A Cage of Butterflies (11 page)

XXIII

MIKKI'S STORY

Greg arrived back on the tenth, a day late, bearing gifts of gold – well Gold Coast, anyway – and a knockout tan.

“What was it like?” Katie always was the one for original questions.

“Beautiful one day, perfect the next. Isn't that what the ads say? When I make my first million, I'll take you all up there for a holiday.” He had his arm around me, and he squeezed me gently. I knew exactly what it meant:
especially you.
I wondered if the ESP was finally rubbing off. I looked at him, but he was already talking. “Anything interesting develop while I was away?”

Everyone looked at me. Why the hell did they always do that? If Susan wasn't around, it was always me. Anyone would think I was their den-mother or something. I suppose in a sense I had taken on that role. But sometimes … Hell, for a bunch of Hi-Qs, they were really slow on the uptake. Greg had been away for over two weeks. The last thing I wanted to do at that moment was discuss “developments” at the farm.

With a little unobtrusive pressure, I moved him towards the door. “I'll fill you in on everything.
Later.”
I shot a look at the others that would've melted glass. They shut up. “Right now, I've got something to show you.”

Wasn't that the truth!

* *

Katie was really considerate; she spent the day in Lesley's room, “going over some stuff”. It gave us a bit of privacy.

Mostly, we just talked. It's amazing just what you miss in two weeks. Of course there was the touching; being close. And we're both a whole lot better at kissing than we were that first time. But mostly, it was just talking.

In the end, that's really what it's all about. The physical stuffs great, I mean, without it I'd be climbing walls – not to mention biting off people's heads – but if you can't talk … then you've really got zilch.

Inevitably, we got on to “developments”. I'd been avoiding the topic, and Greg had been letting me, but it had to come up eventually.

“It could spell trouble.” He must have been concerned, he didn't usually resort to clichés – not without a good reason.

It hadn't taken very long to fill him in. After all, in the week since “the incident”, very little had happened.
Very
little. It was a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“Trouble's putting it mildly.” I could tell Greg how I was feeling, even if I did have trouble communicating it to the others. “I've been thinking about it and I'm sure there's more to the Babies' effect on ‘normal' people than what they consciously instigate. It was something Susan said the other night. I was missing you” – he looked up and smiled – “and I dropped in to talk to her. Erik was in town, and the kids were mostly asleep.

“We were talking about feelings – hers and mine – and somehow, we got onto the Babies and how deeply they must feel, given their … unique situation. Then she said something like, ‘But you haven't been in there with them. It's different, somehow …' I didn't understand, and she couldn't really explain, but it seems there's a whole lot more than just conscious communication going on.”

I was on shaky ground. I knew what I wanted to say, sort of, but the words wouldn't come, so I pressed on, hoping to make some kind of sense.

“She said that neither she nor Erik could … how did she put it? … ‘maintain a professional detachment'. When I asked her what that meant, she just smiled for a moment. ‘There's almost … an aura about them. It intensifies your emotions. At first, they seemed so helpless, and when I was near them, I just wanted to … oh, I don't know … protect them, I guess. I know Erik had a similar reaction. But it never seemed to affect Larsen or MacIntyre the same way.' … They were just about her exact words, and it got me thinking.”

I had him hooked. He'd even stopped stroking my hair.

“Go on.” As if he could stop me!

“If I put you on a spot, how would you describe Susan's personality? Or Erik's. What do they have in common?”

He thought for a second.

“Caring.” He looked at me and his expression changed, as if he had suddenly shifted across onto my line of thinking. “They're both … nice people. Wouldn't hurt a soul. Give you the shirt off —”

“And Larsen?” I cut him off, before he got too wound up.

“Self-centred. Insecure. Too ambitious for everyone's good. Wouldn't trust his grandmother with the milk money. And before you ask, MacIntyre's the same – except he hasn't got the push to be truly dangerous. He's more the ‘henchman' type …” He really was on my wavelength. Well, there had to be a reason I loved him.

“Exactly.” Somehow, talking about it made the whole thing much clearer in my mind. “Now, hear me out and see if what I'm thinking makes any sense.” I was beginning to hope it didn't, but there was no turning back from it now.

