Russo’s system filled a room. He had the usual: blood filter, brainwave regulator, nutrient intake and waste outflow, temperature and humidity controls. What was unusual was the presence of additional communications tech. Russo wasn’t simply tapping into the existing networks, formal or informal. He had created his own.
“I admired your grandfather immensely,” Russo said as he settled into his specialized recliner. It didn’t look comfortable, but he claimed it like a throne. “He never let age hold him back. I’ve been working since I was sixteen. Always wanted to get to the point where golfing and cruises were all I had to worry about, but then the Accordance happened and I had to do something. Fortunately, I had a secret, a useful secret. I had ten clones.”
“Ten?” I exclaimed. “Full, functional, illegal clones, not just templates for organs and limbs? What would you be doing with ten clones?”
He smirked, laughing at himself. “Taking on a very expensive bet.”
I glanced at JP, begging her silently to confirm that he was insane, but she just shrugged. She’d likely heard the story before.
“I was in Japan, working with colleagues on some international business that turned out very well for all involved. At the concluding celebrations, I got a bit drunk with three high-ranking reps, one Ukrainian, one Irish, one Namibian. We had that age-old debate on nature versus nurture because we were all of us either third or fourth generation in the business. At first it was a bet that, if we each had five random clones raised outside of the family influence, they’d still find their way into our line of work. Then it was a bet that if we kept the influence but fostered the clones in different countries, we’d have a cultural and linguist asset in the family. We went away and sobered up and didn’t think about it until the next morning, when the boss of the Japanese syndicate sent each of us a little gift certificate to the top genetics clinic in the hemisphere and a single sentence on the back. ‘I dare you.’ ”
He laughed outright. “I don’t know what they dared, but I took my maximum of ten clones and found surrogate mothers and foster families for them in all the key locations. London. Moscow. Lagos. Rome. Los Angeles. Mexico City. Shanghai. Delhi. São Paolo. Tokyo. I figured I’d meet them when they reached eighteen and skim the sinners from the saints.”
He grew serious again. “But they reached eighteen in the Year of the Accordance, and everyone’s priorities changed. The families, firms, and syndicates found it hard to adjust. Some of my old friends became rebels, some collaborators. A few retired, one killed himself. I went in a completely different direction.”
He gestured to another machine. It was unfamiliar, but I was reminded of the easel I’d seen in the inker’s studio. Here it was a bank of frames suspended in fluid, and each frame held a section of densely tattooed skin.
JP faced me and spoke almost pleadingly. “This wasn’t my idea. Jasen insisted, and Biomech helped with the operation. All I did was arrange delivery.”
“Are you saying . . .” My voice failed.
“Yeah. Jasen’s computer.”
Russo spoke softly, almost kindly. “It’s still very experimental, but there is some fascinating research into the extension of human cognition from the individual to the collective via shared nano-ink access. It always worked best with twins. Clones, of course, are as good as twins. I’ve lost four so far: one to illness, one in an accident, one in battle . . . and one—Jasen—to execution. It hurts, of course, but I’ve found it’s less disruptive when I save the ink from the terminated clone and keep it functioning in the system.”
I stared at the four frames. “You cannot be serious.”
He looked wistful. “You know what I realized? It’s not the crime. It’s the risk. It’s the small details. It’s the information, the thrill of knowing stuff and putting it all together to gain an edge. That’s my nature. That’s what my clones do, some legally, some illegally. Although I can’t say what ‘legal’ means anymore now that the Accordance is the law.”
I heard him, but I couldn’t focus on the sense of his words. I felt cold. Scraps of inked skin suspended in biotech frames—why? There were a few rare inks that might be worth stripping from skin once the owner was done with them, but that was a day’s work, if so much. Data stored was easily retrievable, so why keep the skin? What artificial intelligence, what shadow-personality could remain in those densely inked patterns?
“Jasen was prepared for this. He doesn’t want to you blame yourself.” Russo looked at me as kindly as any undertaker, a man acquainted with death, with half-life, with imperfect immortality.
