by Sean Platt
Ephraim spun toward the TV, but it had gone to a commercial for strangulation porn.
The RealTime call rang.
And rang.
And rang.
They’d talked three times since his return from Eden, twice via video on RealTime and once in person. He’d hit her mailbox with messages that had gone unanswered ever since. The time they’d met in person, she’d told him to see a psychiatrist. He was worrying her. Or maybe the word had been frightening.
“Sophie isn’t here,” said a voice from the computer monitor.
Ephraim looked up. The screen showed Sophie’s profile pic, so whoever had answered — definitely not Sophie — hadn’t turned on video. The vocal intrusion was startling. He hadn’t heard the call connect.
“Who is this?” Ephraim asked.
“It’s Jennifer.”
“Hi, Jennifer.”
Ephraim had met Jennifer. She was Sophie’s personal assistant, but she doubled as a mother hen. Ephraim kept telling Jennifer he wanted (hell, needed) to speak with Sophie, but he didn’t think she was passing his messages forward.
Nope, she was acting as gatekeeper. Because if Sophie was getting his messages, why wouldn’t she call him back? They’d been through a war together. They’d shared trauma and victory and life and death. Sophie should want to talk to him.
They should be each other’s support system. Fuck Jennifer and her cockblocking ways.
“It’s Ephraim,” he said when Jennifer took too long to respond.
“I know who it is. Even if your ID hadn’t come up, I can see you.”
That startled Ephraim too, but then he remembered his camera was on even while hers wasn’t. He killed it.
“I need to talk to Sophie.”
“I told you, Sophie’s not here.”
“Where is she?”
“That’s not any of your business, Ephraim.”
“When will she be back?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re her assistant. Check her schedule.”
“I don’t have it handy. Try later.” The way she said it, Ephraim obviously wasn’t supposed to try later at all. He was supposed to take a hint, and stop bothering them.
“Maybe in a few hours?”
“Days. She’s gone for days.”
“How many days?”
“What do you need, Ephraim?”
“Is Sophie on a job? Is she filming something?”
Jennifer sighed.
“Just tell me that much,” Ephraim said, hearing the begging in his voice. “Is she working?”
“Of course she’s working. She’s a productive member of society.”
Ephraim frowned, resentment bubbling. Since they’d returned and made headlines together, Sophie seemed determined to forget it all. She’d immediately begun acting more normal than normal, probably to distance herself from the madman Ephraim Todd was turning out to be.
“Okay. Then please send me to her inbox so I can record a message for her.”
“Just tell me the message.”
“I want to record it myself.”
“I’ll tell her you called,” Jennifer said, then she killed the connection.
Ephraim tried to call again, but Sophie’s account was suddenly set to Do Not Disturb.
Well.
That was that.
With nothing else to do, Ephraim opened a new browser window and typed the words that were sure to get him arrested.
CHAPTER 5
LIFE GOES ON
Search:
CELEBRITY SEX SLAVES.
Lo and behold, the internet delivered. Ephraim found two pages of results for that exact term, but almost all of them were sarcastic commentaries on something Ephraim himself blurted out the first time he’d met a crowd upon his return to the mainland.
“Dammit,” he mumbled, scanning them.
The Riverbed rescue helicopter had taken him and Sophie to Madagascar. From there they’d made their way stateside, to Riverbed HQ in New York City. Things in NYC had gone fine until the news of Eden’s destruction hit the media.
Smelling sensational blood, a crowd of press and lookie-loos had formed outside Fiona’s office. The police had intervened when things got rowdy. Ephraim decided to speak to the crowd around that time. He said things. Stupid things. Then he repeated those stupid things to the cops, the FBI, and ultimately to GEM. At the time, what he’d said had made sense. Eden was evil; Ephraim was a hero. Only in retrospect was it obvious the crowd wasn’t inclined to see things that way.
Saboteur, the next day’s headlines had read, topped with Ephraim’s photo.
Now, safe but branded as a pariah, Ephraim scrolled down the page.
Past the wiseass links joking about Eden’s sex slave trade (and one real-looking scam site that turned out to be link bait for porn), Ephraim saw fragmented results that weren’t about Eden at all. Some were news, about real sex slaves. Some were celebrity sex tape archives, both real and fake. Ephraim even found a club right here in the city where you could hire sex slaves by the hour — but they weren’t slaves if you were hiring them, Ephraim thought. There was even a photo of the proprietor, Mercer Fox. Just another scrappy entrepreneur operating out of the leather district.
He typed clones in his search bar and got an avalanche of shit. The search results were a mishmash, composed of everything from scientific research to offshore Precipitous Rise experiments to FDA treatises on the need for more cloned beef in the northwest because apparently, people there weren’t getting enough iron in their diets.
He read a written debate between an environmentalist leader and the Secretary of Agriculture on CO corn — “CO” being the acronym of the decade, it seemed, after concerns about GMO produce were shoved aside by concerns over Cloned Organisms. GEM had even weighed in on this particular article. Hershel Wood himself was quoted as saying environmentalist claims that cloned produce was unsafe were “ridiculous.”
Ephraim tapped his chin. Why was he even bothering?
