Double Helix (21 page)

I thought I knew. But I asked anyway. “What was the price, Dad?”

He turned and looked at me, even though, in the dark, I - couldn't see his expression. “The other eggs. Wyatt got all of your mother's extra eggs to keep.”

My stomach convulsed.

Kayla.

“I didn't know at first.” There was a pleading note in my father's voice. “I swear to you, Eli, I didn't know about that part of the bargain until after Ava was pregnant with you and Wyatt had assured us that you did not have HD. Ava knew I'd have a problem with their agreement. She told me it was her business, hers and Wyatt's. Her body, her choice. Not mine. I was only involved in your conception.”

“Dad . . .”

“But I dream about them,” my father said starkly. “I feel that they . . . wherever they are, maybe still in embryo, frozen—that they are my children somehow. Not genetically, I know that. But my responsibility. And I've failed them, because . . . because he's not a man you would trust with a child. I knew that the minute I met him. Brilliant, yes. But that's not important. At least, I don't think it is.”

He swallowed. “Eli, we let him have the eggs. We gave him dozens of potential children to play with, in exchange for you.”

LATER THAT MORNING, my father drove me to work. He'd asked me if I wanted to take another day off and spend it with him, talking, but I said no. I think we were both a little relieved. It wasn't that there was no more to say between us. It was that there was almost too much.

I had said to him, “But Kayla's okay.” I had not had to say more. He knew exactly who I meant. Of course, he had known who Kayla must be when he saw her at the memorial service; when he gave me my mother's picture. “Kayla's okay,” I said. “I know her; I tell you, she's fine. Or at least she's as okay as I am.”

My father hesitated. “I suppose.” There was a note of doubt in his voice that puzzled me. “But what about the others?” he went on. “If there are any others?”

I had not had an answer. My stomach had roiled again. My father thought Dr. Wyatt was unethical. But there wasn't evidence of that, was there? I was fine. Kayla was fine. Others—if there were others . . . conceived in vitro, born to surrogate parents . . . why wouldn't they be fine, too? He was a genius, even my father had had to concede that.

Waste products
.

“We'll talk more later,” I had said to my father.

But now, as I stood in front of the Wyatt Transgenics building and watched him drive off, returning to the packing up of all the bits and pieces of my mother's final life, I was filled with so much sadness and fear that I had to turn abruptly away. I wanted to bawl like a child that I needed him and he ought to know better, even if I didn't, than to leave me alone, alone with the weight of what I now knew. But I breathed in and out and then it was over. I wasn't a child. I wouldn't let myself feel or act like one.

I went into the building.

Even though to me it felt as if I were late, I was the first one in my lab. I ignored my work for just a few more minutes and called Viv. I told her I had had a good talk with my father and would see her later. Then I sat at my computer and addressed the things I was supposed to do, as if nothing had happened.

It felt surprisingly good to work, and as the day passed and I ticked one item after another off my task list, I was actually able to forget for short periods of time. I found an interesting anomaly in the data for the current experiment—were the does producing a little too much protein in their milk?—and pointed it out to Larry, who clapped me on the shoulder and said it was good to have me back.

Then all at once it was after six o'clock and the last of my colleagues were leaving. Larry called back to me: “Go home, Eli!”

“I will!” I yelled, but the thick lab door had already closed and I wasn't sure if he'd heard me . . . well . . .

If he'd heard me lie. Because I wasn't going home. Not yet, anyway. I was supposed to meet Viv at my apartment at 8:30, and I had plans for between now and then. They had been percolating on a subconscious level all day.

I logged off my computer and shut it down. I wandered into the rabbits' room and found myself in front of Foo-foo's cage.

“Foo,” I said softly. “Mind if I run something by you?” Foo-foo's ears moved as I spoke, which was enough agreement for me.

