Frameshift (21 page)

Molly, meanwhile, went back downstairs. Pierre got all the way through the book — about ten minutes’ worth of reading — before Amanda looked ready to fall asleep. He bent over again, kissed his daughter’s head once more, checked to make sure the baby monitor was still on, and slipped quietly out of the bedroom.

When he got down to the living room, Molly was sitting on the couch, one leg tucked up underneath her. She was holding a copy of the
New Yorker
, but didn’t seem to really be looking at it. A Shania Twain CD was playing softly in the background. Molly put down the magazine and looked at him. “Is Amanda asleep?” she said.

Pierre nodded. “I think so.”

Her tone was serious. “Good. I’ve been waiting for her to go down. We have to talk.”

Pierre came over to the couch and sat next to her. She looked at him briefly, then looked away. “Have I done something wrong?”

She faced him again. “No — no, not you.”

“Then what?”

Molly exhaled noisily. “I was worried about Amanda, so I did some research today.”

Pierre smiled encouragingly. “And?”

She looked away again. “It’s probably crazy, but…” She folded her hands in her lap and stared down at them. “Some anthropologists contend that Neanderthal man had exactly the same throat structure as Dr. Gainsley said Amanda has.”

Pierre felt his eyebrows going up. “So?”

“So your boss, the famous Burian Klimus, has succeeded in extracting DNA from that Israeli Neanderthal specimen.”

“Hapless Hannah,” said Pierre. “But surely you don’t think—”

Molly looked at Pierre. “I love Amanda just as she is, but…”

“
Tabernac
,” said Pierre. “
Tabernac
.”

He could see it all in his mind. After Molly, Pierre, Dr. Bacon, and Bacon’s assistants had left the operating theater, Klimus hadn’t proceeded to masturbate into a cup. Instead, he’d maneuvered the first of Molly’s eggs onto the end of a glass pipette, holding it there by suction. Working carefully under a microscope, he’d then slit the egg open and, using a smaller pipette, had drawn out Molly’s own haploid set of twenty-three chromosomes, and replaced them with a diploid set of Hannah’s forty-six chromosomes. The end result: a fertilized egg containing solely Hannah’s DNA.

Of course, opening up the egg would have damaged the zona pellucida, a jellylike coating on its surface necessary for embryo implantation and development. But ever since Jerry Hall and Sandra Yee had shown in 1991 that a synthetic zona pellucida could be coated onto egg cells, human cloning had been theoretically possible. And just two years later, at an American Fertility Society meeting in Montreal, of all places, Hall and his colleagues announced they had actually done it, although the embryos they’d cloned weren’t taken beyond the earliest stage. Yes, the technology did exist. What Molly was suggesting was a real possibility. Klimus could have used the procedure to make several eggs containing copies of Hannah’s DNA, cultured them in vitro to the multicellular state, and then Dr. Bacon — presumably unaware of their pedigree — would have inserted the embryos into Molly, hoping that at least one of them would implant.

“If it’s true,” said Molly, looking up at Pierre, gaze flicking back and forth between his left eye and his right, “if it’s true, it wouldn’t change the way you feel about Amanda, would it?”

Pierre was quiet for a moment.

Molly’s voice took on an urgent tone. “Would it?”

“Well, no. No, I suppose not. It’s just that, well, I mean, I knew she wasn’t my child — biologically, that is. I knew she wasn’t part of me. But I’d always thought she was part of you. But if what you’re suggesting is true, then…” He let the words trail off.

The Shania Twain CD had stopped playing. Pierre got up, made his way slowly over to the stereo, ejected the disc, fumbled to get it back in its jewel case, and turned the power off. He was trying desperately to think. It was a crazy idea —
crazy
. Sure, Amanda had a speech disorder. So what?

Lots of kids dealt with things that were much more severe. He thought of little Erik Lagerkvist, who was infinitely worse off than Amanda. He put the CD back in the rack and made his way over to the couch. “I do love her,” he said as he sat down. He took his wife’s hand in his. “She’s our daughter.”

