The Book of Adam: Autobiography of the First Human Clone

  “Let’s go to the hospital.”

  She nodded, closing her eyes.

  I held her close, my forehead against hers. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”

  She cringed and sucked in some more air. “No.” She gripped my forearm as her head sank to the table.

  I helped her up. “You shouldn’t have married me,” I whispered.

  I don’t know if she heard me or not. But she didn’t say anything.

  *

  The doctors saw nothing out of the ordinary, but they wanted to observe Evelyn overnight. I offered to stay, but Evelyn said she was fine and asked me to go home and take care of Cain.

  He was waiting for me when I came in the door.

  “How’s Mom doing?”

  “She’s in some pain, but the doctors don’t think it’s serious.”

  “Well, I think it’s serious.”

  I nodded slowly, feeling defeated.

  “Don’t you think it’s serious?” He was so angry he was beginning to tremble.

  “Of course I do.”

  “You made her fight for Lily without you. Now Lyle’s killing her.”

  I met his glare. “I’m not going to let your mother die.”

  “Right,” he said. “I hope not.”

  And with that my son turned and walked up the stairs.

  I’ve heard that even the most loving families can lash out at each other during times of tremendous stress. But as I watched him go upstairs, all I could think was that I’d lost my son, and was losing my wife. And if I lost them both, I realized there’d be only one thing left to lose.

  The next morning, on my way to the hospital, I stopped by the headquarters of Rejuve. His receptionist told me to go on in. As I entered, I thought of my clone-father walking into Lyle-1’s office nearly a century before. The meeting that had made my life possible.

  Lyle-2 didn’t get up. “Have a seat.”

  I sat down, still trying to think of what to say.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I need your help.”

  Lyle let that linger for a while, tapping on his writing pad with his pen. “Yes?”

  “Evelyn’s dying.”

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t save her.”

  There was a long pause before he shook his head. “Adam, what do you want from me?”

  I lowered my eyes. “I’ll do anything.”

  I heard his pen again tapping on the pad. It went on for several seconds as I waited, staring at my own hands.

  “You’ll cease all attempts to take Lily from me?”

  I put my head in my hands and nodded.

  The pen stopped tapping. “What’s wrong with you, Adam? You think I’m molesting my daughter, and you’d let me continue just to save your wife?”

  I waited.

  “You took Ingeneuity from me, caused my Lily to kill herself, and tried to take Lily-3 away.”

  I grabbed Lyle’s hand. He examined me with some surprise in his eyes. “Cure Evelyn,” I said, “and you can have Ingeneuity. And everything else.”

  Lyle moved his hand out from under mine. “I’ll have it anyway.”

  “Please.”

  He appeared to be about to say something, then shook his head. “We’re done.”

  I stood up, turned around, and left Lyle’s office.

  Table of Contents

  61

  Valentine’s Day was on a Sunday that year, and Evelyn asked Cain if he wanted to stay with Grandma Hannah and Grandpa Martin that night. He was driving by then, but she drove him over to return her mother’s jacket that she’d borrowed one unexpectedly cold night.

  When Evelyn returned and opened our front door, I turned on the theme music from To Kill a Mockingbird. She followed the music to our bedroom. Her eyes surveyed the walls where I’d used Wallutions to hang virtual images of framed posters from our relationship: Her singing at the talent show. Winter Wonderland. Farewell Dolly. The photo taken of our engagement at the Wild Animal Park. Our favorite wedding portrait. And one with us holding a newborn Cain. The background of the Wallutions wall was a 360-degree view from her favorite spot at the Wild Animal Park, with the rhinos, elephants, and giraffes casually roaming the savannah except for where our fireplace crackled and glowed.

  She nodded and smiled, her eyes glistening beautifully in the firelight. “So, did you forget what day it was?”

  “I love you.”

  “Then prove it, boy,” she said, about to outdo my preparations. She held up a grownup version of her Winter Wonderland wedding dress and tossed me a grownup version of my little blue suit. “Why don’t you get into something less comfortable.”

