“Does it ever weird you out?” Nate asked, unable to look into Kurt’s face for fear of the answer. “Me being a Replica?”
He saw Kurt’s shrug out of the corner of his eye. “Yeah, if I think about it. But I don’t think about it unless you make me.”
Nate supposed that was one way to handle it.
“So anyway,” Kurt said in an unsubtle change of subject, “Dante’s seeing Nadia every night, and I can meet with Dante without either of us being watched. Dante thought you might want us to pass a message to her.”
Nate thought he heard a hint of disapproval in Kurt’s voice, but he chose to ignore it. “So he told her about Agnes?”
“Yeah.”
Nate made a conscious effort to relax his tight jaw muscles before he ground his teeth into dust. Nadia should have heard the news from him, or at least from her family. Not from some resistance double agent with questionable motives.
“You okay?” Kurt asked, laying a hand on Nate’s shoulder.
Nate rested his head in his hands, hating the feeling of helplessness that had plagued him from the moment his father told him the news.
“No,” he said hoarsely. “I’m not okay. My father’s going to force me to marry a girl with the looks and personality of a wet sponge, and Nadia’s whole life is being ruined because of me.”
“It sucks. But you could have been born in Debasement. So could she. How many Basement-dwellers do you suppose would kill to have your problems?”
Nate almost lashed out, stung by Kurt’s apparent lack of sympathy. Neither his problems nor Nadia’s were petty, and even a Basement-dweller might not be so eager to take them on if they knew what was really at stake, if they knew just what kind of threat hovered over their heads. But of course, Kurt didn’t know, and Nate wasn’t planning to tell him.
It wasn’t until he saw the searching look in Kurt’s eyes that he wondered if the comment was meant to annoy Nate into telling him more. There was a time when Nate had felt he could tell Kurt anything, but those days were past.
Kurt sighed, perhaps disappointed with the failure of his fishing mission. He leaned over the side of the bed and rooted around in the heap of clothes he’d left there. Nate took a moment to admire the curve of his hip and the Chinese calligraphy tattooed right above his butt. Kurt had told him the characters said the equivalent of fuck you, though he’d had to take the tattoo artist’s word for it. Who knew that crude words could look so elegant?
Kurt made a sound of satisfaction and rolled back over, a phone in his hand. “I know Dante gave you a secure phone already, but if you want to call me, use this one.”
Nate gave a humorless laugh. “You mean your resistance buddies won’t be listening in on this one?” Despite the little flare of bitterness, he took the phone, relieved that he would finally have a way to get in touch with Kurt rather than having to wait for him to drop by in the dead of night.
“Don’t be a dick. What did you expect Dante to do? Go buy you a black market secure phone with his own money and no strings attached? He convinced the resistance to provide two fucking expensive phones. You’d better cough up some good information for it and quit complaining.”
Nate rubbed his eyes. He’d almost allowed himself to forget that he’d promised information in return for the phone. He’d also forgotten what it was like to be with someone who didn’t hesitate to tell him when he was being an asshole.
“Message received,” he said, though he still found it hard to be all that grateful for a bugged phone. “How much do I owe you? Oh, wait. You bought it with my money, didn’t you?”
“Smart-ass,” Kurt said, punching him on the shoulder. “Now it’s time to spill. And if you’re tempted to screw Dante because you don’t like him, remember, he’s your path to Nadia. You need to get a message to her without making her use her phone and maybe lose it, you give me a call, and I’ll get it to her through Dante.”
Nate didn’t need the reminder. No, he didn’t like Dante, but he needed him, and he knew it. He wasn’t stupid enough to antagonize someone he needed.
Hoping he wasn’t making a big mistake, starting some kind of trouble that would come back to bite him, Nate told Kurt that he was talking to the last Replica that would ever be made.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The news hit the net first thing Friday morning. The resistance works fast, Nate thought sourly as he flipped from story to story. It seemed every member of the media, plus a host of online “personalities,” had rushed to share their opinions and their predictions of doom.
None of them had any real facts. Nate had told Kurt only that there would be no more backup scans performed or Replicas created. He had steadfastly refused to explain why. He hadn’t liked keeping secrets from Kurt, but the media frenzy was clear evidence he had done the right thing. Stock prices had already plummeted, and he imagined there would be demonstrations all around the state as opponents of the Replica technology declared victory and those who feared for their livelihoods took offense. Nate didn’t want to imagine the shock wave that would rip through the state if people knew what the true cost of the Replica technology had been.
The news hadn’t been out for more than an hour before the Chairman held a press conference during which he assured the people of Paxco and the world that the Replica program was not, in fact, defunct, but was merely on a temporary hiatus while some technical difficulties were resolved. He accused the press of exaggeration and sensationalism. Funny how, afterward, the members of the Paxco press corps bought the Chairman’s story hook, line, and sinker, while the foreign press remained skeptical.
The Chairman’s statement had gone a long way toward slowing the bleeding, although stock prices were bound to be depressed for a while. But he couldn’t pretend the situation was temporary forever, and if today’s preview was anything to go by, the day of reckoning was going to suck. Nate might have felt bad about leaking the news, except it had to come out eventually.
