The Eden Experiment

by Sean Platt

  CHAPTER 36

  ON THE MONITOR

  “Just another few minutes, I’m sure,” Fiona’s lawyer said before vanishing back the way she’d come, into a room whose purpose Ephraim didn’t know.

  She’d done so roughly every five minutes for the past half hour — popping out from where the team of lawyers had gone after depositing Ephraim, then disappearing again like a retreating prairie dog.

  It was probably meant to make him feel like he hadn’t been forgotten, that time wasn’t passing slowly, like molasses in winter. But the appearance didn’t make Ephraim feel attended to. It reminded him that he was being watched, and probably in need of many powerful lawyers.

  He sat in Fiona’s foyer, happy at least to be out of GEM custody. Only Ephraim didn’t think of the room as a foyer; he’d come to think of it as something grander and more intimidating. Fiona’s anteroom. The room’s splendor fit the part. Officially, Riverbed was a durable medical supply company, but in reality, its influence spanned much, much farther. Everyone knew Riverbed. And just how much power it wielded.

  From the first time Ephraim had come here, he’d been intimidated. Now was no different. Sure, Fiona’s lawyers had saved Ephraim from Wood. But was being under Fiona’s thumb any better?

  She’s your sponsor. Your benefactor. She got you to Eden, falsified your identity, and ultimately pulled you out of danger, from your little lifeboat, after the island was in flames and you had nowhere to go.

  A competing voice said, SHE benefited. And only rescued you so that she could benefit again. You’re here now because she wants to use you.

  Ephraim looked around the room with all its architectural nuances, with its columns that weren’t (he thought) strictly necessary. The woman who’d built all of this couldn’t even move. What did that say about Ephraim? How helpless should he feel, waiting for two dogs to determine which would earn the privilege of ripping him apart?

  He heard the click-clack of high-heels. Maria entered, hands primly crossed at the waist of her gray suit. The outfit befitted Maria’s role at Riverbed, her esteemed position at its CEO’s side. The suit was attractive and fit her well, the skirt’s length expertly balanced between professional and casually feminine. It drew attention only when attention was paid — very powerful but meant to blend into the background, like Maria herself.

  “Mr. Todd? Fiona will see you now.”

  Ephraim stood, resisting an urge to ask if he was in trouble. Somehow, the news — good or bad — would sting less from Maria. She could say Fiona will solve all your problems or You’re about to be beheaded with equal impact. Either answer was better than not knowing.

  He walked toward Maria. She turned, and he moved up to walk alongside her.

  “I’m so sorry about the wait,” Maria said. “Fiona was on a call with GEM on your behalf. I understand you were actually in with Director Wood when our people arrived?”

  She was watching him as they walked. Soft eyes, waiting without guile for his response.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “The Director wasn’t pleased that we took you off his hands. Fiona was trying to soothe some nerves while you were waiting.”

  “Wood’s nerves?”

  “Yes. He was feeling usurped.”

  Probably because he was being usurped, Ephraim thought.

  Ephraim didn’t reply, and Maria said no more until they were at Fiona’s office. The silence on his feet gave him space to think. He had no idea what had happened — why he’d entered his place with a clone and left a kidnapper. He didn’t trust himself. Either someone was playing him, or he was going out of his fucking mind.

  Someone is screwing with me, he told himself, trying to believe it. Between paranoid and crazy, he’d take paranoid every time.

  “Can I get you anything?” Maria asked as she opened the door.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Coffee? Water?”

  “No thank you.”

  “A knife to slit Fiona’s throat?”

  Ephraim blinked hard. He stared at Maria. Fiona was right there, not ten feet away.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘Something to snack on’?” Her smile was placid. Fiona’s expression was neutral, giving no indication she’d heard anything amiss.

  Or maybe you’re just crazy after all.

  “N-no,” he stammered.

  “Just let me know.” Maria touched his arm, then moved to sit. She didn’t need more tending. Only Ephraim might need something from Maria. Like a weapon.

  Keep it together.

