Chapters 37 through 40

Chapter Thirty-Seven

“There is something I don’t understand.”

Big Wanda and I were in her brown, unmarked police sedan.  She was driving.  We were headed back to my condo.

“Just one thing?”  I didn’t’ reply to that.  Evidently that caused her to decide to drop the sarcasm before she got carried away.  

“Okay, what don’t you understand?”

“Why she isn’t madder or hurt or weepy, I don’t know, more emotional?  After what she went through, I expected more.  She was assaulted, treated harshly, brutally.  But, you know, she seems balanced enough.  She talks about the pain, she describes it, but it’s like she doesn’t feel it, like it didn’t happen to her. Like in a book or something.”

“It happened all right.  But I know what you mean.”

I looked out on the passing night.  Rows of trees blinked in the shadows as we sped by, their fruit hidden and for the moment forbidden.

“I mean Arnold did a number on you and you put him down, the first chance you got, you killed the dirty bastard, put the hurt on the man.  Righteously enough.  But I know from what you said, there was fury in it.  With her, it seems very different.  I mean she can do violence.  She hit him when he had you, but it’s not like she was ever mad like you get, like we get.”

“I think she was mad.  But they are all like that.  She told me about it.  They all get mad. They have fears, they have anger, but they are controlled in what they do.  It’s bottled up, directed, never explodes. Any violence is planned.”

The moonlight momentarily reflected on the road ahead before disappearing behind another cloud.  Ours was the only car on the road.  There was a lonely cast to this remote part of the county.  I could understand why the Navy picked this place to locate their Naval Aviation Center.  Somewhere they could do their dangerous work and fire their engines as loud as necessary without worrying about some pain in the ass neighbor complaining his cows didn’t give off good milk.

“What now?” I asked.

“We get you freshened up.  We get you up to speed. And we go through the motions of nailing these guys.  We need legal authority to take this to the next step and you are going to do that for us.  You are going to give us all the cause we need by convicting them in the tribunal.  Shouldn’t be hard.  The thing stacked in the governments favor and you, lover, are the government on this one.”

“You know a military tribunal for civilians is going to be challenged, don’t you?”

“They talked about that.  They still think it will give them the edge and time to get this all back under control.  By the time it makes it way to civilian courts they will have what they want.”

“I don’t think they really understand how to control any of this anymore.  But it’s all okay with me.  I’m in.”

“But one thing, Counselor.  You pretty much have to give up on any notion of rescue or help. The duplicates.  Like mine, like Wanda. They can’t be changed. They are created that way.”

“What makes you think I was. . .?”

She cut me off.  

“I know you, counselor.  You’re just like everybody. Thinks when they see a flaw in someone else; that somehow, they can change them.  That’s what got all this going, changing people, changing their nature, and it doesn’t work that way.  Not sure why people come out the way they do.  Some are more perfect than others. Some are really messed up.  And I don’t just mean physically.  One person’s a perfect specimen; another’s all bent and misshapen.  The freaks, the bent ones, you know, can be, a lot of the time, physically fixed. Nowadays they can. It’s in the science, but it’s the other stuff, how they think, how they react emotionally; now messing with that is dangerous.  I’m saying leave it alone and just do your job.”

Her massive shoulders were clinched, and she had her foot pressed down hard and deep on the gas pedal. We were careening through the night.  I figured she knew what turns lay ahead, but I still felt unsafe.  Her speed was too much.  It was uncomfortably fast. 

I reached over and put my hand lightly on her arm.  

“Come on, what the hell you mad at me for?”

She didn’t say anything for a few moments.  Then I felt the tension go out of her shoulders.  She took her foot off the gas and eased up a little.  She smiled.  She kept her eyes on the road, but in the ambient light from the dashboard, I could see her smile. It was nice.

“You know,” she said, “I don’t like people who hate their own flaws. And others who want to correct them all the time.  I don’t like them either. But that’s not you, is it counselor?  You like little flaws.  The unusual.  Not always the prettiest little thing for you, huh?”

“I’m sure I don’t any idea what you are talking about.”  Now I was smiling. “But I do think I will punish you for being so snotty with me.  Snapping at me, being a poor lawyer, misunderstood and all.  And wounded too.”

