Sims

Contents

One: La Causa

Two: The Portero Method

Three: Meerm

Four: Zero

Five: Thy Brother’s Keeper

Acknowledgments

I owe a debt of thanks to the following:

Daniel F. Murphy Jr., Esq., for his generous assistance and advice regarding the labor relations issues and legal procedures so vital to the plot in Parts One and Two; Coates Bateman, editor-at-large; J. R. Peter Wilson, brother and defense attorney; Mitchell Galin for early encouragement; David Auerbach, genetics maven and fellow Jill Sobule fan; Barry Rosenbush for being a believer; David Hartwell, Elizabeth Monteleone, Steven Spruill, and Al Zuckerman for the usual editorial help.

Author’s Note

Sims takes place just around the corner, timewise, in your town, your country, your world. It may seem like science fiction, but it isn’t. For right now, as you read these words, someone somewhere is altering a chimpanzee’s genome to make it more human. Right now . So it won’t be too long before we all come face-to-face with the same issues challenging the characters in Sims…

1

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

SEPTEMBER 20

A good walk spoiled, Patrick Sullivan thought as he trudged toward the rough where his slicing golf ball had disappeared. Somebody had got that right.

Patrick didn’t actually hate golf, but he suffered from a condition he’d come to call GADD—Golf Attention Deficit Disorder. Nine holes and he’d had it. Maybe that was because during his first nine holes he racked up more strokes than most golfers did in eighteen. But today he was playing with Ben Armstrong, CFO of the Jarman department store chain and a valued client, who, although even less skillful than Patrick on the links, seemed immune to GADD.

Maybe it was the clothes. Armstrong, a florid-faced fellow in his sixties, sporting a neat goatee the same steel-gray shade as his hair, had decked himself out in a blue-and-raspberry-striped shirt, raspberry pants, and white golf shoes. Patrick wasn’t into sherbet shades; he wore a white shirt, navy slacks, and tan shoes.

Golf or not, he was having a good walk on a bright September day among the luxuriously verdant rolling hills of upper Westchester where the Beacon Ridge club nestled its links. The air was redolent of fresh-mown grass and money.

Christ, he wanted into this place. Not so much for the golf, but because golf was such a great way to do business.

Like today. Armstrong, a club member, had asked Patrick out for a two-some. Wanted to get caught up on the upcoming negotiations with the sales-clerk union. Patrick’s specialty was labor law, and though he worked both sides, lately he’d found himself billing more and more hours to the management end.

Beacon Ridge was packed with heavies like Armstrong. A goldmine of potential clients and billable hours. Patrick’s firm loved billable hours—little else mattered at Payes & Hecht—and if he could tap into this mother lode…

A sudden screech from ahead and to his left drew his attention. His caddie was pointing at the ground. “Here, sir, here! I find! Here!”

“Good eye, Nabb,” Patrick said as he walked over.

“Yessir,” Nabb said, his head bobbing as he grinned broadly at the praise. “Good eye, good eye.”

Typical of the Beacon Ridge caddies, Nabb was an average size sim, about five-three, maybe 130 pounds; he sported a little more facial hair than most sims. Armstrong’s caddie, Deek, was a bit different—beefier, and seemed taller, although that might be due to better posture. They looked like hominids yanked from the Stone Age and wrestled into the Beacon Ridge caddie uniform of lime green shirt and white pants, but they moved with a certain grace despite their slightly bowed legs.

Beacon Ridge had introduced sim caddies a couple of years ago, the first golf club in the country to do so. Caused quite a stir at the time, but the club members seemed to enjoy the status of being pioneers in the transgenic revolution. Other clubs soon followed suit, but Beacon Ridge remained famous for being the first. By now sims were practically part of the scenery around the links.

“Come on, movie star!” Armstrong called from the green. “You can do it!”

Movie star…on their first meeting he’d said Patrick reminded him of Axel Sommers, the latest digital heartthrob. Patrick figured Armstrong needed glasses. Sure, they both had blue eyes and slightly wavy blond hair, but Sommers looked just a little too pretty for comfort.

Patrick waved and turned to Nabb. “Let me have the five wood.”

The sim’s dark brown eyes shifted between the ball nestled in the rough against a broad-leafed weed, and the green a hundred yards away atop a slope.

“Seven better, sir.”

“That five’s especially made for rough”—Christ knows I’m in it enough—“and this is as rough as it gets.”

Nabb pulled out the seven and handed it to him. “Five too far, sir.”

“What makes you think you know my game?” Patrick said, trying to keep his annoyance out of his tone. He’d take golf advice from just about anyone, even a sim, but he knew his own limitations. “This is the first time you’ve caddied for me.”

“Nabb watch Mist Sulliman before.”

“Really?” He didn’t get to play here all that often. How could this creature know his game?

The sim thrust the iron forward. “Seven.”

Patrick snatched the club. “Okay. We’ll do it your way. But if—I should say,when —it falls short and rolls back down that hill, I’m gonna have your hide.”

Nabb said nothing, simply stepped back to give Patrick room.

Patrick took two practice swings, stepped up to the ball, and whacked it. The ball sailed high, sailed straight, and plopped out of sight somewhere atop the slope.

Armstrong started clapping. “Nice shot! Less than a dozen feet from the hole!”

Patrick turned to Nabb and had to laugh when he saw the huge grin on the sim’s apelike face. “Don’t say you told me so!”

“Nev say, sir. Just want Mist Sulliman win.”

Wants the nonmember to win? Odd. But who could figure what went on in an animal’s head.

Patrick one-putted and birdied the hole—an event rare enough to warrant a victory jig, but he resisted. Armstrong’s caddie seemed as pleased as Nabb.

As they strolled toward the next tee, Patrick noticed swelling and bruising around Deek’s right eye.

“What happened to you?”

“Bump door, sir.”

“Deek ver clums,” Nabb said. “Always bump self. Not watch where go.”

“Quit jawing with the help, Patty,” Armstrong said. He laughed. “Next thing you know you’ll be trying to unionize them.”

Nabb dropped Patrick’s golf bag.

“Sorry, sir,” he said as he knelt to gather up the clubs. “Sometime Nabb too ver clums.”

2

Patrick won the round by a single stroke, so Armstrong would have to buy the drinks. Before heading for the bar, Patrick slipped Nabb a ten-dollar bill.

Armstrong snatched it from the sim’s fingers and handed it back to Patrick. “No tipping sims. That’s a no-no.”

“I always tip my caddie.”

“If he’s human, sure. But what’s a sim gonna do with money?”

“Buy candy bars, or maybe a bottle of Cuervo. Who cares?”

“Better not. Holmes’ll have a fit.”

Patrick knew all about Holmes Carter: club president and a notorious pain-in-the-ass stickler.

Patrick winked at Armstrong. “You ever caddie?”

“Me? Naw.”

Of course not, Patrick thought. You were probably getting private golf lessons instead.

“I did. Right here, before anyone ever heard of sims.”

And I don’t care if he’s human, sim, or some kind of robot, Patrick thought, I willalways tip my caddie.

When Armstrong turned toward the locker room, Patrick rolled up the bill and palmed it to Nabb.

Inside, they had a corner of the bar to themselves, and while they were talking and drinking—Armstrong a Gibson up and Patrick a Rob Roy on the rocks—he had the odd feeling of being watched. But whenever he looked around he saw only the sims bustling about. The wait staff was human, but sims did all the bussing.

Patrick listened to Armstrong’s idea about opening negotiations with the clerks by demanding a few choice give-backs from the full-timers’ benefits package. Figured that would put them on the defensive. What an asshole. The idea sucked, truly and big time. Not because of the give-backs—nothing Patrick liked better than putting the screws to the opposition—but because the clerks’ negotiator was a bitch on wheels who’d take that kind of opening salvo personally. From there on negotiations would go straight downhill.

But he said, “The idea’s got merit, Ben. Let me think on how to approach it.”

No sense in miffing a deep-pocketed client.

Patrick ran a hand over the polished mahogany of the bar and looked around at the well-heeled members gathering in clusters on either side or filtering into the adjacent dining room. He wanted to belong here so bad it made his gut ache. Wander in whenever he damn well felt like it, set his foot on the brass rail, and hang with the high rollers, trolling, setting his hooks, reeling them in.

But he’d already been turned down three times.

While Armstrong was ordering another round, Patrick headed for the men’s room. After he washed up, the white-coated sim attendant handed him a towel.

“May sim speak, Mist Sulliman?”

Patrick glanced at him in the mirror. An older sim, touches of gray at his temples and above his large ears. Patrick had been here often enough to recognize him. His brass name tag read “Tome.”

“You know my name?”

“Read you in paper, see play golf—”

“Wait-wait-wait. Read in paper? Sims can’t read.”

“This sim read.”

That jolted Patrick. The world was still trying to get used to talking animals, but reading—sims weren’t smart enough. Or at least they weren’t supposed to be.

“How’d you learn to read?”

“Taught self, sir,” Tome said, puffing his chest. “Not good, but can do.”

Patrick stared. “This is amazing! Why haven’t you told the world?”

Tome shook his head. “Other sim name Groh learn read. Tell evyone. Mans come take way. Nev more see Groh.”

“Really?” Who could that have been but SimGen? But why recall a reading sim? Unless it was to see how they could replicate the ability.

“Please not tell.”

“Okay. Mum’s the word.” But a reading sim…he shook his head in wonder. “So what’d you want to say?”

“Mist Sulliman lawyer, yes?”

“Yes.” Patrick grinned. “This isn’t going to be a lawyer joke, is it? Don’t tell me you do stand-up too.”

“No, sir. You lawyer for union, is true?”

“Some days, yes; some days I’m for management. Where’s this going, Tome?”

“Sims been talking and…” His voice trailed off.

Impatience nibbled at Patrick. Out there on the bar the ice in his drink was melting.

“And what?”

“And…” The words rushed out: “And sims want you start sim union.”

Patrick’s jaw dropped—he was looking in the mirror when it swung down and he saw it hang open like a trapdoor. Slowly he turned.

“A sim union? Have you been nipping at the aftershave, Tome?”

“Have money,” Tome said. “Have saved. We give you make sim union.”

“Wait a minute…wait a minute…”

Patrick suddenly had a wild thought. He looked around for a video camera. When he didn’t see one, he checked the stalls—all empty. Laughing, he came back to Tome.

A reading, AFL-CIO sim. Sure.

“All right, who put you up to it? Armstrong? Rogers? Come on, who?”

“No, Mist Sulliman. We know you. Want hire.”

Could this cloned ape be serious?

Patrick sighed. “Tome, you have no idea what you’re saying. Unions are for people. Sims aren’t people. That’s the law.”

“Yessir, but Mist Sulliman lawyer. Lawyer change law. You—”

Just then the door swung open and Holmes Carter waddled in. About Patrick’s age—mid-thirties—but he looked older and had a commanding lead in the gut department. A bulbous forehead and no lips to speak of, and where Patrick’s hair lay thick and fair, Carter’s was dark and thinning; his scalp gleamed through his comb-over. Soon he’d be a chrome dome.

Or maybe not. Looking at Carter’s hair now, Patrick noticed that it was thicker; didn’t appear to be a rug or a weave either. Must have gone and got himself a splice to replace his baldness gene. You ol’ devil, you.

Too bad the genemeisters couldn’t do anything to reduce his fat. Scalps were easy: a limited number of cells to splice. Fat was a whole other deal—trillions of fat cells in a body.

But fat, thin, bald, or pompadoured, Carter would always be a first-class dork. No splice for that. But he was also third-generation Beacon Ridge and first in line to inherit the family’s string of car dealerships. In his teens Patrick had caddied for the two preceding generations of Carters and they’d been pretty decent. But Holmes…Holmes must have been fashioned from what had collected in the skimmers of their gene pool.

Although Patrick qualified for the club professionally and financially—at least on paper—he hadn’t been able to squeak past the membership committee. The blackball rule was alive and well here, and he was pretty sure Holmes Carter had used it to keep him out. Probably couldn’t tolerate the idea of a former caddy hobnobbing with the members.

“Talking to yourself again, Sullivan?” he said, baring his teeth in what passed for a smile.

“You might not believe this, Holmes, but Tome and I were just…” Patrick noticed a sudden fearful widening of the sim’s eyes “…having a little chitchat.”

Carter swung on Tome. “You know the rules! No talking to people—even if it’s a nonmember. You are to be barely seen andnever heard!”

“Yessir,” Tome said. He turned away and hung his head.

Patrick spotted the ID number and bar code tattooed on the nape of the sim’s neck.

“Lighten up, Holmesy,” he said, then eyed the man’s gut. “In more ways than one. What’s he supposed to do when I talk to him? Ignore me?”

Carter bellied up to the urinal. “If it’s you, yes. What’s the matter? Can’t get any people to listen to you?”

“I guess I like sims better than some people I know—present company included.”

Carter had that shark grin again as he returned from the urinal and began rinsing his hands. “You never learn, do you, Sullivan. Why do I keep seeing you around here? When are you going to quit cadging rounds of golf from our members and bamboozling them into sponsoring you? Didn’t you get the message when the committee turned you down? You’re not wanted around here.”

That stung. But Patrick hid the hurt and said nothing, simply stared at him.

“What’s the matter?” Carter said as he dried his hands. “Cat gotcher tongue?”

“No,” Patrick said. “Just wondering why you sprang for a hair splice and passed up one for a personality.” Figuring he didn’t have to worry about burning nonexistent bridges, he added: “Also wondering why I’m standing here listening to a used car salesman—”

“They’renot used!”

“—who has to use a homing pigeon to get his belt around his waist.”

Carter’s pie face reddened toward cherry. “You think you’re funny?”

“I’m no Bill Hicks, but I have my moments.”

“Keep it up, Sullivan. I hear you tipped a caddie today. Just keep it up and I’ll have you banned from the grounds, so no matter how many friends you have here, you’ll never step on our course again.”

He threw his towelette at Tome and stormed out.

Patrick waited for the door to close, then turned to Tome.

“When do you get off?”

“Club close ten,” Tome said.

“I’ll meet you then. You may have found yourself a lawyer.”

3

Patrick buzzed around in his new Beemer 1020i, more car than he cared for, but if you wanted to snag the big clients, you had to look like you didn’t need them. As he drove he pondered how to tackle this sim union thing, and wondered why he was attracted to it. He smiled, realizing the two things he most enjoyed in his professional life were making money and pissing off people he didn’t like—in that order. And when he could combine the two, that was heaven. Better than sex. Well, almost.

A bid to unionize the Beacon Ridge sims would be a definite two-fer.

As he wound through the back streets of Katonah he tried to organize what he knew about sims. They weren’t news anymore but they hadn’t been around long enough to be taken for granted. He was old enough to remember the uproar when Mercer Sinclair introduced the first sim at an international genetics conference in Toronto.

He shook his head. He remembered how at the time it had been all anybody talked about. Religious groups, animal rights groups, and branches of the government from the FTC to the FDA had raised holy hell. You couldn’t turn on a TV or radio without hearing about sims or the Sinclairs.

Everybody knew the Sinclair brothers’ story. Sims hadn’t been their first brush with genetic notoriety. Ellis and Mercer started gene-swapping while grad students at Yale, published some groundbreaking papers, then quit and went into business for themselves. Their first “product” had been an instant success: a dander-free feline pet for people allergic to cats. They used the enormous profits from that to start work on altering apes.

What they came up with was a creature more than chimpanzee and less than human. As Mercer Sinclair, the brother who seemed to do all the talking, had tirelessly explained on every show from Leno to Letterman to Ackenbury, and anyone else who had an audience, they’d settled on the chimpanzee because its genome was so close to a human’s—a ninety-eight-point-four percent match-up in their DNA. As Sinclair liked to point out, there was far greater genetic difference between a chimp and a gorilla, or between the different species of squirrels running around the average backyard.

One-point-six percent, Patrick thought, shaking his head…the difference between me and a monkey. If ninety percent of DNA was useless junk, how many genes was that? Couldn’t be many.

With so much shared DNA, it hadn’t taken a whole lot of germ-line engineering to produce a larger skull—allowing for a larger brain, greater intelligence, and the intellectual capacity for speech—and a larger, sturdier, more humanlike skeleton. That took care of functional requirements. Smaller ears, less hirsute skin, a smaller lower jaw, and other refinements made for a creature that looked far more human than a chimp, one that might be mistaken for aHomo erectus , but never for aHomo sap .

The result was the sim: a good worker, agile, docile, with no interest in sex or money. Not an Einstein among them, but bright enough to speak a stilted form of whatever language they grew up with.

To manufacture and market the product—Mercer Sinclair insisted from the get-go on referring to sims as a product—the brothers had formed SimGen. And SimGen got the government to agree that the creatures were just that: a product.

How they accomplished that feat remained a mystery to Patrick and lots of other folks. President Bush the Second had come out against the whole idea, calling it “Godless science,” and the Democratic congress, with its hands deep in the pockets of the very anti-sim Big Labor, was ready to put the kibosh on the whole thing. SimGen stock was in the toilet.

But somehow anti-sim legislation kept getting deadlocked in various committees; for some unfathomable reason, union bluster tapered off.

Instead of waiting for the ax to fall, SimGen started cranking out sims for the unskilled labor markets. Common consensus was that the Sinclair brothers had lost their minds and very soon would lose their shirts. Who’d want transgenic laborers during a global recession with millions of humans out of work.

The Bush administration, wrapped up in the seemingly endless war on terrorism, failed to pass any regulatory bills. And then came the boom of the mid-oughts, making the nineties look like a pop gun and tightening all the labor markets. Suddenly sims weren’t such a godless idea after all. In fact, they made good economic sense. They even allowed the US to compete with Asia in the textile markets. The result: A lot of senators and congressmen who previously might have been expected to vote against, came out in support of pro-SimGen legislation.

Patrick remembered how animal rights activists had cried foul and said the fix was in, but nothing was ever proven, and in those days SimGen hadn’t anywhere near the money to buy off so many legislators.

Now was a different story, of course. SimGen had been raking in the megabucks for years. As the darling of mutual funds and small investors alike, its market cap value was soaring.

All of which made Patrick feel like a microminiature David. Because the real heavyweight opposition to organizing the sims would come from the SimGen Goliath. The last thing they’d want was someone unionizing their property.

What he needed were allies. But who? The religious fundamentalists would be no help; Orthodox Jews, Moslems, and Christian Born Agains had found common ground in their opposition to sims, but they wanted sims abolished, not unionized. The animal rights groups like PETA and Greenpeace were a possibility, but they seemed to be in disarray; they’d tried guerrilla tactics like raiding piecework shops and “liberating” the sim workers; but the sims, unused to freedom, and lost and confused in the big wide world, wound up returning to the shops on their own.

Patrick could see that he was going to be all alone out there.

On the other hand, maybe SimGen wouldn’t bother to lift a finger. Maybe they’d know what Patrick knew: that he didn’t have a kitten’s chance in a room full of pit bulls. But what he could do was raise a ruckus and embarrass the hell out of Beacon Ridge, then settle out of court for a nice piece of change. That was what he’d aim for.

But after that…what? What would the Beacon Ridge sims do with their money? Maybe Patrick could convince them to start a practice of tipping thegolfers . He smiled. Wouldn’t that be a kick.

He checked his watch: 10:14. Time to meet with his new clients.

He parked on a side street near the creek that ran through the grounds. Yellow legal pad in hand, he stepped out, found an opening in the high privet hedge, and for some reason thought of his father.

