The Only Ones (38 page)

The hardy thing is real. Avian, Luzon, all of them plus so many other things I been exposed to that I did not name but on the whole it is like Rauden said. If they penetrate my system it is their misfortune. And it did look like that would be true for Ani. And probably you too. I just want you to know in case you are in a situation where it could help, and not just when an Epi comes through, but if you are in a bad place like I heard some viables end up? Work Camp, sex slave? Run into epicenters. Climb over bodies. Hide in quarantines. Who’s going to chase you there?

I’m so sorry if that’s where you ended up, but let me say this too. That did not happen because of what you are. It could happen to anyone. Being regular is no guarantee how things will work. There are always unknowns in the Life Industry. Even the old regular way, when people got their kid from male/female unprotected sex? I don’t honestly think anyone ever totally knew what’s going to happen. There were always many factors, even luck.

I also want to say, in my own life many bad things was done to me, and that is how I know that when it happens sometimes you think something is wrong with you. Whoever did those things to you? It’s them it’s wrong with. It’s not your fault.

Even if you are in a good situation, you might think something’s wrong with you. Maybe someone will tell you something is wrong with you, because of what you are. That is so ignorant. Nothing is wrong with you. If someone says that to you, just say right back well I am still alive. How wrong is that?

I also want to say if you are mad, it is ok.

I know it is not up to me, if it’s ok or not. I’m just saying how I feel so you will know. I don’t even know if you care how I feel. I’m just saying, in case you do. How I feel is, how you feel about any of this is ok. It is up to you.

The one who looked familiar is Lucie Benedikt, who came all the way from Berlin. Nineteen years old. Still alive.

The one who did not look familiar is Ferron. I didn’t recognize him with the beard. I never totally trusted Ferron but you got to understand. How he grew up, with vigilante cretins, there was a lot of prejudice about people like Ani and me. He really did love Ani, though. I’m the one he had the problem with. But I think he got over it.

When Ferron found Lucie Benedikt he was looking for me with a pure code search he was running with Ani’s code that he had saved from her blood when she died. But this kind of search is very hard to control. He ended up in Lucie Benedikt’s code instead. They made contact. He told her what he knew about Ani and me, and, well, she had this in common with Ani—she just told her mother however they say it in their language, Ma, it’s my life not yours. And off she went to find me. She made her way to America by different boats, a very hard trip, maybe harder than Ani’s, but Lucie Benedikt hung very tough. Ferron met her at Boston Harbor and from things Ani had said when she was still alive, they figured out how to find me.

She is on my case to send this out. She says I could do it with a pure code post which she will help me run.

She also wants me to put in a Comment Box so you could post in. It will be safe. We won’t know who you are. You could post a Comment or question you might have. And I will try to answer though it was not easy for me to say what I already said. The Canastota part I could hardly bear to say at all.

Here is something you will want to know. Lucie has been in touch with her mother, Hille Benedikt, who was very glad to hear she’s still alive. It turns out Hille Benedikt is very smart with research and looked into what was happening out by JFK in Queens when the Big One started. It is on the record that a bus escaped from a quarantine with babies on it whose Parents died. Now how the Big One used to hit people, you would just die very sudden and that is what the driver did, just keeled over and the bus crashed. The bodies were found later. The driver, seven kids, and one empty basket. The bus crashed on Kissena Boulevard.

Well, Hille poked around what files she could and there is some GI who died during childbirth in the VA hospital in St. Albans, near JFK. Nya Santiago was her name. I’m not saying that’s my birth mother. I’m just saying the timing works. She was all shot up with untested vaccines and for all we know, that’s what killed her. Maybe she was already dead when her kid was born by C-section. They don’t know where this mother had been posted or who the father was or anything else.

So this could be my birth mother, and maybe, technically, yours. I never have been sure how that all works. I’m very sorry that she died. But I am sure of one thing. If Cissy Fardo didn’t take me off the bus on Kissena Boulevard, none of us would be alive.

I got some more things to say about other people you heard about. Henry is still alive. Janet Delize is still alive.

Rini Jaffur died of natural causes. All the Nassau County group died, except Lorena Hutz. Lorena Hutz is still alive.

Alma Cho is still alive.

