Mirrored Man: The Rob Tyler Chronicles Book 1 (22 page)

Yeoum scowled. He looked from Rob to Benny
and back again. He concluded that the man would continue to insist
if he protested. “Certainly, Commander,” he said, drumming his
fingers on his thighs for a moment. “If you'll excuse me?” He
directed the question to Benny.

“Of course.”

With that, the little man stood and strode
quickly out of the room, closing the door behind him.

There was a deafening silence in the room as
the two men eyed each other. Rob raised his hands, palms up. “What
the heck?”

Benny was fighting the lump that had grown
in his throat. He felt as if he had betrayed his friend. But it
wasn't supposed to happen this way. Rob wasn't supposed to be here.
He said nothing.

“Last week, I fly up to D.C. to have lunch
with my old friend and everything's cool. We're chillin', eating,
having a few laughs. And then, all of a sudden you pull this Jekyll
and Hyde routine on me, ask me to get involved in some kind of
genetics experiment, and then walk off and leave me standing
there.” He paused to allow Benny to respond, but the captain made
no indication that he would do so. “I mean, couldn't you have given
me a little more information?”

Benny slumped back in his chair. “You were
supposed to say no.”

“I was supposed to say no? What the … why …
when were you gonna …?” Rob was dumbfounded. He sat back, trying to
make some sense of it.

“I'm sorry Rob. You were supposed to say
no.”

“You mean to tell me that
you
asked
me to get involved in something that you
wanted
me to turn
down?”

The captain nodded.

“What? You thought that if you dangled a few
morally questionable
words
in front of me that I'd have a
crisis of conscience and say no?”

“I was counting on it.”

The two sat there staring at one another.
Rob could see that Benny was sincere in his apology. Truthfully,
the captain looked troubled enough to break out in tears. Rob took
a minute to organize his thoughts and then approached the situation
from the opposite end. “What am I here to do, Benny?”

There was no other way to say it. He took a
deep breath. “They're going to attempt to clone you.”

Rob sat in his chair, a blank look on his
face. He heard the words but he refused to believe them. Of all the
possibilities he had run through his mind, none of them had him
being cloned. “They're gonna
what
me?”

“They are going to clone you, Rob.”

Rob began to smile. He had that same feeling
he’d had at the Pentagon a week before, that it was a joke. He had
to admit that it would be one of the most elaborate hoaxes in the
history of hoaxes, but that seemed just as plausible as what the
captain had just said. Benny's expression hadn't changed. He still
looked as tortured as he had when he first said the words. Rob's
smile disappeared. His mind began to race. He knew little about
cloning except he had once heard about a sheep that had been cloned
years ago. He recalled vaguely a news program where the case for
cloning organs for patients in need of transplants was debated. The
doctors and scientists had made that idea seem reasonable. He had
seen a movie or two that had clones in them. But they were science
fiction, weren't they? There was another short silence. “Okay, I
think that I heard you say that they're gonna clone me. Is that
what you said?”

The captain nodded. He was nearly unable to
speak. The lump in his throat had swollen when he witnessed Rob’s
reaction.

“Just to clarify … they're going to clone …
me
?”

“Yes.”

“Like Boba Fett in
Star Wars
?” Rob
asked.

Benny summoned his strength and cleared his
throat. “I don't understand the process. And I never saw
Star
Wars
. The professor can tell you all about it if you want to
know. But I've seen the results. I have to admit that they're
impressive to say the least.” Since his meeting with Kingsley,
Benny had spent some time considering her ultimate goal, and he had
to admit that some aspects of the idea was attractive.

“The results?” Rob tried to regroup, to
filter each word and its individual meaning, and then put them back
together in a form that made some sense.

“I'll let the professor show you.”

“Who cares about the results?” Rob regained
control of the emotions that stampeded him moments before. He
tossed his Bible on the desk. “It's playing God!”

Benny was silent. The captain had had the
same thoughts when he was approached with the assignment. Benny was
the son of a Methodist preacher. He knew how the church felt about
such things. And he knew that Rob was a Christian. There was no
middle ground for them when it came to any form of genetic
manipulation. This was not the way Benny had seen this play out. He
had known Rob would react this way, but he had expected the
reaction to come sooner.

But there it was, sitting on the desk
between them. The reason Benny worked to find men who would turn up
their noses at the idea. The reason Rob had left the SEALs to take
the instructor’s position. Benny understood it clearly, and he had
done all he felt he could do to discourage Rob's participation
without being untrue to his position as a Navy captain. Any more,
and it could have jeopardized his career.

“You were supposed to say no,” Benny said
again.

Rob scoffed. “You didn't give me anything to
go on. Only that
you
wanted me to do something and that it
involved genetics. With that little to go on, I couldn't say
no
to
you
.” He placed particular emphasis on the last
word.

“How could you say
yes
to something
like that?”

“I was saying yes to
you
, Benny.
Because it was
you
asking. Not for any other reason.”

Silence again. It was a no-win situation for
Benny. He had been charged with finding someone to get involved
with something that he had personal revulsion for. He’d worked hard
to select men that he was sure would balk at the idea. And Rob had
chosen to participate based on his loyalty to his friend who
had asked him to do it.

At last, Rob spoke again. “Can I still back
out?”

Benny's eyes narrowed. His remorse had been
replaced with deep concern. “If you want to withdraw, you still
can. Heck, I'll walk out of here with you.” Benny stood and leaned
forward. “I just want to make a few things clear. There are some
very powerful people involved with this.
Very powerful.
People who truly believe that the results of this experiment could
change this country for the better. Believe that in their bones.”
He softened slightly. He wanted to prepare Rob, not intimidate
him.

“Yeah,” Rob agreed, “but for who's
benefit?”

