F Paul Wilson - Sims 03 (3 page)

 
          
THE
BRONX

 
          
Poor Meerm.

 
          
Meerm feel so bad.
So
more bad than last night.
Now Meerm still belly-sick but cold and hungry
also too. Also too arm hurt where burn while climb down building side. And leg
hurt from fall ground.
Hurt-hurt-hurt.
Meerm hurt all
over.

 
          
And Meerm ver
fraid.
Hide in bottom old empty building. No window and many
rat
.
Rat sniff at Meerm burn.
Shoo
way, throw rock. Bad place this.
And so cold.
Meerm
miss own room and yum-yum food.
Wish go
back but room
gone. She go look in dark.
All burn, all gone.

 
          
Meerm ver lonely.
Meerm ver fraid.
Not know what do. Not know where go.

 
          
HICKSVILLE
,
LONG
ISLAND

 
          
DECEMBER 3

 
          
Shortly after 8:00A .M. Romy stepped
through the front door of the small two-story office building and made a show
of looking at the directory. The vestibule was clean but showing some wear
around the edges. Just like the building,
which was typical
of the boxy, clapboard style popular back in the seventies.
The tenants
listed—a dentist, a real estate office, an insurance agent—were typical of any
suburban office building; all except the lessee of the small corner office on
the second floor: a venture capital company she knew was worth billions.

 
          
Romy hurried up to the second floor
and found the door to Suite 2-C. A strictly no-frills black plastic plaque
spelled out MANASSAS
VENTURES ,
INC in small white
letters. She waited outside the door until she heard someone climbing the
steps, then she started knocking. A woman in a colorful smock appeared, heading
for the dental office, and Romy turned to her.

 
          
“When does the Manassas Ventures
staff usually arrive?”

 
          
The woman looked dumbfounded. “You
know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody coming or going from that office.”

 
          
That’s because no one does, Romy
thought. Zero had had the place under observation for weeks.

 
          
“Really?”
Romy said, putting her hand on the doorknob and rattling it. “I’ve been trying
to reach them by phone but no one returns my messages, so I thought I’d come
over in person and—”

 
          
The door swung inward.

 
          
“Now isn’t that something,” the
dental assistant said as she stepped forward for a peek at the interior. “They
must’ve
forgot
to lock it.”

 
          
Morning sunlight streamed through the
sheer curtains behind an empty receptionist’s desk and flared the dust motes
dancing through the air. No shortage of dust here—the desktop sported a good
eighth of an inch.

 
          
“Hello?” Romy said, stepping inside.
The air smelled stale, musty. No one had opened a window for a long, long time.
“Anybody home?”

 
          
“Good luck,” the woman told Romy and
started back toward her office.

 
          
“Thanks.”

 
          
Romy had to act quickly. She glanced
up, searching for the strand of monofilament she’d been told she’d find hanging
from the central light fixture. There it was, a length of fine fishing line,
barely visible.

 
          
Two of Zero’s people had broken in
over the weekend. They’d unlatched the door and rigged the fixture to drop when
the fishing line was pulled.

 
          
The original plan had been to loosen
the hinges on the door so that it would fall outward when Romy tugged on it.
She would let it knock her down and claim a terrible back injury. But Patrick
had vetoed the idea. An injury caused by the door might leave the landlord as
the liable party rather than the tenant. And it was the tenant they were after.

 
          
The most open-and-shut scenario—he’d
called itres ipso loquitor —was to arrange for Romy to be “injured” by a
tenant-installed fixture. After some reconnoitering, the fluorescent box in the
ceiling over the reception area had received the nod.

 
          
Romy was supposed to pull the string
and let it crash to the floor, then stagger out and collapse in the hall,
pretending it had landed on her.

 
          
Pretend…she’d never been good at
pretending. How was she supposed to slump to the floor out there and moan and
groan about being hurt and have anyone buy it? And the Manassas people, when
they heard about it they’d know that what had happened here was all a sham, a
set-up designed to drag them into the legal system and expose their corporate
innards. They’d respond with lawyers using every possible legal ploy to keep
their secrets.

 
          
They’ll play hide, we’ll play seek.
A game.

 
          
But this was no game to her. Romy was
serious. She’d show them just how serious.

 
          
Acting quickly, before the dental
assistant could unlock her office across the
hall,
Romy stepped under the fixture and yanked on the line.

 
          
Her cry of pain was real.

 
          
Patrick sat in the driver seat of
Zero’s van, idly watching the little office building. He’d parked across the
street in a church parking lot—Our Lady of Something-or-other—and left the
engine idling to run the heater, but he was keeping his window open to let out
the pungent odor that seemed to be ingrained into the van’s metal frame. The
driver seat felt like little more than a sheet of newspaper spread over a
collection of rusty springs.

