Replication (13 page)

“No,” Abby said.

“Your father already told us his version of what happened, but we’d like to get an official statement from you. You feel up to that?”

“Sure. I went up my room, mad because Dad made my friends
leave. We were just studying, but Dad kicked everyone out. I was”—Abby glanced at her father—”really embarrassed.”

Jackson’s gaze drilled into Abby. “What happened next?”

Abby looked to where Einstein was eating out of his dish. “When I turned around, a boy was in my room, crouched in the corner.”

“Did he speak to you?” McNear asked, his voice a rumbling bass.

The sound pulled Abby’s gaze away from Einstein. “No. He just sat there. I yelled at him to get out and he ran.”

McNear turned to Dad. “Did you see him leave, Mr. Goyer?”

“I didn’t. I’d stepped into my office in the den. I heard Abby yell, then the door slam. That’s it.”

McNear smoothed his moustache and looked to Abby. “Why did you wait until today to call this in?”

Abby jerked her head to look at her dad. He was supposed to have said that this had just happened. Talk about raising a red flag in an investigator’s mind. “Uh…”

“It’s my fault,” Dad said. “I didn’t want to blow things out of proportion for a high school prank. But Abby was so insistent about what she saw, well … after I slept on it, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to report it.”

Abby sighed inside. Then a sudden overwhelming feeling of shame overtook her. She had talked her dad into lying to the cops and now they were getting caught in their deceit.

Jackson wrote something down in her notebook, then glanced at Abby. “Could you describe him?”

“Uh … he was bald … and tall and … thin.” Abby scrambled to think if her answer might hurt Marty. She didn’t see how it could. “He was wearing gray sweats and a white lab coat. Like the kind a doctor wears.”

Jackson turned to Abby’s dad. “So he changed his clothes after your daughter saw him?”

Abby frowned at her father.

“I guess he must have.” Dad shrugged. “All I know is that I found those clothes on my bedroom floor.”

Abby followed Dad’s nod to the kitchen. Marty’s sweats, T-shirt, and lab coat were folded in a neat pile on one of the kitchen counters. Ug. They really should have rehearsed what they were going to say, which only confirmed the inkling in the back of her mind that this was wrong. They were making up a story, wasting the officers’ time. She hated people who did stuff like this.

“How old did he look, Miss Goyer?” Jackson asked.

“Seventeen or eighteen.”

“Did you recognize him?”

Abby paused. She wasn’t supposed to know any clones existed, so in her mind, the boy in her room would have been JD Kane. She didn’t want to lie anymore, nor did she want to get JD in trouble. If she said the intruder looked like JD, would that help the case against Jason Farms? If JD had an alibi, would that give the police reason to search the barn? Perhaps.

“He looked kind of like JD Kane, a boy at my school. But the thing is, JD has hair. Even more strange, he had just called me on my cell because he’d forgotten some books when our study group ended. JD was waiting outside when I brought him the books, and when I went back upstairs, the guy was still in my room.”

“So you saw JD outside when he was supposedly in your bedroom?” Jackson asked.

Now Abby was having second thoughts about the tell-the-cops plan. What if the police started looking for a JD lookalike? How was that going to help Marty?

“You and JD Kane are friends?” Officer Jackson’s gaze bored into Abby’s.

“He’s my lab partner.”

“Have you ever dated?”

“He asked me out, but I turned him down. He’s not really my type.”

“How did he take that?”

“Take what?”

“Your rejection?”

Great job—you just handed them a motive
. Officer Jackson thought JD had come into Abby’s room because he was stalking
her or something. “Oh, JD’s fine. Actually, he seemed more determined than ever to get me to go out with him once I—”

Dad coughed.

“—said no.” She glanced at her dad. Oh. Her answers weren’t helping, and now it really looked like JD was stalking her. She should have left it at “strange bald guy I didn’t recognize” and been done with it. She would never lie again. It was one of the Ten Commandments for a reason. Doing it only made things worse.

The cops asked a bunch more questions, mostly about JD. Abby did her best to paint JD in a favorable light, but she got the impression the cops had their own preconceived opinion of JD Kane.

When the cops finished asking questions, Dad walked them to the door. “Thanks for looking into this.”

“We’ll head over to the Kane residence next,” Officer Jackson said. “We’ll call if we find out anything. Let us know if there are any more … strange visits.”

“Will do.”

Abby winced inside. JD was getting pulled into this mess, but it was his
dad’s
fault for cloning himself.

