by Kewin, Simon
He accessed the video relay he’d left out there. He could see nothing other than the blinking red lights of the security systems on the subvault door. All well and good. The clock in his brain told him the explosion he’d set up would go off in two minutes. He had only to wait a short time before everything kicked off. He tried to breathe slowly, conserving his air.
He felt the explosion as a faint, muffled crump through the stone of his tomb. It was two in the morning; the streets of Sienna would be deserted. Still there would be security guards monitoring the church and its precious relics. Simms had checked over their protocols very carefully. Plenty of people out there hated the church – why, Simms didn’t know or care. But the church had systems in place in case of attack. Those measures would now be initiated.
Three minutes later, security guards began to bustle into the crypt, carrying the precious objects from above. Crosses, a vast leather bible, painted statues. They unlocked the steel subvault door and began to place the treasures on shelves inside. They looked like they’d practised the whole exercise many times. Two more guards appeared, carrying the holy relics of Saint Sofia between them. They, too, went into the subvault. Then they emerged, locking the subvault door behind them. That door, Simms knew, was fireproof, blastproof, every-damn-thing-proof. He just had to hope it wasn’t genehunter-proof, too.
When the security guards had left, Simms waited another ten minutes in case they’d forgotten something and came back. The air tasted more and more musty as he burned up all the oxygen. Finally he acted. Boosting his muscles once more he pressed upwards with locked arms and pushed at the stone lid of his tomb. It didn’t budge. Alarm hammered through him. If his strength had waned too much during his torpor he’d never escape. He tried again, slightly panicky now. Sharp pain shot through his arm muscles, but this time the lid moved, exposing a tiny triangle of grey. He sucked in fresh, wonderful air and, clamping his fingers around the edge of the stone, pulled again and again until he had a gap big enough to squirm through.
He stood for a moment, listening. Nothing; he was alone. His plan was working. Although it was almost a shame there wasn’t someone down there to see him. He must be quite a sight.
He crossed through the darkness to the subvault door and set his brain hardware working on the locks. He figured he had plenty of time. The explosion he’d rigged up was small, more noise and sound than anything, but the Polizia wouldn’t take chances. It should be hours before they gave the all-clear and allowed people back into the church.
While his brain worked on the electronic locks he tackled the physical ones. The key he’d crafted from the X-rays taken two days earlier made that straightforward. Within fifteen minutes he had everything open. Now the problem was the alarm system. If he couldn’t disable that, opening the door would bring security running, despite the police’s exclusion zone. He probed the electronics, looking for a way to deactivate or spoof them.
Thirty minutes later he gave up. He could see no way. The systems were good, no loopholes or backdoors. Which meant he’d have to go in, work fast and take a chance. He reckoned it would take three minutes at a minimum for someone to get down there.
He hauled open the subvault door and ran inside. He could hear no alarms but knew they’d be ringing somewhere. The reliquary holding the saint’s head stood on a stone plinth in the centre of the room. He began to look for a way to open it. He could smash it, but that might damage the sample. He needed to be more subtle. If he was lucky, he could make it look like he’d never been there.
The tiny brass lock holding the clasp in place was useless. Simms sprang it with ease and opened the case. The pungent smell of dilute formaldehyde hit him. So much for Holy Water. At least it suggested the head was real. He acted quickly, pushing a biopsy needle through the liquid and into the skull within. He punctured bone and pushed on for two centimetres, into the brain tissue. He took his sample and pulled the needle out. He had no time to check the sample was good. So long as he got something.
He heard banging and shouting from somewhere upstairs even as he closed and locked the reliquary. They were coming for him. Quicker than he’d expected. He dashed from the subvault and began to reengage all the locks. Lights flooded the cellar as he hurried away, fleeing back to the safety of his crypt like some fucking ghoul. He had only a few moments. He pushed himself inside, scraping his shins on the carved stone, and heaved at the lid of the tomb over him. They might hear, but if he left the sarcophagus open they’d be sure to notice. He had no choice.
