Mutant Legacy Read Free Page A

incomplete without my twin, an emotional amputee. But with time I grew accustomed to that phantom ache, and Rick faded, faded until he was transparent as a specter, almost disappeared.
    The Mars Colony that multinational forces had established in the middle of the century was a huge success—and, after the New Delhi spill, very popular with refugees. I half believed that Rick had joined the outflux to the red planet and for a time I took a certain pleasure in imagining him pitting his remarkable skills against that harsh, alien world, forcing it to yield to his will and the need of the colonists. That was in 2062, I think, or 2063—toward the end of the nine-year drought in the Western Hemisphere. A year of food riots, it was. At first there were so many hungry people. And then so many dead. It was a haunted year, and I was only slightly surprised when I received a letter from one whom I had come to regard as a ghost. It came in a creased, stained, old-fashioned postal envelope stamped with an address, some P.O. box in Portales, New Mexico.
    The message inside was simple: “Come, Julian. I can be reached here. Join me.” The paper was yellow, almost antique in texture, and the message was the echo of some old, old dream. It was not so much a request as a summons, unsigned. But that didn’t matter. I knew who had sent it.
    For days I pondered it, touched the paper, realized that Rick had sent me something tangible so that I could not dismiss him lightly. But I was not ready to deal with him. Despite the temptation to respond I forced the notion away from me and buried the letter—and my brother—deep within a file drawer safely out of sight and mind. Stay away, Rick, I thought. Stay safe, and keep us all safe.
    A week later I was at Mass. General consulting on a case when I received the summons from Joachim Metzger, Book Keeper of the newly merged Mutant Councils.
    “We have located your brother, Dr. Akimura. Please come at once.”
    This time I moved: canceled meetings, sessions with clients, social engagements, and hopped the shuttle to California. Would Rick be there, unchanged, full of life and anger and danger, shaking his fist at the world?
    The meeting hall was as I remembered, somber greens and browns stenciled along the redwood-paneled walls. A hundred pairs of golden eyes turned to gaze as I walked in. But none belonged to my brother. He wasn’t at the meeting, nor anywhere in sight, and for a moment I was relieved. He was still just a shadow at the back of my memory, a tingle at the base of my neck.
    Joachim Metzger sat at the center of a long platform that had replaced the original Council table. He was a big, ruddy man with a square jaw, generous fleshy folds beside his wide mouth, and a head of curling white hair that fell almost to the shoulders of his purple Book Keeper robes.
    “You said something about knowing my brother’s whereabouts—” I began.
    “Dr. Akimura,” the Book Keeper said. “We know exactly where he is.”
    I didn’t expect that. This Metzger was disturbingly direct. There wa onct. Thes no way to dodge his probing golden gaze. “Where is he?” I said.
    “In New Mexico.”
    “How do you know?”
    “His mental footprint is distinctive,” Metzger said, and a faint smile played across his face.
    “Well, then you’ve found him,” I said “Is that what you dragged me across the country to tell me?”
    Metzger wasn’t smiling anymore. “Of course not. If he was just sitting in the middle of New Mexico, minding his own business, we wouldn’t have bothered to contact you at all. Unfortunately, he’s not. In fact, that’s the last thing he’s doing.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Dr. Akimura, we fear that your brother is building some sort of cult.”
    “A cult?” I couldn’t have been more amazed if he had told me that Rick had decided to run for President of the United States. “What are you talking about?”
    “We’ve had reports of a so-called miracle worker wandering