Emmanuel's Seed

Dancer joined Kevin in the pool, gracefully lowering herself into the water from the pool's edge, keeping her freshly washed hair out of the water. They swam around for a while and ended up at the far end, each sitting on the side of the pool at the farthest corner. Kevin asked Dancer what was going on. She explained about the new plasma method, about her interactions with Emmanuel, and how the girl had taken her ordeal in stride. Kevin said that he could not believe that the girl had not run from the compound straight to the police station screaming her lungs out. Dancer said that she (Dancer) knew "how to pick 'em."

"What did he do to her?" he asked.

"You want to see the video tape?"

"Hell no. Did he hurt her?"

"Oh yeah!" Dancer responded with a big grin and an erotic twinkle in her eye. "A lot!"

The two stared at each other for a moment. Then Kevin decide to move on. "Karen has been doing some experiments with bunnies, some injections and stuff."

"That's what I heard." Dancer replied nonchalantly. "Her professor is on Laura Vade's payroll so I get daily updates on her research efforts. She's a very smart girl, Kevin, a real keeper."

"Oh, yeah, well, whatever," he dodged. "But I don't think she told anyone what she was doing exactly, and she was doing it after hours."

"Yeah, we know that too."

Kevin shuddered but decided to let the obvious espionage matter drop.

"Well, anyway, I figure in another ten days or so, Emmanuel will be ready to go again," Dancer continued. "You can see his interaction with the girl then."

"You're kidding me!" Kevin said incredulously, "She wants to let him do that to her again."

"It's not about want, Kevin," Dancer began.

"Never mind," Kevin interrupted, "I don't want to hear about it."

"You are such a pussy sometimes, Kevin. You really are!" Dancer quipped.

"Yeah, well fuck you too, Bonnie," Kevin grinned. "Will I see you tonight?"

"What about yourwonderkind over there?" Dancer inquired, with just a hint of derision in her voice, "She looks like the edgy type to me."

"She is, but she goes to bed at 11:00 p.m. and dreams of dissecting rabbits." Both of them laughed.

"Has she seen Emmanuel today?" Dancer asked.

"I thought you knew everything that goes on around here. You are actually asking me?"

"I was busy this morning," Dancer ruminated, glancing over at Blonde Girl, who was talking to Karen about the different kinds of sea shells her mother had given to her.

"Yeah, I bet, Bonnie," Kevin sneered. "No, they told us that Emmanuel was sleeping and would not be receiving visitors until later today."

"So?" Kevin asked.

"So what?" Bonnie smiled.

"Do you want to hang out tonight, after Karen goes to bed?"

"Sure, we'll see," Bonnie replied.

"Well, which is it? 'Sure' or 'we'll see'?"

Not responding, Dancer lifted herself out of the pool and returned to the lounges. "Tell me about the rabbits, Karen," she said. "I hear that you have had some interesting findings."

"Well," Karen began, "They are only preliminary, and I need to repeat the experiment, but it appears that when injected with the serum made from Emmanuel's crime-scene blood, the rabbits possessed all of the curative traits that Emmanuel has, but exhibited none of the aggression."

"Continue," Dancer encouraged, using her business voice.

"So, I think that we can use rabbits as a viable substitute for Emmanuel's blood. If the offspring of the treated rabbits also maintain something close to the same characteristics, we will be on our way; see what I mean?"

"Yes, I see," Dancer said, mulling over the implications of what Karen was telling her. "Have you discussed this with Laura Vade yet? That's more her department than mine. My job is to produce the raw materials for the serum-making process. She is in charge of processing it into a medicinal form."

"I know that, and no, I haven't told anyone but Kevin and you so far. I did a follow-up experiment with another dozen animals, using some of the components of eucalyptus oil. The initial results indicate that the presence of some of those components makes the non-aggression aspect permanent and stable."

"Do you think that it would work on Emmanuel?"

"What do you mean?"

"If he were injected with the effective eucalyptus oil components, might he be able to maintain non-aggressive comportment under every condition?"

"That's impossible to answer at this point, Dr. Dancer," Karen said, "But it would certainly be worth a try."

"That would be great," Dancer told her, "I'm about ready to get out of this sandbox resort anyway. And it's only a matter of time before the press starts snooping around."

"Yeah, that's what Kevin said as well."

"Smart boy, that Kevin," Bonnie smiled, enjoying the uncertain jealousy her comment instilled in Karen's face.

"Yeah, I like him. A lot," Karen said, in a voice as cold as ice.

