F Paul Wilson - Sims 02 (7 page)

 
          
Julie grinned. “Why call him ‘mystery
primate’?”

 
          
“Because we haven’t
found his bones yet.
But we don’t need to. Genetics tells the story. So
even though we may never identify the mystery primate’s remains, we know he
existed and we know that at some point millions of years ago, whether because
of a flood or a continental upheaval or climactic changes in
Africa
,
a segment of the mystery primate population became separated from the larger
main body. This smaller group wound up stranded in a hotter, drier environment,
probably in northeast
Africa
; some theories say it was
an island, but whatever the specifics, the important point is they were cut off
from all the other jungle-dwelling primates. And there, under pressure to adapt
to their new environment, they began to evolve in their own direction.”

 
          
“But didn’t the mystery primates in
the jungle evolve too?”

 
          
“Of course, but because they were in
an environment they were used to, they had little need for change, so they
evolved more slowly, and in a different direction: toward what we now call
chimpanzees. Meanwhile the primates in the separated group, in a drier,
savanna-like environment, were changing: They were growing taller, their skin
was losing its hair and learning to sweat in the hotter temperatures; and
because they were no longer in a lush jungle where food was hanging from every
other tree, they had to learn to hunt to keep from starving. This added extra
protein to their diet which meant they could afford to enlarge a very important
organ that needs lots of protein to grow. Do you know what that organ is?”

 
          
“The brain,” Julie said.

 
          
“You are
smart ,
”
he told her.
“Absolutely right.
The sum of all these
changes meant that they were evolving into hominids.”

 
          
“Humans, right?”

 
          
“Humans are hominids, true, but it
took millions of years for the first hominids to evolve into Homo
sapiens .”

 
          
“But once they got back to the
jungle, couldn’t the hominids get back together with the mystery primates?”

 
          
Bright as Julie was, Ellis wondered
how far he could delve into the intricacies of evolutionary drift with a
thirteen-year-old. He paused, looking for an analogy. He knew she played the
cello in her school orchestra…maybe she could understand if he related
evolution to music.

 
          
“Think of DNA as a magnificent
symphony, amazingly complex even though it is composed with only four notes.
Every gene is a movement, and every base pair is a musical note within that
movement. So if one of those base pairs is out of sequence, the melody can go
wrong, become discordant. If enough are out of place, it can ruin the entire
symphony. But sometimes changes can work to the benefit of the symphony.

 
          
“Imagine the sheet music for a
concert arriving in a city far from where it was composed. The local musicians
look at it and say, ‘No one around here is going to like this section, nor that
movement; we’d better change them.’ And they do. And then that version is
shipped off to another city even farther away, and those local musicians find
they must make further changes to satisfy their audience. And on it goes, until
the music is radically different from what was on the original sheets.

 
          
“This is what happened to the sheet
music of the hominid’s DNA. It was progressively changed by different
environments; but the chimp DNA never left its hometown, so it changed
relatively little. And because they’d been separated, with the genes of one
group never having a chance to mix with the genes of the other, each group kept
evolving in its own direction, causing their genomes to drift further and
further apart.

 
          
“At some point millions of years ago
both groups reached the stage where neither was a mystery primate anymore. By
the time the hominids started spreading into different areas of
Africa
,
it was too late for a reunion. The hominids were playing Bach, while the chimps
sounded like heavy metal. They couldn’t play together.
Too
many changes.
One of the most obvious was the fusion of two primate
chromosomes in the hominids, leaving them with twenty-three pairs instead of
the twenty-four their jungle cousins still carried.”

 
          
“But
sims
have only twenty-two pairs, right?” Julie said. “What happened—?”

 
          
“That’s way too long a story for
now,” Ellis said quickly. “Suffice it to say that the two groups had evolved so
far apart that they could no longer have children together. Once that happened,
their evolutionary courses were separated forever. So you see
,
a chimpanzee cannot evolve into a human any more than a human…”

 
          
His voice dried up.

 
          
Julie said, “But that doesn’t mean a
sim won’t evolve into a human.”

 
          
“Sims are different, Julie. They can’t
evolve.
Ever.
To evolve you must be able to have
children, and
sims
can’t. Each sim is cloned from a
stock of identical cell cultures. They are all genetically equal. Evolution
involves genetic changes occurring over many generations, but
sims
have no generations, therefore no evolution.”

 
          
“This is pretty heavy luncheon
chatter, don’t you think?” Judy said.

 
          
Ellis was grateful for the
interruption.

 
          
“Your mother’s right.” He chucked
Julie gently under the chin. “We can continue this another time. But did I
answer your question?”

 
          
“Sure,” Julie said with a smile.
“Sims will always be stuck being
sims
.”

 
          
Not if I can help it, Ellis thought.

 
          
SUSSEX COUNTY
,
NJ

 
          
“You’re not getting another beer, are
you?” Martha called from the upstairs bedroom.

 
          
Harry Carstairs stood before his open
refrigerator, marveling at the acuity of his wife’s hearing.

 
          
“Just one more.”

 
          
“Harry!” She drew out the second
syllable. “Haven’t you had enough for one night?”

 
          
No, he thought. Not yet.

 
          
“It’s just a light.”

 
          
“Aren’t you ever coming to bed?”

 
          
“Soon, hon.”

