by Sean Platt
“So this is good?”
“Very good.” Jonathan handed Ephraim the disconnected box.
“What’s this?”
“‘Subliminal command module,’” Jonathan replied.
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“It’s for your trip.”
“My trip?”
“To New York.”
“Why am I going to New York?”
“You just told me you saw the news,” Jonathan said.
“And?”
“And Ephraim is back in circulation. We need to get him back.”
“Get him back?”
Jonathan nodded, pointing at the box. “With that.”
“You think this will work?”
“Why wouldn’t it? As long as he has a MyLife, you should be able to boss him around.”
“That’s just the thing. We haven’t been able to reach him, subliminally, since they took him away.”
“Jammers, I imagine. The prison uses them for sure, but wherever he is now must have them, too. Makes sense if he’s trying to hide.”
“So what good is this?” Ephraim asked.
“At close enough range, you might be able to blast through jammers. If you can’t, just drag him out into the open and use it then. He’ll respond.”
“What if they removed his MyLife entirely? It won’t work then.”
“Why would anyone remove a MyLife?”
“I heard rumors,” Ephraim said.
“You believe everything you read on the internet?”
“I don’t know, Jon,” Ephraim said, looking down at the device in his hands. “What if it turns out the clone doesn’t even have a MyLife anymore?”
Jonathan nodded, but he was already holding something else. He handed the gun to Ephraim. “Then use that to persuade him.”
“And if he won’t listen?”
“If that happens, persuade him to death.”
Ephraim looked up at his brother. That should be shocking; but they, of all people, knew the clones were just meat puppets who knew a few tricks.
“We always needed to find the clone before GEM or anyone else. This shouldn’t be a surprise. Ephraim’s a loose end. A big one, particularly if we expect to deflect blame from Eden onto our competitors.”
“Why do I have to do it?”
“You’re the only one I can trust. Nobody else knows it all, and I’d rather not tell them.”
“Why not you?”
“Because I’m the CEO of Evermore. Nobody knows who you are.”
That didn’t sound right to Ephraim. Everyone knew who he was.
“Mauritius doesn’t have any official authority here,” Jonathan went on. “They can’t stop you from leaving or test you before you go. Same as Mercer’s boxes or anything shipped in. The second they officially try and interfere with our business, it becomes an international embargo. Right now, they’re winking and so are we. You look different enough, and nobody’s looking for Ephraim here on Eden; they all think he’s in the city. Especially after this report. Everyone’s all fucked-up over it, too. They think ‘you’ are going to bomb Jubilee or something. Keep your beard on. Wear sunglasses; I don’t care. But find him. If you can control him with the box, get him to say terrible things about Riverbed and glowing shit about Eden. There’s no conspiracy with Jonathan Todd; the conspiracy was always between Ephraim and Fiona, that bitch!” He laughed.
“Why do you think the clone is in New York at all? What’s he up to?”
“Who knows? Who cares? GEM is about to open up a can of whoop-ass trying to find him. That’s all that matters. They can do our dirty work as long as they don’t get the clone before you do. The evidence against Eden works just as well against Riverbed or any other labs trying to steal our secrets.”
“But if Fiona is supposedly stealing from us, doesn’t that mean we have stuff to steal? Doesn’t it mean we’re making illegal clones, too, in GEM’s eyes?”
“Hey, our situation isn’t going to get worse than it already is. Might as well spread the blame. Make us look like the lesser of a bunch of evils. Fuck Fiona. She wants to flip you against me? Let’s turn the tables on her.”
“And what about Wood?”
“What about him? With luck, maybe he’ll think the Titus thing had something to do with Riverbed, too.”
Ephraim shook his head. “I just don’t get it, Jonathan. They’re talking like he’s a terrorist.”
“He is. He burned Eden and killed Neven and a bunch of other people.”
“But why would he, I don’t know, bomb Jubilee?”
