Meerm hide. Go closet. Push self into dark corner. Make ver small.
Hear yell downstair. Benny mad. Shout loud. New man yell back.
Meerm shake. Know new man voice! Same voice in old home night loud noise and fire. Hear on roof too. New man come get Meerm!
Hear loud feets on stairs. Must not find! Must not find! Meerm climb up in closet. Get on shelf. Curl up. Make small-small. Tiny-tiny-tiny. Push back into high corner and—
Corner move. Meerm turn, feel loose board. Meerm push board, move more. Black space open. Cold in hole. Meerm not care. Too fraid be cold.
Hear new man voice yell, “Damn it, where is she?” Voice close now. In sim sleep room.
Meerm squeeze into black hole. Ooh-ooh-ooh. Too tight. Meerm so fat now. Meerm fraid get stuck, but more fraid new man. Push-push-push, get fat self into hole.
“I tell you,” Benny say, “we ain’t got no sims here inna day!” Benny sound fraid. “Not till tonight when they all bussed back from the city.”
“She’s here!” new man say. “And we’re going to find her! Look under every bunk! Check every closet!”
Meerm in cold place inside wall. Ver tight. Ver dark. Meerm push on board, push back where belong. More dark now. All dark.
Meerm hear closet door squeak. Some man open. Meerm can’t see man but hear thing move. Meerm stay ver, ver still. Not breathe.
“Nothing in here.” New man voice ver close. Meerm so fraid. Want go pee. Bite lip stop cry. “Where the fuckis she?”
“Maybe she goes out,” say other man voice. “You know, walks around.”
“Since when did you become a sim expert?”
Other man say, “Hey, I’m just thinking out loud, okay? That sim at the sweatshop described her to a T: she’s lost, she’s sick, she’s blown up. So we know she’s staying here. She’s just not here now. Probably going stir crazy here alone all day.”
“All right. Here’s what we’ll do. Bring in the others and we’ll do a sweep of the building. If we don’t find her we’ll back off and put the place under twenty-four-hour watch. When she returns, we nab her.”
Meerm hear mans go way but still not move. Still fraid. Meerm must stay in sim building. Mans will get Meerm. Hurt Meerm if try leave. Meerm so sad she cry.
21
SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ
Luca wanted to skip this—he had far more pressing things to do than listen to Sinclair-1 yammer. But the man had said he was calling this late meeting specifically to address a security issue. In addition to everything else going on, SimGen security was still his responsibility.
But he didn’t have to arrive on time. He was punctual by nature, and his years in Special Forces had reinforced that, so it took considerable effort to force himself to walk slowly down the hall, pacing himself to arrive at least three minutes late.
Luca balled his fists. Coming up empty in the sim crib this afternoon still rankled him. Fury and disappointment had mixed into a combustible compound in his bloodstream. His head felt like a ticking bomb. He’d left four men to watch the building—all sides, all day, all night—but he had a gnawing premonition that the missing sim wouldn’t be back.
Then, just fifteen minutes ago, Lister calls, supposedly concerned about the well-being of the sim because he hadn’t heard any word on her. Luca had had to eat some bitter crow.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Lister then proceeded to twist the knife: “Someone handed you the address where she was staying and she ducked you? If a monkey can outwit you, how can we expect you to find out who’s behind the woman and her lawyer?”
Don’t worry, Luca thought as he approached the door to Sinclair-1’s office. She’s next on my list. And I know just how I’m going to handle her. As soon as I finish with these assholes…
When he stepped into the office he found only two of the usual crew in attendance: Both Sinclairs were present, but Abel Voss was missing.
“Mr. Portero,” Sinclair-1 said as soon as the door closed. “We’ve been waiting for you.”
“The wait is over,” Luca replied. He wanted out of here as quickly as possible, so he pushed right to the subject, “You mentioned a security matter?”
“Yes, Mr. Portero. Were you aware that we had an attempted break-in this afternoon?”
“Of course.” A group of sim huggers had tried to run the front gate. His men had detained them until the State Police arrived. “They’re in jail.”
“How gratifying that you know. But my question is, Where were you?”
“Busy with other matters.”
“Matters more important than the security of this campus? Security here is your number-one priority. There are murderous bioterrorists running around out there, slaughtering humans and sims, and yet when this group tried to attack us, you were nowhere to be found.”
“Harmless nobodies,” Luca said, allowing a sneer to work its way onto his face. What an old woman he was.
“Lucky for us. But with you hiding out somewhere, there’s no telling what damage we might have suffered if they’d been the SLA.”
A flash of anger added heat to the pressure pushing against his eardrums. Hiding? Had this empty suit just accused him of hiding?
“Easy, Mercer,” said Sinclair-2, turning his head to look at Luca. This was the first sign of life he’d shown.
With difficulty Luca kept his voice level. “But they weren’t the SLA.”
“But they could have been!” Sinclair-1 said. He pointed over his shoulder at the darkening hills visible through the oversized picture window behind him. “The SLA could be out there now, in the trees, readying an assault.”
“They’re not, and they never will be.” Luca had had just about enough of playing games with these two. “I guarantee it.”
Sinclair-1’s eyebrows rose halfway to his forehead. “You guarantee it? How interesting. You’re clairvoyant?”
“No,” he gritted. “I’m the SLA.”
Immediately he wished he hadn’t said it.
“This is no time for sick humor,” Sinclair-1 said.
Luca knew from the dubious expression on the CEO’s face that he still had a chance to take it back, but decided against it. Fuck ’em. He stepped up to Sinclair-1’s desk, rested his hands on its cool onyx surface, and leaned forward, literally getting in the other man’s face.
“That was not any kind of humor.”
“What?” The voice from his right, Sinclair-2, on his feet, his face pale. “You?”
“Ellis, he’s joking.”
Luca fixed Sinclair-1 with his gaze. “Have youever known me to joke?”
The CEO wavered, then took a step back, his eyes wide.
Movement to Luca’s right. “Monster!” Sinclair-2 charging, face distorted with fury. Luca pivoted, drove a fist into his gut, and that was all it took. The man doubled over, then dropped to his knees, gasping.
“Dear, God! Ellis! Are you all right?”
The kneeling man, still clutching his belly with one hand while the other clutched the arm of the sofa for support, shook his head. His voice was a half-strangled whisper. “I’ll never be all right.”
Sinclair-1 stared at Luca. “Why? In God’s name,why ?”
“To find your million-dollar sim.”
“For what?” Sinclair-2 said as he hauled himself back into the couch. He sat hunched over, rubbing his belly. “To harvest her organs along with the rest?”
“No. To give her to you two.”
“Why would we be interested?”
“Because she’s pregnant.”
A pause as the two brothers glanced at each other, then stared at Luca.
Sinclair-1 snorted. “Impossible!”
“So I’ve been told.” Luca shrugged. “And maybe that’s true in theory. But I deal in facts, and everything I’ve discovered about this particular sim confirms that she is pregnant.”