 
          
She grumbled something he didn’t
catch and he could visualize her rolling onto her side and pulling the covers
over her head. He twisted the cap off the beer, took a quick pull,
then
stepped over to the bar. There he carefully lifted the
Seagram’s bottle and poured a good slug into his beer.

 
          
Gently swirling the mixture, he
headed for his study at the other end of the house.

 
          
He was drinking too much, he knew.
But it took a lot of booze to put a dent in a guy his size. Still he didn’t
think it was a real problem. He didn’t drink during the day, didn’t even think
about it when he was surrounded by the hordes of young
sims
he oversaw. Their rambunctious energy recharged him every morning, filling his
mind and senses all day.

 
          
But when he got home, when it was
just Martha and he, the charge drained away, leaving him empty and flat.
A dead battery.
Not that there was anything wrong with
Martha. Not her fault. It was all him.

 
          
He wished now they’d had kids. Life
had been so fine before when it was just the two of them.
And
SimGen, of course.
Martha worked for the company too, in the
comptroller’s office. SimGen became part of their household, turning their
marriage into a ménage à trois. But it had been a rewarding arrangement. They’d
built their dream house on this huge wooded lot, traveled extensively, and had
two fat 401(k)s that would allow them comfortable early retirement if they
wanted it.

 
          
But a few years ago he’d begun to
feel an aching emptiness in their home, to sense the isolation of the
surrounding woods. He knew the day, the hour, the moment it had begun: When
Ellis Sinclair had informed him about the sudden death of a sim.

 
          
Not just any sim. A special sim, one
Harry had known throughout his entire time at SimGen. He’d taught that sim
chess and turned him into a damn good player. They used to play three or four
times a week.

 
          
And then he was gone. Just like that.
Died on a Saturday, into the crematorium on Sunday, and his quarters stripped
by the time Harry returned to work on Monday morning.

 
          
The boilermakers—Martha thought they
were just plain beers—numbed the ache. But the ache seemed to require more
anesthetic with each passing year.

 
          
Harry settled himself at his desk and
reached out to restart the computer chess match he’d paused in midgame when—

 
          
He stopped.
That
feeling again.
A prickling along his scalp…as if he was being watched.

 
          
Harry abruptly swiveled his chair
toward the window directly behind him and caught a glimpse of a pale blur
ducking out of sight. He sat stunned, frozen with the knowledge that he hadn’t
been imagining it. Someone had been watching him through that goddamn window!

 
          
He leaped from his seat, lumbering
toward the sliding glass doors that opened from his study onto the rear deck.
He slipped, fell to one knee—damn boilermakers!—then yanked back the door and
lurched onto the deck.

 
          
“I saw you, damn it!” he shouted,
voice echoing through the trees, breath fogging in the cold air. “Who are you?
Who the
fuck are
you!”

 
          
He stopped, listening. Where’d he go?
But the woods were silent.

 
          
And then Martha’s
voice, frightened, crying: “Harry!
Harry, come quick!”

 
          
Harry ran back inside, charging the
length of the house, shouting her name. He made it up the stairs to the master
bedroom where he found her standing in the dark, staring out the big window
overlooking the front yard.

 
          
“What is it?”

 
          
“I saw someone out there!” Her hand
fluttered before her mouth like a hummingbird over a flower.
“Just
a glimpse.
He was moving away toward the road but I know I saw him!”

 
          
“Now do you believe me?”

 
          
He’d told her before about this
feeling of being watched but Martha had always chalked it up to his drinking.

 
          
“Yes! Yes, I do! And I’m calling the
police!”

 
          
“Good. You do that,” Harry said,
feeling a deep rage start to burn—damn, it was good to feel something again. He
headed for the stairs. “And tell them to hurry. Because if I get to him first
they’ll have to scrape what’s left of him into a goddamn bucket!”

 
          
“Harry, no!” Martha cried.

 
          
Harry ignored her. His blood was
up,
he could feel it racing through his head, his muscles.
He’d been spooked, he’d been doubted, he’d even doubted himself, but now it was
clear he’d been right all along and it was time for a little payback, time to
kick some major donkey.

 
          
He hit the front drive running and
sprinted for the street. In seconds his heart was thudding, his lungs burning.

 
          
Out of shape.
And four sheets to the wind. But he was going to catch this fucker, and before
he wiped up the road with him, he was going to find out why he—

 
          
Ahead…to the right…a car engine
turning over, gears engaging, tires squealing on pavement.

 
          
Shit!

 
          
By the time Harry reached the street
all he could see was a distant pair of taillights shrinking into the darkness.

 
          
He bent, hands on thighs, grunting
and gasping for air. Maybe it was for the best. If he had caught up with the
guy he might have been too winded to do much more than grab him and fall on him
and hope he crushed the fucking hell out of him.

 
          
But the worst part was he still had
no answers. Why was somebody watching him? Why should anyone care enough about
him to come out here and sit in the cold dark woods to watch him play chess
with his computer?

 
          
Get a life, man!

 
          
One thing was certain—no, make that
two…two things were certain.

 
          
First, he was going to get a gun.
Tomorrow.

 
          
Second, he was going to stop
drinking. At least stop drinking so much.
Also tomorrow.

 
          
Right now he was thoroughly rattled
and needed a double of something.
Anything.
Just so
long as it was a double.