In my human-history studies at university, I"d come across countless descriptions of the "hippie" movement of the 1960s. Richard Brautigan, Tom Wolfe, Ken Kesey, a movie called Woodstock. Woodstock. I soon realized that my parents-with their off-the-grid, tuned-out-of-the-mainstream lifestyle-bore more than a pa.s.sing resemblance to the long-haired movement of that time, years before the humans had taken their full-on path toward world destruction. I soon realized that my parents-with their off-the-grid, tuned-out-of-the-mainstream lifestyle-bore more than a pa.s.sing resemblance to the long-haired movement of that time, years before the humans had taken their full-on path toward world destruction.
In fact, my parents had even dressed the part of hippies. My mom usually wore her hair in a long, graying braid, and she favored baggy jeans, or sometimes ankle-length dresses. My father, almost always in a beat-up leather hat and faded work clothes, had sported a heavy commune-style beard. And they kept a large collection of books, magazines, and other print-based relics from the era before 7-4 Day. I"d read most of the material myself.
Now I picked up a silicone circuit board and examined the chip array. It was from a top-of-the-line processor, as far as I could tell anyway.
"You were always a mad-professor type," I said.
"Well, in some ways you"re right, Hays. In others, though... Well, that was actually a bit of a pose," he said. "A charade. A bold-faced lie, if you will."
He opened the door of a closet crammed with more junk. The closet"s back wall swung inward, revealing a concrete staircase that led down under the earth. The steps were old and worn. The pa.s.sageway must have been here all along, but I never knew that it existed. Or that I had a sister, of course. Or that I had a sister, of course.
I gave him a sharp glance. "Another thing that was too risky to tell me about?"
"Probably still is," he said, unperturbed. "Come this way. It"s time you knew."
"It"s a fallout shelter," my mother said, coming up behind us. "People built them in the old days so they could hide in case there was a nuclear war. That"s part of why we moved to this place. It was a good s.p.a.ce for our laboratory."
"Laboratory? You have a You have a laboratory? laboratory? What are you doing with a-" What are you doing with a-"
She touched her finger to my lips to shush me. "Look first," she said. "Talk later."
The large underground chamber we had entered was very much the opposite of the chaos and goofy inept.i.tude featured upstairs. Everything in it was cutting-edge, modern, ordered, very precise.
There were gleaming metal worktables, well-organized racks of equipment, a row of incubating chambers. Vats filled with clear liquid appeared to have living tissue growing in them. Through a doorway, I glimpsed a fully equipped surgical operating room.
My parents parents had set up all this? A pair of gentle, aging homebodies? Two hippies? had set up all this? A pair of gentle, aging homebodies? Two hippies?
My mother guided me into a side room that had a few comfortable chairs, a couch, and an ancient video apparatus known as a television-I"d never seen a real one, only pictures of them.
"We"ve saved these all this time, Hays, hoping you"d see them someday. And these discs you should should watch," she said. "They"re what used to be called "home movies." You"re the star of most of them." watch," she said. "They"re what used to be called "home movies." You"re the star of most of them."
Chapter 40 40.
I PUT IN a disc, and the TV screen came alive with grainy images that must have been shot with a camera as old as the television.
A cute little boy, about age three, was toddling along at his mother"s side, clinging to her hand. They were walking toward a pebbly beach on a lake with a house in the background.
The smiling, familiar woman was short-haired, young, and very beautiful. One of the most beautiful women I"d ever seen, actually. She could have easily been a movie star.
The boy was moving along awkwardly, making happy infantile sounds as only a human baby would. Elite children of that age-raised in vitro for a full twenty-four months-were as physically coordinated as human ten-year-olds and already talking coherently. Elite children also didn"t have belly b.u.t.tons, and this one had an outie as big as a grown man"s knuckle.
I kept watching with shocked fascination as the "home movie" images changed and continued to flicker gently before my eyes.
The same little boy lay peacefully asleep in bed, with his tiny hands curled beside his face. Very cute. Very tender as well.
Except, I realized suddenly, it wasn"t a bed. It was the table in an operating room. It was the table in an operating room.