Dad called the lab next. He told them he called the police because of an intruder and that later his daughter had described him as JD Kane. Dad assumed it had been Martyr.

While Dad talked to the lab, Abby escaped to her room, conscience nagging. She was glad Marty was at Pastor Scott’s place and that they’d thrown the Jason Farm scientists off the trail, but could she have accomplished the same thing without bending the truth? Calling the police had seemed like the perfect idea at the time, but now that it was over, it wasn’t sitting so well. What if JD got in trouble for something he didn’t do?

She crawled under the covers on her bed and snuggled against Einstein. Her obsession with forensics and detective work had gone too far. She, Abigail Goyer, a girl whose goal in life was to enforce the law, had broken it today. Mom would have been disappointed. Mom had always told her it was up to the two of them to show Dad what loving God was all about.

Abby had failed today in a big way.

It had been her idea to lie to the police, and Dad had gone along with it. She’d led her father astray. This thought sent Abby into a long bawl-fest. It had been ages since she cried, and this made twice in one day. She cried so long it hurt. She couldn’t breathe. Snot dripped everywhere. Her eyes stung. Her sobbing scared Einstein so much he squirmed out of her grip and darted out the door.

The exit of her dearest friend made her cry harder. She prayed long and hard. She knew God had forgiven her for the lies, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be consequences for her actions. She dreaded those consequences.

Good thing Abby wasn’t in charge of running the universe. Things would sure get messy in a hurry. Deep down, she trusted that God would take care of Marty and the other clones, but it wasn’t in her nature to sit back and not get involved. She really needed to work on giving up control. She only hoped her meddling hadn’t made a bigger mess for God to clean up.

M
ARTYR SHIFTED UNCOMFORTABLY
on the brown sectional.

Dinner had been filled with new and interesting foods he was still struggling to describe, but it also had been awkward because Pastor Scott asked many strange questions. Martyr sensed Pastor Scott becoming frustrated. The man seemed to suspect that Martyr had done something wrong.

Now they sat in the
living room
, which was what Aliza called the room with the sectional, recliner, and TV. Martyr didn’t understand this title since there were no beds here. Clearly it was only one of several rooms in the facility that was being lived in.

Again, Aliza sat on the end of the sectional and Pastor Scott sat in the recliner. Martyr sat in the corner of the sectional. The pillows squished around him and gave the sense of protection against Pastor Scott and Aliza’s unnerving gazes.

“Abby said you had questions about God,” Pastor Scott said, fixing his brown eyes on Martyr. “Why don’t we focus on those for a while?”

“Where does he live? Can you take me to his facility?”

Pastor Scott glanced at Aliza, his lips nearly frowning. “God doesn’t live in any building—on earth, at least—not even a church.”

“I don’t understand.” How could someone live nowhere? Did God roam the land like the birds and horses? “Abby said God hears my words and thoughts. But how can I hear him if I cannot find him?”

“Through prayer and reading the Bible,” Pastor Scott said.

Prayer, like Abby had done before eating her food. “Is this Bible a book?”

“Here.” Pastor Scott got up and pulled a book off a shelf. He flipped through it and handed it, opened, to Martyr. “This is a pretty easy-to-understand Bible. Go ahead and read some. Let me know if you have any questions. I recommend starting here, in John.”

“You don’t start at the beginning?”

“You can if you want, but John is probably going to give you some of the answers you’re looking for. The red letters, those are God’s words.”

Red letters intrigued Martyr, but if Abby was wrong, and this God was not Martyr’s creator, then he was wasting his time looking for answers here. “Abby told me that God made me. How do I know if that’s true?”

“The only way to know for sure is to believe it. Listen, the Bible says in Jeremiah 1:5, ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.’ God made every human on the planet. He loves each one dearly. He created you for a purpose. And if you believe that, it can change your life.”

Martyr perked up at the word
purpose
. “I want to believe so I can discover my true purpose before it is too late.”

“Marty,” Pastor Scott began, “why are you in such a hurry?”

“Because I will expire in fifteen days.”

The house phone rang. The second ring cut off midway.

Dad yelled from downstairs, “Abby! Phone!”

She took a deep breath and picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Scott. Abby, I need you to come back over here. I’m a little worried about JD. I mean, uh … Marty. How much do you know about him?”

Abby winced. “Is he trying on your clothes?”

“He seems mentally ill, maybe even suicidal.”

“Oh, he’s not suicidal, he just thinks he is going to die on his eighteenth birthday. Personally, I don’t think it will happen. Dad doesn’t either. But you never can tell with scientists and their experiments.”

