Deadly Design (9780698173613) (20 page)

E
mma was asleep when I left her. Between the alcohol and the crying, she was exhausted. I'm exhausted, but I don't want to go home. Not yet.

The front porch light is on, and a strip of light shines from a gap in the living room curtains. I knock on the door, and Cami's there almost instantly. I know I must smell like Emma's perfume, but if Cami can smell it, she doesn't seem to care. She pulls me inside, and we wrap our arms around each other.

Cami leads me into the living room and directs my eyes toward the sofa, where Josh is sound asleep in his Spider-Man pajamas, a plastic bowl by his side. “He finally stopped throwing up about an hour ago. Poor little guy. He's exhausted.” She's covered him with a blanket. A penguin-shaped pillow supports his head.

Cami's wearing an oversized nightshirt. Her feet are bare. Her hair is freshly washed and allowed to do what it wants, which is curl haphazardly around her face. She isn't wearing any makeup, no lipstick or eyeliner, and she isn't genetically altered.

She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.

“Come on,” she says, then kisses me softly, sweetly. Her hand clasps mine. She starts to lead me down the hall to her bedroom, but I stop her.

“I need to tell you something,” I say, but she puts her fingers across my lips.

“I know you, Kyle McAdams. There's nothing you need to tell me.”

She does know me. She knows me, and she trusts me, and she loves me.

I wrap my arms around her and pull her in to me until she backs away and takes my hand again. We reach her room. I don't know how many hours I've spent here. Lately, Cami's bedroom feels more like home than just about any place, but tonight, as I watch her lock the door, I feel like I've never been here before.

“What if he wakes up?” I ask, surprised by the trembling in my voice.

“He won't.”

“What about your dad?”

“He'll be stuck at the station until at least nine thirty tomorrow morning.” Cami sits on the bed. Her nightshirt slides toward her hips, and I can see her pink panties.

“We don't have any protection,” I point out, not certain why I keep coming up with reasons not to have sex when I really, really want to. It's not just the raging, almost-seventeen-year-old hormones either. And it's not the whole “I don't want to die a virgin” thing. It's her and how I feel about her.

She's the one.

If everything were normal, if
I
were normal, Cami is the one I'd marry someday. We'd have children together and cart them around to soccer practices and piano recitals. We'd get our first gray hairs together and complain about getting older, but we wouldn't really mean it, because there would be something graceful, something . . . profound about aging alongside the person you love. And when my face began to wrinkle and my hands turned thin and cold, it would be her eyes I would look into—her hand I would hold.

I want that, and I swallow down a sob because no matter what, I can't have it. I can't grow old with her. But we have right now. We have this moment.

Cami opens the top drawer of her nightstand and removes a box of condoms. “Dad gave them to me for my sixteenth birthday. It's never been opened,” she says, lifting the lid and revealing two dozen individual packets. “I hope they haven't expired.” She closes the lid again and starts looking for an expiration date on the box.

“You know, we don't have to. You don't have to. It's okay if . . .” I want to say that I'd rather die a virgin than leave Cami with any regrets, but I don't get the chance because she's grabbing me, kissing me. She's squeezing me so tightly, I can hardly breathe, but I don't care. I want her to hold me tighter. I want her to be so close to me that her heart starts beating for my body too, and we can tell death to go fuck himself.

“I love you so much,” she whispers, her voice trembling.

I kiss her, running my fingers through her still-damp hair, then over the delicate lines of her face and throat.

“Tonight there's no such thing as time,” she says. “No seconds, no minutes, no years. The world has stopped for us. Time has stopped.” She closes her eyes, and I do the same.

Cami loosens my tie and slips it over my head. Then she unbuttons my shirt, peeling it from my shoulders. When she sees my bare chest, she stops and presses her palm over my heart. She can feel it beating against her hand, then against her cheek. Then she presses her lips against my skin and holds them there as the seconds stay frozen, suspended.

She steps away from me and grips the bottom of her nightshirt, pulling it over her head. Her skin is pale. Her breasts are small but perfect.