  When we were properly attired, she started the holovideo taken of our Winter Wonderland skit, and we tried our best to stay in our respective holographic images as we “skipped” across the stage, and as I shook my head to a smiling Jack/Parson Brown that we weren’t married yet, and as Evelyn tugged me back so I could tell the parson that he could indeed marry us. The moment we were married, Evelyn swung me around so I could kiss the bride.

  I tried to be a proper groom, proving my love to the best of my abilities. But, again, she outdid me.

  *

  “Do you think Cain’s right?” she asked as we lay in each other’s arms, the fireplace near the bed dying down to its most soothing red glow.

  “About what?”

  “Do you think existence is too remarkable a thing to just be a freak accident? Do you think the multiverse is watched over? That someone cares about us?”

  I thought of so many things. The frantic and painful way nearly all animals live and die in the harsh world of nature. The lack of justice on earth. What Mother Theresa called “the silence of God.” How much fighting and hopelessness could be done away with if God walked with us as it was written he did in Eden, speaking plainly to all of us in person and in one voice, leaving no doubt as to his existence and what he hoped to get from us and what he had in store for us.

  On a more personal level, I thought of my prayer for my mother and her violent and lonely death, and I thought of those gloating Christians who celebrated it. But I also thought of Jack and his father, and their belief that God loved the outcasts and wept for suffering and hate. And I thought of all the good experiences I’d had, and the beautiful experiences that humans throughout time had enjoyed. I thought of Evelyn.

  Maybe our souls learn something from existing in a universe with so much pain and so much unknown – things that we could never learn from a universe in which God resided in The White House and answered each of our questions in 24/7 broadcast news conferences.

  “I really hope so.”

  She laughed a little and settled against my chest more comfortably. “You know, you’re very cautious.”

  “I know. I’m sor—”

  Her face turned up and stopped me with a kiss.

  “What was that for?”

  She yawned and snuggled down to go to sleep. “I like weird.”

  I kissed her hair and fell asleep quickly, blissfully.

  *

  That night I fell into disturbing dreams. I saw myself as Adam-1 at the hospital before being shown into his mother’s hospital room – a doctor whispering something into Great-Grandpa Michael’s ear, something that made his knees buckle. Then Michael guided Adam-1 to the hospital room’s door behind which his mother Sarah was dying. The vision from The Incredible Hulk as the bus drove his mother away, with Adam vainly chasing after. Sarah standing on Baker Beach, her wig almost blowing off in the wind. Then Sarah turned into Evelyn, with Hannah comforting her and turning to me, saying something about blood on my hands. Evelyn fearfully squeezing my hand in Central Park. I didn’t squeeze back. I couldn’t. I was looking down at the doormat my mom had made, the crocheted sheep, running away again. And again. And again. Then it wasn’t the welcome mat, but my clone-father’s open grave. I saw him down there, banging on the mirror, shouting
words I couldn’t hear but which still filled me with chills and dread. Then I saw him in the mirror as a little boy in his mother’s hospital room, crying by his dead mother with her eyes staring through him as if he wasn’t there. I saw Adam reach out to touch her shoulder. I saw Sarah’s dead body shifting and her limp mouth falling open and me screaming—

  —I woke up. I could feel Evelyn’s hand on top of mine. I squeezed it. She didn’t squeeze back. Usually I’d assume she was asleep, but my dream had disturbed me too much. I squeezed again, then turned over to wake her. As my mind recognized something wrong with the limpness of her fingers, my eyes met hers. Wide open. Staring through me.

  “Evelyn?” I pleaded, my hands cupping her face. She was still warm. “No.” I stroked her cheeks, hoping she’d respond, knowing she wouldn’t. “No.”

  I called out for 911.

  “What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “My wife just died.”

  “Are you at home?”

  “Yes.” I felt my heart racing, panic taking hold and obliterating rational thought. The kind of thoughts she needed from me. I was going to fail her again.

  “Sir, paramedics are on their way. Do you have a defibrillator?”

  “She has an internal one.”

