Separation (15 page)

He ambled over to another seat, awkwardly
plopped down, and bowed his head. Soon, everyone but Harry was
sleeping, and he turned his head to look out the window. Morning
had broken and the plane ride was smooth. It felt good to be
sitting down instead of being shot at... but he also knew his
mission wasn’t over.

Once they returned, they got a rude shock. A group of
reporters was waiting outside the hangar at JFK Airport. Anastasia
gazed out at the assemblage. “How’d they get here?”

Overton’s mouth twisted into a shape
resembling an angry pretzel’s. “The Internet, what else,” he
grumbled. “The news broke, and now everyone wants to get a gander
at you. This would have to happen.”

Harry decided to point out the obvious. “You
conveniently left out the fact that it’s happening to us and not
you.” He was pissed this man just didn’t get it. Doubtful anyone
else would, either. “So, do we meet the press or bypass them?”

“It’s your call.”

Harry threw a quick glance at his wife who
nodded back. “Let’s do this,” he said. “The public still isn’t sure
about any of us.”

As they emerged from the hangar, a row of
reporters, perhaps twenty in all, waited with mikes and recorders
ready. Cameras swung in Overton’s direction and he waved at Harry.
“It’s your fifteen minutes.”

“What’s going on?” called out one reporter.
“We heard there was trouble over in France. Does the American
public have anything to worry about?”

They had plenty to worry about, but there
didn’t seem to be any point in alarming them. Not used to speaking
in public, Harry initially stammered out his answer, faltering, but
Anastasia grabbed his hand, and he derived strength from her. “We
went over to France on a fact-finding mission,” he began, locking
gazes with the person who’d asked the question. “There was some
trouble, but it’s all over now.”

A convenient lie, and fortunately the
reporter let it pass. Another one piped up with a question about
the new arrivals. “How many of the transgenics are there? Are any
more of them coming this way?”

With his question, the dam broke and a flood
of questions were shouted out, most of them wondering about an
influx of transgenic refugees, where would they be housed, who’d
look after them, and were these the kind of people Americans
wanted? Curious airport maintenance staff looked on, listening in.
Some of them wore looks of disgust, though.

Somewhat dispirited by the reception, for a
moment, he felt helpless. How could he provide any definitive
answers? Even if he could, would anyone believe him? Luckily for
him, Overton stepped up to the plate.

“For the record, these two new arrivals,” he
indicated Leo and Istvan who shifted uncomfortably in their
positions, blinking in the light of the cameras, “are no threat to
the American public. They are on our side, as are Mr. and Mrs.
Goldman. That’s all.”

Interview over, he shepherded them to a
waiting car. Overton took the wheel while Harry, Anastasia, and the
two other, smaller transgenic newcomers took the back seat. Once
they’d driven off and gotten onto the highway, Anastasia leaned
forward from her position and tapped the agent on the shoulder.
“That was a great press conference,” she said. “Glad to hear
it.”

It was hard to tell whether she was being
sarcastic or not, but Overton didn’t seem to take offense. “Just
doing my job,” he grunted. “This is something we have to keep a low
profile on.”

Perhaps that was the standard company line,
but Harry well understood the rationale. The American public was
quick to anger, and he as well as Anastasia had already been chased
a few times by mobs that would have been happy to see him skinned
alive. “Where are we going now?”

Overton swiveled his head around. “To the
hospital, as you requested. You need to see Farrell, and that’s
where we’re going. After that, we’re going to headquarters, and
I’ll get the details there.”

Speech delivered, he turned back and said
nothing else until they arrived at the hospital. Harry entered,
alone, and found a young, blonde woman standing at the bedside.
Farrell didn’t look much different, but his eyes brightened. “Glad
you made it back, kid.”

For once, Harry didn’t mind being called
kid.
“Glad to be here.”

“This is Lynn, my daughter.”

She turned around, and to her credit, didn’t
recoil or show any surprise. Around twenty years old, she had the
same hatchet face and cold gray eyes of her father, but was far
prettier. The coldness of her eyes, though, was offset by their
redness and pouches. She probably hadn’t slept in days. “I just got
in this morning,” she said. “You’re Harry, right? My father told me
all about you.”

