The Eden Experiment

by Sean Platt

  He didn’t wait for Wood to agree. He pushed at the door, suddenly loathe to be in public, in the hallway. Hershel resisted at first, but five seconds later Ephraim was inside Wood’s residence with the door closed, setting down his briefcase.

  There were three visible jammers inside the room — testament to Hershel’s new paranoia. The apartment itself was nice but not opulent, like the building. Everyone knew Hershel thanks to his public persona, but he seemed to have more fame than fortune. That was oddly encouraging. Ephraim was getting tired of feeling like a toy for rich people. Maybe Wood had enough axes to grind and resources thin enough that they could be on the same side after all. Maybe he — through circumstance if not kindness — would turn out to be a friend.

  Ephraim pointed at the nearest visible jammer. “Are those on?”

  “Yes. But—”

  Ephraim yanked off the hat. He managed to set it aside rather than throwing it, but it was a near thing. He felt anger bubbling, shoving his fear aside.

  “I assumed you knew what you were doing. If you were so damn unsure about your ability to make a tinfoil hat for the crazy man, why didn’t you just come to me rather than having me come here?”

  “GEM is watching your place,” Wood answered.

  “You’re head of GEM.”

  Wood nodded, glancing at two jammers before continuing. “I don’t think I have to tell you this isn’t an official meet-up. GEM would never authorize what I have in mind. Nor would the police, who won’t get off my ass after your little stunt. Not to mention the FBI. For all I know, they’ve bugged your Doodad. At the very least, they’re probably tracking it.”

  Ephraim looked at his pocket. If the FBI had anything on him, he was one step ahead. He’d pulled out the battery, per the instructions in Wood’s couriered package. The Doodad was currently a useless brick, emergencies only.

  “More importantly,” Wood went on, “Riverbed is watching your place.”

  “Fiona’s people? Are you sure?”

  Wood shook his head. “I’d rather not take chances.”

  “You’re not, with all these jammers. But what about me? If this hat didn’t work, I’m—”

  “You’re what, Ephraim? Under suspicion? A prime suspect, quietly presumed guilty of mass murder? You’re already those things. I’m not protecting myself to be selfish. What good will I be to you if my agency decides I’m playing the wrong side?”

  Ephraim felt like arguing, but there wasn’t any point. He looked at the hat, sitting innocently on a black end table. Wood saw his gaze and picked up the ball. “Did you notice any change in the status lights for your MyLife?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you asked if the jammer was working,” Wood snapped. “And frankly, I’d kind of like to know, too, before getting into bed with you.”

  “No lights. But I wasn’t paying attention, so who knows? My MyLife’s been glitchy. I usually keep my dashboard off anyway.”

  “Did you notice any spontaneous replays? Little flashes of memory that aren’t your memory?”

  “No. But why would that happen even if—?”

  “Any strange ideation?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Ephraim had never seen the always-composed man pacing before. Was it a good sign? Did his discomfort mean that Ephraim could trust him? Or did it make things worse? Were they two vials of shaken nitroglycerine, each trying not to explode?

  “Any weird ideas entering your head?” Wood explained.

  “I don’t know. Define ‘weird ideas.’”

  “Just weird shit! This isn’t my field!”

  How should he answer that? Ephraim constantly had ‘strange ideation.’ He saw things, heard things, lived full days that later seemed never to have happened. Par for the course in the strange life of Ephraim Todd. But the walk over, wearing the jammer hat, hadn’t been any stranger than normal.

  “I don’t think so. Nothing unusual.”

  Wood looked at the hat, then slowly nodded. “I’m sure it’s fine. I’m sure nobody knows you’re here.” But he was talking to himself, looking almost as unnerved as Ephraim usually felt.

  “I talked to Fiona,” Ephraim said, more eager than he wanted to admit that he needed Wood back on sane ground, as an anchor. “Before the hat arrived. I got her to okay another trip to Eden like you wanted.”

  “Did she think that was a strange request? Did she seem suspicious?”

