Sims (11 page)

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

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

“And then what?”

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

“Pee-are . . . ?”

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

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

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

“And the mothers?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Or just plain tired.”

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

“They're depressed,” Romy said.

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

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

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

“Ridiculous.”

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

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

They didn't. They both knew that.

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

She found Portero waiting for her.

“Finished here?” he said.

“For now. Research next.”

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

Somehow, helpless didn't fit with Luca Portero.

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

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

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

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

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

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

But losing didn't sit right. Never would.

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

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

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

He tried to imagine how things could get much worse.

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

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

Here it comes, Patrick thought.

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

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

Not? Did Boughton say,
not
?

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

He did! Boughton denied the judgment!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Really? But the partners—”

“I'll handle them.”

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

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

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

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

“You're not going back?”

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

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

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

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

“Then why the party?”

“Gabba go D.”

“Is she hurt? What happened?”

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

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

“Yes-yes. Retired. Retired. Go D.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No friend there. Friend here.”

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

“No want new friend. Want here friend.”

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

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

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