"Okay," Bonnie replied sincerely, "I got the message. We have an understanding here, right?"

Karen nodded.

That night, after dinner and a video, Karen announced that she was headed off to their guest quarters to sleep. She glanced over at Kevin; as soon as he noticed that, he got up, snuffed out his half-smoked cigarette, and left the room with her. Kevin had planned on returning to the group after Karen fell asleep, but they both fell asleep.

Dancer tucked Blonde Girl in and waited until the girl's thumb was in her mouth before returning to the main room. Finding the room quiet and deserted, she read some of her journals, typed some notes on her laptop, answered some email, and eventually gave up on Kevin. She yawned, set down her materials, and also went to bed. A couple hours later, Blonde Girl screamed at the top of her lungs. Dancer shook the girl to wake her up from her nightmare. "You had a bad dream, Sweetie; now go back to sleep." The girl nodded and snuggled back into Bonnie's arms, burying her face in Bonnie's bosom.

Blonde Girl's scream had awakened Karen. She looked over at Kevin and saw that he did not hear the noise, and had remained fast asleep. She rolled over and tried to get back to sleep but she couldn't. She put on a robe and wandered back to the main room, but nobody was there. She walked down one of the hallways, past the stage area green door, and down a hallway. The guard was sitting on a folding chair playing a handheld electronic game, which he put down when he saw Karen approaching. "Sorry, miss," the guard said to her, "This is a restricted area."

"Oh. Is this where Emmanuel lives?" she asked.

"It's a restricted area, miss," the guard repeated, but she could tell by the look on his face that she had guessed right.

Karen wandered out into the night. She walked through the cactus garden with its tiny two-tier pagoda lamps lining the manicured gravel walkways. She made a mental note to come back to the garden during the day. The night was buzzing from some insect, though she couldn't remember her high school biology well enough to identify which insect made the buzz. As she neared the pool area enclosure, she cupped her hand over one ear, and then the other, turning her head to see if she could identify the direction of the buzzing sound.

"Cicadas," a voice startled her. "The buzz comes from the cicadas." She looked around but could not see anyone. "I'm over here – by the pool."

"Hello?" she said, not being able to think of anything else to say.

"Come join me," the voice said. She walked toward the pool enclosure gate and met the same guard who had stopped her wandering in the main building.

"You got insomnia or what?" the guard said. "You can't go in the pool right now; it's closed."

"I heard a voice from inside the fence," Karen said.

"Yeah? Well, that's why it's closed."

"I see. So I take it the voice came from Emmanuel, right?"

"Pool area is closed," the guard repeated, trying his best not to sound too officious.

"I'm Karen Kraft," she said.

"Oh!" the guard exclaimed, "The blood-lady. Yeah, sure, you are okay to go in – and I'm sorry I stopped you earlier this evening; I didn't know who you were. You are on my list, Dr. Kraft, but they don't have your picture yet, you know, on my list."

Karen was not a doctor but she let it pass. She wasn't sure she really wanted to go inside the pool enclosure all that much anyway, but the guard swung the gate open and gestured for her to enter.

"We had them in South America too, but they sounded different, louder," the voice continued.

"I'm Karen Kraft," Karen said, looking at the man floating on his back half way across the enormous pool.

"Nice to meet you," Emmanuel said, " I understand your research saved me from death row."

"Just luck."

"Your modesty is annoying."

"I'm sorry," Karen said, feeling nervous and looking back toward the guard.

"But your fear is charming."

"I like the sound of the desert at night," Karen said, shifting the focus of the conversation away from herself.

"We used to eat them, the cicadas," Emmanuel said, slowly sculling his way to Karen's end of the pool. "But only the girls, not the boys."

"Only the girls ate cicadas where you lived, Emmanuel?" Karen said, determined not to back away from the approaching physique.

"No we all ate them, but only the female cicadas. The males are hollow inside but the females are meaty. You just pluck off the wings, head, and legs and pop them in your mouth. City people fried them with tomatoes, chilies, and cilantro."

"How can you tell the males from the females?" Karen asked, not really caring.

"You spread their little legs and lick. If their wings start to flutter, their female."

Karen laughed. Emmanuel was surprised; he half expected her to become frightened by his joke, or at very least, offended. "No, really," Karen attempted once again.

"Well, what you do is you find a chimney made of mud. You knock a hole at the base, slip your hand inside the hole and grab a fistful of them. The bigger ones are female."

