+J.M.J.+



Blood of My Blood



By "Matrix Refugee"



Author's Note:

Sorry for the delay, but I had to wrack my brain over how to keep this going. It's a lot harder to write than I thought, harder than the story which proceeds it, which basically plotted out whole. This one is a much more rocky story than its predecessor. (Might help if I watched the movie again, when I can scrape together the money for the rental.)

UPDATED: 7.11.2003



Disclaimer:

See Chapter One

Chapter II : Offspring





So far so good...but I knew the going wouldn't stay as smooth as it had...



* * * * *



I slept restlessly that night. My internal clock was all messed up, still on space time.



I woke with the dawn, pulled on my bathrobe (which Jerome had got out of storage in the attic), and went down to wash up. Almost unconsciously, I scrubbed myself down before showering. I had to laugh at myself when I caught my mind tail-spinning, wondering how to collect the shed cells on the bathroom floor, to destroy them.



When I came out, I heard someone moving in the sun room. I peered in to find Eugene on the floor, doing push-ups, boot camp style, but hardly even prespiring



At length, he sat up, one leg folded under him, the other drawn up. "Here, you don't have to be up this early: you don't have to get yourself prepped," he said. He turned over on his back. "Would you hold my feet down while I do my sit ups?"

I obliged him. "I couldn't sleep," I said. "I'm used to days that last twenty four earth hours and nights that last just as long."



"God, that would drive me mad!" he said. "But you came back sane."



"I certainly hope I am," I said, looking at him. "Unless I'm hallucinating seeing you walking."



"Oh, get going!" Eugene snapped, pausing, sitting up, and looking around for something to throw at me.



"So, how are you keeping busy these days?" I asked, changing the subject.



He resumed his exercise. "Like I said, I'm in training again for the up-coming Olympics at Sarajevo, two years from now," he said. "And, irony of ironies, I'm also helping train the next generation of rivals."



"Good for you: You could use the competition."

"Ha. Ha. Ha." he replied, in a flat mock laugh. "So, in that case, what are your plans for the day?"



"Mostly just getting used to having my feet back on solid ground."



"Finding Irene?" he asked, almost insinuating.



"Maybe. But it probably won't be easy," I said.



"Be careful: You may be a wanted man for that stunt you -- we, rather -- pulled off. Don't think you can go on pretending to be me: The safest place for you right now might be at the YPCA, where I'm working. They don't allow genomism there. They even overlooked my selling you my ladder. The program director even commended me for what I did."



That was new. "You're kidding me."



"I'm being thoroughly honest with you."



"Guess in that case, I'd better tag along with you for the day."



I heard Minerva moving about in the back bedroom, talking to someone, doubtlessly to Vinzel. Eugene sat up, sliding his feet out from under my hands, and cocked an ear toward the sound.



"She's great with him," I said.



He looked at me. "She's a very caring woman. People think of Aspies, people with her condition, as being emotionally distant, but she's hardly guilty of that. She let me into her life almost before I let her into mine."



"And since then, you can't keep your hands off each other," I said.



He reached for a cushion on the glider and hurled it at me. I dodged it.

"That's for watching us!" he snapped, but I detected a note of pride in his tone.



"You'd have to be blind not to notice," I called over my shoulder and I darted for my room before he could find something else to lob at me.



"That doesn't give you the right to look!" he retorted, having to have the last word.



* * * * *



After breakfast, Minerva dropped us off at the Y. I was rather surprised she brought their son along with her, but there again, the little one was still nursing.

"They let her do that, bring your son along?" I asked as we went in.

"She likes having him close to her," he said. "She's told me her clients say he has a calming presence about him."

At least she wasn't packing him off to day care. I'm told no place would take me when I was small, on account of my potential health conditions. No caregiver wanted to be held liable if something happened.

Eugene had swimming classes to teach that morning, so I spent much of that time roving the halls, exploring. I met up with quite a few young kids who knew Eugene. I introduced myself to them as his friend Vincent. A few seemed to know who, or maybe rather what I was, but they didn't let on about that.



About noon, Eugene had his own practise, so I headed for the pool.

I found him sitting perched on the side of the pool, clad in an old-fashioned dark blue suit, tank top built into shorts, talking with a massive, girzzled ox of a man in his early sixties.



"Hey, Jerome, this yer other self?" the big man asked, looking over Eugene's shoulder, right at me.



Eugene looked at me. "Yes, this is the infamous Vincent Freeman," he said,, quickly introducing me to the larger man, his trainer Mallory Whittaker, better known as just "Whit".



