“Well,” one of them starts, addressing Gran, “first of all, we all wanted to say thank you for the reading material. I mean, talk about fascinating. I tried to go as fast as I could, but well, I mean, you’ve got stuff here about the psychometric evaluations on alien slave AI—”
What might be sarcasm in other people is enthusiasm in Clyde.
“—and it is hard to just flip and data scan through that. So thank you, and apologies. But we had a really wild time with this. I mean, if you can imagine a wild time, say, I don’t know what people do, probably there would be hookers involved, and cocaine, I imagine. Well, imagine that, and then multiply it by, probably like six, that seems like a good number, well that’s what it was like on this server last night when we hit the DARPA papers. Amazing.”
Gran holds up a finger. “Per protocol and shit, your servers will be completely scrubbed once you deliver the final report. All memory totally redacted. Just so you understand.”
“You are terribly serious about this whole protocol thing, aren’t you?” says a Clyde.
“Maybe,” Felicity suggests, “we could just get to the bit where the Clydes tell us what they found.”
“Oh yes,” a Clyde says. “Totally getting there. Sorry about that. Meant to be heading from a to b, and got all distracted by c along the way. But getting off the detour and back—”
“Just feckin’ tell us.”
I don’t think Kayla’s temper is wearing thin because of the Clydes, though. I try to make apologetic eyes at her but she isn’t looking at me.
“Right.” All three Clyde versions genuflect slightly.
“Emails,” says one of them.
“From me,” says another.
“Well,” says the third. “From evil me. Version 2.0.”
“He’s sending emails?” I say, which admittedly is exactly what they just said but it seems odd enough that I want confirmation.
“Oh yes,” says one Clyde.
“Indubitably,” says another. Presumably because he is a version of Clyde. I can’t think of another reason.
“We didn’t see—” Gran starts. It’s the first time I’ve seen him look slightly flustered. Hippy or no, he seems pretty invested in his agency.
“Well, it’s not like he signed it ‘love and kisses, Evil-Me,’” says one Clyde.
One of the versions, I notice, is looking intently at Tabitha as this zinger is delivered.
“Some very clever encryption involved,” actually interjects the third Clyde. “Even if I do say so myself. As I assume it is myself, or some version of me that is responsible. Not sure if that’s self-congratulatory or not anymore. If it is then I do apologize, and if it’s not, don’t totally mean to seem like I’m admiring the bad guy, but just want to note he is terribly good at the encryption thing. I mean he’s way ahead of me. Of us. We haven’t even figured how to overwrite minds.”
“Not that we’ve been trying!” shouts another one, looking slightly horrified and desperately waving his hands at Tabitha as if to reveal there are no evil plans hidden there.
“Idiot,” says the other Clyde.
“First thing he’s said I agree with,” comments Kayla.
“Let’s focus, shall we?” Felicity suggests.
“Well,” says the Clyde who made the snafu, “all we’re trying to say is that the encryption is very good, but it is also very different from anything the CIA is using in its other emails. Sticks right out once you notice it. If you notice it.” This last sentence is accompanied by another pointed stare at Gran, while the other two try to furtively examine Tabitha’s response. She is busy fiddling with her own laptop and ignoring them.
So Version 2.0 is in the US government servers, sending emails. Trying to hide them. So the next obvious question is… “Who’s he sending them to?”
All three Clydes smile with a certain degree of smugness.
“Also encrypted,” says one.
“Very cleverly,” adds the chatty one.
“Totally broke the encryption,” says the third not looking anyone in the eye but looking proud enough of himself to suggest that he thinks Tabitha might be impressed.
“Wait,” I say. “The replies used the same encryption as the ones Version 2.0 sent out?”
“Yes,” the Clyde versions reply in unison.
“And they’re not from Version 2.0?” I check.
“Would seem odd for Version 2.0 to email himself,” says one. It’s a valid point.
“So,” I say, “whoever Version 2.0 is emailing with, he’s shared his encryption program with them. So they’re in league with him.” I look at Felicity for my typical sanity check. She squeezes my hand.
