Sims

“OB?” Patrick glanced past her at Zero who nodded. “Then if we find this pregnant sim—?”

“You’ll bring her to me, of course. I’ve lots of experience delivering sims.”

“You have?”

“Certainly. I spent six years as medical director of SimGen’s natal center. When it finally seeped through to me that I was delivering a race of slaves into the world, I quit. And not long after that I received a call from Zero.”

The idea of birthing sims thrust Alice Fredericks’s crazy, tortured face into Patrick’s mind. “Let me pop you a question out of far left field: Do you know if SimGen ever used human women to bear sims?”

“What?” Romy said. “That’s not out of left field, that’s from the bleachers!”

“Not while I was there, I assure you,” Betsy said. “Why do you ask?”

Patrick told them about Alice Fredericks and her story.

“She certainly sounds delusional,” Betsy said.

“I’m ready to believe that SimGen’s connected to almost anything bad,” Zero said, “but I draw the line at space aliens. Let’s get back to reality, shall we?” He turned to Betsy Cannon. “Any idea yet as to what’s wrong with the patient we sent you last night?”

“The more we learn about his condition,” she said, shaking her head, “the more mysterious it becomes. He has a form of aphasia that’s both expressive and receptive.”

“Sorry?” Patrick said.

“He can’t understand what’s said to him, or even written out for him, and can only jabber word salad when he wants to speak.”

Patrick shivered inside. “Sounds like an inner circle of lawyer hell.”

“Syndromes like it can occur with strokes or sometimes with tumors that affect the Broca speech area of the brain, but an MR scan showed a perfectly normal brain. We shipped him out to NYU Medical Center this morning where they did a PET scan—that’s positron emission tomography. It gives us a functional as opposed to structural view of the brain, and Mr. Palmer’s Broca area has been damaged.”

“Damaged how?” Romy said.

Betsy shrugged. “Neurology is not my field but I’ve been asking a lot of questions under the guise of being interested because I found him in the parking lot. The experts’ best guess is a toxin.”

“Totuus?” Romy said. “You mean I did that to him?”

“No. Totuus was found in his system, but the NYU neurologists believe he had another compound in his bloodstream that combined with the Totuus to form a neurotoxin specific to the Broca area.”

“Pretty damn sophisticated,” Zero said.

Betsy nodded. “Amazingly sophisticated, according to the experts. All just theory, of course, one they have no way of testing at the moment, but it goes a long way toward explaining his syndrome.”

“And it fits with his behavior last night,” Romy said. “Remember how he broke down and cried when he found out we’d injected him with the Totuus? He must have known he had the other compound floating through his bloodstream, and knew what was coming.”

Zero said, “A failsafe to prevent anyone from using Palmer’s own Totuus against him.”

“Is it permanent?” Romy asked.

Betsy shrugged. “Who can say? No one I’ve spoken to has ever dealt with anything like this.”

“My guess is it’s temporary,” Zero said. “I can’t see anyone willingly taking something that could cause irreversible brain damage. But temporary can be a long time.”

“Talk about covering your tracks,” Romy said, shaking her head. “How are we ever going to nail these monsters?”

Betsy smiled and tightened her scarf around her neck. “That I will leave to you. As for me, as long as I’m in the city I believe I’ll do some Christmas shopping. Good luck. And you know I’m available anytime day or night if you find that pregnant sim.”

Patrick showed her out, then returned to where Zero and Romy were standing.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “What if it wasn’t just the mixture of the two drugs in his bloodstream? What if saying a vital word was what triggered the—what was it?”

“Aphasia,” Zero said, then shook his head. “That sounds even more farfetched.”

“Maybe. But what was he saying at the very instant something tripped the circuit breaker in his brain?”

“I don’t remember,” Romy said, “but it’s easy enough to find out.”

She went to a shelf on the wall and retrieved the recorder. She reversed it for a second, then hitPLAY . Romy’s voice burst from the tiny speaker.

“—op stalling! Tell me now: Who do you work for?”was followed by Parker’s hoarse rasp:“SIRG—” and then strangled noises and cries of alarm.

Romy switched off the player. She looked pale. “Want to hear it again?”

“That’s okay. You heard the word: ‘Surge,’ right?”

Zero shrugged. “I doubt he was talking about a fabric or an electric current. I believe he got out the first syllable of the answer—‘s-u-r’ or ‘s-e-r’ or ‘c-e-r’ or maybe even ‘c-i-r’ for circle—and then the seizure hit and the rest of the word or words were crushed into a guttural mess.”

“But this was in direct response to ‘Who do you work for?’ so it’s got to have some relevance, don’t you think? I mean, at least it’s a start. Question is, how to find out if it means anything?”

“Why don’t we simply ask?” Romy said.

“Oh, sure. I’ll just call up Mercer Sinclair and say, ‘What does the word “surge” mean to you?’ That’ll work.”

A smile played about Romy’s lips, the first since last night. “Why call when you can ask in person?”

8

NEWARK, NJ

Meerm feel ver bad today. So fat belly. Legs swoll. Hard move. Many move inside, like thing kicking. Kick-kick-kick. And dizz. Ver dizz.

Oop. Meerm trip, fall against bunk. Make noise. Loud. Must hide. Benny come.

Climb top closet. So hard climb. More hard squeeze into hole. But Meerm push hard. Push back board and wait in dark. Soon Benny come. Talk self. Always talk self.

“Who’s up here? Goddamn it, I heard you. I been hearing you all week! Now come out!”

Benny come closet. Pull door. Meerm not breathe. Hear Benny voice through wall. Shout-shout-shout.

“Where are you, dammit! You gotta be somewhere! Or maybe I just gone loco! No! I know what I heard, dammit!”

Benny leave closet. Many loud noise in room—dresser move, bunk move, door slam-slam-slam. Then noise stop.

“All right so maybe I am hearing things. Next I’ll be seeing things. That’s it. I’m losing it. I been babysitting these monkeys so long I’m going bugfuck nuts! But I coulda sworn…”

Benny go way but Meerm stay. Too tired. Too scare to move. And hurt. Kick and hurt all time. Poor Meerm. When hurt stop?

9

MANHATTAN

DECEMBER 19

Romy was late for the meeting. On purpose.

For the past few years she’d made a point of keeping a few shares of SimGen stock in her 401(k) for the sole purpose of being invited to shareholders’ meetings. She’d been to a number of these and knew how they went—blather and hype from beginning to end. The only interesting part was the finale when Mercer Sinclair took questions from the audience.

By the time she reached the upper floors of the Waldorf Astoria she already knew from the ecstatic talk in the lobby that SimGen—or “simgee,” as the stockholders liked to call it, phoneticizing its SIMG stock symbol—had come in with earnings of $1.37 per share, beating not only the analysts’ predictions of $1.26, but the whisper number of $1.31 as well.

She walked into the magnificent four-story Art Deco grand ballroom just in time to fill out an index card with her question for the CEO. Instead of passing her card down to the center aisle, she walked it to the rear of the ballroom and personally handed it to the elderly gent who would be reading them.

“I’d really like to know the answer to this,” she whispered, laying a hand on his arm and flashing her warmest smile.

He looked at her over the top of his reading glasses and smiled. “I’ll see what I can do, miss.”

Then she found an empty seat along the side and waited. Mercer Sinclair, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and impeccable in a charcoal gray silk Armani suit, stood behind a podium on the dais and breezed through the usual run of inane questions from the audience about future earnings projections and new product outlooks—all of which were explained in detail in the annual report—and deftly fielded inquiries about the Reverend Eckert’s assertions that the lost sim was pregnant, laughing them off as a crude and transparent ratings ploy.

And then the reader-man got to Romy’s question.

“Mr. Sinclair, a stockholder wants to know, ‘How big a part does surge play in your day-to-day operations?’”

Romy leaned forward, studying Mercer Sinclair’s face as it floated in the glow from the podium. She saw him stiffen as if touched by a cattle prod, watched his eyes widen, then narrow. Even if she were blind she’d have detected his shock from his stammering reply.

“Wh-what? I-I don’t understand the question. What does it mean? Could the person who asked it please identify himself and clarify the question?”

Romy didn’t move.

“Please,” Sinclair said. “I…I’m quite willing to answer any question, but I have to understand it first. Who asked it? If you’ll be kind enough to clarify…”

Romy sat and watched him stumble and fumble, peering into the great dark lake of faces before him.

Finally he fluttered a hand at the reader and said, “Very well…I guess he left…next question.”

He went on responding but Romy could tell his heart was no longer in it. His answers were terse, his manner distracted, as if he couldn’t wait to be done with this.

Before the lights came up, Romy wandered back to where the elderly question reader was winding up the Q and A session, and grabbed the discard pile of cards he’d already read. No sense in leaving any unnecessary traces behind.

She had a bad moment when two men in suits followed her into the elevator down to the lobby, but they spent the ride talking about hockey and got off on the twenty-second floor. She used a side exit and stepped out onto East Forty-ninth. She waited to see if anyone followed, then hurried downhill to sunny Lexington Avenue where Patrick waited. His face was too well known to SimGen stockholders to risk his presence at the meeting, but he hadn’t been able to stay completely away.

“Well?” he said as he took her arm and began walking her uptown. The cold snap had broken and the day was clear and mild. “Did he react?”

“Did he ever,” Romy said. “He just about lost it. Looked as if he’d just been stripped naked and hosed with ice water.”

Patrick grinned and jabbed the air with a fist. “Knew it!”

She had to hand it to Patrick. He had an acute ear for nuances and he’d heard something in that one syllable from David Palmer. He’d been sure it was significant, and he’d been right.

He threw an arm around her shoulders. “Damn, I wish I could have been there.” He waved his free hand in the air. “But forget about that. The question now is, how do we capitalize on this?”

“For one thing,” Romy said, “we know the word itself has meaning. It’s not just part of another word or a phrase.”

“If I’d known that last night I could have saved myself a lot of trouble. I went through an online dictionary and plugged in every spelling of ‘surge’ I could think of to see if it might be the first syllable of another word. Got nowhere. Didn’t do any better when I tried every possible homonym. ‘Surge’ is not a common syllable.”

“For which we should be thankful, I guess. Imagine if he’d said ‘con’?”

“Then we’d be cooked. But ‘surge’ itself doesn’t appear to mean anything.”

“It might if it’s an acronym.”

He stopped walking as if he’d hit an invisible wall. His arm dropped from her shoulder and she missed it.

“An acronym! Of course! And acronyms usually mean government.” He pressed the heel of his palm against his forehead. “Do you know how many Washington agencies, departments, sub departments, and bureaus are designated by acronyms? It’s staggering.”

She looked away, glancing around to see if anyone was watching them. “What makes you so sure you’ll find it in Washington? You’ve already traced the chain of subsidiaries leading to Manassas Ventures offshore. Who knows how far offshore the chain goes? Maybe it ends in Moscow. Or Beijing.”

“You wouldn’t be trying to discourage me, would you?”

“Not at all, but we’re still a long way from home.”

“At least we’ve got the Internet.”

“Right.” He glanced around. “I think I’ll head downtown for a little point-and-click session on my office computer. Want to come along?”

“I’ve got to get back to OPRR, but we can share a cab.”

He looked into her eyes. “What almost happened the other night at your place?”

“We almost got dosed with Totuus.”

“No. I mean, what was in the cards before we opened the door and found the two uninvited guests?”

Romy held his gaze. She’d grown to like Patrick, even admire him in some ways, but she didn’t love him. She enjoyed his company and, even though she knew injecting sex into their relationship might complicate matters, she’d wanted him that night. But that wasn’t the same as wanting him every night.

“We’ll never know, will we,” she said, giving him a warm smile. “It was a moment, one that might come again.”

“Or might not.” His expression soured, leaving him looking needy.

Well, I have needs too, she thought. Sometimes sex is front and center, but lots of times something else pushes it down the line.

She knew all too well how she’d let the war on SimGen take over her life, but the time to press the fight was now. Every day of delay meant another day of slavery for the sims. Plenty of time later to play catch up.

“It’s the Masked Marvel, isn’t it,” he said.

“Who?”

“Zero. You’ve got a thing for him.”

“Don’t be silly. I’ve never even seen his face.”

“That doesn’t mean you haven’t imagined it, or that you can’t be infatuated with him.”

She tensed. Patrick had hit a bit too close to home. Yes, she had times when she fantasized about Zero. His inner strength and resolve spoke to her, reaching out through his layers of protective insulation to touch her like no one else she had ever known. And his air of remove that proclaimed him beyond her reach only heightened the attraction.

Fearing her expression might give something away, she stepped off the curb and waved at an approaching taxi.

“You’re talking crazy.”

10

You’ve got to love modern technology, Luca Portero thought, smiling as he spotted Ellis Sinclair’s silver Lexus SUV half a dozen car lengths ahead on the George Washington Bridge.

Luca had equipped the Lexus with a transponder that let him know its location no matter where it went. He glanced at the locator screen, glowing in the dark on the passenger seat. Luca’s car was a fixed dot in the center of the green LCD monitor; the Lexus was a blip floating directly above it. A GPS program laid out a map of the city around them, showing both cars crossing the Hudson River toward the city.

All was well.

Well?he thought. Who am I kidding?

He shook his head. He’d almost forgotten whatwell meant. Nothing was anywhere nearwell .

Darryl Lister had become a raw, twitching nerve after he learned of the fateful question at the stockholders’ meeting, a nonstop question box:Who asked it? How could he know?

Well, Luca had soon found out that it wasn’t a ‘he’ at all. The meeting had been recorded—a matter of routine—and who did he spot while reviewing the video files: Cadman. Romy fucking Cadman.

Initially Lister had been sure that Palmer had talked under his own Totuus, but then they’d tracked the operative to some Long Island hospital where he was spending his days sitting around babbling gibberish. Obviously the MTW had worked.

Luca shuddered at the thought of such a fate, even if the effect only lasted for ninety days. Ninety days of hell. If you weren’t loony before, you damn sure might be after.

But the success of the MTW had sent Luca back to the leak problem.

He already knew it was Ellis Sinclair. But who was he was leaking to? That was what mattered. Tonight Luca would find out. Once he learned Sinclair’s contact, the rest would fall into place. Then he’d make his move. And take no prisoners.

He followed Sinclair down the West Side Highway to Fifty-fourth Street, crawled across Midtown—traffic in the city would be murder until after Christmas—to a parking garage across the street from the Warwick Hotel. Shit! He couldn’t very well pull in right behind him. He should have brought backup.

He left the car double-parked and running while he trotted to the ramp that led down to the parking area. Crouching, he spotted Sinclair accepting a ticket from the attendant. But instead of walking back this way, he started up the ramp on the other side.

Fuck! He was heading out to Fifty-third!

Luca ducked back into his car. He folded up the locator unit and grabbed the keys. As he slammed and locked the door he heard a voice behind him.

“Can’t leave that here.”

He turned to see an NYPD uniform. Black, big face, big gut stretching his blue shirt, big black belt laden with police paraphernalia.

“Officer, this is an emergency.”

“I don’t care if your hair is on fire, you can’t leave that car here. There’s a garage right there. Pull it in and—”

“I don’t have time. I’ll be right back.”

“You leave that car there, I promise you, it’ll be long gone and far away when you come back.”

“Fine,” Luca said, moving off. He tossed the keys to the cop. “Take it. Merry Christmas.”

The cop opened his mouth, then closed it. Luca doubted he’d ever had anyone tell him to go ahead and tow his car.

Luca dashed straight through the garage—down, across, and up onto Fifty-third. He stopped when he reached the sidewalk, frantically peering east and west through the lights, the shadows, the people hurrying to escape the chill.

Which way, damn it?

He glanced longingly at the locator unit, dangling from his hand like a small valise. If only there had been some way to affix a transponder to Sinclair himself.

Never mind the wishing. What now?

He couldn’t see Sinclair on Fifty-third. Maybe he’d headed downtown on Sixth Avenue. Luca’s instincts urged him in that direction. He started off at a run but the crowds on the avenue slowed him to a crawl. The Radio City Music Hall Christmas Show was in full swing, jamming the Sixth Avenue sidewalks with parents and their screaming kiddies. But that meant Sinclair couldn’t move fast either.

Luca bullied and bulled his way through the throng as fast as he could, earning angry looks and comments. Yeah, merry Christmas to you too, fuckers. He kept rising on tiptoes to check the other side of the street—he saw oversized Venus de Milos framing the Credit Lyonnaise Building, and a line of fifteen-foot nutcrackers standing guard against the columns of the Paine-Webber, but no Ellis Sinclair.

An Art Deco marquee directly ahead now,Radio City blazing in red neon, and the damned charter busses vomiting tourists onto the sidewalk blocked his view of the opposite side. No sign of Sinclair here, so he stepped between two buses to check the other side—just in time to spot Sinclair starting down a subway entrance by the Time & Life Building.

Luca congratulated his instincts. And his luck. But it occurred to him that Sinclair was moving pretty quick for a guy who was supposedly dosed to the eyeballs on antidepressants.

No time to wonder about that now.

He sprang forward to follow but a horn blared him back. The light was against him and traffic was moving just fast enough to make crossing impossible. Cursing, he edged to the corner. As soon as the light changed Luca lunged forward, damn near knocking down a few slow movers on his way to the subway. He flew down the steps and raced along the longest, fanciest goddamn subway ramp he’d ever seen—marble tile, brass trim, all part of the Rockefeller Center complex.

When he reached the token booth, Sinclair was nowhere in sight.

Uptown or down?

He saw the ALL TRAINS sign and ducked under the turnstile—no time for a token—and followed the sound of a train pulling in. He reached the platform just in time to see the doors of an F train pincer closed behind Sinclair.

Luca pelted after the train as it began to move, intending to grab a handle and jump onto the landing between the cars, but it picked up speed too quickly and he was left standing on the platform.

The lighted sign on the rear car said its last stop was 179th Street in Jamaica. That meant Sinclair could be going across town or to the far side of Queens, or anywhere between.

He let out a roar and kicked the nearest tiled pillar.

“Hey, don’t worry, buddy,” said a shabby guy a few feet away. “There’ll be another along soon.”

Luca wanted to kill him.

11

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY

Zero stepped into the small, two-story farmhouse in the middle of a fallow potato field, one of many that dotted eastern Long Island.

Good to be home, even if he had no one to share the place.

He unwrapped the scarf from his lower face and removed the hat with the pulled-down brim. Masking his features was relatively easy in the colder weather, especially at night. Summer was a problem, forcing him into a wig, a fake beard and nose, oversized sunglasses, and a floppy boonie cap.

He shrugged out of his coat and turned on the three computers arranged around the sparsely furnished living room. A couch, a recliner, a TV, three folding chairs before the card tables holding the computers. Not exactly the lap of luxury, but it served his purposes.

As the computers booted up he stepped to the mantle of the cold fireplace where an eight-by-ten black-and-white photo of Romy Cadman leaned against the wall. He loved this close-up, taken with a telefoto lens shortly after a letter to the editor of theTimes had brought her to his attention. He felt a familiar ache as he stared at her face.

Romy…were there other women in the world like her? If so, he’d never met one. But then, really, how many women had he met? Nowhere near enough for a fair comparison.

He ran a fingertip along her cheek, wishing he could do so in the flesh.

And what did others matter, anyway? Romy was Romy, his Romy. He knew he shouldn’t think of her as his, for she never would be, never could be. That would require removing his mask for her, letting her see his face. And then she’d reject him, turn away in loathing.

Well…he didn’t actuallyknow that, but he couldn’t risk it. Better this way. At least he could see her often, be near her, talk to her, hear her voice. But once she rejected him, all that would be lost. And even if by some miracle she, superior woman though she might be, didn’t reject him, the whole relationship would change, and not for the better.

Tonight’s Romy ritual ended with a knock on the front door. Even though he was expecting it, Zero jumped at the sound. A visitor here was an occasion. Only one person knew where he lived, and his visits were rare.

