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  model, the DNA double helix, in complexity and in ability. This in turn has enabled us to advance our recombinant-DNA technology to an unimaginable level of accomplishment.

  You will never catch up with us.

  With our new computer-controlled, exceptionally powerful electron microscopes, we were able to more fully probe the structure of the double helix, the key to life, then isolate sections of the chromosomal genetic programme of living organisms — plant, animal or human — and insert other, replacement sections. In this way we were able to create cross-bred animals, chimeras, blending two completely separate species that could not mate, thus creating a sheep with a goat's head, a dog with a cat's body, two-headed mice, and even rats with fish gills and fins instead of legs and a tail. Trom these primitive early chimeras, we moved on to cyborg-animals created for specific tasks: for example, headless cows as drug factories, producing a variety of genetically engineered drugs from their milk; and meat cattle that are themselves no more than large lumps of meat that seem alive and are indeed so, having a heart and circulation though no head or brain because, in both cases, their biological nervous systems are linked to a central computer system that controls all their functions.

  Trom these useful, genetically engineered cyborg-animals, it was but a step to the genetically altered human being.

  Tirst, we abducted human beings sufferingfrom genetic disorders and injected them with DNA material that carried the correct version of their malformed gene. Or, conversely, we changed their structure for the worse by mixing malformed genes with their healthy genes and letting them breed and multiply until the original, healthy genes had been replaced entirely by the malformed ones. During those early years, the abductees whose structures were genetically altered for the worse, giving them some disease or making them criminal or psychopathic, were terminated once the experiment had succeeded. Where the abductees were genetically altered for the better, we either kept them for further experiments or wed them as workers who would never complain or cause any problems. Finally, when we saw how successful the recombinant-DNA techniques were, Wf started using them on a regular basis to produce perfectly healthy, mentally superior, totally obedient workers.

  in this area of research, we have long been using the amniocentesis procedure, in which the mother's womb is examined for markers indicating the extra

  chromosome that causes mental retardation and the physical abnormalities of Down's Syndrome. Advancing from this innovation, we learned to scan for literally hundreds of other diseases and defects, including criminal or psychopathic tendencies, while the child was still in the womb. At first we aborted any foetuses with such abnormalities, but now we simply alter the genetic structure of the growing foetus to ensure that it is, when born, perfectly normal and healthy.

  This is, you will realize, a form of eugenics, the control of human breeding, a concept long reviled and feared by liberal thinkers. Most notorious as something cruelly used by the Nazis of the Old Age (including myself in my first incarnation), it was actually first practised in the United States in the 1930s with official sterilization programmes that were used to prevent the so-called 'unfit'from breeding. The 'unfit', according to US policies of the period, included the feeble-minded, the epileptic, the blind, the deaf, the deformed and those crippled or merely suffering from what were considered, at the time, to be soda lly unacceptable diseases.

  So do not express revulsion at what we do. What we do, your kind did first.

  Thankfully, the state of your genetic engineering is still retarded whereas ours is in what would be, to you, an awesome stage of advancement. As long ago as 1984, bio~engineers in the Arizona Genetic Laboratory caused a rat to regrow a lost limb by restimulating the genes controlling limb development. While nothing much was heard after that particular experiment, we capitalized on their research and now our genetic-engineering techniques enable to us regrow corrupted internal organs and lost limbs. The genes that cause growth in the foetus remain in place throughout adult life and by stimulating them with our advanced recombinant-DNA techniques, we are able to regenerate amputated hands, arms or legs. This is particularly useful when it comes to replacing the ageing human parts in the early cyborgs.

  Is this your Trankenstein nightmare? Fear not: you will get used to it. Soon, when you join us, it will seem as natural to you as shaving or clipping your nails, in both of which cases you are destroying some of your own genetic chromosomes.

  Indeed, to shave or clip your nails is to engage in genetic engineering, albeit of a routine kind. What we were doing, however, was essentially no different. But what we were doing, good or bad, right or wrong, was merely the prelude to our penultimate achievement: the cloning of human beings.

