by Todd Young
Akam nodded silently, and gazed unseeing at a corner of the desk. He felt bad enough about Riley as it was. Now this. “Couldn’t you put it through a processor?”
Erran sighed. “What? And be as dumb as the CPF?”
“I’m sure you’d pick up anything relevant.”
“That’s the theory they adhere to, Akam, and it doesn’t work.”
He nodded, perhaps a little absentmindedly, and then wondered how much time Erran would spend listening in. From what he’d seen last night, Theo and Riley were attracted to one another. If they happened to get closer … What would Erran make of that?
“We’ve got another problem,” July said.
He shook his head and turned to her. She was leaning forward, her hands in her lap, her brow troubled, her beautiful lips trembling.
“What is it?”
“Simpkins, the corporal from Schenectady. He’s disappeared.”
“Disappeared?”
“The waste contractor. What’s his name, Erran?”
“Mackenzie.”
“He gets together with Simpkins for a drink now and then. They’re friends, apparently, which is how Erran got in touch with him in the first place. They were due to meet Sunday night, but Simpkins didn’t show. Mackenzie called him, but his line’s been disconnected.”
Akam frowned, getting a sense already of where this was heading.
“So?” July said, resignation in her voice. “We checked him on the system, and as you’ve most likely already guessed, he’s disappeared.”
“Been disappeared,” Erran said, his voice clipped.
“Yes, well, it seems that way. There’s no record of his birth or prints or military service, no record he ever existed.”
Akam nodded, and then hung his head. He wasn’t as certain as he had been when he was younger that the company executed those who disappeared. There were rumors about camps. But they were simply that. Rumors. No one ever came back. He gripped one hand with the other and felt a vague wash of fear. If they were onto Simpkins already, then they could be closing in on them right now.
“Any idea what happened?” he said, raising his head.
July lifted her shoulders, but her face looked dark.
Erran gripped his arm. “Have you told anyone? Let anything slip?”
Akam shrugged him off angrily, and then stared at him. “This idea you’ve got — this idea that I’m a skulker — you couldn’t be more wrong. Why on earth would I work for the company, when …?”
“When what, Akam?” Erran said, a grin forming, his voice high and mocking.
Akam twisted his head sharply and puffed breath through his nose.
“Guys?”
He took a breath, a deep breath. “I mentioned a couple of things to Riley, like I said, but nothing about the operation itself.”
“We’re not worried about Riley.”
“Well, I certainly haven’t spoken to anyone else. You want to monitor me, Erran?”
Erran shook his head, kept it downturned for a moment, and then glanced at Akam, a conciliatory gesture. It was almost an apology. He sat back, put his hands behind his head, and exhaled roughly.
He was tense. They all were. When things got like this it was bloody frightening.
Akam tempered his voice and sought Erran’s eyes. “What did he know?”
“Simpkins? Nothing. He didn’t even know our names.”
“But he might be able to identify the van,” July said.
“What’s happened to it?”
“Another set of plates. This morning. The others are here, under the desk.”
“Whose was it?”
“A friend of mine’s,” Erran said.
Akam thought for a moment. “The make and model of a hovervan isn’t much to go on.”
“No,” July said, “but there’s us.”
“If he describes us?”
She nodded.
“Were there cameras there, where we were, near the incinerator?”
Erran shook his head. “No. And I pingbacked the cameras on the gate. They couldn’t have our faces or we’d already be gone. This was Sunday. Sunday!”
“Mackenzie tried to call him Sunday?”
Erran nodded.
That was four days ago. “What the hell went wrong?”
July leaned back. “We’ve been turning it over, but we’ve come up blank. Presumably Simpkins said something, or they checked the incinerator.”
“And they’d know it hadn’t been used?”
“Mackenzie said maybe.” Erran glanced behind him, at the window, and Akam turned in time to see a figure approaching the door. He jumped.