“Fuck it,” he said aloud.
Because if he was honest with himself, he wasn’t looking for evidence of any clones; he was looking for one line of clones in particular. He was concerned about Sophie Norris and her well-being — even if her bitch of an assistant wasn’t.
Post-Eden, Sophie’s career had entered a renaissance. Thanks to her treatments, she looked ten years younger. She’d milked fame for “escaping Eden’s destruction.” What Ephraim had lost in reputation, Sophie had gained. Nothing like a disaster to put an attractive actress back on top.
Ephraim typed: Sophie Norris nude.
The screen filled with relevant results. Seeing them made Ephraim feel guilty, but he wasn’t searching to stoke arousal. He was looking for authentic pics. Sophie had never done a nude scene or posed for photos. She’d never had her phone hacked or made a sex tape. By that logic, anything Ephraim found that seemed a little too real might be genuine; not Sophie herself photographed or filmed nude, but some proud owner of a clone displaying his purchase. Or Eden’s clone brokers, advertising their Sophie stock to make a sale.
But Ephraim saw nothing real enough to arouse suspicion. Because nobody was that stupid, or would make things so easy to find. Did Ephraim think he was smarter than the FBI or GEM, both of whom were supposedly looking into even the most ridiculous of Ephraim’s allegations? If they hadn’t found proof, why did he think his amateur sleuthing would discover it instead?
His computer trilled. The sound startled Ephraim out of his fake-photo reverie and at first, he thought it was the TV again. He glanced back and saw that a new show was on. He’d been searching for black market Sophie clones for over an hour, despite it feeling like only minutes.
The new show was Penitence, one of those over-the-top religious shows. In this one, supplicants deemed not pious enough were caned in front of church elders. It was framed as a game show, but from what Ephraim remembered, the only prize offered was eventual salvation. Losing contestants we
nt to Hell.
The computer continued to trill. He checked the ID and saw that it was a RealTime call from Sophie Norris.
The call connected. He hadn’t meant to answer. He’d clicked something by accident, and now scrambled to compose himself as Sophie’s face — on video this time — filled the screen.
“Ephraim? Is everything okay?”
Normally she’d say hello. Or maybe “Stop calling me.” But he must look crazed, trying to close the windows full of fake naked Sophies. He’d clicked on one image thinking it might be legit (it wasn’t) that showed “Sophie” with her bare ass toward the camera, legs slightly parted. A doctored Sophie head had been grafted onto the other woman’s body, looking back, her expression craven.
“Hang on.” Closing windows. How many had he opened?
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Hang on,” he repeated.
But one window didn’t want to close. It kept spawning copies. One showed a live view of some woman nude on a bed. His ID must have been nabbed by the browser because the woman purred, “Want to play with me, Ephraim Todd?”
“Is someone there?” Sophie asked, hearing it. “Is this a bad time?”
Ephraim stabbed at the video, got it to close, and finally aborted the deluge of pop-ups. But his heart was thumping. His face probably looked guilty as hell.
“No,” he told her. “This is a good time. It’s fine.”
“You seemed like you had something going on there for a minute.”
“It was nothing.”
She seemed to consider him, then tipped her head as if to say, whatever.
“You called me back,” he said.
“You sound surprised.”
“Jennifer said you were out.”
“I was. Now I’m not.”
“She just … I got the feeling … never mind.”
“Jennifer’s a good assistant. She’s just trying to protect me.”
Ephraim read the subtext. Then, unable to help himself, he said, “I don’t think she likes me.”
“She’s heard the sorts of things you’re telling people and, well …”
“She thinks I’m crazy?”
“Honestly, yes.”
A long beat passed between them.
“But you’re saying the same things, right?” Ephraim said. “She knows I’m not making this up.”
Sophie sighed. “No, Ephraim. I’m not saying the same things.”
He’d seen that coming, but it shocked him to hear it.
“Why not?”
“We’ve been through this.”
“But you were there! You were on Eden with me, Sophie! You saw everything I saw!”
She hesitated, telling him without words that she hadn’t seen everything that he had. She hadn’t met Jonathan’s clone, nor had she heard his confessions. She hadn’t found the evidence on Eden’s network or seen a “ghost” run over by the mower only to vanish minutes later. She hadn’t seen more than one Elle or Nolon at a time, or the cages full of celebrity clones. She’d only seen a herd of Altruances on the Islet 09 facility and later watched Altruance get shot. But people got shot all the time, didn’t they? And maybe, given time to consider it, Sophie had decided those tall black men they’d run from weren’t Altruance Brown clones after all. Just an angry basketball team hired to chase down intruders.
“I know. But Ephraim, life goes on.”
“Life goes on?”
“Yes, life goes on! Eden burned. It wasn’t our fault, and we were on our way to being absolved when you started talking to the press. The NDA protected us. From where I’m standing, I’d like my NDA to keep doing its job.”
Ephraim’s mouth didn’t want to work. She’d given him bits and pieces of her head-in-the-sand strategy before, but hearing it spelled out was baffling.
“They cloned you!”
“You don’t know that, Ephraim. And even if it’s true, they’d all be gone now. Burned with Eden.”
