Altered America Read online

  Driving injured was a challenge, but Nathan never shied from such. He had to maneuver the Hummer one-handed, but he managed. The whole conversation kept swirling around in his head. There was something about it that was important and he just couldn’t grab it. The Founders. Freedom. Wolves. That damned sheep.

  Nathan almost drove off the road when he realized where his own subconscious had gone. If some idiot could clone a sheep, why not clone wolves? Not the gray ones that were just big pests, but the kind who caused real trouble—the kind who made nations.

  The kind who’d made this nation.

  * * *

  Nathan was barely able to sleep and started prowling the house in the middle of the night. He kept going over his idea in his head. It would take money, lots of money. Money he had. It would require someplace private, far away from prying eyes and over-zealous regulators.

  It would need... Hell, the list was almost endless. Nathan would only trust one man with a project like this. He called Dave Collins, his own personal Mr. Fixit.

  “Nathan it’s barely 5 a.m. back east. What’s up?”

  “I need you out here right away. It’s important.” He didn’t bother saying goodbye.

  Formally Dave was a business consultant. He had worked his own way through Harvard and then Wharton Business School. They’d met when Dave was working on Wall Street—he caught wind that his boss was planning on churning Nathan’s accounts to make up for some company losses, so he walked from the job with some incriminating memos and ratted on the firm to Nathan. The reveal had saved Nathan several million dollars.

  As a reward, Nathan set up Dave in business and became his Number One client. That had been nearly 10 years ago and they had worked on a couple deals every year since. Nathan had tried to hire the man, but Dave was just as stubborn and just as independent as Nathan. Instead, Dave became almost a surrogate son to a man who had lost his only child in an Air Force training accident.

  Dave landed that afternoon.

  He wasn’t surprised when it was Nathan picking him up. The Old Man—as he affectionately called him—liked doing business face-to-face. Dave commented on the injuries and Nathan’s only response was, “Varmints.” He wasn’t in the mood for small talk.

  “I’m hiring you to do a job.”

  Dave started to respond and Nathan gave him a glare that would melt the snow and ice at the North Pole.

  “Okay, tell me what’s up. If it’s as serious as I think it is, I’m in. You know that.”

  Nathan could barely contain himself. “I want to clone the Founding Fathers.”

  Dave almost spit out his Coke. “I thought you had some big merger deal or another land purchase. Cloning? That’s ridiculously far out of my league, and yours. Did that wolf give you a concussion, too?”

  “Just listen for a minute. Then... then if I can’t convince you, I’ll give a million dollars to Greenpeace or something equally stupid as punishment.”

  Dave nodded, reluctantly. Inside he was laughing at the idea. The Old Man was honest to a fault. If Dave said no, he really would donate the money, but probably in pennies just to be a nuisance.

  Nathan went over his half-formed plan. It involved conspiracy, possible theft, bribery, and probably all sorts of other crimes.

  Dave found himself actually thinking about it. Sure, it was crazy. It was also inspired. Like any other mid-level drone on Wall Street, Dave had seen how screwed up America had become. Businesses didn’t try to grow or build any more. They just placated shareholders—or regulators, which was even worse.

  He started making rapid notes and ticked off about a dozen big things he’d need—most of them six or seven-figure expenses.

  “I’ll use the Alara Distributors account like always,” said Nathan. “I’ve already moved $50 million into it this morning.”

  Dave knew the Old Man was serious. Nathan always kept close control of every random project. The most he ever allowed in this working account was a few hundred thousand. Fifty million dollars was a sign he was committed.

  It was also a sign the Old Man believed in him.

  Nathan pulled over near the post office and let the Hummer idle for a minute, then turned toward his passenger, trying to hide the wince of pain. “You’re the only one I can trust to do this, Dave. If you fail, you won’t be just letting me down.” He pointed at the flag flying in the post office parking lot. “You’ll be letting us all down.”

  “Looks like you just saved yourself a million bucks.”

