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Josh Winklerclosed the door to his office and started toward the cafeteria when his phone rang It was his n "Josh, dear, I want you to tell me, what have you done to your brother?"

"What do youI haven&039;t seen him in teeks, since I picked hin hi for the other shoe to drop "And?"

"Adam came to court on time, in a clean shirt and tie, clean suit, hair cut, even his shoes polished He pleaded guilty, asked to be put in a drug prograotten a job - "

"What?"

"Yes, he&039;s got a job, apparently as a li there steadily for the last teeks Charles says he&039;s gained weight - "

"I don&039;t believe this," Josh said

"I know," she said "Charles didn&039;t either, but he swears it&039;s all true Adam&039;s like a new man He&039;s acquired a newfound rew up It&039;s a miracle, don&039;t you think? Joshua? Are you there?"

"I&039;m here," he said, after a pause

"Isn&039;t it a miracle?"

"Yes, Mom A miracle"

"I called Adaht away And he says you did so, Moenetic thing An inhaler"

Oh Jesus, he thoughtThere are rules against this kind of thing Serious rulesHus of the approvals board, following the federal guidelines Josh would be fired in an instant "No, Mo He was pretty whacked out at the time"

"He said there was a spray"

"No, Mom"

"He inhaled some mouse spray"

"No, Mom"

"He said he did"

"No, Moht you would be pleased Icoets people off drugs? What if it breaks their addiction?"

Joshua was shaking his head "Mo happened"

"Okay, fine, you don&039;t want to tellexperimental? Is that what your spray is?"

"Mo is, Josh, I told Lois Graham about it because her Eric dropped out of USC He&039;s on crack or smack or - "

"Mom - "

"And she wants to try this spray on him"

Oh Jesus "Mom, you can&039;t talk about this"

"And Helen Stern, her daughter is on sleeping pills; she crashed her car; they&039;re talking about putting her baby in foster care And Helen wants - "

"Mom, please! You can&039;t talk about itanymore !"

"Are you crazy? Ihave to talk about it," she said "You gave me my son back It&039;s a miracle Don&039;t you realize, Joshua? You have perfor to talk about what you have done - whether you like it or not"

He was beginning to sweat, to feel dizzy, but suddenly his vision beca to talk about it

Of course, that was true If you could get people off drugs? It would be the most valuable pharmaceutical in the last decade Everybody would want it And what if it did more? Could it cure obsessive-compulsive disorders? Could it cure attention-deficit disorders? The ene had behavioral effects They already knew that Adaift froht was: What&039;s the state of the patent application onACMPD 3N7?

He decided to skip lunch and head back to the office

"Mom?"

"Yes, Josh"

"I need your help"

"Of course, dear Anything"

"I need you to do so for me and not to talk about it to anyone, ever"

"Well, that&039;s difficult - "

"Yes or no, Moht, dear"

"You said that Lois Grahae?"

"Yes"

"Where is he now?"

"Apparently," she said, "he&039;s don in soodawful flophouse off campus - "

"Do you knohere?"

"No, but Lois went to see hihth, soht or nine addicts are there sleeping on the floor, but I can call Lois and ask her - "

"No," he said quickly "Don&039;t do anything, Mom"

"But you said you neededis fine I&039;ll call you in a day or so"

He scribbled on a pad:

Eric Graham

E 38th Street

Frame hse blue shutters

He reached for his car keys

Rachel Allen,orked in the dispensary, said, "You still haven&039;t signed back in one oxygen canister froo, Josh Or the virus vial that ith it" The co virus in returned vials, as a way of keeping a rough track of dosages to the rats

"Yes," he said, "I know, uh, I keep forgetting"

"Where is it?"

"It&039;s in ious retrovirus"

"Yeah, for ative-pressure laboratory environment at all times" Rachel was a stickler for the rules Nobody really paid attention to her

"I know, Rach," he said, "but I had a faet my brother" - he dropped his voice - "out of jail"

"Really"

"Yes"

"For what?"