"So yer the one who helped this runt get his spirit up off its a--," Whit said, shaking my hand and gripping hard it in his huge one, but I could tell from the look in his amber eyes this truck driver handshake was just a front.



I shrugged, suddenly bashful. "I never intended that, I'm afraid," I admitted. "I just borrowed his identity."



"Guess you gave him an unexpected fringe benefit," Whit said, grinning.

I only smiled in reply to that. "You mind if I watch?" I asked.



"Just don't make your presence known," Eugene warned, getting into position on the edge of the pool. "I'll lose my concentration."



"Lay off on 'um, Jerome: he looks quiet enough," Whit rumbled.



Eugene started off with about twenty minutes of practise strokes. After that, Whit put him through his paces. Eugene cut through the water like a dark flash, like a barracuda speeding through the water, swift but agile, grace coupled with his incredible speed. But he was built for it: lean and lightly muscled, almost more like a dancer than an athlete.

After about forty minutes of that, Eugene paused for a breather. During this interim, Whit looked me up and down almost like a horse trainer appraising a stallion. "Jerome tells me yer a good swimmer yerself."

I shrugged one shoulder. "I'm good enough," I said.



"I'd like t' see you in action," Whit said. He glanced at Eugene. "Better still: try puttin' this SLACKER through his paces."



That might have its share of consequences, and I didn't want him held liable. "Oh no, I'm good for an InValid, but I'm not that good. I'm nothing next to an Olympian."



Eugene glared at me. "I won only a silver medal."



"You're still worlds better than I am," I said.



The glare deepened, but I sensed he was raring to challenge me. "That was seven years ago, and I was paralyzed for half that time."



"You got the heart of an ox: I've been in free-fall for three years." I caught myself: I looked up at Whit.

The big man only grinned reassuringly. "Hey, it's okay, fella. Jerome's tol' me the whole story. Real lucky of you: th' way Gattaca runs that dump, they deserved having someone sneak in under the radar, put their high-falutin' genetically pure noses waaay outta joint."

"Okay, I'm game," I said.



I stripped to my shorts. Eugene eyed me with mock suspicion as I got into place beside him.

"On yer mark...set...GO!" Whit roared.

As one, Eugene and I dove into the water.



I swam as I'd never swum before, not when Anton and I had challenged each other as kids, not even when I challenged Anton to that midnight swim in the lagoon, shortly before I left earth. Eugene and I kept alongside each other. We reached the far end of the pool; I touched the ledge just a split second after him, turned and sped back, still very close.



I pushed myself, keeping nothing back, harder even than when I challenged Anton.



For a moment, I edged ahead of Eugene. Over the surrussuss of water splashing and rippling around us, I heard him let out a snarl of disgust. He pushed himself harder, closing the gap, passing me.



On the second lap back, my breath started to come short and my heart hammered in my chest, threatening to burst through my ribs. At my side, Eugene still showed no signs of tiring, but I was utterly spent.

Eugene touched the wall two whole seconds before I did. With a final effort, I pulled myself out onto the ledge, panting, my breath whistling in my lungs, my blood screaming in my ears.



"Y' almost killed him, Eugene!" Whit called, handing me a towel. To me he added, "Y'got th' stuff for it, y' just gotta train up."



I glanced at Eugene as he turned around, swam back, and climbed out next to me. "Care...for a challenger?" I panted, my breath starting to come more easily.

"You got that dicky heart," Eugene said. "Besides, I have enough competition, don't need any more -- especially you."

"Aw, come on: the rivalry might be fun," I said.

Whit patted my shoulder in a fatherly way, something I barely remember my own father ever doing. "Nah, Vincent-boy: yer good, buty y' can't risk yerself against him."

* * * * *

Later, once we got home, I limped up to my room and crashed on the bed. I'd hardly pushed myself like that in three years: every muscle in my body ached, but I felt great.

After a few minutes, someone knocked at the door. I stirred myself out of the light doze I'd slid into and got up to answer it.

Minerva stood at my door, her violet eyes grave, but her gaze not meeting mine. "We have to talk," she said.



I stepped out into the hallway. She looked around, almost like a deer keeping an eye out for predators, as if she feared we might be overheard.

"I'm destroying, never mind violating doctor-client privileges, but it would kill me if I didn't tell you," she said.



I tried to meet her eyes, but she kept them downcast. "Tell me what?" I asked.