Mike Sullivan was a retired steamfitter who had been a diehard union man all his life. He’d raised his family within earshot of the Rensselaer rail-yards outside Albany until Patrick was twelve, then moved them to Dobbs Ferry. Patrick remembered how proud he’d been when his son became the first member of the family to graduate college. But he hadn’t been so crazy about Patrick’s idea of a career in law. He couldn’t afford to send him, so Patrick had paid his own way through Pace Law. If he’d gone on to become a champion of the labor movement, Dad might have bragged about his son the lawyer; but Patrick had shied away from the crusader role, opting to join the lumpen proletariat of the profession in a medium-size firm, and scratch his way up through the ranks.

Dad had been able to live with that. But would he be able to live with the idea of his son as a labor organizer—of sims?

Do I really want to do this?

Patrick knew he should give himself a little more time—maybe a lot more time—to weigh the pros and cons. He had an impulsive nature which he managed to control at the bargaining table, but it had put him in hot spots more than once. Did he want to start this fire?

Damn right he did. Hell hath no fury like an attorney scorned. Beacon Ridge didn’t want him? Fine. They were going to regret that. Not only was there a buck or two to be made, but instead of seeing less of the man he’d blackballed, Holmes Carter was pretty soon going to feel like he was married to Patrick Sullivan.

Here comes the bride, Patrick thought as he stepped through the hedge onto Beacon Ridge property.

4

Beacon Ridge quartered its sims in a long barracklike building in the low corner of the club grounds, a section that flooded during a heavy rain. The lights were on, the windows open, and music filtered out into the cool night air. Patrick stopped and listened. Was that…?

“Ma-gic…mo-ments…”

Perry Como?

He saw a sim silhouetted in the lighted doorway. It pointed to him and ducked back inside, crying, “Is him! Comes now! Just like said, he come!” A babble of voices arose from within.

What am I? Patrick thought. The messiah?

Tome met him at the door and motioned him inside. “So happy come you, Mist Sulliman. Welcome to sim home, sir.”

Patrick stopped and looked around. The two dozen Beacon Ridge male and female sims who carried the golf bags on the links, set and cleared the tables in the dining room, washed the dishes and peeled the potatoes in the kitchen, and cut the grass and weeded the flower beds, stood gathered before him in the front room of their quarters. Overhead fluorescents shone on scattered stuffed chairs, long mess-hall style eating tables, and industrial carpeting. Two TVs, one in each far corner, were on but no one was watching; soft music crooned from the radio.

Patrick had once visited a client in a mental hospital; this reminded him of that institution’s day room.

“What’s behind the wall?” he said.

“We sleep.”

With most of his fellow sims trooping behind like lemmings, Tome led Patrick to the dormitory section where triple-decker bunks lined the walls. A toilet and shower area lay beyond the next wall. Patrick wondered about the coed living conditions, then remembered reading that in addition to being sterile, sims’ libidos were genetically suppressed.

Back in the front room, Tome led Patrick to a graying female sim seated in one of the easy chairs.

“This Gabba, sir,” he said. “She oldest. Like mother here.”

“Yessir.” The aging female started a slow, painful rise from her chair. “So pleased meet—”

Patrick waved her back—probably take the arthritic old thing ten minutes to stand and another ten to sit down again. “Don’t get up. I’m gonna sit anyway.”

He looked around, found an empty chair, and lowered himself into it. The rest of the sims gathered around in a circle. He spotted Nabb but didn’t see Deek. He’d never been this close to so many sims at one time and was struck by how similar they looked. You didn’t notice when you saw them singly or in pairs, but crowded together like this…

He’d read where SimGen made minor variations in the genomes as they cloned them so sims wouldn’t look like they’d all been cast in the same mold. Maybe this crowd didn’t exactly have a cookie-cutter appearance, but no question they’d all been baked from the same batter.

Now, here, with their pidgin English and weird looks and odd way of moving, he felt as if he’d dropped in on a colony of simple folk of a different race and culture.

But these folk wereowned . He could not allow himself to forget that. Anything he’d read about SimGen credited two moves for its success: First was the company’s patents on nearly all the viable recombinant chimp genomes, guaranteeing the field to itself; second was the Sinclair brothers’ decision not to sell their product, but to lease it instead.

A sim lease was too pricey to allow it to be a common household servant, but the creatures were a huge bargain as unskilled labor—no social security taxes, no pension plans, no compensation or unemployment insurance. And when one got hurt or too infirm to do the job, SimGen replaced it.

As a result, more and more businesses all over the industrialized world were lining up for sims.

And since the creatures were all genetically sterile, preventing black-market types from growing their own, SimGen had an absolute lock on the market. Special legislation had classified sims as neither humans nor animals; since they did not occur naturally, and since SimGen owned the patent on their genome and, in a very real sense, manufactured them, they were deemed a product, a commodity—property—and SimGen owned every damn one of them.

He leaned toward Gabba. “Okay, the first thing I have to ask is where the hell you came up with the idea of a union?”

“See TV,” Tome said.

Patrick had expected Gabba, the apparent matriarch of the group, to respond, but obviously Tome was the spokessim.

“Read also paper,” Tome added.

“Yeah, that’s right. You can read.” He still couldn’t quite believe it. “How about the rest of you?”

“Only Tome read,” the sim said.

“Okay, so you came up with this idea of starting a union. That means you want something you don’t have. To tell you the truth,” he said, looking around, “compared to other sims who work in sweatshops or on production lines or digging ditches, you’ve got it pretty cushy here.”

Never failed. With humans, and now apparently even with sims: The more you have, the more you want. But maybe he should be careful here. Didn’t want to change their minds.

He quickly added, “But that doesn’t mean, of course, that your living conditions can’t be improved. So what are our demands gonna be? More food? Better quarters?”

“Sim want family, sir,” Tome said.

Patrick felt as if he’d been slapped. Talk about coming out of left field…

Family? Uh-uh. No way that’s gonna happen.

“You don’t mean like becoming wives and husbands and having children, and all that, do you? Because if—”

“No, sir,” Tome said, waving his arms around at his fellow sims. “This family.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Sims grow up large group, no mommy, no daddy, just child sims. Get know others, make friend, then take away. Come here, make friend, then take away. No want take away. Want stay together. Want family.”

“I see,” Patrick said slowly. “Family…interesting concept.”

He looked around at the intent faces of the creatures encircling him. The faces were definitely simian, but far less so than any monkey in the wild. They’d been retooled from chimpanzees, a creature genetically damn near human. But pure chimps had mothers and fathers and a family structure. Sims were even closer to humans yet they were raised like cattle and leased out as soon as they were fit for work. And then they were traded in or swapped around like used cars.

Nowhere along the line did they have any semblance of a family.

Patrick felt a twinge of discomfort, almost like sympathy. He brushed it away. Never get emotionally involved. Stick to the facts.

But hey, if I feel something…

This was good. Oh, this was very good. He could use this. He could embellish this a little and tug like mad on all sorts of heartstrings.

He began scratching notes on his pad: Poor lost sims, raised without parents or siblings, cast out into the cold cruel world to work long hours for no pay. They weren’t asking for wages, not for anything material, they just wanted a little personal continuity in their lives…the right to keep certain close-knit groups of sims from being broken up…allowed to live together and work together…as a makeshift family of sorts…

Ilove it!

Maybe he could even start up a nationwide Sim Legal Aid Fund.

This was looking better and better.

“Okay. That kind of family just might fly. So that’s what we’ll shoot for. Let’s do it.”

Tome’s eyes lit. “Is yes? Mist Sulliman do?”

“That’s what I said.”

Tome pumped his long arms in the air and the rest of the sims began screeching and jumping about, capering in circles, leaping in the air. Only Gabba remained seated, but she was clapping and grinning.

Patrick had to smile. What a rambunctious crew. Something innocent and almost childlike about them, like early humans might have been before hundreds of generations of social conditioning turned them into the uptight species they were today.

Tome raised his fist and screeched, “La Causa!”

The rest of the sims took up the cry, turning it into a chant.

Patrick raised his hands to calm them.

“Where did you pick up ‘La Causa’?” he said when he could hear himself.

“From Jorge,” Tome said.

“Who’s Jorge?”

“He cook kitchen. Ask him union. He give smile and do fist and say, ‘La Causa.’”

Again exuberant jumping and running and chanting.

When finally they calmed down, Patrick said, “The best way to approach this may be to demand a union and then settle for all of you staying together as a group.”

“Settle?” Tome said, frowning. “That mean no union?”

Don’t start going Cesar Chavez on me, Tome.

“A union could be a long shot, I’m afraid,” Patrick said. Like to the moon and beyond. “I’m telling you this up front so you won’t be disappointed if we lose on that one.” Never raise a client’s expectations. Always low-ball the outcome. “But I think we could possibly walk away from this deal with a family and some cash.”

“Cash?”

“Money. It’s called a settlement. I figure we ought to be able to get the club to concede on the family issue plus squeeze them for a nice piece of change in return for our shutting up and leaving them alone. And then we’ll split the money fifty-fifty.”

“Mist Sulliman get half?” Tome said.

Aw, we’re not going to haggle are we?

“Sure. When you consider how much time I’ll be devoting to this, and strictly on a contingency basis, you—”

“No,” Tome said.

“No?”

“No half for Mist Sulliman. Take all.”

Patrick blinked, too shocked to speak. Never in his life had he expected to hear those words pass a client’s lips.

“All? But what about you guys?”

“Money not want.”

“Of course you do. You could use it to fix up this place, buy one of those big picture-frame TVs, better furniture…”

…start tipping the golfers…

Tome was shaking his head. “All money for you.”

“And all you want is this family thing?”

Tome nodded. “Family…any one thing other.”

Patrick poised his pen over the pad. “Shoot.”

Tome’s big brown eyes bored into him. “Respect, Mist Sulliman. Just little respect.”

Patrick felt his mouth go dry. Talk about a tall order. But he recovered and wrote it down.

“Okay. Respect. Maybe we can get into the specifics of that at a later date. Right now, the first thing we do is formally petition the club to allow you to form a union. They’ll refuse, of course. When that happens, we go before the NLRB.”

“Enell…?”

“National Labor Relations Board.”

That was when the shit would really hit the fan. Patrick rubbed his hands together in a dizzying mix of anticipation, dread, and glee.

5

MANHATTAN

SEPTEMBER 28

Romy Cadman sat at her desk in the New York branch of the Office for the Protection of Research Risks, skimming through the animal welfare report on the rat-testing protocols in Rast Corporation’s psychopharmaceutical lab. The lab was testing the amphetamine potentiation effect of a number of compounds with antidepressant properties. Everything seemed to be in order.

Her phone double-rang. The British-style ring-ring meant the call was incoming on her direct line; an outside call, bypassing the switchboard. She picked up immediately.

“D-A-W,” she said. If callers didn’t know that meant Division of Animal Welfare, they could ask.

“Good morning, Ms. Cadman.”

Romy immediately recognized Zero’s deep voice on the other end. No surprise. She’d figured he’d be calling soon.

“Good morning yourself.”

“You’ve heard, I assume.”

“About the sim union thing?” What else would he be calling about. “Seems it’s all people here are talking about.”

“We should talk about it as well. Soon. When is good for you?”

“I was about to break for lunch anyway. I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“Fine.”

Where was not discussed. Romy knew.

She closed the report on her computer screen and straightened her desk, repositioning a brass paperweight inscribed withR. Cadman in large black letters; a gift from her mother years ago. Mom had wanted the engraver to use her full name but Romy had protested. She’d always hated “Romilda” and didn’t want to see it every time she stepped into her office.

She ran a brush through her close-cropped dark brown hair, slipped into the jacket of her gray pants suit—cut to show off her long slim legs and tight, firm butt—and grabbed her shoulder bag. On her way through the cubicle farm of clerks and secretaries she stopped at her boss’s office and stuck her head inside.

“I’m heading out.”

Milton Ware, a spry little man with bright blue eyes and a shock of white hair, looked up from his desk, then glanced at his watch.

“A little early for lunch.”

“I’ve got some errands to do.”

“When will you be back? I want to go over that Rast report with you.”

“Later.”

“When is ‘later’?”

“After sooner. Bye.”

She offered her sweetest smile and left him with the perplexed, frustrated expression that was becoming his trademark when dealing with her. Milt was one of the world’s most uptight men, always worried about his performance rating. He needed to lighten up.

Really, what did either of them have to worry about? OPRR was a division of NIH. All federal money. Didn’t Milt know how hard it was to lose a federal job, especially one that no sane person would want?

Romy had been ready to quit not too long ago. Sims had always offended her. Not the creatures themselves, but the very concept of a recombinant species of primates created to be slaves. She’d waited year after year for legislation to address the situation—if not outlaw them, then place sims under the aegis of OPRR’s Division of Animal Welfare. The original classification of sims as somewhere between animal and human had blocked her division from having any say in how they were treated. Bills to change that had been introduced in committees in both houses of Congress over the years but not a single damn one had ever reached the floor for a vote.

She’d been typing up a scathing letter of resignation when she received a call, just like today, and first heard that deep voice on the other end of the line. It suggested that she might feel better about her job if she accepted an opportunity to moonlight in a related field. Intrigued, she’d agreed to a meeting. Turned out to be the best move she’d ever made.

Down at street level, Romy crossed Federal Plaza at a relaxed pace, enjoying the admiring stares from the other government drones. She worked hard on her body, and not simply for looks. She needed top fitness for her ballet classes. Not that she’d ever perform in public. The dancing itself was what pleased her. The resultant grace, coordination, and body tone were happy bonuses.

She glanced briefly at the graceful spire of the new World Trade Center, finally completed after so many years of squabbling over its design, and turned uptown, stretching her long legs as she strolled Broadway for a couple of blocks, then turned left onto Worth Street. She stopped before the soaped-up windows of an empty storefront; ideograms identifying the previous owner, a Taiwanese toy distributor, still graced the windows. Romy pulled out a key, unlocked the door, and entered.

The dust on the floor was tracked with footprints—her own and an indeterminate number of others.

Which ones are Zero’s? she wondered. Or does he have a private entrance?

She strode to the rear and unlocked the door to the basement. This was the part she didn’t like. Had to be rats down there. She’d never seen one, but that meant nothing. She’d seen plenty of their clean, docile, many-times-removed albino cousins, the lab rat. Those she didn’t mind, felt sorry for most of them, actually. But she was not at all anxious to meet a Norwegian brown in its natural habitat. She’d handle the situation if it arose, but she’d rather not have to.

The basement was a dusty, dim-lit space with water dripping in one of the dark corners. A long folding table stretched across the far end. Zero sat behind it. Romy had never arrived before him, so she assumed he called her from here. Back-lit by a low-watt incandescent bulb that reduced him to a silhouette, he was dressed as usual in a bulky turtleneck sweater, a knit watch cap pulled low to his eyebrows, dark glasses, and a scarf wrapped around his lower face all the way up to and over his nose. She’d gauged his height at around six-two, and despite those broad shoulders he appeared to be thin.

She’d almost bolted on her first visit. She’d been anxious—no, make that dry-mouthed, heart-pounding, what-the-hell-have-I-got-myself-intoterrified—but his calm, soothing voice had eased her jangled nerves. And just when she’d begun to relax, he’d jarred her with how much he knew about her: her BS in Biology from Georgetown, her doctorate in Anthropology from UCLA, the intense lobbying she had done for protective legislation for the sims, the furious letters to the editor she’d written, even the fact that she was on the verge of quitting OPRR.

But then he’d really floored her by revealing what he knew about her wild youth—the arrests for DWI, the shoplifting and assault-and-battery convictions, the month she’d spent institutionalized. He also knew how the doctors had cured her…or thought they had.

How had he found out? Juvenile court records were supposed to be sealed, and medical records were supposed to be privileged.

But Zero didn’t care about her past. He was looking to the future and he offered her a way to work for her cause,their cause, behind the scenes. He said he had the money, now he needed the people.

For Romy it had been a dream come true, but she’d hesitated. Zero knew all about her, but what did she know about him? And why all this melodrama with the cellar and the hidden face and the corny code name?

Necessary, he’d told her. Absolutely necessary.

Okay, she could handle that—for a while. But one thing she couldn’t handle was terrorism. She told him she wasn’t going to help blow up office buildings or shoot up SimGen trucks or any of that stuff.

Not that she had qualms about destroying SimGen real estate. She was simply afraid that a certain hidden part of her would enjoy it so much she wouldn’t be able to stop.

Zero told her then that the whole idea behind his organization was to wage war against SimGen and its allies in the government without their ever realizing a war was on. That was why their organization would have no name, no logo, would write no letters, make no bragging phone calls. Its style would be covert; its field of battle would be the interstices—infiltrating, instigating, creating a fifth column in society, within the company itself. Whatever it did to sabotage SimGen’s plans and operations would appear to be random or, ideally, accidental.

The ultimate goal? Shut down the sim pipeline by making sims unprofitable for both the lessor and the lessee. Wake up the world and turn it against anything fashioned by slave labor, even if the slaves weren’t human.

Sign me up, she’d said.

Excellent.

Then Zero had asked her why.

Good question. Romy couldn’t say exactly. She wasn’t trying to make up for some past failings, had no hokey memories of an animal she’d mistreated as a child or a beloved pet who’d died because of her neglect or carelessness.

It was wrong, she’d said. As wrong as wrong could be. A stain on humanity that needed to be scrubbed away. How could she describe how every fiber of her being howled at the shame, the disgrace of it?

Fair enough, Zero had said.

He wanted her to stay in OPRR. Her position in the Division of Animal welfare would explain her repeated presence in areas sensitive to the cause. She might not have a legal right to be there, but as a representative of a government organization—an overzealous representative, perhaps, but a representative nonetheless—she’d have a plausible excuse.

That had been two years ago. Gradually, as she’d proved herself, she’d been allowed to learn more and more about the organization. First off, it was bigger than she’d imagined, and well financed. She knew only a few of its income sources—one of them had surprised the hell out of her—but the source of the bulk of Zero’s money remained a mystery.

So did Zero. Romy had done her damnedest to pierce his veil of secrecy. She knew from his voice—he didn’t use a distorter to disguise it—and from glimpses of pale skin at his throat and between his gloves and cuffs that he was a white male. But his age was indeterminate; twenty, thirty, forty—it was a guess.

One thing she knew for certain: He was intimately connected to SimGen.

He possessed information about the company only an insider could know.

As Romy slipped into the folding chair opposite Zero, she noticed a slim briefcase on the table between them.

“Two questions,” she said. “First: Don’t you think it’s about time I saw your face?”

She was used to the mask by now, but that didn’t lessen her frustration. Her early awe had given way to admiration, and each encounter increased her need to see the face of this remarkable man.

“Not until SimGen stops producing sims.”

“Somebody in the organization must know who you are. Why not me?”

He shook his muffled head. “No one knows. It wouldn’t be good for the organization.”

“Why not?”

“It might prove…disruptive.”

“Disruptive? How—?”

“Next question,” he said. “Which will be the fourth, by the way.”

Romy sighed. She’d have to wait. “All right. Did we instigate this sim union thing?”

“No.”

“Think it’s legit?”

“I fear not.”

“Well, doesn’t matter anyway. Legit or not, there’s not a chance in the world a sim union will happen.”

