Aurora Wolf

Beautiful People

By Neil Carstairs

 

Brey Island was only accessible by car for three hours at low tide. The causeway that appeared out of the sea was little more than a smooth collection of rocks, left slick by salt water and seaweed. Judy Olsen drove as quickly as she dared across to the island, as the tide was already turning. There were clouds building out to sea and the fitful gusts of wind that presaged a storm were causing her vehicle to slide nervously towards the surf. She beat the first of the rain by a matter of seconds and by the time she had driven over the first rise of dunes onto the island proper the storm had broke around her.

Judy pulled over, letting the rain distort her view of coarse grass and sand and fill the car with a staccato beat of water on metal. The sound took her back ten years to the cramped confines of an armoured personnel carrier and the rain and mud of the Crimea. Judy closed her eyes. She could almost smell the sweat and fear of that time and felt herself begin to tremble at the thought of moving on when the storm had passed. She hadn’t stopped moving for the last ten years, but the next mile would be the hardest she would ever have to travel.

Almost as quickly as it had begun, the storm was gone, blown towards the mainland on a wind that still gusted fitfully through the dunes. Judy turned the wipers on just to get a sense of how much rain was still falling. The view she got was bleak, a summer isle in winter, bereft of any comfort. Judy put the car in drive, heading into the centre of the island where the hardy few lived all year round.

The Main Street of Brey Island was a collection of clapboard buildings, all weather worn and the majority closed up for the season. Judy drove past the empty windows and shivered, as if they were soulless eyes staring at her passage. Her destination was a single storey house half a mile out the other side.

The rumours that permeated the underground had sent her on a trail that had led across a continent but she knew, finally, that this was the place. Sand drifted against a low picket fence that marked out the boundary of the property. Judy stopped the car and then sat in silence, practicing her deep breathing. She opened the glove compartment and pulled out the automatic she had bought two days before from an unlicensed dealer in Dover. She put the weapon in an inside pocket of her jacket and then stepped out of the car.

Four windmills, pole mounted at each corner of the house, whined as Judy walked up a stone path to the house, as if aware of what she was planning and trying to warn her off. Judy stepped up onto the veranda; the rattle of loose boards matched the tremor of her nerves. She pressed the doorbell and heard an off-key chime somewhere inside. She touched the outline of her gun for comfort. The door opened without warning and he stood in front of her, for the first time in a decade.

“Hello, Daddy,” Judy said, in a voice that was almost lost in the mournful howl of the wind. Gregor Davic was still tall and heavily built, but he wore a beard now that matched the white of the hair on his head. He was looking at her in the peculiar way that people do when they are waiting for their recognition software to report in.

“Judith,” he said, with a smile that barely reached his eyes. “Judith Olsen, Mark Three, I do believe.”

“Yes.”  Judy stood a little straighter, imagining she was back in uniform and ready for inspection.

“It’s been a long time,” Gregor said.

He stepped back, a silent invitation for her to enter. Judy saw his eyes slip past her to scan the area outside as she entered the house. Judy walked into a single, open plan room that encompassed a living area and a kitchen separated only by a waist high serving counter. To her left ran a corridor off which were three rooms, all the doors were closed. Judy walked to the centre of the living room. She looked around, there was little in the way of decoration, Gregor lived here but he hadn’t made it his home.

“How long has it been?” Gregor asked. He went and stood by a stone fireplace.

“Ten years since you deserted us,” Judy said.

Gregor sighed. ‘I didn’t desert you. I made a decision based on my knowledge of events at the time.’

“You deserted us,” Judy said, again. “We were fighting what we thought was a defensive action at Grishino to allow you time to regroup. The next day you were gone.”

“And you surrendered despite direct orders to fight to the last,” Gregor said, accusingly.

“What choice did we have,” Judy felt her heart sinking. This wasn’t going as planned and Gregor was just standing there, watching her with his hawk eyes, waiting for her to nerve to break and he could swoop in for the kill. “You were gone. We knew the war was lost.”