Molly nodded, relieved. But after a long moment she said, “Still, we need to know. It affects so much — her schooling, maybe even her susceptibility to disease.”

Pierre looked at the clock on the mantel. It was just after 9:00 p.m. “I’m going to the lab.”

“What for?”

“Most everyone will have gone home by now. I’m going to steal a sample of Hapless Hannah’s DNA.”

Pierre used his card key to get into the Human Genome Center offices.

Hapless Hannah’s bones were normally kept at the Institute of Human Origins, and Pierre had no doubt that at least some copies of her DNA were kept there, too. The material was too precious to have it stored in only one facility.

There had to be an emergency set of keys somewhere. He went over to the desk that used to be Joan Dawson’s. The top drawer was unlocked. In it was a key ring with perhaps two dozen different keys on it. Pierre picked it up and headed down the corridor.

He looked at the keyhole in Klimus’s doorknob, but nothing gave away which key might fit it. He began trying keys one after another, and, in the process, vainly attempted to keep the jostling of the keys from making too much noise. Pierre felt nervous as hell, and—

“Can I help you?” said an accented voice.

Pierre’s heart did a flip-flop. He looked up. “Carlos!” he said, seeing the head janitor. “You startled me.”

“Sorry, Dr. Tardivel. I didn’t realize it was you. You need to get into Dr. Klimus’s office?”

“Umm, yes. Yes, I need a reference book he’s got.”

Carlos reached for his own key ring, which was attached to his belt by a device that let out cord if he pulled on it but wound it back in when he let go. He leaned over and unlocked the door. Then he stepped inside and flicked on the lights, the overhead panels sputtering a bit as they came to life; glare from them reflected off the sheets of glass covering the framed astronomical photos. Carlos motioned for Pierre to follow him in. Pierre made a show of going over to one of the floor-to-ceiling oak bookcases.

“See what you need?” asked Carlos.

“No — they’re not in alphabetical order. It’ll take me a while to find it.”

“Well, you go ahead and look. But be sure to lock up when you’re through. We’ve had some trouble lately with break-ins.”

“I will,” said Pierre. “Thanks.”

Carlos left. Pierre listened as the caretaker’s footfalls receded into the distance. He went over to the second door. It was locked. He tried all twenty keys; none of them opened it. He walked over to Klimus’s desk, opening the top drawer, hoping there’d be another set of keys in there.

Nothing. He closed the door and turned around. His arm moved unexpectedly, hitting the Mars globe on the credenza. For one horrible moment, Pierre thought he was going to knock it to the floor, but the red planet just spun on its axis a couple of times, then came to rest.

Pierre took out his wallet, fished out his Macy’s card, and tried to jiggle it into the gap between the door and the jamb, just as he’d seen on countless TV shows. Time passed. He was terrified that Carlos would return. But eventually he got the little bolt to slide aside. He opened the door, stepped in, and fumbled for the light switch.

There was a small refrigerator in there, sitting on what looked like a stand for a microwave oven. Taped to the fridge door was a laser-printed sign that said, “Biological specimens. Highly perishable. Do not turn off or unplug this unit.”

Pierre opened the refrigerator door. There were three wire shelves inside, each holding sealed glass containers. In the door of the fridge were cans of Dr Pepper. The glass containers were all labeled, and it took Pierre only a few minutes to find the one he wanted. A handwritten sticker on it said, simply, “Hannah.”

Pierre took the vial, closed the fridge door, turned off the light in the small room, turned off Klimus’s office light, and closed, but did not lock, the main door. He walked down to his own lab, used restriction enzymes to snip out some test fragments of the DNA, then set them up to undergo the polymerase chain reaction to make more duplicates. By the time he returned tomorrow, he’d have millions of copies of the test fragments.

He headed back to Klimus’s office, returned the sample container to the fridge, closed the door, locked up the office, and went home, adrenaline flowing.

