“No. And that does not sound at all like something my mother would allow.” Ollie pushed back from the table and folded her hands in front of her. She leaned toward Jacey, eyes never dropping. “But it does sound like something my father might do.”
Ollie scooted her chair closer to Jacey’s. She took Jacey’s hand and studied it. Wetness glistened in the woman’s eyes. “I’m saying that neither my mother nor I had any knowledge of your existence. You—and Livy—were made without our knowledge.”
Meow Meow grinned. “From what Jacey’s told me about Dr. Carlhagen, that is entirely possible.”
The room swirled, world tilting as it so often did lately. Could that old bastard have made Jacey and Livy without consent? A weak laugh escaped Jacey’s throat. Of course he could.
Ollie asked, “Is it possible that my father didn’t know either?”
“No,” Jacey said. There was no doubt on that score. “Dr. Carlhagen despised your father. He wouldn’t have made Vaughan if he’d had a choice.”
“Carlhagen . . .” Ollie said, finally breaking eye contact. “I called him Uncle Christof.”
“Well, if you see him, prepare yourself for a shock,” Meow Meow said. “He overwrote your father’s clone.”
“He overwrote Vaughan,” Jacey said, as if she could correct the truth of what Meow Meow had said. “He overwrote Vaughan. Who was a person.”
“If Uncle Christof hated my father so much,” Ollie said, “why would he make my father’s clone?”
“It must have been part of the deal,” Jacey said, imagining the animosity between the two men when they had struck the bargain. “To get useable DNA from Jacqueline and you, Dr. Carlhagen must have agreed to make a clone for your father to get his cooperation.”
That wise look came over Ollie’s face and she squeezed Jacey’s hand. “Why did Uncle . . . Dr. Carlhagen hate my father?”
Jacey didn’t want to answer. She wanted to spare Ollie the sordid truth. But sometimes keeping a secret is the same as lying.
“Because your father was married to the woman Dr. Carlhagen loved. But it isn’t really love. It’s an obsession. A sickness.” Jacey hugged her elbows, remembering the old man’s slimy touch.
Just like Livy, Ollie saw the heart of the matter in a single second. She pulled Jacey toward her, until she could get her hands on Jacey’s face. “Oh, my dear, dear child. What has he done to you?”
Dante stopped eating and looked at Jacey. He set down his fork and patted his lips with a napkin. “There’s no need to get into all that now.”
A tear slipped from Jacey’s eye. She pulled away from Ollie, a woman who was genetically her daughter but who was nearly old enough to be her mother. She ached for Livy. She raged at the injustice of her life, and that of all the Scions.
All the pain Dr. Carlhagen had inflicted upon her—his touches, his leers, his manipulations—all of it tried to erupt in that dangerous moment. Throat aching, Jacey stuffed the agony down, buried it beneath her determination to rescue Livy. “Dante’s right. It doesn’t matter what he’s done to me. None of that can be changed. He has to be stopped from inflicting greater damage on the world.”
Meow Meow’s eyebrows scrunched and a look of wonder came over her, as if she were seeing Jacey in a new light. It was a look of deep respect.
Ollie’s voice broke. “Yes, of course. That is exactly how my mother would see it, too.”
A different wave of emotion swirled up at Ollie’s words. This one a vortex, threatening to suck Jacey into an oblivion of relief. All this time she had thought Jacqueline was greedy and immoral. Jacey had never been able to shake the worry that being the clone of such a bad person made her a bad person. But Jacqueline had not known about Jacey.
Again, Jacey fought back emotions that threatened to sap her will. She would feel all this later. She could make sense of things once Dr. Carlhagen was dead.
Her skin thrilled as she admitted her goal to herself.
But not his body, she reminded herself. That belonged to Vaughan. And Vaughan would have it when this was all done.
Meow Meow’s tablet chimed. She moved to the back of the room to answer it.
That suited Jacey just fine, because Meow Meow would oppose the plan Jacey was going to suggest. “I need your help, Ms. Montgomery. It’s imperative that I get to Dr. Carlhagen as quickly as possible.”