“Well, it’s all in the past now.” Gregor took a poker and prodded the fire. “Or it was.”

Judy said nothing. Gregor continued to stoke the fire until he grew uncomfortable with the silence

“I suppose the amnesty brought you out?” he asked

Judy nodded. “I’ve been in France for the last three years. Before that I was in Germany and Poland.”

“In hiding?” Gregor asked

“Like you.”  The reply made him genuinely smile for the first time

“Aah, yes. Well, as you know, we are not well loved in this world. I’m still surprised by the amnesty.”

Judy shrugged. “The UN made the deal.”

She heard the creak of wood on wood from somewhere in the house, it could have been movement driven by the wind that still gusted outside the house but Judy knew it was someone moving in the house. They were not alone. Gregor saw the awareness in her stance.

“Did they strip the military systems from you?” he asked.

“No.” Judy was listening now, looking at Gregor but focussing her hearing on the building. She could hear the soft tread of bare feet on carpet and turned towards the corridor. A young man appeared. He wore jeans and a grey sweatshirt. He was fit and tanned, his hair dark and his eyes blue. Judy couldn’t see any weapons, but then he wouldn’t need any.

“This is Jonathon Krieg, Mark Nineteen,” Gregor said. “Probably my finest creation; compared to him, Judith, you are an antique.”  He paused, considering, and then asked. “Why didn’t the UN strip you down?”

“I escaped from an internment camp two days after surrendering; they never had a chance to de-militarise me. I went on the run, north through Ukraine. There were sympathisers to help us, and eventually some kind of underground to support us.”  Judy looked at him, wanting him to see her eyes. “I’ve waited all this time to have the chance to track you down and kill you.”

Judy saw Jonathon move out of the corner of her eye. He came at her fast, very fast. She got her hand on the grip of her automatic; she might have even got it clear of the pocket when the younger man hit her first in the ribcage and then across the back of her neck. Pain flared like a supernova from her head to her toes. Judy hit the worn carpet and tasted the sea in the dust and sand that bounced up from the thread. Jonathon kicked the gun from her hand, sending it spinning under a two-seat sofa. Judy’s body was numb, and the light that had filled her mind for a moment had died to a meagre darkness that she now stared from at the two men standing beside her.

“I used to be so proud of you,” Gregor said to Judy. He turned to Jonathon. “Get your dry suit on.”  When Jonathon had left the room Gregor squatted beside Judy and said. “I will not torture you, even though I see this as the ultimate betrayal. The sad part is that I saw Brey Island as the place I would live out my days. Now we’re going to have to move again.”

Judy couldn’t reply, her tongue was a thick lump in her mouth and whatever Jonathon had done left her limbs as useless appendages. There was some life in them; she could feel the first painful tingle, like pins and needles, of returning sensation. Judy relaxed, letting the tissue implants and nerve controllers take over her recovery.

Judy heard Jonathon return. He stepped into view wearing a one-piece dry suit, as if he were heading out for a day’s surfing. The young man easily picked her up, draping Judy over his shoulder and carrying her at Gregor’s direction down to her car. Judy didn’t resist as they put her in the driver’s seat. Her fingertips were throbbing and as Jonathon stepped back out of the car she flexed her hands. Jonathon went around to the passenger side. Gregor leaned in.

“Jonathon will drive you out over the causeway. By now, the tide will be coming up over the road. When your body is found they will think you were swept out to sea. Jonathon will be quite safe. He has swum to the mainland during a rip tide to test himself.’

Judy said nothing; she stared at Gregor as if he were a total stranger. Jonathon was at the passenger door now; when she heard the clunk of the door release Judy hit Gregor in the throat. A short, sharp jab with fingers held as stiff as she could manage. It wasn’t a killing blow but Gregor fell back, eyes wide in shock. Judy reached down between her legs and grasped the second gun she had purchased, a snub nosed revolver that was taped to the underside of the seat. Judy tore it loose as Jonathon wrenched the door open and lunged in. She got her hand clear as Jonathon came at her, thrust the gun between them and fired four shots into his body as he smothered her with his weight.

