by Sean Platt
But Hershel left without trying.
He had final preparations to make.
Chapter 38
Upholding a Legacy
The wait was worse than death, Neven knew from experience. He kept looking at a clock every few minutes. But time, unlike his old clones, refused to move faster.
It was almost seven, but Neven was farther east than the city, so the sun set ever so slightly earlier. Right now, from the Domain’s roof with his tablet in hand, Neven watched the sun paint its first rainbows on the far horizon; now orange, soon to be red, then blue and purple. The city had minutes until sunset.
He looked at the tablet, which told him nothing useful. It’d let him know if Mercer called, but the man had been incommunicado for days. Neven had set Mercer’s phone to be tracked, but that trick wasn’t new to Mercer, and he’d removed the tracking.
Maybe he’d run off, but Neven doubted it. Mercer of all people should know exactly how terrible an idea double-crossing Neven would be, assuming Wood did his job and all the little guys Neven was soon to employ did theirs.
That left three basic options. Either something had happened to Mercer’s Doodad, Mercer was in a situation that prevented contact, or Mercer was dead. Of the three, the second option seemed most likely. It was also the option Neven liked least.
He’d been uncertain enough with the Ephraim Clone loose and unaccounted for, and the strange way Wood had behaved on last contact had deepened his uncertainty. And now this, with Mercer?
He looked at the time again. There was no chance the Ephraim clone would resist the bait that Neven had used Ava and GEM to lay out. He was predictable, no matter where he’d wound up. If that clone was alive, and if he truly believed the real Ephraim would be at Jubilee (which he would; Neven’s fabrications were nothing if not thorough), then the clone would be there, too.
Probably after dark, when cover was best.
But the news was silent. Live cams displaying the parade were peaceful. Mercer hadn’t called, and neither had Wood. Was anything happening in Manhattan?
Whether Neven’s Ephraim-trap worked or not, tonight was show time.
There wouldn’t be shootings or bombs. That was just smokescreen and fear. But there’d be news about Ephraim Todd sightings, wouldn’t there?
Goddamn you, Mercer.
And goddamn you, Wood.
Neven set the tablet on an end table.
He paced to one end of the cube’s roof, then to the other. The cube was small, and Neven wanted to leap over its side and to the roof of an adjacent cube below, offset just a partial cube-length downward thanks to the hodge-podge architecture.
Neven needed somewhere to pace off his madness.
He wished he had his father’s hologram. Yes, his dependency had become compulsive. But it was always calming, twisted or not.
The thought gave Neven an idea. He checked the proxy (and there was no backdoor connection to the Gene Crypt at GEM; c’mon Hershel!) Then he pulled up his father’s old personal files from their archived folder appropriately called “Shoebox.”
He flipped through documents. Research. Bits of digital paperwork that had meant something to Wallace in life and nothing after his death. There were photos. So many photos.
Neven had gone through all of this before, and it had always seemed that Wallace’s photos were of two distinctly different men. Before Neven’s birth there was Serious Wallace. He wore a look of grim determination and seldom smiled. After, there was a calmer-looking, more seasoned Wallace that Neven thought of as Father Wallace. He’d begun to gray early, and it suited him well.
Although, the before/after split didn’t exactly line up with Neven’s birth. It was a few years later, after his non-clone “brother” had died.
Memories swirled around him, and Neven felt momentarily lost. He remembered so many things and suspected, as he often did when considering his childhood, that he forgot many things as well.
There was a curtain over his younger years, especially when it came to memories about his father. Probably because those years hadn’t been good. Neven knew full well what his father had done with him and his brother — an experimental design he’d adopted for his own use, before leaving Eden.
The clone twin, in those pairings, had always seemed stronger to Neven. Seemed. But the “seeming” was a problem, because any good scientist understood that experimenter bias could flavor any experiment’s results. Neven always knew which was the clone and which was organic. It was the only way to do the experiments and carry on his father’s work.
Well, that would change soon.
Once Hershel gave Neven access to the world’s genome records, the real experiment could begin. He had the Quarry’s secrets; he’d reverse-engineered it and made his own. And because he was his father’s son, Neven had taken the technology further than Fiona Roberson.
Now it could aggregate personalities. It could guess, better and with more input. He only needed access and the go-ahead.
Neven flipped through his father’s old photos, feeling as if the old man were right beside him after all, as his false intelligence had always been on Eden. It calmed him. Made him worry less about what Hershel might or might not do, or what Mercer might or might not do, or what the Ephraim clone, if he wasn’t caught, might or might not do.
It was hard to bear the burden of upholding a legacy.
Good thing Neven wouldn’t have to do it too much longer.
Chapter 39
Waiting For Something to Happen
Find him when the parade begins. When there’ll be the most distractions to hide him.
Sophie was plodding beside him, but that felt like a technicality. Most of Ephraim’s mind was focused inward, had been since sunset. He was aware of the world around him — the lights and tumult of the parades gearing up outside, the fireworks, mirth, and revelry — but Ephraim’s attention was mostly on his thoughts. On something different inside his mind. Or maybe something familiar.
