“I’ve always been called Zero. I imagine it’s derived from part of my serial number when I was an embryo. As for my ‘graduation’…I believe I became inconvenient. Here I was, this man-size sim who was an evolutionary and commercial dead end. Somewhere along the line, a corporate decision was made to terminate me.”

“Jesus,” Patrick whispered. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“What were they going to do—shoot you?”

“An injection. They drew blood from me at regular intervals. This time they were going to put something in instead of take something out.”

Zero saw Romy glance quickly over her shoulder, then return to her thousand mile stare.

“Scumbags,” Patrick muttered, shaking his head.

Only one, Zero thought. Mercer Sinclair had made the unilateral decision.

He looked down at Meerm who’d closed her eyes and seemed to be dozing. Termination would have been her fate if Portero had found her first.

Patrick asked, “How’d you manage to escape?”

“I found I had a highly placed ally in the company who arranged to fake my death.”

Ellis again. He’d told his brother that he didn’t want a stranger terminating Zero, that he’d do it himself. But he injected Zero with a sedative instead of poison, cremated another dead sim in his place, and spirited him out of SimGen. He told Zero everything, and set him up with a steady flow of cash and data aimed toward one purpose: to stop SimGen and free his brother sims.

“This ally is the source of all your inside information, I take it,” Patrick said.

“Yes.”

Patrick shook his head again. “A high-up inside SimGen working against it. Is he nuts or does he have a personal beef with the Sinclairs?”

“Both, I think. But it’s also a moral issue with him.”

All true. But Zero had always sensed something else driving Ellis Sinclair, almost as if he felt he had to atone for something. Something “unspeakable,” perhaps?

Patrick laughed. “Put a sim in charge of bringing down the makers of sims. I’ve got to say, it has a nice symmetry to it. And now that we’ve got Meerm, it looks like your job is just about over. Congratulations, Zero. They chose the right man. I mean sim. I mean—hell, I don’t know what I mean. All I can say is I never had an inkling you weren’t human.”

And now we come to the crucial junction, Zero thought.

“Does it bother you that I’m not?” He directed the question at Patrick but he was watching Romy. He thought he saw her flinch.

“I don’t know. You’re not like Tome or any other sim I’ve met. In fact, you’re more human than some humans I know. Smarter too. What a world! But you haven’t steered me wrong yet. So I guess the answer is no. To tell the truth, every day I’m getting less and less sure about what exactly ‘human’ means.”

Bless you, Patrick, he thought, then looked at Romy. He couldn’t bear her silence any longer. This had to be dragged out in the open now.

“And you, Romy?” he said. “You haven’t said a word.”

For a few seconds, she didn’t move, then she twisted swiftly in her seat and faced him. Angry tears streaked her cheeks.

“You lied to me!”

“I never told you I was human.”

“You pretended to be!”

“I never pretended to be anything other than who I am. I didn’t even change my name.”

“You hid yourself—that was a lie!”

“No, I had to. Would you have joined me if you’d known I was a sim? A mutant sim?”

Her angry expression faltered, then she turned away again.

“Think, Romy. When was I ever untrue to you? Were the goals of our activities against SimGen ever other than what I said they were? Have I ever misled you into doing something that you didn’t want to do, or worked you toward an end that wasn’t your own as well?”

She replied in a tiny voice. “No.”

“Then can I ask you why you’re so angry at me?”

“Who says I’m angry at you?” she said in that same small voice. “Maybe I’m angry at me.”

Baffled, he replied, “I don’t—”

She held up a hand. “Can we just leave it be? I’ve got some adjusting to do and I need some time. Okay?”

“I understand, but I need to know: Are you still with us?”

She nodded without speaking, without looking around.

Zero leaned back and closed his eyes to hold back the tears.

After a while Patrick said, “Goethals Bridge dead ahead. Why do we want that?”

“Because it’s the quickest route out of Jersey.”

“But where are we going?”

“Dr. Cannon’s.” He took one of Meerm’s hands in his. “We’re bringing her the most important patient of her career.”

11

Two more men dead!

“Shit-shit-SHIT!” Luca Portero screamed as he smashed a glass paperweight against his office wall. He didn’t have to worry about anyone hearing; security staff was minimal on Sundays.

Luca hadn’t seen the bodies yet, but Lowery, who’d found them, had told them that both their skulls had been cracked like eggs. That sounded eerily similar to the way Ricker and Green had bought it off the Saw Mill. But this was in broad daylight, damn it!

Could things get any fucking worse?

As if in answer to his question, the secure phone rang. He hesitated—because, yes, things could get a lot worse—then answered it. He repressed a sigh of relief when he heard Lowery’s hello.

“What?”

“I’ve been checking around the area and found some squatters in this broke down old apartment house on the same block.”

“Did they see anything?”

“Not what happened to Snyder and Grimes, but they did see this black van parked on the street—”

“They’re sure it was black?”

“Double-checked that. They swear it was black. But here’s the meat: the one looking out the window says she saw a very swollen looking female sim being led into the black van.”

Oh, no! No! They’ve found her! Snatched her right out from under our noses! How the fuck could this happen?

“She’s absolutely sure?”

“No question.”

“Who was doing the leading?”

“Two men—one ‘very strange looking,’ according to her, but she was kinda vague about that—along with a woman, and another sim, an old male.”

Luca dropped into his desk chair and cradled his head in his free hand. Cadman and Sullivan. Had to be. Plus that old sim Sullivan kept around, and someone else working with them.

And they had the pregnant sim.

“All right,” Luca said, straightening. This wasn’t FUBAR yet. It still could be salvageable. “We abandon Newark. Divide the remaining men into four teams: one on Sullivan’s apartment, one on his office, one on Cadman’s apartment, one on her office. You see them, grab them.”

“But—”

“I don’t care what you have to do to nab them, just get it done. If there’s any flack we’ll straighten it out later. I want one of those shits and I want them brought to me!”

He’d interrogate them personally and they’d lead him to this pregnant sim. No need to worry about being recognized because whoever he dealt with would not be leaving vertically.

But what if they’d all gone to ground?

12

MINEOLA, NY

“She’s not going to last much longer,” Betsy Cannon said as she angled the doppler wand this way and that against Meerm’s swollen, gel-coated belly.

Romy, Zero, Betsy, and Meerm were crowded into the tiny, white-walled, windowless procedure room in Betsy’s home office. Meerm lay on the table, Betsy working over her, Romy and Zero watching from the other side.

“What do you mean?” Romy said, watching in rapt fascination as the 3-D shape of the fetus within Meerm’s belly formed on the monitor screen.

“Her uterus has taken just about all it can. It’s too small for this baby. Andyet…the baby could use more gestation time.”

At least Zero had his ski mask back on. They’d all agreed on the way here that no one else needed to know Zero’s history. When it was all over—and with Meerm’s baby, that could be very soon—he promised to go public.