  Despite the mental warning, Ephraim’s eyes went to Fiona’s throat. It would be simple to kill her. Even if there was a weapon somewhere in the room that Maria could use against him in Fiona’s defense, he was reasonably sure he could take them both. Maria was small, and Fiona was paralyzed.

  Is it evil to kill a woman in a wheelchair?

  And the answer came, resurfacing the old doubt about Jonathan he’d never quite shoved down: Not if she’s responsible for your brother’s murder.

  “Are you feeling okay?” Fiona asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  Was he sweating? He felt lightheaded, like gravity had lost its faculties.

  “You look ill.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Seriously, Ephraim. You look like shit.”

  He’d declined twice. It was time to tell the truth if she was determined to be so fucking insistent.

  “Well, that’s probably because Hershel Wood just told me everyone on the planet’s decided that I’m to blame for everything.”

  “Everything at Eden?” She looked to Maria as if for confirmation, but the glance pissed Ephraim off. Hadn’t she just been talking to Wood? She knew all of this. Playing dumb was insulting.

  “For starters. But goddamn if I don’t feel like I’m being blamed for everything. The motherfucking Holocaust?” Ephraim raised his hand halfway. “Guilty.”

  “I talked to Hershel. It’s settled.”

  “It’s not settled.”

  “It’s settled, Ephraim. Hershel is an elected public figure. He has to show results or he’ll get strung up himself. He’s scapegoating you, for now, to save his ass in the public eye, but the evidence against you isn’t as certain as he’s making it sound. And even if it is, my lawyers are the best in—”

  “Who do your lawyers work for?”

  Fiona’s eyes flickered toward Maria. After a moment, she said, “For me, obviously.”

  Ephraim gave a little shrug that said: Well, there’s the problem.

  Again, Fiona looked at Maria. Clearly, this wasn’t going as expected.

  “Hershel has an agenda,” Fiona continued. “I thought my heavy contributions to his campaigns would remind him of his proper loyalties, but apparently that’s not the case. He’s telling me one thing while plotting something else. He’s probably telling the truth overall. A case is building against you and that without contrary evidence, you’re in a heap of trouble. But there’s more to it. I assume he angled for ‘further proof’ with you, the way he did with me just now on the phone?”

  “He did.”

  “I think the proof he wants is something at Riverbed. He wants to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.”

  “Hmm.” Yes, that was accurate. And Ephraim was undecided whether he’d help Wood get what he needed.

  “We can’t let that happen. We can’t let him get anything from Riverbed.”

  “I see. Why?”

  “Because I think he might be working for Eden.”

  That stopped Ephraim. It was just enough of a cold slap that for a few seconds, it made the threat of insanity retreat. It was a pleasant respite. For a minute, he stopped feeling like the ground wouldn’t hold him. He no longer wondered whether his thoughts belonged to him, or if he was already locked in a padded room, imagining this scene as delusion. All that mattered at the moment was Fiona, and Wood, and Fiona’s idea that Wood was working for Ephraim’s Secret Enemy
Number Three: the elusive Neven at Eden.

  “You think Director Wood is working for Eden?”

  “It’s possible. When Hershel was interrogating you, did he ask anything about me? About getting information from Riverbed?”

  Lying felt safest. And the most comfortable lie was one of omission. Fiona already knew what he was about to say, and he didn’t want to say more. Not while wondering whose side she was on, and with whom he should ally himself.

  “He wants the MyLife. The one you took from me.”

  “Nothing else?”

  “Nothing else.”

  “He didn’t try to make a deal with you, to work against me?”

  “No.”

  She seemed momentarily unsure, and then the doubt left her face.

  “This,” she said, “is why it’s so important that you get him into a position where you can use the Quarry. He wants something from us, so we need to figure out what he knows. We need to get to him before he can get to us. Do you see what I mean?”

  Everything except for the part where you say “us.”

  Ephraim nodded. Hesitantly. Still thinking about what he’d imagined Maria saying about Fiona’s throat.

