by Nesly Clerge
Connie whistled and said, “After all we’ve been through to get where we are, there’s only one solution.”
I made eye contact with her, saw the steely resolve in her eyes and in the set of her lips, and shook my head. “Killing women is not in my playbook.”
“Even one who means to destroy you and everything you—and we—have worked for? That Patricia died for?”
“I’ll talk to her. I’ll convince her this is for the greater good. She believed that at the start. She just needs reminding.”
“A lot of good that’ll do. She thinks you’re evil.”
I shook my head. “She thinks my plan is evil.”
“Believe me. If the two haven’t merged in her mind yet, it’s only a matter of time.”
Chloe and I were to meet on a bench by the lake at the nearest off-site park. The risk of allowing her off the grounds was addressed—Connie had two of her security team follow the woman. Connie and four of her team followed me.
There was a strong possibility that hours confined in the lab had affected Chloe, akin to seasonal affective disorder. I’d advised all of them to spend some time in the sunlight on the grounds every day, and they usually did this. Their dedication to our common goal had kept them focused. Our successes, and how well the scientists were catered to, had kept them content. If it turned out Chloe wasn’t suited for such long-term focus and confinement, we had a problem indeed.
I stopped at the popular, always crowded Palo Alto Coffee Haven to get coffees for each of us. I paid limited attention to what went on inside because one of my security team had followed me in, while the others kept watch from one of their personal cars parked next to mine. Connie suggested this vehicle rather than being obvious by using one of their tricked-out SUVs.
Order in hand, I pushed the door open to leave and heard someone say the name Abigail. My head snapped around and I raked my eyes over the crowd, but didn’t readily recognize anyone. Nor did I have time to look more thoroughly. Abigail was a somewhat common name, or at least, that’s what I told myself as I continued to the car and headed for the park.
I’d never called Abigail back after that last call. My activities in the lab and with Lauren had pushed my friend from my mind. By now, perhaps Abigail was relegated to the designation of former friend. Perhaps it was the same regarding me in her mind.
Again, the usual tug was there. I was the one who was supposed to call her back. For the sake of history, I should call her and apologize, though what explanation I could give would have to be thought out ahead of time.
These thoughts diminished as soon as I spotted Chloe seated on the bench. I parked my car and kept my attention on her for a few moments. One reason was to allow my security team time to park in a convenient place but not draw attention. The other was to focus on the set of Chloe’s shoulders—tension radiated from her.
I picked up the small tray holding our coffee cups and got out. One deep breath in then out, and I started forward.
In my mind I told her, For all our sakes, you must hear what I say and agree.
CHAPTER 88
We sat in silence and watched ducks paddle on the placid lake while others of their kind landed or took flight. Sunlight warmed us in a soothing way, and the effect I’d desired by picking this spot became evident—Chloe’s posture relaxed in some measure. I glanced at her then back at the lake. “Are you happy working with us?”
She went still. The stiffness returned. “Someone’s been talking.”
“Please answer my question.”
“What you’re doing is wrong.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“Tell me why.”
“No one can play God. No one should try.”
“Perhaps you should have thought of that before becoming a physician and a research scientist. After all, isn’t that what people in those—our—fields do?”
“There’s a difference between playing God and assisting God with His work.”
At the earliest opportunity, I’d be certain to ask Connie how Chloe had passed the vetting process. Her initial response when I’d told her about Chloe had driven the question from my mind. Until now. “That’s a matter of perspective,” I said.
She looked at me then away again. “I don’t see how.”
“You knew our goal before you signed on.”
“I thought I did.”
“You said you were on board with our master plan.”
“I was. At the beginning. Then I saw the results.”
“Speaking of beginnings, you have to realize this is the beginning of the end, but not of the world, Chloe. It’s the beginning of the end of men believing they’re superior to us. An end to them believing they’re our owners. Our minders. They’ve never appreciated what our full purpose is, what we contribute to the bigger-picture of life, or what we could if no one stopped us. Never appreciated what it’s like to carry a developing human inside, to feel it move, to go through agony mingled with ecstasy in order to deliver a child into the world.”
“They were never meant to. And to my knowledge, neither have you.”
She was only partly right about the latter, but I was in no mood to expound. “The majority of men are clueless. They think nothing of harming us, of brutalizing us physically and mentally.” I glanced at her. “Even spiritually.”
“Not all men are like this.”
I faced the lake. “First, we’ll show them how inferior they are, which I believe we’ve accomplished, in part, by robbing them of the ability to experience a female’s conception solely as a result of their precious prowess or degrading, brutal force. They’ve long deserved to be humbled. It’s a kindness, really.”
“It isn’t working the way you’d imagined. If fact, you’ve escalated such behaviors.”
I watched a duck land then glide across the water. “The next step is to weaken them physically. Not entirely, you understand. Just enough to let them feel what it’s like to be as weak as they believe us to be.”
