F Paul Wilson - Sims 03 (5 page)

 
          
MANHATTAN

 
          
DECEMBER 8

 
          
Zero had called and asked Patrick to
come over to the
West Side
garage. Romy was already
there when Patrick arrived. With oversized sunglasses hiding her fading
shiners, and a baseball cap covering her stitched-up scalp, she looked none the
worse for wear.

 
          
Patrick asked her how she was doing,
and of course she told him fine. She was always “fine.” She said she’d be even
better when the stitches came out tomorrow.

 
          
Patrick rubbed his hands together.
The old radiator running along the cinderblock wall only partially countered
the afternoon chill. Neither Romy nor Zero seemed to feel it. Of course Zero,
swathed head to toe as usual, would be the last to chill.

 
          
“We heard from the
Manassas
attorneys,” he told them. “They want a meeting.
Soon.
I set it up for next Thursday, my office.” He glanced at Romy. “Can you make
it?”

 
          
“I’ll be there.”

 
          
“My only regret is that I couldn’t
add my own charges to the suit.”

 
          
“On what grounds?”

 
          
“Loss of services
and consortium.”

 
          
“You,” she said, pointing a finger at
him, “are incorrigible.” She tried to look stern but he could see she was fighting
a smile. She turned to Zero. “Did you have any luck with my photo?”

 
          
“Quite an interesting picture,” Zero
said, handing Romy an eight-by-ten color print.

 
          
The dim light made it hard to see
details. Patrick craned his head over Romy’s shoulder for a better look, but
found himself gazing at the nape of her neck instead, focusing on the gentle
wisps of fine dark hair trailing along the curve. He leaned closer, drinking
her scent, barely resisting the urge to press his lips against the soft white skin…

 
          
“That’s him, all right,” Romy said.
“Does he have a name?”

 
          
“Yes. It took me a while to trace him
but—”

 
          
“Christ!” Patrick said. He pointed to
a spot at the rear end of the ceiling. “Who’s that?”

 
          
He’d glanced up and caught a flicker
of movement above and beyond Zero, at the point where a ladder embedded in the
rear wall of the garage ran up to a square opening in the ceiling. He could
swear he’d seen a pair of eyes peering out at them from within that darkness.

 
          
Zero didn’t turn to look.
“Where?”

 
          
“There! In that opening! I saw
someone!”

 
          
The opening was empty now, but he
knew what he’d seen.

 
          
“I’m sure you did,” Zero told him.
“But it was no one you need concern yourself with at the moment. Now—”

 
          
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Patrick
said, walking over to the ladder. “If someone’s up there listening, I want to
know who it is.”

 
          
“Someone’s up there
guarding ,
” Romy said. “Please, Patrick. Let it go for now.”

 
          
He didn’t like letting it go, but
short of climbing up there and entering that patch of night—something he had no
inclination to do—Patrick didn’t see that he had much choice. He’d come to
trust Zero, and if he said someone was guarding them, then Patrick would buy
it.

 
          
“All right,” he said, turning back.
“Where were we?”

 
          
Zero said, “The man in the photo
looked Japanese so I scanned him into a computer and had it comb the databases
of the Japanese government and major Japanese corporations.” He held up a
printout of a full-face photo of someone who bore a passing resemblance to the
man in Romy’s shot. “This came back with a sixty-three percent confidence
match.”

 
          
“That’s him,” Romy said without
hesitation.

 
          
“You’re sure? The computer wasn’t.”

 
          
“Don’t care. I saw him live and
that’s him.”

 
          
“Fine,” Patrick said.
“Now…who him?”

 
          
“Yoshi Hirai, Ph.D.,” Zero said.
“Top recombinant man for Arata-jinruien Corporation.”

 
          
“Which is…?” Patrick had never heard
of them.

 
          
“A division of Kaze
Group and one of SimGen’s potential competitors.
They want to raise
their own
sims
but so far haven’t met with any
success. They even started a dummy corporation to pirate the sim genome but
were caught. They’ll do anything to cut into the sim market.”

 
          
“What was a creep like that doing at
the fire?” Romy asked.

 
          
“Exactly what I’d
like to know.”

 
          
Patrick said, “Could the
SLA
be Japanese? But why hijack
sims
when they can lease
as many as they want? And why
these
globulin farm
sims?”

 
          
“Never mind why,” Romy said.
“How about where?
Where are those
sims
?
That’s my concern. I hope they don’t end up like their farmers, or get spirited
off to
Japan
.
We’ll never find them.”