But Tabitha looks less amenable. “Trap,” she says. “Big obvious one. Walking right into it. You idiots are.” For this, she finally graces the Clyde versions with a disdainful sneer.
“How so?” I ask.
“Encryption,” she says. “Different from the CIA encryption. He could make it the same. But he doesn’t. Wants it to be noticed. Because it’s a trap. A big obvious one.” She stares at me. “Duh.”
“Oh,” says one Clyde.
“I didn’t think…” says another.
“Well, if Tabby says…” says the third.
They look completely deflated. And there’s a chance Tabitha is right. But Tabitha has even more trouble dealing with the versions than I do.
“Wait,” I say, “it may be a trap. But we don’t know. We can’t know. Who was he emailing?”
“Trap bullshit,” Tabitha insists. “It is.”
I look at her. Sternly, in fact. “Look,” I say. “Would you still be as insistent that it’s a trap if Felicity brought this to us? If Kayla did? Or is it just because it’s the versions suggesting it?”
“Yes,” she snaps. But there is a moment of hesitation.
“We don’t know,” I tell her. “Now, Clyde,” I look up at the screen. “One of you. Who are the emails sent to?”
This display of intra-agency civility earns me another hand squeeze from Felicity.
The Clydes all look at each other, then the middle one turns to me and says, “Doctor Victor Mercurio.”
“You know him?” Felicity fires the question at Gran like a gunslinger in a high noon showdown.
Gran looks blank. Tabitha’s fingers are already flying over her keyboard. I’m already moving on, though. The next obvious question in the chain.
“What were the emails about?”
“His research,” Clyde says. “Dr. Mercurio is in the middle of some absolutely insane botanical science for the US military. I had no idea they were even investigating in this area. Turning an enemy’s vegetation against him, et cetera. And, well, obviously some moral qualms about the whole death and mayhem inherent in that, but if you think of domestic applications… Rapid growth of crops, rapid counteraction to deforestation, all that. It could be very neat long term. Very hippy and groovy actually.”
Then the Clyde seems to remember himself and glares at Gran. “If you’re into that sort of thing, of course.”
“Hippies everywhere, man.” Gran gives him the peace sign. “Peace, love, and growing monster plants.”
I look over at Tabitha, fingers still blurring over her keyboard. “You know where he is?” I ask her.
“New Jersey,” she says. “Lab there. Across the river.” She looks up at me. “Total trap though.”
Gran looks over at her, and gives her a great big lazy smile. “Groovy, man,” he says. “Let’s, like, totally set it off and kick ass and shit. Be awesome.”
15
NEW JERSEY
I have to admit, I was rather hoping we would get to bring one of the mecha. Though I suppose there’s a chance that a giant death robot might tip our hand a bit.
Instead, we are traveling—to quote Gran—“Totally incognito, man.” This essentially means we have swapped the anonymous black car for a dull orange VW camper van. Despite this oddly noticeable low-profile vehicle, Gran is still we
aring his standard-issue CIA suit. I am not entirely sure we have achieved our goal.
We pull up outside a small, gated-off commercial building that has had a three-story arboretum grafted onto it. It sits a little outside a town I am reliably informed is called Hoboken. For the record, there are no hobos.
Felicity pushes open the van’s back door and I step into the chill October wind. The now-familiar weight of my pistol bounces against my chest. Then, seeing Kayla—still grim-looking—step out, I reach back in and grab my sword.
I sort of stare at the scabbard.
“Erm,” I say to her tentatively, “I’m never sure exactly how to wear it.”
She hesitates a moment, then looks at me darkly. “It’s my help you’re wanting now, is it?”
I try to convince my balls to leave the protective shell of my body. “It would be much appreciated.”
She looks at me a moment longer, then shrugs. “Take your jacket off.”
I hesitate a moment, then manage to stifle my natural need to question everything and just comply.
“Now your shoulder holster.” I do. “Give it here. And the sword.” She unbuckles the strap of the holster, feeds it through the scabbard, rebuckles, and holds the thing up for me. “Stick your arm through,” she tells me.
