On the flight to Cleveland, Deborah Robinson put a hand on Terry's shoulder and spoke quietly under the engine noise. "There's one more thing I should tell you. Should have told you before we got engaged. I didn't want to go into it in front of strangers. We didn't meet by chance. I came to New York, to this research institute instead of any other, just to meet you."
"Why was that?" he asked flatly. The last few days had been hard on him.
"You participated in a study in med school."
"Several. I needed the money."
"The one I'm thinking of used blood samples to test the genetic variants making up the immune system," Deborah said. "Thousands of subjects were checked for a few dozen specific markers. A tiny subset of those had their entire genetic code sequenced. You were the clear winner. I chose those markers, Terr. They represent my best guesses at what makes me different. Or some of what does. On a genetic level, you're more like me than anyone I've ever met."
"Except him," Terry said bleakly. She could only nod. But his scientific mind kept working away at the problem. "Wait. Are you trying to say that I am not going to age?"
"That hope is why I sought you out," Deborah said frankly. "I think now I was wrong. You're about to turn thirty-one, and you look it. More likely, you'll age slower than normal; the kind of man who lifts weights and runs senior marathons at eighty and ninety. The part you need to know is, because of those genes there's a small chance you could father a child with me after all."
"You're talking about a child like you," Terry said slowly.
"No child who wasn't could survive me in utero," Deborah answered. "You know my immune system."
"You've got money. We could use a surrogate mother."
"If the child was my ... species, then she might not survive," Deborah said. "My mother died having me. A lot of women did back then, of course ... but I've seen the doctor's notes. Translate 1800's medical terms into the present and it sounds like a massive autoimmune collapse. Blood crosses the placenta both ways during birth, no way to stop it. I'm not going to risk anyone's life on that chance."
Terry stared out the window. "We must be like ghosts to you," he said bitterly. "Here today, gone tomorrow, barely even real."
She was staring straight ahead, too. "It would be easier," she admitted. "For a while, when I first knew, I tried to live that way. And I was little more than a ghost myself. People matter, Terry. In all the universe the only meaning, the only good and evil, is contained in people. I have to let myself care, even when it hurts. Or else I'm as dead as anyone else would be at my age."
"That was before," he persisted. "When there wasn't anybody else like you. You thought. He doesn't seem too worried about human beings."
"And that's what makes him a monster," Deborah said. "His choices, not his genes. Plenty of monsters just like him who are fully human. I'd rather do without long-lived company forever than have anything to do with him."
Terry smiled helplessly. "I do believe that," he said. "I've got to."
A long silence. "You don't have to do anything," Deborah said slowly. "I can come see your sister with you. Or we can part ways in Ohio. It's your decision - always was. All I can say in my defense ... I didn't have to live with you, Terry. I could have set up another research study, said I was taking sperm samples - you know you would have done it. Or stuck with the blood sample I have. We'll have human cloning down in ten years, maybe less. I had a plan in place very much like that. But I met you, got to know you, and it changed all my plans. I said I'd marry you because I wanted to, Terry. I still do, long time or short time. All you have to decide is how you feel."
[*]
Even Harold Finch couldn't spend every moment listening to a Number's cell phone. But his computers could, and the program he favored had speech recognition almost as capable as the Machine itself. Harold listened to the recording less than two hours later, John Reese standing behind his computer table. "They have a hard road ahead," Harold said. "Incompatible life spans. They may not make it."
It's just a wound. They happen. "Maybe they will," Reese said slowly. "Maybe having problems isn't, isn't as important as how you choose to handle them."
Harold reached back, captured Reese's hand. He held it against his cheek. They stood that way a long time.
A harsh, mechanical jingle broke the silence. The old-fashioned pay phone Harold had reconnected in the lobby of the empty library. It was literally the case that no human being, besides Finch and Reese, knew that phone number was operable. "I'll get it," Reese said, and hurried.
