Origin in Death

12

When Eve jumped on the glide, Baxter clomped on just behind her. «That place is a racket.»

«Why? What have you got?»

«What I don't have is an asymmetrical nose that unbalances the pro­portions of my jaw, chin, brow ratio. That's crap.»

Frowning, she studied him. «I don't see anything wrong with your nose.»

«There isn't.»

«It's right in the middle of your face where it belongs.» She got off the glide on their level, pointed to the soft drink machine, then passed him credits.

«Get me a tube of Pepsi.»

«You're going to have to interact with the vending machines again sooner or later.»

«Why? Did they give you a hard sell?» she asked. «Pressure you, push you to sign a contract.»

«Depends on your point of view. I figured you wanted me to play some rich asshole, so I sprang for the electro-imaging analysis. Five bills, and I'm putting in for it.»

«Five? Five? Shit, Baxter.» She thought of her budget, grabbed her tube and the spare credits she'd given him. «Buy your own drink.»

«You wanted me in, getting a good look at the client areas and rou­tine.» He pouted over the credits, then just plugged in his code and came up with a cream soda. «You're lucky I didn't go for phase two and the full-body imaging program. That's a grand. They put you up on-screen, magnified. My pores looked like moon craters, for crissake. And they're drawing these lines over me, showing how my nose is off and my ears should be closer to my head. My ears are fine. And talking about derma resurfacing. Nobody's resurfacing my derma.»

Eve just leaned against the wall and let him go.

«And after they're done destroying your self-esteem, they show you how you'd look after. I played like: Wow, I gotta have that, ever, though there was no difference. Hardly. Barely noticeable. It was tribute to my prevarication skills. I sweet-talked the tech into showing me around, and the place is plush. Ought to be, for what they charge. The quote on the work they want to do on me? Twenty large. Two-oh and look at me.» He threw out his arms. «I'm a damn good-looking son of a bitch.»

«Get over yourself, Baxter. Did you feel anything off?»

«Place was like a tomb. Penthouse of tombs if you get me. All the staff—everyone—wearing a black armband. I asked the tech what was up, and she got teary. Sincerely. She told me about the murders, at which time I pulled out my thespian skills. She thinks it's a failed medical student turned serial killer targeting doctors out of professional jealousy.»

«I'll be sure to put that one in the hat. Did you speak to one of the surgeons?»

«Being charming as well as a damned handsome son of a bitch, I got her to squeeze me into a Dr. Janis Petrie's consult schedule. Or as I call her, Dr. Bombshell. She's a walking ad for her trade, and touted to be one of their best. I got the murders into the conversation again, making like I was nervous to be there, or to consider treatment there, with what was going on.»

He took a slug of cream soda. «Damp eyes again. She assured me that the Icove Center was the finest reconstructive and sculpting facil­ity in the country, and that even with the tragedies, the center was in good hands. My continued nerves got me a tour through security with two guards. It's solid. Couldn't talk my way into any of the staffer med areas. Absolutely no patients, clients or potentials, allowed.»

«Good enough for now. I'll let you know if there's more.» She stepped away, then narrowed her eyes at him. «Nothing wrong with your nose.»

«Fucking A.»

«But maybe the ears are a little off, now that I think about it.»

She left him frantically trying to see his reflection in the vending machine.

When she turned into the bull pen, Peabody sprang up from her desk and hotfooted after her. The minute they were in Eve's office, Peabody tried the hangdog look.

«Have I been punished enough?»

«There is no punishment great enough for your crimes.»

«How about if I tell you I think I've found a supporting link be­tween Wilson and Icove for your theory on their partnership in ques­tionable medical procedures?»

«You may, should the information warrant, be eligible for parole.»

«I think it's good. Nadine is so thorough I think my brains started leaking out my ears sometime during hour three, but she saved us a lot of time we'd have spent generating the same information.»

Then Peabody folded her hands as if in prayer. «Please, sir, may I have coffee.»

Eve jerked a thumb at the AutoChef.

