“Yeah, well so what?” Romy said, leaning over Patrick’s shoulder and projecting Raging Romy-scale belligerence. “Who needs you? Go patrol some other neighborhood. This one’s fine!”
She noticed how the man’s eyes were fixed on Patrick, barely flicking her way during her outburst.
“Yeah!” Patrick said. “This one’s fine!”
Suddenly the guy’s hand darted into his coat and came out with a big pistol, a cousin to the HK in Romy’s bag, which she didn’t dare reach for now.
“Hold it!” he said, grinning at Patrick. His Adam’s apple was bobbing wildly. “I know you. You’re that sim lawyer. We’ve been looking for you. Turn off the engine.”
His expression tight, grave, Patrick glanced at Romy and obeyed.
“Holdreal still now.” Without turning his head the man called to the Impala. “Yo, Snyder! Come see what we hooked!”
The Chevy’s driver door opened and a taller, beefier man stepped out. He had a small white bandage taped across his swollen nose.
“Well, well,” he said as he reached the van and looked inside. “If it isn’t Sullivan and Cadman.”
Romy knew she shouldn’t be surprised that he knew her name, but the way he said it, the sound of it on his lips, jolted her.
“What’s in the back there, folks?” Snyder said, grinning. “A ski mask, maybe? And a supply of paint balloons? Mind if we take a—”
What happened next was a blur: Two furry hands appeared, one to the left of Snyder’s head, one to the right of the redhead’s, and then those heads slammed together with a sickeningcrunch! Both men’s mouths dropped into shocked ovals as their eyes rolled up under their lids.
“Jesus!” Patrick said.
Then the furry hands smashed the heads together again, and this time the sound was wetter, softer. Blood spurted from the redhead’s nose, splattering Patrick’s window.
“Christ, Romy! Make him stop! He’s going to kill them!”
“Too late for that,” she said, feeling the cold touch of Raging Romy’s secret delight. “Kek! Put them back in the car. Quick!”
“I know that sound,” Patrick said dully. “I heard it the night we were run off the Saw Mill. I—”
She grabbed Patrick’s arm. “We’ve got to move! They may have a call-in schedule, and if they miss it—”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, looking dazed and maybe a little sick. “Got to move, but…Jesus.”
She noticed Kek dragging the two bodies back to the car and tossing them through the open driver door like sacks of wheat. She rolled down her window and leaned out.
“Kek! No, sit them up! Sit themup !”
The mandrilla looked at her, then nodded and followed her instructions.
She turned back to Patrick. “We’ve got to find Zero and get out of here!”
“Don’t forget Tome.” Patrick seemed to be recovering from his shock. “And what about Meerm?”
“I don’t know about Meerm. She might not even be in Newark any longer. But I know what these people will do to Zero if they find him.”
Patrick nodded. “Right.”
Romy heard the van’s rear door slam, looked around and saw Kek returning to his standby squat. She glanced at the Chevy and saw two upright silhouettes in its front seat.
“Stay here, Kek,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”
The mandrilla made no sign that he’d heard, but she knew he had.
“We’llbe right back,” Patrick said. He cut her off as she opened her mouth to tell him she’d go alone. “We do this together.”
Romy sensed arguing wasn’t going to work so she nodded and motioned him to follow her. She moved off at a trot, heard his sloshing footsteps close behind.
Down the alley…nothing. Into the courtyard…nothing. Down a second alley…noth—
Wait. Voices to her left. Where? From that opening. Tome’s voice. Without hesitation she ducked and entered in a crouch. She heard Patrick puffing behind her. Ahead she could see that the tunnel opened into a vacant lot. And there, across the lot, Zero and Tome crouched before an open metal door, talking to no one, or at least no one she could see.
“Wait,” Patrick whispered. “Don’t go out there. Looks like they found her. Two more humans will only spook her.”
“She’ll be spooked a lot worse if more of Portero’s goons show up. They’d better talk her out of there soon or all this will be for nothing. We’ll give them a couple more minutes, then we’ve got to get out of here.”
“Might take more than a couple of minutes,” Patrick sighed. “I mean, would you trust a stranger in a ski mask?”
“Damn,” Romy said, feeling as if the tunnel walls were closing in on her. “She doesn’t come out in two minutes, I’ll go in there myself and drag her out.”
“Shhh!” Patrick hissed. “I’ll be damned! I think Zero’s going to take off his mask!”
Romy looked and—dear God, Patrick was right. Remaining statue-still, she held her breath and watched.
This is going nowhere, Zero thought. And it’s because of me. Or because of this ski mask.
No question about it: Meerm was in that elevator shaft, hiding in the dark, but she wasn’t budging. Tome was doing his best, but he wasn’t cut out for persuasion. Zero could try going in after her, and that would work if the space beyond the door was limited to just the shaft. But what if it opened into the rest of the warehouse? They’d never find her.
All right. He couldn’t blow this chance. It might never come again. Time to put it all on the line.
Zero pulled off his dark glasses, slipped his thumbs under the edge of his ski mask, and ripped it off.
“Look, Meerm,” he said, leaning through the open door. “Look at me. I’m not a man. I’m a sim. Not a sim exactly like you, but a sim just the same. And I promise you, Meerm, I swear to you that I am not here to harm you. Just the opposite. I am here to help you and protect you from being harmed by the bad men.”
Zero waited, hoping he’d said enough, praying he hadn’t said too much. He glanced at Tome who was staring at him with wide eyes. He nodded to the old sim, to let him know, yes, this is true. Maybe…maybe if only Tome and Meerm knew, he could still keep his secret. The two sims would talk, of course, but Zero could tell Romy and Patrick that he’d used makeup to look like a sim so he could coax Meerm out. They’d buy it. It was much more plausible than the truth.
Zero refocused on the black hole of the elevator shaft. He heard a rustle within, and then a hoarse, fragile voice…
“Is true? You not man?”
“No, Meerm.” Zero fought back a sob. It had worked. He could feel Meerm tipping his way. “I’m a sim too. But if I am to help you, we must hurry from here. Now.”
“Meerm want go.” And now a face, a swollen, care-ravaged sim face, floated into the light. “Meerm not like here. But…”
“We must go now, Meerm. The bad men are looking for you. If they come before—”
Meerm stepped out into the light. Zero gasped at the sight of her—her belly so big and her ankles so swollen she could barely move. She took a step forward, but caught her foot and started to fall. Zero grabbed her, then lifted her into his arms. She was heavy for a sim, but nothing he couldn’t handle.
“Don’t be afraid, Meerm,” he said in a soothing voice as she started to struggle. “You’re okay, now. I’ll make you safe and keep you that way. No one will hurt you ever again.”
As he turned toward the tunnel he saw two figures emerging from its entrance. Romy and Patrick, faces ashen, mouths agape, eyes fixed on his nonhuman face. They couldn’t miss its yellow eyes and simian cast—his brow ridge was not so pronounced as Meerm and Tome’s, he knew, his nose not quite as flat, but he was unmistakably sim like.
Oh, no, he thought as dismay softened his knees and he almost stumbled. Oh, God, what have I done?
Just when they were so close to success, he’d ruined everything. Now the whole organization would fall apart because…because who’d want to follow a sim?