The Intelligent Design

THE INTELLIGENT DESIGN



-…car…-
The scream of tires and she’s awake, pulse racing, heart pounding, breath fleeing from her body. She gulps a great gasp of air-
-are you okay-
No, she’s not okay, can’t anyone see that? Lying in the street, a taxicab idling beside her, faint red streak running along the side. Blood. Her blood. Her head is pounding-
-miss-
She pushes the hands away and stumbles to her knees, bracing herself against the offending cab. More questions from the crowd… She closes her eyes-
-someone call an ambulance!-
Too late, someone already has, and sirens wail from a few blocks away. She opens her eyes again. Yellow taxicab, shiny, rumbling. Dirty city street. Shoes on the sidewalk, filled with people. Flower stand on the corner, pink peonies tipped over, lying haphazard and forgotten in the afternoon, crushed by the onlookers. Tipped towards her…
She stumbles toward the flower stand, shaky and uneven. “Did you see her?” The flower seller shakes his head, confusion and concern filling wide brown eyes. His hands are raised in apologetic defense. We don’t know what you’re talking about, they say. She looks away from him, down the sidewalk, sure of what she has seen. There-
She walks quickly from the stand, ignoring the shouts of the onlookers as she gets down the street. “Come on,” she whispers, glancing around. Streets, alleys, corners, turns, all filled with people, none of them the one she is looking for. Her head is screaming, body shaking. It is hard to swallow.
-miss-
The colors fade, she cannot hear the traffic or the worried noise of people behind her. She sits, head heavy. “I thought…” she says, and closes her eyes. Darkness…and then nothing.

-ma’am-
An EMT is looking down at her, worried. “Are you okay?” the technician asks. “Do you know where you are?”
“In an ambulance,” she answers, because it is the truth. The EMT gives her a half smile. “How’s your head?” he asks, helping her sit up. She nods; another man steps forward into the ambulance.
“Jenna?” The man looks nervous. He is sweating. “I came as soon as I got the call at the clinic. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she says. “I’m fine, I think.”
The man looks at the EMT; the technician shrugs. “Should only be temporary,” he says. The man looks back at Jenna. “It’s me. Bryan?” His eyes are teary, worried.
A thought rises from the fog. Cancun, the beach, white slipdress. “Cancun,” she says. She laughs. “I feel like an idiot.”
“It’s okay.” The technician helps Jenna out of the ambulance, and Bryan holds her steady. “We should get you home.”
“Shouldn’t I go to the hospital?” she asks.
The EMT shakes his head. “You’re in fine hands with your husband, “ he says, shutting the ambulance doors. He climbs into the driver’s seat. “See you later, Dr. Pierson.” Bryan nods at the technician. “Let’s go home,” he says.
They walk out of the alley, around the corner. The taxicab is no longer there; someone has picked up the spilled flowers. Jenna shivers as they walk past the scene of the accident. They continue walking, a block further north, and Bryan punches a code into the entry system of an impressive art-deco building. The apartment is on the fifth floor, elaborate and expensive. Bryan waits until she sits.
“What happened?” he asks.
Jenna shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really remember. I was crossing the street…”
“Were you coming from the gallery?”
“Gallery?”
“Your art gallery,” Bryan says. “Weren’t you painting today?”
Jenna bites her lip. She cannot remember what she was doing. “I remember a taxicab,” she says. “The guy didn’t see me, that’s all.”
Bryan turns and pours himself a drink. He finishes it in three swallows and takes another. “It wasn’t a big deal,” Jenna continues, watching Bryan. “I’m fine.”
Bryan nods and says nothing.
“Bryan-”
There is a knock at the door. A man enters. “Hey, how’s it going?” he asks.
Jenna smiles. “David,” she says, getting up.
“Oh no,” David says, smiling. “Don’t get up on my account. Just stopped by to see how my little sister was doing. Heard you’re having quite a day.”
Jenna nods. “I’m fine,” she says. “You didn’t have to come over here.”
David sits across from her, balancing on the wooden coffee table. “I might spend my days in a research lab, but I‘m still a doctor.” He pulls a penlight from his jacket pocket. “While I trust the opinion of your husband and whatever EMT you were seen by today, I still want to make sure for myself.” He smiles. “Okay?”
Jenna nods, and David check her pupils with his penlight. “No ringing in your ears, no memory loss?”