She comes toward me and takes my hand. I feel dizzy, not just with passion, but with the sharpness of it all. My body feels like it's being pressed with thin needles. I'm in a kind of glorious pain that I know will be relieved with only the greatest pleasure. But more than the physical sensation is the intensity of knowing time hasn't really stopped. It doesn't. Not for me, not for anyone. I'm moving toward a cliff, and seeing the edge coming closer and closer makes everything I feel somehow . . . more. Cami and I . . . we love each other more because of the cliff. And tonight, we will cling to each other, press against each other with more intensity because we take nothing for granted.

Tonight is everything.

“A
little help,” my mom shouts from the door leading from the garage to the house. Her arms are filled with grocery bags, and I rush to take them. Vegetables, I bet. The bags are filled with vegetables and a highly nutritious array of organic fruits.

“Put the milk in the fridge,” Mom says. “I'll start dinner in a minute. The store was packed. I guess a lot of people are planning on camping over Labor Day weekend. I didn't see Cami there.”

“She's off today. She went with Emma's parents to the airport,” I say, feeling a twinge of guilt because I'm glad Emma's going back to Minnesota.

Mom opens a bag of dark red apples, places them in a glass bowl, and offers me one. I don't want it, but it's healthy and supposed to be good for my heart, so I take it.

“Dr. Fabos called earlier today,” she says, but it doesn't mean anything. Considering how much my parents call him, I'm surprised he hasn't changed his number.

“What did he say?” I ask, and try to sound interested, even though he never says anything when he returns their calls. Just the usual “we're working on it.”

“They have a new kind of pacemaker,” she says, and now Dad is standing in the doorway of the kitchen.

“It's better than the one they used in . . .” Dad pauses, but he can't rewind his words. “It's better than the one they used in James. It's got a higher voltage. They think it might work.”

What do I say? Do I have a pacemaker put in just to make them happy? Just to give them hope, when I know it won't work? Or do I tell them the truth? Tell them who Dr. Mueller really was and what he did to their sons and other people's sons and daughters? Do I let them know that they'd better hurry up and get used to the idea of me dying? Do I make myself get used to the idea?

It's September. The only word I've had from Dr. Bartholomew is that her team is working around the clock. But the clock keeps ticking, and I've got three and half months left—pacemaker or no pacemaker.

My parents have aged at least ten years in the last few months. They've been clinging to a tiny boat out in the ocean. Before Connor and I were in the boat, they were sharing it with Chase. But a giant wave came, and even though they tried to hold on to him, they couldn't. Then Connor and I came on board, and the ocean calmed. It stayed calm for so long, they forgot that sometimes you have to hang on to those you love, because giant waves are still out there. One came, and it took Connor. Now it's just me and them. They're both hanging on to me, and I wish it were enough. But the fact is, when and if the wave comes, it will take all of us under.

The doorbell rings.

“I got it,” Dad says, relieved, I think, to have a moment to gather his thoughts once he sends whoever it is away.

I pick up a box of breakfast cereal that has a picture of every grain known to mankind on the front. It's going to taste like shit. I might as well drive a mile outside of town and go graze in a field. On the bright side, if I have to eat shit like this for the next three months, dying might not seem so bad.

The front door opens. I slide the box into the cupboard next to the other boxes of high-fiber and no-fat cereal, then I hear a voice. A familiar voice. My hand starts shaking, and I drop the box onto the counter. Mom gives me a puzzled look, and we both walk toward the entryway.

“Hello, Kyle,” Dr. Bartholomew says. She's wearing a pale green skirt with a thin white blouse. Without her doctor's coat, she seems even smaller, even more like her brother. Her shoulder-length hair is pulled back into a small ponytail, exposing a neck that seems too long.

“You two know each other?” Dad asks. “What was your name?”

“Dr. Bartholomew, but call me Claudia, please.” She offers my dad, and then my mom, her hand.

“You're a doctor?” Mom asks as she hangs on to Claudia's hand for an awkward moment before letting go.

“Yes. Might we sit down? We have a lot to discuss.”

A lot. I feel my own hope building like a massive dam strong enough to hold back any wave, even a tsunami. But she can't have figured out something already. Not when I met her barely two weeks ago.

