The Big Sheep

by Robert Kroese

  “Sometimes I’m not sure,” Priya murmured. The gun was still in her hand, but she seemed to be losing awareness of her surroundings. “What did you do to me … at that place?”

  “You underwent a procedure,” said Licorice. “We copied your memories for the clones. You experienced some memory loss as a result. Nothing serious, but some of your recent memories may seem a little fuzzy. It will pass, with proper care. I can help you, Priya, but not if you give in to these delusions about being a clone. Not if you insist on running around with people like Erasmus Keane, playing private investigator.”

  Priya nodded slowly. She began to lower the gun.

  “Priya,” I said. “Don’t do this. You know what he did to you. To the others like you.”

  “There are no others like you,” said Licorice. “I promise you that, Priya. You’re one in a billion.”

  That was when she shot him.

  Her aim was a bit off, so the bullet just grazed the side of his head. He staggered forward and then spun around, swinging his gun in Priya’s direction. I shot him twice in the back and then turned my attention to Braden, who had gotten his hands on the .357. At that point the whole room seemed to erupt in gunfire. Braden fired at me three times, waving the gun wildly in my direction and missing me completely. I put two rounds in his chest, and with a sigh, he collapsed on the carpet. The other two actors remained prone, frozen in fear. I turned my attention to the other side of the room.

  The man who’d been guarding Roy was lying in a heap near the front door. Licorice was lying facedown near the kitchen. Next to him, Roy was bending over Priya. Keane remained standing, unscathed, in the center of the room.

  I ran to Priya and crouched down next to Roy. He was cradling her in his arms. A bloodstain grew on her blouse. Licorice must have gotten a shot off before he died.

  “Priya, stay with me!” Roy cried. “Somebody, call an ambulance!”

  But I could see already there was no point. She’d been hit in the heart.

  “I don’t … want to do this anymore,” she whispered, and then her head fell to the side. Priya Mistry was dead.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “Roy!” I yelled. “Pull yourself together. We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Keane, help me get the sheep into the Suburban.”

  “Pavel and I can do it,” said Keane. “You should go.”

  “Look,” I said. “You feel guilty for fucking this thing up, getting Peninsula killed. We can deal with that later. Right now—”

  “It’s not that,” said Keane. “You need to get back to the office.”

  “The office?” I asked. “Why?”

  “Selah’s people knew we were going to be here,” Keane said. “Somebody told them.”

  I hadn’t had time to process the situation, but now it became clear to me. “The other Priya,” I murmured. “Oh shit. April.” Selah’s people must have gone to the office and found April and Palomar there. Palomar had talked. And Selah’s people probably had April.

  I ran out the front door to the aircar.

  When I got there, the building was empty. There was no sign of a struggle, or that anyone had been there. But then, if Selah’s people had guns, there was no reason there would be. I called Keane and told him the situation.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m sending you coordinates. Meet us there as soon as you can.”

  “All right,” I said, and ended the call.

  The coordinates turned out to be a remote trailhead in the Hollywood Hills. When I got there, I saw Keane standing in the dark next to Pavel’s Suburban. I parked next to it and got out.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked. “We need to find April.”

  “You got any idea where they’re holding her?” asked Keane.

  I shook my head.

  “Neither do I,” said Keane. “We needed a place to let Mary walk around a bit. And bury Peninsula.”

  “You’re going to bury her here?” I asked.

  “Roy’s taking care of it,” he said. “Look, we couldn’t very well leave her at the house. We don’t need that kind of heat.” He had a point. Famous actresses turning up dead had a way of attracting a lot of the wrong kind of attention.

  “What did you tell the actors?” I asked.

  “I told them that if they didn’t mention the names Priya Mistry or Erasmus Keane to the police, they might get their cash and drugs back. I may have also mentioned that if they talked, Roy would come back and break their arms.”

  “Carrot and stick,” I said. “Let’s hope it works. So, where are Roy and Pavel now?”