I approach and, with surprising delicacy, she replaces the holster on my torso. She looks at me, appraising. “How is that?” she asks.
The weight is a little off, the holster riding a little high and forward, but to my surprise, the jerry-rigged contraption is relatively comfortable.
“It’s…” I start.
“It’ll feckin’ do. But don’t wear the jacket. You’ll need one with more room in the back.” Kayla nods to herself and turns quickly away before I can say more. She heads toward the gates and with little apparent effort, jumps a ten foot wall onto the far side.
Someone claps me on the back. I turn to see Felicity. “Looks like you’ve made a new friend,” she says.
I look at Kayla, picking the gate’s lock with her fist, and contemplate that.
“Why the sudden change of heart?”
“I’ve been telling you since you joined that you’ve misread Kayla. She’s a kind woman. And you’ve saved the world twice now. That earns a little respect, I’m sure.” She pecks me on the cheek. “Stop worrying so much.”
So instead, I go through the gate Kayla just beat into submission, and walk into Version 2.0’s trap.
The lobby of the laboratory building is quiet. An empty desk. A dead computer. A lonely Munch print on a beige wall. The whole building seems quiet. Just the air conditioning humming its mechanical ditty.
Tabitha flicks open her laptop, punches a key. “Wireless,” she says. “Still up.” She takes mental inventory of our heads. She still has her pillbox number from the funeral. I still have on the baseball cap. She reaches into the depths of her laptop bag and retrieves a small green beanie. I see the glint of an aluminum foil lining as she holds it out to Gran.
“On,” she says simply.
“It’s got a psi-resistor inside,” I say as Gran turns it over in his hands. “So Version 2.0 can’t overwrite your brain.”
“Groovalicious.” Gran slips it on. “Thanks, dudette.” He claps Tabitha on her shoulder.
Another smile. Eyes a little lidded as she looks at Gran.
And she likes him. There is just no denying it. She likes him. God, as if working with Clyde versions wasn’t weird enough.
Yet it feels odd to be out in the field without Clyde. Without some version of him. Part of it is a practical concern—Clyde was our equivalent of heavy artillery—but it’s more than just that. Clyde was our emotional backbone, our smile with verbal diarrhea. As I push a door open with my gun barrel, I keep wanting to check my nerves by glancing at him, working an AA battery around his mouth.
But he’s not there. Can’t be there.
I swing the door open. Kayla flicks through it. The room beyond is lined with long tables, large chunks of gray-white equipment perched expensively upon them. The seats are empty, neatly tucked in below the benches.
“How many people are meant to work here?” Felicity asks.
“Twelve total,” Tabitha responds without even consulting the laptop this time. “Including Mercurio.”
“Do they happen to do nocturnal experiments?” I check.
Tabitha’s look says “Trap” more eloquently than she ever could.
At which point the door at the far end of the lab opens up.
Three guns and one sword snap in the door’s direction.
A man in his late fifties, balding, prematurely white hair slicked back in two great wings behind his ears, stops and stands very still.
“Victor Mercurio?” I ask.
“Looks like him,” Tabitha tells me.
The good doctor stands there, still frozen, staring at us.
And then, abruptly, he smiles. His whole body relaxes. “Oh I am so glad,” he says. “You came.”
Even if this was my first day at the rodeo, I think I would still be able to tell that that is not the best thing he could have said.
“You,” Tabitha whispers at me. “I told you.”
“Get ready,” I say.
“Oh,” Mercurio waves a dismissive hand, “we have time. I really didn’t want to rush you at all. Trying to be considerate and all that. May have misjudged, and in that case, well… in my defense I assumed you would have questions.”
I ignore him, look for other entrances to the room.
“Dude, I am totally all over your six,” Gran informs me. It seems a less efficient use of the parlance than the military originally intended.
Mercurio walks to a table and takes a seat. “Really, it’s no trouble,” he pats the stool next to him, “I am completely at your disposal. I mean, there has to be something you want to know.”