«I waded through Icove, the early years,» Peabody continued as she programmed. «Education, his research into reconstructive areas, his innovations therein. He did a lot of work with kids. Good work, Dallas. He earned degrees up the wazoo, awards, grants, fellowships. Married a wealthy socialite whose family was known for their philanthropic philosophies. Had a son.»

She stopped to drink a little coffee and make a long ahhhh sound. «So along come the Urban Wars. Chaos, strife, rebellion, and he volunteers his time, skill, and considerable funds to hospitals.»

«You're not telling me anything I don't know.»

«Wait. I have to put it in context. Icove and Wilson were instrumental in forming Unilab—which provided and provides mobile re­search and laboratory facilities for groups like Doctors Without Borders and Right to Health. Unilab won a Nobel Peace Prize for its work. That was right after Icove's wife was killed in an explosion in London where she was volunteering in a children's shelter. Over fifty casualties mostly kids. Icove's wife was five months pregnant.»

«Pregnant.» Eve's eyes narrowed. «Did they have the sex of the fetus?»

«Female.»

«Mother, wife, daughter. He lost three females we assume were important to him. Very rough.»

«Extreme. Lots written about the wife's tragic and heroic death, and them as a couple. Big love story, shitty ending. Apparently, he went reclusive awhile after that, working in or for Unilab or cloistered with his son. Wilson, on the other hand, traveled around the world cam­paigning for the lifting of bans against less mainstream applications of eugenics.»

«I knew it,» Eve said quietly. «I'd've made book.»

«Wilson gave speeches, lectures, wrote papers, threw money at it. One of his platforms was the war itself. With gene modification and manipulation, children would be born with higher intelligence, lower violent tendencies. We're using it to cure or prevent birth defects, so why not to create a more peaceful, more intelligent race? A supe­rior race.

«It's an old argument,» Peabody continued. «One that's been on the pro side of the debate for decades. He made some converts, powerful ones, in what was a war-weary atmosphere. But there's the whole issue of who decides what's intelligent enough, or what violence is acceptable, even necessary for self-preservation and defense. And while we're this master-race crap, should we only breed white kids, black kids? Blondes? And where are the lines between nature and science? Who will pay? And he's pushing the line about how mankind has an innate right, even duty, to perfect itself, to eliminate death and disease and end war, to take the next evolutionary leap. Through technology we'd create a superior race, improve our physical and intellectual abilities.»

«Wasn't there another guy who talked a similar game, back in the twentieth century?»

«Yeah, and his opposition didn't hesitate to play the Hitler card. But Icove comes out of his cave, adds his weight. He's got images of babies and kids he's operated on and starts asking if there's any difference in preventing these genetic defects before birth or fixing them after. And since law and science and ethics have allowed the research and gene ma­nipulation on what they've deemed right and acceptable, wasn't it time to expand? His voice went a long way to loosening some ties on the bounds, opening the areas of genetic modification to prevent genetic de­tects. But rumors started to spread that Unilab was experimenting in forbidden and illegal areas. Designer babies, for one, selection, genetic programming, and even reproductive cloning.»

Eve had slumped in her chair. Now she straightened. «Rumors or fact?»

«Never substantiated. I got bits—Nadine highlighted—that both men were investigated. But there wasn't a lot of media or data on that. My guess would be that nobody wanted to blacken a couple of Nobel Prize winners, one of whom was a war hero, a widower raising a child alone. Add big vats of money to that, and the grumbles died down.

«And when the tide began to turn—the whole natural era of post­war, where, by the way, Free-Ageism enjoyed its highest popularity— Icove and Wilson backed off. Wilson and his wife had already founded their school, and Icove moved forward in his field of reconstructive surgery, adding his cosmetic sculpting. He built a clinic and shelter in London in his wife's name, continued to construct his medical empire, and began work on building his Landmark center here in New York.»

«And about the time Brookhollow's getting off the ground and Icove's designing clinics and centers, he becomes the guardian of an associate's five-year-old daughter. The timing makes it pretty handy for her to be enrolled. Unilab's got facilities worldwide.»

