Prologue

Dr. Allison Dickson:

I'm a medical doctor, not a historian. In fact, I'm one of the best doctors in the world, although I'm not yet thirty. That's not an idle brag, my brother won the Nobel Prize in medicine when he was 32, barely a year before my father finally located and murdered him. Does that sound like a Shakespearian play? It's not, but then several of Shakespeare's best were based on the "great men of history."

The "Great Men of History" theory has lost popularity recently, but not in my extended family. You see many, perhaps most of the truly great men of history were probably my kin. That's because of the curse. If one of those "Great Men, or Great Women" were childless, or left a child that wasn't even a pale imitation of the great parent, the odds are very good that they were in my blood line. I know for a fact that Alexander the Great and George Washington are my kin. 'The Mule' in Asimov's great work The Foundation Trilogy has to be based on one of my siblings.

I've just begun to study the curse, but have verified a few facts. All children born of "THE CURSED ONE" will be born sterile. My brother won the prize for his work in testicular cancer. His study wasn't altruistic. He was born with "immature testes syndrome." What that means is that his physical development was normal, but he didn't produce sperm. The sperm generator just never got started, same thing for his vas ducts, they weren't there. The vas duct might have been fixed by surgery, vasectomies are reversed routinely these days, but it wouldn't have made a difference. Like all my half sisters, I've been born with immature ovaries. We all seem to have a great love of children, and... it's very painful.

The exception is the cursed one. My current theory is that some enzyme is released as a cursed one dies. Somehow, that enzyme is absorbed by the child who kills him, probably through the blood. That enzyme triggers the development of the testes, and voila, a new Cursed One is created. Does it sound strange that one mutation could be transmitted through so many generations? Well, think about it, every single ancestor of every single living human lived long enough to pass along his or her genes or... you get the point.

There's just so much I don't yet understand about the process. Why is The Cursed One driven to mate with so many different women? Why do the women he mates with begin to hate him almost as soon as they become pregnant? Why do all his male children go into a homicidal rages in his presence?

I sure it is biological, but I'm also positive that it's nothing like a pheromones or some sort of mind control. The Cursed One is THE Alpha Male and people react to that. If all my siblings are literally THE one in approximately one hundred twenty-seven million, the Cursed One is so far beyond us as to be literally incalculable.

I know how that sounds, but let me tell you about the current Cursed One. He's too modest to tout his own achievements, but let me list a few before he became The One. He was a world class athlete. He was offered multi-million dollar professional contracts in soccer, basketball and baseball as soon as he finished high school. He was considered the top college football recruit in the country. Each year there are only three or four high school seniors who score a perfect 1600 on the SAT college entrance exams, my brother was one of them, but he did it as a junior, a year early.

He chose to go to the US Military Academy at West Point where he graduated first in his class. He fought in the last two wars and became the most decorated hero in US Army history, surpassing the great Audy Murphy. Yes, Col Brown is The Cursed One! At the time he resigned his commission, he was the youngest full colonel in the Army. He left to become tenured in only two years at Rice University, one of the top ten schools in the country. Oh, and by the way, he is without a doubt the best looking man anyone has ever seen. He was absolutely charming, a moral paragon, incredibly funny, and his voice would earn him a starting role in any opera company in the world. Even before he became THE Cursed One, he could have almost any woman in the world to have his children, now...

Col Arlan Brown:

Call me cursed. I would gladly trade with Ishmael on the hunt for Moby Dick. Hell, I'd trade places with Ahab. I'd even trade places with Oedipus, whose story is a lot closer to mine. I hadn't a clue who my father was. I'm almost certain my mother never knew his name. I was conceived less than five minutes after they met. No, my mother wasn't raped, nor was I the product of a commercial transaction, my mother was an intact virgin when they met. I was conceived in my mother's virgin's blood, born bloody, and became what I am because I was infected by my father's blood as he died.