Still in his robe and slippers, Nate got off the net about thirty minutes after he had planned to arrive at work. As usual, he had an endless series of meetings he was supposed to sit in on, but his role in those meetings was always just to sit there and listen quietly. He had no official job duties—at least none of even moderate importance—and his participation was all part of one long training exercise for when he would be Chairman someday. He was trying to be more responsible about his training, he really was, but setting foot within ten miles of Headquarters today was probably a terrible idea.
There was one consequence of sharing state secrets with the resistance that he had anticipated—and dreaded—from the very beginning. The number of people who knew that the Replica program was now defunct could be counted on one hand, and with Nadia hidden away in her retreat with no access to the outside world, the only person the Chairman could possibly suspect of leaking the information was Nate. Somehow, Nate didn’t think his father would take it very well, even if the Paxco PR machine convinced everyone the situation was only temporary.
You did the right thing, he told himself, but he wished he felt more convinced. Getting that phone to Nadia had been vital, and if he hadn’t followed through and given the resistance the information he’d promised, he would have lost any chance of making them into allies when he needed them. But their haste to broadcast what he’d told them made him even more aware that he needed to tread cautiously. He couldn’t see how releasing the information to the public prematurely was going to help their cause if they were aiming for peaceful reform. Now, if they were hoping to destabilize the government to make it more vulnerable to a violent takeover …
Nate commanded his majordomo to intercept all phone calls and potential visitors—an order that Hartman accepted with one of his looks of long-suffering patience—and spent the day pretending he was in an Executive retreat himself. Once he switched off the net, he kept it off. He ignored phone calls that came through to his private line, and he didn’t even look out his windows, much less ste
p outside. Perhaps it was childish of him to insist on living in the land of denial, but he would take whatever reprieve he could get.
He was able to keep his head buried in the sand until almost three o’clock. That was when Hartman told him his father had called and ordered Nate to appear in his office in fifteen minutes. If Nate dropped everything and ran, he might be able to make it to Headquarters in that amount of time, but he didn’t see much point in it. His father couldn’t get any more pissed off at him than he was now, and if he had figured out a way to punish Nate for his latest transgression, Nate didn’t want to know about it.
“You’re not going, sir?” Hartman asked when Nate made no response to the demand.
It was Nate’s turn to put on the long-suffering expression. “How long have you worked for me, Hartman?” It was a rhetorical question. Hartman had been with him since he’d moved into the apartment, the day after he’d turned eighteen. More than long enough to be intimately familiar with Nate’s propensity to shirk meetings.
“He’s not going to take no for an answer,” Hartman said grimly.
“Next time he calls, tell him he can send security to march me over there in chains if he wants to. That might give the press something new to drool over for a while.”
“Sir—”
“I said no,” Nate snapped, then mentally smacked himself for being an asshole. Not that it was the first time he had put Hartman in the unenviable position of being stuck between him and his father, but he was trying to be more considerate of other people, and this was a serious case of backsliding.
Nate huffed out a breath. “Sorry, Hartman. It’s not your fault my father and I are both pig-headed assholes. I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Hartman looked like he was about to faint with shock. Nate wondered guiltily how many other times he had carelessly snapped at the man without ever bothering to apologize.
“Next time he calls,” Nate said, “put him through to me. I’ll tell him no myself.”
“Yes, sir,” Hartman said in obvious relief. “Thank you, sir.”
“No, thank you for putting up with me.”
Hartman cracked a small smile. “I have two teenagers at home. Believe me, I’m used to it. Sir.”
Nate laughed and made a mental note to ask Hartman about his children sometime when things weren’t so … tense. He should at least know the names and ages of his staff’s kids.
Now all that was left for Nate to do was wait for the explosion and hope the shrapnel didn’t kill anybody.
* * *
Contrary to Nate’s expectations, the Chairman didn’t call when Nate failed to answer his summons. Nate had an uneasy feeling in his stomach when his father’s fifteen-minute deadline expired and the phone didn’t ring. The unease grew deeper as another fifteen minutes passed with no call. It wasn’t like Nate wanted him to call, of course, but he couldn’t help thinking the Chairman was up to something. Planning another way to make Nate’s life miserable.
The phone rang plenty of times in the next hour, Hartman diligently answering, but never was it the Chairman. Nate paced his apartment, the tension in his body making him feel like he’d drunk too much coffee.
At five, Nate was standing in front of his living room windows, staring out at the city while sipping from a glass of scotch, a fine single malt that Nate’s less-than-sophisticated palate couldn’t distinguish from the cheapest rotgut money could buy. He’d only gotten a couple of sips into his system—nowhere near enough to calm him—when there was a commotion in the vestibule, which was discreetly concealed from view so Nate didn’t have to feel like his guards were watching his every move.
It wasn’t the commotion of someone trying to get in without permission; it was more like a ripple of shock and uncertainty. The hairs on the back of his neck rising, Nate turned from the window in time to see his father clear the entryway. Both Hartman and Nate’s butler came running, no doubt summoned by the guards to see to the Chairman’s every need, but he waved them away. Nate fought a prickle of irritation that neither of his servants thought to look at him for confirmation that they could leave, but of course the Chairman outranked him in all things.
