Ground Zero Read online

  Zero

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  1

  MANHATTAN

  DECEMBER 15

  “This is fabulous!” Patrick shouted, venting his glee. “Ab-so-lute-ly faaaaabulous!”

  He shuffled in a circle around the cracked concrete floor, punching the air, wanting to laugh aloud but fearing if he ever let himself get started he might not be able to stop.

  Zero had called Romy and him to a meeting here in the garage without hinting at what it might be about. Patrick wished he could have watched Zero’s face, especially his eyes, as he’d laid the news on them about a sim made pregnant by a human. He hadn’t been able to fathom the mystery man’s feelings through the ski mask and shades, but Patrick knew exactly how he felt. Suddenly his whole world had burst wide open in a blinding blaze of glory. Lawyers dream about an opportunity like this. Dream, hell, most of them didn’t even have the capacity to imagine something like this.

  It was a home run.

  In the bottom of the ninth.

  With the bases loaded.

  On Christmas Day.

  With a winning lotto ticket waiting in the dugout.

  Life was good, life was sooooo good!

  Finally he turned back to Romy and Zero. As usual, Zero hung back in the shadows; Romy stood by the panel truck; both were watching him as if he were mad. He glanced up at the square of darkness in the ceiling above the ladder fastened to the rear wall. No eyes peering at him this time. But even if there were, it wouldn’t have fazed him. Not today.

  “I get a feeling I’ve made Mr. Sullivan’s day,” Zero said, ostensibly to Romy.

  “I think you made his year,” she said, her expression troubled.

  Patrick couldn’t figure that. She should be beaming.

  “Year?” he cried. “This makes my life! A baby with a sim mother and a human father! Don’t you see what this means?”

  “Of course,” Zero said. “Undeniable proof that humans and sims can cross-fertilize.”

  “Right! And that means they have to be upgraded into the same category as humans.”

  “It’s called ‘genus,’” Zero said, “not category.”

  “Oh, right.” He’d never found science very interesting. No juice. “Genus and species. We’re Homo sapiens , right? So what genus are sims?”

  “Start with the root: the animal kingdom; from there you move to the Chordata phylum, then to the Mammalia class. The next divisions are known as ‘orders.’ Humans, apes, monkeys, even tree shrews are all members of the Primate order. But after that we branch into different families. Chimps, gorillas, and orangutans are classified as members of the Pongidae family, while humans are the only existing members of the Hominidae family.”

  “Pongidae…Hominidae,” Patrick said, rolling the unfamiliar words over his tongue. He guessed scientists were like lawyers, using dead languages to confuse and confute.

  “Even before sims were created,” Zero was saying, “there were movements in the scientific community to shift chimps to the Hominidae family, and they might have succeeded if not for SimGen. Once SimGen got into the act, the movement ran out of gas.”

  Romy said, “I’ve never understood how one corporation could wield so much influence.”

  “Money,” Zero said.

  Her brow furrowed. “I can see that working where legislation is involved, but how can you buy a scientific classification?”

  “With grants. The right amount of money to the right universities to see the right man as head of the right department, and suddenly there are more important concerns than to which family Pan troglodytes belong. And so chimps stayed Pongidae.”

  “Pan troglodytes,” Patrick said. “That’s the chimp genus and species, right?”

  Zero nodded. “And sims are known as Pan sinclair is of the family Pongidae.”

  “Pan sinclairis,” Patrick said, shaking his head. “Talk about ego.” Then he grinned. “But no amount of grants is going to keep them out of Hominidae once word gets out about this baby. We’ll move them up to the Homo genus and get them a brand new name: Homo simiens . How does that sound?”

  “It sounds like the end of SimGen,” Zero said.

  “Damn right. Move sims to genus Homo, they become humans. And since owning a human hasn’t been legal since the Emancipation Proclamation, SimGen loses everything. Tome and I are going to lead the biggest class action lawsuit this world has ever seen. The tobacco settlements will look like chump change. Every sim will have a Caddy and a condo, and the Sinclair brothers, when I’m through with them, will be living on the street.”