“Well…” She glances at her husband. “I didn’t recognizing Bryan at first, and some other things are a little fuzzy…but I feel fine, honest.”
David leans closer to her, checks the bandage over her scrapes, nods. “You look pretty good-”
The ice in Bryan’s glass rattles. “She got hit by a car.”
David glances over at Bryan. “Well,” he says, turning back to Jenna. “You look pretty good for someone who got hit by a car.”
“Thanks,” she says. “I’m thirsty, though, can I…?”
“Yeah, go ahead,” David says. She gets up and moves past him, towards the kitchen. She is halfway there when another image appears from the fog.
“David?”
“Yeah?”
She turns back to the living room, her husband, her brother. “I…saw something…or at least I think I did.”
“What?”
She runs her thumb against the hem of her shirtsleeve, stretching it over her hand. “A person…a woman. Before the accident.”
“What woman?” David asks. Jenna shakes her head. “I don’t know who…at least, I think I don’t. It’s just…” She rubs her arms, digging her toe into the carpet. “I know how this sounds,” she says, “but I swear, she looked like me. Exactly like me.” She laughs, a small laugh. “Crazy, right?” She shakes her head. “I’m probably seeing things.” She turns back to the kitchen, intent on a glass of iced tea.
She can hear their voices as she fills her glass with ice. “She was almost home,” Bryan says. “What if she had seen us?” She pours the liquid into the glass and ignores the quiver in her chest. “I can’t do this,” Bryan says. “I can‘t pretend-”
She pushes through the kitchen door and both men look towards her. Bryan’s eyes are dark. She tries to smile. “I’m going to lie down,” she says. A while later, David leaves, and Bryan makes dinner. Jenna is not hungry when he asks, and when he comes to bed, he hesitates before reaching for her hand. They lie in silence and pretend to sleep.
The fog does not lift in her mind. David comes every few days to check on her. He smiles and says things are coming along. Bryan takes her to the gallery. She studies the prints on the walls, picks up the paintbrushes, runs her fingers over half-finished canvasses she does not remember painting. Bryan smiles. “It will be better soon.” He has a couple drinks at night when he gets home from the clinic, and when he says he must work late, she neither believes him nor disbelieves him.
They drift into awkward companionship, and Jenna ignores the little voice that whispers in the back of her mind. Three weeks pass and Bryan wants to take her out to dinner. Somewhere nice, somewhere special. Jenna gets dressed, does her hair, her makeup, looks in the mirror. “It’ll be okay,” she murmurs. Bryan puts his hand on the small of her back, smiles. “You look beautiful,” he says. “Will you find my watch while I freshen up?”
The watch is on his bedside table. She reaches for it and it slips through her fingers into the drawer. She pulls the drawer open to retrieve the watch-
“Bryan?”
“Yeah?” He is straightening his tie in the mirror.
“What’s this?”
Bryan emerges from the bathroom. “What?” he asks, then looks down into the drawer. “Oh. It’s nothing. I’ve always had that.”
“I don’t remember you having that. Not from before…”
Bryan shrugs. “I moved it down from the closet, that’s all. You can never be too safe.”
Jenna cannot look up from the drawer. “Is it loaded?” she asks, voice faint.
He walks to her, gives her a squeeze. “Jenna,” he says. “Don’t worry. It’s for our protection, that’s all. The safety is on at all times.” He picks up his watch and shuts the drawer. “Okay?”
She nods, unsure. Bryan smiles. “How about dinner?” he says.
The restaurant is small, the table private. French food. Expensive. Candlelit. They share a couple bottles of wine. Traffic is heavy on the way home and Jenna is near sober by the time they arrive at the apartment. She is nervous, jittery. Bryan pulls her close and runs his fingers over her cheek. “I’ve missed you,” he says, pulling her towards the bedroom.
They make love and all she can think of is the handgun, the cool steel both absorbing and reflecting light. She shivers and Bryan cries out- “Jenna!” He rolls to his side, sleeps. Jenna closes her eyes and dreams of dark hallways, of running.
She wakes, breath shallow, heart pounding. A sliver of light peeks around the door. The clock reads 7:42am. Bryan’s side of the bed is cold. Her breathing deepens and she can hear Bryan’s voice. He sounds agitated. She pads from the bed to the door and opens it wider.