“JP, get me out of here.” Perhaps it was the tea getting in a last kick, perhaps it was Russo’s use of the present tense, but my stomach was churning.
JP moved quickly, which made me grateful. She grabbed my arm and guided me out. Russo kept to his chair and watched us with a tired smile. “We’ll meet again, Amira. You’ll know.”
Outside was dark, warm, and humid. I braced myself against a pillar of the patio gate, breathed deeply, and forced the sickness down and away.
“Sorry,” JP whispered. “I didn’t have time to prepare you.”
“You work for him?” I asked, my voice wavering between disbelief and disgust.
“Of course not, but he gets the good info. He’s so rich, you can’t pay him for it. He’ll only share it if he likes you. Now he likes you. Use that when you can.”
I closed my eyes. If Russo had been some random ex-mobster and not the clone parent of a dead friend, I might have taken it better, but at that moment all I wanted was to go back to the hostel, dodge the concierge, grab my stuff, and figure out what to do next.
A faint, low vibration came from the direction of the main gate. “Our ride is here,” JP said.
“Our.” I knew she wasn’t talking about the transport that brought us to Russo. As the vehicle approached I could see it was not a sleek and quiet car for the streets, but a rumbling off-roader. I scanned it thoroughly and what I found made me laugh. The car was almost devoid of tech, like the ones the military used to make before small-scale EMP shielding became viable. However, the driver was wrapped in various kinds of shielding, like a walking data safe.
The jeep came to a stop and the driver leaned out of the window. He wore glasses—smart glasses, of course, made to mimic everything my own eyes could do and more. “JP?” he asked. Stupid. As if he couldn’t see well enough in the dark.
I stayed where I was as JP went around to open the passenger door. “Who are you?” I challenged him.
“What?’ Either he was genuinely bewildered, or he was faking it well. Given the little play with the night vision, I chose the latter.
“A human Fort Knox rolls up in an antique car and doesn’t expect questions? I asked, who are you?”
He rubbed the side of his glasses. “I’m Jin. I’m an accountant. I have bank-level tech security to protect my clients’ data. It’s not that serious.”
“Oh.” I hoped I didn’t look as drained and foolish as I felt. I meekly got into the backseat. From where I sat I could see he wore a long black coat, but his T-shirt had a sparkly pink galaxy graphic across the chest. It was neither mob-boss fashion nor geek chic, but it could be an accountant on his day off.
“Want to go get something to eat?” JP suggested, politely avoiding mention of my mini rant.
“Oh, yes please,” I said wearily.
+ + + +
Jin and JP picked at appetizers and talked about me as I blazed through steak, buttery baked potato, deep-fried jalapeños, and a large milkshake.
“She’s really hungry,” Jin muttered.
“She was drugged,” JP said. “Then there was the emotional stress from meeting Russo and hearing about Jasen,” she added, lowering her voice although she was sitting right across from me.
“She didn’t know?” Jin said, raising his brows so high that his glasses slid down his nose a little. He pushed them up with his forefinger. “Didn’t she find out from—”
> “I’m right here, you know,” I complained halfheartedly as I muffled my words in delicious garlic bread.
“Didn’t you find out from your colleagues on base?” he asked me directly.
I stopped chewing, considered them both for a second, and took a risk. “I am not in communication with my colleagues on base. What I am doing here is not what you might call an official activity.”
Jin smiled and stared at me through his glasses. “Going rogue?”
“No. Not rogue. ‘Unofficial’ does not mean ‘unsanctioned.’ For example, wasn’t Jasen one of yours?”
He looked away. “I am Mister Russo’s client, nothing more.”
Did he mean Jasen or Alessandro? Did it matter? I shook off a shudder and continued between mouthfuls. “Don’t you mean he’s your client? I thought you were an accountant.”
“Even accountants need information. We have a mutually beneficial exchange of services.”
