☆ COMPLETE NOVELLA by Lynda Williams ☆
Dr. Lorel partners with couples around the world to take humanity to the next level through the gift of genetically enhanced children with a sense of responsibility for their fellow man and the ability to take...
Earth, late twenty second century; Man has discovered reality skimming and is reeling from the loss of the Alpha Colonies, in which all nations invested heavily.
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A smiling woman in a blue uniform appeared in the waiting room. "Mr. and Mrs. O'Reilly," she said. "Dr. Lorel is ready to see you."
Elizabeth O'Reilly was the first up. Her husband Ron was more deliberate in his actions.
The receptionist led the Washington state couple through a quaintly furnished hallway with a floor-standing grandfather clock and into an unassuming office.
Dr. Rene Lorel rose to greet them. "Come in, come in," he said, speaking English with a French accent. His smile had a warm, human quality. He gestured for them to be seated.
Elizabeth fidgeted over whether to take the padded armchair or to perch on the hard seat beside it. The mismatched chairs were typical of the décor in Dr. Lorel's stately home. It was an inheritance, expressing the preoccupations of past generations. Everything new was ad hoc.
The house was located in the south of France. The sliding glass doors at the doctor's back overlooked a long-neglected family vineyard in which a strutting peacock was trying to make an impression on some peahens.
Elizabeth O'Reilly sat down in the softer chair. Her husband took the hard one.
"Why did you pick us?" Ron O'Reilly asked.
Dr. Lorel sat down. He had a soft-spoken, intimate manner when he spoke. "You know," he said, "that my wife is American."
The O'Reillys tensed.
"I mean only to say," Rene Lorel continued, quickly, "that we are here, in France, only because it became difficult to hold clinic in America. The shootings. The laws against genetic research. But, so." He spread his hands. "It is still important to my wife, Dr. Jean Fox, that we serve, as well, American clients. Comme vous. Without charge." Dr. Lorel gave them a mild smile. "People think it is me who is the philanthropist. But it is us."
"You mean it is safer here," Elizabeth summarized. "That you don't have any Defenders of Natural Man?"
"Ah, well, oui. Et non." Dr. Rene Lorel concluded with a shrug. "All the world over, c'est the meme choses. But, here, we are ... how do you say? Low key." He smiled.
Ron got forceful. "But why, particularly, us? Your screening service in Seattle wouldn't tell us the winning criteria. They put us through a lot of hoops, but in the end no one would say what made the difference. That's what I meant. Why us?"
"I'll tell you," replied a woman at the door. "It was motive. Yours."
The O'Reillys turned to see Dr. Jean Fox, well known to them from media coverage. Fox was an athletic woman, dressed in bike shorts, her hands sheathed in fingerless bike gloves. She had a firm jaw and eyes too wide set to be beautiful, but her physical confidence conveyed a sharp, acid charisma. Fox herself, as much as the work she and her French husband undertook, was the reason things got too hot for their company, Self Evolved Limited, in New York. She had picked a fight with every major political party or lobby group and made the cover of Time Magazine more than once. The couple had been operating out of Rene Lorel's dilapidated family estates in the south of France for over a year now, fighting a rear guard action to prevent their screening clinics in Northern America from being closed.
