The
Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland
Monday, August 30, 5:04
A.M.
Time Remaining on the
Extinction Clock: 54 hours, 56 minutes
Mr. Church sat behind his desk. He hadn’t
moved at all in over half an hour. His tea was cold, his plate of
cookies untouched.
On his desk were three reports, each laid
out neatly side by side.
On the left was the coroner’s report on
Gunnar Haeckel that included DNA, blood type, body measurements,
and a fingerprint ten-card. In the middle was a brief report on
Hans Brucker that included preliminary information and a
fingerprint card. The blood type was a match; the basic body
specifications were a match. That was fine. There were a lot of
people of that basic size, build, weight, and age with O Positive
blood. The troubling thing were the two fingerprint cards. They
were identical. Church had ordered the prints scanned and compared
again, but the results had not varied. Not even identical twins
have matching fingerprints, but these were unquestionably
identical.
But it was not the inexplicable match of
fingerprints on the two dead men that troubled Mr. Church. For the
last half hour he had barely looked at those reports. Instead all
of his attention was focused on the brief note he had received from
Jerry Spencer, who was now back at the DMS and ensconced in his
forensics lab. The note read: “The prints taken from the boy are a
perfect match for the unmarked set of prints you forwarded to me.
The only difference is size. The unmarked set are larger,
consistent with an adult, and there are some minor marks of use
such as small scars. However, the arches, loops, and whorls match
on all points. Without a doubt these prints come from the same
person. There’s no chance of a mistake.”
When Mr. Church first read that note he
called Spencer and confirmed it.
“I thought my note was clear enough,” said
Spencer. “The prints match, end of story.”
But it was by no means the end of the story.
It was another chapter in a very old and very twisted story. It
painted the world in ugly shades.
Mr. Church finally moved. He selected a
cookie and ate it slowly, thoughtfully, thinking about the boy
called Eighty-two. The boy who had reached out to him, who had
risked his life to try to save millions of people in Africa and to
save the lives of the genetically engineered New
Men.
Church picked up the boy’s fingerprint card
and turned it over to study the photograph clipped to the other
side. It had been taken during the physical examination of the boy.
Church looked into the child’s eyes for long minutes, searching for
the lie, for the deception, for any hint of the evil that he knew
must be there.