Page 49 of Gluttony
“And these were born of her own body as well, ja?”
Julius nodded. “What are you getting at?”
Van Jansen clicked his tongue. “This is the key. The stem cells she collected from the waste of her own failed experiments.”
“But the children she bore weren’t clones.”
“Yes, I know this. But the problem we’re having with the replicates after birth is that their cells continue to produce. This is a similar process to how this Deadly Seven family can heal and regenerate their damaged skin and yet stop once the job is done. You understand where I am leading, ja?”
Julius pulled out the locket contained on a chain around his neck. Inside held biological matter from his departed wife and daughter. Both had perished decades ago in an accident caused by corporate negligence...sloth. This was all for them. The ending of sinners in the world, the razing of the old civilization to start anew, the creation of perfect life. All so he could see their faces, hear their voices, touch their skin, and give them a world where it wouldn’t happen again. Unable to help himself, he opened the locket, just to check. There, inside, were two strands of hair. One thick wiry afro that belonged to his wife, and the softer, smaller black silken length. There was only one strand for each one chance. This had to be perfect.
Boots squelched behind him. He snapped the locket shut.
Turning, he found Despair striding toward him, her white leather uniform splatted in mud and reeking of sewage. The guards by the door barely contained their grimaces, despite her now being only feet beyond their entrance. Her silver-white hair hung around her shoulders, leaves and bits of bio-matter lodged in its dirty, stringy lengths.
Julius waved Van Jansen away. When the scientist had left, Julius turned to the woman.
“Is it done?” he asked.
Thunder clouds flittered over her expression. “No. It is not done.”
His lip twitched. “My darling, do I sense a note of sarcasm?”
She took a breath, folded her arms with the creak of wet leather, and stared at the tanks. This was the most emotion he’d seen in his progeny for some time. The sarcasm, the pink stain to her pale cheeks, the brightness in her eyes. Perhaps her sin wasn’t taking hold of her as he’d come to accept. He rubbed his throat. Although, her recent attacks on him begged to differ. She’d been blacking out too much lately because of her sin. She was of no use to him like this and it was too early in his plan to set her loose on the city’s despondent. Perhaps she’d last until they gathered biological samples from the rest of the originals, but this change in dependability was not placating. She’d become erratic in behavior since exposure to her siblings. This was yet another of her tasks she’d failed to complete.
“I can’t capture the creature alone,” she revealed. “It has evolved beyond anything we’d imagined. Bosch’s body was completely absorbed. He is gone, somehow part of the creature now walking around on two legs and hissing like a living thing.”
“Curious.”
“I hold no burning desire to pull it out and study it. It seems to be content in the sewer. Perhaps we should leave it be.”
Julius took one look at the defeat in his bird of prey’s eyes and knew she was becoming soft, ineffective. He needed her cold, without scruples, holding no mercy, not—his mouth twisted in distaste—full of empathy for a plant. Cold spread throughout him. First, she released the plant. Now she wanted to leave it be?
“We can’t have that, as you well know. It is one thing to have the Lazarus family onto us, but they have limited resources and we have their identities. This Cold War of ours is serving us well. If this creature is left to its own devices, you invite the attention of the local law enforcement, and worse, the FBI, CIA or Homeland.”Not when we’re so close.
“But you have investors all the way to the White House. In the military, and beyond. Why do we have to keep hiding so much?”
“My darling,” he said, voice placating. “Our benefactors are not omniscient. We have come too far and gone on for too long to have our plans derailed by law enforcement, or the public. There is much to be said for mob mentality. I shouldn’t have to remind you of that. Take some Faithful with you next time. Get help.”
Her jaw clenched. “The Faithful are pitiless vile sheep who know nothing about battle.”
“At the very least, they would make a good shield. We have plenty of tanks free for their rebirths. Fresh blood for our cause is always needed.”
Cold violet eyes locked onto his. “And what of me? What will you do if I am the shield and I do not come back?” She flicked her gaze to the locket around his neck, seeming to see it right through to the strands of hair within. “Will you bring me back asfresh bloodfor your cause?”
Unbidden, his hand went to the locket and squeezed. It was a tiny cold thing in his palm. In it, there was no room for the battered hope he saw in her eyes. Anguish wrapped around his heart because he knew if this didn’t work, if he failed at bringing his family back, then what was the point to creating the world without sin? What was the point in making utopia if he couldn’t share it with them? He’d rather raze it all to the ground than fill it with anything else. Everything he’d ever done was for the two strands of hair he’d kept safe and close to his heart.
There was no room for more.
Despair’s eyes watered as she took Julius in. “You keep saying you’re my father, but you’re not, are you? You’re not even family. You are a sperm donor, and that’s it.”
Anger rose swiftly in him to color his vision red. “I saved you from that burning building. I—”
“Came back for me when they didn’t. Yes, I know. The story is getting old.”
Flummoxed, he shook with fury. How dare she? “I gave you everything you needed.”
“To be a monster. To kill indiscriminately for you.” She sneered at him. “You keep me separate from the rest of your family. You don’t want me.” She choked up, waiting for him to prove her wrong, but he couldn’t. It was true.
