He wasn’t buying it. And for a moment she was afraid he might just walk away. Then, with a pained expression, an expression of loss, he nodded his head.
ELEVEN
Saks would not release the store surveillance video. But Mr. Stern had excellent connections throughout security companies in New York. An underpaid guard, when offered ten thousand dollars in untraceable cash, decided he could in fact arrange for the video file to make its way to Mr. Stern.
He in turn passed it along to Plath. Who watched it for the third time with Keats, Wilkes, and Anya. Billy had not been asked to be present, but he was, anyway.
They decided that there was no need for Vincent to be subjected to it in his condition.
His condition. Fragile, that was his condition. Borderline nuts, still. High-functioning unbalanced.
“Jin lost his shit,” Wilkes said on a second viewing. “Look. That’s when it starts. He’s fondling a pair of pants. Then that’s him texting.”
“ ‘Two new biots,’ ” Plath said dully.
“The text was sent three minutes later,” Noah pointed out. He had compared the video time code to the time signature on Plath’s phone.
They watched the second part of the tape. Nijinsky hurling himself down the escalator. There was no sound. The video was decent quality, but the angle was poor. They were seeing him from behind.
“Jesus Christ, how many times do we have to watch this?” Wilkes cried suddenly. She stormed off to the kitchen. Then came back with a bag of chips.
“ ‘Two new biots,’ ” Keats said. “But he was against getting anymore.”
The third segment of tape showed a distraught Nijinsky, face-on this time, kneeling, feeding his scarf into the escalator.
It went on for way too long. Nijinsky dead. People milling around helplessly. Store employees rushing over with scissors, trying to get at the scarf and cut him loose. Failing, because it was too tight, too tangled.
Eventually a security guard. Then, at last, far too late, the paramedics.
“He went crazy,” Anya said. “It was deliberate. He was looking at clothing and then he was killing himself. Madness.”
She wasn’t thinking about Nijinsky. She was thinking about Vincent. She glanced nervously toward the stairs leading up to his room, then tried to cover the telltale gesture with a reach toward Wilkes’s chips.
“New biots,” Plath mused.
“Just totally lost his shit.” Wilkes spoke around the crunching of a corn chip.
“Who could make a biot for him?” Keats asked. “It takes a tissue sample and the equipment.” He didn’t mean to single Anya out by looking at her, but she was the only one in the room with the skills, and she controlled the equipment that had been hidden in the basement of the safe house.
“It takes a tissue sample, the equipment, and the skills,” Anya said. Then, angrily, “Why would I do that to Nijinsky?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Everyone knew the answer. Anya sighed. “Yes, I disliked him. But I would never do this.”
That earned her carefully blank looks.
“No, you listen to me, all of you. I would never. I did never. I did not do this.”
All eyes were on her.
“No!” Anya cried. “No, do not do this! Suspicion will destroy us.”
“What ‘us’?” Wilkes asked. “Look at us. Ophelia’s dead. Renfield. Vincent’s out of it. Now Jin. Fucking Jin, man.” She laughed her weird heh-heh-heh laugh and looked ready to cry. “We’re a fucking joke.”
“We stopped the Armstrongs,” Keats said reasonably. “We accomplished a lot. More than we should have been able to.”
Anya ignored him and instead pleaded with Plath. “Plath, you know I didn’t do this. Look at me. I did not hurt Nijinsky.”
Plath wanted to say something reassuring. But she couldn’t quite get the words to come out. If not Anya, then who? Someone at McLure Labs? But how many people there even knew of the existence of biots? And of those, how many could make one? And of those, how many would use the knowledge to kill Nijinsky? Was Anya a traitor?
“I know what you are thinking.” Anya’s Russian accent was coming to the fore. The word came out thinkink. “You are wrong.” Wronk. “It was someone else. Why would [vwould] I …? For what reason?”
Keats said, “No one suspects you, Anya. I don’t, at least. But the thing is, who else then? Not you, okay. But who?”
“I don’t know,” Anya pleaded. “I can think of only three others at McLure Labs with the knowledge and the access to equipment. But how would they have a tissue sample from Nijinsky?”