“You do, huh?  And just what form will this punishment take, I beg to know.”

“Oh, you will beg all right.”

She laughed a little.  “And if I beg for mercy will it be forthcoming?  Will you be a merciful master?”

“Absolutely not. Now get us home. Someone deserves a good spanking.”

“That’s a wonderful idea.”  And she pushed the gas down on the accelerator again.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The room where the tribunal was to be held was a Base cafeteria. One of several on the Base I was told.  It was significantly larger than the courtrooms to which I was accustomed.  Empty, it had a barren feeling.  Our steps echoed on the tiled floor.  It was cold.  

We were seated at tables pushed up against the wall farthest away from the kitchen.  Less than a quarter of the cafeteria was going to be used for our hearing.  I could tell there were personnel back in the kitchen perhaps preparing the food for the next serving.  I could hear shuffling and stacking noises.  But it wasn’t too loud.  I suspected whoever was back there had been admonished about any loud distracting banging of pots and pans while our court proceedings were in session.

“Hear ye, Hear Ye, know all by these presents, this honorable court, in the presence of presiding officer, Captain Sherman Manley, will come to order.  All may be seated and be at ease.”

Captain Manley entered from the West through double doors that led from outside the cafeteria and most probably were used by the Navy personnel as they entered the big chow hall for their victuals.  He was a slender man.  His uniform was crisp and starched, but it was slightly too large for his frame.  The neck on his blouse was loose. It made me wonder if he had experienced a recent illness, or maybe he was still sick.

“Come to order please.”  The Captain eyed me suspiciously. 

“You are?”

“My name is Nick Easley.”

“And I take it from your lack of uniform, you are not in the service.”

“No, your honor, once was, no longer am.”

His interest seemed peaked.

“May I inquire what branch?”

“Air Force.  ‘65 to ‘69.  Was enlisted all the way.”

“And now you are a lawyer.”

“Yes, sir.  G.I. Bill.  A good deal.”

This too was unusual and foreign to the way I normally practiced law.  Light getting to know you banter with the judge before formal proceedings began was not standard protocol.

“Yes.  That is for sure,” Captain Manley replied.  “Uncle Sam took care of his own for once.  For the first time in a long while.  Too long.”

I simply nodded my head. It could have meant I agreed, or it could mean I heard him.  I didn’t want to make it any clearer.   Old habits.  I didn’t know the man and I had seen too many conversational traps laid by lawyers. One of the most common was letting a person think they knew how the lawyer thought about a certain issue. Captain Sherman might be the presiding officer, but he was still a lawyer.

“Well, let’s get started.  I call this hearing to order.  Let the record show,” I was aware of the court stenographer taking notes on her machine, she also in uniform, “appearing as the civilian prosecutor is Mr. Nicolas Easley.  The targets of this investigation and detention hearing are not present.  I am hereby ordering this hearing closed under Standard Operating Procedure 90-23, for national security reasons.  All matters herein are hereby classified Top Secret, special 2S level, including all oral and written communications as well as the names, rank, and serial numbers, if any, of all participants including Targets.”

He looked at me, sitting at his desk.  

“Anything Counsel wishes to address to the court about?”

“I would ask that transcripts of these proceeding be transcribed and I, as civilian prosecutor, and I’m including my investigators in this request as well, that I’m making right now, that those transcripts be made available to me and my team for review.  And that be done on a daily basis.”

“Your motion is denied.” 

Well, I thought, that is clear enough.  It appeared there was no pussy footing around in military tribunals.  

“Anything else?” the Captain asked amiably.

“I would ask for permission to depose all witnesses outside these proceedings at a time of my choosing and request the presence of my investigative team when I do the interviews.”

“Your motion is denied.  You may interrogate them as they testify here.”

The man was nothing if not decisive.  Born to command, I surmised.  

“Anything else?” he once again inquired, the friendly smile still on his face. 

“No. No.  That will be quite enough.  I thank the court for their courtesy and consideration.”

