Lyon's Legacy: Catalyst Chronicles, Book One by Sandra Ulbrich Almazan Page A

that would be like, and I wouldn’t go through it again for all the millions Uncle Jackass had squirreled away.
    The second alte rnative was even worse. Uncle Jackass and the suits at World Music had to know Sean’s genius was as much a product of his environment as his genes. If they wanted a second Sean Lyon, they’d have to recreate the original Sean’s environment. How far would they go with that? Would they give the child fake parents instructed to abandon him? When the boy was a teenager, would they let him resume a relationship with his mother, then have her pretend to get cancer and die?
    I shuddered. They might very well do that .
    No matter which scenario played out, this boy was doomed to an unhappy childhood. I knew what it was like being Sean Lyon’s great-granddaughter; it would be infinitely worse to be his clone, much worse than what Grandpa John and Great-Uncle Charles had e ndured. He’d never have a life of his own or be encouraged to develop as a normal child. No one would ever see him as a unique person; they’d always see him as Sean Lyon’s clone….
    Unless they’d been through a similar hell.
    For this boy to have any chance at all, I’d have to become his mother.
     
     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
     
    I’d never given motherhood much thought before that moment. Why would I, when I was so busy with work and my too-little time for gradua te school? I had no siblings, and my cousins were older than me. All I had to go on about kids was my own childhood, something I tried to put behind me. Weren’t kids loud, messy, and expensive? Why would I saddle myself with one when I didn’t have to? Uncle Jackass was more than willing to raise a kid; let him have all the headaches. Then I reminded myself who would suffer if my uncle got what he wanted, and it wasn’t going to be him. Jackass would pay someone to change the kid’s diapers; he’d just show up to brainwash the boy. At least if I was the mother, I could provide some necessary re-education—if I could keep the child. Knowing my uncle, he’d probably try to rip the boy out of me, chewing through the umbilical cord himself if he had to. I clamped my own teeth together. No; I couldn’t let that happen. But how could I stop him?
    As much as I wanted to see George, I needed to think about this newest problem before I returned to the Sagan and surrendered Sean’s DNA. So I got off the bus and wandered around downtown for a while. The streets, while not deserted, felt sparser than I’d expected. Many stores were closed. As I passed a drugstore that happened to be open, I remembered my resolution to leave Sean a warning. I went in and bought a pen and stationery with hearts printed on it. It didn’t suit either of us, but it was the least offensive pattern I could find. Then I found a deli and ordered lunch. The tuna salad was flavorful, but the coffee was weaker than what I was used to; it took two and a half cups before I finally figured out what to say:
     
    November 5, 1961
     
    Dear Sean,
     
    Thanks for the hospitality last night. I hope you and Grandma Mary didn’t waste too much time worrying about me after I left. Are you reading this in 1980? Are you world-famous by now? Did you and your wife Baby inspire a revolution in the Philippines and have a son named John? If you did, then your life paralleled that of my own great-granddad closely enough that I have to warn you of something. But first, I have to explain who I am and where I come from.
    As you’ve probably guessed, I’m not your cousin, I’m not from California, and while I do want to study genetics, I didn’t come to Chicago for graduate school. I’m the great-granddaughter of a Sean Franklin Lyon from another unive rse. It’s a weird property of physics that every time there’s a choice to be made, the universe splits. This happens all the time, so there are innumerable universes existing alongside our own. I can’t explain this too well; I’m not a quantum