“Two gentle, caring individuals, on coming in contact with the Babies – and
before
any telepathic communication has taken place – have their natural tendencies, their caring qualities – how would you put it – amplified.” It was as good a word as I could come up with. I continued:

“But it's not as simple as the Babies sending out a thought-field that says ‘Love me', and manipulating the people around them. It certainly didn't work that way on the terrible twosome. And there's the crunch … they're definitely
not
gentle, caring individuals. They're selfish, detached, clinical and just plain mean …”

Greg nodded. He knew, now, exactly where I was heading, but I could see him controlling the urge to jump in and take over. And I loved him for it.

“Their treatment of the kids has been nothing if not selfish, detached, clinical and bloody mean. So, what I'm thinking is —” I took a breath, then the rest came out in a rush. “What if this ‘aura' Susan talked about is a kind of mental feedback, reflecting what we give out? Maybe it's a function of the Shield, maybe it's something else, I don't know. But the effect seems to be to enhance our natural tendencies and focus them onto the Babies. So, we love them or we hate them or we fear them – or we try to use them – according to our particular personalities. Only more so. There's no middle ground; no neutral, take-it-or-leave-it position …”

“And the damned incident with MacIntyre has got the pair of them scared.” Now, he did cut in. The whole line of reasoning was clear, and it disturbed him. “They'll approach the kids with that fear, and it will intensify every time they come in contact, feeding on itself, until they …” He trailed off.

“Exactly. It might not happen right away, but …” I stopped talking and watched Greg's face. As usual, he was moving beyond me, following the line of reasoning to its logical conclusion. I could recognise the signs.

He gestured beyond the walls with a movement of his head. “How are they ever going to exist out there?” There was a despairing note in his voice. I touched his hand and he turned to face me. “You know how it feels to be an outsider. God knows,
I
do. We all do; that's why we ended up at the farm in the first place. But we only had to deal with people's ordinary, everyday prejudices. ‘Don't be too clever.' ‘Don't answer questions no one else knows the answers to.' ‘Don't walk around on crutches dragging your legs behind you and making
me
feel uncomfortable.' ‘Be
normal.
Be the same as me.'

“They won't stand a chance! Everything will be amplified. And people won't even realise
why
they hate them. Any more than they understand why they believe all the stories about refugees or why they laugh at ‘cripple' jokes. But it won't stop them hating. Ask the Jews. There doesn't have to be a reason to hate. What are we going to do with them?”

It was the question I'd been asking myself for days. And I didn't have the answer.

XXIV

A Much Bigger Pond

October 11, 1990

“Look, we've got to do something. We can't just sit here waiting for them to grow old and die, ‘just in case'. I've got Raecorp on my back. They want results – at least Brady does.” Larsen was pacing up and down behind the desk, a sure sign that something was about to blow.

But MacIntyre was not in his normal acquiescent mood. “Why the hell did you tell him in the first place? I thought we'd agreed to say nothing until we had more substantial evidence. What we have now looks like a reject segment from
Great Mysteries of the World.”

Larsen stopped pacing and turned to face his assistant, his eyes dangerously cold.

“I had to give him something. It's his neck that's on the line at the Corporation. They only continued the funding this year because I twisted his arm on the Zenith issue. But that stick's broken. I can't beat him with it any more. The only alternative was the carrot. So I showed him the tapes and suggested the possibilities. He's got the ethics of a sewer-rat, so he caught on quickly to the significance of making a breakthrough.

“A means of producing genius and telepathy through an inexpensive pill … And the mother needn't even know what she's been given … Every Defence Department in the world would buy it.”

MacIntyre looked startled, but he remained silent.

Larsen continued. “And we're so close. They're beginning to come out. I can feel it. They …”

“Aren't you forgetting one small thing? We still don't know what the hell caused the mutation. Zenith's been making Metamide for over ten years, and it's never even been linked to a head-cold, let alone anything like
this.
We're no closer to isolating the ‘X' factor than we were a year ago.”

“You really don't
see,
do you? To keep the project going, all we have to do is prove the abilities we claim for the Babies. Do that, and Raecorp will fund the project for years. With the sort of money they'll plough in, we could buy Eastgarden bloody Maternity and dismantle it brick by brick, record by record, until we find your precious ‘X' factor – or get very, very rich trying.

