Trifecta (34 page)

Almost to the door. 

Sabrina glanced behind her.  There were two gigantic dark
men at the end of the hallway.  They stopped suddenly, now stalking slowly toward
the women down the dim hallway.  The back door had a bolt and Sabrina yanked at
it ineffectively until the woman reached around her and turned the knob.  Sabrina
jerked the door open, grabbed the woman's arm, and pulled her outside.

Sabrina could see her car a half block away.  She ran toward
it, dragging the woman, who stumbled after her. 

Sabrina glanced back.  The two men were outside now.  One
of them shouted, "Put the goddamned gun away! Go get the car."

Sabrina felt like she was in a nightmare.  The sun was
in the wrong position and made the normal residential street appear surrealistic
and alien.

Perhaps she was still drugged and a little sluggish, but
Sabrina had always had a funny metabolism.  Valium, codeine, grass, sleeping pills
and alcohol never gave her a comforting relaxed feeling.  Now she had barely escaped
because the drugs had worn off before they anticipated. 

Sabrina glanced back.  One man was hurrying around the
corner, probably to get a car.  The other was rushing after them.  Sabrina fumbled
the key in the lock and pushed the woman inside.

"A car."

"Yes,"  Sabrina said, hustling the woman toward
the passenger side.  "Move over.  Fast."  She locked the door.

The car coughed, almost died, then coughed again.  "Don't
die on me,"  Sabrina muttered.

"I won't die on you,"  the woman said.

Sabrina glanced at her.  The woman's expression was perfectly
serious.

"Thank you,"  Sabrina said as the car revved
and they burnt rubber in a fast U-turn, shooting past the man who had been rushing
toward them.  "Lets haul ass out of here."

Sabrina didn't think anyone had caught up, with all the
wild turns she was making, but she went to a nearby residential area and cruised. 
She thought a blue car was following, but couldn't be sure.  Then she watched in
her rear view mirror as the car stopped in front of an apartment building.  False
alarm, she thought. 

When she got home she would have to call the police.  They
would think she was crazy, but she had the evidence sitting right beside her.  Undoubtedly,
they would believe the woman was crazy, too.  She talked very peculiarly and there
were no real clones, or computers, or whatever the hell she was. 

Sabrina drove to her condominium and parked underground
in her assigned space.  The woman was staring at her again in that strange way,
without blinking.  The woman did not look too terrific.  The garage elevator went
directly to the lobby of the condominium, not to the floors above, so the doorman
could screen everyone.

Now I get to walk past the doorman with a woman who looks
exactly like me with bushy tangled hair, hairy legs and no shoes, Sabrina thought. 
Wonderful.

"If the doorman says anything, you're my double. 
You're the 'Before' and I'm the 'After' for a commercial.  Okay?"

"I am your double, the Before.  I don't know what
a Before is."

"That's all right,"  Sabrina said, sighing. 
What a horrible complication the woman was.  And how disconcerting her staring. 
Maybe she would regain her memory and figure out where she really belonged.

"How do you feel?"  Sabrina asked.

"Running was new."

"Everything will be all right,"  Sabrina said. 
"We just have to get past the doorman."

"We rush again?"

"No.  We'll walk.  You stay close behind me."

"I'm your double.  Not dumb...just new."

"Of course you are.  New, I mean,"  Sabrina said. 
She felt sorry for the woman and drawn to her in a strange way.  Sabrina wondered
if she ever smiled.

They walked through the blessedly empty garage over to
the elevators.

"You were stumbling when you took me to the bathroom. 
And you said running was new?"  Sabrina said as they waited for the elevator.

"When I started walking, I fell down a lot."

Aha, Sabrina thought.  Childhood memories of toddling to
the arms of loving parents. 

"But I was much larger, then,"  the woman said.

"I'm not a small person, just skinny.  And we seem
to be exactly the same size."

"Ferd couldn't decide whether to make me a man or
a woman, so when he started me, I was big."

