The Big Sheep

by Robert Kroese

  “I hoped,” said Keane. “Getting her to kill Allebach was the only way we were going to get out of here alive and with our memories intact.”

  Selah stared at him. “You can’t be serious,” she said. “There’s no way in hell I’m letting you out of here, after the stunt you just pulled.”

  “She was going to kill Allebach anyway,” Keane said. “Probably as soon as he got her outside the facility. That’s why she had the scalpel. I just coaxed her to take advantage of her current opportunity. And as Nikki said, if I hadn’t intervened, she’d have been long gone by the time you realized you’d been had. You can hardly blame your misfortune on me.”

  “And this is supposed to convince me to let you go?”

  “No,” said Keane. “The fact that you’re completely out of options should do that. Remember what happens if I don’t leave here tonight with my memories intact. Banerjee exposes Maelstrom, prompting a federal investigation into Flagship Media, and Mag-Lev declares war on you. Maybe it was worth the risk when you still had your clone operation up and running, but now Flagship is all you have. You’re not going to risk losing it just to spite me, no matter what Nietzsche has to say on the matter.”

  Selah glared at Keane, but I could tell she knew she was beaten. “Go,” she said, her teeth gritted.

  “We’ll also need the sheep. And Bryn. The original one.”

  “What the hell do you need the sheep for?”

  “If we don’t return it to Banerjee, he’ll blow the lid off Maelstrom. Your choice.”

  “Fine,” said Selah, defeated. “Take the sheep. And Bryn. Just get out.”

  Keane detached the machine from April’s head and then undid her restraints. April got up and helped me get free while Keane helped Roy to his feet. Roy seemed dazed but not seriously injured. We were a sorry-looking group, but we were all alive, our memories intact. We were going to be okay. And we had Nikki to thank for that.

  I wondered what Nikki had planned for herself, after she’d gotten out of Selah’s facility and killed Allebach. Had she really intended to run away and live happily ever after? How would she have fared in the outside world? As a paranoiac, she thrived as a captive, plotting against her keepers. But would she have been able to survive in an environment free of persecution? It was impossible to say, but I suspect she had accepted the likelihood of a tragic end some time ago. She deserved better than this, but she had at least died quickly, without suffering the torment experienced by the others. Maybe she was the lucky one.

  April finished with my restraints and helped me sit up. Trying to ignore the throbbing in my arm, I got to my feet. April and I made our way to the door, Keane and Roy close behind.

  “One more thing before you go, Mr. Keane,” I heard Selah say.

  I stopped and turned, seeing Keane regarding her suspiciously. Here it comes, I thought. She was just toying with us. She never had any intention of letting us go. She’s going to kill us all, just for the fun of it.

  “Since we’re disclosing all our past foibles,” Selah said, “I assume you’ve told Mr. Fowler all about your work on Maelstrom?”

  I sighed. “Can we do this another time?” I asked. “I get it. Keane was involved in some pretty fucked-up stuff. But right now—”

  “Oh, we can certainly discuss the details of Mr. Keane’s sins another time,” Selah said. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m not referring to what Mr. Keane did, but rather who he did it with.”

  Keane stared at Selah coldly but said nothing.

  “You never told him, did you?” asked Selah, with a smile. “How long has it been? Three years? You see Mr. Fowler every day, and you’ve never told him. And people call me a sociopath.”

  “God damn it,” I said, beginning to feel dizzy. “Out with it. What are you talking about?”

  “What was her name?” asked Selah. “The one you consulted with all the time. She was some kind of liaison with the city. You know who I mean. That pretty blonde who used to work for the planning department. What was her name? Gail?”

  April looked at Keane, then at me. Keane averted his eyes.

  “Gwen,” I said, my blood going cold. “Her name was Gwen.”

  THIRTY

  Somehow I wasn’t surprised. Maybe on some level I had known it for some time.

  April was right: although she was too nice to say it in so many words, she had always suspected I had gone to work for Keane because I thought he could help me find Gwen. But after three years, and repeated assurances that Keane was doing everything he could, the trail was as cold as ever. The thought had nagged at me for a while now: Why was Gwen’s disappearance the one case Keane couldn’t solve? And the answer was completely obvious, now that I forced myself to consider it: Keane had been the one behind her disappearance.

