Zavcka felt her jaw drop. Aryel was listening, she was speaking, into her earset. She nodded, apparently at something only she could hear, and pinned Zavcka with those eyes again. ‘Are you confused, Ms Klist? Let me explain. Rhys’ tablet wasn’t copying your server, it was linking it to the streams via your own old relay system. He linked Callan’s as well. Herran used that link to activate Cal’s earset, including the microphone’s ambient pickup function, and conferenced in Eli, me, Gwen, and Sharon and Mikal Varsi. We’ve all heard every word that’s been said since you stepped into this room.’
*
By the time he got down into the bowels of the Bel’Natur building, Eli Walker was beginning to think he too might be in need of something to settle the tremble in his hands and help him catch up with his sense of ever-expanding astonishment.
He had barely been able to credit the sheer audacity of Aryel Morningstar, plummeting down onto the roof of the tower through bomb-bright cracks of lightning and sheeting rain as the storm burst around her; calling Arthur Khan as she did so to tell him that an express lift was being sent up for her, that it would stop and the doors would open on the executive floor for five seconds on the way, and it was his job to get all of the passengers out of it.
Then Khan not only doing as he was told but riding up to meet her, saying, unprompted, ‘Something’s happening. I don’t know what but I think it’s bad. She’s just gone below stairs and she said it in front of me and I’m not supposed to know there’s anything down there.’
Aryel gave him two chances to get off, put as much distance between himself and the unfolding scandal as he could: first when the lift stopped to pick up Eli and Herran on the way down, and again when it deposited them in the lobby. Gwen had raced in at that point, a blur of brown and red and wet, almost knocking Eli off his feet as she streaked past and slammed into the lift next to Aryel.
He had not thought it was physically possible for a human being to move so fast.
Following her, his own considerable speed torpid by comparison, the looming, comforting presence of Mikal, borne in on a sound wave of approaching sirens. ‘Sharon’s almost here. Maybe you should wait—?’
But Aryel had said, ‘Herran, now!’ and the doors had barely closed on the three of them before the shot rang out in their earsets, along with Dunmore’s strangled shriek.
By the time Sharon screamed up with two patrols and the paramedics, even though he knew the worst of it must be over, he was living on the edge of his nerves.
‘Herran, are you okay to stay with Mik? I need, I need to get down to them.’
‘Okay with Mik.’ Nodding and rocking over his tablet, cross-legged in a corner of the lobby, ignoring or oblivious as he had been all along to the babble and bustle of clusters of curious employees, their numbers growing and anxiety peaking as the police herded them back.
Sharon sighed and said, ‘I really shouldn’t allow you to do that,’ and he gave her a look, and she said, ‘Oh, what the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound,’ and waved him into the lift.
And all the way down, they listened. Eli wondered whether Zavcka didn’t realise she was still being heard by others – even more others, as Herran linked in more earsets. He knew Masoud was en route now and listening in, as were the officers in the lift with them. Maybe she thought they had killed the connection, or maybe she just didn’t care any more.
‘You might have made him worse, you know,’ she was saying savagely. ‘That medicine isn’t a generic, it was specially formulated for me. What makes you think it’ll work on him?’
‘It is working, look at him.’ Aryel’s voice, serene in response. ‘Where do you think he got this condition from anyway? This is your illness, Zavcka. Mutated, early onset, and far, far worse, but fundamentally the same syndrome. He inherited it from you.’
Gasps from the police in the carriage as Eli and Sharon exchanged bewildered glances, echoing a muttered, ‘What?’ in their ears from Callan. Gwen was silent, save for the murmured, unceasing baby-talk.
‘What do you mean inherited? He has nothing to do with me! I never had any children!’ Snarled, but with a note of doubt, Eli thought, as the doors slid open and they tumbled out. ‘And if I did, they wouldn’t be—’
He could hear her voice in his other ear too now. He flicked the earset silent as he and Sharon led the charge down the corridor towards them.
