Thy Brother's Keeper

by F. Paul Wilson

  Sinclair-2 stared at his younger brother. “Not quite.”

  The two words seemed to hang in the air between them. Portero caught Voss’s eye and the big man shrugged, obviously as confused as he.

  “You liar!” Sinclair-1 blurted, his face purpling. “You traitor!”

  Sinclair-2’s voice remained flat. “You’re amazing, you know that? But the fact remains, Zero’s in charge, not me, and I’m afraid events have built to a point of inevitability now where no one can stop them.”

  “Nothing is inevitable!” Sinclair-1 screamed. Now he seemed to be the one losing it. “Not until I say so! There’s still a fifty-fifty chance it’s a male! But no matter what it is, I want it born here! ” He pointed with both hands, jabbing his index fingers toward Luca and Voss. “So get out there and find that sim, goddamnit!”

  Normally Luca wouldn’t have allowed the twit to speak to him that way, but now he was clearly off his head, so Luca turned and led Voss into the hall. As soon as the door closed behind them, Voss grabbed his arm.

  “You have any idea what that ruckus was all about?”

  Luca shook his head. He was as baffled as the fat man.

  “I been with this company since the git-go,” Voss said, sweating, eyes darting about like caged birds, “and I ain’t never, ever seen Mercer Sinclair lose his cool like that.” He shook his head. “Boy baby, girl baby—what the hell does it mean?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” Luca said, turning and moving away.

  He had things to do. The first was to pry more manpower out of Lister for his trap; another was to find out what had so unnerved the Sinclairs. Something about inter- and intragenomic competition. Sounded like heavy shit, not the kind of stuff they’d taught him in Special Forces. But it might turn out to be important. It might be way important. And right now he needed all the help he could get.

  14

  MINEOLA, NY

  One hell of a day.

  Patrick lay awake in the dark in the smaller of Betsy Cannon’s two extra bedrooms, and thought about the changes Meerm’s baby would bring. He had no doubt that the child’s pedigree, despite all the challenges and smokescreens SimGen would throw up, eventually would elevate sims to the status of “persons.” That one change in designation would tumble SimGen and send the world’s labor and financial markets into chaos. The simple realization that he’d occupy a pivotal position in the eye of that oncoming storm would have made sleep difficult; knowing that a cadre of ruthless men were on the prowl, looking for him and Romy and Meerm to prevent that from happening made it impossible.

  Zero had departed late this afternoon after a protracted debate as to whether or not Kek should stay here for security. They finally decided against that. Zero was the only one who could control him. What if Kek decided he wanted to go outside? Who was going to stop him? If he were spotted, that would blow their cover. Better to keep all nonhumans away from Betsy’s.

  After a light dinner, they’d all turned in early. Romy was in the next bedroom down the hall, Meerm was on a cot in Betsy’s bedroom, Tome and Kek were with Zero at his home, wherever that was, God was in His heaven, and not one damn thing seemed right with the world.

  He jumped as he heard the bedroom door open.

  “It’s only me.” He recognized Romy’s whisper. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  “Just startled me,” he said. Then she startled him even further him by slipping under the covers and huddling against him. “Hold me, Patrick.”

  “Gladly.”

  He wound his arms around her. She was wearing some sort of long T-shirt. He didn’t know what she had on under it, if anything.

  “No, I mean, just hold me,” she said. “Nothing more. I don’t want to be alone tonight, Patrick. I need a friend.”

  “That’s me,” he sighed. He was about to add, Friend to the friendless, but bit it back. She was trembling, as if chilled. So he said, “Tough day, huh.”

  “Believe it.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  And then she said, “I feel lost, Patrick. I used to have some pretty hard and fast ideas about right and wrong, up and down, latitude and longitude, but now everything’s been twisted out of shape. Like one of those computer programs that let you distort a photo or a famous painting, you know, push it and pull it this way and that until it bears only a passing resemblance to the original. That’s how my world feels. That’s how my life feels. That’s how I feel. Like I don’t even know myself anymore.” A harsh little laugh. “Not that I ever did.”