The woman still did not blink.  Sabrina pushed the elevator
button again.  This was definitely lunacy tunes times.  La La Land for this lady. 
If she was a lady.

The woman continued, "Ferd said I would be too strong
to handle as a man, so he made me a women, in case the experiment went out of control. 
Meaning me."

Sabrina closed her eyes briefly and shook her head.  Now
she would have to wonder if the woman was dangerous.  "Did you ever see yourself
before—uh—you looked like me?" 

"Yes."

"What did you look like?"

"The Michelin Man."

The elevator arrived and Sabrina positioned the woman behind
her as the doors closed.  The elevator was swift and she wanted to be prepared before
they got out.  The Michelin Man?

"Stay behind me and act casual,"  Sabrina said
as the doors opened into the lobby. 

Jack, the doorman, saw her and waved as Sabrina stepped
out of the elevator.  Luckily, someone came into the lobby and Jack turned away. 
Sabrina saw an elevator opening across the lobby, walked briskly to it.  The woman
was right behind her.  At least she follows directions well, Sabrina thought as
they rose silently.

Sabrina closed the door of her apartment with a sigh of
relief, but it only seemed like a haven for a moment.  The stranger, who had once
looked like a Michelin Man according to her own testimony, was in Sabrina's own
apartment now, and maybe she was dangerous.  Outside was dangerous too.  Thugs with
guns were searching for her and the experiment who looked just like her. 

The woman was staring in her intent way, again.  She did
not look expectant or anything.  She was just standing there, but she had started
to blink.  You never realized how abnormal it was when someone did not blink until
you saw it.

"I have to go make a call,"  Sabrina said, intensely
needing privacy.  "You make yourself at home."

She knew she could not call the police and face their questions. 
Not yet.  She needed to talk to Mark.  She felt, but did not really believe, his
voice could reduce her back to sanity, or something approximating it. 

She went directly into her bedroom.  The hell with manners. 
The woman didn't have any, with all that staring.  Enough to make her crazy, even
if she hadn't been drugged and cloned and there weren't people who wanted to kill
her to protect their scientific creation.

Sabrina sat on the edge of the bed and dialed, glancing
at the bedside clock.  She suddenly realized that she had been at the tanning salon
all day.  No wonder the sun had appeared to be in the wrong position when she ran
to the car. 

She sagged with relief when Mark answered.

"Sabrina."  She heard his smile.

"Mark, I need help.  Right now.  Something very serious
happened."

"Why are you whispering?"  Mark whispered back.

"Please, Mark.  Can you come here?"

"Tell me what it is.  Are you okay?"

"No.  Listen, I know you have plans for tonight, but
I'm so scared."

"Tell me."

"I have to show you."

"Why can't you tell me? Maybe you'll feel better."

"You wouldn't believe me,"  Sabrina said. 

There was a pause, "I'll come over.  Right now."

"Good."

"Take care, sweetie.  I'll be there in a minute."

Sabrina found the woman standing in front of the open refrigerator
door in the kitchen drinking maple syrup, Aunt Jemima's Buttery, from the pour spout. 

"I needed brain food.  Glucose."

"Drink all you want,"  Sabrina said.

Sabrina mechanically filled the tea pot with water and
put it on a burner.

The woman was staring at her again, holding the maple syrup
container.  After a few gulps more she replaced the bottle.

Sabrina got two cups and put them on the kitchen table,
wondering if the woman reacted badly to stimulants.  Even tea.  Maybe she got homicidal
on caffeine, but Sabrina noticed she herself was feeling better and decided not
to worry so much.

"Let's sit down,"  Sabrina said.  "I want
to know all about you.  We have to decide what to do."

Sabrina sipped the tea.

The woman was copying her, Sabrina realized, when the woman
frowned a little as Sabrina had done when it scalded her tongue.

"Too hot?"  Sabrina asked.

"I don't feel hot,"  the woman answered.

"Why not?"

"I don't have the nerve receptors."

