The Recarn Chronicles- Omnibus Edition Read online

  “He’ll still be back soon. And then there’ll be trouble.”

  “I’m sorry, but you have to come with us, Karen. Your life is in danger. And Caitlin’s and Michelle’s.”

  “How do you know my daughters’ names? And why am I in danger? Am I in danger from you?”

  “No, we only want to protect you.”

  Maurice felt he had to intervene. Karen clearly had no intention of going anywhere with the brothers, not willingly anyway. He knew that it would be a shock for, as far as Karen knew, he’d been dead for months and she was probably getting used to the idea of widowhood. Now she was about to meet her husband again, a living, breathing husband who was supposed to be dead. He didn’t know how she’d react but it had to be done. Each minute that passed was another minute during which she and the children were at risk. He stepped forward out of the shadows.

  “Karen, you really should come with us.”

  His wife stood still, mouth open, dumbstruck, for a few seconds and then found her voice.

  “Maurice? Is it really you?”

  “Yes, Karen. It really is me. It’s Maurice. I’m not a ghost and I’m certainly not dead.”

  Tears started to stream down Karen’s face and she walked towards him, arms open wide. Maurice opened his arms to embrace her, to hold her, to feel her touch. But the touch that he felt was not an affectionate, loving touch – it was a hard slap in the face. The brothers winced as a red mark gradually appeared on his cheek. Roberto nudged Tony and whispered to his brother.

  “Jeez, she’s got a better right hand on her than her old man.”

  Karen glared at her husband.

  “How could you, you bastard! I’ve been mourning you for the last few months, trying to get my life back on track, trying to adjust to life without you, missing you every day, loving you every day. And you don’t even have the decency to be dead. And what about the kids? Did you think about them when you were off gallivanting with your new friends?”

  Maurice was on the back foot.

  “I’m sorry Karen, but I couldn’t let Caitlin die. I had to do something to get the money to pay for her surgery. But things went wrong and I was scared. Not just for me, but for you and the girls too. I had to keep any trouble away from my family.”

  “So you were the mystery benefactor? And now my house is full of strangers who want to take me and my daughters – our daughters – away from here to god knows where.”

  “It’s for your own safety.”

  ‘So everybody keeps saying. Who are these people?”

  ”They’re from One Life.”

  “The terrorist group?”

  “No. The resistance movement. And so am I. I’m with the resistance now.”

  Karen gave a sarcastic grin.

  “Sorry Maurice, but you have to admit the idea of you being part of the resistance is a bit far-fetched. You were – are – a great husband, but you’re hardly Che Guevara.”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you in the car. But we really need to get going. Can we fetch the girls?”

  “They’re at school. We can pick them up on the way.”

  She turned to the Brothers.

  “Can I pack?”

  Roberto nodded.

  “We can give you five minutes. That’s all. Just the essentials. We have all the everyday things you may need. And what we don’t have, we can get hold of.”

  “Come on Maurice. You can help me.”

  ***

  Maurice and Karen went upstairs to their bedroom. Karen closed the door behind them and launched herself at her husband. Maurice braced himself for another slap but instead, Karen threw her arms around him, wrapped her legs around his waist and kissed him passionately. Maurice had missed the warmth of her body, the warm, moist sensation of being kissed by those beautiful succulent lips. He was also glad for the months of working out as he was now able to support her weight with no problem. Karen’s lips broke free.

  “I wish we could make love right now.”

  “So do I, but we really must get a move on.”

  Karen released her grip on her husband.

  “OK. I’ve already got a bag packed. Just in case of emergency. I don’t know what kind of emergency I was expecting but since you died I’ve had to be prepared for anything. We need to grab some stuff for the girls. I’ll pack for Michelle. She’s becoming a young woman and I know what kind of things she needs. You can pack for Caitlin.”

  Maurice walked hesitantly into his youngest daughter’s room. The walls of the room were lilac, his daughter’s favourite colour, as were the duvet and pillows. The invention of programmable wall design meant that children could change their decor themselves at the drop of a hat and redecorating the old-fashioned way with brush and paint was no longer necessary. Now all that was required was to choose the colour or design and select it using the controls on the integrated light switch. You could even integrate cartoon characters into the design by selecting the right settings. He’d missed this bedroom; everything about it said ‘Caitlin’.

  Caitlin was still his baby. She’d had her seventh birthday a couple of weeks earlier and about twenty birthday cards were attached to the walls. Of course, fewer cards were sent but to a seven-year-old, there was nothing to match feeling a real plastic birthday card in your hands.

  Maurice went to the fitted wardrobe and put some clothes into a holdall. His wife called from the other room.

  “Don’t forget Mr Boo.”

  Of course, there was no way they could leave Mr Boo behind. He’d been with Caitlin all the time she was in the hospital and was part of the family. They lived in a world full of technology but Caitlin loved that fluffy tiger and wouldn’t settle if he wasn’t with her. Maurice and Karen had given Mr Boo to Caitlin when she’d first been diagnosed with kidney problems and had tried to explain to her that he was really Tigger from the Winnie the Pooh stories but she’d insisted on calling him Mr Boo. They could no more leave Mr Boo behind than Caitlin herself.