“If he’s as dangerous as you say, you should tell the police where he is and what he’s done.”
“And trade Dr. Carlhagen’s control over the rich and powerful to the IPA?” Jacey said. “They’ll just push his scheme forward for their benefit.”
Seeing that Ollie was lost, Jacey decided to start at the beginning. “I need to explain the Anti-Transfer Rejection pills and how Dr. Carlhagen plans to use them to control the most powerful people in the world.”
“I’m listening.”
And so was Dante, keenly.
His betrayal suddenly made sense to Jacey. “You ran out of pills, didn’t you?”
“Left them behind in Chicago when we got you away from Siggy’s goons.”
“So in the church, when you were going on and on—”
“I had called Wilcox. He had my pills, but he didn’t know what they were. I figured I would help you get away from him once I was back to my old self. And hey, I did!”
Jacey smirked. “You didn’t do anything.”
Ollie said, “You forget. Dante pooled his resources with mine to win the auction.”
He grinned and shrugged it away. “Don’t start thinking I’m a good person. I meant everything I said in that church.”
“I won’t. I’m sure you did.” Jacey didn’t know what to think about Dante. He didn’t make any sense. He treated his life as if it were the most precious thing in one moment, then risked it in the next.
“Tell me about this scheme of Dr. Carlhagen’s,” Ollie said.
Jacey didn’t get far into it before Meow Meow interrupted them. She held the tablet to Jacey. “It’s someone claiming to know you. She calls herself Belle.”
Jacey took the tablet from Meow Meow. The woman on the screen had shortish black hair and a face a decade too old. “You aren’t Belle.”
A moment of surprise crossed the woman’s face before she morphed into her usual appearance. “I was trying a new look.”
“What do you want? I’m in the middle of something here.”
“Never mind that. We’ve got bigger problems than your capers all over North America.”
This was Belle, all right.
“Humphrey, Leslie, and Kirk are on St. Lazarus,” Belle said. “But the island is on fire and we’re pretty sure there was a helicopter invasion. We’re trying to help Dr. Carlhagen escape before the senator’s forces arrive. And before the president realizes he doesn’t have Leslie.”
“Slow down. I didn’t follow a single thing you just said.”
“Listen for once, instead of pouting and fluttering your pretty eyelashes at me.”
Meow Meow mouthed a shocked curse and said, “Who is this person?”
Belle said, “Find Wilcox and have him call Dr. Carlhagen.”
“I was thinking of turning myself over to him anyway,” she said.
“That would be stupid. But no surprise there.” Belle made an obvious effort to control her impatience, which made it even more irritating to Jacey. “He’ll just give you to Dr. Carlhagen.”
“That was the idea. Then I’d be in a situation where I could do something to help Livy.”
“You don’t need to risk your neck. Just tell Dr. Carlhagen that Humphrey will take him off St. Lazarus in return for Livy.” Belle continued, explaining how a fleet was closing in on the island and that Dr. Carlhagen would soon be trapped there.
“Shut up for a second, Belle.” She looked at Dante. “Does Wilcox know you were Cat?”
“By now he does.” Dante giggled and wiped his eyes. “That bastard is probably chewing his teeth to dust right now.”
�
�So he wouldn’t be receptive to hearing from you,” she said, realizing she’d have to do this herself.
Ollie looked on in confusion. Meow Meow lifted her face. “I don’t like the sound of this, Jacey. What do you want with Wilcox? He lost. We won. You’re free.”
Dante made a tsking noise. “Technically, I own 55% of her, but we’ll overlook that for now.” He was disgustingly pleased with himself.
Jacey gave him a flat stare, then answered Meow Meow. “My Scion friends have cooked up a way to get Livy back, but I have to talk to Dr. Carlhagen to present the offer. The fastest way to do that is through Captain Wilcox.”
Meow Meow and Dante both started to object, but Ollie silenced them. “What do you need, Jacey? Name it.”
“I need to meet with Wilcox in a neutral place. Somewhere he can’t kidnap me.” In her peripheral vision she caught Dante’s smile faltering into a look of true worry. “Or throttle me.”
