CHAPTER TEN
Of My Discontent
From time immemorial, dissidents and false friends have waited until a leader has left his country to mount a coup. Without the physical presence of their commander, troops and troupes of bureaucrats and functionaries find it harder to risk their lives to maintain the status quo.
When Joshua Fflowers went into the Juvenal Institute, there were stirrings, but, really, those were of no more concern than the slight movements in the straw after the barn cat pads outside to soak up some sun. It was not until the pancreatic portion of his rejuve took a mortally threatening turn for the worse that the stirrings became skitterings and the first murmurings were heard. The murmurings were of many things: Adaman—Joshua Fflowers older child, art supporter, political dabbler, and not so competent co-president of Cygnetics. Would he be deposed? What of his brother, Illiya, the younger, if not smarter, then, certainly more respected one, the other half of the leadership of Cygnetics? What of the old man’s money—more than a trillion eurollars? Would it be sliced into big or little pieces of pie? Cygnetics—with its multiple vulnerabilities, would it take a fall? Would the b-crats at the nation’s Health and Hearth Department become emboldened and release the supposedly dambing report that supposedly had been kept glued to the director’s desk by Fflowers’ supposedly gargantuan campaign contributions? Then, there was the power—the sweet perfume of power floating above any stench thrown off by a failing body. Who would inherit the old man’s power in science, philanthropy, politics, and Cygnetics itself? Was the Fflower’s family reign over?
When word got out that Joshua Fflowers was failing, men and women, friends, false friends and enemies, all began to sharpen their weapons and gird their loins for the battles ahead. But, how could word get out? The Juvenal Institute was almost as renowned for its discretion as for its medical skills. The answer is that while being honeyed and hounded by the press is something which an eminent surgeon, held to account by Hippocratic Oath and insulated, to a degree, by wealth, might resist, it is infinitely harder for an aide or orderly to parry the press’ advances and enticements with the same degree of skill.
For those with the desire to stay abreast and who have the requisite money, there was information—very good, although not perfect, information—about Fflowers rejection of his liver split within hours of that dramatic change. The details of the failure of his new pancreas found their way to those with an interest in even shorter order. With each revelation, whether it was a spiking fever, a leaking vein, or a massive auto-immune response, the rustlings in the barn grew louder.
Some of that rustling sound and skittering movement about Joshua Fflowers’ fate was being made by a person who himself was the object of much speculation, someone who had just come through the entrance of the Juvenal Institute with everything but heralds blowing horns.
Adaman Fflowers often had considered how his fate seemed so much like that of the luckless Prince Charles of England. It was the Unbonny Prince Charles, whose grandmother, the revered Queen Mother, had lived to be one hundred one. It was the Unbonny Prince Charles whose mother, Queen Elizabeth, lived to be ninety-nine, and who, whether dotty, potty, or not, was still on the Windsor throne when her son, Charles, ever, always and only a prince, passed on. But, now the fifty-seven year old Fflowers boy who would be king was hopeful that his fate might be different.
Adaman Fflowers had had no reason, and even less desire, to visit his father when the old man first entered the Juvenal Institute. It wasn’t until the geri was comatose and fighting for his next breath that Adaman ordered a roto. There was something powerful within the son that wanted to see his father in a helpless state. Lear in a johnny.
When he arrived with his entourage of bootlicks, security guards, media handlers, infectious medical second-guessers and rabid legal advisors, Adaman Fflowers was met by Rogger Blaine, head of the Juvenal Institute, along with Dr. Blaine’s own entourage of bootlicks, excuse makers, medical explainers and legal defenders.
After twenty minutes of diplomacy and posturing, those who were paid to argue and threaten were left to do so. Dr. Blaine personally accompanied the theatrically distraught Adaman to the suite where his father had been recuperating until his spectacular reversals. Once there, the son threw off the rest of his retinue, like a Shakespeare thespian his cloak, except for Schecty, his head of security. The two of them followed Dr. Blaine to the observ station above the ICU. Looking down through the tinted glass, Adaman could see that the Invasive Care Unit was a large room divided into six glass-walled cubicles, three along each wall, with an open area in the middle. All of the cubicles were full of equipment, but empty of patients, except for one. Adaman Fflowers counted eleven people doing things to help a twelfth.