 
          
RIVERSIDE
PARK

 
          
Meerm so very sad.
Live all alone in bush. Walk night, hide day. Find clothes, dirty, smelly, but
warm. Wear three
shirt
and two pant. Steal blanket.
Carry all night while search food.

 
          
Pain wake Meerm in bush home. Dark
come now. Many people walk. Meerm know must stay hid till late.
Meerm so hungry.
Peek out bush. Ver near big round building
made stone. See lady point, say, “Granztoom.”

 
          
Meerm not know what granztoom.

 
          
Meerm move along wall, stay dark
spot. Climb to street. Put blanket over head and walk. Keep face down, look
sidewalk. So fraid people hurt if see Meerm, but people walk fast, not look
Meerm.

 
          
Meerm look for light-front place
people eat.
Can find food in dark behind.
But see no
place yet.
Street dark.
Hear noise behind. Meerm so
scare, push against wall, turn. Building door open. Sim come out.
Two sim, three sim, many sim.
Meerm watch as more sim than
count line up straight at curb.

 
          
Meerm see bus come and all sim go in.
Meerm so cold, so hurt, so lone.
Meerm drop blanket
and go behind last sim. Climb step, sit empty seat.
Bus dark
and warm.
Meerm curl up, close eye.

 
          
WESTCHESTER
COUNTY
,
NY

 
          
Patrick’s breath steamed in the night
air as he strolled across the rear lawn of Beacon Ridge toward the sim barrack.
He’d been back only once since the night of the poisoning. He wasn’t sure
exactly why he’d come tonight. Talking about
sims
with
Romy and Zero this afternoon had made him think of Tome. He’d returned to
Katonah to sign some papers dealing with his property—someone had made an offer
on what was left of his home and he’d accepted—and gave in to an urge to see
how the old sim was doing.

 
          
As he reached for the knob on the
barrack door it opened and out stepped Holmes Carter. He jerked his portly
frame to a halt, obviously startled.

 
          
“Sullivan?”

 
          
“Carter.
Fancy
meeting you here.”

 
          
Carter didn’t offer to shake hands,
neither did Patrick. They’d reached a détente but that didn’t make them
friends.

 
          
“I was just about to say that
myself,” Carter replied. “You’re trespassing, you know.”

 
          
“Yeah, I know. But ease up. I’m not
looking for new clients.
Just visiting an old one.
Promise.”

 
          
“Tome?”

 
          
“Yeah.”
Patrick noticed Carter staring at him from under his protruding forehead,
saying nothing.
“Something wrong?”

 
          
“I guess you could say I’m amazed. I
figured since the
sims
dropped the union idea and were
no further use to you, we’d never see you again.”

 
          
“That’s usually the way it goes with
client-attorney relationships, but these were special clients.”

 
          
Another long stare
from Carter.
He was making Patrick uncomfortable.

 
          
“You’re full of surprises, aren’t
you, Sullivan.” Then he sighed. “Maybe it’s a good thing you’re here. Tome
isn’t doing too well.”

 
          
Aw, no. “Is he sick?”

 
          
“I had a vet check him and she says
no. He does his washroom duties, but just barely. He’s listless, eating just
enough to stay alive, and spending all of his free time in his bunk.”

 
          
It occurred to Patrick that Holmes
Carter seemed to know an awful lot about this aging sim.

 
          
“What brings you down to the
barracks? Never knew you to be one to mix with the help.”

 
          
He looked away.
“Just
checking up on him.
So sue me, I’m worried.”

 
          
Now it was Patrick’s turn to stare.
He remembered how Carter had pitched in to help the poisoned
sims
,
and now this.

 
          
“You’re no slouch in the surprise
department yourself, Holmes.” This had to be one of a handful of times he’d
addressed the man by his first name.

 
          
“The board wants him declared D and
replaced. I was giving him a pep talk but I’m not getting through. Want to take
a crack at him?”

 
          
Patrick knew that if Tome were human
he’d have been offered grief counseling after the killings. The poor old guy
must be really hurting.

 
          
He stepped past Carter into the
barrack.

 
          
“I’ll give it a shot.”

 
          
With Carter following, Patrick
wandered through the familiar front room, past the long dining tables and
battered old easy chairs clustered around the TVs in two of the corners. The
gathered
sims
glanced at him, then returned to what
they were doing. He thought of the joyous welcomes that used to greet him, but
most of those
sims
were dead or still at work,
finishing up in the club kitchen.
These replacement
sims didn’t know him.