She licked her lips as if to cool them. "Do you know a girl named Irene Cassini?"



"Yes, I dated her briefly back when I was completeing my training at Gattaca."



A weighty pause, as if she were trying to find the right words. "She's been coming to me for counselling for the past month or so, but she called me today, very distraught. I can't tell you all the particulars... how involved were you with her?"



"We were involved enough that I spent the night with her," I said.



She let out a long breath. "In that case, you're most likely the father of her child," she said.



Her child. Irene's child. How could that be? We'd taken all the precautions necessary to avoid that occurrance, but nothing short of abstainence is ever fool proof.



"What brought this up?" I asked.



"Just hearing that the Titan mission had returned was enough to bring back all her feelings for you: guilt, fear, shame--"



"We did nothing wrong, except in the eyes of the genomists," I said, blurting it out. "It's not like we'd get arrested for racial impurity, is it?"



"No, but it still carries its weight of emotional baggage and social rejection. It's going to get harder for the both of you."



I dug my fingers into my hair, trying to collect my scattering thoughts, emotions. "Why should that be so? Most prostitutes these days are InValids, so why should it matter who she slept with?"



She took my outburst calmly, something I caught myself envying her for. "I wish it could be different, but that's the way it falls out. It's easier for people to overlook a Valid man sleeping with an InValid woman. To everyone who doesn't know any better, I might as well be Jerome's mistress. But it's a whole other matter when a Valid woman takes an Invalid man for her lover. It's like the wealthy upper-upper class woman fooling around with the low-rent construction worker. You'd think it would make no difference these days, but it does: the old 'girls are good/boys are bad' myth."



"So therefore the Valid girls have to be angels and how dare they fall hard for some low-life by default InValid male? Goddammit, she was only a Valid second class; she's not the same calibre as Eugene."



Her eyes met mine then, but the gaze was professionally detached. "Moral considerations aside, I wish it didn't have to be that way."



I managed to pull my wits together and lower my voice. "Tell me this: does Irene still...want me?" My mouth had gone dry.



She wagged her head. "I can't tell you that: I don't know."

"Tell her this for me the next time she has a session with you: Tell her...I want her back, I want to meet my child."



Minerva put her hand on my shoulder. "I wish she'd open her heart to you, Vincent: You are a good man." Maybe I only imagined the way her eyes warmed.



She let me go and went dowstairs. I stepped back into my room and shut the door behind me, my legs numb.

I sank down on the bed, my head bent. I shivered with the realization of it all. Suddenly the earth seemed very cold, colder even than the dark side of Saturn.



* * * * *



Earlier, I'd figured that swim I'd had would help me sleep, but I guessed wrong. Later that night, I got up to answer a call of nature, more a distraction because I kept turning over on the bed, unable to find a comfortable position. As I headed back upstairs, I passed by the sun room -- now the moon room. I tiptoed to the open door and peered in, careful not to let myself be seen.

Rose scented candles in jars burned on an endtable, the light falling over the glider. Minerva lay draped over one arm, face down, arms under her chin, Eugene on top of her, kising the back of her neck. He turned her over, running his lips down past her shoulder, lowering his face into her lap. She yelped out loud and giggled, slapping him playfully but loudly.



"Here, I've passed the masochism phase," Eugene objected, voice husky with ardor.



I slid back into the shadows and retreated to my room. If I had wanted Irene during the three years I spent in space, that wanting gnawed at me far deeper now.



* * * * *

Next morning I was almost too sore to move, so I stayed put. While Minerva and Eugene were out for the day, I started looking for Irene's address and phone number. First I checked the most logical place, the phone listings, but I couldn't find it there. I called directory assistence, but they couldn't give me any leads either. Most people would have taken this as a sign that I should just give up and move on to something else. But I was not going to leave that matter unresolved. I wanted to see my child.

Besides, giving up in the face of adversity wasn't exactly in my blood.

* * * * *



"Here, stop watching me and my woman!" Eugene called to me as I emerged from the washroom next morning. He stood outside the door, clearly waiting to get in.



"I was about to ask you when do you two ever stop; you'll get her pregnant again," I jabbed back.



"Not with her ecologically nursing Vinzel," he said. "So, any luck finding out about your lost love?"

That question hardly surprised me, unless he asked it out of sheer curiosity. "Minerva told you about it?"

He smirked wisely. "It's a little hard for her to withold information from me: I have my ways of coercion."



He got me where I couldn't back out. "I checked the phone book," I said. "Irene's number isn't listed. I even called directory assistance: they couldn't tell me, either. What about your friend Eckart the hacker or whatever he was?"