He laid the photo face down on the mantle and went to the door. When he opened it he embraced his oldest and dearest friend, the man who was like a father to him.

“How are you?”

“Good, Ellis. Very good. How are you?”

“Getting better every day, thanks to what you and your group have been doing.”

Ellis Sinclair did look better. Maybe a little grayer, but less gaunt. Perhaps he was eating better.

“Come in,” Zero said, shutting the door and taking Ellis’s coat.

He felt a little awkward. He was unpracticed at being a host.

Ellis did a slow turn, taking in the small living room. “Are you comfortable here?”

“Yes, thanks to you.”

He pulled a bottle of Scotch from the cabinet under the TV. He’d never developed a taste for liquor himself, but he knew his guest was something of a hard drinker. But Ellis surprised him by waving it off.

“Thanks, but I’m taking a breather from the booze.”

Zero almost said, Glad to hear it, but reconsidered. Wouldn’t be appropriate.

“Coffee, then?”

Ellis shook his head. “I can’t stay long. As I told you, the reason I’m here is because I didn’t want to discuss this over the phone. May I sit?”

“Of course.”

How strange to acquiesce to a request for a seat from the owner of the house. Since the purchase of real estate would be—to put it mildly—awkward for Zero, Ellis Sinclair had bought the place for him years ago.

“I gather this is fairly important then,” Zero said as they seated themselves, Ellis on the couch, and Zero in the recliner.

A vague anxiety had been nibbling at him since Ellis’s call late this afternoon. What was too sensitive to discuss over an encrypted phone?

“More than fairly. In fact I was followed tonight—by Portero himself, I believe.”

“But you lost him.” It was a statement. He knew Ellis would have aborted his visit if he thought he was being followed.

“Yes. Took a subway to Forest Hills and rented a car there.” He shifted in his chair. “But let me cut to the chase here: Someone asked a very disturbing question at the stockholders’ meeting today.”

Zero nodded. “You mean about ‘surge’?”

“Exactly. One of your people, I presume?”

“Yes. Ms. Cadman. It was her idea. We heard the word from a man who tried to assault her, and she thought that would be a way to see if it meant anything.”

“Just the word?” Ellis said, his eyebrows lifting. “That’s all you have?”

Too much had been happening lately to allow Zero time to give Ellis one of his irregular briefings, so he filled him in now on the invasion of Romy’s apartment, the Totuus, and Palmer’s resultant aphasia.

“So you have no idea what this Palmer fellow was referring to,” Ellis said.

“Not yet. But we know it means something. And I figure you’re the man who can tell us just what.”

Ellis tapped his fingers on the armrest of the recliner. This went on for an agonizing minute. Then, “No, I’m not.”

“What?” Zero couldn’t hide his shock. “You’re a founder of SimGen! This goes back to Manassas Ventures. They gave you start-up capital. You’vegot to know!”

“I do know,” Ellis said. “But I can’t tell you.”

“Anotherthing you can’t tell me?” He could feel his blood rising. “When I found Kek you said you couldn’t tell me anything about him or about what was going on in Idaho. ‘Too sensitive,’ you said. Now two men attempt a chemical rape on the minds of Romy Cadman and Patrick Sullivan; we ask one of them who sent him and he tells us ‘surge.’ You know who that is and won’t tell me? Why on earth not? ‘Too sensitive’ again?”

“No,” Ellis said, his gaze boring into Zero. “Too dangerous.”

“It’s already dangerous.”

“But you’ve sampled only a taste of what’s waiting for you if you push this further.”

“You’re telling me to back off?”

“I’mbegging you to back off.”

Zero couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But the emotion in Ellis’s voice—fear, desperation—were real.

“Isn’t this what you set me up to do?”

“No, it’s not. Your goal—our goal—is to turn the public against SimGen and the idea of sims as laborers.Stop further cloning of sims —that was the goal, remember?”

“Of course. And how better to turn the public against SimGen than to find its dirty laundry and wave it in the air for all to see?”

“You have no idea what you’re getting into, the forces you’ll be setting in motion…they’ll crush you.”

“They have to find us first.”

“Zero, leave it alone, I beg you. You’re making progress on so many other fronts. You don’t need—”

“Progress? What progress? SimGen is opening more natal centers all the time!”

“We may soon have to rethink that with the tide of public opinion turning. Manufacturers, one or two of them major, are starting to advertise their products, their clothes, toys, appliances, and so on, as ‘sim-free.’ Mutual funds specializing in sim-free companies are springing up. The Beacon Ridge poisoning—it’s awful to look at it as anything but an atrocity, but something good did come out of it because it’s accelerated the process.” Ellis leaned forward, his expression intense, alive with hope. “We’rewinning , Zero. Leave Manassas Ventures and the rest alone.”

We’renot winning, damn it, Zero thought, his frustration a fire in his gut.

“What we’ve been doing until now is like trying to tame a killer carnivore by removing its food supply. Can’t be done. Or if it can, it’ll take a lifetime. But that was all we had, the only way we knew to deal with it. Until now. Now we may have found a weapon, one that can strike at the heart of the beast. And that changes everything.”

“But you’re forgetting that there’s a pregnant sim somewhere out there. Find her and prove that the father of her child is human and our war is won!”

“Ifwe find her. That’s a very, very big ‘if,’ Ellis. And if we don’t, and if we neglect this ‘surge’ lead while we hunt for her, then we may miss a crucial opportunity.”

“I know you’re chafing to end this crusade, but you have no idea what you’re getting into.”

“They’ve already tried to kill Romy and Patrick. What can be worse?

“They cansucceed . And they will. Keep pushing this and some of your people will die.”

The words jolted Zero. He’d realized that when Romy and Patrick had been run off the highway, but hearing it said aloud…

Ellis leaned back and closed his eyes. “You want to strike at the beast. I understand that. But I’ve been living in the belly of that beast for decades and believe me, Zero, it’s dark in there. It’s full of things that should never see the light of day.”

“What sort of things?”

“Painful things. Things that will hurt me personally, and devastate other, more innocent, parties. Things that no one will want to hear. And don’t think you’ll come through unscathed, either.”

Zero swallowed. “What do you mean?” He couldn’t suppress a mocking tone. “Or is it ‘too sensitive’ again?”

Ellis looked away and shook his head. “Some of it is sensitive. And some of it is…unspeakable.”

The last word lingered in the air between them. Zero’s mouth felt dry, his tongue like old leather. He couldn’t bear the thought of one of the most decent, moral men he had ever known connected to something unspeakable.

What had Ellis got himself into?

“So,” Ellis said finally. “Do we understand each other? Will you concentrate on finding Meerm and back away from Manassas?”

Shaking his head was the hardest thing Zero had ever done in his life.

How could he turn down this man who’d been so good to him? But he didn’t see any other choice.

“I can’t do that. Even if I wanted to, I doubt I could call off Romy and Patrick.”

“Of course you can. You’re they’re leader.”

“Causes take on a life of their own. Romy and Patrick are off and running like hounds who’ve caught a scent. There’s no whistling them back.”

Ellis rubbed a hand across his eyes, then dragged it down his face. He looked ten years older than when he’d arrived.

Zero said, “But I will do this. I will push the search for Meerm as best as I can. If that pans out, then Manassas and ‘surge’ will be moot.”

“I pray so.”

Looking exhausted, Ellis rose slowly from the recliner and shrugged into his coat.

“Is there nothing I can say to make you change your mind?”

“I wish there were, Ellis. You don’t know how much it hurts me to go against you.”

“Hurt? You don’t know hurt, Zero. Keep on this road, and it will come to a very bad end. A terrible end. And you…you may end up the sorriest of all.”

Without another word, Ellis Sinclair opened the door, stepped outside, and walked to his car, leaving Zero wondering if he’d just made the worst mistake of his life.

12

NEWARK, NJ

DECEMBER 20

Benny come and go. Meerm can’t stay hide. Too many kick inside when Meerm squeeze into wall. And must go wee. Meerm go wee so ver much these day. Leave closet now.

Feel stuff on floor. Look see white powder. Meerm touch taste. Mmmm. Sugar. Why sugar on floor?

Meerm not know. Must go wee now. Meerm hurry to bathroom. Do wee. When Meerm finish she flush.

No-no-no! Meerm forget! Must not flush! Nev flush in day when no sim round! Benny hear!

Benny come now! Meerm hurry to closet. Climb to shelf. So hard, so ver hard climb. Squeeze into hole. Squeeze-squeeze-squeeze.

“I heard that! Goddamn it I might imagine a creak or a thump, but I know I ain’t imaginin no toilet flush!

Meerm squeeze into hole, push board back. Wait and listen.

“Ay! Lookit that! Tracks through my sugar! So I ain’t loco! Someone’s up here, an I know just where you are, man!”

Meerm hear bang-bang-bang on closet door. Jump with every bang.

“I don’t know where you was hidin before, but Benny gotcha now! Ain’t no monkey gonna outsmart Benny. Benny outsmartyou ! So come on out where I can see you!”

Meerm not come out. Meerm too scare. Meerm stay. Benny nev find Meerm here behind board.

Bang-bang-bang again. “Hey! You hear me? No sense draggin this out. It’s over! You tagged!” Meerm hear closet door open. “You—what the fuck?” Hear hangers move. “Hey! What’s goin on here?”

Now Benny start bang closet wall—bang-bang-bang! Ver loud to Meerm behind board. Meerm hold breath and hold ear. Now Benny bang Meerm board. No-no-no! Board move. Meerm see light.

“Ay, lookit this shit! Damn me, there’s a space back there! Ay, that where you are? That where you been hidin on Benny? Say somethin, will ya? Awright, dammit. That the way you wanna be…”

Meerm hear Benny go but Meerm stay. Not move. Then hear Benny come back. Hear chair drag across floor. Benny push board and big light shine in Meerm eye.

“There you are, you lazy monkey. Playin hooky from the job, huh? Wait’ll I tell the boss. Ay, you’re a plump one, aintcha. Whatcha been doin? Eatin all day? You—wait a minute. Wait a fuckin minute. You that sim they lookin for! The pregnant one! The five-million-dollar sim! Holy Christ! Holy Christ! You her! An I gotcha! I gotcha!”

Light go way, Benny go way, then closet door close. Meerm hear bumps against closet door.

What Benny say? Meerm pregnant sim. What pregnant? Meerm five-million-dollar sim. What five million? Meerm not understand. Meerm try understand later. Now Meerm must run. Benny find Meerm. Benny will call mans who hurt.

Meerm climb out on closet shelf and drop to floor. Push on closet door but door not move. Meerm push so ver hard. Push-push-push, but door not move. Door locked. No-no-no!

Meerm trapped. Meerm ver fraid and ver scare. Meerm shake inside and out, almost hard as kick-kick-kick. Meerm cry. Poor, poor Meerm.

13

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

“Mr. Portero,” Nowicki’s voice said through Luca’s office intercom, “I think you’d better take this call.”

“Who is it?”

“Calls himself Benny Morales and says he knows you. Says he’s got the pregnant sim.”

“Sure. Him and half a million others.”

Luca shook his head. How many times had he heard that since the fivemegabuck reward hit the news? People were crawling out of the woodwork with crazy stories, some wishful thinking, others outright lies. Meerm, or an equally pregnant sim, had been sighted in Chicago, San Francisco, Buenos Aires, London, Hong Kong. The world was suddenly full of pregnant sims.

“This Morales says he met you at the Newark crib when you came looking for the pregnant sim; says she’s been hiding there right under his nose all along.”

Luca remembered Morales now, a quick, jittery little ferret of a man. Remembered that damn crib too. After a weeklong fruitless vigil, he’d yanked surveillance from the place, figuring if the pregnant sim hadn’t returned by then, she wasn’t coming back at all.

But if she’d never left the building in the first place…

“Put him though.”

Luca’s hand darted toward the phone and hovered over the receiver. He let it ring twice before picking up.

A few minutes later, after listening to Morales’s story, Luca hung up and jabbed the intercom button. “Nowicki. Get Grimes and Alessi. Meet me in the garage. We’re rolling!”

This was it. Morales’s story hung together too well to be anything but the real thing.

We’ve found her!

Luca felt as if a magnum of Dom Perignom had popped open inside his chest.

14

NEWARK, NJ

The rain clouds that had been threatening all day opened up just in time to snarl traffic throughout the metropolitan area. So it was well after dark when Luca and his men arrived at the crib. Benny Morales met them at the front door.

“Upstairs!” he said, leading them up a narrow stairway. “I got her trapped, locked up tight inna closet an I been keepin an eye on it all a time ’cept for when I was watchin for you at the window so I know she still in there.”

Morales had reminded Luca of a ferret last visit; now he was a ferret on speed. Luca could understand that. The little man was going to be a multi-millionaire. But Luca was going to recapture his pride and his credibility, and maybe even his future, and that was worth more.

“There it is,” Morales said, as he led them into a bunk-filled space on the second floor.

“Where are the rest of your sims?”

“Not back yet.” He glanced at his watch. “Maybe half hour. But look here.” He stepped farther into the room and pointed to a door on the right. “She in there.” He held up an old-fashioned skeleton key. “I got her locked and blocked. She ain’t goin nowhere nohow.”

Luca smiled. Morales wasn’t kidding. He’d wedged a chair under the doorknob. Hiding his excitement, he held out his hand and Morales dropped the key into his palm. He stepped to the door, removed the chair, and poised the key before the lock.

“Meerm?” he said though the door. “My name is Luca Portero. I am from SimGen.”

He spoke softly, maintaining a calm, soothing tone. He wanted to take this sim with the least possible fuss and muss. Everyone—from the Sinclairs all the way to the top of SIRG—wanted her and her unborn baby alive and well. The better the condition he delivered her in, the better for him. But if she was going to make this difficult he’d come prepared. One way or another, Luca intended to leave here tonight with the world’s only pregnant sim.

“The company has sent me here to protect you, Meerm. We know you’re not feeling good and we’re here to take you back to where you can rest and get well. I’m going to open the door now.”

Luca slipped the key into the lock and turned it. As he gripped the knob…

“Don’t worry if you don’t see her right away,” Morales said from a few feet behind him. “Like I told you, there’s this loose piece of wallboard and—”

Without looking back, Luca waved for him to shut the hell up. He turned the knob and pulled the door open—slowly, so as not to appear the least bit aggressive.

As Morales had said, the closet looked empty. Some old shoes, some hanging clothes, a hat or two on the shelf.

“Upper right,” Morales said in a stage whisper. “Above the shelf. See the loose board?”

Luca nodded. The remodeling had been done on the cheap, probably not even up to code. Or maybe the codes had been relaxed because the floor wasn’t designated for human habitation. Whatever the reason, the framing studs looked to be about two feet apart and the wallboard carelessly nailed. As a result the whole upper corner of the inner wall had popped loose, allowing easy access to a dead space beyond.

Luca held back a hand, palm up. “Flashlight,” he said, and one was slapped into it.

He dragged the chair into the closet and stepped up on it for a better look. He pushed back the board and shone the light into the opening. But instead of the expected pair of frightened brown sim eyes staring back at him, he found an empty space. Cold sweat started in his armpits as he quickly angled the beam around, revealing knotty studs, the unfinished reverse sides of wallboard, lots of crumbling brick, but no sim.

No goddamned sim!

“She’s not here!” he rasped through his sand-dry throat. “You said she was here! Where is she?”

“Whatchoo you mean, she not there?” Morales cried, a panicky edge to his voice. “She gotta be there! I lock her in myself! She can’t be nowheres else!”

Luca poked his head through the opening. The dead space was deeper than he’d have thought. It angled back around the rear of the closet, beyond his field of vision.

“Meerm?” he called, still keeping his voice soft. “Meerm, are you there? We’re here to help you.”

No reply. Not a rustle of movement, not even a breath.

Okay, he thought. She wants to play it that way, then the gloves have to come off.

He swiveled and hopped off the chair. Morales was waiting for him right outside the closet door.

“Lemme see that light! I find her for you! I know she there!”

Luca studied him a moment. He hadn’t been lying about seeing a sim in there. He was too upset. Probably he’d had the five million already half spent in his head and now he saw it slipping away.

Luca shoved him aside. “Go find yourself a corner and stay out of the way, little man. We’re going to do it our way.” He looked at his three men and jerked a thumb over his shoulder, toward the street below. “She’s hiding in the wall. Get the tools.”

They were back in two minutes with crowbars, axes, and sledgehammers.

“Hey, whatchoo think you doin?” Morales cried, running over.

Luca held up a crowbar and glared at him. “You want to be alive to collect your reward, right? Then stay the hell out of our way.”

With that he turned and smashed the curved end of the bar through the wallboard, gave it a half twist, and yanked back, dislodging one side of the board from its stud. His men did the same, attacking the closet and the walls around it with gusto. In five or six minutes they’d stripped this end of the room back to the underlying brick.

But still no sim. Luca wanted to scream. Where could she be? Had Morales lied to him? But there seemed no point to that.

Then he heard Alessi’s voice from his left, near the corner of the room. “Aw, shit, boss. Take a look at this.”

Luca hurried over and saw a large hole in the bricks. He grabbed the flashlight and shined the beam through. More bricks inside. He stuck his head inside and looked up and down. Cool musty air wafted against his face from below.

“Looks like an old airshaft.” His voice echoed off the walls. He pulled back and found Morales standing a few feet away, his hands rubbing over each other in a nervous, washing motion. “Where’s it go?”

Morales shrugged. “I didn’t even know it was there. Nobody tell me nothin.”

Okay. The sim had crawled from the dead space behind the closet into the air shaft. Once in there she had two directions to choose from: up or down. Considering she was frightened and pregnant, she’d have taken the easiest and fastest route.

“Check out the first floor,” he told his men. “Tear out the wall and see if there’s an opening down there.” To Morales: “You got a basement here?”

“Sure.”

“Show me.”

He followed the little man down two levels. When Morales turned on the basement lights, Luca saw a piece of plywood and its exposed nails dangling from the ceiling, smears of blood on the floor, on the wall, and on the sill of the open window, and he knew in one spirit-crushing instant what had happened.

The sim had eased herself down the shaft and landed on the plywood that had closed the opening. Her weight knocked the crudely fixed board free and she’d fallen to the floor, cutting herself on the nails in the process. She’d limped to the window, opened it, and squeezed through.

Gone!

Without warning—Luca was barely aware of what he was doing—he grabbed Morales and flung him against the wall. The ferret-man slammed against the concrete and slumped to the floor, wincing and clutching his shoulder.

“Aw, man!” he moaned. “Whatchoo do that for?”

Because it feltgood! Luca wanted to scream. Instead he said, “Because you had her and you let her slip away!”

“I did everythin I could!”

“Not enough!” Luca sensed his rage peaking toward critical mass. He forced himself to step back, knowing if he let himself get any closer to the whining little bastard he’d break his neck. “You had her! You had her and you let her get away!”

At least that was the way it seemed. Luca glanced around. But what if she just wanted him to think that was what happened? What if—?

Wait. What was he thinking? He was dealing with a sim. They didn’t have the brains for misdirection. Still…this one had made a fool of him once already…

Just to be sure, Luca did a quick search of the basement. Not much down here; no closets or crawl spaces to hide in, just cinderblock walls and solid concrete floor. Satisfied that she was gone, he closed and locked the open window and headed for the stairs, leaving Morales behind on the floor.

He called his three men together and faced them in the front hallway.

“All right,” he said, forcing a calm demeanor, “here’s the situation: She’s gone. Escaped through the basement window.”

“Shit!” Grimes muttered. He was wiry and redheaded, and his Adam’s apple wobbled in his long neck when he spoke. “We’ll never find her out there in the dark!”

Luca wheeled and got in his face. “She’s hurt, she’s bleeding, she’s on foot, she’s pregnant, and she’s a sim! If you can’t track something like that, you should be working for somebody else!”

Grimes backed up. “Okay, okay. Sorry.”