Putting all his strength into one effort he lifted and pushed. The gap shrank to a tiny corner but he hadn’t closed it completely. He heard voices just outside. He didn’t dare try to move the lid any more. He had to hope they didn’t notice. At least he would have air to breathe.
He waited long moments, not daring to move, expecting the lid to be forced open at any moment. He accessed the video relay. Five guards stood by the subvault door, deep in conversation, gesticulating. One looked around, walked out towards the camera. Simms heard footsteps centimetres from where he lay. The guard stopped. When he spoke, it sounded like he was standing directly beside Simms.
‘I thought I heard something over here.’
‘Like what?’ called one of the guards by the subvault door.
‘I don’t know. A banging sound. A scraping sound.’
Simms prepared his weapon. All he could do was try to fight his way out.
‘Probably those vampires they keep down here. Make sure you’ve got your wooden stake ready.’ The other guards laughed.
‘I’m serious. I heard something.’
‘You’re always hearing something down here. You’re afraid of the dark, that’s your problem.’
The guard swore to himself and strode back towards the subvault. Simms lay perfectly still. He watched the guards continuing to debate, the one who had walked over still glancing suspiciously around, the others laughing at him when he did so. Eventually, they seemed to decide they hadn’t set the security systems properly and returned upstairs. Once again, Simms was left to the darkness of his crypt.
He instructed his plug-ins to begin suppressing his metabolism once again. Soon, icy torpor reclaimed him.
Twelve hours later, Simms strode from the church into the glorious warmth of the Sienna day. There was little sign of his diversion from the night before, no police anywhere and just a black singe on the ground where his device had exploded. He’d kept the bang as small as he could. There was always a chance Ballard knew about Forty Days’ interest in Saint Sofia. The less attention he drew to himself, the better.
He walked across the cobbled square towards the town. His clothes and ID were still those of Felippe Lombardi. His limp was entirely real. His body ached from his twenty-four hours in the tomb and the demands he’d made of his muscles. He needed food and drink and he needed to rest. Somewhere warm and comfortable.
But first, he had one task to complete. He had no real way of knowing what Forty Days expected of him, but he could only assume it was this. He inspected the sample from the head. It looked degraded but it was the best he had. He encrypted it with what he assumed was the key provided for the purpose and sent it out into the ether, to the address he also assumed was provided for the purpose.
The MRI scan had found the two numbers etched onto one of his ribs, right beneath where the word Chosen had been cut into his flesh. Tiny digits drawn with some fine, diamond-toothed drill: a twenty-one digit number that looked like a jump address and a sixty-four digit one that might be an encryption key. The whole procedure must have taken Jones hours: he would have had to cut through skin and intercostal muscles to get to the bone, then put everything back together afterwards. Had he done all that, there in Simms’ stackroom? The guy was insane, no doubt about it.
Simms was past caring about any of it. He was done with Forty Days now. They were a disappointment, in truth. For all their weirdness and apocalyptic talk they’d ended up being one fairly straightforwar
d piece of DNA collection. He’d imagined this job being one the young punks like those in the Double Helix talked about for years. Something big. But beneath all the nonsense about Soldiers of Megiddo, there seemed to be nothing more to Boneyard. Gideon Jones hadn’t been back in touch. There were no stealth plug-ins in his brain. It was all boring.
Maybe they’d pay him for what he’d done and maybe they wouldn’t. That was the way it went. They hadn’t even formally employed him, just given him vague clues and left him to join the dots. The hell with them. Simms was at least left with the knowledge he’d done the job, got the DNA. His strike rate remained a perfect 100%, unless you counted the Zombies of Death gig. An anti-climax but there it was.
He just had to hope neither the GMA nor clONE knew about his night’s work.
He sat down at a street café in the full heat of the sun and ordered strong, sweet coffee and several sugary, high-fat cakes to bring up his blood-sugar levels. While he sat, basking in the glorious heat, he let his mind go blank.