“I agree. But I don’t want a circus, and I don’t want a shyster collecting donations from sympathetic people and then disappearing with the cash. It will set a terrible precedent and very likely undermine support for a legitimate case when it arises.”

“Do weknow he’s a shyster?”

“No, but I’ve researched him and find nothing that leads me to believe he has the sims’ best interests at heart.”

“Who is he?” Romy asked, liking this less and less. “And where on earth did they find him? Attorney World?”

Zero lifted the briefcase lid and removed an eight-by-ten glossy color photo. He handed it to Romy. “Patrick Sullivan.”

She saw the head and shoulders of a decent-looking guy—not a hottie, but not bad—in his mid-thirties with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. But he was an attorney, a member of that vast slick crew using the letter of the law to circumvent its spirit.

“When was this taken?”

“Two days ago.” She gave him a questioning look and he added, “Part of the backgrounding.”

She repressed a chill, knowing Zero most likely had had people on her trail, photographing her before he’d made contact.

“He’s a ruthless negotiator, willing and able to go for the jugular, with no sign of regret afterward.”

“That’s good, isn’t it? I mean, as long as he brings that to the sim case.”

“So one would think. But what disturbs me is his apparent lack of any guiding principles. He’ll represent a union this week, management next, and be an equally passionate advocate for both. His voter registration says he’s an independent. A string of women have passed through his life with no lasting relationships. No pets. He subscribes to law journals, news magazines, andPenthouse . He has never given a dime to charity.”

“So Patrick Sullivan is a guy with no passions and no commitments. Doesn’t sound like a man who takes up a cause.”

“Not unless it pays well.”

“Probably has the ethics ofE. coli .” Romy could see why Zero was concerned. “What do we do?”

“We don’t interfere—at least not yet. Just as great literature can be created by an author writing simply to pay his rent, great good can sometimes be accomplished by people with less than exalted motivations. This Patrick Sullivan may simply be trying to turn a buck or looking to garner some cheap publicity. If that’s his goal, we’ll follow the progress of the case and see if we can turn things to our advantage along the way.”

“And if he’s an out-and-out crook?”

“We’ll be keeping a close watch on him. At the first sign of any funny business, we move.”

“Move how?”

“I’m not sure…”

The remark disturbed her. This was the first time she’d ever detected uncertainty in Zero.

“Something else I wanted to tell you,” he said. “You’ll be receiving notice soon that OPRR has succeeded in obtaining a court order allowing it to inspect the SimGen facility.”

Stunned, Romy could only sit and stare.

“Something wrong?”

“How…how did you managethat ? We’ve been trying foryears to get a look in there.”

“Vee haf vays,” he said in a bad German accent, and she could imagine a smile behind the protective layers.

“No, seriously. How—?”

“By employing the same tactics that SimGen has used to stall the inspection: bribery, cajoling, intimidation, the whole nine yards.”

Romy frowned. “Is that the way we want to be?”

“It’s the way we have to be. And even then it was pure luck that the petition came before a judge who was retiring and didn’t give a damn about whatever pressure SimGen and its pet politicos were bringing to bear. He said to hell with it and signed the order.”

“This is wonderful.” Her admiration for Zero climbed to a new high.

“It’s a start. The order allows a one-time inspection of the entire research facility.”

“No follow-up visits?”

Zero shook his head. “Sorry. But at least it’s a foot in the door. We’ve pierced their armor—now we get a chance to look into the SimGen abyss.” He slid the briefcase on the table closer to her. “Take this with you. It contains various miniature spycams. Use them on your inspection tour, especially in the basic research facility. Be sure to ask for a full explanation of their security procedures—because you’re interested in how well the sims are protected, of course.”

“Of course. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get a face-to-face with the Sinclair brothers.”

“Don’t count on it. But even if you do, prepare to be unimpressed.”

Another shock. “You’ve met them?”

“Yes. A number of times.”

“Then theyknow you?”

“Yes…and no.”

“I don’t get it. What—?”

He raised his gloved hand, palm out: a stop sign. “We can’t get into that now.”

“When?”

“Maybe never.” Zero rose and extended his hand across the table. “Good luck.”

Romy shook his hand, peering closely at him, thinking: He knows the Sinclair brothers. Who is he? I’vegot to find out.

6

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

OCTOBER 3

“And I tell you, my brothers and sisters, that SinGen is doing the work of the devil his own self. Yes! The devil’s work! As surely as I am standing here, Satan himself sits in those corporate offices, guiding the hand of the SinGen researchers, inspiring them to fashion beings that the Creator never intended to exist, creatures that are an abomination in the sight of God. It must be stopped or we all—and Idomeanall,not just the SinGen sinners, but all of us who abide that company’s evildoing—will be called to account on the day of Final Judgment!”

Mercer Sinclair, a tall, lean, youthful-looking fifty-two with dark eyes and dark hair that had yet to show a trace of gray, sighed in disgust as he turned away from the plasma TV screen hanging like an Old Master on his office wall. He jabbed theOFF button on his desktop and banished the Reverend Eckert’s florid face.

Stepping to the tinted window that took up most of the western wall of his top-floor office, he gazed out at the green rolling hills, mist-layered and glistening with morning dew. All SimGen’s, as far as the eye could see.

Using proxies and dummy corporations, buying up little parcels here and there, Mercer had accumulated this massive chunk of northwest New Jersey for damn near a song. He could have bought more land for less in the Sunbelt, but that would have placed him too far from the action. Yes, he was in the boonies here, but these boonies were only a twenty-minute helicopter ride from Wall Street, while the isolation afforded a form of natural protection from prying eyes.

Closer in, nestled in this tight little valley, stood the gleaming glass and steel offices, the labs and natal and nurturing centers that fed the world’s ever-growing need for sims. Here they were bred and housed until ready to be shipped to training centers all over the globe. Here beat the heart of SimGen’s—Mercer’s—far-flung empire.

He opaqued the window and turned to the three other men in his office.

“‘SinGen’? I wonder who thought that up for him.”

His brother Ellis, two years older, taller, grayer, and almost gaunt, slouched on one of the black leather sofas to the left, far from the desk. Mercer expected no reply from Ellis, and received none.

Luca Portero, SimGen’s chief of security, remained silent as well. Compact, muscular, in great shape for a man in his early forties, he stood with feet apart, arms behind his back; despite the blue blazer and tan slacks, he looked every inch a soldier.

Mercer hadn’t picked Portero. He’d beenassigned to SimGen as security chief. But he’d looked into the man’s background. A self-made sort, starting off as a street urchin with an Italian first name in a mostly Mexican border town in Arizona, father unknown, mother of very dubious reputation—oh, hell, why not say it? The town whore. As soon as he was old enough he joined the Army and apparently found his métier.

And like a good soldier, he rarely spoke unless spoken to. That was the only thing Mercer liked about the man. Portero had always struck him as more snake than human. He didn’t walk, he glided. On the rare occasions when he spoke, it was barely above a whisper. And those cold dark eyes…always watching…like a snake. Mercer often wondered if Portero had indulged in a trans-species splice or two before joining SimGen…something reptilian. The heart, perhaps?

“Don’t underestimate Eckert,” the third attendee said in a thick Alabama drawl.

Mercer glanced at Abel Voss, SimGen’s general counsel. In his mid-fifties, with longish silver hair and twenty extra pounds packed around his waist, he filled the seat on the other side of the desk. Which didn’t mean he was close—a string quartet could have set up and played on the vast gleaming ebony surface of Mercer’s desktop. Only two colors here: furniture either black leather or ebony, carpet and curtains all a uniform light gray.

“You know him?”

“No, but a few years ago nobody’d even heard of that boy, and now he’s a household name.”

Voss liked to come on as a slow-witted, somewhat bemused good ol’ boy. He used it to lull opponents until he sprang and crushed them with one of the sharpest corporate law minds in the world. Mercer liked that. The crushing part.

Mercer grunted. “And he galloped there onmy back.”

“Yourback?” Ellis said. “How about my back as well? I wind up being painted with the same brush as you, something I donot care for.”

Well, well, well, Mercer thought. Look who’s speaking up.

He couldn’t understand why his brother bothered with these meetings. He’d arrive, slump in a chair without saying a word to anyone, stare into space without participating, then leave.

Ellis had been in an emotional tailspin for years. Mercer had heard that only a complex antidepressant cocktail enabled him to get out of bed these days. Somehow he dragged himself to meetings, and managed to maintain a decent work schedule in his lab, but his productivity was zilch.

Today he’d actually offered a comment. Hallelujah. Maybe Ellis had finally found a combination of drugs that worked.

Mercer turned toward his brother. “That’s what happens when you’re the co-founder.”

“ButI’m the co-founder who has kids. What’s said about me reflects on them. They go to school and have to hear that their father’s in league with the devil!”

Ellis’s kids…Robbie and Julie. Good kids. But Ellis didn’t get to see them much since the divorce. Truth was, they seemed to prefer their Uncle Mercer to their downer dad. Mercer liked playing uncle, but he lived alone; always had, always would. Robbie and Julie were the closest he ever intended to come to parenthood.

But the divorce hadn’t caused Ellis’s depression—no, it had been the other way around. Who could live with someone in Ellis’s state of mind?

“Don’t blame me, bro. Blame Eckert.”

“I know who to blame,” Ellis said with a glare.

“Gentlemen,” Voss said, “this can be saved for another time.”

Mercer turned toward the lawyer. “I didn’t call you here about the Eckert matter, but we might as well address it. It seems every time I turn on the damn TV I see his face.”

“That’s because the boy’s syndicated. He does one show a day and it’s farmed out to local stations all over the country. The local station managers plug it into a slot where they think they’ll draw the most eyeballs.”

“I can’t believe people watch him day after day. He’s got one goddamn issue and he beats it to death.”

Voss shrugged. “Them Bible humpers’ve had it in for you two since sim one. Eckert is just more aggressive in grabbing the reins of that wagon.”

“And he’s been riding it for all it’s worth ever since.” Mercer rapped his knuckles on his desktop. “Can’t we get anything on him?”

“Tried that. Took a look-see into his business affairs and personal life. Lives high but not too, too high. No bimbos, or if there are, he hides ’em well. On the surface he appears clean. No obvious belly-crawlin like Swaggart or Baker. Sockin away all those contributions until he’s got enough to set up his own satellite network to—as he likes to put it—‘spread the word to the world about the sin of sims.’”

“So let’s probe a little deeper,” Mercer growled.

“Gotta be careful with that sort of thing. The Rev’s got a bunch of real loyal eggs around him. You try to crack one of them, you could wind up with yolk on your face. I’m talkin a tar-and-feather overcoat in the PR department. I say give it time. These preacher boys, most of them got this sort of arc, y’see—they rise fast, then they fall back. And meantime, if he’s like most other preacher boys I’ve seen, all that money he’s pullin in will somehow find its way into his own pocket instead of being used to mess with us. You just be patient, son.”

Usually Mercer didn’t mind when Voss called him “son”—just one of the man’s Alabamisms—but today it irritated him. With his mother dead since his Yale days, and his father DOA with a cardiac arrest two years ago, he was now no one’s son. His own man, answering to no one.

“Patient! Do you know he’s scheduled to be on Ackenbury tomorrow night?Ackenbury at Large ! Millions who’ve never even heard of the creep will see him do his anti-SimGen rant. What’s Ackenbury thinking? Don’t we buy enough time on his lousy show?”

“Hey, it’s all show biz, you know that. That boy gets hold of the most controversial folks he can find. That’s why he’s rackin up better numbers than Leno and Letterman. I know we got a buncha cow flop flyin at us at once now, what with Eckert, the unionization thing, and havin to open our doors for an OPRR inspection, but I wouldn’t let this rattle you.”

“I’m not rattled,” Mercer said.

But he wasn’t particularly comfortable either. He didn’t mention his growing uneasiness, a sense of malevolent convergence. If he believed in fate or astrology, he might have said he felt the stars aligning against him.

Utter nonsense, of course. You made your own destiny. You grabbed what you could and then did your damnedest to keep it. And if you lost it, that was because someone else outsmarted you. Flaming gasballs floating millions of light-years away had nothing to do with it.

But if the stars weren’t aligning against him, then who?

“Good,” Voss said. “Glad to hear it. ’Cause there’s nothin here to get rattled about. Take this damn fool unionization thing, for instance. You have to be human to be in a damn union, sores ipso loquitur , the suit can’t succeed. It’s a sham, a PR stunt for this nobody shyster who—”

“PR,” Mercer said. “That’swhat I’m worried about. PR that’s good for him and bad for us. We can’t have people thinking of sims as anything more than brighter-than-average animals. Nobody talks about unionizing race horses or seeing-eye dogs. But start connecting the word ‘union’ to sims and you open a Pandora’s box. I can just see this shyster—what’s his name?”

“Sullivan,” Voss said. “Patrick Sullivan.”

“I can see this Sullivan character portraying sims as some poor mistreated underclass, when it’s just the opposite. We’ve never sold a sim, we lease them. Why? So we can limit how they’re used and oversee how they’re treated.”

“And, coincidentally, maximize profits,” Ellis said acidly.

“Nothing wrong with profits,” Mercer replied through his teeth without looking at his brother.

“You’re preachin to the choir, son.”

“No, I’m telling you the message we need to get out: We are a humane corporation that looks out for these creatures. We created them and we feel responsible for them.”

“Humane,” Ellis said in that same tone. “Now there’s a concept.”

Mercer wheeled on his brother. “Are you going to contribute something or just sit there and snipe?”

“Thatwas a contribution, Merce,” Ellis said, leveling a soulful gaze at him. “A very relevant one.”

Mercer turned back to Voss. He couldn’t stand Ellis’s holier-than-thou stance. “We can’t take any chances with this, Abel. I’ve heard of crazy things coming out of these NLRB hearings—especially where the regional office in Manhattan is involved. The wrong kind of decision and you’ll be using your stock options for toilet paper.”

“Don’t have to worry about no labor relations shenanigans. Sullivan thinks he’s got an edge because the director of NLRB’s Region 2 is a maverick. Well, I’ve already seen to it that he never gets to the NLRB.”

Mercer abruptly felt his mood lighten. “How did you manage that?”

“Had myself a talk with Beacon Ridge’s attorney—bright kid named Hodges—and told him to seek a declaratory judgment in Federal court. He’ll argue that since Congress has designated sims as property, they cannot be humans. And if they’re not humans, then they’re not employees, and therefore not protected by the statutes of the NLRB.”

“Ilike the argument,” Mercer said. “But what if the judge doesn’t?”

Voss puffed out his chest. “He will. I’ve seen to it that the case comes up before Judge Henry Boughton.”

“Is he one of ours?”

Voss shook his head. “We don’t own this one. Don’t have to. He’s our kinda guy—least so far as this union thing goes. Conservative with a capitalC . Hates unions. Probably one of Reverend Eckert’s loyal listeners to boot. He’ll toss this case in two seconds flat.”

“Abel…” Mercer shook his head, grinning. “You are amazing.”

“That’s what you boys pay me for—to be amazin.”

“That leaves the OPRR inspection.”

“We’ve been discussing that,” Luca Portero said.

The sound of the security chief’s soft voice never failed to rattle Mercer. “Really. All by yourselves?”

Portero went on as if Mercer hadn’t spoken. “We decided that I’ll be the tour guide.”

Good idea. OPRR would get nothing out of Luca the snake.

“Excellent choice.”

Voss rose and straightened his suit coat. “Knew you’d like that. Matter of fact, Mr. Portero and me are gonna have us a little sit-down right now in my office. I’m gonna lay out the legalities we’re up against, and how we’re gonna slide around ’em.”

“What about my lab?” Ellis said. He’d come out of his crouch now, sitting up with a rigid spine. “I won’t allow them in my lab. And as for the sealed section—”

“Hey, ain’t no one from OPRR or anywhere else gonna be anyplace we don’t want ’em to be. Mr. Portero will see to that.”

Portero only nodded.

“Thank God,” Ellis said.

Voss and Portero headed for the door. “Talk to y’all later,” Voss said.

When they were gone, Mercer turned and found his brother on his feet, a small smile playing about his lips as he approached the desk.

“Hear them?” Ellis said.

“Hear what?”

“The trumpets. They’ve started to blow. And the first cracks are starting to show in the walls of your Jericho. Soon this will all come tumbling down. And then where will you be?”

“Nothing’s going to happen. You heard Abel—everything’s under control.”

“No, Merce. Everything’s spinningout of control. Can’t you feel it?”

“You’re breaking with reality, Ellis.” The worst of it was that he was echoing Mercer’s own inchoate fears. “You need to adjust your meds.”

Ellis had reached the far side of the desk where he continued that wide-eyed stare. “Knowing what you know, Merce, how do you sleep at night?”

Not this again.

“I sleep just fine. If you’ve got such a problem with the company, why don’t you simply turn your back and walk away?”

“If it weren’t for Robbie and Julie, I would—and go straight to the networks and blow the lid off.”

Spicules of ice crystallized in Mercer’s veins. Ellis was just unstable enough to do something like that. Probably thought he’d find some sort of redemption in self-immolation. But he couldn’t burn alone. He’d drag Mercer into his auto-da-fé. And his children as well. Thank god Ellis loved Robbie and Julie too much for that.

“You wouldn’t be blowing the lid off just SimGen, Ellis,” he said softly. “It’s not like we’re in this alone.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Ellis cried.

“Then you should know that the walls could have ears.”

Ellis blanched and leaned against the desk. “I hate this, hate this,hate this!”

“Well, any time you want to sell out, brother, you know my offer.”

“We’re both multi-billionaires. What would I want withmore money?”

“You could go off, buy yourself an island somewhere, declare yourself king, and—”

Ellis straightened again. “And leave the company under your sole command? Not yet. Not till I’ve finished what I started out to do.”

“Meaning what? Treading old ground we’ve covered too many times? You should be working on projects that will move the company forward instead of wasting your time on sims.”

“It’smy time and I’ll decide how I spend it. Once I’ve perfected a sim—mysim—and we start putting them out there, then I’ll sell out to you, Merce—in a heartbeat. But not a second before.”

“We’vegot sims, damn it!”

Ellis glared at him. “How do you live with yourself, Merce? How?”

Mercer sighed. “How? By being a realist. By knowing what is and what isn’t. By facing the hard cold fact that life is chemistry, nothing more, nothing less. When the chemicals are reacting, life goes on. When the reactions stop, so does life. That’s it, and that’s all it is. I am a collection of reacting chemicals; so are you; so are sims. To view existence as anything else is mysticism, romanticism, a myriad other isms, but it isn’t real. Only the chemistry is real. Everything else is self-delusion.”

He felt a pang as he considered his brother’s flushed face and blazing eyes. It hadn’t always been like this. He remembered their days in New Haven, inseparable, spending late hours in the labs, unafraid, pushing the limits, trying the impossible. Then the university had become too interested, looking for a piece of the action. Forget it: They’d dropped out, started their first venture to market no-shed house pets, and were on their way.

He could still visualize in perfect detail the day the Nakao team decoded the chimpanzee genome. He and Ellis immediately printed out a copy and unfolded it along a hallway; then they synched up a printout of the human genome next to it, and together they walked along, comparing, pointing out the uncanny parallels and match-ups.

Mercer remembered stopping and gazing at his brother, finding Ellis staring back at him across those printouts, realizing that Ellis was thinking what he was, seeing in his eyes the shared rapture of knowing what could be done, and that they could do it.

Heady times, those. The joy of discovery, the sense of the pulse of the world throbbing under their fingertips, the near omnipotent feeling that anything was possible.