“Because he’s crazy! You know the clones break once they know what they are. You saw him kill Neven. He was blubbering like an asshole when they took you both away. Sure, we got you free, but even all the bribes in the world would never have gotten him off. He’s snapped. This is a mercy, Ephraim.” Jonathan tapped the gun. “Put that poor insane bastard out of his misery and sever a bunch of our loose ends at the same time.”
Ephraim looked down at the objects: the subliminal control box in one hand and a weapon in the other. He’d never used the box, nor killed a man.
He wasn’t eager to try either, or to leave the island.
But Jonathan was right. If the clone was in the city, they needed to get him back at best, permanently silence him at worst. This might be their only chance, and Eden’s brothers were the only two people who knew why.
Jonathan slapped Ephraim on the shoulder. The gun wobbled in his grip, almost dropping to the floor.
“You can do this,” he said. “I believe in you.”
Chapter 25
The Dark Space Inside
Hershel hadn’t discovered the gun in the closet.
‘Discovery’ was a process of something going from unknown to known. There had never been a time in his life that he hadn’t known the weapon was there.
No, he hadn’t discovered it. Hershel had argued that point with stern-faced vehemence when Kilik tried, and failed, to get Hershel to hand it over.
He’d remembered the weapon. And, as the only Wood on the block these days, Hershel’s argument that it belonged to him was airtight. Kilik could try taking it from him, but that would be a bad idea. Hershel was the Director of GEM. The organization’s quasi-law-enforcement status gave him access to weapons, including guns that Kilik didn’t know about. It wouldn’t be wise to be on the wrong side of someone like Hershel.
So far as Hershel could tell, Kilik didn’t even know that he himself was a clone, and had no clue that Hershel could only be coerced so far.
Then, clone or not, Hershel might decide to get Kilik out of his way.
Kilik stood in the office doorway, looking down at Hershel sitting behind his desk. But Hershel’s attention stayed on his hands in his lap.
Kilik followed Hersel’s eyes and swiveled to slam the door, closing them both inside. “Are you fucking crazy?”
“Funny that you should ask that question.”
Hershel emphasized “you,” but Kilik hadn’t caught it. The poor dumb fool. His conditioning was showing. Neven had told him, when he’d shifted Hershel’s priorities, all about Kilik’s dual personalities. His right half didn’t always know what his left half had done.
Would he remember, if Hershel asked, that he’d killed the old Wood with his bare hands? And if he did remember, would he realize what the current Hershel was?
“I told you not to touch that,” Kilik said, addressing Wood like a child. Or perhaps an intelligent dog.
Wood raised the blue steel weapon. He turned it this way and that, noting the way its matte finish barely caught the light. He made his eyes slightly wide, stuffed his expression with a bit too much wonder, and wrapped his fingers around the grip, his index slipping inside the trigger guard.
The muzzle pointed at Kilik.
“Why can’t I touch it?” The gun was loose in Hershel’s hand, its aim approximate. Playing as if he had no clue what the object was or what it could do.
“People will think you’re unstable.”
“Like you?”
“Put it down.”
“Why?”
“Stop playing around, Hershel. You’re going to hurt someone.”
“How?” His smile was stupid, but his eyes were playful.
“Seriously.”
“Oh, seriously?”
Kilik didn’t realize his hands were going up. It was all subconscious, like the drive to kill the original Hershel, dispose of his body, then forget what he’d done. And yet, Kilik treated today’s Hershel like he was a different person, like the two of them were involved in a nefarious scheme.
Which is it, Kilik? Are you a good agent who wants to do his job, or are you a plotter and killer?
“Come on, Hershel. Stop screwing around. This isn’t funny.”
“It’s a little bit funny.”
“Put it down.”
“Fine,” Hershel sighed. “I’ll turn whatever-this-thing-is off.”
He flicked the safety to a red dot. Red equals dead, the man who’d taught the original Hershel to shoot had once said.
Kilik swallowed. The man had no sense of humor. You’d never know he was a proud clone, a generation behind Hershel. The man was on the verge of pissing himself. Yet the slide hadn’t even been racked.