  “Fowler, I can explain,” Keane said as we made our way down the hall.

  “Don’t fucking talk to me,” I replied. My arm was killing me, and the last thing I wanted was to be subjected to another one of Keane’s explanations. I stopped and turned to face April. “Go with Keane and retrieve the sheep. Roy and I will retrieve Bryn.” April nodded. Keane looked like he wanted to say something, but then thought better of it. They took off down the hall, and Roy and I continued to Bryn’s room. I cradled my right arm with my left while we walked; the break seemed to be in the humerus, just above the elbow. Roy looked dazed but not seriously injured, and the four of us had reached an unspoken agreement: to get the hell out of there before Selah changed her mind. I didn’t even bother to get our guns back from Brian. Let the jerk keep them.

  Roy carried the unconscious Bryn down the hall to the elevator, and I followed. When we were back upstairs, I called Pavel and told him to meet us with the Suburban just outside the resort entrance. The rain was coming down hard now.

  Pavel pulled up just as we got there. Roy laid Bryn down in the backseat. She didn’t move, and seemed to be barely breathing.

  “What did they do to her?” Roy asked softly, crouching on the ground next to the Suburban, oblivious to the rain. He had been unconscious nearly the entire time we’d been in the lab, and it was going to be just about impossible to get him up to speed on everything that had happened. And probably unnecessary.

  “They used her up,” I said softly. “Sucked her soul out.”

  “So she’s dying,” he said, stroking her cheek with his hand. “Again.”

  “I’m afraid so,” I said. “Selah said she wouldn’t last the night.”

  “Jesus,” Roy said, tears welling up in his eyes. “Why did we even take her out of there?”

  “I didn’t think you’d want her to die in there,” I said.

  He shook his head, blinking away the tears. “No, you’re right,” he said. “It’s just…”

  “It’s rough, I know,” I said. “Nobody should have to lose the woman he loves twice. I’m sorry, Roy.”

  “I need to get out of here,” said Roy, burying his head in his hands. “Away from this town. Because she’s still out there. All of her. It’s too much to take. I can’t turn on my fucking TV without seeing her. Knowing my Priya is dead, but at the same time she’s still alive, and she doesn’t even know who I am. How is anybody supposed to deal with that? It’s too much. It’s just too much.”

  I nodded sympathetically. Right now getting as far away as possible from this fucked-up city—and from Erasmus Keane—seemed like a very good idea. It was starting to seem like nothing in Los Angeles was real. The news was propaganda, the fearsome warlord Mag-Lev was some third-rate actor, Priya Mistry was a fictional character, the creation of the DZ had been completely choreographed … and then there was Erasmus Keane.

  Who the hell was he? I still didn’t even know his real name. Erasmus Keane was a fabrication, like Priya Mistry. Were the cases we had “solved” together even real? Was he really a brilliant detective, or had he simply used his unearned reputation and knowledge of the DZ blueprint to create the illusion of amazing deductive prowess? It
certainly explained the showboating and “phenomenological inquisitor” label. As I watched April and Keane—or whatever his name really was—approaching with the sheep, I found myself wondering if he was more con man than investigator.

  “Roy,” I said. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”

  Roy looked up at me and laughed bitterly. “More bad news?” he said. “You’ve got a truckload of dead Priyas to deliver to my door?” His cheeks were damp with tears.

  “Nothing like that,” I said. “But—”

  “What? Jesus, Fowler, just tell me. Things can’t possibly get any worse. I wish you’d have let Selah kill me back there.”

  I sighed. How did you break news like this gently? “I’m sorry the woman you love is dead, but let me ask you this: if her consciousness was to live on in a farm animal of your choice, which animal would you pick?”

  April and Keane came around the corner of the Suburban with the sheep. They were both soaked from the rain, but the sheep seemed to be bearing it better.

  “Oh hell,” moaned Roy as he saw the sheep. “The sheep again? What the fuck is the deal with the sheep? Can’t I have a moment alone with the woman I love without having to share it with the fucking livestock?”

