Double Helix (23 page)

Kayla interrupted me. “Wait a second, Eli, could you empty out that cardboard box for me, please?” With her foot, she indicated a packing box that held an old monitor. “I want to put the rabbit in it.”

“Good idea.” I pulled the monitor from the box, and Kayla placed Foo-foo inside. The rabbit backed herself up into a corner and deposited a couple of pellets and, in the middle of everything, I was amused. “Sorry, Foo,” I found myself saying. “You'll go home soon, I promise.”

Kayla asked curiously, “Why'd you bring her, anyway?”

I hesitated, then told the truth. “For comfort.” I didn't wait to see Kayla's reaction. I sat down at one of the computers and got busy. After a moment, I heard her do the same.

It wasn't difficult to find what I sought because, apart from programs, the only data on the computer was located in a folder called “AvaSamuels.” Beneath it were lots of files and folders, including a great many that began with the letters KM. For Kayla Matheson, I assumed.

And yes—a click on the first few files told me that they were indeed password-protected and encrypted. It was a wonder, in fact, that there hadn't been a password put on the system as a whole.

“I've found stuff,” I said tersely to Kayla. Her chair collided with the back of mine as she got up, moving to stand behind me, leaning over my shoulder. I could hear her breathing—it had sped up. I started to use a few simple tricks to guess the password and encryption key that would open the first KM file, the one dated twenty years ago. Tension knotted the air around us as each trick failed. “This is not going to work,” I said finally. “And there's too much here for us to read it all now, anyway, even if we did get in.”

“Could you email the data to yourself and then we could try to get into it on your computer?” Kayla asked.

“There's no Internet connection on this machine,” I said. “No way to transfer data out—or in. Standard security provision—foolproof.” I tapped my fingers on the tabletop. “But you're right—if we can make a copy, we can take it with us. He's got to have the means for copying down here somewhere.” I stood up and began prowling through the cabinets. Even a set of diskettes would do.

While I searched, Kayla sat down at my machine and began typing on the keyboard.

“We don't want to monkey around too much with those files,” I cautioned. “If we enter too many wrong passwords, it might activate a booby-trap that would shut the machine down completely so we can't even make a backup.”

“I'm in,” said Kayla calmly.

Now it was my turn to rush up behind the computer. She had the first KM file open.

“My birth date was the password,” she said. “And the encryption key was my name.”

“Oh,” I said. “Good work. But we'll still want to back everything up and take it away. It'll take days to read everything.”

I stopped talking as what I was seeing on the screen in front of Kayla penetrated. It was a shorthand code listing precisely what the DNA structure was for each chromosome. I could only just barely recognize it, only just begin to decode what it meant, but it was clear what it was: I could see, for example, where chromosome one began and ended.

“Good God,” Kayla said. She scrolled the file down, and there was the notation for the second chromosome . . . and the third. Very occasionally, some of the notation was in red, indicating—what? A change? While the black letters were the regular DNA code? And then there were some stretches of black letters with strikethrough. Was that a cut?

Kayla scrolled down further in the file. “Unbelievable. Is this as meaningless to you as it is to me?”

I didn't answer. We had reached chromosome four. The notation for the map of Kayla's chromosome four. For the tip of chromosome four.

C-A-G,
it said.
Repeats: 59
.

“Well?” said Kayla impatiently. “Should we try another file and hope for plain English?”

C-A-G. Repeats: 59
.

I found that I had grabbed the back of Kayla's chair with both hands. I was gripping it with all my strength. My knuckles were white.

I knew now. I understood why Kayla was older than me. Simply, Kayla's egg had not fit my mother's specifications. It had not been negative for HD. And—whatever else Dr. Wyatt may or may not have been able to do twenty years ago—he had not been capable of trimming the C-A-G repeat down to a safe length.

I had been running from the C-A-G repeat all my life. I had just been freed from it, finally and definitely. And yet—I swear—if at that moment I could have switched my chromosome four with Kayla's, I would have. I would have.

