Double Helix Ch. 15

He let that sentence hang for a few seconds. I felt sudden pity coming from Norm. "Being a ward of the state was usually pretty terrible for genemods," he said quietly.

Nock nodded and continued in his pleasant baritone. "It's bad enough for a lot of normal kids. How much trouble do you think a boy who almost never sleeps can cause? What do you think other kids do when they see a kid whose eyes glow in the dark? I went from one home to another, moving every few months. Some of them were abusive or neglecting. Most just couldn't handle me. By the time I was ten, I was being bullied and beaten on a daily basis. I hated normals, hated their fucking guts. I especially hated my parents for making me this way."

"Oh, is that why you hate me?" Norm asked dryly.

Nock shook his head. "I don't hate you, Norm. Just let me finish."

"Alright, go on."

"By age fourteen, I was committing petty crimes, robberies, vandalism, that kind of thing. I got into fights all the time, and I soon realized how much better I was at it than even the older kids. I didn't care about anyone or anything, and showed it in my speech, my dress, and my manner. I had intellect and ability beyond any of my peers, but I refused to apply myself. In fact, I actively disdained the work I was assigned. I could spend an hour on the net and absorb more knowledge than a week at public school. So I barely scraped by, getting Cs and Ds. But then I started high school, and met the two people who would change my life. And neither one was a teacher." He smirked at that. "I moved homes again, the summer before my freshman year. I didn't make a good impression my first week there, and I figured I would be off to a new home before the end of the year. But then I met a girl."

He paused for a moment, smiling at the memory. "I was passing by her house on my way to school one day and she was sitting on her front porch. This particular house was large and elegant, Victorian in design, but I had never really paid it heed before. I saw her out of the corner of my eye when she waved at me, but when I turned to look, all I could do was stop and stare. Even at fourteen, she was achingly beautiful. But then, you've seen her pictures."

"I asked her if she was going to school. When she spoke, her voice gave me chills, and I almost missed what she said. She said she was already done with school and working on her career in modeling. That intrigued me. I had never thought about what I would do, if I managed to muddle through high school, so I asked her more about it. She asked me if I was a genemod, which I affirmed, and she happily responded that she was, too. I had met a few genemods my age before that time, but even they tended to avoid the weird kid with the strange eyes. I reluctantly told her that I was going to be late for school, but she suggested I stop by in the afternoon.."

"By the time I got out of school that day, I had decided to keep right on going by her house, but there she was again, sitting on her front porch, as though she had been waiting this whole time for me to come back. This time, instead of talking from a distance, she leapt up and ran over to me. Her father was home, and she wanted me to meet him. Normally I would never be so trusting, but when I was around her, I could barely think straight. Her father, Sebastien, spoke with a thick accent, but his English was perfect. He was an entrepreneur who had made and lost tens of millions of dollars in his relatively short life. His wife had left him after his second business imploded, but not before they had Ariana, spending nearly half a million dollars for one of the newest and most complicated gene models available at the time."

"I had never met anyone like Sebastien, someone who didn't just sit back and take whatever life handed him, but changed the world to suit his notion. He had passed on much of that strength of will and capability to his daughter. I wanted what they both had, that courage and confidence, like nothing I had ever wanted in life, but I looked at the way I had been living up until then and realized I had nothing to offer and there was no reason people like that would want to associate with me. In fact, I had detected in Sebastien a carefully-concealed disdain for my crude language, my worn clothing and my willful ignorance. He seemed too eager to be rid of me."

"I resolved immediately to clean up my act, starting with tossing out the ratty clothes I had long favored. I started treating my foster parents respectfully and put actual effort into my studies. Sebastien was not happy to see me still hanging around his daughter at first, but in time he became more welcoming. For a time, I considered it all to be just a part I was playing, but I soon realized that the dangerous slacker that I had become was itself nothing more than yet another persona I had invented in self-defense. On the other hand, I made a real nuisance of myself in a different way, constantly questioning Sebastien about his business activities."