  / was the first.

  fust before my death, at my command, my bio-technicians extracted minute samples of my original genetic blueprint from a piece of my skin tissue, then cloned and grew the DNA string from it to create another 'me' in a test tube. Naturally, I was only a replica of the original me, a physical mirror image, while otherwise being a blank diskette waiting to be filled. So it was that the thoughts and experiences of the original John Wilson had to be implanted in me, virtually imprinted upon me, and this process, which began from my first months, continued until I knew everything that John Wilson had known and virtually felt all that he had felt. I was given the same name, the same background and memories (the wheat fields of Iowa; the knowledge that the sun would die; the construction of airships and jet aircraft and flying saucers; the Second World War and the flight to Antarctica; the exploitation of the Cold War to get the most out of the Soviets and the Americans; the death at an unnaturally old age and the subsequent cloning), forced to read his diaries daily and learnt, with the aid of interactive media systems and computer technology with heightened sensory stimulation, including 3-D sound and wraparound vision, to relieve his whole life, study his life's work and in general become virtually the same man that he had been. Now, to all intents and purposes, I am John Wilson.

  How do I feel about this? A parentless child, the product of a true virgin birth, in a brave new world. Someone shaped by the experiences of another and carrying on his life.

  Nothing. I feel nothing. By which I mean that I feel normal. Knowing nothing else, possessing no memories other than his, those memories are as real to me as is your past to you. I take pride in my own history, which is, of course, his history, and strengthen that pride with the knowledge that I am carrying on his work. I believe in what I am doing, as he believed, and this is enough to sustain me.

  Wilson's goal was the creation of the Superman and we, his successors, in creating men through cloning, in making them physically perfect and intellectually superior, have in fact turned them into Supermen. This, our penultimate achievement, has already been accomplished.

  So, you might well ask, if this was our penultimate achievement, then "what was our ultimate achievement?

  Alas, we have not yet attained it. But we are here, in your cities, running your world, in order to do so. We will soon succeed. Come and join us. Bear witness.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Making his way through the forest, Michael was filled with a sense of strangeness and wonder, never before having been surrounded by trees, in a gloom criss-crossed with striations of sunlight in which motes of dust were at play. Mentally attuned to the vast skies and dazzling light of Antarctica, to a feeling of boundless space and clarity, he felt slightly claustrophobic in the forest, with the branches of the trees blocking out the sky except for cloudy patches here and there. From what he could see, the sky looked low, unnaturally so, and this only heightened his feeling that he was a stranger in a strange land, though he knew that this was simply the world that his parents, and most of the other adults in Freedom Bay, had originally come from.

  This is where I truly belong, he thought, so I'd better get used to it.

  Leaves tumbled down around him, rustled around his feet, and there were many other unfamiliar sounds that distracted him constantly. Luckily, he'd studied the area on his computer before coming here, learning all he could about it, and he knew that most of the unfamiliar sounds he was hearing were being made by animals and birds of the forest, none of which were dangerous.

  As he walked, he found himself stroking the barks of the trees, bending the branches, stroking the leaves, picking up plants and rlowers, just for the unfamiliar tactile sensations they gave him.

  There were no trees around Freedom Bay, no leaves, plants or flowers, so he explored the forest as he walked through it, marvelling at its many colours and shadings, taking them in with deep pleasure and gradually losing his initial feeling of claustrophobia.

  Nevertheless, despite the novelty of this new experience, he tried not to lose his concentration, keeping firmly in mind the knowledge that this World was ruled by the cyborgs and that even out here, in the mountains and valleys, they could have a presence. It took him an hour to get clear of the forest, passing repeatedly from gloom to striations of sunlight, and each time he saw a patch of sky above he looked up automatically, fully expecting to see a flying saucer, though in the event he saw none. When eventually he emerged from the forest, to the wide-open spaces, the sun was sinking and casting great shadows over the land.