 
          
But the sharp jabs against his butt
were inconsequential compared to the discomfort of sharing the van with the
shadowy form seated behind him. Here was a perfect opportunity to probe Zero,
maybe get a line on what made this bird tick, but Patrick found himself
tongue-tied.

 
          
What do you say to a masked man?

 
          
Had to give it a
shot: “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

 
          
Zero’s deep voice echoed from the
dark recess at the rear of the van.
“Depends.”

 
          
“Why do you call yourself ‘Zero’?”

 
          
“That is my name.”

 
          
Ooookay.
Try
another tack.
“How about them Mets?”
That was usually
a foolproof conversation opener, especially out here on the Island, even in the
off-season. “What do you think of that last round of trades?”

 
          
“I don’t follow sports.”

 
          
Okay, strike that. Maybe if we
concentrate more on the moment…

 
          
“You have any idea what this van was
used for before you got it?”

 
          
“It was a delivery truck run by a
Korean Christian group in Yonkers.”

 
          
“Smells like they spilled a gallon of
roast puppy stew on the way to the annual church potluck dinner.”

 
          
Patrick heard a soft chuckle. “I can
think of worse things to spill.”

 
          
Hey, he laughs!

 
          
“You mean, be grateful for small
favors, right?”

 
          
“Small and large.
I’m grateful the Reverend Eckert has finally been able to purchase space on a
satellite.”

 
          
“That means he’ll be beaming his
anti-SimGen sermons direct.”

 
          
“Right.
No
more worries about SimGen influencing the syndicate that distributes his show
to local stations. Not only can he beam his shows to the syndicate, but he’s
now got direct access to anyone with a satellite dish.”

 
          
“Nice.
A big jump
in audience.”

 
          
“I’m grateful too,” Zero said, “for
how well you and Romy are working together.”

 
          
“So far, so good.
She’s a piece of work.”

 
          
“That she is.
One
very intense young woman.
Tell me, Patrick, do you hope for a closer
relationship between the two of you?”

 
          
Patrick blinked in surprise.
Odd question.
“Do you mean working or personal?”

 
          
“Personal.”

 
          
“Is there something I don’t know?” he
said, turning to look at Zero. He wished he’d take off that mask. “Is there
something going on between you and Romy? Because if there is—”

 
          
Zero gave a dismissive wave.
“Nothing, I assure you. I am…unavailable.”

 
          
That was a relief.

 
          
“Well, okay, but all I can say
is,
whether or not we go the next step is up to her. If
you’re worried about a romance between us interfering with our job performance,
rest easy. The lady has thus far found the strength of character to resist my
charms.”

 
          
“Which I’m sure are considerable.”

 
          
“As me grandma used to say,” he said
in a pretty fair Irish accent, “from yer lips to Gawd’s ear.”

 
          
“Speaking of God, I’ve been looking
at this church. Are you Catholic?”

 
          
“With a name like Patrick Michael
Sullivan, could I be anything else?”

 
          
“Practicing?”

 
          
“No.
Pretty much
the fallen-away variety.
Haven’t seen the inside of a
church for some time.”

 
          
“But you do believe in God.”

 
          
“Yeah, sure.”
Where was this going?

 
          
“Did you know that some
sims
believe in God, even pray to Him?”

 
          
“No. I didn’t.” For some reason the
idea made him uncomfortable.
“Any particular faith?”

 
          
“They tend toward Catholicism. They
like all the statues, although they find the crucifix disturbing. They’re most
comfortable with the Virgin Mary. Pick through any sim barrack and you’ll
usually find a few statues of her.”

 
          
“I can see that. A mother figure is
comforting.”

 
          
“Sims
pray
to God, Patrick. But does God hear them?”

 
          
“What do you mean?”

 
          
“
Do
sims
have souls?”

 
          
“This is heavy stuff.”

 
          
“Most enlightened believers accept
evolution. Genetics makes it impossible for an intelligent person to deny a
common ancestor between chimps and humans. Some theologians posit a
‘transcendental intervention’ along the evolutionary tree, the moment when God
imbued an early human with a soul. So I ask you, Patrick: When human genes were
spliced into chimps to make
sims
, did a soul come
along with them?”

 
          
“To tell the truth,” Patrick said,
“I’ve never given it an instant’s thought until you just mentioned it.”

 
          
Who had time to ponder such
imponderables? Zero, obviously. And it seemed important to him.

