“You’d be broke?”
“Destitute. Obviously, I appealed in Virginia and countersued in Maryland court. Maryland ruled in my favor, Virginia in his. Dueling judgments. The consolidated case is headed to the Supreme Court, should it choose to hear the case, which it has signaled it will. Where I am assured that I will lose.”
“Which is why your friends are so angry.”
“If the Supreme Court rules that I am not Vernon Gaddis, then it will settle the issue of clone personhood at a federal level. Its ruling will supersede all state law and signal the end of legal cloning in the United States. Clones everywhere will be stripped of rights and property. So either I fight for my children with every resource at my disposal, or I sacrifice them in service to the greater good. Which I had more or less resigned myself to doing until today’s board meeting.”
Con didn’t have children, had no real interest in them, but couldn’t imagine being forced to make such a choice. “So why the change of heart?”
“Because I don’t think any of this is an accident. Something is happening that has been in the works for a long time. I can feel it, but I don’t know what it is. Or why.”
“So what now?”
“Now we make a deal,” Gaddis said. “How does dessert sound?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Dessert was blueberry cobbler and ice cream. Gaddis had a scotch, but Con declined. She was still nursing her first glass of wine and meant to keep it that way. Gaddis pulled his chair close so they could talk quietly. Jacket off, tie loosened, he sat forward conspiratorially and rolled up his sleeves.
“In ’32, the Post broke the news about cloning, and Palingenesis began offering cloning to the public sector. In the eight years since, both of its founders have been systematically removed from the company they created.”
“My aunt killed herself.”
“Please.” Gaddis snorted. “Abigail Stickling was the least suicidal person I’ve ever met.”
“The media said she was suffering from depression,” Con said.
“She was certainly frustrated by setbacks in her work, but she was far from depressed. That was simply Palingenesis’s cover story.”
“You don’t think she killed herself?”
“No, it was definitely Abigail. And yes, I heard all the absurd theories that it was somehow her clone, despite the fact she wasn’t medically able to have one herself. Originals and clones are identical in most respects, but there are ways to tell—fingerprints, environmental wear and tear, sun damage. These things cannot be faked. I’ve no doubt that it was Abigail Stickling who fell from that rooftop. What I’ve never understood is why.”
“You think it’s all connected,” Con said.
“I know how it sounds. And there were times I thought I was just being paranoid—I’ll be the first to admit my imagination has gotten the best of me at times in the five years since Cynthia died—but I never stopped thinking there was something more profound at work than bad luck.”
“And you think Brooke Fenton is behind it all?”
“I do now.”
“You know she says the same of you,” Con said as much to remind herself as to tell Gaddis.
“Of course she does. She needs a fall guy, and I’ve played into her hands.”
“So what is it Fenton wants?”
“When we created the company, I agreed that Abigail would retain final and absolute say on when, and if, her work would be released. It had its drawbacks, but at the end of the day, there was only one Abigail Stickling. From the moment Fenton replaced me as CEO, she went to war with Abigail for control of the research and development labs. She explored every recourse at her disposal to get her hands on the vast treasure trove of intellectual property that Abigail was developing. Nothing worked. When Abigail died, Brooke Fenton marched into the research lab like Hannibal crossing the Alps. And do you know what she found? Absolutely nothing. Abigail had erased everything. Years of research gone. It set Palingenesis back a decade or more. At the time, I thought Abigail was simply too egocentric to leave anything behind that might allow others to follow in her footsteps, to succeed where she had failed. It would have been a very Abigail thing to do.”
“But now you’re not so sure.”
“Now I wonder if any of that’s true. Was Abigail’s research really erased, or was that also part of Brooke’s cover-up? Maybe I’m wrong, but I find it more plausible than the notion that Abigail committed suicide and that eighteen months later her niece was revived despite being fifteen months past the medical lockout deadline. And that the same steward who ostensibly mishandled the lockout in the first place was the very same one who helped sneak you out of the vault.”