“Oh, no.” She stood blinking for a few heartbeats, then retreated two steps and dropped into the chair by the wall. “Do I want to hear this?”
“Probably not, but you need to.”
Zero then went on to explain who was behind the SLA and the reasons for its atrocities. Patrick listened, but all the while his eyes were fixed on Romy. He watched her initial disbelief give way to unwilling acceptance of a horrifying truth. Her expression was slack by the time Zero finished. He wanted to step to her side and slip his arms around her, but thought better of it. Jostle her now and she might explode.
Patrick too was shocked. To think that just two weeks ago in front of the burned-out ruins of the Bronx globulin farm, Romy had introduced him to the engineer of all this death and destruction.
“There’s got to be some way we can nail Portero for this,” Patrick said.
“Don’t count on it. He’s a pro, a very careful one.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t manufacture some evidence.”
“No,” Zero said, shaking his head. “Too dangerous.”
Romy finally spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. “I…I’d always figured Portero for a snake. But…I never dreamed…I mean, executing three humans and twelve sims…just to cover his tracks.”
“And those are just the ones we know about. You two might have been added to list if we hadn’t intervened when Patrick’s car was knocked off the road.”
“That was him?” Patrick said, turning toward Romy. “You mean I was standing two feet away from the guy who tried to kill me and I didn’t know it?”
“Not him directly,” Zero said. “But he planned it.”
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
He shrugged. “No one said, ‘Let’s not tell Patrick.’ When it happened, we still weren’t sure of you. And after you came on board, it simply never came up.”
“Just as well, I guess,” he said. “If I’d known I might have opened my big yap and given something away.”
“Which brings me back to what I was saying before,” Zero said. “Watch your backs. You and Romy have put yourselves on the wrong side of Manassas Ventures. Manassas is connected to SimGen and therefore, by extension, to Luca Portero. We’ve known he was ruthless, we just didn’t know until nowhow ruthless. There’s nothing this man won’t do, so please be careful. I’ll do whatever I can to back you up, but the organization can do only so much.”
Patrick turned to Romy. “Maybe we should move in together.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that again.”
“For mutual protection, of course.”
“Of course.”
“Not such a bad idea, actually,” Zero said. “I know I’d rest easier, but I’ll leave that up to you two.”
Zero, I think I love you, Patrick thought.
But Romy didn’t appear to be buying. “Let’s worry about Meerm,” she said. “How do we find her first?”
“Why don’t we try thinking like a sim?” Patrick said, hating to leave the subject of cohabitation. “If I were a lost and frightened sim, where would I hide?”
“With other sims,” Zero said. “The trouble is, if she’s hiding from humans she’s not exactly going to come out and announce herself.”
Patrick had a thought. “How about my roomie? Is there some way Tome can help sniff her out? You know, set a sim to find a sim?”
Zero pointed at him. “Now that’s an idea.”
“As long as it doesn’t put him in any danger,” Patrick added. He’d grown fond of that old sim, and the possibility of anything happening to him put a twist in his gut. “I don’t want him hurt.”
“None of us do,” Zero said. “Let’s sit down and see where we can take that. Meanwhile, I’ve appealed to a higher power for help.”
“You’ve been praying?” Romy said.
“No, I meant that in a more literal sense. I was speaking of the Reverend’s satellite.”
2
SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ
“Watch this,” Sinclair-1 said the moment Luca stepped into the darkened office. The sun was down but only a corner floor lamp was lit.
Luca glanced around. No one else present. “Watch what?”
“This, goddamn it. I just recorded it off the dish.”
Sinclair poked his desktop and the plasma TV screen on the wall flickered, then lit with the face of the Reverend Eckert.
“My dear brothers and sisters. I had an entirely different sermon prepared for this broadcast, but just moments ago I experienced an epiphany, a revelation of such staggering importance that I felt it my duty to you and to my ministry to discard my prepared sermon and immediately address this matter.
“Do you know what an ‘urban legend’ is? I’m sure you do, but in case some of you don’t, let me explain. Urban legends are stories that are told and retold so many times that they take on a patina—or should I say, the appearance—of truth. We never get the story firsthand; usually we’re told that somebody’s uncle or aunt, or that a friend’s grandmother knows someone who personally experienced the incident.
“You might have been warned against bringing home a large cactus because somebody knows someone whose cactus burst open to let out a torrent of deadly tarantulas.
“Or you heard about the burned corpse of a frogman found in the ashes of a forest fire, the story going that he was SCUBA diving when he was scooped up by a firefighting helicopter as it filled its bucket from the lake near the fire.
“Or the ‘documented facts’ that eelskin wallets erase magnetic cards and giant alligators infest New York City sewers, and on and on.
“Brothers and sisters, I could spend the whole program cataloguing these tales, but that’s not why I’m speaking to you today. I pray you’ve caught my meaning, because I want you to believe that what I am about to say is not an urban legend.
“As I told you earlier, I’ve had a revelation from On High. But some people, for their own selfish reasons, will want to deny its truth. My words, as they spread,will be written off by these professional doubters as just the latest in a long line of urban legends. But don’t listen to them, friends. I have it on excellent authority, not from a friend of a friend, but from the ultimate Unimpeachable Source that what I am about to tell you is God’s Truth.
“That Truth concerns a sim, a female sim, lost, alone, frightened, hiding somewhere in New York City. Yes, I’m talking about the same sim that Satan’s own corporation, SinGen, has offered five million dollars for. But have you asked yourselves why SinGen is offering so much for one lowly sim? They’ll tell you it’s to help bring murderers to justice, but is that really the case? The humans these murderers killed were criminals themselves. And sims are killed every day without SinGen offering so much as a dime to find the culprits.
“So there I was today, sitting alone in my home chapel, spending quiet time in communion with the Lord, wondering what was so special about this particular sim to make the devil’s company squander so much of its tainted lucre to find her.
“And then it came to me. In a blaze of inspiration that could only be the result of the touch of the Lord his own self, I knew!
“This lost sim is pregnant!
“Now, now, I know we’ve all been told that sims can’t procreate, but think about who’s been telling us that: the devil corporation run by Satan, the Father of Lies. Only God is perfect. Satan makes mistakes—that’s why he rules in Hell after all, instead of in Heaven. And Satan made a real whopper of a mistake this time.
“What’s that? Yes, I hear you. I hear what you’re saying. You’re saying, ‘A pregnant sim, Reverend Eckert? How can that be? Who is the father?’
“And that, brothers and sisters, is the worst part. This was no immaculate conception. No, this is an abomination. This sim pregnancy is the result of un-plumbed wickedness and moral decrepitude. For the father, I say to you, the father of this sim’s baby ishuman!