“Dr. Wyatt told me that my mother's request changed the course of his intellectual life. But we don't work with human fertility and human genetic manipulation here at Wyatt Transgenics. We develop protein enzymes in animal milk. And now I know about all those other human eggs . . . my mother's . . .” I paused. I said, “Foo? Remember that little elevator?”

Foo-foo's whiskers twitched.

“Oh, don't worry,” I said. “I'm going alone this time.” Although, as I spoke, I found myself wondering if it really would be such a bad idea to bring Foo-foo. Of course, I'd get in trouble if anyone saw us. But then again, if I did get caught, - wouldn't I look more innocent if Foo-foo—rather than, say, my father or Viv—was with me? I could even say I'd been chasing her again.

I unlatched Foo-foo's cage and tucked her into my arms. Then, faster than Foo-foo herself could have hopped it, we were on our way.

It's not uncommon for scientists to work odd hours, so it was very possible that I'd encounter someone who'd stayed late. But as I strode through the corridors toward the little dead-end hallway with its mysterious elevator, I didn't feel furtive. And my luck held: I met no one until I crossed the bridge above the mezzanine. There, however, I somehow caught the eye of the security guard sitting below the double-helix staircase at the reception desk.

But it was fine. Keeping a firm hold on Foo-foo, I waved confidently at the guard and kept walking—and he waved back and returned to working his crossword puzzle.

Finally, we arrived in the darkened Human Resources area, in the hallway facing the closed “utility room.” I fitted my access card into the slot and pulled the concealing door open. Then I stepped into the empty elevator and tried the key there as well, sliding it into the mechanism and pressing the button for the lower basement.

Nothing happened. I leaned toward the control panel with concentration. I tried all sorts of different combinations, swiping the card first and pushing a button, and then the reverse. I even tried rubbing Foo-foo's foot, for good luck. But the elevator doors stayed stubbornly open, and its panel buttons remained unlit.

I would have to give up, at least for now. Still . . .

“Listen, little rabbit Foo-foo,” I said. “There have to be stairs somewhere. Maybe I can find them if I study the plans Viv copied. We could try breaking in that way tomorrow.”

Foo-foo didn't say anything. But someone else did, from behind me.

“Eli?” The voice was pitched high with astonishment. Foo-foo twitched strongly in my arms. But I had a firm grip, and after a couple of seconds, she subsided.

I knew who it was. What I didn't know was whether I was ready to cope. But there was no choice. I turned.

Kayla Matheson was standing just outside the elevator, beautiful in white jeans and a black tank top. She looked at me and then at Foo-foo, and her mouth dropped open and stayed there.

My heart was pounding now. I knew Foo-foo could feel it, and that it might alarm her, so I tucked my other arm around her and held her closely, warmly.

Questions—
What are you doing here? Where's Dr. Wyatt? Are you going to tell on me?
—flashed through my mind but then were gone, leaving behind the only real questions, the essential questions.

I realized that Kayla must have overheard what I'd said to Foo-foo about breaking in, but at that moment it didn't matter at all.

Once I got it working, my voice came out a little croaky. “Kayla, this is my pal Foo-foo Fourteen. Foo-foo, this is Kayla.”

My sister.

I didn't say it, but I felt it. I felt it in the air between Kayla and me. Could she feel it, too? I didn't know; couldn't tell.

Kayla seemed to have recovered from her surprise at seeing Foo-foo. “Am I wrong, Eli, or did you just say you wanted to break into the subbasement?” She didn't look shocked or even disapproving.

“Yes,” I said.

She was silent for just long enough to make me think she - wasn't going to say anything more. Then the strangest little smile distorted one corner of her mouth. “Funny. I was just going to try that myself.”

And as astonishment filled me, Kayla held out one hand, and I saw that she was clutching a card key. “This one ought to work,” she said. “Because I stole it from Quincy this morning.”

“IT'LL PROBABLY WORK, THEN,” I managed.

Kayla stepped inside the elevator. “He thinks he mislaid it,” she said conversationally. She swiped the card into the slot on the control panel and the panel came alive instantly. The doors slid shut but the elevator remained stationary.