The beautiful woman stood nearby, but this time she wasn"t smiling. She had her hands to her face, with tears flowing through her fingers. The clean-shaven father, looking serious and concerned, embraced her, patted her back repeatedly.
After a moment, she nodded against his shoulder. Then they both donned pale blue surgical gowns and masks.
The images on the screen shifted again to another scene. There was the boy, maybe a year older, running across the lawn-only now he was as swift and agile as a deer. The camera followed him as he raced through a forest obstacle course, making long swings from overhead handholds and leaping over walls.
It was the very same kind of athletic training I"d received-and excelled at-when I"d first entered Elite schools.
The next images were of the boy and his father sitting in the living room of the house, in front of a comfortable fire, playing four-dimensional chess. The boy was winning the game, and winning easily.
And then there was the same boy, age five now, swimming the b.u.t.terfly stroke in the lake, really motoring. And now he was hauling himself out of the water onto the wooden planks of the dock as his father ran to him, holding a timepiece in his hand. The boy looked at the watch and began pumping his arm in the air as the father hugged him.
The camera zoomed in and the boy beamed-a smile I recognized only too well.
And now the camera panned back out, and the father reached down to pick up a towel so the boy could dry his preternaturally strong body-including his now navel-less torso.
The television screen went blank after that.
The tape was over.
I just kept sitting there, too stunned to move or even talk.
Those had been my parents. And I"d seen that boy before-in kindergarten pictures, in holiday and birthday stills... it was me, of course it was me, of course.
Portrait of a skunk as a young man.
Chapter 41 41.
DURING THE NEXT hour or so, my mother and father tried to rationally, but gently, explain the incredible story behind the home movie I"d just watched.
I"ll spare you, and myself, all of the painful details.
In a nutsh.e.l.l, they hadn"t ever been biotech investors at all. They were famous scientists.
Human scientists. scientists.
They had been part of the core group of medical and genetic specialists who had pioneered the technology necessary to advance humans into superior Elites, thus hastening their progress with saving the world.
But after 7-4 Day-after whatever happened during those mysterious twenty-four hours-my parents dropped out of the increasingly Elite-dominated society and went into hiding in the north country. Things were still chaotic in those first days, and their connections enabled them to retire to this faraway place, where their neighbors scarcely paid attention to them. They told the Elites they were retiring, but they"d begun to work in secret. And this time, they worked against against the Elite nation and all that it stood for. the Elite nation and all that it stood for.
A centerpiece of the work was to turn me into a superenhanced human who could pa.s.s for an Elite-and who was, in many ways, more advanced than any Elite. They had essentially risked my life, and sanity, by sending me to live with the Elites as an undercover spy-without me having a clue about who or what I was.
"I"m sure you could use some time alone to think about all this," Mom said, tears leaking from her eyes. "Please don"t think we came to the decision lightly, Hays. But we knew you"d make it. And we"re so proud of you."
She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, and she and Dad-also teary, but trying his best to hide it-left me alone.
But first, my father handed me another disc in a box that was labeled "7-4 Day."
I figured that something called "7-4 Day" couldn"t be good news.
And it wasn"t.
Wham!-no slow reveal, no fade-in. There were bodies everywhere. Human Human bodies. That was the film that completely blew whatever was left of my mind, and changed me forever. bodies. That was the film that completely blew whatever was left of my mind, and changed me forever.
I watched the terrifying pictures of the first attempt at eliminating all humans. As I did, tears flowed freely from my eyes, and they just wouldn"t stop.
Chapter 42 42.
AFTER I HAD viewed the 7-4 Day disc-three times-I just sat there for a couple of hours, numb all over, and changed. But then I didn"t want to think about my past, my future, or anything else for a while. I walked back outside and started toward my car.
I was a human. The Elites were ma.s.s murderers-and now they wanted to finish the job once and for all.
They wanted humans to be extinct on the earth.
The back door of the house was open; Mom was in the kitchen, washing the dishes by hand. "I"m sorry," she said in a whisper as she saw me there.
"It"s all right. I think I understand. I"m fine." I lied.
"By the way," she called to me as I pa.s.sed, "Lucy"s sort of sort of your sister, but not genetically. And, obviously, you weren"t raised together. So it"s OK if you feel attracted to her. She"s a beautiful girl, inside and out." your sister, but not genetically. And, obviously, you weren"t raised together. So it"s OK if you feel attracted to her. She"s a beautiful girl, inside and out."