“Abby, please. You’re not making a lot of sense.”

“I know. I’m sorry. Would it help to talk to my dad? I’ll get him. Dad!” Abby carried the phone down to the kitchen. “Dad, will you explain to Pastor Scott about Marty? I don’t think he believes me about the clones. He thinks Marty is mentally ill.”

Dad stepped back from Abby, staring at the phone like it was infected with some kind of incurable disease. She wondered if his hesitation was more due to talking to a real live pastor than betraying any confidentiality agreement with his soon-to-be former employer.

Abby dragged him to the armchair in the living room, pushed him down, and put the phone in his hand. “Just tell him, Dad.”

Dad answered Pastor Scott’s questions as best as a paranoid molecular biologist who was involved in illegal activities could. Not that Abby had much experience in determining that. At first he tried to evade the truth, saying things like, “Well, that’s a teenager for you,” and “Well, I’m sure I don’t know,” and “That sounds
more like your department than mine.” But he seemed to give in when he said, “Well, how would you act if you were a cloned teenager who was raised in an underground lab and had never seen the light of day?”

Things were progressing now. Abby sat on the couch across from him, watching her dad’s expressions as he spoke to Pastor Scott. Maybe she should have taken him over there. This was really more of an in-person type of conversation, and the situation might even cause Dad to open up to the pastor. Abby—and God—knew that Dad had plenty of questions in the faith department. He was just too proud to ask.

Dad clicked off the phone.

“What’s Marty doing?” Abby asked.

“Reading a Bible. And apparently asking questions after every other sentence. Seriously, Abby, I don’t think taking him there was the best plan. Are you trying to convert him or something?”

“Dad!” Abby glared at her father, whose normal response to religion was,
No, I don’t believe there is a God, but I’m really angry with the way he’s running things
. Real logical. “I just wanted to take him to someone trustworthy who likes to help people. Do you have a better idea?”

“No. It’s just typical that the first thing that happens over there is to hand the poor kid a Bible. Talk about shoving God down your throat.”

“It’s my fault he’s asking them about God.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I prayed for our breakfast this morning.”

Dad frowned.

“You know I pray over my food, Dad.”

“I didn’t know you did it all the time. I figured it was just to annoy me.”

Abby exhaled a groan. “I pray because I want to talk to God. It has nothing to do with you … or Marty. I thanked God for our breakfast this morning and asked him to help me and Marty. Then Marty had a lot of questions, so I answered them as best as I could.”

Dad let his head fall back against the armchair.

“Dad, don’t you know why Mom was so mad about your experiments? Because she trusted God to take care of her life. If God wanted her to be with him, she was okay with that.”

For a moment Dad didn’t say anything. He stared up at the ceiling, and Abby wondered if he had even heard her. Then he slowly, almost painfully moved his head from the back of the chair and looked straight at Abby. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Abby stared back for a long moment, then nodded. She didn’t blame him for thinking it was crazy. If you didn’t know God, how could you trust him? “The thing is, I believe that too,” Abby said softly. “I trust God with my life, so I try to share as much of it with him as I can. I thank him for every breath, every bite of food, every blessing. I want to spend my time on earth fulfilling the purpose God designed me for.”

Dad slid to the edge of his armchair. “Wouldn’t you think it was unfair if your God allows you to live only until the end of the week?”

Abby took a deep breath. “Life isn’t about how many days I live, but how I live the days I have.” She kicked herself when her dad leaned back in his chair; he wasn’t going to accept her fortune cookie answers. “Listen, Dad, you spent your marriage trying to find a cure for Mom and you missed out on what little life she had. You took her joy, Dad, and yours, trying to save her.” He looked a bit startled at what she was saying, but he appeared to be listening. And it had to be said. “Now you work for more people with that same philosophy. They want to take the lives of others because of their fear. They don’t understand, so they try to find a way to control things. But God will always get his way. No scientist can change that. The only way to really live is to give up your fear and trust God.” Abby’s eyes got misty. “Mom taught me that.”

Dad’s face had a red tinge. Abby had pushed her luck way past her original bet. Another word would undoubtedly push Dad too far, and she wasn’t in the mood for a text fight. Not that she had her cell phone anyway. She stared at the reflection of the living room in the picture windows.