[*]
Harold looked at the Dewey Decimal numbers on the spines of the three books again, just to be sure. "That's strange," he said. "It's a valid number, but it belonged to a Thomas David McNeil. MIA, presumed killed, at the Battle of the Bulge."
"Presumed," Reese said.
"That was 1945. Even if he survived, he'd be ... oh, shoot." Harold typed quickly on the computer. "He's got descendants, he was married with three kids. The youngest ... Mr. Reese, our new number was Dr. Terry Forrest's maternal grandfather."
"People like Deborah can't have kids with normal people. I thought," John said.
"Her exact wording was that she can't bear children," Harold said pedantically. "We assumed that would also stop the male of the species from reproducing. Maybe we assumed wrong."
"Even if you're right, they should be safe in Ohio," Reese responded. "Nobody's seen this guy in sixty years."
Harold stared at the computers. "Under that name," he said. "Maybe we should head that direction, just in case."
[*]
Terry wasn't talking much when they reached the airport at Cleveland. But he held Deborah's hand, and that gave her hope. They were laden with suitcases and laptop bags when they reached the curb outside the main terminal. "Do you see her?" Deborah asked.
"I'm not sure what 'Leste is driving these days," Terry said. "Oh. There." The hazard lights on a large, bulky SUV flashed, and it began working its way through traffic toward them.
"Terry, sweetie!" His sister Celeste shared his curly brown hair and brown eyes. But she was considerably shorter, and a little plump - actually three months into a pregnancy, Deborah knew from e-mails. "Can you two manage? I don't dare get out from behind the wheel in a loading zone. Besides." She waved at the back of the vehicle. The SUV had three rows of back seats. The back two were full, at Deborah's first glance, with about ten thousand car seats. A more sober assessment cut that to two and another child, a bigger boy, in an ordinary seatbelt. But the chorus of "Uncle Terry!" seemed to be coming from a much larger crowd.
There was a space behind the last row of seats - armies had staged invasions with vehicles smaller than this SUV - and Terry wrangled all their bags into it. "I'm Celeste, you're Deb. The pictures don't do you justice," Celeste said cheerfully. "Why don't you come up front with me. We've got a bit of a drive ahead."
"Sure, throw me to the wolves," Terry complained. But he strapped in willingly enough next to the bigger boy.
Celeste signaled and merged with traffic. "So nice to finally meet you," she said. "I hear congratulations are in order. I'm glad my silly little brother finally came to his senses."
"I came to something. Maybe it's senses," Terry said. But he softened the remark with a smile. "Good to see you, 'Leste. You're looking well."
"Yes. Well." Celeste's face stiffened. "The truth is, we have some news too. Just the other day. Aidian - the new baby - they wanted to do a more detailed sonogram, because of my age. Then they did amniocentesis. He's not well, Terry. Not ... I guess you'd say, normal. He's going to have Down's Syndrome."
Terry looked stricken. "God, I'm sorry."
"This is a bad time," Deborah said. "If I'd realized..."
Celeste smiled, though it was watery. "No, no. You're family now. Family is what I need." She said doggedly, "It's not always so bad. There's a risk of heart defects, spina bifida, but I've been doing research. There's a foundation that helps parents. They had all these pictures, those children have such precious smiles ... so I decided. We're having the baby. It's my choice, I told Will, and I've chosen."
"I think you're very brave," Deborah said.
'My husband Will was so angry," Celeste went on. "Especially because this is our last baby. He said ..." she glanced at the back seat. "He said some rash things. I'm really glad he had this trip scheduled. Maybe it will give us both time to cool off. He'll said be back tonight."
"What does your husband do?" Deborah said in quest of a more neutral topic.
"Oh, insurance. Most people in his line live in one of the bigger cities," Celeste said. "But he inherited the horse farm from an uncle when he was young. He so loves it out here. I say farm," she went on, "it doesn't make much money, not enough to keep us. And it means he has to travel so often for work. But he loves the horses, and I've come to love it out here too. Such a good place for the children."
