Preview – Chapter One

Chapter One: Revelations

Saturday 3^rd July, 1999. 3.55pm.

It was a bright and sunny afternoon in a supermarket car park in Oxfordshire. Fifty-eight-year-old Dr Robert Leidenstraum, a German scientist living in the UK, gently pushed a heavy trolley. After numerous warnings from his GP about his blood pressure and cholesterol, he looked sheepishly at the wine and cheese filled carrier bags.

As he approached his prized black Audi A4 saloon, which he had got a good deal on just six weeks earlier, he noticed what looked like a sizeable scratch on the driver’s side door which made his blood boil. As he bent over to get a closer look, pain permeated his left arm. He clutched his chest and fell to the ground, the trolley rolled back and rested almost lovingly on his head.

Dr Leidenstraum awoke in hospital and gazed at the ceiling of Ward Seven, wondering why he was not watching Wimbledon in his conservatory with Pimm’s and strawberries. Then he remembered the car park. Who had scratched his beloved car? What had happened to his gorgonzola and merlot? Where was the fillet steak that he had planned to cook for dinner that evening? His pain and annoyance were exacerbated by the screaming of another patient, four beds along. The noise pierced his inner ear drum and penetrated his very soul. It was then that he heard a familiar and comforting voice break through the wretched wailing.

“Dad, thank goodness you’re alive. I got here as soon as I could.” It was Dr Leidenstraum’s daughter Sarah, a twenty-year-old university student who hoped to become a doctor like her father, albeit by pursuing a career in medicine; his eldest child and undoubtedly his favourite. Whilst he loved Sarah’s seventeen-year-old brother, William, he lacked his sister’s intelligence, and though never short of effort, in Dr Leidenstraum’s eyes he was never going to match her achievements, or be the son he had hoped for.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t get time to pick up some grapes. I was in such a panic and rush.”

“Don’t worry, I should be eating strawberries right now. Grapes would only force me to accept my current predicament. Perhaps I could put them in my ears to shut him up,” he said tilting his head in the direction of the screaming man.

Sarah chuckled. It was a fond reminder of how her father’s dry sense of humour had illuminated her childhood, when gloom could easily have prevailed following the death of her mother in a car accident. Sarah was four years old. Sarah’s reminiscence was interrupted by her father’s gasps for breath. Sarah shouted for help. Her father pulled her near and said meekly, “The lock-up. The keys are in my study. I’m sorry I never told you.”

Nurses rushed to tend to Dr Leidenstraum, but all efforts were in vain. He was dead. Sarah reeled in shock. She was numb, overwhelmed with grief, and confused. What did her father’s last words mean?

Sarah returned to the family home in a daze. She parked her beloved red Nissan Micra on the pebble driveway in front of the bay window of the semi-detached house. She climbed out of ‘Joanna,’ the name she had affectionately given her car in honour of her favourite actress, Joanna Lumley. The absence of her father’s black Audi from in front of the recently painted white garage door was an instant reminder of her unfathomable loss.

Sarah opened the white UPVC front door, wiped her feet on the mat, and took her shoes off. Her father had told her a thousand times to take her shoes off. How she longed to hear him shout at her to take her shoes off one more time. Things would never be the same again.

Sarah called her brother’s mobile, but he didn’t answer. She contemplated her father’s last words, and ventured into his study in search of answers. Family photos adorned the room, producing a flood of tears tinged with both sadness and joy as she pored over many cherished memories. Sarah’s recollections paused as her gaze was drawn to a set of keys hanging on the wall.

Were those the keys? Sarah wondered. She snatched hold of them, three silver keys, each emblazoned with a different word: ‘safe,’ ‘lock-up,’ ‘lock-up internal.’ In the corner of the room, she was drawn to a small, wall-mounted safe and contemplated trying the safe key. Feelings of unease passed over her. This was her father’s room; he had strictly forbidden her or Will from going in there. She recalled the rage he flew into when he had caught her in there during a game of hide and seek with Will. She had never dared set foot in there since. Being in there now felt like an invasion of his privacy, even following his death. If he had to wait for his final moments to mention these keys to her, what would she find? Then the phone interrupted her racing thoughts. It was her brother.

“Will, I need you to come home, ok?”

“What? Why? I’m in London.”

“I can’t say on the phone, but I need you to come home as soon as you can, alright?”

Concerned by his sister’s tone, Will agreed to return on the next available train.

