Subject: [OTL]: [Robin] In The Blood [10:11] Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 08:15:53 -0700 (PDT) From: D Benway In The Blood [10:11] Thursday, June 7 drawn from the vein by Benway This story borrows some Bat-characters from DC for not-for-profit use. This story is not recommended for sensitive or innocent readers. __________________________________________________________________ His house is cold, dark, and empty at the best of times. Even the cave feels brighter and more of a home. I can barely work the key in the lock. In the foyer, I can see the glow of firelight from his father's study. I told him I was coming, and he's waiting for me. He's sitting in a very large black leather armchair, wearing a black pullover and black pants and black shoes. He doesn't look at me, just stares into the fire, swirling a brandy snifter on one hand. From the smell in the room, it has brandy in it. He's done it to rattle me. You want an explanation, he says. He slurs the last word, almost imperceptibly. All my questions are gone in an instant, and now I'm scared. Very, very scared. It's medicinal, he says. My father kept a bottle in here for medical uses, and to remind himself of what killed his father. Why, I say. It's complicated, he says. Tell me, I say. You've seen this book, he says. He's pointing to an old copy of Statistical Methods for Research Workers by Fisher. He had me read it when I began working with him. It explains the correct methods for setting up an experiment and extracting information from it, he says. Do you what isn't in it? No, I say. He takes a drink from the snifter. Not a sip, a mouthful. Ethics, he says. There's no chapter on ethics. Experiments. Treatments. Controls. Medical ethics. Oh God. Fisher invented much of modern statistics, he says. He and his colleagues and his predecessors developed the basis of all of modern genetics on the basis of work with plants and livestock. It wasn't too much of a stretch for them to extend the same ideas to people. He takes another drink. They were working a hundred years ago, he says. Their grandparents rode in the first steam locomotives and steamships, and they saw the invention of the automobile and the development of the first antibiotics during their lifetimes. They saw themselves and others rise from obscurity to challenge the power of the nobility in that class-ridden society, and they were the intellectual leaders of a society that came to rule a quarter of the world. They knew the fragility of their creation, and they believed that we too could be improved, if only the bad traits could be weeded out. He doesn't turn to look at me. One of those traits was Downs Syndrome, he says. It was identifiable, and those who suffered from it weren't in any shape to rule anything. It was clearly inherited, and so they reasoned that the best thing for society would be if all Downs children were sterilized. In his charity work for Gotham City hospital, my father carried out over a hundred of these sterilizations on adolescents in the Retardation ward at Arkham. He drew the line at Down's Syndrome, but many others did not. Until 1953, no inmate in the psychotic ward left intact. He never takes his eyes off the fire. It was supposed to be for our own good, he says. For the good of all society. He even practiced this at home. Breeding, I say. I have his diaries, he says. He was engaged to two other women before my mother. He didn't marry the first because her father was an alcoholic and a known philanderer, and he didn't marry Leslie Tomkins because she had a brother who had Down's Syndrome. My mother's family was clear of any taint, all successful athletes and business people, no inbreeding that he could determine. He wanted to be sure of his heir. And you thought you had the right to do the same thing, I say. Nothing gives me the right to do anything, he says. Nothing but the dreadful certainties that they taught me. The snifter explodes. I'm out of the chair. STAY, he says, not turning to look at me. He throws the remains of the snifter into the fire. With his uninjured hand, he starts picking some of the larger pieces of crystal out of the flesh and throws them into the flames. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and wipes away some of the blood, then wraps his hand in it. He does this all without turning once to look at me. Why, I say. All through my life, he says. I was brought up to believe that certain things were meant to be. I have dedicated every aspect of my life to some of these things and discarded others, but some I could never fully get rid of. Before my parents were murdered, I never spoke to a child outside my class, a child who didn't live in a house that could not be maintained without servants. When I did meet other children, I found it difficult how to imagine how they could live in houses so small, so bereft of beauty, and I came to believe it didn't really matter. I began to question the unspoken assumption that had underlaid my life until then: that I deserved what I possessed because of my ancestry. Most of my parent's friends and their children believed it, that they were born to be masters, that superiority was in the blood. I knew that it was not true, but could not convince myself of it fully. I needed to know, with objective certainty, that it did not matter, that killing the worst would not in some way make things better. Killing the worst, I say. I only had to look at German history to see how it could go wrong, he said. But it was so tempting. If I could play judge, jury, and enforcer on crime in this city, why not executioner? Some of them would kill and maim and steal over and over again, no matter how many times I locked them up. If they had children, would they grow up to be murderers and rapists and destroyers of the lives of others? Stephanie, I say. One case, one anecdote, he says. Himmler was always complaining about how Nazi party members always had a few Jews that they wanted to save from the ovens. No, anecdotal information can only go so far. What I needed was an experiment, an experiment that would show me that it wasn't in the blood, that it was what happened afterward that mattered. But we see that every fucking day, I say. But are we fully objective? he says. Unless we believe that we can selflessly determine guilt and innocence and act upon it with more efficiency than do the courts and the police, how can we be anything better than those who believe that they have the right to take a life for their God, or the voices in their head, or because it will make them feel better about themselves? There is a difference, I say. Explain it to me, he says. I want to, I want to explain the instinct, the one that tells me who to hit, the one that sees the signs of innocence that others can't see, the one that's led me here. I just know, I say. I met Evan Hamilton at a Wayne Industries function several years before your birth, he says. It was the premiere of a film, Trading Places. I'm sure you've heard of it. In vitro fertilization had just become possible then, and Evan was hired to provide the service at the hospital whose records you so cleverly found. It was a difficult time in my life, a period of great internal moral conflict. He asked me if I wanted to donate, as a joke, but then we began to discuss how much we hated the idea that it was all in the blood, how ridiculous it was, how little concrete evidence there was against it. No, I say. You were one of the children in our experiment, he says. We provided fertilizations free to 100 of the first 1000 to sign up for it, and we were able to select 5 families at random from four strata based on economic and social class. I provided funds and genetic material, and Evan looked after everything else. I was told nothing else of the experiment, and would learn nothing until the day that the last of the children turned 18. Then who was my father? I say. Evan selected him, he says. I asked Evan to choose a man of no qualities, neither intelligent nor stupid, neither rich nor poor, neither criminal nor saint. The man he chose is your father and the father of nine others. Dylan's father, I say. No, he says. He is no relation to you. He is my biological son. You know who they are now, I say. You found out after the Joker killed him. That is true, he says. You know Dylan has no money, I say. You know Janey Warbeck ran away from home, and no-one knows where she is. Do you know where she is? She was working the streets near the bus station in Omaha, he says. Now she's in rehab and care. She is your half-sister. And you let this happen, I say. It was part of the experiment, he says. I had to interfere as little as possible. I couldn't watch them all the time. You fucking son of a bitch, I say. Do you know now? Is it in the blood? I don't know anything, he says. I needed to stay objective. I didn't even know who the other donor was. It wasn't in the notes. I trusted Evan, and he betrayed me. He still hasn't looked at me. Instead, he keeps twisting his impromptu bandage tighter and tighter. Look at me, I say. He doesn't turn. You know who the donor is, I say. Yes, he says. Don't ask me. Tell me, I say. You were the proof, he says. The perfect proof that it didn't matter. The proof that I was right all along, that my judgment was sound. Look me in the eye and tell me who my father was, I say. He doesn't look me in the eye. He only manages a slight turn of his head, just close enough that I can see a patch of glistening skin on his cheek. Tell me, I say. He turns his head away again. I'll make Stephanie tell me, I say. He shudders. I can see the whole chair shake. Then, he tells me who my father is. [continues]