Feeling less nervous, and giving yet another glance the guard's direction, Karen sat on the edge of one of the lounges. Before she knew it, Emmanuel was out of the pool and standing right in front of her, his groin at mouth level, as he vigorously dried his hair with one of the towels. Then he wrapped the towel around his waist and sat back on the lounge next to Karen's. He offered her a cigarette from the pack he had under his lounge: Lucky Strike Lights. She took one, although she didn't smoke. He produced a butane lighter from under his lounge and lit his cigarette. He swung his legs over to the side of his lounge and snapped the lighter into flame once again. As Karen approached the flame, he reached his hand out and steadied her shaking cigarette hand. "Are you cold?" he asked her, knowing she was nervous as hell.

Karen took a long drag on the cigarette and spewed a torrent of smoke and saliva in Emmanuel's face. "Oh my God! I am so sorry!" she gasped, between coughs.

Emmanuel laughed from his gut, a warm, everyday sort of laugh, sincere and uncalculated. "It's okay," he chuckled. "Tomorrow's headlines will read: TEXAS BLOOD SUCKER SPITS ON MONSTER." He laughed, and she would have too, except that she was still coughing. He took her cigarette from her and pinched the flame out with his fingers. "You have to be careful, Karen, these things can kill you." He laughed again; Karen looked over at the guard, who nodded at her.

"You know, Emmanuel, I ran some tests on rabbits..."

Emmanuel held up his hand to silence her, mid-sentence. "No shop talk. It's the middle of the night. If you want to talk business, do so with Dr. Dancer or Kevin Stature, my..."

"I came here with Kevin," Karen said.

"I see..." Emmanuel smiled.

"You see what?" Karen asked, not sure why she was flirting with the man.

"You and Kevin."

"What about us?"

"You fuck him... yet?" he said, lightly and pleasantly.

"I don't see how that's any business of yours."

"Ah, so you did. Does he satisfy you?"

Karen wanted to be annoyed or offended, but for some reason she wasn't. She sat back on her lounge, and Emmanuel did the same on his.

"Well?" Emmanuel pressed.

"Yeah, he's great. Is that what you want to hear?"

"I was just asking. Don't take it personal."

"I can't imagine more personal a question," she said, a bit more harshly than she had intended.

"You can't decide if you want to be pissed off at me for asking or not. That's cute. And I see your fear has disappeared. Thank you."

"You're thanking me for not being afraid of you?"

"Yes. We psycho-sadist killers don't have a lot of friends," Emmanuel lamented.

"And you find that odd, do you?" Karen was sounding nastier than she wanted to again.

"I guess not," Emmanuel replied, "But it makes dating a bitch." He laughed. Karen said nothing for a while, studying Emmanuel's face in the darkness.

"We said no more shop-talk, right?" Karen maneuvered, "Tell me about South America."

"Perhaps tomorrow," Emmanuel said, getting up and extending his hand to Karen. "Nice to meet you; maybe we can chat more tomorrow." With that, he looked over toward the guard and said, "Okay, Chuck, let's go; bedtime for the monster."

Once Emmanuel and the guard had left, Karen felt a strange combination of fear-induced nausea and elation. She walked back to the house and crawled into bed with the sleeping Kevin.

"Are you awake, counselor?" she asked, knowing that he was sound asleep.

"Umm oh, yeah, what's up?" Kevin mumbled, trying to wake up.

"Fuck me," Karen said, "Right now."

9- Laura Vade's motor home lumbered up the road to the entrance of the compound's main building and stopped. Vade put on her sunglasses and walked out into the bright desert sun. She was flanked by Asian Woman and Lab Geek, who stood on either side of her, like a pair of pilot fish. Bonnie came out to greet Laura, Blonde Girl in tow. "What's this?" Vade asked Dancer, pointing to Blonde Girl with her eyes.

"This is Blonde Girl, my special assistant," Bonnie replied with a broad smile.

"Not bad," Laura smiled, "I should get out of the office more often." Blonde Girl blushed, and stared at her feet.

The group walked into the main room where Karen and Kevin were doing the weekend crossword puzzle from theTimes, and everyone was served fresh tangerine sorbet in scooped-out frozen tangerine halves.

"Oh this is so yummy, Bonnie," Laura said, smiling at Blonde Girl, and adding, "Did your special assistant make it?"