A short series of raps and it opened. Tom poked his head in. “I got a signal on Fifteenth Street.”
“Thanks, Tom,” July said.
“Someone breathing.” He grinned, expected a response, but when he didn’t get one, nodded, chagrined and closed the door.
Akam winced, thinking of Riley and the bugs, and then it occurred to him that Riley might get caught up in this. If the CPF were onto them, if they knew the clones had escaped, then presumably they’d want to track them down, if only to terminate them properly.
But what the hell had gone wrong? What reason could they have had to check the incinerator? And why would Simpkins have said anything? He was in on it as much as they were. The clones were scheduled for execution, so the military couldn’t have expected to see them again. If they had eight on the schedule and then …
“They’re missing a clone.”
“What?” They said it in unison.
“They’re missing a clone. Simpkins said seven, right?”
Erran nodded.
“But when we arrived, there were eight.” He paused, trying to replay Saturday over again. “Simpkins was checking his tablet. He glanced up. He was counting heads. Then you said, ‘We’ve got to go!’”
Erran nodded again. He glanced at July.
She looked a little pale for a moment. Then she said, “It was 8T3O.”
“Theo?”
She nodded.
“Why—?”
“He wasn’t with the rest of them.”
“That’s right,” Erran said. He stood up and hit the door lightly with his fist, then span back to face July. “Did you even see him?”
July shook her head slowly from side to side. “There was something by the stairwell — a shadow. Then Akam said, ‘Riley?’ and I turned.”
Erran was nodding. He folded his arms. Then locked his jaw and stared at Akam intently. “8T3O.”
Akam lifted his eyes. “You think … what?”
“Maybe he’s a plant.”
“A plant? How does that make sense?”
“Hell. I don’t know, but we’re gonna have to speak to him.”
11
Susen lived on the fifty-eighth floor of a hundred twenty-three-story tower. She had a three-bedroom apartment, with three en-suite bathrooms, two balconies, a large living area, island kitchen, and a separate laundry room. From the living room she could see the park, and from the master bedroom midtown. It had a price tag in the millions, but she had only had to pay one percent of that. The company had covered the rest, and she now owned it outright.
It had caused confusion in the past, when she brought the men she was investigating home with her. She liked to watch their faces as they stepped inside, and when they inevitably asked, she would shrug, and say, “I have a trust fund.”
Of course, she didn’t. Her father worked as a clerk in a shoe store back in Jamestown, and they had never had much money. As a child, she’d had to share a room with her brother, Antony. There was a third bedroom, but Susen’s mother used it as a sewing room. She earned a little extra money from dressmaking, alterations and mending.
When Susen was thirteen and Antony fifteen, she began slipping into his bed late at night, when their parents were asleep. He was well built and handsome. She’d seen him naked, and she wanted to know what it was like. She had to ca
jole him, but it didn’t take much.
When she was fourteen, she fell pregnant.
“My sewing room?” her mother said, and then narrowed her eyes in suspicion. “I thought you and Antony were friends?”
Susen took a breath. “I’m pregnant.”
Her mother glanced at Antony.
Her father, playing a quiet game of solitaire, looked up. He stared at her coldly for a moment or two, and then returned to his game.
Antony dropped his chin onto his chest and twisted his hands.
She miscarried, but had already moved into the sewing room by then. She enjoyed the peace and quiet. When it suited her, she invited Antony in. But by the time she’d turned sixteen she’d tired of him. She wanted a different sort of man, a man who was strong, not only in body, but in mind. And though Antony might have been those things to some girls, he wasn’t enough for her. He was engaged now, and practicing as a lawyer in Manhattan.
Every now and then he called her, and she toyed with him, but honestly, where were the real men these days?
She caught a car to Square Flowers, but had it drop her off where Marte couldn’t see her. Cars weren’t cheap, and she’d told the old bag she was short on funds. She half hoped Marte might offer to help her out. She suspected they were getting somewhere.