  The sheep regarded Roy with a puzzled expression.

  “Roy,” I said. “There’s something you should know about this sheep.”

  “No!” howled Roy, getting to his feet. “I don’t care about any fucking sheep! Jesus, it’s all the same to you people, isn’t it? Misplaced your TV superstar? Can’t find your car keys? Lost a farm animal? Call Fowler and Keane! We’ll find whatever you’re missing, and probably kill it while we’re at it! Maybe two or three times, because that’s how fucking thorough we are!”

  “Keane and Fowler,” said Keane. “Also, killing someone’s car keys would be a neat trick.”

  April smacked Keane on the back of his head. “Shut up, Keane,” she said.

  “It’s not like that, Roy,” I said. “We did everything we could to save Priya.”

  “Yeah, well,” said Roy bitterly, “she’s still dead. But you’ve got your sheep, so I guess you can chalk another one up in the win column, right?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Roy. The sheep—”

  “Don’t fucking talk to me about the sheep!” Roy howled. He turned toward the Bryn-sheep, raising his hands over his head. “Get out of here! Nobody wants you! The only reason anybody cares about you is because you’re a freak. Some mad scientist’s wet dream, built in a laboratory so people can carve pieces off of you. Cut you apart, piece by piece, your kidneys, your liver, your lungs, your heart. But they won’t stop there. They’ll make more of you. Hundreds, thousands of you, and cut your heart out, over and over and over. No matter how much they take, they’ll always want more. It will never, ever end. So go! Get out of here! Run right off that cliff. It’s probably the only chance you have to escape.” Thunder rumbled in the distance, as if to punctuate his point.

  The Bryn-sheep was trembling. She had backed a few steps away from Roy and averted her gaze, unable to endure the full weight of his wrath. But now she looked up at him, pain and fear in her eyes. Roy seemed to sense something was wrong, that this wasn’t how a sheep was supposed to act. He had expected it to run away or maybe to attack him. He hadn’t figured on the sheep bearing his assault and then looking him straight in the eye. Roy met the sheep’s gaze, and the two remained that way for some time, each of them trying to make sense of what the other was doing.

  “Did I do something wrong?” the Bryn-sheep asked at last.

  Roy’s eyes rolled into his head, and he passed out.

  Pavel produced some smelling salts from a first aid kit, and we managed to get Roy more or less conscious and ambulatory enough to get into the front seat of the Suburban. April and Keane helped the Bryn-sheep into the back, and then we all crammed in after her. I sat between April and the human Bryn. We made Keane ride in back with the sheep. He told Pavel to head toward the DZ, and then he called Mag-Lev, telling him we’d be there within an hour with the “package.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said to Keane. “We can’t give Mag-Lev … the package.” The Bryn-sheep was sitting, her head toward the rear of the Suburban, looking out the back window, so fortunately I didn’t have to look at her while referring to her as “the package.”

  “No choice,” Keane said. “We made a deal. Mag-Lev may be a poseur, but he’s also got half the gangbangers in Los Angeles working for him.”

  “We didn’t know the nature of the package when we made the deal,” I said. “You can’t seriously be considering handing over a human being to that psychopath wannabe gangster just to save your own ass.” I could only hope Bryn-sheep was too confused by this entire situation to understand what we were talking about.

  “I question your characterization of the package,” Keane said in a triumph of euphemizing.

  “Just to be clear,” I said, “you retrieved the package from Selah in order to give it to Mag-Lev so he could use it for leverage against Selah, right? But Selah doesn’t want the package anymore. So what’s the point of handing it over to Mag-Lev?”

  “I know you don’t want to hear this right now,” said Keane, “but you have to trust me on this, Fowler.”

  I groaned but didn’t reply. I didn’t have the energy for this conversation. My arm was killing me, and I was damp, cold, and exhausted. I just wanted to lie down and sleep.

  Keane turned around and began talking to the Bryn-sheep, but over the sound of the rain and thunder, I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The two of them conversed quietly for most of the ride back to Los Angeles.