“…supposed to do? It’s too late-”
The office floor squeaks. Bryan is pacing.
“And what if she wakes up? How do I explain being gone?” Jenna rests her fingertips against the door. “It’s too risky,” he says. A moment of silence. “Give me five minutes.”
She is back in the bed before he hangs up the phone. He strides down the hallway, enters the bedroom, grabs his wallet from the bedside table, leaves again. One breath, two. The sound of keys being taken from the hall table. Front door shutting.
Jenna is out of the bed and down the hallway, silent, determined. She pauses at the front door, peers out the peephole. Empty. She opens the door and looks down the hall; Bryan is entering an elevator. She waits for the doors to close and runs toward the elevator bank, presses the button to call the second elevator. The numbers change as the elevator lumbers up from the lobby. 2...3...she glances at the other reader board. It reads “6”.
The elevator arrives, the doors open, a small bell chimes. After a moment the doors close and the elevator resumes its peaceful glide back to the lobby. Jenna cannot take her eyes off the other reader board.
What is Bryan doing on the sixth floor?
Jenna takes a few steps back from the elevators. The stairwell to her right is dark. She stares at the door and then pushes through it, trying not to think about what she is doing.
A light halfway up to the next floor flickers and buzzes. Jenna goes up the stairs, listening to the echo of her footsteps. She turns the corner, staring up the last set of stairs that will bring her to the sixth floor. “This is it,” she thinks, but already it is too late. Her feet have brought her up the stairs, and her heart thrums in her chest as she touches the cold steel of the doorknob. She opens the door, quiet, and glances into the hallway beyond. Empty. She shuts the door behind her and proceeds through the darkness.
There is a door to her left, open, and the room beyond is empty and gray in the murky morning light. She can hear the sound of conversation from further into the apartment. One voice, deep, harsh; Bryan. The other low and whispered. She reaches a hallway and peers around the corner. The door at the end of the hallway is half open; she can see Bryan pacing back and forth in the room. He is tapping his fingers against his pant leg.
“This is too much. You can‘t just expect me to come up here-”
The other voice, insistent. “You‘ll come up here whenever I need you to. All our lives depend on this.”
Jenna is halfway down the hall, and she recognizes the other voice. David. She is relieved. Not another woman, her mind whispers. Just my brother, just David…
She moves forward again, and passes by another open door in the hall. In the room is a bed, in the bed is a woman, sleeping, hair falling over the pillow. Jenna’s heart lurches into her throat and she cannot move. This other woman, so peaceful in her dreams…this woman who looks exactly like Jenna-
Jenna looks to the end of the hallway; Bryan staring back at her, shock in his eyes. He says her name and she shakes her head, looks back at the sleeping woman, her twin. Jenna’s breath comes in hitches and gasps. She runs.
She flies down the stairs and into the apartment, slamming the door behind her, running for the bedroom, gasping. She glances around the room- no telephone. She turns back to the hallway door-
“Jenna.” Bryan stands in the doorway.
“Get out of my way,” she says, trying to push past him. Fear has made her limbs watery, and he walks her backwards into the room.
“Jenna, listen to me.”
“Who is she?” she asks. “Who is that woman upstairs? Why does she…” her voice cracks and she takes in a harsh breath. “Why does she look like me?”
Bryan opens his mouth, closes it again. He stares at the carpet. “You weren’t-” he starts.
“Weren’t what?”
He looks up at her again, runs his hand through his hair. “You weren’t supposed to know.” He sighs, and she cannot register his words.
“Know?” she whispers.
Bryan nods. “A few years ago, there was…an accident,” he says. Jenna’s knees wobble and she sits on the bed, weak.
“You were coming home from the gallery,” he goes on. “You had been at a show, late, and I was working at the clinic. It was raining…” his voice becomes small, trails away. He clears his throat. “You were crossing the street, and it was dark. The driver never saw you.”
“Driver?” Her own voice is tiny, non-existent.
Bryan nods again, steps further into the room. “At the hospital, I waited. They told me you were…you were fighting, but they didn’t know if you would make it. So much had been broken. You were in a coma, for a few days, and then after you woke up…”
He is crying now, great tears spilling over his cheeks; Jenna watches as they make trails through his rough whiskers.