  The two parents left the bedrooms at the same time and trotted downstairs. Maurice gave the brothers the thumbs up.

  “We’re ready.”

  Karen was still not sure exactly what was going on but she knew her husband was back and that she loved him. If abandoning their house meant that the family would be together again, then abandon her home she would.

  “The girls are at school. I’ll fetch them out of their classrooms and they can ride in the second car with me. I don’t want them to see their dad just yet – it’d probably freak them out. I pretty much freaked out, myself.”

  She paused.

  “You may have noticed.”

  Maurice was desperate to see his girls again but he could see that it was the best thing to do, so he didn’t try to force the issue. He was just overjoyed at the thought of the family being reunited.

  ***

  As the cars sped off Karen looked out of the tailgate window, a single tear nestling in her eye.

  “Goodbye house. I doubt I’ll ever see you again.”

  Maurice was amazed at how calmly his wife was taking all this. Her husband had returned from the dead – no reincarnation involved – and she’d been told that she must uproot the family and leave her old life behind. He himself could hardly believe that he was sitting next to his wife, squeezing her hand as if to prove to himself that she was really there.

  They decided to pick up Michelle first as being the elder of the two girls it would be easier to explain to her what was happening. Once Michelle was out of the school, she and Karen got into the second car and they headed to Caitlin’s school.

  At first, Michelle wasn’t impressed with the idea of leaving her friends behind but she trusted her mum. It helped that Maurice was now a member of One Life –teenagers don’t often think their parents are cool – but having a dad in the resistance was a definite plus.

  “So dad’s in the other car?”

  Karen nodded.

  “Yes.”

  �
�When can I see him?”

  “Later.”

  “Why can’t I see him now? I want to see him now”

  “We’ll pick up Caitlin first, and then when we’re safe, when we arrive wherever these people are taking us, then we’ll see Dad again.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Honestly Michelle. I don’t know. But I’m sure it’s somewhere safe. Your father said that if we didn’t go with them we’d be in danger. I trust him to do what’s best for the family. He has always put us first in the past. Even when he faked his own death, it was to keep us safe. I don’t see why he would change now.”

  “Well, I want to see him as soon as possible. I want to check that he’s real, not some hologram or something.”

  Karen thought back to that shared kiss in the bedroom when they were supposed to have been packing, and smiled.

  “Believe me, Michelle. Your dad is real enough.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  11:08 MONDAY 25 MARCH 2058

  Ami Durand, an advertising executive who worked in the City was very happy. If she could whistle, she would have been whistling as she walked. She was also very pregnant, almost to the point where she looked like she was about to burst. She’d just come from a final medical health check before the imminent birth of her daughter and everything was looking good.

  She was in no hurry to go home. It was a beautiful spring day; the trees were full of white and pink blossom and she was literally full of the joys of spring. Her husband, Michel, a systems analyst in the City, was at work. There was no reason not to stop at the nearest Costa Coffee shop and indulge herself with a Mocha Latte and a slice of layered carrot cake. She had no more engagements that day.

  A few minutes later she pushed open the door of the Costa Coffee shop in Covent Garden. She ordered her snack and the young woman behind the counter, a very pleasant Polish girl, told her to take a seat and that she would bring her drink and cake over to her. She loved pampering herself in this way, and she had to make the most of it now because when the baby arrived her free time would no doubt be rare and precious. But she didn’t mind. She was really looking forward to the birth of her first child, to the Durand family being a family of three; Michel, herself, and baby Adele. Life was going to be perfect.

  The Polish waitress walked over and offered her a napkin, bending over towards Ami’s face as she did so. Ami was a little disturbed at how close the waitress was to her, invading her personal space, but didn’t say anything. She thought she saw the waitress blow onto the napkin but surely she must have been imagining it. Why would the waitress do such a thing?

  She finished her Latte and cake and started to make her way to the station to catch the train home, but realised that she was feeling somewhat hot and flushed. Her mouth felt dry and she was convinced that her eyesight was becoming blurry. She decided to take a taxi home instead and hailed the next empty cab to come along the road. London taxis were now fully automated and didn’t even need a driver to be present. The external speaker of the cab crackled into life.

  “Where to, love?”

  Normally, Ami thought it ridiculous how the taxi company tried to give the impression that taking a cab was still a charming nostalgic experience, as it had been in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, but she was feeling too ill to worry about such things.

  “Wez Dealing please.”

  The speaker responded.

  “I’m sorry love. I didn’t quite catch the address.”

  “Maddolay, Wez Dealing, please.”

  “Sorry. Could you repeat that address more clearly, please?”

  The controller at the taxi headquarters thought that perhaps the customer was drunk. She was pretty good at deciphering slurred and drunken speech but this customer’s slurring was worse than normal. Ami summoned all the coordination that she could find and spoke forcefully.

  “Mattock. Lane. West. Ealing. Please.”