Sabrina looked at the woman curiously.  There was almost
no inflection at all in her voice.  Exactly like she had no opinions or emotions. 
Or, Sabrina thought eerily, like she really was a machine.  The lack of voice intonation
made the woman hard to understand and she had to think a moment before replying.

"That could be dangerous."

"I don't feel pain, either.  I could inadvertently
burn myself, be on fire, and not know it until I actually saw it."

No emotion whatsoever about being on fire?

The woman got up and went to the drawers that held cooking
utensils.  She opened a few and took out a knife.  It was a big one. 

Sabrina felt a sudden thrill of fear.  The woman would
kill her! Then she watched in horror as the woman calmly sliced her own palm, very
quickly and deeply.  Blood drops pattered to the floor.  The woman put the bloody
knife back into the drawer and sat down again, holding out her hand in Sabrina's
direction.

Sabrina watched as the cut stopped bleeding almost immediately
and closed up, erasing the wound magically.

"Accelerated healing,"  the woman said, and sipped
her tea.

"Y
ou dumb shit,"  Alexander said, frowning
at his brother as he drove down Sunset Boulevard toward their home in Bel Air. 
"Why didn't you get the damn license number?"

"She was driving like a maniac,"  Stephen wined. 
"And a blue car was right on her tail.  I couldn't see."

"You drive like a little old lady,"  Alexander
stated furiously. 

"Well, you were just standing there.  They drove right
past you.  You should have gotten the number."

"Hell.  We'll find them.  We're going to make so much
money, nothing will matter at all."

"How? You called the Defense Department and said the
experiment died.  You planning to say it was magically resurrected?"

"No.  I got a better idea.  Remember the corporation
making a takeover bid for two electronics firms in the silicon valley last year?" 
Alexander asked.

"Oh no,"  Stephan moaned.  A big brooding dark
man, he was wincing and shaking his head.  "You didn't!"

"The one buying all the real estate near San Francisco?
The one we worked with, on the merger here in Los Angeles?"

"Shit.  The Japanese? That Hashimoto will chew you
up and spit you out like hamburger,"  Stephan protested, remembering the small
dapper Japanese with seemingly infinite patience.  The man whose patience was trickery;
whose small stature had hidden his inexorable will; who had hammered Stephan and
Alexander and all their partners into submission to his own volition.  A very scary
guy to deal with.  A man who did not understand the meaning of No.

"I called them while you were cruising around aimlessly," 
Alexander said.

"You're crazy if you think we can sell it to Hashimoto. 
You're in way over your head."  Stephan stated. 

"I can handle it." 

"We barely got out of that last deal alive."

"We have the leverage, now.  Hashimoto's flying over
himself.  You know how the Japanese are about new computer technology.  Who cares
if they fucking tear it apart to see how it works.  We'll get a long term contract."

"You're out of your goddamned mind!" Stephan
could feel the eye tic beginning again, the one that he had acquired during past
negotiations with Hashimoto.

"First,"  Stephan ticked off on his fingers,
"we don't have it.  Secondly, we're supposed to get it to work for them? What
if the implant made her insane.  She might be crazy instead of brilliant."

Alexander, hunched over the steering wheel, went on as
if he had not heard Stephan, "A computer does not get a salary.  We do.  The
computer is out of the country and who knows where it went? My friend in Defense
warned me we could be in serious trouble for aiding in the experimentation on a
human being.  So we're off the hook.  And the Japanese are talking in the millions
a year.  Just to use her.  And if we can get information on how she was made, we'll
be billionaires."

"Oh God,"  Stephan said, his eye juddering erratically. 
"When are they arriving?"

"In three days,"  Alex said, smiling triumphantly. 
"We'll have to work fast."

B
urgess Whitcomb did not believe the preposterous theory
that was directing all the covert activity for a second.  Two dipsy lawyers had
reported to Acquisitions at the Defense Department that a reputed genius inventor/medical
doctor had developed a computer that could be implanted into a human brain; that
this human-computer could be used as a secret government weapon. 

