+J.M.J.+
Blood of My Blood
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
Someone recently wrote me a phenomenal review of the prequel to this, "Flesh of My Flesh", which jogged my imagination and got me thinking seriously about the promised sequel, which this is. Vincent/Jerome's POV: it takes place three years after the film and nine months after the last chapter of "Flesh of My Flesh". Imagine his reaction when he comes back from Titan and finds...well for those of you who haven't read "Flesh of My Flesh", perhaps you'd better read that one first, otherwise you won't get a bloody word of this.
Disclaimer:
I do not own the movie _Gattaca_, its characters, concepts (including jargon), or other indicia which are the property of Sony Pictures, Andrew Niccol, et al.
In Memory of the crew of the space shuttle _Columbia_. February 1, 2003
"They say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. I don't see it as leaving. I see it as going home." Vincent Freeman
Chapter I: Discovery
Luck has hardly been on my side. But somehow I lucked out. This time.
I don't know how it happened, how no one found out all the time I was up there. But I'd taken my chance and fate had dealt me a good hand for a change. Life usually doesn't do that for someone like me, so I decided to make myself scarce as soon as I got back to earth. I didn't have a game plan yet, but I let that ride until we landed.
We hit some turbulence on the re-entry, on account of a solar flare affecting the earth's atmosphere. We almost didn't make it: as the navigator, I had to make some last minute adjustments. It wouldn't have fazed me if we hadn't made it; but I had the rest of the crew to think about. But sure enough, we touched down on the landing strip behind the Gattaca Aeornautics Institute, three years and one month after our departure.
I'd had my dream come true: I'd walked on alien soil. I'd gazed at the vastness of space without the barrier of the atmosphere to blur the light. My life was complete. If we had crashed, I would have died happy, not because I wanted that, but because I wasn't sure if I could face what lay in wait for me back on earth. I knew I couldn't keep up the charade once I was back there. And what about Eugene? Would the "lifetime supply" he'd set up last me in case I had to keep wearing the mask of his identity? Where was he now?
He'd been lower than usual (if that was possible!) for a while before I left, but the morning of my departure, he'd seemed relieved. I'd thought it was because he was relieved to get me off his back, but I had discussed it--as a theory--with a psychologist on board the space station _Discovery_. She'd said it sounded like a potential suicide pattern. And that swatch of his hair he'd given to me before I left. That could only be a wordless suicide note.
I had a brief moment's terror when the physicain on the crew ran blood tests to determine we hadn't picked up any mutated germs before we disembarked. But there'd be no scanning my genome; there's only Valids upstairs, right? No need for scrutiny now.
We disembarked fifteen minutes later. As we filed out, down the connecting corridor between the air lock and the institute, I had to keep from shoving ahead of the rest of the crew. I wanted to put as much distance between myself and Gattaca as I possibly could as soon as I could. I'd been in such a hurry to leave the earth behind. Now suddenly I was in a hurry to get back to the life I'd left behind.
A million fears had crowded into my head. Had they found out? Had Anton arrested Eugene? Had Irene divulged what she knew? And what about Lamar, the medical assistant? He knew everything; how long had it taken him to figure out what I really was? My father had said there were two classes it was impossible to keep the truth from: investigators and doctors.
I breathed deeply to keep from panting, drawing in slow draughts of Earth air, as we filed along the corridor.
"Smell that," said one of my crewmembers, behind me. "You're not the only one takin' big breaths: that's earth air you're breathing."
"Yeah, it hasn't gone through a dozen filters and nine other pairs of lungs," I joked, hiding my fear behind deadpan humor.
"Oh, God, I didn't think of that. What a relief!"
I hardly heard this remark. 'Lamar, are you still here?' I hoped, deep in my heart.
As if in reply to my question, as the corridor turned a corner, I looked down the last stretch to see Lamar standing there at the end, his white lab coat and his plain, dark, regular guy self a welcome sight.
"Hey, Jerome! Y' got back in one piece and you brought everyone else with you," he said, holding out his hand to me as I came up to him.
I shrugged one shoulder as I shook his hand. "My folks raised me to be the best that I could."
"They raised you well, then," he said, but I detected a note of incredulity in his voice. He clapped me on the shoulder. In a lower voice, he said, "Go up to my office: I'll meet you in the hallway outside it in a few minutes."
Something was up. I could only comply. I thought of slipping out somehow, but security was tight to say the least. Then I started wishing that somehow I had smuggled one of Eugene's blood samples with me, but that would only have ensured my getting caught.
A few minutes after I reached the door of Lamar's office, he joined me in the corridor outside as promised. He put a hand on my shoulder and leaned in closer, conspiratorially. "I couldn't say a word of this in front of the others," he said. "I don't know how to put this, but there's a guy in my office who doesn't look ANYTHING like you, but he's got the exact same genotype, so unless this is your clone or your long-lost twin brother..."
"Excuse me?" I asked, trying to sound incredulous. But I knew from the way his small, dark eyes narrowed, he wasn't convinced.
"In that case," he opened the door. I hesitated, but I followed him in dutifully.
I walked in to find a tall, slim young man seated in a chair beside the desk. Dark hair, narrow, symmetrical face, green-grey-blue eyes.
It had been so long I barely recognized him at first. Jerome Eugene Morrow.
The faint scowl between his brows had smoothed out and the cynical curl had left his mouth, but something of the gentle cynic remained about him.
But then he leaned forward in his chair and, hardly bracing his hands on the arms of the chair, he stood up.
For a moment the world spun backwards on its axis. I knew it had been a long time, but the kind of injuries Eugene had endured didn't just fix themselves. What was going on?
