SIMS

FOUR: Zero Chapter 5

  "You know," Patrick told Zero after they'd pulled into the West Side garage and the door had closed behind their van, "I could get used to this. And that worries me. "

  The cascade of emotions from the threats and the violence had faded now, leaving him oddly exhilarated. But it had been harrowing.

  When Romy had called Zero they'd learned that he had an escape route all worked out. Following his instructions, they'd taken the stairs to the roof - Romy in the lead, Patrick bringing up the rear, Kek in the middle carrying their two attackers, one over each shoulder. Romy's was the second of four joined buildings. They'd walked across two neighboring roofs to a ledge where a fire escape led down to an alley. After a short but nerve-wracking wait, Zero's battered Econoline pulled up and they'd all climbed aboard.

  Patrick had handled the driving on the way back, with Zero in the passenger seat, and Romy in the middle. That was when his mood had begun to change. They'd done it! They'd faced murderous opposition and - with no little help from Kek - overcome it. They were wheeling away with no one in pursuit, no one even aware that they'd turned the tables.

  As soon as they'd reached Manhattan they found a deserted spot under the FDR Drive where they leaned Duke's corpse against a steel support. Throughout the night anyone who saw him would think he was passed out drunk; in the morning light they'd think differently. Patrick then piloted the van across town with Duke's unconscious partner.

  Masked as usual, Zero stepped out of the passenger door and regarded Patrick through his dark glasses. "Yes. It's the high of victory. Not a good thing to get too used to. You can't expect to win all the time. "

  "I know. " Patrick opened his door and hopped out. "But after all the bad news, after being pushed around and running into wall after wall, this feels very, very good. It'll feel even better if it turns out that one of these two poisoned my clients.

  "And maybe," Romy said, taking the hand he offered to help her out of the van, "he's one of the SLA creeps who butchered the globulin farm sims as well. "

  "Wouldn't that be sweet. "

  Zero leaned back inside and spoke toward the darkened rear section. "Kek. Tape the man into the chair by the wall. "

  They'd brought everything along - the tape, the inoculator kit, the silenced pistols. Neither man had carried any identification.

  Poetic justice, Patrick thought as he watched Kek get to work. Bound with his own tape, injected with his own truth drug.

  He looked around, noticing how his senses felt heightened. Despite the low light in the garage, he seemed to see everything with day-bright clarity. The tang of gasoline and the heavier odor of DW-40 were sharp in the air; the ticking of the van's cooling engine was like a ball-peen hammer rapping an anvil.

  Zero was away from the van now, moving to the darker shadows of a corner. Why wouldn't he let anyone see his face? What was he afraid of?

  Patrick followed him, but not too closely. "What is he and where did you find him?" he said, pointing to Kek.

  "In Idaho. Last year. "

  "Idaho?" Romy said. "You never told me that. I thought you'd found him around SimGen. "

  Zero shrugged. "Sorry. It never came up. And it didn't seem to matter until you saw that Idaho license plate on the SimGen campus. "

  "I wondered why you were so psyched about that. "

  "How do you just happen to 'find' something like him in Idaho?" Patrick asked.

  "Don't you remember hearing reports of people claiming they'd spotted Bigfoot in Idaho last winter?"

  "Vaguely. I try not to devote too many memory cells to that sort of thing. "

  "I do. . . if it sounds furry like a sim. I sent a couple of volunteers out there to track down the sightings, and they returned with Kek, suffering from starvation, frostbite, and half dead from exposure. Dr. Cannon and I nursed him back to health and - "

  "Who's Dr. Cannon?"

  "You met her at Beacon Ridge," Romy said. "She was the woman doctor who tried to save the poisoned sims. "

  "Right," Patrick said. "I remember her. But whatis Kek? Where did he come from?"

  "I don't know," Zero replied, watching as the creature taped the still unconscious Ponytail into the chair. "But he's obviously the product of a recombinant lab, an advanced one. He looks to be part mandrill and part gorilla, and I'd be very surprised if he didn't have a fair amount of human DNA spliced into his genome as well. "

  Patrick shook his head in wonder. "He's scary looking. "

  "I doubt that's by accident. Nor his aggressiveness. "

  "But why?" Kek had finished his task and now squatted by the prisoner, his eyes fixed on Zero as he awaited further instructions. "Who'd want to create something like that?"

  Zero walked back to the cab of the van and reached through the window. "I'll show you. " He withdrew one of the silenced pistols and held it up. "A . 45 caliber HK SOCOM. Ever seen one before?"

  "Never," Patrick said. "What's 'HK' mean? Hong Kong?"

  Zero laughed. "Hardly. " He swiveled the pistol toward Romy. "Romy? Know it?"