  “You can try CPR.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and hung up. Her body’s AIS should have already tried repeatedly to spark her heart and draw oxygen into her lungs. The self-propelled blood should still be drawing in some oxygen from the environment and keeping her brain oxygenated. Something else had happened. Something Lyle’s disease had done to her that our AIS couldn’t undo. I tapped on the homedic to get her readings from the AIS. Artificial blood was still propelling itself through her body, but it was slowing. Her EEG was flat, no electrical activity.

  She was dead.

  I tried CPR anyway, both compressing her chest and blowing into her mouth. And I kept gazing into Evelyn’s eyes. Seeing reflections. Lyle-1 holding a gun to my head, shouting at me. “You like that girl, Adam? That Jewish girl?”

  I held her nose and put my lips against her warm but flaccid lips, blowing into her mouth again. More reflections. Mr. Green shaking my hand, thanking me for protecting his daughter. Evelyn kissing me on the cheek before running off to get in her dad’s car. Evelyn riding off in the car with her dad. Not waving back.

  I touched the scar above her right eyebrow. I hadn’t protected her. I had allowed my Scout to be killed, my catcher in the rye to fall. Was her father comforting her now?

  I fumbled for my cell and called Lyle. His phone rang six times, then silence as he answered it.

  There was no hello. There was nothing.

  “Evelyn’s dead.”

  He made no reply.

  “Lyle? Please. Can you please send Rejuve?”

  Several more seconds ticked by, followed by a soft click. Then silence.

  I felt my cell slip through my fingers and clatter on the hardwood floor. I hugged my knees to my chest, leaning against the bed next to my wife’s body.

  Table of Contents

  Part IV

  The Book of Adam

  In the middle of the journey of our life,

  I came to myself within a dark wood,

  where the straight way was lost.

  – Dante, Inferno

  Because I could not stop for Death

  He kindly stopped for me –

  The Carriage held but just Ourselves

  And Immortality

  – Emily Dickinson

  Each person is born to one possession which outlives all his others – his last breath.

  – Mark Twain

  62

  The doorbell rang. My artificial legs pushed my body up to a standing position. I placed my left hand on Evelyn’s shoulder. She would wake, and I would sheepishly explain to the paramedics that it had all been a mistake, that I must have been sleepwalking or something.

  She didn’t stir. She was no longer warm.

  My legs carried me down the hall to the door for the paramedics. But when I opened the door I saw three people wearing the blue and silver coats of Rejuve.

  “Is this the Elwell residence?”

  I nodded numbly, waves of disbelief and relief flooding my body. I pointed shakily to the bedroom as I fell to the floor, tears blurring everything else. Gratitude to Lyle. Even to God.

  When I’d regained some composure, I went into the room to watch Rejuve injecting Evelyn with chemicals and packing her into their portable freezing unit. I stepped around them and picked up my phone.

  “Hannah.”

  She could tell something was wrong. “Adam?” She paused. “Is it Evelyn?”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  I heard her cry out, then Martin picked up the phone. I told him that I had woken up to find her “unresponsive,” but that Rejuve had arrived to try to preserve her, and that the paramedics were just arriving.

  “Hang in there, Adam. I’ll bring Hannah and Cain over in a few minutes.”

  I was glad the paramedics had arrived. They observed the work of the Rejuve doctors, which made me more comfortable. I was beginning to feel increasingly confident. This wasn’t the end. Eventually Evelyn would be back. She’d be alive. I hadn’t killed her. We could continue our life together. And that was something to live for.

  By the time Hannah, Martin, and Cain walked into the room, Evelyn was sealed inside the portable freezer.

  Hannah abruptly stopped and covered her mouth upon seeing the closed freezer. Martin squeezed her shoulders, then gestured for me to come over. She saw me and gave me a hug, crying against my shoulder. From over her shoulder, I saw Cain standing still, attention fixed on the freezer.

  “Lyle came?” he asked, still not looking at me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I promised she wouldn’t...”