  “Hershel can’t arrest you, you understand. He’ll huff and puff, and he might even try to detain you again. I doubt it, though; we put a good scare in him. He’s not allowed to cuff you like that. Cops can; GEM can’t. I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again now that he knows my lawyers are watching, but he’ll try and intimidate you into saying something. You need to be firm. Hold yourself. Be cool. You get me?” She blinked. “Ephraim? What’s the matter?”

  Ephraim’s eyes had strayed to the monitor behind Fiona’s desk — a monitor that she couldn’t turn to see as his eyes became saucers.

  Maria looked at the monitor.

  She scrambled forward to her place beside Fiona, simultaneously blocking the screen and creating a wall of protection. Maybe Ephraim’s razor-thin decision not to leap across the table and throttle Fiona’s traitorous neck wasn’t as invisible as he’d thought.

  “What?” Fiona asked. “What is it?”

  Maria shuffled, staying calm as Ephraim’s blood throbbed in his temples. “Mr. Todd? Mr. Todd, please just sit down. I can explain. Fiona was getting to this. The timing is just unfortunate.”

  Fiona rolled her eyes up at the caregiver. “Goddammit, Maria, turn me around or tell me what the fuck is going on!”

  Maria looked at Ephraim, then turned Fiona’s chair toward the monitor.

  It showed the anteroom, a shift-change taking place. One receptionist came in to relieve the other.

  The new receptionist was full-figured, pretty, with jet black hair.

  Ephraim hadn’t seen her since this morning.

  Since she’d left his bedroom crying, accusing him of kidnapping and rape.

  “Victoria,” he said.

  CHAPTER 37

  PULLING BACK THE CURTAIN

  There were two men in the room. Well-dressed and well-mannered men, but also big. One stood by each side of Ephraim’s chair, the entire party opposite Fiona’s desk. To an outside observer, the men might look like Ephraim’s escorts, but he knew them for what they actually were: Guards. Not for him, but to protect Fiona from him.

  She was behind her desk with Maria beside her. The black-haired receptionist, Victoria, stood on Fiona’s other side. A perfect mirror. Three women facing the trio of men across the desk.

  Victoria didn’t say that she was only following orders.

  She didn’t say anything that might, in any universe, be construed as an explanation. Accusing people of abduction wasn’t in most receptionists’ job descriptions, but Victoria sure didn’t seem to think doing so was odd. Who knew what else Fiona asked of her?

  Ephraim’s body kept telling him to shout. But he knew if he did, he’d stand — and if he stood between these two big guards, he’d be knocked back down. Because Fiona was fragile, and all were here to protect the queen.

  Ephraim said nothing as his accuser finished her not-really-an-apology and walked back out to her reception desk. He said nothing as Maria told him Riverbed’s story: how sneaking Victoria in through his apartment window to pretend he’d locked her up was a necessary deception, because Wood had been waiting outside.

  “The police were already on their way,” Maria told him. “No matter what, you were going to have to face them. It was a temporary ruse. We’d always planned to tell you.”

  Controlling his temper, Ephraim asked the obvious question. “I understood why you broke in while I was sleeping to take the clone. But why put Victoria in her place?”

  “We couldn’t have the cops barging in to find your bedroom empty.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you were asleep. You didn’t know we’d taken her. It was a split-second decision. When they forced their way in, we knew you’d insist that you had a clone, putting another woman there instead was the least of evils. Wood can’t pursue Eden if he thinks you’re crazy. It’s better if he thinks you’re a lying criminal instead.”

  That didn’t sound right to Ephraim. For one, if Fiona wanted Wood to believe Ephraim’s story and pursue action against Eden, she should release the MyLife and all its damning evidence. And for two, how was being a rapist better than being insane?

  Well, the joke’s on you, Maria, he thought, because I’m pretty sure I’m crazy anyway. Nuttier than a squirrel turd. Too many bats in my belfry. The lights are on, but no one’s home.