  Nathan simply smiled and put the Hummer back into drive.

  * * *

  The next few months were a whirlwind of activity. Alara Distributors opened up a super-secret lab in Mexico, northwest of Chihuahua. For security, Dave had hired a former Green Beret colonel who had picked up a bit of lead and a few medals in the Gulf War. He was given an extravagant budget to “make the facility safe.” That included more than a company of U.S. veterans, many of whom had served under the colonel before. The facility was dug several levels underground and was secure against anything except a nuke or a massive, coordinated assault.

  In addition, both the local police and military were on what Dave called “retainer” in case anything came up. More than anything, that money was a pre-bribe. It meant that if anyone else tried to buy their services, they’d give Dave a chance to outbid them.

  Once he had a secure location, Dave went about hiring experts. He couldn’t just disappear top American cloning experts—not that there were that many—so he went international. Top dollar and a willingness to overlook previous brushes with the law gave Dave a fairly easy job finding A-list talent. The fall of the old Soviet Union had dumped scientific expertise on the free market. A little blackmail helped as well.

  The result was a growing team of top scientists, researchers, and assistants. Any who asked about their employer were given the cover story of a rich man who wanted to clone himself. It wasn’t too far from the actual truth, anyhow. Only the top men knew who really was being cloned, once the proper DNA was located.

  Dave didn’t pretend to understand the science. He was just a problem solver. You need some DNA from George Washington—hairs or something else—and Dave would beg, borrow, or steal it. Or, more accurately, he’d pay someone to do so. How all of that might work wasn’t his job.

  Dave and Nathan had talked over the idea countless times. Nathan still liked his wolf analogy. Dave preferred to think of the Chihuahua facility as his own “Jurassic Park.” He was cast in the role of the mad scientist trying to bring back the dinosaurs.

  The only difference was, Dave didn’t have scriptwriters glossing over the tough parts.

  * * *

  It was almost six months to the day when the Alpha site went live. Construction crews had worked around the clock. The work was rapid, but it wasn’t shoddy—Dave himself had ordered half a floor torn apart and rebuilt because it didn’t meet specs. That so impressed the construction crews that everything else they did was perfect. The result was something that only could be built outside the United States. Zoning laws alone would have prevented them from even digging a hole with a shovel in six months.

  Nathan was deliberately staying away, but he allowed himself the luxury of a videotaped tour, showing the location in incredible detail. It made his heart leap just to think about the possibilities.

  * * *

  The first year brought only disappointment. The Alpha site wasn’t the only one on earth trying hard to push forward on cloning. Cows, mice, and human stem cells had all been cloned since Dolly. To perfect human cloning would take more—a lot more.

  In early, 2000, soon after the silly Y2K scare had died down, Dave got a phone call. It was Dr. Hiroku Sugiyama, the Japanese expert leading the research. He had made a breakthrough—a leap that would put their efforts far ahead of any other advances.

  The question was, would it work?

  Dave’s next call was to Nathan. They needed to talk.

  The plane landed in Montana on
ly a few hours later. A private jet with a crew always on stand-by was a nifty luxury few could afford. Dave couldn’t, but Nathan could.

  Once again, it was Nathan driving the well-worn Hummer picking him up.

  Dave didn’t wait for small talk. “The doc thinks he can do it, but there are risks.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as failure, or the child dies or is some sort of... well... a vegetable would be one possibility.”

  Dave didn’t bother mentioning the other risk. They had enough DNA samples for two tries for each of the people they were attempting to clone. That left little room for error.

  “Go for it. Fortune favors the bold. But make sure the doctor understands something. Whatever the result, we will treat with every bit of care.” He looked straight at Dave and gave that stare. “Every life is precious. Even if we mess it up somehow.”

  Dave barely stayed for dinner before heading back to Mexico.

