Sims (54 page)

She nodded without speaking, without looking around.

Zero leaned back and closed his eyes to hold back the tears.

After a while Patrick said, “Goethals Bridge dead ahead. Why do we want that?”

“Because it's the quickest route out of Jersey.”

“But where are we going?”

“Dr. Cannon's.” He took one of Meerm's hands in his. “We're bringing her the most important patient of her career.”

Two more men dead!

“Shit-shit-SHIT!” Luca Portero screamed as he smashed a glass paperweight against his office wall. He didn't have to worry about anyone hearing; security staff was minimal on Sundays.

Luca hadn't seen the bodies yet, but Lowery, who'd found them, had told them that both their skulls had been cracked like eggs. That sounded eerily similar to the way Ricker and Green had bought it off the Saw Mill. But this was in broad daylight, damn it!

Could things get any fucking worse?

As if in answer to his question, the secure phone rang. He hesitated—because, yes, things could get a lot worse—then answered it. He repressed a sigh of relief when he heard Lowery's hello.

“What?”

“I've been checking around the area and found some squatters in this broke down old apartment house on the same block.”

“Did they see anything?”

“Not what happened to Snyder and Grimes, but they did see this black van parked on the street—”

“They're sure it was black?”

“Double-checked that. They swear it was black. But here's the meat: the one looking out the window says she saw a very swollen looking female sim being led into the black van.”

Oh, no! No! They've found her! Snatched her right out from under our noses! How the fuck could this happen?

“She's absolutely sure?”

“No question.”

“Who was doing the leading?”

“Two men—one ‘very strange looking,' according to her, but she was kinda vague about that—along with a woman, and another sim, an old male.”

Luca dropped into his desk chair and cradled his head in his free hand. Cadman and Sullivan. Had to be. Plus that old sim Sullivan kept around, and someone else working with them.

And they had the pregnant sim.

“All right,” Luca said, straightening. This wasn't FUBAR yet. It still could be salvageable. “We abandon Newark. Divide the remaining men into four teams: one on Sullivan's apartment, one on his office, one on Cadman's apartment, one on her office. You see them, grab them.”

“But—”

“I don't care what you have to do to nab them, just get it done. If there's any flack we'll straighten it out later. I want one of those shits and I want them brought to me!”

He'd interrogate them personally and they'd lead him to this pregnant sim. No need to worry about being recognized because whoever he dealt with would not be leaving vertically.

But what if they'd all gone to ground?

MINEOLA, NY

“She's not going to last much longer,” Betsy Cannon said as she angled the doppler wand this way and that against Meerm's swollen, gel-coated belly.

Romy, Zero, Betsy, and Meerm were crowded into the tiny, white-walled, windowless procedure room in Betsy's home office. Meerm lay on the table, Betsy working over her, Romy and Zero watching from the other side.

“What do you mean?” Romy said, watching in rapt fascination as the 3-D shape of the fetus within Meerm's belly formed on the monitor screen.

“Her uterus has taken just about all it can. It's too small for this baby. And yet . . . the baby could use more gestation time.”

At least Zero had his ski mask back on. They'd all agreed on the way here that no one else needed to know Zero's history. When it was all over—and with Meerm's baby, that could be very soon—he promised to go public.

The mask made it easier now for Romy, but she wished Zero had waited outside with Patrick and Tome; she was still uncomfortable with him, especially standing next to him like this. And she didn't want to feel uncomfortable, hated herself for it.

But . . . how else
could
she feel? She was fighting her way through an emotional maelstrom and still hadn't regained her bearings. She'd admired Zero so; he'd become a hero in her eyes and in her heart, and that was fine, but she'd also been sexually attracted to him, had fantasized about him, and now . . . now to learn that he's not human.

So what?
said the ghost of Raging Romy, ever ready to shout
Up yours!
to the world. It's not as if he's a squid or a plant—he's a fellow primate.

That was true and real and forward thinking, but another more primitive part of her was repulsed and kept damning her, whispering that in another time, or in a SimGen-less world, Zero would have been born a chimpanzee, destined to spend his days sitting in a jungle sucking ants off a stick.