"What are you saying?" I raised my voice at my mother. Then I exploded. "I can"t believe you said that! Even if you didn"t care about your own family, don"t you realize I have one of my own! I have Lizbeth. I have Chloe and April." I raised my voice at my mother. Then I exploded. "I can"t believe you said that! Even if you didn"t care about your own family, don"t you realize I have one of my own! I have Lizbeth. I have Chloe and April."
"Oh Hays, Hays, poor Hays. Don"t pay any attention to her, her," said a second Mom, walking into the kitchen. This one was crying. "She"s a mechanical clone-I had to make one. I just have too much to do around here. She"s a great help, but she does say the most stupid stupid things sometimes." things sometimes."
As if to drive home the point: "And I hate to break it to you," said the clone, "but it"s true what they told you in the Elite hospital. Lizbeth isn"t real eager to see you again. Of course, that tramp had already been sleeping with that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Moore-"
Mom put her hand over the clone"s mouth and pushed her to the back of the kitchen, where she switched the chatty machine off.
"What was that all about?" I demanded to know. "Is it true?"
"Well, it can"t have escaped your attention that Lizbeth is very ambitious," said my father, entering the kitchen from the living area.
"Right. And so was-I mean, so am am I." I."
"Well, let"s just say she isn"t exactly intent on staying by your side," said Mom. "Oh Hays, I"m so sorry we"re breaking all this to you. But it"s important that you know the truth now. They are planning to exterminate all humans. Lizbeth is part of it. She knows a great deal about the final plan. Perhaps you could help us with her?"
I waved my hands for her to stop talking. I"d heard more than I could manage for right now. I needed to think, to have some s.p.a.ce. So I walked away and hurried out to my car.
"Right now, I don"t know who to believe," I called back to my parents.
Chapter 43 43.
"WELCOME BACK, SIR," Elle Too said as I climbed into the driver"s seat. I"d named her after my own car"s attendant. "You seem unusually tense. Can I do anything to help you?"
I almost laughed. Tense? Tense? Try sh.e.l.l-shocked, or borderline suicidal. "The mood helmet, please," I said. "I"m fine, Elle, just fine. Thanks for asking." Try sh.e.l.l-shocked, or borderline suicidal. "The mood helmet, please," I said. "I"m fine, Elle, just fine. Thanks for asking."
I reclined the seat fully while her fingers slipped the padded helmet onto my head. I didn"t have anything particular in mind, so I just surfed with the remote, trying out different ambiences.
I automatically skipped past high-adrenaline venues like sports, racing, and big-game hunting; I definitely needed something more soothing. After a couple of minutes, I came to a very popular selection t.i.tled "Behind Closed Doors-Shhhh!"
I didn"t think this was what I needed-but maybe it was worth a look-see anyway. Couldn"t hurt, right? The backdrop was a comfortable-looking room with old-fashioned furniture and a cheery fire crackling in the grate. A thick, soft rug was spread in front of it. A table was set with four gla.s.ses and a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket.
"Would you like company?" a voice said, but it was inside inside my head. my head.
I hesitated. I needed some kind of escape-and maybe it was sensual pleasure that could help.
"Company could be nice," I said. "I"m definitely feeling a touch vulnerable."
"Select your guests: Female? Male? Animal? How many?"
"One female will do, thanks," I said.
Two of the champagne gla.s.ses disappeared.
"Select START START indicator to begin ideation." indicator to begin ideation."
I moved my focus over the icon and willed the program to commence.
Bingo! I was inside the room, stretched out on the rug, feeling the fire"s glow.
And that wasn"t all I was feeling. A warm shape snuggled up against me. I could barely see the outlines, like disturbed air-but my senses told me it was definitely female.
I knew what I was supposed to do next. It was up to my imagination to fill her in. Whatever I wished for would come true.
I decided to let my subconscious take over and see what would happen. I closed my eyes and emptied my mind of everything but the touch of silken skin and a lemony fragrance that was intoxicating.
Lips brushed mine-soft, full, extremely kissable.