  This was a rural area of orchards, pastures, hamlets and small towns. White-painted wooden fences divided the land, separating one field from another where the farmers were growing maize, wheat, oats and groundnuts. A line of mountains — not the ones he had come from — ran along the south-western horizon, dividing the valleys from the darkening sky; a broad, glittering river snaked south of where he was standing; and directly in front of him, to the east, was a small town of mostly white-painted houses with roofs of red tiles, where lights were winking on, one after the other, as the sun went down.

  Between the town and where Michael stood was a winding stream. A boy wearing coveralls and a soft peaked cap was fishing in it, sitting on his backside on the far bank, gazing distractedly in Michael's direction, using a rod and line. Realizing that the boy had seen him, though he didn't seem too concerned, Michael ambled towards him, suddenly feeling nervous but trying not to show it, waving his right hand as he approached the near bank. The boy saw him waving and waved back, then jabbed his finger to his left, indicating some stepping stones that crossed the stream. Nodding to show that he had understood, Michael headed in that direction, crossed the stream by way of the stones, then walked along the bank until he came to where the boy was sitting. Up close, he saw that the boy was about twelve years old, his face freckled and sunburnt.

  'Hi,' Michael said. 'Catch anything yet?'

  'Nope. Never do.'

  'So why are you fishing?'

  "Cause I like it,' the boy said.

  Michael smiled and knelt beside him. 'There are no fish in this river?' he asked, just to make conversation and gain the boy's confidence.

  'I don't think so,' the boy replied. 'My Dad and me used to go fishing in Chesapeake Bay. Lots of fish there, lots of big boats, and we used to have a great time. That doesn't happen any more, so I come here instead. Who knows? I caught a lot of fish in Chesapeake Bay, so sooner or later I might catch one here. A guy lives on hope.'

  'Chesapeake Bay's a good distance from here,' Michael said. 'Why did your Dad take you there?'

  'He didn't. We lived there. In Annapolis. My Dad was a Drill Instructor at the Naval Academy and one day last year he went to work and didn't come back. He'd been picked up by a flying saucer. When we were told that by the police, my Mom got real scared and sold the house practically overnight and moved us out here. So that's why I'm fishing here.'

  You haven't seen your Dad since?'

  Nope,' the boy said, looking hurt but resigned. 'And I don't expect to, neither. No one picked up by a cyborg saucer has ever been seen again — not unless they've been brainwashed. I guess rny Dad's gone for good.'

  Sympathetic to the boy, but relieved to know that he had no fondness for the cyborgs, Michael said: 'So your mother brought you here because she thinks you'll be safer here than in Annapolis.'

  Right,' the boy said. 'As my Mom said, Annapolis, the whole

  of Maryland, the whole way from there to Washington DC, is filled with air force and naval bases, so the cyborgs are all over those areas. She brought us here 'cause this is mostly rural and the cyborgs don't come around much. Short of climbing Mount Everest, she said, we couldn't be safer.'

  'She sounds sensible,' Michael said.

  'She is. So what are you doing out here, Mister? You don't come from here.' He glanced at the rucksack on Michael's back. 'You hitch-hiking around?'

  'That's right,' Michael lied. 'Hitch-hiking. I've come from Cincinnati and I'm trying to make my way to Washington DC

  'That's a bad place to go,' the boy said, obviously thinking about his father and looking forlorn. 'The cyborgs are all over that place and the closer you get to it, the more saucers you'll see. If they stop you, you're finished.'

  'Yes?'

  'Yeah,' the boy said. 'You'll just disappear.'

  Michael nodded towards the nearby town, the nearest buildings of which were only a few hundred metres away, at the other side of a road that snaked through rolling, shadow-covered pasture lands. You live there?' he asked.

  'Yeah,' the boy said.

  'It looks like a nice little town.'

  'It's a morgue,' the boy said.

  'Well, I guess I'd better be moving on,' Michael said, standing upright.