Sicko evil girl! Wanting to make love with a monkey! Sick! Sick! Sick!

Romy did her best to shut out that voice, but it wouldn't go away, couldn't because it was part of her, and that was what so dismayed her. She'd always thought she was better than that.

“How much longer?” Zero asked.

Betsy Cannon brushed back strands of graying hair from her face. “Hard to say. If this were a sim baby I'd say she's almost due. If human I'd say premature. But this baby . . . I don't know. And there's another problem: Meerm's uterus is small, smaller even than a breeder sim's. That baby is packed tight in there, so tight I can't determine its sex.”

“We could lose the baby?” Romy said.

“It's a real possibility.”

Romy stared at the color image on the monitor, watched the rapid filling and emptying of the chambers of its little heart, saw the baby move, squirming for comfort in the confines of the too-small womb.

We can't lose you, she told it. You
must
live. We're so close now and . . . the salvation of an entire species rests on you.

“We could lose the mother as well,” Betsy added. “The baby is going to be premature, and I can tell you right now that a vaginal delivery is out of the question. This baby is coming out by section.”

“Cesarean?” Romy said, looking at Meerm's distended belly. “How . . . where . . . ?”

“I don't know.” Betsy's expression was grim. “Not here, that's for certain. It's major surgery and I'm not equipped for that, not unless we intend to sacrifice the mother.”

Romy's gaze darted to Meerm's face. The poor sim didn't have a clue as to who or what they were talking about.

“That's not an option,” Zero said. The finality in his tone stabbed Romy with a reminder of why she'd been so attracted to him. “Tell me what you need and I'll arrange it.”

“A sterile operating room and a skilled surgical team,” Betsy said. “Can you manage that?”

“Tall order,” Zero said. His voice had lost some of its confidence.

And then another voice spoke.

“Why Meerm sick?”

They all stared at her a moment, then Betsy spoke.

“You're not sick, Meerm. You're going to have a baby.”

Her sloping brow furrowed. “Baby? What is baby?”

“You know babies,” Betsy said. “You must have seen many babies on television.”

The brow furrows deepened. “Baby?”

“Only this won't be like the human babies you've seen. This will be a
sim
baby.” She gave a little shrug as she glanced at Zero and Romy, signifying that she was simplifying the situation as best she could for Meerm.

“Where baby?”

Betsy tapped the sim's abdomen. “Right in here. And the baby will come out soon.”

“Baby here?” Meerm said, a slow smile of wonder spreading across her face as she gently rubbed her hands across her belly. “Baby inside? Baby kick-kick-kick?”

“Oh, yes!” Betsy laughed. “I'll bet that baby's been kick-kick-kicking like crazy!”

As they all watched Meerm gaze at her belly, a question occurred to Romy.

“Will she be able to care for a baby?” she said softly.

“She won't have to worry a bit,” Betsy said. “That baby will get
great
care. As a one-of-a-kind species, it will belong to the world.”

“No, it will belong to Meerm. It will be
her
baby. We're not going to forget that, are we?”

“Ah, Romy,” Zero said through a sigh. “That's why we need you: to ask the tough questions.”

Something in his voice struck her . . . did Zero . . . could Zero feel about her the way she . . . ?

No. Out of the question. He couldn't. He simply couldn't.

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

“Let's get this started,” said Sinclair-1, spinning his chair away from the winter-browned hills beyond his office window to face Luca and Abel Voss. “I've still got a lot to do today.”

Luca thought the CEO looked particularly irritable this afternoon. That was going to get worse when he heard Luca's news. Normally he'd relish the prospect of upsetting him, but not now. All the blame rested squarely on him.

“We're waiting for your brother.”

Voss shifted his bulk in his chair to face Luca. “I thought he wasn't comin.”

“I called and told him this was too important to miss,” Luca replied.