Dr. Blaine was far too skilled and far too arrogant to explain, apologize or offer any condolences to Adaman Fflowers. Instead, benignly, he observed for a moment before making his goodbyes. Just as the director was making his recessional through the door, Adaman asked Dr. Blaine what his brother, Illiya, thought should be done.
Dr. Blaine responded with a head shake. As far as the director was aware, Illiya Fflowers had not been to see his father.
After the doctor left, Adaman spent ten minutes watching the body of Joshua Fflowers being swarmed over like a race car in a pit stop. As he walked back to his father’s suite, he nodded to himself in amusement at how remiss his brother had been in not attending to the patriarch. And what a fine show he was missing.
Back in the suite surrounded by the blanket of his retinue, Adaman found that The Juvenal Institute and its staff planned plans. They didn’t plan results. That is what his people said they had been told by the institute people. It had been explained to Adaman’s advisors by Dr. Blaine’s advisors that Joshua Fflowers, inexplicably, had rejected his replacement parts. Their only guess as to why the old man’s body had done that was some evidence that Fflowers had undergone some unusual localized and, assuredly, illegal, genetic transformation at an earlier point in his life. It was the extra DNA, formally named supernumerary accentric fragments, which were triggering the rejections. It was that same DNA, and its supposedly illegal aspects, that were supposed to trigger an acceptance by Adaman Fflowers that the Juvenal institute had done nothing wrong.
Adaman was wandering around his father’s luxurious suite, half-listening to the briefing, which seemed too long to be worthy of its name, as his legal and medical aides worked to one-up one another, when he picked up an a large envelope emblazoned with the familiar Bissell School logo. It amused Adaman, illustrious alum, to see an actual letter—the paper and frank. It was so gracious and so old-fashioned and just exactly the thing that Binny Dowdahl, whose name appeared handwritten in the upper left-hand corner, would think to do to appeal to Joshua Fflowers.
Within seconds of opening Dowdahl’s letter, Adaman felt like he had been thrown overboard in a wintry sea. Gripping the letter in one fist as if it were an assassin’s wrist, he slid the accompanying pix from the envelope. His breath stopped while he stared at the dedication day image of his retrograde father being smiled at by Jack and a young girl whose face stabbed deep into some self-surviving, cunning reptilian portion of Adaman’s brain. Who and what was this person who so interested his father? Something tugged, but just what it was wouldn’t come to him, but he knew it must come because it was important. Critically important.
Adaman Fflowers accepted that his father despised him. That acceptance had not come easily. When Adaman was a child, he had tried in many ways—pleading, fawning, adoring, and even, obeying, to get his father to like him, but by the time Adaman was twelve, he knew that his goal was hopeless. In the years that followed, rather than expending useless energy to get his father to like him more, Adaman had done his best to inveigle his younger brother, Illiya, to behave in ways that would cause Joshua Fflowers to like his second son less. However, Adanan’s efforts, Joshua Fflowers had continued to prefer and favor Illiya over his first-born.
It was not until J
ack was born that Adaman realized the game did not have to be played out between Iliya and himself. Seeing a possible opening, Adaman had coached, mentored and directed Jack to become what his grandfather wanted. To Adaman’s great relief and satisfaction, Jack Fflowers proved to be both an eager and apt grandson.
When, just two days before, Schecty had told Adaman that he had heard from Nathn that his nephew, Joe, had taken the bait and was on his way to a new life, Adaman Fflowers had been ecstatic. He felt the end game of a long hard played match was coming and he held the more powerful pieces. Although Joshua Fflowers continued to despise Adaman, he did love Jack. Now, he would feel betrayed by Joe. That feeling, that Joe was a traitor, was sure to redound badly for Illiya.
Upon hearing Schecty’s news that the plan was working, Adaman had allowed himself some time to gloat and dream. Finally, his years of scheming were paying off. The chess match would be over as soon as Joshua Fflowers heard the news. The match still might not end in checkmate, but a stalemate was better than an outright loss.