Judy saw the bullets exit his back, little fountains that filled the car with a cloud of blood. Jonathon hit her twice in the body, but he was too close and too shocked by the bullets to manage anything other than feeble blows. He was whimpering, trying to push away from her on arms that were losing strength, when Judy put her hand under his chin and snapped his head back. She heard the crack of bone and cartilage and then Jonathon was dead beside her. Judy turned to look for Gregor but he wasn’t in sight. She half fell from the car, her legs still not fully functioning.

The front door, when she reached it, was open and swinging in the wind. Judy went into the house with the gun raised in a two handed grip. She swept through the living room and slid onto the parquet tiles of the kitchen floor. Gregor wasn’t there. Judy went back to the corridor and the three rooms. She boosted herself with a flash of adrenalin generated by her wiring and kicked in the first door. The small, white tiled bathroom was empty. Next came Jonathon’s room, a single unmade bed, wardrobe and desk, empty. Judy didn’t stop; she stepped back in time, kicking in doors and hunting the enemy. She crashed into Gregor’s bedroom but knew instinctively that it too was deserted.

Now Judy moved more slowly. She had missed something, she was sure of that now. A glance out of the bedroom window showed a rear yard dominated by marram grass. Outside of the yard was empty space that ran to the foot of a high sand dune. Judy knew that on the other side would be beach and sea. She listened, tuning in again to the house as she had done a few minutes before. The sound of the house as it was buffeted by the wind and the sound of the windmills as they turned. There was another sound as well; a deeper pulse as if the building had a heart.

Judy went back to the living room and then to the kitchen. In an alcove, partly hidden by a freestanding freezer, was another door. Judy nudged it open with her foot. Stone steps led down into a cellar. The sound she heard was more distinct now, a throb that she felt in her chest. She knew it was a power source, a generator of some kind probably fed by the windmills. Judy went down the cellar steps. At first the wall was man made panelling before natural rock took over. Judy could see where laser cutters had melted the rock when the cellar had been dug out.

The stairway took a right-angled turn at the bottom and led to a short tunnel, the low ceiling making Judy stoop as she went on. The tunnel opened out into a single room. Judy paused in the entrance. Gregor hadn’t been able to give up his passion.

The laboratory he built beneath Brey Island shimmered in the blue-white of overhead lights. Judy saw artificial wombs, gene ovens and growth tanks. There were digiscopes, nuclide scanners and DNA filters. Gregor stood beyond all of these, next to a bank of iso-chambers. One of the chambers was open, the drawer pulled out. Gregor had wheeled a pulse generator next to the open chamber. He waited for Judy, beckoning her over.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” he said.

Judy walked over slowly, gun held ready at her side. A young woman lay on the bed of the drawer. She didn’t move her flesh the clear white of an un-generated clone.

“This is Marguerite Olsen, Mark Twelve,” Gregor said. “She is your cousin, or at least she is the cousin of your true born gene-mother.”

Gregor stroked Marguerite’s forehead with a tenderness that Judy recognised. She looked at the iso-chambers. There were a dozen of them with green lights glowing in the half-light of the lab. Twelve clones, all genetically enhanced and waiting for the spark of life.

“I put so much into you,” Gregor said, without looking up. “All of you were my children, my beautiful people, and the world made war upon you.”

“Perhaps it was because by the time the world found out what you were doing there were seven thousand of us living in Crimea.”

“They feared you,” Gregor finally looked up at Judy and his eyes were full of tears, “and their fear turned to anger and then to hate. They made war upon my children, and for that I still aim to make them pay.”

“Is that what this is for?” Judy asked in horror. “Jonathon and Marguerite and all these others are your new weapons?”