"Don't look suprised: I told you I was faking it the whole time." He said this in a cold deadpan as only he could, but a gleam in his eye undercut it.
"Eugene...what on earth?...How...?" I stuttered.
"The wonders of modern medicine," he said. "A few adult-derived stem cells differentiated into spinal neurons, implanted into the gash in my spinal cord and voila." He spread his arms slightly, then held out his hands to me, palm up. I clasped his hands in mine, but my fingers flet numb. I released him quickly.
"I hate to break up the happy reunion, but would you mind telling me what's going on?" Lamar cut in.
Eugene's eyes met mine. The words stuck in my throat. I looked at Lamar.
He nodded knowingly. "I thought as much. "I've heard of InValids doing some screwy things to buck the system, and I know there's ladder-selling rings that have been broken up recently, but this beats it all. I don't know whether to call the cops or look the other way."
"Do the right thing," Eugene said, speaking up. "Look the other way."
"I'm of a mind to do that, just because I don't want to go on living with the knowledge I squelched a decent guy," Lamar said. "The $64,000 question is getting the second Jerome Eugene Morrow out of here without the bells and whistles going off." He looked at me. "For my own personal knowledge, what's your real name?"
The moment had come. "It's Vincent Anton Freeman."
Lamar lifted his head. "As in Eyelash Boy, whom we thought killed Director Keaton?"
I wanted to bend my head in shame, but I refused to give in. "Yes."
"Don't you have a service exit he could go out?" Eugene asked.
"Yeah, but it's gonna look a little odd," Lamar said. He paused. "All right." He looked at me. "You know the way out: you used to work janitor detail here, didn't you a while back?"
"Yes," I admitted.
"Guess you really started at the bottom here," he said, with a smirk, but I could see respect in his eyes. "Now get goin' before I change m' mind."
"I'll collect your bag and meet you outside, on the street," Eugene said. "I might be a little while: I have to get my wife out of detention."
"Your...wife?" I asked. I knew three years was a long time, but Eugene hadn't even had a strady girlfriend when I shared his living space. No woman in her right mind could stand him for more than an hour, and even then, only if she was paid.
"You'll see," he said, dropping me a slow wink.
We parted. If I still practised the Catholic faith i'd been baptized in, I'd put Lamar up as a candidate for canonization. I headed for the basement, to a service entrance I hadn't used in almost seven years, but I still knew the place the back of my hand: I'd cleaned it enough times.
Sure enough, the door was locked. I summoned up all my anger at the way I'd ever been kicked around for having a broken ladder and kicked the door open. I hoped I broke the lock in the process.
I stepped out into the early summer sunlight and crossed the back lot of the complex, heading for the main road.
A grey sedan pulled up alongside me. The passenger side window rolled down and Eugene, in the driver's seat, leaned over, opening the door.
"Get in," he ordered. I climbed in next to him, pulling the door shut as he pulled away from the curb, heading for the city.
A slender, shapely woman with red-brown hair, clad in a knee-length violet tunic over matching trousers leaned between the front seats, peering at me with violet blue eyes, her face bearing an sphynx-like but gentle expression, as if she didn't quite belong to this world.
"And speaking of my wife, this young lady is she, Minerva Koestelbaum," Eugene said, glancing at her.
"Minerva Koestelbaum-Morrow," she corrected, almost apologizing. To me, she extended her hand as she added, "You must be the famous Vincent Freeman I've heard Jerome tell about."
"Or the infamous," I said, taking her hand.
"I've wanted to meet you for a very long time," she said with a warm smile, "Ever since Jerome first told me about you."
"Mm, telling her what a pain in the arse you were," Eugene cut in.
"Thanks," I said, pretending to be irritated. Eugene certainly hadn't lost his edge.
"So how did a nice girl like you ever end up with this even bigger pain in the ass?" I said.
She glanced at Eugene. "You want to tell him?"
Eugene drew in a long breath. "It's a long story, but I'll be as brief as possible: I tried to suicide, my second attempt, but the Hoovers came to call to find out what was up, and they caught me in the act. It's a wonder you didn't have another welcoming party today, besides me.
"My father told me he was cutting me off from my allowance unless I got my sorry self in counselling. So my physician referred me to Minerva. She helped me pull myself together emotionally. More than that, she helped me find the donor cells to heal my spinal injury...And, as they say, one thing led to another: and we married a year and a half ago."
"But wait, Eugene. What did you mean back there when you said you had to get your wife out of detention?" I asked.
Eugene peered into the rearview at Minerva. She smiled at him.
"I'm a genetic InValid, and unfortunately, I tripped the alarm," she admitted.
"But, if you're an InValid, how could you be a practising psychologist?" I asked.
"I'm legally a Valid," she said.
"How is that possible?" I asked. If I had known about this sooner, I might not be in the mess I was in now, with this weight hanging over my head.
"You have to know the right lawyers who can find the loopholes in the law," she said. "My dad was a police captain, so he knew a lot of the right people."
"I bet she could fix you up with them," Eugene said.
"I suppose I'll need it soon," I said.
They went on, filling me in on the time I'd lost: the apartment I'd shared with Eugene had burned and he had had to move into Minerva's house. They'd married a couple months after that, after Eugene's father had disowned him for sharing living space with an InValid, and they had been married for well over a year now.
"But I thought Valids can't marry InValids?" I asked.
"Shh, don't let the license bureau know, but we're married in the Church though we're not legally married," Eugene said in a mock whisper.
"But in seven years, they'll consider us a common law couple," Minerva said.
They also had an infant son waiting for them at home with a friend of the family. "I didn't want to risk him there," Minerva said. "The institute might have shanghaied him."