Luca turned away. He needed more men. He reached for his phone to call Lister, have him find back-up. They’d comb this area until—

The sound of squeaking brakes just outside the front door made him turn. A battered old school bus had pulled to a stop at the curb. As he watched through the cracked glass, the bus doors folded back and a line of sims began stepping down to the sidewalk.

“Hold everything,” Luca said as he headed for the door. “I think reinforcements just arrived.”

He hadn’t wanted to call for help Now he wouldn’t have to. He stationed himself at the top of the front steps and held up his hands.

“Nobody goes inside yet,” he told the sims.

He made them wait in the fine drizzle until the bus had emptied out. They looked to number about forty or so.

“Hey!” the grizzled old driver said. He’d come to the bus door and stood staring at Luca. “Who are you?”

“Someone who’s commandeering these sims.”

“They ain’t yours to commandeer! Where do you get off thinkin—”

Luca glared at him. “Move on, old man. This isn’t your concern.”

The driver looked as if he were about to say something, then changed his mind. As the bus wheezed away, Luca turned back to the sims.

“We’ve come for Meerm,” he told them, raising his voice. “We know you’ve been hiding her. But that’s all right. We’re here to help her and—”

“No!” said a sim, pointing at Grimes. “No help sim! Hurt sim!”

Luca looked more closely at the sim who’d spoken and noticed that his left eye sported the yellowing remains of a shiner. He turned to Grimes.

“What’d you do, Grimes?” he said, keeping it low and through his teeth. “Beat him up?”

Grimes blinked and swallowed. “I thought he’d lied to us, so I just—”

“So you just scared the shit out of them, guaranteeing they’d never tell us a thing. This could have been over a week ago, you fucking stupid—” He turned away before he ripped out the man’s bobbing Adam’s apple and made him eat it. “I’ll deal with you later.”

Fighting for calm, he faced the sims again. He’d hoped to enlist their voluntary support, make themwant to find Meerm for him. But Grimes had blown that, so he’d have to take a direct approach.

“I know it’s cold out and you’re all probably tired and hungry. There’s nothing you’d like better now than to get inside and eat and relax, right? Well, guess what? That’s not going to happen until Meerm is found. We’re going to start searching now, and we’re going to keep searching till we find her, even if it takes all night, understand?”

Luca could see from the resignation in their eyes that they understood, all right. They understood just fine. And this would work. He had forty-plus searchers instead of the maximum dozen humans he’d be able to muster on such short notice. And these were better than humans. Who better to sniff out a sim than another sim?

Yeah, this will work. Damn well better. But what if it didn’t? What if they came up empty tonight and all this commotion caught the attention of some of Eckert’s followers? Or Morales opened his yap to the wrong people? Eckert could wind up with the pregnant sim.

He turned and found Morales standing in the front hallway.

“Listen up,” he told the little man. “If I find the sim, you get the five million. Anyone else finds her, you’re out in the cold. So keep your mouth shut about this.”

Morales stared at him, rubbing his shoulder. “First you push me around, then you do this. You loco, man?”

Not loco, Luca thought, turning away. But if anyone’s going to bring in this sim, it’s going to beme.

15

MANHATTAN

Patrick closed his eyes and leaned back in his swivel chair.

“My eyes are going to burn out the back of my skull if I stare at this computer screen another minute.”

“Here,” Romy said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Let me spell you. We’ve only got a few more to go.”

It seemed like they’d been at this all day. Romy had arrived at his office late this afternoon and together they’d cooked up a list of acronyms, using every possible combination of letters that might conceivably be pronounced “surge”—from CERGE, CERJE, CIRJ, and so on, to SIURJ, ZIRJE, ZOORGE and beyond. Then he’d begun plugging them into one Internet search engine after another.

So far the hits had been few and none had panned out.

“Only a few more, you say?” He stretched. “I’ll keep at it then. What’s next?”

Romy consulted her list. “S-I-R-G.”

Patrick typed it into the entry box on the searcher and hitENTER . Half a second later a string of varicolored type cascaded down the screen. The engine reported 1,753 hits.

“We’ve got something,” he said.

SIRG turned out to be the acronym for a raft of organizations, ranging from the Summit Implementation Review Group to the Spatial Information Research Group to the Student Internet Research Group.

“These sound exciting,” Romy said dryly, reading over his shoulder. She’d been nibbling on a sweet roll and her breath carried a hint of cinnamon. He was sure her lips would taste even better. “Hope you didn’t get your hopes up.”

Patrick shook his head, trying to forget how close she was and focus on the screen. “I’ve learned better by now.”

He clicked his way through one link after another; all the groups seemed pretty straightforward. Then he came to something called the Social Impact Research Group.

“Social impact of what?” he said.

“And on what?” Romy added.

The article was an old one, quoting from another even older article. SIRG received only passing mention in reference to some unspecified appropriations bill.

“Wait,” Romy said. “Appropriations means government. Hit a few more links.”

He did but found only scattered mentions of the group; nothing of substance, no hint as to its purpose.

“Let me try,” Romy said.

They switched seats. Patrick watched her access a directory of US Federal Government agencies and enter a string of asterisks into a password box.

“Don’t forget,” she said, as if reading his mind, “I work for a government agency myself. I’ve picked up a few passwords and access codes along the way.”

He watched a while longer, then got up and moved away. Romy was far more facile than he at the keyboard. She worked too fast for him—he’d no sooner focus on a screen than she’d be clicking to another. He stepped to the window and stared out at the night.

This block of Henry Street was reasonably well lit. He studied the parked cars for signs of life. None. The only pedestrian was a drab-looking woman making her way along the sidewalk directly below.

This constant vigilance rawed his nerves. When would it end? When could he relax again, if ever?

He wandered over to where Tome was busily filing papers.

“Getting tired, Tome?”

“No, Mist Sulliman,” the old sim said, grinning up at him in the narrow confines of the file room. “This fun.”

Whatever turns you on, he thought. He patted the sim’s bony back.

“Great, my friend. Have a ball.”

Patrick was turning to go when he spotted something blinking on a little table in the corner. Tome followed his gaze. He snatched up the rectangular object and hid it behind his back.

“What’s that?”

Tome looked down. “Picture, Mist Sulliman.”

“A picture? Can I see it?”

“Mist Sulliman be mad,” he said, eyes still on his shoes.

“Nonsense. Just let me see.”

With obvious reluctance, Tome placed the framed picture, upside down, into Patrick’s outstretched hand.

He turned it over and stared in shock. The Virgin Mary…Our Lady of Guadalupe, to be exact, but not like Patrick had ever seen her. The traditional gold-leaf glory radiating around her had been enhanced with flashing red rays. Patrick flipped it over and spotted the battery case that powered the diodes.

“This is…amazing,” Patrick said. “Where did you get it?”

“Buy on street. Mist Sulliman not mad?”

“Why on earth would I be mad?”

“Lady on street yell Tome. Say Mother Mary not for sim.”

Bitch. Although he could see how true believers would object to sims taking up their religion, worshippingtheir god. It diminished them, made them feel less special.

“But why, Tome? Why’d you buy it?”

“Tome pray for Mist Sulliman and Miss Romy. Ask Lady to protect.”

Patrick was touched, didn’t know quite what to say. He stepped past Tome and replaced the blinking icon on the table.

“Thank you, Tome. I…we have something called freedom of religion in this country. That means you can pray to any god you want. And…thanks.”

He wandered back toward Romy, ready to tell her about Tome’s prayers, when she called out to him.

“Look at this,” she said, her expression troubled. “This particular SIRG—the Social Impact Research Group—had millions and millions of government dollars poured into it through most of the nineties and into the oughts, and then the money stopped.”

“Money from where?”

“That’s the weird part. I can’t find out who picked up the tab.”

“Somebody had to. Some department or agency had to be debited before SIRG could be credited.”

“I know. There’s a whole string of agencies and departments and groups that seem to be intermediaries but I keep running into dead ends or getting lost in the maze whenever I try to track the money back to its source.”

Patrick shook his head. “Almost like…”

Romy looked up at him. “Manassas Ventures.”

“Do you think…?”

She held up a hand. “Before you go getting excited, let me tell you that I think SIRG might be dead. As in defunct. Can’t find a mention or a penny of appropriations from any source whatsoever for years.”

“Damn! For a moment I thought we were on to something. But then again, how much pay dirt could we expect from something with a name like the Social Impact Research Group?”

“Don’t let a title put you off,” she said. “Ever hear of SOG?”

“Son of Godzilla?”

Romy smiled up at him. “Close. Try the ‘Studies and Observations Group.’ It was started in the Nam era. That innocent title covered a joint Special Operations unit that included members from the Air Force, Navy SEALs, and Special Forces. They were sent into Laos to wage a secret war.”

“So you think someone who thought SOG was a clever cover might have come up with SIRG?”

“Just a thought.” Romy looked back at the screen and rubbed her neck.

“Stiff?”

“Yeah. Been a long day.”

He gripped both her shoulders and began kneading the back of her neck with his thumbs. He could feel the warmth of her skin through the light weave of her sweater.

She groaned. “That feelsgood .”

You’re telling me, he thought.

“SIRG appears to be defunct,” she said as he continued to knead. “But it could be operating under a different name. Either way, just to be sure we’ve turned over every rock before we move on, I think we should know where its money came from, don’t you?”

“But how?”

Patrick stretched his fingers forward, working his massage down to her collar bones.

“My…office.” Romy groaned again. “You’re making it hard to concentrate.”

“Just soothing those tight muscles. Relax.” Patrick himself was anything but as a rapturous pressure built within.

She cleared her throat. “What was I saying?”

“Something about your office.” He slipped his fingers over her collar bones onto the upper edges of her pectorals.

“Oh, right. OPRR’s computers are linked to the government. And my boss, Milton Ware, is an absolute master at weaving through bureaucratese. I need to find a way to put Uncle Miltie onto the scent without knowing why. Maybe if I—”

“Excuse me?”

They both jumped and turned at the sound of a woman’s voice. Relief flooded Patrick as he recognized the figure standing in the doorway.

“Miss Fredericks! How did you get in here?” He could have sworn he’d locked the door.

Alice Fredericks smiled. “I’m sorry if I startled you, Mr. Sullivan. But I was walking by and just happened to look up and see the lights, so I thought I’d stop in and inquire as to why you haven’t called me.”

Walking by? Patrick thought. Probably watching the place with a telescope.

He leaned closer to Romy and whispered, “She’s the one I told you about.” Romy gave him a puzzled look, but before he could elaborate—

“Oh, no!” Alice cried, pointing to Tome who had stepped out of the filing room. “It’s one of them! One of my long lost great-grandchildren! Please take him away! The sight of him tears at my heart!”

“Now I remember,” Romy whispered. “Dramatic, isn’t she.”

“Just a bit.”

He motioned the baffled Tome back into the file room where he’d be out of sight, then turned to Alice. Though he was still rattled by the way she’d strolled in here off the street, he didn’t want to take it out on her. But it was time to put a stop to these intrusions.

“Miss Fredericks, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to spare the time to take your case. And even if I did, in the long run it will come down to your word against SimGen’s, and I don’t think—”

“Even if I have proof?”

“What sort of proof can you have?”

“A check made out to me from Mercer Sinclair.”

Yeah, right, he thought. “How would you happen to have that? Once you cash a check it goes back to the one who issued it.”

“But I didn’t cash it,” Alice said, eyes wide. “It was the last payment for letting them use my body to incubate the alien child. I didn’t know they’d steal him from me. How could I take money from the man who stole my child?” Her eye filled with tears. “That would be like…like selling my baby!”

“So why didn’t you burn it or tear it up?”

“I kept it as a reminder to stay the course, and because I knew someday I’d have a chance to confront Mercer Sinclair again, and when I did I wanted to be able to throw it back in his face!”

“We’d love to see that check,” Romy said. When Patrick gave her an are you-nuts? look she nudged him with her elbow and whispered, “No stone unturned, right?” Then she raised her voice: “Can you bring it here?”

“Oh no,” Alice said. “I never take it out of my room. But if you want to come visit me, I’ll be very happy to show it to you.”

Patrick regarded Alice Fredericks. Was she completely bonkers and dreaming all this up? Just a lonely lady who’d say anything to have company? Or could there be a kernel of truth at the heart of her crazy story?

Patrick sighed. “Leave me your address and I’ll see if I can get over tomorrow.”

“Hewill get over tomorrow,” Romy said, giving him a wry smile. “Even if I have to drag him.”

16

NEWARK, NJ

Meerm shiver in dark. Ver wet and cold. Ver scare. And hurt. Hand bleed, foot bleed, leg bleed. Not bleed lot but still bleed. Blood wash off in rain but come more blood.

Meerm inside now. Clothes all wet and drip. But where? Meerm not know. Meerm run-run-run from sim home. Slip in water. Fall down, get up, fall down. Many fall. Meerm so dizzy and weak. No run no more. See old metal door in brick wall. Pull-pull-pull on handle. Door open loud and Meerm go in. Close door behind.

Not warm here. Ver dark. Meerm feel big metal wire. Go up-up-up. Ver bad oil smell.

Meerm shiver more. Meerm cry. So cold-wet. So lonely. Sim friend gone forever. Meerm no go back. Bad mans wait for Meerm. Want hurt her. Poor Meerm. Nev see Beece friend again.

What sound? Outside. Some call Meerm name. Meerm listen hard. Yes. Some call, “Meerm! Meerm, where you?” Not man voice. Sound like sim. Sound like Beece!

Beece-Beece-Beece! Meerm so happy to hear Beece. Want see. Meerm push door open little. Ver ver little. Just enough see.

Yes! There! There Beece! Meerm go open wider—

No-no-no! Beece bring mans! Bad mans who hurt!

17

Beece walk down dark alley with other sim. Beece cold and hungry-tired, not know where is. Too many turn. Beece pretend search Meerm but not want find. Beece not like these mans. Ver mean mans. But meanest is red-hair city man who hurt Beece. Other mans call him Grimes. Grimes ver bad man. All these mans bad. Want hurt Meerm. Why? Meerm not bad. Meerm just sick. Get big-big belly.

Beece hear run-steps. Crouch down fraid when see red-hair city man run up. But not hit Beece. Stop and talk other man.

“Hey, Alessi! Somebody called the cops. Lowery heard it on the scanner.”

“Shit!”

“Yeah, well, had to expect it. Somebody sees a bunch of men and monkeys poking through their neighborhood, they want to know what’s going on.”

“Don’t suppose we’ve got any suck with these locals.”

“Naw. Who’d ever figure we’d have to operate in Newark? Anyway, Portero doesn’t want anyone to know why we’re here. That’s why I’m moving the car around to the main drag out there. I’ll be in the McDonald’s lot. When the boys in blue arrive, we fade.”

“I’ll bet he’s royally pissed.”

“Count on it.”

“All right. See you at McDonald’s. Hey, while you’re there, get some burgers and fries for the trip home. I missed dinner.”

“You got it.”

Grimes go. Other man look Beece. “Keep looking, monkey. We’re not through yet. You go over there.” Point other sim. “You come over here with me. Find her, damn it!”

Beece go where told. Lots trash here. Big puddle. Shoe all wet. Beece lost. See top Mickey-D sign between building. Golden arches. Yum. Beece love Mickey-D. Yes-yes. Sometime—

What sound? Beece hear squeak-squeak. Turn see black metal door in brick wall. Look hard see red letter.

ELEVATOR SHAFT

DANGER!

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL

ONLY!

Beece no read but Beece see blood on door. See eye look out from door crack.

Meerm! Meerm here!

Beece look round quick. Mans not near. Man not look. Beece fraid talk. Wave Meerm to make stay. No speak, no move! Beece bend, get water in hand. Wash blood off door. Get more. Blood all gone now.

Man yell, say, “Find anything over there?”

“No, sir. Many puddle. No see Meerm.”

“All right then, keep moving! Time’s a-wasting!”

Beece bend and whisper to door, “Beece not tell. Not tell no one.”

18

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY

So…Meerm is in Newark.

Zero couldn’t be absolutely sure, but it was evident that Portero believed so. Zero had hired a private detective to keep an eye on him. Often the man reported back that Portero had given him the shake, but tonight he’d called and said that Portero and three others had made a beeline from the SimGen campus to a battered neighborhood in Newark.

Zero had driven his van from the West Side garage, through the Holland Tunnel, into Newark. Although only a few miles, the trip had taken nearly an hour. But well worth it. Arriving, he’d been treated to the spectacle of Luca Portero and his men herding dozens of sims through the streets, all calling “Meerm! Meerm!”

His heart had sunk. The swine had found her—or damn near. Only a matter of time before all those men and sims tracked Meerm down.

And then…a reprieve. He’d pounded his steering wheel with glee as he watched Portero and company make a slapdash retreat just before the Newark Police arrived with their lights flashing. They’d left empty-handed, which meant that Meerm—if she were here at all—was still somewhere in the vicinity. It also meant that Portero and his men would be back.

Zero had been tempted to wait until the cops were gone and then try to find Meerm on his own. But as much as his heart went out to that poor, frightened creature hiding somewhere in the dark, searching alone seemed like courting disaster.

All this gave Zero much to think about on the long ride back to Long Island.

By the time he arrived home he had a semblance of a plan, one that had been inspired by Portero himself when he’d conscripted Meerm’s fellow sims to find her. The murdering bastard was clever, no getting around that.

But Zero could play that game too, and play it better.

He removed his knit watch cap and tinted lenses, then unwrapped the scarf from his lower face. The air felt good against his skin.

His answering machine carried a message from Patrick saying they still hadn’t nailed down “surge” but had a lead or two they’d follow up tomorrow.

Ellis’s warnings about digging into “surge” still haunted him, especially his comment that Zero would not come through “unscathed” if he persisted. And his description of some of the secrets behind SimGen as “unspeakable”…a word he found deeply disturbing.

But there was no turning back now. Events were gathering momentum, and he had to find a way to control them, or at least steer them in the right direction.

One thing he knew he must control was Meerm. For her own sake, and the sake of all sims, he had to keep her out of SimGen’s hands. And to that end, Zero knew of a very bright sim named Tome who would be more than willing to help. If he could find a way to sneak Tome into the Newark crib, the sims there might trust him enough to let him know where Meerm was hiding.

Ifthey knew.

But assuming they did, Zero and Tome could then seek her out and bring her to safety.

Another if:If she’d come along.

Meerm probably had been so terrified by Portero and his thugs that she wouldn’t trust any human now. Another instance where Tome again might come in handy.

But Zero had reservations about the old sim’s powers of persuasion. And that was why Zero had to accompany him. Because if Tome couldn’t coax Meerm out of hiding, Zero would have to step in.

He moved to the dusty mirror over the sofa and looked at himself. He did that often. Too often, perhaps, he thought. But that’s what you do when you wished you looked like someone else, like something else.

He looked at his forehead and wished for less of a slope and a less prominent brow ridge; he wished his nose were longer, and his lips thinner.

This was not a face Romy could love, but it might be a face Zero would have to let her see. Because Meerm was that important. He’d risk anything to keep her away from SimGen, even if it meant revealing what he was.

For when Zero took off his mask, Meerm would have to trust him. Because she would know she was talking to another sim.

1

MANHATTAN

DECEMBER 21

“You’re sure we’ve got the right address?” Patrick said.

He and Romy stood before a dilapidated five-story Alphabet City tenement that leaned on its neighbor like a drunk against a lamppost; a rusty fire escape laced its sooty bricks and sootier windows.

He’d figured Alice Fredericks was poor, but not this poor.

“Let’s see.” Romy checked the number on the door atop the crumbling front stoop against the paper in her hand. “Yes. This is what she wrote down. She’s in apartment 2D. I hope she’s in.”

Patrick had called Alice’s number three times this morning to make sure she was home before they made the trip. Whoever had answered the hall phone told him—with growing annoyance because he said he was waiting for another call—that “the crazy bitch ain’t answerin her door.”