  “This way,” he said, flicking on a small flashlight and starting toward the trail. I followed him.

  We walked about half a mile down the trail and then veered off into a shallow ravine. A few hundred yards later we came upon Roy and Pavel. Priya’s body was lying under a tarp, next to which Roy was using a small camp shovel to furiously dig a hole. Pavel stood nearby, feeding Mary the sheep dried apricots out of a plastic bag. Dried tears stained Roy’s face.

  “Has Roy said anything about the clones?” I asked Keane quietly.

  “He hasn’t said much of anything,” Keane replied.

  “Lucky for you,” I said. “He’s in too much shock to realize she’s dead because of you.”

  “The hell she is,” said Keane. “Your genius plan to retrieve the sheep didn’t account for Selah’s people showing up. If I hadn’t improvised, you and Roy would be dead too.”

  “We’d have been fine,” I said not very convincingly. I regarded Roy, who had managed to dig about eight inches into the rocky ground. “Should we tell him?”

  “Tell him what?” said Keane. “That the Priya he’s burying is just one of God knows how many, all of which are either also dead, locked up in a secret lab somewhere, or slowly going crazy?”

  “Hmm,” I replied. I had been thinking Roy had a right to know, but now I wasn’t sure if telling him would just make things worse. He was already pretty broken up, and we didn’t need him going to pieces on us. Besides which, Keane and I still didn’t fully understand what was going on, so telling Roy about the clones now was probably pointless. I was still pondering the matter when Keane’s comm chirped. He put it on speaker and answered.

  “Mr. Keane,” said a woman’s voice.

  “Selah,” said Keane.

  “I believe you have something of mine,” she said. “And I have something of yours.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Keane.

  “I think you do,” said Selah. “Say hello, dear.”

  April’s voice broke in: “I’m sorry, Fowler. I tried to get her out of there, but—”

  Her voice cut off.

  “I propose a trade,” said Selah. “April for the sheep.”

  “Why?” said Keane. “What possible use do you have for a three-hundred-pound genetically modified sheep?”

  “What use do you have for a one-hundred-and-forty-pound intellectual property lawyer?” Selah asked. “Life is full of little mysteries. Be at the La Brea Tar Pits at midnight. Bring the sheep. If you’re not there, you won’t see April again.”

  The line went dead.

  I checked the time. It was nearly eleven, and it could easily take us an hour to get the sheep back to Pavel’s Suburban and down to central Los Angeles.

  “We’d better get going,” I said.

  Keane stood for a moment, rubbing his chin and watching Mary chew apricots.

  “Keane,” I said. “This isn’t negotiable. We’re making the trade. It’s our fault April got tangled up in all this, and she’s more valuable than any sheep.” I tried not to think about the fact that the sheep had a human brain, which meant we’d essentially be handing Selah a young child. My only consolation was that the sheep wouldn’t live much longer anyway.

  He nodded. “Yeah, okay. Let’s go.”

  I told Pavel we were borrowing his car and asked him to stay with Roy. At the rate Roy was going, it was going to take most of t
he night for him to dig a reasonably sized grave. I told Pavel we’d try to be back in a couple of hours. He gave me the rest of the dried apricots, and I led Mary back up to the trail, Keane walking a few feet ahead with the flashlight. We had a hell of a time getting Mary back into the Suburban; evidently, Roy had practically lifted her into the rear of the vehicle last time, but this time we had to rely almost completely on the attractive power of dried apricots. She barely fit into the rear of the vehicle, and I got the impression she wasn’t looking forward to reliving the experience of riding in a cramped Suburban through the Hollywood hills. I wondered how much she understood about what was happening to her. Probably about as much as I did, which was to say: not much. By the time I’d gotten the tailgate closed, I was sweaty and exhausted, and we had a scant ten minutes to get to the La Brea Tar Pits.

