CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
"So," said Ed, "you want a true DNA test to determine relationships. If Paul and Mrs. Paul consent, will you be satisfied?"
"As long as you do everyone here. Make up an excuse. Say that you suspect Tom was harder to recover because they injected him with a virus. Tell them that it took this long to get it out of his system, but in the meantime; some of us might be infected. My son can help you."
Ray frowned and Gerona was convincing with his, "if any of my children got sick, I'll sue" routine. Of course, no one believed him for a minute. After all, they were Dominants and Gerona had a specific reason for this knowledge.
Since, thought Paul, he is also one of us, he wants to find what one of us volunteered that bone marrow to get his brother back in the Navy; and thought, Ray, he wants to find out if these Mexican Dominants are also here and if they could brainwash Tom, they could brainwash the Geronas in thinking they are from another world. .
"I can prepare the samples," said Sloan, "I think I will go first." She took a swab from inside her mouth, inserting it in the slide. She then took specimens from the group. "Now I'll compare them to see if there is any matching DNA." Eliminating the Mexican woman, her granddaughter, Attwood, Ray, his family, and Ed., she then compared Enrique's and his family to that of Paul or Tom. "It says that you, Mr. Gerona and your family are all dominants, but not from that area in Mexico where they evolved, sorry if that offends you. I've compared Tom's samples to that of Paul and his family, also no relations, but."
"What about you?"
"As you can see," she said, "Enrique, I am not related to Attwood, Tate, Ray, or his family. You do have a particular component, I cannot identify." She inserted a slide. "Not related to you either, just in case one side of the family became Dominants and the others, stayed human Now, I'll take the slides of the Sedonas." She put two samples of DNA, one from Paul, the other from Lupe, comparing it with her own.
"When did your brother have his surgery?" Attwood asked Gerona.
"It was in the nineteen eighties."
"If a donor was found, the transplant would not have worked. Even though you are a Dominant, you have something in your blood, lets call it the Alien Factor. The doctor would have had to inject this into the donor's bone marrow. No one could do that until the early eighties."
Suddenly Sloan gasped.
"What's wrong?" asked Tom.
"I'll show you." She made a print out of three of the charts and taped them to the wall. "Now this is Paul Sedona' and Mrs. Sedona's and mine."
Walter, then Ed, Ray, and finally the Dominants and Lupe looked at it. It was true. The three charts were similar. There was no doubt. Paul and Lupe were Sloan's real parents.
Lupe had just left her seat, running over, and hugging Sloan, and then saying to Paul. "I have to make a special cake for the occasion."
"Chocolate. Go ahead. She made one when John mated with Susan. It's a Mexican custom. So this is the weak child," said Paul smiling at Sloan.
"What weak child?" asked Ed.
"We had to give her away or the others would kill her. She had been promised to the Chosen. If she had not been human, like you, she would have received the tattoo and when she was eight, the ceremony would have taken place making her, we call it by a different term, the wife of the Chosen with all the privileges and power therein."
Blanca ran up to Lupe, hugging and chattering in Spanish, not caring if Paul Sedona understood. "I thought you were dead. I heard you scream."
"I thought if I survived, they would sell me to a Cantina. I did not mind the torture, I would be in heaven," said Lupe, "but they did not just beat me, I was—
"This is my grand daughter," said Blanca, introducing Daniella "When I returned home, I missed you. A week later, my father and mother awoke me, saying, 'Blanca, we hear noises. Go to the hills and hide. They gave me some pesos and a small chest fill of jewels, saying it was an inheritance and gave me the address of an aunt in Los Angeles. But I hesitated and they came. I hid in the cellar. I heard my parents scream and I heard gunfire. I peered through the grating and then I saw the bodies of my parents, my neighbors, everyone was dead except for a boy and a girl which they gagged and put on a truck."
She crossed herself. "Madre de Diós! I saw the Alvarez girls who just had their sixth birthday and all their friends dead on their porch before the men took something from their pockets. There was a flash and no more. No more bodies. And you became a mother very young."
"I was old enough to, according to them.. The Dominant girls are ready for children at eight years old. Too much blood."
Blanca crossed herself. "He does not beat you much, no?"
"No. Just wash this, fix that, when's breakfast, the usual."