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"He's a Valid," Minerva explained. "We never had him Validated, neither of us wanted that, but for some reason, he was born Valid. And yes, that's medically hardly possible."
At length, we pulled up before a New England salt-box type frame house set incongrously among the rest of the more modern-looking houses. As Eugene helped Minerva out of the car, I couldn't help noticing the gallant way he led her to the front door of the house.
The door opened and a pleasantly plump woman about Minerva's age stepped out, holding a small baby with dark hair, who wimpered slightly.
"Oh, did you miss us, Vinzel?" Minerva asked, taking the child as the woman handed him to her. "Did he give you any trouble, Cheryl?"
"No, not at all: he slept most of the time," Cheryl said. "He's a good little fella." She looked up at me. "So this is the other Jerome?"
"Yes, this is my infamous alter ego, body double...evil twin, whatever you want to call him," Eugene said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.
"Thanks a lot," I groused.
While Minerva chatted with Cheryl, Eugene led me upstairs to the guest room. I gathered Minerva must be Catholic: a picture of the Sacred Heart had hung on one wall of the entryway and I found a middle-size crucifix hanging on the wall as we went upstairs.
"Just to let you know, since you have a notorious penchant for borrowing my things," Eugene said, opening the window to let the room air out, "this happens to be the room I slept in before I married Minerva."
"Nice place you got here," I said, setting my suitcase on the bed. The furniture was simple but not ploddingly utilitarian. "You've done well with her."
"I have you to thank for that," Eugene said.
"But it muat have cost you when the Hoovers caught up with you," I said.
"I paid the fine, but your dream was worth it," he replied.
The stress of landing and adjusting to the earth left me exhausted. I rested for most of the day. One sign that I was still too accustomed to half-grav or free-fall: as I dozed off, I expected my arms to float up slightly even though I kept them folded against my chest. But I must have fallen fast asleep: next thing I knew, Eugene stood over me, shaking me awake.
"Are you just going to lie there?" he asked. "Minerva has supper waiting."
"Guess gravity got the better of me," I said, sitting up slowly, half expecting to float up slightly.
"Now remember you're back on earth again," he said, chiding me as he led me downstairs.
The meal conisted of an Israeli style salad with what I had through was grilled chicken, but which turned out to be tofu, but I was thankful for anything that hadn't started out as algae or something just as awful grown in a vat.
"Is this the first meal you;ve been able to sit down to eat in three years?" Minerva asked me.
"Yes, and it's also the first in three years that doesn't have a barrage of packaging to maneuver before you can take the first mouthful," I added.
"You look like you thrived up there," Eugene said.
I smiled. "I did better than the rest of the crew: just about everyone else kept getting space-sickness, but I didn't: I had to exercise more to keep from putting on weight."
"Didn't that twig anyone?" Eugene asked.
"No, they figured that since I was, in their minds, a ten on the Mendelian scale, I was stronger and more likely to adjust to the new environment," I said.
"Plus you were raised in the school of hard knocks. You weren't treated like a hothouse flower," Minerva said.
Eugene glared sideways at his wife. "Are you trying to imply something?" he asked.
Minerva smiled calmly, but from the way Eugene suddenly jolted, I knew she'd kicked him under the table.
"And now she's testing my tactile nerves," he said, mock-offended.
"That must have been strange, adjusting to your cure," I said, finding a way to change the subject.
"It came on gradually: most of the adjusting related to the physical therapy I underwent," Eugene said. "We can thank Minerva for that: she donated her own stem cells."
"Can that be done?" I asked. I'd heard tell that Valids could not receive organ or tissue donations from InValids and vice-versa.
"I have connections. The doctor who worked on Eugene is himself an InValid, so he's not prejudiced," Minerva said. With emphasis, she added, "But most, alas, aren't like him."
"Wow," I said, putting those dark thoughts aside as best as I could. "No wonder you love each other so much. You're flesh of one flesh."
Minerva blushed, Eugene beamed.
Vinzel, in his baby hammock on a chair beside Minerva's, let out a whimper, preparatory to crying. Minerva set down her fork on her plate and turned to him. "Everyone else is eating, so you have to?" she cooed, opening a panel in her tunic, making some other discreet adjustment and putting him to nurse.
"Here, keep your eyes in your head," Eugene twitted.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"It's all right: I'm covered," Minerva said. "It's the best thing a woman can do for her baby: a breast-fed InValid is just as smart and healthy as a bottle-fed Valid."
"Is that so?" I asked.
"I've been doing research on the emotional impact of Validation; I just had a paper published in the Journal of American Medicine," she said, utterly without pride, but with clear pleasure at being able to spread the word.
"She used me as one of the subjects," Eugene said, with the pride she lacked.
"That must have appealed to your vanity," I said.
"Alas no," he admitted. "She aired out quite a few dark places in my soul, but I wanted her to be honest."
"Don't ask me why, but I keep wanting to call you Jacob," Minerva said to me with an odd, intent but distant look in her eye.
"I borrowed the name Jerome, but I suppose they're similar," I said.
"It's more than that: it's the way my mind works." she said. "Some people think I'm raving when I come out with these...explications of their name."
"I'd like to hear it, unless it's too wild," I said.
"Let her rave: she's usually on to something when she starts chattering," Eugene said.
Minerva glared at her spouse, then looked at me. "Do you really want me to bore you with it?"
"I'd like to hear it."
She laid her fork across the front of her plate. Her eyelids lowered thoughtfully. "Vincent Freeman...Your soul is invincible despite the odds you've faced; and you are truly a free man: you are a man in full because you have not let your enemies quench your heart, and your heart and soul fly free despite the constraints man tried to foist on you." She paused. "Your journey to freedom brought you all the way to the moon Titan, a satelite of the planet Saturn. In the Jewish Kabbala, Titan is associated with Jacob, the second son, the supplanter, the bringer of the new order, and yet the dispossessed one, he who took on the identity of Esau, the elder son, the favored one, the inheritor of the legacy, who sold that birthright for a mess of lentils--"
"No wonder I detest them, yicchh!" Eugene cut in.
