The Year's Best Science Fiction - Thirty-Third Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “Or not,” Deshin said. The handler had killed her the moment she had ceased to be useful. The handler felt he could waste a slow-grow clone, expensive and well-trained, placed in the household of a man everyone believed to be a criminal mastermind.

  Some mastermind. He had screwed up something this important.

  He bit back anger, not sure how he would tell Gerda. If he would tell Gerda.

  Something had been planned here, something he hadn’t figured out yet, and that planning was not complete. Sonja (or whatever her name was) had confirmed that with her reaction to her dismissal. She was terrified, and she probably knew she was going to die.

  He sighed.

  “I will quit now if you’d like me to,” Koos said.

  Deshin wasn’t ready to fire Koos.

  “Find out who she answered to. Better yet, find out who made her,” Deshin said. “Find her handler. We’ll figure out what happens to you after you complete that assignment.”

  Koos nodded, but didn’t thank Deshin. Koos knew his employer well, knew that the thanks would only irritate him.

  Deshin hated to lose Koos, but Koos was no longer 100 percent trustworthy. He should have caught this. He should have tested Sonja’s DNA himself.

  And that was why Deshin would put new security measures into place for his business and his family. Measures he designed.

  He’d also begin the search for the new head of security.

  It would take time.

  And, he was afraid, it would take time to find out what exactly Sonja (or whatever her name was) had been trying to do inside his home.

  That had just become his first priority.

  Because no one was going to hurt his family.

  No matter what he had to do to protect them.

  * * *

  Broduer had six different nanoprobes digging into various places on the dead woman’s skin, when a holographic computer screen appeared in front of him, a red warning light flashing.

  He moaned slightly. He hated the lights. They got sent to his boss automatically, and often the damn lights reported something he had done wrong.

  Well, not wrong, exactly, but not according to protocol.

  The irony was, everything he had done in this autopsy so far had been exactly according to protocol.

  The body was on an isolated gurney, which was doing its own investigation; they were in one of the most protected autopsy chambers in the coroner’s office; and Broduer was using all the right equipment.

  He even had on the right environmental suit for the type of poison he suspected killed the woman.

  He cursed, silently and creatively, wishing he could express his frustration aloud, but knowing he couldn’t, because it would become part of the permanent record.

  Instead, he glared at the light and wished it would go away. Not that he could make it go away with a look.

  The light had a code he had never seen before. He put his gloved finger on the code, and it created a whole new screen.

  This body is cloned. Please file the permissions code to autopsy this clone or cease work immediately.

  “The hell…?” he asked, then realized he had spoken aloud, and he silently cursed himself. Some stupid supervisor, reviewing the footage, would think he was too dumb to know a cloned body from a real body.

  But he had made a mistake. He hadn’t taken DNA in the field. He had used facial recognition to identify this woman, and he had told DeRicci who the woman was based not on the DNA testing, but on the facial recognition.

  Of course, if DeRicci hadn’t pressed him to give her an identification right away, he would have followed procedure.

  Broduer let out a small sigh, then remembered what he had been doing.

  There was still a way to cover his ass. He had been investigating whether or not this woman died of a hardening poison, and if that poison had gotten into the composting system.

  He would use that as his excuse, and then mention that he needed to continue to find cause of death for public health reasons.

  Besides, someone should want to know who was killing clones and putting them into the composting.

  Not that it was illegal, exactly. After all, a dead clone was organic waste, just like rotted vegetables were.

  He shuddered, not wanting to think about it. Maybe someone should tell the Armstrong City Council to ban the composting of any human flesh be it original or cloned.

  He sighed. He didn’t want to be the one to do it. He’d slip the suggestion into his supervisor’s ear and hope that she would take him up on it.

  He pinged his supervisor, telling her that it was important she contact him right away.

  Then he bent over the body, determined to get as much work done as possible before someone shut this investigation down entirely.

  * * *

  DeRicci sat in her car in the part of Armstrong Police Department Parking Lot set aside for detectives. She hadn’t used the car all day, but it was the most private place she could think of to watch the footage Deshin had given her.

  She didn’t want to take the footage inside the station until she’d had a chance to absorb it. She wasn’t sure how relevant it was, and she wasn’t sure what her colleagues would think of it.

  Or, if she were being truthful with herself, she didn’t want Lake anywhere near this thing. He had some dubious connections, and he might just confiscate the footage—not for the case, but for reasons she didn’t really want to think about.

  So, she stayed in her car, quietly watching the footage for the second time, taking mental notes. Because something was off here. People rarely got that upset getting fired from a job, at least not in front of a man known to be as dangerous as Luc Deshin.

  Besides, he had handled the whole thing well, made it sound like not a firing, more like something inevitable, something that Sonja Mycenae’s excellent job performance helped facilitate.

  The man was impressive, although DeRicci would never admit that to anyone else.

  When DeRicci watched the footage the first time, she had been amazed at how calmly Deshin handled Mycenae’s meltdown. He managed to stay out of her way, and he managed to get his security into the office without making her get even worse.

