Mr. Murder

sentence. He no longer had any faith in the work of the genetic engineers.
        "So far," Spicer said, "through police contacts, the home office has compiled a list of fifteen homicides involving sexual assault that might be attributable to our boy. Unsolved cases. Young and attractive women. In cities he visited, at the times he was there.
        Similar M.O. in every case, including extreme violence after the victim was knocked unconscious, sometimes with a blow to the head but generally with a punch in the face… evidently to ensure silence during the actual killing."
        "Fifteen," Oslett said numbly.
        "Maybe more. Maybe a lot more." Spicer glanced away from the road and looked at Oslett. His eyes were not only unreadable but entirely hidden behind the heavily tinted sunglasses. "And we better hope to God he killed every woman he screwed."
        "What do you mean?"
        Looking at the road again, Spicer said, "He's got a high sperm count.
        And the sperm are active. He's fertile."
        Though he couldn't have admitted it to himself until Spicer had said it aloud, Oslett had been aware this bad news was coming.
        "You know what this means?" Spicer asked.
        From the back seat, Clocker said, "The first operative Alpha generation human clone is a renegade, mutating in ways we might not understand, and capable of infecting the human gene pool with genetic material that could spawn a new and thoroughly hostile race of nearly invulnerable super beings."
        For a moment Oslett thought Clocker had read a line from his current Star Trek novel, then realized that he had succinctly summed up the nature of the crisis.
        Spicer said, "If our boy didn't waste every bimbo he took a tumble with, if he made a few babies and for some reason they weren't aborted-even one baby-we're in deep shit. Not just the three of us, not just the Network, but the entire human race."
        Heading north through the Owens Valley, with the Inyo Mountains to the east and the towering Sierra Nevadas to the west, Marty found that the cellular phone would not always function as intended because the dramatic topography interfered with microwave transmissions. And on those occasions when he was able to place a call to his parents' house in Mammoth, their phone rang and rang without being answered.
        After sixteen rings, he pushed the END button, terminating the call, and said, "Still not home."
        His dad was sixty-six, his mom sixty-five. They had been school teachers, and both had retired last year. They were still young by modern standards, healthy and vigorous, in love with life, so it was no surprise they were out and about rather than spending the day at home in a couple of armchairs, watching television game shows and soap operas.
        "How long are we staying with Grandma and Grandpa?" Charlotte asked from the back seat. "Long enough for her to teach me to play the guitar as good as she does? I'm getting pretty good on the piano, but I think I'd like the guitar, too, and if I'm going to be a famous musician, which I think I might be interested in being-I'm still keeping my options open-then it would be a lot easier to take my music with me everywhere, since you can't exactly carry a piano around on your back."
        "We aren't staying with Grandma and Grandpa," Marty said. "In fact, we aren't even stopping there."
        Charlotte and Emily groaned with disappointment.
        Paige said, "We might visit them later, in a few days. We'll see.
        Right now we're going to the cabin."
        "Yeah!" Emily said, and
        "All right!" Charlotte said.
        Marty heard them smack their hands together in a high-five.
        The cabin, which his mom and dad had owned since Marty was a boy, was nestled in the mountains a few miles outside of Mammoth Lakes, between the town and the lakes themselves, not far from the even smaller settlement of Lake Mary. It was a charming place, on which his father had done extensive work over the years, sheltered by hundred-foot pines and firs. To the girls, who had been raised in the suburban maze of Orange County, the cabin was as special as any enchanted cottage in a fairy tale.
        Marty needed a few days to think before making any decisions about what to do next. He wanted to study the news and see how the story about him continued to be played, in the media's handling of it, he might be able to assess the