Christ Clone (15 page)

Malone laughed, but he knew he wasn't fooling Veronica. She wouldn't miss the sadness in his eyes.

Once their meal was finished, and after some small talk, they went their separate ways home.

The lights were on and the TV was blaring when Malone walked through his front door. Daniel was so engrossed in whatever was on
TV that he didn't notice Malone come into the room.

'So this is what you call being hard at work is it?'

Startled, Malone's words made Daniel jump.

'I've just this minute finished,' he protested. 'I've made some good progress on the design for that muffler company around the corner.
I . . .'

'I'm just kidding with you. Don't you designers have a sense of humour?'

'Ha, bloody ha.' Daniel looked at his watch. 'What time do you call this anyway? Putting in the overtime or sucking up to the boss?'

Malone went to the kitchen to fix himself a coffee. 'If you must know, Veronica and I went for dinner after work. We . . .'

'Veronica and you dining together again, eh? You still haven't told me much about her — is she cute?' Daniel goaded.

'Don't get ahead of yourself. It's nothing like that. Do you want a drink?'

'Nah, I'm gonna hit the hay.' With that, Daniel switched off the box.

With Daniel set up in business in his home, and his new friend
Veronica giving him the opportunity he needed to unburden himself,
Malone felt his world had finally turned a corner. His life had new purpose. He was beginning to live again.

The baby's progress was remarkable. The Germline science that had been downloaded from the cloning challenge website was spot on. Dr
Zudermeister and the scientists watched as, hour by hour, the baby grew. Their progress meetings were conducted twice a day, at eight a.m. and six p.m., but with the baby's rapid rate of change, they were thinking of adding another meeting time.

The birth had been traumatic for all involved — not least for the host mother, Mary Krieger. She had lost a lot of blood during the birth and, for a time, it was touch and go as to whether or not she was going to pull through. They needed to keep her alive for several reasons: immediately, for her milk and the nutrients it provided; later, she would be an ideal host should they need to repeat the experiment; and last, but certainly not least, they were scientists not kidnappers, and they didn't quite know what to do with her.

The questions surrounding her future and well-being had been debated into the early hours one morning. Keeping the girl mildly sedated and imprisoned for what was going to be more than seven months seemed extreme. But under the circumstances, they had all reluctantly agreed it was a small price to pay for such an immense project. They decided she was to be kept in the best of care, and at the end of her usefulness to their project she would have her memory erased. A small argument as to whether they should replace her memory of the time with a fake one had come to an abrupt halt when one of them suggested they should make her believe aliens had abducted her and conducted tests.

In the early hours of a Tuesday morning, baby Ansgar was born.
Although naming the clone was supposed to be a group decision,
Klaus had already researched the one most suitable. The literal meaning of Ansgar was 'God and Spear'.

The fact that the baby's birth had taken place just over a month after implanting the embryo had them all speechless, but it was the rate of growth since birth that had been the most astonishing. The area was manned twenty-four hours a day with an assortment of people: nurses, doctors, specialists, and scientists, each with their own specific tasks and each of them aware of what would befall them should they leak one word of the experiment to the outside world. They were all professionals, but since the bungled abduction Klaus had decided to add some additional checks and fail-safes to ensure both mother and baby were protected. Physical contact was kept to a minimum, and for this brief, initial stage, the picking up and cuddling of the baby was banned.

The baby had spent most of its first day in a specially adapted incubator. The protein and nutrient drips needed to be changed on the hour, so rather than disturb the child, a gelatine substance was used inside the mattress. This kept the baby in a relatively stationary position, ensuring that no undue pressure was put on the attached drips or the baby himself. The fact that he was able to sleep undisturbed also allowed his body to grow without hindrance. The machine was angled slightly downwards, keeping the baby's head high and its bottom low. Washing facilities were piped into the unit, with anti-rash powder close at hand.

During baby Ansgar's waking time, he looked around but was initially unable to focus. The specialist told the group he thought it would be a number of days before the baby would be able to control his vision. It took him four hours. Once focusing was mastered, he moved his gaze from people to equipment, taking in all the sights.
Even though his neck muscles were not yet able to handle the load, he tried on a regular basis to raise his head to be able to see more, and followed this with small shrieks and gurgles. Over the next thirty-six to forty-eight hours, the nurses took it in turns to move toys in front of his eyes. They shook rattles in order to stimulate both ocular and aural responses. Pulling funny faces was everyone's job, and at times even the more stand-offish scientists were prone to displaying their own facial distortions. However, bubble blowing and dribbling remained the infant's own party pieces.