The next day, as Pierre was coming down the corridor to his lab, he heard his phone ringing. He hurried along (at least it was hurrying for him; anybody else could have outpaced him by walking briskly), opened his lab, and scooped up the phone. “Hello?”

“Hey, Pierre. It’s Helen Kawabata.”

“Hi, Helen.”

“You’re in luck. There was actually a fair bit of DNA on Bryan Proctor’s razor. The blade was getting dull; he’d obviously been using it for a long time. Anyway, I’m going to be in court this morning, but you can come pick up the samples this afternoon if you like.”

“Thanks very much, Helen. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s the least a peach could do. Bye.”

Pierre turned to the work of PCR typing Amanda’s and Hannah’s DNA — not as complete as full genetic-profile DNA fingerprinting, but it would give results in two days instead of two weeks. When he had the process set up, he got in his car and drove over the Bay Bridge to San Francisco, went to police headquarters, picked up the refrigerated samples of Bryan Proctor’s DNA, and drove straight back to LBNL. Shari Cohen happened to be coming down the corridor.

“Shari,” said Pierre, “would you have a chance to run that same battery of tests on one more sample for me, please?”

“Sure.”

“Thanks. Here it is. Oh, and can you also check to make sure there’s a Y chromosome present?” There was always a small chance that Mrs. Proctor used a man’s razor on her legs or armpits.

“Will do.”

“Thanks. Let me know as soon as you’ve got the results.”

That night, Pierre came home, kissed Molly and Amanda, and sat down on the couch to look at his mail. He was trying to keep his mind off Amanda’s DNA; he wouldn’t have results until the day after tomorrow.

Pierre’s copy of
Maclean’s
had shown up, with news that was now two weeks out of date from Canada; his
Solaris
had arrived, as well. He made a point of reading French magazines to keep himself still primarily thinking in that language. There was also his Visa bill, and—

Hey, something from Condor Health Insurance. A big manila envelope.

He opened it up. It was the company’s annual report, and a note announcing their next annual general meeting.

Molly sat down on the couch next to him. While Pierre read over the annual-meeting notice, she started flipping through the annual report. It was a thin perfect-bound book with a textured yellow-and-black cover, measuring the same size as a standard piece of typing paper. ‘“Condor is the Pacific Northwest’s leader in progressive health coverage,’” she said, reading from the first interior page. ‘“With foresight and a commitment to excellence, we provide peace of mind for one-point-seven million policy holders in Northern California, Oregon, and Washington State.’”

“Peace of mind my ass,” said Pierre. “There’s no peace of mind in telling a pregnant mother that she has to either abort her baby or lose her insurance, nor in telling a Huntington’s at-risk that he has to take a genetic test.” He held up the meeting notice. “Do you think I should go?”

“When is it?”

He peered at it. “Friday, October eighteenth. That’s — what? — three months from now.”

“Sure. Give them a piece of
your
mind.”

It was the first day of August. Pierre got into his lab early, ready to check over the DNA fingerprints for Hapless Hannah and Amanda Tardivel-Bond.

All he had to do was glance at the autorads, and—

Goddamn it. God fucking damn it.

Every marker was the same.

He found a chair and sat down in it before he fell down.

His daughter, his baby daughter, was a clone of a Neanderthal woman who had lived and died in the Middle East sixty-two thousand years ago.

It was all—

“Dr. Tardivel?”

Pierre looked up. It took a moment for his eyes to focus. He covered the autorads he’d been looking at with his hands. “Oh, hi, Shari.”

“I’ve finished testing that last DNA sample.”

Pierre’s head was still swimming. He almost said, “What DNA sample?”

Of course: the Bryan Proctor specimen, the one Helen Kawabata had recovered from his razor. “And?”

Shari Cohen shrugged. “Nothing. He — and it
was
a he — tested negative for every genetic disorder I tried.”