«And two off planet. One of them's in the Icove Center here in New York.»

«Be convenient to have your work that handy,» Eve mused. «Risky but convenient.» Two evenings and one afternoon blank, every week. What better way to use them than to work on your pet project? «He'd have been more apt to keep it segregated, but we'll have to look. What the hell are we looking for?»

«Beats the living crap out of me. I flunked biology, and barely got a skim through chemistry.»

Eve sat, staring into space for so long Peabody finally snapped her fingers. «You in there?»

«I've got it. Get ahold of Louise. See if she's interested in getting r-skin slathered or her hair fried, whatever's on tonight's menu. Push it.

«Sure. But what—«

«Just do it.» She swiveled to her desk, engaged the 'link. Rather than go through channels and Roarke's admin, she used his private code and left a voice mail.

«Get back to me when you can. I have an underhanded assignment that's right up your alley. I'm heading home shortly, so if you're tied up awhile, I'll just fill you in when you get there.»

Two blocks from home she spotted him in her rearview. It amused hr enough to have her use the dash 'link. «I can spot a tail, pal.»

«I'm always delighted to see yours. Your message didn't sound urgent, but it did sound intriguing.»

«I'll fill you in in a few. Just in case, you got a full dish tomorrow?»

«A bit of this, a bit of that. All portions in my endless feast of world domination and turkey hoarding.»

«Kick free for a couple hours?»

«Will it involve sweaty and possibly illegal sex acts?»

«No.»

«In that case, I'll just have to check my schedule.»

«If the time you put in helps me close this case, you get the sweaty and illegal sex act of your choice.»

«Well, fancy that. As luck would have it, I believe I have a couple hours free tomorrow.»

She laughed, and led the way through the gates toward home.

«I don't think we've ever done this before,» she said when they both stepped out of their vehicles. «Gotten home at the same time.»

«Then let's do something we rarely do, and take a walk.»

«It's getting dark.»

«Plenty of light yet,» he disagreed, and slung a friendly arm around her shoulders.

She fell into step with him. «What do you know about Unilab?»

«A multipronged organization, roots in the Urban Wars. Humani­tarian prong provides permanent and mobile laboratories for volunteer medical groups. UNICEF, DWB, Peace Corps, and so on. Its medical research prong, with its main base here in New York, is considered one of the top in the country. It also has clinics in urban and rural areas worldwide to provide care for the financially challenged. Your first vic­tim was one of the founders.»

«And with him dead, his cofounder dead, his son dead, Unilab might be interested in an outside source with plenty of moolah.»

«Most are interested in moolah, but why do you suppose the board of directors of Unilab would be interested in mine, particularly.»

«Because it goes along with your brain, your contacts, your savvy. Seems to me if you made interested noises they'd agree to a meet, and a grand tour.»

«More likely to get a warm welcome if there was the carrot of a sub­stantial donation or endowment.»

«If you took that angle, would it look wrong for you to take along your medical expert?»

«No. It would look wrong if I didn't have an entourage.» As they walked, soft lights winked on at ground level, triggered by motion. He wondered if he should plan any outdoor activities on the grounds for the children. Perhaps he should have some playground equipment installed.

Perhaps he was making himself crazy.

«What are we looking for?» he asked Eve.

«Anything. The place is huge. I'd never get a warrant to go through the whole facility. If I tried they'd get a TRO, tie me up for months. If there's anything to find it'd be gone if I ever broke that down. If they're doing illegal gene engineering or manipulation, it's likely they're doing the serious work elsewhere. Private property.»

«Like the school.»

«Yeah. Or some underground bunker in Eastern Europe. Or off planet. It's a great big freaking universe. But it strikes me that Icove, both Icoves, would want somewhere to work close by. The Center's the likely candidate.»

She gave him a thumbnail progress report as they strolled around the house. Twilight softened and cooled toward dark.