He wants to keep us here. He’s delaying us. And it’s just like Tabitha said—a trap. And this delaying tactic is part of it. But there really are things I want to know.
“Why?” I ask. And there are so many whys. Why is one of my best friends trying to kill me? for example. But I go with the safer, “Why side with Clyde 2.0?”
Mercurio gives me a grandfatherly smile, one that would not be out of place in an ad for old-fashioned butterscotch candy. “Ah, yes, I thought that might be an issue. Totally understandable misunderstanding. Assuming that boils down to the whole you-not-recognizing-me thing.”
That catches me off guard. I peer closely. And besides his resemblance to a better groomed version of Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future, he seems unfamiliar.
“Have we met?” I ask.
“Yes, Arthur,” he says. “Of course we have.”
OK, I am officially spooked now.
“Not here.” Felicity breaks in. “We need to get him off site. This is where he wants us, so it’s not where we want to be.”
“Agreed,” Tabitha says.
“He can bring it feckin’ on.” It’s good to know that while her attitude to me may be changing, Kayla is as enthusiastic about violence as she has ever been.
Felicity moves behind Mercurio, keeps her gun trained on him. “Put your hands behind your back.”
He complies without complaint. But I’m still caught by what he said. It worries at me like I’m the ball and he’s the terrier.
“Who are you?” I ask him as Felicity cuffs him with a plastic tie.
He gives me another grin. Something that is both impish and a little sad. “You don’t see it?” he asks. He shrugs. “Or perhaps seeing is what is getting in the way. Maybe, and really this is just a suggestion, don’t mean to impinge on your personal freedom of will and all that, but if you would consider closing your eyes, then perhaps…”
And then I don’t have to close my eyes. Because I already know who talks like that.
But it can’t be. It mustn’t be. My mind denies it. Because… Because… But…
“Clyde?” I say.
&n
bsp; Everyone in the room freezes. And Mercurio smiles. The grandfather is all gone now. Only the imp remains.
“In the flesh,” he says. “Or, well… someone else’s flesh, I suppose.”
Oh. Oh no. Oh Clyde.
16
I just stare at him. At Clyde. At Version 2.0 sitting in the body of Victor Mercurio. But the good doctor is not in the building. His mind has been taken, flushed from the system. Clyde has killed him.
No. No. Not Clyde. I can’t think this is Clyde. This is some twisted sick version of him. Something else, something different.
Except then he shrugs at me. One of those very expressive shrugs he always gave. “Life’s a bitch, isn’t it?” this one says.
And yes, yes, yes it is.
I turn, look at Tabitha, try to see how she is dealing with this. If she’s dealing with this. God, I can’t even think what this is doing to her.
She holds a hand out to me. “Your gun,” she says simply. “Give it to me.”
But I can’t. Not because we need him to question him. Not because it would be profoundly psychologically damaging to allow Tabitha to kill him. Not because I am opposed to the loss of human life.
Because it’s Clyde. Despite it all. It’s Clyde.
“No,” I say. “We need him.”
Tabitha’s face almost bulges. A visible build-up of rage and hate and anger, straining at the limits of her self-control. The volcano the moment before it blows.
“Not a him!” she shrieks. “Him is dead! A machine. A program. A fucking zombie. Shoot him. In his motherfucking head. Do what you do. It’d be more than a kindness. A fucking necessity.”
Gran steps forward, puts a hand on her shoulder.
She shakes him violently off. “Do not fucking coddle me.”
God. I look again at Mercurio. At Clyde. At Version 2.0. At whoever the hell it is grinning at me like Charles bloody Manson.
I touch my hat. My tinfoil hat. And suddenly it doesn’t seem so paranoid or so stupid. It seems vitally, vitally important.
“Yes,” Mercurio, or Version 2.0, or whatever godawful hybrid this is says, “those things are rather well made actually. Total kudos to Tabby on those. Very innovative, and good to see her living up to her potential. Though, and I do apologize for the self-trumpeting, but I will work them out. Just give me a day or two.”
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