And now, the hour-to-hour reality of managing one of the hottest new corporations in the world, of fighting day by day to catch up with the Microsofts and GEs of that world consumed him. He would not rest until SimGen was number one.

But that was his dream, not his brother’s. At some point along the road of years he and Ellis had parted ways.

Mercer knew the exact moment. He’d deceived Ellis. Just once. A crucial matter, true, but only that once. He’d hoped to carry the secret to his grave, but truth will out. Ellis had never forgiven him. Or himself.

If I could go back, he wondered, would I do it all over again?

Yes. In a New York minute. Because without that one deception, SimGen would be just another also-ran in the gen-mod field.

“The genie’s out of the bottle, Ellis. And now it’s grown too big to fit back in. I’ve accepted that. It’s about time you did too.”

“No!” He wheeled and headed for the door, yanked it open, and strode through. “Never!”

7

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

OCTOBER 4

Pamela’s voice and her fist pounding on his back wrenched Patrick from slumber.

“Patrick!” she was shouting. “Something’s burning outside!”

“Huh?”

And then a crash—breaking glass—an object smashing through the window only a few feet away, and he was awake, sitting up, his heart jackhammering in his chest as he looked around his dark bedroom. His alarm clock read 1:04. Outside he could hear a car burning rubber as it pulled away.

“What happened?”

“Look!” Pamela said, her voice hushed with fear. “Out on the lawn!”

Flickering light through broken glass…Patrick swung his legs toward the floor.

“No!” Pamela cried. “You’ll cut your feet!”

Good thinking. He reached down, felt around till he found his loafers, then slipped them on. He hurried to the window, glass crunching under his soles, and looked out on his front yard.

His lawn was on fire.

“What the hell?”

He blinked. Well, not the whole lawn, but a circle of it along with some of the grass inside the circle blazed in the night. He was reaching for the phone to dial 911 when he heard the sirens. Apparently one of his neighbors had called the cops or fire department or both. So he reached for the lamp switch instead.

“Oh, shit, what’s happening?” Pamela cried. “What’s happening?”

He glanced at her. She crouched on the bed, blinking in the light like a fawn caught in the middle of the road. Pamela was his latest pseudo-live-in, meaning she owned her own place in New Bedford but had spent most of the last eight months at his place here in Katonah. Worked as a broker for Merrill Lynch; a few years younger than Patrick but her accumulated year-end bonuses put her far closer to early retirement. Dark hair, big blue eyes, and a dazzling bod that she was now shielding to the neck with the bed sheet.

Pamela…terrified. In spite of the flames and the sirens and the broken glass, that was what gripped him. So out of character. The ultracompetent Pamela was even more driven than he; give her a goal and she became a heat-seeking missile. She’d never shown him the little girl who lived inside her, the one who could be frightened.

“I don’t know,” he said, reaching across and giving her trembling shoulder a gentle squeeze. “But it’s all right. We’re okay.”

He hoped.

Patrick was dressed only in boxer shorts, and the cool fall air flowing through the window raised goosebumps. Maybe it wasn’t just the air. He straightened and did a slow turn, checking out the glass-littered floor until he spotted a bottle on its side against the far wall. He crunched over and retrieved it. A Fruitopia bottle, empty but reeking of gasoline. And a piece of paper rolled up inside. He fished it out.

“What is it?” Pamela said.

“A note.”

With trembling fingers Patrick unrolled the wet piece of blue-lined loose leaf and held it up to the light. The gasoline had acted as a solvent, running the ballpoint ink, but the words were still legible. His gut crawled as he read them aloud.

“Forget about a sim union or next time it won’t be empty.”

“Oh, Christ!” Pamela cried. “Who’d do something like this?”

“Not signed.”

A threat. He had trouble rereading the message because his hands had begun to shake. Jesus, he’d heard of things like this happening, but never dreamed…

He forced his racing brain to slow so he could examine the possibilities. SimGen popped into his head immediately, and just as quickly he discarded it. This was hardly their style, especially since they knew they couldn’t lose in the long run. One of the anti-sim hate groups? Could be. He’d seen them on TV, mostly losers who resented animals taking human jobs—Wake up, guys: Machines have been doing that for a couple of centuries—but he hadn’t heard of any in the area.

He didn’t want Pamela to see how rattled he was. “One of your old boyfriends, maybe?”

“This isn’t funny, Patrick! Someone just threatened your life!”

Just then a couple of Katonah’s finest screeched to a halt at his front curb.

“Sorry.” Couldn’t she see he was just trying to break the tension? “Bad joke.” He looked around for his pants. “I’m going to go out and talk to the cops.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Get dressed and stay out of sight. You’re better off not being involved in this.”

He pulled on his slacks and a shirt, and hurried toward the front door.

…next time it won’t be empty…

What the hell had he got himself into?

8

It was a little after nine when Patrick arrived at his office at Payes & Hecht, but he felt as if he’d already put in a full day.

The fire trucks had arrived on the heels of the first patrol car and doused his flaming lawn. It looked like the vandals had tried to burn some sort of message into the grass but whatever it said had been turned to steaming mud by the time the fire hoses finished their work. The cops took his statement, bagged the Fruitopia bottle and note, and promised to have the patrols make extra swings by his place.

All fine and good, but it had left him with a sick, sour stomach and an adrenaline hangover. At least he was in better shape than Pamela who seemed totally freaked by the incident. He’d tried to explain that the threat had been against him, not her, but still she’d been afraid to leave the house.

Finally he’d put her on a train to the city, then made it to White Plains where he was surrounded as soon as he stepped into the Payes & Hecht reception area. News of the attack had been all over the TV and radio; the firm was medium size, consisting of twenty-two attorneys, and everyone knew everyone. The associates and staff were shocked and concerned and wanted to know all the details. But before he could get into it, Alton Kraft, the managing senior partner, pulled him aside for a one-on-one in his office.

“You all right?” Kraft said.

His blue eyes looked out from under thick eyebrows that matched his salt-and-pepper hair. He had a lined face and looked grandfatherly, but he could be a buzzsaw with any associate who strayed off the beaten path. Patrick was up for partnership next year and Kraft was one of his main supporters.

“I’m fine. Really.”

The two of them had hit it off from the first brief Patrick had prepared for one of Kraft’s cases. He’d said it was the best he’d seen in years, and had taken Patrick under his wing.

“Good. I want to talk to you about this sim union thing. I’m not sure it’s consistent with the image of the firm.”

“It’s pro bono,” Patrick said. “Aren’t we always being encouraged to take some pro bono cases? This is one of mine.”

“That’s all fine and good, but I don’t like seeing the firm’s name mentioned in connection with fire bombings.”

Patrick stiffened. He was well aware that when Alton Kraft said “I” he was speaking for the senior partners.

“Alton, believe me,” Patrick said, smiling in the hope of lightening things up, “I like it even less when it’s my own name mentioned in connection with a fire bombing.”

Kraft grinned. “I can imagine. But Patrick…” The grin faded. “You’re an excellent attorney and you’ve got a big future with this firm. I admire your tenacity—when you’re handed a problem, you stick with it until it’s solved.”

Tenacity, Patrick thought. Better than “stubborn as a mule,” which was how his mother used to characterize him.

“But that same tenacity cancause problems too. When a situation looks like trouble for you or the firm, you have to know when to back away and cut your losses.”

“I hear you, Alton. Loud and clear. But I’m sort of stuck with the sims for now.”

“Not for long, fortunately.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, I guess you haven’t had time to sift through your messages yet. Judge Boughton has been assigned to decide on the declaratory judgment.”

“Henry Boughton?”

“The one and only.”

Patrick felt as if he’d been punched. Shit. What else could go wrong today?

“I think I’d better go talk to my clients.”

9

Tome answered Patrick’s knock at the barrack door. His large dark eyes widened at the sight of him. His grin was pure joy.

“Mist Sulliman! You all right? You not hurt?”

Doeseverybody know? “I’m fine, Tome. I just—”

“Look!” Tome cried, turning to the nearly empty room where half a dozen off-duty sims were either clearing the breakfast plates from the long mess tables or lounging in front of the TV. “He comes. He safe!”

The other sims jumped up and began screeching. They rushed forward and crowded around, some reaching out to touch him, as if to reassure themselves that he was real. Patrick was touched in another way—they must have been genuinely worried about him.

“We see TV,” Tome said. “See burn. Say men who hate sim hate you.”

“Well, we don’t know that for sure.”

Tome cocked his head and his dark eyes stared at Patrick from beneath his prominent brow. “Why men hate sim?”

“Justsome men, Tome—a very small number. Dumb men. Let’s not worry about them. We’ve got a bigger worry.”

“More fire?”

“No. A judge, a very tough judge, has been assigned to our case.”

“No problem for Mist Sulliman. Him best lawyer world.”

Patrick had to grin at that. “You keep thinking those good thoughts, Tome. But this is very bad news for our case.”

“No problem for Mist Sulliman.”

“Yes, problem. Big problem.”

How to explain this to a nonhuman? Patrick wasn’t all that familiar with Judge Boughton’s positions, opinions, and decisions outside the labor relations arena. He did know he was a crotchety old fart who thought too much court time was being wasted on trivialities at the expense of more serious legal matters; woe to the attorney who showed up in Boughton’s court with a case the judge considered frivolous—which covered a lot of territory in Boughton’s field of vision. He was the terror of unions, notorious for his loathing of the picket line.

And not only is this a union case, Patrick thought, but one he’ll consider inherently frivolous.

The Beacon Ridge lawyers were seeking a judgment to terminate the suit and Boughton would do just that—with relish and extreme prejudice. Probably have bailiffs waiting at the courthouse door to give him the old heave-ho as soon as he set foot inside.

Patrick had been counting on extended hearings as an avenue to the public’s ear and pocketbook, an opportunity to generate ongoing press coverage and daily sound bites on the evening news, all of which would—he hoped—lead to contributions to the defense fund.

At present, the sim war chest was pretty bare. He’d set up a website and a toll-free number—1-800-SIMUNION—with an answering service to accept contributions, but the phone hadn’t exactly been ringing off the hook. A little money had come in during the initial flurry of publicity when he’d filed his suit, but nothing compared to what he’d hoped for. Now it looked as if the case would be over before it began.

Which would delight Pamela and please Alton Kraft. Ben Armstrong would be happy too. He’d called as Patrick was leaving the office, ostensibly to express his concern over the incident at the house, but soon got around to the real reason: Could this sim union matter be distracting Patrick, preventing him from devoting sufficient attention to the negotiations with the Jarman clerks’ union, set to open next week? Patrick had assured Ben it was not.

Looked like everyone would be happy when Boughton pulled the plug. Patrick glanced at the surrounding sims. Well, not everyone.

“Let’s just say that Judge Boughton will not be our friend.”

Tome cocked his head. “Him hate sim, like men who burn?”

“No. He’s not like them. I’m sure of that. He’s just—”

Tome turned and pointed to the television playing in a corner. “Like TV man?”

“Who?”

Tome moved away, motioning Patrick to follow. He led him on a winding course through the seats clustered before the TV set.

“This man,” Tome said, pointing to the sweaty, multi-chinned face that filled the screen.

“…and I say to you, good people, that those cute creatures they call ‘sims’ are our tour guides along the road to hell. The Bible tells us, ‘Thou shalt not suffer an abomination!’ And that’s exactly what we do when we allow the evildoers at SinGen to go on populating the world with these godless creatures. That’s Satan’splan, you know. Yes, it is. I’ve had a vision and I’ve seen the world overrun by these soulless caricatures of humankind. And where will that leave man, the pinnacle of Creation, fashioned by the Lord himself to have dominion over the creatures of the earth? Gone! Supplanted by these unholy hybrids. And then Satan will have won. The earth will be his, populated byhiscreations instead of the Lord’s!”

He then launched in a plea for pledges to finance the fight against the evil spewing forth from “SinGen.”

“Sim nev hurt man,” Tome said, pointing at the screen. “Why man not like sim?”

“Oh, I’ll bet he likes you just fine,” Patrick said.

In fact, he thought, I’ll bet the Revloves sims. He should. Sims are his meal ticket.

“Then why say sim bad?”

“Just a way to make money.”

And I’ll bet he’s making lots of it. Cleaning up.

Then Reverend Eckert said that he was scheduled to be onAckenbury at Large tonight. He urged all his regular viewers to tune in and watch him “spread the truth about SinGen to the unenlightened.”

And that gave Patrick a wonderful idea.

10

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

Ellis Sinclair sat in his office in the basic research complex and searched for calm while he waited for Harry to bring in the sim. He toyed idly with the ExecSec plant on his desktop, brushing his pen against the leaves and watching its tendrils whip around the shaft and hold it in place. Then he’d tug on the pen and the tendrils would release it. Back and forth, give and take, noting with pleasure how the plant rotated use of its tendrils to avoid fatigue.

He sighed and let the plant keep the pen as he leaned back in his chair. The ExecSec had been a modest success back in the days before SinclairGen became SimGen. He wished they’d stuck to harmless little gimmicky products like this instead of going for the killer app. They wouldn’t be fractionally as wealthy, but how much money can you spend?

And there’d be no sims wandering the earth.

He rubbed his cold palms together. The artificial sunlight streaming through the frosted panes at his back did nothing to warm him. More and more lately he craved a real window. Just one. But that was out of the question. Basic research’s windowless design was his own doing, for he knew as well as anyone that a window to the outside was also a portal in. So he had allowed not a pinhole through the walls of this lead-lined box of steel-reinforced concrete.

To keep the place from looking too much like the Berlin Wall, mirror-glass panes had been set into the exterior to simulate windows and, perhaps, to tempt industrial and media spies to bounce the beams of their snoop lasers off the glass in vain attempts to hear what was being said on the other side.

Ellis could not allow anyone to know the reasons behind what he was doing here. Not even his assistants knew. Only Mercer. And then there was the sealed section, with its separate staff who were ferried in and ferried out with no one ever seeing them. If the truth about either ever leaked…

He shuddered.

He heard the door open and looked up to see Harry step through, followed by a handler leading a young male sim by the hand. He’d asked Harry to bring in the highest scoring sim from the latest batch of the special breed.

“Here he is,” Harry said. “F27-63—at your service. We call him Seymour.” He turned to the handler. “I’ll take him now.” The handler stepped out.

Harry Carstairs, chief of sim education, had trained more of the creatures than anyone else presently with the company; a big man, six-four at least, and probably weighing in at an eighth of a ton. He towered over the sim.

Ellis glanced down at his desktop memo screen. F27-63—yes, that was Seymour’s serial number. He had longer arms and looser lips than the average commercial sim. Smaller too.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s see what he can do.”

“Sit in the red chair, Seymour,” Harry said gently. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, staring straight ahead as he spoke, allowing the sim no hints or cues from his body language.

The sim looked around, spotted the dark red leather chair against the wall, and loped over to seat himself.

“Good. Now turn on the lamp on the opposite side of the room.”

The sim rose, crossed in front of Ellis’s desk, and stopped before the lamp. He looked under the shade, found the switch, and turned it on.

“Very good,” Harry said. “Now—”

“I’m satisfied with his comprehension,” Ellis said. Comprehension had never been the problem; he was anxious to cut to the chase. “What about his speech?”

“It’s getting there.”

“Gettingthere?”

“He’s a great signer.”

“I’m sure he is.”

Sims started ASL lessons in infancy because signing stimulated development of the speech cortex; this helped enormously with vocalization later on.

“Want to see him sign?”

“No,” Ellis said, balling a fist in frustration. “I want to hear him speak.” He turned to the sim. “What is your name?”

The creature looked at Harry who nodded encouragement.

The sim’s thick pink tongue protruded between his yellow teeth as he said, “Thee…” in a low-pitched voice.

Ellis was about to say that “Thee” wasn’t a name when the sim continued, laboriously pronouncing, “Mmmm…mmmm…” And then he seemed to run out of gas.

He glanced uncertainly at Harry who smiled and nodded. “You’re doing good. Go on.”

“Mmmm…,” said Seymour, picking up where he’d left off. But he seemed stuck on the sound.

Ellis held up a hand. “All right. He can’t say his name. Whatcan he say?”

Harry turned to the sim. “Did you have breakfast?”

The sim nodded. “Eth.”

“Are you hungry now?”

A head shake. “Oh.”

Ellis waited but gathered from the look on Harry’s face that the show was over.

“That’s it? He’s your best and his entire vocabulary consists of two incomplete words and half his name?”

Ellis tried to keep the anger from his voice—none of this was Harry’s fault—but still he heard it slip through. Because damn it, hewas angry. When was he going to see some results? The sim sensed his emotion and shrank back a step.

Harry rested a reassuring hand on the creature’s shoulder. “Seymour’s doing the best that he can.”

Ellis wanted to beat his fists on his desk and scream,It’s not enough! Notnearly enough! Instead he sighed and leaned back in his swivel chair.

“You don’t work them hard enough.” Maybe Harry had been around sims too long. An inherently gentle man, maybe he was identifying with them too much, cutting them too much slack. And maybe Harry was thinking about another sim, a special long-ago sim who was gone. “You’re too easy on them.”

“What do you want me to do?” Harry said, his face darkening. “Whip them?”

“No, of course not.” What an awful thought.

“Not Seymour’s fault if his hyoid’s not up to par with the main breed’s.”

The hyoid—always the damn hyoid. The little arch of bone that supported the tongue and its muscles was crucial to human speech. Ellis’s new lines all lacked a fully developed hyoid bone.

That wasn’t the only thing not up to par. “Ever hear of evolutionary synergy, Harry?”

The big man’s brow furrowed. “I don’t recall…”

“You wouldn’t have. It’s a new theory I’ve developed as a result of my recent work. It’s the subtle, as yet unquantifiable cooperation between genes that have evolved together. It’s so subtle that I can’t prove it, but I know it’s there, I know it’s true.”

“What’s that got to do with Seymour?” Harry said.

“Everything.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know.”

He saw Harry glance at the plastic pill organizer on his desk—three compartments labeledAM ,AFT, andPM . Ellis always left it in plain sight, to maintain his image as a heavily medicated eccentric. But the pills were for show. He’d been off medication for quite some time now.

Harry led the sim to the door, signaled for the handler, then closed it after them.

“Mr. Sinclair,” he said, approaching the desk. “I work your new breeds harder than the main breed, and—”

“I know you do, Harry.” Ellis stared at his hands, bunched into fists. “It’s just that it’s so damn frustrating.”

“Youthink it’s frustrating? How about for me and my staff? We slave with these new breeds day after day and get nowhere. And we keep asking ourselveswhy …why does the company keep developing breeds that are inferior to the one we already have?”

Not the company, Ellis thought. Me. Just me.

“I can’t go into that, Harry.”

“Then can you tell me what’s wrong with the main breed that you want to correct?”

Everything!Ellis wanted to shout.Every fucking thing!

“I’m afraid I can’t go into that either.”

“It has something to do with the sealed section then.” A statement.

The sealed section…only a handful of employees in the basic research building knew it existed, and even they didn’t know that most of it was underground. No access through the main areas; the only entry and exit was through an enclosed loading dock on the northwest corner of the building. Sealed staff never mixed with other employees; they ate and slept where they worked, leaving only on weekends in enclosed trucks.

This he could answer truthfully. “No, Harry. It does not.”

