Falls the Shadow (10 page)

“Things seem to have gotten a bit out of control for Huxley with this one,” President Cross says, stopping and turning around to follow my gaze. “The cloned daughter of a politician doing something like this? This won't be swept under the rug for a while now—chances are it will be brought up at every press conference and town
hall meeting that your father attends in the foreseeable future.” She gestures toward each of the monitors as she speaks, looking a little too pleased about it all in a way that makes my stomach curl. I feel like I should remind her of the whole
a teenager was just murdered
thing, but she walks on and changes the subject before I can.

“But I didn't bring you here to discuss politics, so—”

“Why
did
you bring me here?”

“A couple of reasons,” she says, holding up two fingers, but not stopping again or even glancing back at me. “One, for your own protection. And two, because there's something I want to show you. We'll say it's an olive branch that I'm extending to you. Take it, and I think we may be able to help each other. Or at least come to some sort of understanding.”

She halts abruptly then, in front of a wide control panel with a complicated-looking mass of buttons and dials and touch screens. Her fingers rest for a moment on one of those touch screens near the bottom, and then a series of holographic command prompts flicker up into the space directly in front of us. Her hands move over the panel, quickly and expertly shifting through password prompts and navigation options until a series of images take shape in the space instead: four identical 3-D humans suspended in the air.

“This is a model I began working on some years ago,” she explains. “And I'm still working on it, to be honest; there is still plenty of research to be done, and there are loose ends to be followed up on, of course—but I'm
confident enough in its accuracy that I don't mind sharing it with you. Hopefully it will help you appreciate exactly what we're dealing with.”

“What is this a model of, exactly?”

“Of the effects of the mutagens introduced into our food and water supplies by the bioagent weapons used during the war. The ones that caused the marks on your mother, and on so many others? What the government doesn't want people to know is that the long-term effects of said mutagens are going to be considerably more serious than just a few recovered people with some rather nasty-looking scars.”

She types in a few more commands, and two of the human figures change from black to a pale, pinkish red color. “The infected,” she says, pointing to them. “The infection the bioagent unleashed targeted the chromosomes containing genes crucial to reproduction, causing mutations in most of the people exposed to them.”

“Which is why the birthrate has gone down,” I say, thinking of that stupid video. “That isn't a secret the government is keeping from anybody.”

“Right, because your parent's generation is still producing a fair amount of healthy children—you and your sister are proof of that. So, no need to be alarmed just yet, right? Your mother may have mutated genes, but they aren't completely defective. Just an unfortunate side effect of war that, if the government's pacifying lies are to be believed, we will overcome. It's a nice sentiment, but . . .”

Two diagonal lines strike out from beneath
the pinkish-colored human models and cross, and two more figures appear at the end of each of the lines. They are a much bolder red; the color of blood, almost. And out beside them is a calculation, a percentage labeled
HEALTHY RATE OF BIRTH
.

Eighty percent.

“See, there was something terrifyingly brilliant about this particular mutagen,” President Cross continues. “The mutation, this syndrome that it caused . . . it's not something that is so easily overcome, no matter the amount of nationalistic propaganda pushing us. It's not a disease we can simply outlast as a population. Because not only is it autosomal-dominant, but its effects get stronger with each generation that it's passed down to. A stuttering—or unstable—allelic trait: that would be the proper scientific term for it, if you care to know. And it is a frightening term to apply to something affecting nearly one-third of the remaining population—especially since even that is a low estimate of the number of people who suffered direct exposure.”

I watch as the diagram continues to unfold in front of me, the diagonal lines darting out and crossing underneath the figures, which grow darker and darker as the calculations on display beside them show smaller and smaller numbers. Generation after generation, all the way down to almost zero percent.

Funny, Huxley never mentioned this in any of their videos.

“A crippling, drawn-out depopulation: assurance that
this country never rises from the ashes of its defeat,” President Cross says, as though I really needed the explanation.

I can feel her eyes on me now, but I'm too horrified by the last of the humans on the screen to say anything right away. My hand lifts on its own and traces through the air, circling that ominous number out beside them.

“How do you know all of this?” I ask quietly.

“Because Huxley was hired by the government to research the long-term effects of all this—and I was one of the head scientists involved in that project.”

That snaps my attention back to her. “You worked for Huxley?”

“What seems a very long time ago now, yes. I did. And so did Dr. Voss; he was a little more sound of mind back then, and we were partners.” I must still look skeptical, because she adds, “They were a very different organization when I signed on with them twenty years ago. For decades before that, they had been a highly respected research facility, and it was a lot of people's dream to work for them—including mine. And I had the credentials, of course, but I was still shocked when they actually offered me a position. I suppose I made a good impression on Huxley himself in my interview; I ended up reporting directly to him. The two of us became rather close.” She pauses and glances around the room, her focus eventually falling on a few of the people filing robotically past us. Her mouth slips into an almost-smirk. “He's taken my whole operation here rather personally, as you might imagine,” she adds with a grim laugh. She looks like she's
considering saying more on the subject but instead waves a dismissive hand.