"I talked to a counselor at school about how I might graduate high school early. He looked at my academic record and all but laughed in my face, but I managed to convince him that I was sincere by speaking to a few of my teachers, who impressed on him that I had been working hard to turn things around."

"With my improved behavior, I wasn't sent away to a new home that year or the year after. I got some additional credits from the community college and online courses, and was able to finish in just two years. During that time, I did everything I could to impress Ariana. I didn't pursue her directly at first. Even with the changes I had made to my life, I felt like she was still way out of my league. For a long time, we were simply good friends, and I was willing to wait."

"Once I graduated high school, I spent every spare moment over at Ari's house. All of my hard work earning Sebastien's trust finally paid off, as he took me into his confidence about his latest project, a real estate venture that he had been building up since arriving in the US. I began to attend conference calls and, after I upgraded my wardrobe to formal business attire, in-person meetings with investors. I didn't ask for anything except for him to teach me, but after a few months of this, he offered me a commissioned sales position. When I asked him what my title was, he shrugged and said, 'I don't know, vice president of sales and marketing, or something.'"

"Over the next few years, I helped Sebastien grow that business to multiple millions in annual revenue. I moved out of my foster parents' home and into a small apartment of my own. Sebastien had impressed on me the importance of saving my money, so even though I had started raking in commissions of several thousand dollars every week, I was putting back more than half of it. I had it in my head that if I could become a millionaire like her dad, I could finally begin to date Ariana."

"Long story short, once I had enough, I started my own real estate restoration business in a nearby state. Sebastien was very understanding of my decision, though he did try everything he could to keep me on. A year later, at the age of nineteen, my net worth topped a million dollars, and I finally asked Ariana out." He laughed. "She told me that she had started to think I was secretly gay."

"We wanted to take things slow, since we thought we had all of the open-ended lifespan of genemods ahead of us. She had decided at seventeen that she was burned out on modeling, and had enrolled in a university for a psychology degree. It was still going to take about four more years for her to finish her Ph. D. We planned the wedding for June, a year after she graduated, but the Rot appeared near the end of her final year, and then the Ban was declared."

"We missed our chance to get out of the country. I cashed out what I could and walked away from both of my businesses. We drifted around for a time, hiding out wherever we could. I couldn't hide that I was a genemod, and her looks attracted a lot of attention. When the Agency sprang into existence, I went to them immediately. I requested that they keep Ari and me together, but either through design or incompetence, they sent me one way and her another, offering no explanation and giving us no choice but to go where they told us."

"So, you already know most of the rest that's important. It has been years since I last saw the woman that I thought would be my wife. You should know that when I met Nissi, it was the closest I ever came to giving up on my fiance, but she convinced me to keep my faith. I still loved Ariana, but Nissi was beautiful and exciting in her own way, and I had begun to face the likelihood that I would never see my first love again." He sighed, and his face clouded. "Then, just last week, I discovered that Ariana was alive and well in East Prussia. And that she had married someone else."

Norm had been listening up until this time with mild interest, but this piqued his interest. "Wait, Esther married some other jerk?"

"Her name is Ariana, Norm," Nock said, shaking his head. "Nissi overheard my exchange with her. She tried to tell me she was sorry for me, and it made me so angry, I just wanted to lash out at her. All I could think about was how I had been cheated out of happiness twice, while you were leading Nissi along by the nose and keeping Tilly there on the side. I felt like the biggest chump in history."

"Well if you were trying to hurt Nissi, you got your wish." Some of Norm's resentment was creeping back.

Nock gave him a level look. "And again, I remind you that I was not the one to instigate this whole mess. I had the wrong reason for doing what I did, but if I hadn't told her, she would have figured it out eventually."

"No, the fault was mine," I said. "Norm tried to get me to give up on him, but I wouldn't. I didn't really understand how it would affect their relationship" I paused. "Although, some things don't really add up."

"Like what?" Nock said.

"Like...why she isn't really angry with me. All of that is directed at the two of you."

"I hadn't realized that," Norm said. "I just assumed she was shunning you as well."

Nock nodded at that. "So it's not so much the fact that you two were having sex. It was the lies. You betrayed her trust."