Hershel set the weapon on the desk, then flicked the safety back as an afterthought. He wasn’t sure if there was a round in the chamber, and just one way to find out that he was interested in trying.
“Put your hands down,” Hershel snapped. “You look like a goddamn scarecrow.”
Kilik did. He eyed the gun but wisely refrained from asking Hershel to hand it over.
“Sit.”
Kilik sat.
“I asked you to check something for me,” Hershel said.
“You weren’t serious.”
“Of course I was serious.”
“It’s irrelevant. We can figure it out later, after we’ve apprehended Ephraim Todd.”
“It’s not our business, Kilik. He killed someone. Let the police handle it. Just because he’s a clone doesn’t suddenly mean we’re responsible for …”
Hershel trailed off, seeing how Kilik blinked several times in rapid succession. Watching him, Hershel realized that the idea of “clones” was indeed foreign to Kilik’s mind. And he wondered how this thing operated without knowing the basics of its world and its mission?
Neven must have given Kilik knowledge that human duplication was a real thing, sloppy as it was before the likes of New Hershel. How else was he supposed to function? How had he already functioned?
The tan man across the desk had strangled Hershel to death while the new Wood watched. How the hell had his mind made sense of that without this most basic level of information?
“Never mind. I asked you to do something. That’s all that matters. I don’t feel the need or desire to explain.”
Kilik persisted. “But GEM’s primary objective right now is to find Ephraim Todd.”
“Who sets the directives, if not the Director?” Hershel indicated himself.
“You know as well as I do that the decision came down hard from—”
Kilik stopped talking when Hershel, idly touching the weapon on his blotter, turned the muzzle toward Kilik’s chest.
“I’d like to know who’s scheduled to work the Crypt on Saturday night,” Hershel said, his voice eminently reasonable.
“I—I’ll check,” Kilik said.
“Why don’t you do it from here?”
Kilik fished out his Doodad and started tapping. Sixty seconds later, after a few exchanges, he said, “Looks like Smith and Martinez.”
“Give Martinez the night off. It’s Jubilee, for fuck’s sake.”
“Regulations require two people working the Crypt at all times.”
“Fine. But not Martinez.”
“Why not Martinez?”
Because Martinez has been giving me the eye.
This was Hershel’s blind spot: the months that had passed between the day that Old Hershel’s memories had been collected and the day that New Hershel had stepped into his shoes. He knew Hershel’s history with Martinez starting months back, but had to guess at their more recent past. Martinez radiated irritation toward him. If Hershel had to guess, he and Old Hershel had had a fight. That meant New Hershel didn’t want Martinez working the Crypt on Saturday night, during Jubilee.
“Because I said so.”
“Um …”
“Swap him with Devlin. He’s on the field team, right?”
“I think so.”
“Then have Devlin work the Crypt, and put Martinez in the field.”
“He won’t like that, Hershel. You know how Martinez feels about this manhunt.”
“Tell him he can do his job or be fired.”
“I’m not HR.”
“Then it’s not your problem, is it?”
Kilik, usually so wily, shut his mouth. There was little for him to argue. Martinez was one of the most vocal opponents to this Ephraim Todd business, but that was tough shit for Martinez.
Kilik tapped his phone, ordering the personnel change.
Kilik resumed blinking. He seemed dumbfounded. Or at least, that’s what Hershel thought until he realized what was happening. Neven was talking to Kilik, probably right at this moment. Neven couldn’t push Hershel around the way he could push the inferior clones, so he was attempting it through Kilik — who, in theory, could do the pushing for him.
Kilik’s eyes cleared, and Hershel realized that the half of his mind that believed he was an everyday agent had departed. The killer was back. And what Kilik said next, in this state, wouldn’t be all that different from talking to Neven himself.
“Don’t get me wrong, Hershel, I want to get into the Gene Crypt, same as you. I just think Ephraim Todd needs to come first.”