Sinclair-1 gave him a questioning stare. Luca only nodded. Yes, they'd agreed that Ellis would be excluded from tactical meetings, but Luca had a reason. He was sure Sinclair-2 already knew that Meerm had been snatched from under SIRG's nose, and damn well knew who had done it; he was going to use Sinclair-2 to bait a trap for the people he'd been supplying with information.

They included Cadman and Sullivan, Luca knew, and at least two or three others. Whoever they were, they'd all vanished. He'd hoped to nab either Cadman or Sullivan and wring the pregnant sim's whereabouts out of them, but since he couldn't find them, he was looking for a way to make them come to him.

Because he
needed
that sim. Lister had thrown a shit fit this morning when he'd heard about losing Grimes and, of all people, Snyder. Grimes had been something of a jerk, but Snyder had been their most dependable man. Luca had stashed the bodies in the woodshed behind his cabin—he hoped the cold weather held—and Lister was keeping the news from the higher-ups for now, but couldn't cover it up indefinitely. If Luca could produce the pregnant sim, however—say, today or tomorrow—the deaths wouldn't matter.

The office door opened and Sinclair-2 entered. The older brother looked strange today. And then Luca realized what it was: His usual down and dour demeanor was gone and he looked almost . . . happy.

You son of a bitch.

He fought the urge to grab him by his scrawny neck and twist it till he spilled everything he knew. Every last thing.

But that was not an option. Even though Mercer Sinclair was considered the true untouchable—his was the public face of SimGen, so closely identified with the company that if he went down, so would the stock that made SIRG an entity unto itself—Ellis Sinclair was also considered off-limits. No move could be made against him without direct authority from the Old Man himself.

What Luca couldn't understand about Ellis Sinclair was
why
. Why would anyone in his right mind want to kill this golden goose called SimGen? So that had to be the answer: The older Sinclair was out of his mind.

Which didn't make Luca want to kill him any less.

He swallowed his bile and said, “I won't waste anyone's time here: We have it on good authority that the pregnant sim is in the hands of Patrick Sullivan and Romy Cadman.”

“Oh, Christ,” Sinclair-1 groaned, closing his eyes.

“That tears it,” said Abel Voss.

Sinclair-2 leaned back in a sofa and said nothing.

“When?” the CEO said, recovering quickly. “Where are they now?”

“This morning. And if I knew where, we wouldn't be having this meeting.”

“Damn!” Sinclair-1 glared at Luca. “You've got to get her back!”

“We're working on it.”

Sinclair-2 finally spoke. “Give it up, Merce. Can't you see it's gone too far? It's past the point of no return now.”

“Not yet! Not until they produce that baby!”

“And even if they do,” said Voss, “we can call it a hoax, can't we? Some cheap publicity stunt, a twenty-first century version of the Piltdown man or Barnum's Cardiff Giant. We get our PR boys to crank up their bullshit machines and start poundin away at every news outlet they know: A hoax, that's all it is. Just a hoax. Those boys are so good, before you know it, we'll be believin it ourselfs.”

Sinclair-1 was shaking his head. “That won't fly in this case. They have a real live sim mother. They can identify the human father—what was his name?”

“Craig Strickland,” Luca said. “The security guard at the globulin farm.”

“Who's dead, right? But that doesn't preclude fingerprinting his DNA. Plus they can put the sim mother and human father together for months in the same building in the Bronx. And most important, they'll have the baby. With all that, it's a simple everyday process to establish paternity.”

Luca could have cheered. He'd been looking for an opening to bait his trap, and this was it.

“I've taken care of that,” he said. “Because of his connection to a crime, Strickland's body has been in cold storage in the New York City Morgue since it was pulled out of the ashes in the Bronx. A real crispy critter.”

“So?” Voss said.

“So yesterday it was released. Since Strickland's got no family—at least none that's come forward—I had one of my men present himself as Strickland's cousin and claim his body. We're going to have it cremated as soon as possible.”

He hadn't done any of this yet. The idea had occurred to him less than an hour ago, and he had to clear it with Lister first. But Sinclair-2 didn't know that.