  “You loved him, didn’t you.”

  He heard a soft sob and felt her head nod against his shoulder.

  “Do you still?”

  “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I think I was in love with an image I’d concocted. But now that the mask is off…”

  “Let me ask you something,” Patrick said. “If he’d taken off the mask and revealed a face horribly disfigured by birth defects or an accident, how would that have changed things?”

  He marveled at the way his thoughts were running. He should have been searching for the best angle to wedge himself between Romy and Zero; instead he was looking for a way to ease her pain. As much as he wanted her—and right now, with her bare legs warm against his, that was very, very much—comforting her seemed even more important.

  “Not at all. It wasn’t a physical attraction. I see where you’re going, but it’s not the same. A disfigured man would still be a man. Zero isn’t…”

  “A man? What’s your definition of a man, Romy?”

  “A male Homo sapiens .”

  Patrick sensed himself clicking into attorney mode, felt the well-oiled teeth of his rhetoric and advocacy gears meshing. He’d always prided himself on an ability to mount a convincing argument for either side of an issue, even one he didn’t particularly care for. Like this one.

  “But before today, when you thought of both Zero and me as male Homo saps , you gravitated more toward him than me. Why?”

  “I didn’t know you, Patrick. And I didn’t trust you. At least not at first. But you’ve got to admit you’ve changed.”

  “How?”

  “Well…,” she said, drawing out the word, “you’ve gone from a man with no commitments to one who believes in something and is willing to put himself on the line for it.”

  “Romy, Zero has been committed since day one, from the roots of his hair down to his toenails, and that was what you responded to. But it went beyond commitment, didn’t it. He demonstrated high intelligence, integrity, decency, courage, dignity, a reverence for life that matches, maybe even exceeds, your own. Those are traits you admire in humans. They’re what make you value a human, and until this morning you’d thought you could find them only in a human. But this is a new world, Romy, where the definition of ‘human’ is being revised—and let me tell you, when we take Meerm’s baby public, it’s going to undergo a total rewrite.”

  Listen to me, Patrick thought. I’m making his case and killing my own.

  But he was on a roll, high on his rhetorical momentum, and couldn’t stop himself.

  “As for Zero, he says he’s a mutated sim. Well, it looks to me like he mutated in the Homo sapiens direction, big time. He’s more human than a lot of Homo saps I know, and we both know Homo saps who look more apelike than he does. Meerm’s baby is going to upgrade the sims from ‘product’ to ‘person,’ from the Pongidae family to Hominidae, but as far as I can see, Zero is already there. A new species of Hominidae—Homo zero. So what else do you want from the guy? What else does he have to do to deserve you?”

  He felt her stiffen. “It’s not about deserving me. I’d never—”

  “Then decide what makes a guy worthy of your love—his genome or his values.”

  A long silence. Patrick had run out of steam, and Romy…he wished he knew what she was thinking.

  Then she snuggled closer. “Thank you, Patrick. That doesn’t settle th
ings, but it helps. Helps a lot. You’re a good friend.”

  Good friend…he wished he were much more, but for now he’d settle for that. Didn’t have much choice. And who knew? Maybe things wouldn’t work out between Zero and her. They’d barely spoken today. Maybe Zero had other plans. But even if they both agreed on trying a relationship, they had a hell of a lot stacked against them.

  He’d wait, because he knew of no other woman in the world like Romy Cadman. He’d hang around so he could be close by to catch her if she fell.

  15

  SHORT HILLS, NJ

  The late-night wind cut at Luca Portero as he strode across the crowded mall parking lot toward Lister’s Mercedes. A perfect meeting place. The mall was staying open late for last-minute Christmas shoppers. Luca had taken advantage of that, arriving early and picking up a bracelet for Maria. He’d wait until after the holidays to dump her—no sense in spending New Year’s Eve alone.

  He wondered why Lister had insisted on a face to face tonight. He guessed it wouldn’t be a happy meeting. When he opened the SUV’s door and saw the expression on his old CO’s fleshy face, he was sure of it.

