F Paul Wilson - Sims 05 (18 page)

 
          
Ellis
stepped closer to him. “I already have a son, Zero, but for a long time now I
haven’t had someone I’ve cared to call brother. There’s still a lot to be done;
years of struggle ahead before this abominable, tragic mess is straightened
out. I helped cause it with one brother; I need another brother to help me
rectify it. Can you forgive me enough to be that brother, Zero? Please?”

 
          
“I’ll
help you,” Zero said, rising and looking him in the eye.
“Because
I need to finish what I began.
But don’t call me brother. And don’t ask
me to forgive you.”

 
          
The
words struck like hammer blows. Ellis briefly had harbored a hope, a vision of
Zero and him tearfully embracing and letting the past be past. But he could see
now that wasn’t going to be. He ached for absolution, but it wouldn’t be coming
from Zero or the two people with him. Not yet, at least.

 
          
“Fair
enough,” Ellis said. He resisted an impulse to offer his hand. Even that might
be asking too much right now. “As a first step I propose arranging a meeting
immediately with my brother. We’ll lay out the facts for him and make it
perfectly clear that SimGen is dead.”

 
          
SUSSEX COUNTY
,
NJ

 
          
Luca
Portero waved as he cruised past the guard in the gate kiosk and pointed his
Jeep toward the SimGen main campus. He’d wanted to avoid any small talk because
he could barely hear his own thoughts, but he’d take ringing in his ear over a
hole in his head any day.

 
          
When
he’d buried an AK-47 and an extra pistol in a waterproof gun case, he’d doubted
he’d ever have to use them. It was simply a precautionary measure. But when
Lister had told him it was time to “do the right thing,” he’d known exactly
where he wanted to do it.

 
          
Do
the right thing…was Lister crazy? Like there was some sort of honor in
executing yourself instead of making somebody else
do
it? What century was he living in?

 
          
Correction:
used to live in.

 
          
Luca
had raised the pistol to his head but pointed at the very rear of his skull. At
the last second he’d angled it even further rearward to send the slug past the
back of his head. But the report had damn near deafened him. He might never
hear out of his right ear again.

 
          
He’d
dropped right onto the spot where he’d buried the gun case. The two inches of
covering dirt scraped off quickly. The pistols Lister’s butt boys were carrying
were nothing against the Kalashnikov. After they were down, Portero ran back
and caught Lister trying to get away in his car. The bastard had squealed for
mercy, screaming about friendship—friendship! After handing me a pistol so I
could off myself!

 
          
Luca
blew his head off.

 
          
Now
he had to sky out of the country. No need for panic. No one here knew about
Lister. He figured he had hours yet, and wanted to use some of that to deal
with his office computer. He’d been scrupulous about avoiding any links to his
numbered account in Bermuda, but you couldn’t be too careful where SIRG was
involved. They had people who could drag all sorts of information from a
supposedly destroyed memory chip. So the chip was going with him. The ocean
floor dropped to a couple of miles deep off Bermuda; he’d bury the chip at sea.

 
          
As
expected, the campus was all but deserted.
Only a few
security personnel about.
Perfect.

 
          
He’d
just sat down before his computer and was preparing to open the box and tear
out the memory chip, when he heard his office door open behind him. His fingers
closed around the grip of his .45.

 
          
“Oh,
it’s you, Mr. Portero,” said a voice he couldn’t place. “I didn’t expect you in
today.”

 
          
He
turned and recognized one of the newer men on the security force—knew the face
but not the name. He’d been hired last summer; low on the ladder, which was no
doubt how he’d pulled Christmas duty.

 
          
“Yeah,”
Luca said.
“Just checking on something before I go home.”

 
          
“Lots of brass in today.”

 
          
Luca’s
ears were singing and the last thing he needed was chitchat with this kid, but
his curiosity got the better of him.

 
          
“Really?
Who?”

 
          
“Both Sinclairs.
First the big guy copters in. Then Ellis
Sinclair arrives in this beat-up van, driving it himself.”

 
          
“Is
that a fact?”

 
          
Luca
wasn’t surprised. If there was any time for a crisis meeting it was now.

 
          
“And
you’ll never believe who was with him: that fox from OPRR—you know, the one who
led the inspection a few—”

 
          
“Romy
Cadman,” Luca said, and felt his blood jump a few degrees.

 
          
The
bitch was back.
And with Sinclair-2.
So they were no
longer hiding their connection. Lister had put the blame on Luca, but that was
wrong. This was their fault.
Especially hers.
Things
had started downhill the moment she arrived. If not for Romy Cadman he’d still
be sitting pretty here, building his retirement account, planning ways to move
up the SIRG ladder. Instead he was on the run and would have to keep on running
the rest of his life.

 
          
Maybe
it was fate that had brought him back at this moment. He had scores to settle,
scales to balance.

