The Big Sheep (27 page)

“Yes,” said Mag-Lev coldly, “you did.”

“That was completely unintentional, for what it's worth,” Keane said. “But now that she has the sheep, you have no leverage over Selah. As soon as she finds an adequate replacement, you're toast.”

“I won't be that easy to destroy,” said Mag-Lev.

Keane laughed. “Do you really believe that? Selah created you by spreading your propaganda all over the news. How hard do you think it will be for her to destroy you the same way? All she has to do is sow the idea that your hold over the DZ is slipping, make the other warlords think you've become weak. Once the idea takes hold, they'll do her work for her. The DZ will devolve into chaos, and a powerful new leader will appear to take the reins. Second verse, same as the first.”

“What does any of this have to do with Priya?” Mag-Lev demanded.

“To be honest,” said Keane, “I'm not entirely certain. But I know Selah Fiore has the sheep, and I believe she is also holding the original Priya Mistry. She's planning something that involves both of them, and knowing Selah Fiore, it's nothing good. Fowler and I are the only ones who can stop her. We can rescue Priya and get your sheep back.”

I shot Keane a dubious glance. Having already promised the sheep to Banerjee and Selah, he was now promising it to Mag-Lev as well. And I was fairly certain every single one of those people had the will and the means to ruin, if not kill, us. I was all for getting us out of this jam, but at some point that bill was going to have to be paid.

“Priya Mistry a clone,” Mag-Lev murmured, shaking his head. He set his eyes on Keane. “Why should I trust you?”

“Have you heard anything on the news about Priya's death?”

“No.”

“And you won't, either. Check with your Tortugas on the
DiZzy Girl
set. My bet is that she's back to work today, without a scratch on her.”

Mag-Lev looked dubious, but he muttered something into his comm. A few seconds later an expression somewhere between bafflement and relief came over his face. “She showed up twenty minutes ago,” he said. “But how…?”

“Another clone,” said Keane. “God knows how many they have. They seem to keep three or four of them active at any given time. If something happens to one, they have a replacement ready.”

Mag-Lev sat down again. He seemed overwhelmed. I knew the feeling. “How do you know they still have the original?” he asked.

“Some of the clones have received messages I believe originated with the real Priya,” said Keane.

“Where is she?”

Keane shook his head. “If I tell you that, you'll send a bunch of thugs in there with guns blazing, and probably get Priya killed. The sheep, too, most likely. And not incidentally, you'll then have no more reason to keep us alive. No, you're going to let us go, and we're going to rescue Priya and retrieve the sheep.”

“If you think you can force my hand,” said Mag-Lev, “you don't know me very well.”

“I'm not forcing anything,” said Keane. “Fowler and I are the only ones who can rescue Priya and get your sheep, and you know it. Wasting time, trying to get me to tell you Priya's location isn't going to help Priya, and it isn't going to help you. All it does is give Selah more time to execute whatever diabolical plan she's devised.”

Mag-Lev studied Keane for some time. “Selah is a fool to think she can control me,” he said at last. “She comes to me when she wants some dirty work done, but then she treats me as if I'm still just some unknown actor begging for her approval. Yes, Selah gave me this role, but
I'm
the one who created Mag-Lev. I
am
Mag-Lev, and I'm not going to roll over for some withered old crone who made her fortune off my people, my culture, my territory. The DZ is mine, and Selah Fiore will soon know it!”

“That's why you double-crossed her on the sheep?” I said.

He snorted. “I thought Selah could be reasoned with. I thought if I showed her how powerful I really am, she'd come to her senses. Stop lowballing me on protection payments for
DiZzy Girl
and the other shows, stop playing the other warlords against me, treat me with the respect I deserve. But I see now I was mistaken. Selah is never going to think of me as anything but a pawn of her creation. Right up to the second I destroy her.”

“Um,” I said. “Destroy her?”

He smiled coldly at me. “These bombings in the DZ,” he said. “Ultimately they only hurt the DZ, and that hurts me. I'm taking the battle to Selah Fiore. At midnight tonight the Flagship building is going up in flames. The DZ has provided the rest of the world with entertainment long enough. Now it's time for us to sit back and watch the carnage.”

