Traipse Ch. 05

"The idea of having someone to hand my business down to sounded incredible, but I wasn't stupid. They had their own reasons for wanting to make me a test tube child. As you know, genetic alteration in synthetic procreation processes is legal, though only to a certain point. I don't know the details, but they had found a way to manipulate the core DNA structure of both the embryo and sperm, and both were so modified that nothing of the parent genes remained in the baby at the time of induced conception. I was one of their biggest backers, and they knew that what they were doing would be shut down immediately by the government; or more likely stolen from them and used for the government's own purposes. I couldn't pass it up, the opportunity to have a genetically perfect boy to carry on my work and see me through my retirement. I paid for a lot of the project out of my own pocket, as you know, but you have no idea how much you are worth as a specimen to these people, so let me tell you.

"You can't get cancer boy, of any kind. Your genes not only protect you from nearly every form of cellular attack, but they can also in theory be used to create new kinds of cures. You're a modern day Adam, built from the dust of technology and synthesis, a genetic clean slate. No disease, no intolerance, no allergies or conditions; but with all the resistances of several human gene pools. When you got the occasional cold, you were sick for half a day, then you're body kicked it. You got the chicken pox when you were five, and recovered from it in a day and a half. You never had anything to compare it to, but you heal almost three times faster than a normal human. Your blood, semen, and organs could be auctioned for thousands of credits. They see you as a living gold mine, do you understand, Trask?"

I paused for a moment to process what he told me then asked, "Who are 'they'?"

Cornelius Allhew winced into the dark, "Celltrade. They are no longer owned by the same people. There was a coup a number of years ago, and a lot of the CEO's went missing. People were bribed and things got swept under the rug, and at that point I had already been raising you. You were around twelve when it happened, and I did my best to stay out of it, but I was threatened. They found out about you and told me that they would allow me to keep you and my business if I promised to make sure you stayed in the city. Its all rather comical really, they knew that you were worth a fortune, but they didn't yet know how to exploit it. Patrica Fwen is one of their CEO's daughters, and it was their plan for you to actually marry in to the company without knowing it was only so they could keep an eye on you until they figured out how to capitalize on you. So that brings us to more recent events, like the shuttle incident and your running away. I assume you found some information on your own and decided you didn't want to be a puppet anymore, is that right?"

I nodded grimly in the dark, "That's exactly what happened."

My uncle chuckled, "And to think that this whole thing went wrong for me all because of that girl. Starway Finn was it? No one saw her coming, she threw a wrench in everything and ultimately saved you. She was so random, so... unprecedented, that no one, not even Celltrade, a multi-billion credit company, could have planned on her."

I laughed lowly despite the darkness of the mood, "She would take that as a compliment."

He sighed, then became quiet for a moment, "Do you love her, son? Does she really mean that much to you?"

I set my eyes downward for a moment, "Yes. She's the whole reason I came back here. I needed to know what was going on, for both our sake. I can't live my life like this, under the constant threatening and scrutiny of a syndicate. If they try to come for us, I'll do everything I can to tear them apart and dismantle their empire."

My Uncle looked a little regretful, "For what its worth my boy, I'm proud of you for what you've done. Some of the geneticists were doubtful as to how much of a personality you would have, but I see they were just full of shit and hot air. You're turning into a fine young man, and it was foolish and vain of me to think I could keep you here at the age you're at. It would have happened sooner or later, it was only a matter of time. The situation was out of my hands anyway, as it has been for over ten years. It was my idea to drug you and Patricia on the shuttle, it was also my idea to send Henely to retrieve you. After he failed, I posted the private bounty on you myself, but I never thought Nala would be the one to pick you up. I switched your marital status to divorced in the hopes that it might protect your wife a little more and take her name off the bounty, but it didn't seem to help. Nala tried to negotiate with me, and I shuddered at the thought of you being alone with that woman. I've heard the stories of what she does with her prisoners, and I would never wish that on anyone. If I'm sorry about anything, its the fact that you had to meet that woman face to face."

I smiled, remembering the look on Nala's face when Starway seduced her, "Nala's dead, so she'll only be doing things like that in hell."

My uncle's features darkened, "You killed her?"

"No, Starway did. We had an encounter with her, but it didn't last long."

Neil looked genuinely awed, "She must be quite the woman."

I smiled again in the dark, "She is. So... if I didn't know any better I'd think you were apologizing to me, but what happens now?"