“Anyway, much of my work at Huxley was centered around finding ways to increase human longevity, through both gene manipulation and the study and prevention of deadly and infectious diseases. So, when the government was faced with a sickened population after the war, my former employer was the group they turned to for help. We were tasked with trying to find a cure, a way to undo the damage—and we only had so much time to do it, with the threat of every generation becoming sicker than the last hanging over us. Damaged DNA is very difficult to repair, though. Not to mention it was dangerous, working on actual humans without having time to run trials first; so some of the scientists in our group started teaming with members of Huxley's controversial cloning division, growing test specimens and modifying and manipulating their DNA instead, in search of the answers they couldn't find. At some point the focus shifted entirely to those specimens, and then to fully developed clones that were starting to turn out stronger and healthier than even the healthiest natural humans.

“Some of the scientists started to talk about using the clones to supplement the population, to mix them in and gradually grow it back stronger than before. Then talk of
supplementing
turned to plans for more or less
replacing
; the idea being, I suppose, that sometimes it's easier to just start over than it is to try to fix what's broken. If you ask me, I think the cloning division had been waiting for this all along—for an
excuse to unleash their creations, to test them out in the world outside the labs. And as soon as I realized that . . . well, that is when we reached a parting of ways, I'm afraid. I left. Voss and a few others came with me, and we've been fighting Huxley ever since.”

“But what about what they were trying to do? What about the future?”

“We had very different visions for it, I'm afraid. And still do. However grim things look, I still don't think the answer lies in erasing the human element so completely as Huxley wants to. In the beginning, I think their intentions may have been pure enough—mine certainly were—but then, most of the things that are bad in this world started off as someone's idea of good, didn't they? I don't think their goal now has anything to do with securing our country's future. Securing their
own
future, maybe, but . . .”

She goes back to the computer panel, and I watch as the diagram fades away and a series of folders take its place. She taps the center touch pad a few times, and some of those folders open, spilling pictures and words into the air. After a few seconds, they arrange themselves into profiles, and then there are a half-dozen young, smiling faces looking back at me. And stamped across each of their pictures is the same word:
DECEASED
.

“This is a small selection of origins known to have died or disappeared under strange circumstances—circumstances we can link back to Huxley agents.”

“What do you mean that you can ‘link back' to Huxley agents?” I want to laugh at the impossibility of everything she's saying. But there's
a heaviness on my chest that's making it hard to breathe, and it takes me a moment to even ask the rest of my question. “You think Huxley is going around killing off all the origins?”

“Not all of them, no. Just as many as they can get away with for now. We believe they're creating a presence, a small army of clones among the general population—because they know it won't take many for them to overpower the normal humans, especially when they already have fear working in their favor. It's only a matter of time before they have everything in place and they've gained enough power and control to start carrying out their plans.”

“Which are what, precisely?”

“I told you. President Huxley has no faith in humankind, in its ability to survive, to keep evolving into a race that will make the most of this planet's future; he sees only the flaws in people, and only the need for someone to
fix
them. And more important, he has convinced himself that he is the one destined to do the mending.”

“By replacing the human population with his own manufactured, perfected clones.” I still can't keep the incredulity from my voice, even though I know now that she has a reliable source for at least some of what she's telling me; what else does she know about President Huxley, I wonder? It's still weird to picture them in the same room, having any sort of civil conversation about all of this stuff—or about anything else, for that matter.

She nods, her gaze drifting back to the diagram. “That's what we believe their plan is, yes.”

“But that could never happen.”

“It's happening right now.”

“The government—”

She laughs again. “Has been in Huxley's hand from practically the beginning,” she finishes for me. “Think about it, Catelyn: our losses in the war were humiliating. Our future was uncertain. People were scared and desperate for quick answers. So all it took was a group of Huxley's most brilliant, most persuasive scientists to corrupt the right government officials into believing that cloning was the solution already at hand—that with the right funding they could even develop more streamlined, efficient cloning methods that would allow them to make quick copies of those officials themselves. They promised them immortality. Supremacy over death. Is there anything more tempting than that?”

“But it's not supremacy over death at all if they have to
kill
the origins, is it?”

“Well they don't pitch it that way, do they? The body is just a throwaway instrument to them, one that can be molded, altered, replaced—whatever is needed to ensure that the mind lives on indefinitely. And they're smart enough to have convinced others that this is the most important part; that actual
life
exists solely in thoughts, in memories, and that they can transfer these things to a new body—a physically superior body—over and over again, and thus the person being transferred never has to actually die.”

Just like my sister never actually died?

It seems like I should be nothing except horrified by everything she's saying, but I mostly feel only a numbing confusion, a strange buzzing in my brain as it tries to make sense of all this. Can everything she's saying be true? And if it is, then whose side am I supposed to be on? The CCA has always been the enemy. And Huxley . . . Huxley is the reason I still have a sister. It feels almost like a betrayal to her, to start thinking that everything they've done is all wrong. Because what does that make her, then?

The thought makes my knees feel weak.

“It's such a tantalizing possibility, at least on paper,” President Cross is saying, “so of course most didn't want to listen to scientists like me. Scientists who tried warning them what a slippery slope cloning and genetic manipulation and such was, even though it had its benefits. And who tried to warn them that there would be a cost. Because there is always a cost.” She lifts her eyes back to the projected faces and sighs. “And they're too far gone to listen to me at this point. To most of the higher-ups, the officials with any power to put a stop to all of this,
we're
the crazy ones now.”

I follow her gaze, and suddenly my head is spinning, cold sweat shivering up and sliding down the back of my neck. There's no way she can be right.

This is too much. It's too huge, too crazy even to think about. I don't want to think about what her accusations might mean, about the impossible future scenarios she's painting.