He rolled his eyes slightly, as if he wanted to be spared the memory of that odd little creep. "I'm afraid he can't help you either," he said. "He's currently residing for the next ten years in a place where fellows like him can't even get to a palm top. He got himself arrested on break in and entry."



"Dammit," I muttered.



"Minerva knows another chap who might help you: Halloran something or something Halloran. I don't know him well, since he was only a client of Minerva's, but I hear he's got a knack of breaking into data storage systems. She had to transfer him to a male psychologist since, well, let's say this Halloran wanted a little more...action on her couch. He could help you, but I don't encourage it."

"Why?"



He looked me in the eye. "One reason: this guy hits on anything that moves, including his own kind. The little bugger made a pass at me once -- in front of Minerva. And another reason: I don't want to see you get caught. If someone from Gattaca found out you'd been associating with her, there might be hell to pay."

"I just want to see my child."

He started into the wash room, but he pasued and looked over his shoulder at me. "Take my advice: keep your distance from her if you don't want to end up like Eckart."

I laid low that day. I gave Minerva and Eugene a line that I was still sore all over from over-extending myself, and I thought I'd take it easy that day, reaquainting myself with the world. I don't know how well I fooled them but I had an odd feeling that Minerva had divined my intent. Why she didn't say something or try to stop me, I couldn't tell.



Once they were gone, I consulted the antique rolodex on the desk in the study-computer room, looking for anything with the name Halloran.



At length, I found a card under the M's: McGeever, Halloran, followed by a phone number and an address. I copied them down and went out.



McGeever lived in a housing complex on the north side of the city, not far from where I had once lived, before German introduced me to Eugene, what was often called the InValids' quarter.



I took a bus uptown and hunted up and down the dark, narrow streets, looking for the complex ironically named Pleasant Acres.



The complex proved to be an ugly grey cement block structure with tiny slits of windows, more like a prison than anything else. I went in and found the right wing: Sector A Unit 24.



The carpet in the hallway had probably not been cleaned since they laid it and the air stank of cigarette smoke, diapers, boiled cabbage and God only knew what. A staticky TV crackled at full blast behind one door, while behind others, couples argued and a baby squalled.



As I came up to Unit 24, the door flew open and a scantily clad girl in her late teens, clearly a prostitute, stalked out. I looked away, hoping she didn't try to catch my attention: I turned up my nose, pretended to be a disgusted Valid.



Once she had passed by, I knocked at the door.



"I told you to get yer a-- outta here!" a man's raspy voice snarled behind the door.



"Are you Halloran McGeever?" I asked.



"I might be," the voice replied, suspicious. "Who 're you?"



"I'm a friend of Minerva Koestelbaum," I said. "My name's Vincent Freeman."



The door opened and a dwarf of a man, barely five feet tall, clad in a sleeveless undershirt and black trousers clumsily buttoned, stood there, glaring up at me.



"Whadda y' want?" he snarled, baring two rows of the most yellowed, splintered teeth I'd ever seen.



"I need information," I said. In a flattering tone, I added, "I heard from Minerva's husband you're able to extract information from any database anywhere, that there's no security system you can't get around."



His mouth had relazed, but he lifted one corner of his mouth in a crooked, feral grin. He stepped back, letting me enter. "Whadda y' need?"



"I just need an address and telephone number of a woman: Irene Cassini."



He glanced at the still open door, as if telling me to get out. "So? Check the phone directory. 'At's what it's there for."



"I tried: It's unlisted. I think she works at Gattaca."

"Okay, this gets in-ter-est-ing," he drawled, crossing the one room, part living room, part bedroom, pacing to a sprawl of computer equipment spread out on several tables against one wall: towers, monitors, keyboards, external modems and drives. "How much is this worth to you?"



"I've only got twenty," I said. "But it means more to me than life itself." I knew those words sounded lame as soon as I said them, but I was too desperate to care.



He regarded me sidewise over his shoulder as he sat down on a stool in the middle of the sprawl. "Eh, one of those bleeding heart lost loves, is it? Well, all right. Since you got referred to me by an old friend, that means you qualify for the old friends discount." He held out his hand, palm up. I took out my wallet, extracted my last twenty and put it into his hand. His small fingers snapped shut on it, and on one of my fingers. He released me and stuffed the bill into his trouser pocket, then turned to the sprawl.



