The Big Sheep

by Robert Kroese

  “Fuck off,” growled Carlos, drawing his gun. “I don’t work for you.”

  I was having second thoughts about Carlos being a decent guy. There were now close to a hundred civilians in the immediate vicinity, and he was escalating the situation. Once again I found myself nostalgic for Roy, whom I still thought of as All-Grown-Up Noogus. Priya continued to walk away from us, the assembled gawkers parting in front of her like the Red Sea.

  “That’s right, Carlos,” I said. “You don’t work for me. In fact, you don’t work for Priya Mistry, either, do you? If I’m not mistaken, Selah Fiore signs your checks.”

  “What’s your point?” demanded Carlos. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “My name is Blake Fowler. I’m a private investigator. I work for Erasmus Keane.”

  “Who?” Carlos grunted.

  So much for name-dropping. I pressed on. “I’m looking into a threat against Priya. I have nothing against you, Carlos, but I have some reason to believe that Selah Fiore can’t be trusted. Until I know more, I can’t let you take Priya.”

  Carlos laughed and shook his head. “Whatever, man,” he said. He must have decided I wasn’t much of a threat, because he holstered his gun and turned to follow Priya.

  “Carlos,” I said. But he just kept walking. I sighed. Why did guys like Carlos always want to do things the hard way?

  I drew my gun and took aim. A few of the bystanders screamed, but not in time to warn Carlos. I squeezed the trigger, and a flurry of turf erupted between his feet. Carlos fell to the ground, clutching his right foot. “God damn you!” he snarled. “You shot me!”

  “I grazed your foot, you big pussy,” I said. “Next one is going to hurt a lot more.” I saw him reaching for his gun. “Bad idea, Carlos. I’m pretty sure I can shoot that gun right out of your hand, but it’s not my wrist that’s going to shatter if I’m a couple inches off.”

  Carlos raised his hand and swiveled on the ground to face me. The crowd was getting hysterical, so I reached into my back pocket and flipped open my wallet to reveal my badge. “Official business,” I announced. “Please leave the area.” This had the desired effect: it deescalated the mood and prompted most of the crowd to disperse. It’s funny what a plastic badge and a meaningless phrase can do. The authority of the police is another mass delusion that can be useful at times. I hadn’t even needed to claim I was a cop; all it took was a couple of simple cues to invoke the delusion.

  “What the fuck do you want?” demanded Carlos.

  That was actually an excellent question. What did I want? Ideally, I’d convince Priya to come with me so I could bring her to Keane, and we could sort this all out. But Priya was currently hunched over on the lawn about twenty yards past Carlos, her hands over her ears, shaking with fear. I didn’t get the impression it would be particularly easy to get her to cooperate with my plan. She didn’t know whom to trust, and I could sympathize. I didn’t know whom to trust either.

  “Call your boss,” I said at last.

  “Huh?” said Carlos, looking up from his bloody shoe.

  “Call Selah Fiore,” I said. There was a time for sneaking around, gathering clues, and piecing together puzzles, and there was a time for laying your cards on the table and demanding to know what the fuck was going on. In my estimation, we were well into the latter phase. I’d abandoned subtlety when I shot Carlos in the foot.

  “I can’t just c-call Selah Fiore,” Carlos stammered. “I don’t have a direct—”

  I took a few steps toward him. “Call your boss,” I said. “Call Flagship. Call whoever you want. Tell them whatever you like. But you get one call, and at the end of that call, either I’m going to be talking to Selah Fiore or you’re going to be picking a lot of little pieces of your kneecap out of the grass.”

  Thirty seconds later he had Selah Fiore on his comm. He tossed the call to me.

  “Mr. Fowler,” she said. “You have my attention.”

  “We need to talk,” I said. “About Priya Mistry.”

  “Yes, I understand you’ve interrupted Priya’s day off.”

  “Funny thing about that,” I said. “I ran into Priya here at the park, and she didn’t recognize me.”

  “Priya is under a lot of stress,” Selah said. “Please leave her alone. Let Carlos do his job.”

