| Hybrid 15 Chapter 5 |
Luke stared blindly at the scattering of papers strewn over his sofa and coffee table. It had been long, boring reading with dozens of technical words that he hadn't a prayer of understanding, but what it did spell out for him was that his entire life had been a lie. A genetically mutated fantasy created by the man that he had always known as Dad. The file had begun with the creation of Hy and continued on with thirteen other test subjects including Morse which was number seven. Most of them died with only a short life or none at all, but a few had survived. Including Hy and Morse, there was a chimpanzee and a gorilla. All of the rest had been genetic failures, but the successes had been enough for Doctor Frederic Jenkins to continue his tests until he had created his final achievement--Luke. Luke had thought that Rick was bordering on some sort of psychosis as he related the story to him. "Your dad, Dr. Jenkins, I mean, was an absolute genius for his time. He was one of the first people to experiment with genetic codes and he had amazing successes," Rick told him with a note of awe in his voice. "All of the things that he did were classified, of course, and some of it even bordered on illegal, but he was intent and he had the backing of one very powerful man, Gordon Pascal." "The man that built Pascal Institute?" Luke's head was buzzing with all of the information that Rick was throwing at him and he wasn't sure how much he could believe. "But I thought that the institute dealt primarily with the treatment and prevention of birth defects through genetics. Why would Pascal be interested in creating new life forms?" "Who knows?" he shrugged. "Maybe it had something to do with his own inability to have children,” he guessed. “Maybe he wanted to create his own super race of human beings of superior physical strength and intelligence. Maybe he saw it as a way to get rich quick or maybe he was just plain crazy. I don't think that it's really important why, but Pascal funded the project, keeping the information between himself and Doctor Jenkins only so that the project wouldn't be interfered with, until he finally went bankrupt and died back in 1982. By then, it looked like your fath...Dr. Jenkins, wanted out. He had changed a lot of his records, his own research, mind you, so that another successful hybrid couldn't be achieved. He tried to pass you off as a fluke and maintained until his dying day that a genetically superior human being couldn't be created in the manner in which you were born." "But, if...Dad,” he nearly choked on the word, “had changed his research material, how did they know that the hybrid series wasn't a fluke?" Luke was finding it more and more difficult to carry on their conversation. What if Rick was telling him the truth? What if he was some sort of genetically engineered illusion? What of the life that he had been living? What about Les? Where was he suppose to go from there? "There was another geneticist working with him," Rick answered as he walked over to his desk and dug around in his pants pocket until he produced a key to unlock the bottom drawer. "Apparently, this doctor had been working on one particular part of the genetic strain, taking notes for his own project, and when he referred back to the same material a little later, he noticed the discrepancies and reported them to Pascal." Rick lifted a hefty file from his drawer and placed it on the center of his desk. "This is everything that I could find concerning Dr. Jenkins research. It has his work laid out in detail along with some administrative material and some mention of government funding, but the government had no idea how far Dr. Jenkins' tests had gone." Luke walked over to the desk and carefully lifted the file, but couldn't bring himself to open it. Was he in there? Would he find references to some specimen that was to eventually become his own flesh and blood? Was he no more than Hy? An animal in a cage that was let out to play every once in awhile? He wasn't sure that he wanted to know the answers. "I got all of the information that I could," Rick whispered as he gestured to the file. "I tried over and over again to tell you, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it." "Wait a minute." Luke's mind switched to something that Rick had said earlier. "If what you said about Pascal and my father keeping all of this information between them secret and Pascal died back in 1982, then why is the institute still manipulating my life? Who would know about it and what possible reason could they have for keeping me in Crammer?" Rick dropped his eyes to the pristine blotter on his desk. "I don't know why." Luke's eyes narrowed. "But you know who," he stated, rather than asked. He raised his eyes to Luke's again and heaved a sigh. "Lawrence Pascal. He's the nephew of Gordon and inherited all that was left of Gordon's fortune, namely the institute." He had already told him that much, so he decided to tell him the rest, of his unwitting betrayal. "I was talking to Lawrence one day, mostly general stuff about administrations and such, when he said that he had been following the Crammer Cutters and how well he thought the team was doing. I told him that you were a friend of mine and somehow the conversation turned around so that I was talking about your ability to get impressions from inanimate objects." "So he's the one that has been giving you things to bring to me," Luke quickly assessed. "But why?" Again Rick shrugged. "At first he said that he didn't believe in psychic stuff and acted like it was some sort of joke, but he tossed me his paperweight and told me to get a 'reading' from you. I'm sure you remember it. It was clear glass with a solid gold eagle embedded in it?" He waited for Luke's nod, then Rick dropped down into his chair behind the desk. "You have to believe me, Luke. I had no idea where Lawrence was getting these things for me to give to you. I didn't know that snow-globe belonged to Les any more than I knew where