“We lost you,” he said. “Yes, you were alive, but you were…gone. Just an empty shell. Just organs and--and skin…bones…” He is near sobbing, each word lodging in his throat, tearing at his insides. He wipes the tears from his eyes and takes a great breath, slow and shuddering. “Everything had changed. There wasn’t anything more the doctors could do, and so we brought you home, here…”
“That doesn’t explain-”
“David had an idea,” Bryan says. “He was working on a new project in the lab, a research project. He said it could bring you back…it would take time, but we could bring you back.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t understand.”
“David was doing research in genetics…replication. We converted the apartment upstairs into a lab of sorts. It took so long…so many others that failed, before we had the chance to observe-”
“Genetics? Replication?” Her eyes go wide and suddenly it’s hard to breathe. There is not enough air in the room, in the whole world to fill her lungs. “Are you talking about…” She cannot make herself say the words, and then she does.
“You…you made a clone?”
Bryan hesitates, then nods.
She is angry, furious, and she leaps from the bed. “Have you lost your mind? A clone?”
“You don’t understand!” he says. “It was our only option to bring you back. The only way you would exist again, as you had been. Your brother, me, we loved you so much, and all we wanted…all we wanted was to have you back. And we’re so close, just a few more procedures, and-”
“It doesn’t matter!” She wants to throw something at him, anything. “Do you have any idea how reckless, how…how dangerous…not to mention illegal? Did you even bother to think of that?” She pushes her hair back, shaking her head. “There’s a reason they make these things illegal, Bryan. What if something had gone wrong? What if…it had mutated, or became a monster, or failed?”
“That’s why we had to wait so long,” he says, stepping closer. “We had to observe, to make sure everything was working the way it was supposed to.”
“Oh god,” she says, clutching at her stomach. “You’ve been watching her? Observing her?” Realization drowns her like a tidal wave. “That day…that day with the taxicab. I saw her, out walking, didn’t I?” Her voice is high, shrill. “Didn’t I!”
He nods his head. “It was an accident. You weren’t supposed to see each other-”
“An accident,“ she sneers. “Tell me something, Bryan. Does she know? Does she understand, lying up there in that bed, what you’re actually doing? That she’s not…that she’s a clone?”
Bryan hesitates, and then shakes his head. “Jenna,” he says, his voice small. “Jenna…you have this all wrong. She’s not a clone of you.”
“What? What the hell do you mean, she’s not-” Her voice runs out, her jaw works, but no sounds come.
“You are a clone of her.”
There is silence between them, thunderous murderous silence, and she can think of nothing save his words resounding in her mind.
“No.” She’s shaking; fear an icy mass in her chest. “No-“
His eyes confirm with sadness. “Yes.”
She shakes her head, violent, snapping. Tears threaten; she chokes on her shock. “It’s not…you can’t…No!”
“Jenna-” He reaches forward. She slaps his hand away, breath hitching, lips pressed thin and white.
“You can’t do that!” she bursts, eyes darting around the room. Bed. Clock. Table. Those things are real. She’s real. “I’m real,” she says, shaking her head again. “I’m-“
“No, Jenna,” he says, and her hand flies to her mouth to stop the scream. She believes him, she doesn’t want to but the evidence is clear, and her fear thunders through her veins, humming its death song.
“You’re a copy.” His voice is gentle, quiet. “The real you, the real Jenna…there was an accident-”
“No-“ her cries are pitiful, sobbing, painful.
“We couldn’t save her body,” he says. He moves and she starts backwards, afraid. He holds his hands up, slow, easy. “We were so lucky, so blessed to have the chance-“
“Lucky!”
He nods. “Yes.”
“You’re psychotic!” Her hands are clenched, fingernails digging into palms. “This whole time…what about me? I think. I feel.” She holds her hands out. “I bleed!”
“You’re special,” he says. “So much like her.” He smiles, a sad smile. “Don’t you see? When the procedure is done, I’ll finally have her back.” She’s paralyzed, shaking, rage and fear filled, eyes wide.
-oh god-
“It’s going to be okay”, he says, stepping forward. She backs up, into the wall. “No,” she whimpers. “Get away from me.”
“Jenna.” He advances The door opens and she is distracted; his hands close on her wrists.
“NO!” she screams, terrified. She struggles as he wraps her in his arms. “No, please…” she kicks out. “Let me go!” Tears stream down her face but he is strong, so strong. She sees the figure in the doorway…David.
“Let me go!” she screams again, kicking, screaming, anything-
- oh god anything just please not this, not this-
David has a needle. He does not look at her.