  "It's Heckler and Koch, but beyond that. . . sorry, no. "

  "Heckler and Koch Mk 23 Special Operations Command model. Its barrel comes threaded and suppresser ready. " Zero held it out to Kek. "Kek? Would you break this down for me please?"

  "Are you nuts?" Patrick whispered as Kek loped forward. "That's a loaded weapon!"

  Zero didn't respond. He placed the pistol in Kek's outstretched hand and said, "You can use that workbench over there. "

  Kek took the pistol and inspected it, turning it over in his hands a few times before he ejected the clip and then worked the slide to remove the chambered round.

  "He knows guns!" Patrick said, his voice hushed in awe.

  "You ain't seen nuthin yet," Romy told him.

  Kek stepped over to the workbench and Patrick watched in amazement as his long, nimble fingers removed the silencer and disassembled the gun with practiced speed, then arranged its innards for inspection, all in less than thirty seconds. When finished he took one step back and stood with his hands behind his back, awaiting approval.

  "He's military!" Patrick said.

  "Or paramilitary. Or perhaps intended as some sort of semi-human mercenary. Who can say? But he can break down just about any weapon you hand him, and he knows no fear. "

  "A perfect soldier. "

  "Maybe not perfect, but damn near. "

  "What happened to his left hand?" Patrick said as he noticed that Kek's ring and pinkie fingers were missing a joint or two.

  "Frostbite," Zero replied.

  "So he owes his life to you?"

  "And Kek knows it," Romy said. "He's totally devoted to Zero. "

  "An overstatement, I assure you," Zero said.

  Patrick didn't think so. He'd noticed that Kek's eyes had stayed focused on Zero since his arrival. Even now, as he awaited approval of his breakdown of the pistol, his eyes never left Zero.

  "I believe he's waiting for your okay," Patrick said.

  "Oh, sorry," Zero replied. He saluted Kek and said, "Excellent job, my friend. Please reassemble it. "

  Patrick had no way to gauge this creature's emotions, but he sensed a burst of pride and pleasure in response to Zero's approval. Oh, yes, Kek might be hell on wheels when it came to confronting an enemy, but he was Zero's kitty cat.

  "Who made him?" Patrick said as Kek's flying fingers clicked the pieces back into place. "SimGen?"

  "The most likely suspect," Zero said.

  "But if so, how did he get from New Jersey to Idaho?"

  "Our guess is he was put aboard a truck from the SimGen basic research facility; the truck was driven aboard a plane at the SimGen airstrip and flown to Idaho. "

  "Why Idaho?"

  "Because it's largely empty. Because you can buy big parcels of land that allow you to operate in near absolute privacy. "

  "But who?" Patrick said. "Who wants t
o operate in secrecy? Who wants to stockpile a bunch of Keks?"

  "Kek might be just one of many new species quartered in the hinterlands. "

  The possibilities made Patrick more than a little queasy. "There's a thought to take to bed with you. "

  Just then Ponytail stirred, groaned, and lifted his head.

  Zero glanced his way and said, "A font of information on these very subjects is about to become available to us. I hope. "

  "I don't think you have to hope," Patrick said. "I'd swear he recognized Kek when he jumped him. He even tried to say something. It sounded like, 'Kree - ' but he never got to finish it. "

  Ponytail's eyes were glazed and it was obvious to Patrick he had no idea where he was or why he was tied up or what was going on. Tell him he's at an S & M beerfest in Sydney and he'd buy it. After ten seconds or so his chin dropped back onto his chest.

  "We'll have to ask him about that," Zero said. "He should be ready to talk soon. " He turned to Kek. "Take your position upstairs at the window now. "

  Kek turned and scrambled up a metal ladder affixed to the rear wall.

  "The garage comes with a loft," Zero said. "The window up there affords an excellent view of the street. It also serves as Kek's home. "

  "So it was him I saw peeking down on us that day," Patrick said.

  Zero nodded. "Kek has a curious nature. " He turned to Romy. "Where did we put that inoculator kit?"

  "Right here," Romy said, and handed it to him.

  "The moment of truth, as it were," Zero said, opening the kit as he approached the captive. "Now we find out if Luca Portero is as involved as we think he is. "

  "How safe is that stuff?" said Patrick, eyeing the amber fluid in the inoculator's chamber.

  "I've never used it," Zero said. "But they were willing to dose you up with it. Any objections to returning the favor?"

  "None at all," Patrick said.

  "I didn't think so. " He handed the inoculator to Romy. "Would you do the honors?"

  "My pleasure," she said.

  She tilted Ponytail's head to the side, exposing his neck.

  "You know what you're doing?" Patrick said.

