The Broken Little Things
an excerpt

It was a full moon in Versailles when Serge Kolonsky emerged from his home, stepping naked out onto the balcony. It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but his hair was dark and his skin was just slightly tinted, like a tan from the previous summer had already faded out. He liked the way the wind felt on his skin, dry in it's chill; goosebumps prickled up his arms. Inside there was a beautiful woman he'd picked up at his brother's restaurant sleeping soundly in his bed, her hair a mane of golden on the pillow. Serge looked up at the moon and wondered what his uncle would think of the woman – would she be good enough to keep? Serge had thought about his syringes and tourniquets, considered drugging her wine.

Sitting on the chaise near the wall, Serge stretched his feet out and found his cell phone on the side table, next to a quarter-full bottle of white wine. He let speed dial do all the work, holding the phone to his ear while he stretched his back.

“It's late.”

Serge laughed; the sound was full-bodied. People on the streets below caught a wisp of it on the wind and thought nothing of it. “So it is. Should I call later?”

“I'm already awake. Are you checking in on us again?”

“Of course.” Serge looked inside through the sliding glass doors at the sleeping woman. She had turned onto her back, snoring unattractively, with one arm flopped over the side of the bed, wrist up. “I've got a good specimen.”

“Another? Serge, the school is full. The orphanage is brimming. You can't just keep handing us specimens and expect us to take care of a new generation while continuing research.”

“She'd be perfect for research, though,” he replied, looking at the flutter of her eyelashes while she slept. “I'd know if there was any defect in her development.”

“We're not ready for aggressive testing! Sometime in the near future we'll give you the testing you want. In the mean time, please be patient. Continue to party in Versailles with your brother if it takes your mind of it.”

Serge stood. In his minds eyes he had the beautiful woman pinned to his sheets, holding her prostrate and plunging the needle into her arms. Two vials might do nicely – there wasn't always enough in the first vial. The woman sighed in her sleep, turned again and exposing her bottom to him. He smiled and raised an eyebrow. She'd have to die if he took her blood forcibly, and it'd be a waste if he didn't get the right about of white blood cells. “My mind is never off it,” he said, pacing the balcony and running his fingers along the banister. He could make her death look like a suicide, and not for the first time. “Are the programs in place for the school year?”

“Yes.” His cousin sounded exasperated; he could hear her heels clicking on the hardwood floors of her office. She'd always had such heavy footfall. “We hired a new English teacher; a girl from America. We also added a political science class for the more advanced children. Pavel's first generation will be graduating.”

Serge stood straight, his feet planted. He remembered the girls and boys of Pavel's first generation, newborns when he was seventeen. Watching their growth had spurred the changes in the second and third. “Do we have the statistics done yet?”

“Some. 35% died before the age of ten due to aggressive cancer.”

“We've already fixed that problem in the new generations. What about psychological problems?”

“About 10% had some instances of schizophrenia, but nothing that we haven't been able to control with proper medication. Only one or two suicides.”

Serge stepped into the room, leaving the door open behind him. The breeze filled the room quickly, and he crooked the phone to his head with his shoulder, reaching down to pulling the blankets over the woman's bare torso. “And their reproductive systems?”

“Functional.”

“Good. We'll need the girls for that. Isolate them after the graduation is complete; I'll be sure to have the researchers prepare the next generation. By the end of the year I'd like to have the fourth generation implanted. Is there any progress on – ”

“Serge, I have to go.” His cousin sighed, and he heard her pacing stop. Opening his closet, he reached to the top shelf and brought down the little black box he kept his supplies in.

“Fine.” He popped the gleaming latches up and looked at the pieces inside, arranged and shrink-wrapped. “I think I'll be leaving Versailles soon.”

“Where to then? You're out of brothers to visit.”

“I know. I think I'll join you in Moscow. It's been nearly ten years since my last visit, and with our first generation all grown up... I think it's time for a more hands-on approach. Ta ta, Elena.”

“See you soon.”

When she hung up the phone Serge reached up and flicked it closed, dropping to the carpet. With a small bottle of chloroform and his supplies at hand, he turned to look at the sleeping figure in his bed. Outside, if anyone had been able to see down into the apartment, they would have seen the moonlight gleaming off his pearly white teeth when he smiled.