  “Ephraim? Do you understand?” Fiona said. “We’re sorry. I’m sorry. But this was necessary because you’re a terrible liar. If you’d known you’d wake to find your Sophie clone gone with or without Victoria in her place, Hershel would’ve taken one look at you and known it was a ruse. He knows you and I are in this together. GEM has been all over Riverbed, sniffing around. If you’d reacted as you definitely would have if we’d kept you in the loop, he’d have come right for me. It’d be a short leap, and this time it’d stick.”

  Ephraim’s control snapped like a twig. Fiona wanted to cut the connection between Riverbed and Ephraim? Then why had she used her receptionist to play his accuser?

  He stood. Both men’s hands were immediately on him, holding him in place.

  “You used your goddamn secretary! You sent the most visible fucking person here over to my place!”

  “Calm down, Ephraim.”

  “It doesn’t make any goddamn sense, Fiona! For once, tell me the fucking truth!”

  “I am telling you the truth. Maybe Wood didn’t tell you Victoria’s story, but according to what she told them, you went after her because you saw her here and liked her. She even told GEM that you seemed confused, that you kept asking her if she was Sophie Norris.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Look. I’m sorry. Maybe we could have included you. But we didn’t have time to think; this all happened way too fast. It was all necessary for the greater good.”

  Ephraim shook free of the men, who immediately grabbed him again — harder this time. “‘The greater good’? You mean for your good!”

  “This isn’t about me. It’s not even about protecting Riverbed.”

  “BULL FUCKING SHIT.”

  “It’s about protecting the whole,” Fiona persisted, uncharacteristically flustered, talking fast. “You’re not seeing the whole picture. When you messaged me that you’d found what you were searching for, I assumed you meant the clone you’d ordered against my advice. If you recall, I had concerns about how easy it was for you to find a dealer — like the whole thing was a setup.”

  Ephraim tried to interrupt. If Fiona had bodily control, she’d have raised a hand to forestall him. She managed to do the same with her face and a slight rise in her voice.

  “I assumed the clone, if you’d gotten one, would be tracked. Maybe it had a hacked MyLife, and Eden would be watching you through it. Or maybe there was another monitoring system. I had to see so I could know for sure, but Hershel g
ot to you first. I heard about your little chase through traffic. It’s not like we could just go up to your apartment and meet. He’d be watching. I had to send people to extract the clone, let him find you empty handed, and decide you were full of shit. He has to think that you’re wrong about all of this in some way, Ephraim — lying, hiding something, pulling a scam, something. Anything but ‘in possession of a clone.’”

  “The clone clears me! It proves to GEM that my story is true, and maybe I’m not the Eden saboteur everyone’s looking for!”

  “Settle down.” Fiona’s pacifying tone did nothing to soothe him. “Try to understand. I know you’re angry. I would be, too. But slow down for a second and think. Ask yourself what would happen if you gave the clone to Wood?” Then she answered her own question. “He’d have cut it apart. Studied it.”

  “There were cops as witnesses. He couldn’t just—”

  “And would the cops have stuck with him once you were taken in? No. Your Sophie Norris clone would have been a witness at first, maybe even some sort of suspect. But that’d only have gone on until GEM tests identified her as a genuine, unauthorized, highly illegal clone of a living person. At that point, she’d have stopped being a witness and started being genetic evidence — evidence that’s very much under the domain and administration of genetic machines. Once she was declared evidence, GEM could treat her like a hunk of meat if they wanted, just one more machine to study.”

  Ephraim wanted to be furious, but what Fiona was saying sounded true. Ephraim doubted that she cared about the clone’s welfare, but her logic was sound. Once the Sophie clone’s identity was confirmed, she’d be Wood’s to do with as he pleased. He wouldn’t need to explain, justify, or report to anyone.

  Calmer, but still agitated, Ephraim said, “Where is she? Where is the clone?”

  “We have her.”

  “I know you fucking have her! I asked where!”

  “At another site. She’s fine.”

  “What site?’

  “A facility.”

  “You don’t have any other facilities in the city.”

  “It’s not a Riverbed facility. Hershel would arrive with a warrant. A slim chance, but possible.”