Adaman’s triumph had lost its glow when, on the following day, he was informed of Joshua Fflowers precipitous decline. Adaman’s thoughts harkened back to Prince Charles and his lame fate. If his father was too sick to learn what Joe had done, or died before he changed the distribution of his wealth and power, all of Adaman’s efforts would have been for naught.
The unrequited son paced and thought and paced and thought. After a time he had an idea. He went to the room’s closet, and searching through his father’s clothes found what he thought he might find. As long as he had known him, his father had been a doodler. Whether he was on a fone, conferencing, thinking, or in a meeting, his hands kept busy. Adaman pulled out a small wad of cocktail napkins, some from the dedication and some from the roto flight. He sat cross legged on the bed and spread them in front of him. Squiggles, arrows, a sketch of his new building…and Es, lots of Es, and a few fancy Ps. And arrows linking E’s to P’s. After deciding that Priscilla Langue might be the P, Adaman’s confusion unraveled. E led to P. E led to Priscilla. Adaman’s throat made a noise like a clogged drain. He lifted up the pix of the girl and tried to remember the portrait in the Airie he had studied a thousand times. That portrait had been done when Elena Howe was forty, but Adaman could see that the resemblance was there.
The torrent of words that burst from his mouth left strings of spittle on Adanan’s chin. In the space of a day he had gone from checkmating his brother to being in check to being checkmated. If his father died, the will would remain unchanged. But, now, if the old man rallied, the will very well might be changed, but not in the way that Adanan had planned. Adanan could see how an eleventh hour appearance by someone named Priscilla Langue could cause him to lose everything he had worked for so many years. Adaman knew without a doubt that if the old man had any opportunity to develop a relationship with the simulacrum of Elena Howe, his own and, most likely, Jack’s future, too, would be ash. He also was sure that Prince Charles last conscious feeling had to have been a bitter one. Adaman swore to himself that the Unbonny Prince’s fate would not be his own.
If his father died, there was nothing he could do. But…if his father lived, the girl could not.
Adaman Fflowers was mapping out a strategy with Schecty about how to handle the girl when his brother, Illiya, accompanied by a single security guardian came in.
“Ah, the prodigal son. I, we, and, of course, dear he, expected you earlier.”
“Joe’s gone.”
As he quickly gathered the napkins off the bedspread, Adaman shook his head at the pettiness of his brother’s concerns.
“Really? How daring. Probably a lark. Something sophomoric. Spring Break jail break.”
In the raspy voice that he has had since he was a toddler, when he ate some scouring powder that somehow got where it wasn’t supposed to be, a tragic accident older brother Adaman had known absolutely about, Illiya said, “Maybe, but I don’t think so. I think it’s more. I think he might be grounding. When he was home over Winter Break, the issue of fledging came to a head.”
Although he already knew the answer to the question, the older brother asked, “Why? What’s the problem?”
Illiya’s exasperation seeped through his calm words like perfume through a jet’s air handler.
“He doesn’t want to fly. He can’t seem to think of anything beyond playing hockey. His mute was scheduled for tomorrow. He has been making noises, but we just thought it was Jongitis. Even the bravest kid can feel some fear of flying.”
“Not my Jack.”
“No, of course, not. Not Jack.”
Illiya walked around the room in agitation.
“Joe wanted to fly since before he could walk. For years, he would flop around the room pretending. But, ever since he got so good at hockey, he’s had a million reasons why he shouldn’t fly. When he came home for Thanksgiving, he was adamant. He was going to stay a walker and play hockey. His coach said this. His coach said that. He’d rather play hockey for ten years than fly for fifty. We told him he that there was no question that he was going to fledge. He finally consented, but pleaded to delay the mute until after hockey season was over.”
Adaman’s speech is clipped as he interrupts his brother, “And you told him the window for growing the best wings was small.”
“Of course.”
Adaman crossed the room, picked up an envelope, the one with a Bissell logo, folded it and stuffed it in a pants’ pocket before he said, “And Joey started talking about PAM techniques. Break-throughs. Second chances. Am I correct?”
There is silence as Illiya absorbed the anger he felt at Adaman calling his son, Joey. Finally, he asks, “Did he get that from you?”