  “Cold out there,” Luca said as he slipped into the passenger seat and slammed the door.

  “Cold everywhere,” Lister said. He sounded tired.

  Not a good start. Better cut to the chase.

  “What’s the word on the plan? How many men they giving us?”

  Lister shook his head. “None.”

  Luca felt as if he’d been slapped. “None? How are we going to—?”

  “We’re not.” He unbuttoned his camel hair coat. “They think using Strickland’s body as bait is a waste of time. Why should anyone care about his body when his DNA fingerprint is on computer.”

  “But it won’t be,” Luca said. “Not after we hack the NYPD system.”

  “But it’s not on just the NYPD computer. If you remember, Strickland had a rap sheet that included a couple of sexual assaults—one in Nassau County and one in Rockland—and a rape in Queens that he pleaded down to simple assault. He got around. And so did his RFLP. Seems if you’re caught on a sexual assault in one area, the Special Victims Units in all the surrounding areas check your DNA for a match in the unsolved cases on their books. Craig Strickland’s DNA is in dozens and dozens of police computers all over the tri-state area. Even we can’t hack all those databases. It’s an easy bet that a sharpie lawyer like Sullivan will figure that out, and have a good laugh at us if we try to use Strickland as bait.”

  Luca clenched his teeth. Damn. He should have thought of that.

  “Dumb idea, Luca,” Lister said. “It had people questioning your suitability for leading a field operation. Fortunately I was able to defuse that talk with your other idea. That went over big. The Old Man sent two people from his own office to help me canvass the SimGen Natal Center staff. We’ve been at it all day.”

  “We?” Luca said, glad he’d presented the Natal Center idea as his own.

  Lister smiled. “I know I’ve become something of a REMF, but with manpower so short, I had to get personally involved.”

  “Did anyone mention being approached?”

  Lister shook his head. “Negative.”

  “One of them could be lying. That sim’s baby is too valuable to leave the delivery to chance. They’re going to want experienced help.”

  “I agree. But then I thought to myself, if I was looking for that kind of expertise, would I approach a Natal Center OB and ask him or her to jeopardize career and benefits and pension plan and stock options and take a pass on a five-million-dollar bounty? I don’t think so. No, if I were smart—and these people are reasonably smart—I’d go to a former SimGen Natal Center OB, preferably a disgruntled one. One with a grudge or a score to settle.”

  Luca found himself nodding. Good thinking.

  “Any hits?”

  “A few of them look promising. Most have relocated but one still lives in the area. Name’s Elizabeth Cannon. Her letter of resignation was a real bridge burner, calling SimGen a ‘slave factory’ and its board of directors ‘morally bankrupt.’ She lives on Long Island now and needs checking out. I emailed you the particulars. Finding this sim isn’t just your number-one priority, Luca; it’s the only priority.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you? I hope so. This couldn’t be happening at a worse time. We should be devoting all our resources to making sure Guillotine comes off letter perfect; instead, I’m not reporting two dead operatives and praying that damn monkey doesn’t give birth before you find her. This has got all the makings of a major clusterfuck.”

  Luca realized with a start that Lister was scared. Beneath the tough-guy pose, he was terrified. Not for his future in SIRG, but the future of SIRG itself. They were all frightened, all the way up to the Old Man.

  Lister took a deep breath. “I’ll be hunting down the other disgruntled OBs. Cannon’s yours.” He paused. “You look tired, but I don’t advise sleep. Get on this ASAP. We don’t know how much time we have.”

  “Roger.”

  The meeting over, Luca stepped out of the SUV and watched Lister drive away.

  Elizabeth Cannon…he’d check her out first thing in the morning. But he also wanted to check out this genomic competition that had so rattled the Sinclairs. He needed every edge he could get.

  He headed for his office computer to look up some genetics.