The flower store was pokey and a little pathetic. It was wedged between a salon and a bank, a narrow strip of real estate no one would guess existed in Times Square. It was so deep that it gave out onto a yard, a small, paved area with garden beds. It had a pitched, glass roof, and was surprisingly quiet.
Marte wasn’t in the store when she arrived. Ordinarily, she was behind the till, and spent a lot of time sitting there simply reading.
“Marte?” Susen said, walking deep into the store. There was a profusion of flowers everywhere, the confusion of scents overwhelming. The building had once been used for some other purpose, and there was a series of rooms. As she reached the third, she saw her. She was standing in the yard, and Xavier was with her.
Susen stopped, trod toward the French windows carefully, and then ducked behind a display of gladioli. She could just make out what they were saying. Xavier was speaking, his voice a deep rumble.
“… sure you’d like him, my dear.”
“He sounds very interesting.”
Xavier brushed something from his jacket. “But what about your young girl? How’s she getting on?”
“Mmm. I’m not sure. One moment I think I like her, and then the next, I get a strange chill.”
“Oh, come now. Not this absurd superstition again? She isn’t Bethany.”
She laughed.
He touched her arm, a friendly gesture, and then rocked back on his heels. If he were younger, he would have been quite startling. He was a big man, with thick dark curls and pale, piercing eyes.
“I really think we should invite her.”
That was Susen’s cue. She stepped through the French doors in a breezy manner, a little breathless. Marte’s eyes brightened when she saw her.
“Susen!” She had a throaty voice, was dressed in black today with a fluffy white scarf and gold hoop earrings. Her clothes were often quite colorful, but she looked demure today.
“Is this the girl you’ve told me so much about?” Xavier scanned her from head to toe, his eyes eventually resting on her face. His stare was so unflinching it was almost rude.
“Xavier, Susen.”
“Hi, how are you?” she said, stepping forward and extending her hand. He took it, and brought it to his lips. She thought of where those lips might have been, and tried not to wince.
He released her hand and stood back, looking her up and down again. She was wearing a shirtwaist, floral print dress, and a mulberry hat. A flicker of tension played about his temples. Then he smiled.
“You look lovely, my dear.”
“Thank you.”
He turned to Marte, and raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t embarrass her, Xavier.”
“No, of course not.” His voice was loud, expansive. He turned back to her. “My dear, I’m holding a little dinner party. Just a few friends. Marte and I thought you might like to join us.”
Yes, she thought. Finally. She’d been thinking of giving up on this today, and perhaps trying to approach him from some other angle. She smiled, looked abashed, and hopefully even a little confused. “When is it?”
“You don’t have to come,” Marte said. “It’s only if you want to.”
“No. Of course. Of course I’d like to come. Thanks very much for inviting me.”
“Marte’s been telling me a little about you,” Xavier said, “and I think you just might be our sort of person.”
He put a particular inflection into this, and she couldn’t fail to understand what he meant, though she kept her face studiously blank. He could interpret that however he liked.
He nodded, then lifted his eyebrows, making it very clear his words carried a further meaning. But he was waiting for some sort of response from her. She smiled, and nodded amiably, but then dropped her gaze to the flagstones. With the toe of her shoe, she traced a small circle, then glanced up again.
“Oh, my dear, you are lovely,” he said.
Mmm, she thought, but you’re a bit of a creep. If it were up to her, she wouldn’t have to prove anything when it came to the likes of him. He was most likely one of those older men who liked the young boys, boys fresh out of high school. It would have been nice to simply tap her watch and have a car come and pick him up right away. But no, she had to amass evidence. She had to catch him in the act, she had to prove he’d been with another man.
“Saturday,” Marte said. “Around seven. Does that suit you?”
She was dancing with Riley Friday night — tomorrow night — but Saturday was free. She nodded, then smiled brightly, smiling first at her and then at him. His eyes lingered on hers, and then steeled. It occurred to her he was dangerous. She’d have to watch herself.
