CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

Dec 15 2001

Major Charles stood polishing his private plane while Emily and Zoe watched with her children. Zoe was still in remission, but there was a good chance that soon her health would go down hill in spite of the treatments. Her hair had fallen out during the cancer treatment and the new growth, although frizzy, was quite short. Because of that, she now was using the alternative health theory and so far, had not suffered a set back, but just in case, the cancer came back, she wanted to enjoy her life.

It was a surprise that after Jarod had left, she found out she was pregnant. She did expect that not all of them would live, but they did, two girls and two boys, all small, and so perfect. She never heard from Jarod again and so she decided to raise them on her own. It was she who heard the footsteps coming up the hill and ran to inform the Major.

"Someone's here," she said.

Quickly, Major Charles put down his rag, and reached for his gun that lay hidden under his jacket. When he saw the stranger was no threat, he walked towards him.

The man approaching Major Charles looked like a former priest, his tonsure starting to grow over, and his suit was the kind you would buy at K Mart.

"May I ask who's calling?" asked the Major, his eyes lowered with suspicion.

"It's about your son," said the man, "May I introduce myself, Harold Lewison," he said, holding out his hand, "I used to be Father Illuminae."

"Is there another scandal in the priesthood?" Major Charles was still a strong Catholic.

"No, I fought the temptations of women, unlike some of my brothers, but I grew disillusioned before that. However, before leaving I had to perform a certain union between two people. If you sit down, I will explain it all."

His bishop told him to go to a place called Blue Cove, Delaware. It had to do with a building called the Centre and a woman known as Miss Parker. Illuminae had taken the necessary studies for exorcism, knew ancient Latin and Greek, had done the
usual denials of self, kept himself pure, and all the things necessary to remove evil spirits and their influence from the afflicted. When another young woman with frizzy hair tried to interrupt, Harold just glared at her. Miss Parker had informed the bishop of an ancestor of hers who killed his first family for making a "deal with the Devil." Ever since then, the whole family lived under a curse. No matter what the Parkers tried to do, they failed.

"They deserve it," said Zoe and Emily, who emerged from the house, agreed.

"Miss Parker wanted the curse removed, but only from her and any children she may have had with a certain Jarod," said Father Illuminae, puzzled for he saw no pictures of Miss Parker with any children. "However, my bishop assured me that the Centre would have created a test tube baby from the seed of this Jarod and Miss Parker, and implanted it into a surrogate womb without their knowledge."

He paused from his tale to look at the young man who was watching. The clone, he thought, and continued. "I learned this Jarod had been held captive in the Centre, was made to do certain simulations and kept isolated from the world. I also learned that he had committed no crime, was not a juvenile delinquent, and received no salary for his duties."

Major Charles clenched his fists, but Harold gave Major Charles a duplicate of the Hercules CD.

"So the cough medicines, the sleeping pills, the injections I got were to keep me from developing," said the Major as he saw the injustices done, not only to his family, but also to the groups he came from, "into what I should have?"

"Yes. The children of the volunteers developed unusual abilities." Harold then described the Dominants or the New Species, their peculiarities and their strength. He concluded with the startling revelation. "You, Major Charles, Gemini, and Emily are Dominants as is your wife, Margaret."

"So what happened?" asked Emily.

"The Centre perfected a drug, Neogenesis, which alters your body chemistry, making you a little more human and less homo dominant, more docile, and obedient to orders. You will be, less likely to defend yourself to the death, or to pick up a weapon in case of an invasion — so far that hasn't come to this, but Jarod was helpless in preventing the death of his brother because of this."

"And why did my son Kyle threaten those people?"

"He was in jail and the drug was leaving his system. They have certain phrases they go through, withdrawals. Now let me continued. You received and are receiving Neogenesis every time you pick up a prescription, every time you get a vaccination, every time you pick up groceries. It is completely harmless to ordinary human beings. But there is a catch all."

"What is that?"

"It cannot be passed through by breastfeeding, because excess quantities of milk you give to children or pregnant women render the drug less effective."

"So what did the Centre do?"

"Put it in candies."

"Yes," said the Major, "Jarod was rather wild and he'd go through a gallon of milk a day until he got those special suckers. Then he changed, being normal, the same with his brother and they developed lactic intolerance or we thought it was ".

"That was in the late nineteen sixties or early nineteen seventies. Most Dominant children are aggressive. This gives the Centre the perfect excuse and they can find out Dominants that way. Ritalin and other drugs have no effect on them, and the drug that turns them into normal children, does not affect homo sapiens. The Centre Do you get your milk at a store or have it delivered?"

"We have it delivered," said Emily. "I thought you said milk protects one."