"No, Emmanuel made it." The end of the room where the newcomers sat turned into a snapshot. They sat perfectly still, each staring at his or her little cup of sorbet. "Speaking of Emmanuel," Dancer continued, "Chuck?! Please put on a video tape for Blonde Girl in my bedroom and tell Emmanuel that we have guests." A few moments later, Emmanuel came out of his room, dressed in white tennis shorts and matching alligator tee-shirt. Chuck sauntered off to the kitchen and returned with two little cups of sorbet and handed one to Emmanuel. Reluctantly, Laura's group continued to eat their sorbet, keeping a wary eye on Emmanuel.

Kevin's cell phone rang and he left the room to answer it. When he came back, he told the group that he had to go back to Austin immediately. He told Karen to pack her bag while he called Las Vegas to make plane reservations. Karen looked at Emmanuel for just a second, but long enough for Bonnie to notice. Bonnie cleared her throat and said that Karen was welcome to stay on at the compound, and that she and Laura needed to discuss the rabbit experiments with Karen. Kevin looked around the room and shrugged, clearly distracted by- and still focused on- his Austin trip.

After Kevin rushed from the compound, the room settled back down. As Emmanuel told enchanting tales of his boyhood in South America, Laura and her entourage began to relax. Eventually, Chuck cleared his throat and Emmanuel stood up and said that he was going back to his room.

The women discussed Karen's rabbit experiment at length and decided that, in addition to her rabbit experiments, the hereditary issue needed to be resolved by testing on humans, not just lab animals. Since neither the government nor Fitzer-Rheem Pharmaceuticals could officially be involved in human testing of something like that, Bonnie agreed to allow Karen to conduct her experiments at the compound. Laura agreed to fund the project, using money her company always set aside for bribing foreign officials.

"I'm afraid that the only way that the test will be conclusive would be to have Emmanuel in his rage-mode, and only with a subject who has received a full dose of the immunity vaccine," Karen thought out loud.

"And then what?" asked Laura.

"Well, then their offspring, if they carry the immune characteristics, can be treated with the eucalyptus oil serum within their first eight days postpartum, and they will be permanently immune and then their offspring will not require the eucalyptus serum; they will not exhibit any of the aggression Emmanuel exhibits.

"Are you sure of that?" Laura asked, one eyebrow raised.

"No! Absolutely not sure at all!" Karen lamented. "I'm just speculating on how thingsmight work."

Laura told Asian Woman and Lab Geek to return to the motor home. "It wouldn't do much for vaccine sales to the military and heads of state," Laura said.

"No," Karen quickly replied, "But if your company makes a vaccine that parents will want to take before they have kids, and the eucalyptus serum for that first generation to avoid the aggressive characteristics ..." She didn't have to finish her sentence. Laura smiled at Karen, nodding approvingly.

Bonnie said that performing Karen's experiment would take an entire year. She was unsure if the government would allow them to keep the compound that long, once a sufficient amount of blood had been harvested from Emmanuel.

"Just tell the government that we are spending the time trying to isolate the aggression mechanism, so we might be able to create some super-soldiers for them in the future," Karen suggested.

Laura looked at Bonnie and they both laughed. "Bonnie, this girl could replace both of us!" Laura mused.

"How do you get Emmanuel to get into the right frame of mind before harvesting time?" Karen asked.

Laura got up from her chair and said she was going to look for some fresh fruit in the kitchen.

"Well, Karen, it's a complicated and somewhat unpleasant procedure. Just leave that part to me, okay?" Bonnie said, somewhat sternly.

"Sure," Karen replied, "Not my department, right?"

"Are you sure both the mother and Emmanuel have to be the same blood type?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah, pretty sure. It would make things a lot easier. Emmanuel is type O, Rh positive, as I am; it is the most common in the United States. Group O is sometimes called the universal donor."

Dancer excused herself for a moment and went to her office, where she looked at all of the examination records for the girls she had purchased from Brother Normy. Four were O+, two were A+, two were type AB, one was B+, and one was B- . She was delighted to see that Blonde Girl was type O- .

When she came back to the main room, Laura was alone with Karen, talking about movies and rock groups. Bonnie said that she had some work to do and went back to her quarters.

Blonde Girl was intently watching the video. Bonnie stripped and waited for the movie to end, and then told Blond Girl to come to her. Blonde Girl was flattered to receive so much attention. Bonnie reached into the drawer next to her bed and produced a gun-metal blue pair of handcuffs, which she applied to Blonde Girl's wrists behind her back. Then she retrieved a Wartenberg Pin Wheel and ran it up and down the girl's back. Blond Girl jerked about from the tiny pin pricks.