“He’s dead now, can we call him by his real name? Shane Hwang. Not some dead, crazy Russian ballet dancer.” This from Wilkes. She punched the bag of chips and sent crumbs flying. “His name was Shane fucking Hwang. I never even knew Ophelia’s real name. And poor old Renfield. And when I’m dead or crazy, you people won’t know me, either.” The flame tattoo under her eye looked like extravagant tears. “Jesus, no one will even know me.”
“Okay,” Plath said, bringing silence. “I believe you, Anya. I think … I mean, I choose to think … that this is the remote biot-killer technology that Lear was talking about. Which means we are all in danger. But still, Anya, I—we—need to be able to watch you.” Plath put a finger to her eye. It looked like a gesture, some kind of evil-eye, maledictory gesture. But in fact Plath had sent one of her biots racing around her own eyeball to clamber over lashes and reach the cheek.
Through her biot’s eyes she could see the vast column of flesh descending like some cylindrical meteor from the sky to press a giant furrowed fingertip within a few seconds’ walk.
Her biot ran beneath the vast curve, ran on until fingertip and depressed cheek met, then clambered upside down onto the finger.
“No,” Anya said. “No. Nyet. Is not happening.”
“I promise you, Anya, I won’t lay any wire. I will not make any changes in your brain.”
“Your promise,” Anya sneered.
“Yes, my promise,” Plath said. “I can’t just let you walk away. I have to maintain surveillance.” She leaned toward Anya and stretched a finger up to the older woman’s eye.
Anya swallowed in a dry throat. “So you will watch me. You will tap into my eye and see everything that I see.”
“It’s the only way,” Keats said, though he didn’t sound too sure of it. He pressed his lips together and stole a worried glance at Plath, who revealed no emotion.
Look how hard she’s gotten, Keats thought.
When they had first met, he’d marked her down as a spoiled little rich girl, probably a snob, who would condescend to him, look down her nose at him.
But that had not been true. She had been anything but a snob. But even then, early days, he’d noticed that effortless authority she carried with her. That was, without question, a product of wealth and privilege. Plath would admit that much. A billionaire’s daughter simply had an air about her that could not be faked by a working-class kid like Keats.
Part of him was proud of her in an uncomplicated way. He wanted to say, Well, look at you, all grown up and in charge. But part of him was small enough to focus on their relationship rather than BZRK. He was in love with her. He believed she loved him back. But how stable could a relationship be when there was this much of a difference in their circumstances? My God, the girl basically had a private army.
Anya let Plath touch her, just below her left eye.
Plath held the contact for a few seconds as her biot scampered off and began the journey to the optic nerve.
From now until Plath let her go, Anya’s sight would be shared. Plath would see what Anya saw. In the bathroom and bedroom, too, inevitably. The idea made Keats’s skin crawl, but this was BZRK.
Fighting for freedom. Saving the world.
Yeah, but hadn’t they done that when they stopped the Armstrongs from controlling the president? And when they stopped Burnofsky’s gray-goo scenario? Hadn’t they already won?
Then how was it th
ey were still trapped in this paranoid universe where they used the names of dead or made-up madmen? How was it that they were still taking orders from an invisible character called Lear?
The thought was out of his mouth before he could check it. “Why are we still doing this?”
Wilkes snorted. “Pretty blue eyes asks the right question. Why are we still doing this?”
“Because we haven’t won yet,” Plath said. But she didn’t quite like that answer. “It’s not over yet.”
“How does it get to be over?” Keats asked. “How will we know it’s over?” He had been leaning forward, now he drew back. “Look, isn’t this about the knowledge, really? Once we know how to make nanobots and biots, how do we ever unlearn that? It’s like nuclear bombs, isn’t it. How do you stop it spreading once the technology exists?”
“When the last of us is dead, it’s game over. For us. Right?” This was the first time Billy had spoken. “I mean, it’s a game, right? Biots versus nanobots. Take over the world. Isn’t it a game?”