“No…” her cry is high, keening.
-please god someone hear me someone come someone do something-
She can hear Bryan whispering in her ear. “It’s okay, Jenna-“
-not okay, Jesus Christ not okay-
“Calm down-“
-monster oh god he’s coming closer-
“It’s almost over.”
David is so close she can see the flatness in his eyes. She understands- he doesn’t care. For him this is just another step in the process. She is an experiment. This is not murder. He uncaps the needle.
-no no oh please god no-
She stops, everything stops. She listens to the breath hissing out of her mouth, the sound of David’s footstep on the carpet, the tick of the clock. The last second of her life-
“You’re going to be okay.” Bryan, whispering in her ear. “It‘s all going to be okay.”
“No,” she says again. “It’s not okay.”
Where she gets the strength she doesn’t know and she doesn’t care. She kicks out at David, both feet full impact, into his chest. She pushes against him and he grunts, dropping the needle, falling. She is falling. Bryan stumbles backwards, caught off guard. Sound of broken glass; the window. His arms loosen and she rolls from him, through the falling shards. She grasps the lamp on the bedside table, turns. Bryan doesn’t see her coming, doesn’t expect her fury. She slams the lamp base into his jaw. Blood streams from his nose, his lip, the cuts in his face. She cries, striking him again. He stumbles and falls to the floor; stays down. Her chest is heaving. She can’t catch her breath-
-pain-
David…the syringe. She can feel the burning numbing spreading up her arm, through her blood. She wrenches away from him, swings the lamp. It hits David in the neck, an indirect hit that he staggers and chokes away from. It is enough to stop him from pushing on the syringe. She grasps the needle, pulls it from her arm. Her fingers are tingling. “You bastard.” She throws the syringe to the ground, crushes it with the lamp. David is coughing, watching her, eyes wary. She stumbles towards Bryan’s bedside table, opens the drawer.
“Jenna-“
“Shut up,” she cries, turning. Bryan’s handgun is awkward, her hand is shaking with the weight, but she manages to point it at David. She wants to shoot him. She wants him to understand how it feels to have someone else decide whether he lives or dies. He stays still, fear lighting his eyes.
“Jenna, don’t do this.”
Her arm is heavy, so heavy. Her fingertips are numb; it takes all of her concentration to keep a hold on the firearm. She puts her other hand on it, thankful for the coolness of the steel.
“You don’t want to shoot me,” David rasps, lifting his hands.
“Yes I do,” she says. She takes a step towards the door, slow, careful.
“Jenna-“
She pulls the trigger.
The click is hollow, and her heart lurches-
-the safety, dammit-
-but David flinches, and it gives her enough time to stumble through the door, hand against the hallway wall, feet running as fast as she can. The drug is spreading. She can hear David behind her, she doesn’t know how far; his labored breathing echoes down the hallway louder than his footfalls. She reaches the stairs, lunges through the fire door-
-only a few flights, hang on, come on, please-
She has to be careful now. Her legs tingle. She swallows and runs down the steps, going, going, praying-
-please, please-
There, ahead, the door she’s looking for. She stumbles through it, trips, slams against the wall of the lobby hall. Sobbing, she lurches to her feet. David is coming. David is right behind her. She’s almost to the street, almost there. She can hear him shouting-
“Jenna! Jenna, stop!”
A few feet, no more. She moves forward. Everything slows down; her steps, her breath, her heart. She swallows, her mouth is dry. So close…
Behind her David emerges from the stairwell. “Jenna-“ It’s too late. She’s through the lobby doors, stumbling across the sidewalk, into the street, turning back to the building. David lunges after her, his prize, his precious experiment. He doesn’t see her hand fumble for the safety on the gun. He pushes through the lobby door, through the onlookers on the sidewalk. “No!’ he shouts.
She sees nothing except David, and in that second, she has enough time to raise the gun, caress the trigger...
-car-
Her fingers clench.
Screaming tires, screaming people, the smell of gun smoke. She flies, so free, and the ground reaches for her, slamming her back down. An explosion of pain; she does not have the breath to cry out-
-oh god, oh god let it be over-
Her eyes fly open. She has no idea if she has hit David. She thinks she has, and that is enough. The sky is so bright, so bold-
-let it be done-
She closes her eyes. Darkness…and then nothing.