Deadly Design (9780698173613) (6 page)

A
fter dinner and an awkward hour of watching television with my parents, I head downstairs, not to play video games, but to get online. I have a feeling that as soon as I left the living room, Mom and Dad jumped online too. I wonder if they're looking at Alexis Warren's Facebook page. Probably not. Neither of them use Facebook, so I doubt they'd think of that.

She's beautiful. Her page is blocked, so all I can see is the photo on her cover page. It's eerie as hell. Blond hair, blue eyes, a soccer uniform, and a lean, toned body with one foot balanced on a soccer ball. She's perfect, the female version of Connor. Connor was perfect, physically and mentally. While Emma is gorgeous, Alexis Warren was . . . goddess-like. Put her in a swimsuit and stick her on the cover of
Sports Illustrated,
and she would look right at home amongst the supermodels. But I bet the other models didn't take trigonometry in high school, and I bet Alexis did. I bet she was a straight-A student.

I search Bishop Carroll High School and find a link to the school paper, and there she is. She's on the front page, standing at the podium, giving the graduation speech. The article says that she'd have attended the University of Kansas, where she had received both academic and athletic scholarships. An active member of the choir and drama club, she recently starred in her school's production of
Godspell.

I do a search for Genesis Innovations Fertility Clinic, and three different ones come up. One is in Wichita. There is another in Arizona and yet another one in Anchorage, Alaska. When I click on the Wichita clinic, I get a homepage showing a mother and father cozying up on the sofa with their precious infant cradled in the mother's arms and the dad smiling adoringly. I almost expect them to be high-fiving each other. After all, they did it! They created life! With the help of “a highly qualified staff.”

There are tabs along the left side for potential parents wanting information on financing and insurance, lab services, treatment options, and the ever-important testimonials. I click on staff and see a photograph of two doctors: Dr. Hodges and Dr. Preston. No Dr. Mueller.

I click on treatment options, then services. It talks about in vitro fertilization and intrauterine insemination, but there's nothing about genetic manipulations. There's no section on tweaking genes, on removing sequences for things like cystic fibrosis, or in my and Connor's case, spinal muscular atrophy.

I start another search:
genetic manipulations.
Lots of university sites pop up boasting research being done in various areas.

And there's a blog.

The partial quote starts off, “Are you genetically engineered? I was, and I'm looking . . .” I click on the post. A photo pops up next to the title: Superior Beings Unite! The guy can't be more then seventeen or eighteen. He's got dark brown hair and blue eyes. What's up with the blue eyes? And they aren't merely blue. They're bright and deep, like the waters off some pristine beach.

His eyes are just like mine.

“My name is Triagon Summers,” he says.

If I were a girl or gay, I'd be instantly smitten. I'd be sending him a friend request on Facebook and moving quickly from acquaintance to stalker. I can't help but wonder if his name is made up, a way to keep the would-be Triagon worshippers from finding his high school and setting up surveillance across from his locker.

“I wasn't created like most people. I was created in a lab in Wichita, Kansas, and I'm searching for others who might have been created there too. I'm great at sports, but I don't particularly like them.”

I stop reading for a second. Triagon doesn't like sports. He could be a superstar at them, like Connor and Alexis, but chose not to play. I wonder what Connor's life would have been like if he'd chosen not to play. He told me the night before he died that after the game where he couldn't miss, he wanted to quit. It was too much pressure, and he was just a little kid. But Dad was so proud and excited. Hell, the whole town was. He felt like he didn't have a choice. When you're so good at something and people have such high expectations, you can't let them down. I wish Connor hadn't cared so much about other people and their expectations. I wish he'd spent his eighteen years doing whatever the hell
he
wanted. I keep reading.

“I love chess and foreign languages and playing Brahms concertos on the piano. I'm not trying to brag or anything. The truth is, I'm not normal, and it kind of freaks me out. Were you created in a lab? You might not know. My parents didn't tell me. Not until I wore them down with questions about why my brothers have hemophilia and I don't, and why I have blue eyes when no one else does, and why I can sing and play music when both my parents are tone-deaf. When I started searching for my birth parents, they cracked, finally telling me that while I am theirs biologically, I wasn't conceived the typical way.