He continued to smile, but there was a slight change.  It now had nasty corners to his grin.    He recognized the sarcasm in my response.  It elicited no sympathy.  I think the Captain enjoyed tormenting me.  And probably small children and animals would elicit about the same amount of sympathy as they twisted and struggled against his control. 

“Affidavits have been submitted by the FBI and investigation agencies.  I have reviewed them all and they are hereby received as evidence.”

I could hear movement beyond the double doors. There was a loud click as the handle on the outside was pressed down and the doors swung open.  And there was Drew Staten

He looked a hundred percent better than the last time I saw him.  His eyes moved around the room sizing up the place.  They took in the kitchen areas, the tables, and chairs where we all sat, the squared away Captain sitting like a king on his dais and then they finally came to rest on me.  

“Well, we meet again.” He said out loud.  That elicited a frown from the smiling Captain.  He didn’t like people ignoring the decorum and protocol of his courtroom. 

“Take the oath and be seated.”  Drew evidently knew the drill. He raised his hand to the clerk.

She intoned, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” 

He said he did.  

You can’t believe anybody these days.

Chapter Thirty Nine

Drew Staten looked at me with his usual arrogance.  

I figured he was working it all out in his mind.  Knowing him, the little bastard would probably be calculating just how he would be able to insert the word “dumb” into his responses to my questions.  

I was not particularly concerned.  He was on my playground now.  Well, it was the Captain’s playground, but the practice of law was the practice of law.  I had tripped up many a “professional” who mistakenly believed their expertise in one field inoculated them against being made a fool of in the legal arena.  Dentists, physicians, engineers and especially psychiatrists were all cannon fodder to me at one time or another.  Why should someone, like Staten, who spent day and night coding the human genome be in any way superior to the other fools, I had set up, trapped, and butchered on the witness stand?  Plus, I still didn’t like the little shit.  My mouth was watering a little in anticipation of skinning him alive.

I could feel Wanda’s outsized presence next to me.  She sat rather demurely for the big girl she was.  It was not the result of our recent lovemaking.  Instead of being compliant, as I had haughtily instructed, she had stealthily maneuvered me into a vulnerable position and launched a sneak attack. Though I had clearly announced to her I was to be Master, it was I who had been deftly mastered.  My own sore bottom bore the physical evidence of her treachery.  

But here, court or tribunal, there would be no reversal of roles.  I was the lawyer.  She knew once we were at the counsel table, I was Captain, First Mate and Chief Engineer all in one.  I shook my head to clear it.  This military mind set was starting to irritate me.  Too much structure interfered with creativity in a courtroom, and I needed that creativity.  Especially with this case and especially with that little shit, Staten, on the witness stand.

Just as I was about to propound my first question, there was loud bang in the back of the cafeteria, followed by the clanging of some metal thing coming to wobbling rest on a tile floor.  Someone had dropped a pan, or a pot of some kind and it had generated an outsized noise as it echoed across the chow hall.  The Captain grimaced and frowned.  He looked over at his clerk who kept his head straight ahead lest he observe the wrath in the Captain’s eyes.

I swallowed my question and let the echo die and the silence hang for a moment.  No one was making a move back in the kitchen.  I imagined them all frozen in position as the pan or pot or whatever came to rest and they huddled listening for the marching boots of an officer coming to chew some ass.

After a moment I began, 

“You are?”

The Captain intervened.

“Counselor, we all know who he is.  This isn’t a regular court.  You don’t have to lay every foundation, establish venue and jurisdiction and all that.  Just get to the point. If I want you to lay more foundation, I will tell you to do so.”

“Okey-Doke”, I thought.

“You are a scientist, and your specialty is?”

“Mapping the human genome.”

“Can you explain what you mean by Mapping?”  

Evidently, the Captain was not so up on this he didn’t need an explanation.  Now, he wasn’t impatiently telling me to move it along.  He was listening attentively.

“DNA pairs.  You know about DNA pairs?”

Though the question was directed back to me, the Captain nodded.

“Yes, well, the pairs are symbolized by letters, the human genome project involved reading the sequence of the over three billion chemical letters in the DNA blueprint of life.”

“Is that what you have been doing the last few years?”

“Some. But not all.”

