Perfect People (56 page)

As they boarded it, feeling as if they were in some surreal dream, Naomi and John exchanged glances but said nothing. They were beyond surprise at this moment, just running on adrenaline. They had come too far to question or challenge anything any more. They were running on hope.

They took two seats and their escorts sat in the two opposite them. The doors hissed shut, and moments later the carriage began to accelerate silently and without vibration, into a dark tunnel.

After two minutes they emerged into a station that was identical to the one they had just come from. The doors opened and they followed their escorts out and into another elevator. It seemed a long ride up. John’s stomach dropped. Then, moments later, the floor pressed up against his feet, and before he was fully aware of it, they had stopped.

The doors opened onto a wide, handsome corridor that had a corporate feel, as if it might be the head offices of a bank or of some major global company.

Naomi shot John a quick glance.
What is this place?

And he shrugged back,
I have no more idea than you.
Then he took another look at his cellphone display. Still no signal.

Now they were being led along the corridor. Past closed, windowless doors. At the far end, the stewardess opened a door and led them into an ante-room. Another exquisitely beautiful woman, also in her early twenties, at most, with short brown hair and a deadpan expression, sat at a desk. She, too, was wearing a white jumpsuit.

‘Dr and Mrs Klaesson,’ announced the stewardess.

In contrast to their escorts, she gave them a pleasant smile, stood up, walked across to grand, double doors and opened them. Then, in a clipped Boston accent she said, ‘Will you please go through,’ and stepped aside for them to pass.

John let Naomi go first and followed her into a large office, with a white carpet and striking modern furniture, the centrepiece of which was an oval, slate-grey desk. And from behind which a figure was rising.

A tall, lean, tanned man, dressed also in dazzling white, with dark, luxuriant hair swept immaculately back and tinged with elegant grey streaks at the temples. Stepping around the side of his desk, he strode across the room, arm outstretched, to greet them. He did not look a day older since they had last seen him four years ago. If anything, he looked younger.

‘Hi, John! Hi, Naomi!’ he said in his warm, assertive Southern Californian accent.

Naomi took a step back as if she had seen a ghost. Then both of them stared at the doctor in stunned silence.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ John said. ‘Do you want to explain to us?’

Beaming at them and ignoring the question, Leo Dettore shook each of their hands, saying, ‘So great to see you guys again!’ He beckoned them to a seating area around a coffee table. But John and Naomi stood still. Behind the geneticist, a wall-to-floor window the width of the room looked out across the campus of buildings, and over to the mountains beyond.

‘You died,’ Naomi blurted. ‘You died – it was on television, in the papers, you—’

‘Please, sit down; you must be shattered. Let me get you something to drink. Water? Coffee?’

‘I don’t want a drink,’ Naomi said, emboldened now. ‘I want to see my children.’

‘Let me have a chance to explain and then—’

‘I WANT TO SEE MY CHILDREN!’ Naomi shouted, close to hysterics.

‘Where the hell are we?’ John said. ‘Just tell us where the hell we are?’

‘That’s not important,’ Dr Dettore said.

‘WHAT?’ Naomi exploded.

‘Not important? We’ve been travelling for twenty-four hours, and it’s not important?’ John marched up to him and raised his fist threateningly. ‘We want our children. We want Luke and Phoebe. If you’ve harmed them in any way, I’ll kill you, I swear it, you bastard, I’ll tear you apart!’

Dettore raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘John, I’ll take you to see them right now. They are safe here. OK?’

‘Yes,
right now
.’

Unperturbed, Dettore said, ‘Do you think I went to all this trouble to bring you here if I wasn’t going to let you see them?’

‘We have no idea what’s in your sick mind,’ John said. ‘If you’re capable of faking your death then what the hell else are you capable of?’

‘WHERE ARE OUR CHILDREN?’ Naomi yelled.

Dettore waited a moment before replying. Then, calmly, he said, ‘Your children came here in order to be safe. Having them here was the only way I could guarantee their safety. You both know that crazy religious sect was on a mission to kill all the children who had been through my programme. There wasn’t an option. But you need to understand that I brought you here because, as Luke and Phoebe’s parents, you have an absolute right to see your children, and to take them home with you – if they want to go with you.’

‘
If
they want to go with us? What do you mean by that?’ demanded John. ‘You’ve kidnapped them – and God knows what your agenda is.
If
they want to go home with us? What kind of arrogance is that? We’re their damned parents!’

Dettore walked back to his desk and picked up a thick document. ‘Did you never read properly the contract you signed on board the
Serendipity Rose
– either of you?’

John felt a sudden sick, empty sensation deep inside him.

Dettore handed it to him. ‘It has both your signatures on it, and you have initialled every page.’

There was a moment of silence. Then Dr Dettore went on, ‘Just so that you both understand, Luke and Phoebe were taken into safe custody at their own request. You may of course see them, and spend as much time with them as you like. But I think in your own interests you should first take a look at clause twenty-six, paragraph nine, subsection four of this agreement. You will find it on page thirty-seven.’

John laid the document on the table, and turned to page thirty-seven. He and Naomi both read down, found paragraph nine, which was in tiny print, then subsection four, which was microscopic. It read:

Birth parents agree at a time in the future to be determined by the child or children to cede all rights to parental responsibility, should the children so expressly wish, to Dr Dettore, and Dr Dettore shall have the absolute right to adopt said children. In any dispute the wish of the children shall be final and absolute.