We go into the living room. Dr. Bartholomew settles herself in the center of the sofa. Dad sits in his recliner, and Mom takes her place standing beside him, her hand clenching his. I can't sit, so I pace and wait.

“I gather from your reaction that Kyle hasn't mentioned our visit.” She glances over her shoulder at me. I shake my head. “I'm not surprised. I suppose he didn't want to get your hopes up. Kyle, through great efforts, found me. You knew my brother. He's gone by several names during his life, but I believe you knew him as Dr. Mueller.”

All expression drains from my parents' faces.

Dr. Bartholomew stares at them, waiting, it would seem, for them to come out of their temporary shock, for their brains to come back online. “I won't drag things out,” she says. “I know you are only interested in one thing, and that's saving your son.”

“You can save him?” Mom asks, and the hope in the room is both exhilarating and suffocating. “Does your brother know how to save him?”

“I'm afraid he died recently,” she says. “Pancreatic cancer. It spread quite rapidly, and he knew he wouldn't be able to complete his research, so he passed it on to me.” Again she looks at me, the expression in her eyes asking for my discretion. How can they trust anyone related to the man who killed one of their sons and was more than willing to kill the other one in the name of science?

“I've been methodically going through his research since I acquired it, and I do believe I can help. Though I caution, this may not be the exact solution you were hoping for.”

We wait for her to continue.

“It's impossible to reprogram all of the DNA in a human body. Science is simply not far enough advanced. In two or three years, at most perhaps ten, we will be at a point where technology could save Kyle. It may be as simple as adding a new piece of genetic information into his heart to nullify the sequence that tells it to stop. I have an army of researchers and endless resources at my disposal working on this, not to mention other geneticists. Given time, we will be able to cure you.”

“I don't have time,” I protest. “I'll be dead in a few months!”

Shit!

Mom and Dad look at me with utter disbelief. They thought they had time. They thought a solution could be found because
they had time.
But now the date of execution's been moved up, and I never told them. I knew, and I kept it from them.

Dr. Bartholomew clears her throat, pulling us back to the main matter at hand. “I'm afraid Kyle's right. There's something different about Kyle's DNA, something different from the others.” She looks at me, telling me to trust her with those small sharp eyes. “It might be a mutation due to the fact that he was frozen for two years,” she lies. “Anyway, it would seem likely that he won't make it past his seventeenth birthday. But,” she says quickly, “as I said, I think I have found a way to possibly save him.”

“After I'm dead,” I point out. “You said you might be able to save me in two to ten years.”

“I do have an idea of how to save you.”

“You can save him?” Mom says, bracing for the wave that's approaching much faster than she'd realized.

Bartholomew stares at me, forcing me to stand still with the intensity of her eyes. “Shortly after conception, after the egg split into two, forming you and your brother, a decision was made to keep you frozen for almost two years. What I'm proposing now is not much different from that decision. I'm suggesting that you be cryogenically frozen until the time comes that science is able to cure you.”

We are silent. Questions, and a few bad movies I've seen, flood my brain, just like I know they're flooding the brains of my parents. The questions in my dad's head start to form on his lips, and then he looks at me as if he's afraid to ask them.

“Isn't that something that's done after the person dies?” Dad asks.

“Legally,” she says, lifting her delicate brows, “yes. It is against the law to freeze someone who is still alive. However, if the hope is to eventually thaw and heal the body, it only makes sense that the freezing should be done before the body is completely ravaged by disease. But disease isn't my concern in Kyle's case. It's—”

“But Dr. Fabos says there's a new pacemaker that could work,” Mom interrupts. “Shouldn't we try that first?”

Dr. Bartholomew gives her a sympathetic smile. “If it doesn't work, and there is no reason to believe that it will, Kyle will be dead. His body will be collected for examination and either cremation or burial, and this opportunity will no longer be possible.”

I start shivering. “But the body is mostly made of water. The brain is eighty percent water. When water freezes, it expands. That would destroy all of my cells.”