“What else? Please tell the court what work you were involved with before you were arrested in this case?”

“Sequencing and synthesizing pairs of DNA units.”

“For what purpose?”

“To modify human traits.”

“You can do that?  You can modify someone’s physical traits?”

“Well, yes.  That’s what I meant when I used the term, “synthesizing.” The entire thing was theorized by others and it was tried too.  As far back as World War II, but few people know that.  And it was done with some success, but those aren’t the traits I’m talking about.”

I waited. The Captain waited.  Everyone in the makeshift courtroom waited.  The arrogant Mr. Staten had us right where he wanted us.

“Well, yeah. It’s just dumb,” here he paused and smiled at me, he had used the word he knew I abhorred, “to modify a person physically and not deal with their personality, their psych. That is where the real creativity is.  Changing someone mentally.  Changing their emotions.  That is the way you change someone entirely.   Or so we thought.”

“What do you mean change someone’s personality?  I mean there’s nothing physical about that is there?”  I wasn’t confused.  I guess until that moment I was mostly just skeptical.

“Everything is physical.  That’s the beauty of it.  That’s what we discovered.  Our inter-actions, our motivations to interact or not interact, all that is inside us and it’s not something called a soul or personality. It has an actual physical form.  Think of it as a button.  It’s buried in our DNA, million years of evolution working, giving us a sequence or rather the sequence dictating to us what we are and how we are going to act.  Survival.  You see, survival is the key.  Always has been.  Aggressive, shy, assertive, contemplative, whatever, all qualities that can help you survive in a hostile world with hostile creatures that want to eat you or kill you for sport, like a cat does a mouse.”

“But personality comes from our, well, our environment, our rearing, doesn’t it?  I mean that has an impact too, doesn’t it?”

“That’s just a model some so called scientists, like psychiatrists, put out there.  They needed something to explain the differences. But they are not real scientists.  They just create models to explain behavior.  And when the behavior doesn’t fit their model, they blame it on the person not the model.  Then they come up with another classification so the model will survive.  It’s all bullshit.  In science we can make physical properties respond the same way every damn time.  And we found we could do that with personality traits the same way we could with physical traits.  Why?  Because it is all physical that’s why. Even memories.  There is physical location for everything you remember and if it is physical it can be moved.  Understand?”  

“Is that legal?  Doing that to people, or embryos or whatever?”

The Captain held up his hand.  I understood that was beyond the scope of the hearing and why he didn’t want to go into it.  The witness didn’t see the Captain’s hand raised and went on with his answer.  I made no effort to stop him.

“Well, I don’t know about legal.   But the ethics was much discussed. Is still being discussed though it is ludicrous.  The cat is out of the bag already.  There was a meeting at Harvard two years ago.  Very “hush-hush.”  Closed door.  No one was allowed to talk to outside sources, especially the press.  There was some real concern about the ethics.  Being able to create a new human being.  But, well, there is just no way you are going to keep something like that from being done with, well, because, well, strictly on an ethical basis. Someone’s going to do it. And they did and then we found out it had been done before and we found out the people who did it had no idea where it would lead, where it has gone already.”  

Drew Staten was rambling.  He seemed driven to get it all out there at once, in his narrative.  My head was spinning.  The Captain also seemed to be at his limit.  Just then there was the sound of a phone ringing.  I, and everyone else looked toward a small office across the way where the ringing seemed to be coming from.

“Let’s take a break”, the Captain announced.  

“Sergeant, secure the prisoner.  We are in recess for thirty minutes.” And with that he was up out of his chair and marching toward the doors.  As he passed my table, he glanced at me as I was rising in compliance with the clerk’s loud “All Rise!” I thought I detected a slight shake of his head.  There was something about where this was all going, he didn’t like.

Chapter Forty

After the Captain left, everyone stood and began milling about.  I wandered through the double doors and to the outside.  The sunshine had burned off the morning fog.  The whining sound of Jet engines was everywhere, the one constant background sound on an air base.  The activity of the base was steady, controlled, but it was busy.  Pilots, maintenance personnel, administrative clerks were on the move and getting done the million things it took to maintain readiness at a Naval Air Station in the central valley.  

