With the girls free it was all Mouledoux could do to keep them from charging out of the relative, but temporary, safety of the bedroom.
“ We don’t know what’s going on down there,” he said.
“ But we know we don’t want to stay here,” Amy Eisenhower said.
“ Yeah, we know that,” her friend Alicia seconded.
A rolling sound, almost like distant thunder, filled the room. Earthquake was Mouledoux’s first thought. However, as the sound continued, he knew it was something else.
But before he got a chance to wonder about it a burst of automatic fire cut through the resonating sound. For a minute or so he’d thought it might be all over and when the rumbling ceased and a single shot rang out, he knew it was.
Eisenhower and Booth had killed them all and he was next on the list. He pulled his weapon. “I’ll go and see what’s what. You two stay till I get back.”
“ No way,” Alicia said.
“ Yeah, no way,” Amy echoed.
“ I can’t go out there with the two of you,” Mouledoux said, but if he wanted to survive this night, that was exactly what he should do. However, in the oft chance he was wrong, that Manny Wayne and his men had prevailed, then going down there with them would be suicide.
It was a tough decision. If he went down without the girls and encountered Eisenhower or Booth, they’d shoot first and ask no questions. If he went down with them and Wayne and his men were the victors, same thing. He bet on the women.
“ Okay, we’re going down, but I want you two to stay behind me and do exactly as I say.”
“ Yes, sir?” Amy said.
Mansfield Wayne groaned as he came to. And though he was in kind of a sleep fog, he was racked in pain. His back felt like the skin had been ripped off. The back of his head hurt like there was no tomorrow. His heart was racing out of control. He couldn’t breathe out of his nose, which was radiating pain.
He felt like he was going to die.
But then again, he was dying, so with an effort most couldn’t muster, he blocked out the pain and tried to focus, which became a lot easier when he’d heard the gunfire from outside. That brought him instantly alert. Still on the carpet, he looked for his pistol, spied the magnum under his desk, crawled to it, grasped it and forced himself into a sitting position, when he’d heard a single gunshot.
Then silence.
“ I thought I told you to go to the main house to find the girls.” Lila stepped off the porch, came toward Izzy with a block wide grin as she holstered her weapons. Izzy thought she looked like an angel.
“ You’re not the boss of me.”
“ Apparently not.”
The fog was gone now and it was quiet, not even a breeze. It was as if the fog and the noise had come of their own accord and had come as allies. Job done and no longer needed, they’d gone.
“ Let’s go find your girls,” Lila said.
“ That’s got my vote.”
Mouledoux was at the bedroom door, about to step out into the hallway, when he got an idea. He turned to the girls.
“ Instead of going down there and maybe getting killed, I think we should move to the bedroom down the hall.”
“ Why?” Amy said.
“ We can wait there till we see who comes up after you. If it’s your grandmother, then all is good. If it’s the Waynes, I’ll be behind them, with this.” He held up his thirty-eight, waggled it. “I’ll have the drop on them.”
“ I don’t like that idea,” Alicia said.
“ Me neither,” Amy said. “I’d rather we just went on down there and if it’s the bad guys, you just shoot ’em.”
“ What?”
“ That way, if Nana is still out there and still alive, you can help.”
“ Yeah,” Alicia said. “She might need our help. So let’s go.”
“ Alright.” And with his weapon in front of him, Mouledoux stepped out into the hallway. He turned back to the girls, who were right on his tail and whispered. “Let’s be real quiet, okay?”
They nodded and he led them toward the stairs.
Manny Wayne was as alert as he’d ever been when he heard the front door open. Who was it, the women or Tucker and his men?
His office door, which led into the foyer, was wide open. Cat quick and cat quiet, he moved behind it, peering through the crack between the door and the wall as Lila Booth and Isadora Eisenhower came through the front door.
He held his breath, willed himself to be quiet, silent as the two women passed by. They were both wearing the dusters that Lila liked and their weapons were holstered. It was over, they’d finished it.
He had grossly underestimated Lila and the Eisenhower woman. How could he have made such a mistake? He tightened his grip on the magnum. They were all dead, Tucker too. Lila would have made sure of that. She must’ve come upon him and Peeps and mistakenly thought he was dead as well. That was her mistake and the last one she was ever going to make.
He moved out behind the women, magnum in hand. It was time for Lila Booth to die. He pointed the big gun at her back, but he couldn’t pull the trigger, couldn’t shoot her in the back, because even after all she’d done, how she’d betrayed him, he was Manny Wayne and back shooting wasn’t his style. Besides, he wanted her to know where it was coming from.
He wanted to see her eyes when he pulled the trigger.
He wanted to savor the moment.
“ Move and you’re dead!” he said and the women froze. “Hands on your heads or I punch a whole through Lila big enough for me to put my fist through.”