Harry stood silent a moment. “Then what? I would think that I’ve proven myself loyal enough by now to be entrusted—”

“Please, Harry,” Ellis said, holding up a hand. “It’s not a question of trust. It’s a matter of…” Of what? What could he say? “A matter of deciding which way the company should go in the future. We haven’t agreed—haven’t decided on which way that will be. But when we do, I assure you, you’ll be the first to know.” Ellis noted that this seemed to salve Harry’s wounded pride.

“But until then,” he added, “bear with the frustration. I promise you, it will be well worth it in the end.”

IfI succeed.

Harry’s smile was lopsided. “I’ll trust you on that.”

Harry left and Ellis was alone with the chrome-framed faces of his children staring at him across the desktop. Robbie and Julie…God, he missed them. Somewhere along the course of his consuming monomania he’d forgotten about them. He didn’t know exactly when he’d metamorphosed from husband and father to something other, something distant…obsessed…a shadow…a ghost drifting through their lives, through his own life as well.

But Judy and the kids hadn’t been able to live with what he’d become, and so he’d lost them.

He wasn’t bitter though. Just lonely. Didn’t blame Judy. He’d deserved to lose them. But he was working toward getting them back—earningthem back.

And when he deserved to have them call him father again, he knew he’d win them back.

But not until he’d fixed SimGen.

11

MANHATTAN

The green room of theAckenbury at Large show was neither green nor roomy, but Patrick had it to himself. Half a dozen upholstered chairs surrounded a maple table that had seen better days; a small refrigerator against the wall sported a fruit bowl and a coffee maker. A wall-mounted monitor leaned from a corner near the ceiling; Patrick repeatedly glanced at it as he paced the beige carpet.

Reverend Eckert was running his line for the late-night network TV audience, but in a far lower key than on his own show. Instead of working himself into a red-faced, spittle-flecked frenzy, he was coming on as a calm, intelligent man with a mission: SimGen was doing evil by producing sims, and so it had to be shut down. Any products made by sims were the devil’s handiwork and all God-fearing people should shun them.

Not good, Patrick thought, drying his moist palms on his slacks.

That was the role Patrick had planned to play—a calm, reasonable, compassionate counterpoint to Eckert’s frenzy.

Now what?

Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.

Upon leaving the sims this morning he’d placed a call to Ackenbury’s offices. After being shuttled around for a good ten minutes, he’d finally found himself on the line with one Catherine Tresor, assistant producer. She didn’t recognize his name, but when he explained that he was the attorney for the sims union, she jumped all over the idea of putting him on tonight’s show. She said she’d have to run it by Alan first, but she’d get back to him right away.

She wasn’t kidding. Less than five minutes later his car phone rang and he was scheduled for the show. But she told him not to trumpet the news. Alan wanted to surprise the Reverend Eckert.

As a result, Patrick had been ushered into an empty office when he’d arrived at six—the show was recorded hours before air time—and kept out of sight until the Reverend had gone on. After a quick trip to makeup, he was led to the green room and left alone.

He wished Pam were here. He’d asked her to come along but she had to work late. She was involved in some Pacific Rim deal that would tie her up till midnight. She’d promised to watch at her office, though. She sounded as though she’d recovered from this morning. Patrick was glad for that.

“Mr. Sullivan?”

Patrick looked up. In the doorway he saw a short, owlish, clipboard-toting woman with large round glasses. She extended her hand.

“I’m Cathy Tresor.”

“And I’m wondering if this was such a good idea,” Patrick said, shaking her hand.

She squeezed his fingers. “You’re not backing out, are you?”

“It’s not as if you need me,” he said, wondering at the panicky look that flashed across her features. “I wasn’t even on the horizon until I called this morning.”

“We do need you,” she said. Her blue eyes looked huge through her thick lenses. “Ineed you.”

“I’m not following.”

“I pitched your appearance with the Reverend as my own idea.”

Patrick stared at her. “Let me get this straight: You take my suggestion, pitch it to your boss as your own brainstorm, and pocket the credit?”

She bit her upper lip. “Well…yeah.” She looked away. “Sorry, but it can be hard to get noticed around here.”

“Sorry!” He laughed. “Don’t be sorry. I love it! Just remember the name: Patrick Sullivan. You owe me one.”

She smiled. “I’ll remember.”

“You do that.” Patrick liked her. Then he glanced at the monitor and sobered at the sight of Eckert’s face. “And while you’re at it, figure out a way for me to steal that guy’s thunder.”

“Best way is to get under his skin. Goad him.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“You kidding? We’d love it. ‘Let’s you and him fight’—that’s the Alan Ackenbury philosophy of quality TV.”

Patrick jammed his hands into his pockets and did a slow circuit of the green room.

Goad him…how?

Patrick’s gaze came to rest on the fruit bowl and an idea sparked…a last resort if nothing else worked.

“Almost time,” Cathy said, glancing at her watch. “You go on after the next break. Let’s get you in position.”

He followed her down a hall and to a spot behind a curtain just off stage. Patrick’s eyes fixed on the blank monitor.

“You’ve got one segment,” she whispered as they came out of the commercial break. “Make the most of it.”

“For your sake or mine?”

“For both of us, but more for you than me. Think of this as an audition of sorts. If you make sparks fly, Alan will want you back, and that will be good for your cause.”

My cause? Patrick thought, then realized she was referring to the sim union. He’d never thought of it as a cause, just a case, a job.

He said nothing, though, because his gut had begun to twitch as Alan Ackenbury reappeared on the monitor screen. He opened the segment by saying that a last-minute opportunity had arisen to bring on a guest who could provide a counterpoint to the reverend’s views.

Eckert muttered something to the effect that he’d understood he’d be the only guest. Ackenbury didn’t seem to hear, or pretended he didn’t, and introduced Patrick.

He felt Cathy’s hand against his back, pushing him toward the stage.

“That’s you,” she said. “You’re on!”

And then Patrick was out in the open, feeling the heat of the lights, hearing polite applause from the studio audience.

The first few minutes were a blur…Patrick had always consideredAckenbury at Large a punning reference to the host’s Orson Welles–class girth, and in person Alan was even larger than he appeared on screen. He didn’t rise, but extended his hand across the desk as Patrick arrived. Instead of the traditional desk and couch set-up, the Ackenbury show seated guests on either side of its host who could then mediate the fray when they went at it. The barrier also prevented guests from coming to blows if the discussion became too heated.

Patrick was aware of Reverend Eckert pouting and sulking on the far side of the desk as Alan asked questions about the coming court battle to unionize the Beacon Ridge sims. Patrick didn’t mention that the case was as good as stillborn with Boughton on the bench, simply reeled off the canned responses he’d spouted to the press since the news first broke.

He felt as if he were on automatic pilot at first, answering the questions by rote. But as minutes passed—minutes in which he noticed Alan Ackenbury’s growing dissatisfaction with his flat, tempered answers—Patrick felt himself begin to relax. He remembered to mention the toll-free number and the website, www.simunion.org, and was casting about for a way to juice up the proceedings when his fellow guest did it for him.

“Admit it,” the Reverend Eckert said, pointing across the desk. “You work for SinGen.”

“Absolutely not,” Patrick said. “In fact, I expect SimGen to do its damnedest to stop me.” He quickly added: “That’s why contributions to 1-800-SIMUNION are so vital.”

“You have no idea of what’s really going on, do you? Or who is chairman of the board of SinGen?”

“Mercer Sinclair.”

“No! It’s Satan! Satan himself—his very own self! Satan calls the shots in SinGen! And Satan has defiled the exalted holy clay of man by mixing it with the life stuff of a monkey. Through SinGen, Satan has defiled the pinnacle of the Lord’s creation!”

“Depends on how you look at it,” Patrick said. “You’re seeing the glass as half-empty. Why not look at it as half-full? Why not see sims as a lower life form that’s been improved?”

“Improved? You cannot improve on God’s work! You can only defile it! Especially when you take the life stuff of man, the only being in the universe to possess an immortal soul, and degrade it by injecting it into a lesser being!”

“But a being with a shared ancestor.”

“Are you talking evolution? That’s blasphemy! God created mande novo —that means completely new!”

“Then why do humans share all but one-point-six percent of their DNA with the chimps that sims are made from? If God made humans ‘de novo,’ as you say, and wanted us to stand out from the crowd, wanted us to be the shining star atop the Christmas tree of his creations, you’d think he’d have come up with a new and special kind of ‘clay’—not stuff borrowed from primates.”

“He did! He—”

“No, he didn’t. Genetically we’re ninety-eight-point-four percent chimp—which means we’re far more ape than human.”

“Speak for yourself, sir.”

As the audience laughed, Patrick grinned and gave the Rev a thumbs-up. “Good one. But it doesn’t alter the fact that only a few genes separate us from the trees. And even fewer separate us from sims. If chimps are our distant cousins, then sims are our nieces and nephews.”

“I will not tolerate this!” He turned to Ackenbury. “Is this why you brought this man on tonight? Had I known I was to share the stage with a blasphemer who would mock my beliefs and the beliefs of my followers, mock the Lord Himself, I never would have agreed to appear.”

“No insult intended, Reverend,” Ackenbury said. “Just a fair airing of all sides of an issue. You have your beliefs, and Mr. Sullivan has his.”

“No! My beliefs are supported by the Word of God!”

And then the Rev was off on such a tear that not even the host could get a word in edgewise. Patrick’s mind raced, at a loss as to how to salvage the situation; then he remembered the bananas he’d snagged from the fruit bowl in the green room.

His original idea had been to offer one to Eckert in an ostensibly friendly gesture, assuming no one would miss the reference to their shared simian ancestry. But subtlety wouldn’t fly here; he’d have to fire all barrels at once to break the Rev’s filibuster. And he had an idea of how to do that. Question was, did he dare? This could backfire and leave him looking like a grade-A jerk.

What the hell, he thought. Go for it.

Slowly, Patrick raised his legs until his feet were on the chair cushion.

Squatting on the seat, he pulled out one of the bananas and, with exaggerated care, began to peel it.

Neither Ackenbury nor the Rev noticed at first, but the audience did. As laughter began to filter in from the darkness beyond the stage lights, Ackenbury turned to him; his eyebrows shot up in surprise, then he grinned. The Reverend Eckert followed the host’s stare. His tirade faltered, then stopped cold as his jaw dropped open. The audience roared.

It had worked—the Rev finally had shut up. But Patrick couldn’t jump into the gap because his mouth was crammed full of banana. He did the only thing he could think of. Returning to Plan A, he pulled the second banana from his coat pocket and handed it to Ackenbury.

“For me?” the big man said as he took it.

Patrick shook his head and pointed to Eckert.

“Of course,” Ackenbury said, winking at Patrick, and handed the banana to the Rev.

Eckert shot to his feet and batted the banana away, sending it skittering across the desk.

“This is an outrage! I did not come here to be mocked! I refuse to stand for another minute of this!”

So saying, he wheeled and stormed from the stage.

“Reverend?” Ackenbury said, calling after him but with little conviction.

“That’s okay,” Patrick said after swallowing the last of his mouthful of banana. “I’m sure he’s just hurrying off to phone in his donation to 1-800-SIMUNION before the lines get jammed.”

Ackenbury was laughing as he turned to face the camera. “I’m afraid that’s about all we have time for tonight,” he said as if nothing the slightest out of the ordinary happened. “As usual, I hope you were entertained, and I hope you learned something as well. Until tomorrow night then.”

As the outro music began, Ackenbury picked up the spurned banana, peeled it, and took a bite. The studio audience went wild. He leaned toward Patrick and extended his hand.

“You, sir,” he said, grinning, “have a standing invitation to return anytime you wish.”

Patrick didn’t know how true that was, but he pretended to take it at face value. “I may be taking you up on that.”

“Do. Just call Cathy Tresor.”

As a stagehand came over and helped the host haul his huge frame out of the seat, Patrick felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned and saw Cathy beaming at him.

“You didgreat !”

“I hope so,” he said. “I’m sort of new at this.”

She fairly bounced along as she led him backstage and seated him in the green room, which he again had all to himself. She told him she’d find someone from makeup to stop by and clean him up—better that than run into the Reverend in the hallway.Ackenbury at Large liked to confine its conflicts to the onstage area.

As he sat alone, wondering if any of this would have a beneficial effect on the sim defense fund, he sensed movement in the doorway. He turned and found the Reverend Eckert, backed up by a steroidal slab of beef with ‘bodyguard’ written all over him.

Oh, shit, Patrick thought. He’s come to mess me up.

“You’ve got cojones, Mr. Sullivan,” Eckert said, hands on hips. “I’ll have to give you credit for that.”

“Hey, now listen,” Patrick said, backing up a step. “None of that was personal. I didn’t—”

But the Rev surprised him by grinning and thrusting out his hand.

“Course you didn’t. It’s all show biz. I understand that. Quite a scene stealer you pulled at the end there. Yessir, stole my fire good. But I’m not mad. I had my say. In fact, the reason I stopped by is I’d like to thank you for what you did.”

“Thank me?”

“Yes! Just got a call from church headquarters. Our prayer lines have been ringing off the hook! Praise the Lord, never have we had such an outpouring of support. The money is all but flying through the window. And all because of you.”

Hope my line is doing the same, Patrick thought. But was Eckert crazy?

“Why thank me?”

“’Cause caller after caller’s been saying they want me to keep spreading the word that they ain’t monkeys.” He shook his head, beaming. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, don’t he. I thank Him every day, but tonight I want to thank you too. God bless you, Mr. Sullivan.”

“No hard feelings then?”

“Not a bit. Hard to be mad at someone who reminds you so much of yourself. You get tired of this lawyering and unionizing business, you come to me. I promise to have a place for you.”

He gave Patrick’s hand another squeeze and then he was gone. Patrick stood dumbstruck. Probably looked like Eckert had when he’d spotted him with the banana.

What a strange man. Patrick had expected a punch in the nose; instead he’d received a handshake and hearty thanks and a job offer. To do what? Take their act on the road and charge admission?

Hard to be mad at someone who reminds you so much of yourself…

The words echoed jarringly in Patrick’s head.

Like you? he thought. Not a chance. I’m nothing like you.

But was he so sure? The possibility made him queasy.

12

BROOKLYN

Romy lay in bed in her apartment in the Cobble Hill section of Brooklyn. TheAckenbury at Large closing credits had just begun to roll when her PCA chimed.

“Are you alone?” said Zero’s voice.

“Aren’t I always?”

“You really need to get more of a life, Romy.”

“Maybe I’m waiting for you to take off that mask.”

“It’s off.”

“And if I were there, would I like what I saw?”

“I doubt it very much.”

She laughed. “Come on—”

“Romy…” He sighed. “You don’t seem to be enjoying life.”

“You sound like my mother.”

She and her mother still spoke three or four times a week. Her parents divorced when she was a teen—her fault, she knew—and her mother had never remarried. But she had a job, men friends, women friends, a bridge club. In other words, a life.

So do I, Romy thought. Sort of.

She had her job at OPRR. She had her ballet—she’d spent two hours working out on the bar tonight and had the sore hips to prove it—and she had Zero and the organization. But beyond that…

Friends were a problem. Always had been. She’d had no girlfriends growing up—her wild mood swings saw to that—and still had trouble being one of the girls. As for men, she had plenty of offers, and she’d had her flings, but most of them seemed tissue thin. Nobody with a fraction of Zero’s substance.

Shehad a life, damn it. Getting justice for the sims—wasn’t that enough?

But it was so frustrating. She’d read up on the civil rights movements of the fifties and sixties, looking for inspiration. But that had been different. Those seeking justice then had been human, and could march in the streets to demand it. Sims weren’t human, and the idea of joining a movement or even a single protest march was completely beyond them.

So people like her and Zero had to work behind the scenes.

“Were you watching?” Zero said.

“Of course.”

Usually she did the early-to-bed/early-to-rise thing, but tonight she’d stayed up to see how Reverend Eckert came across; like everyone else, she had been stunned by Patrick Sullivan’s sudden appearance.

“What did you think?” Zero said.

“First tell me if you knew Sullivan was going to appear.”

“Not a clue. But I’m glad he did.”

“So am I…I think.”

“He said things that needed saying. And anyone who pushes sims closer to humans in the public consciousness does us a service. SimGen is always pushing the other way.”

“But squatting on the chair and eating that banana…do you think he went too far?”

“You mean, how did he play in the bleachers?”

“Exactly.”

“Well, only time will tell. But I have to admit that Patrick Sullivan has risen in my estimation.”

“Why? He’s still a quick-buck artist. Did you hear how many times he managed to mention his 800 number?”

“But he projects a good image, plus he’s audacious and thinks well on his feet. I like that.”

Romy had to admit that Zero had a point. Sullivan had come across well—more like a crusading attorney with a wild sense of humor than a zealot or opportunist.

“I still think he’ll cut and run as soon as the opposition stiffens,” she said. “And if what we hear about this judge assigned to the case is true, he’s going to run into a brick wall next week. And then it’s sayonara sims.”

Zero sighed. “You’re probably right. But I’ve learned, sometimes to my delight, sometimes to my chagrin, that people aren’t always as predictable as they seem. Patterns of behavior can be misinterpreted. And tonight I thought I caught a glimpse of something in our Mr. Sullivan, a spark of stubbornness that may work to our advantage. We’ll simply keep a careful eye on him and watch for developments.”

“I guess we don’t have much of a choice, do we.”

“Unfortunately not.” Zero paused, then, “Are you ready for tomorrow?”

She’d scheduled the first leg of OPRR’s inspection tour of SimGen’s main facility to begin at 1:00P .M.

“I suppose so. I just hope it accomplishes something. After all, you’ve had people in SimGen itself for years, and they haven’t been able to learn much.”

“That’s because they’re low-or mid-level employees, and because SimGen’s cellular corporate structure reduces crossovers between divisions. They see only a tiny piece of the picture. That’s been our problem all along. Everything about that company has been designed for maximum security. Look at where it’s located: The hills protect it from ground surveillance, and a fly-over offers only a momentary glimpse. If we had access to a spy satellite we might learn something, but we don’t.”

“How about a hot-air balloon?”

“A couple of reporters tried that, remember? SimGen’s copters buzzed them so much they damn near crashed.”

“I was only kidding.” Romy took a deep breath to ease the growing tension in her chest. “So it’s all on me.”

“You’ll do fine. Even if you uncover one tidbit over the next few days, one little thing that OPRR can use to call the company’s practices into question, it could lead to slowing or even stopping their assembly-line cloning of sims. If nothing else, this inspection has to shake them up a little. So far they’ve managed to insulate themselves from regulatory oversight. This is a first for them. They’ll be nervous.”

“And I’ve planned something that just might add a little extra rattle to their cages.”

“Good. Maybe they’ll slip up.”

“We can only hope.”

“I’ll call again tomorrow night—on the secure PCA I’ll have delivered to your apartment in the morning.”

“Why? Are you worried about a tap?”

“Not yet, but after you begin sticking your nose into SimGen’s sanctum tomorrow, I’ll bet they’ll want to learn everything they can about you.”

Romy shook off a chill creeping over her shoulders. “Thanks. That’s a pleasant thought.”

“Sleep well, Romy.”

“Sure.”

She hung up, told the TV to turn itself off, and lay in the darkness. But sleep wouldn’t come. Instead of throttling back, her mind raced along, veering in all directions.

