Chapter 20: As Yet, Undisclosed Location

I FILED A STORY Tuesday morning to follow up on the attack on Jack Adams. I listed Jack as “Recovering at an undisclosed location.” The speed of our relocation left the rest of the press in the dust. Of course, it wouldn’t take many more visits by Colonel Smythe, Kitty Muffley, Lieutenant Smith, or the Smith MIBs for people to surmise that Jack was living with the Smiths in Orlando.

“Just say Jack is in a secure location which is only available on a need to know basis. He is being attended by the best medical care possible,” I told Mattie. Apparently, half of SORDID had shown up at Blair House Monday afternoon to “check on the subject” and had only then found out he wasn’t there. Email was flying.

“Oh, dear,” Mattie said a few minutes later. I was sitting in my recliner in the Man Cave reading the sports section. She’d taken over my desk.

“What? What is it?” I demanded.

“Your statement has caused an email explosion. It seems everyone has a ‘need to know’ and Mr. Sporu is fielding questions regarding how to apply for the knowledge,” Mattie said.

“Send a reply-all and make sure everyone understands that I will have final approval of anyone considered to be on the ‘need to know’ list. Then shut off your computer. It’s lunchtime and I’m thirsty.”

I checked in on Jack and Evelyn when I went upstairs to fix lunch and found Sheila in the kitchen fixing plates of food.

“Liz showed me where everything was before she left for her classes and office hours. Hope you don’t mind me taking over the kitchen,” Sheila said. “There really isn’t that much to do for Jack. I just need to be near to respond if needed and to administer medication and change dressings.”

I looked at Sheila in her nurse outfit and high heels. It was a porn star nurse’s uniform if I’d ever seen one. I sat at the kitchen table to simply enjoy the view of the short skirt sliding up far enough to expose Sheila’s butt ledge above the black garter belt and stockings. Mattie sat at the table and followed my eyes to the sight. Her eyes glazed over, never leaving Sheila’s posterior.

After we’d eaten, I decided to do more research. There wouldn’t be much to write about Jack for a while, other than to report on his progress each week. In a way I missed the activity in DC, though the most fun part was tweaking all the government noses I could get out of my ass. I read all Dr. Mangeler’s papers and reports, revealing a man who was as fanatic about creating a superior race as any Hitler ever was. Of course, this superior race was to be white, blond, six feet tall, and near genius in intellect.

I had Mattie help me unlock records in the NRP to discover the confiscated sperm had been sorted into ‘usable’ and ‘inferior’ categories. The inferior categories were inevitably any other race, hair color, or intellect Mangeler didn’t like. The inferior sperm had been treated with just enough radiation to slow the sperm to near lifelessness. This sperm had all been rendered over to the NIP and used to attempt in vitro fertilization. So far, less than one in a hundred attempts had resulted in a fertilized egg and those successes failed to attach to the host mother’s uterine wall.

There was some justification for Mangeler’s disdain for the NIP. Dr. Pius, in charge of insemination, was so convinced of the sanctity of life that he considered every sperm and every egg to be a human being. His focus was on using as few sperm as possible to fertilize an egg and insisted on saying a prayer over every failure. The man was so uptight over human sexuality that he couldn’t say the words sperm and ovum, nor could he use anything but Latin when discussing human sexual organs. Even ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ were beyond his ability to cope.

So, between Mangeler’s sabotaging of the available sperm and Pius’s spartan techniques, no new eggs were being fertilized.

“Doc! To what do we owe this visit?” I asked when I answered the door.

“I’m here to see my patient,” Dr. Simpson said. “Sorry it’s so late but I’ve been very busy in the lab. How is Jack doing?”

“You’re Jack’s doctor?”

“Yes, of course. Maybe not as long as I’ve been trying to patch up your decrepit body, but since he moved to Orlando. Months ago, not yesterday. Nurse Smith was kind enough to forward me his current file,” Simpson said.

“Well, come on in. He hasn’t been feeling up to much activity yet, but Sheila says it’s as good as could be expected for a guy who got his balls sliced open yesterday. Second room on the right. And believe me, I’m going to remember you make house calls,” I shouted after him. I rejoined Elizabeth at the dinner table. “Had no idea we’d be having doctors running in and out.”

“Dr. Reynolds stops by once a week to look in on Evelyn and Lily,” Elizabeth said. “Dr. Gardner even stopped in once. They’re all hoping Evelyn will get pregnant again. They seem to forget that Jack’s been in a different city almost since Lily was born and it’s only been a month.” Elizabeth looked thoughtfully at me and I went on alert. “Why don’t you give Dr. Simpson’s invigorator a try, sweetie? Jack won’t be planting any babies before at least Christmas. We could be underway by then.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “The FDA won’t even touch testing his concoction. All he’s managed so far is to make a malformed sperm wiggle once before it dies. That’s not good enough.”

“But you could advance science for all men.”

“I’ve been watching his developments. It’s not like I don’t want something to work. Everyone with a kitchen has been cooking up some kind of solution. His latest test has been to add acetic acid to his mix. Do you know what that is? Vinegar. His other major ingredient is ammonia. I’m already full of piss and vinegar. I’m not drinking his snake oil.”

“You don’t love me.”

“Of course I do, darling. And I plan to keep loving you long into our old age.”

“Then help me with the dishes and take me to bed.”

“Get started undressing. I’ll finish the dishes and be right in.”

“Well, the dead arise,” I said when Jack walked into the room Saturday morning. “You’re alive.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” Jack squeaked in a falsetto.

“My God! He’s become a castrato!”

Jack laughed and doubled over in pain, sinking onto the living room sofa.

“Oh! Ev said I shouldn’t make jokes. It still hurts to laugh,” Jack said. “Do I get a cocktail on the weekend?”