"Shh!" Minerva replied, annoyed yet her lips betraying a smile. She resumed the thread of her discourse. "And to claim his father's blessing, Jacob, at the prompting of his mother Rebekah-- associated with Rhea, who concealed her youngest son, Zeus, from his father Cronos, or Saturn, which planet is associated with Isaac--dressed Jacob in his brother's garments and covered his hands and neck with the skins of a kid-goat so the blind Iassac would think the smooth Jacob was the hairy Esau."
She raised her eyes to mine, looking at me like an oracle or an ancient priestess. "You are the inheritor, but you shared the inheritance."
"He lent me his body, I lent him my dreams," I said, recalling something Eugene had said to me just before I left.
I helped them clear the table, then I went out into the backyard for a breath of air while the two of them washed the dishes: I'd gladly offered to help, but Minerva insisted that I save my strength.
Eugene came out onto the back porch after a while. He lifted an up-ended flower pot in one corner of the deck and took a packet of cigarettes and a lighter out from under it. He caught me watching him.
"You don't see me doing this," he said, lighting up one. "Technically I've quit, but I sneak one once in a while."
"I couldn't help noticing you cleaned up," I said.
"I don't need the vodka any more," he said. "I'm besotted with her in the best possible way...and I'm in training once again: Your fulfilling your dream inspired me to restart my own dreams."
"I guess I was good for something."
"You were good for a lot of things," he said, the smoke trickling from his lips. "I doubt I could have opened up to Minerva the way I did if I hadn't met you first. I owe what I am now to you, and I want to return the favor."
"You've done enough for me," I said.
"Indulge me: I've found that helping people gives me a better jag than any amount of liquor."
"I don't want to be any more trouble to you."
He looked me in the eye. "All right, now that you've fulfilled your dream of going into space, of reaching for the stars, what are youn going to do now that you're back on earth?"
His words only reminded me all the more tellingly that I hadn't provided much for my future with my heels back on terrestrial ground.
"And that's where Minerva can help you the most," he said. "If she could haul me out of my self-pity, she can help you."
"I don't want to trouble her," I argued.
"She'd loved to be troubled by you." He took a last long pull on the cigarette and blew the smoke out in a cloud as he dropped the stub on the ground at his feet and kicked a clod of soil over it. "She's quite taken with you."
"Nah, she's only got eyes for you," I said.
"Not that way. I know here well. But mind you: if I catch your hands where they shouldn't be. I'll see that you never do that again."
"Don't worry: I haven't forgotten about Irene."
"You think she waited for you?"
I had to be honest. "I don't know. I hope she has,"
"Was she your only one?"
I nodded. Anton had always caught the attention of any girl near us. If he was around, the girls never noticed me.
"Don't envy me: Minerva married me because she loved me. She has no interest in my genome. There's someone like her out there for you. I'm sure Nerve and I could help you find her."
"Nerve? you call your wife 'Nerve'?"
"Of course: because of the kind of cells she donated to heal me and because it takes a lot of nerve for her to be married to a piker like me."
I tried to chuckle, but my voice caught in my throat. "If Irene won't have me, I might have to take up your offer. Irene knows what I am."
"In that case, if she's going to treat you like that, then she isn't the one."
I stuttered some kind of non-reply and went in, ostensibly to get a glass of water. I heard Eugene come in and head for the sun room which abutted the stair case. Something compelled me to follow him.
The sun had set, leaving the sky awash with reds and orange and violet, the first real sunset I had seen in three years. Titan's chemical clouds in the atmosphere blocked all but traces of that light.
Minerva lay on a glider before the French windows, holding Vinzel in her arms. Eugene stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, looking at her.
"She's a remarkable woman," I said. "I can't say it enough: you've done well."
"We've all done well," he said, gazing admiringly on his wife, as she sat there with their son at her breast, the neck of her tunic open. Granted, her brassiere was plain, built to accomdate what she was doing, but I couldn't help looking at her. I dimly remembered seeing my mother nurse Anton, but I don't remember her doing the same for me. Bottles of formula, I vaguely remember those, but I have better memories of her draping a shawl over herself as she took Anton close to her heart. Only the best for him...
"Hey!" Minerva cried. She turned her back to us, glaring over her shoulder at me.
I dropped my gaze. "Sorry."
"That's better."
Later still, as I came from the bathroom and headed upstairs to my room, I could hardly help overhearing the voices coming from the back bedroom.
"My turn at you now," Eugene's voice purred, sultry.
"Ouch!" Minerva's voice squeaked, giggling, a strange sound coming from her, she was so rational. "Careful there, your lordship, they're a little tender."
"I'll be careful...So, do you like him?"
"Who, Vincent?........Mmmm........He's a good person."
"Would you rather have him instead? We're not legally married, by the laws of the powers that be..."
"Oh, stop that!...No, not _that_......I meant: he's just your brother, as far as I'm concerned."
"The only brother I'll ever have......The only brother I'd ever want to have......Ummmm, no wonder Vinzel likes this stuff."
"Regressing to the infantile stage?"
"I never left it."
I shook my head, possibly to clear the moisture collecting in the corners of my eyes (drat the pollen in the atmosphere!), and continued upstairs. Eugene wasn't even my blood brother, but I'd never heard Anton say this about me.
To be continued...