“Yeah, that’s me.” Harry wondered about the
relationship between father and daughter. He knew Farrell was
divorced, but the older man had never gone into much detail about
the family dynamics. Suddenly, he felt uncomfortable and thought he
was in the way. “I should leave you two alone. I’ll wait
outside.”

“No, stay,” she said as he turned to the
door. “Please.”

He came back and stood at the side of the bed
to observe father and daughter holding hands. It appeared to be a
reconciliation of sorts, along with being a final farewell. Once
done, Lynn leaned over and kissed her father’s forehead. “I’ll come
by tomorrow.”

Going over to Harry, she whispered, “Can I
talk to you outside?”

He threw a glance at Farrell, who waved
weakly at the door. “I’ll be here.”

Outside, Lynn took a seat, hands in her lap.
A flow of visitors as well as patients walked to and fro, some of
them throwing surprised glances their way, but he ignored them and
waited for her to speak. When she did, it was in a subdued voice.
“I guess my father told you he and my mother split up.”

“He did.” It wasn’t any of his business, but
since she’d mentioned it...

“I haven’t seen him in a long time,” she
continued and this time a quiver of emotion, of regret, sounded.
“But someone from the FBI contacted us. I thought I should see him.
My mother... she’s not into reconciliation mode, if you know what I
mean, but she arranged for me to come out here.”

If there was a time for an awkward moment,
this was it. Harry had watched his own father rot from cancer and
witnessed his mother’s passage into eternity not long after his
father had been buried. Now it was happening all over again, this
time to someone else, and he wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sorry,”
he finally got out. “Your father’s a pretty decent guy. At least,
he’s always been that way with me.”

Lynn nodded and a few tears began to drizzle
down the side of her face. “He and my mother never got along. They
got divorced, we moved out to California, and that was that. But
he’s my father,” she looked up, her face a study in anguish, “and I
thought I should see him again, you know, before...”

Her voice trailed off, and she buried her
face in her hands. Harry sat beside her and hesitantly put his arm
around her shoulder as she cried. Her body shook and she leaned
against him. “I never thought I’d feel this way,” she sobbed. “He
was never around much when I was a kid, and now... now he’s not
going to be around much longer.”

She continued to weep. A voice called out and
Harry looked up in time to see Anastasia pad her way over to kneel
in front of Lynn. “Hey,” she said in a soft voice and Lynn gazed at
her.

“You’re his wife?”

Anastasia nodded. “Yeah, we’re the furries.
And you can call me Anastasia.”

Lynn sniffled. “Thanks, I will.”

“He’s a good person and he’s been good to
us,” Anastasia continued. “The only thing you can do is to be with
him.”

A note of determination sounded in Lynn’s
voice. “That’s what I’m going to do. Thank you.”

Lynn suddenly clung to her. Even though there
wasn’t much of an age difference, it seemed as though they were a
mother-daughter combo, with the human Lynn seeking comfort and
maybe absolution—although none was needed—from her transgenic
counterpart.

In a moment of
I can’t do anything to
help,
Harry felt totally useless and wished he had some means
at his disposal to aid his mentor. Leaving his wife and Lynn
outside, he re-entered the room and found Farrell sitting up in
bed. “Is my daughter still out there?”

“She’s talking with my wife.” Harry stood
rooted to the floor, licking his lips, and wondering if what he was
thinking would be accepted. He’d had the idea for a while. “If
you’re up to it, if you want, I could whip up some serum... it
might boost your immune system, and—”

“I’m going to say no,” Farrell said and his
voice got stronger with each passing word. “I figured you’d get
around to that sooner or later, but I’ve decided this is how it has
to be. And you’ve got a debriefing with Overton. So go... I’ll be
here.”

With a nod and a promise to come in as soon
as he could, Harry left. Lynn had stopped crying. “Thanks for
coming by,” she said as she wiped her eyes. She seemed more
composed now. “Are you two going to leave soon?”

“Yes,” Anastasia spoke softly. “We have a
little unfinished business in Spain. We’ll come back as soon as we
can. Count on it.”

A wan smile emerged from the younger girl.
“We’ll be waiting. Thanks.”