Kayla reached past me and stabbed at the B5 button with her index finger. The elevator began to sink downward. “I have a very specific errand in the subbasement. In fact—” She glanced at me swiftly, half-questioningly. “I'm wondering if you might be a big help. You know a lot about databases, don't you?”

She had an errand involving computer databases? One she'd needed to steal the access key to accomplish? I was wary. No matter what Dr. Wyatt was up to, it would be a serious, almost evil, act for me to alter or destroy clinical data. That had been drummed into me. But maybe Kayla only wanted to look at something. That was different. Actually, whatever this data was, I wanted to examine it, too. Oh, yes, I did.

And if she believed there was data in subbasement 5, then maybe there wasn't anything—anybody—else down there. Data. I could live with data. I'd be delighted to find data.

“I'm happy to see what I can do for you,” I temporized, adding, “I'm guessing you've been in the subbasement before ? You know what's there?”

“Oh, yeah. I got the official tour from Quincy last week.” Was there a bitter note in her voice? “What about you? When was your tour? And what's your agenda today? Obviously, it's covert, but you can tell me.”

I looked at Kayla. “Actually, I haven't had any tour, official or otherwise. And my agenda was just to look around. Covertly, I guess. So, what's down here, anyway?”

Kayla gasped. “You mean you don't—” The elevator came to a stop and its door began to open. But Kayla slammed her hand onto the button that closed it again and stood so that her body blocked the control panel.

“Sorry, Eli,” she said quietly. “In deciding to take you down here, I made an assumption I shouldn't have made.”

“What—” I began.

“How much do you know?”
she cut in. Her eyes locked on mine and they went a little . . . well, desperate.

I never had a thought of not telling her, but I found I could not watch her while I did. I stepped back and leaned against the opposite wall of the elevator. I held the quivering Foo-foo in my arms, and I looked down at the rabbit and stroked her while I talked.

It gave us both some privacy.

I told Kayla that I had only recently learned that Dr. Wyatt had assisted my mother in having a child without HD, and that I suspected he had also made some genetic-level changes to me. I told her about my Alice-in-Wonderland chase of Foo-foo to this hidden elevator.

Then I told her that she was my mother's child as well. I told her that my mother had given Dr. Wyatt her extra eggs; that this had been Dr. Wyatt's price for helping her—and that my mother had paid it without concern. I said that I had not known—still did not know—how to assimilate that information.

It didn't actually take me very long to tell her all this.

When I had finished, I raised my eyes and found that the desperation had seeped out of Kayla's. She just looked tired. I hesitated, and then asked: “Have I told you anything you - didn't already know?”

She nodded. “I didn't know who she was,” she said simply, and I knew she meant my—our—mother. “I knew what had happened, scientifically, before my birth; my parents told me a long time ago that there had been a donor egg—though my father seems to feel he is my genetic father. But I didn't know my mother's name or anything about her, and neither did my parents. That was one of the things I thought I would find out today. I was going to look for it in Quincy's files. I never imagined . . .” Her voice trailed off.

I couldn't think of anything to say. I wondered why Dr. Wyatt hadn't told Kayla at least some things about my—our—mother, considering that he'd felt comfortable in telling her so much. Comfortable enough to give her a tour of whatever he was doing in the basement. Comfortable enough to introduce her to me. Comfortable enough to tell me.

Strange. But maybe he thought it didn't matter to her? Maybe he'd promised her parents, the Mathesons, not to tell? Or maybe—could he have wanted me to tell her?

Kayla said, “I can hardly believe it. I was at her memorial service.”

I pulled my thoughts back to the present. “Yes. You know something? I'm glad you were there.”

“Me, too,” said Kayla, but her voice was uncertain.

I wanted more than anything to touch her, to hug her. To make contact somehow and let her know... something. Let her know I was there. But she was holding herself so straight. So separate. We were strangers.