"Shit!" Norm cursed, pounded a fist on the ground. "You were right, Tilly. I should have just come clean with her, right at the start."

"It's done," I said. "There's no point in rehashing it. What matters is what we do now."

"All of us," Nock agreed. "Both of us have screwed things up royally. How can we make it up to her?"

I looked at each of them in turn. "Well, I wouldn't recommend that either of you approach her."

"Yeah," Nock agreed and laughed, "she hits a lot harder than you, Norm."

"I'll talk to her," I said, "when I think she's ready to hear what you have to say.."

"That might be a while," Nock said.

"Months," Norm said. "Years."

"I won't wait too long," I promised. "You both need to apologize as a start. I do too, even if she doesn't blame me for what happened."

I felt brief indecision from Nock, but then he seemed to harden in his resolve. "I also need to apologize to you, Norm, and not just for Nissi. I've been insulting and disrespectful towards you. I've resented how the others look to you for leadership. You may have noticed that I sometimes have a problem with authority. I'm...I'm sorry for how I've behaved."

"That is...unexpected of you," Norm said. He quickly added, "And thank you."

"By the way, I saw right through that reverse psychology garbage you tried to pull to get me to work on the darknet. The worst part was that I had to play along."

"Would you have done it if I had asked you straight out?"

Nock smirked. "Hell, no."

I laughed. "Well, then Norm's ploy worked, didn't it? I thought-" I stopped and looked sharply at Norm. He did not look at all well. "Are you about to-"

He answered by turning to one side and heaving his dinner and dessert onto the floor. When he had caught his breath, he said, "Well that brings back some fond college memories."

Nock scowled at the mess. "It brought back something, alright." He stood and edged away from Norm. "I'm heading back inside. Sensitive nose, you know?"

"Ugh, I'm a mess," Norm said, wiping his face with the back of his arm.

"Yeah," I said, shaking my head. "Drinking isn't really your thing, is it? Let me see that cut." The bleeding had stopped, so I helped him to his feet. "Let's get you to bed, huh?" I grimaced as a wave of miasma hit me. My sense of smell was probably as good as Nock's. "After you've had a shower."

I had to get into the shower stall with Norm because when I first put him in, he just leaned against the wall and started to nod off. After he was clean, I dragged him to the bed, shivering at the change in temperature, and bundled him under the covers.

The next morning, Norm woke up with a horrendous hangover. I did my best to rehydrate him while shielding him from the worst of the light and the noise. Pain pulsed through my own head every time he grimaced or winced, and though I only felt physical pain from others as a dulled echo, it was uncomfortable and distracting. I left him in our darkened bedroom to go out to the greenhouse and check on our growing potatoes. When I got back near noon, he was up and around and feeling a lot better

We had lunch on the back porch, which had a set of wicker furniture that had seen better days. "So what do you remember about last night?" I asked him.

Norm frowned. "Election night was good. The cake was good. Me getting shit-faced, not so good. I think I knocked Nock out. Did I just say that? Knock Nock?"

"Who's there?" I quipped. "No, you did not knock him out, but you two had a tussle. Then we all had a long talk." It ended up that I had to recount almost everything that was said.

"No wonder he's always had such a bug up his ass," Norm mused.

"That is one way of putting it," I agreed.

"So you're sure he won the fight?"

"Get over it, already," I told him, laughing. "Maybe you could call it a draw."

"Also, you make it sound like we became best buddies or something. Did that really happen?"

"Not exactly," I admitted. "But you weren't at each other's throats anymore."

"Oh," Norm said, frowning at his food. "Well, I guess I'll have to get used to that."

After we finished, Norm headed out to the barn, so I sought out Nissi. As expected, she was in the den, seated behind the terminal. I stopped in the doorway, though, at seeing that Nonna was there as well, seated in another chair opposite the desk. Her fingers worked a pair of knitting needles.

"Alright," Nissi said. "Looks like the sequencing is complete. I'm searching for the APOE 4 allele now."

"You say this help me remember?" Nonna asked.

"No, it won't, but it-" She noticed me, then. "Oh, hello, Tilly."