  “Stress can do some crazy things to a person, I guess. Maybe I’ll take her back to the office so Keane and I can debrief her.”

  Selah was silent for a moment. “Perhaps we should talk about this in person. Come to the Flagship lot at five p.m. Make sure Mr. Keane is with you.”

  “I’ll bring Priya as well,” I said.

  “No,” replied Selah curtly. “You will let Carlos take Priya home. Her mental state is not going to be helped by being dragged into this. You have my word she is in no danger.”

  “Your word,” I said. “And what is that worth, exactly?”

  “Whether you trust me is of no consequence, Mr. Fowler. Let her go, or we have nothing to talk about.”

  I considered the matter. Priya was still cowering alone on the grass, clearly terrified. I may have had a chance to get her to trust me, but I was pretty sure I’d blown that when I’d shot Carlos. I got the impression that the bodyguards—Carlos, Jamie, and Roy—were out of the loop regarding the great Priya Mistry conspiracy. Whatever was going on here, I was willing to bet they had been intentionally kept in the dark by Selah.

  “Fine,” I said. “Keane and I will be there at five.” I ended the call.

  Carlos had taken off his shoe and sock and had hobbled over to Priya. He was doing his best to console her. There was a fair amount of blood on the sock, which he had left strewn on the grass next to the ruined shoe, but the wound seemed to be superficial. That was good; I hadn’t intended to cripple the guy just for doing his job.

  “Carlos,” I said. I had lowered my gun, but was still holding it at my side in case he got any ideas. “This is your lucky day. Take Priya and get out of here.”

  He didn’t argue. He helped Priya to her feet, and they began to walk away, Carlos leaning slightly on Priya as he favored his right foot.

  “Hey, Carlos,” I said. He turned and looked at me. “Take good care of her.”

  He grunted and kept walking. Priya didn’t even look back.

  While I was trying to imagine what might be going on in her head, my comm chirped. It was Keane.

  “Fowler,” he said. “What’s going on? Did you find the sheep?”

  “Not exactly,” I said.

  “You said the GPS tracker was in Griffith Park.”

  “It was. Priya Mistry had it in her purse.”

  “Priya Mistry? What the hell was she doing in the park?”

  “No idea,” I said. “She didn’t recognize me. Again.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “Yeah, fascinating,” I said. “I had to make a few executive decisions in your absence.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’ll pick you up in twenty minutes,” I said. “We’re going to meet Selah Fiore.”

  FIFTEEN

  “You’re certain it was Priya Mistry?” Keane asked on the way to the Flagship Media lot.

  “It sure as hell looked like her,” I replied. “But she had no idea who I was. Just like when we met her at the Palomar. I’d say she’s got some serious memory-retention issues, but that doesn’t explain how she was on a set in Culver City ten minutes after she disappeared from the DiZzy Girl set. None of this makes any sense, Keane.”

  “You have a hypothesis, though,” said Keane.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Sure you do. The fact that you brought up the two key problems with Priya—her inconsistent memories and her ability to seemingly be in two places at the same time—indicates you’ve devised a way to resolve both of them. So what is it?”

  I sighed. The fact was, I did have an idea, but it was crazy. I mean, seriously crazy. The kind of crazy that made a giant bioengineered sheep running loose in Los Angeles seem
downright mundane. “I had a thought,” I said, “but it’s pretty ridiculous.”

  “Out with it,” said Keane.

  I had no doubt Keane would ridicule me for my idea mercilessly, but he clearly wasn’t going to let me off the hook until I told him. “Okay,” I said. “Well, I was thinking: if Hugo Díaz had a doppelganger, then maybe Priya Mistry does too. Maybe there are two of them.”

  “Two Priya Mistrys,” said Keane.

  “Well, yes.”

  “Why not three?” asked Keane.

  “Hey, you asked,” I said. “That was my idea. Make fun of me all you want.”

  “I’m serious,” said Keane. “Wouldn’t three make more sense? Otherwise, you still have to account for the fact that she didn’t recognize you at the park, either.”