Paul smiled slightly on hearing that. He would not kill this Mexican woman nor take her granddaughter. Well, he would not stop any other Dominant, but he could persuade him not to use her until the girl could survive. He continued talking about how Sloan was the way she was "None of us knew it was because we were short of food. It had to be doled according to position, what you would have called class," said Paul, "If we had gone into the nearby area, the Rurales would have been all over us. It would have meant our extinction. Soon after that, we entered the United States where because we look like you, we could hide."
"So I am not a dominant because you didn't give my mother enough food?" asked Sloan.
"Yes. Lupe's my favorite. You understand what that means. I didn't want to kill you, so we left you at a hospital. I left a note, saying the mother was Norte Americano, so that the baby would be adopted out of Mexico." He took a pen from his jacket. "Tom was ordered to kill you because of your boss got too close and you decided to snoop."
Sloan looked puzzled. "Isn't the Chosen, your ruler?"
"The Chosen must show no partiality even to his own kind. He did save one of the humans he had to kill and killed another in his place and that one belongs to him. We will find him and give him to the Chosen."
"Have you spread to the outer planets since my confinement by the humans?"
"I think Gerona's father came from a planet similar to Earth where they all were the New Species. I took over as an FBI agent, among other things. Is the one who infiltrated the legal system in his right mind, Paul?"
"At present, however we is no danger to our species only to the humans. We call him the Advocate. I will get in touch with him."
Sloan remembered the young woman, Anna, comparing her features to that of Paul and Lupe. She also estimated her age to be in her thirties that would make Lupe about fourteen when she had her. Why if Paul raped her when she was twelve—they did not give her time to recover! However, she calmed down enough to ask what she knew was true. "You said your daughter is an actress. Is she the offspring of you and Lupe?"
"Yes as are my other children. They are known as Progenies."
Sloan thought of Anna again and the Dominant's reticence, imagining a theory where Lupe had not just one girl but two, her and Anna. Because Lupe was human, and Paul was a Dominant, the Dominant twin would survive at the expense of the other. It was a scientific theory, comparable to when one twin died in the womb and the other survived. Only unlike human babies, the weaker twin did not die, it just lost its Dominance as all the nourishment meant to ensure survival in their particular universe went to the stronger one, that is Anna. She had to ask her father when she knew him better. Right now was not the time, so she referred to a specific young enemy the group had encountered not too long ago. "And they do not manipulate you like that Kevin?"
Paul found this question absurd, but he did give a brief description on how they raised their children. No one received any extra privileges and even the children destined to be the rulers or leader were punished when they crossed the line. None of the children mocked the child who was smaller or appeared weaker as this was deceptive and the older Dominants supervised fights between them.
When Ray questioned this, the Dominant explained. "We still bear the seeds of our ancestors, their physical size and appearance. Some could come from Southern Italy and some from Norway. We have no weakness. It just looks like some do."
Tom now showed his true leadership. "I want an account of all Dominant Children, regular and Progenies and the methods and discipline, training and such." He stopped for a moment.
"I'll have to talk to Roderick, another of our Councilors," said Paul, "I would say it's like your Senate. The order that you have to kill Sloan has been rescinded, but not for her relationship to her former boss. It was given separately."
"What do you mean separately?" asked Attwood.
He pointed to the computer and the DVD. "That. You have compared the two media, have you not and seen the connection? I see you have. When the Council meets, they keep four chairs empty in memory of the Lost Ships. Through the mate of our Advocate, we obtained a list of those of your species who accompanied us to our location."
"So why was it kept secret?"
Paul smiled. "I believe there was a war How we got the list is not for debate, but I can obtain a copy if you let me at your machine." He went over to the computer, and typed in a web address. "The information is coded." He took out a CD from his pocket. "I hope you have plenty of room. This will decode it. We must remain cautious so The Council will take down the website."
A few minutes later, they had a printout. It indicated eight boats with eight couples and appeared that because of deaths, desertion, and the bombings, there should have been more. The names of the passengers, that is, the human ancestors of the Dominants, the list identified as to Country, and numbers, m after the number, indicating male, f indicating female. On top of each list was the name of two military officers with instructions that one would stay for a year to help the ancestors while the other would return.
