Unknown - Sex-crazed stallion

He stood up and walked back into the kitchen.

"Anything wrong Dad?" asked Sherry.

"Have you seen your sister up yet?"

"No, I guess she's sleeping late today."

Sherry seemed unconcerned. Was he worrying too much? Perhaps. But there was something that he'd felt growing in his younger daughter, something almost… he didn't want to use the word malignant, and so he forced the thought from his mind. But the fears were there. There was a stranger at times behind her eyes, someone who was far different from the person he'd strove so hard to create, an alien, a flawed alien. It worried him. Actually it filled him with a dread. She couldn't be flawed. He couldn't take it. It couldn't be. Not after Sherry had developed to such gem-like perfection. He couldn't tolerate flaws. Flaws were the bane of the race. They had to be stamped out!

He caught himself, realized that he was giving in to the old feelings, the ones he had run away from, the ones his wife had turned on him for, the ones he could never permit himself to think.

Only his daughter could bring such feelings out of him. Only one he loved with such total dedication could fill him with such rage for falling short of his expectations.

And yet, the truth was, she did exactly that. Somehow, he knew that he had failed in her development. He had allowed for uncertainty, for randomness. He had allowed her to develop a will.

The horror!

It was still a fledgling, an embryo…

But he could see it, even though he tried not to. It was in her eyes. She was… well, she was somewhere else. Not like Sherry. She was like her mother.

He prayed to God that it wouldn't be so, that somehow he had been paranoid, had read signs that weren't there, had interpreted actions that didn't exist.

Perhaps. He wondered at times if the drug was warping his perception of reality. But no, that was impossible. He kept too close a watch on himself, tested himself too often. His vision was as clear as it had been twenty years ago…

He tried the doorknob to Carrie's room. It was locked. Did she always sleep with her door locked? That in itself was unsettling. For what was she trying to keep out, if it wasn't he himself?

But a darker thought struck him. What if she wasn't there at all? What if…

Sherry's voice calling to him broke his thoughts.

"Breakfast's ready, Dad."

He looked back at the door. He knocked. "Carrie? Are you all right?" he called.

There was no response.

He knocked again, harder this time.

"Carrie! Are you in there?"

Sherry heard him and appeared in the hallway.

"Is something wrong?"

"I don't know. Either she's sick or she's not in there. But the door's locked."

"Get me a screwdriver."

Sherry wasn't sure how she felt. She'd suspected for a long time that Carrie was drifting away… she'd closed her eyes to it. But now…

"Dad, what if she is gone? It doesn't mean anything. She just likes to be on her own."

But Lucus wasn't to be put off. He'd felt a confrontation brewing for some time and suddenly he felt it to be at hand.

He went into his room and returned with a screwdriver and began to pick at the lock.

Then they heard a noise inside the room. The door knob turned and there stood Carrie a blanket wrapped around her, seemingly rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"What's wrong?" she yawned.

Lucus seemed momentarily deflated by her unexpected appearance. She rubbed her eyes, yawned again and gave each in turn a bleary eyed look.

"Is there something wrong, Daddy?" she asked innocently.

"I wondered if you were all right, that's all. It's not like you to sleep so late."

"I know, I guess I'm just being lazy. I'll be getting up pretty soon. I've got some chores to tend to."

"That's right," he agreed. "Have you checked the chemicals in the greenhouse yet?"

"No," she answered, yawning again and turning away, "but I'll do that first thing."

"You might think about gathering the eggs while you're at it."

"I will," she said, characteristic adolescent annoyance creeping into her voice.

"Well, I'm sorry for all the fuss," he apologized. "I suppose there's no harm in sleeping in a little late, is there?"

He gave her a small chuckle, trying to sound casual and unconcerned, but Sherry could see a pinched strain at the corners of his eyes, an intensity that somehow recalled ominous thoughts, resurrected images from a long dead past…

What little she remembered of her father's history she'd managed to block from her thoughts. Only now, in moments of tension, when for one reason or another Lucus would suddenly feel the fragile bonds lashing the planks of his makeshift work together start to fray and unravel…

She knew the clues, assimilated them instinctively and knew when to spring to his defense.

As he gave Carrie one last uncertain look, turned and shuffled back down the hallway, Sherry reached out to her sister and ran her fingers through her hair.

"It's still damp. Funny, if you've been asleep, when did you get a chance for a shower?"

"Oh, leave me alone. I didn't do anything wrong."

"If that's the case, why be so deceitful about it? Why sneak off?"

"Who says I did anything?" Her brow wrinkled in defiance.

"Calm down, calm down. There's nothing wrong. That's the whole point. The only thing wrong is that you act like you've got something to hide."

Carrie looked at her with a stone face that revealed nothing.

"Where do you go in the mornings?"

"I don't go anywhere."

"Carrie, it's all right. You just have to understand Father, and I don't think you're making much of an effort. He has… fears."

"About what?"

Sherry was lost for words. One of the issues she allowed herself to overlook was precisely that question. What was it that haunted their father?

More to the point would have been to question why their life was structured as it was at all, but neither girl was really able to view that question as an issue separate from the life they took for granted.

"You're all sweaty," Sherry observed. "You really should take a shower. I don't know what you've been doing, but you smell."

Carrie turned away, ending the conversation as far as she was concerned.

But Sherry was plainly worried. There was a balance being threatened here in what way she could not quiet say, but it left her with a dimly perceived feeling of dread.

"Carrie, you have to go along with Dad. You can't shut him out the way you do. He needs you."

Carrie said nothing, but her frown thickened.

Finally, the words that had been building for months were at last given voice.

"But I have my own life to live."

Sherry said nothing, but the dread in her seemed to turn to a black syrup in her stomach. She wasn't able to say why, but she felt the familiarity of her world being to come apart with those words. They frightened her, primarily because the showed her how far apart she and her sister had grown.

"Carrie, you're going to hurt him. You can't do that."

"Oh, he's just got you eating out of the palm of his hand. You're blind…!"

Sherry reacted without thinking. Carrie was doing the unthinkable. She was speaking out against their father. From her earliest years, he had been the pillar of strength, the standard for good and evil, the one who determined the rules and went about seeing that they were obeyed. Carrie's words bordered on blasphemy.

She slapped Carrie on the cheek. It wasn't hard, but the shock was still hard and impersonal as iron.

"I think I'll get a shower now. Thanks for your opinion." She closed the door and listened for Sherry's footsteps down the hallway, which she soon heard.

She clenched her fist and pounded it into the palm of her other hand.

She felt a slowly increasing rage inside her. What business was it of theirs anyway? She would do what she wanted!