  'You really shouldn't travel at night,' the boy advised him, speaking with the gravity and authority of a mature man. 'Though there aren't as many saucer patrols here as there are in Washington, they still fly over occasionally and nearly always at night. That's mostly when they abduct people. You'd be better off staying here for the night and moving on tomorrow.'

  Michael glanced automatically at the clapboard houses of the small, pretty town. 'Do you know of anywhere there I can stay?' he asked.

  717

  'Sure,' the boy said, grinning happily and clambering to his feet to stand in front of Michael. 'At our place. My Mom does bed and breakfast for the odd traveller to supplement her income. She offers dinner as well. There's no one there at the moment, so the bedroom's available. You can stay with us, then light out in the morning. If you get a couple of decent lifts — and avoid the saucers — you'll be in Washington before tomorrow evening. What about it, mister?'

  Studying the boy's bright blue eyes and big grin under his mop of wind-tossed blond hair, Michael realized that he was desperate for company in this beautiful though isolated place.

  'Sounds good,' he said.

  'Great! I'm Jim — Jim Pendleton.'

  The boy held out his hand and Michael shook it. 'Mike Johnson,' he said, using the name on his false identification papers and plastic cards. 'Nice to meet you, Jim.'

  'Same here,' Jim said, kneeling briefly to pick up his fishing tackle, then straightening up again. 'God, I'm hungry!' he exclaimed, revitalized by the very thought of company. 'I didn't realize how long I've been out here. I'm starving! Let's go, Mike.'

  Walking energetically, he led Michael across the road, then on to the western edge of town, a short distance away. As they approached the nearest houses, the sun started sinking in a darkening blue sky tinged with crimson, casting great shadows over the lush green pasturelands, criss-crossed with white-painted fences, sometimes hemmed in with orchards, dotted here and there with yellow tractors and other vehicles on the move in the distance. Again, Michael was struck by the richness or the unfamiliar colours and by what seemed like an unusually low sky, though the latter was, he knew, an illusion, since that same sky also covered Antarctica. He realized, then, that he felt comfortable with the boy because he too felt like a boy, seeing everything as if for the first time — which was what he was, in a teal sense, doing.

  'Nice evening,' he said when they reached the outlying houses and started wending their way between them.

  'It's not bad,' Jim replied. 'Hi, Mister McCloud!' he called out, waving to a man who had been mowing his lawn and was now relaxing with a cigarette before darkness fell. The man, who was tall and skinny, wearing coveralls, with thinning hair and a face dried out by too much sunshine, grinned and waved back.

  'Evenin', Jim!' he shouted.

  'Got a visitor,' Jim said, indicating Michael with a backward jab of his thumb.

  'You won't starve in Jim's house,' the man said, speaking to Michael. 'His Mom lays a good table.'

  'I'm pleased to hear it,' Michael said.

  Jim led him on, going along a couple of narrow lanes between the clapboard houses, waving to other friends and neighbours who were still outdoors, some sitting on porches and watching the sun go down.

  After turning a couple of corners, he arrived at his own home which, like most of the others, was a two-storey, white-painted clapboard house with a porch running along its front, overlooking the well-kept grass of its front yard.

  'This is it,' Jim said, bounding up the steps ahead of Michael, laying his fishing gear on the floor of the porch, then opening the front door and sticking his head in. 'Mom!' he called out.

  'Yes!' a woman's voice responded from inside.

  'I got a visitor wants to stay for the night,' Jim said.

  'I'm coming right out, son.'

  As Michael mounted the steps to join Jim on the porch, a thin woman with a gaunt, attractive face and short-cropped blonde hair came to the door, drying her hands on the white apron tied around her loose lime-green cotton dress. She was smiling in welcome, but she studied Michael with slightly suspicious eyes.

  'Hi,' Michael said. 'Mike Johnson. I'm making my way from Cincinnati to Washington DC. Hitchhiking. Jim says you can put me up for the night.'

 

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