He set to work, typing commands, his thin fingers flying. Numbers and letter scrolled across the screen. After several long minutes of this, he paused, then typed another command.



A printer chirped and ground somewhere in the snarl. He got up and reached for an ancient dot matrix minus its plastic housing, on a table next to the desk, and tore off a sheet of paper, which he handed to me.



CASSINI, Irene.....46 Darwin Terrace



"Thanks," I said.



He regarded me with his head on one side, his eyes narrowed. "Now tell me this: What the he-- is a nice, good-looking, young Valid kid like you doin' here, asking a card-carrying InValid cyber-criminal for a girl's address? I'd think you'd be smart enough to find it out for yerself."



"It's not my area of expertise," I said. "I'm only an astronomer."



"I see," he said, his eyelids lowering in a way I did not like.



He knew. Takes one to spot one.



I got out of there quickly, but not so quickly that I would arouse his suspicions any more, but I could tell he knew we, he and I, were more alike than looks could tell you.



I put distance between myself and that asphyxiating place with its wierd inhabitant. Half of me wanted to go straight to Irene's condo, down by the shore, knock on her door, find out what had happened; but the other more sensible half obliged it to go back home where I could think better.

* * * * *



"So how'd you keep out of trouble?" Eugene asked me over supper that night.



"I went for a long walk," I said. Not a lie.



Minerva looked up from her plate, fixing me with a curious, but almost oracular look. "Where did you go?" she asked.



I shrugged, trying to look nonchalant. "Just around my old neighborhood, just to see how things had changed since I left it. A few buildings were torn down, others stuck in their place. Family of five living in my old apartment."



"Anyone recognize you?" Eugene asked.



"Nah, most of my old neighbors have moved away or died; the rest clearly didn't know me," I said. "This one woman yelled at me something like what was a Valid like me doing in that part of town. A few housewives telling me to go find another slum to find a girlfriend."

"To be perfectly honest, and I say this as a physician: When you're not wearing your glasses, it would take a very trained eye to know if you were Valid or not, just by looking at you," Minerva said, with a knowing look in her eye.



"Here, keep your eyes to yourself," Eugene snipped at his wife.



She twitched like he'd poked her under the table, and pretended to cringe. "Sorry," she replied in a mock nervous tone.



That at least dispelled the tension.



* * * * *



Later that evening, I sat in my room, setting up a new e-mail account via a laptop Minerva had loaned me. Someone knocked at the door.



"It's open," I said.



The door opened and Eugene entered, pushing the door shut behind him. "You weren't completely truthful with us about your whereabouts today," he said, pointblank, facing me, his back to the door.



"All right: I wasn't," I admitted, looking away. His blue-green eyes had taken on a look I couldn't meet. I turned back to the computer screen



"You went looking for Irene," I heard him say.

I might have nodded in reply, but I tried to control it, keep from betraying myself.



"I take that sonorous silence to mean, 'Yes'."

"I haven't gone to see her," I said. "I just called on Minerva's friend Halloran McGeever, see if he could find her phone number and address."



"Vincent, I don't want to see you get yourself caught," Eugene said. "I covered for you for two years. I don't want that work to all go to rot."



"I won't let that happen," I said. "I just want to see my child."



He took the back of my chair and pulled it around, turning me to face him.



"You might be weaving the rope to hang yourself," he warned. "She might consider that stalking, and if they pick you up on those charges, they're liable to find out what else you've been up."



I shrugged. "I'll take all the necessary precautions."



He regarded me in silence. Letting out a harrassed sigh through his nostrils, he let go the back of my chair. "I can't tell you what to do and what not to do. But don't expect to borrow my genetics ever again."



I gave him a smile I hoped would disarm him. "You won't have to go through that indignity ever again: Minerva might resent it."



One corner of his mouth twitched for a second, as if he might smile, but his face relaxed, his eyes retaining that inexorable look. He stood up and headed for the door. He paused, his hand on the jamb.

I heard a humorless sniff of a laugh escape his lungs. "That's one thing we never thought of."

"What?" I asked, not looking up from the computer.

"Semen sample," he said.

"That would be hard to pull off, unless we did it the new natural way."

"And why, with your background, would you want to do a hideous thing like that?"

I glanced up. "I don't think Minerva would want to share you with another woman. Legally, it would be your child, too." Then I added, "Just as Irene's child is also mine."

"Quite right," he admitted. I heard him step out of the room into the hallway and shut the door slowly behind him.



An unseen cloud had gathered in the room, but I turned my back on it.





To be continued...