“No, it’s real,” Plath insisted. “The Armstrong Twins are real, and we’re real, and Jin was real.”
“Yeah, but …” Billy felt the weight of disapproval. “Yeah, but games are real. That’s what you don’t get, with respect to you, Plath. Games are real to the people playing them. While they’re playing.”
No one said anything; after all, Billy was just a kid. But Keats couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d just heard something important, that Billy had blurted out the truth. It could be real, and dangerous, and deadly, and yet still be a game, he thought.
When was a game over? When you lost.
Or when you won and went off in search of a new game.
Biot versus nanobot. That was the game. But now, according to Plath by way of Lear, a new level was being revealed. Something out there could kill biots remotely. Dead biots meant madness. It meant killing yourself on an escalator in Saks.
So why bother to blow up a boat? If you could generate then kill biots, then why did it seem so much like manipulation? The Armstrong Twins would not hesitate if they could kill Plath and him.
So why wasn’t he dead?
Because the game was somehow more complicated than that.
The video played again, looping. Keats watched the faces watching Nijinsky. They watched in surprise as he stared and spoke to the air. Then in shock as he threw himself down the escalator. Horror as he fed the silk scarf into the mechanism that choked the life from him.
Then, Keats picked up the remote and rewound.
“Enough!” Wilkes yelled.
“Wait,” Keats said. “Don’t watch Jin. Watch the people around him. That woman. The one with the ink.”
He advanced it in slow motion, focusing on the woman.
She pulled out her phone and glanced at it. Checking e-mail? Or checking the time?
She stole a glance at Nijinsky.
“She’s looking at Jin,” Keats said.
“He was a good-looking dude, maybe she—” Wilkes began, but then she fell silent, because now was the part where Nijinsky started to lose it. The people nearest were shooting him irritated or concerned looks. The woman was not. She was half smiling, watching … waiting.
Waiting.
“She knows,” Keats said.
He cut to the next video, the horrific one showing Nijinsky on the escalator. There was a woman just a dozen steps behind him.
“Fuck! It’s her,” Wilkes said.
Now everyone was leaning toward the screen, checking the dress, checking the shoes, the hair, comparing them to the first images.
“Yes,” Plath confirmed. It’s the same woman. Jin got to this place by running, then hurling himself down the escalator. And she followed him? What kind of person follows a crazy man?”
Now, again, Nijinsky fed the scarf into the escalator.
But this time they watched the woman behind him—the shoulders, the hair.
She stepped past and over the strangling Nijinsky. Not panicked. Calm.
She knelt by Nijinsky. Her hand shot out, took something.
“The phone,” Plath said. “She took his phone. The time signatures. She sent the text.”
“It’s an Easter egg,” Keats said. “Billy’s right: it’s all a game. And that woman is an Easter egg. We are supposed to see her.”
Jindal could barely restrain himself. His first meeting with the returned Twins had ended with his being dismissed like a disappointing schoolboy. Now they would have to listen. “We have confirmation. Proof. They’ve hacked our network. Somehow they exploited a hole in the AmericaStrong computer system and worked their way back to us, back to core AFGC systems.”
Charles saw the meat of it immediately. “Floor Thirty-Four?”
Jindal shook his head so hard he couldn’t speak until he had stopped. “No, that is walled off entirely. But the good—”
“Do they have our nanobot blueprints? Our technical specs?”
“Yes. And they’ve been looking at this building.”
“With an eye to infiltration or attack?” Charles demanded, while Benjamin remained ominously silent.
“No way to tell. But gentlemen, there’s good news as well.”
Charles raised his eyebrow. Benjamin glowered at Jindal, as if holding him personally responsible. “Good news?”
“The hackers have been hacked in return,” Jindal said. He was giddy now, torn between excitement and fear. “We tracked them back and found a way into some of their systems.”
“BZRK?”
“No. McLure Labs Security. That’s who’s been watching us. McLure Security. Presumably at the direction of”—Jindal hesitated, knowing the effect his next words would have on the Twins—“Sadie McLure.”
“The little bitch,” Benjamin spat.
