LINCOLN

 

Norma was still down here, still asking questions. She paced up and down, stopping every moment or so to poke her head in a box and frown.

“Crazy bunch of shit,” she mumbled under her breath. “But I guess that’s why you’re a doctor and I’m not. Never was good at science in school. Hated it.Fucking protons. What good did they do anyone?”

“Norma?”

She looked up, her face pale and drawn.

“You’re rambling again.”

“Sorry,” she sighed and sat on a nearby stool. “I’m just freaking. I’m giving it another five minutes and I’m going out to look for her.”

“I’ll join you.”

She gave me a weak smile as though I’d reassured her enough for the time being but then the look of terror returned to her face. I knew what she was thinking although it was impossible. She was terrified Craig had her already, as though his hands could still snatch her from beyond the realms of death.

“She’ll be okay,” I said, more to myself than to her.

“But she wouldn’t want to worry us like this.”

We both stared at each other. I knew she was right. Something felt strange about this. In all the time we’d been south of the border she hadn’t so much as ventured further than the pool alone. My stomach knotted itself up again.

“Just another five minutes.”

Norma slid off her stool, restless and unable to stay still. She walked along to the end of the room then turned on her heel and strode back, her spindly fingers pulling at her sleeves as darkness fell below her eyes.

“It’s okay, just take a seat and relax,” I said.

She looked at me as though I was crazy and began walking faster and faster until she was now stomping around in circles. Her eyes fell on something as she walked, the largest box in the room. It kept her attention and although she tried to look away from it, her gaze would always dart back to the crate.

I watched her for a moment, watching her circle it like an ancient shaman dancing around a monolithic statue.

“What the hell is in there?” she asked. “It’s enormous.”

“It is,” I said.

“What’s in it?”

I didn’t answer.

She stopped walking and froze in front of it.

“You really do have some weird shit down here. What’s this one got, eh? An old relic or something? Like, an antique or whatever?”

“Not quite,” I said. “It’s, erm, more modern than that.”

She touched her fingertips to the corner of the crate and pushed her ear up to it. No matter how much she tried to guess what was inside, there was no way she could ever truly know just how awe inspiring or terrifying the contents were.

People like her would cry that I was playing God. They would tell me I was a madman but I knew different. I was a visionary and sooner or later they’d have to embrace my designs or simply fade away into the annals of history like dust blowing in the wind.

“Are you going to open it?” asked Norma.

“At some point.”

She walked around it again, dragging her fingers around the side as though caressing an old friend. I didn’t know why she was paying so much attention to my work. She never cared about it before.

To her, my work was this great wealth creating mystery that happened beyond closed doors but now that mystery was in front of her, spilling out of boxes and confronting her with its questions of the future.

“Open it now,” she said. “I wanna see it.”

“Really, it’s, erm, not your thing. It’ll bore you.”

For a second, I was sure I could see her sniff the air around the box to determine its contents but then she took a step back and lit a cigarette.

“It’s weirding me out,” she said. “Who knows what a rich guy like you could keep down here in secret.”

Her eyes swiveled toward me, deep and cunning. She was still trying to figure out who her daughter was involved with. I couldn’t blame her.

“Okay, sure. Let’s open it.”

I pointed to the crowbar at her feet and she kicked it over to me. It felt good between my hands, made me feel as though I was in control again. My body was exhausted and my head felt wired but just the sensation of the steel between my fingers revived me. I swung the bar at the crate and the door splintered off its hinges.

Norma staggered backward to escape the rain of splinters and let out a girlish scream as I smashed the door one last time. It fell to the ground, sending up a cloud of dust as it landed.

At last, Norma could see inside but her look of curiosity was only deepening.

“What in the name of fuck is that?”

I stood by her side and regarded the beautiful display of machinery. I’d designed it myself and to date, it was the most perfect piece of technology I’d created. It was almost a child to me, more than a child perhaps. The original designs for it were drawn in my bedroom when I was fifteen and I’d refined them over the years, spending nights at college scrawling them in the back of textbooks when my friends were partying.

“What do you think it is?” I asked Norma.

She was sucking on her cigarette and frowning deeply until her eyes were nothing but shriveled up slits of blackness.

“Looks like a sun bed,” she said at last. “But like the freakin’ weirdest sun bed I’ve ever seen.”

I gave her a sideways glance. It certainly didn’t look like a goddamn sunbed.

“What do you think it does?”

Her frown hardened even further until I couldn’t see her eyes at all.

“Ain’t got a clue,” she said.

The ash at the end of her cigarette began to droop like a flaccid penis.

“Do you really wanna know?”

She nodded and the ash fell to the floor.

“Tell me.”

I stepped into the box and pulled the packaging down as though I was undressing a goddess. At last, every curve could be seen with each inch of metal catching the light. It was magnificent, beautiful beyond beautiful. Almost as desirable as Etta.

“It makes people,” I said.

“Makes people?”

“From other people.”

“What?”

She dropped her cigarette butt to the ground and stepped on it. I wanted to slap her. No one treated my lab like that but she was Etta’s mother. She had created the most gorgeous creature on Earth and so I smiled and knelt down beside it.

“See this?”

I picked it up and closely regarded the pink lipstick stain around the tip.

“This.”

I pointed the butt toward the box.

“This is all I would need to make a brand new Norma.”

Her mouth opened slightly and she gasped.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean there’s enough DNA on this to make a whole new you. You like the sound of that?”

She rubbed at her face as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about cloning, Norma. I can clone any human being I want.”