between the U.S.-Mexican border. He rolled his shoulder and slipped the strap back on. At least he wouldn’t have to carry it the entire distance, he thought. After making his little detour, all he had to do was stuff it into a corner, well out of sight and directly over the precise spot. DG9 had twice the blast potential of C4 of the same weight. The chain reaction would rip through this anti-human abomination, sending it up like a roman candle. The only problem that cropped up was when he lost the remote down an auxiliary shaft. He'd shouted an expletive that reverberated off the duct walls so loudly, he almost thought himself caught. He obviously didn't have the time or equipment to jury-rig a watch remote and he was determined to turn this place into a burned-out hole in the ground. All had not been lost however. He’d just have to synch up his comwatch and use the default timer. Forty-five minutes should do it. He'd be long gone by then, and even if the promise of the money was a sham—about which, he could give a shit—the consolation prize would be well worth the gamble.

  Chapter 55

  Xavier’s face, once again, hit the walls of the corridor with an audible thud. Every few seconds Wallace would throw the bulky guard a visual cue then slam! It reminded Xavier of Barry Thomas, a second-year MP from New York, who loved pushing around the detainees, especially the drunks and stoners. Told himself he was teaching them a lesson.

  “Fuck them. They’re not going to remember the shit in the morning anyway,” he would say.

  “Well, then what’s the point, asshole?” Xavier had replied. He would've loved for Thomas to try that shit with him, so Xavier could delve out a little “home-schooling” of his own. Asshole.

  “I think you need glasses,” Xavier said to the grinning guard. “Those steroids must be fucking up your eyesight.”

  They finally came to a stop outside an ominous-looking set of hermetic doors fitted with a code panel and key-reader. Wallace inserted his personal keystick and the doors parted. The guard then flung Xavier inside and sent him tobogganing across the cold, hard floor. Xavier's cuffed hands could do nothing to break his fall.

  “They make your dick smaller, too, peewee,” Xavier razzed. “Not that you have anything to lose.”

  The door then slid shut, leaving the big galoot outside at post.

  “Xavier, oh my god,” Glenda said. She hastened to him, yielding slightly to assault Jerome Wallace with a dirty look. Bastard! She knelt next to Xavier and noticed, immediately, his fresh injuries. Her anger became palpable and she hefted him upright.

  “Cute,” Wallace said sarcastically. He then walked over to the other set of hermetic doors at the back of the room. These could only be opened via a series of adaptive biometric locks. Wallace had to input his retina, voice and thumb scans within twelve seconds of each other before the system activated additional protocols to gain access. Wallace fed each of the scanners, starting with his thumbprint, pausing briefly between each action. The seal disengaged and the large set of doors hissed open, amplifying the odd smell that had been plaguing Glenda since her arrival. As they entered the next room, it increased exponentially, choking the air as a sticky odorized vapor.

  Wallace gagged. “I forgot how much I hate this place; it’s disgusting. I like to stay out of here unless it’s absolutely necessary...or unusually poignant.”

  The cloning bay was a vast network of cylindrical incubators lined two-by-two extending across half the room. There must have been at least four dozen individual incubators with more than half of them active. The incubators themselves were actually life sized tubes filled with a synthetic amniotic fluid that provided the developing clones with an artificial in-utero environment—what proved to be the toughest of Richard Kelmer's advancements in the cloning process.

  “Well, this is...really, really sick,” Xavier mocked.

  “Don’t be too overwhelmed by what you see,” Wallace said. “It’s not nearly as simple as it looks.”

  Glenda kept a hand to her mouth. “What is it?” she asked.

  “My guess is a depraved little maternity ward,” Xavier answered. He aimed his chin at the rows of gelatin-filled tubes. “That’s probably how they turn out those monsters like Jones.”

  “Actually, Jones was one of our first genuinely successful prototypes,” Wallace pointed out. “He wasn’t the first clone, of course, but he was the best example of the programming at that time. He walked and talked just like the original, but with fewer flaws than any of the previous test subjects. I don't think the entire program completely took though. He absorbed some of it but not enough.”