On day three, it was becoming difficult to keep the baby still. He was moving around in the incubator, and using his arms and legs to bat at the toys left in the unit. He was now laughing on a regular basis, and recognizing his favourite members of staff. His eyes would light up and his dribbling would intensify if he really liked someone.

'What the hell were you thinking?' Klaus yelled at one of the nurses. It was around midnight on day three, and one of the nurses had made a huge mistake that could have killed the baby.

'It was the same vaccine I've used for the past two days,' she sobbed. 'Someone must have swapped it. I swear I would never hurt the baby.'

She was near the end of her shift and apparently in a hurry to leave. She couldn't tell Klaus how it happened, but she had picked up the wrong germ vaccine. If she had administered this to the baby, he would have convulsed, vomited, and quite probably died. Thankfully, this error was picked up by one of the double checks Klaus had put into place. The nurse was removed immediately with a stern reminder of the deadly consequences of betraying the project to anyone, at any time in the future.

By day four, the incubator was discarded and the baby started to crawl. His first tooth had come through, but caused him very little discomfort. His diet had moved to solid food and when he wasn't putting everything within reach into his mouth, the nurses were taking turns feeding him. He had mastered sitting up, was responding to his own name when called, and had started to imitate speech.

From days four to seven, more developmental steps were accomplished with stunning speed. He waved goodbye to people as they left, stood and held things, drank from a cup, and understood simple instructions. A milestone event happened some time late on day five. 'Da da,' he said, to a rather butch female scientist who took it graciously as the majority of staff in the room laughed out loud.
Only her boss managed to hide his amusement, at least until he left the room.

At week two the clone reached his terrible twos, and was moving about on his own two feet. This made it necessary for the nutrient distribution system to be redesigned. Having a drip trolley to push around had proved a recipe for disaster; they found this out the hard way. So, necessity being the mother of invention, a simple backpack was adapted for the toddler to wear. This allowed him the freedom to move about and yet still receive the required substances.

Week three was the speech therapists' turn. Ansgar's vocabulary had reached the one thousand-word stage, and they introduced nursery rhymes and had him answering simple questions. The clone was to be taught several languages, but fluency in English was part of the Terms and Conditions. Watching him roll his eyes towards the ceiling before answering was a clear indication that his imagination was developing rapidly. He had moved away from the constant negative stage, and was now becoming more adventurous. The lab and surrounding rooms had been his total environment, so discovering what lay behind doors and inside cupboards was a huge source of interest and amusement.

He really enjoyed music and, in particular, rock music. His dancing left a lot to be desired, but the blame for this really fell on one of the scientist's shoulders; the heavy metal head-banging was easy for him to copy but, thankfully, the air guitar had yet to be mastered.

He was starting to put on his own shoes, and by week four he had accomplished washing and dressing himself. He was now pushing his own boundaries. This was a difficult week for everyone; the clone-child needed increased supervision as he went about testing what he could and couldn't do. If the guardian looked away for too long, Ansgar would climb up onto a cabinet and pull at machine switches, or be ready to jump to the floor. He was answering back more now, questioning whichever authority figure was present at the time. His vocabulary now exceeded fifteen hundred words, but his favourite one was 'why?'

He experienced his first big scare that week. Ansgar awoke with his bladder full. He pulled back the covers and padded out of his bedroom and into the en suite to pee. Both rooms were dark but he didn't want to put on the lights; experience had already taught him that the bright lights would wake him up completely. Once finished, he pulled up his pyjama bottoms and flushed the toilet before heading back to bed.

Boom! A large explosion came from a monitoring device beside his bed. Bright yellow and white sparks filled his vision, quickly followed by fire. Ansgar didn't know whether to dive under the bed or rush back into the en suite. Instead, he just stood there and started to cry.
Immediately the sprinkler system cut in and began to rain down on the entire contents of the room. The guards rushed into the room to find a sodden and shaken but unharmed child.

As a precaution, all monitoring equipment was immediately housed in protective cases, but the child remained slightly anxious when he was close to them.

By his fifth week, Ansgar was very self-assured — like most five-year-olds — and he had even started to criticize himself if he thought he could have done better at something, like drawing or kicking a ball at a goal. His vocabulary was now over two thousand words and he had begun to read, easily identifying the labels in his facility.
Counting to a hundred had been accomplished early in the week, and he could even do simple sums. His attitude towards rules had changed again, and now he liked to follow them — provided he trusted the person issuing them. He now had a sense of the difference between fact and fiction, and focused on facts. Specialist tutors were brought in to assist in the clone's development, always extending him. For additional stimulation but mainly as a treat, the TV was virtually always on the Discovery or National Geographic channels and he would spend solid half-hour blocks of time riveted to the screen, absorbing the information it delivered.