Ollie looked pointedly at Meow Meow. “Fine,” the scrawny girl said. “I’ll talk to Ashala. She might be willing to act as a go-between with Wilcox and get him into a room for us.” She got up, head hanging low. She glanced back just as she was about to leave. “I’m sorry, Jacey.”
“For what?”
“I knew Ollie was Jackie B.’s daughter. Everyone knows it. I wanted to tell you, but the timing never seemed quite right. I didn’t want to make things more complicated. I had no idea about her and Livy being . . . you know.”
Meow Meow looked haggard and miserable, and for the first time since Jacey had known her, old.
Jacey had the power to release Meow Meow from her guilt. It was like having a prisoner strapped to a cot in the medical ward. She could set her free, or leave her to rot in her guilt. The temptation to punish her friend was strong. But what was the point of punishing someone she loved for a mistake made out of love?
“I forgive you,” Jacey said.
Meow Meow wiped at her eyes as she left the room.
“While you’re doling out forgiveness . . .” Dante said, holding up his hands. “Yes. I did call Wilcox to the church. But I was desperate.”
“You told me you had killed him.”
“A white lie to calm you. I did it for you.”
“You didn’t tell me about Ollie, either.”
“True. But in my defense, I got to witness the reveal of a lifetime.”
Jacey gave him a cool look. “Ollie, what is fifty-five percent of $165 million dollars?”
“$90,750,000.”
“That’s the price of my forgiveness, Silvio. $90,750,000.”
He glared at Ollie. “I told you she wouldn’t appreciate my help.”
“You said no such thing.” Ollie waved his statement away like it was an annoying bug. “You begged to join me in the bidding. Your exact words were, ‘We can’t let that old bastard have her.’”
Dante’s cheeks reddened, and he mumbled, “You promised not to say anything about that.”
Ollie ignored him. “Jacey, Dante is a scoundrel, but he has a good heart.”
Dante made a shushing sound and looked pointedly at the door. “Someone might hear!”
“Fine,” Jacey said. “I forgive you, too. And when this is all over, I’ll make sure the whole world knows what a sentimental do-gooder you truly are.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be, eh?”
“That’s how it’s going to be.”
50
Out Nothing
A chime awakened Dr. Carlhagen. He lifted his head from his desk, disturbing his bottle of andleprixen, which was still uncapped. It rolled across his desk and fell to the floor, sending pills ticking across the tiles like tiny pebbles.
“Call incoming from Wilcox,” Lazarus announced. A moment later a video rectangle appeared on the pixel wall. Captain Wilcox looked weary, his face pale, head bandaged.
“What news do you have for me, Captain?” Carlhagen said, rubbing his eyes and trying to will wakefulness into his foggy mind.
“The bid went much higher than expected. $165 million.”
“So you have her,” Dr. Carlhagen said, relieved.
Wilcox shook his head. “No, sir. You authorized $100 million.”
Dr. Carlhagen shot up from his chair and slammed his fist onto his desk. “I told you to get her. I don’t care what the price is. I don’t care who you have to kill. I don’t care what you do. Get her!”
In truth, Dr. Carlhagen didn’t remember much of his conversation with Wilcox about what price to pay. $100 million was a lot of money, but surely he would’ve authorized five times that much to get Jacey. Now that he thought about it, he did vaguely recall mentioning that he could easily outbid anyone because he had $100 million in his smallest account. Wilcox must have misunderstood.
No surprise there.
“So who bought her?” Dr. Carlhagen barked. “I’ll talk to them, offer them double their price. I’ll throw in a Scion of their own.”
“The bidders wore masks. I’m sure all of them were hired agents and that the true buyers were not present at all. Except—” The man hesitated and made a face as if he was trying to swallow an entire lemon.
“Out with it, Wilcox.”
“We were invited into the scav compound as bidders, but I didn’t trust leaving Dante behind when I went in. I took him with me. I didn’t think he could get into any trouble there. The scavs are an unpleasant and distrustful people.”