“That's insane,” I said. “If you destroy Flagship, you'll shut down production on
DiZzy Girl
and all the other shows shooting in the DZ. You'll lose all that income. How does that help you?”

“It's a short-term sacrifice,” said Mag-Lev. “What Selah wants to do to the DZ, I'm going to do to the entertainment industry. A rebalancing of power. Selah Fiore and Flagship Media will be out; someone else will be in. I spent most of yesterday in meetings with other companies very eager to work with me.” He grinned. “You might say I've been auditioning Selah's replacement. So you see, I don't need the sheep anymore.”

“You've lost your mind,” I said. “You're not even a real warlord! You're just an actor playing a role! This isn't a pretend war you're starting. Real people are going to be killed!”

“Not a real warlord?” Mag-Lev roared, pounding his fists on the desk. “Who do you think is really in control of this city? The mayor? Don't make me laugh. Nobody's cared who the mayor of Los Angeles is since the Collapse. In Los Angeles the appearance of power
is
power. Hell, even before the Collapse, California had two governors who were movie stars. You think that's an accident? You say I'm not a ‘real warlord.' So tell me, Keane, what do I have to do to be ‘real'? Make a movie with a chimp? Marry a Kennedy?”

“Well, I'd definitely recommend that option over making a movie with a Kennedy and marrying a chimp,” said Keane.

“Very funny, Mr. Keane,” said Mag-Lev. “Let me remind you who is holding the gun. And remember, when Selah wanted that sheep stolen from Esper, she came to
me
. Because I'm the one with the connections to get things done. I may have started out as a man playing a role, but now I
am
Mag-Lev.”

“You're so full of shit,” said Keane.

“Excuse me?” said Mag-Lev.

“You claimed to have brought us here because you care about Priya,” said Keane, “but all you care about is showing Selah Fiore how big your dick is. You think it will make Mommy proud when you blow up her building? It's not going to change anything, Giles. If you think destroying Selah Fiore is going to give you the freedom you need to take control of the DZ, you're kidding yourself. Without Selah, you're nothing.”

“You son of a bitch,” snarled Mag-Lev, waving the gun at Keane.

Keane sighed. “Use your head, Mag-Lev. Three years ago you were just an unemployed actor. However thoroughly you've embraced the role of warlord, you wake up every morning with one thought in your head:
How much longer can I keep fooling everybody?
And you know what the answer is, Giles? Not very fucking long. The other warlords are uniting against you. You've overplayed your hand, fallen for your own hype. The only hope you have is to negotiate a compromise with Selah.”

“It's too late for that,” Mag-Lev growled. “We're at war.”

“Everything you've done so far could be interpreted by Selah as negotiating tactics,” I said. “But if you blow up her building, there's no going back. Then you
will
be at war.”

“And trust me,” said Keane. “You don't want to go to war with Selah Fiore.”

“I have no other options,” said Mag-Lev.

“Negotiate,” said Keane.

“Clearly, you've never tried negotiating with Selah Fiore,” said Mag-Lev.

“Actually,” said Keane. “I have.”

“And how did that go?”

“I'll let you know,” said Keane.

Mag-Lev sighed. “Even if I wanted to keep negotiating, I have no leverage. All I had was the sheep.”

“We're going to get the sheep back,” said Keane. “And rescue Priya while we're at it. You said you're blowing up the Flagship building at midnight. If we can rescue Priya and get the sheep to you before that, will you call off the attack?”

Mag-Lev seemed unconvinced.

“What do you have to lose?” I asked. “Give us until midnight. If we fail, you can go ahead with your idiotic war.”

Mag-Lev glared at me, but he said, “Fine. You have until midnight. Cross me, Keane, and you'll find out just how much power I have in this city.”

 

TWENTY-FOUR

Mag-Lev had his people drop us off back at the office. The fire had gone out, and Keane's car was now a barely recognizable lump of twisted, blackened metal. Debris lay scattered all over the roof. Apparently oblivious, Keane strode past the wreckage and went downstairs to his office. I followed.