  Patrick waited for a reaction—a laugh, a cheer, encouragement, anything—but Zero remained silent behind his shields, while Romy frowned and seemed to be miles away.

  “I won’t even take the customary thirty or forty percent,” he added. “I’ll settle for one point.” Plus expenses, of course. He could handle one percent of a zillion—last him the rest of his life and then some.

  Still no reaction from either of them. He felt like a singer with a dead mike.

  Finally Zero stirred, lacing his gloved fingers and popping the knuckles. “All fine and good, Patrick, but your scenario is missing one crucial element: You need proof.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right.”

  No arguing with that: no pregnant sim, no case.

  “And we can’t offer five million for a tip.”

  “No,” Patrick said, “but maybe you can intercept that tip.”

  “How do you propose I do that?”

  “Obviously you’ve got a line into the heart of SimGen.”

  He noticed Zero stiffen into a wary pose. “Obviously?”

  “Sure. How else could you come by all this inside information. I don’t know if it’s a person or a bug, and I don’t want to know. What I’m saying is, if we can intercept the crucial tip, or even get it at the same time SimGen does, maybe we can reach this sim—”

  “She’s got a name: Meerm.”

  “See? You even know her name. So if we can use the tip to reach her before SimGen does, we’re golden.”

  Zero shook his head. “I doubt that’s possible. All tips will be directed to Luca Portero, and he’s not the type to share information, even with the Sinclairs.”

  “Well…,” Patrick said slowly, discarding a new idea immediately, but voicing it just to get a rise out of Romy. “He does have the hots for Romy…”

  “Don’t even think about it,” she snapped.

  “Joke, Romy.” At least she’d been listening. “Are you okay?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. Something about this bothers me. How can a sim and a human cross-fertilize? Sims have twenty-two chromosome pairs and humans have twenty-three. Somewhere along the line they’re not going to match up, and a pair of chromosomes is going to be left hanging.”

  “Not necessarily,” Zero said. “Look at the mule. Its father is a donkey, which has thirty-one pairs and its mother is a horse, which has thirty-two, though both are members of the genus Equus . Mules have been around for ages with no problems from the dangling chromosomes, other than the fact that they’re usually sterile.”

  Romy’s frown deepened. “Then this baby, if it’s ever born, will probably be sterile too.”

  “We’ll have to see. We’re in uncharted territory here.”

  “So a mule,” Patrick said, “is the offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. What if it’s the other way around?”
>
  “That’s a less common combination, but then you get something called a hinny. They look like mules but tend to be smaller because most donkeys are smaller than horses.”

  “Where do all these fascinating tidbits of animal husbandry leave us?” Patrick said.

  “With the realization that, given a fertile sim, a human-sim hybrid is a very real possibility.”

  “I keep thinking about that baby,” Romy said. “What’s going to happen to it? Who’ll take care of it? And being neither sim nor human, what place will it have in the world?”

  Zero’s tone softened. “Until we find Meerm I suggest you put off worrying about the baby. Given your nature, I know that won’t be easy, but your own safety should be at the top of your list right now. You won’t be able to help that baby if anything happens to you.”

  Patrick felt the muscles between his shoulder blades tighten. “What do you mean, ‘happens’?”

  He sighed. “You haven’t heard the whole story yet.”

  “What are you holding back?”

  “Nothing. I never had a chance to finish. Your war dance got us off track.”

  Romy eyed Zero. “There’s a poor, frightened sim whore out there pregnant by a human degenerate. Isn’t that enough?”

  “I never mentioned a whore, sim or otherwise.”

  “I just assumed…”

  Zero looked at Romy. “You might want to sit down.”

  “Oh, no.” She stood blinking for a few heartbeats, then retreated two steps and dropped into the chair by the wall. “Do I want to hear this?”

  “Probably not, but you need to.”

  Zero then went on to explain who was behind the SLA and the reasons for its atrocities. Patrick listened, but all the while his eyes were fixed on Romy. He watched her initial disbelief give way to unwilling acceptance of a horrifying truth. Her expression was slack by the time Zero finished. He wanted to step to her side and slip his arms around her, but thought better of it. Jostle her now and she might explode.

