“Do you know your trustees well?” I asked Dahlia as I helped myself to some toast and jam. “Are they sort of like unofficial aunts and uncles?”
“Of course not,” Dahlia said scornfully. “They’ve always known that they would have to choose between me and Zinnia, so they’ve been careful not to get too personally involved.”
It sounded like a cold way to be raised to me. “What about grandparents?” I asked. “Iris Cartwright’s parents. I guess, technically, they’re your parents, too. Are they coming?”
“We’ve never met them,” Zinnia said sadly.
“Why not?” I asked.
Dahlia answered me. “They disapproved of Iris’s decision to have herself cloned. They actually went to court to try to get custody over us using the very same argument. The trustees won, of course. We’re not their children; we’re Iris’s clones. You’dthink the difference would be obvious.” Dahlia rolled her eyes.
I privately thought she and Zinnia might well have been better off being raised by Iris Cartwright’s parents rather than trustees. “My parents can’t make it. What about you, Timothy?”
“My mother’s going to present the award. She has to be there.” Timothy looked a little desperate.
A thought struck me. “And is your father coming?”
“Oh, no, my father’s dead,” Timothy said casually.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s okay.” Timothy shrugged. “He died seven years before I was born. I’m a Legacy baby.”
Timothy seemed to find nothing unusual with his statement. Neither did the clones or Rianne. Only Mike and I were caught flat-footed. “What?” I asked.
“Mom had his DNA on file,” Timothy explained politely, “and she never remarried. She said that, even if she had, she would still have wanted to have my dad’s baby. I guess he was a pretty neat guy.” Timothy sighed. “I wish I could have met him.”
While I could see the horrible temptation to turn back the clock to keep part of a loved one alive by bearing his child, the result was that Timothy had never had a chance to have a father. No wonder he hero-worshipped Eddy.
It made me feel odd and out of time. I could and had learned a lot of the future technology that made 2099 different from the time I’d been raised in. I could fly an aircar, operate a vidphone, and use a palmtop computer. I couldstudy up on the history. But what kept slapping me in the face was the social change: Legacy children, clones, Augments.
After breakfast, Zinnia lingered to speak to Rianne. “I’m sorry Dahlia was rude to you.”
“Dahlia’s the one who owes me an apology,” Rianne said.
“I know,” Zinnia said. “I just wanted you guys to know that she didn’t used to be like this. We used to be great friends.” Zinnia looked wistful.
“We always planned to run Iris’s company together. But on our sixteenth birthday we got into an argument about who would win the estate. I said that I would win because I did better in class than she did, but Dahlia got really quiet and said that that didn’t mean she was stupid. Ever since then she’s been determined to beat me. She’s going to do it, too.” Zinnia looked depressed. “I can feel it.”
“If you ask me, the loser may be the real winner,” I said bracingly. “A hundred doors will open for the one that closed. From then on you’ll be able to do what you want, no more slaving away trying to prove yourself worthy of a dead woman. Companies will fall all over themselves to pay for your education and hire Iris Cartwright’s clone.”
But I’d misunderstood the reason that Zinnia was upset.
“I know I’ll be able to get a job if I lose, but, whether I win or lose, I’ll have to go on alone. Dahlia’s been there my whole life; even when she’s being horrid, she’s still there. What will I do without her?”
I didn’t know. The thought of being alone, withoutMike, terrified me. I made my voice artificially bright. “Well, to start you can go to the awards ceremony with us.”
Zinnia smiled weakly. “I guess I’ll go get changed then.”
“Me, too.”
We all got dressed up and then drifted back into the living room until it was time to go.
Timothy became increasingly jittery as his mother didn’t show. Mike finally got him out the door by pointing out that his mother might have decided to go straight from her aircar to the auditorium without stopping by the house.
“Don’t worry,” I told Timothy when we reached the auditorium and learned that President Castellan still hadn’t arrived. “There will be a bunch of speeches, right? She’s still got an hour before she needs to be here.”