“Besides, they'll have our five tiny protégés to work on.” He turned and faced MacIntyre. “Now don't let your little experience last week put the wind up you. We'll break the little blighters if I have to sedate them through the window with a dart-gun …”

As Chris pressed the “stop” button on the miniature tape-deck, his hands were shaking. Susan could never remember seeing him quite so angry. She looked across at Mikki, but as usual, it was Greg who spoke first.

“Things are getting serious.” He picked up a small glass paper-weight from the desk and studied it for a moment. “Who or what is Zenith?”

“Zenith Pharmaceuticals. They're a subsidiary of Raecorp.” Mikki spoke up, though she sounded distracted and her gaze was far away as she struggled to absorb what she had just heard. There was a moment's silence, and she suddenly realised that the others were waiting for her to elaborate. “When I was researching just who was responsible for us here, I made a little study of Raecorp's corporate structure. Remember, Greg, I told you they had fingers in a hundred different pies? Well, Zenith is one of their bigger pieces of pastry —”

“And they just happen to manufacture Metamide,” Susan interrupted, looking directly at the three teenagers, who sat in a row on the settee facing her, inquiringly. “I did a little research of my own, when I discovered the drug link with the Babies. Though I never tied Zenith in with Raecorp.”

“But Larsen did.” Now, Greg's mind was shifting into gear. The others recognised the subtle change in his tone. He was developing a line of reasoning aloud, not entirely sure where it would lead. “That's how he conned them into financing his research! He showed them enough of your brother's evidence to get them worried about another Thalidomide scandal, and promised to keep quiet if they played ball. But now, with what he's discovered, he's getting greedy. He sees a market for his research that'll pay a whole lot more than a Nobel Prize, even if he misses out on the fame … The bloody idiot!”

The abrupt change in tone shocked the others.

“What is it?” Mikki voiced their common query. She was holding his hand, as usual, and suddenly his grip had tightened uncomfortably.

“Don't you see? He's blown the Babies' cover! The stupid, ego-tripping moron. He thinks he's so bloody smart, blackmailing the big boys. Around here, he's always been the big fish, Mr God-Almighty. But really he's a nothing. Now, all of a sudden, he's made himself a very tiny fish in a much bigger pond. They'll let him go as far as he can, then they'll chew him up, spit out the pieces and take over. And if you think Larsen's bad, just wait till you see what'll happen when there's millions of dollars riding on the research.
Damn
!” He struggled to his feet, and dragged himself towards the window, looking across towards the other complex.

“Why ‘millions'?” Chris looked confused, but Greg showed no intention of enlightening him further. Susan watched his fists clench the way they did on the rare occasions when he was genuinely upset. She answered for him.

“You heard Larsen. ‘Every Defence Department in the world would buy it …' It's just the sort of ‘ultimate weapon' they're always looking for.”

“Why?”

“Oh, use your brain, Chris!” Greg cut in, angrily. “Anything they think will give them the edge is fair game. If they can create a race of super-genius telepaths, I'm sure the Brass at the Pentagon or the Kremlin – if it still exists – or any of the Middle Eastern states will be able to think of a thousand ways of using them. And to hell with their individual human bloody rights!

“We might have been able to control Larsen and the Big Mac, but it's gone beyond all that now. Way beyond. Raecorp aren't going to let the Babies just waltz out of here, even if we could find a place to take them.”

“We've got to do something …” Even Chris! realised that his words sounded ridiculously inadequate. He looked at his feet.

“But what?” Now, Susan was thinking aloud. “The old plan won't work. Not that it was ever much of a plan —”

A swift intake of breath stalled her train of thought. It was Mikki, who had remained silent since Greg's sudden outburst.

“Greg?” Her voice sounded almost pleading. “It isn't just the Babies, is it? Not our Babies … What they're planning …” She drew another shuddering breath. “It's horrible. If they can ever isolate the missing factor, they'll not be satisfied with five – or fifty. They'll start playing God —”

“ ‘The mother needn't even know what she's been given …' That's what Larsen said.” Greg was more subdued now, as quiet as they had ever seen him; but the tension remained beneath his words. He looked directly at Susan. “How many of the Babies died during the Change?”

Gradually, the realisation dawned. The reason for his question. An icy feeling developed at the base of her stomach.

“Eight. Out of seventeen known cases …”

Then the thought crashed down upon her, with all the force of inevitability.

