Page 109 of Gluttony

In the darkoffice of a building in the Quadrant, Julius Allcott sat, watching recorded televised footage of a movie premiere at his desk computer. Despair stood at his right shoulder, as usual, but this time Levi Van Jansen was there, watching from his left.

“I don’t understand,” Julius said. Again. He didn’t have time for this. “What exactly am I looking for?”

“Wait,” Van Jansen said. “It is almost time.”

Julius locked his jaw and turned back to the computer screen on his desk. “We’ve been through this already. They have nothing to link the plant back to us. Why haven’t we put this to rest to focus on the replicates?”

“Wait. Wait. There.”

Julius squinted, still not understanding. It was a collection of people arriving on the red carpet. Then he noticed familiar faces. The Lazarus family. A blond woman with curly hair walked next to Wrath. He had her held tightly to his side as his eyes scanned the cordoned off area full of cameras and people, always vigilant. But it was when they turned at an angle that Julius sat up. He tapped the screen, zooming in.

“That one. The blond woman,” he said.

“Ja. Precisely.” Van Jansen smiled. “She is pregnant.”

“With a powered Lazarus’s child.” Julius’s heart leapt into his throat and he swiveled in his chair to meet eyes with the geneticist. “You’re a genius.”

“All his DNA will be unlocked,” Van Jansen replied. “Meaning all her stem cells will have similar activated genes. Short of taking one of the Lazarus siblings themselves, and making them pregnant, this was our next bet. Frankly, it’s like winning the lotto.”

Despair stiffened. Julius tilted his head to catch sight of her in his periphery. Wearing casual clothes, he noted she hadn’t been in her white leather enforcer outfit in weeks. It hadn’t escaped his notice that she’d been distant lately. Distant and ineffectual. There had been too many blackouts to count. She’d failed at collecting a sample of Gluttony’s unlocked DNA. She’d failed at eliminating the plant-creature. It pained him to say that her time with him was coming to an end. She’d been an effective tool. His original plan had been to use her reproductive organs, create his own stem cells, but this was better. They didn’t have to wait. Wrath’s woman had been heavily pregnant.

A plan formed in his head. He tapped his lip, turning to study Despair with open curiosity.

“What?” she snapped.

He pretended to change his mind and turned back to the screen. “It’s nothing. Perhaps I have ruined my chance.”

While he stared at the footage, he contained his smile, but when she spoke, he couldn’t hold it.

“It’s not nothing,” she said. “Tell me.”

He forced a contrite look on his face. His hand went to the locket around his neck, and he faced her. “My darling, you were right. Earlier, you accused me of not treating you like family. You are my family, all that is left, and I should hold a piece of you inside this locket. Just in case anything were to happen to you.”

Her breath hitched. “Really?”

“Of course. It’s terrible that I’ve been so thoughtless.” Opening the drawer on his desk, he took out a small pair of scissors. “Here. Let’s sort this out now. Will you give me a lock of your hair?”

For DNA replication, he required the follicle at the root, but she didn’t know that.

She hesitated and looked at the screen. Anger swirled in him like a tempest. How dare she second-guess his motives. But then she took a strand of her hair and tugged it from the root, follicle and all.

Julius’s heart skipped a beat. Fear trickled into his body.

“That’s a good girl.” He smiled and took it from her. He frowned as he opened his locket with trembling fingers. “I can’t imagine a life without you in it. After all we’ve been through together. But…” he paused, before he put her hair in the locket.

“But what?” she asked.

Julius met eyes with Van Jansen and then sighed before turning back to Despair. “It’s just, without those stem cells, these strands of hair are worthless. If we can’t bring you back permanently, then what is the point? If you die, then it will be final, and you won’t be able to share in this new wonderful world we are creating.”

Her brows puckered in the middle and her eyes turned fierce. “Then I’ll get it for you.”

He slumped and put his fist on the desk, her hair still contained inside. “It’s a fortress there. It’s impossible to get close to the pregnant woman.”

“Then I’ll make them believe I’m coming back to them. I’ll start working on a plan right now.”

Julius stood up. He kissed her on the cheek and made sure the tears shone in his eyes. “I wouldn’t know what to do without you.”

She smiled tentatively at him, bowed and then left.

When she was gone, Julius looked down at the open locket in one hand, and Despair’s silver strand of hair in the other. Then he snapped the locket shut and threw the hair on the floor.

“You are not keeping it?” Van Jansen asked.

“No,” he replied. “There is no coming back from what she is, and there is no room for someone like her in the new world.”