“Why should I tell you anything? I have no idea who you are, and don’t have any reason to trust you.”
“I’m a friend of Alexa Mathis. And I already know a great deal about you. More than I’ve told her, because it’s always best to hold at least one ace if you’re playing with Alexa.”
“Why isn’t she calling me, then?”
“Because she wants to keep this from you. She prefers to play in the dark. She came to me for help with you and told me quite a tale. There are some big questions about you that matter a great deal to Alexa — and only Alexa — but she hasn’t done the simplest thing to answer them. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
“What’s the simplest thing?”
“To ask you.”
Chloe waited for more, but there was none. A sparrow alighted on Andrew’s window sash, then flew off into the city spires.
“Are you one of the Six?”
“No. I am someone else. Someone whose history with Alexa extends far beyond her history with most of the Six.”
“How far beyond?”
“I’ve known her since the twenty-teens, back when she was still a ghost: a name without a face.”
“Like you,” Chloe said.
“Except that you don’t even know my name.”
“Why?”
“Because there are things I am willing to reveal and things I am not.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“Because I know something of your father. Your true father.”
Her heartbeat seemed to pause, then resumed at double speed.
“Who is he?”
“He’s not Clive Spooner. But I suspect you knew that.”
“Then—”
“I’m not about to give up the grand prize so easily. I need quid pro quo.”
“Quid pro quo is ‘something for something.’ You haven’t given me anything yet.”
“My mistake. I should have said first I need you to open your fucking mouth and do as you’re told.”
Chloe lost her breath.
Her heart beat faster.
She wanted to be outraged, but there was too much mystery for anger. He’d located her without calling her mobile, without City Surveillance’s ability to see her from the sky. Not even Crossbrace knew where people were. The Beam did, but it had a way of keeping its secrets privileged.
“Alexa wants to play games with you, Chloe. She wants to pull strings from shadows then see if she’s jostled anything loose. She wants to provoke and spy, but I prefer a more direct approach. Like I said, I’m choosing to ask you. I won’t tell you everything, but everything I’ll tell you is true. I don’t believe in deception. Not when the truth can be so delicious.”
“What do you want to know?”
“Your mother was without a womb when she had you. Is that correct?”
“As far as I know.”
“And did she tell you how she managed to carry a child under those conditions during your recent visit?”
“She didn’t know. She was depressed and afraid. She didn’t want to look the truth in the eye, so she plugged her ears and shut her eyes. She wouldn’t see a doctor. She only had a midwife because her friends sort of forced her into it.”
“But she’d had a hysterectomy. Your mother knew that by any coherent medical understanding, she’d never have children.”
“Yes,” Chloe said, staring at the wall. “It was crushing. She told me that back then, she’d have given anything to have a child. It was her greatest ambition, her biggest sadness, and regret. If she could have waved a magic wand and been given anything, it would be the ability to have a baby.”
There was a tiny sound of agreement.
“What do you know that you aren’t saying?” Chloe asked.
“Here’s my quid, pro your quo. Perhaps there was a magic wand involved. And maybe, in a way, Clive Spooner was your father.”
“You said he wasn’t. And the genetic tests show that—”
“Not literally. Not by sperm and egg. I think he might be your father in the way that a man who accidentally drops a match can be an arsonist. I already know his DNA isn’t a match for yours, and that means he’s not your true father. Alexa told me he was surprised to learn about you, and that means he didn’t drop that match on purpose. It was closer to neglect than arson.”
“What are you talking about? What match? Who is my father?”
“I don’t have all your answers yet, Miss Shaw. I am in possession of some raw data that must be fully parsed before anyone can know those things, and that has already required some time. That data must be taken apart and analyzed using technology I’ve only recently been offered. And it isn’t just computation; it must be pored over by artificial intelligence agents, equivalent to those on The Beam, but disconnected from it. You can imagine that this is a painstaking process.”
“You know about The Beam?”
“Of course. I’ve recently been obfuscated on The Beam. Search my name right now and you’ll get so much less today than you did a week ago. Even on Crossbrace. It’s a relief after being so … maddeningly open.”
“But you haven’t told me your name.”
It was a trap meant for control; of course, he’d never give it, and asking had put Chloe in a position of lower authority.
“When you were very young,” he asked, ignoring her almost question, “were you especially precocious?”
“I was a kid. I don’t remember.”
“Ah, yes. But you see, this is where you’re valuable in a way that Alexa was reluctant to tap. Your mother knows the answer, but it’s not something she recorded onto Crossbrace — believe me, I checked. There is exactly one way to find the answer to questions like these, and that’s to ask them directly. So I’m asking you, Chloe, as someone who naturally has her mother’s ear: what has she told you about your early childhood?”
Chloe thought: Nothing. She’s told me nothing, and that’s all you’re going to get out of me. But then Chloe realized how far she’d managed to suppress one particular recent memory. The truth was, Nicole had told Chloe plenty that wasn’t on record. She just didn’t want to think about it.