As the phone call concluded, Sarah took a sharp intake of breath and placed the key into the lock. The door opened. Her trepidation was quickly met with a wave of disappointment. A few journals, a floppy disk, and some paperwork. She skimmed through the papers and happened upon documentation about the purchase of a warehouse, along with a photograph of it. She noticed the date was nineteen eighty-three, a few months after her mother’s death.

Intrigued by this and, with her father’s words ringing in her ears, Sarah opened the first journal. It felt wrong, but surely this is what he would have wanted, she thought to herself, as if seeking to justify her actions.

The journal commenced on the eighth of November nineteen eighty-three, the day the warehouse was purchased and highlighted plans to carry out biological experiments as part of an academic research project. Her father’s notes outlined how his wife’s death had devastated him. The emptiness and despair he felt had motivated him to use his skills to create and preserve life.

Skipping to the final journal, Sarah could see it had been written up until the previous day, the second of July, nineteen ninety-nine. The final notes were; ‘the subjects continue to progress well. The new millennium can’t come quickly enough.’

Sarah was studious in nature, but couldn’t motivate herself to begin trawling through her father’s extensive diaries, particularly given the fact she was struggling to hold back more tears. Instead, she decided a visit to the warehouse would kill the proverbial two birds with one stone, as it would serve as a welcome distraction whilst satisfying her curiosity as to what her father had been doing there.

It was a warm and bright evening after a beautiful sunny day. The opposite of how Sarah felt. Sarah drove ‘Joanna,’ and listened to FM radio. The pub beer gardens bustled with sun scorched revellers who had lapped up the rare glorious British sunshine. It would probably be raining next weekend. Britney Spears Baby One More Time was played. How many times had she heard that song in the last few months? Sarah preferred Christina Aguilera to Britney, but she had often found it impossible to resist the temptation to warble to Britney. No Scrubs by TLC followed. Sarah loved that song. If her friends were in the car with her, they would sing loudly with the song on full blast.

As her twenty-minute drive concluded, she found herself immersed in an industrial estate which contained several warehouse units. The DJ played Baz Luhrmann’s Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen). The lyrics were just too painful. Sarah switched the radio off. All the businesses on the estate were closed so Sarah felt confident her visit would go unnoticed, and more importantly unchallenged.

Sarah recognised the warehouse from the photograph in her father’s study. It was the last warehouse along on the right-hand side of the estate. She saw that the windows to the side of the building were tinted. As she approached the front door, she saw a small sign inscribed with 8B. The emptiness of the industrial estate made her feel distinctly uneasy, but she plucked up the courage to climb out of her car. She tentatively placed the ‘lock-up’ key into the lock, and gradually opened the front door. Sarah was underwhelmed by the sight of an empty wooden table and chair surrounded by brick walls from the floor to the ceiling. However, she noticed there was a steel door behind the table and chair.

Sarah placed the ‘lock-up internal’ key into the lock of the steel door. She turned the key and pulled the handle down. Hesitantly, Sarah walked into a completely darkened room. As she switched on the lights, she gasped in shock at what she saw before her: twelve glass cubicles, six to her left and six to the right. Each one contained what appeared to be a person facing in her direction. Sarah froze in fear, her mouth opened wide as her eyes popped metaphorically out of her head. She saw what appeared to be six males and six females of differing ethnicities, all around her age.

Sarah was stunned. “What is this? What the hell has dad been doing?” she whispered to herself as she walked tentatively along the centre of the room and gazed at each specimen like a tourist in a museum. Sarah’s wonderment was disturbed by a tap on the glass of the cubicle that was fourth along on her left. She screamed and fell to the ground. Tentatively, she looked up anxiously, gripped by paralysing fear. The figure inside looked human, but was attached to a tube from the back; they all were. The figure waved at her and smiled. Sarah was aghast and screamed again, a few decibels louder than the first time.

Sarah scrambled to her feet, and turned to run back towards the door. As she did so, she heard a voice say, “Sarah,” which stopped her dead in her tracks. She glanced cautiously over her right shoulder, and looked directly at the figure.

“Hello Sarah,” the figure said.

It felt like time had descended into slow motion, as Sarah fell to her knees unable to digest what had happened. Sarah crawled furiously towards the door like an energetic baby, climbed through the gap, jumped to her feet, and slammed the steel door shut, like an angry gaoler. She sat with her back up against the door and caught her breath.

Sarah’s attention was diverted by the sound of her phone ringing. It was her brother. Shaking uncontrollably, she answered the phone.

“Sarah, my train gets in at half nine. Can you pick me up?”

“Y-Y-Yee-Yes,” Sarah stuttered.

“What’s going on? Are you ok?”

“I’ll see you soon Will. I’ll see you soon. I’ve got to go.” She locked up the premises, got into her car and drove to the train station.