 
          
“Think about it,” Zero said.
“Sims praying to a God who won’t listen because they have no souls.
Imagine believing in a God who doesn’t believe in you. Tragic, don’t you
think?”

 
          
“Absolutely.
But I wonder—”

 
          
The wail of a siren cut him off. He
watched as an ambulance screamed into the parking lot across the street.

 
          
“You think that’s for Romy?”

 
          
“I imagine so.” Zero’s voice now was
close behind him. “I told her to give it her best performance.”

 
          
They watched a pair of EMTs, a wiry
male and a rather hefty woman, hurry inside. A few moments later they
reemerged, pulled a stretcher from their rig, and hauled it inside.

 
          
“Wow,” Patrick muttered. “She must be
bucking for an Oscar.”

 
          
He kept his tone light but felt a
twinge of anxiety at the way those EMTs were hustling. A long ten minutes later
they exited, wheeling the stretcher between them. But it wasn’t empty this
trip. Patrick could make out a slim figure in the blanket.
Had
to be Romy.
He noticed that her head was swathed in gauze…with a crimson
stain seeping through.

 
          
“Shit!” he cried, fear stabbing him
as he reached for the door handle. “She’s bleeding!”

 
          
“Wait!” he heard Zero say, but he was
already out and moving toward the street.

 
          
No way he could sit in a van and
watch Romy be wheeled into an ambulance by strangers when she was hurt and
bleeding. Her gaze flicked his way as he dashed into the parking lot. When he
saw her hand snake out from under the blanket and surreptitiously wave him off,
he slowed his approach. And when she gave him a quick thumbs-up sign, he veered
off and headed for the office building. He waited inside until the ambulance
wailed off, then crossed back to the van.

 
          
“She seems okay,” he said as he
climbed back into the driver seat.

 
          
“Wonderful,” replied the voice from
the dim rear.

 
          
“But what the hell happened in
there?” He threw the shift into forward and took off after the receding
ambulance. “She was supposed to stand clear and fake being hurt. How the hell
did she cut her head open?”

 
          
“I should have foreseen this,” Zero
said. “This is so Romy.”

 
          
“What do you mean?”

 
          
“Don’t you understand? She had to
make it real. She had to send a message to Manassas and SimGen and whoever else
is involved that she’s ready to bleed for her beliefs.”

 
          
“Sheesh,” Patrick muttered.

 
          
“Isn’t she
wonderful.
”

 
          
It wasn’t a question. In that moment
Patrick realized that the mysterious Zero, although “unavailable,” was as
smitten with Romy Cadman as he was.

 
          
“What is it about her?” Patrick said.
The ambulance was still in sight, though blocks ahead. Tailing it was easy in
the light traffic. “I mean, you’re obviously taken by her, and I confess I’m
drawn to her—”

 
          
“Drawn?”

 
          
“Like a moth to a searchlight. And
then that guy Portero—”

 
          
“The SimGen
security chief?”

 
          
“He’s got it bad for her.
Might as well have written it on his forehead in DayGlo orange.
What is it about Romy Cadman?”

 
          
“Simple: her purity.”

 
          
Patrick didn’t have to ask. He knew
Zero wasn’t talking about virginity. He was talking about heart, about purpose.

 
          
“I hear you. But Portero didn’t
strike me as the kind who’d go for that.”

 
          
“Some men approach purity like Romy’s
simply to protect it from harm; and some wish to draw closer in the hope that
it will rub off on them or somehow cleanse them; and others want to possess it
merely to defile it and extinguish it because it reminds them of what they have
become, as opposed to what they could have been.”

 
          
Patrick glanced Zero’s way in the
rearview. He’d obviously given a lot of thought to this.

 
          
“Well, I guess we know where Portero
fits in that scheme.”

 
          
“I think we do.”

 
          
“But how about
you?”

 
          
A long pause, then Zero said, “If my
circumstances were different, I’d be content merely to warm myself in her glow.
And if I couldn’t do that I’d settle for curling up outside her door every
night to keep her safe from trespassers.”

 
          
Patrick swallowed, unexpectedly
moved.

 
          
“You know, Zero,” he said, his voice
a tad hoarse, “I’ve got to admit I’ve had my doubts about you.
Major, heavy-duty doubts.
But now…”

 
          
“Now?”

 
          
Patrick didn’t know quite what to
say. Any man who could pinpoint Romy as Zero had, and who could not only feel
about her the way he’d described, but come out and say it…

 
          
“You’re all right.”

 
          
Lame, but the best Patrick could do
at the moment. At least it was sincere. Romy would appreciate that.