Patrick rubbed his cold hands together and envied Romy’s cleathre coat. The weather wasn’t going to let anyone forget that today was the first day of winter. Near noon now but the sun hung low as a cold wind knifed down the nearly empty street.

Cold as the knot of tension in his chest. He looked around. Parked cars lined the curb; if anyone was lurking in one of them, watching, readying to spring, he couldn’t tell. Only an occasional driver passing on the street glanced their way—Romy tended to draw looks—but no one seemed unduly interested. He’d kept watch during the cab ride over and hadn’t noticed anyone following.

“This is all a waste of time, you know,” he told her. “She may have had a child at one time, and she may even have sold it, but—”

“Not just a child, according to her,” Romy corrected him. “A sim.”

“Oh, right. How did I leave that out? A baby sim she says was the result of fertilization by aliens.” He shook his head. “Who’s crazier—her, or us for coming here?”

“We’ve come this far, let’s finish it.”

“Whatever she gave birth to, we know she didn’t sell it to Mercer Sinclair, and we know she doesn’t have a SimGen check signed by him.”

“That’s just it: Wedon’t know. We assume, but we don’tknow .”

“I do. Why are you so gung ho to call her bluff?”

“Because it will nag at me if I don’t check it out. That’s why I’m here on my lunch hour. I don’t want to keep wondering if maybe she’s only ninety percent crazy and ten percent of what she’s telling us is true. And what if that ten percent puts us on a path to ‘surge’? The Idaho license plate on that truck led to Manassas, didn’t it?”

“Point taken.” But Patrick doubted very much they’d score anything useful here. “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

He took the front steps two at a time, pushed on the front door, but it was locked. She’d said she was in 2D; he found the 2D bell button, but it was unlabeled. He pressed it anyway. No buzzer sounded to unlock the door. Tried again, but still no response.

He turned to Romy. “Are you getting a bad feeling about this?”

“She may not be in.”

“Or she may not be well. Or worse.”

“You mean that we might not be her first visitors since she left last night?”

“Yeah.”

Just then the door swung open and an anemic-looking splicer goth, twenty something and all in black, stepped out. She hissed at him, revealing a pair of long, sharp vampire fangs—the real thing, he was sure—then flowed down the steps, trailing black lace.

Patrick caught the door before it latched closed again, and held it for Romy. “After you.”

“In this case,” Romy said, “gentlemen first.”

Feeling his neck muscles bunch, Patrick took one last look at the street, then led the way up the worn stairs to the second floor where they found a narrow hallway lit by low-watt bulbs in steel cages and smelling vaguely of urine.

“Wait here,” he told Romy.

She shook her head. “You might need me.”

He noticed that she had her hand inside her bag. “What’ve you got in there?”

“Something I hope I don’t have to use.”

Listening for a click, a creak, anything that might herald an opening door, he led her to the right, past the hall phone framed by scribbled names and numbers. Finally they reached 2D. Patrick took a breath and knocked on the peeling surface. No answer. He tried again, louder.

“Alice? It’s Patrick Sullivan.”

He pressed his ear to the door and thought he heard a rustling sound within, but couldn’t be sure. Tried to look through the peephole but couldn’t see a thing, not even light.

“I don’t like this,” Romy whispered. “I told her we’d be here today. What if…” Her voice trailed off as she frowned.

Patrick knew what she was thinking. He’d been thinking it too. “You mean, what if she’s been talking too much about this check and someone finally decided to shut her up for good?”

“Which would mean she wasn’t crazy after all.”

“We’ve got to get in there.” He lowered his voice further. “What if it’s all a set up?”

Romy chewed her upper lip. “Maybe we should call the cops. Report her as a missing—”

The door suddenly swung inward, a hand darted out, grabbed the lapel of Patrick’s overcoat, and pulled him inward. He stifled a terrified cry when he recognized Alice Fredericks.

“Come in!” she hissed. “Quick!”

Patrick stepped through, Romy right behind him. Alice slammed the door as soon as they were inside, plunging them into darkness. He could make out glints of light from what seemed to be a window, but she must have left her shades down.

“Alice,” he said as his pounding heart slowed. “What’s going on? Can we have some light?”

Rustling clothing, shuffling feet accompanied by a strange crinkling noise, and then a lamp came to life. Patrick barely recognized Alice. Her gray hair was in wild disarray, her feet bare, her frayed housecoat haphazardly buttoned. And her eyes—red, swollen, wet…

“Alice,” he said. “You’ve been crying. What—?”

The words dried up as his brain began to register his surroundings.

“Oh, my,” Romy said softly at his side. She’d seen it too.

Patrick did a slow turn, his feet crinkling on the aluminum foil that lined the floor. And the walls. And the ceiling. And the two windows on the outer wall, which was why the one-room apartment was so dark. In some areas, the ceiling especially, the foil looked as if it had been collected from trash cans—minutely crinkled, in odd-sized squares, some with fast-food logos showing; other areas were covered in long smooth strips, obviously tacked up right off the roll.

“Alice?” he said. “What is all this?”

“What? Oh, you mean the foil. That’s for protection.”

“From…?”

“From having my mind read. The aliens working for Mercer Sinclair can read thoughts, you know. This protects me from them. At least…” Her voice faltered as her face twisted into a mask of grief. She sobbed. “At least I thought it did!”

Romy stepped closer and slipped an arm around the woman’s quaking shoulders. “What’s the matter, Alice? What happened?”

“The check!” Alice wailed. “They stole it!”

Knew it! Patrick thought. Complete waste of time.

“You mean,” Romy said, “someone broke in here and took it?”

“Yes! They knew my secret hiding place and they switched it with another check, a worthless one!”

Romy glanced up at Patrick and shrugged.

“Let’s go,” Patrick said. He wanted to be angry at this flaky lady for wasting his time, but she was too genuinely distressed. Her bizarro apartment, though, was giving him a grand case of the creeps.

“We can’t leave her like this. She’s terrified.” Romy turned back to Alice. “When did you last see the check?”

“Oh, I haven’t taken it out for years. But after talking to you last night, I pulled it out of my secret hiding place, to have it ready for Mr. Sullivan, and it had changed!” Another sob, louder this time. “The date’s the same and the money’s the same, but it’s not a SimGen check anymore and someone else’s signature is there instead of Mercer Sinclair’s!” She fumbled in her housecoat pocket. “Here. I’ll show you.”

“Romy…,” Patrick began but her quick sharp look cut him off.

“Let me calm her down a little,” she said, “then we can be on our way.”

Alice produced a slip of paper and shoved it into Romy’s hand. “There. See for yourself!”

Patrick saw Romy glance at the check, then take a closer look.

“What?” Patrick said.

Romy angled the paper back and forth in the dim light. “Well, it’s for five thousand dollars and it’s made out to Alice Fredericks. And she’s right about the signature: I don’t know whose it is, but it’s not Mercer Sinclair’s.”

“I’ll bet she’s also right about it not being from SimGen too.”

Romy nodded, still staring at the check. “Uh-huh. It was drawn on the First Federal Bank of Arlington, Virginia.” She looked up at him, her eyes so bright they fairly glowed. “From the account of something called Manassas Ventures.”

2

“I don’t get it,” Patrick said. His stomach lurched as one of the Federal Plaza elevators lifted them toward OPRR’s offices.

They’d held off talking about Alice during the ride over from Alphabet City. The odds that one of New York’s current crop of cabbies would know enough English to follow their discussion were astronomical, but still they hadn’t wanted to risk it. Now they had an elevator car to themselves.

“I think I do,” Romy said. “I think she did perform some service for SimGen in its early years, maybe even before it started calling itself SimGen. And it may well have had something to do with a baby.”

“What about the space alien angle? You’re not buying into—”

“Of course not. I’m no psychologist, but I can see how she may have felt very guilty about what she did. Combine that with not being too tightly wrapped in the first place, and you can understand someone unraveling. She structured a fantastic scenario that blended fact and fiction.”

“But Mercer Sinclair?”

“More mixing of fact and fiction,” Romy said. “Alice must have had some direct contact with him because he keeps reappearing in her story—taking the sim baby, signing her check.”

“Right. The check. Why did she think it had changed?”

“You heard her. She hadn’t looked at it for years, and during that time it did change—in her mind. Maybe Mercer Sinclair had given it to her himself. She remembered that and so over the years her loosely hinged mind substituted his signature for whoever really signed it. And since Mercer Sinclair is synonymous with SimGen, she began to remember it as a SimGen check.”

“Poor lady. I’d give anything to know the truth about her.”

“I don’t think even she knows anymore.”

He slipped an arm over Romy’s shoulders and pulled her closer. “You were good with her.”

“I felt sorry for the poor thing.”

It had taken Romy a while, but finally she’d managed to calm Alice Fredericks, telling her she was safe now: The aliens had what they wanted and so they wouldn’t be bothering her again. She could take down the foil, let some fresh air into the room, and stop worrying. Alice seemed to buy it. She hadn’t seemed quite ready yet to peel the foil from the walls, but she’d been in better spirits, and even gave them the check to take with them. After all, it wasn’t the real thing, so it was no use to her.

“How old do you think she is?” Patrick said.

“She said she was forty-seven.”

“Yeah, but is that reliable? She looks sixty.”

“Poverty and madness can age you pretty fast.”

“Yeah, well…” He sighed. “I guess there’s no way to find out what really went on between her and SimGen—or rather, the proto-SimGen being directly financed by Manassas. Which leaves us no closer finding out who’s behind Manassas.”

“But we’ve got a Manassas Ventures check, and it’s signed. That’ssomebody’s signature.”

“Right.” With his free hand Patrick pulled the old check from his pocket and held it up. “A C-like letter connected to a squiggle, and then an L-like thing connected to another squiggle, on a check drawn on a Virginia bank that was no doubt gobbled up by another bank that merged with yet another bank which was taken over by still another bank.”

“But the check’s dated back when all that appropriation money was being funneled into SIRG. If we can connect SIRG to that Arlington Federal account…”

“Fat chance.”

“Don’t be so sure. I’ve got Uncle Miltie working on SIRG.”

Patrick had to laugh. “How do you get your superior to do your scut work?”

She lifted her chin defiantly. “I’ll have you know I’m superior to Milton Ware in every way.”

“Except in seniority, position, and salary, right?”

“Mere details. Besides, he’s crazy about me.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“And he’s an expert at tracking down funding. Nobody better. Knows a ton of passwords and can sniff out an unclaimed research dollar at a thousand paces. That’s how I sicced him on SIRG. I told him this group got zillions in funding without ever revealing what it was doing. Maybe if OPRR learned its secret…”

“And he bought it?”

“Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Did you tell him it hasn’t received a dime in years?”

“Of course. But I suggested that if he could find where all that funding came from, maybe some of it might still be around for OPRR to tap into.”

“And he bit?”

“Like a dog on a bone. And Milton Ware is the kind of dog who’ll work a bone until there’s nothing left.”

They reached the OPRR offices, a nondescript suite on the eighteenth floor. Romy led Patrick to a windowed office where a peppy, white-haired little man sat hunched before a computer. The plaque on his desk readMILTON WARE .

“Any luck?” she said.

The man looked up and regarded them with bright blue eyes. “Yes and no.”

After Romy made introductions, Ware took off his glasses and pointed to the inch-high stack of printouts on his desk.

“The good news is that I know where Social Impact Research Group’s money came from. The bad news is that OPRR won’t be able to get any of it.”

“Why not?” Romy said.

“Because its ultimate source was the Department of Defense.”

“Knew it!” Romy said, clapping her hands once. “Just like SOG—military bucks laundered through an innocent-sounding subagency. Any indication where the money went after it was cleared through SIRG?”

“Hell,” Patrick said, “we know damn well—” But a quick look from Romy shut him up.

Right. They both suspected that the money had marched through a parade of holding companies until it reached Manassas Ventures, which used it to fund the nascent SimGen. But Milton Ware knew nothing of this.

“We know it wasn’t anything legit,” Romy said, jumping in to cover for him. “Otherwise they would have been more open about the funding.”

“I don’t see why it matters,” Ware said. “It doesn’t exist anymore. No trace of it in anyone’s budget anymore.”

Patrick leaned back and thought a moment. They knew SIRG was still active—Daniel Palmer had said the name before his speech center blew a fuse. But where was it getting its funding now? The path to the answer might not lie with government agencies but with people. He’d seen it happen time and again during his labor relations practice: certain shady characters, on both the labor and management sides, would be found out and sent packing, only to pop up in another company or union local the following year.

“SIRG might be operating under a different name,” he said, “but I bet the personnel are the same. Any idea who headed SIRG?”

Ware leaned forward and put on his glasses. “Yes. I remember coming across that somewhere…” He began shuffling through his printouts. “Here it is: the director was a Lieutenant Colonel Conrad Landon.”

“And where is he now?”

“Easy enough to find out.” Ware turned to his computer. After a number of flamenco bursts on his keyboard, he leaned closer to the screen and said, “Conrad Landon retired as a full bird colonel.”

“Damn. When?”

Ware stared at the monitor. “The same year the funding died.”

“What a surprise,” Romy murmured.

Patrick leaned across the desk for a peek at Ware’s screen. “Any hint at where he might—?”

The picture of Landon startled him. Something familiar about the man in the grainy, black-and-white personnel-file photo.

“What’s up?” Romy said.

“Nothing. I just—” And then he knew. Add a few decades, enough to whiten the hair and deeply line the face, and Patrick recognized him. “Nothing.” Repressing a shout of triumph, he rose and extended his hand across the desk. Had to get out of here, had to talk to Romy alone before he exploded. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Ware. I’ve got to run. Romy, could you show me out?”

He fairly pulled her out of her seat and propelled her ahead of him down the hall.

“What is it?” she said.

“Where can we talk?”

“My office is—”

“Might be bugged.” He saw the elevators ahead. “Back to our mobile conversation pit.”

He pressed both theUP andDOWN buttons. The upward bound car arrived first, carrying four people. He let it go. The downward was empty. Perfect. He dragged Romy inside, jabbed the button for the lobby. As soon as the doors closed…

“Remember when we had our little face-to-face in my office with the Manassas Ventures lawyers?” he said, his tongue all but tripping over the words in his rush to get them out before someone else entered the car. “And remember how I followed them downstairs to their limo, hoping to find someone like Mercer Sinclair sitting in the back?”

She frowned. “Vaguely.”

“But it turned out to be someone I’d never seen before. Well, I’ve just seen him again. The man in the back seat was Conrad Landon, former Army colonel, and former director of SIRG. Maybe not so former. I’ll bet SIRG never went away and he’s still calling the shots. Find this Conrad Landon and we’ll find SIRG.”

3

NEWARK, NJ

Something’s not right, Zero thought with a pang of unease. We’re missing something.

He sat next to Tome in the rear seat of the van as it bounced over the rough pavement of Newark’s dark back streets toward the sim quarters Portero had led him to last night. Not quite 6:00P .M. yet but the sun was long gone and icy night had taken command.

Tome was dressed like the worker sims, but he’d been equipped with a PCA. The plan was to drop him off where he could sneak into the building and mix with the other sims. Zero was confident that Tome’s gentle nature and above-average intelligence would gain him the respect and confidence of the other sims, enough so that one of them would trust him with Meerm’s whereabouts. When he found out, he’d press the preset speed-dial number and they’d pick him up.

Zero sighed. Not a perfect plan. It hinged entirely on the assumption that the sim laborers knew where Meerm was hiding.

His face itched under the ski mask; he’d traded tinted glasses for the ultra darks he usually wore, but they still impaired his vision. He wished he could pull everything off and ride along like a normal human being. But then, he wasn’t a normal human being.

Just ahead of him, Patrick and Romy were a pair of silhouettes in the front seat.

“You two have done wonderful work,” Zero said. “You make a great team.”

“We do, don’t we,” Patrick said from behind the wheel.

Zero watched them glance at each other and smile. He could sense the growing bond between him. And as much as it made him ache to see Romy with Patrick, he knew it was for the best. Despite their surface differences, Zero sensed that they complemented each other on the deeper levels where it really counted.

He steered his thoughts away from Romy and toward what she and Patrick had uncovered today.

“We now have an ironclad chain of evidence. It doesn’t take a handwriting expert to decipher the signature on Alice Fredericks’s Manassas Ventures check as ‘Conrad Landon.’ That draws a direct line from the Department of Defense to SimGen.”

“It’s not something that will hold up in a court of law,” Patrick said. “Off the top of my head I can think of half a dozen grounds for preventing it from being admitted as evidence. But in the court of public opinion, it’s a hydrogen bomb.”

“Assuming the public gives a damn,” Romy said.

Patrick nodded. “Oh, they’ll care all right. We lay it out clear and simple for them. We show how SimGen’s early financing was public money: from Manassas Ventures which got it from SIRG which got it from the Department of Defense. The obvious question then is: Why? What did the D-o-D get in return? So we’ll explain how Manassas leases trucks in Idaho that show up on the SimGen campus, transporting cargo back and forth, cargo that no one’s allowed to see. But we’ve seen it, and that’s when we show them Kek. When we reveal that Kek was found in Idaho, they’ll be able to connect the last dots themselves: SimGen is producing hybrid simian soldiers for the Department of Defense to use in black ops or guerrilla operations. When the public learns that SimGen has been turning normally harmless creatures into man-killers, they’ll care. They’ll care like crazy. SimGen’s dirty little secret will finally be out in the open for all to see, and that will be the beginning of the end of SimGen.”

Zero had been listening to Patrick, but someone else’s words had been echoing through his brain at the same time.

You have no idea what you’re getting into, the forces you’ll be setting in motion…they’ll crush you.

“No comment back there?” Patrick said.

“As I told you: wonderful work.”

But still that uneasy feeling plagued Zero. Was this the danger Ellis had warned him about? He could see now why the people behind SimGen were so ruthless when it came to protecting the company.

So he added, “Now we know why SIRG’s funding was cut off: it didn’t need any more. With all the SimGen stock it holds in Manassas Ventures, SIRG is a financially independent organization. Which means we’ve got to be more careful than ever.”

“Right,” Patrick said. “More than careers and reputations hang in the balance should their little operation be exposed. Billions of bucks are at stake.”

Romy half turned in her seat. “Which raises a scary question: If SIRG has its own billions to finance its operations, who does it answer to?”

“No one with a conscience, that’s for sure. Maybe someone high up in the Pentagon, maybe only Conrad Landon himself.”

“I think we can count on SIRG to do whatever it deems necessary to protect its investment,” Zero told them. “That’s why, if we’re going to bring SimGen down, I’d prefer to find a way that keeps you two out of the spotlight.”

“Which is why we’re heading to Newark, I assume.”

“Exactly. I think it will be safer for all concerned if we let Meerm and her baby bring down SimGen.”

“But that puts the child in jeopardy,” Romy said.

“No more so than now. Meerm’s baby is just as much a threat to SimGen dead as it is alive. Its half-human, half-sim DNA will tell the whole story, a story that, unlike the money trail you’ve discovered, can’t be denied or stonewalled or spun into something with no resemblance to the truth. That baby is a slam dunk.”

“Then it’s all on our buddy Tome.”

“Yes, Mist Sulliman,” Tome said from his seat beside Zero. “Tome ready help.”

“I know you are,” Zero said softly.

Now Romy looked back at him from the front seat. “Zero, I’ve been around you long enough to know when you’re holding something back. What aren’t you telling us?”

So many things…but right now Ellis Sinclair’s words continued to haunt him, especially his warning about the fallout from what they might uncover.

Things that will hurt me personally, and devastate other, more innocent, parties. Things that no one will want to hear. And don’t think you’ll come through unscathed, either.

That last part had been particularly unsettling, but not as jarring as his final warning about what they might find.

Some of it is sensitive. And some of it is…unspeakable.

Zero couldn’t allow Romy and Patrick even a hint of his connection to Ellis, but perhaps he could hint at the man’s warnings.