  “Address recognised. You may enter the vehicle.”

  As the taxi cruised along the roads, taking its almost unconscious passenger home, Ami was so relieved to be sitting down. Her legs were feeling like jelly. When she got out of the cab, having finally scanned her credit card through the payment machine after three failed attempts, she opened the garden gate and started staggering up the garden path. Two men emerged from the shadows, one of them blocking her way.

  “You need to come with us, Mrs Durand.”

  The two men moved alongside her, one either side, and took hold of her arms to support her.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere where you’ll soon feel a lot better.”

  It was a struggle to speak but, for some reason, she felt an obligation to go with these strangers to wherever they wanted to take her. They took her to their van which had followed the taxi and one of them slid open the side door whilst the other guided her inside. Ami passed out on the metal floor.

  ***

  Forty-five minutes later she was on a trolley, being pushed along sterile corridors and through a door marked Lab A1. She felt much better now, physically, but couldn’t find any strength to resist her captors. Indeed, she felt that she wanted to please them and was willing to do whatever they said. She couldn’t remember her name or what she’d been doing earlier in the morning, but she knew that these people wanted her to help them, and so she should do whatever they wanted her to do. She slid off the trolley and stood still, waiting for the next instructions. A stern looking, grey-haired man in a white lab-coat spoke to her in a soft voice that belied his appearance.

  “Please take off your clothes. And then lay down, face up, on the metal table in front of you.”

  Ami did as she was told, not even considering the fact that she was in a strange place, surrounded by strange people, and that the request to strip off her clothes was entirely inappropriate. She took off her designer maternity dress and stood there in her bra and panties.

  “All your clothes please.”

  Ami apologised and took off the rest of her underwear before settling herself on the same table that had been the final resting place of the anonymous homeless girl seven years earlier when the first successful guided soul transfer had taken place.

  However, this time there was no human volunteer in the transparent chamber at the other end of the transference equipment. That particular experiment had been repeated many times and was now considered to be scientifically viable and verifiable. This was a different experiment entirely as the baby inside Ami’s womb already had a soul and this experiment would be even more macabre than the previous ones.

  Cloning technology had come along in leaps and bounds since the first successful cloning of Dolly the sheep in 1996. Limbs, eyes, organs could now be grown and transplanted back into their original stem cell donors – now common practice for those who could afford the process. The first adult human had been cloned a year earlier, the ethical obstacles that had prevented such processes taking place earlier being overcome by the relentless political momentum of the ONP, The clone in the receiving chamber had the appearance of a twenty-year-old woman, although she’d actually only been alive for twenty days.

  Thomas was impatient and was expecting a lot from the cloning team, but there was still the problem of the waiting period whilst the clone baby matured. If the growth rate couldn’t be manipulated, it served no purpose as far as Thomas was concerned. He needed an adult clone into which to transfer his soul; there was nothing to be gained by transferring his soul into a baby and then waiting twenty years or so whilst the clone matured. That wouldn’t change things at all and would give Nathan ample opportunity to take back his crown. Thomas wasn’t getting any healthier and he needed this technology to work, so he ensured that more and more resources were poured into the project, paid for by higher public taxation, increasing profits retained and available to the Illuminati.

  Scientists had recently experienced a breakthrough. Doctors had used the human growth hormone (HGH) for decades to
treat growth deficiencies in children and adults but had been unable to gain any positive reaction when implanted into clone babies. In fact, initially, there had been no effect whatsoever. But when the research scientists increased the dosage of HGH to what should have been intolerable levels they recorded the first positive signs of accelerated growth in clone babies.

  Their euphoria was, however, short-lived. The growth rate of the babies increased significantly until they were faced with a clone baby that was growing at a rate of one year’s physical maturity every twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, the scientists hadn’t managed to find a way to slow down the growth rate and after eighty days they were left with an eighty-day-old clone that looked like an eighty-year-old human, and that would die soon after. The obvious solution would be to apply an equal measure of a growth inhibiting hormone (GHIH) on the twentieth day, halting the unnatural rate of growth and leaving a twenty-day old clone (with the appearance of a twenty-year-old adult) who would then continue to grow at the normal human growth rate. This had been unsuccessful so far but Thomas demanded that experiments to transfer a human soul into an adult clone should continue, regardless. He wasn’t concerned that the clone would probably only live another sixty days. He didn’t consider the clones to be people.

  The clone was physically sound. It could move its limbs, it could breathe unaided, and it could blink its eyes when necessary. All the normal involuntary actions that we humans do without even thinking, the clone could do. It was a beautiful specimen, with long blond hair, full rounded breasts, a slim waist, perfectly proportioned hips and long legs that many women would be rightfully envious of. In fact, it was the spitting image of a young university student, Trudi DeWitt, who had been plucked off the street in the same manner as Ami and had supplied the stem cells. If they could have seen it, Trudi’s parents would have sworn that this body in the other half of the soul transference appliance was their daughter, but the clone was missing one important component. It didn’t have a soul. It was a shell, a living doll, with no mind of its own.