I spotted the Captain standing with some other officers across an open area in front of the Cafeteria.  To my mild surprise, he was smoking a cigarette.  

“Well, what do you think?”  Big Wanda had followed me out of the Mess Hall and was now standing over me, shielding me from the Sun’s harmful rays.  I looked up at her.  Her face was in the shadow.   I moved to the side so I could feel the warmth of the sun.  I also wanted to see her face.

“We’re just getting started.  Most of this we know.  But the personality thing, the memory thing, I’m still struggling to understand.  I hope we can fill in the gaps.  We know a lot but there are holes.  We haven’t got anything from Mrs. Vuitch or the others.  I know the military has their ways, but I’m not sure they would be going through this tribunal if they were going to use other methods.  You know?  Force the issue?  Unless this is all just a charade.”

“You know what bothers me?”  Wanda asked.  I waited for her to finish her thought.  “What bothers me if why here, you know, why in this little place, with these people.  This is a big deal.  Maybe the biggest deal ever.  And here it is, it’s all here.  Some stupid high school reunion, a double murder, pretty bizarre, but still within the realm of normal, you know, for the criminal justice system.  But all this DNA, the stuff from way back and making new people. It’s all weird, but definitely a huge happening.  So, well, why here?”

I knew what she meant even if my big gal wasn’t doing a very good job of articulating what was nagging her.  It had nagged me too, like about how did I, Mr. average, small-town lawyer, a fine one for sure, at least on my good days, at least when I had been sober a while, I thought, but all this was big league stuff, real major league and what was I doing in the middle of it? 

I originally took the case so I could afford to keep the doors of my law practice open, and my liquor cabinet stocked.  And, there was the added consideration at the time.  Tammy J’s interest in my newfound importance had been promising.   Which reminded me: with my benefactors in the lock up who was going to pay my bill?  Was the local government still picking up the tab or was I on the federal payroll now?  

I turned to share my question with Wanda when she and I took flight. 

We were lifted in the air and sent flying by a huge percussive force.  It was a strange feeling flying through the air with Wanda.  I was watching her flapping her arms trying to get purchase when the sound of the explosion caught up to us and passed on by and the pavement reached up and smacked me out of the air.  I felt part of my ear tear off as I skidded on my side and hit against a wall.  

There was smoke everywhere.  I glimpsed little pockets of fire.  I didn’t see Wanda for a moment. I did see the Captain and the other officers. They were lying in a pile like stacked wood against the wall of another building.  None of them was moving.  The inside of my ears was ringing. There was searing pain on the outside where part of my ear was missing and there was a suddenly thumbing, my nerve endings screeching like a discordant guitar player.  

I pushed myself up and away from the wall.  When I looked, the entire side of the chow hall was gone.  It was just gone.  No part of it was there.  No wood or metal pillars sticking out haphazardly, no partially collapsed roof.  It was all just gone.  My bad knee hurt.   I must have banged it. I bent over to rub it and to the side I saw a large lump crumpled up in a ball.   At the same time, I heard a familiar groan.  It was Wanda and she was hurt.  

I staggered over to her. There was no way I was going to be able to lift her, but I did push on her shoulder enough to help her get started rolling over.  Her eyes were glazed over and then she blinked, and they cleared.  She was conscious.  I touched the side of her face.  She tried to smile and pushed her face tenderly against my hand. 

“I’m glad you’re still here, Counselor.”

“You, okay?”

“I think so.”  She sat up and seemed to be testing her extremities.  I looked around some more.  There were navy men everywhere.  The jet engine noises seemed to be subsiding.  I heard cars and trucks and sirens and then people were running.  I looked back at the cafeteria.  The entire half of the building where the tribunal had been, where Drew Staten, my witness, had been, was gone.  I wondered idly about my other witness.  I felt Wanda’s big hand on my shoulder.  She pulled me to her in a side hug.  And looked at the devastation I was contemplating. 

Smart-ass that I was, I cleverly stated: “Well, court is going to be in recess a little longer.”

For earlier chapters and other writings by Phil Cline visit my FBpage at PhilClinePage or philcline.com