Dad pushed himself out of the chair. “Go to bed, Abby, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Martyr lay on the couch with the Bible. He found this book-filled-with-smaller-books fascinating. And confusing. He read John, then Luke, and then went to the beginning and read the first few chapters of Genesis. He asked Pastor Scott dozens of questions until he and Aliza went to bed.

Martyr continued to read. He couldn’t believe the doctors had kept this information from him. Everything in his heart told him it was truth. But Pastor Scott had said many people didn’t believe in this book. How could that be? If the Creator of Everything made the people, how could they deny that? How could they not want to know everything about their maker?

Something clinked in the kitchen and Martyr sat up.

“Sorry,” Pastor Scott whispered. “Just getting a drink.”

“Pastor Scott, what is
wife
?” The Genesis chapter had told about Adam and his wife, Eve. Aliza had introduced herself to Abby and Martyr as Pastor Scott’s “wife.”

Pastor Scott walked into the living room and took a seat in the recliner. “Wife is a woman who’s married.” He held up a finger. “Before you ask, let me explain.”

Martyr smiled. After a long day of questioning, Pastor Scott had figured him out.

“When a man finds a woman he loves, he asks her to marry him. If she agrees, they have a ceremony where their friends and family come to witness their vows before God. Then the woman will move in to her husband’s house—which is a facility where people live. Eventually the husband and wife may decide to start a family. Aliza and I are going to have a baby. I know you noticed her belly.”

“She is pragment.”

“
Pregnant
. It means our baby is growing inside her. She’s going to be a mother.”

Martyr straightened. “How can a person be inside her?”

Pastor Scott chuckled. “That’s a lesson for another day. But I told you so you’d understand where life comes from.”

“Abby said the Creator of Everything makes life.”

“And this is how he does it.”

“It is the only way?”

“Yes.”

Martyr wanted to think this over. “Thank you for answering my questions.”

“You’re welcome. I’m going to go back to bed now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?”

Martyr lay back down. “Yes, that is okay.”

Pastor Scott disappeared down the dark hallway. Martyr heard a door close.

So many new words confused his mind.
Wife, married, pregnant, mother, family, love
. Martyr suddenly wanted to ask Pastor Scott about love. He sat up again and reached for the thick black book. Maybe the Bible would say something about it.

He searched the
index
in the back for the word
love
. He was thankful Abby had brought him to such a knowledgeable man. Pastor Scott had showed Martyr how to use the index, and it had been a very valuable lesson. Martyr read several of the suggested verses with great interest, but 1 Corinthians 13:4–8 held his attention more than any other.

Martyr read this again. Then he read it several more times.

Abby had loved him. She had been kind when she could have beaten him with a stick. She’d given him socks to warm his feet. She’d shared her sleeping bag and her cell. She’d made him breakfast with bleeding eggs. She’d taught him about the Creator of Everything. She’d hid him from Dr. Goyer so he wouldn’t have to go back to the Farm, then fought for him so that Dr. Goyer removed the stinger and the tracker in his ear. She’d brought him to Pastor Scott’s house to keep him safe and to learn about the Creator of Everything.

Plus, Abby said she never failed, which was exactly what the Corinthians chapter said about love.

“Once I get a project, I never fail. You’ll be okay, I promise.”

Abby was love, and Martyr had found her.

He never wanted to go back to the Farm. He wanted to find his own house with large windows where he could see the sky and horses that ate trees. He wanted Abby to live with him and take care of him. And he wanted to take care of her. If he had socks, he would share them with her. If he knew how to cook eggs, he would cook them for Abby.

“When a man finds a woman he loves, he asks her to marry him.”
That was what Pastor Scott had said. But what would Abby say? Pastor Scott hadn’t been clear about what happened if the woman said no.

Friday. Abby hadn’t wanted to come to school, but if the scientists were watching, they might be suspicious if she didn’t. She pulled
Fahrenheit 451
out of her locker for AP English class and grabbed her government book as well, since the classrooms were close. She closed her locker and jumped when she saw JD leaning against the locker beside hers.

“You scared me!”

He grinned, but the joy didn’t reach his eyes. “You know what’s really scary? Prison.”

Abby shifted the books in her hands until the right corners
were flush. Her heart beat wildly in her chest. She inched backward and turned toward class, deciding to play dumb. “I imagine that would be scary.”

“Do you?” He strode beside her and handed her a book.
Lupus and You
. “I said I’d get it for you, didn’t I? Friends keep promises. And we’re friends,
right
?” His tone was odd. Taunting.

“Thanks, JD. This will totally help our project.” And if the bill was still inside, it would be evidence for the police.