  She nodded. "Used to work research. Injected a lot of animals before I decided I'd rather work the other side of the street. "

  She placed the business end of the inoculator gun against the side of Ponytail's neck. She look as if she were about to execute him.

  "What about the dose?" Patrick said. "How do you know how much to give?"

  "Haven't the faintest. But this is the dose he was planning to put into us, so that's what goes into him. "

  "And if it's too much?"

  She shrugged. "That'll be his problem, won't it. "

  Patrick realized he was seeing another side of Romy, a new persona, cold, efficient, almost ruthless in simmering fury. Was this the "someone else" she'd mentioned before? Not that he could blame her: This man had invaded her home, bound her, watched as his partner had mistreated her, and had been about to invade the very core of her privacy - her mind. Add to all that the possibility that he might have had a hand in the deaths of dozens of sims and the guy was lucky she wasn't jabbing the inoculator into his eye.

  Patrick felt his shoulders bunch as the Romy pressed the trigger and injected the liquid through the skin of Ponytail's neck with a softpop .

  The man flinched, his eyes fluttered open. He raised his head and looked around, dazed. Patrick saw the purpling welts on his throat, mementos of Kek's fingers. He blinked. Patrick watched a look of utter horror flow through his features when he saw the inoculator in Romy's hand.

  "No!" he rasped, his voice barely audible through his bruised larynx. "You didn't! Please tell me you didn't!"

  Romy bounced the inoculator in her hand. "Shoot you up with your own junk? You bet we did. "

  "Not Totuus!"

  "If that's what's in your vial, then, yes, Totuus. "

  And then Ponytail did something that took Patrick completely by surprise: His face screwed up and he began to sob. Romy took a step back and regarded him with mute shock.

  "You didn't have to do that!" he squeaked in his laryngitis voice. "I would have told you! I would have told you anything you wanted to know!"

  "Sure, you would have," Romy said. "And we would have been able to take every word to the bank, right?"

  "What's wrong with him?" Patrick said, turning to Zero. The man's genuine terror was getting to him. "What don't we know about this drug?"

  Zero's expression was unreadable behind his ski mask, but his tone was puzzled. "I researched it after hearing that it had been found in the globulin farmers' bodies. Its main side effect is a headache for about a day afterwards. "

  Romy seemed unfazed by the man's abject terror. She pressed the redRECORD button on his own recorder and held it before his face.

  "What's your name?" she said.

  Ponytail squeezed his eyes shut and gritted his teeth, fighting the drug and the question.

  "Come on," Romy cooed. "This is a simple one. Your name. . . what is your name?"

  The man's face reddened with effort, then the words broke free in a hoarse rush: "David Daniel Palmer!"

  "Excellent. Now, Mr. David Daniel Palmer, who sent you?"

  He began to blubber again. "Please don't ask me that! Please!"

  "And if I'd begged you not to shoot me up with this stuff an hour ago, you would have spared me, right?"

  "Please!"

  Romy's voice hardened. "Stop stalling! Tell me now: Who do you work for?"

  Parker screwed up his face, chewed on his lips, then blurted through a sob, "SIRG - "

  But as soon as the word escaped him, his eyes rolled back in his head. He stiffened, bared his teeth, and began to shake, violently enough to start his chair walking across the floor.

  "Ohmigod!" Romy cried. "What's happening?"

  Zero leaped forward. "He's having some sort of seizure! If he swallows his tongue he'll choke to death!"

  Patrick watched in horror as Zero's gloved hands worked past Palmer's foam-flecked lips, trying to pry open his jaws.

  And then as suddenly as the attack had started, it stopped. Palmer drooped in his chair, breathing raggedly, his eyes glazed.

  "Daniel Palmer," Zero said, leaning close, all but shouting. "Are you all right?"

  Palmer mumbled something.

  Zero shook his shoulder. "I said, are you all right?"

  Palmer stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language, then said, "Crash want rag lay hedge knock two. "

  "What?" Zero said.

  "Numb bag five sense peel drawer another stop see. "

  "He's lost his mind!" Romy said, her hand over her mouth. The cold bitch goddess with the inoculator and the tape recorder was gone, and she was back to the Romy Patrick knew. . . or thought he did. "Did I do this? Is this my fault?"

  "I don't know," Zero said. "I've never seen or heard of anything like it. " He glanced at Romy and Patrick. "There's also the possibility he's faking. "

  "He gets an Oscar if he is," Patrick said.

  Zero leaned close again: "What's your name?"

  "Realize game attached. "

  "Oh, God!" Romy whispered.

  Zero pulled out a phone. "I think we need help. "

  "Who are you calling?" Patrick asked.

  "A doctor. "