  “Um,” I said, unsure if Keane really was considering the possibility or merely pointing out the idea’s absurdity. “Sure, I suppose there could be three.”

  “Or more,” said Keane. “Others we haven’t met yet.”

  “Jesus, you really are serious,” I said, turning to face him. “You think there are a bunch of Priya clones running around Los Angeles.”

  “I didn’t say that,” said Keane. “But the simplest explanation for what we’ve experienced is that there are multiple instances of a Priya-like entity in the area.”

  “Occam’s razor,” I said.

  “That’s right,” said Keane. “It sounds crazy, but it’s less crazy than any other explanation I’ve come up with.”

  “But then…,” I started.

  “Yes?”

  “Well, by that logic, our two cases are connected. If there are multiple Hugo Díazes and multiple Priya Mistrys, then it makes sense to conclude that both phenomena have the same explanation. Not to mention the fact that somehow Priya ended up with the sheep tracker.”

  Keane smiled. “Very good, Fowler. I’ll make a detective out of you yet.”

  “Not a phenomenological inquisitor?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “But what does it mean, Keane? What the hell is going on in this city?”

  “That’s what we’re going to find out.”

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure whether to feel reassured that Keane shared my suspicions or worried I was starting to think like him. I was supposed to be Keane’s tether to reality. If I went nuts, there was nobody to pull me back from the edge.

  At five o’clock we were sitting across from Selah Fiore in her office on the main Flagship Media lot. We were seven floors up, overlooking the bustling activity of Selah’s sprawling media empire.

  “Gentlemen,” said Selah. “What can I do for you?”

  “You asked us here so we could talk in person,” I said. “So talk.”

  She smiled at me. “About anything in particular, dear?”

  “Priya Mistry,” I said impatiently.

  “What would you like to know?”

  “I’d like to know why the woman I met at the park today looked exactly like Priya Mistry but seemed to have no memory of ever meeting me.” Keeping Keane’s advice in mind, I didn’t mention meeting Priya at the Palomar.

  “As I mentioned, Priya is under a lot of pressure,” said Selah. “She has occasional lapses.”

  Keane regarded her curiously, but said nothing.

  “Are we really going to play this game?” I demanded. “You’re really going to pretend nothing screwy is going on with Priya Mistry?”

  “I’m not sure what you mean,” said Selah. “There was an explosion on the set. Priya needed to take a few days off. You ran into her at the park while she was trying to relax. In fact, now that I think about it, she was probably just pretending not to know you because she wasn’t up to dealing with your dramatics. Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of them myself.”

  Keane leaned forward and put his palms on Selah’s desk. “What do you want?” he asked.

  “I told you what I want,” Selah said.

  “The sheep again,” I groaned. “Forget it. We’re not getting your damned sheep. On the phone you indicated you were going to level with us about Priya.”

  “I did no such thing,” Selah snapped. “I promised Priya would be kept safe, and I offered to meet with you to talk in person. I’ve done both.”

  I shook my head. I should have seen this coming. “Offering to meet us was a stall tactic,” I said. “She just needed some time to cover her tracks, hide Priya, cover up what’s really going on. Well, it’s not going to work. We know the truth: there are two Priya Mistrys. At least.” Maybe it was a mistake to reveal so much, but Selah was pissing me off. I wanted to rattle her a little.

  Selah laughed. “Ridiculous,” she said. “Two Priyas? And even if it were true, so what? Are you going to turn me in to the doppelganger police?”

  “Priya Mistry hired us to investigate a potential threat on her life,” I said. “We know you’re hiding information about her. That makes you our prime suspect.”

  Selah sighed. “Again with the dramatics. There is no threat against Priya Mistry. And I’ll share one other fact with you: Priya Mistry never hired you.”

  I snorted. What the hell was she talking about?

  “I have a signed contract that indicates otherwise,” said Keane.

  “That contract is a fiction,” said Selah. “Completely unenforceable.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually,” said Selah. “I could clear everything up for you right now, of course, but I would need something in return.”

  “The sheep,” I said.

  Selah smiled. “The sheep,” she said.