“Eli?” Kayla said sharply. “What are you seeing? You can read this, can't you? What does it mean? What do you see?”

I found my voice, and—thank God—it came out strong and definite, a bit regretful. “No, sorry,” I said to my beautiful sister. “I can't read it. It doesn't make any sense to me at all. It's gibberish.”

I thought I would get away with it. Kayla's face was averted. But then she turned so that I couldn't avoid her eyes, and they had that desperate expression again, the one she'd worn in the elevator.

“Don't lie to me, Eli,” she said. “Tell me what you see.”

MAYBE I SHOULD HAVE INSISTED that I wasn't lying. Hundreds of times, I have rethought the decision, the choice, of that instant—an instant that stretched out between Kayla and me until it seemed to fill the childhood we had not had together. An instant that marked the borderline between that nonexistent childhood, and the adulthood that we would indeed share.

If I had continued to lie, it might have made a difference to what happened. Or it might not have. I am still only human. I don't know.

What I did was this. I nodded once, and kept my eyes on hers. Then I said, “Ava Samuels died of Huntington's disease. You know that, right?”

“Yes.” Kayla's face was still expressionless.

I reached out with my finger over Kayla's shoulder. I pointed at the screen.

C-A-G. Repeats: 59
.

“That's the marker for HD,” I said. “On chromosome four.”

“This is Ava's genetic profile?” Kayla said. “I know it's my initials on the file, but it's the first file, so he put her DNA code in here first?”

Another chance to lie, but I didn't take it. I said nothing, trying to find the right words, and then, three seconds—an eternity—later, I heard her indrawn breath, and realized that I didn't have to search for those words any longer.

I hadn't thought there could be a worse moment than the one in which I had recognized the code.

“Oh,” Kayla said. “I see.”

I discovered that I had moved my hands onto her shoulders. I felt them rise and fall, rise and fall. I looked at the screen and I felt that line of code imprint itself on my brain.

When I close my eyes to sleep at night—even when I am holding Viv—I see the code. I will see it all my life.

Kayla spoke again. The only sign of what she'd just learned was in the higher-than-normal timbre of her voice. “Eli, would you please hand me the rabbit?”

I did. I stood there for several minutes, watching the quarter of my sister's face that I could see. Her lashes flickered and fell over her eyes. Her shoulders hunched as she cradled the rabbit.

C-A-G. Repeats: 59
.

“You aren't alone, Kayla,” I said. “You're not going to be alone with this. I'm your brother, okay? I'm your brother. You have to know that. I need you to know that.”

My responsibility. Because I am my father's son. Because I choose, like he did, not to walk away. Because you are more than your genes. Because you are human. Because you are worth it
.

She didn't answer. And after a while, without having made a conscious decision to do so, I got to work. I didn't care anymore about leaving the room undisturbed. I dismantled both computers, removing their hard drives, wrapping them in towels from the apartment, and packing them in the cardboard box, using more towels for protective padding. I found a pile of diskettes and CDs in one of the cabinets, noticed that several of the CDs were backups, labeled with the names of the files we'd just been viewing, and placed those in the box as well.

As I finished packing the boxes, I finally felt Kayla watching me again. She said, “We'll find someone to give it all to.” She was holding Foo-foo with both arms, huddling over her. “They're evidence, the hard drives. Better than copies. Because someone, somewhere, can stop him. This whole place will be of interest to the police, right? It can't be legal, what he's done. There's got to be a law. He's been so secretive . . . it must be illegal.”

Probably—though I wondered if the police would be capable of understanding this, of sorting it all out. FBI, maybe? But I also felt as if it didn't really matter right now. What mattered was getting Kayla out of there. What mattered was getting to my father.

“Come on,” I said. I started to lead Kayla back out. But there, again without planning, I took us into the lab instead. I looked at the walk-in freezer. I reached out and gave the door a tug, just to test it. Yes, it was locked; locked the old-fashioned way, requiring a key.