  Ephraim shook his head. Things between him and Fiona had felt very much in hand over the past week. He’d been furious at first, but slowly he’d begun to feel in control of the situation. He decided that perhaps he could use her instead of her using him. Maybe, if he wanted to kill someone, it didn’t need to be Fiona after all.

  He wasn’t sure why he’d changed his mind; he’d left her office meaning to find ways to knife her in the throat. But since then, alternate thoughts had settled into place. Maybe going to Eden was the best option. And with Fiona now green-lighting and funding the trip? Well. It seemed things with her weren’t totally out of hand after all.

  “Not suspicious at all. And you’ll be pleased. I talked to her about you. I said that you’d told me not to leave the country and that it would cause problems if I tried returning. She suggested I try getting you to go along.”

  Wood’s head cocked. “She suggested I go with you?”

  “Then you won’t stop me from going.” He paused at the look on Wood’s face. “You don’t seem happy. Isn’t this what we talked about?”

  “I don’t like that Fiona made the suggestion. She might suspect.”

  “She probably does. But she already knows you’re trying to win me over. What difference does it make?”

  “If she thinks you’re working with me against her …”

  “She thinks you’re trying to get me to work with you against her,” Ephraim corrected. “She doesn’t know I am.”

  “She’s smarter than you think.”

  Ephraim felt a flash of annoyance. “This was your idea.”

  “Yes. But I thought you’d have to argue for my ticket to Eden. The fact that she brought it up …”

  “She brought it up because I nudged her! This was the plan! You and me, going to Eden together! Fiona thinks you’ve got me on a leash. That you’re using me to snoop for information. Her people will provide us with full falsified genetic identities. I’ve done my part. But if you’re losing your fucking nerve all of a sudden—”

  “No.” Wood held up his hands. “I’m in. We just need to be careful. Fiona Roberson isn’t someone I care to underestimate.”

  Ephraim looked at Wood. He was a changed man. Once out from behind his title as head of GEM, he was a lot less rock-steady than Ephraim had hoped. Was this the right choice, or another dead end?

  Sure it was the right choice. Because Ephraim hadn’t played his trump card — his way of making sure that this remained his plan, not Wood’s or Fiona’s or anyone else’s. Wood didn’t know the most important part of what Ephraim had in mind; in a way, he never would.

  “There’s just one thing,” Ephraim said. “As far as Fiona’s concerned, she’s sending you with me because she thinks you’re acting as the head of GEM. She thinks you’ll be there to snoop around, in an official capacity, for the GEM case against Eden. I’m supposed to pretend to go along with whatever you tell me to do. But she also told me to do something else without you knowing.”

  “What?”

  “She gave me something,” Ephraim said. “Something she needs me to use on Eden. It’s a sort of information-gathering device. You’re not supposed to know it exists, but I have it in here.” He slapped the briefcase. “It’s for my secret mission, as Fiona’s spy.”

  Wood’s eyebrows peaked.

  “There’s more. And this, I’m definitely not supposed to tell you.”

  “What?”

  Ephraim controlled his nerves. He was already lying to Wood a little, and now he was about to lie a lot more.

  “Suppo
sedly, the thing Fiona gave me can intercept MyLife transmissions. Not just any MyLife, though. Only the MyLife implants that Eden puts in its clones. It’ll capture whatever any of the island’s clones see and hear once we’re there.”

  He swallowed. Was Wood buying this? It was the only bullshit story he’d thought of that made any sense. What Ephraim had couldn’t pull all of Eden’s MyLife data from the air. But did Wood know that?

  “It works,” Ephraim said, hands now moving to the briefcase. “Fiona showed me. She used it on the Sophie clone, so I’d know how to work it.”

  “Fiona has the clone?”

  Ephraim nodded. “She sent Riverbed people into my apartment before you showed up with the police. They took the clone and replaced her with that black-haired woman.”

  Wood watched Ephraim for a long moment. Ephraim held his gaze, trying not to flinch.

  “Bullshit,” Wood said.

  “I can show you, if you want, straight from Sophie’s memories.” Ephraim indicated the briefcase.

  Wood’s jaw worked. His eyes were hard, boring into Ephraim’s, wanting to believe. “Let’s see it then.”