“Diabetes? Heart disease? Alzheimer’s? Huntington’s?”

“Clean as a whistle.”

Pierre sighed. “Thanks, Shari. I appreciate your help.”

“Is everything all right, Pierre?”

Pierre couldn’t meet her eyes. “Fine. Just fine.”

Shari looked at him for a moment more, then, with a little lifting of her shoulders, went over to one of the lab counters and began to work. Pierre leaned back in his chair. He was so sure that he was onto something — some vast conspiracy involving mercy killing of those who faced dark genetic futures. But Chuck Hanratty had killed Bryan Proctor, a man without any major genetic disorder. It made no sense.

Pierre glanced again at the autorads of Hannah’s and Amanda’s DNA, then got to his feet.

“I’m going home,” he said to Shari as he passed her.

“Are you sure everything’s okay?” asked Shari.

Pierre heard her, but didn’t trust himself to respond. He made his way out to the parking lot and found his car.

Pierre came in the front door. Molly rushed over to greet him, little Amanda toddling behind.

“Well?” said Molly.

Pierre exhaled, unsure how to break the news. “She’s a clone,” he said simply.

Even though she’d been the one to originally suspect it, Molly’s eyes went wide. “That asshole,” she said.

Pierre nodded.

Amanda had made it over to where her daddy was standing. She looked at him with big brown eyes and stretched her arms up at him.

Pierre looked down.

Amanda.

Amanda Helene Tardivel-Bond.

Or…

Or Hapless Hannah, Mark II.

Her arms continued reaching up toward him. She looked confused about why he wasn’t picking her up.

No, damn it, thought Pierre. No. She
is
Amanda — is my daughter.

He reached down and lifted her off the ground. She put her arms around his neck and squirmed with delight. Pierre was supporting her now with one hand and tousling her brown hair with the other. “How you doin?” he said to her. “How’s Daddy’s little girl?”

Amanda smiled at him. He wanted to carry her over to the living-room couch, but that was risky. Instead he set her down, took her tiny hand in his, and together they managed the big walk over to it. He sat down and she clambered into his lap.

Molly came into the living room and took a seat in the easy chair opposite the couch. “So what do we do now?” she said.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if we should do anything—”

Molly’s eyes went wide again. “After what he did?”

Pierre raised a hand. “I know, I know. Don’t you think I feel the same way? God, I feel like he’s raped my wife — I want to wring his neck, kill him with my bare hands, but…”

“But what?”

“But there’s Amanda to think about.” He stroked his daughter’s head, smoothing out the hair he’d made disheveled earlier. “If we go after Klimus, the truth about her might come out.”

Molly considered this. “We have to get him out of our lives — I won’t have him coming over here, making her an object of study. Look, once he realizes we know the truth, he should back down. What he did was unethical—”

“Completely.”

“—so he risks losing everything if it’s exposed — his position at LBNL, his consulting contracts, everything.”

“But what if the truth about Amanda
does
come out?” asked Pierre.

“I don’t know. Couldn’t we leave here? Go to Canada, and change our names? You can still return to Canada, right?”

Pierre nodded.

“I know you wanted to stay here, but—”

Pierre shook his head. “That’s secondary. I’ll do anything for my daughter — anything at all.” He hugged Amanda to his chest, and she cooed with pleasure.

“Professor Klimus,” said Pierre, his voice sharp. He had intended to go in calm and reasonable, but the mere sight of the old man started his blood boiling.

Klimus looked up. His brown eyes flickered between Pierre and Molly.

He then tilted his bald head back down and turned the page in the journal that was spread open on his desk. “I’m very busy. If you want to see me, you must make an appointment with my secretary.”

Molly closed the door to the office.

“How could you?” said Pierre through clenched teeth.

Klimus reached for the phone on his desk. “I think I’ll call security.”

Pierre lunged forward, grabbed the handset from Klimus’s bony hand, and slammed it down on the cradle. “Don’t call anyone,” said Pierre, his voice quavering with fury. “I asked you how you could do it.”