Unlike Oedipus, I didn't marry my mother, I never got to know her. She was killed in an airliner crash before my third birthday. She was almost nineteen when she died, which makes her sound like some sort of besotted teen, but she wasn't. Even pregnant with me, she managed to graduate first in her class at a prestigious, and very expensive private school. She applied to Harvard, and was flying home from Boston, triumphant, after her interview when her plane crashed. I was raised by my grandparents. My Pops was the best dad a man ever had! I had an aunt/half sister who was a few weeks younger than me. Neither of my grandparents got a good look at my father's face. He just waltzed into their hotel suite conceived my sister/aunt, then conceived me, and left without saying goodbye. They didn't call the police. No one ever told me about that night, until after the bombing. I wish they'd explained it to me, it might have saved innocent men psychic trauma.

I know I sound cryptic, but that's not my intention... I guess the easiest way to explain is to tell you my story. My grandparents were wealthy even before the settlement from the airline. My grandfather, Pops, made his fortune as a land developer/home builder. I had an exceptionally good childhood and early adulthood. I joined the Army right out of high school and loved it. I had the world by the tail and I was the envy of every man, until my marriage fell apart at age thirty-five.

I had married a breathtakingly beautiful woman I'd met at a West Point dance my final year. It was only after our second date that I learned her brains were more impressive than her body. Although she was almost two years younger than me, she was just finishing her MBA at Harvard! She was the other half of my heart, and she loved me almost more than life. To this day, especially to this day, I can't say a single negative thing about her. Except, perhaps she should have been a shade less loyal. I wouldn't trade all DeBeers' diamonds for a single day of our marriage, but I wish she'd left me a few years sooner. She would have been happier that way.

Why did our marriage fail? It was my fault. No, I never cheated on her, even after the heat of the battlefield when the urge is so strong that infidelity shouldn't count. I loved her too much. She was the only woman I'd been with and I wanted it to stay that way. Our marriage failed over our children... more correctly, the lack of them.

After years of trying, we began to have tests. She was embarrassing fertile, she could have gotten pregnant from a men's room toilet seat. I was shooting blanks. I had more testosterone than the whole French army, navy and air force combined, but the sperm generator was "immature". My wife was loyal, she begged me to adopt, but I couldn't stand the idea of raising a child that wasn't mine. Ironic huh, but that's part of the curse too.

My most noble act during the noble part of my life was to divorce her while she was still young enough to have kids of her own. If, as the old country-western song goes "one takes the bow the other takes the blame," I did my best to take all the blame. I told her that I'd fallen for another woman. I offered her all my worldly goods as a settlement but she refused. She fought the divorce tooth and nail, even after I produced an exceptionally skuzzy woman I claimed was my true love. Hell, even after the divorce I couldn't even get hard for another woman, what irony.

Right after the divorce, I resigned my commission, I took a job as a teacher. I wanted to give back, and be around young people. If I couldn't have my own children, I wanted to leave my mark by my influence on others'. I think that's part of the curse too.

It was a good if quiet life. I had more money than I could spend. My grandparents had both died leaving only my "aunt" and me to split their fortune. I didn't know that aunt was my half sister at that time, although she did. She knew the whole story, because she'd gotten itfrom Pop just before he died. She said Pops was trying to shield me. That was one of Pops few errors in judgment.

The night it happened, I was walking home from campus, after the party to celebrate my gaining tenure. I was a little too 'happy' to drive, but my house wasn't far from the school. I was walking past the ROTC building when I sensed a man behind me. Furious, I whirled just fast enough to get knifed in the lung instead of the heart. Because of my history, I have a concealed handgun permit. Somehow, while he repeatedly stabbed me, I drew my gun, shoved it into his chest and shot him. He pulled me down with him, and I lost my gun as I hit the ground. We were both covered in blood and when his mingled with mine, my world changed. A wave of energy nauseated me, and I passed out in a pool of my own vomit.