"Wait a minute," said Sloan as she read the list, "Is he related to me?"
"Parker. No and you may count yourself fortunate," said Paul.
"Then you knew about me."
"No. We compared the DNA of your adoptive parents as everyone with that name with those of this man. We heard that he came into a fortune. Attwood, you must have been in the military. Did you receive a substantial income?"
"The military has certain rules as to wages and benefits."
"The Lost Ships for which we remember each setting, of which a Mr. Parker, a Royal Navy officer was one of the humans accompanying it and who sent the two ships to the rocks, and destroyed the identifications of those on board. So, by order of the Council, every Parker related to this man is to die unless that one separates himself or herself from the evil that permeates their soul. However, the date has to be set. We just found the DNA of your parents a week ago. They were stubborn. They did not believe it was a test to eliminate innocence."
"Innocence?" asked Sloan, wondering if that evil permeating could mean curse in Dominant language. .
"We needed then to agree to the test as your parents were stubborn, so we waited until an incident occurred. Your adoptive father frequented a certain club to which another man did, a man who had a knife fight with another man. No fatalities, but when the police took samples to find who held the knife, they eliminated your adoptive father. The Medicals said he was quite angry, something about a voyage."
He was right. The Parkers, Sloan's adoptive parents, were often on a voyage to one place of another. Messages sent by Sloan often returned with "not available' and the connection between California and remote areas were often tenuous at best. Sloan's sister, a doctor, also had the Wanderlust, serving in isolated hospitals. The last time, she was in Saudi Arabia. Sloan had no idea where she would be next.
She, however, wanted to know about her new family. As far as the human origins, her father said that they came from Central Spain. He had no idea of the original name, only that they were in place of another disqualified, but since that disqualified belonged to another Country, the origin was not changed. Paul said something Roderick giving him a trophy, something indicating the Sedona's true origins.
"Why do you kill our species when progenies now exist?" she asked.
"Our species must survive for this reason." He then elaborated. At first, the Dominants assumed that when the Progenies mated, their children would be homo sapiens. However, the birth of Paul's grandchildren proved otherwise. Even though one of the sons (of whom Paul never mentioned by name because it was a touchy subject) was a Chameleon who married a homo sapien, his children were all Dominants as were those of the children who kept to their own kind. They eliminated only on advice of the Council, and with discretion. The humans could credit a few executions or eliminations to some crazy, but become suspicious, as Sloan did when she saw those glasses, of the annihilation of several hundred people. "However, a certain branch of the Dominants, the Lynches, did not obey our orders. By the way, they wanted to be in the Chosen, but our Council wisely refused."
"And how do you plan to get both our species to cooperate?" asked Ray, "forget what you people have done?"
"Think Detective, what happened when your people finished a war? Did they go home and kill everyone? That woman, Attwood's boss, wanted to kill all of us or send us to some planet as an unwilling work force, or fight their battles. And none of us wanted to live like those traitors, wishing they were like you, losing their abilities. The Geronas have survived without you being the wiser."
"Mr. Sedona," said Attwood, "both our species cannot survive together. Evolution has proved it."
"A flawed theory, Mr. Attwood. Two species, one more intelligent than the other can for we can produce food where you people cannot and at less cost. I will be getting back to Roderick with some suggestions. And you better be careful. We do disguise our killings to resemble those of a maniac, those maniacs or serial killers who have not been caught" He motioned to Lupe. "Randall not only had a name brother plus a clone, he had other members of his family, those who were not exact duplicates. By now, they have learned of you. Oh thanks for the passes. We'll be watching the shooting, not of certain individuals, but the movie."
Attwood, Ed, and Ray breathed easier when the Sedonas left. Tom was now besides Sloan, protecting her just in case one of the Lynches used the masking technique and entered the Gerona household. "This might alter my plans. You see, I want Sloan as my, the humans call it, wife."
"And I don't care how many Lynches there are, both of us will fight them together," said Sloan, but she could not hide her blush.
Paul Sedona heard this while on the porch. "Human emotions," he said, "acceptable and this is a good place to hide. Area 51." He addressed Enrique Gerona who followed him "They expect people here to be of high intelligence and any human on the outside will think it is they who finally settled the other planets. Just let them keep that illusion."