Dr. Carlhagen didn’t like where this is going at all. “Dante was one of the bidders?” As soon as he said it, he knew it was true. Then he knew the rest. Dante had won. “But this is good. If Dante bought her, then she’s as good as mine. And I’m out nothing!”
Wilcox clicked his tongue. “Dante joined forces with another bidder. I don’t know who he represented. Their combined bid won, and Jacey was taken deeper into the compound where I can’t get to her. The scavs have not let me speak with Dante, either. Which is probably wise, because I will kill him on sight.”
“You’ll do no such thing. Dante will do whatever I tell him. Believe me. All you need to do is get a message to him that I will welcome him here on St. Lazarus as an honored guest. He probably bought Jacey just to win a bit of leverage with me.” Dr. Carlhagen laughed at the idea of that lightweight playboy trying to negotiate with him.
“What about the other buyer? I think they would object to you taking their property. And why would Dante even agree to turn over such an expensive investment to you?”
“Because he needs his—” Dr. Carlhagen clamped his mouth shut. That had been a close call. He’d almost mentioned the ATR pills. “Because he needs me for future Scions. Do you really think he’ll take good care of his current body?”
Captain Wilcox started to say something but was interrupted by someone off-camera. He listened for a moment, then turned his attention back to Dr. Carlhagen. “This is odd. The scav commander has just invited me to speak with Jacey and her new owners.”
“Then go,” Dr. Carlhagen said. “Then get Dante on a call with me, so we can coordinate his arrival here.”
“Yes, sir.” Wilcox signed off.
Dr. Carlhagen rubbed his hands together and started to pace. He was close. He was so close to getting her back. This time it would be different.
Now he needed to get control of the other Scions, Leslie in particular. “Lazarus, get me Colonel Vikisky on screen.”
“He is not taking calls at the moment,” Lazarus said.
“Tell him Senator Bentilius is calling. Just get him.”
“I told the fleet’s communications officer aboard Vikisky’s ship that Senator Bentilius had to speak with him, but the comms officer said Vikisky could not take calls. He refused to explain why.”
Dr. Carlhagen stopped and looked at his shoes, brain grinding through the possible reasons the colonel would refuse a call. It struck him that the most likely reason was that he was in the middle of a military operation, probably boarding the Scions’ escape ship at that very moment. Yes. That
was very likely.
“Keep trying. Every ten minutes. Tell this communications peon it’s important.”
“Of course, Dr. Carlhagen.”
He noticed the pills he had spilled dotting the floor. He began picking them up, pausing to pop one in his mouth.
51
Your Time is Up
The one remaining human-like Belle sat in the quad, eyes closed, breath coming slowly. She was at once filled with the information flowing through her other instances as they scoured the data flow, and complete equanimity.
I can be both, she thought at Vaughn. Human and—she didn’t know what word to use for what she had become. What Vaughn already was. But she could feel the difference. The weird distancing of emotion, the release of worry. She observed Vaughan’s diligent work monitoring radio traffic to extrapolate the location of the fleet. He passed her instant knowledge of the changes in that information even as he updated it on the holodesk so Summer and Elias could see it.
As exhilarating and overwhelming as the data flow was, she now saw its limits. Those limits were due to the reduced bandwidth of data flowing to Athena. She could only imagine what it would be like to dive into the flow coming through a faster connection.
Vaughan wasn’t solely occupied with the fleet. He was also ramming from network node to network node, sniffing out signs of the AI on St. Lazarus. He knew Dr. Carlhagen had used that AI to mask his movements in the past. Vaughan knew the AI was masterful at hiding itself from the public networks. So he turned to a data underworld of illegal nets. Such networks had existed since the first days of computing. This shadowy web was alive in Belle’s senses now, too. She watched and learned as Vaughan plumbed its depths, seeking this mysterious AI of Dr. Carlhagen’s. Vaughn created thousands of aliases, posting messages, videos, comments, querying archived databases of telecommunication records, anything that would expose a door into the mystery AI’s world.
Vaughn was not impatient. It wasn’t in his nature, not worth his processing power to experience. But Belle’s human instance felt it.
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