As if that were not enough rubbish, the lawyers also claimed
the computer gave the implantee incredible strength and recuperative powers. 

Burgess Whitcomb knew it was all a crock of mule manure,
and he was extremely irritated that he had been assigned to oversee the investigation
in California.  He would be surprised if they even found some poor mutilated dead
person with his cranium opened and some device inserted inside.  Burgess was forced
to take the allegations seriously though, even if he found them wacky.  This was
a top secret, Black Investigation. 

Burgess Whitcomb had methodically began the investigation
with the career of Ferd Steinbrenner, M.D., Ph.d., biochemist, computer whiz; the
creator of numerous surgical and technical inventions currently in use today.  In
the past, Dr. Steinbrenner had supervised the most delicate brain surgeries, as
he had been head of neurological surgery at the University of Chicago. 

Dr. Steinbrenner had been awarded medical research grants
by the National Institute of Health in Maryland.  There was no doubt that the doctor,
several times over, was a genius, but Burgess thought that maybe the old guy had
gone bats and was raving in his old age about his ability to computerize a person. 
Still, one had to be impressed with Dr. Steinbrenner's past accomplishments. 

Whitcomb was an old military man with a large barrel chest
and the precise military bearing that went with the gray brush- cut hair and the
large, red veined nose of a heavy whisky drinker.  Whitcomb's hooded eyes, whose
color remained a mystery because of heavy upper lids, which turned the eyes into
permanent slits, were formidable.  Even Willard Modert, his able administrator,
who now was tapping on Whitcomb's office door, was leery of the man.

"What?"  Whitcomb barked at the small, nearly
bald man who was nervously fidgeting like an anxious schoolboy in need of a potty
break.

"Ivar Cousin called,"  Willard Modert said. 
"A tall skinny blond went into the tanning salon and didn't come out.  The
doctor put a 'Closed' sign in his window.  She's been there for hours."

"Tell Cousin and Stoner to follow her when she leaves. 
Then post another surveillance team."

Modert nodded and left.

In one way Burgess felt himself fortunate because if there
was anything to the allegations, the government was not stinting.  He had free rein
in the amount of personnel he wished to use.  First, of course, there had been the
men assigned to Dr. Steinbrenner.  The problem was, Dr. Steinbrenner seemed to have
become a recluse, not leaving his apartment for days on end.  Then there was the
surprising development that the doctor had opened a tanning salon.  At first Burgess
thought that surveillance would be a problem, but there seemed to be little doing
in the tanning business.  The doctor tanned only a couple of people a day.  People
came out of the salon tinted golden brown, and the doctor had filled out all the
necessary city forms to open the business.  There was nothing illegal. 

One of the investigators, Ivar Cousin, had gone into the
tanning salon yesterday morning and exited a spectacular bronze color.  He had managed
to photograph the appointment book.

Of course, there was also surveillance on the two lawyers. 
Background data collected to see if they were the ones mentally disordered, but
they seemed to be upstanding citizens.  There was no aberrant behavior that the
investigators could find.  The two womanized a lot, but did not seem too kinky,
except that they traded back and forth.

The only recourse was to keep the old doc under surveillance. 
The two lawyers later claimed that the human computer had died.  If there had been
an experiment that had failed, there should be a body. 

The other possibility, preposterous as it seemed, was that
there now was a person with a computer in his brain.  No one screened in the investigation
had had evidence of brain surgery.  One would expect bandages or maybe a wig to
cover the evidence. 

Burgess Whitcomb had even gone so far as to ask Hollywood
agents, providing people with special high intelligence in the Los Angeles area
for T.V.  game shows, to contact him if they found an exceptional genius.  He thought
it was impossible that such a scheme would come up with anything, but Burgess was
a genius himself.  At covering his ass.  No one would ever say he hadn't capped
all the bases.  And no one could have risen so high in the government from the military
who was not constantly addicted to watching his behind.