9/17/2003
"So," said Ed, "you want a true DNA test to determine relationships. If Paul and Mrs. Paul consent, will you be satisfied?"
"As long as you do everyone here. Make up an excuse. Say that you suspect Tom was harder to recover because they injected him with a virus. Tell them that it took this long to get it out of his system, but in the meantime; some of us might be infected. My son can help you."
Ray frowned and Gerona was convincing with his, "if any of my children got sick, I'll sue" routine. Of course, no one believed him for a minute. After all, they were Dominants and Gerona had a specific reason for this knowledge.
Since, thought Paul, he is also one of us, he wants to find what one of us volunteered that bone marrow to get his brother back in the Navy; and thought, Ray, he wants to find out if these Mexican Dominants are also here and if they could brainwash Tom, they could brainwash the Geronas in thinking they are from another world. .
"I can prepare the samples," said Sloan, "I think I will go first." She took a swab from inside her mouth, inserting it in the slide. She then took specimens from the group. "Now I'll compare them to see if there is any matching DNA." Eliminating the Mexican woman, her granddaughter, Attwood, Ray, his family, and Ed., she then compared Enrique's and his family to that of Paul or Tom. "It says that you, Mr. Gerona and your family are all dominants, but not from that area in Mexico where they evolved, sorry if that offends you. I've compared Tom's samples to that of Paul and his family, also no relations, but."
"What about you?"
"As you can see," she said, "Enrique, I am not related to Attwood, Tate, Ray, or his family. You do have a particular component, I cannot identify." She inserted a slide. "Not related to you either, just in case one side of the family became Dominants and the others, stayed human Now, I'll take the slides of the Sedonas." She put two samples of DNA, one from Paul, the other from Lupe, comparing it with her own.
"When did your brother have his surgery?" Attwood asked Gerona.
"It was in the nineteen eighties."
"If a donor was found, the transplant would not have worked. Even though you are a Dominant, you have something in your blood, lets call it the Alien Factor. The doctor would have had to inject this into the donor's bone marrow. No one could do that until the early eighties."
Suddenly Sloan gasped.
"What's wrong?" asked Tom.
"I'll show you." She made a print out of three of the charts and taped them to the wall. "Now this is Paul Sedona' and Mrs. Sedona's and mine."
Walter, then Ed, Ray, and finally the Dominants and Lupe looked at it. It was true. The three charts were similar. There was no doubt. Paul and Lupe were Sloan's real parents.
Lupe had just left her seat, running over, and hugging Sloan, and then saying to Paul. "I have to make a special cake for the occasion."
"Chocolate. Go ahead. She made one when John mated with Susan. It's a Mexican custom. So this is the weak child," said Paul smiling at Sloan.
"What weak child?" asked Ed.
"We had to give her away or the others would kill her. She had been promised to the Chosen. If she had not been human, like you, she would have received the tattoo and when she was eight, the ceremony would have taken place making her, we call it by a different term, the wife of the Chosen with all the privileges and power therein."
Blanca ran up to Lupe, hugging and chattering in Spanish, not caring if Paul Sedona understood. "I thought you were dead. I heard you scream."
"I thought if I survived, they would sell me to a Cantina. I did not mind the torture, I would be in heaven," said Lupe, "but they did not just beat me, I was—
"This is my grand daughter," said Blanca, introducing Daniella "When I returned home, I missed you. A week later, my father and mother awoke me, saying, 'Blanca, we hear noises. Go to the hills and hide. They gave me some pesos and a small chest fill of jewels, saying it was an inheritance and gave me the address of an aunt in Los Angeles. But I hesitated and they came. I hid in the cellar. I heard my parents scream and I heard gunfire. I peered through the grating and then I saw the bodies of my parents, my neighbors, everyone was dead except for a boy and a girl which they gagged and put on a truck."
She crossed herself. "Madre de Diós! I saw the Alvarez girls who just had their sixth birthday and all their friends dead on their porch before the men took something from their pockets. There was a flash and no more. No more bodies. And you became a mother very young."
"I was old enough to, according to them.. The Dominant girls are ready for children at eight years old. Too much blood."
Blanca crossed herself. "He does not beat you much, no?"
"No. Just wash this, fix that, when's breakfast, the usual."