  Not that it would be easy for her to be worse. If DeRicci hadn’t known that Sonja Mycenae was murdered shortly after this footage was taken, DeRicci would have thought the woman unhinged. Instead, DeRicci knew that Mycenae was terrified.

  She had known that losing her position would result in something awful, mostly likely her death.

  But why? And what did someone have on a simple nanny with no record, something bad enough to get her to work in the home of a master criminal and his wife, bad enough to make her beg said criminal to keep the job?

  DeRicci didn’t like this. She particularly did not like the way that Mycenae disappeared off the security footage as she stepped outside of the building. She stood beside the building and sobbed for a few minutes, then staggered away.

  No nearby buildings had exterior security cameras, and what DeRicci could get from the street cameras told her little.

  She would have to do from inside police headquarters.

  Um, Detective?

  DeRicci sighed. The contact came from Broduer, on her links. He was asking for a visual, which she was not inclined to give him.

  But he probably had something to show her from the autopsy.

  So she activated the visual, in two dimensions, making his head float above the car’s control panel. Broduer wore an environmental suit, but he had removed the hood that had covered his face. It hung behind his skull like a half-visible alien appendage.

  News for me, Ethan? she asked, hoping to move him along quickly. He could get much too chatty for her tastes.

  Well, you’re not going to like any of it. He ran a hand through his hair, messing it up. It looked a little damp, as if he’d been sweating inside the suit.

  DeRicci waited. She didn’t know how she could like or dislike any new
s about the woman’s death. It was a case. A sad and strange case, but a case nonetheless.

  She died from a hardening poison, Broduer sent. I’ve narrowed it down to one of five related types. I’m running the test now to see which poison it actually is.

  Poison. That took effort. Not in the actual application—many poisons were impossible to see, taste, or feel—but in the planning.

  Someone wanted this woman dead, and then they wanted to keep her death secret.

  That’s a weird way to kill someone, DeRicci sent.

  Broduer looked concerned. Over the woman? He usually saw corpses as a curiosity, not as someone to empathize with.

  That was one of the few things DeRicci liked about Broduer. He could handle a job as a job.

  It is a weird way to kill someone, Broduer sent. Then he glanced over his shoulder as if he expected someone to enter his office and yell at him. The thing is, one of these types of poisons could contaminate the food supply.

  What? she sent. Or maybe she said that out loud. Or both. She felt cold. Contaminate the food supply? With a body?

  She wasn’t quite sure of the connection, but she didn’t like it.

  She hadn’t like the corpse in the compost part of this case from the very first.

  Broduer took an obvious deep breath and his gaze met hers. She stabilized the floating image, so she wasn’t tracking him as he moved up, down, and across the control panel.

  If, he sent, the poison leaked from the skin and got into the compost, then it would be layered onto the growing plants, which would take in the poison along with the nutrients. It wouldn’t be enough to kill anyone, unless someone’d been doing this for a long time.

  DeRicci shook her head. Then I don’t get it. How is this anything other than a normal contamination?

  If a wannabe killer wants to destroy the food supply, he’d do stuff like this for months, Broduer sent. People would start dying mysteriously. Generally, the old and the sick would go first, or people who are vulnerable in the parts of their bodies this stuff targets.

  Wouldn’t the basic nanohealers take care of this problem? DeRicci was glad they weren’t doing this verbally. She didn’t want him to know how shaken she was.

  If it were small or irregular, sure, he sent. But over time? No. They’re not made to handle huge contaminations. They’re not even designed to recognize these kinds of poisons. That’s why these poisons can kill so quickly.

  DeRicci suppressed a shudder.

  Great, she sent. How do we investigate food contamination like that?

  That’s your problem, Detective, Broduer sent back, somewhat primly. I’d suggest starting with a search of records, seeing if there has been a rise in deaths in vulnerable populations.

  Can’t you do that easier than I can? She sent, even though she knew he would back out. It couldn’t hurt to try to get him to help.

  Not at the moment, he sent, I have a job to do.

  She nearly cursed at him. But she managed to control herself. A job to do. The bastard. She had a job to do too, and it was just as important as his job.

  This was why she hated working with Broduer. He was a jerk.

  Well, she sent, let me know the type of poison first, before I get into that part of the investigation. You said there were five, and only one could contaminate the food supply. You think that’s the one we’re dealing with?

  I don’t know yet, Detective, he sent. I’ll know when the testing is done.

  Which will take how long?

  He shrugged. Not long, I hope.

  Great, she sent again. She wanted to push him, but pushing him sometimes made him even more passive/aggressive about getting work done.

  Well, you were right, she sent. I didn’t like it. Now I’m off to investigate even more crap.

  Um, not yet, Broduer sent.

  Not yet? Who was this guy and why did he think he could control everything she did. She clenched her fists. Pretty soon, she would tell this idiot exactly what she thought of him, and that wouldn’t make for a good working relationship.

  Um, yeah, he sent. There’s one other problem.

  She waited, her fists so tight her fingernails were digging into the skin of her palm.

  He looked down. I, um, misidentified your woman.

  You what? He had been an idiot about helping her, and then he told her that he had done crappy work?