 
          
What
was the expression—in for a dime, in for a dollar? He’d left a pile of bodies
back at his house; no reason why he couldn’t leave a few more in Sinclair-1’s
office.

 
          
This
was a different Mercer Sinclair than the one Romy had seen at the shareholders’
meeting. The suave good looks, the debonair poise were gone. This man looked
haggard, years older. But he hadn’t lost any of his fight.

 
          
“As
usual, Ellis, you want to give up. You always were a quitter. But I’m not
giving up. Not by a long shot. We can win, and I can tell you how. But I’m not
discussing it before outsiders—certainly not with someone here from OPRR.”

 
          
“I’m
not representing OPRR today,” Romy told him, “but I’ll leave if—”

 
          
“No,”
Ellis said. “We all stay. We all have a stake in this.”

 
          
Romy
looked around, realizing how true that was. Ellis had led them all to the CEO’s
office—Romy, Patrick, Zero, and Tome and Kek as well. The last three had the
most at stake.

 
          
“Then
this meeting is over,” said Mercer Sinclair. “When you come to your—”

 
          
Abruptly
the door opened and Luca Portero swaggered in. The pistol in his hand startled
Romy, and the wild look in his eyes terrified her.

 
          
“Hail,
hail, the gang’s all here,” he said, breaking into a shark-like grin. “And a
motley crew if I ever saw one,” he said.
“Four humans, a sim,
a—holy shit!
So that’s how you took down four of my men! Where’d you get
the mandrilla? I never would’ve—” His cold gaze settled on Zero. “And who or
what the fuck are you?”

 
          
“They
were just leaving, Portero,” Mercer Sinclair said quickly. “And so are you.”

 
          
“Am
I?”

 
          
“Yes.
You’re fired. As of this minute you are no longer employed at SimGen.”

 
          
“You
talk to me like that?” Portero said. “Where do you get the balls to use that
tone of voice with me after what you did?”

 
          
“What
are you talking about?”

 
          
“You
stood there time after time and looked down your nose at me and pretended to be
horrified at what you called my ‘methods,’ when all the while you built this
company by turning humans into monkeys and telling the world it was the other
way around. You can’t fire me, you piece of shit. I’m firing
you
!”

 
          
And
before Romy knew it, Portero’s pistol was leveled at Mercer Sinclair’s chest.
He fired twice, two rapid, booming reports, hitting him in the chest.

 
          
Images
strobe-flashed through Romy’s shocked brain—Sinclair’s eyes bulging—his mouth
forming an astonished O—his backward tumble with outflung arms—the window
behind him cracking as it was splattered with red.

 
          
And
then Portero was swinging his pistol in her direction. Patrick and Zero stood
frozen to her
right,
Ellis was lunging toward his
fallen brother. Portero shifted his pistol toward him,
then
seemed to change his mind.

 
          
“Later,”
he said softly,
then
focused on Romy.

 
          
Kek
growled and started forward.

 
          
“Kree-gah!”
Portero said and Kek froze.

 
          
Portero
smiled as he eyed Kek. “Before being assigned here I worked with some of these
mandrillas in our
Idaho
facility. They’re conditioned from birth to stop whatever they’re doing
when they hear that word, then wait for another command—from the person who
said it. I’m told the word is ape talk from the Tarzan books.” His gaze
returned to Romy. “Pretty cool, huh?” He heaved a theatrical sigh. “And now
it’s your turn, Ms. Romy Cadman. You’ve messed up my future, so now it’s only
fair I mess up yours.”

 
          
Out
of the corner of her right eye she saw Zero take a step closer to her, saying,
“Leave her alone!”

 
          
“Hey,
listen!” Portero snarled. “I don’t know what kind of a freak you are, but
another step and you’re a dead freak. Got that?”

 
          
Kek
growled again and Portero yelled, “Kree-gah” a second time. “Don’t make me
shoot you, boy,” he told Kek. “I’ve got plans for you.”

 
          
“What
plans can you possibly have for Kek?” Romy said, hoping she could get him
talking, maybe long enough for help to arrive, if any was coming.

 
          
“I
may need a diversion at the airport. I’ll just set him to tearing things up in
another part of the terminal after I get there.” He raised the pistol,
centering it on Romy’s chest. “But enough idle chatter. Good-bye Romy Cadman.”

 
          
Romy
felt a stunning impact against her right shoulder as, once again, two booming
reports split the air. She saw the muzzle flashes as she fell to her left and
realized that Zero had hurled himself against her.

 
          
No!

 
          
She
heard Kek’s enraged howl as he launched himself through the air, saw Portero
try to bring his pistol to bear on the hurtling creature but he wasn’t fast
enough,
heard
him shout “Kree-gah! Kree-gah!” but no
amount of conditioning was going to keep Kek from anyone who hurt Zero. Portero
went down with screams of pain and terror.

 
          
Zero!