Hershel weighed his options. Kilik was speaking and would probably remember this discussion, but his ideas were being fed through his MyLife. When Hershel and Neven had that long talk before Mercer brought him to meet Kilik, Neven couldn’t have been clearer.
Ephraim Todd has become a wildcard. I need you to turn all of GEM’s resources toward finding him. All of them, Hershel, not just manpower. Ava will feed the panic. I need GEM to release information that feeds it, too. If every person in the city is afraid of Ephraim and what he might do at Jubilee, they’ll be on the lookout. The sooner we find him, the sooner we can get back to what we both want to accomplish.
Hershel hadn’t been convinced. He knew what he was — a body and mind duplicated from the original Wood. He knew that at the moment of his creation, he’d become the pinnacle of what Evermore — and science — could make of humankind. He knew the tweaks Neven must have made to Wood’s mind to fill Hershel with drive. Neven was naïve thinking he could alter that most inborn of drives at the final moment, just because ‘finding Ephraim Todd’ had become more important to him.
If we don’t catch him before you install the backdoor in the Gene Crypt, it might all fall apart.
But with the backdoor in place, the cat could come screaming out of the bag. Ephraim wouldn’t matter. Diverting Hershel’s attention now only delayed that most important of missions.
But he’d nodded, before leaving the Domain, letting Neven believe that he’d changed Hershel’s mind. If he didn’t seem convinced to pursue Ephraim instead of the database, Neven might try the shock chamber again.
It was easier to lie, and less painful.
It would be easier to lie now, but for different reasons.
If Hershel stood his ground in front of Kilik now, Neven might make Kilik get in his way. Hershel might have to kill the clone. And then how easy would it be to get into the Crypt, Jubilee or no Jubilee?
“You know what? You’re right. It’s smarter to cut the loose ends before moving forward with the plan. Talk to the others. We know Titus Washington was cloned even if we can’t prove it.”
Kilik’s eyes fluttered,
his brain slotting pieces into place. He didn’t know about clones? Sure he did. Everyone in the office believed the Eden report about Washington was real.
“Tell Layla to get in touch with the police. Tell them that we have a credible report of biological wrongdoing. Offer them GEM’s support in their manhunt. The sooner we find Todd, the sooner we can get on with our Great Work.”
But the initial eye flutter had kicked Kilik’s mind back into everyday mode, and he’d already recovered his dual personality — his awareness of the Great Work — as Neven’s voice left him. That was the limit of MyLife control. Neven could only suggest things to his clones’ subconscious minds, but ultimately each of their actions was his or her own.
The thought heartened him, made him forget about the dark space inside, where the last-minute attempt to alter Hershel’s prime motivation had left its scar. He found his memory floating back past his contentious discussion with Neven to their months of better times, when they’d sat discussing a future they planned on crafting together.
My father believed what we believe, Hershel, Neven had said. He just never had the guts to prove it. But with your help, I will.
Chapter 26
Surprise
Mercer approached the dock, navigating the buoys, and half wanted to run into the big metal ones just for the hell of it. He’d done donuts in the river earlier, cutting circles in the water with the engine revved. A guy had to get his thrills where he could, especially as cooped up as Mercer had been for the past few months.
Thinking this, recalling the aquatic donuts (and the adrenaline feeling that he might capsize), while the misty wind ruffled his short hair, Mercer considered his deal with Neven. He considered breaking it daily. The Domain was monotonous and boring, he had nobody to talk to besides Neven, and that dude was shit out of his mind.
The strange architecture did things to Mercer’s inner ears that made him dizzy. The place looked like it was built from nothing but boxes — cubes stacked at random — as if Neven had started with one cube and piled the others on wherever the urge struck him to do so.
Making his rounds and checking on Neven’s new clones wasn’t just creepy; it felt like he was walking through one of those drawings where the staircases went all upside-down and sideways. Flying to Eden had become the most interesting part of his schedule, and that right there said plenty.