‘They wouldn’t be gems? Zavcka, please. Rhys and Gwen are Phoenix products. And Phoenix is you. You are the one— Ah, the cavalry.’ Aryel looked up as they appeared in the doorway. ‘Watch your step.’
She stood by a hospital bed, on which lay the girl: unconscious, heavily pregnant, horribly burned, but the undamaged parts of her face and her stubble of hair so like Rhys’ and Gwen’s that Eli felt the breath go out of him. A batch sibling – she must be. There was another survivor, then.
Backed up against the right wall, Zavcka Klist as Eli had never seen her, could never have imagined seeing her: face venomous, composure irretrievably cracked, the angles of her tall frame more contorted than elegant. She looked shockingly old.
Against the left, down on the floor, Rhys, and Callan, and Gwen. If Rhys was better now Eli shuddered to think how bad it must have been. The young man’s skin was terribly pale, its normal warm brown tinted a sickly green. His eyes were closed and his jaw slack; Callan was wiping away a spot of drool. Limbs and torso twitched in a constant, jerky, dreadful rhythm, but at least his entire body was not convulsing out of control. Eli supposed that had to be the improvement.
At his feet, Dunmore’s corpse. He saw the injuries, registered the force that must have killed him, and found himself unsurprised. He had seen Gwen in action twice now, and if anything her brother would be stronger.
The police and paramedics poured in around him. A hand pointlessly pressed to Dunmore’s crushed throat, the medic rising with a shake of the head and stepping swiftly on to bend over the girl on the bed. His colleague had gone straight to where Rhys was propped up, cradled between Callan and Gwen. She held a monitor unit, and Eli could hear her asking questions, low and urgent.
Sharon Varsi took one sweeping look and issued a stream of orders: two officers detailed to begin searching the rest of the floor, two more to remain in the room with her, the fifth sent back to stand guard and direct traffic at the lifts. Cams on at all times. ‘Medics have priority. Stay out of their way unless you need to render assistance. Mr Khan, I’m going to need a statement from you back at the Yard, but for the moment please accompany Constable Farah here. Farah, keep an eye on him, he looks a little peaky.’
She turned to the blonde woman standing with her back to the wall. ‘Zavcka Klist, you are under arrest on suspicion of illegal human genetic modification, aiding and abetting the theft of human genetic material, kidnapping, forced surrogacy, false imprisonment, attempted murder, and aiding and abetting the murder of Kendrick Nance. I must warn you that you do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. And if you don’t want to be physically restrained I suggest you stay exactly where you are until I tell you otherwise.’
Aryel had retreated to the opposite wall, as much out of the way as she could get in the crowded room. Desperate though he had been to reach them, now that he was there Eli did not know what to do. He crossed to stand beside her, sidestepping the paramedic who had finished checking the unconscious girl and was now joining the other one crouched in front of Rhys.
‘You all right?’
‘Fine,’ she whispered back. ‘But Rhys, I don’t know about Rhys. And Gwen and Callan …’
He looked down at the cluster of heads at hip-height beside him, Callan’s orange flame and Rhys and Gwen’s ruby casting an incongruously cheerful sunset glow against the white wall.
‘Herran started running a search as soon as he got access and he thinks he’s found his genetype. He’s found a batc
h anyway, and he says it looks about right.’
She nodded acknowledgement and said softly, into her earset, ‘Herran, are you hearing me? Can you package up what you’ve found with Rhys’ own Phoenix research, and send it ahead to the hospital?’ She listened. ‘Thanks. Yes, he’s very, very ill. They’ll be bringing him up in a minute.’
One of the officers was shaking a cover out over Dunmore’s body, as the paramedics angled their gurney into the room. Aryel frowned.
‘Sharon?’ she said. ‘Rhys’ tablet is still on Dunmore, I think.’
‘Good point. Ennis, record me, please.’ The officer stepped closer, shoulder cam angled to capture her movement as she rifled inside the dead man’s jacket and came out with the tablet. She slipped it into a clear plastic evidence sleeve and kept hold of it. ‘We have his position, yes? Let’s shift him, then. The medics need to get these two out of here.’ She looked a question at the one who had checked both the girl and Rhys.