His brain hadn’t crumbled with the knowledge that he was a clone, but Ephraim had felt lost and emptier than before when he’d believed himself whole. This was like that wholeness returning. Parts of him that had been missing since the day he’d stopped thinking of himself as “Ephraim” and started seeing himself as “clone of Ephraim” were now coming home.
Maybe it’s just paranoia, said a new voice. Maybe you’re not healing. Maybe you’re just going insane all over again.
It’s not paranoia, said the first voice.
Then maybe you’re crazy. Like on Eden. Like after Eden.
You’re not going crazy, argued the first voice.
When the second voice said: Then who are you talking to? Ephraim had no answer. That was troubling, because both voices in his head had to be him, and never mind the question of why he had two voices arguing, like an old married couple.
Ephraim believed what the first of the voices had told him: that Real Ephraim would show his face during the parade. Until then, the city was waiting; not looking for Ephraim Todd quite as much, now that most everyone had a few drinks down, but looking for the fun to start.
Jubilee was like a slow-building orgasm. It climaxed in the parade then frenzied until dawn. Real Ephraim making his break-in before then wouldn’t just be foolish, it would be downright wrong. Like clapping off-beat. Or drinking Yoo-hoo with a hundred-credit steak.
Another twenty minutes. Just wait here for another twenty minutes.
And yes, he felt certain. That’s when they’d see Real Ephraim. He’d followed his gut, and in twenty minutes that instinct would finally pay off.
In the meantime, his thoughts were unspooling like reels of ribbon tipped sideways, drifting past his awareness in long, undulating strands of color. In those thoughts, Ephraim saw so many lies: his non-sister Damaris, his fight with Jonathan, forty years of living. And he saw plenty of truth: Eden, Altruance Brown, killing his brother’s clone, Fiona, Eden again. The first Sophie and her flirtations. Meeting Sophie�
��s clone. And now just Sophie.
Something was different up in Ephraim’s belfry. His mind in some ways wasn’t his own, but in other ways, it was more his than ever.
“Watch the windows,” Sophie whispered.
Ephraim ducked. Again. There were windows all over, and each time he realized that he’d need to stay down, his caution lasted just seconds. Then the thoughts and voices resumed like little saboteurs to nab his attention. “Sorry.”
“You’ll be seen. You have to stay down.”
“I know.” And he repeated, “I’m sorry.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Are you okay, Ephraim?”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
Something exploded outside before Ephraim could answer.
It was only another firecracker. Something that ought not to be set off in a crowd, and not while the city’s nerves were this raw, waiting for the arrival of a supposed terrorist.
But the moment passed and then there was laughter. The sound of a breaking bottle. More laughter. An enormous balloon, shaped like Death Hog, passed the window. And to think this was the small parade, attended by “relatively nobody” versus the celebration in midtown.
“Yeah,” Ephraim said.
Sophie was looking at Ephraim incredulously when she jumped, then reached into her pocket. She fished out her Doodad and looked at the screen. “It’s Papa Friesh.”
“Why is he calling you?”
Sophie answered. To Papa, she said, “You did? How many times? No, he didn’t,” Then she turned to Ephraim. “Check your Doodad.”
Ephraim did, and saw three missed calls from Papa on the lock screen.
“It didn’t—” But before Ephraim could say, it didn’t buzz, the Doodad vibrated in his hand — a test message from Papa, coming through fine.
Sophie watched Ephraim for another moment, questions in her eyes. Then she returned her attention to the Doodad. She and Papa exchanged a few lines, Ephraim’s attention already inadvertently drifting inward as he was left conversationally alone.
“You sure you’re okay?” Sophie asked, after finally hanging up.
“Of course I’m sure.”
He wasn’t.
“What did Papa say?”
“He has someone at Bell. A Change agent. He’s been monitoring traffic in and out of GEM. It’s all encrypted, but he can see access requests coming to GEM from somewhere. And there’s something happening at GEM, too. I didn’t understand the details. He’s guessing it’s Neven attempting connection to the Gene Crypt, and maybe someone inside is helping him.”
“Wood?”
Sophie nodded. “Papa said that he knew they’d try to establish the connection, and that once Neven had the Gene Crypt, he’d be able to pull the full sequence of just about anyone. That plus what the Quarry stuff can do with social media profiles means that his new clones would be pretty close to the real deal, and closer all the time.”
“He already explained all of that.”
“Right. But Papa’s bothered by how many requests are being sent. The word he used was ‘impatient.’ Neven seems impatient to get into the Gene Crypt.”
“Wouldn’t he be?”
“There shouldn’t be any rush. He gets in, pulls whatever or whoever he wants, and then who knows. But it should take at least a week. Why is he so trigger-happy for access right now?”
“Beats me. Why did Papa feel the need to tell us right now?”
“He has a feeling that he’s missing something. That there’s a piece to this that he just isn’t seeing. Neven’s not acting like someone with a thought-out plan. He’s acting like someone waiting for something to happen.”
After a pause, Sophie went on. “Waiting to do something.”
