Patrick knew exactly how he felt.
“Why the hell not?”
“What will the survivors watch?”
Damn him, he was right.
Patrick lowered the bench and extended his hand. “I want to thank you, Holmes. I take back anything I’ve ever said to offend you.”
“Sure.” Carter gave the hand a listless, distracted shake and looked around. “Gone,” he said dazedly. “Just like that, three-quarters of our sims…gone. Nabb…he used to be my favorite caddie, and now he’s dead. Why?” He looked at Patrick with tear-filled eyes. “What kind of sick person would do this? What kind of a world have we created?”
“Wish I knew, Holmes. It gets stranger and stranger.”
Carter sighed. “I realized something tonight. These sims…they’re…they were…part of Beacon Ridge. We knew them. We liked them. I’m going to tell the board to grant collective bargaining rights, and I’m going to insist that the survivors remain together as long as they want.”
Patrick opened his mouth to speak but found himself, for possibly the first time in his adult life, at a loss for words.
Carter smiled wanly. “What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?” He gave his head a single sad shake. “Wasn’t that part of the exchange that set this whole mess in motion?”
Patrick nodded, remembering their little confrontation in the club men’s room. “Yes…yes, I believe it was. This is good of you, Holmes.”
“I just wish I’d done it yesterday.”
Without another word Carter turned and wove his way through the dead sims toward the door.
We’ve won, Patrick thought—a reflex. The thought died aborning. He looked around at the sheeted forms and knew that if this was winning, he’d much rather have lost.
He heard an engine rumble to life outside. He looked around and realized that the mysterious doctors had disappeared. He hurried to the door in time to see the truck roll away across the grass toward the road.
Romy stood there, leaning against the barrack wall. He approached her cautiously. She seemed to have spent her rage, so he filled her in on the latest developments.
“Tome’s decision doesn’t surprise me,” she said in a low, hoarse voice. “Sims aren’t fighters. But after what you’d told me about the club president…”
“Yeah. I guess I had him wrong. People never cease to surprise me, for good or for ill. Like these phantom doctors of yours. Where did they come from, where did they go? They pop out of nowhere with no explanation, and then they’re gone.”
“I told you—” Romy began.
“I don’t want to hear about some nameless ‘organization’ again. How about some specifics? Who’s behind you? And who killed those two guys when we were run off the road the other night? I want answers, Romy.”
Her expression was tight. “Do you? Well then maybe you’re in for one more surprise tonight.”
“I don’t think I can handle another.” He noticed a strange look in her eyes, wary yet flirting with anticipation. “But I’ll bite. What?”
“Someone wants to meet you.”
15
Romy drove. A mostly silent ride during which she replied to his questions with terse monosyllables. He sensed an inner struggle but hadn’t a clue as to what it might be about. In his brain-fragged state, Patrick didn’t have the strength or the will to probe.
She stopped at a small cabin on the edge of Rye Lake. Patrick stepped from her rented car and looked around.
The surrounding woods lay dark and silent; the cabin was an angular blotch of shadow with no sign of habitation; on its far side a dock jutted into the lake where tendrils of mist rose into the chill air from the glassy moonlit water.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s home,” he said.
Romy was moving toward the cabin. “Look again. And use your nose.”
Patrick sniffed the air. A wood fire somewhere. And now he saw a thin stream of smoke drifting from the cabin’s chimney. Okay, so someone was inside. But who? Along the way Romy had told him that he’d find out when they got there. Just what she’d told him when she’d led him to the sim whorehouse. This time would be different. He wasn’t going through that door until—
But Romy wasn’t waiting for him. She was already halfway to the house.
He hurried to catch up to her. “This cloak and dagger stuff is getting to me.”
“Relax. You may find a cloak here, but no dagger.” Without warning she leaned forward and kissed him—too briefly—on the lips. “Thanks.”
“What for?”
“For hanging in there tonight. For caring.”
Patrick touched his mouth where the warmth of Romy’s lips lingered. He wanted more, but she’d already opened the door and pushed through. He followed her into the dark interior, lit only by the glow from the fireplace.
“Over here, Romy,” said a deep voice near the fire. Patrick could make out a dark form seated in a high-backed chair, positioned so that the light came from behind him. The figure leaned forward and extended a hand. With a start Patrick realized he was masked. “Welcome, Mr. Sullivan.”
Hesitantly Patrick stepped forward and shook the hand, surprised to find it was gloved. “And you are…?”
“My name is Zero.”
And that stands for what? Patrick thought. IQ? Personality rating? But he said, “Interesting name.”
“Forgive the melodramatic trappings,” Zero said, “but we take security very seriously.”
Melodramatic barely touches this, Patrick thought. I’m standing in the dark talking to a masked man.
But it was right in tune with the nightmarish unreality of the past few hours.
“Just who might ‘we’ be?”
“A loose-knit organization I’ve put together.”
“An organization…what’s it called?”
“I’ve resisted naming it. Once a group gives itself a name, it tends to take on a life of its own; the group can become an end in itself, rather than simply a means.”
“What end are we talking about here?”
“In a nutshelclass="underline" to protect existing sims from exploitation and stop SimGen or anyone else from producing more.”
“Tall order.”
“We know.”
“How many members?”
“Many.”
“Like those doctors who showed up tonight?”
“Yes. Volunteers. They were on standby in case of disaster.”
“Which we had—in spades.”
“Yes. Mistakenly I had expected more direct violence, a bomb or the like. I had the barrack under guard.” Zero’s voice thickened. “I never thought to guard the kitchen.”
Romy said, “So it was one of the help?” The flickering firelight accentuated her high cheekbones, glittered in her eyes. Even in the dark she was beautiful.
“I doubt it. That sample of stew you brought me was laced with a very sophisticated synthetic toxin we’ve been unable to identify. This was not the work of a jealous kitchen hand or a union goon. Whoever did this has considerable resources.”
“SimGen,” Patrick said.
“Not impossible, but out of character. SimGen has always protected its sims.”
“But have its sims ever posed a threat before?”
Romy spoke. “That’s a point, but we’re coming to believe that SimGen is not quite the free-standing entity it presents to the public. That it’s not pulling all its own strings. This may be the work of another shadow organization within SimGen or linked to it.”
Uh-oh, Patrick thought, sniffing paranoia. What next? New World Order conspiracy? Trilateral commission? Illuminati?
Only Romy’s presence kept him from backing away. He couldn’t think of anyone more firmly grounded in reality. And he couldn’t deny the reality of the poisoned Beacon Ridge sims.