Nate took another sip of his scotch, hoping to moisten his dry mouth. His father almost never came to his apartment. Certainly Nate wouldn’t have expected him to show up in person to chew him out. When he wanted to see you, you came to him, not the other way around.
Nate searched the Chairman’s face as he entered the living room, expecting to see the fury and disdain his actions had triggered. Instead, he saw something that looked suspiciously like sadness. It was not an expression Nate could ever remember seeing on his father’s face before, and he gripped the tumbler more tightly as tension coursed through his body.
“I had meant to talk to you about the trouble you caused by leaking information that wasn’t ready for public consumption,” the Chairman said, with only a small spark of heat in his voice, as if the issue were of only minor importance. “But that will have to wait for another time. I’m afraid I’ve had some bad news.”
Nadia! Nate thought, his heart nearly stopping. Something’s happened to her. Nate swallowed hard, keeping his panicked thoughts to himself. If something had happened to Nadia, the Chairman wouldn’t look so sad. Hell, he’d probably be gloating—or worried about the recordings being released due to her death. So it wasn’t that. But Nate couldn’t imagine what could make a man who had murdered his own son sad.
“It’s your mother,” the Chairman said, and if Nate didn’t know better, he would swear his father was a little choked up. “I’m afraid she’s passed.”
The news was so unexpected it took Nate a few seconds to absorb what he’d just heard.
His mother was dead.
There was a tight feeling in his chest and in the back of his throat as he remembered the bright-eyed, laughing woman of his childhood. The woman who had always loved him unconditionally, or so he’d thought at the time. Many of his illusions about her had shattered when she’d abandoned him and his father to spend the rest of her days behind the walls of a retreat. Not once in all the years she’d been there had she ventured out. Not once since she’d entered the retreat had Nate seen her face in anything but a photograph or even heard her voice.
Ellie Hayes had effectively been dead to him for going on ten years now. So why did he feel like there were a thousand rubber bands constricting his chest, making it hard to breathe?
Breathing became even harder as Nate considered the timing of his mother’s demise. His head snapped up, and he squeezed the tumbler in his hand so hard he was lucky he didn’t shatter it and cut himself.
“You did this,” he growled at his father, taking an aggressive stride forward. “This is part of your vendetta, isn’t it? Or is it my punishment for leaking the information?”
Nate expected his father to respond in kind, with the anger Nate was always so good at triggering. Instead, the Chairman sighed and rubbed his eyes.
“There’s no vendetta, son.”
“Oh, sure. That’s why you’re forcing me to marry Agnes. And it’s just a coincidence that my mom died today.”
“It is a coincidence,” the Chairman said with a hint of heat in his voice. “She’s been fighting cancer for more than two years, and her condition had been steadily deteriorating for months.”
Nate shook his head as his face went cold. “No. You killed her. I know you did.”
“I can show you the medical records if you want. We were obviously estranged, but I still served as her next of kin.”
“I don’t believe it!” Nate insisted, wondering if sheer will could make it so. “If she knew she was dying, she would have … She would have…” He couldn’t force the words out past his hurt. “You killed her,” he finished lamely.
“I know it would be easier for you to believe that, but I’m sorry, Nate. Cancer killed her, not me.”
Nate blinked in surprise. His father never called him “Nate.” It was
always “son” or “Nathaniel.” Only people who actually liked him called him “Nate.” It felt downright weird, and almost invasive, to have the Chairman call him that.
“I may be angry with you,” his father continued, “but you’re still my son. And though I know you don’t believe it, I do love you. The marriage arrangement is a political and economic necessity, not a punishment.”
“Why should I believe a word that leaves your mouth? And if Mom has had cancer for two years and you knew about it, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t think it would serve any purpose. She refused to see anyone. I wouldn’t even have known she was sick myself if the staff hadn’t contacted me.
“Your mother became … unbalanced after our falling out. I thought entering the retreat would be good for her, that maybe if she spent a few months there, she would heal. In the end, though, I think it was the worst thing she could have done. She could live there in perfect denial, and the more time passed, the more attractive that life of denial became. I have no doubt that in her heart, she loved you until the end, but she’d broken from her old life so thoroughly there was no coming back.”
There was a sheen in his father’s eyes, and he was breathing extra deep, as if to keep grief at bay. Even so, Nate didn’t believe him, sure the Chairman could summon the trappings of grief on demand if he wanted to.
“What really happened between you two?” Nate asked. He remembered the coldness and the distance entering his parents’ marriage, and toward the end, he remembered hearing them shouting at one another—always behind closed doors, and never quite loud enough for Nate to understand what they were fighting about.
When Ellie left for the retreat, she did so with minimal fanfare. The press—and Nate—had been told nothing about why she was leaving, beyond that she and the Chairman had had a “falling out.” There was rampant speculation, of course, the most popular theory being that there’d been infidelity involved. However, speculation was not fact.