‘Mrs. Douglas? Can I speak to you?’ Three days later, Simms stood shouting through the door of the ramshackle house on the outskirts of London. His attempts to electronically hail the woman inside had gone nowhere. But of course, old people sometimes didn’t have even the basic plug-ins. How did they survive? But she was definitely in there. He could hear her pacing about, like she was searching for the best place to hide.
‘Mrs. Douglas? Please? I only need a moment of your time.’
She’d taken some finding. Devi’s address had turned out to be vague: the name of a street. Simms had asked around all morning. Most people hadn’t wanted to speak to him. Those that did knew nothing about Dr. Grendel’s granddaughter. People liked to keep to themselves. He got that. But eventually, by a process of elimination, he’d tracked her down. The ruined old house, plants growing from cracks in its walls, was the only one he hadn’t tried. He’d actually walked past it several times, assuming it was derelict.
An old woman finally answered the door, her face a mass of wrinkles peering through the chained gap between door and frame. Patches of pink scalp were visible through her thinning, grey hair. She was well over a hundred years old if the records were correct. Her eyes focused on Simms and he saw some fire flare up in her. She shut the door, fumbled with the pathetic chain that would keep no one out, then opened the door wide. She looked frail, like she could snap in two at any moment, but before Simms could speak she stepped forward and slapped him hard across his face with a leathery hand.
‘You get out of here,’ she said, genuine spite in her voice. ‘You’re not welcome.’
Simms stepped back, surprised. The woman looked like she was ready to strike him again. It couldn’t be good for her.
‘But you don’t know who I am, Mrs, Douglas,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what I want.’ She was clearly senile, imagining he was someone from her past. They had never met. Although she did look familiar. Reminded him of someone.
‘I know exactly who you are,’ she said, her voice quavering. ‘Go away and don’t ever come back. I’ve told you before.’
She shook now, her initial fury gone. She shrank into herself. She would have been tall, once, the same height as Simms, but now she stooped over so that she had to turn her head to peer up at him.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Simms. ‘But we’ve honestly never met. I’m here to ask about your grandfather. Dr. Grendel. I’m trying to find out about him.’
‘You already know everything you need to know.’
‘I don’t know anything, Mrs. Douglas. It appears he was a very secretive man.’
‘You really don’t know?’
‘No. That’s why I’m here.’
The old woman’s eyes narrowed, almost disappearing within her skin. Then she started to make a strange noise, great shudders heaving through her body. For a moment Simms thought she was having some sort of attack. Then he realised she was laughing.
‘You really don’t, do you?’ she said.
‘I know Grendel was involved in cloning in the early days. I’m trying to find out more about his activities. I believe there may even be some of his clones surviving to this day. Perhaps second of third generation. I’d like to track them down.’
‘And why would you want to do that?’
‘I’m a genehunter. I’ve been employed to do so.’
‘Have you now? And by whom?’
‘I can’t say. But I can assure you my employers want only to help any surviving clones.’
The woman looked like she was about to start laughing again. Instead she shook her head and said, ‘What’s you name?’
‘Simms.’
Now she did laugh once more. ‘Simms. Very good. You don’t even get the joke, do you?’
The old wreck was clearly crazy. His chances of discovering anything useful from her were slim. Still, he had no other leads. Dr. Grendel was proving to be a very difficult target to track down.
‘Please. If you can tell me anything it could be very useful.’
The woman stopped laughing and looked serious. He couldn’t keep up with her mood switches. ‘I’ll tell you this,’ she said. ‘So far as I know there is only one surviving clone of that evil bastard running about. The rest are all dead.’ She took a step towards Simms and prodded her finger into his chest. ‘And if I had my way, the last would be killed, too.’
‘You didn’t like your grandfather much?’