«Perfect children,» Roarke declared. «That's where you're headed»

«I think that's what drove him. He worked with children in his early career. He had a child. He lost one along with his wife. A female child. He has the ability through surgery not only to rebuild or repair but to change—improve. Perfect. His close friend and associate is a geneticist, with radical leanings. I bet he learned a lot about gene research and treatment. I bet the good doctors had a lot of intense conversation.»

«Then another child falls into his hands.»

«Yeah. With a connection to Samuels. Funny Wilson and his wife weren't named guardians—and I have to dig there. But they control her. Adults control children, especially if they isolate them.»

Roarke turned his head, brushed a kiss over her hair. A silent message of understanding and comfort.

«Wilson could have screwed around with Avril even before she was born.» The idea made Eve's stomach roll. «I'm damn sure they experi­mented on her in one way or another after. Maybe her kids were part of the project, too. That could be what snapped her. Having her kids under the microscope.»

By the time they'd circled the house—the equivalent, Eve thought, of hiking four crosstown blocks—she caught the glint of headlights turning through the gates.

«Damn. I guess the circus is coming to town after all.»

A circus, he thought. Maybe he could… stop the madness.

«I love a parade.»

She might've tried to bolt up the steps, hide out at least for a bit. But Summerset merely stood like a statue at the base.

«Hors d'oeuvres are in the parlor. Your first guests are arriving.»

Even as Eve curled her lips into a snarl, Roarke was nudging her away. «Come on, darling. I'll pour you a nice glass of wine.»

«How about a couple of double Zingers?» She rolled her eyes when he merely chuckled. «Yeah, yeah, a nice civilized glass of wine before the torture.»

He poured, leaned down to buss her lips with his as he handed her the glass. «You're still wearing your weapon.»

She brightened immediately. «Yeah, I am.»

But the brightness dimmed as she heard Trina's voice riding along with Mavis's chirpy tones as Summerset let them in. «Might as well take it off,» Eve grumbled. «She doesn't have a nervous system to com­promise.»

She wasn't sure how she'd ended up with a gang of females, or why all of them seemed so thrilled with the prospect of getting their faces, bodies, hair slathered with goo. They really didn't have that much in common, to Eve's mind. The dedicated doctor with blue blood, the ambitious and savvy on-air reporter, the stalwart cop with a Free-Ager background. Add in Mavis Freestone, the former street thief and current music vid sensation and the terrifying Trina with her bottomless case of glops and goos, and it was a strange mix.

But they sat, stood, sprawled around Roarke's lush and elegant parlor happy as a pack of puppies.

They chattered. She'd never understood why women chattered, and seemed to have an endless supply of stuff to talk about. Food, men, each other, clothes, men, hair. Even shoes. She'd never knew there was so much to say about shoes, and that none of it actually correlated to walking in them.

And since Mavis was knocked up, babies were high on the chatter.

«I feel completely mag.» Mavis gobbled up fancy cheese, crackers, stuffed veggies, and whatever else was in reach as if food were about to be declared illegal. «We're going into week thirty-three, and they say he/she can, like, hear stuff, and even see in there, and its head's down now-assuming the position. Sometimes you can feel his/her foot poking.»

Poking what? Eve wondered. The kidneys, the liver? The very idea had her avoiding the plate.

«How's Leonardo handling it?» Nadine asked.

«He's aces. We're taking classes now. Hey, Dallas, you and Ro need to sign up for your coaching class.»

Eve made some sound, but found it impossible to express the full terror.

«That's right, you're coaching.» Louise beamed. «That's wonderful. It's so good for the mom to have people she loves and trusts with her during labor and delivery.»

Eve was saved from coming up with a comment when Louise began to ask Mavis what method she planned to use, where she intended give birth.

But she did manage a muttered «Coward» under her breath when she spotted Roarke slipping out of the room.

So she poured a second glass of wine.

Despite her strange and expanding shape, Mavis never stopped moving. She had traded her usual heels or platforms for gel-soles, but even they were what Eve assumed was the height of fashion. The boots were some sort of abstract pattern of pink on green and rose to the knees.