“Do what?” said Klimus, now trying to feign innocence. He used his left hand to rub the one from which Pierre had wrenched the phone.

“Don’t play games,” said Pierre. “I got hold of a sample of Hapless Hannah’s DNA. It’s the same as Amanda’s.”

Klimus leaned forward. “Yes, it is. But, tell me — what made you suspect?”

“What the fuck difference does that make?”

“It’s the heart of the matter, no?” said Klimus, spreading his arms.

“Something made you realize that the infant specimen was not
Homo
s
apiens sapiens
. What gave it away?”

‘“Infant specimen,’” repeated Molly, shuddering. “Don’t call her that.”

“How could you tell she was not your daughter?” asked Klimus.

“Goddamn it!” said Pierre. “God—” He launched into a string of French profanity, unable to control himself. Then: “Damn you, damn you — you sit there asking
us
questions! I should break you in two, you pathetic old man!”

Klimus shrugged his broad shoulders. “Asking questions is what a scientist does.”

“
Scientist?
” sneered Pierre. “You’re not a scientist. You’re a monster.”

Klimus rose from his chair. “You snot-nosed kid — I am
Burian Klimus
.”

He said his own name as though uttering a prayer. “Don’t
dare
snap at me. I could see to it that you never work in any lab anywhere in the world again.”

Molly was red in the face and breathing in snorts. “Burian — we trusted you.”

“You wanted a baby. You have a baby. You wanted in vitro fertilization, normally an expensive process. You got that for free.”

Pierre’s fists were clenching and unclenching. “You bastard. You don’t feel any remorse over what you did.”

“What I did was
wonderful
,” said Klimus. “There hasn’t been a child like the infant specimen since the Stone Age.”

“Don’t call her ‘the infant specimen,’ damn it,” said Molly. “She’s my daughter.”

“Say that again,” said Klimus.

“Don’t try that — don’t you fucking dare to try that,” said Pierre. “Yes, we love Amanda — that has nothing to do with this.”

“It has
everything
to do with it,” said Klimus. “And it has to do with why you, Dr. Tardivel, shall now sit down and shut up.”

“I’m not going to shut up,” said Pierre. “I’m going to LBNL’s director, and to the police.”

“You shall do neither. You would have to explain the nature of your complaint — and that would mean revealing the nature of the child.” He turned to Molly. “Do you really want your
daughter
to be an object of great public attention, Ms. Bond?” Klimus’s expression was smug.

“You think that’s your ace in the hole, don’t you?” snapped Pierre.

“Well, you’re wrong. We’re prepared to tell the truth to anyone who can lock you up.”

“We’ll get you put in jail,” said Molly, “and then we’ll go to Canada and take new names — something I’m sure you know all about.”

Klimus didn’t blink. “I advise against such actions. If you have the best interests of the infant specimen—”

“I’ve had enough of you, you son of a bitch,” said Pierre. He reached for the phone, and pounded out the extension number for the office of LBNL’s director.

“That is your choice,” said Klimus with a shrug. “Of course, I should have thought you would want to avoid a custody battle—”

“Cust—” Molly’s eyes went wide. “You couldn’t do that.”

“The child is a clone, Dr. Bond. You may have brought the egg to term, but you aren’t the child’s biological mother; she is in fact not related to either of you by blood.”

“Hello?” said a male voice at the other end of the phone.

“Your choice, Tardivel,” said Klimus. “I am prepared to fight to the bitter end.”

Pierre glared at him, but replaced the handset on its cradle. “You could never win.”

“Couldn’t I? Amanda’s closest relative is Hapless Hannah — and Hannah’s remains are in the legal guardianship of the Institute of Human Origins, under an agreement with the government of Israel. Dr. Bond here is nothing but a surrogate — and the courts have traditionally conferred very few rights on such people.”

Molly turned to Pierre. “He can’t do that, can he? He can’t take Amanda away?”