“Yours, mine. Our kids. One thing I will
tell you. The people who are pulling the strings are doing all of
this with pretty admirable intentions.” Benny came around the desk
and half sat on the corner. He paused a moment.
I cannot believe
that I'm defending this.
“And one thing I can guarantee you.
There is nothing going on here, with or without your involvement,
which is in any way harmful to anyone. I give you my personal
assurance on that.”

Rob looked at his Bible again. He had been a
believer all his life. There were things done throughout history in
the name of science that were abhorrent to most people, some of
them in direct contradiction to the church. But he was forced to
wonder if those things were in conflict with God's Word. He had
read through the Bible once, and even had a few favorite books,
chapters, and verses. But he couldn't remember reading anything on
this subject. After all, God had allowed men to develop medicines
that changed people’s lives for the better. The Lord had allowed
doctors to develop the skills necessary to cure individuals of
polio, measles, typhoid, and many other diseases. Could this just
be the latest in a long line of breakthroughs that men had made,
and would continue to make in the field of medicine that would,
ultimately, make life livable for countless people? In the past, he
had based his decision-making on what was right for his country,
his family, and his career. But now, he had to consider another
aspect.
What do I do here, Lord?
He was looking for a real
answer.

At the end of it, science, medicine, and the
needs of people who Rob didn't know weren't of any consequence to
him. The debate raging within him boiled down to just two things.
Morality and loyalty. “Well, why me? Why was I chosen?”

Benny sighed. “Simply put, you’re the
best.”

“C'mon.”

“Believe me. The process of finding a
candidate with your mental and physical qualifications, combined
with your education, training, and field experience, wasn't easy,
my friend. We started evaluating eighteen months ago when the
initial list had a couple of dozen names on it.”

“What about them?” He was looking for a way
out. His convictions he now left somewhere behind him. He didn’t
want to use his faith as a crutch to shirk his responsibility. He
still wasn't thrilled with the prospect of being cloned, but he
couldn't just walk away. He needed an out. He needed a reason to
leave and still feel that he hadn't let anyone down, especially
Benny. It didn’t matter at this point that Benny had gotten him
into this mess.

“To be honest, some declined. Most were
eliminated because of the results of their psych eval. Some were
already involved with other special access projects, and a few got
killed.”

“Leaving how many?”

“Leaving you.”

“Me? Please don’t tell me I'm all that's
left?”

“If you walk out now, the program will fall
apart. But it's more important to me that you do what your gut
tells you to.”

But Rob wasn't concerned at all about what
his gut was telling him. The captain was getting short. How could
he let his friend, so close to retirement, go down at the end of
his career with a failure on his record because of him? He didn't
need to see evidence of the success of the project to help him to
make up his mind. The question of his involvement was too basic for
that.

“And no one and nothing gets hurt by
this?”

“Absolutely not.” Relief washed over Benny
as he thought that Rob had decided to bow out, to obey his moral
convictions, misinterpreting Rob’s question.

Rob had other ideas.
Do unto others
…

Standing, he turned and opened the door.
“Professor?”

Benny smiled. He was ready to call Kingsley
and give her the bad news. As much as a part of him may have wanted
to see the end results of the experiment, he didn't want to coerce
his friend into doing it. This would be for the best, no matter
what the career consequences were.

Yeoum appeared at the doorway with his
trademark scowl, arms folded.

The captain picked up the phone and asked
the guard on the other end for an outside line, but his stomach
dropped to his feet as he heard Rob speak to the professor.

“Okay, when do we get started?”

OVER THE NEXT WEEK,
Rob was subjected
to a regimen of examinations and physical tests. They collected
several samples of DNA, the most uncomfortable of which was the
lumbar puncture when Greg withdrew some cerebrospinal fluid. The
nausea that had followed had Rob bedridden for the rest of that
day. The rest of the tests were quite standard.

On the day of his arrival, he had learned of
the contempt that Jimmy had for him, and for the military in
general. The young man spared no expense in making the commander as
uncomfortable as possible during the initial testing. “The best is
yet to come,” Jimmy had promised. But Rob declined to hear any of
the details of the procedure until later.

Yeoum was extremely pleased that Rob was in
as fine a shape, both physically and mentally, as he was. He had
been following the diet of fruits and vegetables as ordered. The
professor had even announced that the cloning process could proceed
a full week ahead of schedule, due to the commander’s state of
fitness.

Rob was sitting on the all-too-familiar
examination table in only his boxers as the doctors—Yeoum, Don, and
Greg—discussed how the next day’s events would unfold.

“I would have never believed it if anyone
had told me there was a sailor out there who had no tattoos,” Greg
joked.

“Hey,” Rob played along, “you can't improve
on perfection.”

The men laughed, even Yeoum. It seemed there
was nothing anyone could do to ruin the professor’s mood since work
had resumed. He laughed and joked, however poorly, right along with
the rest of them. The other members of the team were unnerved at
first, save the major who had not experienced much of his darker
side. But after a few days, everyone became accustomed to the
lightened atmosphere in the lab.

“We'll start at noon tomorrow.” Yeoum turned
to Rob. “Commander, it is imperative that you do not consume
anything other than clear liquids after six o'clock this evening,
and then have nothing to drink apart from water after midnight.
Understood?”

The butterflies in Rob's stomach, such an
unfamiliar feeling a week ago, suddenly felt as if they were
playing the drums to the tune of Fleetwood Mac's “Tusk” as the UCLA
marching band was warming up in his spleen. He looked at the clock
behind the diminutive man. “Two seventeen. I got me some eatin’ to
do. Hey Doc, how 'bout I start off with the house salad with ranch
dressing, followed by a nice thick porterhouse, medium rare, a
little
Lea and Perrins
on the side, a baked potato with the
works, some steamed asparagus, and for dessert, a slice of New York
style strawberry cheesecake?”