With them Mavis wore a sparkly green skirt with a snug green top that highlighted her protruding belly rather than disguising it. The sleeves of the shirt carried the same pattern as the boots and ended in a lot of pink and green feathers.

Her hair was wound high, pink and green ropes. There were feath­ers hanging from her ears. And a sparkly miniature heart at the corner of one eye.

«We should get started.» Trina, who'd transformed her own hair into a waterfall down her back, in blinding white, smiled—evilly, Eve thought. «Lots to do. Where we going for it?»

«Roarke had the pool house set up,» Mavis said and popped some­thing else in her mouth. «I asked if we could play there. Swimming's good for me and the belly.»

«I need to talk with Nadine and Louise. Separately,» Eve added.

«Official.»

«That's chilly. We can split off down there. We can take the food, right?» Mavis grabbed a tray, just in case.

It was no way to conduct official business, Eve thought, sitting in the steam room with Louise.

«I'm in,» Louise said, and chugged from a bottle of water. «I'll set up the time with Roarke. If I see anything suspicious, I'll let you know. It's doubtful—if there is illegal genetic manipulation or engineering going on—that they'd be in accessible areas, but I might get a sense of some­thing.»

«You agreed pretty fast.»

«Adds a little excitement to my day. Plus, there are lines, or should be in medicine and science. This is one of them for me. I don't have a problem with the illegality, frankly. Hell, birth control for women was illegal right here in the U.S. of A. less than two hundred years ago. Without research and underground movements, we might still be having kids every year and burning our bodies out by forty. No, thanks.»

«So what's the problem with tidying up genes until everything's just perfect?»

Louise shook her head. «Have you looked at Mavis?»

«Hard not to.»

With a laugh, Louise took another drink. «What's happening to her is a miracle. Anatomy and biological process aside, creating life is a miracle, and should stay that way. Yes, we can—and we should—use our knowledge and our technology to insure the health and safety of the mother and child. Eliminate birth defects and disease whenever possible. But crossing that line into designing babies? Manipulate emotions, physical appearance, mental capacity, even personality traits? That's no miracle. It's ego.»

The door to the steam room opened, and Peabody, her face covert in blue gunk, stuck her head in. «You're up, Dallas.»

«No, I'm not. I have to brief Nadine.»

«I'll go now.» With what Eve considered sick enthusiasm, Louise sprang up.

«Send Nadine into my office,» Eve ordered Peabody.

«Can't. She's in stage one of detoxification. Wrapped up like a mummy,» Peabody explained. «In a seaweed deal.»

«That's revolting.»

Eve pulled on a robe. The pool area, always lush with paints and tropical trees, had become a horrifying treatment center. Padded tables with bodies stretched on them. Weird smells, weirder music. Trina had decked herself out in a lab coat. The splatters on it were a rainbow. Eve might have preferred blood. At least she understood blood.

Mavis lay, her colorful hair covered with a clear, protective cap, the rest of her coated with various hues of substances Eve didn't want to identify.

The belly was… prodigious.

«Check out the tits.» Mavis lifted her arms, waggled her fingers toward her breasts. «They're, like, mongo now. It's a total side benny of being pregs.»

«Great.» She patted Mavis on the head and moved on toward Nadine.

«I'm in heaven,» Nadine murmured.

«No, you're naked in a bunch of seaweed. Pay attention.»

«The toxins are oozing out of my pores, even as we speak. Which means, yay, more wine for me when I'm done.»

«Pay attention,» Eve repeated. «Off the record until I give you the go-ahead.»

«Off the record,» Nadine mimicked, eyes still closed. «I'm going to pay Trina a thousand bucks to tattoo that on your ass.»

«I believe the Icoves headed, or at least actively participated in, a project with its roots in gene manipulation, and a good portion of the funding for said project may have come from selling females who had been engineered and then trained to suit the needs of prospective clients.»

Nadine's eyes popped open, sharp green against skin painted pale yellow. «You are shitting me.»

