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“Me?”
“The hot tub website. The typo.”
“Are you go
“No. You gotta have skills to make fun of them,” Co
Lev smiles. “Leave it to you to turn someone else’s screwup into gold.”
Co
“Lev—take a look at this!”
Lev comes around to his side of the booth, and they look at a news article dated more than thirty years ago. The article is from a small local paper somewhere in Montana where Rheinschild once lived. Apparently they kept tabs on one of their favorite sons, but consistently misspelled his name as “Reignchild.”
Co
“My God!” Co
“So he was the monster who started this!”
“No, this was right at the begi
Co
“We can’t even begin to know the uses of this technology,” Rheinschild says with an excitement much more youthful than he looks. “Imagine a world where loved ones who die young don’t really die—because every part of them can be donated to ease someone else’s suffering. It’s one thing to be an organ donor, and another to know that every single part of you will save someone else’s life. That’s a world I want to live in.”
Co
“Of course there are going to be ethical questions,” Rheinschild goes on to say, “which is why I’ve started an organization to study the ethical issues inherent in this sort of medical advancement. Proactive Citizenry, as I’m calling it, will be a watchdog to make sure there are no abuses of this technology. A conscience to make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Co
“And it became the very monster he was afraid of.”
Co
Lev reaches over and starts the video again—just a few more seconds of Rheinschild joyfully, naively waxing on about the glorious future he envisioned. “This is just the begi
The interview freezes on his smiling face, and Co
“That’s pretty wild,” says Lev, “but how can knowing all this stop unwinding? Isn’t that what you said, that finding out about this guy can change life as we know it, or something like that? Even if everyone knew about him, it wouldn’t change a thing.”
Co
He scrolls down to the end of the article, where there’s a picture of Rheinschild and his wife in a laboratory—apparently they worked as a team. When Co
“It couldn’t be. . . .”
“What is it?”
Co
Lev doesn’t get it—and why should he? He was never in that first safe house with Co
It’s the same Sonia!
What was it she said to him? We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I’m pleased to be in the light. Co
“I know that woman,” he tells Lev. “And now I know where we have to go. We’re going back to Ohio.”
Lev grows pale at the suggestion. “Ohio?” The thought of home brings a scorpion’s nest of emotions neither one of them are ready for, but Sonia’s antique shop is in Akron. If there’s more to this picture, she’s the only one who can give it to them.
Bells above the diner’s front door jingle, and a stone-faced deputy saunters in, his eyes immediately sca
“You look like a deer in headlights,” Co
“I can’t help it.” Lev lowers his head so his hair hangs over his face, but that looks just as conspicuous as antelope eyes.
Sure enough, the deputy zeroes in on them and makes a beeline across the diner—but to Co
Co
“It’s in the genes,” says the waitress, not missing a beat. “Better be careful!”
The deputy turns to the waitress. “You know these boys, Karla?”
“Yeah, this is my nephew, Tommy, and his friend Evan.”
“Ethan,” says Lev. “You always get my name wrong.”
“Well at least I knew it started with an E.”
Co
Satisfied, the deputy turns to Karla, concluding that Co
Karla looks out the window and says, “A couple of kids pulled up, maybe an hour ago. Boy and a girl. I noticed them because they looked to be in a hurry.”
“They come in?”
“No, they just ran off.”
“I’m not surprised—the car was stolen down in Phoenix.”
“Joyriders?”
“Maybe. Could be AWOLs. A bunch of them escaped from that old air force base in Tucson.” He jots her statement down in his notepad. “You remember anything else, you be sure to let us know.”
Once the deputy is gone, Karla winks at Co
“Well, Tommy and Ethan, your meal’s on the house today.”