Almost half the babies affected didn't survive the Change. Wasn't that just what Richard had been trying to warn Larsen about before he died?

And they would be willing to …

Three teenagers and one young woman looked at each other expectantly. Desperately. But no one could think of anything to say.

October 21, 1990

“Keep it up for now. We need to have them chasing their tails! for as long as we can. We need time.” As usual, Greg spoke the thought aloud and, as usual, the reply began to form in his mind even before the words had left his lips.

iwe … arekeepingthem … guessing.

“I'll bet you are.”

Greg smiled, considering some of the ‘“leads” that Larsen had his reassembled research team chasing. Random, precisely identical words, scribbled by the Babies in different rooms, under the unswerving gaze of the ever watchful cameras. They were looking for significance in the meaningless; analysing, speculating, tying themselves in semantic knots. While behind the Shield the Babies waited – and searched for the elusive solution.

“What about some meaningless maths? A formula that looks complicated and important, but leads nowhere. I'll get Gret to create one, and you can write it down for them.”

thatwouldbe … interestingbutwhymust … itmake … nosensewecould … usethenew … inversecubelaw …

“It
has
to make no sense.” Greg broke into the thought-stream before Myriam could launch into a long, involved explanation of some concept that only Gretel would have any hope of understanding.

Eight years old! What would they be like when they were twenty … or twelve, even? “We've got to try to confuse them so thoroughly that we delay any plans they may hatch. And we don't want to give them anything they might be able to use. We don't want to do anything to get Raecorp too interested in your potential.”

Sometimes, it was frustrating. The Babies found it almost impossible to be illogical. The games and the meaningless clues hurt something deep in their intellectual make-up. But illogic was the only logic, right now. It was all part of the plan.

Which is no plan at all.

The thought sneaked out, even though he tried at the last second to hold it back.

donotfeel … despairgreg … iweknowthat … youaretrying … therewillbea … solutionyouwillfindit.

“Yeah. We'll find it. But when, damn it? We're just fighting a holding campaign at the moment. We can't keep them running in circles for ever.”

wecantry … youwouldlike … tovisitus.

For a moment, the question failed to register. The Babies' odd way of asking a question often left Greg wondering whether it had even been asked. But this time was sure.

“Visit you? In the complex?”

Why the hell not? It couldn't do any more harm than had already been done.

iwewould … liketomeet… morethanyourminds … anditmighthelp … youustoplan.

“Yeah, it just might.” Suddenly, Greg felt excited. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that none of them, except Susan and Erik, had even seen the Babies in the flesh. And the videos seemed, somehow, so impersonal. Like everything to do with the project. “How would we arrange that?”

iwewill … asklarsentolet … youvisitus … latelyherefuses us … nothing.

Greg smiled. Myriam was developing a sense of humour. One day, she might even learn to tell a joke – but she'd have to do a hell of a lot of work on her delivery.

“Go ahead. We'd love to get inside the cell-block finally. But you'd better bake us a cake. We'll be your first real guests.”

iwe … cannotwehaveno … kitchen … iweregret …

“Hey, I was only joking, Myri. Really. Just joking.”

Maybe that sense of humour needed just a little more developing.

* * *

October 25, 1990

“Why can't we?” MacIntyre sipped his coffee and looked up at Larsen, who was standing with his back to the office window.

“I don't like it. Seven of them, traipsing round the complex. How do we know what they'll notice? They're not an excursion of stupid schoolkids, you know. They've all got IQs that leave ninety-nine per cent of people back in the Stone Age.”

“Look, they won't be here to study the workings of the complex. We just take them to the observation room, let them meet, and see if we have more luck with them than we did with the other two they asked for.”

“We don't even know they're asking for them. They just write their damned names over and over on pieces of paper. Maybe they're just picking up the names from somewhere and writing them down. They might just sit and stare right through them, like they did with Susan and Erik. They've never had any contact with the ‘tank' kids. Why would they ask to meet them?”

MacIntyre reacted stubbornly. “How would I know? I just think it's a good idea to try. To see what happens. Lord knows, we're not having any luck with any other avenues. If it goes on like this, Brady's going to cut more than your budget.”

The final straw.

“Okay. We try them. But if there's no result, they don't come back a second time. I'm getting sick and tired of deadends.”