‘She’s stable,’ he said. ‘Vital signs are good. His aren’t so good, we’re going to take him first. The rest of the crew are on their way down for her; she’ll be fine. Just don’t touch anything.’
They manhandled the gurney next to him, then watched in amazement as Gwen straightened up, one arm under her brother’s knees and the other beneath his shoulders while Callan supported his head. She placed him gently on the gurney, stepped clear so they could secure him, and turned into Aryel’s embrace. Gwen hugged back, but she was staring over Aryel’s shoulder and the arch of her wing at the girl on the bed. Eli realised it must be the first time she had focused on anyone but Rhys. She extricated herself and moved closer to look.
‘Ey-a,’ she said softly, amazed.
‘Do you remember her, Gwennie?’
‘I don’t know … I think … Ellyn. I think her name might be Ellyn.’ She turned back to them, her eyes bright with tears. ‘I have to go with Rhys, Ari.’
‘Of course you do. You and Callan both. Go on. Da will meet you there, and I’ll come as soon as I can.’
Callan’s head came up a fraction at the mention of his name, but he did not look around. His hand was still cupped against Rhys’ face as the little procession made their way out of the room, and his eyes were so fixed on it that Eli did not know how he could tell where he was going.
Love, he thought. It doesn’t matter where you’re going. You just go.
He looked down at Aryel and found she was looking across at Zavcka Klist. The second set of paramedics were here now, their own gurney next to the bed as they bustled around it disconnecting and reconnecting the monitors and tubes attached to the girl Gwen had called Ellyn. They had folded back the blanket and he could see that the scars extended all the way down her left side. Her hand had been almost entirely burned away, leaving no more than melted stubs where the fingers and thumb should be.
Zavcka Klist came a halfstep away from the wall. She looked tense enough to snap. ‘What are you doing?’
One of the medics glanced over his shoulder. ‘Getting ready to move her. We can’t take that with us.’ He jerked a thumb at the life-support unit and went back to what he was doing. She stared at his bent back, her mouth working and hands hooked into claws. Sharon, standing by the door listening to a whispered report from one of her officers, raised an interested eyebrow.
‘Wait. What will happen to her? Who’s going to look after her, now?’
‘She’s going to the hospital, Zavcka,’ Aryel said quietly. ‘They’ll look after her. They’ll take very good care of her.’
‘No. No.’ Suddenly words were tumbling out of her, desperate, frantic. ‘You have to let me take care of her. Whatever else happens, you have to do that. I have everything – everything she needs. I’ve got more money than you can imagine. You have to let me give her what she’ll need, everything she’ll need—’
‘The state will take care of her,’ Eli said, bemused. ‘She’ll have everything.’
‘The state? That’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough.’
‘For fuck’s sake, Klist, you want us to believe you care about this girl? After everything you’ve done to her?’
It felt good to snap, release a little of his own rage and outrage. But Aryel placed a hand on his arm to calm him, the soothing touch and gentle shake of the head telling him there was, once again, something here that he did not understand. She moved to stand at Ellyn’s head, looking down at her scarred, sleeping face.
‘She doesn’t mean the girl we’re looking at, Eli. She means the girl inside of her, the baby girl she’s carrying.’ Her eyes drifted down to Ellyn’s distended abdomen. ‘That’s you in there, isn’t it, Zavcka? A whole new you, now that the old you is finally wearing out. You with your one imperfection removed, or so you hope. Tell me, have you also fixed the thing Jarek was trying to fix?’
They stared at her: Sharon, the officers and medics in complete bafflement, Eli with the familiar sense of pending revelation and Zavcka with the cornered, desperate expression of a hunted animal finally run to ground. ‘You can’t,’ she whispered, and the horror and despair in her voice were such that he could almost have felt sorry for her.
‘I can’t know, or I can’t tell? I’m sorry, Zavcka, but I do and I will. It’s time this particular skeleton came out of its closet.’