  Ephraim picked up the briefcase, set it on the back of Wood’s couch, and flipped the latches. He lifted the lid.

  Watching the reveal, Wood couldn’t stay stoic. He leaned in, fascinated. He’d been after insider information on Fiona Roberson for years, and now here it was: her top-secret device. In truth, it did something very different from what Ephraim had just told GEM’s Director and Fiona’s first victim.

  “I can’t hook it up to a screen,” Ephraim said. “If you want to see the memories on here, I’ll have to play them back through your MyLife.”

  “Fine,” Wood said.

  “Then have a seat.”

  Wood sat.

  Ephraim pulled the device from its padded case. Wood’s eyes followed it up until Ephraim set it on his forehead, pressing lightly to attach it.

  “This device is top-secret at Riverbed, known only by Fiona and a handful of her techs. You understand you can’t talk about it. She can’t know I showed it to you. If she finds out, she’ll kill me.”

  “I won’t say anything,” Wood said, practically licking his lips.

  “I need you to promise.”

  “I promise.”

  Ephraim pretended to be reluctant. He pretended to hesitate. Then he leaned forward, tapped a button, and turned on the matte black object attached to Hershel Wood’s head.

  “This device,” Ephraim said, “is called the Quarry.”

  CHAPTER 42

  TRAVEL ARRANGEMENTS

  The call connected. Ephraim, rushing through crowded streets with the Quarry in his coat pocket, spoke before Fiona could.

  “If you fuck me,” Ephraim said, “I’ll smash your little mind-reader to bits. I left the briefcase with Wood, along with the technical specifications. He’s sleeping now, but I can’t imagine it’ll be long before he wakes up. I read the specs, too. I may not be Fiona Fucking Roberson of Riverbed, but I’m not an idiot.”

  “Ephraim,” Fiona said, her voice satisfyingly disarmed, “if you’ll just slow down so we can talk about—”

  “I used Setting Number Two, which the specs say delivers a total of 90 to 120 minutes of mixed-wave sleep. Mostly delta. Director Wood’s going to be well-rested. Harvesting his memories took about 30 minutes, just like you said. I hauled ass out of there the second it finished. That means we have an hour, maybe an hour and a half before he wakes up and sees what I left him.”

  “Well done, Ephraim. Now we just—”

  “I called GEM, Fiona. I didn’t tell them exactly what I did, but I raised their flags. So don’t bother trying to sneak into Wood’s apartment and take the rest of the Quarry gear back unless you want to get caught red-handed. Right now, I don’t think anything in that case ties back to Riverbed. But Wood knows, and he’s going to be pissed that you’ve double-crossed him.”

  In reality, Ephraim had double-crossed Wood, and now Fiona, but it felt like splitting hairs. Trust between them was dead regardless; Ephraim would be working alone. Nobody to lean on meant no one to be disappointed by. And if this little quest meant the end of Ephraim Todd? If he was caught or killed? Then he’d had a good run. Right up until things had gone very wrong and his mind had become a monster.

  “I’ve got the Quarry itself in my pocket. I didn’t use your scrambler, so I know the FBI or someone else might be listening in. They’re going to be interested in what a ‘Quarry’ is, I’ll bet, as well as why the two of us mind-raped the Director of GEM. I don’t particularly care. My story is already out there, and I’m going to make sure that someone finally believes it. That starts with you holding up your part of the bargain.”

  Fiona’s voice could cut glass. “What do you want?”

  “I want what we talked about. You let my friend loose. The one who looks a lot like a famous movie star.”

  “I can’t just open up and release—”

  “You’ll let her go,” Ephraim repeated, daring Fiona to refuse. “Then you’ll give her new clothes and cut her hair to make her look different, but don’t you dare hurt her. Nobody will think anything of seeing her unless she starts mouthing off. Which she won’t because she’s not like that. Neither is her big sister, in real life. So yes, you’ll just ‘open up and release’ like I’m telling you to. Then she’ll go home and be quiet until I find her.”

  “Fine. But—”

  “And then, you’re going to see to my travel arrangements.”