Blood of My Blood
By "Matrix Refugee"
Author's Note:
Someone recently wrote me a phenomenal review of the prequel to this, "Flesh of My Flesh", which jogged my imagination and got me thinking seriously about the promised sequel, which this is. Vincent/Jerome's POV: it takes place three years after the film and nine months after the last chapter of "Flesh of My Flesh". Imagine his reaction when he comes back from Titan and finds...well for those of you who haven't read "Flesh of My Flesh", perhaps you'd better read that one first, otherwise you won't get a bloody word of this.
Disclaimer:
I do not own the movie _Gattaca_, its characters, concepts (including jargon), or other indicia which are the property of Sony Pictures, Andrew Niccol, et al.
In Memory of the crew of the space shuttle _Columbia_. February 1, 2003
"They say every atom in our bodies was once part of a star. I don't see it as leaving. I see it as going home." Vincent Freeman
Chapter I: Discovery
Luck has hardly been on my side. But somehow I lucked out. This time.
I don't know how it happened, how no one found out all the time I was up there. But I'd taken my chance and fate had dealt me a good hand for a change. Life usually doesn't do that for someone like me, so I decided to make myself scarce as soon as I got back to earth. I didn't have a game plan yet, but I let that ride until we landed.
We hit some turbulence on the re-entry, on account of a solar flare affecting the earth's atmosphere. We almost didn't make it: as the navigator, I had to make some last minute adjustments. It wouldn't have fazed me if we hadn't made it; but I had the rest of the crew to think about. But sure enough, we touched down on the landing strip behind the Gattaca Aeornautics Institute, three years and one month after our departure.
I'd had my dream come true: I'd walked on alien soil. I'd gazed at the vastness of space without the barrier of the atmosphere to blur the light. My life was complete. If we had crashed, I would have died happy, not because I wanted that, but because I wasn't sure if I could face what lay in wait for me back on earth. I knew I couldn't keep up the charade once I was back there. And what about Eugene? Would the "lifetime supply" he'd set up last me in case I had to keep wearing the mask of his identity? Where was he now?
He'd been lower than usual (if that was possible!) for a while before I left, but the morning of my departure, he'd seemed relieved. I'd thought it was because he was relieved to get me off his back, but I had discussed it--as a theory--with a psychologist on board the space station _Discovery_. She'd said it sounded like a potential suicide pattern. And that swatch of his hair he'd given to me before I left. That could only be a wordless suicide note.
I had a brief moment's terror when the physicain on the crew ran blood tests to determine we hadn't picked up any mutated germs before we disembarked. But there'd be no scanning my genome; there's only Valids upstairs, right? No need for scrutiny now.
We disembarked fifteen minutes later. As we filed out, down the connecting corridor between the air lock and the institute, I had to keep from shoving ahead of the rest of the crew. I wanted to put as much distance between myself and Gattaca as I possibly could as soon as I could. I'd been in such a hurry to leave the earth behind. Now suddenly I was in a hurry to get back to the life I'd left behind.
A million fears had crowded into my head. Had they found out? Had Anton arrested Eugene? Had Irene divulged what she knew? And what about Lamar, the medical assistant? He knew everything; how long had it taken him to figure out what I really was? My father had said there were two classes it was impossible to keep the truth from: investigators and doctors.
I breathed deeply to keep from panting, drawing in slow draughts of Earth air, as we filed along the corridor.
"Smell that," said one of my crewmembers, behind me. "You're not the only one takin' big breaths: that's earth air you're breathing."
"Yeah, it hasn't gone through a dozen filters and nine other pairs of lungs," I joked, hiding my fear behind deadpan humor.
"Oh, God, I didn't think of that. What a relief!"
I hardly heard this remark. 'Lamar, are you still here?' I hoped, deep in my heart.
As if in reply to my question, as the corridor turned a corner, I looked down the last stretch to see Lamar standing there at the end, his white lab coat and his plain, dark, regular guy self a welcome sight.
"Hey, Jerome! Y' got back in one piece and you brought everyone else with you," he said, holding out his hand to me as I came up to him.
I shrugged one shoulder as I shook his hand. "My folks raised me to be the best that I could."
"They raised you well, then," he said, but I detected a note of incredulity in his voice. He clapped me on the shoulder. In a lower voice, he said, "Go up to my office: I'll meet you in the hallway outside it in a few minutes."
Something was up. I could only comply. I thought of slipping out somehow, but security was tight to say the least. Then I started wishing that somehow I had smuggled one of Eugene's blood samples with me, but that would only have ensured my getting caught.
A few minutes after I reached the door of Lamar's office, he joined me in the corridor outside as promised. He put a hand on my shoulder and leaned in closer, conspiratorially. "I couldn't say a word of this in front of the others," he said. "I don't know how to put this, but there's a guy in my office who doesn't look ANYTHING like you, but he's got the exact same genotype, so unless this is your clone or your long-lost twin brother..."
"Excuse me?" I asked, trying to sound incredulous. But I knew from the way his small, dark eyes narrowed, he wasn't convinced.
"In that case," he opened the door. I hesitated, but I followed him in dutifully.
I walked in to find a tall, slim young man seated in a chair beside the desk. Dark hair, narrow, symmetrical face, green-grey-blue eyes.
It had been so long I barely recognized him at first. Jerome Eugene Morrow.
The faint scowl between his brows had smoothed out and the cynical curl had left his mouth, but something of the gentle cynic remained about him.
But then he leaned forward in his chair and, hardly bracing his hands on the arms of the chair, he stood up.
For a moment the world spun backwards on its axis. I knew it had been a long time, but the kind of injuries Eugene had endured didn't just fix themselves. What was going on?