  I drove as fast as I dared down the winding, hilly road, Mary the sheep bleating in terror the whole time. At midnight Keane’s comm chirped again. It was Selah sending the coordinates to a park not far from the tar pits. I pulled into the dark parking lot at 12:05 A.M. There were no other cars around. Keane and I got out and looked around, but there was no sign of Selah or her henchmen. His comm chirped again, and he showed me the display. It read:

  NORTHEAST SOCCER FIELD

  We opened the tailgate and coaxed Mary back out of the vehicle. It didn’t take much; I think she’d had enough of Pavel’s Suburban for a lifetime. I prayed this was the last stop for Mary, because I don’t think there was any way in hell we’d get her back in that car—especially since I was out of apricots.

  We led the sheep down a sidewalk in the general area of the soccer fields, as near as we could tell in the dim light. The moon was just a sliver, so the only appreciable light was the glow of the city on the horizon. Keane had his flashlight, but it didn’t help much under the circumstances. Mary seemed relieved to be back on her feet; she barely bleated as we made our way through the park. We crossed a long swathe of grass, heading toward what I took to be soccer goalposts in the distance, practically dragging Mary to keep her from lying down. She had to be exhausted. I knew the feeling.

  In the distance, headlights went on, aimed in our direction. They looked like they belonged to a pretty big truck. We headed that direction. When we were about fifty feet away, I heard a woman’s voice. I thought it was Selah’s, but I couldn’t see anything with the headlights in my eyes. “That’s far enough,” she said.

  “Where’s April?” I said.

  “Fowler?” I heard April say.

  “I’m here,” I said.

  Selah spoke again. “Back away from the sheep, and I’ll send April to you.”

  Keane and I took a few steps away from the sheep, and I drew my gun.

  “Put the gun away, Fowler,” said Selah.

  I pointed the gun at Mary. “I’ll put it away when April is safe,” I said. I didn’t want to shoot Mary, but threatening to kill her was the only leverage we had.

  “Fowler?” I heard April say again. “Where are you?”

  I saw someone silhouetted against the headlights, walking haltingly in my direction. She seemed to be blindfolded and her hands were tied, but I could tell by the way she walked that it was April.

  “Over here, April,” I said.

  April continued to move in my direction. Behind her, I saw two more figures coming toward Mary. The sheep looked back at me uncertainly. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I imagined there was fear in her face.

  “It’s okay, girl,” I said. “These people will take good care of you.”

  She bleated an accusation at me.

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “I don’t really believe it either.”

  The two figures got ahold of Mary and began escorting her to the truck. I embraced April with my left arm while keeping my gun trained on the sheep. I pulled off her blindfold and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s go, Keane,” I said.

  We started walking back to the Suburban. I watched over my shoulder for a while, but I don’t really know why. Selah had what she wanted, and we had given it to her.

  “Do they have Palomar?” I asked April as the three of us walked across the damp grass in the dark.

  “She went with them willingly,” said April. “I think she was actually relieved when they showed up.”

  “Her psychosis is fairly advanced,” Keane said. “Her whole existence at this point revolves around her paranoia. She’s just been waiting for them to come and get her. It’s probably a relief for her to have it over with.”

  “Yeah,” said April. “You know, Keane, I owe you an apology.”

  “You do?” asked Keane. “What for?”

  “I thought Priya was just paranoid. I never considered there might actually be some sort of sinister plot centered on her.” We had arrived at the Suburban, and I’d found a box cutter in the glove compartment to cut April’s bonds.

  Keane shrugged. “It’s a common mistake,” he said. “Even hypochondriacs get sick sometimes.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” said April, rubbing her wrists. “You were right and I was wrong. She really was in danger, and you were the only one who saw it.”

  Keane nodded, accepting her assessment with aplomb.

  “By the way,” April said. “How is your Priya? Peninsula?”