Terry was ready for a less stressful subject, too. "This guy next to me is Billy, William Shearer Junior," he said. "He's nine. And let me see if I have this straight. Molly is five, and Kate is three."
"I'm Kate!" a voice soared up from the rear seat.
"Sorry. Kate is five, Molly is three."
Deborah turned and waved at everyone. She smiled. "You have a lovely family," she said.
[*]
Harold Crane, multi-millionaire with numerous unspecified business holdings, owned a small jet as well as the seaplane John had seen a few months before. He went through pre-flight checks while John stowed a bag of guns behind the front seats. "I hope those are unloaded," Harold said. "We've evaded airline regulations, but an accidental discharge at altitude would still be catastrophic."
"It's handled." Reese fastened his seat belt in the copilot's seat. "So if we're right, that's why Deborah found the man of her genetic dreams in New York. This other guy was breeding them. That means ... oh, hell. His sister has been having kids with her own grandfather without knowing it."
"I very much hope that's all it means," Harold said grimly. "Thomas McNeil's daughter never knew her father; he was reported lost in World War II before she was born. She had two children with a man we know nothing about - I can't find a photograph of him anywhere in the Internet, for example - on the far side of the country, never took him home to her relatives. She disappeared when her children were eight and two. And her mother - a woman who could surely identify Thomas McNeil by sight even decades later - was murdered without a known motive a year before Celeste Sterne married William Shearer. Whatever happens, I fear the news we're bringing this family is anything but good."
"Let's concentrate on getting there," Reese said.
[*]
The Ohio countryside was like a different planet than Manhattan. The house was barely visible from the big metal gate that Terry had to open and close for the SUV at the highway. An ornamental metal arch with the word SHEARER and two metal silhouettes of horse skulls. "Biggest property in the county," Celeste told Deborah proudly. Horses grazed in wide fenced fields on either side of the driveway, but the internal farm gates stood open. "Will says the horses should live in something as close to their natural environment as possible; he only saddle-breaks the ones he intends to sell. He can ride anything, of course. Will really does have so many fine qualities."
Deborah glanced back at Terry; not as a father was in both their eyes. "You have a lovely home, Celeste," Deborah said.
A horse blocked the driveway; Celeste let the SUV drift to a stop. "Oh! This is one of Will's particular favorites," she said. The horse was small, almost donkey-sized with a short, stiff mane. "I can never pronounce ... yes. Przewalski's horse," Celeste said proudly. "The only true wild horse breed still alive. It's almost identical to the horses that were first domesticated thousands of years ago. From Mongolia. Will has the only ones in private hands on the North American continent. In the long run I think he'd like to make the entire place a preserve for them, if we can afford it." She tapped lightly on the horn, and the not-quite-horse ambled out of their way.
The house was long and rambling. "Six bedrooms," Celeste told them. "I've put you at the far end, the guest room with its own bathroom. I never know when one of my three is going to get up in the night. Things should be quiet there."
"Thanks," Terry said.
One whole end of the house was open to the rafters, with living areas and a dining area and a wide kitchen flowing into each other. "Cartoons!" demanded the bigger of the two little girls. Kate, Deborah was fairly sure.
"In the play room, honey. Keep the noise down." All three children disappeared.
"I don't know about you two," Celeste said, "But I need coffee."
[*]
They'd found common ground in a discussion of 'chick flick' movies, a little short of dusk, when Celeste raised her head. "That's the garage door. He's earlier than I thought." A door at the back of the kitchen opened. "There you are, darling. You remember Terry, and this is his fiancée Deborah Robinson."
William Shearer walked in and kissed his wife. He was a tall man, nearly six-two, lean but muscular with a faint swagger. Jeans and cowboy boots suited him. Dark hair and dark eyes. The children clustered around him, engulfing him solidly to the waist in hugs. He smiled and looked over at Deborah.
"Oh," she said quietly, "We've met. In New York."