the rest of the things came from. When I found out about Dr. Jenkins research, I realized that Lawrence had been manipulating me all along, but I still haven't a clue as to why he's interested in you. My first instinct was to quit, but then I thought that I should play along and I still think that I can figure it out, but...only if we continue on as before," he said softly, awkwardly asking if their friendship was over. "Don't worry Rick. I'll still play with your little toys, but only until I get some answers." With that, Luke turned and left. <*> Luke had spent the remainder of that day and well into that night reading over Dr. Jenkins material. He wasn't sure what he had been searching for. Maybe some note from his father to tell him that this was all a horrible joke. Maybe just some small piece of evidence that would allow him to continue to doubt, but Rick had even provided Dr. Jenkins personal journal that was written in his own hand writing and chronicled Luke's day to day life until the time he was three. Luke rubbed at his face listlessly, hearing the echo in his head of his light stubble like grating sandpaper against his palm. The house had been too quiet for too long with only the shuffling of papers for relief. Even Hy had taken refuge in his tiny little house after Luke had ripped apart the walls of his cage with his bare hands. He couldn't stand the thought of Hy being trapped behind walls and had tried to coax the little animal out of his shelter after his anger had died, but Hy wouldn't leave the security of his home. Luke knew that he had frightened his pet and tried to sooth him, but the animal was finely tuned to his moods and almost seemed cautious of the hand that stroked his head. The one question that kept returning to Luke's sleep deficient mind was why? Why had Dr. Jenkins even attempted something that had, at the time, never even been considered? Why had he continued on through such a variety of animals including fowl, fish and mammals with so few successes? Why had he decided to create the infinitely complicated species of man? Then, after all that he had done, why had he destroyed all of his work? Hybrid Fifteen. Luke sneered as he looked at the neatly typed label on the outside of Dr. Jenkins personal journal. Would he ever be able to think of himself simply as a man again instead of some sort of freak? He wasn't even a successful test subject. Dr. Jenkins had expected so much more out of Luke than he had received. The genetic codes that Dr. Jenkins had manipulated was suppose to create the ultimate man, one of superior strength and intelligence, but he had been sorely disappointed in the “slightly above average specimen” that he had created. He clenched the personal journal in his hands, straining to get any sort of reading off of it, but the words tormented him. Luke’s gut became a tighter knot as he squeezed his eyes shut in a vain attempt to remove the words from his mind. “Slightly above average specimen.” “I’m not just an experiment,” he raged as he stood from the couch and threw the journal across the room. He buried his fingers in his hair as he reigned himself in. He forced himself to focus, to remain rational. Why had his dad destroyed his life's work? Because he knew that it couldn't possibly be achieved? But he already knew that wasn’t true. He had created such a firm foundation of knowledge that his work could have passed on to the next adventuresome geneticist and the flaws in Dr. Jenkins work could have been corrected. Luke walked over to retrieve the journal, absently flipping through the pages. Was that why he had destroyed his work? Had he realized the potential of his project and suddenly developed morals about the creation of life itself? Luke envisioned the worst case scenario with the government twisting around the potential for good to create the ultimate warriors that would divide and conquer the world before eventually turning on their creators and removing all of the "less-than-superior" human life from the planet. Wasn't there a movie out like that? he wondered. He smiled at the whimsical thought. He supposed that his dad would have been disappointed in the fact that Luke preferred movies to books as well. Wasn't there anything that he could do right? The doorbell rang a third time before Luke even realized what he was hearing. His ears had been buzzing for some time as his body told him in every possible way that it could that he needed sleep, but he just hadn't been able to walk away from the papers in front of him. As Luke opened the door to see Les standing on his front stoop, the usual feeling of excitement at seeing her quickly turned to dismay. What about Les? The thought had occurred to him at some point during the night, but he had pushed it aside to concentrate on the confusion of material and questions that his father's research had aroused. "You look like hell," Les told him as she took a couple of steps into his house, then froze. She knew that Luke wasn't the neatest person in the world, but the condition of the living room vaguely resembled a tornado disaster with papers, balls of wire and pieces of wood everywhere. "What happened?" she asked incredulously, then quickly moved to the abstract collage of branches, wood and carpet that was all that was left standing of Hy's cage. "Where's Hy?" she asked almost desperately as she looked for the animal. "He's all right," Luke told her dispassionately as he closed the door and walked over to the sofa to scoop up the trail of papers. Les found the animal huddled in his little house and gently coaxed him out into her hand before turning back to Luke who had dropped wearily onto the couch. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?" she asked as she crossed over to him and sat down. "When Jeremy told me that you didn't show up for practice this morning I started to get worried. I must have called at least a half a dozen times. Didn't you get any of my messages?" "I didn't even hear the phone ring," he answered truthfully. He had been so absorbed by discovering where he had come from that a stick of dynamite could have gone off in the next room and he wouldn't have paid any attention. "What's all that?" She nodded toward the haphazard stacks of papers on the coffee table as she absently stroked Hy's head. Luke sighed heavily. He wished that he had given more thought as to what he was going to tell Les. He couldn't exactly lie about what he had been reading since the word "hybrid" was plastered on almost every page, but he wasn't sure exactly how much he wanted her to know. "I was going over some of Dad's old work," he answered cautiously. She leaned over the coffee table and was immediately struck by the heading on the beige notebook that was there. She sat Hy gingerly on the back of the sofa as she reached for the book. "Hybrid fifteen! So your dad was able..." She was stunned when Luke snatched the notebook out of her hand as she started to open the cover. "It's nothing," he told her and quickly stuffed the book into the accordion file that Rick had given him. He stood up from the couch to put some distance between them. He needed to think. He needed time to put together some plausible explanation. "Nothing!" She was amazed that he could so callously brush aside the enormity of his father's work. "I think it's fascinating! Was you dad able to create anymore weird animals?" she asked as she reached for the file. "It's nothing, I tell you!" Luke quickly grabbed the file from her hands and flung it into the next room. Her mouth hung open as she stared at him for several seconds, then she jumped up off of the couch as well. "What is wrong with you?" she demanded and brushed past him on her way to retrieve the file. Luke quickly grabbed her arm to stop her. "Just leave it, okay?" He was trying in vain to squelch his anger, but his voice still shook with menace even at a low volume. Her eyes narrowed as she searched his face. "Are you sick or something?" She reached out to touch his cheek, but he quickly pulled away, dropping his hold on her arm. "I'm fine," he told her as he bent to collect the remainder of papers on the coffee table. "I'm just a...a little tired, that's all." He set the papers up on a shelf, resting his fists on the edge as he kept his back to her. Les shook her head as she folded her arms across her stomach. "No. I think it's something more than that," she told him. "What is it that you're trying to keep from me? Is it something in your father's research?" she quickly assessed from the way that he was being so protective of the papers and she walked over to him to reach for the file one more time. He grabbed at her wrist with bruising force as he glared down at her. "Just drop it Les!" "Luke! You're hurting me!" She clawed at his fingers when she thought that he was actually going to break her wrist. When he looked down at her hand blindly, as if he had no idea how he ended up holding it, and slowly eased his grip, Les jerked her wrist away and rubbed at the marks that he had left behind. "What is it you're not telling me?" she demanded. "What is in that file that you don't want me to see? Is it something about Hy? Or Morse? Are they sick or something?" "It's not anything to concern yourself with," he told her firmly. "Why can't you just forget about it?" "Damn it Luke! I'm not stupid so stop treating me like I am! I saw the way that you reacted when I started looking at that file and it's just not like you. If there's something wrong with the animals, then maybe I can do something to help," she offered, latching onto the only reasonable assumption that she could make concerning his outrageous mood. She knew that he cared for Hy and Morse very much, more like his own children than his pets, and she could understand why he would be upset if he found out something was wrong with them. When Luke kept his lips firmly shut, his eyes averted. Les became even more frustrated. "It's not like you're protecting national secrets or something," she fumed. "Genetic testing is common knowledge these days. They write articles about it and books. You even hear about it on the news, for Pete's sake. Why are you being so stubborn? Damn it Luke! You're acting like there's something personal about you in there!" His back stiffened and his eyes met with hers for only a fraction of a second before he started moving toward the front door. "I want you to leave," he told her. Les stood transfix to her spot by the shelves, her heart throbbing with incredible force through her entire body as her breathing came in shallow gasps. She was afraid to even blink in case the motion would leave her in a writhing heap on the floor. It isn't possible, she told herself. Even geneticists today were still playing around with frogs and mice and things, weren't they? So how could Dr. Jenkins have created an actual human being thirty years ago? It was an outlandish thought! She must have been mistaken about Luke's reaction. She must have! But, maybe his father had used him for some sort of genetic testing with drugs or something? She tried to force her mind onto a more logical route. It wasn't unheard of in the past for doctors to use people in their experiments. But how could a man use his own son in a test that could be potentially dangerous? What other possibilities were there in genetic research? Hundreds, she had no doubt, but what would a man deem safe enough to inflict on his own son? "What is in that file Luke?" she asked softly, startled by the sound of her own voice and the fact that she had the strength to ask. "What has your father done to you?" Luke stood with his hand on the open door, unable to look over at her, ashamed at what he was. "Dr. Jenkins," he answered slowly, "wasn't my father." He heard the sharp sound of her gasping for breath and closed his eyes. He couldn't bare to look at her, to see the horror that must be clear on her face. "I was just...one of his experiments." <*> Les awoke sometime later with a damp cloth across her forehead and the conversation that had