  “She’s dead,” I said. “Keane’s fault.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  We dropped April off at home, and then Keane and I returned to the Hollywood Hills in time to catch Roy’s impromptu funeral for Peninsula. At some point I dozed off and awoke to him soldiering through an off-key rendition of “Amazing Grace” in between sobs. The service probably would have gone on until dawn, but Keane and Pavel finally managed to coax him into a closing benediction. We climbed back to the trail and drove off.

  I finally got into bed a couple of hours before sunrise. I awoke a few hours later to the sound of my comm chirping. It was Dr. Takemago. I groaned, but forced myself to answer the call.

  “Mr. Fowler?” she said.

  “Ugh,” I replied.

  “Mr. Fowler, I may have found another clue as to why Selah Fiore wants Mary.”

  I sat up in bed. “What is it?”

  “Your mention of Esper’s age-reversal research prompted some investigation on my part. I was not personally involved in that work, but I was aware of it. To my knowledge, all the animal subjects were destroyed shortly after the Collapse. But I was mistaken.”

  “You found a living subject?”

  “Five of them,” she said. “Six, if one includes Mary. I tested the DNA of three of the sheep here in the lab, and they all tested positive for a gene sequence that Esper developed as part of its age-reversal process.”

  “Hold on,” I said, rubbing my groggy head and trying to make sense of what Takemago was saying. “You’re telling me that the sheep not only have human brains, but they’re going to live longer than normal sheep?” So much for them dying a merciful death.

  “That is correct.”

  “How much longer?”

  “Impossible to say,” said Takemago. “All the other animal subjects were destroyed before we could evaluate the results of the gene therapy. The intent of the gene sequence was to block the aging process entirely once the animal reached adulthood.”

  A sickening feeling took hold in my gut. “You’re saying…”

  “The sheep may be immortal.”

  I shook my head. This couldn’t be happening. Science had finally beaten death, and the end product was eternally youthful sheep?

  “Why?” I said. “Why would they do this?”

  “It’s difficult to say with certainty. It may have been an attempt to increase the usable life of the sheep as research subjects.”

  “And since Selah Fiore provided the money, she undoubtedly knows about this feature. But why on Earth would she want an immortal sheep?”

  “I can offer no hypothesis on that,” said Takemago.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Keane and I will figure it out. Th
anks for the info.”

  I ended the call, got dressed, and went upstairs to talk to Keane. He was already (still?) up, researching something online. I told him what Takemago told me, and he just nodded.

  “What?” I said. “You expected this?”

  He shrugged. “It doesn’t surprise me, given what we know about Selah’s history with Esper.”

  “So you know why she wants an immortal sheep with a human brain?”

  “That part I’m still working on,” he said. “Look at this.” He tapped a key and brought up his display on the wall screen behind him. It showed the website for an organization called the Tannhauser Institute.

  “Tannhauser Institute?” I asked. “What’s that?”

  “Privately funded genetics research institute in Belgium,” Keane said. He tapped his screen, and a page with the heading Research Staff appeared. Maybe thirty names were listed on the page. “See anybody you recognize?”

  I scanned the list. “Henry Allebach, Ph.D.,” I read. “Wasn’t that the MIT scientist Takemago said wrote the paper on memory transfer?”

  “The very same. And look at the top of the second column.”

  “Michael Guryev, Ph.D.,” I read. “I know that name too,” I said.

  “He used to work at Esper,” Keane said. “Takemago said he was involved in the design of their sheep.”

  “And now they’re both working for this place in Belgium?”

  “Supposedly,” replied Keane. “But take a look at this.” He brought up another window, showing a bio of Guryev, including a picture. I recognized him.

  “It’s Mr. Licorice,” I said. “He flew from Belgium to get Selah’s sheep?”

  “Unlikely,” said Keane. “I don’t think he was ever in Belgium. I’ve been researching the Tannhauser Institute all morning, and I can’t find any record of any work they’ve done. No white papers, no lectures, no patents, nothing. They’ve been in existence for four years, and they haven’t produced anything.”

  “Four years isn’t that long,” I said. “Maybe they’re working on some big secret project.”