“A Dr. Mueller from Genesis Innovations had contacted them. He told them he could give them a healthy child, and he did. But I know there's more to it. I'm more than healthy. Please let me know if you relate to any of this. Maybe you have some super skill. Maybe you're exceptionally good-looking. (If you're female and this applies to you, then please, please, get in touch with me!) But seriously, it's kind of lonely being so . . . superior. I'm not sure how else to say it. Normal would be nice.”

I look back at his picture again, then open another tab and Facebook him. His profile picture shows him seated at the piano. It wasn't taken onstage, but in a living room, and he's hamming it up for the camera. His mouth and eyes are wide open and while his two hands are poised over the keys, so is one foot. He looks like a goofball. He looks like someone I'd love to meet. He lives in Nebraska, if his page is accurate. Went to Lincoln High School and will be attending Eastman Conservatory on a full music scholarship in the fall. Wow. I send him a friend request, then Google his name.

I bet anything that Triagon Summers was the valedictorian of his graduating class. His name pops up, and there it is—he's dead.

He died April 12 of heart failure. His father found him slumped over the piano. He was rushed to the hospital but never revived. He died on his eighteenth birthday.

Part of me wants to run upstairs and tell Mom and Dad—a big part of me, because they're supposed to fix things. They're supposed to be able to make everything all right. But I don't want to tell them, not yet. Not until I know more. To be honest, I don't think my legs would carry me up the stairs anyway.

I go back to Triagon's blog and check for any responders. There's one from “Anonymous,” requesting that any genetically modified “babes” be passed on to him after Triagon is done with them. There's one from Holly Stephenson sympathizing with his feelings of isolation and saying that while she isn't “superior in the looks department,” she has a “superior personality” and would love to get to know him better.

James M. writes, “Couldn't believe it when I read this. I'll send you a friend request on Facebook. Accept it. We need to talk.” It's dated April 13. Triagon never accepted his friend request, but James M. must know that, because there's another response on April 15. It simply says, “RIP.”

James M. Why couldn't James M. put his whole name? Hell, what if
he's
dead too? It can't be a coincidence that three babies all conceived at Genesis Innovations have died. How many of us are there, anyway?

But it's got to be a coincidence.

There could be Genesis babies all over the place, celebrating their nineteenth and twentieth and twenty-first birthdays.

I go back to the blog.

“James, my name is Kyle McAdams.
We
need to talk. You already know about Triagon, but there are others.”

I stare at the screen, at the words I've just typed. Then I slump back in my chair and run my hand beneath my T-shirt. I press it against my chest, against my ribs. I want to feel my heart beating. And I want to make sure it doesn't stop.

“D
id you drop your application off?” Cami asks, coming toward me in her orange Sak & Save shirt. She looks good in orange, especially with the noon sun shining down on her. The summer is drawing out the freckles on her face, and they go well with the earthy tones of her hair and eyes.

“I haven't filled it out yet,” I say, leaning against the front of the Jeep.

Her eyes narrow. “Why? I thought you had to get a summer job. School's been out for a week. There aren't going to be any openings left if you don't get your application turned in.”

“I don't think I want a summer job.”

She looks at me like she knows something's wrong. Shit, this was a bad idea. I wanted to call Emma, to have her go with me, but Emma's been through so much, and the last thing she needs is to hear what I have to say. I could go alone, but the truth is, I don't want to.

“Kyle, what is it? Are you okay? Why did you want to know what time I got off?”

“You probably have to go watch your brother, don't you?”

“Actually he's at his grandparents' for the next few weeks.”

I nod a couple of times and watch some sorry-ass boy in an orange shirt trying to push a cart with a gummed-up wheel across the pavement.

“Spit it out,” Cami says.

“I need to go somewhere, and I'm kind of nervous, so I thought maybe you could go with me.” I rush the words and wait for her to come up with some excuse why she can't.

“Sure.” Cami starts toward the passenger side of the Jeep.

“Don't you want to know where we're going?” I ask. We both get into the Jeep.