Timothy looked reassured. He disappeared backstage, and the five of us found seats together. Rianne parked her wheelchair in the aisle.
The first part of the ceremony—Best Exhibit, Most Creative Display, etc. for the Exhibition Hall—went well, if a little dully. There were news crews present, but no reporters jumped up to ask Timothy awkward questions.
But when it came time to announce the contest winner, Eddy came forward and said that President Castellan had been “unavoidably detained due to engine trouble” and that he would present the award on her behalf. Eddy seemed suspiciously well prepared, giving a long and rather unfunny speech. Timothy looked miserable as he handed Eddy the envelope.
“And the winner is . . .” Eddy paused an unnecessarily long time. “Zinnia Cartwright.”
I’d been rather hoping Rianne would win—not just so she would get the money she needed, but so that the Cartwright clones’ relationship wouldn’t be damaged further—but I clapped hard.
Zinnia cast one agonized glance at Dahlia’s white face—Dahlia’s hands stayed in her lap—and then stood up.
But before Zinnia could make her way down the aisle to the stage, twenty men dressed in green camouflage and carrying machine guns burst into the auditorium.
MY FIRST INSTINCT was to duck and roll, but I checked the impulse. Everyone else had frozen in his or her seat. Movement would single me out of the crowd, not save me.
I willed Timothy to press his panic button, but he seemed petrified up on the stage with his uncle.
Where the hell were Anaximander and his security forces?
Hands raised but not looking the least bit frightened, Eddy stepped forward. “What’s going on? Is this a joke?”
A burst of automatic weapons’ fire into the air shut him up.
“Are you okay?” I whispered to Rianne. She looked tense. The stress couldn’t be good for her heart.
“I’m fine,” she whispered back.
We both quieted as one of the terrorists played the muzzle of his gun over our row.
“Remain where you are!” a terrorist bellowed.“Anyone who is standing will immediately sit down! Anyone who attacks us or tries to escape will be shot! If you all obey, no one will get hurt!”
Zinnia sat down in the aisle with all the grace of a table collapsing.
No one else moved. No one tried to play hero. I let out a sigh of relief—and then Eddy spoke. “Who are you?” He was too stupid to be afraid.
The terrorists didn’t shoot him dead. A tall, capable-looking woman even answered his question, though she addressed the cameras, not Eddy.
“We are the Sons and Daughters of the Stars. We are here to protest the unconscionable closing of the Martian mines by the SilverDollar Mining Company. They will lay off thousands of our brethren, the Spacers, in their ruthless quest for money and power. We demand that the UN intervene. We demand that the mines and the path to the stars remain open.”
“That’s not true. SilverDollar has not yet made the decision to shut down the mines,” Eddy said, confirming even as he denied.
A machine gun jabbed him in the belly. Eddy looked offended.
Some of the terrorists began to sift through the crowd, selecting hostages. It occurred to me that it was just as well that President Castellan had been detained.
I had expected Eddy to be taken hostage, but the terrorists must not have known
who he was because they passed him over. They didn’t pass over Timothy.
I exchanged glances with Mike. Should we make a move? He shook his head.No.
Timothy looked sick. I had a bad moment when I thought he might try to fight them, but his shoulders slumped in despair instead.
I clutched the arms of my chair to keep from leaping up. I told my chip over and over that there was nothing I could do against machine guns except die. That I was more valuable on the loose, organizing a rescue.
They took Zinnia. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she looked back over her shoulder at us. Dahlia let out a keening cry of distress, but Mike hushed her, shaking his head in warning.
Then the terrorist who’d given the order for everyone to remain seated reached our row. He passed over Dahlia but pointed his gun at Mike. “You.”
I fought to keep still. The terrorist probably thought I was breathing hard out of fear, not suppressed action. He passed me over. . . .
And picked Rianne.
Rianne, with her stick legs and weak heart.
“You. Go to the front with the others.”
Slowly, face pale, Rianne began to roll forward.
She might have a heart attack and die. I couldn’t let it happen. “Take me,” I said. “Her wheelchair will take up extra room and slow you down. Her family doesn’t have any money to pay ransom. If they did, she would be Augmented.”
