35

 

ISAAC GABLE LOOMED OVER Arson’s twitching body. The boy was quiet most of the time, the screens flashing to life now and again. There was something hypnotic about watching the lines of liquid food flow into Arson’s body.

Isaac had never taken time to watch him before, to watch what Morpheus—what this facility—was doing to him. Up to this point, it didn’t matter. Arson didn’t know him, and Isaac did well to forget his previous attachment to the boy as father, and realized this was business. The business of survival.

“My own flesh and blood is a menace. A horror. I never would’ve believed it,” he sighed over the boy. “Never in a million years.”

It was clear what was coming. Isaac knew it. Everyone in this facility knew it. He’d sat in on enough video conferences with the heads of state in foreign nations and the president to know there was no stopping what rulers had put in motion. Puny men like him had no opinion. All they could do was be smart; all they could do was become one with the system, to become with them.

As he looked over the boy, felt his slippery flesh, Isaac was transported back to the hospital room, to the birth of this unnatural thing—boy, creature, clone. Whatever he was. What part of Arson was he? What part did they share? Anything?

Isaac now touched Frances Parker, the love of his youth. She in turn squeezed his grip, praying for him amidst the screams and horrors of the emergency room. The needles, the trauma, the fear-drenched cries that could not be contained.

 How much pain had she suffered because of this? How much had she endured to bring this animal into the world? Perhaps he should have strangled the child when it escaped the womb, charred and fragile mess that it was.

“Henry, you lunatic!” Isaac seethed. “She was your own daughter. Your own flesh and blood.” Tears cradled his eyes. He remembered Frances being led into a room not unlike the rooms where he assisted in “studying” Arson and the girl with the scars. A room not unlike a prison cell, surrounded by white walls and cameras. Needles pumping blood and brain fluid into her veins, changing the course of history with every injection.

“You knew. You knew it all along. How could you? I hope you rot in hell, Henry!” The scenarios that waited at the back of his mind were cruel things—what he’d do to Henry Parker if he were still on this earth. Memories were like loose triggers firing rounds of hatred and violence. He recalled Lamont’s phone call. Remembered following Arson to and from work several times a week. How he watched the boy’s life unfold, only to be ripped away from it all.

And there he was again. Isaac couldn’t beat the memories. They were far too strong to subdue. The sun watched him break into the boy’s hidden life, that worn-out cabin beside the lake, a hell of a home. Kay was not so surprised by Isaac’s arrival. Maybe she knew he was coming all along. Despite the curses and the tormented blows she doled out, maybe she was waiting for him all these long years. To set her free.    

In that moment when he returned to a past he had forsaken, he was no longer Isaac Gable. He’d become something else entirely. They all were becoming. They were changing by the hour, by the minute. Less and less they cared for others, for what this world could give. What love could give. The wealth would come, along with promised new life. When the world passed away, when the age of man was ended, a new race, a new beginning would come, and they would be gods and kings.  

The scratch of Kay’s voice was a dirty splinter in his head. “I let the devil in my house.” Her words were soaked in venom. How gifted she was at being evil. He’d never fully allowed himself to realize it until the time came when he had to. After smashing her head into glass, beating her, and throwing her weak carcass down a flight of stairs, Isaac was only barely satisfied.

With a blade he opened her up. Rage and revenge were the only blood passing through him. “You stood by and did nothing. You let them do it to her. You’re filth, like he was.” There were no tears that day. In the violent quiet, there was nothing. Blood soaked his gloves, his neck, and his suit. He’d been really messy taking care of this one. He knew Hoven would never send him to handle this kind of business again. Redd was a much better handler of such vile deeds, but it didn’t matter. Not really. Finishing Kay the proper way was all he’d wanted. He wasn’t a hired hand; he wasn’t a killer. He was a man who could kill; he was a man who did. A chapter in his past was now closed.

Isaac suddenly realized he wasn’t alone in the Sanctuary. A few surgeons and nurses brushed by him. He knew they were watching him like the vultures they were becoming. Quite good at searching for meat to devour, even among their own. He noticed Arson beginning to shake. A few of the monitors picked up his nightmare. A new school hallway that led to a room the monitor was unable to broadcast. Nothing but static and gray dots.

The boy’s mind was growing stronger, there was no longer any doubt. He began to wonder if there was even any point to starting over. If mankind was damned to fall from the start, what made any of them believe by creating a new breed—beginning with his son—that mere broken, fragile earthlings could survive?

But perhaps it was better to be on the side of the devil than to oppose him.