  I was about to tell her what she could do with her sheep when Keane spoke up. “All right,” he said. “We’ll do it.”

  “You will?” Selah asked.

  “We will?” I asked.

  “Sure,” said Keane. “We’ll get your sheep for you, on the condition you’ll tell us everything we want to know about Priya Mistry.”

  I shot Keane a puzzled glance but said nothing. If he wanted to double-cross a guy who had the power to destroy him, that was up to him.

  “Excellent,” said Selah.

  “Great,” I exclaimed. “Now tell us what the hell is going on with Priya.”

  “It might be easier,” said Selah, “if I showed you.” She spoke into her comm. “Camille, patch my office display into the feed from Building G. Give me the waiting room first.”

  A few seconds later the window overlooking the lot darkened, and the wall opposite lit up with a high-resolution display. We were looking down from a high angle at a large room in which sat several dozen people who covered the gamut in race and seemed to range from about twenty-five to sixty in age. Most were male, but there were a few women. They seemed to have little in common, although in general they were exceptionally fit and good-looking.

  “We’re auditioning for a part in a new drama,” said Selah. “These are the actors who have tried out. Mostly unknowns, looking for their big break. These are the second-round auditions; we’ve already eliminated close to three hundred candidates.”

  “What’s the role?” asked Keane.

  “DZ warlord,” said Selah.

  “Like Mag-Lev,” I said.

  “Yes,” said Selah. “The role is partly modeled after him.”

  “Quite a range of candidates,” I said, regarding the motley group.

  “For this role, we wanted to cast a wide net,” said Selah. “Sometimes it’s easier to find the right person and modify the script around them than to try to find someone who perfectly fits a predefined role.”

  “What does this have to do with Priya Mistry?” I asked.

  “Patience, Mr. Fowler,” said Selah. She spoke into her comm. “Give me the audition room, Camille.”

  The view switched to that of a smaller room, in which two women and a man sitting at a table were watching an obviously nervous young man reading from a script.

  “That guy as a DZ warlord?�
� I said. “I don’t see it.”

  Selah nodded. “I agree, although we might find a place for him if he tests well enough.”

  “Tests?” asked Keane. “What sort of test are you talking about?”

  “Excellent question,” said Selah. She spoke into her comm again. “Camille, give me the testing room.”

  A moment later the view switched to another room. Two men sat across a table from each other. One man—obviously an actor—was tanned and muscular, with chiseled features and short-cropped blond hair. The other was older and pasty-faced, and wore a suit and tie. On the table between them was a small silver box from which protruded an articulated robotic arm. At the end of the arm was some sort of sensor that was tracking the actor’s movements. The man in the suit was staring at an amplified view of the other man’s face on a screen in front of him. Superimposed on the man’s face, not quite large enough to be visible on the display on Selah’s wall, was a variety of multicolored textual readouts.

  “You’re standing below a tree,” the man in the suit was saying to the actor. “In the tree above you is a large feral cat. The cat is—”

  “Feral?” asked the man. “What’s that?”

  “Wild,” replied the man in the suit, obviously bored. “A wild cat.”

  “Got it,” said the actor.

  “The cat is stuck in the tree, and is obviously terrified. There is a ladder nearby. You could easily move the ladder under the tree and rescue the cat, but as you’re thinking about this, you notice the cat has very long sharp claws. In its frightened state, it might very well scratch you if you try to rescue it. What do you do?”

  “Does it have, like, rabies?” asked the actor.

  “Not that you know of,” said the suited man, in a monotone.

  “I’d rescue the cat,” said the actor. “But I’d keep him away from my face.” He grinned, showing off perfectly aligned rows of unnaturally white teeth bracketed by a set of ridiculous dimples.

  The suited man sighed and tapped a few keys.

  “We call it the Feinberg-Webb test,” said Selah. “We conduct it on all promising candidates as part of the casting process for any of Flagship’s programs. It consists of a series of questions designed to provoke an emotional response. The answers the subject provides are secondary to their involuntary physical reaction to the questions. Quickened breathing, blushing, changes in the timbre of the voice, dilation of the iris, et cetera.”