I didn't see him stagger to his car, smash it into the ROTC building and explode. The explosives in the car destroyed the building, his body and made the whole thing look like the work of a suicide bomber. The "car bomb" was his contingency to cover his identity in case his attack on me failed. He didn't want the police to suspect that the man I'd killed was my father.

I awoke in the hospital hooked to more tubes and wires than a whole room full of computer servers. A dozen monitors beeped and chirped in a syncopated cacophony of alarm. I felt weak as a kitten and preternaturally alert. More alarms and bells blared, and staff materialized like characters beamed from a Star Trek rip off.

They spoke medicalese to each other, not exactly ignoring me, but too excited to pay much attention to me. I tried to force someone to talk to me, was immediately enveloped by fatigue and drifted back off to sleep.

When I awoke the second time, I wasn't as weak, but I was dead dog tired. Bushed! I was also hungrier than I'd been in my whole life. The alarms had been reduced by an order of magnitude, but still more than enough to summon an army of medical personnel. This time there were security types with them. They didn't look like regular police, more like FBI.

The medical types were even more absorbed by the -- what ever their instruments were telling them, than last time. The agents eyed me with that lean and hungry look that so bothered Caesar.

The one closest to my bed asked the stunningly obviuos, "Are you awake Colonel? Do you know where you are?"

I tried to speak, but my throat was too dry, only croaking sounds came out.

Finally, I managed to whisper, "Food."

One of the younger female medical types heard me and dashed out of the room. The agent poured me a glass of water, addeda straw and held it up to my mouth. That, was when I discovered that my hands were bound to the bed by those thick leather restraints that hospitals use. Why?

The female appeared with a glass of one of those milk-shake diet food supplements and I chugged the whole thing through a straw.

Slightly stronger, I said, "Thanks, please sir, more."

She laughed and disappeared again.

The medical types went crazy pushing the agents out the door, The female appeared again, glanced at all the monitors, as she gave me my second glass. Again I downed it without a pause while she studied a monitor over my head that I couldn't see. She barked an order that sounded like a series of chemical compounds, and several of the staff left turbulence wakes as they hustled to obey.

The young woman, who I'd assumed, in my chauvinist way, was a nurse, turned out to be Dr. Allison Dickson, the head of the whole department. A young orderly appeared with several cans of the diet supplement and a bucket brigade formed as I chugged a dozen cans.

Feeling only slightly stronger, I managed, "Where am I, what happened? Why am I still starving?"

The last question ledto several orderlies dashing from the room. It also seemed to have exhausted me, and I drifted back to sleep.

When I awoke the next time, it was very slowly. I became aware that my throat had some sort of tube crammed down it. Not fully awake, I pulled the thing out. It felt like I'd pulled internal organs with it. I bellowed loud enough to temporarily drown out all the electronic chirps and beeps.

I expected the full contingent of medical personal to appear like the genie from the lamp. Instead, Dr. Dickson rose from a chair next to my bed.

She looked at my hand, shook her head in awe then asked, "Are you feeling better? Are you still hungry?"

I thought about it, realized that I wasn't hungry. I felt different, but not hungry. I checked my hand to see what had surprised her and discovered that it had a torn leather restraint on it.

Nodding at the torn restraint she said, "You've been tearing those regularly. We've been contemplating surgery to install a peg. You've gained almost sixtypounds, not that we can see where it's gone. Your body fat percentage has actually gone down. The breakthrough was when you woke up and said you were hungry. No one had noticed you were suffering from extreme malnutrition. Starving to death right before our eyes. You seemed to stabilize an hour or so ago. I think we're over the hump, but we don't have any idea what's caused this. There are some gentlemen from Homeland Security who are very anxious to talk to you, if you feel up to it."

Looking at the doctor, I was struck by two thoughts simultaneously, she was beautiful, and she was a younger version of my aunt. More alert, I wondered why I'd thought she wasn't in charge last time. The aura of command radiated on her like sweat on a marathoner. All of that authority was focused with laser intensity on me.

Responding to her unasked question, I tried to assessmy physical condition and delivered the succinct line, "I feel funny."