“If you want to tell me.” Her hand lands briefly against my arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I say, honestly. “And no,” I say, honestly again. “A girl died yesterday. She was the same age as Connor, and she was conceived at the same fertility clinic. She was fine one minute, dead the next. Heart attack. And there's another one. A kid in Nebraska. Same thing, same age, same clinic. That's three people, all dead, all conceived where Connor and I were.”

Cami stares out over the dashboard for several seconds, processing what I've told her and trying to think of something to say. Finally, she looks at me. Her brown eyes don't look brown anymore. They look black, and I'm not sure if it's the absence of direct sunlight in the Jeep or something else, something like determination or fear. “So where are we going?”

I start the engine and decide that it's determination. “We're going where it all started.”

• • •

“Shit.” I start to duck down when I see my dad stepping out the front doors of the Genesis Innovations Fertility Clinic. That's really dumb, because there's no way he won't recognize the Jeep. But he barely looks up. His eyes are fixed on the pavement as he walks toward his truck. He's not carrying anything. If he asked for a photocopy of the files, they didn't give him one.

We wait for him to leave, but for the longest time, he just sits in his pickup. He hasn't even turned on the engine, which is crazy because it's June, and the temperature is already in the 90s. With the doors and windows shut, he has to be cooking without the air on. Finally, he starts the truck, and with a hauntingly blank look on his face, pulls out of the parking lot.

It's Wednesday, and the place is pretty dead. There's a middle-aged couple sitting in the waiting room. They're both, as my mom would say, on the fluffy side; the angles of their bodies are all round, except for the crisp shoulders on the man's blue suit. His hair is mostly gray, but hers is only gray where it's parted down the middle.

“I don't know if I can do this,” he says, leaning close to her.

“I'll help you. You don't have to do it by yourself. Not that I'm sure you haven't done it a thousand times by yourself. That's probably part of the problem.”

“Shhh,” he hushes her.

Cami and I glance at each other. They look like somebody's grandparents.

The receptionist scoots her chair closer to the window. “I think you want Planned Parenthood,” she says. “This is a place for people trying to get pregnant, not for ones who think they already are.”

Cami and I immediately take a step away from each other. “No,” I say. “It's not like that. I was . . . my brother and I, we . . . That was my dad who just left.”

The expression on her face changes immediately. “You're Kyle?” she asks.

I nod.

“And she's . . .” The woman looks at Cami.

“A friend,” I say.

“Your friend can have a seat. Why don't you come around, and I'll get Dr. Preston for you.”

Cami gives me an encouraging smile. A heavy wood door opens up to my left, and I step through it.

“Just wait here,” the receptionist says. “I don't think he's gone in with his next patient yet.”

There is a water dispenser in the wide hallway, and I take one of the cone-shaped cups and fill it. I down the chilled water, then smash the cup in my hand and toss it in the trash. There is a long, narrow table pushed against the wall. On it are pamphlets describing different procedures. I pick one up and open it to a picture of a couple holding their newborn. The mother is still in her hospital bed, and there's a large bouquet of flowers on the nightstand and a balloon announcing
IT'S A GIRL!

I have to wonder if they wanted a girl. Our biology teacher said that parents can now choose the gender of their child if they have enough money. Doctors just isolate a sperm carrying the right chromosome for the desired sex and inject it into the egg. They squash its tail first. They do that so that the sperm doesn't swim around all crazy in the egg and destroy all the genetic information. By the time most sperm reach the egg, they're a little worn out from the race, but not these guys. They get sent right to the finish line, if, that is, they're carrying the right chromosome to determine the right sex. X for a girl and Y for a boy.

“Hi.” The doctor is tall with broad shoulders and thick hair that's mostly black on top but gray around his sideburns. His hand is extended as he approaches in his white lab coat. “I'm Dr. Preston. I believe I just spoke with your father, Mr. McAdams?”

I nod and give his hand a firm squeeze.

“I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you the same thing I told him. There's not much help I can give you, other than to direct you to Dr. Hodges. He's the only doctor I've ever worked with here, and he didn't start until after you and your brother were conceived. He retired about six months ago. I took down your family's information and phone number. I told your father I'd pass the information on to Dr. Hodges and have him contact you.”