  Glenda remembered again Jones's glassy eyes, how he looked at her with not so much as a hint of recognition or emotion, like a machine.

  “I’ll be damned,” Xavier said keenly. “They’re right. All the conspiracy theorists people like you label as nuts and radicals— they’re right. You are making a master race.”

  Wallace laughed at him. “I can see now, why this is all you’ve amounted to in your life, Hawkins. You think simplistically, like all the rest of them. This isn’t about racial or genetic superiority. Who gives a shit about that anymore? In fact, if there’s one thing I have learned in this business, it’s that we really are all the same under the skin. I don’t give a damn whether the master race is black or white, gay or straight, short or tall...as long as they don't fucking get in my way!”

  “Well, damn if that don't sound familiar. What kind of sick-ass playbook are you people reading from?”

  Wallace ignored the comment. “This is about the power to decide one's fate, Mr. Hawkins. It’s about all the things ordinary people like to pretend don't have as much control over their pointless lives as they think.” Wallace paused with a pout. “However, it’s mostly about good business. Eventually, I will have the process perfected. I’ll be able to insert clones into any and every position of influence I wish; board rooms, judges’ chambers, congress...and dare I say it...The White House.”

  “Live long enough and you'll eventually bump into yourself, fresh out of the test tube, huh?”

  Wallace just shrugged. “I don't expect a cretin like you to understand how things get done in this world. In fact, the only thing people like you need to understand is that people like me are the only reason we're all not still draped in buffalo skins and bashing our dinner or our women over the head with a big stick.”

  “Uhhhh! I knew it,” Glenda hollered abruptly. Her face was in knots. She absolutely couldn't believe what she was hearing. “I knew it! I knew it! It always boils down to more of this macho, male-domineering bullshit! What...is...wrong with you people? You never quit! It’s not enough that you already have all the power and all the money; there’s always more to be had! You always find something more! And the ends always justify the means to you! If you happen to take the whole world down with you, then so be it! J
esus, just one man! Give me one man in the world who thinks about someone else before himself! I swear to God, it’s a miracle that every time a man takes a shit, he doesn’t suffer irreparable brain damage!” When Glenda finally stopped yelling, it felt like the only thing missing in the entire room was the ambient chirping of crickets.

  Xavier would need a juice press to get his eyes back in their sockets. For some reason, he couldn't help feeling himself as part target of that little outburst. And he was certain that any chance he and Glenda had at a painless execution had just ridden off into the sunset.

  Wallace, on the other hand, hadn't budged. In fact, he appeared almost entertained by Glenda's explosion. “I can see now why Simonton wanted you so much,” he said. “I’m practically getting an erection from here. Although, I’m at a loss to understand what you ever saw in him. If I know anything about women, it’s that you people can’t stand a wimp. And Peter Simonton was the biggest coward I'd ever met. Quite indicative of most of my clientele. They were scared out of their minds of everything from terrorists to toilet seats; afraid of growing old or getting sick or having no legacy. Some of them even invested with me on the chance that one day I'd be able to plug their worthless brains into a brand new body. And all because they just wanted so badly to be relinquished from their dues of mortality, from the inevitable tax for being human.”

  “And everybody knows to what lengths guys like that will go to avoid paying taxes,” Xavier said.

  “Oh, people have killed, wars have been fought, and nations have fallen.”

  “So why go to all the trouble? Why not just make a clone of Beaumont and be done with it?”

  “The good senator’s suspicious nature wouldn’t allow it. He travels under very tight security. Any bloodwork his doctor's order is done by high-security private labs. And he has far too many hangers-on to risk the imperfections of a prototype clone. Of course, this is all beside the fact that the entire process can be quite tricky. By the time we'd have gotten enough of the senator's DNA to even start, the voting in Washington would have been over.”