She nods approvingly, like I'm some budding scientist. “You're absolutely right. That's why vitrification is so important. The process is very complicated, but to simplify it, let me just say that the blood in the body is replaced with a cryoprotectant solution, sort of like putting antifreeze in your radiator. This enables the body's tissue to freeze without water molecules crystallizing and causing damage. Of course there is still some concern with what's called fracturing of tissues, but I've seen very promising research in this area. I have no doubt the damage to tissue will be minimal at best.”

I'm shivering so hard now that my teeth are chattering. “No,” I say. “No way. I'm not doing that. I'll just live out the time I have left. But I won't let you freeze me. Fuck that.”

I swear I can hear my father's heart sinking in his chest. I can feel my mother's muscles tensing against the approaching wave.

If I'm dead anyway, what does it matter if I'm buried in the ground or if I'm frozen in some lab—again? If being frozen instead of buried makes my parents feel better, why not? It's just that . . . I can't stand the thought of being that cold. Cremate me and let science try to resurrect me like a phoenix from the ashes, but I don't want to be cold.

“What are the chances you'll really be able to fix me and bring me back?” I ask.

“It's not a hundred percent. I'm sure that's not what you want to hear, but I can tell you what is certain.” Her eyes take hold of mine, and she looks at me with the tenderness of a grandmother and the certainty of a doctor holding lab results. “If you don't do this, you will die. This is a chance, a very good chance, and it is your only chance.” Her eyes break from mine, and she steadies herself with a few deep breaths. “There is, however, something you need to know before you decide.”

Great. Freezing me was the
good
news.

“I'm going to be very blunt,” she says. “Your birthday is quickly approaching. We know that some of the others died on their birthdays, some died after, and some died before. You're a bit different, so there's no way to know exactly when your heart will stop. But it's safe to say that you won't live past your birthday, and there's a good chance you won't even make it until then.” She closes her eyes for a moment. “If a young man dies, an autopsy will be ordered. All of the others were subjected to autopsies, and you will be too. You know what happens in an autopsy.”

A shiver runs down my spine like the blunt end of a scalpel is pressing against the center of my back. In an autopsy, they take out all of your organs. They weigh them, examine them, and then they stick them back in, but they don't reattach anything. They just put them in and sew you up, like sticking in candy in a piñata.

“We have to make certain that does not happen, and since there is no way to predict exactly when you are going to die, we need to act quickly. The sooner, the better.”

“B-but,” Dad stutters, “how long do you think he'll be frozen? How sure are you that you can bring him back?”

“We've had great success recently with freezing organs. We've tested slices of brain and found that after the vitrification process, the slices were able to send neurological signals. And there was a dog—”

“Have they ever unfrozen a person?” I interrupt.

Her head tilts sympathetically. “No, but the science is almost there. With nanotechnologies, we'll soon have tiny robots that can go into a body and repair damaged cells. And hopefully, they'll be able to plug a new sequence into your DNA—all of your DNA—to keep your heart from stopping. The advancements in nanomolecular science are staggering. My team is on the cusp of being able to prevent strokes and heart attacks, even killing cancer cells as soon as they start forming, by using this technology. This will work, Kyle. I'm certain of it. Scientific advancements are happening at such a staggering pace. Not even two centuries ago doctors didn't know enough to wash their hands between patients. Now we've mapped the entire human genetic code.”

“When will I die? I mean, I will die, right? You can't be alive and frozen.” I don't want to ask. I don't want to know because I don't want to do this, but my parents . . . I can see the fear in their eyes, but I can also see the hope. “Will it hurt?”

Dr. Bartholomew gives me a reassuring smile. “You'll go to sleep. That's all. You'll be given anesthesia, and you'll go to sleep. They won't so much as prick your finger until you're completely under; I promise. Your body will be cooled gradually while certain processes are being performed.”

“Like draining my blood and replacing it with ‘antifreeze'?”

“Yes.”

I look down at the veins in my arms. At the blood moving through them. “How cold will my body be once it's done?” I hear my voice, but it can't be me. I can't be talking or breathing or doing anything but fighting the urge to run as far and as fast as I can.