Page 139 of Prodigal Son

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“Where did you grow up?”

“I was trained and tutored in the facility.”

Albie suppressed a shudder. Just like Mercy’s Reese, he thought: a wind-up soldier not made for the real world. “Why are you willing to answer my questions?”

“My commanding officers are dead.”

“Right. So, shouldn’t you self-destruct? Refuse to talk to us?”

He hesitated – and it was a true hesitation, and not the guileless blank-faced stare of before. His eyes tracked across Albie’s face, actively searching for something now. A burst of humanity coming through. “I’m supposed to refuse. But I don’t want to.”

Albie felt something almost like…pride.

The boy wet his lips. “Why does he look like me?”

“Who?”

“The man I fought.” He bared his teeth in a grimace. He’d failed, Albie realized, and that brought him shame. “He looks like me.”

“Well, see.” Albie slumped back against the door. “That’s a long story…”

~*~

Everyone settled into an uneasy holding pattern. The proper authorities were handling the crime scene, and Eden had slipped them all the files they would need for press conferences and further arrests. But a tension lingered. A needling sense that things hadn’t been put to rest; that it wasn’t finished.

Morgan and Abe went back to their respective homes, hollow-eyed, faces etched with pain.

“It’ll be alright, Charlie,” Abe said, quietly, and patted his shoulder like he had when Fox was a boy.

The actual boy, the brother – they all, out of some unagreed-upon urge, avoided calling him anything, their comments about him back and forth just hints and hand-waves – was no longer tied to a chair, but they kept him confined. He was talking, though the conversations always left the other party rattled and sweating, afterward.

Vivian went back to her flat, but Eden lingered, and Fox didn’t understand that.

He wasn’t sure he understood anything.

And then the letter came, finally. Of course it was addressed to Fox. He read it alone, at Phillip’s desk, rain pattering at the windowpane behind him.

Charlie,

I know you all hate me, and you should. I’m sorry, but I know you won’t accept my apology, and you shouldn’t. I’m a shit father, and always have been. But I wanted to explain, because I know that you, especially, will want the answers. I owe you at least that.

It’s true what Morris said: I was the only one they didn’t sterilize. Abe says he was the better subject, and maybe he was, yeah, but I was the ruthless one. The others all had their soft spots, but not me. When the funding went away, Morris had a choice. He knew that he had to kill the project, and that if he ever managed to scrape anything together again, we’d all be too old, too assimilated, too out of practice. We were fairly assimilated already. They made us too human. All but me. I was supposed to go out and sire children. To bring him back a candidate for the next generation. He called it Project Prodigal Son.

The idea was for me to have several children, so he could pick the best one. And I did that. But. Yeah…he couldn’t collect, and I didn’t help him, and the whole thing got away from me.

You were the best, Charlie. That’s why I took you to Abe. That’s why__________ But I couldn’t do that either.I couldn’t because you’re my boy, and Il___

They finally got me. Sent a lady agent after me to get knocked up. Produce one more candidate. That’s Number Ten. You’ve met him by now, I’m sure. And if I know you, you’ve got him locked up, and you’re thinking about ways to make him a real boy, and not just a puppet. You were always more tender-hearted than you let on, and you always loved your family. Even me, even though I didn’t deserve it.

It’s all over, Charlie boy. You did well. You see, even though you were the best, you were always a shit choice for the project, because you have a soul. And I don’t. I never have.

Take care of your brothers and sisters. All of them. Like you always have. Marry that woman of yours, and don’t think about me. Don’t let me hang over your head like a raincloud. I’m not worth it, son. I’m really not.

~Devin

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