Gregor sighed. “I never intended for any of you to be weapons, but just like natural selection the needs for skills dictate the genetic enhancements I concentrate upon.”

“The amnesty ends all the conflict,” Judy said. “You cannot start another war.”

“Why not?” Gregor’s eyes narrowed. “How many of you died in the fighting ten years ago?  How many more died in the internment camps or were ‘neutralised’ in the gene therapy chambers?  How many of you are left to enjoy this amnesty?”

Judy couldn’t answer any of his questions. She felt a weight in her chest that was physical, a sensation of overbearing pressure on her heart. Judy barely had the strength to raise her revolver.

“Daddy,” she whispered, “I’m sorry. I have to do this.”

“Why?” Gregor seemed genuinely puzzled.

“Your betrayal wasn’t just in deserting us during the war. You betrayed us from the start. The rest of the world accused you of being an empire builder, but I realised a long time ago that you were more than that. You gave us life but you also gave us our beliefs. When you energise us our first thought is of you. You have programmed that into us. You aren’t an empire builder, you are a world builder and you see yourself as a god, giving life and receiving worship.”

“And what do you see yourself as,” Gregor asked, “a god killer?”

“I see myself as a bringer of freedom,” Judy said.

Gregor looked straight into her eyes when she shot him in the head, his expression one of sadness. As Gregor fell Judy gripped the drawer that held Marguerite to keep herself from collapsing. Her limbs trembled and tears blurred her vision. She stood like that for a minute or more until she heard the beeping of the pulse generator.

Judy wiped her eyes clear; she couldn’t read the display from the angle she was at. She walked around, avoiding Gregor’s body and the blood pooling around his head. The pulse generator was into its second phase, the stasis liquid that filled Marguerite’s arteries and veins was being replaced in cycles, first by saline and then by oxygenated blood. Judy watched as Marguerite’s flesh changed from white to blue to purple to red and finally a healthier pink.

Judy lifted her gun, she had one round left and Marguerite would never know because she still wasn’t alive. Electrode implants began testing muscle and tissue reactions. Marguerite’s flesh rippled as muscles contracted and relaxed. Judy put the muzzle of the gun to Marguerite’s head. She could fire now and it would not be murder. The bullet would cause major trauma to the brain and the pulse generator would abort its program when it sensed that Marguerite was unable to sustain the final phase.

Judy felt herself beginning to shake again. She couldn’t bring herself to add that final ounce of pressure to the trigger. She had been in Marguerite’s place thirteen years before. They were family, kindred spirits. Judy dropped the gun to the floor.

The generator sounded a final two-tone warning. Judy heard herself sob as Marguerite’s body was rocked by a sudden influx of electro-energy. Terrabytes of data flooded from the machine into Marguerite’s brain, a shockwave of personality, emotions, hopes and fears, belief and skills and knowledge. Gregor had recorded them from the first Marguerite Olsen all those years before in Kristiansund, Norway before re-profiling some of the personality with traits he had designed. Now they were filling a new the body with life, a body that took a sudden ragged breath and then coughed up shreds of pink mucus. Marguerite whimpered like a babe, Judy hugged Marguerite as her cousin’s head thrashed from side to side.

Marguerite’s eyes opened for the first time and then closed in reaction to the light in the laboratory. Marguerite began to pant, as if she had run an Olympic sprint race. Judy stroked the younger woman’s forehead, waiting for her to relax, as if she were a child still caught in a nightmare. Marguerite’s eyes opened again, staring up at the ceiling for a time until she focussed on Judy. For a moment Marguerite lay still, perhaps uncertain of where she was, before she coughed. Judy wiped the mucus away. Marguerite’s breathing slowed; she was in control, alive. Then Marguerite frowned as she explored her memory.

Quietly, she asked, “Where’s Daddy?”

Judy leant close, her eyes filling with tears. “Daddy’s dead,” she whispered. “My name is Judith, and I’m going to be taking care of you from now on.”

The End