  This man was the absolutely worst coroner she’d ever worked with (which was saying something) and she was going to report him to the Chief of Detectives, maybe even to the Chief of Police, and get him removed from his position.

  Yeah, Broduer sent. She’s, um, not Sonja Mycenae.

  You said that, DeRicci sent. Already, her mind was racing. Misidentifying the corpse would cause all kinds of problems, not the least of which would be problems with Luc Deshin. Who the hell is she, then?

  Broduer’s skin had turned gray. He clearly knew he had screwed up big time. She’s a clone of Sonja Mycenae.

  A what? DeRicci rolled her eyes. That would have been good to know right from the start. Because it meant the investigation had gone in the wrong direction from the moment she had a name.

  A clone. I’m sorry, Detective.

  You should be, DeRicci sent. I shouldn’t even be on this investigation This isn’t a homicide.

  Well, technically, it’s the same thing, Broduer sent.

  Technically, it isn’t, DeRicci sent. She’d had dozens of clone cases before, and no matter how much she argued with the Chief of Detectives, Andrea Gumiela, it didn’t matter. The clones weren’t human under the law; their deaths fell into property crimes, generally vandalism or destruction of valuable property, depending on how much the clone was worth or how much it cost to create.

  But, Detective, she’s a human being …

  DeRicci sighed. She believed that, but what she believed didn’t matter. What mattered was what the law said and how her boss handled it. And she’d been through this with Gumiela. Gumiela would send DeRicci elsewhere.

  Gumiela hadn’t seen the poor girl crying and begging for her life in front of Deshin. Gumiela hadn’t seen the near-perfect corpse, posed as if she were sleeping on a pile of compost.

  Wait a minute, DeRicci sent. You told me about the poisoning first because…?

  Because, Detective, she might not be human, but she might have been a weapon or weaponized material. And that would fall into your jurisdiction, wouldn’t it?

  Just when she thought that Broduer was the worst person she had ever worked with, he manipulated a clone case to keep it inside DeRicci’s Detective Division.

  I don’t determine jurisdiction, she sent, mostly because this was on the record, and she didn’t want to show her personal feelings on something that might hit court and derail any potential prosecution.

  But check, would you? Broduer sent. Because someone competent should handle this.

  She wasn’t sure what “this” was: the dead clone or the contamination.

  Just send me all the information, DeRicci sent, and let me know the minute you confirm which hardening poison killed this clone.

  I’ll have it soon, Broduer sent and signed off.

  DeRicci leaned back in the car seat, her cheeks warm. She had gone to Luc Deshin for nothing.

  Or had she?

  Which Sonja Mycenae had Deshin fired that morning? The real one? Or the clone?

  DeRicci let herself out of the car. She had to talk to Gumiela. But before she did, she needed to find out where the real Mycenae was—and fast.

  * * *

  Deshin wasn’t certain how to tell Gerda that Sonja had been a plant, placed in their home for a reason he didn’t know yet.

  He wandered his office, screens moving with him as he examined the tracker he had placed in Sonja. Then he winced. Every time he thought of the clone as Sonja, he felt like a fool. From now on, he would just call her the clone, because she clearly wasn’t Sonja.

  So he examined the information from the tracker he had p
lace in the clone’s palm the moment she was hired. She hadn’t known he had inserted it. He had done it when he shook her hand, using technology that didn’t show up on any of the regular scans.

  He wished he had been paranoid enough to install a video tracker, but he had thought—or rather, Gerda had thought—that their nanny needed her privacy in her off time.

  Of course, that had been too kind. Deshin should have tracked the clone the way he tracked anyone he didn’t entirely trust.

  Whenever the clone had been with Paavo, Deshin had always kept a screen open. He’d even set an alert in case the clone took Paavo out of the house without Gerda accompanying them. That alert had never activated, because Gerda had always been nearby when the clone was with Paavo.

  Deshin was grateful for that caution now. He had no idea what serious crisis they had dodged.

  He was now searching through all the other information in the tracker—where the clone had gone during her days off, where she had spent her free time. He knew that Koos had been, in theory, making sure she had no unsavory contacts—or at least, Deshin had tasked Koos with doing that.

  Now, Deshin was double-checking his head of security, making certain that he had actually done his job.

  The first thing Deshin had done was make certain that the clone hadn’t gone to the bad parts of town. According to the tracker, she hadn’t. Her apartment was exactly where she had claimed it was, and as far as he could tell, all she had done in her off hours was shop for her own groceries, eaten at a local restaurant, and gone home.

  He had already sent a message to one of the investigative services he used. He wanted them to search the clone’s apartment. He wanted video and DNA and all kinds of trace. He wanted an investigation of her finances and a look at the things she kept.

  He also didn’t want anyone from Deshin Enterprises associated with that search. He knew that his investigative service would keep him out of it. They had done so before.

  He had hired them to search before he had known she was a clone. He had hired them while he was waiting for his attorney to look at the footage he had give that detective.

  With luck, they’d be done with the search by now.

  But he had decided to check the tracker himself, looking for anomalies.