“It’s not so much holding back as a feeling that there’s something more behind all this, something we’re missing.”

“Like what?” Patrick said. “SIRG is the bastard child SimGen’s been hiding in its basement. That’s enough, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so.”

But he remained dissatisfied and uneasy. What had they missed?

Zero shook off the worries as he spotted a street sign.

“We’re getting close.”

“Another scenic neighborhood,” Patrick said. “The Bronx, East New York, Alphabet City, and now Newark. Where next? Beirut?”

Zero had to admit that Patrick had a point. Low-rent businesses, abandoned, graffito-crusted buildings, stripped skeletons of cars lining the street…but just the kind of low-rent neighborhood someone would pick to house sim laborers.

“It’s to the right up ahead,” he told Patrick, “but don’t make the turn. Cruise through the intersection and everyone keep an eye out for surveillance teams.”

“You think Portero’s watching the place?” Romy said.

“Count on it.”

They made a couple of passes through the immediate area, and along the way spotted four occupied sedans. The first, with a pair of men slouched in the front seat, was parked across the street from the front door of the building; a single occupant in each of the other three; two of those were situated on the streets that flanked the sim building, the last sitting opposite a narrow alley that appeared to lead toward the rear of the building.

Patrick pulled into the curb two blocks away and stopped under a dead streetlight. Ahead and to the right, the light over the front door of the sim crib glowed like a star in the darkness.

“This looks too risky, Zero,” he said. “Tome’s not going in.”

“Tome can go,” said the sim.

“Uh-uh,” Patrick said, shaking his head, and Zero could sense his resolve turning to stone. “I won’t allow it.”

Zero sighed. “I agree.”

He couldn’t see any way of slipping Tome past Portero’s surveillance.

“Damn.” Zero made a fist. “I anticipated two teams, not four.”

“Might be five—one roving. I swear we passed the same green Taurus twice.”

Just then a school bus rumbled past and pulled to a stop before the sim building. As Zero watched it disgorge its crew of sim laborers, he had an idea.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s head back.”

Romy said, “We’re not giving up already, are we?”

“Not a chance. Just changing tactics. And I promise you, by this time tomorrow night Tome will be safely inside that building, and no one will be the wiser.”

“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Patrick said. “Will the sims be working?”

“Of course. They workevery day. ‘Weekend’ has no meaning for a sim.”

As they drove back Zero reviewed all they’d learned about SIRG and Manassas. He knew Ellis had been sincere when he’d warned him against digging too deep. Well, they’d dug, and dug deep. They’d discovered a dirty little secret, yes, but nothing “unspeakable.”

And that worried Zero.

4

Meerm ver hungry. Drink rainwater some but no food all day. Ver fraid go out. Stay behind metal door till dark. Still fraid go out. Tummy hurt so ver bad. And belly kick-kick-kick all day.

Must go out. Push metal door. Goskeek ver loud. But no mans come.

Meerm go out. Smell food, yum-yum food smell. Drool smell. From other side fence.

Meerm creep to fence, peek through. See gold arch. Go under fence, cross street, go sticker bush, come other fence. See Mickey-D! Mickey-D! But can’t have. Meerm so sad.

Meerm see boy-mans come out Mickey-D. Hold black bag, throw in bigbig metal can. When boy-man go, Meerm squeeze through fence hole and go to can. Top ver high but Meerm climb up and fall inside. Many bag here. Meerm rip one. Yum-yum food smell come out. Meerm reach inside, find much food, half-eat, all mixy-mixy. Meerm not care. Is yum-yum.

Ouch. Hand hurt. Meerm look. See rats. Rat want food too. Bite Meerm. Meerm throw food at rat. Plenty food here. Food for all.

Meerm shove food into mouth fast can. Chew-chew-chew. So good. Meerm not sad now. Still hurt but hunger go. Good. For now.

5

MINEOLA, NY

DECEMBER 22

Romy had called first thing in the morning and told Patrick to pick her up. They had a doctor’s appointment, she said.

After she’d settled herself in the car she explained that the appointment was with an obstetrician. That had taken him aback until she explained that it was Dr. Cannon, and they were visiting her to discuss Alice Fredericks.

Betsy Cannon worked out of a small office attached to her home, a modest two-story colonial on a tree-lined street in Mineola. She’d already made her hospital rounds; her office hours didn’t start until 1:00P .M. so they had plenty of time. Looking casual in a loose turtleneck sweater and khaki slacks, she served them coffee and Entenmann’s crumb cake in her roomy kitchen.

“Is there a Mr. Dr. Cannon?” Patrick whispered as Betsy stepped out of the room to take a call from the hospital.

Romy shook her head. “No. Never was, and I doubt there ever will be, if you get my drift.”

“No kidding?” Patrick said. “Never would have guessed.”

Betsy returned then and seated herself on the far side of the kitchen table. “You wanted to ask me about this Fredericks woman?”

“Yes,” Romy said. “Her story is such a mishmash of fact and fiction, we were hoping you’d be able to separate the two.”

Patrick appreciated the “we.” It hadn’t even occurred to him to run the story past Dr. Cannon. And considering that she’d spent years as head of sim obstetrics for SimGen, he was disappointed with himself for not thinking of it first.

Betsy smiled. “Well, I’ll be glad to try. I can explain parts of her story—especially the ones about being abducted and impregnated by space aliens—with one word: psychosis.”

Patrick said, “That’s pretty strong, isn’t it?”

“She’s delusional, she has a persistent break with reality that interferes with her day-to-day functioning. That behavior fits the diagnosis. The sad thing is, she can be easily helped. The right medications could restore her neurochemicals to proper balance and she’d come back to the real world.”

“Neurochemicals,” Romy murmured. “They’ll get you every time.”

Patrick shot her a questioning glance but she only shrugged and waved it off.

“Delusional or not,” he said, getting back on track, “she gave us the check. And unless I’m delusional too, it looks pretty real.”

Betsy smiled. “I’m sure it is. And you’ll notice I didn’t include the part about her giving birth to a sim as one of her delusions.”

“You don’t really think…,” Romy said, frowning. She glanced at Patrick. “I mean, how…?”

“It’s obvious when you think about it,” Betsy told her. “Human surrogate mothers were a necessity in the early stages of the sim breeding process.”

Romy’s face twisted in revulsion. “Why on earth—?”

“Because sims are considerably larger than chimps. A small chimpanzee uterus couldn’t carry a sim baby to term, but a human uterus would have no problem.”

Patrick was dazed. “So part of what she’s saying might be true?”

“Perhaps not about birthing the very first sim, but…how old is she?”

“Forty-seven—she says.”

Betsy nodded. “Then she’s about the right age. Think about the implantation process—flat on her back on a table, bright lights overhead, surrounded by doctors in caps, masks, and goggles as they insert an in-vitro–fertilized ovum into her uterus. You can see how an unbalanced mind might later reinterpret this as an alien abduction.”

“But to go through all that for five thousand dollars?”

“I’m sure it was more like fifty thousand: say, five in advance, then five every month until delivery. The process is no different from being a surrogate mother for a human couple.”

“Except that at the end you don’t deliver a human baby,” Romy said.

Betsy nodded. “Right. And perhaps that unbalanced an already fragile mind.”

“Which makes her one more casualty left in SimGen’s wake,” Romy said.

“But she couldn’t have been the only one,” Patrick said. “How come we haven’t heard about this before?”

Betsy shrugged. “I’m sure there were many human surrogate mothers before SimGen developed its breeding stock. I’m also sure they signed non-disclosure agreements with stiff penalties.”

“Not exactly the sort of thing I’d want to trumpet from the rooftops anyway,” Romy added.

Patrick leaned back, thinking. He had a sense that something important had slipped past him here, something Betsy had said a moment ago.

A small chimpanzee uterus couldn’t carry a sim baby to term, but a human uterus would have no problem.

And then he knew.

“Oh, Christ! Meerm is carrying a half-human, half-sim baby. Won’t it grow too big—?”

“Too big for her to carry full term?” Betsy said. “Absolutely. Normal sim gestation is eight months, but we don’t know when Meerm conceived, so we don’t know her due date. That’s why you have to find her. If she goes into premature labor while she’s in hiding, the baby won’t survive. If she’s too far along the baby will be too big for a vaginal delivery, which means she’ll need a cesarean.”

“And if she doesn’t get one?” Romy asked, and Patrick could tell from her expression that she didn’t want to hear the answer.

“We’ll lose both of them.”

Romy closed her eyes for a heartbeat or two, then stared at Patrick. “We’vegot to find her.”

“Tome is set to go tonight.”

Zero had called Patrick this morning to tell him he’d gone back to Newark before dawn and followed the sim bus into Manhattan. He saw where it dropped off the sims at a Harlem sweatshop. Assuming pick-up would be at the same spot, the new plan was to put Tome on line with the workers as they boarded the bus.

“If Tome gets the job done tonight, we could be bringing Meerm here tomorrow morning.”

Betsy smiled and raised her coffee cup in a sort of toast. “I’ll be waiting.”

6

NEWARK, NJ

Meerm hide in cold dark place and hurt. Hurt so ver bad. Tummy go kick-kick-kick. Was food bad? Meerm not think. Not feel sick tummy, just hurt tummy. Hurt-hurt-hurt, then stop. Then hurt-hurt-hurt again, then stop.

Now hurt stop again. Meerm close eyes and breathe. So good when hurt stop.

What this? Leg feel wet. Meerm touch. Yes, wet and warm. Put wet from leg near light from steel door crack. Red wet. Blood? Where blood come? From inside? How come from inside?

Now Meerm cry. Don’t want bleed. Don’t want die. What wrong Meerm?

7

MANHATTAN

Tome keep head down and walk far back in bus like Mist Sulliman say do. Sit seat and wait. Other sim come, say, “My seat, my seat.”

Tome stand wait for bus move, then find other seat.

“Who you?” say she-sim next Tome. “You not shop sim.”

Tome remember what Mist Sulliman tell him say. “Yes, not shop sim. Just old sim looking for friend.”

“Who friend?”

“Meerm.”

Tome know not true, but Mist Sulliman tell say this.

She-sim say loud, “Beece! Beece! Come see old sim!”

Tome look and see he-sim come down aisle. This Beece big. Look down Tome.

“Why here old sim?”

“I am Tome. Look for Meerm. She friend.”

Beece get mad face. “You lie! Bad mans send! You want hurt Meerm!”

“No! Good mans send. Friend all sim. Best friend sim have. Try to make sim union. Try—”

“What yooyun?”

Tome try tell but Beece not understand. So Tome tell Beece bout how Mist Sulliman hurt by bad mans, house burned by bad mans who hate sim.

Beece eyes ver wide. “House burn? Because help sims?”

All other sim who hear turn round, look Tome.

Tome say, “Yes! Good man! Best man. Now want help Meerm. Save her from bad mans. Also Meerm ver sick.”

All sim nod. Yes, some say. Meerm ver sick.

“Good man help make better. Where Tome find Meerm?”

Beece not speak.

She-sim next Tome say, “Beece not know. No sim know.”

No sim speak long time. Tome ver sad. Want help Mist Sulliman but fail. Touch phone in pocket. Must call and tell.

Then Beece say, “Beece know. Not know exact, but can help.” Beece look hard Tome. “Must tell true. Must help Meerm.”

“Tome help Meerm.” So ver happy now. “Tome help good.”

8

NEWARK, NJ

“Get ready,” Zero murmured from the darkness behind her as the school bus pulled to a stop before the sim crib.

Romy raised her binoculars and focused on the front door. Patrick had parked the van in the same spot as last night. He sat beside her behind the wheel, training his own set of glasses on the door, and she knew Zero had his pair aimed between them. They had to know whether or not Tome got off the bus, and all agreed that three sets of eyes were better than one.

Romy licked her lips. Her fingers felt slick against the black matte finish of the binocular barrels. This was the night when it all could come together, when all her years of effort, when everything she’d worked for would come to fruition…

Or go up in smoke.

She took a breath. No smoke. This was going to work.

No movement yet. She noticed Patrick lowering his glasses.

He let out a long, slow breath, as if he’d been holding it. “What if somebody spots him and gets suspicious?” he said.

“No reason they should,” Zero said. “Tome’s dressed just like the other sims. And besides, the surveillance teams are looking for a pregnant female.”

“But what about their warden or whatever you call the guy inside—what if he counts one extra and turns him over to the guys outside. I saw how they cut up those other sims.”

Romy stared at Patrick. Was that a catch in his voice? He was really worried—not about blowing their chance to find Meerm, but about Tome being hurt. Same as last night when he’d refused to let Tome near the building.

She felt a burst of warmth for him. What a change from the hard case she’d met just a few months ago. She laid a gentle hand on his arm.

“We won’t let anything happen to Tome. You know that.”

“Better not,” he said, staring straight ahead. “He’s my roomie, you know.”

“I know. And I—”

“There they are,” Zero said and the three of them trained their glasses on the small patch of sidewalk between the bus and the front door.

Romy wished there were more light as the sims trooped out in ones and pairs. She fine-tuned the focus on her binocs, training her gaze on their faces. Since they all were dressed in identical coveralls, only the faces would tell. She watched one after another swim through her field of vision in a seemingly endless stream, and then suddenly the parade was over.

“I didn’t see him,” Romy said.

Neither had Zero or Patrick.

“Do you think this means what it’s supposed to mean?” Patrick whispered.

Romy felt her heart rate kick up. The plan was for Tome to enter the sim dorm if he hadn’t learned Meerm’s whereabouts by the time the bus arrived. If he’d been successful, he was to hide on the bus until the driver parked it down the street, then sneak out and call for pick-up.

“I hope so,” she said.

Patrick reached for the ignition but Zero stopped him.

“Wait till we hear from him. We’re much less conspicuous sitting still.”

And so they waited. And waited.

“Why doesn’t he call?” Patrick said, tapping the steering wheel none too gently. “Something’s wrong.”

Romy prayed not.

Tome lost.

Turn round and round in dark but not know where is.

Tome bad sim. Old fool sim. Not listen Mist Sulliman. Not do what told. Mist Sulliman say call but Tome not. Fool Tome wait driver go, then open bus window. Climb through, drop ground. Tome not call like Mist Sulliman say. Fool Tome go find Meerm self. Show Mist Sulliman can find. Bring back Meerm. Make Mist Sulliman proud.

Tome do bad thing. Wait by bus. See no car. Run cross street. Hide shadow. Try remember what Beece say. Wish Beece knew better where Meerm hide. Only know, “Left side home building. Many, many turn go see Mickey-D gold arch light over fence. Look black metal door. Red writing door. Meerm inside.”

Tome go, make many many turn. No see Mickey-D. No see black metal door. Now Tome lost in ver dark place.

Tome keep walk. Hear car noise. Many car. See light. Go to and find big street. Many light and car. And there Mickey-D. Tome find! Tome not bad sim! Not fool!

But where steel door? Tome look-look but no see door, no red writing. Tome fail. Ver sad again. Pull out phone, remember what Mist Sulliman say: First press red button, wait for beep, then press 9 button, then press green button.

Tome hope Mist Sulliman not mad and say no more friend with Tome. That make Tome ver sad.

“Yes!” Patrick cried as his PCA chirped.

Romy watched him jab theSEND button and crush the phone against his ear. He’d been sitting there with it clutched in his hand, thumb poised over the buttons like a mad bomber with a detonator.

“Tome!” he cried. “You’re all right?” He turned and nodded to Romy and Zero.

Romy let out a sigh of relief. The last twenty-five minutes had been hell.

“No-no,” Patrick was saying. “That’s all right. As long as you’re okay, it doesn’t matter. Listen, you stay there but keep out of sight. We’ll come by and get you.” He closed the PCA and started the van.

“What happened?” Zero said.

“He thought he could find Meerm himself.”

“Oh, God!” Romy said.

“I know, I know, it was foolish. But it’s okay. We’re picking him up at the McDonald’s we passed back there on Springfield Avenue. Now nobody get on his case, okay? He was just trying—”

“But this means he found out where Meerm is.”

Patrick nodded, with no little pride in his grin. “That he did. And if we can decipher the directions he got, we’ll have Meerm on her way to Dr. Cannon before you know it.”

Romy smiled, sharing his infectious optimism, allowing herself to hope.

Lister’s voice grated through the encrypted phone line. “Still no sign of that damned monkey?”

Damned monkey was right. Double-damned monkey. Luca leaned back in his sofa, put his feet up on the old coffee table, and scratched his throat. His shaver had been a little dull this morning and it had irritated his skin, but not as much as the events of the past few days were irritating his gut. How many places could a pregnant sim hide?

“Not a trace.”

Behind him, in the kitchen, he could hear Maria humming as she cooked up their Saturday night feast. A spicy aroma wafted around him, making his mouth water.

“Shit,” Lister said. “I’m getting lots of questions about all the men we’re tying up. Let me get this straight: You’ve got five cars and twelve men involved in this surveillance?”

“Correct: four cars stationary, one on patrol, with rotating twelve-hour shifts of six men each.”

Suddenly Maria’s face hovered above him, grinning as she dangled a glistening sliver of chicken over his lips. He opened his mouth and she dropped it in. Delicious. He blew her a kiss and she swayed back to the kitchen.

Damn, he was going to miss her.

“And you think that’s the way to go?”

Luca chewed and swallowed quickly. “That’s what all our sim experts advise. They say she’s got to eat, so that means if we don’t catch her wandering around or trying to sneak back into the sim crib, we’ll find another sim sneaking out to bring her food.”

“Makes sense to me, but upstairs is complaining about the manpower commitment.”

“It’s not as if these guys have anything better to keep them busy.”

“Oh, but very soon they will. Guillotine is a go.”

Luca stiffened. “When?”

“Can’t say more now. Maybe in person.”

Luca understood. Even a hard-encrypted phone wasn’t secure enough for a conversation about Operation Guillotine. Because Guillotine was what SIRG was all about, and the neck scheduled to be placed under that blade was Aazim Saad’s.

Al Qaeda was gone, but its goals and methods lived on in various smaller offshoots. The most active was the Malaysian Mujahideen led by Aazim Saad.

One of his men had ratted out the Omani terrorist kingpin, and his headquarters had been traced to a rubber plantation in Borneo. Operation Guillotine would drop three commando teams of specially trained mandrilla sims into the surrounding jungle and have them raid the compound, killing anything that moved. All their gear—weapons, clothing, communications—would be foreign-made to obscure their point of origin. Even if one were captured alive, it couldn’t give anything away, because it wouldn’t know anything, and couldn’t tell if it did. The Malaysian Mujahideen would be wiped out, and no one would know by whom.

This had been the Old Man’s dream: an anonymous strike force that could operate with greater efficiency and ferocity than any human equivalent. All SIRG had needed was clearance from the Pentagon to proceed. Now they had it. And if Guillotine was a success, Conrad Landon would be the toast of a very small, very elite inner circle in the Department of Defense.

Luca had seen the mandrillas in training. Their ferocity awed him. They knew no fear, and gave no quarter. Their downside was the difficulty controlling them, and stopping them once they got started. Heaven help any innocent bystanders near the Saad compound.

“All I can say,” Lister said, “is that some of those surveillance men are going to be needed back in Idaho for the launch.”

“I don’t think I’ll need much more time. It’s been only forty-eight hours. She can’t go—”

His PCA rang. “Just a sec. That’s from the surveillance team.” He put Lister on hold, snatched up the phone, and recognized Snyder’s voice.

“Guess what just happened?”

“What?” Please, Luca thought. Nothing bad. Don’t tell me anyone’s dead.

But Snyder sounded pleased with himself; almost happy.

“I’m pulling up to the drive-thru window of this McDonald’s near the crib to get coffees for the guys when I see this beat-up old van with New York tags pull into the lot. And I’m thinking, you know, there’s a lot of dirty old white vans with New York plates, but maybe this is the one I spotted in Brooklyn, you know, when Palmer and Jackson disappeared from that op. And I was wishing I had the tag number handy when—”

“Get to the goddamn point!”

