“Gaddis will never give up his family,” Con said.
“I am inclined to agree with the girl,” Fenton said.
“As am I,” Butler said. “We may need to be very encouraging indeed. But there’s simply no other way, not unless you want to see the valuation of Palingenesis drop to nothing.”
Dr. Fenton took a long time answering. There was no doubt that she despised Franklin Butler, and the thought of accepting his offer clearly turned her stomach. But when she spoke, it appeared that pragmatism won out over principle. Con wondered if it was ever any other way.
“I think something can be worked out,” Dr. Fenton said.
“Good. Then I’ll be in touch,” he said and threw his banking information from his LFD to hers. “If you’ll transfer the funds in the cryptocurrency of your choice, I’ll be on my way.”
While Fenton did as she was asked, Con asked Butler if she could make a suggestion. Butler seemed amused at the idea and gestured for her to go on.
“What if, instead, you encouraged the in-laws to throw the case? Let Gaddis win,” Con said.
“Why on earth would I do that?”
“You said power derives from the threat itself. Imagine the power you would have if the federal government recognized the legality of human cloning.”
Butler stood there a long time, face frozen in the last expression he’d made, too deep in thought to even reset to neutral. “Gaddis’s brother-in-law would never go for it. To do that, I would need to buy a Supreme Court judge, maybe two. I would—”
“If only you had ten million dollars burning a hole in your pocket,” Con interrupted.
A smile crept across his face. “And what’s in it for you?”
“Existence,” she said simply. “It would be a win for both of us.”
He looked at her and laughed. “You do enjoy quoting me back to me, don’t you? It was truly good to meet you, Constance D’Arcy.”
Con couldn’t say the same so said nothing at all.
“Be careful with the good doctor,” Butler said. “Don’t turn your back on her.”
“Oh, I’m aware.”
Butler offered his pistol to her, but she made no move to take it. She was going to ride the train to the end of the line, and if she got cold feet, she didn’t want anything that would help her get off it early.
Butler regarded her somberly, all of his artifice and showmanship fading away momentarily. “And yet you go voluntarily. I don’t know whether to admire or pity you. I hope you find the answers you’re searching for.”
“You’re really strange, you know that?”
“Shh. Our little secret,” he said with a sly wink, and having confirmed that the money was in his account, he opened the back door and left without another word.
Con watched his sedan until it was out of sight. When it was gone, she looked across to Dr. Fenton, who waited impatiently in the rain, which was beginning to drive in off the lake.
“So, what now?” Con asked.
“Back to DC.”
“What’s in DC?”
“My lab. So we can get to the bottom of what is happening,” Dr. Fenton said.
“You rushed down with ten million to buy me back from the CoA? That’s some next-level customer service, Brooke.”
“Yes, obviously there is more at stake than that. But it all starts with your head. Gaddis is using your head as a hard drive. We knew theoretically it was possible, but it seems he has taken it from the hypothetical to the practical.”
Con let Fenton keep talking, not bothering to tell her that Gaddis had already explained all this. She was curious if the two versions would differ. They didn’t.
“So what do you think is in there?” Con asked when Fenton was done.
“There’s no way to know for sure. Your aunt was working on a variety of new applications of cloning. She really was quite brilliant. Everything from enhanced consciousness to treatments for dementia to cures for a host of genetic brain disorders. Her struggle with Wilson’s disease made that a particularly personal crusade. Any one of them would be worth a fortune on the open market. But you know what I believe it is?” There was an innocence and excitement on her face that Con had never seen before.
“What?”
“Immortality,” Fenton said. “It was your aunt’s dream. What she aspired to—her life’s work—was nothing short of solving death. But she was always limited by the mind-body dilemma. No matter what approach she tried, the consciousness of a sixty-year-old can only be downloaded into a clone that’s genetically and chronologically identical to its original—like for like. Any attempt to download an older consciousness into a younger clone met with catastrophic failure. I think it drove her a little mad toward the end. She knew that when you cut through its sales pitch and artful jargon, all Palingenesis really offered was half measures. A temporary reprieve against what remained the unavoidability of death. No matter how many clones our clients keep, eventually old age claims them as it always had. She felt like a failure. For a long time, I believed that was why she took her own life.”