Sarah was elegant, short, and slim with shoulder length, mousy brown hair, piercing blue eyes and a prominent, upturned nose. She cut a lonely and somewhat pitiful figure as she sat on the square brick wall surrounding the giant green clock on the concourse and waited anxiously for her brother to arrive. Sarah watched the countless people scurrying through the station. She struggled to process the many emotions that whirled around her mind like a washing machine on full spin. How was she going to explain the last few hours to her brother?

Will emerged from the distance, his unmistakable gait on display. His toes scraped along the ground as he walked purposefully yet awkwardly to meet his sister. Will was tall and slim with long unkempt brown hair and sullen brown eyes. His appearance was in stark contrast to that of his sibling. As Will approached, the look in Sarah’s eyes instinctively told him what the news was.

“It’s dad, isn’t it? He’s…”

Sarah nodded.

“…been nicked because of the bodies in the warehouse?”

Sarah reeled in shock. Her brother knew about the warehouse?

“No, dad’s dead. He’s dead. I’m sorry Will. I’m sorry. The warehouse. How did you…?”

“Dead? Dead? He can’t be? No, he can’t be?”

Sarah hugged her brother and they shared a tender moment in grief that was in contrast to their usual sibling rivalry.

Having let the moment pass and allowed for the news to begin to sink in, Sarah probed her brother. “What were you saying about a warehouse?”

“Nothing.”

“I know too.”

“How? And how did dad die?”

“I was there at the hospital. He’d had a heart attack. He told me about the warehouse just before he died.”

“How much did he tell you?”

“Not a lot, but…”

“But what?”

“I’ve been there. Just before I came here to meet you.”

“What. Why?”

“Curiosity. I was in shock. I am in shock. I didn’t know what I was going to find. I don’t know what I found.”

Realising his sister was battling with her emotions and that he hadn’t yet processed his own, Will displayed an emotional maturity beyond his years and calmly suggested they carry on the conversation at home.

Will poured a large measure of his father’s best whisky into a fine crystal spirit glass, a glass he’d never been allowed to drink from. He took a tentative sip and looked up to the sky as if to acknowledge his father would be watching him angrily.

“Even in the circumstances, dad wouldn’t approve of your drinking, especially his best whisky, and in one of his special glasses,” Sarah said.

Will ignored his sister and took a substantial swig of the fine single malt. “This is so smooth it soothes rather than burns the back of your throat, unlike that cheap stuff they sell in the Old Crown at two quid a double.” Will then reluctantly updated his sister on what he knew about the warehouse.

“A few months ago, I was with my mate Tariq when he went to get his Fiesta fixed at a garage on an industrial estate. We had a bit of spare time and went to grab a coffee. I saw dad’s car pull into the estate and park up by this warehouse which I thought was odd. I made an excuse to Tariq that I needed to make an urgent call and snuck down to the unit. Dad hadn’t locked the door so I entered and found him in that room with all those people in glass containers. Obviously, he was shocked and wasn’t best pleased to see me. He became angry and paranoid; he accused me of following him. I didn’t know how to react, but I shifted it back towards him and what he was doing in this warehouse. I demanded answers and couldn’t believe what I heard. He swore me to secrecy. I’m sorry you’ve found out about it like this.” His recollection was disrupted by an unexpected knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” Sarah said.

It was Alice, a well-meaning but annoying neighbour. Alice was forty-eight years old, short, and slightly overweight, with shoulder length, dark hair tinted with patches of grey and emerald green eyes. Alice, who had long displayed amorous intentions towards Dr Leidenstraum, stood in an ill-fitting low-cut black and white striped knee length dress, and jet-black heels.

“You look nice Alice. Are you going out for the evening?” Sarah said whilst thinking Alice resembled a chubby Zebra.

“Thank you, Sarah. It’s new. I’m loving the fit. It’s just on the right side of cosy, so I will have to watch my calorie intake. Anyway, is your father in?”

“No, he isn’t. You’d better come inside.”

“Hello Will. How are you?”

“Hi Alice.”

Sarah and Will looked at Alice, both struggled to contemplate what to say to her.

“There’s no easy way of saying this, Alice. Dad died this afternoon,” Sarah said, swallowing hard as she conveyed the devastating news.

Alice was momentarily rendered speechless and sat down on a chair. “I love him, loved him. Dare I say it, more than I love my Dave.”

“I’m not sure this is the time,” Will said.

“You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m intruding. I’ll go. I’ll come and see you in the morning.”

