Andy could picture the book in front of him, balanced on his lap, while he wrote with a ball-point pen. And he remembered knowing that he had no feelings and correcting himself. The words were in front of him and he read them to himself.
No, I didn’t put down how I felt about it. I don’t feel anything about it or much of anything else. I guess what I mean is I put down what I think I felt about it. All I really feel right now is about you. I want you to be a man. A good man. I want you to feel these things that others feel. Especially love. I’d feel love right now if I could, but I’m too hard.
If everything works out, and you do remember enough to get this book and read it, I’m not sure you should read it. The way I understand it, this experiment might be a lot more than a way out of the chair. It might be a chance to begin life all over again. If you make it, please don’t waste your life. Become somebody, do some good for others, do important things. I want you to have a good life.
Make up your own mind about reading the rest of this. I sure hope you’re smarter than me.
Andy lowered the book to his lap as he closed his eyes and let the images, feelings, and thoughts swim through his awareness. He could almost feel the pieces of himself coming together, joining larger pieces, becoming memory.
—Stokes, Lamb, Dorentz, and Beck on the Row, waiting as they all waited. The smells: disinfectant, machine oil, stale air. Old Sparky always hovering in the back of memory.
A dead man, another dead man, a dead woman, another dead man—
—caught by a demon, a feeling, and then blood.
—a race through the night, dozens of flashing blue lights, his face being ground into the gravel as his hands were cuffed behind him. That was Detective Draper.
Then Lt. Rain.
Dr. Polinzer.
Ellen—
He reached back into the bag and looked at the photo on the top of the stack, the photo of the little boy with the shaved head. Andy knew him. He knew that barn, the places where he hid from his stepfather, the places where Ailene and her boyfriend hid to kiss and make love, the places where his stepfather hid his drinking —
In the bottom of the bag was a pile of newspaper clippings and articles from magazines. Andy closed his eyes.
There was a memory, a scene with a man from Burke’s.
Kirk Miller.
Miller was paid to store the stuff in the locker and add to the stuff anything the press printed about the experiment.
Part of the memory: Billy Stark wondering if the man from Burke’s would actually do what he was being paid to do.
As a young boy Billy learned that if he trusted anyone, he would get hurt. On the Row the only person he trusted was one of the men who was supposed to walk with him to keep his date with Old Sparky: Gary Rain. After his return to the general population, he had no choice but to trust that the man from Burke’s would do as he said he would. Still, he wondered. Kirk Miller turned out to be an honest man. Ellen Draper, maybe not so honest.
“Ellen?”
“Yes?”
“You know all about this, don’t you? About the experiment. About who I was?” He opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at her. Excitement filled her face.
“I didn’t know at first,” said Ellen. “I mean every dream I ever had was crushed as a result of that fiasco. I knew Gary and Marnie adopted you, but I didn’t know you were that baby. See, after you regressed uncontrollably to that baby vegetative state and stayed that way, the project was considered a flop and lost its funding. Do you understand that?”
“Yes.”
“Well, we all wound up in the tabloids. I almost lost my job because of the publicity and Dr. Polinzer; do you remember him?
Palefaced fragile man, skin like parchment. He’d go down in a strong wind. A will like iron. Used to getting his own way. Old, obsessed with not getting any older. “I remember him.”
“He was ruined professionally. God, the media had a field day with him. He died three years ago. Whatever there was left of the project died with him.”
“Except for me.”
Ellen nodded. “Except for you. Of course, you were virtually brain dead, and in the three years subsequent to the regeneration, you didn’t grow, gain weight, develop intellectually, or anything. You could feed and fill a diaper, and that was about it. John and I were married by then and he knew that Gary and Marnie were childless, so—“
“So he had them take me in and I’m almost nine instead of almost six?”
“If you want to be technical about it, you’re almost forty-nine. Look, Andy, eight years ago no one expected you to live more than another year or two, but after Marnie saw you in the hospital, she insisted on bringing you home. I’ve never seen a mother love a baby more. Every day she’d move your limbs about the way the therapist showed her. But don’t you see, Andy? The experiment wasn’t a failure. It’s more of a success than anyone could have imagined. John and the Rains never told me where you came from, but I began suspecting after we talked that first time. When I saw what was in that locker, I was certain. You reading that coded book is all the proof I needed.”
“You know what’s in it?”
“A little. An old professor of mine used to be a cryptologist back during the Korean War. He fiddled with it for half an hour, then showed me how to decode it. I managed about forty pages so far. One of the things Billy Stark confessed to was killing a woman in St. George’s Park. No such murder was ever reported.”
“The police thought it was just a hoax,” said Andy. “They never found a body.”
“I’m sure that must be in the book,” said Ellen. “When you show me where that body is, that will be all of the proof that anyone will ever need.”
Andy looked out of the window as a sickness filled him. He didn’t need to read Billy Stark’s book. He had lived it. He spoke to Ellen as he continued to look from the window. “You figured out what the numbers meant, then you waited to see if I could figure it out.”
“And you did! Don’t you see what this means? Polinzer’s regenerative solution works. Even better, the individual personality isn’t completely lost in the process! That’s more than old Polinzer ever dreamed of. Look at you. This is going to revolutionize so many disciplines, and I’m the one who is going to publish it!”
The boy felt the tears burning his eyes. Fragments of memories, bits of feelings, the shards of a shared past, but he was not who Ellen thought he was.I am not Billy Stark , he swore to himself.I do not want to be Billy Stark . He smiled inwardly as he remembered what was written in the coded book. Billy Stark didn’t want him to be Billy Stark either.
One clipping in the bag reported a fantastic tale of a medical experiment where an adult serial killer was actually turned into a drooling cuddly baby. The headline read simply: BABY KILLER . The article next to it was titled PET CAT EATS ALIEN . There were more and Andy didn’t want to read them. He didn’t want there to be any new stories, either. A whole new life dogged by scientists and reporters would not be worth living. And sooner or later someone would take another look at the Herman Jenner suicide.
He put the clippings back into the bag and looked up at Ellen. “You promised not to tell anyone about me.”
“Andy, don’t be a child.” Ellen glanced at Andy and laughed at what she had said. “Strictly speaking, I’m not going to pass on anything you’ve said. I’m going to make history, though, by showing the world who and what you are. Andy, can’t you see all of the good this can do? All of the people you can help? Andy, you are going to be the most famous person on earth.”