She wondered at the turn her life had taken and if she might be courting futility. It didn’t seem possible that Zero and the organization had much of a chance of denting SimGen, let alone toppling it, and yet he persisted. And so did she. But sometimes she felt like one of many Sancho Panzas helping this enigmatic Quixote tilt at windmills.

She’d have to be on her toes at SimGen tomorrow, staying alert not simply to what was going on around her, but to what was happening within her. She might encounter something that upset her and she didn’t want it to set her off. She had to be the picture of professionalism.

The doctors had said her bipolar disorder was cured, but she knew better. She’d had no violent outbursts since her treatment, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t come close.

There’d been two Romys in the bad old days—the studious, compliant, Reasonable Romy, and the fierce, wild, Raging Romy. Raging Romy was supposedly gone, but Romy still heard echoes of her footsteps down the corridors of her mind.

She closed her eyes and fell into a dream dredged from an incident in her childhood. Romy had been an Air Force brat with an American pilot father and a German mother. They moved around a lot and it always seemed as soon as Romy just started getting used to a new place, her father would be transferred to another base in another state.

The dream involved the time when she was nine or ten and came upon a couple of the local boys throwing rocks at a lame old dog who’d dared to bark at them from its yard. But it wasn’t a dog in the dream—it was a sim. Her dream rage was as fresh and hot and sudden as it had been all those years ago when she’d charged into those boys with flailing fists. That had been Raging Romy’s debut. And in the dream, just as in real life, she sent one of the terrified boys running home with a bloody nose, and had the other on the ground, bashing him with a rock and screaming at him,How do you like it? How do you like it? and not stopping until someone pulled her off.

In real life he’d told his parents, who threatened Romy’s folks with a lawsuit if they didn’t “do something about that girl.” The first of many such threats during the years to come.

And in real life the owner had come out of the house to thank her. But here in the dream, the owner came out, but it wasn’t old Mrs. Moore, it was Patrick Sullivan. And there, right in front of her, he sold that old sim to a man from the university to be used in medical experiments…

Romy awoke sobbing.

13

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

OCTOBER 5

“I understand what you’re saying, miss, but I can’t find your name on the list.”

The young guard at the gate, so young his face still sported a few pimples, looked flustered as he stood outside his kiosk, staring at his hand-held computer; he pushed buttons and stared again, shaking his head.

Romy felt sorry for him but couldn’t let that show. She’d shoved the court papers in his face, demanding entrance, and now she glared at him from the driver’s seat of her car.

“Then call someone whocan find my name,” she said through clenched teeth, “or I’ll shut this whole damn place down and you’ll be lucky if you find a job pumping gas in downtown Paterson!”

He ducked inside his kiosk and made a hurried phone call. A moment later he stepped out and pointed to a small parking area to her right.

“Pull over there, please. Someone’s coming down.”

Muttering unintelligibly under her breath, Romy complied. Then she turned off her engine, leaned back, and smiled. This was working out just as she’d planned.

Minutes later a small four-seater helicopter lifted over the wooded rise dead ahead and buzzed toward her. It set down in the field on the far side of the road. A man stepped out of the front passenger seat and strode toward her. He didn’t duck as most people do while under the whirling blades, didn’t have to clutch a hat to his head because he was bareheaded, didn’t have to worry about the vortex mussing his hair because it was cut too short to matter. He walked erect, purposefully, but with no sense of urgency, as if he knew within a centimeter the locations of the blades slicing the air above his scalp.

The wordmilitary flashed in Romy’s brain like a neon sign as she took in his broad shoulders, measured step, straight spine. Or at least ex-military. She put him in his early forties. And judging from his skin tones, black hair and eyes, Romy bet on a heavy Latino ancestry. Not a bad-looking man. Attractive in an animal sort of way.

“Ms. Cadman,” he said as he reached her car. He didn’t smile, didn’t offer his hand. “We weren’t expecting you so early.”

“According to your gate man you weren’t expecting me at all.”

“He only has the morning list. Your arrival is scheduled for one o’clock.”

“One o’clock?” she said. “Ridiculous! Why would I waste half a day?”

He pulled open her car door. “Step out, please.”

He said it like a cop. Romy saw no reason why not, so she swiveled in her seat—giving him a good shot of her legs before she adjusted her skirt—and stood before him.

Maybe that had been a mistake. A shiver ran over her skin as his eyes raked her blazer, blouse, and skirt. She’d seen eyes like that before. On a crocodile. She felt naked.

“You’ll want this next, I suppose,” she said, fumbling for her OPRR ID card and handing it to him.

“You read my mind,” he said as he took the card. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth but didn’t quite make it to his eyes. “That could mean trouble.” He handed it back. “Welcome to SimGen, Ms. Cadman. I’m Luca Portero, Chief of Security here.”

“The head man? Should I be flattered?”

She’d read up on a number of the key people in SimGen, and Luca Portero was one of them. She’d never seen him, but knew his folder: Army Special Forces, decorated in Afghanistan, honorable discharge with the rank of sergeant after twenty years in; hired by SimGen within weeks of his discharge.

“A visit from OPRR is an occasion.”

“Get used to it,” she said. “If I have my way, we’ll be here every week.”

His smile froze, then faded. “We’ll use the copter to take us to the center of the campus. It’s faster.”

“I’m here today as vanguard for the full inspection team; to do that I must see the facilities firsthand—from ground level.”

“Of course. We’ll pick up a car at center campus and continue from there.”

Once inside the helicopter, conversation was impossible, especially with Romy in the rear and Portero up front next to the pilot. The security chief spent the time talking into his headset, and did not look happy.

So Romy took in the scenery. The trees were showing off their vivid fall colors but she could not let that distract her. She was looking for concealed roads, hidden installations, anything not visible in the aerial photos that might escape OPRR inspection. But she saw nothing.

Romy caught her breath as the copter cleared a hill and the center of the SimGen campus flashed into view. The glass sides of the buildings, none taller than six stories, picked up the hues of the neighboring hillsides and made them their own, integrating the manmade structures into their surroundings. As much as she hated the company, she had to admit it appeared to be a beautiful place to work.

She knew the layout of the campus by heart and immediately identified the taller executive and administration buildings. She wasn’t interested in those; her inspection team would be focusing on the natal center, the sim dormitories and training centers, and the two research buildings—general and basic.

Zero had told her he was particularly interested in the basic research facility. He’d mentioned mysterious shipments in and out of an enclosed loading dock near its northwest corner, and that only a select few were allowed anywhere near the place. But was that all he knew? Was the basic research facility so secret even his high-up contacts didn’t know what went on inside…or wouldn’t tell him? Or did Zero already know and want OPRR to expose it?

What could they be doing in there that was so sensitive? Her mind flashed lurid images of experiments on human subjects, or Doctor Moreau–type vivisections, or hideous failed splices, locked in cages with their claws or tentacles reaching through the bars. She doubted it was anything that exciting. And she’d find out soon enough, wouldn’t she.

Squinting against the glare of the morning sun, she located the building and spotted a medium-size delivery truck backing into a shedlike structure jutting from its flank. She reached for the binoculars in her shoulder bag—the set with a spycam concealed within—but changed her mind. She might find a better use for them later—no sense in letting Portero know now that she’d brought them along.

As she watched, a corrugated steel door rolled down, sealing the truck in the shed.

Romy could understand the need for an enclosed loading dock on a windy winter day, but the weather was positively balmy this morning. The only other purpose would be to conceal what was being loaded or unloaded.

When the copter landed, Portero led her to a blue Jeep Geronimo, one of many wheeling through the campus.

“Do you buy these by the dozen?” she asked.

“Four-wheel drive is not a luxury here, especially in the winter. When it snows in these hills, itsnows .”

Once they were seated within he gave her another penetrating up-and-down look. “Are all the OPRR investigators so beautiful?”

Puh-leese! Romy thought. She wanted to tell him to save his imagined wit and charm but decided it might be best not to acknowledge the compliment.

“I’m considered OPRR’s plain Jane,” she said brusquely. “I’d like to begin with the research facilities.”

Portero started the engine. “They’re not ready for you yet. We’ll start with the natal center.”

“I prefer research first, then natal. It’s a more natural progression.”

“If it was up to me, I’d take you anywhere you want to go,” he said.

Why don’t I believe that?

He went on: “And if you’d arrived at your scheduled time, I’d be wheeling us there right now. But the powers that be say that if you insist on starting with research, you can wait in one of our empty offices until one o’clock and start then. But if you wish to get to work immediately, natal is available.”

Score one for you, Romy thought, hiding her frustration. After all, she was a professional.

“Very well. Natal it is.”

But don’t look so smug, she thought as she watched Portero put the Jeep in gear. The game has just begun.

14

The Natal Center—intellectually she’d been prepared for it, but emotionally…

Anne Twerlinger, associate director of the center, was a reed-thin middle-aged redhead who stank of cigarettes, wore retro pointy-framed glasses, and spoke with what Romy could only describe as a sniff in her tone, as if convinced that at any moment her nostrils might be assailed by a noxious odor.

Portero had stayed behind in Twerlinger’s office, making phone calls, while she started the tour by leading Romy down a narrow corridor. The right wall was glass from waist to ceiling, and looked in on the natal center’s cloning lab.

“I’m sure I don’t have to tell you about the sim genome,” Twerlinger said, then proceeded to do just that. “As everyone knows, it consists of twenty-two chromosome pairs—one fewer than humans, two fewer than chimps; much of the junk and non-functioning genetic material has been removed, leaving it one of the cleanest mammalian genomes in existence. Sims don’t mate, mainly because we’ve genetically reduced their sex drives to nil; but even if they did, no offspring would be produced because their ova cannot be fertilized.”

“Why not have just one sex?” Romy said.

“Because we’re all conditioned to view work as gender specific: We’re comfortable with females cleaning houses, males loading trucks. And SimGen is nothing if not sensitive to the marketplace.”

“Why should the females have ovaries at all?”

“We’d rather they didn’t, of course, but we’ve found that a regular hormone cycle is necessary to their accelerated maturation process.” She waved tobacco-stained fingers at the masked and gowned workers on the far side of the glass. “New sims are cloned by nuclear transfer from a bank of identical cells, and implanted in a special class of females we call breeders. Breeder sims are as sterile as their sisters, but exist for one purpose: to incubate new sims.”

They came to the end of the corridor. Twerlinger pushed through into a much larger space: wide, long, its low ceiling studded with recessed fluorescents. The place was huge—the size of a football field at least, and filled with beds. It might have been the world’s largest homeless shelter except that it was filled with sims instead of humans.

Pregnant sims.

“My God,” Romy said. “And you have three floors like this?”

“And two more identical buildings with a fourth under construction. We can’t keep up with the demand. We’ve begun building natal centers abroad now. The one in Poznan is almost complete.”

They ambled among the beds, arranged in clusters around common areas with sinks and toilets. Twerlinger pointed to partitioning walls rising not quite to the ceiling throughout the space.

“We divide our breeders up by how far along they are. Early, middle, late gestation: eight months overall.” She spread her arms. “OPRR will find nothing to complain about here, Ms. Cadman. Breeders lead lives of pampered ease. They do not do a lick of work their entire lives.”

“But they engage in labor of another sort.”

A sniff. “I suppose you might put it that way.”

Most of the mothers-to-be Romy passed were either napping or lounging together on sofas, watching TV.

“They look bored out of their minds.”

“Breeders are provided excellent nutrition and get adequate exercise,” the assistant director said as if she hadn’t heard.

“And what of labor and delivery?”

“Would you like to see a delivery? I can guarantee that a number are in progress as we speak.”

“I’ll leave that to the team. But how does labor go?”

Twerlinger shrugged. “The breeders rarely need sedation, but if they do, they get it. Our breeder sims receive better obstetrical care than a lot of humans, Ms. Cadman.”

“And after delivery?”

“It’s usually single offspring, but we’re beginning to have some success with increasing the incidence of twins. Once we perfect that we can double output.”

“I’m surprised you don’t simply clone them and incubate them ex-utero.”

“We tried that. Believe me, we tried that every which way imaginable, but the resultant offspring were much less tractable and far less emotionally stable than the ones gestated in utero. That’s the one thing we guarantee our lessees: stable and dependable workers. So…” She smiled here, a fleeting flash of yellowed teeth. “…we do it the old-fashioned way.”

“And you still allow a mother to stay with her child?”

Twerlinger nodded. “For a year; we find the offspring adapt faster in that year when the breeders are around to help train them. And we encourage all breeders to nurse because that seems to make for healthier and more emotionally stable offspring.”

“And then what?”

“We immunize them against the usual diseases. Chimps get polio and hepatitis and HIV, though they don’t develop AIDS. Sims are even more susceptible. Then the offspring are PRC’d and moved on into the dormitories to start their training.”

“Pee-are…?”

Twerlinger touched the nape of Romy’s neck. Her fingers were ice cold. “Tattooed with their serial number bar code. You’ve seen them, of course.”

“Of course.” She’d just never thought of babies being tattooed.

“It’s the only way we can accurately monitor inventory.”

“And the mothers?”

“Breeders, please. It’s tempting to anthropomorphize them, but we discourage it. Counterproductive, you know. Certain segments of the public get all caught up in their superficial human characteristics—”

“Well, they aren’t exactly white rats.”

“True, but when you come down to it, sims arelivestock , nothing more.”

Romy looked around at the bored, hopeless expressions on the…breeders. “Nothing more.”

“As for the breeders, after a year with their offspring, they’re rotated back to be impregnated again.”

Romy ground her teeth, biting back a tirade. She wanted to shout that they were too close to human to be treated as walking, talking incubators, to have their children—not offspring,children! —torn from them and then be impregnated again…and again…and again…

But she couldn’t let on how she felt. Zero had warned her about that: Never let them know, or your status in OPRR could be compromised.

She let out the breath she’d been holding. “That means every twenty months or so—”

“Yes, that’s the cycle. A hearty breeder can go through ten to twelve cycles before she’s retired.”

“Or just plain tired.”

What an existence, Romy thought as she looked around at the lethargic breeders. Most sims in her experience tended to be full of life and energy. These seemed barely able to move. And suddenly she knew why.

“They’re depressed,” Romy said.

Twerlinger arched her thin eyebrows. “I wasn’t aware you had training in sim psychology.”

No, but I know depression, lady—firsthand and big time.

“Don’t need any to realize it’s an unavoidable emotional fallout from being repeatedly separated from their children.”

“Ridiculous.”

“Chimps, orangutans, gorillas—all mourn the loss of a child. Why should sims be any different? In fact they’d bemore likely to mourn.”

Twerlinger sniffed. “Do animal emotional states fall under OPRR’s aegis?”

They didn’t. They both knew that.

Disappointed, Romy followed Twerlinger back to her office. She hadn’t found a thing. Maybe the full-team inspection would come up with something, but she’d struck out.

She found Portero waiting for her.

“Finished here?” he said.

“For now. Research next.”

His smile tried to look sympathetic as he shook his head. “As I told you, research is scheduled for this afternoon. The dormitories and training centers are next on the list.” He gave a helpless shrug.

Somehow, helpless didn’t fit with Luca Portero.

As she followed the security chief back to the Jeep she wondered if the judge had lowered the boom on the sim union yet.

15

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

Patrick felt no tension, no sense of suspense as Judge Boughton prepared to make his judgment. He’d been in a blue-black mood since he and Maggie Fischer, his secretary, had entered the federal courthouse in White Plains. As far as anyone was concerned, it was a done deal. Tony Hodges, the attorney for Beacon Ridge, had submitted well-researched motions that would have swayed a neutral judge; for a union hater like Boughton, they were like tossing gasoline on a bonfire. Add to that the amicus brief filed by SimGen on the club’s behalf, and the opposition had a slam dunk. The company’s legal howitzer, Abel Voss himself, looking like a cat about to be served a plateful of canaries, was seated two rows behind the defense table.

Maggie gave him a reassuring smile. A matronly forty-five, with curly brown hair and a hawklike nose, she sat straight-spined with her pen poised over her yellow pad. She was agreat legal secretary and he hoped her two boys stayed in college forever so she’d never be able to quit.

“It will all be over soon,” she said, sounding like a dental assistant before an extraction.

That was what the firm wanted, and so that was what Maggie thought he wanted. And as much as Patrick loathed the idea of defeat, a traitorous part of him was looking forward to Judge Boughton’s inevitable ruling. It didn’t know why he’d got himself into this, and now it wanted out.

But losing didn’t sit right. Never would.

The donation hotline already seemed to have called it quits. It had experienced a nice twenty-four-hour spike after his Ackenbury appearance, but then dropped to barely a trickle.

Then he’d had a call from his father after the Ackenbury show—a long message on his answering machine he hadn’t returned yet—that could be summed up as:My son wants to unionize monkeys!?!?!?

And the cherry on the soured whipped cream of this unwieldy concoction was the precarious state of his relationship with Pamela. She hadn’t found his stunt onAckenbury at Large the least bit amusing—“You made an ass out of yourself, Patrick!” She wanted him out of the sim case too. She’d decided to sleep at her own place last night. He hoped to coax her back tonight. After all, the window was fixed, and the cops were keeping an eye on the house.

He tried to imagine how things could get much worse.

He looked up as he heard the judge clear his throat. Boughton’s wrinkled hatchet face reminded Patrick of an aged Edward Everett Horton stripped of any trace of humor.

“I’ll make this short and sweet, gentlemen, since we all have busy schedules.”

Here it comes, Patrick thought.

“I have read the arguments, such as they are, that have been presented to the court, and although my personal beliefs lean the opposite way, I have not been sufficiently persuaded to grant Beacon Ridge a declaratory judgment.”

Patrick was reaching for his briefcase, preparing to gather up his papers and slink away when the key word sunk in.

Not? Did Boughton say,not ?

He saw Maggie’s stunned expression, glanced over at the defense table and saw Hodges on his feet, protesting to the judge, and Abel Voss seated behind him, pale with shock.

He did! Boughton denied the judgment!

Fighting the urge to pump his fist in the air and cheer, Patrick focused on Boughton’s response to Hodges.

“No sense in getting your blood pressure up, Mr. Hodges,” Boughton was saying. “I sympathize with your position, and concur on many of your points, but I believe larger issues are at stake here. At the very heart of this matter lies the question of the legal status of sims. We accord animals certain rights in this society—protection against cruelty and neglect, for instance—and if sims were mere chimpanzees, they would be covered by those laws. But sims are something more than chimps; sims did not exist when the laws protecting animals were framed; sims are not a product of normal evolution or natural selection. So how do we classify them?”

“I believe the United States Congress directly addressed that when it passed legislation—”

“I’m well aware of that legislation, Mr. Hodges. But I believe areas exist within current law that remain open to interpretation. And I believe there might even be questions as to whether congress overstepped its bounds when it passed that law. That sims are something more than animals is, I believe, beyond question; and yet because they are decidedly less than human, they cannot automatically be accorded those inalienable rights guaranteed by the Constitution. So where do they fit? What rightsdo they have?”

“If it please the court,” said Abel Voss, standing now. “Sims are a commercial product, owned by SimGen Corporation. They are private property, your honor.”

“As were slaves in the Old South,” Boughton said, gazing askance at Voss over the top of his reading gasses. “But that changed, didn’t it.”

“Sims are not human, your honor, so how can they form a union?”

“If you did your homework, Mr. Voss, you’d know that the NLRB statutes—written long before the first sim was created—refer to ‘persons.’ The word ‘human’ is never mentioned. Of course sims are not human, but does that automatically mean they are not persons? An interesting question, don’t you think? One that will have to be decided by the NLRB and, eventually I have no doubt, by the Supreme Court. Sit down, Mr. Voss.”