The women did as he instructed.
“ Turn around.”
The women did.
If he’d thought the cancer was bad, the pain radiating out from his back was ten times worse. Any other man would be on the floor, but Manny prided himself on the fact that he wasn’t any other man. He’d grown up thinking he was extraordinary, believing it, and the fact that his hand was steady, that the big gun was unwavering, proved it.
“ Did you wet your pants, Manny?” Lila had a sneer in her voice and a smile on her face. She wasn’t afraid. Neither was Eisenhower, but then she needn’t be, she knew he wouldn’t harm her. At least not until he’d learned her secret.
“ Tucker?” Manny had to know for sure.
“ Dead,” Lila said.
“ As so shall you be.”
Izzy braced herself as the sound of a single gunshot ricocheted throughout the room. But instead of Lila collapsing to the floor, Manny Wayne jerked backwards, like he’d been swatted with a sledge. His gun flew from his hand when he hit the floor, body quivering in it’s death throws.
“ I really didn’t like that son of a bitch.” A man’s voice from behind said as Manny Wayne’s body went still.
Lowering their hands, the women turned as a lanky man came down the stairs, with Amy and Alicia following. He had a pistol in his right hand and it was trained on Lila.
“ Dr. Eisenhower, we meet again.” He nodded toward Izzy, but kept his eyes on Lila. Then to her, “Sorry I didn’t keep my word. I tried, but sometimes shit happens.”
“ You got here awful fast, Detective Mouledoux,” Lila said, “considering how we left you.”
“ Yeah, I guess I did,” Mouledoux said.
“ Are you one of Manny’s tame cops, like Peeps?”
“ No, not like Peeps.” He was at the bottom of the stairs now, in the living room, but a respectable distance away from Izzy and Lila. The girls flanked him, Amy on his left, Alicia on his right.
“ He’s a good guy, Miss Booth,” Alicia said.
“ You know me?” Lila said.
“ I heard him talking about you?” Alicia pointed to the dead Manny Wayne.
“ He didn’t want to admit it,” Amy said, “but he was afraid of you.”
“ And well he should have been,” Lila said. She turned toward Mouledoux. “There is no police business here. You can put your weapon away.”
“ I think not just yet.” He kept his gun on Lila, but Amy grabbed the barrel, snatched it from his hand.
“ What-” But before Mouledoux had a chance to react, Lila whipped the forty-five from her leg holster, trained it on the cop. She was fast, like any of the quickdraw cowboys Izzy had read about when she was a little girl.
“ Now I feel a bit more comfortable,” Lila said.
“ Don’t shoot him, Miss Booth,” Alicia said.
“ Yeah,” Amy said. “He was rescuing us.”
“ Really?” Izzy was surprised.
“ It’s true, Nana.”
And to Izzy it did look true. The man could have done the cowardly thing and grabbed one of the girls to use as a shield, but he didn’t. And neither did the girls run from him once he’d been disarmed.
“ We can’t kill this one,” Izzy said.
“ I know,” Lila said, “but it would be so much tidier if we could.”
“ I understand that,” the policeman said. “You need to keep Dr. Eisenhower’s secret safe.” He spread his hands, palms forward, in front of himself. “I’ve already forgotten it.”
“ You gave me your word once before and you broke it,” Lila said. “How can I trust you now?”
“ I didn’t have any choice,” Mouledoux said. “I could have stayed out of it, like I promised, but I’m a cop, these girls were in trouble.”
“ You’re not here because of Izzy’s secret?” Lila said. “You’re not after the Fountain of Youth?”
“ If I was, that would be you dead over there, instead of Mansfield Wayne.”
“ Good point,” Izzy said. “You can put your gun away, Lila.”
“ Not just yet.” She kept it pointed at the policeman. “Izzy and I and these girls are going to have to leave this place before it’s crawling with cops. Then I’m going to disappear, maybe Izzy’s going to vanish too, I don’t know, but I am and so I need a favor.”
“ Ask,” Mouledoux said.
“ There’s an old man named Harvey Weinstein.” She told Mouledoux where he lived. “He wants a big dog. Out back there are two who are needing a new home.”
“ What are their names?” Mouledoux said.
“ They’ll be needing new ones,” Lila said.
“ I’ll see he gets them. Anything else?”
“ You forget all about us.”
“ That goes without saying.”
“ Isadora Eisenhower, are you in there?” A woman from outside shouted. A woman with a strange accent.
“ I know that voice,” Izzy said. “It’s Marlan. She’s why I’m like I am.” Izzy turned to Lila, “What should I do?”
“ Beats me.”
“ I think you should answer her,” Mouledoux said.
“ Yes, I’m here,” Izzy shouted back.