At this point I had no idea what he actually planned to do. There seemed to be no winning move: even if we somehow managed to get the sheep back from Selah, there was no way we could deliver it to both Jason Banerjee and Mag-Lev. If it were up to me, I'd deliver the sheep to Mag-Lev, because whatever deep, dark secrets were contained in the Maelstrom file, at least Banerjee hadn't promised to kill us. And maybe it was time for the truth about Erasmus Keane to come out. Frankly, I was getting sick of being completely in the dark about Keane's past. If the Maelstrom file hadn't burned up with Keane's car, I'd have been sorely tempted to open it.

Keane went into his office and closed the door, presumably to “think.” I continued downstairs to my apartment. I thought about calling April, but decided that telling her about the morning's adventure would only make her worry. I sat in my office for a while, trying to think of a way out of this mess, but came up with nothing. Both of the cases we had taken on had come to miserable ends. The sheep was in the hands of Selah Fiore, who was planning to do God knows what with it, and Priya, the woman who had hired us to protect her, was dead, twice over. I hadn't even imagined, when we took her case, that it would be possible for us to fail this badly. Adding insult to injury, we weren't likely to get paid for any of this. Maybe April was right. Maybe I was wasting my life, working for Erasmus Keane. I certainly wasn't getting any closer to resolving Gwen's disappearance.

After an hour of staring at the wall, getting no closer to a solution, I heated up some leftovers for lunch and then went back to bed. I'd only gotten about three hours of sleep, and that wasn't helping either my mood or my abstract problem-solving abilities. Maybe I'd see things in a different light in a few hours.

Less than an hour later, I was awoken by a banging on the door. My first groggy thought was that it was Priya Mistry. Then I remembered Priya Mistry was dead. Then I remembered an indeterminate number of Priya Mistrys were still alive, and any one of them could be at the door. Maybe, in fact, all the extant Priyas had gotten together and formed a union to protest their mistreatment. I went to answer the door.

It wasn't any of the Priyas. It was Peninsula's bodyguard, Roy.

“What the hell is going on, Fowler?” he demanded.

“Come in, Roy,” I said. “I'll make some coffee.” We went to my office, and I put the coffee on. Roy and I sat down. “Now,” I said, “what's got you all worked up?”

“I got a call from somebody at Flagship this morning,” Roy said. “Telling me my services were no longer required. I was kind of expecting it, because of … what happened to Priya. But then Taki called me, asked where I was. She said Priya had a new bodyguard. I thought Taki had lost her mind. Because, well, Priya is dead. Why would she need a bodyguard? But then I remembered that weird conversation Priya had with that guy at the house, about them making copies of her. So I'm going to ask you again: What the hell is going on?”

I sighed. There wasn't any way to halfway explain something like this. I either needed to stonewall Roy or tell him everything. At this point, I didn't see the harm in leveling with him.

“The woman you buried,” I said, “wasn't Priya Mistry. She was a clone.”

Roy nodded. “I figured,” he said.

“Really?” I asked, surprised at his blasé reaction.

“Yeah,” he said. “I was up most of the night, thinking. That's why she acted so weirdly toward me at the house that night. The real Priya died in that explosion on the set, didn't she?”

I shook my head. “That wasn't the original either. Another clone.”

“
Another
clone? How many are there?”

“Living and dead? We don't know. At least three, probably more. The one you were watching was probably replaced at least once before. Keane thinks they all go crazy after a while, so they have to be replaced.”

“That's why she didn't remember the pizza place,” murmured Roy. “She had never been there.”

“Right,” I said.

“So she's not dead,” Roy said. “The real Priya.”

“We think Selah is holding the original,” I said.

“Where?”

I paused. “Roy, you need to understand … we're not sure what condition Priya is in, if there even
is
a real Priya. We don't know what Selah has done to her, what she's been subjected to. And, Roy, she isn't going to know you. In all likelihood, you've never even met her. All you've ever met is copies.”

Roy thought for a moment. “I understand,” he said. “I don't care. I love her.”