"Don't look suprised: I told you I was faking it the whole time." He said this in a cold deadpan as only he could, but a gleam in his eye undercut it.
"Eugene...what on earth?...How...?" I stuttered.
"The wonders of modern medicine," he said. "A few adult-derived stem cells differentiated into spinal neurons, implanted into the gash in my spinal cord and voila." He spread his arms slightly, then held out his hands to me, palm up. I clasped his hands in mine, but my fingers flet numb. I released him quickly.
"I hate to break up the happy reunion, but would you mind telling me what's going on?" Lamar cut in.
Eugene's eyes met mine. The words stuck in my throat. I looked at Lamar.
He nodded knowingly. "I thought as much. "I've heard of InValids doing some screwy things to buck the system, and I know there's ladder-selling rings that have been broken up recently, but this beats it all. I don't know whether to call the cops or look the other way."
"Do the right thing," Eugene said, speaking up. "Look the other way."
"I'm of a mind to do that, just because I don't want to go on living with the knowledge I squelched a decent guy," Lamar said. "The $64,000 question is getting the second Jerome Eugene Morrow out of here without the bells and whistles going off." He looked at me. "For my own personal knowledge, what's your real name?"
The moment had come. "It's Vincent Anton Freeman."
Lamar lifted his head. "As in Eyelash Boy, whom we thought killed Director Keaton?"
I wanted to bend my head in shame, but I refused to give in. "Yes."
"Don't you have a service exit he could go out?" Eugene asked.
"Yeah, but it's gonna look a little odd," Lamar said. He paused. "All right." He looked at me. "You know the way out: you used to work janitor detail here, didn't you a while back?"
"Yes," I admitted.
"Guess you really started at the bottom here," he said, with a smirk, but I could see respect in his eyes. "Now get goin' before I change m' mind."
"I'll collect your bag and meet you outside, on the street," Eugene said. "I might be a little while: I have to get my wife out of detention."
"Your...wife?" I asked. I knew three years was a long time, but Eugene hadn't even had a strady girlfriend when I shared his living space. No woman in her right mind could stand him for more than an hour, and even then, only if she was paid.
"You'll see," he said, dropping me a slow wink.
We parted. If I still practised the Catholic faith i'd been baptized in, I'd put Lamar up as a candidate for canonization. I headed for the basement, to a service entrance I hadn't used in almost seven years, but I still knew the place the back of my hand: I'd cleaned it enough times.
Sure enough, the door was locked. I summoned up all my anger at the way I'd ever been kicked around for having a broken ladder and kicked the door open. I hoped I broke the lock in the process.
I stepped out into the early summer sunlight and crossed the back lot of the complex, heading for the main road.
A grey sedan pulled up alongside me. The passenger side window rolled down and Eugene, in the driver's seat, leaned over, opening the door.
"Get in," he ordered. I climbed in next to him, pulling the door shut as he pulled away from the curb, heading for the city.
A slender, shapely woman with red-brown hair, clad in a knee-length violet tunic over matching trousers leaned between the front seats, peering at me with violet blue eyes, her face bearing an sphynx-like but gentle expression, as if she didn't quite belong to this world.
"And speaking of my wife, this young lady is she, Minerva Koestelbaum," Eugene said, glancing at her.
"Minerva Koestelbaum-Morrow," she corrected, almost apologizing. To me, she extended her hand as she added, "You must be the famous Vincent Freeman I've heard Jerome tell about."
"Or the infamous," I said, taking her hand.
"I've wanted to meet you for a very long time," she said with a warm smile, "Ever since Jerome first told me about you."
"Mm, telling her what a pain in the arse you were," Eugene cut in.
"Thanks," I said, pretending to be irritated. Eugene certainly hadn't lost his edge.
"So how did a nice girl like you ever end up with this even bigger pain in the ass?" I said.
She glanced at Eugene. "You want to tell him?"
Eugene drew in a long breath. "It's a long story, but I'll be as brief as possible: I tried to suicide, my second attempt, but the Hoovers came to call to find out what was up, and they caught me in the act. It's a wonder you didn't have another welcoming party today, besides me.
"My father told me he was cutting me off from my allowance unless I got my sorry self in counselling. So my physician referred me to Minerva. She helped me pull myself together emotionally. More than that, she helped me find the donor cells to heal my spinal injury...And, as they say, one thing led to another: and we married a year and a half ago."
"But wait, Eugene. What did you mean back there when you said you had to get your wife out of detention?" I asked.
Eugene peered into the rearview at Minerva. She smiled at him.
"I'm a genetic InValid, and unfortunately, I tripped the alarm," she admitted.
"But, if you're an InValid, how could you be a practising psychologist?" I asked.
"I'm legally a Valid," she said.
"How is that possible?" I asked. If I had known about this sooner, I might not be in the mess I was in now, with this weight hanging over my head.
"You have to know the right lawyers who can find the loopholes in the law," she said. "My dad was a police captain, so he knew a lot of the right people."
"I bet she could fix you up with them," Eugene said.
"I suppose I'll need it soon," I said.
They went on, filling me in on the time I'd lost: the apartment I'd shared with Eugene had burned and he had had to move into Minerva's house. They'd married a couple months after that, after Eugene's father had disowned him for sharing living space with an InValid, and they had been married for well over a year now.
"But I thought Valids can't marry InValids?" I asked.
"Shh, don't let the license bureau know, but we're married in the Church though we're not legally married," Eugene said in a mock whisper.
"But in seven years, they'll consider us a common law couple," Minerva said.
They also had an infant son waiting for them at home with a friend of the family. "I didn't want to risk him there," Minerva said. "The institute might have shanghaied him."
"What makes you say that?" I asked.
