Masterminds (17 page)

My own father, and I didn't even know his real name!

I turn my attention back to the screen.

           
Osiris was designed to explore the concept of criminality from the perspective of nature versus nurture, i.e., is an individual born evil, or does he or she become evil through the influence of environment and experience? The results were expected to revolutionize our thinking with regard to the court and penal systems, and change crime and punishment as we know it.

                 
The proposed experiment involved human cloning—the medical process of creating exact genetic twins of living people through the harvesting of their DNA. Under Osiris, clones would be created of the greatest criminal masterminds currently in prison. The
babies born would be raised by surrogate parents in a fabricated community, geographically isolated and carefully protected from any exposure to illegality, violence, deception, and fraud. These subject children would be exact replicas of the very worst in human society, yet they would be free of all negative influence. Careful monitoring would reveal whether the clones have fulfilled the destiny of the evil in their DNA or if their decent and upright environment has nurtured gentle, law-abiding adults.

                 
While initially hailed for its scientific approach to social issues, Project Osiris was criticized for its callous use of human life for research purposes and for its lack of endgame. The plan referred to a possible shift in experimental protocols once the cloned subjects reached fourteen years of age, but few details were provided on what would happen beyond then.

                 
These concerns, along with the international ban on human cloning, led to the abandonment of Project Osiris in 1999. Dr. Hammerstrom resigned from the faculty of the University of Colorado and dropped out of sight. Tamara Dunleavy went into retirement and now lives in seclusion on a ranch outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming . . .

I'm as calm as I've ever been, but I know that's because I can't wrap my mind around what I've just seen. I'm tempted to dismiss it all as crazy, except that piece by piece, every element snaps into place like a jigsaw puzzle. Felix Hammerstrom—Felix Frieden. A fabricated, isolated community—Serenity. Streets with names like Fellowship, Harmony, Amity, Unity.

I read the article again and again until it's practically engraved on the inside of my skull casing. It's all true. It has to be. Every word of it.

Except for one thing: Project Osiris was never abandoned. Felix Hammerstrom changed his name and went ahead and did it in a place so far off the grid that no one would ever find out about it.

Project Osiris is
us
.

I understand now. It all makes sense to me.

Way back when I was a toddler in the sandbox—when I had that near miss with the rattlesnake—I finally understand my mother's words to my father.

You know how valuable he is.

It wasn't a mother's unconditional love for her baby. I'm not her baby. I'm nobody's baby. I'm not even human.

Well, technically, clones still count as human. Our bodies have the same vital organs, blood, tissue, and bone as real people. We eat, drink, sleep, and go to the bathroom just like everybody else.

No, when she said
valuable
, she meant exactly that. There are only ten others like me in the entire world—not just human clones, but clones of criminal masterminds.

That might be the hardest part of all to accept. I'm pretty smart and get good grades, but I don't feel like a mastermind. It makes me think of some kind of warped evil-genius type, trying to take control of the world. Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind being a little more in control—not of the whole world; just my little part of it. Especially where Mom and Dad are concerned. And maybe Malik.

Now,
Malik
I can see as a mastermind.

It's a pretty crazy thing for anybody to learn about himself. And craziest of all is what we still don't know: Yes, we're cloned from criminal masterminds, but which ones? Who are these arch-lawbreakers who are our exact genetic matches?

We're all shocked when Eli gives us the news that we're clones, but I'm slightly less shocked than the others. I've always sensed that I'm a little bit less than a person—not quite good enough, or brave enough, or handsome enough to make the cut. I never suspected I was created in a lab like space-age plastic or a revolutionary new zit cream. But those are just details.

Eli takes us out by the factory so we can read the article for ourselves. The story is a lot less science fiction than I expect. We all started out as cells in test tubes, but
everything was kind of normal after that. We were placed inside host mothers for nine months and then we were born in the regular way. Our Serenity “parents”—the moms and dads we grew up with—are scientists working on Project Osiris. The nonspecial kids in town aren't clones like us; they're the natural children of other people attached to the experiment.

“I should have known,” Tori whispers. “When I was working on the mural it was so obvious. There were family resemblances for some of the kids, but not us.”

Considering the huge asteroid strike we've all experienced, our reaction is pretty quiet. There are a few tears, but mostly, we're too dazed to cry. There's so much to swallow: Our parents aren't our parents; we don't have parents; our entire lives are an experiment. Eli's had the most time to get used to it, but he's also the most devastated of the four of us. His “father” is the head of the whole thing—him and that billionaire lady, who doesn't seem to be part of it anymore.

“Who says we don't have family resemblances?” Malik mumbles. “Just not to our so-called parents. I wonder who I look like. Adolf Hitler, probably.”

Eli shakes his head. “We can't be cloned from famous
criminals from a long time back. The people we come from are still alive—at least they were when we were”—his mouth twists—“made.”

Tori covers her face with her hands. “I can't believe we're
criminals
. I can only imagine the terrible things we must have done!”

“Stop right there,” Eli orders. “
We
haven't done anything. Even if we're exact doubles of people who've committed crimes, we're innocent. Don't ever forget that.”

“That was the whole purpose of the experiment,” I put in. “To prove that we can be good even though we're clones of bad people.”

“That makes me feel so much better,” Malik says sarcastically. “I'm a freak but I can be a
good
freak.”

“We're only four of eleven clones,” Tori moans. “How do we tell the others?”

It's a point. There are seven other Osiris clones in town who have no idea who they are. “Do we tell the others at all?” I amend Tori's question.

“No way,” Malik says quickly.

“They're the same as us,” Eli reasons. “They have a right to know.”

