Sims (59 page)

“And SIRG,” Romy added, feeling her gut clench, “is a group that wants to kill that baby.”

“Like hell they will!” Joanna cried.

“Let's go!” Betsy said. “We've got a minute, maybe two at the most before they're here!”

“But what about Meerm?” Romy said.

“We'll have to leave her.”

“No—”

“Romy,” Zero said softly, “I grieve for her as much as you—more than you—but they won't be interested in Meerm now; they'll want her baby, and we can't let them have her.”

“We'll take her,” Joanna said. “Madhuri, Betsy, and me. We'll put her in an isolette and hide her in a motel or something.”

“What's an isolette?” Patrick asked. He was still holding the baby and seemed very protective.

“It's an incubator of sorts,” Madhuri said. “A special enclosed container we use for preemies. Keeps them safe and warm.”

“Good idea,” Betsy said. “Since they probably know my car, we'll leave it here and take one of yours.”

Joanna said, “We'll rustle up a portable isolette and meet you at the doctor's entrance.”

She and Madhuri bustled off while Betsy and Romy pulled a green sheet over Meerm's body. As the rest of them hurried out into the hall with the baby, Romy hung back. She rested a hand on the lifeless form beneath the sheet.

“You never had a chance, did you,” she whispered. “But things are going to change. And whenever people talk about the change, they'll mention your name.”

Small goddamn consolation, she thought as she hurried away to catch up to the others.

Five men in full gear, plus the guard, made for a claustrophobic ride as the elevator crept to the fourth floor. When the doors opened, Luca and his team piled out and followed the guard to the operating suite.

The old man pointed to a pair of double doors. “The amphitheater's through there.”

“That's where they're transmitting from?”

The guard nodded. “But the cameras are upstairs—through that door.”

“Any other way out?”

He shook his head.

Luca ripped the guard's two-way off his belt and flung it against the tiles of the nearest wall. “Stand over there and don't get in the way.” He signaled to Lowery. “You and Majesky take the stairs. The rest of you—with me.”

He depressed the bolt catch release lever on his HK to chamber the first round and stepped toward the doors. He didn't expect resistance, but it never hurt to be prepared. And besides, he knew of no better attention getter than a three-round burst into the ceiling.

He kicked open the doors and stepped through. “All right—!”

Empty. The place looked like a cyclone had ripped through it, but not a soul in sight.

“What the—?”

He turned, ready to go out and bang that guard's head against the wall for sending them to the wrong room when he noticed the shape under the bloody sheet on the table. Three quick steps took him to it. He hesitated, then reached out and pulled it off.

A dead sim, bloody, carved open from chest to groin. Looked like Jack the Ripper had been at her. He saw the gaping belly, the empty uterus.

The pregnant sim . . . this had to be her . . . but where—?

Oh, no . . . oh, no . . .

His knees felt gelatinous, his arms weak, the HK a hundred-pound weight in his hands as he turned and saw the TV monitor—where the operation was still in progress . . . at this table . . . on this sim . . . right in this room.

They'd fooled him . . . played him for a grade-A-prime sucker . . .

He looked up toward the spinning ceiling, saw a camera pointed his way from the balcony.

“Lowery?” he whispered into his comm mike. “Lowery, what's going on?”

A helmeted head popped into view next to the camera. “They're running a movie of the operation.”

“Stop it, Lowery,” he said, softly at first but with his voice rising. “Stop it right now!”

“I don't know how!”

“Yes, you do, goddamn you!” He was screaming now. “Yes, you fucking well do!
Now do it!
”

“Okay, okay!”

Luca heard the clinking release of the bolt on Lowery's submachine gun, followed by one three-round burst, then another. The monitor went blank . . .

. . . but its final image had been Patrick Sullivan holding up a very human-looking baby girl . . . and Luca remembered how the Sinclairs had feared the birth of a girl . . . and he also remembered all that crap he'd read about inter- and intragenomic competition . . .

I took him a moment to piece it all together, but then suddenly he knew what had terrified them.