"It does until you get a strong dosage of the drug. From what I heard, it was standard procedure for The Centre to make candies and suckers with triple the amount of Neogenesis for that purpose. So from now on, buy it from the store and vary the type so you do not leave a pattern. However, right now we have to go to Blue Cove. We will take you to our Medicals, who will put you on a special program and restore you to your true selves. You will then meet Jarod and his children, some by Miss Burke, and some by Miss Parker." Harold Lewison told how the Centre had kept Jarod ignorant of the process of getting a woman pregnant.

"Jarod would have nothing to do with Miss Parker. How could he?" Emily was adamant, thinking of her brother with the woman who chased him for the sole purpose of imprisoning him in the Centre, if she did not kill him.

"He would not know he was doing anything wrong."

"Are you a Dominants? You said 'we.'"

"My father was a Dominant called Lewis but my mother was his concubine, a Homo Sapien captured by them. We had to flee the Mexican authorities and food was in short supply. She starved to death. They cut me from her dead womb, damaged. Instead of being a Dominant, I was born a homo sapien."

"Why did they not kill you?" asked Zoe.

"My father assumed that my Dominant trait was in remission. When it did not occur, he used my desire to learn of the Divine to the Council's advantage" His father enlisted him in the Priesthood. "I could then teach younger Dominants so they could join the same calling. They would have the right to perform unions, and joinings; the nearest terms we have for your marriages and as binding and legal as that of the sacred ritual performed in the Churches."

"And why two?"

Much of what Harold Lewison explained remained unsaid, why the ceremonies originated in a Species who believed themselves rulers and invincible. "Our rituals are as meaningful to us, as those of you homo sapiens." Harold affirmed his suspicions by telling how certain Dominants quelled their ruthless nature to join the seminaries of the Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Orthodox beliefs. They had no success with the
Pentecostal strains, their natures being too unemotional. As for the other religions, the Dominants wanted nothing to do with them, with the exception of Judaism for it spoke of Genesis and made them believe that they were the true descendants of Adam.

"You are the Species that would have populated the Earth, had not the curse of mankind brought on famine which started even during the time of Noah," said the former Illuminae. "In every man lies the seeds to produce the Dominant, yet because of sin, damaged seeds prevented it until scientists discovered how to bypass the blockers."

They all drove out to field where the Major had his plane. There was another one there and besides it was another man with dark auburn hair that fell to his shoulders, who wore a pinstriped suit, a dark navy shirt, and carried a rather fake nonchalant manner until he spotted the Clone.

He then called Harold Lewison over and then began a rather violent conversation with the stranger shaking his head when looking at Gemini and Lewison seemed to plead for him to change his mind. Finally, the former priest went back to Major Charles.

The Major packed quickly, piling into his plane with Gemini, for Harold Lewison then told him that Lambourni was reluctant to have the young man in his. Clones were weaker than the original and Antonio did not want to be responsible if the young man died on the way. Gemini would not live as long as Jarod. Already Gemini was starting to look older than his supposed age. His features were becoming like that of someone in their twenties rather than a youth.

The Dominants knew how long they could live baring accidents and unnatural deaths; but a Clone was different. When a Dominant became too old to hunt, he lived either with the oldest son of his descendants or his oldest daughter and her mate if his male descendants were killed or he did not have an,. To avoid suspicion, the older Dominant and his descendants gradually acquired property so no one would be aware, either by killing the locals, pretending to be someone else, etc. If a Dominant was a Freedman, his born free descendants would not help him He had also to support any indigent freedman or freedwoman, plus any Dominant slave who could no longer work and was related to him and Gemini, as a matter of course, probably had the chip inserted in his skull as done to Jarod.

There was a reason for this. The Centre could and did enslave any Dominant who had formerly been their prisoner and they were not above enslaving any Dominant who were with them for like Sapiens in the previous centuries, Dominants stuck with their own social class.

If Lambourni took Gemini in his plane when they first met, the responsibility of the lad would fall from Major Charles to him and it was irrevocable. It was just that with Clones created by Sapiens, things went wrong. Because they were created from adult donors rather than infants, their children deteriorated sooner. Since Jarod was around forty, Gemini's true age was in his mid twenties. Already the signs were showing. Gemini had stopped growing at five feet six inches and had already the chest hair normal to adult males.

As for heirs, the children of clones might suddenly age from five years to fifty in a year. It had happened with Dominant clones and with Gemini, his children might age overnight from two years old to sixty.

Even Progenies had problems, they might be like Lambourni who aged normally for a Dominant, or they might turn out like John Sedona who appeared older then the normal three-year old Dominant when he was that age. Even though at five or six, everything turned out normal, it was a worry for their parents who feared the attention brought on by inquisitive Sapiens.

However they had other things on their mind as the two planes landed at the Lambourni airport and Charles, Emily, Zoe, their children the Clone, and the former Father Illuminae piled into two cars that sped towards the town of Blue Cove and the Centre.