“Everything we’re doing is an abomination.”
“Once they’re weakened enough physically and egotistically, we’ll take over. Our domination will be kinder, gentler. They’ll discover what equality should look and feel like because we’ll demonstrate it fairly. We won’t demean or abuse them.”
“We’re doing it now.”
I looked at her. “In this matter, the end justifies the means.”
“You would reduce this to a hackneyed phrase?”
“I’m not reducing anything.”
Chloe harrumphed. “Just the population and the continuation of the human species, not to mention women’s safety.”
“All temporary issues. We’ll resolve them.”
“One failure after another.”
“I’d like to think you’d be with us as we restore balance and sanity to the planet.”
“To use another hackneyed phrase, it appears ‘The lunatics are running the asylum.’”
CHAPTER 89
Chloe raised her face to the sunlight and closed her eyes. “You’re treating all men as though they’re evil. That’s a gross misjudgment of character as well as a misappropriation of power. You have this image of men fixed in your mind, and it’s wrong. My father was a perfect example. He was firm, as a mindful parent should be. But he was also kind and caring. He was always there for me, my family, and his friends.”
“Someone hurt you, though. Otherwise, you would never have agreed to work with us.”
She lowered her head. “Only one out of many who didn’t.”
“Then you’re one of the fortunate ones.” I told her my story—all of it—starting from Buster and ending with Eric, though I left out how the story ended for each of them. I omitted any mention of Ralph. I reminded her of what men had done to Patricia, and repeated Patricia’s words about how brutally men had acted throughout history and still to this day.
She sighed heavily. “I’m very sorry about Patricia as we
ll as your own experiences. Now that I know, it explains a great deal about your motivation. But this doesn’t mean you have a right to do what you’ve done and what you intend. Besides, men have been battered by women.”
“Their percentages are far lower in number than ours.”
“They’re battered because they won’t strike back.”
“As I said, too few in number to count as equal in significance.” I turned on the bench and faced her. “Can’t you see how important it is that we take over control?”
“No.”
“That’s only because you believe I’m trying to end the world. I’m going to save it.”
CHAPTER 90
Chloe shook her head. “You’ve judged the entire male population based on the actions of a few.”
“A few million, you mean. Perhaps even billion. And that’s solely contemporary times. Some incidents are never reported, especially when it involves children. Some victims never live to report their abusers.”
“Your thinking is flawed in the worst way. You’re so intent on punishing them, you can’t see this.”
“It’s more than their actions. It’s their attitude.”
“It’s discrimination. No different from someone of a particular race doing something wrong and others blaming the entire race. The reality, Katherine, is that evil emerges from those willing to engage in it, with no regard for genetics or upbringing. Surely you know this.”
“You’re right, but in a limited way. There’s no race, culture, or—since you mentioned God—religion able to claim their men are free of violence against others, including or especially toward females. Not one. Do your research. Some men still hold the belief that we’re just above cattle to be fed so we live to fulfill their usage of us as providers of children. It’s time they get a dose of their own medicine, Doctor.”
“Except in this situation, they can’t take their medicine, as you put it, without our being subject to the pernicious side-effects as well.”
“If someone set up a site online where women around the world could hold up a virtual hand to be counted among those who’ve been harassed, abused, and or raped by one or more men, the site would crash in the first ten seconds.”
Chloe rose to her feet. “It’s impossible to speak with you. Impossible for you to see reason.”
“I can say the same about you.”
“Judgment belongs to God, as does vengeance. He said so and it is so. But that’s yet another way you attempt to take over His role. Someone else, someone higher than you in creation, attempted this and was cast out of heaven, damned for all eternity, with any chance of redemption lost.”
“In my opinion, your God hasn’t dealt fairly with us. Quite the opposite. Someone down here needs to do it. And it’ll never be a man.”
“You need to read the Bible.”
“I’ve read it.”
“Then you missed reading about women who were prophets and in positions of power.”
“Far too few.”
“Everything you’re doing and saying is blasphemy. You’ll pay for it, just as you’re making the world pay.”
She walked away. I turned to watch her move toward her car, shifted my gaze to Connie and shook my head.
CHAPTER 91
Chloe’s words echoed in my mind as I drove back to headquarters. Aspects of her comments contained truth, and it was those particular truths that nagged at me.
Was it time to abandon my goal, and Patricia’s? If I did this, WAM and all the good it was doing for women might disintegrate. The women might disperse, leaving torn about all they’d given of themselves, only to have this situation and their dreams end in utter failure. It would mean a return to status quo. Or worse.
Could I live with that?
Although I felt certain we would succeed on all fronts eventually, there was no denying that the possibility of ultimate failure haunted me.
I pictured Lauren in her later years, living in isolation because she was the daughter of the woman who’d been responsible for ending human life on our planet, if there were even anyone left alive to condemn her for this.