  16

  MINEOLA, NY

  DECEMBER 24

  Romy watched Betsy adjust the IV running into Meerm’s arm. The air seemed close in the spare, windowless little procedure room. Patrick had walked out—the sim’s distress had been too much for him—leaving Romy alone with Betsy and Meerm.

  Betsy looked up at her. “The contractions have subsided.”

  “How long can this go on?” Romy asked, relieved the sim’s pain had finally eased.

  Betsy shook her head. “Not too much longer. I was right in the middle of an ultrasound when she started having contractions. I’d love to give the baby another week but Meerm’s uterus won’t last that long.”

  “Why baby hurt Meerm?” the sim said.

  “As I told you, Meerm,” Betsy said softly, “the baby’s not trying to hurt you. It’s just that you’re too small and the baby’s too large.” She turned to Romy and lowered her voice. “I tried to give her an anatomy lesson earlier. I don’t know how much of it took.”

  “On the new ultrasound,” Romy said, “did you see what sex it was?”

  Betsy smiled. “Meerm wanted to know too. Isn’t that something? I didn’t think sims differentiated that much between sexes, but she was very curious. She wants a girl.”

  “And?”

  “Can’t say. The baby’s packed in too tight. If I had one of the higher resolution imagers I could tell, but not with this model. I’ll do another one tomorrow. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “Yes. It would be nice to be able to call the baby ‘he’ or ‘she’ instead of ‘it.’”

  “Indeed it would. Oh, by the way, Zero called to see how the night went.”

  “When will he be here?”

  “He won’t. He thinks it’s safer for all concerned if I’m the only one seen coming and going from here.”

  Romy hoped her disappointment didn’t show. She needed to talk to Zero—not on the phone, but face to face. Her emotions were still in wild turmoil, but she needed to know how he felt, and what he wanted. Once she knew that, she could begin to sort out her own feelings, make some decisions. She didn’t know what the future held, but she was keeping all options open for now.

  Then Patrick stuck his head into the little room. “I think the house is being watched.”

  Romy felt her shoulders tighten. “You’re sure?”

  “I haven’t seen men with binoculars trained on us, but someone’s sitting in a car parked up the street facing this way, and he’s been there for a while.”

  “Show me.”

  He led her to the picture windo
w in the living room. It was midday but the low gray sky shed little light into the room. Romy reached for a lamp, then thought better of it.

  “Damn,” Patrick said. “It’s gone. But I tell you, it was sitting right over there for a good half hour.”

  Romy scanned the street and saw a blue sedan parked against the curb at the other end.

  “Was that there before?” she asked, pointing.

  “No,” Patrick said. “I’m sure it wasn’t. And this one’s got—doesn’t that look like two men inside?”

  “Yes, it does,” Betsy said, coming up behind them. “I’m calling the police.”

  “Is that such a good idea?” Patrick said.

  Romy smiled. “I think it’s a great idea. If they knew something, they’d have done something. Betsy left SimGen with a roar, so it’s no surprise they’re watching her. Probably watching a number of ex-Natal-Center people. But why should we let them have an easy time of it? Let’s make them explain to the local constabulary what they’re doing out there.”

  17

  “Here’s what we’ve got on her,” Lowery said, unfolding his notes behind the wheel of the surveillance car.

  Luca stared at Dr. Cannon’s two-story colonial from the passenger seat. He’d wanted a personal look at the lay of the land, and he didn’t like it one bit.

  “Elizabeth Cannon, age forty-eight, never married, no kids, lives alone. In solo obstetrics-gynecology practice. Works out of a home office, on the staff of Nassau County Community Hospital.”

  “Home office?” Luca said.

  “Yeah. That extension on the left side there.”

  “Where are her patients?”

  “I called about that. Her answering service said she’d canceled her office hours from today through next week but would still be seeing her hospital patients and doing her deliveries.”

  “Odd, don’t you think?”

  Lowery shrugged. “Hey, it’s Christmas Eve. And she took Christmas week off. Do the same if I could.”

  “We don’t find that sim,” he told Lowery, “you’ll have the longest Christmas vacation of your life.”