My uncle shook his head, "I won't lie to you, boy. The only reason I wanted you back here was so Celltrade would get off my back about finding you. My life has an expiration date, and I refuse to run from them. If I turned you in, I'd be disposable, but if I don't find you within a certain amount of time then they'll kill me. Hell, I wouldn't blame you at all for beating me to death right now. I'm a coward, but I'm a business man Trask, always have been. If I wanted a son then I should have made time for a woman in my life instead of playing god and screwing with the darker corners of science. I've done a lot of awful things to you, treated you like an asset instead of a person, and controlled every aspect of your life until recently. I won't ask for your forgiveness, and honestly, there's nothing you can do to help me now. Go home. Be with your wife and make a life for yourself, Celltrade doesn't know where on Vale you're located and they think Nala still has you, though by now I'm sure they know she's dead. In their case, the fact that they are trying to run both legitimately and crookedly may work in your favor; they've gotten a little too big for themselves and are beginning to have problems with organization. That's why I hired so many extra body guards, because they could be coming for me any day now to collect on any asset they can get, though they'll probably just blow the entire estate to kingdom come. The sooner you leave the better, and don't come back."

I felt conflicted. It would have been so much easier if he had been totally heartless and didn't spill his guts, but that's not how it worked out. I got the answers I wanted, for the time being, but I didn't want him to die.

I looked at him for a long time without saying anything, trying to figure out what to say. I didn't hate him, although it might take me years to truly forgive him. I knew he was right though, even if I turned myself in, they would still dump him like a bad habit. I also wasn't going to trade his life for Star's, or mine. He made his damn bed, now it was simply time for him to sleep in it, as cold as it sounds. I nodded to myself after awhile and finally spoke, "Okay, I'm leaving. I want you to know that I don't hate you, but I don't feel responsible for you in any way. I'm trying to feel sorry for you, but in the end you're just getting what you deserve. It didn't have to end like this, you could have told me what was going on and we could have figured something out, but you chose this instead."

He slumped to the ground and lowered his head, "Well spoken boy. I'm glad to see that you're strong enough to make your own damn decisions. Whatever happens to me, I'm resigned to it. Goodbye son, you're more a man than I ever was and I wish you the happiness you deserve."

I walked out the door cautiously and awkwardly, trying to think of the right words. I couldn't really come up with anything so I simply said, "Goodbye uncle, I'm sorry it had to end this way."

We exited the complex without a hitch. It Turned out that none of us got hurt and not a single one of the guards was able to defend themselves. I think our secret was the simplicity of it. With so many high tech devices nowadays, no one is really prepared to deal with something that's been around for thousands of years. We returned the rental car and I phoned Wraith to tell him what I'd learned. He said he'd keep me posted. I texted Kya once we were on the flash plane to tell her we were on our way home and everyone was okay. I told the guys what had happened and thanked them profusely, and they were really supportive of me while they talked about how many guys they'd knocked out and how they did it. I couldn't sleep at all during the ride, but tons of coffee later and hours of conversation with Trite got me through it. Finally, we arrive back In Vale early Monday. I saw Starway and Kya waiting for me near the terminal when we exited, and Star ran toward me and pounced on me.

She was wearing a yellow sweatshirt and skinny jeans, an outfit I'd never seen before. She looked up at me and smiled sweetly, trying to hold back tears, "I missed you so much love, I'm so happy you're okay!"

I hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head, "I know it was only a few days, but it felt like a week. I missed you too, babe."

We hugged and kissed for a long time until she finally let me go, "You should go thank Kya, she really helped me and she bought me some new outfits."

I nodded and told Star to hang on.

I walked up to Kya who was standing a distance away. I think she was trying to give us some space. But she looked a little nervous as I approached her.

I stopped a few feet away from her and smiled, starting to feel dog tired, "Kya... I don't even know how to thank you."

She smiled back, "It was no problem at all. I'm glad to see you survived, killer. You look like hell though, I'll drive us all back to my place so you can rest and I'll order some Chinese or something."

I nodded, "That sounds awesome. I hope Star wasn't too much trouble for you."

Kya blushed crimson red and if she was trying to hide it, she did an awful job, "Um... about that. She did get have a little bit of an episode and things got kinda... out of hand. So..."

I laughed a lot more loudly than I had intended to. I had been put under so much stress within the last forty eight hours that it felt so good just to have a good laugh. It died down finally and I put up my hand, "I'm sorry Kya, I've just been so stressed out, I didn't mean to laugh at you. Don't worry, I gave you a disclaimer remember? Plus, I feel kind of avenged for my own embarrassment. Honestly, as long as she didn't do something you didn't want her to, I'm glad you were there for her. Seriously, when she gets going, you'd have to be a eunuch monk to be able to turn down her advances. I hope she went easy on you at least?"

I'll admit, I asked the question simply to make Kya blush again, and it worked, "Uh, heh, not exactly. She's... quite the woman."

I nodded, "Second time I heard that in the last two days."