Boughton looked at Hodges, then shifted his gaze to Patrick. He shook his head and smiled.

“Look at those confounded expressions. What a shame. If you’d read my rulings a little more carefully, you’d have seen this coming. You will find I am nothing if not consistent.”

He rapped his gavel and began reeling off a list of dates that Patrick couldn’t follow. Good thing Maggie was here. At the moment he was too stunned to hold a pen. He glanced over and saw Hodges and Voss with their heads together, undoubtedly planning an appeal.

This was going to be a protracted fight, but amazingly he’d won the first round.

Later, on the way out of the courthouse, Maggie said, “What are we going to do?”

Good question. A defeat would have solved so many problems, and yet…he felt exhilarated, downright jubilant.

“Do? As long as we’re still alive, we’re going to run with it, as hard and fast as we can.”

“Really? But the partners—”

“I’ll handle them.”

He already had an angle worked out. He’d explain to Kraft that as much as he wanted out of the case, it would look bad for Pecht & Hayes if they dropped the sims on the heels of a favorable ruling.

But the truth was, this morning’s victory had energized him. He wanted to see how far he could take this. Not just for the settlement—which had just moved a few steps closer to a real possibility—but for thedoing itself.

“I’m glad,” Maggie said, touching his arm. “Those poor things have no one to speak for them. This is a good thing you’re doing.”

“Yeah,” he said, warmed by the motherly approval in her eyes, “I guess it is.” He looked around for a reporter—from a newspaper, radio, TV, anything—but found none. That would change. “When you get back to the office, send out a press release: The unionization of the Beacon Ridge sims is going forward…and don’t forget to mention the donation hotline.”

“You’re not going back?”

“I’ll be in after lunch. I’m going to stop off at the golf club and tell my clients the good news.”

But when Patrick arrived at the barrack he found the sims already celebrating.

“You’ve heard about the ruling already?” he said when he found Tome.

“No,” the old sim said, his eyes bright.

“Then why the party?”

“Gabba go D.”

“Is she hurt? What happened?”

Tome laughed, a wheezy sound. “No, she fine. Go D: no can wash dish now. Hands too hurt. Move old sim home.”

“Oh,” Patrick said. “You mean she’s being retired.”

“Yes-yes. Retired. Retired. Go D.”

D…Patrick had read somewhere that the expression to “go D” had come from the clause in the SimGen lease agreement that allowed lessees to return any sim that became defective, disabled, diseased, or decrepit for a fresh replacement.

Defective, disabled, diseased, decrepit…which one was Gabba? One look at her gnarled fingers and hunched back told the story. Arthritis was having a field day in her joints.

And then a thought struck Patrick like a blow—obviously the club hadn’t thought of it yet, but what if they decided to declare all their sims “D” and turn them in? How would that impact the case?

Or what if SimGen issued a recall that just happened to include the Beacon Ridge sims, and removed them all?

As he approached Gabba where she sat on one of the sofas, Patrick made a mental note to prepare preemptive injunctions to head off any such maneuvers. Had to be on his toes. He was playing with the big boys now.

“So, Gabba,” he said, dropping into the chair opposite her. “Looking forward to retirement?”

The old sim shook her head. Her brown eyes were moist. “No. Gabba want stay.”

“But winter’s coming,” he told her. “Those old joints will be much more comfortable in Arizona.”

Years ago SimGen had pulled a public relations coup by transforming a tract of Arizona desert into a retirement community for sims who were “D.” The company did it to reassure the public that sims no longer useful in the workforce were not destroyed. Instead they lived out their years in warmth and comfort. Reporters from all the media were toured regularly through the community, returning with videos and photos of disabled sims lounging in sunny tranquillity.

“No friend there. Friend here.”

“A nice old girl like you? You’ll make friends in no time.”

“No want new friend. Want here friend.”

Good lord, was that a tear slipping down her cheek? Did sims cry?

Wanting to change the subject, he looked up at the other sims crowding around. Time for an announcement.

“One thing you will miss, Gabba,” he said, letting his voice rise, “is all the excitement that will be going on here during the next few months because”—he shot his fist into the air—“the judge has decided to hear the case!”

The sims began capering about and yelling.

“Is true?” Tome said, grabbing his hand.

“Sure is. I just came from there.”

He let out a screech. “Mist Sulliman best!”

And then the sims took up a chant: “Sulli-MAN! Sulli-MAN! Sulli-MAN!” Stamping their feet, clapping their hands, pounding on the tables until the barrack shook with the chant. “Sulli-MAN! Sulli-MAN! Sulli-MAN!”

They love me, Patrick thought. No bitching about bills or unreturned calls. They think I’m the greatest.

He realized that these were the best damn clients he’d ever had—and most likely ever would.

16

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

“It’s the greatest job in the world,” said the bear of a man guiding her through the dorms.

Romy liked Harry Carstairs. She felt herself respond instantly to his gentle eyes, his soft manner, and the warm shake from his huge hand. As for the young sims—gangly, three-foot-tall versions of the adults, dressed in overalls color-coded for age—well, they obviously adored him, crowding around, murmuring his name, touching him as he passed as if he were a god. He cradled a yellow-overalled two-year-old female on his hip now as he showed Romy around.

“How so?” she said.

“Look at them.” He gestured to the crowded dorm as they walked among the seemingly endless rows of bunk beds. “So full of life and energy. It’s almost contagious. I get a buzz just walking through here.”

Romy had to admit the young sims were fun to be around—a positive tonic after the breeders in the natal center. She signed “hello” to a few of the older ones and they shyly signed back.

She wondered how Carstairs could reconcile the obvious affection he had for them with the fact that they were all destined to be slaves.

“How do you channel all that energy?” she asked as they edged toward a quieter corner. “How do you get them to sit still long enough for training?”

“We’ve developed a whole system of operant conditioning, routines of Skinnerian techniques but with no punishment—only positive reinforcement.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Romy had heard that SimGen treated its “product” well, but she’d wanted to see for herself. It seemed true. Not, she was sure, because the company was particularly humane; it simply had learned that a benign atmosphere during development resulted in the best workers.

“We start off with the social basics,” Carstairs said. “Toilet training is numero uno.”

Romy smiled. “I can imagine.”

“Next it’s how to dress and care for themselves, then the manual skills necessary for the kind of work they’ll be leased out for, and of course we stress all along the most important skill of all; language. We start with signing and move to vocalization as quickly as possible. They’re not all that intelligible when they leave here, but they can comprehend what they’re told and take instruction.”

She noted that he failed to mention the idea that was drummed incessantly into young sims’ brains throughout their upbringing: that they existed to work.

“How long does all this take?” she asked—she already knew the answer.

Carstairs’ gaze drifted away. “About five years, depending on the sim.”

Romy mimicked shock. “You’re sendingfive-year-olds out to work?”

“The ones that are ready, sure. Don’t forget, they’ve been genetically altered for accelerated growth and development.”

“Which shortens their life spans and leaves them old before their time.”

“We’re working on that. We had to crank out sims fast in the early days; now we’re getting to the point where we have the facilities to allow us a longer view. Longer lives are obviously better for the sims and, coincidentally, better for SimGen.”

“So you won’t have to send five-year-olds off to work.”

“Only chronologically five. With the hormonally enhanced diets they receive here they’re physically into their late teens when we let them go.”

“But up here…” She tapped a finger against her head. “…they’re children. How do you feel about sending children into that cold, cruel world out there?”

“Am I on trial or something here?” Carstairs said.

“Of course not.” Be professional, Romy reminded herself. Cool and professional.

“SimGen does its damnedest to see that a sim’s world is neither cold nor cruel. That’s why we don’t sell them. They always belong to SimGen—that way we can protect them.”

“They’re still just kids,” Romy said, fighting to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Just kids.”

The rest of the dorm tour was a little tense.

“I think it’s time for lunch,” Luca Portero said with a grin as they once again seated themselves in the Jeep. “There’s this sweet little restaurant just a few miles from here where they have the greatest…”

Not gonna happen, she thought as she closed out his voice. I’ll eat in the employee caf.

As they passed the two buildings that made up the research complex, she interrupted him. “When we get into the research centers, I think I’ll start with the basic facility, and then move on to general research.”

Portero shook his head and heaved a dramatic sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“What now?”

“You will not be inspecting the basic research facility.”

“Of course I will. That’s what it says in the order—‘all research facilities.’ What part of ‘all’ is causing confusion here?”

Another helpless shrug. “If it was up to me—”

“Cut it. We’ll have SimGen back in court first thing tomorrow morning.”

“That will be up to you. But the powers that be consider the basic research experiments too sensitive and proprietary to allow inspection. They’re worried about industrial espionage.”

“Nonsense! Every member of my team—”

“We will allow you to inspect every other facility on the campus,” he said, his voice taking on an edge. “But under no circumstances do we allow outsiders in that building. We will go to the Supreme Court to protect our basic research.”

Romy did not miss the sparks in his crocodile eyes. So now it’s “we,” is it?

She knew damned well that SimGen could barrage the courts with motions ad infinitum.

She was wearing two spycams and had been saving them for the basic research facility. Now, damn it, she wouldn’t get a chance to use them.

With frustration burning like a hot poker against the back of her neck, she turned toward the window. Don’t lose it…don’t lose it…

As she glared through the glass she noticed a truck pulling out of the basic research building’s enclosed loading dock. She couldn’t tell if it was the same one she’d seen earlier, but so what?—she wanted a closer look at it. But by the time it reached the road they’d be well past it.

Finding the window button she jabbed it with one hand while she rummaged through her shoulder bag with the other. She pulled her notebook free, then let it flutter from her fingers and out the window.

“Stop!” she cried. “My notes!”

Portero hit the brakes. As soon as the car stopped—and before he could shift into reverse—Romy hopped out and ran back. She retrieved the notebook, then stood and studied the truck as it reached the road.

It looked brand-new, dark green, about the size of a UPS delivery van, but with no lettering on the side panels, no indication anywhere that it belonged to SimGen or anyone else. As it turned and roared away, she used a spycam hidden in one of her suit jacket buttons to photograph its Idaho plates.

Idaho?

And then the Jeep was backing past and skidding to a halt in front of her—directly between Romy and the retreating truck.

“Find it?” Portero said, bounding out from behind the wheel.

“Yes,” she said.

“Good.” He trotted around and opened the passenger door for her. He seemed anxious to get her back in the car. “Now, about lunch…”

Romy stepped to her right so she could see the truck again, and pointed to it. “What’s in the truck?” she said so innocently, as if asking what octane gas he used in the Jeep.

“Truck?” He looked around with equal innocence as if just noticing it. “Oh. Just delivering supplies.”

“Where’s it going? The gate’s the other way.”

“I don’t know. I don’t keep track of delivery schedules.”

A bend in the road swallowed the truck. Romy saw no point in standing out here any longer, so she stepped past Portero and slid back into her seat.

“You’re SimGen’s chief of security and you have no idea why an unmarked truck is rolling from the basic research building toward the company’s private airport?”

Portero’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know that’s the road to the airport?”

Romy smiled. “Lucky guess?”

His expression hardened as he slammed her door closed.

“And just when we were starting to really hit it off,” she muttered.

17

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

OCTOBER 6

Patrick Sullivan lay in bed on his right side, face to the wall, Pamela spooned warmly against his back.

Ah, peace.

Judge Boughton’s decision had started to thaw the ice between them. After all, if a federal judge thought the case warranted a hearing, then maybe Patrick hadn’t gone off his head with “this sim thing,” as she liked to call it. A little champagne before dinner and a Graves Bordeaux with perfectly done steaks had finished the melt, leading to a hefty serving of aerobic sex for dessert.

And now for some much-needed sleep. But his slow slide toward dreamland was cut short by the crash of shattering glass. He levered up in the bed. Not again! The sound had come from the living room this time. Anger bloomed with the crash, but thewhoomp! that followed it shot a bolt of terror through his heart, even before he saw the flicker of flames along the hallway.

“Pam!” he shouted, shaking her. “Pam, wake up!”

She was slow coming to. Not used to all that wine. But when she saw the flames and smelled the smoke—

“My God!”

Neither of them was wearing a stitch but they still had a few seconds. Patrick found Pam’s slacks and blouse on the floor and tossed them to her. As she slipped into them—God knew where their underwear might be—he dialed 911. He found his jeans as he was reporting the fire.

Less than a minute later, cold and barefoot, they stood on the curb and watched the flames fan out from the living room. The howling fire trucks arrived shortly and brought the blaze quickly under control, but not before it had gutted Patrick’s house. Somewhere along the way a neighbor had draped a blanket over their shoulders; another had brought them some old sneakers, ill-fitting but a hell of a lot more comfortable than the cold wet asphalt of the street.

When it was over and the firemen were rolling up their hoses, Patrick stood mute, numb with shock, unable to move a muscle as he stared at the smoking ruin of his home. But Pamela began to lose it. She started with a few deep sobs that quickly graduated to wails. Patrick tried to comfort her but she shoved him back.

“Don’t come near me!” she screamed. “This is all your fault! I told you to forget this crazy sim thing but you wouldn’t listen! You had to keep pushing and pushing until you almost got us killed!”

Patrick saw the terror slithering in her eyes. He took a step toward her. “Pam—”

“No!” She held out a hand and backed away. She looked wild with her hair in disarray and her tears reflecting red and blue flashes from the police and fire vehicles. “No, you stay away! I’ve had it! I can’t take this anymore! Everyone I work with thinks you’re either a nut or an opportunist! I’m tired of defending you and I don’t want to be burned alive! We’rethrough , Patrick! I can’t take any more…I just can’t!”

She’s hysterical, he thought. She doesn’t know what she’s saying. “Pam, please…”

“No!” She raised her hand higher and turned away, moving toward her car. Through a sob she said, “I’m going home alone, Patrick. Good-bye.”

She left Patrick standing alone outside the smoking timbers of what had been his home, wondering how a day that had started out so well could go so hideously wrong.

18

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

OCTOBER 7

“All I can say,” Mercer Sinclair shouted, “is that there’d better not be any connection to SimGen! If I find out anyone here had anything to do with this, heads will roll, and I don’t care whose body is attached!”

Luca Portero watched Sinclair-1—his pet name for SimGen’s CEO—pace back and forth in his two-toned CEO office before his panoramic CEO window. If this display was being staged to intimidate Luca or the two other men who made up the rest of the CEO’s captive audience, it was failing. Miserably.

Luca glanced around. Abel Voss had his wide butt crammed into an armchair and looked as if he was listening to a weather report, and not a terribly bad one. Sinclair-2, Ellis, the useless Sinclair, was slumped on the sofa and staring out at the clear morning sky. As for Luca himself, he stood. He preferred to stay on his feet during these gatherings.

Sinclair-1 paused, so Luca used the break to offer something useful.

“I spoke to the Westchester County Sheriff this morning. They caught the guys—two of them. Didn’t take much: They were drunk and had wrapped themselves around a utility pole getting away. Had an unused Molotov and a can of gas in their back seat.”

Sinclair-1 pointed at Luca. “Who hired them? You?”

Luca only stared at him.

“I asked you a question,” Sinclair-1 said. “And I’d better like the answer. Because if I don’t…”

He let it hang, but Luca didn’t believe in letting things hang. “You’ll…what?”

Sinclair-1 might be CEO, but Luca wasn’t going to allow anyone he didn’t take orders from to threaten him. And he took orders from no one in this room.

Voss jumped into the tense silence. “I think we can be sure our friend Luca here had nothing to do with any attack on Mr. Sullivan.”

“Can we?” Sinclair-1 said, glaring at Luca. “I’ve witnessed your problem-solving methods in the past, Portero, and this incident, I might say, fits right in with your M.O.”

“We’ve all seen how he solves problems,” Voss said. “And that’s just my point. If we consider one salient fact here, I think we can be certain Mr. Portero did not try to incinerate Mr. Sullivan.”

“And what would that fact be?”

“Mr. Sullivan is still alive.”

Luca fought a smile as Voss winked at him. He disliked the legal profession as a whole and found fat people repulsive, but this lard-bellied shyster was all right.

Sinclair-1 considered Voss’s words, then turned back to Luca and nodded. “I apologize.”

Luca went on as if nothing had happened. “The men were a couple of Teamsters who as much as confessed, making statements to the effect that no way were they calling ‘a bunch of fucking monkeys our union brothers.’ As far as anyone can tell, they were acting on their own.”

“Thank God they failed!” Voss cried.

Sinclair-1 nodded. “Damn right. Bad enough Boughton denies the declaratory judgment. All we need now is some asshole making a martyr out of Patrick Sullivan.” He turned to Voss. “Which brings me to another point: Didn’t you sit in that very same chair and tell me Boughton would be on our side? ‘Our kinda guy,’ was the way you described him. Someone who’d ‘toss this case in two seconds flat.’ Wasn’t that how you put it?”

“I believe I did,” Voss replied, looking uncomfortable. “But you see—”

“What I see is that he did just the opposite. What the hell happened? Did he have some kind of mini-stroke? What is hethinking ?”

“If you ask me, and you just did, I believe that ol boy’s hearin the magic word that rings a bell in every judicial head:precedent .”

Sinclair-1 stopped pacing and did a slow turn toward Voss. “Precedent? You don’t mean—?”

“I do,” Voss said. “Oh yes I surely do. Every judge dreams of having his name attached to a precedent-setting decision. This could be a big one. Might upgrade the legal status of sims to ‘persons.’ To that end any judge might be inclined to allow Mr. Sullivan more latitude than he’d ever normally tolerate.”

Sinclair-1 lowered himself into the high-backed chair behind his shiny black desk. “Upgrade to…persons,” he said, sounding as if he was running out of air.

Luca suddenly felt a little tense himself. He was about to speak when another voice interrupted him.

“Yes, Merce.Upgrade —as in closer to human.”

The sound of Ellis Sinclair’s voice startled Luca. Sinclair-2 rarely opened his mouth at these meetings. He turned to see the older brother’s eyes blazing as he straightened from his perpetual slump, rising from dazed and listless to tight and focused. Luca couldn’t remember the last time he had seen him like this, if ever.

Sinclair-1 glared at his brother. “If you can’t add anything constructive, Ellis—”

“Upgraded close enough to human so that they can no longer be classed asproduct , asproperty . Think about that, Merce.”

Luca was doing some thinking, and he knew that could mean the end not just of SimGen, but of so much more. A catastrophe. Yet Sinclair-2 seemed to relish the possibility.

“Now, now,” Voss said. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Nothin like that’ll ever get past our appeal.”

Sinclair-1 wheeled on him. “You said it would never get past Boughton!” he shouted. “What if the appellate court has visions of precedents dancing in its head too?”

“Feeling a little tense, Merce?” said the older brother. “Sims in court…an OPRR inspection team ranging across the campus.” He waggled his finger in the air. “Mene mene tekel upharsin.”

Luca stared at Sinclair-2. First he acts like he wants his own company ruined, now he’s talking gibberish. What a loser.

But a glance at the CEO’s enraged expression told Luca that maybe it wasn’t gibberish. Voss too looked uncomfortable. Must have meantsomething . What language? Luca wanted like crazy to know what the hell Sinclair-2’s jabber meant but couldn’t reveal his ignorance. The words had a familiar ring, like echoes from somewhere in his childhood, but they remained tantalizingly out of reach.