“Okay, okay. So I’m watching the van and I see the rear door swing open. No big deal, but then this sim hops out of the bushes and jumps inside.”

The PCA’s seams let out a faint squeak as Luca’s grip tightened. “Was it her?”

“Nah. This was a skinny male, but you could tell from his coveralls he’s from the crib.”

“He’s leading them to her! Where are they now?”

“About twenty-five yards ahead of me, heading back toward the crib.”

“Don’t lose them. You hear me, Snyder? Do…not…lose them. And don’t let them spot you either. You spook them, they’ll take off.”

“Maybe I should contact the others so we can tag team them on the tail.”

“Good idea. No, wait.”

Luca’s mind raced over the possibilities. These people had fooled him before. Was it sheer luck that Snyder spotted the sim jumping into the van, or was hesupposed to see it? The expected response was to mobilize the entire surveillance team, which would leave the sim crib unguarded. Could that be their real purpose?

“Do it this way. Lowery and Stritch have the front door. While Lowery takes the car to back you up, tell Stritch to go inside and find out from that jerk Morales which of his sims is missing. If the sim from the van somehow makes it back to the crib, I want to know which one it is.”

“Got it,” Snyder said.

“I’m on my way over now. I can’t emphasize how important this is, Snyder. Don’t blow it.”

He returned to Lister. “Gotta go. Tell the folks upstairs our ‘big manpower commitment’ just paid off.”

He ended the call without waiting for a response. He told Maria not to wait up as he rushed for the door.

“You did a good job, Tome,” Romy said, feeling for the agitated old sim.

Tome sat hunched on a rear seat of the van, distraught that he’d failed to find Meerm. Romy had moved out of the front. She and Zero flanked him.

“Yes,” Zero added. “An excellent job. But now tell us again what Beece said. Try to remember exactly.”

Romy listened closely to Tome’s recitation of Beece’s fractured directions to Meerm’s hiding place, trying to fathom a way to put them to practical use.

And then from the front seat Patrick said, “I think we’ve got trouble.”

Zero leaned forward. “What’s wrong?”

“A green Taurus has been following us since McDonald’s.”

Romy tensed. “You’re sure?”

“He’s hanging back, but I just made a couple of turns and he’s still with us.”

“Let’s leave the neighborhood, then,” Zero said. “Head for one of the highways—22, 78, doesn’t matter, just so long as it takes us to the airport.”

“Newark Airport?”

“It’s a maze, and a traffic nightmare. If we can’t lose them there, we never will.”

“But what about Meerm?” Romy said.

Zero shook his head. “Too risky to look for her now. We’d lead them right to her.”

Romy hung on as they bounced along. She saw a red, white, and blueTO 78 sign flash by and cried out, “There!”

“Damn!” Patrick said. “Missed it! Look for another.”

Romy peered through the windshield. “Where are we?”

“Haven’t a clue.” Patrick shook his head. “Don’t know a thing about Newark.”

The buildings had fallen away behind them and now they were moving through a no-man’s-land of junkyards and railroad tracks, bouncing along a rutted gravel path.

“The Taurus isn’t pretending anymore,” Patrick said, and Romy thought she detected a tremor in his voice. “He’s getting closer. And there’s another car behind him.”

“He knows we’ve spotted him,” Zero said. He moved to the rear doors and crouched among the overnight bags he’d told Romy and Patrick to bring. If they found Meerm, they wouldn’t be going home. She watched him peer through a small, unpainted area of one of the windows. “Looks like he brought back-up along. I was afraid of this.”

“He’s getting closer!” Patrick called from the front.

Romy moved back beside Zero. “What do you think they’ll do?”

“Try to stop us, find out who we are, maybe kill us. Except for Tome. They’ll want to interrogate him.”

Romy sensed a cold wave slip over her, just as it had last week when it had come time to dose the man called David Palmer with his own truth drug. As she felt her emotions crystallizing, falling one by one into deep-freeze hibernation, she reached into her shoulder bag and pulled out a .45 caliber HK semiautomatic. She worked the slide to chamber a shell.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

Zero’s head swiveled to the pistol, then to her. “Where’d you get that?”

“From one of the two creeps who invaded my home.”

“How long have you been carrying it?”

“Ever since two creeps invaded my home.”

“He’s riding my tail!” Patrick cried from the front.

Romy gestured with her HK toward the rear door. “Hold that open and we’ll stop this right now.”

Zero shook his head. “It may come to that, but let’s try my way first.” He opened a heavy-duty plastic cooler and reached inside.

“You were ready for something like this?”

“I try to be prepared for everything.”

Despite the situation, she had to smile. “You must have been a great Boy Scout.”

He looked at her again. “No. Never had the chance.” His voice sounded sad. “But I think I would have loved it.”

He came up with a red, softball-size object that jiggled in his gloved hand.

Romy stared at it. “A water balloon?”

“Not quite. Put your pistol away and get ready to open the door for me.”

Romy didn’t know what Zero was up to, but she’d learned to trust his judgment. And his preternatural calm bolstered her confidence. She stowed the pistol and unlatched the door.

Zero called toward the front: “Do we have any curves coming up, Patrick?”

“About thirty yards.”

Zero turned to Romy. “Get ready. Five-four-three-two-one-open!”

Romy gave the door a shove. As soon as it swung open, revealing the green Taurus no more than half a dozen feet from their rear bumper, Zero launched the balloon with a gentle underhand toss.

Romy watched it wobble through the air and land on their pursuer’s windshield—which then disappeared in a splatter of dark green paint.

The car swerved as the windshield wipers came on.

“Those won’t help,” Zero said. “Oil-based.”

And then the van leaned to the right as it rounded a curve, but the Taurus kept going straight, bounding off the gravel roadway and ramming nose first into a deep ditch. It hung there, trunk skyward, steam boiling from under its crumpled hood.

She heard Patrick laugh. “What the hell?”

“Not in the clear yet,” Zero said, staring out the rear door at the second car. He had another paint balloon in his hand. “Come on,” he whispered. “Just a little closer.”

But the second car, a dark blue Jeep, hung back. Obviously they’d seen what happened to the Taurus.

“Have to try something else,” Zero said. He rummaged in the chest and came up with a plastic container. “Here. Toss these out.”

Romy lifted the lid to find a couple of dozen steel objects that looked like jacks. But these were much bigger, and instead of six tips, these had only four, each ending in a sharp barbed point.

“What are—?”

“Road stars. Just toss them out. They’re configured so that they always land with a point up.”

Romy emptied the container, watched the Jeep roll over them, and waited for its tires to go flat.

“Hmmm,” Zero said. “Must have self-sealing tires. The stars will chew them up eventually but we don’t have time for that. They’re probably calling for more back-up now.”

He pulled two lengths of chain from the chest, each with a dozen or so road stars attached, and dropped them out the back.

Again Romy watched the Jeep run over them, but nothing happened.

“They didn’t work.”

“Just give them a few seconds longer. The chains will wrap themselves around an axle, and drag the stars through the rubber—”

Romy saw a puff of dust as the front left tire blew out.

“—tearing the tire to shreds.”

The Jeep swerved on the gravel and then another tire blew. The van left it behind in the dark, eating dust.

“Back to that 78 sign, Patrick,” Zero called, “and please don’t miss it this time.”

Romy gazed at Zero and tried to sort through the strange mix of emotions scattering through her at that moment. They were warm—no, they were hot—and if this wasn’t love, it should be.

Luca thumbed theSEND button on his ringing PCA. It was Stritch.

“I’m in the crib now,” he said. “Our buddy Benny here is in charge of forty-two sims, and that’s how many I count.”

“Count again. You made a mistake.”

“I’ve counted three times already. There’s forty-two sims here; not forty-three, not forty-one. Forty-two.”

“Then he’s lying about the number.”

“That’s what I thought so I made him show me his records. Sure enough: forty-two.”

Portero growled and hung up. All sims accounted for? Then where did the sim in the van come from?

The PCA rang again. Snyder this time. His voice sounded strange…nasal.

“Give me some good news.”

“We lost them.”

Luca’s car swerved when he heard the words and he didn’t trust himself to drive. He pulled over and listened to Snyder’s long-winded, jumbled, broken-nosed, ass-covering version of whatever really happened, blaming it on a guy in a ski mask or some such shit. When it was over Luca broke the connection and sat with his forehead resting on the steering wheel. For the first time in his adult life, Luca Portero wanted to cry.

9

NEWARK, NJ

DECEMBER 23

“All right,” Zero said, peering through the pre-dawn light at the McDonald’s four blocks ahead. “Let’s stop here.”

He sat with Tome and Kek in the rear of the van. Patrick had the wheel as usual, Romy at his side.

Zero yawned. Tired. They all were tired. And they should be. A long night that he, Romy, and Patrick had spent spray-painting the van. He’d had no way of finding a new one on such short notice, so now the old one sported a glossy black coat and New Jersey tags he’d picked from a pile of old plates he’d found in a Staten Island junkyard.

He glanced at his watch: 6:45A .M. and still no sun. Not due to rise for another half hour. Newark hadn’t risen yet either, most of it still asleep on this cold Sunday morning. He’d wrestled all night with the timing of his approach to Meerm. Assuming he could find her, it would be safer for all concerned to make contact under cover of darkness. But he was sure Meerm would be frightened of anyone she couldn’t see. That necessitated a daylight approach, multiplying the risks of being spotted.

He stared at the McDonald’s, Beece’s key landmark. He’d told Tome he’d been able to see its golden arches over a fence near Meerm’s hiding place. Beece had made no mention of crossing the avenue, which meant Meerm was hiding someplace behind the McDonald’s.

A detailed aerial reconnaissance photo would have told him all he needed to know, but since he didn’t have one of those, he’d have to proceed by trial and error.

“Okay,” he told Patrick. “Let’s make this first right up here and see if you can position us a couple of blocks behind the McDonald’s. We’ll work our way back toward it from there.”

“Gotcha,” Patrick said, and put the van in gear.

“Everyone keep an eye out for Portero’s people.”

“If you see a green Taurus,” Romy said, grinning at Zero over her shoulder, “it won’t be them.”

Patrick laughed. “Right! I’ll bet it’ll be next week before anyone can see through that windshield again.”

Zero grinned beneath his ski mask. Fortunately no shots had been traded. Romy’s pistol last night had unsettled him. Their pursuers undoubtedly had seen Tome get into the van—why else would they have followed?—and so Zero guessed they’d want the sim alive as a lead to Meerm. He’d figured—hoped was more like it—that they wouldn’t fire unless fired upon. He was glad he’d brought along some alternative weaponry.

However, if they ran into any of Portero’s men today, they’d be edgy, might shoot first and worry later about who they hit. That was why he’d brought Kek along. He glanced back at the gorilla-mandrill hybrid crouched by the rear door. He wore black coveralls cinched with the belt that held his Special Forces knife. His snout was a cool blue and he seemed relaxed, but Zero knew if provoked he could explode into violence in the blink of an eye.

As Zero turned forward again, he caught Romy staring at him, her eyes almost luminous in the dimness. She’d been doing that a lot since their time together in the rear of the van last night. He sensed it was more than combat bonding, feared it might be infatuation. That sort of look from Romy should have made him giddy, but instead it weighed on Zero. A look was the limit, the most he could ever hope for.

After zigzagging through the narrow streets, Patrick stopped the van by the mouth of an alley running between a rundown tenement and an abandoned brick building that might have been a factory once. Pigeons clustered in its broken window frames, cooing and watching.

“Unless my sense of direction is completely out of whack,” Patrick said, pointing down the alley, “the McDonald’s is two blocks that-a-way.”

“All right then, Tome,” Zero said. “It’s up to you and me now. Let’s go find Meerm.”

The old sim looked at Patrick and Zero could sense the bond between them. Patrick nodded. “Go ahead, Tome. You can do it.”

“Yes, Mist Sulliman. Tome try best.”

Patrick rolled down his window and checked the street. “All clear.”

Zero pushed open a rear door and hopped down. As soon as Tome was out he started to push it closed and found Romy staring at him again.

“Be careful,” she said.

Zero could only nod.

He hurried Tome off the sidewalk and into the narrow alley. As they moved through the litter and the rubble, their breath steaming in the frigid air, Zero glanced up and was surprised to see a number of clotheslines stretching above them; one sported a bra and a very large set of white panties. Apparently the tenement wasn’t as deserted as it looked.

“If you were Meerm,” Zero said to Tome, keeping his voice low, “and you were in here and frightened, and looking for a place to hide, which way would you go?”

“Tome not Meerm.”

“Yes, but imagine you were.”

“What is ’magine?”

How to explain that? Maybe Tome wasn’t capable of imagining. But he’d imagined starting a sim union, hadn’t he. Imagining a solution to a problem, though, wasn’t the same as pretending to be someone else.

But if I can do it, why can’t Tome?

“We can talk about imagining later,” Zero told him. “Right now we need to find a spot where we can see the golden arches over a fence, isn’t that what Beece said?”

“Yes. Say Meerm in metal door with red write.”

A metal door with red writing…that was their best clue. If they had a big search party, and unlimited time, and could comb the area openly without fear of being attacked, Zero had no doubt they’d find Meerm before the morning was out. But with just him and Tome…

They arrived in a small quadrangular courtyard that once must have served as a dump for the surrounding buildings. No fence, no McDonald’s arches, no metal door with red writing.

They moved on into another alley, misaligned with the one they’d just left. They were halfway to the next street when Zero noticed a low passage, five feet high at most, cutting away through the wall of the building to their left. He stooped and saw daylight at the far end.

“Did Beece mention anything about a tunnel?”

Tome shook his head. “No, Mist Zero.”

“Okay, then.” He was about to turn away when it occurred to him to check it out. They were here. Foolish not to take a look.

“Tome, we should see what’s on the other end of that tunnel. Since you’re smaller, you’re elected. Hurry though and take a quick look. If you see anything that might be what we’re looking for, I’ll follow you.”

The old sim nodded and ducked into the tunnel. Zero watched his silhouette dwindle toward the far end until he stepped into the light. He moved away from the opening, leaving Zero staring at an empty square of light, and then suddenly he was there again, hurrying back.

“Mist Zero!” Tome cried, his voice squeaking with excitement. “Is here! Metal door and fence and red write!”

Zero didn’t wait to hear if the McDonald’s arches were visible.

“Let’s go!”

Bent in a deep crouch, he splashed through the wet tunnel in Tome’s wake and emerged into a small vacant lot. A fenced vacant lot, with the McDonald’s arches visible between the buildings across the street. And directly across the lot, an abandoned brick warehouse with a rusty metal door embedded in its flank, a door labeled with a warning in faded red letters. At the rear of the lot was the open end of an alley, probably how Beece had arrived.

They’d found it. Now they had to hope she hadn’t moved to a new hiding place. Please, let her still be there.

“All right, Tome. Remember: We have to be calm, we have to speak softly. You’ll do the talking as we planned, okay?”

Tome nodded. “Tome talk good.”

Zero approached the door with measured steps, making enough noise so that anyone on the other side would hear their approach and not be taken completely by surprise when the door opened. He stopped outside it, waited a heartbeat or two, then gripped the door’s upper corner and pulled.

The hinges squealed horribly as it swung open. Inside lay a pool of night, untouched by the dawn. Zero listened but heard no movement within.

As rehearsed, Tome leaned inside and said, “Meerm? This Tome. Friend sim. Friend Beece. Tome bring friend help Meerm.”

Silence.

She’s gone, Zero thought.

And then, echoing from within, a soft whimper.

“Do you think they’re all right?” Romy said as she sat in the passenger seat and stared down the alley.

“They’ve only been gone a few minutes,” Patrick replied.

Romy knew that, but couldn’t quell her dark sense of foreboding.

“I should have gone with them.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. And you know why.”

Romy glanced at Patrick. He seemed testy this morning. Lack of sleep, maybe. But she knew what he meant: They’d all agreed that a group of humans would spook Meerm.

“Well, then, I should have gone with Tome instead of Zero. I’m female. If Tome can’t talk her out, I think a female human would be a lot less threatening than a male.”

Patrick looked at her. “You could be right. In fact, that makes sense—a hell of a lot more sense than sending a guy in a ski mask. I must be overtired. I should have thought of that myself. Hell, why didn’t you bring this up before?”

“I did. But Zero was dead set on going himself. Wouldn’t consider anyone else.”

“Doesn’t make sense. You’ve known him longer than I have, but he doesn’t strike me as the my-way-or-the-highway sort.”

“He’s not. He’ll go with the best idea, no matter who comes up with it. But he wasn’t budging on this.”

“Must have his reasons.”

“I’m sure he does. And after last night, I’m more than willing to defer to his judgment.” She caught Patrick rolling his eyes. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, tell me.”

“I thought you were going to start gushing again.”

“Gush?” She felt a sting of embarrassment, knew what he was talking about, but couldn’t bring herself to admit it. “About what? I don’t gush about anything.”

“You do about Zero. You haven’t been able to stop yakking about last night.”

Was it that obvious? She’d been so taken by Zero’s aplomb in handling their pursuers—was still impressed, couldn’t stop thinking about it. He could have got those two cars off their tail by pulling out a bazooka and blowing them both to smithereens. Effective but…lacking something. Instead he’d operated like a skilled surgeon, not cutting too deep or too long, inflicting no more damage than necessary to get the job done. And she loved that.

Now more than ever she felt she had to know who Zero was. She needed to see the face, look into the eyes of this man who did what he did, not just last night, but every day of his life. That was the man for her.

She looked at Patrick. Another good man, who managed to surprise her time and again. But he wasn’t Zero. There was no one else in the world like Zero.

“Sorry if I’ve been boring you,” she said. “But if you could have seen—”

A growl from Kek, squatting in the darkness behind them. Patrick held up his hand for silence and cocked his head toward the van’s oversized side view mirror.

“Oh, shit. We’ve got trouble!”

Romy tensed and reached into her bag for her pistol. “Like what?”

“Like a late model Impala coming this way, looking like it’s got no particular place to go.”

She looked down the alley. No sign of Zero and Tome returning yet. Good.

“Duck down. Maybe they’ll just drive by if it looks empty.”

“Too late. I’m sure they spotted me in my side mirror.”

“All right then,” she said, her thoughts accelerating. “Let’s pretend we’re having a fight.” She raised her voice and gestured angrily. “You worthless lump of protoplasm! What good are you? Tell me that! What good are you?”

“Protoplasm?” Patrick said.

“The window’s closed,” she told him. “Doesn’t matter what we say; they won’t be able to make out the words anyway, but we’ve got tolook like we’re going at it.”

“Yeah?” Patrick cried, getting into it. “Is that what you think of me?Protoplasm? Hey, you’re nothing but a…a…” Helowered his voice. “What’s lower than protoplasm?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered as she shrugged. “Try mitochondria.”

“Right!” he shouted, shaking his fist in the air between them. “That’s what you are! A mitochondria! Just a lousy, no-good, two-bit mitochondria!”

The Impala slowed as it passed, and Romy saw the passenger’s pale face turned their way, his flat gray eyes staring into the van’s cab, past Patrick’s turned back, at her face. She hoped she looked angry enough.

Romy slammed the dashboard with her fist. “Isn’t that typical! You don’t even know the word! The singular is mitochondrion , you moron!”

The Chevy pulled ahead and looked like it was moving on, but then it stopped.

Kek let out another growl. Romy glanced back and noticed the mandrilla’s snout had turned a bright red.

“Easy, Kek,” Romy cooed. “Just stay put.”

But as the Impala’s passenger door swung open, so did one of the van’s rear doors.

“Stay, Kek!” Patrick said. “I can talk us out of—” The rear door closed softly. “What’s he going to do?”

“Nothing!” Romy shouted, motioning to him to keep up the faux fight. “Not unless he has to! And if we play this right, he won’t have to!”