Rianne shot me an angry look, mad at her weakness being made public. I didn’t care. “Take me,” I repeated, standing.
Four machine guns snapped into line, aimed at my chest.
“I’ll take whoever I want, kid. Sit down,” the terroristgrowled. Thick maroon stripes had been painted onto his face. Coupled with a nose ring, they made him look brutal and fierce.
The makeup also obscured his face. Wipe it away and three quarters of the people in the crowd wouldn’t be able to identify him. I made a point of looking more closely. He had a barrel-chested body and long, muscular arms. His hair was buzzed short, and his brown eyes were deepset.
“I said,sit down.”
I put my hands on my hips, acting utterly fearless. “Not her, you idiot. Me! You’re supposed to take me.”
It worked. He scowled. “But—”
“And now you’ve made me blow my cover,” I said irritably. I dared not glance down to see how Rianne and Dahlia were reacting to my pack of lies. “Do you know how much trouble it was to get close to the SilverDiaper kid? And all for nothing. You screwed it up!”
The guy in the face paint looked angry, but not yet convinced. “I’m going to have to talk to Orange about this.”
Yipes!But I didn’t back down from my new role. “You do that,” I said. “You tell him how you screwed up.”
“I was told to take the girl with the bad legs,” he said.
What?No time to think what that meant. I wanted badly to look at Rianne—was she a Daughter of the Stars? If she was, she could blow me out of the water. But Rianne stayed silent, and I let momentum pull me along.
“Then the message got mixed up, it was supposed to be the personbesidethe girl with bad legs,” I said.
That seemed to do the trick. He glanced up at the front, where a group of hostages, including Mike, Zinnia, and Timothy, was already being hurried out the door. “We’re holding things up. Let’s go.”
“Do you have a spare gun?” I asked. “Since my cover’s blown, I might as well be of use.”
“No. Not that I’d give you one anyway,” the terrorist said as he backed up, covering the crowd with his machine gun.
Damn. I’d saved Rianne—if she had in fact needed saving, which I was beginning to suspect wasn’t the case—but the longer this masquerade continued, the greater the chances of me giving myself away. As soon as we met up with this Orange guy, in fact.
“What’s your code name?” the terrorist asked.
Orange could be a color or a fruit. “Lemon,” I said. “And you?”
“Maroon.”
Colors then. I should have guessed from his face paint.
We exited the auditorium, and Maroon broke into a run.
I had a chance to escape then. I could have fallen behind and sneaked back inside the auditorium, but not only did I not really want to explain to Anaximander that I had been merely pretending to be a terrorist, but continuing with the role gave me a slim chance of rescuing Timothy. The Loyalty chip didn’t care just how slim that chance was.
The Sons and Daughters of the Stars were runninga smooth operation. By the time Maroon and I reached the lawn where they’d landed their aircars, a fifteen-seater craft had lifted off and a second, smaller aircar was waiting for us with its doors open.
If I was going to do something, it had to be soon.
“Hey, Orange!” Maroon called. “I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
One of the men running in front of us turned back instead of entering the aircar. Seth Lopez.
Seth/Orange recognized me, too. “You!”
He was going to accuse me, so I accused him first. “That man’s a traitor!”
The accusation, coming out of left field as it did, threw Seth. He sputtered a denial.
I watched Maroon. He was the important one. If he knew Seth/Orange well, my smoke screen would be blown away right here.
The gamble wasn’t as great as it seemed. In an organization that used code names and disguises, members often knew well only the members of their own “cell” to protect the others in case of capture and interrogation.
My luck held. Maroon brought his gun up, pointing it at Seth.
“What are you doing?” Seth yelped. “Point that thing at her. I’m not a traitor, she is. She’s not one of us! Where did you find her, anyway?”
“She’s the special pickupyoutold me to get,” Maroon said flatly.
“No, she’s not! I said the one with bad legs.” Seth glared at me.
“Which proves my point,” I said smoothly. “He lied about the pickup; he’s a traitor.”
