soften behind the thick blue frames of her glasses. “Pancreatic cancer. It’s spread to his liver and his lungs.”
“How long?” I ask.
“One month, maybe two.”
“His mind?”
“Dr. Sharp’s mind is as brilliant as ever. But he tires easily, and he’s always in a great deal of pain. He wouldn’t take his pain medication this morning because of your meeting. He said he wants his mind to be clear. So, please, don’t keep him any longer than you need to.” She points toward the hallway leading away from the kitchen. “It’s the last door.”
I feel totally unprepared. I should have a notebook and a pen to jot down any tips he’s going to give me: tips on how to save my life. I press against the door. At first it feels heavy, like it’s made of solid stone. But then I feel as though I’m not alone, like Connor and James and the rest of them are here with me—all of us anxious to see this man, this demigod who created us. The door gives easily under my touch and glides in across a thick rug.
Dr. Mueller, I mean Dr. Sharp, looks small standing in the 1 8 8
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
middle of the spacious bedroom. He is thin, a frail specimen of a human being. He’s wearing pants that pucker beneath the belt that holds them in place. The dress shirt is tucked in, but hangs from his bony shoulders. He’s standing with the help of a gold-knobbed cane, and I can see a bandage on the back of his hand, where fresh blood seeps from the site of a recently removed IV.
“You didn’t have to get dressed up for me,” I say, startled and grateful for the strength in my voice.
“Of course I did,” he says. His face is smooth and hollow, and while his eyes should seem large in the recesses of his skull, they look like black pebbles laid in the places where eyes should be. “I’ve wanted to meet you for some time. I’d planned on it, actually, though I wasn’t sure at what point would be best. Then the gentleman who works for me, the one who helps me access certain bits of information that I need, detected a . . . presence. In short, my hacker discovered that he was being hacked. I contacted the young man you were using to find me.” His thin, cracked lips curve into a smile. “I believe he thought finding me would be much easier, but I employ only the best. I guess I’m trying to say that this meeting would not be occurring if I didn’t want it to.”
“But why now? Why wait until after James is dead?”
“It seemed best. The pacemaker was a variable thrown into my experiment. While I knew the chances of it working were . . . well . . . minuscule at best, one has to let these things play out. Find out for certain what the outcome will be before proceeding further. But there was little doubt in my mind that 1 8 9
Copyright © 2015 by Debra Dockter.
FOR REVIEWING PURPOSES ONLY--NOT FOR SALE
it wouldn’t work. When DNA tells the heart to stop, a burst of electricity is not going to start it again.”
“You knew it wouldn’t work. You didn’t want it to, did you?
You wanted James to die.”
“Of course. No scientist wants his experiments to fail.”
His experiments. Is that all any of us are to him? An experiment?
He shakes his head a bit sadly. “What did they tell you?
That it was a mistake? That you have some strange genetic sequence they’ve never seen before, and they don’t know how it got there?”
“A mutation,” I say. “The genetics specialist said it’s a mutation because of all of the DNA you manipulated in us.”
His thin, white face hardens. “You know that when Einstein first presented his theory on black holes, the scientific community thought he was crazy. Still did long after his death. You place genius right in front of someone, and they can’t see it. In front of educated people, no less—it’s infuriating. Cancer is a mutation—a mistake. I don’t make mistakes.”
“What are you saying?”
His black eyes meet mine. “I genetically modified you—yes.
That’s what my financial investors were interested in. They wanted to know if it was possible to make someone tall or smart or talented or good-looking. And yes, as a researcher, the possibilities fascinated me as well. I won’t lie. And that part