F Wilson - Sims

“It’s not so bad.” The apartment he rented in an upgraded tenement not far from here was plenty of room for the two of them. “He keeps pretty much to himself. I got him one of those compact TV-DVD combinations for his bedroom and he spends most of his time there.”

Her eyes were bright as she stared at him. “What a wonderful, wonderful thing to do.”

“He’s a riot,” Patrick said, grinning. “I bought him that suit and he’s absolutely in love with it. I had to go out and buy an iron and a board because he insists on ironing it every night.” She was still staring at him. “Hey, no biggie. I figure it’s only for a month or so, till he gets back on his feet.”

“Still, I never would have imagined…”

“I’m told I’m full of surprises.” He pulled a packet of folded sheets from an inside pocket of his jacket and slid them across the table to Romy. “But I’m not the only one.”

“What’s this?”

“A report from the Medical Examiner’s office on the three floaters from the Hudson.”

“The globulin farmers? How’d you get it?”

“It arrived by messenger this morning, no return address, but I can guess.”

Romy nodded. “So can I.” They’d decided not to mention Zero if there was any chance of a bug nearby. “He has contacts everywhere.”

“I can save you the trouble of reading it,” Patrick said as she unfolded the pages. “Remember how the bodies showed signs of torture? Well, toxin analysis revealed traces of a synthetic alkaloid in the tissues of all three. I won’t try to tell you the chemical name—it’s in there and it’s a mile long—but the report says it’s known in the intelligence community asTotuus ; developed in Finland as a sort of ‘truth’ drug, and supposedly very effective.”

“Totuus,” Romy said, her face a shade paler. “I wonder if that’s what they planned to use on me.”

“When?”

“When they drove us off the road. Remember I said one of them had a syringe and said something about ‘dosing’ me up and getting a recorder ready?”

“Right.” The memory twisted his insides. “You think there’s a connection between the SLA and—?”

“I guess not. But listen to this: The report says the Totuus was administeredbefore they were tortured.”

“I don’t get it,” Romy said. “Why use torture when you’ve got a truth drug?”

Patrick wandered to the window overlooking Henry Street and watched the traffic. The same question had been bothering him.

“Maybe for fun. I don’t know what’s driving these SLA characters, but it’s pretty clear now they’re a vicious bunch.”

“And if they want to ‘free the sims’ as they say, where are the ones they ‘liberated’?”

“I was wondering the same thing. If they—”

A black Mercedes limo stopped and double parked on the street below. In this neighborhood that could mean only one thing.

“They’re here,” he said. “Fashionably early.”

He watched as two dark-suited, briefcase-toting figures emerged, one male, one female; he noticed the woman lean back into the car and speak to someone still in the back seat.

Three arrive but only two come up. Odd…

“All right,” he said, clapping his hands. “Places, everyone. Tome, you know what to do; Romy, you know your part. We’ve got only one shot at this so let’s get it right.”

The two Manassas attorneys soon arrived, trying unsuccessfully to hide their astonishment at being welcomed by a sim. Introductions were made, cards exchanged. The woman, a redhead, thin and pale as a saltine, was Margaret Russo; the heavy, dark-haired man, who looked like he scarfed up all his associate’s leftovers, was David Redstone.

Russo glanced around. “Well, I must say, your office is…unique.”

“And that elevator,” Redstone said. “What an antique.”

“It’s steam powered,” Patrick told them. “Can’t be replaced because this is an historic building.” He had no idea if any of that were true but it sounded good. “Shall we get started?”

He led them the short distance to the conference table where Romy waited. He made the introductions, then indicated chairs across the table from Romy for the Manassas people. He sat next to Romy.

“What’s he doing?” Russo said, pointing to Tome who had situated himself on a chair behind and to Patrick’s left with a steno pad propped on his lap.

“Taking notes,” Patrick tossed off. “Now, before we—”

Russo was still staring. “But he’s a sim. Sims can’t write.”

“It’s shorthand. He’ll type it up later.”

He watched Russo and Redstone exchange glances. Good. Get them off balance and keep them there. They didn’t need to know that Tome would be making meaningless scribbles or that Patrick was recording the meeting. He was sure they had their own recorders running.

“We’d like to get right down to business,” Redstone said, pulling a legal pad from his briefcase. “The nitty gritty, as it were. To expedite matters I propose that we drop all pretense and skip the verbal jousting.”

“No trenchant legal repartee?” Patrick said. “Where’s the fun?”

“Look, Mr. Sullivan,” Russo said, “we all know what this is about. We know Ms. Cadman was injured, but we also know the incident was set up.”

Patrick glowered at her. “You’d better be able to back that up with proof, Ms. Russo.”

“No jousting, remember?” she said. “Whatever it is you want, other than money, you’re not going to get. So let’s just end this charade here and now. We are authorized to make the following offer: Name a figure. Tell us the magic number that will make you walk away from this, and we will pay it.”

Patrick had been expecting an attempt to buy them off, but nothing this blatant. But if that was the way they wanted to play…

“A magic number,” he said, tapping his chin and pretending to ponder the possibilities. “How does an even billion sound?”

Russo and Redstone blinked in unison.

Russo recovered first. She cleared her throat. “Are we going to have a serious discussion or not? Did you call us here to waste our time or—”

“Whoa,” Patrick said. “First off, you called us. Secondly—let me check with my assistant here.” He turned to Tome. “Didn’t they say, ‘Name a figure, any figure’?”

The sim consulted his steno pad and said, “Yes, Mist Sulliman.”

Tome had been instructed to say that, no matter what Patrick asked him.

“There, you see? ‘Name a figure.’ And I believe a billion is a figure.”

“You can’t possibly expect a small company like Manassas Ventures to come up with a sum like that,” Russo said.

“Why not? It owns billions worth of SimGen stock. But maybe it doesn’t have the stock anymore. I’ve learned that it’s a wholly owned subsidiary of MetaVentures, based in Atlanta, so maybe the stock went there. Or perhaps it traveled further up the ladder to MacroVentures, a Bahamian corporation. But MacroVentures is owned by MetroVentures in the Caymans. Maybe that’s where the stock ended up. Wherever it is, we know one of these companies has the financial wherewithal to pay Ms. Cadman’s ‘magic number’ in a heartbeat. So don’t cry poverty to me.”

“This is preposterous!” Redstone sputtered.

“Not as preposterous as you two trying to keep me from having my day in court,” Romy said.

Patrick had instructed her to play it sincere, and she was doing fine, because she was genuinely outraged.

“Oh, please—” Russo began but Romy cut her off.

Here it comes, Patrick thought.

“All I wanted was a little information,” Romy said. “Nothing complicated. I simply wanted someone to explain why a truck leased by Manassas Ventures in Idaho was driving around the SimGen campus in New Jersey.”