  * * *

  The process was moving at an incredible pace. So much so that Dave had relocated to the lab. His girlfriend—strike that, ex-girlfriend—didn’t like it. She thought she was more important than this unexplained project.

  She didn’t like being wrong.

  Life at the facility was good. There was a gym, as well as plenty of recreation equipment from pinball and videogames to a few sports leagues. Dave made very little time for any of it. Just enough to keep a sense of morale.

  This close to success, he feared failure. He didn’t like to lose. Even more, he couldn’t let the Old Man down. Not now.

  It was Thursday, August 4, in either the last year of the old millennium or the first year of the new one, depending on who was counting. Dr. Sugiyama nearly broke down Dave’s door knocking so hard. When Dave opened, he didn’t even have to try to understand the man saying, “Seikou,” so loud half of Mexico could have heard it. It was Japanese for “success” but the way he said it would have worked in any language.

  He was wrong. Oh, sure, it was a step forward. But the steps that followed failed.

  It was the first failure of many.

  The world passed the facility by. First came 9-11, and then the U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. The rise of Homeland Security brought interest in some of the Old Man’s projects, but this one had been going on long enough, and poorly enough, that no one cared.

  Each failure brought new ideas. By now the facility was undergoing almost constant expansion. The original research had pursued one line of scientific attack. The facility now had four primary areas and several secondary ones.

  In early 2004, Dr. Sugiyama came knocking once again. This time he wasn’t excited, he was almost apologetic. That got Dave’s attention. This time the doctor was right. Several years and literally billions of dollars in research had finally been successful.

  The standard strategy of cloning was to extract existing DNA from a cell and transfer it to a new cell and then stimulate that cell to grow. That process wasn’t working right for the complex human DNA.

  Instead, the scientists had used highly sophisticated computing to map the individual DNA of the different Founders and then manipulated DNA of a target cell to completely replicate that. So, in truth, the clones would have no actual DNA from the original hosts. But they would be identical in every way. It was like a giant Xeroxing of the Founders.

  The phone call to Montana was brief. “We’re ready for Phase Two.”

  Nathan was to the point as always. “Good job” was all he said. It was enough. Dave felt good.

  The plan was to implant the fetus in the womb of one of several well-paid volunteers. The doctor was convinced the child could be born in a lab, but Dave was taking no chances about what that might mean. Traditional birth it was.

  Plush apartments had been prepared on site for the birth mothers. They got everything they could want from 24-7 medical care to classes in any subject they desired. Dave wanted them well treated. They were going to be giving birth to hope.

  * * *

  Phase Two was finding appropriate families to raise the children if/when they came to term. The goal was to find similar families to those that the original Founders had experienced. Dave already had lists, but now he had to start interviewing the candidates.

  The cover story was always the same. A rich, God-fearing family had a daughter that had gotten pregnant. The young woman wouldn’t agree to an abortion, but she wanted a good home for her child. Her father had hired Dave to find just that.

  There were few stipulations. The family had to be Christian, for real, not just in words. “Good patriotic people” was another of Nathan’s requirements. For the families, the list was short. They agreed to name the child George with Washington as a middle name. In return, not only did they get a healthy baby boy, but a nice stipend to ensure he was raised correctly.

  If Dave wanted, he could have had a list a mile long.

  In the end, there was only one family that really made the cut. By the time the baby had come to term, Eldon and Cynthia Warner were the only likely couple. Eldon was 38, just a bit older than George Washington’s real father when he was born, and Cynthia was the young widower’s second wife at a young and very beautiful 24.

  But Cynthia was also barren after a horse-riding accident. She had been the one who sold Dave on the couple. When he met them, he saw her eyes blaze with love at the mere thought of a child.

  The couple was part of a well-off Kansas farm family and made it clear that they hoped to adopt several children.

  Dave let lawyers handle all the particulars. He took the best chore. He was there to personally hand over a young George Washington Warner to his new parents. It was all done in secret, which appealed to the Warners as well as Dave. He videotaped it for Nathan, but promised the couple that only the family would ever see the tape.