Paul smiled slightly on hearing that. He would not kill this Mexican woman nor take her granddaughter. Well, he would not stop any other Dominant, but he could persuade him not to use her until the girl could survive. He continued talking about how Sloan was the way she was "None of us knew it was because we were short of food. It had to be doled according to position, what you would have called class," said Paul, "If we had gone into the nearby area, the Rurales would have been all over us. It would have meant our extinction. Soon after that, we entered the United States where because we look like you, we could hide."
"So I am not a dominant because you didn't give my mother enough food?" asked Sloan.
"Yes. Lupe's my favorite. You understand what that means. I didn't want to kill you, so we left you at a hospital. I left a note, saying the mother was Norte Americano, so that the baby would be adopted out of Mexico." He took a pen from his jacket. "Tom was ordered to kill you because of your boss got too close and you decided to snoop."
Sloan looked puzzled. "Isn't the Chosen, your ruler?"
"The Chosen must show no partiality even to his own kind. He did save one of the humans he had to kill and killed another in his place and that one belongs to him. We will find him and give him to the Chosen."
"Have you spread to the outer planets since my confinement by the humans?"
"I think Gerona's father came from a planet similar to Earth where they all were the New Species. I took over as an FBI agent, among other things. Is the one who infiltrated the legal system in his right mind, Paul?"
"At present, however we is no danger to our species only to the humans. We call him the Advocate. I will get in touch with him."
Sloan remembered the young woman, Anna, comparing her features to that of Paul and Lupe. She also estimated her age to be in her thirties that would make Lupe about fourteen when she had her. Why if Paul raped her when she was twelve—they did not give her time to recover! However, she calmed down enough to ask what she knew was true. "You said your daughter is an actress. Is she the offspring of you and Lupe?"
"Yes as are my other children. They are known as Progenies."
Sloan thought of Anna again and the Dominant's reticence, imagining a theory where Lupe had not just one girl but two, her and Anna. Because Lupe was human, and Paul was a Dominant, the Dominant twin would survive at the expense of the other. It was a scientific theory, comparable to when one twin died in the womb and the other survived. Only unlike human babies, the weaker twin did not die, it just lost its Dominance as all the nourishment meant to ensure survival in their particular universe went to the stronger one, that is Anna. She had to ask her father when she knew him better. Right now was not the time, so she referred to a specific young enemy the group had encountered not too long ago. "And they do not manipulate you like that Kevin?"
Paul found this question absurd, but he did give a brief description on how they raised their children. No one received any extra privileges and even the children destined to be the rulers or leader were punished when they crossed the line. None of the children mocked the child who was smaller or appeared weaker as this was deceptive and the older Dominants supervised fights between them.
When Ray questioned this, the Dominant explained. "We still bear the seeds of our ancestors, their physical size and appearance. Some could come from Southern Italy and some from Norway. We have no weakness. It just looks like some do."
Tom now showed his true leadership. "I want an account of all Dominant Children, regular and Progenies and the methods and discipline, training and such." He stopped for a moment.
"I'll have to talk to Roderick, another of our Councilors," said Paul, "I would say it's like your Senate. The order that you have to kill Sloan has been rescinded, but not for her relationship to her former boss. It was given separately."
"What do you mean separately?" asked Attwood.
He pointed to the computer and the DVD. "That. You have compared the two media, have you not and seen the connection? I see you have. When the Council meets, they keep four chairs empty in memory of the Lost Ships. Through the mate of our Advocate, we obtained a list of those of your species who accompanied us to our location."
"So why was it kept secret?"
Paul smiled. "I believe there was a war How we got the list is not for debate, but I can obtain a copy if you let me at your machine." He went over to the computer, and typed in a web address. "The information is coded." He took out a CD from his pocket. "I hope you have plenty of room. This will decode it. We must remain cautious so The Council will take down the website."
A few minutes later, they had a printout. It indicated eight boats with eight couples and appeared that because of deaths, desertion, and the bombings, there should have been more. The names of the passengers, that is, the human ancestors of the Dominants, the list identified as to Country, and numbers, m after the number, indicating male, f indicating female. On top of each list was the name of two military officers with instructions that one would stay for a year to help the ancestors while the other would return.