Maroon shifted his gun to cover us both. “I don’t have time to sort this out now. Both of you get in the aircar. Move.” Already the first aircar was almost out of sight, and the woman terrorist standing in the second aircar’s hatch was gesturing frantically.
Seth went, swearing the whole way. “You’re crazy!”
“Wise move,” I complimented Maroon as I clambered inside the aircar. “The chase will be on any moment now.”
Maroon scowled at us both. “Shut up and sit down.”
I strapped myself in and looked around.Damn it.Timothy, Zinnia, and Mike weren’t there; they must be in the other aircar.
“What’s going on?” a woman asked. I recognized her as the terrorist who’d spoken so passionately to the cameras. She had a broad face with a large jaw. Long brown hair, tied back in a ponytail. Brown eyes. Crooked bottom teeth. From the stripes on her face, I assumed her code name was Blue.
“Later,” Maroon said brusquely. “Go,” he told the pilot.
The aircar lifted off with a screaming of engines. It occurred to me that Arizona Air Traffic Control didn’t know our flight path, greatly increasing the risk of collision. Lovely.
Several tense minutes ticked by as we flew away from Tucson. We winged in the opposite direction of the first aircar, trying to draw pursuit. The tactic worked. A familiar Black Panther aircar buzzed after us: Anaximander. “Fall back orthe hostages die,” Maroon radioed. The Black Panther fell back without a shot being fired. We were alone in the sky.
The pursuit had been surprisingly easy to shake off. Almost suspiciously easy.
My heart bumped as I connected that fact with several others. One, Seth had escaped Anaximander before. Two, Anaximander was not incompetent. Three, Eddy hadn’t been kidnapped. I added them up and threw in a couple of wild guesses to make five.
Eddy had wanted Timothy to be kidnapped.He’d either helped Seth or Seth was secretly working for Eddy.
I thought back to how Eddy had spoken of his ne
phew as being troubled and violent, and I felt cold. If I was right, Eddy was planning to kill Timothy and lay the blame on terrorists. I could see the scenario already: mentally unbalanced boy tries to escape his kidnappers and is shot dead.
At last I had the answer to why Eddy had placed Mike and me in Timothy’s household. He would want our “loyal” testimony that Timothy was unstable. Both the locked planetarium incident and Seth’s vicious questions had likely been planned to push Timothy over the edge.
Eddy had probably arranged to have President Castellan’s aircar sabotaged to keep her from interfering.
Anaximander must be helping Eddy because of his Loyalty chip, because he had no choice. Just as I had no choice—
No!I breathed rapidly, making myself thinkthrough the block. In a moment I found the chink. My loyalty was to SilverDollar, not Eddy himself. President Castellan was also part of SilverDollar. Timothy’s murder would be another lever in Eddy’s schemes to replace her as president.
I wrenched myself back to the present when Maroon returned from the cockpit to question Seth and me. “All right. Let’s get to the bottom of this. Who are you?”
“I’m Orange. I don’t know who the hell she is. Some meddler. What I’d like to know is how she came to be withyou”—Seth skated on the edge of accusing Maroon—“and what happened to the girl you were supposed to pick up!”
Maroon eyed him contemptuously. “Your turn,” he said to me.
“I’m Lemon,” I said. “His name is Seth Lopez. He works for Eddy Castellan.”
This time Seth didn’t rush to protest for a telling two seconds.Confirmation.
“Save it.” Maroon cut him off when he did start. “We’ll know the truth in a moment. Blue, get the TrueFalse.”
I winced inwardly. I’d forgotten about TrueFalse. Oh, well, nothing to do now but hope that the terrorists would be so distracted by Seth’s confession that they would forget about little old me.
Yeah, right.
Luckily, Blue seemed to have taken a disliking to Seth. She gave him TrueFalse first. Seth spent the ten minutes while the drug took effect trying to convince her and the others that they were making a mistake. Maroon and Blue ignored him. In fact, all of the terrorists were ominously silent. Hostile.
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