“I believe we traded a couple of EMs. He wanted to know when—youth’s hope— or if—his mistrust of Cygnetics science—it would happen. Since I handle the science side and you handle the money, he thought I would know more about those kinds of things than you. What could I say? I told him it was something the company has been working on almost from the beginning. You can change jobs, or faiths, a dozen times, change spouses, give birth anytime from ten to seventy. So, why should you have to make the most momentous decision of your life within a short period of your adolescence? If we could perfect Post-Adolescent Mutation, a person could run, swim, play baseball, climb mountains, sail, be a plumber or scuba diver, or any of the things a winger can’t do, or do well, for ten, twenty, thirty years and then begin to fly.
“Flying has always been the pre-eminent symbol of freedom—and a big part of freedom is the ability to change, to make choices—but our technical constraints take away so much choice. We are free when we fly. We are free to fly. But, we are not free to decide when we fly.”
Unable to suppress his anger any longer, Illiya’s voice rose, “Did you encourage him to stay a walker because he just might be able to mute his wings later on?”
Adaman threw up his hands at the absurdity of what his brother has said.
“No, Illiya. I told him the truth. That science swings from the unthinkable to the incremental and back again. Until our illustrious father, dare we call him dad, and our intended mother worked out the G-splices and mutancy maps for the first implant, self-flight was unthinkable. Wings on humans. Not wings on things attached to humans. Unthinkable. Until Brianna Brim landed at mid-field at Super Bowl LI. That moment fundamentally changed the world—like the invention of language, love, god, the A-bomb.
“But, then…our oh so busy near mom and dad…bat wings to bird wings…incremental. And all of the things since—colors, shapes for speed or distance, lowering the failures with anti-rejection drugs, projecting body mass to wing size, all of those things are just accommodations to the initial lightning bolt. And, as those things were solved, the scientists always thought that PAM would be just another incremental improvement. Not just a tweak—I don’t think anybody was that arrogant. Not something you can see ahead and just need to pack some water before you get on the
path. But something that, at least, gives a glimmer over the horizon. But, so far, even after sixty years on the path, there’s been no glimmer. As you know, despite our efforts, our very expensive efforts, PAM has proved intractable—like squamous-celled cancers. As a result, if we’re being honest…as brothers should…but please don’t tell the stockholders …we’ve taken away as much freedom as we’ve given.”
Illiya’s voice, an octave higher and beyond incrementally louder, blurted, “You told him that? Flying diminishes freedom?”
“I’m sure I listened more than I talked, brother . Of course, there was probably a little of the fond uncle’s wisdom. But, I did tell him that PAM did not seem to be around the corner, and, that like anything else, flying could add or subtract from one’s life.”
Illiya threw his hands up in disgust.
“Well, after all of the balanced parsing, Adaman, after all the philosophizing, what remains is that Joe is gone. The son of the Co-president of Cygnetics Corporation is hiding so that he won’t have to fly. If this gets known, and if the Gen4 data starts to leak out now that dad’s not there to stop it, this news could drop fast to the bottom line.”
“Dramatic, but I think implausible. We’ve kept that data off the screen for months. I’d give Joey a day or two before setting off alarms. You have unleashed our own dogs, I presume?’
“I had a team of six guardians begin a search as soon as the school called me.”
Adaman held his chin in imitation of a wise man thinking.
“Hmmm, I think if it were my son, which, of course, I am so jealous that it is not, I would call the school and tell them that Joey has shown up at home none the worse for wear.”
“And, if he doesn’t show up?”
“Our guardians are very, very good. I can’t see that happening.”
“They are so good that they have found nothing in forty-eight hours.”
Adaman shrugged in theatrical defeat.
“Then, perhaps, my proposed course is the wrong one. It is your son and you must decide. I must concern myself with our poor father.” Adaman touched a fingertip to his cheekbone. “And another small matter.”
After Illiya left, Adaman finished his conversation with Schecty. No consternated Unbonny Prince Charles biting on a knuckle. The girl must go.
“Please, Schecty, when you get in touch with me, please refer to our new situation as ‘another small matter.’ That I think will keep my spirits up as I grieve what is, or isn’t, happening to papa.”