"Wait a minute," said Sloan as she read the list, "Is he related to me?"
"Parker. No and you may count yourself fortunate," said Paul.
"Then you knew about me."
"No. We compared the DNA of your adoptive parents as everyone with that name with those of this man. We heard that he came into a fortune. Attwood, you must have been in the military. Did you receive a substantial income?"
"The military has certain rules as to wages and benefits."
"The Lost Ships for which we remember each setting, of which a Mr. Parker, a Royal Navy officer was one of the humans accompanying it and who sent the two ships to the rocks, and destroyed the identifications of those on board. So, by order of the Council, every Parker related to this man is to die unless that one separates himself or herself from the evil that permeates their soul. However, the date has to be set. We just found the DNA of your parents a week ago. They were stubborn. They did not believe it was a test to eliminate innocence."
"Innocence?" asked Sloan, wondering if that evil permeating could mean curse in Dominant language. .
"We needed then to agree to the test as your parents were stubborn, so we waited until an incident occurred. Your adoptive father frequented a certain club to which another man did, a man who had a knife fight with another man. No fatalities, but when the police took samples to find who held the knife, they eliminated your adoptive father. The Medicals said he was quite angry, something about a voyage."
He was right. The Parkers, Sloan's adoptive parents, were often on a voyage to one place of another. Messages sent by Sloan often returned with "not available' and the connection between California and remote areas were often tenuous at best. Sloan's sister, a doctor, also had the Wanderlust, serving in isolated hospitals. The last time, she was in Saudi Arabia. Sloan had no idea where she would be next.
She, however, wanted to know about her new family. As far as the human origins, her father said that they came from Central Spain. He had no idea of the original name, only that they were in place of another disqualified, but since that disqualified belonged to another Country, the origin was not changed. Paul said something Roderick giving him a trophy, something indicating the Sedona's true origins.
"Why do you kill our species when progenies now exist?" she asked.
"Our species must survive for this reason." He then elaborated. At first, the Dominants assumed that when the Progenies mated, their children would be homo sapiens. However, the birth of Paul's grandchildren proved otherwise. Even though one of the sons (of whom Paul never mentioned by name because it was a touchy subject) was a Chameleon who married a homo sapien, his children were all Dominants as were those of the children who kept to their own kind. They eliminated only on advice of the Council, and with discretion. The humans could credit a few executions or eliminations to some crazy, but become suspicious, as Sloan did when she saw those glasses, of the annihilation of several hundred people. "However, a certain branch of the Dominants, the Lynches, did not obey our orders. By the way, they wanted to be in the Chosen, but our Council wisely refused."
"And how do you plan to get both our species to cooperate?" asked Ray, "forget what you people have done?"
"Think Detective, what happened when your people finished a war? Did they go home and kill everyone? That woman, Attwood's boss, wanted to kill all of us or send us to some planet as an unwilling work force, or fight their battles. And none of us wanted to live like those traitors, wishing they were like you, losing their abilities. The Geronas have survived without you being the wiser."
"Mr. Sedona," said Attwood, "both our species cannot survive together. Evolution has proved it."
"A flawed theory, Mr. Attwood. Two species, one more intelligent than the other can for we can produce food where you people cannot and at less cost. I will be getting back to Roderick with some suggestions. And you better be careful. We do disguise our killings to resemble those of a maniac, those maniacs or serial killers who have not been caught" He motioned to Lupe. "Randall not only had a name brother plus a clone, he had other members of his family, those who were not exact duplicates. By now, they have learned of you. Oh thanks for the passes. We'll be watching the shooting, not of certain individuals, but the movie."
Attwood, Ed, and Ray breathed easier when the Sedonas left. Tom was now besides Sloan, protecting her just in case one of the Lynches used the masking technique and entered the Gerona household. "This might alter my plans. You see, I want Sloan as my, the humans call it, wife."
"And I don't care how many Lynches there are, both of us will fight them together," said Sloan, but she could not hide her blush.
Paul Sedona heard this while on the porch. "Human emotions," he said, "acceptable and this is a good place to hide. Area 51." He addressed Enrique Gerona who followed him "They expect people here to be of high intelligence and any human on the outside will think it is they who finally settled the other planets. Just let them keep that illusion."
9/17/2003