Darren Lemke - Gemini Man

Over the years, Verris had supervised Junior’s life as well as he could, restricting his contact with other personnel. That had worked pretty well throughout Junior’s childhood and his teen years, when even the best kids could become rebellious and uncooperative. It wasn’t so easy to do that with an adult, however, even one conditioned to follow orders and not ask too many irrelevant questions. The other soldiers tended to keep their distance from the CO’s son, which helped to minimize the amount of rumor, gossip, and general scuttlebutt that came Junior’s way.

This wasn’t always easy on the kid. Sometimes Verris caught him looking longingly at a group of soldiers going off for a drink together after an exercise. Whenever that happened, he would draw Junior’s attention away with something more suited to his intellectual and physical skills and abilities, and pretty soon the kid seemed to forget all about trivial shit like drinking buddies. Protecting him until he was ready to know the truth was more important than anything else.

From time to time, though, Verris had wondered if he should have told Junior everything as soon as he was old enough to grasp the basic biology. Maybe if he had grown up with the knowledge, it would have normalized everything and there would have been that much less to agonize about later.

Or maybe Junior would simply have found another reason for an existential crisis. Kids were good at that.

And it was all moot because his son was still standing in front of his desk, glaring at him, waiting for him to explain himself.

“I, uh, I always believed you’d be happier not knowing,” Verris said finally.

“ Happy?! ” Junior gave a short harsh laugh. “The only time I’m happy is when I’m flat on my belly about to squeeze a trigger. ”

The alarm bells in Verris’s mind were louder this time. He had heard those words before but not from Junior and he was damned sure it wasn’t a coincidence. This was worse than he’d realized. Not only had Junior failed to kill Henry Brogan again, but somehow Henry had found out about Dormov’s program and used the information to get into Junior’s head. Verris wasn’t sure what was more disturbing—Henry’s finding out about the program or his having cornered Junior long enough to tell him about it. And how the hell he could have found out in the first place—

Budapest. That Russian rat Yuri, friend to Jack Willis.

Dammit, Verris thought; if he had called in an airstrike on Willis’s yacht while he and Brogan had still been hugging it out like teenage girls, this whole thing could have been avoided. He would never have had to tell Junior he was a clone and this rite of passage wouldn’t be necessary.

No.

That would have been easier but there was something else to consider: the symmetry of Junior supplanting Henry by punching his ticket. That was so beautiful, so elegant, so perfect. And Brogan deserved nothing less. The arrogance of that self-righteous prick, putting on that hitman-witha-heart-of-gold act, refusing to come work with him at Gemini, as if he was actually better than his old CO. As if he was too good for Gemini.

Brogan must have been livid when he found out who Junior was. He had said no to Verris and Verris had gotten him anyway. Not only that, he’d raised Junior to work there, actually bred him for it. If anyone was too good for something it was Junior. He was too good for the DIA or any other crappy government agency.

“I mean, this wasn’t some mistake .” Junior planted both fists on his desk and leaned forward. “It’s not like you got somebody pregnant and then had to man up and raise me. No, you made a decision . You had a scientist make a person out of another person. ”

“No, that’s not what—”

“That’s exactly what happened.” He straightened up and looked down at himself, putting his hands on his chest and midsection with the fingers splayed, as if he were trying to feel how substantial he really was. “And why, of all the shooters in the world, did you have to send me after him?”

“Because he’s your darkness,” Verris replied. “You had to walk through it on your own.”

Junior gave him a hard look. “Maybe you’re my darkness.”

Christ, Verris thought as a knot started to form in his stomach.

“That lie you always told me, about my ‘parents’ leaving me at a fire station. I believed it. Do you know how that made me feel?”

“That was a necessary lie,” Verris said.

“ None of this was necessary! You chose to do all of this to me!” Junior paused, looking lost and sad. “Can’t you see how not okay I am?”

Verris had had enough. “Bullshit.”

Junior gaped at him. The kid hadn’t seen that coming.

“Don’t forget who you’re talking to, Junior,” Verris went on while the kid was still off-balance. “I’ve been in battle! I’ve seen soldiers go over the edge because more was asked of them than they had to give. And I promised myself that I would never let that happen to my kid, that I would never let anything in life squeeze the strength and spirit out of my son and toss him aside. And nothing will! That’s not you, that will never be you—I made sure of it. Because you have what Henry Brogan never had—a loving, dedicated, present father who tells you every goddam day that you’re loved, you matter! Jesus, kid, the whole point was to give you all of Henry’s advantages without any of his disadvantages—all of his gifts without his pain! And that’s what I did!”

The knot in Verris’s stomach loosened as Junior’s expression went from abject and accusing to thoughtful. He had always been able to talk the kid down and smooth him out, and thank God he still could. He got up and went around the desk.

“Come here,” he said. Junior went to him and he took his son in his arms. He was the good, loving, present father, always ready to give advice, wisdom, and comfort.

“I love you, son,” he told Junior, hugging him tighter. “Don’t let yourself down.”

At the edge of a remote airfield a few miles away from the Gemini compound, Henry and Danny waited while Baron bid a fond farewell to the Gulfstream. Saying goodbye was one of Baron’s rituals. He had told Henry once that he always tried to part on good terms with any plane he had flown. Because if we should meet again, Baron had said, and it happens to be a life-or-death situation, I want to make sure I’ll be welcome in the cockpit.

Henry had smiled and nodded politely. Pilots were a superstitious bunch. They all had their own personal rituals. Even Chuck Yeager had had a good-luck routine where he asked one of his ground staff for a stick of gum. Anything that made Baron happy and confident was fine with Henry. (And just to be on the safe side, he hadn’t mentioned breaking the mirror in the abandoned apartment building.)

“Like so many of my encounters, it was short but sweet.” Baron blew a kiss at the nose of the Gulfstream. “Thanks, darlin’. No matter what happens after this, we’ll always have Budapest.”

Danny laughed a little but Henry felt a sudden odd chill, brief but intense enough to raise goosebumps on his arms. Goose walked over my grave, his mother would say when it happened to her. It rattled him. Maybe he was getting superstitious in his old age. Or he was entering his second childhood and tomorrow he’d be stepping over cracks in the sidewalk.

“So, what’s next?” Baron said as he joined him and Danny.

“Well, we can’t stay in the open,” Henry said, “and we need some ground transportation.”