  * * *

  After that, the process moved faster. Dave handled seven more Founder adoptions—both John and Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, James Madison, Thomas Paine, and Patrick Henry.

  There were many more potentials—generals, politicians, rabble rousers—but Dave and Nathan agreed that if there were too many, the secret would get out. And then their impact would be destroyed. No, these eight were the core of the Founding Fathers. If they couldn’t set in motion the changes needed, then the republic was doomed.

  * * *

  Thirty years passed. Now Dave was much older, and the Old Man... The thought trailed off as Dave stared at the hospital bed installed in the converted downstairs bedroom. Even asleep, Nathan seemed to be fighting, as seven separate machines whirred on nearby, keeping him alive just a little longer. This time he was fighting a losing battle with cancer and he knew it. Nathan Hale Cutler had some business to attend to before he was willing to surrender. Even death would have to wait on Nathan at least one more day.

  For now, they had a celebration to attend—the first-ever reception honoring the recipients of the Cutler Foundation Patriot Grants. It was a small, private affair and a convenient excuse to gather the men who Nathan had helped bring to life.

  Nathan had a right to be proud of them. Jefferson had actually been the first to make a name for himself. At the tender age of 15, he had written a strident response to the last of the Alphabet Soup Scandals. Americans and their foreign allies had learned of NSA spying when Jefferson was just 8. Those dirtied the remaining Obama term and were followed by new CIA revelations that planted the seeds for future conflicts, including the one in Mexico. The FBI scandal was the last and worst, as leakers showed that the FBI had begun a program to compile Internet dossiers on every American starting at birth.

  Jefferson, formally Thomas J. Montopoli, had become the voice of his generation, the first ones targeted for the new surveillance. His piece, “I Wasn’t Born Free,” became a national sensation and helped doom the second Clinton administration’s reelection hopes.

  George Washington Warner became an American hero a decade later. He won the Silver Star during
the Second Mexican War. Then-Captain Warner had taken over after a suicide bomber had killed the rest of his regiment’s command during the Battle of Puerto Vallarta. The regiment had been landed to guard American tourists after border hostilities escalated. The unit soon was wildly outgunned.

  Warner was besieged much like the original George Washington. Only this time, he held out for 11 days until relief broke through. The war itself had become a public relations disaster in both historically friendly nations. Warner was pretty much the only leader on either side to gain status. Remarkably, even Mexicans honored him for his courage in defending not just American non-combatants, but Mexicans, too. That had gone a long way toward smoothing over the short-lived and foolish conflict.

  None of the others had that national stature, but each had earned his accomplishments. Franklin was a sought-after inventor, but mostly of apps for the iX, the holo assistant that was now all the rage. Madison and John Adams were once again lawyers. Instead of defending British soldiers in the Boston Massacre, John Adams Hayworth had taken on the less popular chore of defending members of Action America charged with treason for actively undermining the war effort with a global hacking campaign.

  Samuel Adams Benton was a rising-star state senator in Oklahoma, and the only one to publicly embrace his full name. Oddly it wasn’t based on the popularity of his ancestor, but on the popularity of the beer. And both Paine and Henry were part of two of the more popular telecaster networks that had largely replaced blogging.

  In short, they were the makings of everything Nathan wanted them to be. Tonight he’d find out if he was right. It was Dave’s job to make sure it all happened smoothly.

  * * *

  The reception and dinner went off without a hitch. Wives and girlfriends were suitably impressed with the million-dollar award and Liberty Bell statuette—so much so that they didn’t put up a fuss when told that Nathan wanted to meet the awardees privately afterwards. It was almost expected that a man giving out such expensive prizes would be a tad secretive and eccentric.

  The clones were seated comfortably, drinks in hand, when Nathan shuffled in. By all rights, he should have been in a wheelchair, but the man was stubborn to the end. He sat down in his favorite leather chair and began to speak.