 
          
Romy
rolled and was on her feet in a heartbeat, but Zero was down, slumped on his
side, his life running out of him front and back into two red puddles.

 
          
Romy
swims into Zero’s vision. Joy bursts within his ruined chest at the sight of
her alive and unharmed. Her pale, strained face is framed in scintillating fog
as she leans over him and wails for someone to call for help.

 
          
Too late.
Even though he feels no pain, or perhaps because
he feels no pain, Zero knows he’s dying. The impact of the bullets tearing
though his chest was agonizing, but now…now he feels feather light and
completely at peace.

 
          
He
stares at Romy’s tear-stained face as she calls his name again and again,
begging him to hang on. But he has no strength to hang on. He tries to move his
lips but they won’t respond. They must! He has to tell her that it’s better
this way.

 
          
If
this morning had gone differently…if Betsy hadn’t confided to him her suspicions
about Meerm’s baby, and if Ellis hadn’t confirmed them, his outlook would have
been so different. He could have lived with the belief that he was an
intellectual improvement on a nonhuman creature, could have held his head high
as the best of his breed that aspired to the next evolutionary step. But the
truth changed all that. He is not a step up from anything. He’s an
adulterated…thing…a freak of science. He doesn’t know how long he could have
survived knowing that he was cheated of his humanity.

 
          
He
feels her hand in his. He wills his fingers to move, and they do, they close on
hers. She bursts into sobs.

 
          
He
wants to tell her how he’s loved her. And how, thinking he was a sim, he could
have been satisfied to go on loving her from afar. But he doesn’t know how he
could bear seeing her and being with her, and ever dreaming about what, but for
the violation of a few genes, might have been.

 
          
It’s
better this way.

 
          
The
opening in the glittering cloud encircling Romy’s face begins to narrow, brightening
as she seems to recede.

 
          
A
sob builds in what’s left of his chest. Not yet. Let me look at her a little
longer.

 
          
But
the cloud brightens further as the iris closes. And then she’s gone and only
the swirling light remains. And Zero wonders if there’s a heaven. For Romy’s
sake he hopes so, because he knows that’s where she’ll go when her time is up.

 
          
But what about him?
Did he retain enough of that
transcendent spark to allow him to pass on into another life? Will he be
welcomed? Or rejected as unfit?

 
          
He
never fit anywhere during his earthly life. Just once in his existence he’d
like to feel he fits somewhere.

 
          
Wouldn’t
that be
wonderful.

 
          
And
now the light suffuses him and he’s floating…

 
          
Dazed,
Patrick dropped to his knees beside Romy where she cradled Zero’s head on her
lap. She was bent over his face, weeping. The sound tore at his heart. One look
at Zero’s glazed eyes and Patrick knew he was gone. But maybe Romy hadn’t
realized that yet. He didn’t want to be the one to tell her.

 
          
“I
called the security office, the county sheriff,
the
state police. Cops and ambulances are on the way.”

 
          
“Too
late!” she sobbed. “He’s gone!”

 
          
“I
know,” he said softly. He reached past her arm and closed Zero’s eyes.

 
          
She
leaned over further and kissed his forehead. “I loved him, Patrick.”

 
          
“And
he loved you. You should have heard how he talked about you. And it wasn’t just
talk. He loved you enough to die for you.”

 
          
“I
want him back.”

 
          
“I
know…I know…” He put a hand on her shoulder. “I do too.”

 
          
“Can
I…?” she said without looking up. “Do you mind if I just stay here with him
alone until…until they come?”

 
          
“Sure.
Of course.”
Patrick was stung, but he understood.

 
          
He
rose and became aware of a wet slapping sound. He saw Kek kneeling on Portero’s
chest. He gripped the man’s ears as he repeatedly smashed the back of his head
against the floor. That head, wobbly on an obviously broken neck, was bleeding
from the eyes, nose, and mouth; the gray carpet was red under his skull.

 
          
“He’s
dead, Kek,” Patrick said. “You can’t kill him any more.”

 
          
Kek
looked up with tears in his eyes, then, without missing a beat, went back to
his work.

 
          
Suddenly
Patrick remembered Tome. He whirled and found the old sim squatting on the
carpet a few feet away, his face buried in the arms folded atop his knees.

 
          
“Tome?
Are you hurt?”

 
          
The
sim looked up with tear-filled eyes.
“Ver sad, Mist Sulliman.
All
Tome’s
fault.”

 
          
“No
way, Tome,” he said, feeling a surge of anger. “We know whose fault this is,
and it’s not yours.”

 
          
With
that Patrick turned toward the CEO’s desk and saw Ellis rise from behind it. He
shot him a question with his eyes, and Ellis shook his head. His expression was
grim and sad, but no tears.

 
          
Three men dead in less than half a minute.
Yes, men. From
this day on Patrick swore to remember Zero as a man. Although, considering the
two others who’d joined him in death, that might not be a compliment.