What would she think of me? How would she feel about my denying her the chance—even the right—to bear a child or children? Or my being the cause of her having to live virtually sequestered and surrounded by a security detail until they died off as well? Unless they and others abandoned her before that time, if they even allowed her to live.
I’d have to push my scientists to work harder to create a formula to reverse the anti-conception result. It, too, would have to be dispersed as its predecessor had been.
Once obtained, we’d hold the proven formula in storage, at least until we succeeded with causing the first man to carry a child to full-term. Then the next and the next, until a good portion of the male population had experienced this. We’d start with rapists and murderers of women and children. They deserved it most.
***
Connie joined me in my office. I made my nearly verbatim report of Chloe’s and my conversation. “She has something like a field of self-righteousness around her, which I was unable to penetrate with logic and facts.”
“Field or no field, she’s wrong. Patricia was on target about the need for a revolution. We can’t stop now. We’ve put too much blood, sweat, and tears into it.” She paused then added, “You’re not thinking of dumping your projects, are you?”
I slumped back on the sofa. “I have concerns, but no, I’m not giving up.”
“Friggin’ A.”
We sat in silence for several moments before I said, “How did she manage to get selected for an interview? We said no one with spiritual beliefs.”
“I had the same thought, so checked her file. On the question about spiritual beliefs or religion they were raised with, she said her parents were atheists. Plain and simple, she lied.”
I sighed and shook my head. “No, she didn’t.”
Connie fixed her gaze on me. “Explain that to me.”
“We need to modify the question because it never asked about her specific beliefs.”
“Crap. A loophole.”
I sat forward. “I need to get back to work. Have your team keep careful watch of Chloe—phone calls, e-mails. Lavender can help with that. Trail Chloe if she leaves the grounds. We want to know where she goes and whom she speaks with.”
“That’s a big risk. Kind of ‘Too little too late,’ if you ask me.”
“It can’t be helped.”
“That’s not a WAM motto.”
“No. It isn’t.”
Connie slapped her thighs and got to her feet. “Let me get this surveillance thing set up. Gotta move fast in this situation.”
After Connie left, I stood at the window, arms crossed. Initially, Chloe had insisted she believed in our cause, but she didn’t. Had she deliberately lied about that? Had Connie deliberately missed this? She’d gotten the others right.
An even worse thought occurred to me: Was there a specific reason the identity of the mole had never been discovered? If someone was in the position to keep us guessing or to cover the truth …
The intruder had said it was one of our top members. It made my head spin to imagine someone I trusted implicitly might be the person who stood willing to betray us at any moment. I’d have to be even more cautious from now on. I no longer knew who to give my full measure of trust to. In its own way, it was Abigail all over again, multiplied.
Now I understood why Patricia had kept so many things to herself, limiting knowledge, in part, to no more than one person, depending on what the matter was.
How odd to be surrounded by so many, yet feel so completely alone.
I returned to my lab. Chloe occupied her workstation, but avoided looking at me or the others, and spoke only when spoken to.
Little work got done by me, as I was too focused on watching Chloe.
CHAPTER 92
My mirrored reflection made plain how poorly I’d slept. By a few minutes after five, I�
�d abandoned all chance of getting any sleep in the time left before my alarm clock would sound.
Chloe was a problem that needed a solution, but I didn’t care for the obvious one. Certain this was some temporary reaction to the heavy schedule and predominantly isolated lifestyle, I resolved to speak with her again. But what to say? We needed to ramp up our endeavors, not decrease them.
A sleepy Lauren toddled into the bathroom and took hold of a leg of my pajamas. She wobbled in place, eyes closed. I’d woken her. I scooped her into my arms, carried her back to bed and tucked her in next to Irish Too, who opened one eye and gave a half-hearted wag of his tail. I scratched the fur behind his ears. He stretched and draped a foreleg across Lauren.
I brushed dark curls from her forehead and studied her serene face. “I’m doing it for you as well as for all of us. I never want you to have the experiences I had. It’s my job to protect you, and I will, no matter what it takes. I only hope you’ll understand when you’re old enough.”
I kissed her forehead and went to the kitchenette to start a pot of coffee.
Chloe had been attacked as an adult in her twenties. She was childless. She didn’t understand.
How could she?
My mother had felt so powerless that the only way to forestall Buster’s abuse of me was to allow him to abuse her. Giving in to his demands had also been her attempt to keep his temper and treatment of her from crossing the line from abuse into brutality. She’d succeeded only modestly in her attempts. I refused to allow this to be the predominant recourse for women like my mother, to self-protect or protect their daughters while trapped in a living hell.
I grabbed hold of the counter to steady myself as a reality washed over me: I would do anything, including sacrifice myself, to protect Lauren. Just as Patricia had done to protect the women beyond the paneled door. Just as my mother had done for me.
Tears streamed down my face as memories of what my mother had put herself through for my sake bombarded me, and without me realizing it or ever thanking her.