"He's a Valid," Minerva explained. "We never had him Validated, neither of us wanted that, but for some reason, he was born Valid. And yes, that's medically hardly possible."
At length, we pulled up before a New England salt-box type frame house set incongrously among the rest of the more modern-looking houses. As Eugene helped Minerva out of the car, I couldn't help noticing the gallant way he led her to the front door of the house.
The door opened and a pleasantly plump woman about Minerva's age stepped out, holding a small baby with dark hair, who wimpered slightly.
"Oh, did you miss us, Vinzel?" Minerva asked, taking the child as the woman handed him to her. "Did he give you any trouble, Cheryl?"
"No, not at all: he slept most of the time," Cheryl said. "He's a good little fella." She looked up at me. "So this is the other Jerome?"
"Yes, this is my infamous alter ego, body double...evil twin, whatever you want to call him," Eugene said, clapping a hand on my shoulder.
"Thanks a lot," I groused.
While Minerva chatted with Cheryl, Eugene led me upstairs to the guest room. I gathered Minerva must be Catholic: a picture of the Sacred Heart had hung on one wall of the entryway and I found a middle-size crucifix hanging on the wall as we went upstairs.
"Just to let you know, since you have a notorious penchant for borrowing my things," Eugene said, opening the window to let the room air out, "this happens to be the room I slept in before I married Minerva."
"Nice place you got here," I said, setting my suitcase on the bed. The furniture was simple but not ploddingly utilitarian. "You've done well with her."
"I have you to thank for that," Eugene said.
"But it muat have cost you when the Hoovers caught up with you," I said.
"I paid the fine, but your dream was worth it," he replied.
The stress of landing and adjusting to the earth left me exhausted. I rested for most of the day. One sign that I was still too accustomed to half-grav or free-fall: as I dozed off, I expected my arms to float up slightly even though I kept them folded against my chest. But I must have fallen fast asleep: next thing I knew, Eugene stood over me, shaking me awake.
"Are you just going to lie there?" he asked. "Minerva has supper waiting."
"Guess gravity got the better of me," I said, sitting up slowly, half expecting to float up slightly.
"Now remember you're back on earth again," he said, chiding me as he led me downstairs.
The meal conisted of an Israeli style salad with what I had through was grilled chicken, but which turned out to be tofu, but I was thankful for anything that hadn't started out as algae or something just as awful grown in a vat.
"Is this the first meal you;ve been able to sit down to eat in three years?" Minerva asked me.
"Yes, and it's also the first in three years that doesn't have a barrage of packaging to maneuver before you can take the first mouthful," I added.
"You look like you thrived up there," Eugene said.
I smiled. "I did better than the rest of the crew: just about everyone else kept getting space-sickness, but I didn't: I had to exercise more to keep from putting on weight."
"Didn't that twig anyone?" Eugene asked.
"No, they figured that since I was, in their minds, a ten on the Mendelian scale, I was stronger and more likely to adjust to the new environment," I said.
"Plus you were raised in the school of hard knocks. You weren't treated like a hothouse flower," Minerva said.
Eugene glared sideways at his wife. "Are you trying to imply something?" he asked.
Minerva smiled calmly, but from the way Eugene suddenly jolted, I knew she'd kicked him under the table.
"And now she's testing my tactile nerves," he said, mock-offended.
"That must have been strange, adjusting to your cure," I said, finding a way to change the subject.
"It came on gradually: most of the adjusting related to the physical therapy I underwent," Eugene said. "We can thank Minerva for that: she donated her own stem cells."
"Can that be done?" I asked. I'd heard tell that Valids could not receive organ or tissue donations from InValids and vice-versa.
"I have connections. The doctor who worked on Eugene is himself an InValid, so he's not prejudiced," Minerva said. With emphasis, she added, "But most, alas, aren't like him."
"Wow," I said, putting those dark thoughts aside as best as I could. "No wonder you love each other so much. You're flesh of one flesh."
Minerva blushed, Eugene beamed.
Vinzel, in his baby hammock on a chair beside Minerva's, let out a whimper, preparatory to crying. Minerva set down her fork on her plate and turned to him. "Everyone else is eating, so you have to?" she cooed, opening a panel in her tunic, making some other discreet adjustment and putting him to nurse.
"Here, keep your eyes in your head," Eugene twitted.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"It's all right: I'm covered," Minerva said. "It's the best thing a woman can do for her baby: a breast-fed InValid is just as smart and healthy as a bottle-fed Valid."
"Is that so?" I asked.
"I've been doing research on the emotional impact of Validation; I just had a paper published in the Journal of American Medicine," she said, utterly without pride, but with clear pleasure at being able to spread the word.
"She used me as one of the subjects," Eugene said, with the pride she lacked.
"That must have appealed to your vanity," I said.
"Alas no," he admitted. "She aired out quite a few dark places in my soul, but I wanted her to be honest."
"Don't ask me why, but I keep wanting to call you Jacob," Minerva said to me with an odd, intent but distant look in her eye.
"I borrowed the name Jerome, but I suppose they're similar," I said.
"It's more than that: it's the way my mind works." she said. "Some people think I'm raving when I come out with these...explications of their name."
"I'd like to hear it, unless it's too wild," I said.
"Let her rave: she's usually on to something when she starts chattering," Eugene said.
Minerva glared at her spouse, then looked at me. "Do you really want me to bore you with it?"
"I'd like to hear it."
