Dues of Mortality (59 page)

Glenda
blushed a tad. Even now, Xavier was hell bent on looking after her.

“
Like
a good lawyer, Gabriel kept records of
everything
,
including his
contacts in the department,” Roberts said. “We found a
couple questionable money stashes and datapins in a lockbox at
Northcutt's home. Makes the scandal worse by miles, but it also means
he knows that the department will gladly toss him in the pile with
the other bad apples, so no one will want to go to bat for him. He'll
confess once he realizes he's out of options.”

“
I’d
like to take a bat
to
him,” Xavier grumbled.

“
You’re
not the only one,” Roberts said. He turned to Glenda. “I
hear the Feds are making headway against Millenitech. Heard
anything?”

“
Yeah,
I did,” she answered. “They’re saying that, so far,
it looks like there might be enough trace elements and other physical
evidence in the lab rubble, to match up with the data they retrieved.
Xavier and I will be giving depositions until the cows come home, but
other than that, we shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”
Glenda purposely left out exactly
how
the FBI had received the data.
Since neither she nor Xavier were known for their central processing
savvy, it was best not to give Roberts a reason to ask unnecessary
questions.

Roberts
tipped a glass of punch in Xavier’s direction. “You’ve
got a real angel on your shoulder, son,” he said.

Xavier
wasn’t sure why, but somehow he liked Roberts calling him
“son.”

Roberts
then gave Max Porter a hardy slap on the back. “If it hadn’t
been for your friend over here, I don’t know what would’ve
happened.”

“
Yeah,
he really came through,” Xavier replied.

“
Oh,
stop it. You’re embarrassing me,” Max said flippantly.

“
Listen,
I hate to nibble and run, but I just wanted to let you all in on the
latest,” Roberts said.

“
Oh,
no, please stay,” Glenda pleaded. “You’ve done so
much to help us. The least you can do is let us give you a good
meal.”

Roberts
smiled crookedly. “That’s nice of you, but I already have
a good meal planned.”

“
Hot
date?” Xavier asked, recognizing the countenance.

“
Uh,
actually, yes.”

“
I
knew it. Lady cops are always hot.”

“
I
don’t date inside the job. She’s a researcher I met at
BioCore. Spicy little number.”

“
You
mean to tell me while we were running for our lives, you were busy
making time with potential witnesses?”

“
And
I'm just getting started.”

They
all smiled.

“
Gotta
go,” Roberts said and took his leave with a strut that
threatened to turn reminiscent of West Side Story.

Two
hours later, Xavier was still soaking in the ambiance of the day and
watching little Patrick Porter kick around the play-ball in the
backyard. The boy was playing forward to Cassandra Hawkins's goalie
and was stumbling over himself like a circus clown. Cassandra was
enraptured. After today she'd be wishing for a boy in six months and
sitting at her webscreen shopping for those horrid little sailor
suits.

“
What’re
you thinking?” Glenda asked, slipping an arm around Xavier's
trunk.

Xavier
waited until he was sure of his answer. He regarded the sheer
blessedness of everything and everyone around him. His chest swelled
with pride. “I was thinking how much I wished Momma was here.”

Richard
ceremoniously placed the sealed urn in the trunk of Dana Holliman's
car. The parking lot of the Dine & Dessert was all but empty now
and the sun was just skimming the far off rural horizon. Dana
Holliman, herself, sat quietly in the front seat, sopping her tears,
and hoping no one really noticed. But they all had. Glenda
especially. She had cried, too. She really liked Kelmer and genuinely
felt his loss.

“
I
guess she’s not taking it very well,” Glenda said.

“
No,”
Richard answered. “She regrets not having told me...” He
bit down and snapped his fingers, “...
him
,
how she really felt.”

This
wasn’t going to be easy for Richard, Glenda thought. He had
every one of the original Richard Kelmer's memories. How in the world
would he ever be able to accept being a copy of someone else when he
was so certain of his own identity? What he probably wouldn't give
for a textbook on the subject.

“
But
she’s agreed to help me, you know, get...reoriented with
myself,” he said. “I’m not sure if that’s the
right word...or for that matter, the right
thing
—
letting
her get so involved.”

“
Sure
you're not just wasting your time?” Xavier interjected. “People
are already learning the truth about Perry Jones. And while I realize
you didn’t ask my opinion, it seems to me that you really don’t
have any obligation to live Kelmer’s life for him. Contrary to
what you might think or even feel about who you are, you have every
right to be your own person.”

“
You’re
right; I didn’t ask your opinion,” Richard gibed.

Xavier
cocked an eyebrow.

“
Just
kidding,” Richard said.

Glenda
chuckled.

“
Maybe
he is,” she said to Xavier. “I don’t recall Richard
Kelmer having much of a sense of humor, God love him.”

“
I
know what you’re saying is true,” Richard said. “The
real Richard would’ve said the same thing. Maybe one day
I
will
decide
to...live my own life. But for now, things have to be this way. Jones
was still technically a failure and as long as that remains the
case...at least, it could slow things down, give humanity a chance to
catch up to the science. If people found out that this type of human
cloning was already possible, memories and all...the potential for
abuse...it makes everything we went through just the start. Besides,
I want very much to continue his work. It was important to him. It’s
important to me.”