I moved slowly into the room. "Hi, Nissi. What's all this about?"

I was curious, not accusatory, and Nissi took my question in stride. "I've just sequenced Nonna's genome and I'm looking for genetic risk factors for Alzheimer's. We just found the most common and best-understood mutation associated with the disease."

She turned back to Nonna, picking up where she left off. "It won't cure your illness, but it does tell us something about how you got it. According to the literature, we've got many more regions of the genome to look at to get a complete picture of where things may have gone wrong. You don't have to stay here, you know. I just needed that little blood sample."

"Oh," Nonna said, seeming disappointed. "Well, I tell you if I think it is working, yes?" She gathered up her needlework and headed back to the living room.

"Nissi?" I said, after she was gone. "What are you actually doing, and what did you tell her?"

Nissi sighed and pressed her face into her palm.. "I only told her I wanted to sequence her genome and run a few tests. Somehow she got it into her head that I'm going to cure her Alzheimer's."

"Are you?" I asked, my brows raising.

Nissi looked at me, chewing on her lip for a moment. "Well...maybe." That hadn't at all been the answer I had been expecting, and my surprise must have showed on my face. Nissi went on, "I mean, not right away, but we're working on it. You heard about the genetic science forum on the darknet, right?"

"Of course. And you've been spending a lot of time there."

"Well, we've got a little group going. Myself, Myra, Verner, Lukas, and Javier. Verner and Lukas are former geneticists, and Myra and Javier are Gs with some background in biology. We've been studying all of the available literature on the disease, including some banned research. It's not a simple problem, by any means, but I think if we had the facilities and equipment, we could start to reverse the damage to her brain and directly treat the underlying causes of the disease."

"Such as the APOE 4 allele?" I asked.

'Yes, among other genetic risk factors. That would help to prevent the disease from coming back. More important, though, is that we remove the damaging protein structures in her brain. We're working on that still, but the research we are drawing from is promising."

I didn't know how to say it gently. "Nissi, you're a musician, not a geneticist."

"You're right, I've got a long way to go before I'm an expert, but I have a lot of help in the meantime." She gestured at the terminal screen. "They are viewing the results of Nonna's scan with me in real time."

I came around the other side of the desk to see a chat window open and filled with messages from the users that Nissi had named. One of them had just reported finding an additional risk factor in Nonna's genome.

I went back around the desk and sat down in the chair that Nonna had been occupying. "Alright, you said that you might be able to treat Nonna with the proper equipment and facilities. What would that entail?"

Nissi typed something into the terminal and waited. "We would need a clean environment to prevent contamination."

I shrugged. "Conceptually, that's not hard. Creating clean spaces free of Rot is a multi-billion dollar industry. There's plenty of tech and materials we could adapt. What else?"

Nissi typed again and relayed the responses. "We need lab equipment. We can use what we got with the sequencer for some of it, but we need a better centrifuge and a larger refrigerator." That didn't sound so bad. But Nissi wasn't done. "We need a deep freezer, a PCR workstation, an autoclave, a thermal cycler..."

I committed each item to memory, and there were a lot of items. When she had finished, I thought back over the list carefully. I didn't know what half of them were or what they did, but I thought that some of them could be obtained legally. "I'll look into it with Norm and come up with an estimate of the cost," I said. Money might be a limiting factor, and I wasn't sure that Nissi had thought through all of the implications of what she proposed, but she definitely had my interest. "I wonder if Nock could drum up some funding from our foreign contacts.".

Nissi's expression hardened at the mention of Norm and Nock. Tension crept into her neck and shoulders. After a moment she relaxed, and her look turned pensive. "That's not a bad idea. We also need to source this stuff, and I'm not sure we can find sellers in the states for some of it."

It seemed like as good a segway as any. "You know, Nock feels terrible about what he did, how he treated you."

Nissi scoffed. "Is that what he told you? He's playing games with your head, Tilly. Probably trying to pit us against each other."

"Did you forget that I know what people are feeling?" Nissi had no answer to that, so I went on. "He wants to apologize to you, but he doesn't think you want to talk to him."