She laid her fork across the front of her plate. Her eyelids lowered thoughtfully. "Vincent Freeman...Your soul is invincible despite the odds you've faced; and you are truly a free man: you are a man in full because you have not let your enemies quench your heart, and your heart and soul fly free despite the constraints man tried to foist on you." She paused. "Your journey to freedom brought you all the way to the moon Titan, a satelite of the planet Saturn. In the Jewish Kabbala, Titan is associated with Jacob, the second son, the supplanter, the bringer of the new order, and yet the dispossessed one, he who took on the identity of Esau, the elder son, the favored one, the inheritor of the legacy, who sold that birthright for a mess of lentils--"
"No wonder I detest them, yicchh!" Eugene cut in.
"Shh!" Minerva replied, annoyed yet her lips betraying a smile. She resumed the thread of her discourse. "And to claim his father's blessing, Jacob, at the prompting of his mother Rebekah-- associated with Rhea, who concealed her youngest son, Zeus, from his father Cronos, or Saturn, which planet is associated with Isaac--dressed Jacob in his brother's garments and covered his hands and neck with the skins of a kid-goat so the blind Iassac would think the smooth Jacob was the hairy Esau."
She raised her eyes to mine, looking at me like an oracle or an ancient priestess. "You are the inheritor, but you shared the inheritance."
"He lent me his body, I lent him my dreams," I said, recalling something Eugene had said to me just before I left.
I helped them clear the table, then I went out into the backyard for a breath of air while the two of them washed the dishes: I'd gladly offered to help, but Minerva insisted that I save my strength.
Eugene came out onto the back porch after a while. He lifted an up-ended flower pot in one corner of the deck and took a packet of cigarettes and a lighter out from under it. He caught me watching him.
"You don't see me doing this," he said, lighting up one. "Technically I've quit, but I sneak one once in a while."
"I couldn't help noticing you cleaned up," I said.
"I don't need the vodka any more," he said. "I'm besotted with her in the best possible way...and I'm in training once again: Your fulfilling your dream inspired me to restart my own dreams."
"I guess I was good for something."
"You were good for a lot of things," he said, the smoke trickling from his lips. "I doubt I could have opened up to Minerva the way I did if I hadn't met you first. I owe what I am now to you, and I want to return the favor."
"You've done enough for me," I said.
"Indulge me: I've found that helping people gives me a better jag than any amount of liquor."
"I don't want to be any more trouble to you."
He looked me in the eye. "All right, now that you've fulfilled your dream of going into space, of reaching for the stars, what are youn going to do now that you're back on earth?"
His words only reminded me all the more tellingly that I hadn't provided much for my future with my heels back on terrestrial ground.
"And that's where Minerva can help you the most," he said. "If she could haul me out of my self-pity, she can help you."
"I don't want to trouble her," I argued.
"She'd loved to be troubled by you." He took a last long pull on the cigarette and blew the smoke out in a cloud as he dropped the stub on the ground at his feet and kicked a clod of soil over it. "She's quite taken with you."
"Nah, she's only got eyes for you," I said.
"Not that way. I know here well. But mind you: if I catch your hands where they shouldn't be. I'll see that you never do that again."
"Don't worry: I haven't forgotten about Irene."
"You think she waited for you?"
I had to be honest. "I don't know. I hope she has,"
"Was she your only one?"
I nodded. Anton had always caught the attention of any girl near us. If he was around, the girls never noticed me.
"Don't envy me: Minerva married me because she loved me. She has no interest in my genome. There's someone like her out there for you. I'm sure Nerve and I could help you find her."
"Nerve? you call your wife 'Nerve'?"
"Of course: because of the kind of cells she donated to heal me and because it takes a lot of nerve for her to be married to a piker like me."
I tried to chuckle, but my voice caught in my throat. "If Irene won't have me, I might have to take up your offer. Irene knows what I am."
"In that case, if she's going to treat you like that, then she isn't the one."
I stuttered some kind of non-reply and went in, ostensibly to get a glass of water. I heard Eugene come in and head for the sun room which abutted the stair case. Something compelled me to follow him.
The sun had set, leaving the sky awash with reds and orange and violet, the first real sunset I had seen in three years. Titan's chemical clouds in the atmosphere blocked all but traces of that light.
Minerva lay on a glider before the French windows, holding Vinzel in her arms. Eugene stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame, looking at her.
"She's a remarkable woman," I said. "I can't say it enough: you've done well."
"We've all done well," he said, gazing admiringly on his wife, as she sat there with their son at her breast, the neck of her tunic open. Granted, her brassiere was plain, built to accomdate what she was doing, but I couldn't help looking at her. I dimly remembered seeing my mother nurse Anton, but I don't remember her doing the same for me. Bottles of formula, I vaguely remember those, but I have better memories of her draping a shawl over herself as she took Anton close to her heart. Only the best for him...
"Hey!" Minerva cried. She turned her back to us, glaring over her shoulder at me.
I dropped my gaze. "Sorry."
"That's better."
Later still, as I came from the bathroom and headed upstairs to my room, I could hardly help overhearing the voices coming from the back bedroom.
"My turn at you now," Eugene's voice purred, sultry.
"Ouch!" Minerva's voice squeaked, giggling, a strange sound coming from her, she was so rational. "Careful there, your lordship, they're a little tender."
"I'll be careful...So, do you like him?"
"Who, Vincent?........Mmmm........He's a good person."
"Would you rather have him instead? We're not legally married, by the laws of the powers that be..."
"Oh, stop that!...No, not _that_......I meant: he's just your brother, as far as I'm concerned."
"The only brother I'll ever have......The only brother I'd ever want to have......Ummmm, no wonder Vinzel likes this stuff."
"Regressing to the infantile stage?"
"I never left it."
I shook my head, possibly to clear the moisture collecting in the corners of my eyes (drat the pollen in the atmosphere!), and continued upstairs. Eugene wasn't even my blood brother, but I'd never heard Anton say this about me.
To be continued...