[] [] []
During his lunch hour, Riley shopped for clothes. He hadn’t been able to get Theo off his mind all morning, and as he ran back over the events of last night, it occurred to him he had nothing to wear. The suit he had arrived in was Akam’s, as were the shoes and the socks and the underpants. Akam had said he would like the suit back, which would leave Theo naked. It then occurred to him that he ought to get some clothes himself, perhaps an entirely new wardrobe, if what Akam had said were true. So instead of eating lunch at twelve, he stepped out onto the street.
He headed for Bloomingdale’s. It was a couple of years since he’d bought anything for himself. The last time he’d been into a store he’d been looking for a pair of jeans, but had been bewildered to find that they were no longer available. He tried everywhere, but it was no use. Every year the company owned a little more, and he guessed once it’d bought all the banks and financial institutions, all the key agricultural companies and major manufacturers, all the schools and universities, all the media outlets and mines and hospitals and recording studios and so on, that it’d finally got down to retail. They hadn’t renamed the stores or the brands, but it was all Anthwars-Berstheim. And now it meant he could no longer wear what he liked.
He walked into the menswear department and blinked. The lights seemed dull, but then he realized it was the colors. Virtually the only thing on offer were suits, big baggy suits, with big jackets and double pleated pants: black, navy, grey, and brown. A sales assistant approached him, a young man with blond hair wearing a nametag, David. He was lissome and fey and boyish, with a winsome face.
Riley admitted he’d never worn a suit, said he had no idea where to start, but that he needed an entirely new wardrobe.
David smiled. He had a tape measure around his neck. He whipped this off, asked Riley to lift his right arm, then his left. He measured his neck, chest, waist, and shoulders before moving on to his legs. He recorded the outer leg first, and then grinned up at Riley.
“Can you spread
your legs a little, sir?”
Riley moved his feet apart, and watched, confused, as David’s hand zipped toward his groin. A moment later, his fingers feathered against Riley’s balls. His cock pulsed.
David stood, cleared his throat, and headed for the racks. As he was taking the first suit down, Riley wondered how to do this. He guessed Theo would fit into anything he bought for himself, and he only had an hour. “I need two of everything,” he said. It was going to cost some money, but he had a bit saved. “Whatever I buy, can you double it?”
Forty-five minutes later, he was standing by the counter, staring in dismay at the huge pile of clothes he’d agreed to purchase. He’d chosen three complete suits, a charcoal grey, a navy, and a tan. They were double-breasted, with wide padded shoulders and tapered waists. The trousers had wide legs, rode high, and sported three-inch waistbands. They weren’t designed to be worn with a belt, so he’d had to get some clip-on suspenders, a black pair, and a brown pair. He’d picked out seven button-down shirts, and seven neckties, three solid colors (red, navy, and black), a couple with geometric patterns, and a couple with art deco patterns. He chose two pairs of shoes, a pair of black wingtip Oxfords, and a pair of tan perforated Derby’s. A hat was next, and after trying on a homburg, he decided on a fedora. He didn’t have an overcoat, so chose a black woolen one with deep pockets.
Then it occurred to him he didn’t have any casual clothes. He didn’t want to be sitting around in shirtsleeves on the weekend the way Creig did, so he bought a pair of chino pants and some cotton twill slacks, some white knit undershirts, which he thought could be worn like Tshirts, a few ribbed knit casual shirts with large soft collars, and a couple of V-necked woolen sweaters. Then he spotted a pair of canvas overalls, which looked comfortable, even if the company hadn’t envisaged people wearing them around at home.
David had already picked out several pairs of socks for him, but as he was standing at the counter, it occurred to him that Theo didn’t have any underwear.
He lifted his head. “I need to get some underpants.”
“Over there,” David said, and pointed. He was ringing the clothes up.
“I’ll have a look.”
