in which human forms floated in tanks of viscous liquid . . .
... they are connected to tangles of plastic tubing and life-support machines, growing rapidly from fetuses to full adulthood, all doubles for him, and suddenly the eyes click open on a thousand of them at once, along rows and rows of tanks in building after building, and they speak as with a single voice:
The log cabin was on several acres of woodlands, a few miles from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which had yet to enjoy its first snow of the season. Karl’s directions were excellent, and they found the place with little difficulty, arriving late Saturday afternoon.
The cabin needed to be cleaned and aired-out, but the pantry was stocked with supplies. When the rust had been run out of the pipes, the water from the tap tasted clean and sweet.
On Monday, a Range Rover turned off the county road and drove to their front door. They watched it tensely from the front windows. Paige held the Uzi with the safety off, and she didn’t relax until she saw that it was Karl who got out of the driver’s door.
He had arrived in time to have lunch with them, which Marty had prepared with the girls’ help. It consisted of reconstituted eggs, canned sausages, and biscuits from a tin.
As the five of them ate at the large pine table in the kitchen, Karl presented them with their new identities. Marty was surprised by the number of documents. Birth certificates for all four of them. A high school diploma for Paige from a school in Newark, New Jersey, and one for Marty from a school in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. An honorable discharge from the United States Army for Marty, issued after three years of service. They had Wyoming driver’s licenses, Social Security cards, and more.
Their new name was Gault. Ann and John Gault. Charlotte’s birth certificate said her name was Rebecca Vanessa Gault, and Emily was now Suzie Lori Gault.
“We got to choose our own first and second names,” Charlotte said with more animation than she’d shown in days. “I’m Rebecca like in the movie, a woman of beauty and mystery, haunting Manderley forever.”
“We didn’t
Marty had been deep in wounded sleep back in Bishop, California, when the names had been selected. “What was your first choice?” he asked Emily.
“Bob,” she said.
Marty laughed, and Charlotte giggled explosively.
“I like Bob,” Emily said.
“Well, you have to admit it isn’t really appropriate,” Marty said.
“Suzie Lori is cute enough to puke over,” Charlotte said.
“Well, if I can’t be Bob,” Emily said, “then I want to be Suzie Lori, and everyone has to always use both names, never just Suzie.”
While the girls washed the dishes, Karl brought in a suitcase from the Range Rover, opened it on the table, and discussed the contents with Marty and Paige. There were scores of computer discs containing Network files, which Karl had secretly copied over the years, plus at least a hundred microcassette tapes of conversations that he had recorded, including one at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dana Point that involved Oslett and a man named Peter Waxhill.
“That one,” Karl said, “will explain the entire clone crisis in a nutshell.” He began returning the items to the suitcase. “These are all copies, the discs and the cassettes. You’ve got two full sets. And I’ve got other duplicates besides.”
Marty didn’t understand. “Why do you want us to have these?”
“You’re a good writer,” Karl said. “I’ve read a couple of your books since Tuesday night. Take all this, write up an explanation of it, an explanation of what happened to you and your family. I’m going to leave you the name of the owner of a major newspaper and a man high in the FBI. I’m confident that neither of them is part of the Network—because both of them were on Alfie’s list of future targets. Send your explanation and one set of discs and tapes to each of them. Mail it blind, of course, no return address, and from another state, not Wyoming.”
“Shouldn’t you do this?” Paige asked.
“I’ll try again if you don’t get the kind of reaction I expect you will. But it’s better coming from you first. Your disappearance, the action in Mission Viejo, the murders of your parents, the bodies I’ve made sure they found in that bell tower near your folks’ cabin—all of that has kept your story hot. The Network has made
The day was cool but not cold. The sky was a crystalline blue.
Marty and Karl went for a walk along the perimeter of the woods, always keeping the cabin in sight.
“This Alfie,” Marty said.
“What about him?”
“Was he the only one?”
“The first and only operative clone. Others are being grown.”
“We have to stop that.”
“We will.”
“Okay. Suppose we blow the Network apart,” Marty wondered. “Their house of cards collapses. Afterward . . . can we ever go back home, resume our lives?”
Karl shook his head. “I don’t intend to. Don’t dare. Some of them will slip the noose. And these are people who hold a grudge from Sunday to Hell and back. Good haters. You ruin their lives or even just the lives of people in their families, and sooner or later they’ll kill all of you.”
“Then the Gault name isn’t just temporary cover?”
“It’s the best ID you can get. As good as real paper. I got it from sources the Network doesn’t know about. No one will ever see through this ID . . . or track you down by it.”
“My career, income from my books . . .”
“Forget it,” Karl said. “You’re on a new voyage of discovery, outward to worlds unknown.”
“And you’ve got a new name too?”
“Yes.”
“None of my business what it is, huh?”
“Exactly.”
Karl left that same afternoon, an hour before dusk.
As they accompanied him to the Range Rover, he withdrew an envelope from an inside pocket of his tweed jacket and handed it to Paige, explaining that it was the grant deed to the cabin and the land on which it stood.
“I bought and prepared two getaway properties, one at each end of the country, so I’d be prepared for this day when it came. Owned them both under untraceable false names. I’ve transferred this one to Ann and John Gault, since I can only use one of them.”
He seemed embarrassed when Paige hugged him.
“Karl,” Marty said, “what would have happened to us without you? We owe you everything.”
The big man was actually blushing. “You’d have done all right, somehow. You’re survivors. Anything I’ve done for you, it’s only what anyone would have.”
“Not these days,” Marty said.
“Even these days,” Karl said, “there are more good people than not. I really believe that. I have to.”
At the Range Rover, Charlotte and Emily kissed Karl goodbye because they all knew, without having to say it, that they would never see him again.
Emily gave him Peepers. “You need someone,” she said. “You’re all alone. Besides, he’ll never get used to calling me Suzie Lori. He’s your pet now.”
“Thank you, Emily. I’ll take good care of him.”
When Karl got behind the wheel and closed the door, Marty leaned in the open window. “If we wreck the