She smiled wryly and said, "I'm not surprised. Early on we thought you might have been the target of a terrorist attack and not the ROTC Building. We pumped you full of every type of antibiotic and tranquilizer we thought wouldn't kill you. Not having any idea what we're facing, we gave you everything but the kitchen sink. We'd still like to run some more tests on you. There are other physiological changes that have been going on that we can't explain. Your weight gain being the most obvious. However, the only signs of pathogens have been you lack of energy. "

What followed was a week of medical torture, and Homeland Security interrogation. The Homeland people at one point got rather combative. I didn't have any explanation for why a "terrorist" would attack me before blowing himself up in a building. I didn't want anyone to know that I was certain I'd killed my father. I rather thought that was a hallucination and didn't care to undergo a full psychic exam on top of having every orifice prodded and poked. They did pull out most of the tubes and wires, but the tests were never-ending.

My first clue tothe curse came on my last day in the hospital as I was waiting to be released. The medical people had reached a dead end and I was going stir crazy. One of the Homeland Security people became belligerent. He was insisting that I must have some idea what my attacker looked like because I had his blood on my gun. I'm not in the habit of lying, and because I was lying, I lost my own temper. When I roared back, the man acted like a defeated cur.

The vision scared me, and using some of my service privileges, I demanded that the army medic I summoned escort them from my room. As they left muttering, a 'pink lady'volunteer came in to help me get home. Getting home involved more than a cab ride, since I'd been flown to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington D.C. Because of one more foolhardy acts during my Army career, I was entitled to free transportation on military aircraft, so oneof the staff had made arrangements for me to get back home that way.

Flying military is a hassle, and I only do it if I'm going to a base for some reason. Since money wasn't a problem, I'd asked for a hospital volunteer who might know something about booking flights to help me.

As she walked through the door, the curse erupted. Need drenched every cell of my body. My cock got harder than and diamond edged drill bit, and as thick as a core sample. I was dumbstruck! The woman was very attractive, but not beautiful. She was mid thirties, and looked more like one of those TV moms than a sex sensation. She was dressed modestly, her figure trim, her hair and make-up understated. She was far from the best looking or sexiest woman to enter the room that morning. Several of the nurses and younger doctors who had made a point of calling on me to say good-by, were more attractive. Several of those made sure I knew they were 'available', and left notes on how to contact them. Yet I hadn't reacted like I wanted to rape any of them.

The woman couldn't hide her awareness of my reaction to her. Her eyes got wide and for a second, I expected her to run screaming down the hall. Instead, she shocked me. She walked back to the door to my private room, but instead of leaving, she closed it behind her, then leaned against it to lock it, and announced, "I'd planned to stop taking the pill at the end of this cycle."

I swallowed hard; I was trembling more violently than during that foolhardy moment I mentioned earlier. Which was the most scared I'd been in my life up to this point. I couldn't speak. I just stared at her.

As the silence lengthened she said, "If you don't have to leave town today, you could come to my house tonight."

I blinked hard, she looked disappointed but continued, "My daughter is in a wedding tonight, but she'll be home later; you can stay for her if you'd like."

She paused again and then pleaded, "Please!"

Her eyes never left mine, but I think she saw my erection pulse. I knew she was aware of my musk when she wrinkled her nose. I've always had a strong crotch odor; I'm the guy that "personal deodorants" were designed for. Now it smelled like I hadn't changed underwear in a month.

I was embarrassed. I intended to apologize, instead I said, "Get me a rental car and directions to your house. I'll be there at seven." I was flabbergasted that I used my 'command voice.'

I hadn't meant to sound so demanding; I just knew that I had to get her out of the room, I was holding on to my control by my finger tips.

She gave me a lottery-winner's smile and gushed, "I'm so honored, we'll be ready for you. I'll have a rental here within an hour. I'll have a map to my homein it for you. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

She hadn't placed any untoward emphasis on the word "anything" to make it suggestive, but I knew her offer was all inclusive. I waved my hand in dismissal. I wasn't being rude, but the only words I thought I could form were along the lines of, "Turn around, drop your panties and bend over!"

