"Of course, none of this is perfected and in the process of my experimentation, I did succeed in creating a duplication of myself and bring its development to approximately my age in a matter of months, but an unusual disorder developed almost immediately: my second self, as I like to refer to him, was unable to store most necessary vitamins and minerals. They are passed through his digestive tract and not broken down and carried by the blood, and so I had to put him on an intense vitamin and mineral therapy program to keep him alive while I tried to determine what exactly was malformed.
"One of our assistants basically screwed up and missed a treatment and that was, unfortunately, when we discovered a second unusual disorder, a true threat to others. My research partner was killed. Like a bee drawing pollen from a flower, my second self appears to have the ability to draw what he needs at the moment from another human source, mine it, so to speak, vacuum the blood. I'm not absolutely sure of how he processes the material, but it bypasses the digestive breakdown somehow and provides what he needs. In a true sense of the word, I have inadvertently created a monstrous parasite, but a parasite, however, that also possesses a high degree of intelligence, charm, wit, in short, moi, yours truly. That's why I know he's arrogant," Garret Stanley said. Terri continued to stare at him.
"Don't tell me you are one of those who have some religious objection to human cloning, one who believes there will be no soul in the new individual if he or she is created without the use of sperm?" Garret asked with some disdain.
"No, I'm not, but what I am is one of those who believes in strict observance of research guidelines to prevent exactly what you've done," she replied.
"If we followed the guidelines, as you call them, we wouldn't be doing this at all and the human race would lose a golden opportunity to end disease and aging. As far as our puritanical and fundamentalist religious influences go, all they have done is permitted groups in other countries to move ahead of us. Including the Raelians. You have heard of them, I assume?"
Terri shook her head.
"They are a religious sect that believes, among other things, that human beings were created in laboratories by extraterrestrials, and that the resurrection of Jesus was a cloning procedure. You would be shocked to know who belongs to the sect and how much money they have already invested in their research. Recently, I saw a list of women, surrogate mothers, who have paid close to a half million dollars to be part of their experiments.
"No, Dr. Barnard, I am not some mad scientist running amok, but they are out there who are mad and they are working. I am, in fact, our best hope to seize the initiative and capture the patents and processes which will one day recreate the world, vastly improve on the current model, so to speak, for in my world, you will see no human misery, no starvation, and every beautiful thing, every wonderful talent will be truly immortalized, so don't try to make me feel in the least bit guilty about all this."
"Is that what you will tell the parents of Paige Thorndyke, the families of Kristin Martin and Paula Gilbert, not to mention all the others he's destroyed on his way here?"
"Every great stride in history, in progress came at some cost," Garret said. "I regret what he's done of course, and that's why I'm pleading with you to help me find him so we can stop it."
"You just don't want anyone to know what you've created and what responsibility you bear," she told him, her eyes narrow and steely.
"All right. Let's say that's my motive. The result will be the same, won't it? He'll be brought to an end before he does any more damage. For Christ sakes, woman, you're a doctor. You're supposed to care about people." She turned away from him.
"I don't know that much. I'm not holding back," she said after a moment. "I told you exactly what Kristin Martin was unable to say. The bartender at the Hasbrouck Tavern was able to give the police a more detailed description. That's all I know," she practically spit at him.
"Putting that picture in the paper was a big mistake. It will drive him off. He might be gone already and I won't know where to go until he takes another victim."
"How do you find out so quickly?" she asked.
He looked at her.
"That's not important. We've got to go see this bartender. I told you. The police won't know what else to ask her, what to look for," he said.
"If you try to speak with her, she will think you're him, it, whatever," Terri pointed out.
"That's right." He smiled. "That's why I need your help. And don't ask me something stupid like why don't I just go to the police. You know the reason why I can't do that. Will you help me or won't you?"
Terri looked at her watch.
"I'm already seriously late for my office visits thanks to you."
"You'll find a way to explain it. Look, surely you realize this is more important than treating some flu and arthritis problems."
She sat thinking a moment.
"When are you going to let that policeman out of the trunk?" she asked.
"We'll go back, get your car, and let him wake up in his uniform," he promised.
"Get me back to my car," she said. "I need to use my phone." He studied her face.
"If you betray me, I'll disappear and believe me, no one will believe a word you say and no one will be able to track me down or my work. All you do is permit him to take more lives. You'll attend more funerals."
"All right," she said. "I said I would help you. I'll help you. Drive." He started the engine and turned the car around.
"Someone who has decided to devote her life to medicine, to helping people, shouldn't be so unsympathetic," he muttered.
"Oh, I'm sure you have only altruistic motives for your research, Dr. Stanley," she replied dryly.
"If in the end the result is we benefit mankind, what difference will that make?" he fired back. "Yes, I have to compromise to get the necessary funding and protection, and I have to promise great profits to these people, but it would be naive to think that hasn't been the story since the first cave man corporation invested in a new and better wheel.
"You more than anyone know how opportunistic and profit-driven our best pharmaceutical companies are, and last I heard, doctors don't take jars of peaches for their services any longer."
"Whatever," she said. "The time for philosophical debating is long over apparently."
"Precisely," he said.
Hyman got on the phone himself when she called in from her car. While she spoke, Garret Stanley went behind the building to free the patrolman. When he returned, the policeman was dozing in the front seat and back in his uniform. Garret was back in his own clothes as well.
"I'm sorry, Hyman," she told him, "but it's not something I can prevent."
"What are you doing, Terri?"
"I don't have time to explain it all, Hyman, and frankly, I don't know if I can. I'll call you as soon as I am able to do so," she said. "I promise and I'm sorry, really. You'll just have to trust me."
"All right. I'll cover for you here, but please, please be careful." Garret Stanley brought his vehicle next to hers. When she hesitated, he turned his hands palms up and nodded at the police car.
She got out and into his car.
"Do people at this tavern know who you are?" he asked.
"They might."
"I thought so. That will help enormously," he said and she drove out of the hospital parking lot, looking back once in a rearview mirror toward Curt's floor, imagining to herself just how wild he would become if he had even an inkling of what she was doing.