ABANDON

Chapter 44 - The Door

"Ah. I thought coming here would give me some answers." After a pause Jane added, "Do you know what kind of room this is?"

John looked around, "No," was the summary of his surveillance.

"I do."

John looked at her.

"This room is for an audience. Beyond that window is a theatre. A medical theatre."

John shook his head, communicating that this was beyond his experience.

"They use them to learn—a costly kind of learning. And I bet they were learning about a new species found on a new planet of gray."

Understanding crossed John face making his eyes widen.

Jane was staring at her hands. "There were three profiles listed in the other Jane's files, the files I retrieved from the pink box. Three profiles...two of them I knew—one of them I didn't." She looked up at John. "Do you know how many times you fail when all you've got is trial and error. We're just copying nature, and what happens to the ones nature doesn't select? They die. The difference is nature doesn't care, but I do." Jane looked at her hands. "Is it wrong to kill to create? This is what I was doing at the university." She closed her eyes. "So many secrets... my entire life a secret...this room is a secret." Jane fixed her eyes on John. "But they know. They know."

"Who knows?"

"Seehoiah." Jane whispered. "He knows what we did to him."

Several rooms away, Evan suddenly opened his eyes.

"She was very good at what she did—the other Jane. If you wanted a certain trait, she would find it. She could implement it. Walking through genes was like strolling through the forest for her. Just a little fun."

"Are you saying they captured Kata'ahohpi's daughter?"

"Ah. They took her apart, piece by piece. And then used her genetics to further humankind. An audience... just like on Earth. They watched as I worked. And when it all came down to it I was the one to blame. I was the one who made the cuts, they were only watching. It's very easy then, they keep all the science, and I get all the morals."

John looked back and forth from the dark window to Jane. "I don't understand, help me to understand."

"Culture. It's strange, just like depression, just like running. When taken to the extreme, the very thing that helps you survive is the thing that kills you. And I know, I know the answer—it's killing the individual, but the species survives. And I get it, I do. I finally understand." Jane clenched her hands into fists. "It's easy to write off the excess."

"The Stealer has you. Nothing blinds as subtly and swiftly as he does. He will take from you forever, everything you have, if you let him."

Jane nodded. "Sometimes he can make the truth so clear. I can see it. It's our emotions, emotion gets in the way. It makes us act in ways we wouldn't normally act. Emotion has changed us, emotion has evolved us and then left us there to figure life out on our own. How much easier life would be if we just didn't care, if we let the Stealer take it all away. I feel crazy; I see so many conflicting truths, sometimes I sit back and want to cry, and sometimes they make me want to laugh hysterically. Is this life? Is this what it is all about? Or is it just our eyes, just the fact that somehow we are designed to see conflict. If we don't see it, does it exist?"

"I don't know the answers to these questions. But I will tell you what I do know. We each own something wonderful, our lives are ours. Life, your life, is what you make it. It is the one thing you truly own, worth sharing with others."