Back in the car, on their way to
headquarters, Anastasia murmured to Harry, “You can help Farrell,
can’t you?”

She was talking about the formula. “He
doesn’t want it. I’ll talk to him again when we get back. Maybe
he’ll change his mind.”

Anastasia said nothing more and settled back.
Along the way, Overton told them their home in the Catskills was
off-limits until such time as it was deemed safe. “If that thing
that found you out there got up there with no problem, then others
may follow. We can’t take the chance.”

It seemed to be the safest way. Once they
arrived at headquarters, they found that Overton had arranged for
them to be sequestered in the monitoring room and had four cots
along with fresh changes of clothes brought in for all of them.
Once the cots were in place, he called for a debriefing.

Anastasia, though, put her foot down and
insisted on taking a shower first. “Cats are clean animals,” she
said in an offhand manner when he objected and called for a
debriefing first. “You wouldn’t want me to be a dirty kitty, would
you?”

A slight purr accompanied her question, and
in spite of his depressed feeling over Farrell’s fate, Harry found
it difficult to hold in a laugh. His wife wasn’t about to take crap
from anyone, and she’d made it very clear she didn’t like taking
orders.

Overton’s face turned bright red. Clearly, he
didn’t like being put on the spot. “Fine, you can use the showers.
They’re two floors up. I’ve cleared the building except for
essential personnel.”

She took her turn first, emerging in a pair
of formless gray sweats, which somehow made her look more alluring
than ever. At least Harry thought so, but he was biased. Once in
the shower, he felt the hot water rinse away the grime of the last
few days, but he couldn’t rinse away the memories of what he’d seen
and heard.

Shower over, he toweled off and put on a
similar suit to his wife’s. His mini-friends had their own
children’s versions which hung loosely and flopped all over the
place.

Back in the monitoring room, located in the
basement, a spare, small place just large enough to hold them,
three computers, the cots and a rack full of games—Jason’s
contribution to the downtime they all had to take—they turned to
the dinner menu.

It consisted of every junk food addict’s
dream. Fried chicken, pizza, bread and cola made up the bulk of the
menu, along with a small salad that Overton insisted they eat.
“It’s for roughage,” he said when Jason asked him about it.

Jason started to roll his eyes at the
suggestion, but a smack on his arm from his girlfriend put a stop
to it. “Salad is good for you,” she stated. “And since chocolate
comes from a plant, I’m having that, too.”

Dinner turned out to be what the experts had
ordered. The smell was intoxicating, and it reminded Harry of the
last time he’d eaten... perhaps forty-eight hours ago.

The two mini-guests polished off most of the
eats and then took a place on their cots. As usual, they offered
nothing, just went to sleep, and it led Harry to believe they could
sleep through anything. Still, he owed Leo big time for his
freedom.

Harry took a break from typing and thinking
to settle for a couple of slices of pizza and a bowl of chicken
nuggets while he worked on one computer, feeding in equations
concerning his studies on DNA, retroviruses, and a whole lot
more.

As he waited for the computations to come
through, Overton declared in a hearty but somewhat overly friendly
manner that didn’t sound sincere, “More than happy to see everyone
back safe.”

“Glad you’re happy that we’re happy,”
Anastasia chimed in while stuffing the last slice of a pepperoni
pizza in her mouth. “But you’ll have to listen in to what we found
out.”

“Bad news?”

Harry chimed in as he saved his findings. “It
isn’t good. We just saw the surface, and it’s not over yet. You
need to hear this.”

After they laid down the facts, Overton’s
face got tight. “So, tell me this, how’s he going to replace
everyone? He’d have to kidnap them first, and wouldn’t everyone
else know they were fakes?”

It was a good question, a logical one, but
there was little doubt in Harry’s mind Allenby would make good on
his promise. “We have to check on what’s going on in Spain. That’s
where I’m guessing some of the Genesis Chambers are.”

“Already did,” Maze cut in, chomping away on
her usual chocolate stash as she and Jason walked through the door.
“It’s nice to see both of you again.” She went over to Anastasia to
offer a brief hug. Once done, she stepped back, cocking her head to
one side as if to assess something. “Did you gain weight?”