All information provided to the clone was censored to ensure there was no religious content.

Logan finally held the music CD in his hand. It often astounded him how people could deal with adversity and then move on with their lives.
Admittedly, the cases he worked on were generally considered cold to the point of freezing, but it never failed to surprise him when victims'
families moved house, or even states or countries, and didn't bother to leave a forwarding address. Anita Bailey's parents and brother were a case in point. They'd been more than helpful when he finally found and met with them, but finding them at all had been a mission.

The phone call he made to the number on their file got him talking to a man whose accent could only be described as South American, but as to what the language was, Logan was at a loss. He'd tried
Mexican-Spanish and Brazilian-Portuguese after quickly giving up on
English. He resorted to a slow shout to finally get their address and, as it turned out, the man gave it to him in even slower, louder English.

Then, having tried several times unsuccessfully to contact the
Baileys by phone, Logan had gone around to their new address, only to find out from neighbours that the three of them were vacationing in Europe. And as luck would have it, bad luck that is, they were not due back for another seven weeks.

Over the next few days Logan had agonized over whether or not he should try and track them down, before deciding that it would be for the best if he waited. After all, although he was almost sure he was right, it was still just a hunch.

Almost two months later, Logan had finally got them on the phone.
'We're so sorry Detective Logan, we just had to get away. We were losing our minds. Everything around us reminded us of Anita. We put it off for so long, but when we still hadn't heard anything we made the decision to go and see the places Anita wanted to see,' Mrs Bailey had said. Logan knew that waiting for their return had been the right choice. After apologizing profusely again for not informing him of their much-needed vacation and of course their change of address,
Anita Bailey's parents told him that Anita's stereo and, as far as they knew, all of her belongings had been placed in storage.

Her parents met Logan at the self-store unit, and they spent close to an hour fruitlessly sifting through stacks of cartons until it occurred to
Mrs Bailey that maybe their son had the stereo at his house. It turned out the whole family — Anita, her brother, and the parents — all had keys to the unit. It was a sort of communal family storage unit; they could put in or take out whatever and whenever they wanted.

After a few more phone calls, Logan found himself knocking on the brother's door. Edward Bailey, or Call me Ed (as he kept saying), had both the stereo and her box of music. He happily let Logan take the whole lot with him. 'Anything to help catch the murdering bastard!'
he said.

Although he wasn't at all sure what he was looking for, or even if there was anything to find, Logan went through twenty-four of the seventy-six CD cases and now held the prize in his latex-gloved hand.

As it turned out, the CD had been easy to spot. The blank silver disk, suitable for either music or data storage, had had 'Music to Die
For' in the title space, but the word For had been crossed out and replaced with To.

'Music to Die To. You arrogant bastard,' Logan said out loud.

He put the disk in the stereo and pressed play. He wrote the playlist on a pad as he skipped through them, most of the tunes and artists he knew, but some he didn't.

I would die for you — Unknown
Live and let die — Wings
I'd die without you — Unknown
The earth dies screaming — UB40
I just died in your arms tonight — Cutting Crew
A view to a kill — Unknown
Psycho killer — Talking Heads
Killer — Seal
Die another day — Madonna
I'm gonna cut your head off — Unknown

The last track was different from the rest; an amateur had obviously recorded it. The music was basic and, apart from the chorus, the lyrics were almost impossible to make out.

Logan drove across town to the crime lab. He loved the work they did there. They were meticulous in their methods, and over time had helped Logan to solve many mysteries.

'What can you tell me about this?' Logan asked, handing the disk to the technician.

'Logan, how did you get in here? It's been a long time.' John
Merrick shook Logan's hand vigorously. He was a senior technician in the lab. A chubby guy in his early fifties, Merrick lived for his work.
He always had a friendly smile for Logan and their friendship meant
Logan's work went to the top of the pile.

'Been busy walking the beat, and you guys need to get your key codes changed more regularly.'

Merrick just nodded and asked, 'What do you have for me today?
Aha, you've brought me some music. I would have preferred flowers or even donuts!'

'I need to know everything there is to know about this disk — and in particular, the last track. I want to know where it came from, and all the lyrics need to be analyzed. I doubt if there are going to be any prints, but test it anyway. There's a reason for this CD's existence, and
I want to know what it is.' Logan's face was deadpan.

'All business today, huh? I guess you want the results yesterday, as usual. I'll get right on it. I'm sure that if there's anything in there, acoustics will find it. What case name do you want this logged in under?'

Patting Merrick on the back, Logan turned to leave, 'Bailey, and thanks John.'