Bringing All the Bad, стр. 18
This time, it was Mel that had to close her eyes. She didn’t really want to know. She also knew that she had to know. It was the only way to get to the bottom of this.
“So, Raymond brought the man to me and he did what he did and then he went away. Later, he came to tell me that I was going to be his new Money-Honey. That’s what he called his favorite girls. Should I go on?”
Mel wanted to tell her no. She wanted to find a way to erase all of this from Baby’s mind and scrub it clean and new. Let her start over with no memory of anything. She couldn’t scrub it clean and she couldn’t say no.
“Only what you want to tell me.”
“Well, without going into tedious detail, let’s just say that Raymond had discovered a very good way to make more money than he’d been earning before. The problem was that he needed more of us, more like me. There was a bit of grumbling with the women and some of them left, saying this wasn’t the kind of thing they’d signed up for. Raymond moved us along the coast, south in the winter, north in the summer. By then, the world was getting very harsh. There were children without parents to be found in every city soon enough.”
“The depression, you mean?” Mel knew it wasn’t the real Great Depression, but it was more than likely symbolic of something. That made it important.
Baby nodded. “Just so. There were fewer customers for the women, but more for us. It was as if the desperation of the times had loosened the hold people had on themselves. It was like they saw no hope, so they could find no reason to follow along with rules meant for a society they were no longer any real part of. It was a bad time.”
How could this child be so eloquent, particularly about a time she couldn’t truly understand. Yet, she did seem to understand it and probably better than people who actually studied that era. Was that it? Was that the clue? Was this story crafted by someone who studied that time period? If so, then it was a thread they might follow, no matter how thin.
Remembering what Baby had said about her not growing up, then suddenly doing so when she was left alone by the original abuser, Mel asked, “And did you stop growing again?”
This time Baby’s smile was big and had a cast to it that wasn’t very nice at all. It was the kind of smile that made Mel think of sharks and deep water. “Oh, yes, but that wasn’t all.”
“What else?” she asked.
A buzz from her wrist interrupted them, and she reluctantly glanced down at the notification there. Urgent: Return to Office. Mann
Mel looked up at Baby, but she was still smiling that shark-like smile so at odds with her sweet face. Baby glanced at Mel’s wrist, then said, “For one thing, Raymond got very, very rich. But that’s for next time, don’t you think?”
The Fat Man from 1977
“No, that can’t be right,” Mel said, looking at the big screen in Captain Mann’s office. Paul and Mann had already had time to discuss and digest this bit of news, but she was still trying to put it into its proper place. She pointed at the screen and looked at the two men standing behind her, both with their arms crossed at their chests. “That can’t possibly be right. Baby’s DNA can’t possibly be attached to this crime. It’s impossible.”
Paul shrugged, but Mann said, “I’ve just put in a request to get the actual files checked. They’re busy in New Jersey, so they aren’t exactly jumping up to dig through a warehouse packed with fifty-year-old files.”
The story Baby had been weaving for her crossed Mel’s mind, but only for a moment before she pushed it back as absurd. Perhaps Mann saw it happen, because he said, “No way. That’s definitely not possible.”
Paul seemed confused. “What? What’s not possible?”
Drawing in a deep breath, Mel answered him. “You know that story Baby’s been telling? About being from 1927?”
He snorted. “Yeah, I’ve been reading your emails.” Finally understanding, he gave a bitter laugh. “No, this is just a coincidence. Like I told the Captain, I’m betting she’s an illegal clone or something.”
Mel raised an eyebrow. “An illegal clone of a criminal from 1977? That hardly seems likely.”
He shrugged again. “It could happen. They busted all those celebrities a few years ago for illegal cloning. And that rich guy…the one that used to own pretty much everything online before the monopoly lawsuits…he had like four of them tucked away. Why not her?”
“Because they were celebrities and rich people. You don’t grow babies by cloning unless you’ve got loads of money and a lot of ego. You definitely don’t do it with criminals that might be in the DNA database.”
Mann had gone silent, his brow creasing and his face falling into grave lines. “Unless…” he said, then trailed off.
His tone got their attention. Paul, his voice wary, said, “Unless what.”
“Unless you didn’t clone a criminal on purpose. Unless you only cloned random people, maybe old people who aren’t in any DNA database, maybe old people in care homes with pictures of their younger days around them. Pictures that showed how cute they were when they were young. Unless you cloned those people who looked the right way when they were little and no one would be around to notice how much that little kid looked like someone they knew.”
Paul’s mouth dropped open in horror. Mel understood the feeling. It was a horror, but also strangely and diabolically