Darren Lemke - Gemini Man

Education had been important in Verris’s family. His father had always said that training without education produced a waste of good man flesh (women included). During Verris’s time in the Marine Corps, he’d seen how true that was. The problem, however, was not so much with the man flesh involved as it was with those in command. Most of them regarded soldiers as something to be supplied and replenished, one more military consumable: cannon fodder. Talk about a waste of good man flesh! They should have been producing warriors , not fresh meat for slaughterhouses like Vietnam or Iraq.

Long ago, Verris had come to the conclusion that just as war and other conflicts had many facets, so, too, were there different kinds of warriors. Junior was the warrior Henry Brogan could have been if he’d had the right education and guidance, while the guys he’d been watching tonight were another kind altogether. When they hit the ground in Yemen, the whole world was going to sit up and take notice, especially the US. They were going to see that Gemini warriors were the new and improved future of military man flesh, women included; women especially.

He would never have been able to accomplish this in the Corps, no matter how high he rose in rank. If he had stayed in the Marines, they only would have held him back. So he had quit and started Gemini. He had thought for sure that Henry would want to be part of it—the private sector had so much more to offer, starting with better pay. But Henry had chosen to stick with government work and let the DIA recruit him. He’d always had a thing about serving his country. He was committed to it and Verris hadn’t realized how strong that commitment was; Henry had never acted like a flag-waving robot.

It didn’t make any sense until Verris considered that this was what happened when kids grew up without a father. They had to put something in that empty space and for Henry, it was his country. Admirable? Maybe, but it meant that Henry would never be able to achieve his full potential. All things considered, he’d done pretty well, overcoming his deprived background and making something of himself.

Still, Verris couldn’t help thinking how much more Henry could have accomplished if he’d had the care and guidance of a father. Verris had promised himself that if he ever became a father himself, he would be right there in his kid’s life, 24/7.

As time passed, Verris had seen he wasn’t going to have a conventional nuclear family. If he wanted to be a father, he would have to adopt. That was all right with him but there seemed to be a shortage of newborns and adoption agencies tended to favor two-parent families, not single ex-military men who couldn’t talk about what they did for a living because it was classified.

Then he had gotten wind of Dormov’s work and right away he’d known this was how he could make his fondest dream a reality—he could give Henry Brogan a do-over. He could raise him right, make him into the warrior he should have been. He could train him to grow into his strengths unhindered by the psychological damage of a childhood and adolescence living in poverty without a father.

Henry Brogan 2.0—all of the shine, none of the whine.

The road hadn’t been completely smooth. But Junior was fast becoming the warrior Henry would never be; the kid was going to achieve the perfection that Henry had never had a chance at.

Verris had wanted so much to tell Junior that but the kid simply wasn’t ready yet. Junior was educated, he was trained, he was a warrior. The problem was, there was still too much of the adolescent in him.

Gemini’s psychologists told him he had to be patient. Every person matured at a different rate, and in general the male of the species usually lagged behind the female. Verris was just going to have to watch and wait, they said, play it by ear.

So he’d done that but Junior still wasn’t ready at twenty-three and Verris was damned if he knew what was wrong. There shouldn’t have been anything holding him back. Finally Verris realized the solution had been right in front of him all along: Henry Brogan.

Junior would never come into his own as long as Henry Brogan was alive.

It was so obvious, he should have seen it right away, Verris thought. But it wasn’t just that Henry had to die— Junior had to be the one to kill him. Then Junior would be able to take his rightful place in the world as who and what he was.

Then he would be perfect.

Henry Brogan was broken and flawed. Junior was the new, improved version, and best of all, he was Verris’s son. Verris would continue to make sure Junior knew he had a father every moment of every day. That would make sure he stayed perfect.

Another soldier would have stopped at the infirmary to have his gunshot wound checked out and clean up a little before he reported in, but not Junior. Junior would know Verris had already been informed of his failure to accomplish his mission for the second time. He wouldn’t wait to account for himself.

He didn’t knock, either, to Verris’s annoyance. Verris blanked and muted the feeds. He’d been watching the exercises long enough that he had a pretty good idea of how they were all going to go. If anything blew up that wasn’t supposed to, he’d hear it.

But Jesus, the guard in the lobby had been right—Junior was very much the worse for wear. He looked as if he’d gone swimming with all his clothes on, then slept in them while they dried.

Verris waited for Junior to say something but his son just stood in front of his desk giving him a hard stare. Finally, he leaned back in his chair. “Tell me something,” he said, looking directly into those glaring eyes. “Why is it so hard for you to kill this ma — ”

“Do you know how much I hate Big Hammock park, Pop?” Junior demanded.

Alarm bells went off in Verris’s mind. It was never a good sign when Junior started a conversation with something he hated. The bizarre juxtaposition of his birthday with his second failure to accomplish his mission meant he had let himself be distracted by irrelevant shit. Verris was tempted to give him a sharp, hard slap in the face, like hitting a radio with a loose connection. But a good father never struck his son in the head, not off the training field.

Maybe this was a childish attempt to divert attention from his failure, or even to deny his own responsibility: I failed to kill Henry Brogan because you’ve been forcing me to go to Big Hammock park on my birthday.

Junior should have been a little too old for that one but you could never tell with young people. Whatever was going on with him, Verris knew he would have to take it step by step and see where it led.

“Come again?” Clay said, careful to keep his tone neutral.

“Every year since I was twelve, we shoot turkeys there on my birthday. I always hated it — I mean, I was an orphan , right? How did we even know when my birthday was? But you never seemed to notice so we just kept going there.”

At least he hadn’t gone soft about turkeys, Verris thought. He had raised Junior with the idea that those who couldn’t kill what they ate were too weak to fight for their own lives or anyone else’s. But the kid still wasn’t making sense and if he didn’t start soon, he’d have to call in PsyOps.

Aloud, Verris said, “Fine. Next year we’ll try Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Yeah?” Junior tilted his head to one side. “Who’s ‘we’—you, me, and the lab guys who made me?”

Verris kept all expression off his face although he felt like he’d been punched between the eyes. “Oh.”

He had known that despite all his efforts to shield Junior from the truth, there was a possibility he might find out that very thing he wasn’t ready to know. But Verris had always thought that if such a thing happened, it would be here at the Gemini compound, where he would be able to manage his son’s reaction to some degree (and also know whose big mouth to staple shut).