“Do we know where she is?” Charles asked.
Jindal shook his head, impatient to get to the one remaining piece of good news. “No, nothing directly on BZRK. But we can now track the movements of the main McLure Security folks, and if we follow them, we’ll likely find a way back to Plath herself.”
“Bah,” Benjamin snorted. “No time. They’re planning an attack here, that’s obvious. We have to hit them hard, now. Now!”
Charles looked queasy, but as Jindal watched, he could see wary acceptance grow on the wiser brother’s face.
“We don’t have the gunmen we used to, thanks to that disaster in Washington. But we have other means, as you know well. Massed preprogrammed attack,” Benjamin said harshly.
Charles smiled faintly at that. He shrugged his shoulder. “Go ahead, Benjamin. You know you’ve wanted to say it ever since you came up with that name for the drones. Go ahead.”
For once Benjamin did not scowl. He smiled. And said, “Locate Stern. And any other important actors in McLure Security. And as soon as you have the location and Burnofsky is ready … I will release the Hounds.”
TWELVE
Down in the meat.
P2: soulless, mindless biot, Plath’s creature, Plath’s bizarro-world daughter. P2 zooming across Plath’s eye, six legs stroking as Plath had learned to do, like an Olympic speed skater.
The room was dark, shades drawn, door locked, a GO AWAY Post-it note on the door. In the darkness, her eyeball—which in light could look like a frozen lake—looked like some impossibly vast jellyfish, at least here on the white.
Her eyelids—the onrushing “shore” lined with palm trees—looked less benign, more like needle-sharp teeth.
Her eyelid swept over her, rubbing across her biot back, a slight pressure, greater darkness; then it rushed away as though that row of teeth had rejected the tiny meal.
Sadie, you need to ask yourself: Is this you?
That barb stuck. It stuck, and Plath could not shake it off.
Are you really, truly a person planning what would look like a terrorist attack in Midtown Manhattan?
The World Trade Center was falling in her memory, and now there was a musical track
to go with it. An old, old song, a Beatles song: “Piggies.”
It added a vengeful but playful note to the video atrocity.
How had she felt about that footage the first time she had seen it, back in the classroom? She had been horrified. Sickened. She had always been that way, always capable of being outraged by terrible injustice. In school they had done a unit on World War Two, and as part of that they had done a couple days on the Holocaust. She was not Jewish. She was not part of any group that had been touched by the Holocaust, but she’d been unable to sleep afterward, unable quite to control the sickened hatred of people who could do that to other human beings.
They had watched parts of Shoah in class—actual first-person testimony from Holocaust survivors. She remembered vibrating with the suppressed fury she’d felt. She remembered giving up finally on any effort to control the tears.
She still felt that way when she recalled the Holocaust unit. But she no longer felt horrified by the World Trade Center. Now it was … what?
Beautiful, is what it was.
Is this you?
Was it really this easy to cross lines that should never be crossed? Had the stress of this unasked-for war of hers, this BZRK existence, simply washed away the part of her that cared about right and wrong?
Or. Or had she had some help?
Is. This. You?
Plath had three biots. She had sent P1 into Anya’s brain. It sat now on Anya’s optic nerve, looking out through Anya’s left eye. It was a window open in Plath’s head, showing, at the moment, a bowl of soup, a rough hunk of baguette, and three slices of sausage. Anya’s hand lowered a spoon. Raised a spoon. Pause. Lower spoon. Raise spoon. Put down spoon, hands to bread, tear off a hunk, raise it toward mouth.
Plath’s final biot, P3, was an enhanced model. Faster, with better sensors, stronger. It was still in the vial attached to a chain around Plath’s neck, staring at nothing—a very dull TV show of curved glass wall, and not so much of that in this light.
The line is there …
Mr. Stern suspected she’d been caught up in something, and needed some time to think it through more calmly. Plath had different suspicions. Because, yes, she was thinking of attacking the Tulip. Guns blazing. Bombs blasting. The image of the Tulip disintegrating, toppling, falling to the ground in fire and smoke was almost … almost erotic.
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