After Alice left, Will cut his sister a puzzled look. “It’s a bit late for her to be coming around, isn’t it? Where were we before we were interrupted?”

“The warehouse.”

“Dad told me he’d bought the warehouse after mum died. To carry out experiments related to his work.”

Sarah listened intently, scarcely able to believe what she was hearing.

“He was looking to a future where advancements in technology would see humans gradually replaced, so he was creating half human, half machine hybrids in an attempt to try and help preserve the species, as it were.”

Will hesitated and then gave Sarah the earth-shattering news that their father had commenced his experiments by extracting DNA from babies in his work touring hospitals.

“No, no, he couldn’t. How could he? Are you saying the people or whatever they are in those cubicles share DNA with teenagers out there in society; they are their robotic twins? And you’ve kept his secret. You haven’t tried to stop him?”

“Actually, I’ve been helping him. As I’m studying IT at college, he asked me to conduct research for him into software development. He thought it would help me to improve my academic results. You know I’ve always been a bit of a techie geek, so it’s like I’m part of building real Transformers or something.”

“Can you hear yourself? How unethical all this is. Well, it’s stopping now. Do you hear me?”

“Dad said you’d react like this. It’s why he never told you. He wanted to. He wanted you involved. That journal he’s written about the work he’s done was for you, not me. In the event of his passing away or getting locked up, I think he thought you’d be able to follow his work because he knew I wouldn’t be able to.”

“I don’t want to follow his work. This is insane. You can’t be serious. I’m not doing it.” Sarah stormed angrily upstairs.

“We can’t just leave them there, they’ll die. They must be tended to every few days. There’s a process. I can’t do it. I will need your help,” Will shouted up the stairs after his sister, but she didn’t respond. All he heard was the sound of her bedroom door slamming firmly shut.

The next morning, the atmosphere was tense as Sarah walked into the kitchen and was confronted by Will demanding the keys to the warehouse. He was evidently determined to take control of the situation and wear his sister down.

“I think we should go there together this morning. We can’t start making any funeral arrangements until tomorrow anyway. We need to do this.”

“Ok. Ok. We will go there together and we need to stick together. Not that I forgive you or dad for what you’ve done. Don’t think that for a second. I’m thoroughly ashamed of the pair of you. Anyway, what is this process you were shouting about last night? To keep them alive I mean? What will we have to do?”

Sarah’s reluctant willingness to get involved brought a wry smile to Will’s face.

“Each of them is fed and watered through a tubing system and powered by a rechargeable battery pack. I don’t know much about how it’s done, but I know dad undertook these procedures every seven days without fail. He told me they’d be dead and unable to be saved if this wasn’t done at least once every nine days. I guess it explains why growing up we never went on holiday for more than a week at a time.”

Sarah forced a smile at her brother’s humorous remark.

“I know you really don’t want to, sis, but I think if we, if you take his journal, you will be able to work through it.”

“His final diary entry was Friday so I guess that was the last time he fed them or charged them or whatever. We won’t need to do that today, but I agree we should still go. I will put the journals and paperwork from the safe in a bag and take it with us.”

Whilst travelling in ‘Joanna’ to the warehouse, No Scrubs came on the radio. Sarah turned up the volume dial much to Will’s annoyance.

“I hate this song,” Will said.

“It’s better than that Slipknot rubbish I’ve heard coming from your bedroom. It’s just not music, Will.”

“That’s what dad said. He kept telling me I should listen to the Beatles.”

“Well, it would be an improvement.”

“Trust you to side with him as always.”

“Shush, I love this rap part of the song,” Sarah said as she tried to mimic Lisa “left eye” Lopes, much to Will’s amusement.

As TLC faded back to the DJ in the studio, Sarah turned the volume down and attempted to establish what had driven her brother to get involved in their father’s work.

“I’m a bit surprised you wanted to help dad with this?”

“I’ve always been a disappointment to him. You are… were, his favourite. He’d always made that abundantly clear. This gave me an opportunity to work with him and prove my worth. I don’t necessarily agree with it, but he’s put a lot of work into this project and I think we should see it through.”

They arrived at the site and parked up. “Hang on. When I was here yesterday one of them said my name. How is that possible?”

This resulted in an awkward silence as Will hesitated to respond. “It’s part of the programming. They’ve seen photos etc.”

“That’s creepy. I don’t like it.”

“I thought you’d be flattered. I thought inanimate robots were your type, judging by that guy Simon you were seeing. Dad needn’t have bothered with all this. He should have just experimented on him.”

“Thanks a lot, Will. I take it the closest you’ve managed to get to an intimate relationship is still with your right hand?”