Rauden—

I want to think if there is anything I forgot to say about what we do and do not get. Oh! Worms. I don’t know if they even have them where you are—but hook, pin, whatever, plus salmonella, hemophilus, shigella. Not a problem. I would watch out for snakes though. I personally never saw one and I think what they give you is really bad neurotoxins which as you know Ani and I were ok with, but if you see a snake, I would keep my distance. Be on the safe side.

People who are not hardy themself might not understand how this works and maybe you don’t either yet, but let me make one thing very clear. Remember I used to go off in boats with just anyone? That was not a hardy thing. That was foolhardy. Sometimes you got to be on the safe side, hardy or not.

But the see what happens thing is a little different. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between foolhardy and that. And the problem is, the see what happens thing, if I didn’t have it? You wouldn’t be born. I don’t even know if it comes from the genes. Ani had it in the end. I don’t know if you will. Lucie Benedikt has it, though she is different from Ani in so many ways.

I just know—well, this is about Ferron, because it turns out why he came looking for me in the first place, he wants me to find someone to clone the baby, who died with Ani, in the birth. He had saved the baby’s soma—that was what was in his bag, at Canastota! He saved the baby’s soma and Ani’s blood and took them away in the bag, and found cryoPaks somewhere. He has the baby’s soma, in storage, in cryoPaks, with Ani’s blood, and wants to find someone to do nuclear Transfer from it.

The baby’s name was Jack.

And this is what I’m saying about the see what happens thing. It turns out I still had it. I’m going to do it. I’m going to do the work.

Well maybe you think, here we go again. This dude wants to take advantage of me. Everyone does. Ferron is going to exploit me like everyone does. That’s what they always say. They never say it’s interesting. I’m going to do it.

It’s not even because I think this new kid will be my grandchild because he would of been Ani’s child if they lived. I hope Ferron will bring him for a visit, though.

But either way, I’m going up to the Farm and see if I can make it happen.

Sometimes you hear people talk about how great it used to be, how they made viables from unprotected male/female sex and how much they enjoyed it. Well let me tell you, what I had of unprotected sex I never enjoyed it as much as nuclear Transfer. What Rauden and I did, I enjoyed that so much. I loved it. Rauden did too. I’m not saying you would love it too, though I expect you would be good at it and might be in a situation where it was the only thing that worked. I’m just saying, I want you to know.

I don’t know whose eggs we will use. Some of mine could still be left on the property, after all these years. Or Lucie Benedikt could be Donor, if that is what she wants. I never wanted Ani to be a Donor or a Subject or any of that, but it was her life, not mine. And it is Lucie’s too.

Yours too.

So let me say a few last things. I’m not your mother. I’m not your birth mother. That’s not how it works. You have that in common with Ani. I wasn’t Ani’s birth mother. I was her mother, though.

How I felt about Ani, and she is the only one I felt that way about—I really don’t think it’s unique, how I felt about her.

The whole unique thing—remember Rauden said what makes the baby grow is like words, that tell it what to be? Well, words can mean two things or more, like the Free School was not free, and Life is not life, but also bear the child or bear the pain or bear the animal or, you know, bear with me. Even mean can mean two things or more.

So genes could mean two things or more.

And not just Ani’s and Lucie Benedikt’s, and yours, but even Rauden and Henry, who had the same genes by being twins. It isn’t just that one is in the wheelchair and the other was Rauden. It’s more about, what Rauden said to me the last time I saw him, how he felt? Henry never felt that, and Henry even cared for me, but Rauden was the only one who cared for me that way. And what I’m saying is, the way I cared for Ani, look, I don’t want to say the wrong thing here, and I do care about you and am proud, but the way I cared about Ani, she is the only one.

She even still is.

To tell the truth, I’m pretty sure it is not unique, to feel that way. I hope it’s not unique.

I think I could bear to tell you about Rauden now. This was right around the time Ani and me were in Sparrowbush, just before she went off on her own. The K of L went on a raid and this time torched the Farm, and though most of the Quonset did not burn, they chased Rauden through the woods and, well, you know what he’s like. He had a respiratory Episode and that’s it. Janet showed me where he’s buried. I knew all this a long time but could not bear to say it.