  “If you think for one goddamn second that I’m going to—”

  “Oh, I think it plenty. Because right now you have plausible deniability. Everyone knows I’m crazy and it’s not like we’ve said anything too specific. So, here’s something crazy for me to say and that you can plausibly deny later: I’ve got Hershel Wood’s mind copied on this thing in my pocket. This was the only chance you ever had or ever will have to get it. Unless you want this to blow up in your face — which might involve me releasing what’s on the Quarry, including all of Wood’s evidence against you — you’ll play along. I want a car waiting for me where we agreed. I want a plane off-site, with only a pilot on it. I’m going to where we discussed, Fiona. Maybe that can be good for you with this new turn of events. But only if you help me.”

  Fiona was simmering. Ephraim could practically hear her teeth grinding.

  “Once I’m in international waters, we’ll talk again,” Ephraim said.

  Then he hung up, no longer caring who tracked, watched, or overheard him.

  CHAPTER 43

  PROFESSIONAL PRIDE

  Ephraim had let his sense of direction atrophy before going to Eden like most people did, abdicating his natural compass in favor of letting his MyLife do all of the navigating. During his time back home — with his MyLife untrustworthy or on the fritz — he’d recovered some of that direction. Streets ran one way and avenues the other. Numbered streets were sequential; Fifth was between Fourth and Sixth. The city was a grid, so it was simple enough, with practice, to figure the way between where he was and where he was scheduled to meet Fiona’s driver.

  But because he didn’t trust Fiona right now, Ephraim stopped at a Black Wednesday store on the way. The clerk was a woman with thick glasses and thinning gray hair, perched behind a walker. She tried to sell Ephraim a bible, then a dildo large enough to use as a weapon. Ephraim declined both, trying to be an unremarkable and eminently forgettable customer, and made the purchase he’d come to make.

  He found the corner of 55th and Sycamore easily enough, and the big black car was waiting where he and Fiona had arranged for it to be. He caught the driver’s eye, who tossed a thumb back over his shoulder as if to say: Get in and stop wasting my time.

  “Warehouse district, right?”

  “That’s right.” Ephraim’s voice was calm, but his heart pounded. This was walking the most fragile of lines. He needed to reach Eden, and there was no way to get there without Fiona’s help. He nee
ded her private jet and its ability to take off from anywhere with a long strip of concrete; he needed the identity she’d fabricated; he needed the funds she’d made available. Played right, this would work out for them both. But Ephraim had gone rogue on Fiona, and there was always the chance that she might decide to stop him before things got worse.

  He had the Quarry as insurance, and he’d taken out an additional policy by letting GEM know more or less what he’d done to Wood and where he was headed. GEM couldn’t touch him as long as he left in time, and hopefully the Department’s involvement would keep Fiona honest. The only way Fiona, Riverbed, and Ephraim Todd could return to normal was if Ephraim finished his mission and returned from Eden with incontrovertible proof.

  But Fiona liked to be in control, and right now Ephraim was holding the reins. That spelled trouble.

  Ephraim kept waiting for the driver to do something threatening — anything from refusing to drive to reaching back to strangle him — but instead, the capped man drove away.

  “You don’t recognize me,” the driver said.

  Ephraim looked forward. He could barely see the man’s profile, couldn’t place his deep voice.

  “No.”

  “I’m hurt.”

  “We don’t need to talk.” Ephraim reached for the button to raise the partition, but the car stopped at a light before it got far. The driver turned fully and leaned through the rising divider. Some sort of safety sensor in the mechanism refused Ephraim’s attempt to raise it.

  The driver and Ephraim met each other’s eyes.

  And Ephraim remembered. “You were in Fiona’s office. You’re one of her bodyguards.”

  “I want to cripple you right now. Not because I don’t like you. Just more out of professional pride.”

  The light turned green. The big man hesitated, then turned and drove.

  “If you hurt me …”

  “I know, I know. Big galoots like me are only here to follow orders. I get it. So I will. But I don’t like this. I’m supposed to protect Fiona. And now look what’s happening.”

  “She must have told you to take me where I’m supposed to go.” Ephraim swallowed. “Those are your orders.”