Patrick matched her volume. “How, goddamnit?”

The passenger, a fortyish redhead wearing a wrinkled green sport coat and a wary expression, was almost to Patrick’s door.

Romy cried, “When he comes to the window—which will be in about two seconds—act pissed. We’re having a private argument here and he’s butting in. Can you get into that?”

“Yeah!” Patrick gritted his teeth and leaned closer. “I can get into that! I can get into it better’n you, you worthless mito—” He jumped at the tap on the driver window, turned, and rolled it down an inch. “Who the hell are you?”

The man’s lips turned up at the corners in a poor imitation of a friendly smile. “Hi, we’re a neighborhood patrol, just keeping an eye out for trouble and—”

“Yeah, well so what?” Romy said, leaning over Patrick’s shoulder and projecting Raging Romy-scale belligerence. “Who needs you? Go patrol some other neighborhood. This one’s fine!”

She noticed how the man’s eyes were fixed on Patrick, barely flicking her way during her outburst.

“Yeah!” Patrick said. “This one’s fine!”

Suddenly the guy’s hand darted into his coat and came out with a big pistol, a cousin to the HK in Romy’s bag, which she didn’t dare reach for now.

“Hold it!” he said, grinning at Patrick. His Adam’s apple was bobbing wildly. “I know you. You’re that sim lawyer. We’ve been looking for you. Turn off the engine.”

His expression tight, grave, Patrick glanced at Romy and obeyed.

“Holdreal still now.” Without turning his head the man called to the Impala. “Yo, Snyder! Come see what we hooked!”

The Chevy’s driver door opened and a taller, beefier man stepped out. He had a small white bandage taped across his swollen nose.

“Well, well,” he said as he reached the van and looked inside. “If it isn’t Sullivan and Cadman.”

Romy knew she shouldn’t be surprised that he knew her name, but the way he said it, the sound of it on his lips, jolted her.

“What’s in the back there, folks?” Snyder said, grinning. “A ski mask, maybe? And a supply of paint balloons? Mind if we take a—”

What happened next was a blur: Two furry hands appeared, one to the left of Snyder’s head, one to the right of the redhead’s, and then those heads slammed together with a sickeningcrunch! Both men’s mouths dropped into shocked ovals as their eyes rolled up under their lids.

“Jesus!” Patrick said.

Then the furry hands smashed the heads together again, and this time the sound was wetter, softer. Blood spurted from the redhead’s nose, splattering Patrick’s window.

“Christ, Romy! Make him stop! He’s going to kill them!”

“Too late for that,” she said, feeling the cold touch of Raging Romy’s secret delight. “Kek! Put them back in the car. Quick!”

“I know that sound,” Patrick said dully. “I heard it the night we were run off the Saw Mill. I—”

She grabbed Patrick’s arm. “We’ve got to move! They may have a call-in schedule, and if they miss it—”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, looking dazed and maybe a little sick. “Got to move, but…Jesus.”

She noticed Kek dragging the two bodies back to the car and tossing them through the open driver door like sacks of wheat. She rolled down her window and leaned out.

“Kek! No, sit them up! Sit themup !”

The mandrilla looked at her, then nodded and followed her instructions.

She turned back to Patrick. “We’ve got to find Zero and get out of here!”

“Don’t forget Tome.” Patrick seemed to be recovering from his shock. “And what about Meerm?”

“I don’t know about Meerm. She might not even be in Newark any longer. But I know what these people will do to Zero if they find him.”

Patrick nodded. “Right.”

Romy heard the van’s rear door slam, looked around and saw Kek returning to his standby squat. She glanced at the Chevy and saw two upright silhouettes in its front seat.

“Stay here, Kek,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

The mandrilla made no sign that he’d heard, but she knew he had.

“We’llbe right back,” Patrick said. He cut her off as she opened her mouth to tell him she’d go alone. “We do this together.”

Romy sensed arguing wasn’t going to work so she nodded and motioned him to follow her. She moved off at a trot, heard his sloshing footsteps close behind.

Down the alley…nothing. Into the courtyard…nothing. Down a second alley…noth—

Wait. Voices to her left. Where? From that opening. Tome’s voice. Without hesitation she ducked and entered in a crouch. She heard Patrick puffing behind her. Ahead she could see that the tunnel opened into a vacant lot. And there, across the lot, Zero and Tome crouched before an open metal door, talking to no one, or at least no one she could see.

“Wait,” Patrick whispered. “Don’t go out there. Looks like they found her. Two more humans will only spook her.”

“She’ll be spooked a lot worse if more of Portero’s goons show up. They’d better talk her out of there soon or all this will be for nothing. We’ll give them a couple more minutes, then we’ve got to get out of here.”

“Might take more than a couple of minutes,” Patrick sighed. “I mean, would you trust a stranger in a ski mask?”

“Damn,” Romy said, feeling as if the tunnel walls were closing in on her. “She doesn’t come out in two minutes, I’ll go in there myself and drag her out.”

“Shhh!” Patrick hissed. “I’ll be damned! I think Zero’s going to take off his mask!”

Romy looked and—dear God, Patrick was right. Remaining statue-still, she held her breath and watched.

This is going nowhere, Zero thought. And it’s because of me. Or because of this ski mask.

No question about it: Meerm was in that elevator shaft, hiding in the dark, but she wasn’t budging. Tome was doing his best, but he wasn’t cut out for persuasion. Zero could try going in after her, and that would work if the space beyond the door was limited to just the shaft. But what if it opened into the rest of the warehouse? They’d never find her.

All right. He couldn’t blow this chance. It might never come again. Time to put it all on the line.

Zero pulled off his dark glasses, slipped his thumbs under the edge of his ski mask, and ripped it off.

“Look, Meerm,” he said, leaning through the open door. “Look at me. I’m not a man. I’m a sim. Not a sim exactly like you, but a sim just the same. And I promise you, Meerm, I swear to you that I am not here to harm you. Just the opposite. I am here to help you and protect you from being harmed by the bad men.”

Zero waited, hoping he’d said enough, praying he hadn’t said too much. He glanced at Tome who was staring at him with wide eyes. He nodded to the old sim, to let him know, yes, this is true. Maybe…maybe if only Tome and Meerm knew, he could still keep his secret. The two sims would talk, of course, but Zero could tell Romy and Patrick that he’d used makeup to look like a sim so he could coax Meerm out. They’d buy it. It was much more plausible than the truth.

Zero refocused on the black hole of the elevator shaft. He heard a rustle within, and then a hoarse, fragile voice…

“Is true? You not man?”

“No, Meerm.” Zero fought back a sob. It had worked. He could feel Meerm tipping his way. “I’m a sim too. But if I am to help you, we must hurry from here. Now.”

“Meerm want go.” And now a face, a swollen, care-ravaged sim face, floated into the light. “Meerm not like here. But…”

“We must go now, Meerm. The bad men are looking for you. If they come before—”

Meerm stepped out into the light. Zero gasped at the sight of her—her belly so big and her ankles so swollen she could barely move. She took a step forward, but caught her foot and started to fall. Zero grabbed her, then lifted her into his arms. She was heavy for a sim, but nothing he couldn’t handle.

“Don’t be afraid, Meerm,” he said in a soothing voice as she started to struggle. “You’re okay, now. I’ll make you safe and keep you that way. No one will hurt you ever again.”

As he turned toward the tunnel he saw two figures emerging from its entrance. Romy and Patrick, faces ashen, mouths agape, eyes fixed on his nonhuman face. They couldn’t miss its yellow eyes and simian cast—his brow ridge was not so pronounced as Meerm and Tome’s, he knew, his nose not quite as flat, but he was unmistakably sim like.

Oh, no, he thought as dismay softened his knees and he almost stumbled. Oh, God, what have I done?

Just when they were so close to success, he’d ruined everything. Now the whole organization would fall apart because…because who’d want to follow a sim?

Even worse was the uncomprehending look of betrayal he saw in Romy’s eyes.

But he had to press on. She looked away as he approached, so he addressed Patrick.

“Help me get her through the tunnel. We haven’t got much time.”

Patrick blinked, hesitated a heartbeat, then nodded. “Less than you think.”

As they eased Meerm into the opening, Zero prayed Romy would follow.

10

Silence ruled the van. Zero leaned forward as Patrick piloted them toward the freeway.

“Follow the signs toward the Goethals Bridge,” he told him.

He glanced at Romy, huddled against the passenger door at the far end of the front seat, staring dead ahead without blinking, looking as if she were in a trance.

I’ve really done it now, Zero thought. I’ve lost her. She’ll never trust me again.

Meerm whimpered at his side. She was curled next to him on the rear seat. He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Tome and Kek hunched behind them in the open rear section.

“Goethals,” Patrick said. “Got it. But I think…I think we…” He seemed to run out of words.

“You think you deserve an explanation,” Zero said. “Of course you do.”

“I mean,” Patrick said, “I feel as if the world just tipped ninety degrees.”

Zero glanced again at Romy who still hadn’t moved. She’d known him so much longer than Patrick. Her world must feel even further out of kilter.

“You’re not human?” Patrick said.

“No.”

“I heard you tell Meerm that you’re a sim.”

“I am.”

“But how come you don’t…?”

“…look like the average sim? I’m one of the earliest, so early that you’ll find no UPC tattoo on the nape of my neck. Plus I’m a mutant—bigger and paler than my brother sims—too big and too human-looking for the workforce. So they kept me separate. I was raised in SimGen’s basic research facility and after a while I became a mascot of sorts. My only contacts growing up were the Sinclair brothers and their most trusted techs. Later, when Harry Carstairs arrived to take over sim training, he took a special interest in me.”

Harry…how he’d loved Harry Carstairs. The man’s daily visits had been the high point of his adolescence.

“He was impressed by my linguistic skills so he tested my intelligence; when he found it to be not only far above sim average but above human average as well, he and—”

He cut himself off. Better not mention Ellis.

“He got permission to see how far they could take me. I learned to read, and built up my own library; I was never allowed out of basic research, but television gave me a window onto the rest of the world. Harry and I…I guess you might say we bonded. He taught me to play chess and we spent hours hovering over the board.”

He missed Harry, especially their chess games. Every so often Zero would give in to a compulsion to see the man. He’d sneak by Harry’s house at night and watch him as he sat and played chess against his computer; he’d longed to knock on the window and challenge him to a game. But Harry believed him dead, and had to go on believing that.

Patrick said, “But how did you graduate from SimGen mascot to Zero, SimGen nemesis?”

“I’ve always been called Zero. I imagine it’s derived from part of my serial number when I was an embryo. As for my ‘graduation’…I believe I became inconvenient. Here I was, this man-size sim who was an evolutionary and commercial dead end. Somewhere along the line, a corporate decision was made to terminate me.”

“Jesus,” Patrick whispered. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“What were they going to do—shoot you?”

“An injection. They drew blood from me at regular intervals. This time they were going to put something in instead of take something out.”

Zero saw Romy glance quickly over her shoulder, then return to her thousand mile stare.

“Scumbags,” Patrick muttered, shaking his head.

Only one, Zero thought. Mercer Sinclair had made the unilateral decision.

He looked down at Meerm who’d closed her eyes and seemed to be dozing. Termination would have been her fate if Portero had found her first.

Patrick asked, “How’d you manage to escape?”

“I found I had a highly placed ally in the company who arranged to fake my death.”

Ellis again. He’d told his brother that he didn’t want a stranger terminating Zero, that he’d do it himself. But he injected Zero with a sedative instead of poison, cremated another dead sim in his place, and spirited him out of SimGen. He told Zero everything, and set him up with a steady flow of cash and data aimed toward one purpose: to stop SimGen and free his brother sims.

“This ally is the source of all your inside information, I take it,” Patrick said.

“Yes.”

Patrick shook his head again. “A high-up inside SimGen working against it. Is he nuts or does he have a personal beef with the Sinclairs?”

“Both, I think. But it’s also a moral issue with him.”

All true. But Zero had always sensed something else driving Ellis Sinclair, almost as if he felt he had to atone for something. Something “unspeakable,” perhaps?

Patrick laughed. “Put a sim in charge of bringing down the makers of sims. I’ve got to say, it has a nice symmetry to it. And now that we’ve got Meerm, it looks like your job is just about over. Congratulations, Zero. They chose the right man. I mean sim. I mean—hell, I don’t know what I mean. All I can say is I never had an inkling you weren’t human.”

And now we come to the crucial junction, Zero thought.

“Does it bother you that I’m not?” He directed the question at Patrick but he was watching Romy. He thought he saw her flinch.

“I don’t know. You’re not like Tome or any other sim I’ve met. In fact, you’re more human than some humans I know. Smarter too. What a world! But you haven’t steered me wrong yet. So I guess the answer is no. To tell the truth, every day I’m getting less and less sure about what exactly ‘human’ means.”

Bless you, Patrick, he thought, then looked at Romy. He couldn’t bear her silence any longer. This had to be dragged out in the open now.

“And you, Romy?” he said. “You haven’t said a word.”

For a few seconds, she didn’t move, then she twisted swiftly in her seat and faced him. Angry tears streaked her cheeks.

“You lied to me!”

“I never told you I was human.”

“You pretended to be!”

“I never pretended to be anything other than who I am. I didn’t even change my name.”

“You hid yourself—that was a lie!”

“No, I had to. Would you have joined me if you’d known I was a sim? A mutant sim?”

Her angry expression faltered, then she turned away again.

“Think, Romy. When was I ever untrue to you? Were the goals of our activities against SimGen ever other than what I said they were? Have I ever misled you into doing something that you didn’t want to do, or worked you toward an end that wasn’t your own as well?”

She replied in a tiny voice. “No.”

“Then can I ask you why you’re so angry at me?”

“Who says I’m angry at you?” she said in that same small voice. “Maybe I’m angry at me.”

Baffled, he replied, “I don’t—”

She held up a hand. “Can we just leave it be? I’ve got some adjusting to do and I need some time. Okay?”

“I understand, but I need to know: Are you still with us?”

She nodded without speaking, without looking around.

Zero leaned back and closed his eyes to hold back the tears.

After a while Patrick said, “Goethals Bridge dead ahead. Why do we want that?”

“Because it’s the quickest route out of Jersey.”

“But where are we going?”

“Dr. Cannon’s.” He took one of Meerm’s hands in his. “We’re bringing her the most important patient of her career.”

11

Two more men dead!

“Shit-shit-SHIT!” Luca Portero screamed as he smashed a glass paperweight against his office wall. He didn’t have to worry about anyone hearing; security staff was minimal on Sundays.

Luca hadn’t seen the bodies yet, but Lowery, who’d found them, had told them that both their skulls had been cracked like eggs. That sounded eerily similar to the way Ricker and Green had bought it off the Saw Mill. But this was in broad daylight, damn it!

Could things get any fucking worse?

As if in answer to his question, the secure phone rang. He hesitated—because, yes, things could get a lot worse—then answered it. He repressed a sigh of relief when he heard Lowery’s hello.

“What?”

“I’ve been checking around the area and found some squatters in this broke down old apartment house on the same block.”

“Did they see anything?”

“Not what happened to Snyder and Grimes, but they did see this black van parked on the street—”

“They’re sure it was black?”

“Double-checked that. They swear it was black. But here’s the meat: the one looking out the window says she saw a very swollen looking female sim being led into the black van.”

Oh, no! No! They’ve found her! Snatched her right out from under our noses! How the fuck could this happen?

“She’s absolutely sure?”

“No question.”

“Who was doing the leading?”

“Two men—one ‘very strange looking,’ according to her, but she was kinda vague about that—along with a woman, and another sim, an old male.”

Luca dropped into his desk chair and cradled his head in his free hand. Cadman and Sullivan. Had to be. Plus that old sim Sullivan kept around, and someone else working with them.

And they had the pregnant sim.

“All right,” Luca said, straightening. This wasn’t FUBAR yet. It still could be salvageable. “We abandon Newark. Divide the remaining men into four teams: one on Sullivan’s apartment, one on his office, one on Cadman’s apartment, one on her office. You see them, grab them.”

“But—”

“I don’t care what you have to do to nab them, just get it done. If there’s any flack we’ll straighten it out later. I want one of those shits and I want them brought to me!”

He’d interrogate them personally and they’d lead him to this pregnant sim. No need to worry about being recognized because whoever he dealt with would not be leaving vertically.

But what if they’d all gone to ground?

12

MINEOLA, NY

“She’s not going to last much longer,” Betsy Cannon said as she angled the doppler wand this way and that against Meerm’s swollen, gel-coated belly.

Romy, Zero, Betsy, and Meerm were crowded into the tiny, white-walled, windowless procedure room in Betsy’s home office. Meerm lay on the table, Betsy working over her, Romy and Zero watching from the other side.

“What do you mean?” Romy said, watching in rapt fascination as the 3-D shape of the fetus within Meerm’s belly formed on the monitor screen.

“Her uterus has taken just about all it can. It’s too small for this baby. Andyet…the baby could use more gestation time.”

At least Zero had his ski mask back on. They’d all agreed on the way here that no one else needed to know Zero’s history. When it was all over—and with Meerm’s baby, that could be very soon—he promised to go public.

The mask made it easier now for Romy, but she wished Zero had waited outside with Patrick and Tome; she was still uncomfortable with him, especially standing next to him like this. And she didn’t want to feel uncomfortable, hated herself for it.

But…how elsecould she feel? She was fighting her way through an emotional maelstrom and still hadn’t regained her bearings. She’d admired Zero so; he’d become a hero in her eyes and in her heart, and that was fine, but she’d also been sexually attracted to him, had fantasized about him, and now…now to learn that he’s not human.

So what?said the ghost of Raging Romy, ever ready to shoutUp yours! to the world. It’s not as if he’s a squid or a plant—he’s a fellow primate.

That was true and real and forward thinking, but another more primitive part of her was repulsed and kept damning her, whispering that in another time, or in a SimGen-less world, Zero would have been born a chimpanzee, destined to spend his days sitting in a jungle sucking ants off a stick.

Sicko evil girl! Wanting to make love with a monkey! Sick! Sick! Sick!

Romy did her best to shut out that voice, but it wouldn’t go away, couldn’t because it was part of her, and that was what so dismayed her. She’d always thought she was better than that.

“How much longer?” Zero asked.

Betsy Cannon brushed back strands of graying hair from her face. “Hard to say. If this were a sim baby I’d say she’s almost due. If human I’d say premature. But this baby…I don’t know. And there’s another problem: Meerm’s uterus is small, smaller even than a breeder sim’s. That baby is packed tight in there, so tight I can’t determine its sex.”

“We could lose the baby?” Romy said.

“It’s a real possibility.”

Romy stared at the color image on the monitor, watched the rapid filling and emptying of the chambers of its little heart, saw the baby move, squirming for comfort in the confines of the too-small womb.

We can’t lose you, she told it. Youmust live. We’re so close now and…the salvation of an entire species rests on you.

“We could lose the mother as well,” Betsy added. “The baby is going to be premature, and I can tell you right now that a vaginal delivery is out of the question. This baby is coming out by section.”

“Cesarean?” Romy said, looking at Meerm’s distended belly. “How…where…?”

“I don’t know.” Betsy’s expression was grim. “Not here, that’s for certain. It’s major surgery and I’m not equipped for that, not unless we intend to sacrifice the mother.”

Romy’s gaze darted to Meerm’s face. The poor sim didn’t have a clue as to who or what they were talking about.

“That’s not an option,” Zero said. The finality in his tone stabbed Romy with a reminder of why she’d been so attracted to him. “Tell me what you need and I’ll arrange it.”

“A sterile operating room and a skilled surgical team,” Betsy said. “Can you manage that?”

“Tall order,” Zero said. His voice had lost some of its confidence.

And then another voice spoke.

“Why Meerm sick?”

They all stared at her a moment, then Betsy spoke.

“You’re not sick, Meerm. You’re going to have a baby.”

