by Sims (lit)
As they stormed into the dimly lit, high-ceilinged lobby he found the reception desk empty; the entire population was two gray-haired ladies and an aging security guard clustered before a TV monitor fixed on a wall. He hurried over to grab the guard but stopped dead when he saw what they were watching.
Four humans operating on a pregnant sim.
The guard turned, saw them, and stumbled backward, reaching for his two-way.
Luca reached out and grabbed his arm. “FBI!” He shouted and pointed to the monitor. “Take us to that operating room!”
“W-wait,” the guard said. “You can’t just come in here and—”
Luca squeezed his arm. Hard.“Now!” He shoved him toward a hallway.“Move!”
As the cowed guard led them toward a bank of elevators, Luca turned to Stritch and pointed toward the old ladies. “You stay here. Keep them away from the phones.”
Behind his visor Luca repressed a sigh of relief. No need to worry about covering the exits. The baby hadn’t been born yet. No one would be going anywhere until that happened.
26
“She is gone,” Madhuri said, her voice an octave lower than usual.
“No!” Betsy cried. To Romy’s horror, she’d had to watch while Betsy cracked open Meerm’s chest and manually compressed her heart. She was still at it, working like a mad woman. “We’ve still got a chance!”
“Betsy, she is dead.”
Romy looked at the anesthetist’s black eyes and noticed they were rimmed with tears. Joanna’s too. Romy knew they mirrored her own. They all knew that Meerm wasn’t coming back.
She reached across and gently gripped Betsy’s forearms. “She’s right, Betsy. Meerm’s gone. You did your best but—”
“I should have brought her in sooner!” Betsy wailed. She leaned forward over Meerm’s inert heart, and sobbed. “But I was worried about the baby! Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
“You did all you could,” Romy said, touching the back of her sweat-soaked scrubs. “But she—”
Zero burst through the OR doors. “We have to go! SIRG just stormed into the lobby, armed to the teeth!”
“Who’s SIRG?” Joanna said, gaping at Zero’s mask. “And who the hell are you?”
“A friend,” Betsy said, ripping off her bloody gloves. She’d regained some of her composure but seemed exhausted.
“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.
27
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 atme?
Now more than ever he wanted that baby.
28
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 mustnot 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.”
29
“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.
30
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’dshown 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’snot over! I’ll fight this! Stonewall any questions, deny any and all allegations. Sims aremy 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.
31
FAR HILLS, NJ
Ellis stared at the screen, fascinated, shouting, “They’ve done it! They’vedone 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. Alot 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.
“Zero, no!” Romy cried.
Her voice seemed to pull him back. He turned away and leaned a hand against the wall.
“Monster!” The word came out half growl, half sob. “How could you?”
“I didn’t. At least not knowingly.”
“Can someone tell me what this is all about?” Romy said.
“Yes,” Ellis replied. “I suppose it’s time I told someone. Let’s all sit down and I’ll try to explain.”
He led them to the two-story cherrywood library that housed the book collection that had once been a pride, but had long ago stopped meaning anything. Romy and Patrick took a couch. Zero dropped into a wingback leather chair and stared at the floor; the pale morning light through the tall windows washed out what little color was left in his face. Ellis remained standing. This was going to be too painful to tell sitting down. He needed to be up, moving about to release the tension coiled like an overwound spring in his chest.
He wished Zero were alone, but Zero might wind up telling Romy and Patrick anyway, so it was better they all heard it firsthand.
“I’ve lied to you, Zero. Lied to you from the day you were old enough to understand. You’re not a mutant sim. You’re the very first viable sim. We designated you ‘Sim Zero.’ Your cells provided the source material that was modified and remodified into the creatures we now call sims. All sims are your descendants, Zero. You are the sim Adam.”
Ellis heard Romy gasp, heard Patrick mutter, “Oh, man!” But he was watching Zero.
Zero looked up, fixed him a moment with his yellow irises, then looked away again. “And who ismy Adam?”
“That’s a longer, more complicated story. ButI was lied to long before you were, Zero. To see the whole picture, we have to go back to the early days when my brother and I were plowing all our capital and everything we could borrow into germline engineering a commercially useful chimp-human hybrid. We weren’t looking to create a labor force then. We had other uses in mind—antibodies and xenografts were high on our list. We could see success down the road but we needed more funding. To get it, we made a deal with the Devil.