“ Are they all dead? Is it safe to enter?”
“ You,” Izzy said to Mouledoux. “Get out of sight.” She pointed to a sofa backed up against the wall on the opposite side of the room. “Think you can move that out a bit and squeeze behind it?”
“ Don’t need to tell me twice.” Mouledoux darted over to the sofa, pulled it a couple feet from the wall, squeezed in behind it.
“ Amy,” Izzy said, “you and Alicia push it back.”
“ Okay,” Amy said and she and Alicia pushed it back toward the wall, sandwiching Mouledoux in.
“ I think you should put your gun away,” Izzy said.
“ Yeah.” Lila did. “What about the girls?”
“ My instinct tells me they’re safe, you too,” Izzy said. “But not him.”
“ Why?”
“ I think she knows we came to rescue the girls.”
“ How can you know that?”
“ I don’t, but I think it’s true.”
“ I hope you’re right.”
“ Dr. Eisenhower,” Marlan shouted out again. “Did you hear me? Is it safe for me?”
“ It’s safe, you can come in,” Izzy called out.
The front door opened and Marlan came in, looking slender and fit, not anything like a woman who had just given birth. She went straight to Izzy, looked her in the eyes, touched her cheek. Then she went to Lila, looked her in the eyes as well, touched her cheek as well.
“ She’s like us,” Marlan said. It wasn’t a question. To Izzy, “You did this?”
“ Yes.”
“ But not them.” Marlan pointed to Alicia and Amy.
“ No, not them,” Izzy said.
“ Other than the four of you,” Marlan said, “everybody who knows about what happened to you, they’re all dead, yes?”
“ Yes,” Izzy lied. She hoped Marlan didn’t discover Mouledoux hiding behind the sofa. And then there was Black back in Oregon. She didn’t know what was going to become of her, but instinctively she knew if Marlan knew about her, it wouldn’t be good. And she was starting to worry about the girls and Lila. What did Marlan have planned for them? Maybe she should have had the girls hide as well.
“ You and you,” Marlan touched both Izzy and Lila on the left shoulder, “have to come with me. You have no choice.”
“ What about us?” Amy said.
“ You have a choice. You can come or not.”
“ You’re not worried we might tell?” Alicia said.
“ And who would believe you?” Marlan said.
“ Yeah, you’re right about that,” Alicia said. “People would think we were crazy.”
“ If we go with you, it’s for good, isn’t it?” Amy said.
“ I’m sorry, but yes,” Marlan said. “You can never come back.”
“ Go where?” Lila said.
“ Jeez,” Alicia said, “I’ve figured that out.”
“ Then tell her,” Marlan said.
“ The stars,” Alicia said. “Where else?” Then, “And I’m going.”
“ I’m in,” Amy said.
“ Maybe you should think about this.” Izzy didn’t know what the future held for her and Lila, but more then ever she wanted Amy to grow up safe, to have a life.
“ Maybe she’s right,” Lila said to Amy, then to Marlan. “So how does this all work? You mix up their blood with yours, like Izzy did me?”
“ Not exactly,” Marlan said. “We have more sophisticated methods and safer.”
“ What do you mean, safer?” Izzy said.
“ Sometimes, if blood is mixed, more than just getting young happens.”
“ Like what?” Izzy said, but she already knew what, she just wanted to hear Marlan say it.
“ Sometimes, because the DNA is commingled, it’s possible for one person to take on the features of the other.”
“ Like what features?” Lila said.
“ Don’t worry, you’re going to be okay,” Marlan said.
“ What features? she said again.
“ Well, eye color, skin color, it’s even possible for an older person to turn not only younger, but to switch sexes. It’s rare.”
“ So,” Izzy said, “You’ll be using the safe methods on our girls?”
“ Of course, it’s necessary,” Marlan said. “Now if it’s been decided, we have to go. Your authorities will be here soon.”
“ I don’t hear any sirens,” Lila said. “We have a few minutes and I have a few questions.”
“ As I said, you have to come,” Marlan said. “You have no choice.”
“ I understand that,” Lila said. “And I understand you probably have the means to make me even if I don’t want to go, but these girls have a choice, so why don’t you tell them what’s really going on here.”
“ What are you saying?” Marlan trained a scowl toward Lila.
“ I can spot a liar a mile away,” Lila said, “and my bullshit detector is on full alert. You may not be lying full out, but you’re not telling the whole truth either, so spill it.”
“ Bullshit detector? Spill it?” Marlan said.
“ She means she doesn’t believe you’re telling us everything,” Izzy said. “She thinks you’re hiding something and she wants you to tell us what it is, so the girls don’t make a mistake, because maybe if they knew everything, they might not want to go.”
