Mutation Read Online Free PDF Page A

their street. Sheila rushed to let the medics in.
         A few moments later, William found himself balancing on a seat in the back of the lurching vehicle with Sheila following behind in the family car.
         When they reached Lowell General Hospital, the couple waited anxiously while Maurice was examined and evaluated, then declared stable enough for transfer. William wanted the child to go to Children's Hospital in Boston, about a half hour's drive. Something told him that his child was deathly ill. Maybe they had been too proud of his phenomenal brilliance. Maybe God was making them pay.
        
         "Hey, VJ!" Victor shouted up the back stairs. "How about a swim!" He could hear his voice carom off the walls of their spacious house. It had been built in the eighteenth century by the local landowner. Victor had bought and renovated it shortly after David's death. Business at Chimera had begun to boom after the company had gone public, and Victor felt Marsha would be better off if she didn't have to face the same rooms where David had grown up. She'd taken David's passing even harder than he had.
         "Want to go in the pool?" Victor shouted again. It was at times like this that he wished they'd put in an intercom system.
         "No, thanks," came VJ's answer echoing down the stairwell.
         Victor remained where he was for a moment, one hand on the handrail, one foot on the first step. His earlier conversation with Marsha had reawakened all his initial fears about his son. The early unusual development, the incredible intelligence which had made him a chess master at three years of age, the precipitous drop in intelligence before he was four; VJ's was by no means a standard maturation. Victor had been so guilt-ridden since the moment of the child's birth that he had been almost relieved at the disappearance of the little boy's extraordinary powers. But now he wondered if a normal kid wouldn't jump at the chance to swim in the family's new pool. Victor had decided to add a pool for exercise. They'd built it off the back of the house in a type of greenhouse affair. Construction had just been completed the previous month.
         Making up his mind not to take no for an answer, Victor bounded up the stairs two at a time in his stocking feet. Silently, he whisked down the long hall to VJ's bedroom, which was located in the front of the house overlooking the driveway. As always, the room was neat and orderly, with a set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica  lining one wall and a chemical chart of the elements on the wall opposite. VJ was lying on his stomach on his bed, totally absorbed in a thick book.
         Advancing toward the bed, Victor tried to see what VJ was reading. Peering over the top of the book, all he could make out was a mass of equations, hardly what he expected.
         "Gotcha!" he said, playfully grabbing the boy's leg.
         At his touch, VJ leaped up, his hands ready to defend himself.
         "Whoa! Were you concentrating or what?" Victor said with a laugh.
         VJ's turquoise eyes bore into his father. "Don't ever do that again!" he said.
         For a second, Victor felt a familiar surge of fear at what he had created. Then VJ let out a sigh and dropped back onto the bed.
         "What on earth are you reading?" Victor asked.
         VJ closed the book as if it had been pornography. "Just something I picked up on black holes."
         "Heavy!" Victor said, trying to sound hip.
         "Actually, it's not very good," VJ said. "Lots of errors."
         Again Victor felt a cold chill. Lately he had wondered if his son's precocious intelligence wasn't returning. Attempting to shrug off his worries, Victor said firmly, "Listen, VJ, we're going for a swim."
         He went over to VJ's bureau and extracted a pair of bathing trunks and tossed them at his son. "Come on, I'll race you."
         Victor walked down to his own bedroom, where he pulled on a