Origin in Death (In Death #21)(85)

"Yes."

"It would make it easier, for the purposes of this interview, if you would speak one at a time."

They glanced at each other. "It's difficult to know what you expect from us."

"Let's shoot for the truth. You." She pointed to the woman at the corner of the table. "For now, you can answer. Which one of you lived at the location where Wilfred Icove, Jr., was murdered?"

"We've all lived there, at one time or another."

"Through your choice or because you were directed into this situation by your husband or father-in-law?"

"It was the arrangement our father dictated. Always. Choice? It isn't always an option."

"You call him your father."

"He was the father. We're his children."

"Biologically?"

"No. But he made us."

"As he did Deena Flavia."

"She's our sister. Not biologically," Avril added. "But emotional'. She's like us. Not us, but like us."

"He created you, and others like you, through illegal procedures."

"He called it Quiet Birth. Should we explain?"

"Yeah." Eve sat, kicked back in the chair. "Why don't you?"

"During the wars, the father became friends with Jonah Wilson, the noted geneticist, and his wife, Eva Samuels."

"First, what's your relationship to Eva Samuels? You have the same maiden name."

"There's no relation. We're not of her. The name was a convenience for them."

"Were your biological parents those listed as such on your official data?"

"We don't know who our parents were. But it's doubtful."

"Okay, go on. Icove, Wilson, and Samuels hooked up."

"They were very interested in each other's work. Though the father was, initially, skeptical and wary of Dr. Wilson's more radical theories and experiments-"

"Even then, you see," the second Avril continued, "there were experiments. Though he was skeptical, he couldn't deny his fascination. When his wife was killed, grief took him. She was carrying their daughter, and both were lost. He tried to reach them in time, to get to her body. But nothing was viable. He was too late."

"Too late to attempt to preserve her DNA, and potentially re-create her."

"Yes." The third Avril smiled. "You understand. He couldn't save his wife and the baby she carried. For all of his skill and knowledge, he was helpless, as he'd been to save his own mother. But he began to see what could be done. How many loved ones might be saved."

"By cloning."

"Quiet Birth." The first took over again. "There were so many dead, so many lost. So many in pain. So many children, orphaned, injured. He intended to save them. Was driven to."

"By extraordinary means."

"They, the father and Wilson, worked in secret. The children, after all, so many of the children would never have real lives. They'd give them better. They'd give them the future."

"They used children they found in the wars?" Peabody demanded. "They took kids?"

"This appalls you."

"Shouldn't it?"

"We were a child in the war. Dying. Our DNA was preserved, our cells taken. Should we have died then?"

"Yes."

They looked back at Eve. And each nodded. "Yes. It's the natural order. We should have been allowed to die, to stop being. But we weren't. There were failures. And the failures were destroyed, or used for further study. Again and again, day after day, year after year, until there were five who were viable."

"There are two more of you?" Eve asked.

"There were. We were born in April."

"Back up a minute. Where did he get the women who were implanted?"

"There weren't any. We weren't developed in a human womb. We weren't given even that gift. The wombs are artificial, a great achievement." Now her voice hardened, and the anger simmering under it flashed into her eyes. "Every moment of development can be monitored. Every developing cell can be engineered, adjusted, manipulated. We have no mother."

"Where? Where is it done?"

"We don't know. We don't remember the first years. It was eraser Drugs, treatments, hypnosis."

"Then how do you know what you're telling me?"

"Will. He shared some of this. He loved us, was proud of what we are. Was proud of his father and the achievements. Some we knew from Deena, and some we learned when we began to question."

"Where are the other two?"

"One died at six months. We were not able to sustain. The other.

They paused, linked hands. "We learned the other lived for five years. We lived five years. But we weren't strong enough, and our intellect wasn't developing according to the required levels. He killed us. He injected us as you might a terminally ill pet. We went to sleep, and never woke. And so, we're three."

"There's documentation of this?"

"Yes. Deena obtained it. He made her very smart and resourceful. Maybe he miscalculated the range of her curiosity, her ... humanity. She learned she'd been two, but one hadn't been allowed to develop past the age of three. When she told us, we couldn't believe it. Didn't want to believe it. She ran away, she wanted us to come, but..."