F Wilson - Sims

“You’re making a big mistake,” he told her. “One you’ll regret when a jury offers you only a fraction of this—one third of which will go to your attorney. This could be all yours, every cent of it.”

Romy’s hands flew to her mouth as she gave Patrick a wide-eyed stare. “Oh, Patrick! Am I making a terrible mistake? You know how I depend on your wisdom. Tell me. I don’t know what to do!”

Patrick had to look away. It took all his will to keep a straight face. When he had control, he turned back, took both her hands in his, and lowered his voice an octave. “Trust me, my dear. I am well versed in these matters. You deserve much, much more.”

“All…all right,” she said, her voice faltering. “If you say so.”

Rudner shook his head again and closed his briefcase. As he lifted it off the gurney he turned to Patrick.

“And you calledme a smoothy?”

As soon as he was gone they both doubled over in silent laughter.

“Life-threatening head injury?” Romy gasped, red-faced.

Patrick countered with, “‘You know how I depend on your wisdom’? I thought I was going to get a hernia!”

She pressed her hands against her temples. “Oh, I shouldn’t laugh! It makes my headache worse!”

Patrick looked at her. “I know this is serious business, but I couldn’t resist. That was fun.”

She frowned. “Do you think he knew who we were?”

“Not a clue. He’s a hired gun.” Patrick shook his head, still amazed at how quickly the company had responded. “A hundred grand for a cut head offered to someone they might just as easily have charged with trespassing. If this is any indication of how badly Manassas wants to avoid the legal system, I think we’re onto something.”

9

SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

DECEMBER 7

“So,” Mercer Sinclair said, “the missing globulin farmers have surfaced.” He’d chosen that word deliberately but his little pun went unappreciated by his audience. So he added, “Literally.”

That at least elicited a smile from Abel Voss.

Mercer had invited the usual crew—Voss, Portero, and Ellis—to his office to discuss the matter. He had his agenda for the meeting posted in a corner of the computer monitor embedded in the ebony expanse of his desk while his custom news service scrolled items tailored to his topics of interest.

“Postmortem ain’t back yet,” Voss said, “but the M-E’s on notice to copy us immediately with any and all results.”

“I’m told the bodies appear to have been in the river about a week.”

Voss nodded. “All three of them shackled together and weighted down. But the Hudson’s gotta way of returning some of the gifts it gets. Looks like these SLA boys took ’em for a ride that very night, shot them in the head, then dumped them before sunup.”

“But not before torturing them,” Ellis said.

Mercer glanced at his brother. Ellis hadn’t missed a meeting in months now. Maybe his latest anti-depressant cocktail was working. Mercer knew he should be glad about that but he wasn’t. The closer Ellis was to catatonia, the easier he was to deal with.

“Yep, I heard that too,” Voss said. “Cigarette burns, fingernails tore off.” He grimaced. “Ugly stuff.”

“They were globulin farmers, Abel,” Mercer said, unable to keep the scorn from his tone. “Somebody improved the gene pool by removing them.”

“Don’t get me wrong, son. I ain’t no fan of their sort. Riddin the world of their kind is all fine and good. But torture? Ain’t no call to torture no one, son. No one. I think we’re dealin with some real sick puppies here.”

“Which segues very neatly into the reason for our meeting: the ‘sick puppies’ who call themselves the Sim Liberation Army. It’s been a week since they raided that globulin farm and no one knows any more about them today than they did then. And where are the sims they supposedly wanted to free?” He turned to his chief of security who had yet to say a word. “Mr. Portero, if the NYPD is at a loss, surely your people have the resources to pick up the slack, don’t you think?”

Portero shrugged. “We’re looking into it.”

“This needs more than mere looking into, Mr. Portero. We need to track them down. It’s vitally important that SimGen be recognized as the true guardians and protectors of sims, not some group of murderous radicals.”

Portero said, “The longer they go undetected, the lower the odds of finding them. And so far they seem to have pulled off a perfect disappearing act.”

“Which means what?”

“That they’re probably professionals—well-funded professionals. Which makes me wonder if they might not be connected to that lawyer Patrick Sullivan.”

“Why on earth would you think that?” Ellis said.

“It’s not a stretch. A quarter of a million dollars appeared out of the blue to keep his unionization case going just when it was ready to fall apart. And I saw him and the Cadman woman outside the globulin farm the morning after this SLA demolished it.”

Cadman? Mercer thought. Didn’t I just see that name? He’d been about to switch the topic to the annual stockholders’ meeting less than two weeks away, but instead he reversed the scroll on his newsclips.

“On the contrary, Portero,” Ellis said. “It’squite a stretch. People who try to use the legal system to seek a solution don’t suddenly leap to murder and arson.”

Portero’s face remained impassive as he replied. “Perhaps Sullivan became a bit testy after his clients were put down.”

Ellis stared at him. “You lousy piece of—”

“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Voss said, shifting his considerable bulk in his seat and raising his hands. “We’re not the enemy here. The enemy is outthere .”

“Really?” Ellis said. “Sometimes I wonder.”

Cadman…Mercer kept searching his screen. There. Found it. A suit against Manassas. He smiled. He’d long ago embraced his anal-completist nature because it so often paid unexpected dividends. Like now: Years ago, when he’d begun using the service, he’d entered ‘Manassas Ventures’ as a search string; this was the first hit he’d ever seen. He clicked on the abstract to bring up the full article; he felt a sweat break as he skimmed it.

“Listen to this,” Mercer said. “Someone is suing Manassas Ventures.”

He noticed a slight stiffening of Portero’s parade-rest stance. “Is that so?”

“Manassas is in your people’s bailiwick. Why don’t you know about this?”

“We have lawyers for legal problems. What’s the suit about?”

“Let’s see…no dollar amount given, just ‘unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.’”

“No, I mean the reason for the suit.”

“Lots of things. Here’s just a sample: ‘physical injury, pain, suffering, mental anguish and trauma, unpleasant mental reactions including fright, horror, worry, disgrace, embarrassment, indignity, ridicule, grief, shame, humiliation, anger, and outrage.’”

Portero snorted. “Probably a stubbed toe. They’ll put a check in front of him and he’ll go away.”

“I doubt it. It’s not a him. It’s a her named Cadman. Romilda Cadman.”

Portero’s smug reptile mask dropped and, just for a second, Mercer caught a flash of uncertainty. Portero…unsettled? The possibility turned his stomach sour, like curdled milk.

“The OPRR inspector lady?” Voss said. “The one who funded Sullivan’s sim case? What thehell ?”

“Care to guess what attorney is representing her?”

“I don’t have to,” Voss said. “Gotta be Sullivan.”

Mercer noted that Portero’s dumbfounded look had surrendered to tightlipped anger. He glanced at Ellis, expecting some sort of comment, but his brother remained silent, his expression unreadable.