Then I knew what I was about to do. I was going to destroy everything I could before we left. Too bad if it was evidence. Too bad if it would help to convict Dr. Wyatt of whatever laws he might have broken. And—too bad if here was the key to unimaginable scientific advances.

I was going to destroy it anyway.

“Stand back,” I said tensely to Kayla. “No, farther away. Over by the wall.”

She did as I ordered. I put my left hand flat on the door for balance, put my right hand on the door handle, and jerked the door toward me sharply, twisting it against its hinges.

It sheered neatly off. I turned, carrying the door, and leaned it against the wall.

“How did you know you could do that?” Kayla asked.

I shrugged. I believe the truth was that I could have done it even if I were someone else. Someone ordinary—Larry, say. Or even Viv.

Viv could have done it, too, if she had felt what I felt.

Was this how the superheroes—Batman, Spidey, Swampy—felt ? Was their complete competence fueled by rage? And, beneath the rage, despair?

At that moment, I understood about adulthood. It is not about being in charge of your own life. It is not about being in control. It is about being helpless.

And hating it.

No number of scientists and dreamers like Quincy Wyatt—no amount of DNA tinkering—would ever change that final human helplessness. But they thought they would. And, because of that, they could not be stopped.

Should they be? I didn't know. I only felt. I could only do what was before me to do, right now. I did not know if I was doing right or wrong. Killing or preserving. Loving or hating.

I did not care.

“Come watch,” I said to Kayla. We entered the freezer, and I checked through its contents, which were as carefully labeled as I'd imagined they would be. A meticulous man where it mattered, was Quincy Wyatt. I gathered up all the packages, the ones that belonged to my mother, and the ones that - didn't.

Kayla knew without asking what I was doing. “With the freezer open, won't they all be destroyed anyway as they defrost ?”

“This will be faster,” I said.

I took the samples to the sink and ran hot water over them. Then I unplugged and emptied the refrigerators. Then—simply because I wanted to—I went through the room, smashing everything in my path.

I felt very calm.

Kayla stood in the doorway, held Foo-foo, and watched.

Finally, I picked up the cardboard box containing the computer data. “Now,” I said. “We go home to my dad. He'll know who we ought to give the data to, and who we ought to tell about this place. We'll tell him about the other children. He'll know what to do next. He'll advise us. We're in this together from now on, Kayla. Okay?”

Kayla nodded. She seemed dazed, and I wasn't sure how much she had taken in of what I had just said. The sooner I got her home to my dad, I thought, the better. There was something terrifying about the blankness of her face. About the careful way she was moving, as if she might shatter.

In silence we walked together back down the corridor, and I pressed the button for the elevator. After a minute, it opened smoothly.

And we looked into it at Dr. Wyatt.

DR. WYATT LOOKED BACK OUT at us. Then—incredibly—his face split into a delighted smile.

I felt all my muscles tense, and it took everything I had not to—not to—

“You've seen it all!” he said to me. “Kayla showed you—so, what do you think, Eli? Naughty of you two—I would have liked to give you the tour myself, but that doesn't matter. Now we can really talk. Now you'll understand. I want us to—”

From Kayla burst a sound like nothing I had ever heard in this life. It was a wail—a moan—a shriek. It was one word:

I had a bare instant in which to see the expression of amazement and bewilderment that dawned on Dr. Wyatt's face. Kayla didn't wait for a response from him. Without warning, she suddenly flung the rabbit through the air in my direction. Then—in a single blur of motion—she hurled herself forward into the elevator, straight at Dr. Wyatt.

Just as quickly as Kayla moved, so did I, instinctively. I dropped the cardboard box and dove, catching Foo-foo a mere inch before she would have hit the floor and, very likely, broken her delicate back. Aware that I had already, involuntarily, chosen the rabbit over Dr. Wyatt—and that Kayla had known I would—I yelled back over my shoulder, “Kayla, no! Don't hurt him—it'll solve nothing! We'll turn him in, we'll—”