“What if some escaped? What if Evermore … I don’t know. What if they shipped some off early? Neven set that fire, Sophie. Why wouldn’t he keep some of his best property tucked away, protected in vaults or below ground?”
Sophie sighed, already exasperated and moving on.
“I thought we agreed Neven set the fire to erase all the evidence. You had Jonathan’s MyLife, so when Neven couldn’t get it back, he figured you’d release it when you got home, and he’d be screwed. He burned the islands so nobody could prove anything once they came looking.”
“I did think that. But now I don’t.”
“Why? What’s changed?”
“It’s complicated.”
Sophie’s face softened. Almost pitying.
“Is it complicated,” she asked, “or dead simple?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Look, Ephraim,” she said, her tone like a big pillow. “This is me you’re talking to. This is Sophie. I know who you are. I know how you are. Remember our talks?”
Ephraim did. On the way back from Eden, they’d both been broken faucets, each leaking their fears and insecurities to the other. Back then, before things had soured, they’d had only each other. She’d cried a lot. He hadn’t sobbed, but he’d rambled, his fears as naked as the windows of images so recently closed.
She knew about his shrink and his unstable mental history. Sophie had slowly recovered, but Ephraim had continued his downward spiral. By the time contact between them had broken, Sophie had become the strong one, rising from the ashes while he hung himself with ludicrous confessions.
And for that, she’d always assume he was paranoid, even when he wasn’t.
“This is real, Sophie. This is all happening.”
“What is?”
He hadn’t said, specifically. Ephraim realized he didn’t know — just that something was.
“What makes you so sure? Have you learned anything new about Neven or Eden? You said you can’t decide whether your brother’s alive or not. Hell, sometimes you think Altruance is alive. So—”
“He might be, Sophie.”
She let that absurdity go. “Well, then tell me, have you seen anything about either of them — Jonathan or Altruance? Has Fiona told you anything to suggest things at Eden are still brewing? What does she think?”
Ephraim had one answer that he wanted to believe, and another answer that he did believe. Fiona had her agenda, and unfinished business with Eden. But as for the rest?
Fiona was probably humoring him, too.
“It doesn’t matter what Fiona thinks.”
“Ephraim …”
“I just want to talk, Sophie. I need to download.”
It was worse than that, though, and as Ephraim said the words, he realized their truth. He’d felt more unstable than usual, less sure about his mind and memory. Sometimes he didn’t even know who he was. Calling Sophie hadn’t been about finding an anchor. It was more like grasping for a lifejacket.
In his worst, most schizophrenic moments, he doubted his own existence. His past, present, and future.
Am I here now, or is this another memory that’s already dissolving?
Behind him, on the TV, Ephraim heard the crack of a cane on bare flesh. The penitent screamed. The audience clapped.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ephraim,” Sophie said.
“I’ll come to you. I’ll make it easy.”
“I’m in LA. You’re in New York.”
“I don’t care. I’ll fly out. Tomorrow.”
She hesitated. Her face was hard to read. “Just tell me. Have you searched? Have you gone looking for the clones you seem so sure are out there?”
Ephraim said nothing, but his face told Sophie all she needed to know. The doubt on her face vanished. She straightened, looked away, and seemed to blink away moisture.
“I need to go. It’s been nice talking to you after all this time.”
“But Sophie. The meetup? When can we—?”
“
Let it go, Ephraim. Please.” She breathed slowly in and out, watching him through the screen. “And please. Take care of yourself.”
“Sophie?”
The screen went black. And in Sophie’s place, he saw two words: Call Ended.
CHAPTER 6
BECAUSE IT ENDS
Neven sat up.
The room was dark, just as he liked it. Things felt safer that way.
There was nothing to see and, at least in this room, nothing to hear. His chair was soft and gel-filled, like the glass coffin bottoms in the room that had once been the Enchanted Forest, before everything burned. This room was nothing like that (a basement rather than a sun-filled oasis), but sitting on gel was like floating on a cloud. And that gave Neven little to feel, in addition to the nothing he saw and heard.
A voice broke the stillness, but there was no one in the room.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” the voice said.
“I’m not afraid,” Neven answered.
But it wasn’t true. Sitting in the chair in the dark room wasn’t remotely frightening. Even twenty years ago, when he was a child, the dark hadn’t scared him. But what was coming? What sitting here, in this place, doing this thing was a prelude to? That scared Neven plenty.
“It’s like waking from anesthesia and remembering nothing,” said the voice. “Or like a jump-cut in the movies we used to watch. First you’re here, then suddenly you’re there.”
Neven put his feet on the floor but didn’t stand. He always felt dizzy after coming down here.
Looking into darkness, he said, “We never watched movies together.”
And the voice said, “You know what I mean.”
“How could you possibly know what it’s like?” Neven asked.
“It’s what the research predicts.”
“You didn’t go through it. You don’t know. You can’t possibly say.”
“It’s what the research predicts,” the voice repeated.
Neven sighed and stood, fighting a strong urge to argue. But doing so was a bit like shouting at a computer when a message gave you bad news. It was natural to be frustrated, but Neven knew, even in his annoyance, that it didn’t make sense.