‘Didn’t meet him, did I? Not the original. But I met his genetic twins and I know all the stories of what he did, what he was like. My mother told me everything. Pure evil he was. I almost feel sorry for any clone of his, going about knowing what they’ve come from. Now, leave me alone and don’t ever come back, understand?’
The woman stepped back into the gloom of her hovel and slammed the door in Simms’ face. He could smash it back open, sure, but there didn’t seem to be much point.
‘Please, Mrs. Douglas,’ he shouted after her. ‘Can you tell me anything? Can you tell me what you know about this surviving clone?’
The door remained shut. He could hear the woman’s slow, shuffling footsteps receding from him, the sound of her muttering to herself. Simms swore. What should he do now? He turned to leave, but stopped when he heard the old woman’s footsteps approaching once more. Perhaps she’d forgotten everything that had happened already and had come to see who he was.
‘Mrs. Douglas?’
The door opened, back on its chain. This time the old woman held out a square of card.
‘If I give you this I want your word you’ll never come anywhere near me ever again. Understand?’
‘Sure,’ he said. He had nothing to lose.
Simms took the piece of card. The woman slammed the door closed. Standing there on the step, Simms looked at what he’d been given. It was an old photograph, the colours faded now. It showed a man in an old-fashioned suit sitting behind a large wooden desk. His fingers were poised over the keyboard of an ancient, bulky computer. The man scowled at the camera as if disapproving of it. Writing beneath the picture identified him as Dr. Grendel, Professor of Genetics at London University. But it was the man’s face that really caught Simms’ attention. He stared at it for a long time, cold dread seeping through his insides.
Simms materialised in the familiar, plain reception room of the Arizona refuge. As before, a disembodied voice spoke to him, its metallic tones echoing in the empty space.
‘Please state the purpose of your visit.’
‘I need to see the clONE hit squad who captured me four days ago.’
‘Please provide the names of the individuals you wish to see.’
‘I don’t know their fucking names, do I? Just speak to someone from clONE. I know they’re here. They’ll know me. And tell Kelly, too, if she isn’t one of them.’
‘Please wait, Mr. Simms. Someone will be along to collect you soon.’
After several minutes, the door from the outside opened and the woman who led the hit s
quad stepped into the room on a rush of desert heat. She strode towards him with her dancer’s grace, like she could twirl him a roundhouse kick any moment. She assessed him for a few moments, not speaking. Simms returned her stare.
‘So, you found the DNA we wanted, Simms?’
‘I found it.’
‘And are you prepared to … hand it over to us?’
‘Is that what you want me to do? Or has all this been some elaborate game for your own amusement?’
The woman sighed, looked out through the window, then back at him. ‘Tell me, how does it feel? Knowing you weren’t brought into this world because two people loved each other, or because someone longed for a precious child. But because, as you once put it, you’re made up of the right bunch of numbers?’
‘How do you think it feels?’
The woman nodded. ‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she said. ‘Do you mind the heat?’
‘I can take the heat.’
They stepped out into the glaring furnace of the sun. Through narrowed eyes, Simms could see the houses of the refuge’s inmates, looking just like they had that first time he’d come. Was Tom Jacks there? Had he ever been? It barely mattered now. It all seemed like a long time ago. The woman turned onto a different path and led him towards a smaller cluster of low buildings.
‘We very nearly told you the truth, you know,’ the woman said. ‘Help him and you help yourself.’
‘Yeah, great. I love a puzzle. You could have just told me.’
‘Would you have believed us?’
‘Probably not.’
‘You gave us an interesting dilemma, you see. We despise the cloners and the genehunters who help them. We’re also sworn to defend the rights of clones to be themselves, do whatever they want to do. To transcend their genetic backgrounds and be free individuals.’
‘Yeah, I get it. Hence the funky spelling of clONE.’
‘So, in other words, we protect people like you from people like you. I mean, what are we supposed to do with a genehunter who is also a clone? Especially one who is a clone of him. In truth we really didn’t know what to do.’