 
          
But wait…he remembered one sim, a
caddie…

 
          
“Where’s Deek?” he said.

 
          
Carter glanced around. “I don’t see
him.
Might be sitting outside.
The other survivors
seemed to have bounced back, but not Tome.”

 
          
That’s because he was the patriarch,
Patrick thought.

 
          
He proceeded into the rear area and
looked around. The dorm area was dimly lit; his gaze wandered up and down the
rows of bunk beds, searching for one that was occupied.

 
          
“Left rear corner,” Carter said.
“Lower bunk.”

 
          
Patrick started forward, puzzled.
He’d already looked at that bunk and had thought it was empty. But now he could
see a shape under the covers, barely raising them, curled and facing the wall.

 
          
“Tome?” he said.

 
          
The shape turned and Patrick
recognized Tome’s face as it broke into a wide smile.

 
          
“Mist Sulliman?”
The old sim slipped from under the covers and rose to his feet beside his bed.
“So good to see.”

 
          
Patrick’s throat constricted at the
sight of Tome’s stooped, emaciated form. Wasn’t he eating at all?

 
          
“Good to see you too, Tome.”

 
          
He held out his hand and, after a
second’s hesitation, Tome reached his own forward.

 
          
“You come see Mist Carter?” Tome said
as they shook hands.

 
          
“No, Tome. I came by to see you.”
Patrick saw something in Tome’s eyes when he said that, something beyond
gratitude. “But Mister Carter tells me you’re not doing well. He says you spend
all your free time in bed. Are you sick, Tome? Is there anything I can do?”

 
          
“Not sick, no,” he said, shaking his
head.
“Tome sad.
See dead sim ever time walk through
eat room.
Can’t stay.
Tired all time.”

 
          
Patrick nodded, understanding. Tome
had to go on living in the building where the
sims
he’d considered his family were murdered, had to eat in the room where they
died. No wonder he was wasting away.

 
          
Then Patrick had an idea, one he knew
would cause complications in his life. But the sense of having failed Tome and
his makeshift family had been dogging Patrick since that terrible and ugly
night, and helping him now wasn’t something he merely wanted to do, it was
something he needed to do.

 
          
“You know what you need?” Patrick
said. “You need a change of scenery. Wait here.”

 
          
He went back to Carter, pulled him
into a corner and, after a ten-minute negotiation, the deal was set.

 
          
“All right, Tome,” he said, returning
to the bunk. “Pack up your stuff. You’re going on a vacation.”

 
          
Tome’s brow furrowed. “Vay-kaysh…”

 
          
Poor old guy didn’t even know what
the word meant. Patrick decided not to try to explain because this wasn’t going
to be a real vacation anyway. Simply removing Tome from the barracks might be
enough, but Patrick thought the old sim would want to feel useful.

 
          
“You’re going to stay with me for a
while. I’ve got a brand new office and I need a helper.”

 
          
Tome
straightened,
his eyes brighter already. “Tome work for Mist Sulliman? But club own—”

 
          
“That’s all taken care of.”

 
          
Patrick had convinced Carter to allow
him to take over Tome’s lease payments for a month or so. As club president,
Carter had the authority, and the board couldn’t squawk too much because it
wasn’t costing the club a penny. The lease payments wouldn’t be cheap but
Patrick had all that money left in the Sim Defense Fund and figured it wouldn’t
be a misappropriation to use some of it to help a sim.

 
          
As for keeping Tome busy, the old sim
had taught
himself
to read so it shouldn’t be a big
stretch for him to learn to file.

 
          
“Unless of course,” Patrick said,
“you’d rather stay here.”

 
          
“No, no,” Tome said, waddling over to
a locker. “Tome
come
.”

 
          
As Patrick watched him stuff his
worldly belongings into a black plastic trash bag, he wondered at his own
impulsiveness. He’d been planning to convert the second of the two bedrooms in
his newfound apartment into a study, but he guessed that could wait. Let Tome
have it for a month or so. Who knew how much of his abbreviated lifespan the
old sim had left?

 
          
Not as if it’s going to interfere
with my love life, Patrick thought, thinking of the persistently elusive Romy.

 
          
“Tome ready, Mist Sulliman,” the sim
said, standing before him with straightened spine and thin shoulders thrown
back.

 
          
“Let’s go then,” Patrick said,
smiling at himself as much as at Tome. He felt like Cary Grant teaching Gunga
Din to drill. Not a bad feeling; not bad at all.
“Time to see
the world, Mr. Tome.”