He hesitated "Armed robbery"

"Really"

"Liquor store Mo the canister back to you Meanwhile, can I have one n out one at a time"

"I need one ht rainwas falling The streets were slick with oil and shiry clouds, he drove down East Thirty-eighth Street It was an old section of town, bypassed byfarther north Here houses built in the 1920s and 1930s were still standing Josh drove past several wood-frame houses, in various states of disrepair One had a blue door None had blue shutters

He ended up in the warehouse district, the street lined with loading docks He turned around and headed back He drove as slowly as he could, and finally he saw the house It was not actually on Thirty-eighth but on the corner of Thirty-eighth and Alah weeds and ratty bushes An old mattress streaked with rust lay on the sidewalk in front of the house There was a truck tire on the front lawn A battered VW bus was pulled up to the curb

Josh parked across the street He watched the house And waited

CHapter 013

The coffinrose into sunlight It looked the same as it had when buried a week earlier, except for the clumps of dirt that dropped fronified," Eraveside, accohter Rachel Of course, Lisa was not there She was thecause of all this, but she could not be bothered to see what she had done to her poor father

The coffin swung slowly in the air as the graveside workers guided it to the far side of the pit under the direction of the hospital pathologist, a nervous little ht, if he was the one who had given the blood to Lisa without anybody&039;s per to her son Tom enty-six, dressed in a sharp suit and tie He had abiotech cohter Rachel Rachel was a senior at USC, studying business administration "Will they take Jack&039;s blood here?"

"Oh, they&039;ll take more than blood," Tom said

Eenetic test like this, where there is a dispute, they ordinarily take tissues froan syste She felt her heart pounding, thu Soon there was a squeezing feeling in her throat It was painful She bit her lip

"You all right, Mom?"

"I should have taken ?"

"No," Toist will open the casket, to confirm the identity of the body Then he&039;ll take it back to the hospital to reenetic analysis He&039;ll return the body for reburial tomorrow or the next day"

"Tomorrow or the next day?" Emily said She sniffled, wiped her eyes "You ain? This is all soso"

"I know, Mom" He patted her arm "I&039;m sorry But there is no other way You see, they have to check for so called a chi her hand "I won&039;t knohat you&039;re talking about"

"Okay, Moy,chimeras were inal Chioat, and a serpent&039;s tail Soyptian Sphinx, with the body of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the head of a wo people with two sets of DNA - had been discovered only recently A wo a kidney transplant had tested her own children as possible donors, only to discover that they did not share her DNA She was told the children weren&039;t hers, and was asked to prove she had actually given birth to them A lawsuit ensued After considerable study, doctors realized that her body contained two different strands of DNA In her ovaries, they found eggs with two kinds of DNA The skin cells of her abdomen had her children&039;s DNA The skin of her shoulders did not She was a an of her body

It turned out that the woinally been one of a pair of fraternal twins, but early in development, her sister&039;s embryo had fused with hers So she was now literally herself and her oin

More than fifty chimeras had since been reported Scientists now suspected that chiht Certainly, whenever there was a difficult question of paternity, chimerism had to be considered It was possible that Lisa&039;s father ht be a chimera But to deteran of his body, and preferably froan

That hy Dr Roberts was required to take so many tissue samples, and why it would have to be done at the hospital, not at the grave site

Dr Roberts raisedthe lid and turned to the farave "Would one of you make the identification, please?"

"I will," Torave and looked into the coffin His father appeared surprisingly unchanged, except the skin was ray now, and the limbs sees inside the trousers

In a forist said, "Is this your father, John J Weller?"

"Yes He is, yes"

"All right Thank you"

Tom said, "Dr Roberts, I know you have your procedures, butif there is any way you can take the tissues hereso h another day and another burial"

"I&039;overned by state law We&039;re required to take the body to the hospital for examination"

"If you couldjust this oncebend"

"I&039;m sorry I wish I could"

Tom nodded and walked back to his mother and sister

Hisa question"

Tom looked back and saw that Dr Roberts was now bent over, his body half inside the casket Abruptly the pathologist rose up He walked over to speak in Tom&039;s ear, so no one else could hear "Mr Weller, perhaps we should spare your fas If we can keep this between us"

"Of course Then you&039;ll?"

"Yes, we&039;ll do everything here It should take only a few et my kit" He hurried off to a nearby SUV

E?"

"I asked him to do all the tests here, Mom"

"And he said yes? Thank you, dear," she said, and kissed her son "Will he do all the tests that he would do at the hospital?"

"No, but it should be enough to answer your questions"

Twenty minutes later, the tissue salass tubes The tubes were placed in slots in a rave, disappearing into shadow

"Coet out of here I need a damn drink"