My muse took over then, freewheeling. I could, I said, leak some hints into the Web, things that Scheele would pick up as worrisome but no one else would notice. The trick would be to make them convincing, which could be hard to do, knowing no more than I did. Or I might float Harford's name; I'd have to check with him. Or phone Scheele, tell him what had happened to Ballenger and good old Billy the night before, hinting they'd talked about him when they thought I was unconscious.
Carlos took it all in, then leaned back. "Martti," he said—speaking Spanish, something we often do for the practice, "I want you to be careful. Whatever he did to Harford and the women, he did without anyone knowing. Maybe he can do it to you, too."
Now there was a thought. "Maybe if he did," I answered, "I'd get a clue on how he did it."
"None of the others did."
"None of the others were looking for one, or had any idea what had happened to them. And maybe I can start wearing a transponder. How's that for an idea?"
It seemed to me that was the solution right there. With a transponder, all I needed was to get Scheele to do to me whatever it was he did to the others. I went down the hall and asked Skip if he could fit me with one. He said sure, but he and Sakata were both on a rush project for Torres. I told him the next morning would be fine.
* * *
I took compensatory time the rest of the afternoon, and went to Wu's for my first Choi Li Fut workout in more than a week. I don't go often enough to maintain the flexibility I should, but enough to keep me dangerous. Harve—that's Harvey Wu—had long since quit bawling me out about it, says I'm not a fighter at heart. He said maybe I should switch to Aikido, but I didn't feel like learning a new style from scratch.
Meanwhile, doing the forms relaxes me, a different relaxation than the deep tiredness I get from a Nautilus workout.
After an hour and a half, I went home and took a nap on the recliner, waking up when Tuuli came in. Talking Finnish for the practice, I told her about my discussion with Carlos, and that he was afraid Scheele would zap me like he'd done the others. She wasn't as worried as Carlos had been, but she pointed out that the memories might be ugly.
Then she said something else. "You know, it doesn't have to be two separate time lines. He may just duplicate people—make two of them. Like—what do they call them in plants?"
"Clones?"
"That's it. Maybe he makes clones. And when one of them dies, its soul snaps back into the other. That could explain the headache."
I opened my mouth to object, to ask how in the world anyone could do that without the original knowing. But the words died in my throat, because cloning sounded less extreme than splitting time lines in a way that memories could transfer back. Cloned! That had to be it. Or could be it. Maybe. Something had happened.
After we went to bed, I lay there thinking. Suppose Scheele did clone me in some undetectable way. It seemed to me I could handle it. And with a transponder, we'd have him by the short and curlies.
13
He'd been held up in traffic. An accident on Cahuenga Pass had blocked a lane on the southbound 101 Freeway, and he'd missed his first chance. Now, though, he stood behind his tripod, peering into the back of what looked like an ancient videocam, large and cumbersome. Briefly he'd pretended to shoot footage up and down Beverly Boulevard, occasionally panning on passersby, most of whom paid little or no attention. But he hadn't actually shot any of them, just pretended to.
What he was really interested in was across the street in Morey's Kosher Deli. Ferguson had gone over to check, and from the door had given him the high sign: Seppanen was inside eating breakfast.
One of the important parts of this work was to research your subject, learn his or her schedule, to the extent they had one. Another was to have a reliable assistant.
At last Ferguson came out, which meant that Seppanen had headed for the cash register. Scheele was so excited, he could taste it. The duplicator was ready, aimed and focused on the open door. With his right hand on the trigger and his left on the locking control, he stood in the mental posture of a leopard waiting to pounce.
Through the finder he could see someone moving toward the door. Seppanen stepped into the focus field, and in a single quick movement Scheele locked on him, framing him, clearing the field of everything else, then pressed the trigger switch. His target turned ninety degrees and started east down the sidewalk, the locked field holding on him. Scheele pressed the trigger twice more. I've got him! He rejoiced inwardly. I've got the sonofabitch! Three of him! It was all he could do not to dance on the sidewalk.
14
The rest of the story can be confusing, so I'll tell it from one viewpoint at a time, starting with one that woke up strapped to a gurney, in a small concrete cell with no window. I was naked, which meant I'd been stripped, because I knew from Harford's experience that clothes get cloned along with the wearer. Apparently they'd stripped me for the psychological effect: without clothes you feel more powerless, vulnerable.
Being strapped to a gurney does that pretty well by itself, in threatening situations.
I felt lousy: headache, queazy stomach, and an overall, unpleasant squirmy feeling. It seemed to me if someone let me loose, I wouldn't be able to stand up without help. Something held my head down, medical or duct tape I supposed; about all I could move was my eyes, and all I could see besides walls and ceiling was a small glass ball in a ceiling recess, that had to be part of a surveillance system.
I knew right away what had happened, and told myself I should have arranged for a transponder a day earlier. My jailers would have found it when they stripped me, but by then the company computer would have a fix on where I was.
The last thing I remembered before waking up was walking out of Morey's. What had happened must have happened on the sidewalk in front. No one had bumped me or spoken to me, but . . . There'd been a guy across the street with some kind of apparatus on a tripod, like a big old camera, aimed at Morey's. That had to be it.
But then how . . . The answer was unavoidable: I'd been transmitted! Like a radio beam! Jesus, I thought, what am I? Some kind of holo? That made no sense. A holo couldn't be raped, and a holo wouldn't have memories or feelings; it was nothing more than light.
But clone or holo, they'd duplicated me and transmitted the copy! Even though I didn't feel like a duplicate, that was more believable than splitting time, then looping memories from one time line to the other.
After spending maybe a minute on the question, I turned to something more meaningfuclass="underline" escape. I couldn't plan; didn't know enough about the situation. Presumably the original version of me wasn't out of action, and Scheele would know that. He'd cloned me to question me, find out what we knew and what we planned.
Or maybe to get even. I preferred not to look at that one, but there it was. Torture me in the worst way possible, then kill me-the-clone and visit those lovely memories on me-the-original. Ole could handle the situation, of course, or Vic or Tory or Bhiksu. Strip the pain and fear off, and the emotions, leaving just the unburdened memory. But even so, I'd be in for some God-awful hours or days, first here, then later.
I heard a door open, and a moment later a guy in a lab coat was looking down at me. He pressed a hypodermic against my chest and pulled the trigger. There was a hiss, a brief pause, then nothing.