Because it disturbed her. Made her skin crawl. Kept her up at night.
The things her mother had told her that final morning on Voyos made Chloe shudder.
“You know, don’t you?” the man asked.
“Something for something,” Chloe answered. “Yes, I know. But first, you need to give in order to get.”
“Fine.”
“Who is my real father?”
“Not yet known. An analysis is still in progress. What’s implied so far is … disturbing.”
“What does it imply? Why is it disturbing?”
“I won’t speculate until I know for sure,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because while I am always willing to play on equal footing, I refuse to cede ground. If I tell you what analysis of my twenty-year-old data suggests, it might ring a few bells in your head and give you an advantage over me.”
Twenty-year-old data?
That would be around the time Chloe was born. Was this about that phantom pregnancy itself? Not just her paternity, but how she came to be?
“Then tell me your name.”
“It’s irrelevant.”
“I need to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Knowing will change nothing for you. Alexa came to me behind Parker’s back, and she came to him separately about all of this behind the board’s. You only need to know I’m a secret, just like her interest in you. Knowing more puts you in above your head.”
Something Slava told Chloe came clanging back. Something about what Alexa said in Slava’s presence that she probably shouldn’t have.
She said they hadn’t spent sixty years on you just to lose everything because of some goddamn kid.
Andrew? Was this somehow about him?
“You said you’ve known Alexa longer than the Six.”
“Most of the Six,” the voice clarified. “Her relationship with Parker predates me.”
“When was that?”
“When she met him, or when she met me?”
“Both.”
“My introduction was in 2015 or 2016 when we were both involved with an organization called ‘The Syndicate.’ Do a search. It was supposed to be underground, but a certain segment of us — we called ourselves the ‘Trillionaire Boys’ Club’ — couldn’t resist the spotlight. You won’t be able to tell who I am, but a search will at least tell you about the company I keep.”
But Chloe was already taking more notes: He’d been in the group; he’d been in the subgroup; he was with a woman whose single mention Chloe had already equated to long-term affection under his oily voice — probably a wife. Details were here; she’d just need to lay them out later, once she was back under what she increasingly thought of as Brad’s protection.
She’d find this voice-only mystery caller, all right. “And Barnes?”
“I’m not sure. Earlier than that. They were two peas in a pod.”
“In what way?”
“Alexa has always been off on some crazy quest. Parker is the only one who’s tolerated her.”
Sixty years ago.
“Did she know him in the year 2000?” Chloe asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What kinds of crazy quest has she always been on?”
“It’s half spiritual, half economic. Alexa is a perfect split of business and soul. I’ve never seen anything like it. She pursues her business aims with the faith of a priest. I’d laugh if her record wasn’t flawless.”
“But what’s the quest?”
“To find a thing. The one perfect thing.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“First it was an algorithm. Then it was a rudimentary AI. She’s been a partner and an embezzler. She makes deals that are ultimately win-win, and hence nobody truly cares if she skims off the top. You know about the so-called Internet of Things — the digital reconstruction Crossbrace makes of our world to help us navigate it?”
Chloe nodded. She’d run across it in her frenzied research, pleased that she could show this strange man that she knew something after all. “Once it’s complete the Internet of Things will know where everything and everyone is. It will always be gathering data. Always be more and more up to date. The Beam will respond in the world immediately based on what it ‘sees’ happening in its internal world.”
“That’s right,” the man said. “At one time, the work of a man named Anthony Ross was Alexa’s version of the Internet of Things, except that it would only be the subset of ‘Things’ relating to sex. She wanted to know who everyone wanted to fuck, who they actually fucked, where they fucked, what they used to fuck with. On one level, it would have been Internet Porn 2.0, but what truly intrigued Alexa was that it was like another world, with its own gods and rulers.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“She’s always been searching, Chloe. Always been wanting to find something that would be her one-and-only.”
“How do I fit into this?”
“Maybe I’ve answered enough of your questions that you’d now like to answer some of mine.” His tone was civil, downright polite, but there was no mistaking his meaning
“About me as a baby?” Chloe asked, controlling her nerves. She believed all he’d said, and later — perhaps even with Brad’s help — she could delve deeper to analyze it. Maybe this man truly was an ally of sorts. And if she didn’t have a choice in the alliance, then she might as well reap the benefits.
“Were you precocious?” he repeated.
“I talked early. I walked early.” This was easy. Nicole had told her all the usual milestones before getting to the really fucking weird ones.
“Anything else?”
“She says I was excellent at math. And music.”
“You do math? You play music?”
“I was like a savant. I barely hit both in school, because I wanted to be an O legacy and neither was part of the curriculum. But I see numbers like they’re real things. Always have. Same for music. I see it as mathematical. Shapes and colors. It all comes easily to me.”
“Starting when?”
“Two or three years old? Maybe I could do it earlier but Mom didn’t know.”