  We were met at the DZ checkpoint by Mag-Lev’s people, who searched us for weapons. I yelped and nearly passed out as one of the goons insisted on straightening out my arms. Satisfied we weren’t packing guns, they escorted us to Mag-Lev’s headquarters. The five of us, along with the Bryn-sheep, met Mag-Lev in the lobby of the building. Roy carried the human Bryn. Neither he nor the Bryn-sheep had spoken a word since we’d left Malibu.

  “As promised,” Keane said. “We’ve rescued Priya and retrieved the sheep.”

  “My God,” said Mag-Lev, approaching Bryn’s limp body cradled in Roy’s massive arms. “What did they do to her?” He pressed his fingers against her neck. “She’s dead,” he said after a moment. Roy didn’t flinch. I think he must have known. He set her body down in a plush chair.

  “You call this a rescue?” Mag-Lev said to Keane, crouching next to Bryn.

  “She was near death when we got there,” said Keane. “We did what we could.”

  Mag-Lev was silent for a while, stroking Bryn’s cheek. At last he said, “God, she was a beautiful woman.”

  “She is a beautiful woman,” replied Roy, glaring at Mag-Lev.

  Mag-Lev regarded Roy quizzically for a moment but didn’t reply. He sighed and walked to the Bryn-sheep. Reaching out and patting her head, he said, “You’ve caused a lot of trouble, you know. What’s so special about you anyway?”

  “I wish I knew,” said the sheep.

  Mag-Lev screamed and staggered backward as if he’d been struck. The Bryn-sheep started in fear.

  “What the?” Mag-Lev exclaimed. “It can talk!”

  “She’s not an it,” Roy growled. “She’s a person.”

  Mag-Lev was silent for a moment, and then he began to laugh. “So that’s why everybody wants this thing. It’s some kind of biological anomaly. Fuck me, a talking sheep. What, is Selah planning some kind of televised freak show? What else does she have up her sleeve, a pig that does crossword puzzles? A trombone-playing monkey?”

  “Shut up!” Roy growled. “Don’t talk about her like that!”

  Mag-Lev took a step forward and bent down to inspect the device around the Bryn-sheep’s neck. “How does it work?” he asked. “It translates the sheep’s thoughts into human speech?” He looked the Bryn-sheep in the eye. “Are … you … hungry?” he
said loudly and slowly, the way Americans tend to talk to people who don’t speak English.

  “Not … particularly!” yelled the Bryn-sheep, mimicking Mag-Lev’s mode of speech.

  “Ha!” Mag-Lev barked, causing the Bryn-sheep to start. “It has a sense of humor! Or is it just programmed to respond that way? Mimic the speech pattern of the person it’s talking to, to make the illusion of intelligence seem more real? God, if I didn’t know better, I’d think there were actual thoughts going on inside that stupid sheep skull.”

  Roy moved toward Mag-Lev.

  “Easy, Roy,” I said, eyeing Mag-Lev’s armed thugs, who had us surrounded.

  But Roy brushed Mag-Lev aside and knelt down in front of the Bryn-sheep. “I’m sorry, Priya,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s okay,” said the Bryn-sheep, looking into Roy’s eyes. “I’m a little confused by it myself.”

  “Priya?” said Mag-Lev. “Hang on, are you saying…?”

  “The sheep has all of Priya Mistry’s memories and thought patterns,” said Keane, “and therefore her personality. For all intents and purposes, that sheep is Priya.”

  “No,” said Mag-Lev, taking a step away from the Bryn-sheep. He no longer seemed amused. “It’s a trick. That device just translates a few basic animal thoughts into human speech. Stock phrases that don’t really mean anything.”

  “Priya,” Keane said, and the Bryn-sheep turned her head to face him. “Can you tell me who Noogus is?”

  “Noogus?” the sheep asked in a puzzled tone. “Well … he was my teddy bear. When I was very little. Why do you want to know about Noogus?”

  Mag-Lev continued to back away. “That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Noogus is probably some kind of trigger word, like when you tell a dog to fetch or play dead.”

  The sheep turned to Mag-Lev. “Why are you talking like that, Giles?” she said. “I thought we had something together. Why are you trying to hurt me? I didn’t ask to be made this way.”

  “H-how…” Mag-Lev stammered. He turned to Keane. “You told the sheep about me?”