“You bastard,” said Pierre to Klimus.

“Not me,” said Klimus, with a small shrug. “If anyone’s parentage is in question, it is Amanda.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Now, I believe I asked you how you knew the child was not yours. I expect an answer.” He reached for the phone. “Or perhaps
I
shall call the director. The sooner we start this legal battle, the sooner it will be resolved.”

Pierre yanked the phone away again.

“I see you now prefer this matter kept quiet,” said Klimus. “Very well; tell me how you discovered Amanda’s pedigree.”

Pierre’s face was flushed, and his fist was closing and opening in spasms. Molly said nothing.

“She is a very ugly child, you know,” said Klimus.

“Damn you — you
are
a monster,” said Molly. “She’s beautiful.”

Klimus didn’t seem to hear. He spoke in measured tones, looking at Molly, then Pierre. “Yes, we had Neanderthal DNA — but there were still many questions we couldn’t answer. Could Neanderthals talk, for instance.

There’s a huge debate over that in the anthropological community — you should hear Leakey and Johanson go on about it. Well, now we know. They could not speak aloud; they probably had their own very efficient sign language instead. We’ll want to see if Amanda picks up Ameslan faster than normal. Perhaps she’s hardwired in some way that we aren’t to communicate by signing.

“And the biggest question of all: are they the same species as us? That is, was Neanderthal man
Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
 — just a subspecies, capable of producing fertile offspring with a modern human?

Or were they something else entirely —
Homo neanderthalensis
, a different species altogether, perhaps able to have a sterile child with a modern human, just as a horse and a donkey can produce a mule, but incapable of producing offspring that can breed. Well, as soon as Amanda enters puberty we’ll be able to find that out.”

“Fuck you,” said Molly.

Klimus nodded. “That would be one option.”

Molly lunged with her arms outstretched, ready to kill. Pierre moved in, grabbing his wife, holding her back. “Not now,” he said to her.

“We shall continue the charade that she is your child,” said Klimus, not in the least flustered. “But I shall visit her weekly and record details about her growth and intellectual abilities. When it comes time for me to publish that information, I will do so just as you would, Dr. Bond, in a psychological case study — referring to the infant specimen merely as ‘Child A.’ You will take no action against me; if you do, I will put on a custody fight that will make O. J. Simpson’s defense look like a public defender’s first case.” He swung on Pierre. “And
you
, Dr. Tardivel, will never speak to me in that tone of voice again. Now, do we have an understanding?”

Pierre, furious, said nothing.

Molly looked at her husband. “Don’t let him take her away from me.

When—”

She stopped short, but sometimes one could read minds without having the benefit of that special genetic quirk.
When you’re gone, she’ll be all
t
hat I have left
.

“All right,” said Pierre at last, through clenched teeth. “Come on, Molly.”

“But—”

“Come on.”

“I’ll be over this Saturday,” said Klimus. “Oh, and I shall bring equipment to take blood samples. You will not mind, I’m sure.”

“You fucking asshole,” said Molly.

“Sticks and stones,” said Klimus, with a shrug — “but
I
own Amanda’s bones.”

Molly rose. Her face was completely red.

“
Come on,”
said Pierre. He opened the door to Klimus’s office.

They exited the room. Pierre slammed the door behind them, took her hand, and continued down the corridor. They made it into Pierre’s lab; Shari was off somewhere else.

“Damn it,” said Molly, bursting into tears. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

She looked up at Pierre. “We have to find some way to get rid of him,” she said. “If there was ever a justified case of murder—”

“Don’t say that,” said Pierre.

“Why not? I
know
you’re thinking the same thing.”

“I wasn’t sure before,” said Pierre, “but now I am — this kind of experimentation is pure fucking Hitler. Klimus
must be
Marchenko.” He took his wife in his arms. “Don’t worry — he’s going to die, all right. But it won’t be us doing it. It will be the Israelis, hanging him for war crimes.”