He made a little mmm-hmm noise, and Chloe imagined him nodding as things slotted into place. This meant something to him. He’d no longer poke randomly at her childhood. No; now he thought he knew something. Each fresh question would serve to reinforce that hypothesis or argue against it.
Pay attention, Chloe. His questions now will be like answers.
Inside her mind, she saw shapes. She saw colors. One big musical, mathematical problem. A puzzle whose pieces she felt. They were already in front of her, awaiting assembly.
“What about technology? Did she say how you were with technology as a toddler?”
“Isn’t every kid good with technology?”
“I mean, did you delve into code? Did you ever pull back the UI and look at the wireframe holding it up?”
Another clue. What did his interest in code have to do with anything?
“Yes. She said I did that a lot. We had a single-point connection when I was growing up, and Mom said that one day I changed a setting and she had no Internet for days — not because it wasn’t there, but because she couldn’t figure out how to operate it without the user interface.”
“What about you? Could you figure it out?”
“That’s how we called a tech. I had to do it for her.”
“How old were you?”
Chloe shrugged. “Same age. Two or three.”
“Did you ever ask about your father?”
“Constantly. She never told me who he was.”
Pay attention, Chloe. She could almost see his next question coming — and if it did, another piece of the puzzle would slot into place.
“Did you ever make guesses of your own as to who he might be?”
Bingo. Her caller had reason to think that Kid Chloe would guess. Intuitive from the start.
“Actually, she recently told me that I saw Spooner on TV and thought he was my father. And that my mom really liked him too.”
“Was there anything else you knew that you shouldn’t have? Especially about Spooner or N—” But whatever he was about to say, he stopped himself and repeated, “—about Spooner?”
Bingo again.
“Can you give me an example?”
“Anything that plays to your natural ways of processing. I guess that would be math. Or music.”
And bingo yet again.
Chloe knew he could see her thinking expression, so she didn’t try to lie or hold back answers. She told him about the creepy incident, wherein Little Chloe had plinked out Natasha Ryan’s song “Down Deep” on her xylophone and swore that the song and Spooner went together: two things Nicole had once loved. The song she shared with Clive — the one they’d heard Natasha sing in person, then claimed as their favorite.
“How do you think you knew that song if she’d never played it for you?”
“I don’t know. I was too young to remember.”
“Do you think you might have seen it inside your head, the way you said you see math as shapes and colors?”
NOW I think that.
“How would I see it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe like someone was presenting it to you?”
And now I think that, too … whatever it means.
Chloe shrugged. There was noise on the man’s end of the phone. “I don’t know.”
He sounded suddenly distracted. Chloe thought she heard a woman’s voice, but it might have been nothing. He mumbled some sort of reply.
Are we done here?” Chloe asked.
On the man’s end of the phone, there was a rustle of fabric. A low purring sound like a zipper being opened.
“Hello?” Chloe asked.
And somewhere off in the distance, Chloe heard him say, “All the way down your throat, Aurora.”
“What?”
“Yes,” he said, suddenly back at attention, “we’re done. I won’t call you again. I’m direct, not stupid.”
The other end of the line became liquid with rhythmic wet sounds. Caspian’s voice drifted away again, and she heard a slow rise in his breath.
“What do I do from here?” Chloe asked.
But there was a moan, a hard click, and the line went dead.
CHAPTER FIVE
Parker must have jumped the gun, because the door opened in time for Andrew to hear Alexa moan, “Fine, fine, then just let the slippery little fucker in already.”
With the meeting room fully seated in the matte gray walls beside the frame, Andrew wasn’t sure what to do. He stood and waited instead. He hadn’t precisely been invited inside. He’d been grudgingly acknowledged by Alexa — but certainly not welcomed. Alexa’s jab was meant for Parker’s ears. Andrew just happened to hear it.
“Well, come in.” Alexa made drunken gestures with her arms as if Andrew were incredibly obtuse and required oversized movements to understand.
Andrew stepped into the dimly lit room. He’d been in plenty of other rooms at O, but this one was different. It wasn’t a public waiting room, nor the protected inner sanctum Alexa had been so furious he’d entered before. It looked like a private meeting room, currently reserved for Alexa and Parker.
“Thanks for seeing me,” Andrew said.
Alexa shook her head. Parker looked away.
“I just really needed to—” Andrew began.
“I thought I made things clear,” Parker interrupted, his tone harsher than normal. “We contact you; that’s how this works. You do not, under any circumstances, contact us.”
Alexa and Parker traded glances. She’d softened from fury to something that looked more like worry. Were they afraid of someone learning that they were talking to Andrew alone? Maybe he was supposed to be taking his marching orders from O, not just Parker and Alexa. He filed it under “Possible Advantages.” It might be nothing. Probably was nothing. But right now, Andrew needed whatever he could get.
“I’m sorry. It felt nec—”
“You’re not in a position to decide what’s necessary and what’s not. You don’t have enough information to have a goddamn clue.”
The Braverman Experiment Page 3
