And not only is this a union case, Patrick thought, but one he’ll consider inherently frivolous.
The Beacon Ridge lawyers were seeking a judgment to terminate the suit and Boughton would do just that—with relish and extreme prejudice. Probably have bailiffs waiting at the courthouse door to give him the old heave-ho as soon as he set foot inside.
Patrick had been counting on extended hearings as an avenue to the public’s ear and pocketbook, an opportunity to generate ongoing press coverage and daily sound bites on the evening news, all of which would—he hoped—lead to contributions to the defense fund.
At present, the sim war chest was pretty bare. He’d set up a website and a toll-free number—1-800-SIMUNION—with an answering service to accept contributions, but the phone hadn’t exactly been ringing off the hook. A little money had come in during the initial flurry of publicity when he’d filed his suit, but nothing compared to what he’d hoped for. Now it looked as if the case would be over before it began.
Which would delight Pamela and please Alton Kraft. Ben Armstrong would be happy too. He’d called as Patrick was leaving the office, ostensibly to express his concern over the incident at the house, but soon got around to the real reason: Could this sim union matter be distracting Patrick, preventing him from devoting sufficient attention to the negotiations with the Jarman clerks’ union, set to open next week? Patrick had assured Ben it was not.
Looked like everyone would be happy when Boughton pulled the plug. Patrick glanced at the surrounding sims. Well, not everyone.
“Let’s just say that Judge Boughton will not be our friend.”
Tome cocked his head. “Him hate sim, like men who burn?”
“No. He’s not like them. I’m sure of that. He’s just—”
Tome turned and pointed to the television playing in a corner. “Like TV man?”
“Who?”
Tome moved away, motioning Patrick to follow. He led him on a winding course through the seats clustered before the TV set.
“This man,” Tome said, pointing to the sweaty, multi-chinned face that filled the screen.
“…and I say to you, good people, that those cute creatures they call ‘sims’ are our tour guides along the road to hell. The Bible tells us, ‘Thou shalt not suffer an abomination!’ And that’s exactly what we do when we allow the evildoers at SinGen to go on populating the world with these godless creatures. That’s Satan’splan, you know. Yes, it is. I’ve had a vision and I’ve seen the world overrun by these soulless caricatures of humankind. And where will that leave man, the pinnacle of Creation, fashioned by the Lord himself to have dominion over the creatures of the earth? Gone! Supplanted by these unholy hybrids. And then Satan will have won. The earth will be his, populated byhiscreations instead of the Lord’s!”
He then launched in a plea for pledges to finance the fight against the evil spewing forth from “SinGen.”
“Sim nev hurt man,” Tome said, pointing at the screen. “Why man not like sim?”
“Oh, I’ll bet he likes you just fine,” Patrick said.
In fact, he thought, I’ll bet the Revloves sims. He should. Sims are his meal ticket.
“Then why say sim bad?”
“Just a way to make money.”
And I’ll bet he’s making lots of it. Cleaning up.
Then Reverend Eckert said that he was scheduled to be onAckenbury at Large tonight. He urged all his regular viewers to tune in and watch him “spread the truth about SinGen to the unenlightened.”
And that gave Patrick a wonderful idea.
10
SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ
Ellis Sinclair sat in his office in the basic research complex and searched for calm while he waited for Harry to bring in the sim. He toyed idly with the ExecSec plant on his desktop, brushing his pen against the leaves and watching its tendrils whip around the shaft and hold it in place. Then he’d tug on the pen and the tendrils would release it. Back and forth, give and take, noting with pleasure how the plant rotated use of its tendrils to avoid fatigue.
He sighed and let the plant keep the pen as he leaned back in his chair. The ExecSec had been a modest success back in the days before SinclairGen became SimGen. He wished they’d stuck to harmless little gimmicky products like this instead of going for the killer app. They wouldn’t be fractionally as wealthy, but how much money can you spend?
And there’d be no sims wandering the earth.
He rubbed his cold palms together. The artificial sunlight streaming through the frosted panes at his back did nothing to warm him. More and more lately he craved a real window. Just one. But that was out of the question. Basic research’s windowless design was his own doing, for he knew as well as anyone that a window to the outside was also a portal in. So he had allowed not a pinhole through the walls of this lead-lined box of steel-reinforced concrete.
To keep the place from looking too much like the Berlin Wall, mirror-glass panes had been set into the exterior to simulate windows and, perhaps, to tempt industrial and media spies to bounce the beams of their snoop lasers off the glass in vain attempts to hear what was being said on the other side.
Ellis could not allow anyone to know the reasons behind what he was doing here. Not even his assistants knew. Only Mercer. And then there was the sealed section, with its separate staff who were ferried in and ferried out with no one ever seeing them. If the truth about either ever leaked…
He shuddered.
He heard the door open and looked up to see Harry step through, followed by a handler leading a young male sim by the hand. He’d asked Harry to bring in the highest scoring sim from the latest batch of the special breed.
“Here he is,” Harry said. “F27-63—at your service. We call him Seymour.” He turned to the handler. “I’ll take him now.” The handler stepped out.
Harry Carstairs, chief of sim education, had trained more of the creatures than anyone else presently with the company; a big man, six-four at least, and probably weighing in at an eighth of a ton. He towered over the sim.
Ellis glanced down at his desktop memo screen. F27-63—yes, that was Seymour’s serial number. He had longer arms and looser lips than the average commercial sim. Smaller too.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s see what he can do.”
“Sit in the red chair, Seymour,” Harry said gently. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, staring straight ahead as he spoke, allowing the sim no hints or cues from his body language.
The sim looked around, spotted the dark red leather chair against the wall, and loped over to seat himself.
“Good. Now turn on the lamp on the opposite side of the room.”
The sim rose, crossed in front of Ellis’s desk, and stopped before the lamp. He looked under the shade, found the switch, and turned it on.
“Very good,” Harry said. “Now—”
“I’m satisfied with his comprehension,” Ellis said. Comprehension had never been the problem; he was anxious to cut to the chase. “What about his speech?”
“It’s getting there.”
“Gettingthere?”
“He’s a great signer.”
“I’m sure he is.”
Sims started ASL lessons in infancy because signing stimulated development of the speech cortex; this helped enormously with vocalization later on.
“Want to see him sign?”
“No,” Ellis said, balling a fist in frustration. “I want to hear him speak.” He turned to the sim. “What is your name?”
The creature looked at Harry who nodded encouragement.
The sim’s thick pink tongue protruded between his yellow teeth as he said, “Thee…” in a low-pitched voice.
Ellis was about to say that “Thee” wasn’t a name when the sim continued, laboriously pronouncing, “Mmmm…mmmm…” And then he seemed to run out of gas.