Malik is adamant. “Half of them will think we're crazy
and the other half will freak out and blab.”

“At least I have to tell Amber,” Tori reasons. “She's my best friend.”

“She's the
last
person you can tell,” Malik argues. “She thinks Happy Valley is Shangri-la-dee-da. She'd never accept that the perfect life is really a sick experiment, courtesy of our loving families. She'll go straight to her parents to be reassured that God's in his heaven and all's right with the world. And then Project Osiris will know
we
know, which might ruin their research. You'll notice that web page doesn't mention what happens to us if we get contaminated by too much information.”

I don't like the sound of that. “Malik—” It never occurred to me that our parents might try to harm us, but maybe that's because I've grown up
here
. In the real world, people harm each other every day. After all, what's the purpose of the Purple People Eaters? Not to protect a factory that isn't a factory, or to keep order in a town that's already 100 percent orderly. “You don't think that”—I shudder—“because we were
made
we can be, you know,
unmade
?”

“You mean killed?” Malik says bitterly. “Can't happen. Ever notice there's no cemetery in Happy Valley? Come to think of it, what have we been doing with dead people since 1937—eating them?”

“Stop it,” Tori pleads. “There was never any 1937 for Serenity. They built it for
us
. And when Osiris is over, Serenity will probably disappear.”

“Osiris is already over,” Eli amends. “Once you know you're in an experiment, it's not an experiment anymore.”

“Great,” Malik comments. “The whole purpose behind our lives just expired.” He has a knack for cutting right to the heart of the matter.

Eli shakes his head. “
Their
purpose for us might be gone. But our whole lives are still ahead of us. I don't know about you guys, but I intend to
live
mine.”

“Good luck selling dear old Dad on that one,” Malik drawls.

I've never been the happiest kid in town, and the fact that my parents are really scientists explains some of it, but not all. The Bruders, the Pritels, the Laskas—they're researchers too, the same as my folks. Yet they've been “parents” in a way mine have never been. Even an experiment needs to be loved. “We'll leave,” I say suddenly.

“Yeah, right,” snorts Malik.

“Seriously,” I insist. “You're always talking about leaving Serenity because it's so boring. Well, that's exactly what we'll be doing. We'll just be doing it sooner.”

They stare at me—Malik in uncertainty, Tori in
amazement. It takes me a moment to decipher Eli's expression. It's something I'm not used to: respect. For the first time in my life, I'm leading, not following.

“Hector's right,” he says. “We're never going to be free of Osiris until we get out of this place.”

“But we're just kids,” Tori protests. “We're in the middle of nowhere. And there are only four of us, compared with close to two hundred who are going to try to stop us.”

“It won't be easy,” Eli concedes, “but if we got into the factory, we can do this too. With careful planning, it can be done.”

“It's nothing like the factory!” Tori exclaims, her voice cracking a little. “That was three hours; this is
forever
! Maybe they aren't my parents in the usual way—but they're still my parents. Even if they lied to me—that doesn't mean I never want to see them again.”

Malik studies his sneakers. He's hoping nobody notices, but the sun catches his eyes and they're moist. He's always complaining about how his mom babies him, and how embarrassed he is by his dad. Still, the idea of leaving them has him pretty shaken up.

Aloud, he says, “Count me in. If Hector's got the guts, so do I.”

I'm floored. Malik is the strong one, and here he is, looking to me for courage.

I realize that I have less to lose than he does. I have a comfortable life with two researchers acting as my mother and father. He has a
family
.

“I can't leave my parents,” Tori barely whispers.

“We don't have parents,” Malik informs her. “We have zookeepers.”

It hurts to hear it, even for me. My mom and dad should be the easiest of all to walk away from. But it doesn't work that way.

They're not our real parents, but they're the only ones we've ever known.

Our home is filled with pictures of my poor dead mother. Dad's always lecturing me on what “Mom” would have wanted, and I have to live up to her high expectations. Not only is she ever present, but she's ever disappointed. Add to that my guilt that I can't conjure up a single memory of her—not a voice, not a touch, nothing.

Now I know why. She never existed.

I spend twenty minutes with a magnifying glass and their wedding picture. Apparently, I'm not the only one in the house who knows how to use Photoshop.

I shouldn't be so amazed. Anyone twisted enough to create Project Osiris could certainly come up with a loving wife and mother. It should be easy compared with cloning eleven children from the DNA of maximum-security
prisoners, and inventing a whole town and way of life to raise them in.

My father isn't a mayor and a principal, he's a scientist—a
mad
scientist. And he isn't even my father. What he really is, I now realize, is the world's greatest liar—his name, his wife, his town, his plastics factory, his newspaper, our so-called education, where one fact in ten might be true. The longer I think about it, the more lies I see, swirling around me like a fog.

Example: since we have no real parents, all our last names have to be made up, right? I spent a couple of hours on Google Translate last night, and I learned that our surnames mean things like friendship, brother, peace, and love in different languages. Even
Pax
is just the Latin word for peace. Like our street signs and our water polo teams and the name of the town itself, it's all part of the Osiris experiment: Can exact copies of criminal masterminds turn out to be decent citizens if you call their street Harmony instead of Oak?

It's an interesting question, if you're not the poor dummy who's been created purely to be a lab subject. That's not a fun thing to carry around either—the knowledge that you're an exact replica of a horrible criminal. Malik was just joking about Adolf Hitler, but we could
easily be cloned from someone who's robbed other people or even killed them. Even though I haven't done anything wrong, every chromosome in the DNA of that guy who did such terrible things—every brain cell that made the choice to act that way—I've got that too.