You slimy bastards! After what you did, you had the nerve to look down your noses at
me?

Now more than ever he wanted that baby.

Racing along the hallway, Romy hung on Patrick's arm and stared at the baby. She couldn't take her eyes off that pink, perfect little face.

“You weren't exaggerating, Patrick,” Romy told him. “She is truly beautiful.”

Behind her, she heard Betsy say, “Skip the elevators and take that stairway at the far end of the hall.” Then in a lower voice to Zero: “I need to talk to you about that baby.”

The two of them fell behind as Romy and Patrick entered the stairwell and started down. On the ground floor they exited and found themselves at the doctor's entrance. Joanna and Madhuri were already there with what
looked like an oversized clear-topped bread box on wheels.

“We took the elevator,” Joanna said, eyes wide, “and we saw a SWAT guy in the lobby. He had ‘FBI' on his back,” Joanna said. “Are we in trouble?”

“They're not FBI,” Romy told them, trying to keep the dread out of her voice. They must
not
get this baby. “They're dressed-up thugs.”

Patrick passed the baby to Madhuri who kept her wrapped in her arms as they made the frigid pre-dawn dash across the near empty parking lot to Joanna's minivan. Patrick loaded the isolette into the rear while Romy helped Madhuri and the baby into the front seat.

As Joanna started the engine, Romy spotted Betsy hurrying their way. Behind her she saw Zero leaning against the brick wall outside the doctor's entrance. Her heart twisted. His posture was strange, as if he was sick.

“Is something wrong with Zero?” she asked Betsy as she arrived.

“He's a little upset. I don't have time to explain now. He can tell you. If you need us we'll be at—”

Romy raised a hand. “Don't say it. Better if we don't know. That way they can't make us tell.”

Betsy's face blanched. She nodded, then hugged Romy. “Get the hell out of here before they find you.”

The three women and the baby roared off.

Romy watched for a few heartbeats, praying for the baby's survival, then Patrick was tugging on the sleeve of her scrubs.

“Romy. Let's move.”

Zero reached the van a few seconds before they did. He pulled off his ski mask as he climbed into the rear seat, moving like an arthritic old man.

“Will you drive, Patrick?” he said in a voice barely above a whisper.

As they got moving, Romy turned in the passenger seat and looked back. Kek was in the far rear; Tome sat next to Zero who was staring at the floor in silence.

“What's wrong, Zero?”

“What?” he said, blinking and looking up at her. “What's wrong? Everything's wrong.”

“Meaning?”

“Please don't ask me about it.” The lost look in his yellow eyes constricted Romy's throat. “Not yet.”

“Where are we going?” Patrick said as they shot out of the parking lot.

“To pay a visit to someone who has answers I need.”

“Who?”

“Ellis Sinclair.”

“Fan out!” Luca shouted. “They could still be in the building!”

He doubted it, but that might be just what they wanted him to do: figure they'd taken off and go on a wild search through the streets, leaving them safe right here, laughing at him. That was what they'd expect him to do, only this time he wouldn't.

“Everyone take a floor, take a hall, go from room to room. Look for a baby, a newborn baby girl.”

Luca kicked back through the operating room doors and grabbed the old guard by his collar. “The nursery! Where's the nursery?”

“Th-third floor,” the old man cried, cringing.

“Take me there!”

A few minutes later he was standing before a plate-glass window, staring at the rows of bassinets, only half a dozen of them occupied. To his right a frightened new mother cried out and asked him what was wrong. He ignored her.

These babies, all so human looking. But that didn't mean the sim baby couldn't be among them. No way to tell. The safest thing would be to kill all the girls, but he didn't know if he could do such a thing.

Movement on the screen of the monitor over the nurse's station at the rear of the nursery caught his eye. The sim operation film . . . the one Lowery had supposedly shot up . . . it was still playing. Suddenly the film cut off and a man appeared. Luca knew that face . . . the Reverend Eckert! Somehow he'd got hold of the film. Eckert was broadcasting it all over the world!

