Chapter One Hundred Twelve

The Warehouse, Baltimore, Maryland
Tuesday, August 31, 2:22 A.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 33 hours, 38 minutes

“Evil?” said Rudy. “Why do you think you’re evil?”
“Because of who I am. Because of what I am.” The boy shook his head.
“That man you all work for, the one I thought was called ‘Deacon,’ he knows. You know, too.”
“I suppose I do.” Rudy kept his face bland. “You believe that you are a clone,” he said.
“I am!”
“A clone of Josef Mengele.”
“Yes.” The word was as harsh as a fist on unprotected flesh. “There are a lot of us. That’s why my name is Eighty-two.”
Rudy pushed the glass of ginger ale closer to the boy. He didn’t touch it. Rudy waited. The bubbles in the ginger ale popped. The second hand on the wall clock swept around in silent circles. Once, twice.
“I guess.,” began the boy. He coughed and then cleared his throat. “I guess my real name is Josef.”
The boy wiped the tears off his cheeks with an angry hand.
“Do you know who Josef Mengele was?”
“He’s me,” said the boy.
“No,” said Rudy. “You’re fourteen. Josef Mengele was born a hundred years ago.”
“It doesn’t matter. We’re the same person.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Was Josef Mengele a good person?”
“No!” the boy said as if Rudy was an idiot.
Rudy smiled. “Well, we agree on that. Was Josef Mengele the kind of person who would have risked his own life to help other people?”
A shake of the head.
“Would that man have done what you did to contact Mr. Church-the Deacon-and ask for help?”
No answer.
“Would he?”
“No. I guess not.”
Rudy changed tack. “So there are eighty-two clones of Josef Mengele?”
“No,” said the boy.
“I don’t-”
“There are a lot more than that.”
“And you’re one of them?”
A nod.
“Are the others all like you?”
“We’re all clones, I told you.”
“No. I asked if they’re like you. Do they have the same personality?”
“Some do.”
“Exactly the same?”
No answer.
“Please,” said Rudy. “Answer my question. Do they all have the same personality?”
“No.”
“How can that be?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many of them would have done what you did? How many of them would have risked their lives to try and warn us?”
No answer.
“Are any of them cruel?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Are you cruel?”
“No.”
“Don’t you enjoy hurting people? Don’t you enjoy inflicting harm and-”
The boy gave him a sharp, hurt look. “No!”
“You mind that I asked that?”
“Of course I do. What kind of stupid question is that?”
“Why is it stupid? You said that you were the same as Josef Mengele. You said that you were evil. And you said that you were going to Hell.”
“I’m him; don’t you get that?”
“I understand that you’re a clone. I admit I’ve never spoken with a clone before, and until today I would have thought that a clone might carry some of the same traits and characteristics as the person from whose cells they were cloned. And yet here you are, a teenage boy who risked his life on several occasions to help stop bad people from doing very bad things. A boy who attacked a big security guard in order to try and stop the slaughter of unarmed people. A boy who could easily have done nothing.”
The boy said nothing.
“You may be cloned from cells taken from an evil man. Our scientists will determine that through DNA testing. If it’s true, then it changes nothing,” said Rudy. “Josef Mengele was a monster. Is a monster, I suppose, if Cyrus Jakoby is really him.”
“I’m pretty sure he is.”
“He’s such a terrible person. and yet you risked everything to save the very people he wanted to destroy.”
The boy looked at him.
Rudy smiled.
“You’re not him.”
“I am.”
“No,” Rudy said, “you’re not. You’ve just proven something that people have been arguing over for centuries. In fact, you may be living proof of the answer to a fundamental question of our human existence.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, there’s the question of nature versus nurture. Is a person born with certain mental and emotional characteristics that are simply hardwired into him by genetics? Or do environment, exposure to other thoughts and opinions, and life experience determine who we are? I’d say that you are living proof that there has to be a third element permanently added to that equation.”
“What?”
“Choice.”
The boy looked at him for a long time and said nothing.
“There has never been a situation like this before. We’ve never had the chance to observe a clone and determine if that person is, or wants to be, exactly the same as the source entity.”
“They wanted me to be. Every day I had to learn about Mengele’s life and work. I had to learn surgery and about torture and war.” Tears streamed down his face. “Every day. Day after day after day.”
“And yet you chose a different path than the one they intended for you.”
The boy was sobbing now.
“You’re not him,” said Rudy gently. “He would never do what you did. And you could never do what he did.”
Rudy fished a plastic package of tissues from his jacket pocket and handed them to the boy, who pulled several out, blew his nose, wiped his eyes. Rudy did not try to physically touch the boy, not even a pat on the shoulder. It was an instinctive choice. The boy was solitary; comfort had to come from within.
They sat together in the interview room as the silent minutes burned away.
“There’s one more thing for you to think about,” said Rudy.
The boy looked at him with red eyes.
“Josef Mengele is one of the worst criminals of the last hundred years. A monster who has done untold harm to countless people and now wants to destroy a large percentage of the world’s population. The records we recovered indicate that he started the AIDS epidemic, and the new tuberculosis plague in Africa. Even if we stop him today, he’ll be reviled as the greatest mass murderer in history.”
“I know.”
“While you on the other hand.,” Rudy said, and smiled.
“What.?”
“You are very probably going to go down in history as the greatest hero of all time.”
The boy stared at him.
“We had no idea of the Extinction Wave,” said Rudy. “No idea at all. If it had not been for your act of bravery, for the choice you made, millions-perhaps billions-would die. We didn’t even know we were in a war until a little more than a day ago. You changed that. You made a choice. You took a chance. And if we succeed, if Joe Ledger and Major Courtland and the other brave men and women who are fighting right now to stop this madness are successful, it will all be because of you.”
“All I did was send two e-mails!”
“The value of choice is not in the size of the action but in its effect. You may have saved the entire world.” Rudy smiled and shook his head. “I can barely fit my mind around the concept. You’re a hero, my young friend.”
“A ‘hero’?” The boy shook his head, unable to process the word.
“A hero,” Rudy agreed.
The boy wrapped his head in his arms and laid them on the table and began sobbing uncontrollably.
Mr. Church watched all of this on his laptop, which was positioned so that only he could see it. The noise and motion of the TOC flowed around him. He removed his glasses and polished the lenses with a handkerchief and put them back on.
“Well, well,” he murmured to himself.