"And a third carries a daughter."
"You're pregnant?"
"The child was conceived three weeks ago. He didn't know. We didn't want him to know. He broke his word. The one sacred thing. Eleven months ago, he and the father took cells from the children. It has to be stopped. Our children must be protected. We've done-and will do-whatever it takes to stop it."
EVE ROSE, WALKED TO THE BAR, PROGRAMMED
coffee for herself and Peabody. They were speaking one at a time now, but with the same unity. One picking up the recitation where the other left off. "Want anything?" she
asked them.
"We'd like water. Thank you."
"How'd you find out they'd broken their promise?"
"We knew our husband, and knew something was wrong. While he was out of the house, we checked the logs in his private office, and found the records on the children. We wanted to take them, take our babies and run."
"But it wouldn't protect the ones they'd create. Create, then alter and perfect. Test and evaluate."
"They grew inside us, warm inside us, and they'd take that and make replicas in the cold lab. In his notes Will said it was a precaution only, in case something happened to the children. But they aren't things to be replaced. In all our years, it was the only thing we asked, and he couldn't honor his promise."
"We told Deena, and we knew it had to be stopped. They'd never stop, as long as they lived. We'd never learn all we needed to learn until they were dead and we had more control."
"So you killed them both. You and Deena."
"Yes. We planted the weapon for her. We believed she wouldn't be identified. Or if she was, we'd get to all the records first; we'd be able to shut down the project. And we took the children away, safely away, then came back for Will."
Eve worked with their rhythm, and in a strange way found it efficient. "You drove Deena to the school to kill Samuels."
"She was like us, taken from Eva Samuels's DNA, and designed to continue the work. She's Eva, replicated. You know that."
"Eva helped kill us and Deena when we weren't perfect enough. She terminated others. Many others. Do you see us? We're not allowed a flaw, no physical or biological flaw. This is the father's directive. Our children have flaws, as any child does, should. We knew they would take what they were and alter it."
"They gave us no choice, not from the moment they made us. There are hundreds who had no choice, who were trained every day for up to twenty-two years to become. Our children will have a choice."
"Which one of you killed Wilfred Icove, Jr.?"
"We're the same. We killed our husband."
"It was one hand that held the knife."
Each held up an identical right hand. "We're one."
"Bullshit. You've each got a set of lungs, a heart, kidneys." Eve tipped a water glass so drops fell on the left hand on the one nearest her. "Only one of you has a wet hand. One of you walked into that house, into the kitchen, prepared a nice, healthy snack for the man you intended to kill. One of you sat down beside him where he lay on the sofa. Then stuck a knife in his heart."
"We were one to them. One of us would live in the house, mother to our children, wife to our husband. One would live in Italy, in the Tuscan countryside. The villa's large, the estate beautiful. As is the chateau in France where one of us would live. Every year, on the day of our becoming, we would be switched. And the other of us would be given a year with our children. We thought we had no choice."
Tears glimmered now in three pairs of eyes. "We did what we were told to do. Always, always. One year of every three to be who we were made to be. Two years to wait. Because we were what Will wanted. and what the father deemed he could have. He made us to love, and we loved. But if we can love, we can hate."
"Where's Deena?"
"We don't know. We contacted her when we agreed to cooperate with you. We told her what we intended, what had to be done, and that she should disappear again. She's good at it."
"The school has a second generation."
"Of many. Not us. This was what Will requested of his father. But we know there are more of our cells preserved somewhere. In case."
"Some have been sold."