Her sloping brow furrowed. “Baby? What is baby?”

“You know babies,” Betsy said. “You must have seen many babies on television.”

The brow furrows deepened. “Baby?”

“Only this won’t be like the human babies you’ve seen. This will be asim baby.” She gave a little shrug as she glanced at Zero and Romy, signifying that she was simplifying the situation as best she could for Meerm.

“Where baby?”

Betsy tapped the sim’s abdomen. “Right in here. And the baby will come out soon.”

“Baby here?” Meerm said, a slow smile of wonder spreading across her face as she gently rubbed her hands across her belly. “Baby inside? Baby kick-kick-kick?”

“Oh, yes!” Betsy laughed. “I’ll bet that baby’s been kick-kick-kicking like crazy!”

As they all watched Meerm gaze at her belly, a question occurred to Romy.

“Will she be able to care for a baby?” she said softly.

“She won’t have to worry a bit,” Betsy said. “That baby will getgreat care. As a one-of-a-kind species, it will belong to the world.”

“No, it will belong to Meerm. It will beher baby. We’re not going to forget that, are we?”

“Ah, Romy,” Zero said through a sigh. “That’s why we need you: to ask the tough questions.”

Something in his voice struck her…did Zero…could Zero feel about her the way she…?

No. Out of the question. He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.

13

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

“Let’s get this started,” said Sinclair-1, spinning his chair away from the winter-browned hills beyond his office window to face Luca and Abel Voss. “I’ve still got a lot to do today.”

Luca thought the CEO looked particularly irritable this afternoon. That was going to get worse when he heard Luca’s news. Normally he’d relish the prospect of upsetting him, but not now. All the blame rested squarely on him.

“We’re waiting for your brother.”

Voss shifted his bulk in his chair to face Luca. “I thought he wasn’t comin.”

“I called and told him this was too important to miss,” Luca replied.

Sinclair-1 gave him a questioning stare. Luca only nodded. Yes, they’d agreed that Ellis would be excluded from tactical meetings, but Luca had a reason. He was sure Sinclair-2 already knew that Meerm had been snatched from under SIRG’s nose, and damn well knew who had done it; he was going to use Sinclair-2 to bait a trap for the people he’d been supplying with information.

They included Cadman and Sullivan, Luca knew, and at least two or three others. Whoever they were, they’d all vanished. He’d hoped to nab either Cadman or Sullivan and wring the pregnant sim’s whereabouts out of them, but since he couldn’t find them, he was looking for a way to make them come to him.

Because heneeded that sim. Lister had thrown a shit fit this morning when he’d heard about losing Grimes and, of all people, Snyder. Grimes had been something of a jerk, but Snyder had been their most dependable man. Luca had stashed the bodies in the woodshed behind his cabin—he hoped the cold weather held—and Lister was keeping the news from the higher-ups for now, but couldn’t cover it up indefinitely. If Luca could produce the pregnant sim, however—say, today or tomorrow—the deaths wouldn’t matter.

The office door opened and Sinclair-2 entered. The older brother looked strange today. And then Luca realized what it was: His usual down and dour demeanor was gone and he looked almost…happy.

You son of a bitch.

He fought the urge to grab him by his scrawny neck and twist it till he spilled everything he knew. Every last thing.

But that was not an option. Even though Mercer Sinclair was considered the true untouchable—his was the public face of SimGen, so closely identified with the company that if he went down, so would the stock that made SIRG an entity unto itself—Ellis Sinclair was also considered off-limits. No move could be made against him without direct authority from the Old Man himself.

What Luca couldn’t understand about Ellis Sinclair waswhy . Why would anyone in his right mind want to kill this golden goose called SimGen? So that had to be the answer: The older Sinclair was out of his mind.

Which didn’t make Luca want to kill him any less.

He swallowed his bile and said, “I won’t waste anyone’s time here: We have it on good authority that the pregnant sim is in the hands of Patrick Sullivan and Romy Cadman.”

“Oh, Christ,” Sinclair-1 groaned, closing his eyes.

“That tears it,” said Abel Voss.

Sinclair-2 leaned back in a sofa and said nothing.

“When?” the CEO said, recovering quickly. “Where are they now?”

“This morning. And if I knew where, we wouldn’t be having this meeting.”

“Damn!” Sinclair-1 glared at Luca. “You’ve got to get her back!”

“We’re working on it.”

Sinclair-2 finally spoke. “Give it up, Merce. Can’t you see it’s gone too far? It’s past the point of no return now.”

“Not yet! Not until they produce that baby!”

“And even if they do,” said Voss, “we can call it a hoax, can’t we? Some cheap publicity stunt, a twenty-first century version of the Piltdown man or Barnum’s Cardiff Giant. We get our PR boys to crank up their bullshit machines and start poundin away at every news outlet they know: A hoax, that’s all it is. Just a hoax. Those boys are so good, before you know it, we’ll be believin it ourselfs.”

Sinclair-1 was shaking his head. “That won’t fly in this case. They have a real live sim mother. They can identify the human father—what was his name?”

“Craig Strickland,” Luca said. “The security guard at the globulin farm.”

“Who’s dead, right? But that doesn’t preclude fingerprinting his DNA. Plus they can put the sim mother and human father together for months in the same building in the Bronx. And most important, they’ll have the baby. With all that, it’s a simple everyday process to establish paternity.”

Luca could have cheered. He’d been looking for an opening to bait his trap, and this was it.

“I’ve taken care of that,” he said. “Because of his connection to a crime, Strickland’s body has been in cold storage in the New York City Morgue since it was pulled out of the ashes in the Bronx. A real crispy critter.”

“So?” Voss said.

“So yesterday it was released. Since Strickland’s got no family—at least none that’s come forward—I had one of my men present himself as Strickland’s cousin and claim his body. We’re going to have it cremated as soon as possible.”

He hadn’t done any of this yet. The idea had occurred to him less than an hour ago, and he had to clear it with Lister first. But Sinclair-2 didn’t know that.

“That still doesn’t help us,” Sinclair-1 said. “If indeed his corpse was, as you so elegantly put it, a ‘crispy critter,’ the NYPD would have had to look into his DNA in the course of identifying the body. Even after he’s reduced to ash, his RFLP profile will remain in the department’s database.”

Voss frowned. “What’s R-F—”

“Restriction fragment length polymorphisms,” Sinclair-1 said. “A way of testing for the differences in the banding pattern of DNA fragments from different individuals. DNA fingerprinting, in other words.”

“We know all about his RFLP in the database,” Luca said. “Ever hear of hacking a computer? Hardly anyone’s better at it than my people. We’ll have someone else’s RFLP—yours, if you want it—in that computer before sunrise.”

“I get it,” Voss said, nodding. “I’m not hearin a word of this talk of illegalities, of course. Matter of fact, I ain’t even in this here room right now. But if I were, even a genetics cretin like myself can see what’ll happen: They’ll hold up this Strickland boy as the father for all the world to see, but when it comes time for matchin up the DNA, there’ll come a cropper. They’ll go to the NYPD computer and—Lordy, Lordy, will you look at that—no match. And when they look to exhume the body—”

“—they’ll be nowhere,” Luca interrupted. “Because Craig Strickland will be nothing but a pile of dust. A pile I will personally scatter over the Hudson River.”

“And without DNA backup,” Voss cried, slapping his thighs, “the hoax angle from our flacks will start lookin mighty acceptable to the Great Unwashed. I like it! I like it very much!”

Luca had been watching Sinclair-2. His sunny disposition appeared to be fading. Rapidly. Good. He’d taken the bait.

“So,” Luca said, clapping his hands. “That leaves one more matter to discuss: Who’s delivering the sim’s baby?”

“Deliverin?” Voss said. “Deliverin how?”

“This sim, this Meerm or whatever she’s called, is going to be giving birth. Who’s going to handle that?”

Sinclair-1 slapped his palm on the table. “Excellent point.” He jumped to his feet. “If, as you say, this OPRR woman and that lawyer Sullivan have the sim, they’re not going to handle the delivery on their own. The baby is too important. They’re going to seek out expert help.”

“You mean some sort of obstetrician?” Voss said.

“Not just any OB. They’ll want one experienced with sim births. And if I was looking for a sim OB, there’s only one place on earth with a staff that fits the qualifications.”

“The Natal Center!” Luca said. Damn it! He should have thought of that himself. “They could be approaching someone on the staff right now.”

Sinclair-1 pointed to Luca. “Send a notice to the entire Natal Center staff—MDs and assistants alike—warning them that they might be approached, and to report any feelers that might come their way.”

Voss said, “And you might want to remind those folks that they’re eligible for the five-million reward.”

“Excellent point,” Sinclair-1 said.

“We’ll check out any Natal employees who’re out sick or taking an unplanned vacation,” Luca added.

But all this was going to require more manpower. He’d have to go to Lister for it. But that was okay. Canvassing the Natal Center was a good tactical move, and Luca would present it as his own idea.

Sinclair-2 suddenly shot from his seat and began pacing. He looked jittery. I do believe we’ve hit a nerve, Luca thought.

The CEO stared at his brother. “What is it, Ellis? You have something to add?”

Sinclair-2 stopped at the window and stared out at the hills. “I just thought of something. Something terrible.”

“Oh?” Sinclair-1 smiled. “Finally realized what that baby will do to our stock?”

“I’m not worried about the stock,” he said. “I’m far more worried about what this baby will do tous , Merce—you and me. Personally, not financially.”

“I’m not following.”

“What if Meerm’s baby is a girl?”

The CEO looked puzzled. “Girl, boy, what difference does it make? Its very existence is the threat.”

“Competition, Merce.” Sinclair-2 turned from the window and stared at his brother. His eyes looked haunted. “Inter- and intragenomic competition. Think about it.”

It’s finally happened, Luca thought. Sinclair-2 has completely lost it. Even his brother can’t figure out what he’s talking about.

He glanced at the CEO then and was struck by the change in his expression. His King-of-the-World look was fading—the perpetually raised eyebrows had sagged, the condescending half smile had fallen into a frown. But his eyes…his eyes told the whole story, narrowing and then widening into what Luca could only describe as abject horror. His mouth opened, his jaw worked, he took a step backward, almost lost his balance, and fell into his chair where he sat staring at his brother. His gray complexion made him look more dead than alive.

“What’s wrong?” Voss said, upset as well, but only by his boss’s reaction. He seemed as much in the dark as Luca. “What did he say? What’s wrong with it being a girl?”

The CEO was incapable of speech. Sinclair-2 answered for him.

“Not your concern, Abel. This is a personal matter between us.”

“Itis his concern!” Sinclair-1 blurted, getting some of his color back. “It’sall our concern!” He turned to his brother. “Ellis, for the love of God, if you’re involved in any way with the people who have the sim, do something! Stop them!”

Sinclair-2 shook his head. “I can’t stop anything. I don’t know Meerm’s whereabouts. It’s beyond you, it’s beyond me. It’s up to Zero now.”

Sinclair-1’s brow furrowed. “Zero? What’s zero?”

“Not what. Who.”

“You don’t mean…?” Sinclair-1 blinked. “ThatZero? But he’s dead.”

Sinclair-2 stared at his younger brother. “Not quite.”

The two words seemed to hang in the air between them. Portero caught Voss’s eye and the big man shrugged, obviously as confused as he.

“You liar!” Sinclair-1 blurted, his face purpling. “You traitor!”

Sinclair-2’s voice remained flat. “You’re amazing, you know that? But the fact remains, Zero’s in charge, not me, and I’m afraid events have built to a point of inevitability now where no one can stop them.”

“Nothingis inevitable!” Sinclair-1 screamed. Now he seemed to be the one losing it. “Not until I say so! There’s still a fifty-fifty chance it’s a male! But no matter what it is, I want it bornhere! ” He pointed with both hands, jabbing his index fingers toward Luca and Voss. “So get out there and find that sim, goddamnit!”

Normally Luca wouldn’t have allowed the twit to speak to him that way, but now he was clearly off his head, so Luca turned and led Voss into the hall. As soon as the door closed behind them, Voss grabbed his arm.

“You have any idea what that ruckus was all about?”

Luca shook his head. He was as baffled as the fat man.

“I been with this company since the git-go,” Voss said, sweating, eyes darting about like caged birds, “and I ain’t never, ever seen Mercer Sinclair lose his cool like that.” He shook his head. “Boy baby, girl baby—what the hell does it mean?”

“Haven’t a clue,” Luca said, turning and moving away.

He had things to do. The first was to pry more manpower out of Lister for his trap; another was to find out what had so unnerved the Sinclairs. Something about inter- and intragenomic competition. Sounded like heavy shit, not the kind of stuff they’d taught him in Special Forces. But it might turn out to be important. It might beway important. And right now he needed all the help he could get.

14

MINEOLA, NY

One hell of a day.

Patrick lay awake in the dark in the smaller of Betsy Cannon’s two extra bedrooms, and thought about the changes Meerm’s baby would bring. He had no doubt that the child’s pedigree, despite all the challenges and smokescreens SimGen would throw up, eventually would elevate sims to the status of “persons.” That one change in designation would tumble SimGen and send the world’s labor and financial markets into chaos. The simple realization that he’d occupy a pivotal position in the eye of that oncoming storm would have made sleep difficult; knowing that a cadre of ruthless men were on the prowl, looking for him and Romy and Meerm to prevent that from happening made it impossible.

Zero had departed late this afternoon after a protracted debate as to whether or not Kek should stay here for security. They finally decided against that. Zero was the only one who could control him. What if Kek decided he wanted to go outside? Who was going to stop him? If he were spotted, that would blow their cover. Better to keep all nonhumans away from Betsy’s.

After a light dinner, they’d all turned in early. Romy was in the next bedroom down the hall, Meerm was on a cot in Betsy’s bedroom, Tome and Kek were with Zero at his home, wherever that was, God was in His heaven, and not one damn thing seemed right with the world.

He jumped as he heard the bedroom door open.

“It’s only me.” He recognized Romy’s whisper. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“Just startled me,” he said. Then she startled him even further him by slipping under the covers and huddling against him. “Hold me, Patrick.”

“Gladly.”

He wound his arms around her. She was wearing some sort of long T-shirt. He didn’t know what she had on under it, if anything.

“No, I mean, just hold me,” she said. “Nothing more. I don’t want to be alone tonight, Patrick. I need a friend.”

“That’s me,” he sighed. He was about to add, Friend to the friendless, but bit it back. She was trembling, as if chilled. So he said, “Tough day, huh.”

“Believe it.”

“Want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

And then she said, “I feel lost, Patrick. I used to have some pretty hard and fast ideas about right and wrong, up and down, latitude and longitude, but now everything’s been twisted out of shape. Like one of those computer programs that let you distort a photo or a famous painting, you know, push it and pull it this way and that until it bears only a passing resemblance to the original. That’s how my world feels. That’s how my life feels. That’s howI feel. Like I don’t even know myself anymore.” A harsh little laugh. “Not that I ever did.”

“You loved him, didn’t you.”

He heard a soft sob and felt her head nod against his shoulder.

“Do you still?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think I was in love with an image I’d concocted. But now that the mask is off…”

“Let me ask you something,” Patrick said. “If he’d taken off the mask and revealed a face horribly disfigured by birth defects or an accident, how would that have changed things?”

He marveled at the way his thoughts were running. He should have been searching for the best angle to wedge himself between Romy and Zero; instead he was looking for a way to ease her pain. As much as he wanted her—and right now, with her bare legs warm against his, that was very, very much—comforting her seemed even more important.

“Not at all. It wasn’t a physical attraction. I see where you’re going, but it’s not the same. A disfigured man would still be a man. Zero isn’t…”

“A man? What’s your definition of a man, Romy?”

“A maleHomo sapiens .”

Patrick sensed himself clicking into attorney mode, felt the well-oiled teeth of his rhetoric and advocacy gears meshing. He’d always prided himself on an ability to mount a convincing argument for either side of an issue, even one he didn’t particularly care for. Like this one.

“But before today, when you thought of both Zero and me as maleHomo saps , you gravitated more toward him than me. Why?”

“I didn’t know you, Patrick. And I didn’t trust you. At least not at first. But you’ve got to admit you’ve changed.”

“How?”

“Well…,” she said, drawing out the word, “you’ve gone from a man with no commitments to one who believes in something and is willing to put himself on the line for it.”

“Romy, Zero has been committed since day one, from the roots of his hair down to his toenails, and that was what you responded to. But it went beyond commitment, didn’t it. He demonstrated high intelligence, integrity, decency, courage, dignity, a reverence for life that matches, maybe even exceeds, your own. Those are traits you admire in humans. They’re what make you value a human, and until this morning you’d thought you could find them only in a human. But this is a new world, Romy, where the definition of ‘human’ is being revised—and let me tell you, when we take Meerm’s baby public, it’s going to undergo a total rewrite.”

Listen to me, Patrick thought. I’m making his case and killing my own.

But he was on a roll, high on his rhetorical momentum, and couldn’t stop himself.

“As for Zero, he says he’s a mutated sim. Well, it looks to me like he mutated in theHomo sapiens direction, big time. He’s more human than a lot ofHomo saps I know, and we both knowHomo saps who look more apelike than he does. Meerm’s baby is going to upgrade the sims from ‘product’ to ‘person,’ from the Pongidae family to Hominidae, but as far as I can see, Zero is already there. A new species of Hominidae—Homo zero. So what else do you want from the guy? What else does he have to do to deserve you?”

He felt her stiffen. “It’s not about deserving me. I’d never—”

“Then decide what makes a guy worthy of your love—his genome or his values.”

A long silence. Patrick had run out of steam, and Romy…he wished he knew what she was thinking.

Then she snuggled closer. “Thank you, Patrick. That doesn’t settle things, but it helps. Helps a lot. You’re a good friend.”

Good friend…he wished he were much more, but for now he’d settle for that. Didn’t have much choice. And who knew? Maybe things wouldn’t work out between Zero and her. They’d barely spoken today. Maybe Zero had other plans. But even if they both agreed on trying a relationship, they had a hell of a lot stacked against them.

He’d wait, because he knew of no other woman in the world like Romy Cadman. He’d hang around so he could be close by to catch her if she fell.

15

SHORT HILLS, NJ

The late-night wind cut at Luca Portero as he strode across the crowded mall parking lot toward Lister’s Mercedes. A perfect meeting place. The mall was staying open late for last-minute Christmas shoppers. Luca had taken advantage of that, arriving early and picking up a bracelet for Maria. He’d wait until after the holidays to dump her—no sense in spending New Year’s Eve alone.

He wondered why Lister had insisted on a face to face tonight. He guessed it wouldn’t be a happy meeting. When he opened the SUV’s door and saw the expression on his old CO’s fleshy face, he was sure of it.

“Cold out there,” Luca said as he slipped into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

“Cold everywhere,” Lister said. He sounded tired.

Not a good start. Better cut to the chase.

“What’s the word on the plan? How many men they giving us?”

Lister shook his head. “None.”

Luca felt as if he’d been slapped. “None? How are we going to—?”

“We’re not.” He unbuttoned his camel hair coat. “They think using Strickland’s body as bait is a waste of time. Why should anyone care about his body when his DNA fingerprint is on computer.”

“But it won’t be,” Luca said. “Not after we hack the NYPD system.”

“But it’s not on just the NYPD computer. If you remember, Strickland had a rap sheet that included a couple of sexual assaults—one in Nassau County and one in Rockland—and a rape in Queens that he pleaded down to simple assault. He got around. And so did his RFLP. Seems if you’re caught on a sexual assault in one area, the Special Victims Units in all the surrounding areas check your DNA for a match in the unsolved cases on their books. Craig Strickland’s DNA is in dozens and dozens of police computers all over the tri-state area. Even we can’t hack all those databases. It’s an easy bet that a sharpie lawyer like Sullivan will figure that out, and have a good laugh at us if we try to use Strickland as bait.”