Banks nodded, and then hailed the first cab that passed. Twenty minutes later, Trent did the same. Once at home, he did something he had not done for at least a decade: He drew a bath. He hoped that being submerged in hot water, mimicking relaxation, would help him think.
He lay back against the smooth ceramic tub and wriggled his toes under the running faucet. Trying to conceive of ways to outwit Dopp, he watched the water fill up to his neck. The heat made him sleepy, and he twirled his finger on the surface of the water, creating tiny whirlpools. Eventually, he turned off the faucet and closed his eyes, and in the silence of his bathroom, he could pretend to himself no longer. This time, he was entirely out of control; there was no way to get around Dopp tonight.
He visualized himself on a crashing airplane, the recurring nightmare of his childhood. When he once admitted his fears to his mother, she told him, “God is in control, even if you’re not. Whatever happens is in His hands, so don’t worry.”
The words had been adequate consolation for a ten-year-old.
But who could comfort him now?
He knew it was only a matter of hours before he received the dreaded call. At 11:07 P.M., it came. The chiming ring filled his silent apartment, quickening his heart like a crank. For a second, he thought of ignoring it. But that would only hasten his boss’s wrath.
“Hello?”
“Are you with her?” Dopp prompted without a greeting.
Trent swallowed. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t see her tonight. And she hasn’t answered any of my calls.”
“Well, well. Son of a gun. I expected more from you, Trent. You said you didn’t want to disappoint me.”
“I know, and I don’t. It’s just that I can’t get hold of her.”
Dopp’s tone was brusque. “You’re obviously incapable of doing this on your own. Whether that’s because of your incompetence or her manipulation, I don’t know.”
“I’m sorry.…”
“And she never returned to the clinic?”
“No, I waited for hours. And I tried to call.…”
“When did you leave?”
“Around ten. I know she can’t stay up later than that.” Trent also knew that Dopp could not expect him to work more overtime hours than the department could afford to compensate.
Dopp sighed irritably. “Meet me in the office tomorrow morning at ten sharp.”
Trent’s heart palpitated. He had never known Dopp to work on Saturdays, which he referred to as a “sacred family day.”
“Okay.”
“When I told you there would be consequences, it wasn’t an empty threat. This has to be a 24/7 effort from now on. Starting tomorrow, everything is going to change.”
“Oh, really?” Trent cleared his throat. “Like how?”
“You’ll find out tomorrow. I expect to have everything ready by then.”
The line clicked off. Trent dropped the phone onto the table, wishing he hadn’t picked up the call.
* * *
Late that night, Sam walked alone from the clinic through the East Village, making his way back to the lab. He strode quickly, hunched forward into the wind, with his balding head exposed and ears chilled. Tonight, he found the cold air refreshing. He passed a line of boisterous clubgoers behind a velvet rope and did not resent their carefree partying. He passed a stumbling man swigging a drink from a flask, and did not feel the urge to grab it away. Curled tight in Sam’s fingers was a glass tube containing certain crucial DNA.
The group’s private rendezvous in the clinic—an hour after Inspector Banks’s departure—had safely yielded the two things Sam needed: Arianna’s skin cells and more time with her. He marveled at the fact that they had spent almost an entire day alone together, in a joint state of ecstasy. He had even allowed himself a glass of champagne, knowing that her presence had already lifted him to the height of intoxication.
Now, alone again, he returned to the lab to carry out the procedure he had prepared for and dreamed of for months. When he unlocked the door and entered the basement, an unanticipated wave of nostalgia hit him. He surveyed his precious microscopes on the counter, his incubator and freezer, pipettes and centrifuge, and even his box of rubber gloves—all old friends who had rallied around him night and day, helping to execute his mission. Together, finally, they would finish it.
After slipping on his lab coat, gloves, and face mask, he carried the stored tube of five egg cells from the incubator over to the counter, where there waited a sterile laminar flow hood and an electron microscope. Using the microscope to view the cells, he separated each one into its own dish. Then, he switched on a polarized light to view the chromosomes in the nucleus, and—for the trickiest part—he carefully plucked each nucleus out of each egg cell. Only five shells remained. Then he repeated the procedure with all five of Arianna’s skin cells. With these cells, however, he saved each nucleus—like a computer’s hard drive, they were the microscopic nuggets that held all her genetic information.
Moving with a robot’s precision and steadiness, Sam injected each nucleus into each empty egg cell to form five single-celled hybrids. Each step he performed tapped into distant memories; more than two decades prior, in a Columbia University lab, he had learned this innovative procedure. As he worked now, it still awed him that he could seize on a brilliant theory and then coax it into reality, into life. How many people today knew that this was even possible?
When each of the five egg cells contained Arianna’s nuclei, Sam completed the final step: he shocked each cell with an electric generator, which would stimulate each to begin dividing. Watching the tiniest of magic shows with his microscope, he saw the moment that each cell split into two. It was such a basic, simple action—the crux of all life—and yet, he thought of how astronauts must feel watching Earth from space. As a teenager, Sam had wondered about such a surreal experience, but now he grasped how
