The Apotheosis. Darrell Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ her a long hug. Amira held tightly to her hand.

      “I love you,” Ethan whispered.

      “I love you, too, Daddy.” Elona looked up at Amira. “I can come back to see Daddy on Saturday, right?”

      “Yes, you can,” Amira said.

      Ethan stood and walked to the front door. Frank opened it for him. Amira picked up a sullen-faced Elona and walked back to the SUV. She placed her in the child seat and closed the door. Elona remained quiet. Amira turned around in time to see Frank opening the door for Ethan, who was carrying the box of food. She met him in the middle of the sidewalk.

      “I don’t know why you are doing this to us,” he said, holding the box in his arms in front of him. “The rabbis of Talmud consider marriage a holy contract, and the dissolution of a marriage an unholy act.”

      “Ethan… try to understand… I don’t love you. I don’t know if I ever did. I must move on. I’m not living my life according to something some old men said three thousand years ago.”

      “The prophet Malachi said, ‘The Lord has been witness between you and your wife, she is your companion, the wife of your covenant.’ That is what I understand.” Ethan handed the box to her and lowered his head. He turned around and walked toward the front doors. Amira did the same towards her SUV.

      He pivoted. Shouted, “Even God sheds tears when anyone divorces his wife!” A black automatic pistol came from his right jacket pocket. He raised the gun at her back and pulled the trigger. It did not move. For an instant, he was confused. He hesitated. Then he remembered the safety and flipped it off with his thumb.

      Frank lunged, striking Ethan high on the shoulder and reaching for the gun. Ethan squeezed the trigger again.

      Amira didn’t hear the gunshot so much as she felt it behind her. Thunderous and surreal. Erupting the quiet Boston evening. Her subconscious mind registered a burn on her right arm as the nine-millimeter bullet ripped through her jacket and sweater, passed barely under the skin, then exited. By reflex she whirled around. Frank fell with Ethan to the cement. In Ethan’s hand was a pistol; both men struggled with each other. Neither said a word as they pried and squirmed for control of the weapon. What had been an ordinary evening suddenly turned into a fight for life or death.

      Amira screamed.

      The assistant doorman, David, had heard the shot from the small office in the foyer. He came running out the door. He grabbed Ethan’s hand that held the gun, pinning his arm and shoulder to the sidewalk. Unable to move, Ethan went limp.

      “You are unholy!” Ethan shouted from underneath Frank. He sobbed.

      David pried the pistol from Ethan’s grip and Frank forced him onto his stomach, twisting his right arm behind his back.

      “Call 911!” Frank yelled at David. David ran back inside.

      Amira noticed a warm sensation on her right arm, looked at her jacket sleeve, and could see loose threads and a small amount of red. She placed the box on the ground and wiped at the threads with her hand. I’m shot.

      “Oh my God,” Amira said. She stood, shocked, as people moved around her. An elderly couple came out the front door, dressed for dinner. The woman put her arm around her.

      “Are you okay?”

      Amira knew her, but only by her last name. “I—I—I think so, Mrs. Schultz.”

      “Is this your box?” the woman asked, pointing to the box sitting at Amira’s feet.

      “Yes.”

      “Why don’t we take it inside while we wait for the police.”

      “No, it goes in the car.”

      Mrs. Schultz picked it up. Amira’s mind re-ran the events of the last sixty seconds. “Okay.” She turned back to her SUV to open the front passenger door. She saw the bullet hole in the back-door window.

      “Elona!”

       JULY 8, 2022

      My investment company is up and running well. I am reading all I can about the different tax laws and investment strategies. I have a hundred ideas in my head. Lee is retiring at the end of the year. He and his wife are moving to Geneva. I will miss him. He gave me permission to tug on his ear when needed. Over the last year we have transferred everything to my computers here. It’s amazing what can be done with only an internet connection… and days on end with nothing to do because you are waiting on the damn supply boat.

      I have been here almost two years. It has been an epic effort to recreate all my work here. Especially because my only means of acquiring the equipment I need is the supply boat. But at least they are reliable, and the man running the boat is dependable. I should be ready for the first cloning in a year.

      I remember what sent me down my path earlier than planned. I would have ended up there anyway, eventually. That day started like any other day for me. How was I to know the stone had already been dropped on the smooth surface that was the life I had planned? These ripples will affect me my entire lifetime. No matter how many I get.

      THE NEW JOB

      It had been a long week for John without seeing Amira. He had not heard a word from her. He understood it would take time. The last thing he wanted was to create more stress in her life. He absorbed himself in his work while he waited. He continued hours of testing and improving the software system for analyzing the brain structure of the cloned monkeys.

      On this September day, when John arrived at his lab, he made adjustments to the software parameters and restarted the program. He checked his calendar and noticed a budget meeting with board members in the afternoon. John sighed. It wouldn’t be fun. The equipment he had recently purchased impacted the budget for the lab across the hall, and he knew Ethan would aggressively protect his corner of the world. John knew he would probably have to make concessions and pay for most of it himself, leaving Dr. Shinwell with his perceived victory. If Ethan knew what I was really researching. It was just the framework of an idea, just the vapor of a theory. Although the process wasn’t fully formed in John’s mind, he was sure if Ethan Shinwell knew of it, he’d shut him down.

      The phone at the desk near the door rang. John looked at the date on his watch. It’s the wrong day for the cleaning crew. He walked over to the desk and picked up the phone. “Hello?”

      “John, this is Phillip. I’m sorry to bother you. Could you come down to my office?”

      “Sure, Dr. Jones, what’s this about?”

      “I’d rather we talk in my office.”

      “Be right there.”

      A few minutes later, John entered Dr. Jones’ office. He sat down across the cluttered desk from him.

      “I received bad news this morning. I got a call from the Boston Police Department, a Detective Garcia. He had questions about Dr. Shinwell.”

      “What kind of questions?”

      “General СКАЧАТЬ