Glenda
touched Richard's cheek, overcome by his courage. It was hard to
believe that the real Kelmer was dead and this marvel of technology
stood in his place. Kelmer had created Richard in less than
twenty-four hours, pure and perfect, in a solar-powered, basement
laboratory as a last resort in the event Wallace had succeeded at
destroying Kelmer and everything he'd worked for. Not only would the
knowledge of the implant be inside the clone, but the integrity to
implement it responsibly. Kelmer's growing ambiguity towards his
research had apparently not impinged on his advancements in the
filtering and maturation process. But it had behooved him to keep
such progress a secret from Wallace for the foreseeable future.
Kelmer had kept Richard hidden behind “the bubble”, as he
called it, from the moment Glenda and Xavier had arrived on the
Seattle property. The second the motion detectors went off, Kelmer
ushered his clone through the door marked CAUTION in the big basement
lab, where it/he remained until the fracas was over. Something the
clone didn't actually have to do. Richard was completely individual
and sovereign unto himself. There were no implants or psychological
manipulation. Kelmer would have it no other way. He had even asked
Richard,
begged
him like an old friend, to help, while going
out of his way to make it clear that his clone was under no
obligation. But obligated or not, Richard could not say no to his
creator. Simply put, it was not in his “nature”. He knew
the stakes,
felt
them. Kelmer had come to an unshakable conclusion that imprinted
unequivocally upon Richard: when technological evolution precedes
spiritual evolution, the result is utter disaster.

“
You
want to honor his memory,” Glenda said.

“
I
suppose it’s what any son would do for his father,”
Richard replied.

Glenda
peered at the top of his skull. “Is your hair growing in?”
she asked.

Richard
smoothed the thin spot. “Oh, that. It’s a little
adjustment he made when he created me. He always hated that he was
losing his hair.” Richard looked into Glenda's eyes and palmed
her cheek in return, as if the real Kelmer were saying goodbye. Had
some of Kelmer’s attraction to her been imprinted, too?
“Good-bye, Glenda. And thank you.”

Richard
then got into the passenger seat of Dana’s car, where he took
her free hand in his and they drove away.

****

Chocolate custard with praline
crunch was another one of Xavier’s favorite desserts. He hadn’t
had it since he was a teenager. The Dine & Dessert was the only
place left in town that made it decent. Glenda ordered it up with her
banana split and they indulged in their frosty treats like
twelve-year-olds on a first date. The custard tasted different
though. Either they had changed the recipe or Xavier's taste buds had
rearranged over the years.
Some
things just never stay the same no matter how much you want them to
,
he thought.

Later,
after they'd finished their dessert, Xavier stood at the diner's
counter, waiting for Glenda to emerge from the ladies' room. The
diner's lone waitress approached him, setting dishes aside to tend
the register.

“
Can
I get you anything else, honey?” she asked.

Xavier
did a double take of the waitress. Was he seeing what he was seeing?
Her hair was platinum blonde and bone straight. The eyes were crystal
blue. But everything else—the shape of the face, the toothy
smile, the knobby nodule of a chin—was exactly as he'd
remembered. Hell, he'd compared them with his own features for years.
It was like he was ten years old again—swept up in an embrace
of security he had long reconciled to let go of.

Momma,
he
exclaimed to himself.

He
crumbled, hanging his head. The self hatred came roaring back,
hitting him right between the eyes. He felt a resurgence of anger
over the fact that the truth had eluded him for so long; that he
couldn't see it...until she was gone.

Where
everyone else was made of flesh and bone,
mothers
were made of forgiveness. They were the physical manifestation of the
very concept. Momma had forgiven him so many times that his guilt
became a raging beast eating away at Xavier. He'd resented her for
making him feel that guilt—a resentment that turned horribly
inward when he realized...he’d done it to himself.
There was never any reason to run from her. She was his
momma
.
She would never have judged him, and certainly never have condemned
him.
I guess you'll have to
forgive me one last time, Momma,
he
thought
.
Nice to know some things never
change
.

“
Are
you all right, honey?” the waitress asked concernedly. She
noticed Xavier's expression. He looked like he was standing on an
upturned nail in bare feet.

Jeez,
was he going to cry right there?

“
Xavier?”
Glenda asked. She had debuted from the ladies' room and approached
him completely unnoticed. “What is it?”

Shit
,
he
was
going to
cry.

“
Nothing,”
he said and settled himself. He regarded the waitress warmly. “You
just remind me of my mother.”

Glenda
then looked at her as the waitress put her fingers to her own
face—checking for wrinkles, perhaps.

Xavier
labored to smile. “She was the most beautiful woman I’ve
ever known.”

The
waitress smiled back, detecting the obvious sense of loss. “Thank
you.”

“
Xavier,
are you ready to go?” Glenda asked softly. Sentimental as it
all was, too much staring and Xavier might begin to give their very
understanding waitress the heebie-jeebies.

“
Yeah,”
he said suspiring. He slipped the waitress a twenty-dollar bill.
“Keep it. I know how much you all rely on tips.” He
paused, recalling his words to Wallace: “Live long enough and
you'll bump into yourself, fresh out of the test tube.”

He
shook it off, refusing to ruin the moment. “Thanks for the
memories,” he said.

Ten
minutes later Glenda and Xavier were coasting down the highway in
Bennet Hawkins's 2020 Mercedes. It had taken Xavier that long to come
back to earth.

“
Where
are we going now?” he asked.

“
The
park,” Glenda answered.

Xavier
got the most oddball look on his face. “You’re not going
to make me steal a car, are you?”

“
Maybe.”

THE
END