Well, something else happened in that raid that you should know. I only heard this after Ani died in the birth and Janet Delize was so nice. I heard this from her grandson, young Phil. While they were chasing Rauden, Janet went back in the Quonset really quiet before they torched it. And maybe you remember how mean she could be, the looks she gave? Sometimes I think she was just jealous because Rauden cared for me the way I didn’t even know he did. But sometimes I think she really believed what we did was a crime against nature. Well, maybe she is a criminal herself. Or maybe she just saw a business Opportunity. It could even of been a plan Rauden made, that he will run distraction in the woods while she grabbed what he told her from the freezers and went off with it. Or she could of changed her mind like Rini Jaffur.

All I’m saying is, what does it matter? If you ask yourself, why was I born? It could be because it is somebody’s business Opportunity or it could be they changed their mind or had unprotected sex, who even knows? It could just be about luck.

Sometimes I would like to see a scientific study, with Controls, what is luck? How does it work? When the bus crashed at Kissena and everyone died but me, that was not a hardy thing at all. It was just luck somebody put my basket in a safe place. It was luck Cissy Fardo was a passerby. And I don’t know if luck is in the genes, but you have it too.

Why did the others die on the bus and I was still alive? Why did Lily and the others die but Ani was alive? Why did e) stay alive? If she did. All I’m saying is, why were
you
born? Because Rauden needed the work? So Ani could get the special backpack or out of Armory? You were born the reason anyone was. Because you’re lucky. You’re lucky to be alive.

And those ones Janet grabbed that day at the Farm? She took them in cryoPaks, sneaked away through the woods, made it to the nearest MagLev, rode to Boston, and sold it at the harbor. The last anyone knew, it’s heading for Reykjavik, the Life auction. The hundred viables I made, plus whatever Rauden had left on ice from what he made—I’m thinking two or three dozen—plus a handful of solo eggs along with a bunch of soma, which no one but Rauden and me ever knew how to use, so far, heading for Reykjavik. They could of gone anywhere from there.

So. Ok. About the Comment post? I will keep checking, did you post or not post. Feel free to take forever to post back, because I will keep checking, forever. And I’m not saying I’m not worried, are you mad at me, or is your Parent mad, or could I bear the pain. I’m not even saying I’m sure you will even get this message—if the pure code will work or if you even got the scanners to read where you live. I’m just saying I will keep checking back, see what happens, forever.

Ok, so I’m heading upstate with Lucie Benedikt, Ferron, and Jack’s soma, see what happens. I will post the results. Here we go. I love you, Ani.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

This novel was a long time coming and had help all the way.

Julie Barer dragged it, kicking and screaming, to become a better book. I thank her for her persistence and loyalty, and William Boggess and the whole team for their support and advice.

It was my great luck that
The Only Ones
found its way to Two Dollar Radio, which Eric Obenauf and Eliza Wood run with such simplicity and vision. They have been a complete treat to work with, and that first little edit Eric threw my way was a game changer.

I was lucky too, that the kindness of Steve Erickson, Jonathan Lethem, and Lynne Tillman, forces of good in the writers’ world, extended to me.

Many were the brains I picked and shoulders I cried on. Just to name a few—the Christgau-Levi family, who followed every twist and turn of my progress whether they wanted to or not; early readers especially Louise Levi, Julian Dibbell, Laura Tillem, Dominique Dibbell, and Laura Dolan; plus Sarah Lazin, who became my trusted advisor throughout. And then there were Janet Mendelsohn and Marc Levitt, Dominique Avery, Greil and Jenny Marcus, Tom Smucker, Laura Kogel, Linda Mevorach, John Rockwell, Ann Powers, Eric Weisbard, Tom Hull, Tom Carson, Kit Rachlis, Jon Dolan, Shellie Sclan, Joe Levy, Irene Javors, Ann Waters, Michael Zilkha, my sisters Joy Harvey and Sandy Dibbell-Hope, Lynn Phillips, Beverly Winikoff, the fabulous Bay 41 women’s group, and the (virtual) Witnesses.

Special thanks to Claire Moed, who gave me a room to write in. Very special thanks to Roger Trilling, who was a guardian angel from the first. And to Nina Christgau, my daughter, who always understood what the story was about, and why I wrote it.