Ephraim’s mind, mulling this, agreed with Papa. Too much about this felt like a crescendo. It wasn’t something he could even put a finger on, something in the air. Yes, Neven was waiting. And once he got what he wanted, something was going to happen.
That’s why you have to get the other Ephraim. To find Neven and stop him.
It should have felt comforting. They were here; they were in a position to grab Real Ephraim before anyone else, and Papa could summon a helicopter to get them off the roof, once Ephraim made certain clarifications.
They didn’t need a reminder. They didn’t need motivation. They were doing all they could.
Outside, more fireworks exploded in rapid succession: Pop-pop-pop!
“Get down!” Sophie hissed.
Ephraim, having exposed himself yet again, dropped down.
And the voice of intuition inside his head said: Fifteen minutes.
Chapter 40
The Building Under Surveillance
Mercer heard the pop-pop-pop of fireworks and jumped a bit inside the van. Maria gave him a look. So did the brutes.
“Fifteen minutes,” said a voice over the speakers.
Mercer’s eyes glanced toward the front, but the driver hadn’t spoken. It was the sound system, rebroadcasting its pirated transmission. Somehow — probably because she was a nefarious fucker with enough gadgets to turn 007 green — Fiona had tapped into someone’s feed: GEM’s, the cops’, the FBI’s for all Mercer knew.
For the past hour, they’d been listening to whatever-agency-it-was talk to itself. Mercer noted both room discussion and radio bursts, almost as if Fiona had managed to plunk a mic in the middle of a command center, where people worked among each other and checked with others outside.
Nobody had anything to report yet beyond a constant state of being “in position,” but a countdown had helped to pass the time. The parades were starting soon, and even if Ephraim didn’t appear, it was law enforcement’s time to shine. If nothing else, they could stop topless women fighting for beads thrown from floats in exchange for a peek.
“Hang on,” said the radio.
It was the kind of hang on that made everyone turn their heads and hold their breath.
“Second window from the left.”
“Street side?”
“Obviously.”
“How did he get in? Did anyone see him enter the building?”
No answer.
“Come on!”
Someone said, “I don’t know. With all these assholes on the street, we’re lucky we can even see—”
“Who’s covering that window?” asked the man, seemingly in charge. “Come on. Come on!”
A rustle of activity. Someone seemed to be manning a walkie, calling around to spotters on the street, away from wherever the spy device was planted. Everything sounded chaotic to Mercer. Not a group used to this kind of thing, or a clear command structure. That probably meant they were listening to GEM.
“Smith,” said someone.
“Can she confirm?”
“Just wait.”
“What did you see?” Agitated. Wound up.
“What do you think I saw? What have we been looking for all day, Felix?”
“You don’t have to be an asshole; just answer the—”
A new voice: “Sir?”
Pause.
“Confirmed, sir. Looks like it’s Mr. Todd. Gloria rolled back her MyLife to make sure.”
“I could have shown you my MyLife,” said the first voice — the one who’d told the room to hang on.
“He’s in the building?”
“He … wait, yes, Aaron says he just went past a window.”
“We knew that.”
“Another window. Further down. He … dammit.”
“What?”
“The cops know, too. See?”
Whatever was being shown in that room was a mystery to Mercer, but he heard the GEM agents swearing among themselves. Apparently, nobody wanted the cops getting to Ephraim first.
“Wait. They’re not moving in. They’re standing by.”
Activity. Inaudible chatter.
“Felix?” said one of the voices, as if awaiting an order. Then, after fifteen seconds, “Felix …?�
�
“Fine. Stand by.”
“You don’t want any of our people to go after him?”
“We’re not cops.”
“But you said you wanted to—”
“Why are the cops standing by?”
“How should I know? You’re the one who …”
The conversation devolved from there, but Mercer missed the rest because Fiona said something that caused the van to shuffle in accommodation. She’d apparently heard enough. GEM and the cops were measuring dicks and there were obviously politics involved, each wanting to be the one to catch the terrorist — or, from a different perspective, the loose end.
All that mattered was that nobody was moving to get Ephraim. They were setting up the board, preparing to move pieces only once the king was cornered.
Fiona’s chair rotated in the small space. Mercer looked away from the window to see Maria removing the steering straw from her mouth and moving the odd little lip mouse in front of Fiona on its armature. One of the big men held up a tablet for her to see.
Mercer shuffled for a better view.
Fiona touched the straw with her lower lip and the screen changed, now displaying green-tinted video of a room with one long table in the center and what looked like an exploded appliance.
Mercer understood. The building under surveillance belonged to Riverbed and was filled with Fiona’s best toys — like drones that can see in the dark.
She touched the mouse, keeping pressure on it, moving it upward. The view lifted as the drone rose from the table. The feed had audio — there was parade noise in the distance — but there was no electric purr or rotors. Knowing Riverbed’s tech, the drone was probably the size of a mosquito. Nobody would know it existed outside the van.
The video moved through dark hallways, its view centered with a green flood light. After a few twists and turns, it changed, becoming less green and more natural, as light from the street leaked through the large windows and offered enough illumination to see.
Minutes passed.