‘Aryel,’ Sharon said politely, ‘what the hell are you talking about?’
‘You should know exactly who it is you’re arresting, Inspector. Let me introduce you to Zavcka Klist. Zavcka the First, Eli. Daughter of Jarek. Born in the year 2042 of the old calendar.’
‘That’s impossible,’ he sputtered. ‘That’s seventeen After Syndrome, that’s almost a hundred and twenty years ago!’
‘Indeed. That’s how old she is, though I agree she generally doesn’t look a day over forty-five or so.’ She cocked her head critically at Zavcka, who had shrunk back against the wall as though hoping to fall right through it. ‘A bit more than that today, but then it has been a rough one. That chain of Klists you described to me this morning, Eli – the daughter, the granddaughter, the distant cousin, the great-great-granddaughter – they have all been the same woman. Childless and ageless, disappearing and reappearing and manipulating her own stream records to maintain the illusion of a dynasty when it was just one person all along.’
‘That,’ said Sharon in the same polite tone, as she watched Zavcka pin herself to the wall, ‘is bonkers.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what does it have to do with the child this girl is carrying?’
‘The child is a clone. It turns out that Zavcka here is not going to live forever after all. About five years ago, I reckon, she discovered that she has a degenerative neurological disorder, not unlike the Syndrome. You’ve seen it at its worst in Rhys. It’s moving slowly, probably because of her longevity mutation, but it will kill or disable her eventually. She did not consider that to be an acceptable outcome, so she set out to alter it. Now it also turns out – and the proof of this part is on that tablet in your hand, by the way – that her genome formed the base stock for a truly vast amount of gemtech research. Her father set up a black lab, codenamed Phoenix, to unpick its potential, commercialise the findings via Klist Applied Genomics, and along the way try to solve an unfortunate consequence of the mutation. But after he died Phoenix started experimenting on its own account. One of those experiments resulted in me; later work delivered Rhys and Gwen, and poor Ellyn here. Isolated sequences found their way into end products right across the industry. There may well be a bit of her in Mikal; there certainly is in Bel’Natur gems like Gaela and Callan and Herran. Zavcka decided to track down all of them, correctly figuring that somewhere along the line the flaws would have been identified and engineered out. She set up this lab, she retrieved the genestock and she set about creating a healthy clone of herself. That clone is the baby growing inside this girl.’
There was a long, long silence. T
here was so much wrong with it that Eli didn’t know where to start. He did know that Aryel was neither stupid nor insane, and he noted that Zavcka was neither ridiculing nor denying. She looked sick, but not stunned. He glanced across at Sharon, and saw that she was eyeing Zavcka, and Aryel, and no doubt thinking the same thing. The paramedics and the other police officers were eyeing each other, as though wondering how they had wandered into this madhouse, and how to get out.
‘But,’ he said.
‘Only one but?’
‘A clone isn’t the same person. This Zavcka will still die. You’re saying – what? She wanted a baby version of herself she could raise to be as much like her as possible?’
‘I wish she were that selfless. What has her other big move been, the thing she’s risked her reputation and huge amounts of money on? The infotech programme. The ability to encode human thoughts and memories into a digital format, into binary. We were told it’s meant to create a more seamless interface, to be able to manipulate electronics directly with the mind, but think about it. Think about the implications of that research. In ten or fifteen years, when that baby is a young girl, where do you think the technology will have got to? What could you do with it then?’
Sharon got there first. Eli watched the colour drain out of her face, as the full horror of it dawned on him too. ‘Holy fuck,’ she whispered. ‘She’d – replace her? With herself?’
‘I think so. So does Herran, as it happens. He thinks it’s possible, and he should know.’
*
The moment stretched out, frozen, until one of the paramedics loudly cleared his throat and said, ‘We need to take her now,’ in a tone that brooked no dissent. They had the desperate look of people who would do just about anything to get out of that room, and away from the lunacy that seemed to fill it. The two officers shifted from one foot to another, and looked as though they wished they had an excuse to go with them.
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