“ That’s what I thought she meant,” Marlan said. Then to Lila, “I’ll make this fast.” She sighed. “We have a common ancestor, you and I, my people and yours. Eons ago a force none of us understands, a force you call God, scattered us throughout the many universes. We think we were never supposed to find each other.”
“ But you found us,” Alicia said.
“ And others,” Marlan said. “The first step was conquering what you call DNA. We developed a drug that optimizes it. You become a young adult, in your prime and it slows down the aging process. You live a very long time, hundreds of years. The drug was both a blessing and a curse.”
“ Let me guess,” Lila said. “Everybody got the drug. Nobody died and your world got overcrowded, so you had to send out spaceships and colonize other planets.”
“ No, we didn’t colonize. We found another way. Worse really, much worse.”
“ You sterilized yourselves,” Izzy whispered.
“ We tried, but failed for years. Vasectomies reversed themselves and hysterectomies also didn’t work, the uterus grew back overnight.”
“ Like my hair did when I shaved it off.”
“ Yes, if your body detected no hair, it would grow back. Hair grows as it normally does, but if you shave it all off, your body detects it and replaces it.”
“ So what did you do?” Lila said.
“ Condoms worked, but they’re messy and inconvenient, but that’s what we used till our scientists were able to come up with a birth control pill that actually worked. Take it one time and you can’t get pregnant.”
“ So nobody ever has children?” Lila said.
“ But what about you?” Izzy said. “I delivered your daughter.”
“ The birth control is reversible,” Marlan said. “Take another pill and you can get pregnant.” She sighed. “Most women are satisfied not having children. It’s like the DNA understands the problem and the urge or desire or whatever you want to call it women have to bear children is gone, but not in all of us. A very few of us still want to. It eats at us, we have to conceive. It’s like the mother instinct is stronger in us to make up for all the women who don’t have it anymore.”
“ So you took the pill to turn it off,” Alicia said.
“ Yes, but the penalty was high,” Marlan said. “The government passed a law saying all children would become wards of the state, which meant that if you had a child, they took it.”
“ Chalk up another reason why I hate government,” Alicia said.
“ All of the women who needed to conceive were urged to come forward and we were presented with a horrible choice. We could have the pill and have our children, but we’d have to leave. We were banished.”
“ From the planet?” Alicia said.
“ Yes, from the planet.”
“ How’d they do that?” Alicia said.
“ They built a starship. It took time, years. And in the meantime we lived in a special place, a city just for us, but it was really a concentration camp. Not like the ones in Germany during your World War II. It was what you would call a gilded cage, but a cage nonetheless. We were walled in, kept out of sight till the starship was finished, then we were sent away, to start over, to find a new world to live on.”
“ How long have you been traveling around in your spaceship?” Alicia said. “And how fast does it go?”
“ We can do light years in days and we’ve been living aboard for very long time. It seems there’s always a reason why we can’t settle when we find a star system like this.”
“ And why can’t you settle here?” Amy said.
“ You saw how people reacted to Dr. Eisenhower. Imagine if we moved in among you, never growing old. We would ruin your world and that’s forbidden. Besides, we’re not allowed to interfere, sort of like that Prime Directive from your Star Trek movies.
“ But you interfered with the fog and the noise thing, that engine sound, whatever it was,” Izzy said.
“ That was against all kinds of rules, but I wanted you to live and I wanted those bad people dealt with. We could never do it, not allowed, but I cheated a little and helped you. Now can we go?”
“ Not just yet,” Lila said. “When we leave here, where are we going, exactly?”
“ We’re hoping we can find a planet where the people have evolved enough to welcome us.”
“ That doesn’t sound likely,” Lila said. “Your own people weren’t evolved enough.”
“ You’re probably right,” Marlan said, “but there’s always the chance we can find an uninhabited planet that can sustain life. One with oceans, fish, animals, but no humans. But, you know, every island on earth that has fresh water, has people on it. That seems to be the way it is with planets like this.”
“ But you’re going to keep looking?” Amy said.
“ Yes, we are.”
“ How many people on your little spaceship?” Lila said.
“ We left with just over ten thousand, we’re twice that now.”
“ Wow, not so little.”
“ No,” Marlan said. “Fortunately we can cloak it, so the systems we visit never know we’ve been there.”
“ Any single men up there?” Amy said.
“ Hey, you have me,” Alicia said.
“ Yeah, yeah, I was thinking about Nana and Miss Booth.”
“ I hear sirens,” Lila said.
“ Time to choose,” Marlan said.
“ I’m going,” Alicia said.
“ Me too,” Amy said.
“ Alright then,” Marlan motioned with her hand to Amy and Alicia, “come over here by us.”
The girls obeyed.
Marlan tapped her right ear and said, “Five to beam up.”