«No, and you look like a fish. Smell like one, too. It's bad. I believe Avril Icove might have been part of this experimentation, and that she was an accessory in the deaths of her father-in-law and husband.»

«Get me out of this thing.» Nadine tried to sit up, but the thin warming blanket was strapped around the table.

«I don't know how, and I'm not touching it anyway. Just listen. I'm hitting this from a lot of angles. I may be off on some of it, but I know I've got the gist. I want you on Avril Icove.»

«Try to keep me off her.»

«Wheedle an interview, you're good at it. Get her to talk about the work both these guys are known for. Circle around the genetic stuff. You found the connection to Jonah Wilson, so you can touch on that. But you've got to keep it sympathetic, play up what they did for hu­manity and all that crap.»

«I know how to do my job.»

«You know how to get the story,» Eve agreed. «I want you to get data. And if I'm right, and she's been part of two murders, if she thinks you're digging close to that mine, why would she hesitate to eliminate you? You're research, Nadine. I don't have anything on her, nothing I can use to pull her into Interview.»

«But she may say something to a sympathetic female reporter that could point you.»

«You're smart. That's why I'm asking you to do this, even though you're lying there looking like some sort of mutant trout.»

«I'll get you something. And when I break this story, the fucking sky's the limit for me.»

«It doesn't break until the case is closed. The Icoves couldn't have been the only ones involved in this. I don't know if she's going to be satisfied with taking only them out. So you're looking for the human angle. Her father figure and her husband, father of her kids, both lost to inexplicable violence. Ask her about her education, her art. You want the woman, the daughter, the widow, the mother.»

Nadine pursed her yellow lips. «The many facets of her, appealing to her individuality. So she leads me into her relationships with men, rather than them leading me into her. She's the spotlight. That's good. And it'll keep my producer very happy in the meantime.»

There was a soft triple ding. «I'm done,» Nadine announced.

«I'll get the tarter sauce.»

There was no getting around it. With Mavis sitting beside her hands and feet in frothy blue water, and Peabody snoring lightly nearby under relaxation VR, Eve stoically endured a facial. The cumlike substance Trina swore by was already slicked through her hair.

«What we're gonna do is a full-body facial while your hair soaks in the joy juice.»

«That doesn't make any sense. The body is not the face.»

«Some people'd be better off if their ass was their face.»

Eve snorted out a laugh before she could stop herself.

«Everybody but Mavis is getting hair. Did hers this morning. You want something different with yours.»

«No.» Defensively, Eve reached for her hair, and got her hand cov­ered in slime. «Oh man.»

«Could give you a temp tint, or try extensions. Just for fun.»

«My world can't take any more fun. I don't want different.»

«Can't blame you.»

Eve opened one eye, suspiciously. «For?»

«Keeping it as is. It's working for you. But you don't take care of it, or your skin, like you should. Doesn't take that long for basic mainte­nance, you know.»

«I maintain,» Eve said, but under her breath.

«Your body, yeah. You got a prime one. Mag muscle tone. Some of my clients? They got shit under the sculpting.»

Eve's eyes blinked open. Fear, she thought in disgust, had blinded her to an excellent source.

«You work on anybody who's used the Icove Center?»

«Shit.» Trina sniffed as she worked. «Probably fifty percent of my base. You don't need them, take my word.»

«Ever worked on Icove's wife? Avril?»

«She uses Utopia. I worked there about three years ago. She had Lolette, but I filled in on her body care one appointment 'cause Lolette was out with a black eye. Boyfriend was an asshole, which I told her, but would she listen. No, not until he—«

«Avril Icove,» Eve interrupted. «Could you tell if she'd had any work done? Sculpting, reconstruction, surgical enhancements.»

«You get a body naked under the scanners, you know all the dish. Sure, she had some. Little face work, little boob job. Top work, but you'd expect that.»

Her husband had claimed she was just blessed, Eve remembered. «You're sure about that?»

«Hey, you know your job, I know mine. Why?»

«Just curious.» Eve closed her eyes again. Thinking about murder made a facial almost bearable.