  He turned to me. “You got Lyle to save her?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I begged him. But maybe Evelyn was right. Maybe when it came down to it, he didn’t have it in him.”

  I was shocked, I was overwhelmed, when Cain strode over to me and gave me a hug. Moments ago I was sure I’d lost my wife and my son. But I still had both.

  *

  Later that afternoon, on Monday, February 15, I drove an hour north of La Jolla to the Rejuve storage site in the city of Fallbrook to sign some documents and watch them place Evelyn in her permanent cryonic chamber. I wondered if there was any sort of ceremony, whatever might substitute for a funeral in an age where the dead are put in cryonic freeze in the hopes of eventual rejuvenation, but all they did was show me the chamber being sealed and give me a handshake, assuring me that the next time I was there, it would be for her awakening.

  As I turned to leave, Lyle was walking up to me.

  I offered my hand. “Lyle, thank you. You don’t know what it means.”

  He stopped in front of me. He didn’t shake my hand. “Resign.”

  “What?”

  “Resign from Ingeneuity and sell me your shares.”

  He walked away.

  I drove to the office, typed up a letter of resignation, and handed it to the president of the board. Then I called my broker and sold all my shares to Lyle Gardener. One week later Rejuve offered to buy out Ingeneuity at a generous sum, and a majority of the shareholders approved the sale.

  I spent the rest of that day wondering what I was going to do with my life – something to take my mind off the fact that I’d just sold out the future of humanity’s opportunity for earthly immortality to Lyle Gardener.

  Evelyn had often encouraged me to take up writing again, but I hadn’t written since that night in Central Park. Whenever I started, I thought of Lily trying to force my hand under her blouse, and I thought of Lily on the morgue’s steel table, and I realized something inside me had died with her. And now Evelyn in cryonic freeze. Dead.

  I had no interest in whatever fairy tales I might be able to dream up.

  I could, of c
ourse, look for work in a related field. But a part of me, a part I tried not to acknowledge, was relieved to be out of it all, to have so many responsibilities lifted from me, and to be out of the fight for humanity’s fate. To have nothing to do but care for Cain and prepare for Evelyn’s return.

  Table of Contents

  63

  On March 11th, my forty-third birthday began nicely. I awoke to the aroma of blueberry-chocolate chip pancakes frying on the griddle. Cain greeted me with a candle planted in a stack of my favorite pancakes. Evelyn had introduced me to them when we first moved in with each other. She’d taught Cain well.

  Nine days later would be Evelyn’s forty-third birthday. I wondered how we would celebrate that. I suggested to Cain that we go to Rejuve and the Wild Animal Park, and he agreed.

  But the night of my birthday he had a college class. When he left, I started a movie that Evelyn and I had watched countless times and that always cheered me, a movie that even Adam-1 and his parents had enjoyed a century ago – the original Foul Play starring Chevy Chase-1 and Goldie Hawn-1. As Detective Chevy Chase played witness protection program with Goldie Hawn on his houseboat, my doorbell rang.

  It was Lyle.

  “Hello.” A nameless fear was growing inside me, like when Lyle-1 had stopped his car to pick me up from church. “May I have a seat?”

  “Sure,” I said, motioning to the dining table.

  Lyle sat down and waited for me to do the same. Then he stared at his hands clasped together on the table. He didn’t take his eyes off his hands as he told me the news.

  “About two hours ago a bomb was detonated at our Fallbrook cryonic storage facility, and more than 300 bodies were lost. Based on where it went off and the note that was sent, it looks like it was the Gabrielites, and it looks like they were targeting you.” He paused. “Well, your wife.”

  He couldn’t be telling me this. I waited.

  “We’ll need to know where to send your wife’s remains.”

  I still couldn’t speak.

  “Of course, we’ll refund your money.”

  I stood up and walked into my bedroom, returning a few seconds later with a gun. Lyle didn’t show the slightest hint of fear or anger, scarcely even glancing at the weapon. Even as I sat back down and leveled it at his head. I didn’t sense any of his c-father’s certainty that I wouldn’t use it. It was more as if he simply didn’t care.