“I’ve got loads of interest. I’m having to turn them away. And I’m left-handed, remember.”

“So, you’ve worked on these things?” Sarah said, anxious to move the conversation away from their squabbling and back to the important task at hand.

“No. Dad wouldn’t trust me to work on them, but I’ve watched him working on them.”

They got out of the vehicle and entered the building. Will tried to reassure his sister that all would be ok. Sarah and Will walked along inspecting each pod, with the same pace and attention as Her Majesty the Queen meeting entertainers after the Royal Variety performance.

The figure that had greeted Sarah the day previously said: “Hello Sarah. You came back.”

“He..Hel…lo Hello,” Sarah said.

As they reached the last two cubicles, Sarah noticed a black curtain covering a small square area behind a locker, like what you’d find in a leisure centre changing room.

“Have you ever been behind that curtain, Will?”

“No, I can’t say I’ve ever paid it much attention before.”

Sarah felt apprehensive and proceeded towards the curtain slowly. As she reached it, she placed her left hand on the dusty fabric and pulled it across quickly.

“AAARGH,” screamed a voice at her from within a glass pod. Sarah responded in kind. Will grabbed hold of his sister and pulled her away from the pod, but then stopped abruptly.

“Oh my god. I don’t believe it.”

Gathering her composure, Sarah looked up and was as equally aghast as her brother.

The figure in the pod was a human robot hybrid of Brett Sadler, their next-door neighbour Alice’s son.

Sarah and Will didn’t recognise any of the others, but this freaked them out, as it was someone they knew. This felt personal. The figure in the pod was perturbed by Sarah and Will’s gawping.

“What are you two looking at? Where’s Dr Leidenstraum?” Sarah swiftly pulled the curtain across. The figure continued to remonstrate as they tried to comprehend that it was a clone of Alice’s son.

For Will, the shock forced him to think more about the ramifications of his father’s work. He’d minded a lot less when it was people he didn’t know. This was different, he knew Brett. Whilst Will was slightly older, he’d grown up with him.

Sarah recognised her brother’s anguish. She caringly placed a hand on his shoulder and they embraced, marking another rare tender moment between them. Will asked his sister what they should do, his earlier confidence and determination had seeped away in a heartbeat.

“We must grieve for him and plan the funeral. We need to talk to relatives and friends. I don’t think either of us can deal with this right now.”

Will nodded and they left the warehouse.

Sarah sat on the rusty brown leather couch in silent contemplation. She looked forlornly to her left at the matching empty chair and footstool. A white mug emblazoned with ‘I Love Tenerife’ in red letters, and a sky-blue coloured cereal bowl were on the glass table next to her father’s chair. Sarah had bought the mug for her dad from a tacky gift shop whilst on holiday the year before. He had cherished it ever since. She smiled as she remembered parting with a few pesetas whilst her friend Megan complained about the sunburn on her arms, and wittered about how the waiter at the restaurant the night before was clearly in love with her. They had apparently locked eyes for at least four seconds when he served her paella. How much would the mug cost this year, now Spain had adopted the Euro as currency? Sarah wondered.

Will paced anxiously up and down the well-worn oatmeal carpet. He asked his sister if the revelations had changed her opinion of their father.

“I don’t know. It really hasn’t sunk in yet. I’m still in shock. I don’t want it to, but I fear it might. I’m not ready to deal with that yet.”

The pair discussed contacting various people to break the news of their father’s death. Then the doorbell rang. Will opened the door and was confronted by a ghost. It was Brett Sadler.

“I’ve come to send my condolences,” he said. Brett was fifteen years old, medium height, slim build with a mop of light brown hair. He was an unassuming young man, of a quiet disposition, and academic by nature.

Will was rooted to the spot, but then began to shake like the branch of a tree in a light breeze. He was speechless. Sarah walked through the lounge door, took one look at Brett, and froze also. Brett was perplexed by their reaction to him, but attributed it to grief.

“I’m sorry I probably shouldn’t have come. I’ll go.”

“No. Please come in,” Sarah said.

“I appreciate this is an incredibly tough time for you both, but I wanted to say that I’m very sorry for your loss. He was a great guy and I’ll miss him too.”

“Thank you, Brett. That’s so very kind of you,” Sarah said.

“If I can help with anything please let me know. Anyway, I’d better get going.”

“Thanks, mate,” Will said.

Brett left and Sarah gently closed the door behind him.

“Thanks, sis. Seeing him has really brought it home. I didn’t know how to react or what to say to him.”

“I know, it’s hard to comprehend. My head hasn’t stopped spinning.”