“That typical New Jacksonville reluctance to state allegiance to anyone or anything,” I grumbled under my breath as I stacked food on my fork.
Jin laughed. “Sergeant Singh, you are no better. You’re in the CPF, JP tells me you are looking for Orlando’s Ship 503, and you come from a famous line of anti-Accordance rebels. Who are you? Who do you work for? Why should anyone trust you?”
I sighed, drank my milkshake, and appealed to JP. “What do you think, JP? Can I be trusted?”
She smiled. “You have honor.”
“Honor isn’t the same as trust,” Jin noted. “Trust means loyalty to people, honor means loyalty to principles. What’s your guiding principle, Amira Singh?”
I wiped my mouth with my napkin, folded it slowly, and gave him the full glare of my inked eyes. “Survival. For as many of us as I can manage.”
He took off his glasses and returned my stare without a blink. “I can work with that,” he said softly. “If you’ve finished eating, let’s go for a walk.”
+ + + +
My grandfather preferred to have his most private conversations in wide-open spaces. He loved tree-filled parks with wide paths. He loved the simple efficiency of a hat or an umbrella to screen audiovisual information from even the most dedicated human and artificial spies.
So I understood completely why Jin was inviting me to stroll with him and JP under the stars in the field adjacent to the restaurant. We spent a few minutes of idle chat in admiring the proprietor’s kitchen gardens and greenhouses, then wandered farther from the buildings in comfortable quiet. I observed JP and Jin, saw how they walked in sync together like a captain and his XO. I wasn’t surprised when Jin finally spoke.
“My name is Hideo Pereira. I am in charge of Ship 507, successor to the now-defunct 503 of Orlando and 501 of Miami.”
“In charge?” I repeated, testing him. “Someone told me recently that the Ships here have no need of admirals.”
“Admirals . . .” He made a dismissing noise, half scorn, half amusement. “But accountants? Everyone needs accountants.”
A light wind teased the bottom edge of his knee-length coat, and a little flare, a hint of iridescence, caught my eye. I took time to view and analyze the coat’s lining—a full tapestry of matte nano-ink on spidersilk—and then I looked him up and down. “Nice threads—very nice. Accountant, my ass. You’re a numbers expert!”
He grinned widely. “So, you believe me now?”
“Oh, I never doubted you, sweetheart, but I still need to know who you’re working for.”
“What. What am I working for.” He stepped closer, no longer joking. “I’m working for the movement started by your grandfather, Bismil Singh. The foundation may be a bit shaky, but I think with a little refining, it could work. It might even be great.”
“The foundation was the mutual mistrust of New York’s mafias,” I scoffed.
“Precisely why it was so shaky. But now we have a single identity—us, and a common enemy—them.”
“That’s astonishingly simple for a numbers guy.”
“Sociology is not my specialty,” he admitted, “but the stats don’t lie and that’s what they’re telling me.”
“Are they also telling you that some of ‘them’ look like ‘us’?”
The intensity of his gaze went from persuasion to calculation. “How much do you know about that?”
I smiled at him, my sweetest smile. “How much should I know, and how much time do you have to waste on being half-honest with me?”
“I’m about to be all honest with you now.” He stopped, went off the path, and pulled up a round cover that looked like part manhole cover, part submarine hatch. “The tunnels here are drier than in Orlando, I promise.”
JP waved me forward. Jin—or rather Hideo—disappeared into darkness with the faint clanging sound of booted feet on steel ladder rungs. I followed more cautiously, lacking his familiarity with the entrance. JP brought up the rear and closed the hatch behind her. The moment the cover snapped secure, a dim light illuminated the tunnel. Five meters or more of ladder ended in hard-packed earth floor and slightly brighter lighting. It looked like we were in an underground storehouse. They’d become very popular after the Occupation, when people started to hoard goods due the uncertainty of what an Accordance future might mean for humans. They were still popular because hoarding remained common, and they had many additional uses—hiding illegal broadcast studios and tech, hiding fugitives, hiding weapons.