She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘This can’t be legal. It cannot be binding. They’re three years old! How can a three-year-old have the right to decide its parents? This is rubbish! There isn’t a court in the world where this would stand up.’

‘Let me make something very clear to you guys,’ Dettore said, sitting down opposite them. ‘I didn’t go to the trouble of bringing you here in order to show you a clause in a contract you signed four years ago. I want you to understand that your children have not been coerced or abducted or kidnapped, but are here by legal right, that’s all.’

‘Legal right—’

He raised a hand to silence Naomi in mid-sentence. ‘Hear me out,’ he said. ‘I want to make something important very clear to you. If you want to take your children home, I’m not going to stop you. They’re your kids. I don’t care what agreement we have between us – I’m not a monster, regardless of what the press may have called me over the years. If you insist on taking them home with you, not only are you free to do so, but you’ll have my private aircraft at your disposal. Is that clear?’

‘Presumably there’s a
but
?’ John said.

‘No, there isn’t.’

‘Nothing about this makes any sense,’ Naomi said. ‘We’ve been living a nightmare since Friday morning.’

Dettore looked at her for some moments before replying. ‘Only since
Friday
, Naomi? Are you sure it’s only since then?’

She stared, bleakly, back at him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘I think you understand.’

They travelled two stops on the monorail.

‘What is this place?’ John asked Dettore. ‘Is it some kind of government research campus? And this tube train thing? You don’t exactly seem to have traffic congestion above ground.’

‘I’ll explain it all later on,’ he replied.

They stepped onto a platform, then walked over to an elevator. A boy and a girl, who looked to be in their late teens, both tall and beautiful, dressed in dark blue jumpsuits, exited.

‘Good morning, Brandon, morning, Courtney.’

‘Good morning, Dr Dettore,’ each of them said warmly, as if they were greeting a good friend. They spoke in American accents, like everyone else here, so far.

‘I have Parent People visiting today,’ Dettore said, smiling at John and Naomi.

‘Welcome, Parent People!’ Brandon said,

‘We hope you have a great visit, Parent People!’ Courtney said.

In the elevator, Naomi quizzed Dettore. ‘
Parent People?
’

‘Folks like you and John,’ he replied.

The doors opened and they followed Dettore out into a wide corridor with a dark grey carpet and pale grey paint. Along one wall were glass observation windows, and along the opposite one were flat-screen televisions, the displays of which changed every few seconds with differing mathematical formulae.

Several children walked past them, their ages ranging from around three, he guessed, to their late teens. They were all in pairs, always a boy and a girl, all dressed in jumpsuits and plimsolls. All beautiful-looking. All were chatting animatedly to each other as they walked, each of them greeting Dr Dettore cheerily, and it was clear he knew all their names.

Naomi looked at each of them in turn as they came into the corridor, her heart jumping every time in the desperate hope that it would be Luke and Phoebe. She wondered, darkly, whether the appearance of these children had been stage-managed by Dettore and they had been ordered to look cheery. But despite her anger at the man, she could not convince herself of this. They all looked natural, healthy and happy. It was a strange sensation; there seemed no tension between any of the children, no ragging, no teasing. A surreal harmony.

Dettore stopped by an observation window. Naomi and John joined him and found themselves looking down at a basketball game. Kids playing energetically, a hard but good-natured game.

They moved on, past another window that looked down into a huge indoor swimming-pool complex. In one pool, teenage kids were swimming lengths. In another, they were practising diving. In a third, a game of water polo was in progress.

Then a hundred yards or so on, at the next window, Naomi shot out her hand and gripped John’s.

It was a classroom. Twenty children sat in pairs at double desks, each with their own computer workstation in front of them.

In the third row, seated together, were Luke and Phoebe.

Naomi felt her heart heave, and tears welled in her eyes. They were here! They were alive! Sitting, looking so beautiful in their white jumpsuits, their hair neat, their faces scrubbed, typing, their tiny faces scrunched in concentration one moment, then looking up at their teacher in anticipation the next.

The teacher, a handsome man in his thirties, was on a raised dais, just like any school teacher, but instead of a white board he had a huge electronic screen, on which was a complex-looking algorithm. As they watched, he tapped the screen with a long pointer and the algorithm changed.

Luke raised his hand.

He was asking a question!

Naomi watched, feeling a thrill she just could not explain, and sensed John was experiencing the same.

The teacher said something and the whole class erupted into good-natured laughter, led by Luke. The teacher nodded, turned to the screen. And, to Naomi’s astonishment,
made an adjustment to the algorithm with his pointer.

‘You’ve got smart kids,’ Dettore said. ‘We have a lot of very bright kids here, and Luke and Phoebe are right up there towards the top of the scale.’

‘Can we please go down to the classroom, I want to see them
now
,’ Naomi said.

Dettore looked at his watch. ‘Coming up to break, just a couple of minutes.’

He led them on down the corridor.

‘What is this place?’ John asked again. ‘Who are all these kids? What are you doing here with them, Dr Dettore?’

Without answering, Dettore led them down a flight of stairs and they came out into a huge, bustling, open-plan self-service dining area. Again it was filled with kids all sitting in pairs, beautiful, friendly little people, chatting away.

They followed Dettore out again, along a corridor similar to the one upstairs, then they stopped outside a door. ‘Grade Two classroom,’ he said to John and Naomi.

Moments later the door opened. A boy and a girl walked out, then another, turning right towards the cafeteria, followed a moment later by Luke and Phoebe, all smiles, sharing a joke.

Then they saw their parents and stopped in their tracks.