When she left, closing the door behind her, I felt my blood pressure drop to normal levels. What didn't drop was my erection, or my awareness of that woman. I pictured her hurrying down the hall, rushing to get me a rental car, using her cell phone to call someone to help her. I hadn't been the only one in that room who needed a personal deodorant. What I didn't know was the curse was the cause.

Less than a half hour later a male orderly arrived to help me checkout. It was as smooth as the Army could make it. The Army takes care of its own, and I would always be welcome. I didn't see the woman, but a top of the line luxury car was waiting for me as I was wheeled to the hospital exit. The keys were in the ignition and a rental agreement was on the front seat. One of those computer maps was evident, and the GPS system had her address programmed into it. I checked the rental agreement, it was in her name. Mary! I was listed as a driver, operating under my insurance and license. I have no idea how she got that information, I assume the hospital had it, or perhaps she had access to my wallet.

As I started the car, I checked the clock. I had five hours to kill before I was due at her house. I thought about going straight over there, but I was sure she wouldn't be home. I don't mean to imply that I had some sort of ESP connection with her, I didn't. I had just had strongest feeling that she wanted me as much as I wanted her and that the time she'd given me was the earliest she could make herself available. It was all non-verbal, but stronger for that reason. I knew that she was going make me her top priority and the devil take the hindmost. She had wanted to get pregnant before she entered my room, and when she saw me, she decided that I was to be the father.

Later I wondered why that little fact didn't bother me at the time. I knew I couldn't give her a child. Even if I could, I wasn't the type of man to make a baby and abandon it. I believe that all babies need their fathers living with their mothers. I wasn't the type to lie to a woman or to take advantage of her. Yet, I was acting worse than a penned bull next to whole herd of fresh cows.

Now, I that I was feeling a little more normal, I tried to decide should make my own flight arrangements. After a small internal debate, I decided I wanted to stay the night in Washington. I had some very good friends here, working at the building of fives. (The Pentagon has five concentric, five sided rings, each, five stories tall.) Those jerks at Homeland Security had classified my presence in Washington as 'secret', so I hadn't seen any of them. I knew I wasn't being fair in my resentment of those agents. I knew that what happened to me wasn't part of the war on terror, but they didn't. I admire the job they're doing to keep us as safe as we are. Still -- I had buddies in town and I wanted to see them.

I drove out to the Pentagon, showed them my service ID. I'd forgotten that the hospital personnel had attached a small miniature service ribbon to my civilian suit. It was the pale blue one with all the white stars. The sentry checked my ID saw the ribbon and rendered a very snappy salute. It embarrassed me that I couldn't return the honor since I wasn't in uniform. I tried to hide my annoyance when he directed me to VIP parking lot. I'd told the sentry that I didn't want any honors, I was just there to see some buddies, but the halls soon filled with folks being deferentialanyway. My buddies arrived and we went to one of the cafeterias, where I ate too much and practically drownedin bullshit. I felt wonderful. I missed the service, and was almost tempted to try to go back.

Before I realized it, it was time to fight the traffic to Mary's house. She lived in Georgetown, one of the most posh sections of Washington. When I got there the house was one of the more impressive, and I wondered why I didn't feel in the slightest intimidated. I had money, all I needed, but this house bespoke serious wealth. The kind that gets you listed by Forbes Magazine as one ofrichest in the country. I parked in the driveway, and as I rang the bell, I wondered if there were servants. As I waited a whole host of questions surfaced. Why had the security gate been open? Had this woman worn a wedding ring? Why was she a volunteer at Walter Reed? This kind of money wrote checks; they didn't spend their time taking care of soldiers. Could she be an employee here? It never occurred to me that she might have sent me to the wrong place, just as it never crossed my mind that the solid man who opened the door was anyone other than her husband!