As we came into a larger room, I guessed that they were probably hiding all three. It wasn’t just the size of the place. It was the number of people and the purposefulness of their movements. It was the lateness of the hour and the sense that this was just another ordinary work shift in the day’s operations for Ship 507. I hadn’t seen anything on this scale since the early days of the Manhattan Resistance, and it filled me with both longing and loss.
“I have so much to show you, Amira Singh,” said Hideo. “Let’s get started.”
9
* * *
The underground hideout was illuminated with the warm, dim light of a late sunset, so when Hideo handed me a pair of shades, I looked at him strangely. “Precaution,” he explained. “I know what eyes like yours can do, and although I’m willing to give you a tour, I’m not willing to give you all our secrets.”
“Fair enough,” I said, taking them from him and putting them on. They were immediately irritating and disorienting, limiting not only my range of vision but also my connection to the networks. I hid my discomfort and joked, “Did you have these made just for me?”
“We’ve been watching you for a long time, Amira,” Hideo said with a simple directness that made him sound worryingly ordinary.
A short, slender man dressed in worn khaki approached JP with a datacard in hand. “Moreno, the manifest for the priority incoming finally arrived. We need to sit down and plan the next stage.”
JP took the card and glanced quickly at us before saying, “Been busy, Slate. Can you give me ten minutes?”
“I think Sergeant Singh won’t mind if you leave her with me,” Hideo said. “We’ll catch up with you later.”
Shades regardless, I picked up several things. The use of my full name, a slight fluttering blink from Slate as he took in that new information, JP’s mild frown as she took the polite dismissal as . . . well . . . a dismissal, and the unspoken behavior of the entire group which told me that Accountant Hideo was indeed the man in charge, but in a somewhat mad-scientist kind of way. I’d seen it before in the Resistance and after—sometimes people were known and appreciated for getting results, but they worried you because you couldn’t guess what they’d do next, and whether or not it would be to your benefit.
JP nodded and turned to go. Slate gave me a small smile before he followed. Hideo took me gently by the arm, steering me in the opposite direction.
“Juanita Pilar Moreno. Gained quite a reputation for ruthless efficiency years ago, but some people fear she’s gone soft now. I think she’s just a little burnt out. I give
her about two months or less before she starts trying to oust me. Of course, I plan to be gone by then. She could run this place better than I can, and I . . . I need to step up a bit.”
I questioned him with a look.
“New goals, new scope. Like I said, the Ships could be great, but we need to stretch ourselves more. I’ve been running the numbers, and I think it’s time to—but more of that after you decide if you want to join us.”
It was a carefully planned tour, showing just enough strength and structure without revealing everything. He showed me a fleet of ground vehicles very like the one he drove and a couple of stealth hoppers. I glanced at the ceiling, looking for a hidden hatch to the outside air, but the shades defeated me. I stood in a doorway and saw stores of weapons and ammunition, mostly sidearms, sniper rifles, and basic body armor, but so antiquated as to be almost quaint. Then, as I turned to go, I did a double take and noticed changes, adaptations, tweaks. Hideo pressed me onward before I could take a closer look.
It was a respectable accumulation of materiel, but I was sure it was only the tip of the iceberg. Given what I’d seen of Hideo, JP, and Russo, I suspected the real strength in the operation was intelligence, and the rest was for defense only in case of discovery.
Hideo brought me into a glass-walled office positioned in the center of a bustling hall—very mutually panopticon of him. I see you, you see me. He had no desk. A conference table with twelve chairs dominated the middle of the room, and there was a round, low table off to one side bearing a neatly arranged tea set and ringed with four seating cushions. He invited me to be seated on one of the cushions, then settled himself opposite me and started to make tea. I glanced at the walls, wondering if he changed the transparency levels at any time, then choked back a gasp of pure greed when I realized that the middle third of the wall, all around the office, was an input screen like Makani’s desk.
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