The man has a slight scar above his lip, probably left over from a surgery to fix a cleft pallet. I was born perfect. No cleft pallet, no clubfoot, but then, I've probably got less than two years to live.

Dr. Preston turns away from me, and I grab his arm. “That's it? Did my dad explain the situation to you? Three of the people conceived in this lab are dead. They were all only eighteen. Can you explain that?”

Dr. Preston smiles and leads me farther down the hall, away from the waiting room.

“How many other kids were conceived here? How many are about to turn eighteen? How many have already died?”

He lifts a hand. “Your father told me everything. But there's nothing I can tell you. I wasn't around back then. Dr. Hodges barely was. He started working around the time . . .”

“What? Around the time what?”

“Look, I haven't been here that long. You really need to speak with Dr. Hodges.”

“Where does he live?”

Dr. Preston lifts his hands, signifying his inability or unwillingness to help. “I can't give you that information. But I promise, I'll call him and pass everything along to him. He'll get back with you and tell you whatever he can.”

“Call him now. Ask if we can meet today. I've got some free time. I suppose if I don't talk to Dr. Hodges, I could maybe . . . talk to the press. I'm sure they'd be interested in knowing how many people from this place have died. It is interesting, isn't it? Even if you weren't employed here at the time, I can't imagine a scandal would be very good for your career. Especially if there are lawsuits involved. Lots of lawsuits.”

Dr. Preston has that look adults get when they don't want to give in. But I'm not asking to stay out late on Friday night. This is about my life and the lives of others.

“Fine. Just . . . wait here.”

I watch him disappear down the corridor. With each step he takes away from me, I feel my lungs constricting. I bend forward, doing the whole head-between-the-knees thing, and try to take in a few deep breaths. When I stand up straight again, I'm dizzy.

I lean back against the wall, take deeper breaths, and notice a sign posted next to a door.
LABORATORY ONE.
I can't help myself. I was created somewhere in this building, stored for almost two years. I can't imagine any normal person wanting to see the scene of the crime, the place where they were conceived. I can't imagine a single person who would look nostalgically at their parents' mattress, amazed that this is where it all began. But I'm not normal. I wasn't created by nature. I was created by science. Not by some Dr. Frankenstein, sewing together corpse parts and zapping them with electricity, but I was created all the same.

Laboratory One is nothing like Frankenstein's castle laboratory. There are bright fluorescent lights and straight lines connected to more straight lines. There are machines, microscopes like nothing I've ever seen in biology or chemistry. I open a cabinet to see instruments sealed in plastic: petri dishes and metal tools, boxes of gloves and boxes of vials. Syringes and beakers. There are machines on the smooth, sanitized counters, with various sizes of holes in which to place varying sizes of vials. I don't know how it's all done, but in a weird way these tools are like my parents, or at least like my pre-conception nannies.

Dr. Preston opens the door, and, though I think he means to rip me a new one for being in here, he knows that I'm not messing around. I'm not touching anything. I wouldn't do that. I know how important this place is, how important this room is.

“Here.” He hands me an address written on paper torn from a prescription pad. “You might give your father a call. I'm sure he'll want to meet you there.”

I know the area. Wichita's only fifteen minutes from Rose Hill, and when we were kids, Mom and Dad used to take us to the ritzy areas of town to drive by old mansions decked out in Christmas lights that blinked to synchronized music.

“Science is an amazing thing,” Dr. Preston says. “If it created a problem, it can fix it.”

We watched a documentary in my science class about the nuclear accident at Chernobyl. The film showed the town where families of the nuclear plant workers lived. The place was completely deserted: apartments and businesses. They'd just built an amusement park, and the scene I remember the most was a shot of the Ferris wheel. The seats were hanging, suspended in the air against a blue sky. A radiation-filled wind rocked the rusted metal seats back and forth, like some ghost boy was throwing his weight around, trying to get his ghost girlfriend to cling to him. But no one was sitting in the cold metal seats. No one can live there now. The earth's population is growing like crazy, and places are getting x'ed off the map because science can't always tame the monsters it creates.