preceded her faint came flooding back to her. He was an experiment, he had said, and she tried to block out the pictures that entered her mind again. What had that man done to Luke? As she blinked her eyes open, she saw Luke sitting in a chair next to the couch that she was laying on, with his fingers dug deep into his hair as he stared at the floor with his elbows resting on his knees. Her heart immediately went out to him. If the news had been difficult for her, what must he be going through? "Luke?" She whispered his name and his hands moved to clench together in front of him as he lifted his head, but still kept his eyes lowered. Les dropped the wet compress to the floor as she sat up and slid to the end of the couch so that she could be close to him. "What does all this mean?" Luke slowly shook his head. "I don't know." He had hated it when Rick had continually repeated that phrase the day before, but he understood it now. Nothing was as it had seemed in his life. He had no history, no family, he wasn't even sure if his thoughts were his own or something that his so-called father had planted in his head. Les swallowed hard to keep her fear at bay. "What, exactly, do you know?" she asked cautiously. The long hours of reading the file dashed through his mind. He knew too much and not enough at the same time and Les was asking for the same answers that he had been searching for. He figured that he owed her that much. She should at least know what kind of - creature - she had been associating with. "I know that I'm the last of the hybrid series. Hybrid fifteen. And that I was something of a disappointment to my fath...to Dr. Jenkins." She drew in a slow breath and let it out again silently. "All right," she said, keeping her voice calm and level. "I know that a hybrid is a...a cross of different races or species." She cleared her throat uncomfortably. "Do you know...what kind of...species are involved with you?" Luke could feel his heart clenching at her words. She was afraid to even speak to him. How could he have let things go so far between them? How could he even hope for her to understand when he couldn't understand himself? "There's no way to know for certain," he whispered in defeat. "You see, for some reason, Dr. Jenkins destroyed the actual sequence involved with genetic creation. There's no way to tell if the combinations that are in his notes were ones that he actually used or not." "He destroyed it? But why?" "Another mystery." Luke sighed. "I've read through the entire file and there isn't any mention of why he eventually changed his mind. Maybe he was worried about the repercussions of his work or maybe he just liked playing God so much that he didn't want anyone else to be able to duplicate his work," he remarked sarcastically. Les studied his profile carefully. The tension was back in his face and it was easy to see where his anger stemmed from. She could feel it building in herself. How could a man think so much of the project that he was working on that he didn't consider the possible feelings in the things that he created? No! Luke wasn't a thing! Her stomach tightened at the thought and threatened her with the taste of bile in her throat. She would never think of him like that again, she told herself. Even generally. Luke couldn't change who he was anymore than she could and she loved the man that sat beside her with all of her heart. "So, where do we go from here?" she asked quietly. Luke stood abruptly and walked to the ruined cage where Hy slept, curled up in his little house once more. "We don't," he told her firmly. Les jolted at his response and her heart leapt in her breast for a different reason. "You can't mean..." He kept his back stiffly to her. He had made his decision when she had passed out on the floor, but he had no idea how hard it would be to actually say the words. The thought of never seeing her again choked at him. He should do the honorable thing and push her completely out of his life, but he just couldn't say the words. "I need some time," he whispered hoarsely, cursing himself for not having the strength to send her away permanently. She deserved someone better. A real man that could love her the way that a real man should. "I need time to figure out who I am." "I'll tell you who you are," she returned as she left the sofa and moved to stand behind him. "You're the man that I love and that's all that matters to me." Luke squeezed his eyes shut and fought desperately to keep from turning into her arms. He needed her so much, but he couldn't let her throw her life away on some genetic freak. "You don't even know that I am a man," he told her, voicing the fear that he had known to push her further away. "Yes I do," she bit back vehemently. "You're all the man that I've ever wanted. The only man that I could ever want." "Don't do this Les," he begged. "Don't do what?" she asked. "Don't get angry because of what that bastard has done to you? Don't feel my heart breaking to see you hurting so much? Don't ache with need to hold you in my arms?" She breathed heavily as she moved around his shoulder so that she could see his face, so that he could see the determination in hers. "Just tell me what you don't want me to do, Luke, but don't ever tell me that I can't love you just the way you are." Luke swiftly wrapped his arms around her as the strain of the past twenty-four hours poured out onto his cheeks and onto the hollow of her shoulder. At one time he had thought that he could stand against anything alone and survive, but now he wanted, he needed more than that and it was this fragile woman that wept in his arms that had changed everything. She had more strength than he had ever dreamed possible. She wasn't going to lose something that she loved without a fight and she was fighting for him. "What did I ever do to deserve you?" he asked as he tightened his arms around her. "Not one thing," Les returned and was heartened to see that he could still laugh. |
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