Luca turned and began a stumbling trot back toward the elevators. Only one thing to do now.

Run.

MANHATTAN

It's over, Mercer Sinclair thought as he turned away from his plasma screen TV and staggered to his living room window. He stared out over the oddly silent Fifth Avenue at the pale, dawn-lit shadows of Central Park. We're done.

He hadn't been able to sleep so he'd turned on the TV and begun channel surfing. He'd paused when he recognized Reverend Eckert's face—that damn fool seemed to be on some channel somewhere every hour of the day and night—and stayed when he heard him rant about a sim giving birth to a half-human baby. And then he'd
shown
the birth.

Portero and SIRG had failed. Miserably. And worse, the sim baby was a girl, an all too human-looking girl.

What do I do now? he wondered, his gaze wandering to the squatting granite mass of the Metropolitan Museum a few blocks uptown. The markets were closed today in the US and most of Europe, and the trading day had already ended in Asia. But when the Pacific Rim markets reopened later tonight, SimGen stock would go into freefall.

Money wasn't the issue; even without SimGen he was worth more than he could spend in a dozen lifetimes. No, it was the company itself that mattered. He'd devoted his life to building SimGen. It was his child, his only family, and now the wild dogs he'd kept at bay for so long would leap upon her and tear her to pieces.

Mercer thought of the .38 caliber revolver he kept in the drawer by the bed. Maybe that would be the best way, the easiest way. Better that than—

He stopped.

What am I thinking? It's
not
over! I'll fight this! Stonewall any questions, deny any and all allegations. Sims are
my
property, and it will take years—decades!—before someone can say otherwise. And that someone will be the Supreme Court of the United States, because that's how far I'll take it. And I'll win that fight.

Oh, no. This is not over.

FAR HILLS, NJ

Ellis stared at the screen, fascinated, shouting, “They've done it! They've
done
it!”

He didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. He didn't know what tomorrow would bring, or even what the rest of today would hold, but everything in his life was going to be different from now on. If nothing else, today promised a brighter future for the sims of the world.

His phone rang. “Ellis,” said a deep voice he immediately recognized.

“Zero! Congratulations! I just saw the film of the birth. Tragic about poor Meerm, but uploading the film to Eckert was a brilliant move. Where are you?”

“At the front gate.”

That startled Ellis. And something about Zero's voice wasn't right. “I'll open it right away. Have you got the baby with you?”

“No. But I have questions. A
lot
of questions.”

Ellis's stomach plunged: He'd been dreading this moment, dreading it for decades. “Yes, I suppose you do. I'll open the gate.”

He pressed a button on a wall unit that operated the gate mechanism, then went to a front window to watch a black van climb the long winding driveway to the house. The cook and the maid had the day off; he'd planned to visit Robbie and Julie later, but he might have to delay that.

Ellis stepped outside as the van pulled to a stop before the front door. Zero alighted immediately and Ellis was surprised to see that he'd removed his mask, his simian features naked to the world. He walked past Ellis without a word, without a handshake, without even eye contact, and stepped into the foyer. A man and a woman emerged—Romy Cadman and Patrick Sullivan, looking perplexed. Ellis introduced himself and welcomed them. The last to debark were Kek and an aging sim, but they did not approach.

“You two are welcome inside,” he said.

“No, sir,” said the sim. “We stay. Good air.”

“As you wish.”

As Tome and the mandrilla wandered out onto the frosty lawn, Ellis stepped back inside and faced his guests.

“Can I offer anyone some—”

“You've seen the film,” Zero said, his voice thick. “Meerm's baby is a girl, a very human-looking girl. Dr. Cannon told me she should look more like a sim and she told me why. She also gave me a possible explanation for why the baby looks so human. She didn't want to believe it and neither do I. Do you know what I'm talking about?”

“Yes, I believe I do.”

“Then tell me it's not true!”

“I only wish I could.”

Zero lunged toward him, teeth bared, hands clawing forward. Ellis braced himself for the impact.