Robert Sawyer - Frameshift

“Peace of mind my ass,” said Pierre. “There’s no peace of mind in telling a pregnant mother that she has to either abort her baby or lose her insurance, nor in telling a Huntington’s at-risk that he has to take a genetic test.” He held up the meeting notice. “Do you think I should go?”

“When is it?”

He peered at it. “Friday, October eighteenth. That’s — what? — three months from now.”

“Sure. Give them a piece of your mind.”

It was the first day of August. Pierre got into his lab early, ready to check over the DNA fingerprints for Hapless Hannah and Amanda Tardivel-Bond.

All he had to do was glance at the autorads, and—

Goddamn it. God fucking damn it.

Every marker was the same.

He found a chair and sat down in it before he fell down.

His daughter, his baby daughter, was a clone of a Neanderthal woman who had lived and died in the Middle East sixty-two thousand years ago.

It was all—

“Dr. Tardivel?”

Pierre looked up. It took a moment for his eyes to focus. He covered the autorads he’d been looking at with his hands. “Oh, hi, Shari.”

“I’ve finished testing that last DNA sample.”

Pierre’s head was still swimming. He almost said, “What DNA sample?”

Of course: the Bryan Proctor specimen, the one Helen Kawabata had recovered from his razor. “And?”

Shari Cohen shrugged. “Nothing. He — and it was a he — tested negative for every genetic disorder I tried.”

“Diabetes? Heart disease? Alzheimer’s? Huntington’s?”

“Clean as a whistle.”

Pierre sighed. “Thanks, Shari. I appreciate your help.”

“Is everything all right, Pierre?”

Pierre couldn’t meet her eyes. “Fine. Just fine.”

Shari looked at him for a moment more, then, with a little lifting of her shoulders, went over to one of the lab counters and began to work. Pierre leaned back in his chair. He was so sure that he was onto something — some vast conspiracy involving mercy killing of those who faced dark genetic futures. But Chuck Hanratty had killed Bryan Proctor, a man without any major genetic disorder. It made no sense.

Pierre glanced again at the autorads of Hannah’s and Amanda’s DNA, then got to his feet.

“I’m going home,” he said to Shari as he passed her.

“Are you sure everything’s okay?” asked Shari.

Pierre heard her, but didn’t trust himself to respond. He made his way out to the parking lot and found his car.

Pierre came in the front door. Molly rushed over to greet him, little Amanda toddling behind.

“Well?” said Molly.

Pierre exhaled, unsure how to break the news. “She’s a clone,” he said simply.

Even though she’d been the one to originally suspect it, Molly’s eyes went wide. “That asshole,” she said.

Pierre nodded.

Amanda had made it over to where her daddy was standing. She looked at him with big brown eyes and stretched her arms up at him.

Pierre looked down.

Amanda.

Amanda Helene Tardivel-Bond.

Or…

Or Hapless Hannah, Mark II.

Her arms continued reaching up toward him. She looked confused about why he wasn’t picking her up.

No, damn it, thought Pierre. No. She is Amanda — is my daughter.

He reached down and lifted her off the ground. She put her arms around his neck and squirmed with delight. Pierre was supporting her now with one hand and tousling her brown hair with the other. “How you doin?” he said to her. “How’s Daddy’s little girl?”

Amanda smiled at him. He wanted to carry her over to the living-room couch, but that was risky. Instead he set her down, took her tiny hand in his, and together they managed the big walk over to it. He sat down and she clambered into his lap.

Molly came into the living room and took a seat in the easy chair opposite the couch. “So what do we do now?” she said.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if we should do anything—”

Molly’s eyes went wide again. “After what he did?”

Pierre raised a hand. “I know, I know. Don’t you think I feel the same way? God, I feel like he’s raped my wife — I want to wring his neck, kill him with my bare hands, but…”

“But what?”

“But there’s Amanda to think about.” He stroked his daughter’s head, smoothing out the hair he’d made disheveled earlier. “If we go after Klimus, the truth about her might come out.”

Molly considered this. “We have to get him out of our lives — I won’t have him coming over here, making her an object of study. Look, once he realizes we know the truth, he should back down. What he did was unethical—”

“Completely.”

“—so he risks losing everything if it’s exposed — his position at LBNL, his consulting contracts, everything.”

“But what if the truth about Amanda does come out?” asked Pierre.

“I don’t know. Couldn’t we leave here? Go to Canada, and change our names? You can still return to Canada, right?”

Pierre nodded.

“I know you wanted to stay here, but—”

Pierre shook his head. “That’s secondary. I’ll do anything for my daughter — anything at all.” He hugged Amanda to his chest, and she cooed with pleasure.

“Professor Klimus,” said Pierre, his voice sharp. He had intended to go in calm and reasonable, but the mere sight of the old man started his blood boiling.

Klimus looked up. His brown eyes flickered between Pierre and Molly.

He then tilted his bald head back down and turned the page in the journal that was spread open on his desk. “I’m very busy. If you want to see me, you must make an appointment with my secretary.”

Molly closed the door to the office.

“How could you?” said Pierre through clenched teeth.

Klimus reached for the phone on his desk. “I think I’ll call security.”

Pierre lunged forward, grabbed the handset from Klimus’s bony hand, and slammed it down on the cradle. “Don’t call anyone,” said Pierre, his voice quavering with fury. “I asked you how you could do it.”

“Do what?” said Klimus, now trying to feign innocence. He used his left hand to rub the one from which Pierre had wrenched the phone.

“Don’t play games,” said Pierre. “I got hold of a sample of Hapless Hannah’s DNA. It’s the same as Amanda’s.”

Klimus leaned forward. “Yes, it is. But, tell me — what made you suspect?”

“What the fuck difference does that make?”

“It’s the heart of the matter, no?” said Klimus, spreading his arms.

“Something made you realize that the infant specimen was not Homo s apiens sapiens . What gave it away?”

‘“Infant specimen,’” repeated Molly, shuddering. “Don’t call her that.”

“How could you tell she was not your daughter?” asked Klimus.

“Goddamn it!” said Pierre. “God—” He launched into a string of French profanity, unable to control himself. Then: “Damn you, damn you — you sit there asking us questions! I should break you in two, you pathetic old man!”

Klimus shrugged his broad shoulders. “Asking questions is what a scientist does.”

“ Scientist? ” sneered Pierre. “You’re not a scientist. You’re a monster.”

Klimus rose from his chair. “You snot-nosed kid — I am Burian Klimus .”

He said his own name as though uttering a prayer. “Don’t dare snap at me. I could see to it that you never work in any lab anywhere in the world again.”

Molly was red in the face and breathing in snorts. “Burian — we trusted you.”

“You wanted a baby. You have a baby. You wanted in vitro fertilization, normally an expensive process. You got that for free.”