Nobody was moving. Reminded Luca of one of those freeze-frame endings in a movie. Then Voss glanced at him. He must have sensed Luca’s confusion.

“It’s a Biblical prophecy, Mr. Portero. The legendary handwritin on the wall. Means you’ve been counted and weighed and found want in, and so God’s gonna divide up your kingdom and hand over the pieces to your enemies.”

“I knew that,” Luca said, feeling his face redden. He remembered it now, from the Catholic school his mother had forced him to go to.

“Forget that nonsense,” Sinclair-1 snapped. “We’ve got to take Sullivan out of the picture.”

Nowyou’re talking, Luca thought. “I’ll talk to my people,” he said. “If they clear it…”

Sinclair-1 shot him a hard look. “I’m not talking about your methods. We’ll take him out without laying a finger on him.” To Voss: “He’s an attorney. Find out who his clients are. He works both sides of the labor fence, so let’s see what unions and companies use him.”

Voss was nodding and grinning. “I see which way this breeze is blowin.”

“But let’s not stop there. What’s the name of his firm?”

“Payes and Hecht.”

“Good. Make a list of their biggest clients. When you’ve put all that together, we’ll sit down and see what arms we can twist, what favors we can call in.”

“Right. We’ll have his firm give that boy a choice: Drop the sims or we drop you.”

Sinclair-1’s smile was tight. “When we’re finished with Mr. Patrick Sullivan, he’ll wish to God he’d never laid eyes on a sim.” He turned back to Luca. “That leaves OPRR. What’s the status there?”

“Under control.” Luca glanced at his watch. “I should be checking back with my office now.”

Actually, his security force didn’t need him. The OPRR team was being expertly corralled, and would see only what they were supposed to see. But he’d had enough of this meeting. And the knowledge that the luscious Cadman woman was somewhere on the campus burned like a flame inside him. Something about her had reached a deep, usually well-insulated part of him. He wanted another look at her, wanted to be in the same room, breathe the same air, catch her scent, brush against her…

“Maybe you should be checking a little closer,” Sinclair-1 said. “I understand there was an incident yesterday.”

Luca tensed. “What incident?”

“The OPRR point scout saw something she shouldn’t have.”

Damn! How had he learned that?

“She saw an unmarked truck, nothing more.”

“She shouldn’t have seen that truckat all .”

“And she wouldn’t have if she’d stuck to her schedule. She was supposed to arrive at one. The truck was scheduled to be long gone before noon. But there she was making a stink at the gate five hours early.”

“What did she see?” Voss said.

“An unmarked truck pull out of Basic’s secure loading dock and head up the road. No reason for her to think it was anything more than a supply truck making routine deliveries.”

He didn’t mention her question about it heading for the airport.

“Lucky for us,” the CEO said. “But what if something untoward had happened, say, an improperly latched rear door swinging open while she was standing there staring at it? What then?”

“I don’t waste time worrying about things that never happened.”

The CEO stared at him a moment. “Let’s just hope that little incident does not come back to haunt us.”

Luca said nothing. He also didn’t want to mention the fact that the truck hadn’t been completely unmarked. It had had a license plate. He wondered if Romy Cadman had noticed that. And if so, had she cared. He hadn’t seen her write anything down, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t memorized it. But why would she bother? OPRR wasn’t interested in trucks.

But they’d sure as hell have been interested in what that one was carrying.

Nothing to worry about as far as Luca could see. The truck had been driven aboard the cargo plane and whisked away to Idaho. The OPRR inspection was going by the numbers—his numbers. Everything under control. No sweat.

Although he wouldn’t mind getting sweaty with their chief inspector.

He yanked his thoughts away from that warm little fantasy to the matters at hand. As he saw it, this Sullivan guy and the sim unionization thing were powder kegs. Let Sinclair-1 and Voss try to put Sullivan on the ropes their way. If that worked, fine. If not, his people would step in and settle the matter his own way. For good.

Either way, the future was not going to be a happy place for a certain shyster named Patrick Sullivan.

1

MANHATTAN

OCTOBER 19

“Well, it’s been two weeks since the inspection,” Romy said, “and we’re still in court trying to get SimGen to open its basic research facilities. So, net gain thus far from all this effort is zip. Or maybe I should sayzero —if you’ll pardon the expression.”

“Any time,” Zero said.

They had assumed their usual positions in the dank basement under the abandoned storefront on Worth Street: Zero backlit behind the rickety table, swathed in a turtleneck, dark glasses, and a ski mask this time; Romy sitting across from him. She’d walked twice around the block today to assure she hadn’t been followed.

Romy knew she’d been in a foul mood lately; she’d spent the past couple of weeks snapping at everyone in the office. And with good reason. The organization was getting nowhere with SimGen. Lots of movement but no forward progress. Like jogging on a treadmill.

And she resented Zero too, with his corny disguise and his secrets and his damned elliptical manner. She could sense him smiling at her behind the layers of cloth hiding his face. She wanted to kick over his crummy folding table, snap his dark glasses, rip off his ski mask, and say, Let’s just cut this melodramatic bullshit and talk face-to-face.

Usually she didn’t like herself when she fell into this state, but today she relished it. She wanted someone to push her buttons so she could tap dance on a head or two.

“But ‘zero’ isn’t quite accurate,” he said. “Your inspections confirmed that SimGen is treating its sims as humanely as advertised.”

Romy nodded. That had been the plus side. Though the young sims led a barracks-style life of multilevel bunks and regimented hours, their environment was clean and they were well nourished.

“Humanely,” she said. “After spending all that time with so many of them, the word has garnered new meaning in respect to sims.”

“How so?”

“Well, so many typical chimp behaviors are missing. The mothers don’t carry their young on their backs like chimps, but on their hips like humans. And I saw only a rare sim grooming another. Chimps are always grooming each other. I’d think if SimGen wanted to keep the public thinking of sims as animals they would have allowedsome chimp behavior to carry over.”

“First off,” Zero said, “it could be learned behavior. If they’ve never seen or experienced grooming, they might not do it. Plus, sims don’t have anywhere near the amount of hair as chimps, so it’s not necessary. And if it’s genetically linked behavior, it might have disappeared when SimGen ‘cleaned up’ the sim genome by removing most of the so-called junk DNA. Or the company might have engineered it out of them because it would interfere with their work efficiency.”

“That last sounds typical. Too bad, because it seems to give chimps comfort.” Romy shook her head. “No grooming, no sex, no joy, no aggression, no love, no hate…it’s like they’re half alive—lessthan half. It’s unconscionable. Chimps laugh, they cry, they exhibit loyalty and treachery, they can be loving and murderous, they can be born ambitious, they can fight wars, they can commit infanticide. A mix of the good and the bad, the best and the worst, just like humans. But sims…sims have been stripped of the extremes, pared down to a bland mean to make them workforce fodder.”

She closed her eyes a moment to hold back a hot surge of anger. No use getting herself worked up now.

“How do sims feel about it?” Zero asked. “Ever wonder?”

“All the time. I signed to a lot of the young ones during the inspection tours, asking them just that:How do you feel? andAre you happy? ”

“How did they answer?”

“They answered ‘Okay’ to the first, but they didn’t seem to know what ‘happy’ meant.”

“Tough concept.”

Romy shot to her feet and walked around in a tight circle, grinding a fist against her palm.

“Maybe I should quit this.”

“Romy—”

“No, I’m serious. My life is one tangled mass of dissatisfaction. I should quit the organization, put in my time at OPRR, settle down, marry a fellow bureaucrat, buy a house, have kids, and forget all this crap! Life would be so much simpler and I’d be so much happier!”

“Would you?”

“At least I wouldn’t be so damn frustrated!” You’re losing it, she thought. Keep a lid on it. But she couldn’t. She needed to spew. “Everywhere I turn, someone’s hiding something from me: couldn’t find anything useful at SimGen, you won’t show me your face or let me in on who else is in the organization. Hell, for all I know, OPRR’s got a secret agenda they’re keeping from me too! I’m sick of it! Sick to death!”

Zero said nothing, merely sat and waited for her to cool. Good move.

With a little more circle walking and fist grinding, the heat seeped away and she dropped back into the chair.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m back.”

“What can I do to make this better?”

“Nothing. It’s not you, it’s me. I always seem at odds with a world that I should be so thankful for. Look what the genome revolution has done. We’ll all live longer because so many genetic diseases have already been wiped out, and days are numbered for the rest of them. Heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, certain cancers—if they ran in your family you pretty much had to resign yourself to dealing with them at some point in your life. Not these days. Germline therapy has seen to that. Cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, MS—hell,nobody has those anymore.”

“Jerry Lewis finally stopped those telethons.”

Romy had to smile. “There you go—something else to be thankful for. And then there’s…me. You know about my splice, I assume.”

Zero nodded. “Changed your life, didn’t it.”

Oh, yes, she thought. You might even say it saved my life.

She remembered adolescence as a time of chaos. Under the influence of the new hormones surging through her maturing body, her childhood fits of violence segued into other modes of acting out. When she was Reasonable Romy she was an A student, but then somewhere in her system a switch would be thrown and Raging Romy would emerge. If Reasonable Romy had a fault, it was that she felt too much, cared too much. Raging Romy cared for no one, least of all herself, and needed to go to extremes to feel anything.

She stifled a groan as she remembered the reckless sex—she cut a sexual swath through the willing males and females in each of the three high schools she attended, then jumped into drinking, drugs, shoplifting, the whole gamut. When she was caught dancing naked on the roof of the gym she qualified for emergency institutionalization.

During her time in the locked ward of the hospital, the doctors explained that Reasonable Romy was the real Romy, the only Romy, but at times her neurohormones would undergo wild fluctuations, causing her to act out of character. They said it was a form of what they called bipolar disorder and they had medications that would keep her neurohormones—and thus her behavior—on an even keel.

Wrong.

Oh, the drugs worked for a while. She survived high school and her parents’ divorce—Raging Romy’s behavior playing a major part in the breakup—And Got Through College Without too many incidents. During grad school she started noticing increasingly wide mood swings. She managed to earn her Ph.D. in Anthropology, but shortly after that she was out of control.

A parade of doctors tried a wide array of chemical cocktails to regulate her behavior. No luck. Finally someone suggested a radical new treatment—gene therapy. A defective gene in her brain cells had been identified as the cause of her disorder. Using a viral vector, they could replace the aberrant base sequence in the gene and get it back to normal functioning.

But no success was guaranteed. The therapy was still experimental in those days. The virus would target only areas of the brain that controlled her serotonin and dopamine levels; if it got to enough cells, the levels would stabilize, normalize. If not…well, there’d been all sorts of releases to sign.

Apparently the vector virus reached a sufficient number of cells: Raging Romy never showed her face again.

But she wasn’t gone. She remained in the unspliced cells, whispering, rattling her chains…a ghost in Romy’s machine. And when Reasonable Romy was angry or stressed, she could feel Raging Romy pushing her way to the surface, trying to break through to be reborn.

And the scary part was, sometimes Romy found herself cheering her on, almost hoping she’d make it. Because she’d felt so damngood when Raging Romy had the wheel.

“Yes, it did,” Romy told Zero. “I had a genetic defect spliced out of me and I’ve never regretted it. I’m more my own boss because of it. So why aren’t I overjoyed with our brave new world?”

Zero said nothing.

The perfect response, Romy thought. If I don’t know, he sure as hell doesn’t.

She sighed. “Anyway, our inspections were satisfactory—as far as they got. But they could be performing vivisection in that basic research building for all we know.”

She’d had two ongoing problems to contend with during the inspection tour. Lack of access to basic research had been the major issue. The other had been the relentless come-ons from Luca Portero; the man somehow had developed the notion that he was irresistible to women, and that Romy’s repeated refusals of his invitations to lunch, dinner, and even breakfast were simply her way of playing hard to get.

She didn’t mention that to Zero. What was the point? OPRR would be locked in court with SimGen for the foreseeable future and she probably wouldn’t see Luca Portero again for a long time, if ever.

But just thinking about that man only added to her edginess.

Zero said, “We’ll let the courts deal with the basic research issue for now. The good news is that after many man-hours of effort by a number a people, we’ve finally hit pay dirt on that license plate number you so wisely recorded—a number we wouldn’t know had you not thrown them a curve by showing up early. A lucky day for us when you joined the organization.”

She could feel his praise mellowing her—a little. Always nice to be appreciated, but how sincere was he? Was it that he had sensed her mood and was simply trying to placate her? So damn hard to read him without a glimpse of his face or his eyes. Almost as bad as email. Worse—even email had those annoying little smilies.

But she remembered his excitement when she’d told him about the plate. He hadn’t been faking that.

“About time something paid off,” she said.

“Not a big payday, I’m afraid, but who knows where it will lead. The truck was leased from a firm in Gooding, Idaho, by a private individual named Harold Golden.”

“Really.” She drew out the word. “What’s a private individual from Idaho doing on SimGen’s campus?”

“It gets better: Harold Golden’s MasterCard is sound, so the leasing company never checked him out. But we did, and guess what? Harold Golden doesn’t exist. He’s just a name on a credit card account.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Can’t be one hundred percent sure unless we find something like his Social Security number belonging to a soldier who died in Afghanistan or Iraq. That’s not the case here. The provenance of his Social Security number appears sound, but can you imagine a man who’s doing some sort of business with SimGen who has never taken out a loan of any kind? Who has one credit card on which he charges only one thing: the lease of three trucks?”

“Unlikely…but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist.”

“I can tell you that he doesn’t live at the Boise address he gave the leasing company. And that his MasterCard bill goes to an entirely different address: a mail drop in Hicksville.”

“Long Island?”

“At the risk of sounding like an infomercial: But wait—there’s more. The investigator I sent to Idaho turned up something else: Harold Golden began leasing these trucks four years ago. The man who runs the company remembers him because Golden wanted the exact same trucks that had been returned that very day from another lessee. Guess who that lessee was?”

Romy shrugged. “Mercer Sinclair?”

“Close. Manassas Ventures.”

“Doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

“Manassas Ventures was the source of the start-up capital that allowed the brothers Sinclair to get SimGen rolling. Consequently it controls a huge block of SimGen stock.”

“And the connection to Harold Golden?”

“At this point, nothing beyond the trucks. But guess where Manassas Ventures has its office.”

“Hicksville?”

“Exactly. And it has a strange way of doing business. The company rents space in a small out-of-the-way office building but doesn’t seem to have any employees. Manassas Ventures is on the door, but it’s a door that remains locked all day, every day, week after week. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it.”

“A man who doesn’t exist and a business that doesn’t do any business.”

Romy felt a tingle along the nape of her neck. “Am I detecting a pattern here?”

“I think so. Ironically, we’ve been aware of Manassas Ventures all along but never paid any attention to it. I’d assumed it was simply another of the countless venture capital groups that have popped up since the early nineties—one that happened to get lucky and strike it very rich. But I should have known never to assume anything where SimGen is concerned.”

“If Manassas owns a lot of company stock, then it’s logical for it to be involved in SimGen doings.”

“But logic seems to be taking a breather here. For instance, if you were an investment group with SimGen on your list and flush with capital, what would you be doing?”

“I’d be crowing. I’d have impressive offices to attract new ventures to underwrite.”

“Exactly. Yet Manassas Ventures’s only address is a deserted space in a nowhere building.”

“Almost as if they’re hiding.”

“They are. Behind Harold Golden. I believe Manassas invented him as a layer of insulation between itself and the truck rentals. And it almost worked. We were just lucky that our investigator asked the right questions on a day when someone at the leasing company was in a talkative mood. Otherwise, we’d never know the Manassas connection.”

“But why insulate itself?”

The tingle in Romy’s neck moved across her shoulders and down her spine. She sensed the situation moving beyond simply wrong…something sinister at work here.

Zero said, “Because I’m betting that Manassas Ventures has ongoing involvement with SimGen’s day-to-day workings that it doesn’t want anyone to know about. And the most likely reason for keeping an activity secret is that it’s illegal.”

“But SimGen is one of the richest corporations in the world, with a lock on a unique product”—she hated when sims were referred to as “product,” but this time it fit—“in high demand. They’re practicallyminting money. They’ve got it all. Why risk a connection to something illegal? It doesn’t make sense.”

“It does if whoever is behind Manassas Ventures is pulling strings inside SimGen. Pulling strings that lead to the basic research facility, perhaps?”

That struck a nerve…might explain the company’s adamant refusal to let OPRR near the building, even with a court order.

Zero went on and Romy could sense him fairly vibrating with anticipation. “If something illegal or even quasi-legal is going on, we may have found the lever to crack open SimGen’s wall of secrecy. All because you showed up earlier than expected.”

“And caught a worm.”

“Maybe a snake. I’d say Manassas Ventures is long overdue for an in-depth probe of its workings and personnel, wouldn’t you.”

“Anything I can do?”

“In regard to Manassas, no. But as for our friend, Patrick Sullivan—”

“Oh? So he’s ‘our friend’ now, is he?”

Romy sensed a smile behind Zero’s ski mask. “Not a close friend, not a bosom buddy, but…” His voice trailed off.

“But what?”

“I don’t know…there’s something about him. Maybe I’m feeling a little sorry for him because he’s going through the worst time of his life.”

“Really?”

“His girlfriend dumped him, his house is a charred ruin, he’s been living in a motel room for weeks, and SimGen is putting the screws to his career.”

Romy felt her interest growing. “How so?”

“They’re pressuring Sullivan’s clients to drop him.”

She shook her head in amazement. “How do youknow all this?”

“I have my sources.”

“You’re a SimGen insider. You’ve got to be.”

“Back to Mr. Sullivan?”

Romy tore her mind away from the tantalizing possibilities of Zero’s identity. Sullivan…his predicament did sound pretty awful, but the shyster deserved it.

“Don’t expect me to shed tears for any lawyer, especially one of the headline hunting variety who’s been taking those sims for a ride.”

“You’re assessment of him might be accurate, but I’ve got to hand it to him: He’s lost a number of big clients and he’s still hanging tough.”

“No kidding?” Romy was surprised. “I’d have thought he’d have folded like an old suitcase by now.”

“Well, I don’t expect him to hold up forever, so I believe it’s time we stepped in. And speaking of suitcases…” Zero lifted a large metal attaché case onto the table. “I’m hoping the contents of this will bolster his fortitude.”

He slid it toward Romy who released the catches and lifted the top. She repressed a gasp at sight of the stacks of currency.

“How much is in here?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand.”

“What’s wrong with a check?”

“I feel a man like Mr. Sullivan—I am not blind to his failings—will require more concrete proof of the seriousness of our interest.”

Here was concrete, all right—a whole sidewalk. “How do I approach him?”

“Directly, I would think. I’ll leave the details up to you.”

Zero rose. A sign the meeting was over.

“But where do I say the money’s from?”

“Again, I leave that to your inventive mind. But since I know how lying bothers you, I’m going to make things easier. I’m giving the money to you, no strings attached.”

“You’rewhat ?”

“That’s right. To do with as you wish. Buy a house or a fleet of sports cars if you want. It’s all yours.”

As the shock wore off, she began to understand. “I see what you’re up to.”

Zero said, “But should you decide to approach Mr. Sullivan with it, I suggest being nice to him. You might find yourself spending a good deal of time with Mr. Patrick Sullivan.”

“I can hardly wait.” She snapped the lid shut on the money. “That’s it? You’re letting me walk out of here with a quarter of a million in cash?”