  Patrick too was shocked. To think that just two weeks ago in front of the burned-out ruins of the Bronx globulin farm, Romy had introduced him to the engineer of all this death and destruction.

  “There’s got to be some way we can nail Portero for this,” Patrick said.

  “Don’t count on it. He’s a pro, a very careful one.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t manufacture some evidence.”

  “No,” Zero said, shaking his head. “Too dangerous.”

  Romy finally spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. “I…I’d always figured Portero for a snake. But…I never dreamed…I mean, executing three humans and twelve sims…just to cover his tracks.”

  “And those are just the ones we know about. You two might have been added to list if we hadn’t intervened when Patrick’s car was knocked off the road.”

  “That was him?” Patrick said, turning toward Romy. “You mean I was standing two feet away from the guy who tried to kill me and I didn’t know it?”

  “Not him directly,” Zero said. “But he planned it.”

  “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  He shrugged. “No one said, ‘Let’s not tell Patrick.’ When it happened, we still weren’t sure of you. And after you came on board, it simply never came up.”

  “Just as well, I guess,” he said. “If I’d known I might have opened my big yap and given something away.”

  “Which brings me back to what I was saying before,” Zero said. “Watch your backs. You and Romy have put yourselves on the wrong side of Manassas Ventures. Manassas is connected to SimGen and therefore, by extension, to Luca Portero. We’ve known he was ruthless, we just didn’t know until now how ruthless. There’s nothing this man won’t do, so please be careful. I’ll do whatever I can to back you up, but the organization can do only so much.”

  Patrick turned to Romy. “Maybe we should move in together.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Not that again.”

  “For mutual protection, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “Not such a bad idea, actually,” Zero said. “I know I’d rest easier, but I’ll leave that up to you two.”

  Zero, I think I love you, Patrick thought.

  But Romy didn’t appear to be buying. “Let’s worry about Meerm,” she said. “How do we find her first?”

  “Why don’t we try thinking like a sim?” Patrick said, hating to leave the subject of cohabitation. “If I were a lost and frightened sim, where would I hide?”

  “With other sims,” Zero said. “The trouble is, if she’s hiding from humans she’s not exactly going to come out and announce herself.”

  Patrick had a thought. “How about my roomie? Is there some way Tome can help sniff her out? You know, set a sim to find a sim?”

  Zero pointed at him. “Now that’s an idea.”

  “As long as it doesn’t put him in any danger,” Patrick added. He’d grown fond of that old sim, and the possibility of anything happening to him put a twist in his gut. “I don’t want him hurt.”

  “None of us do,” Zero said. “Let’s sit down and see where we can take that. Meanwhile, I’ve appealed to a higher power for help.”

  “You’ve been praying?” Romy said.

  “No, I meant that in a more literal sense. I was speaking of the Reverend’s satellite.”

  2

  SUSSEX COUNTY, NJ

  “Watch this,” Sinclair-1 said the moment Luca stepped into the darkened office. The sun was down but only a corner floor lamp was lit.

  Luca glanced around. No one else present. “Watch what?”

  “This, goddamn it. I just recorded it off the dish.”

  Sinclair poked his desktop and the plasma TV screen on the wall flickered, then lit with the face of the Reverend Eckert.

  “My dear brothers and sisters. I had an entirely different sermon prepared for this broadcast, but just moments ago I experienced an epiphany, a revelation of such staggering importance that I felt it my duty to you and to my ministry to discard my prepared sermon and immediately address this matter.

  “Do you know what an ‘urban legend’ is? I’m sure you do, but in case some of you don’t, let me explain. Urban legends are stories that are told and retold so many times that they take on a patina—or should I say, the appearance—of truth. We never get the story firsthand; usually we’re told that somebody’s uncle or aunt, or that a friend’s grandmother knows someone who personally experienced the incident.

  “You might have been warned against bringing home a large cactus because somebody knows someone whose cactus burst open to let out a torrent of deadly tarantulas.

  “Or you heard about the burned corpse of a frogman found in the ashes of a forest fire, the story going that he was SCUBA diving when he was scooped up by a firefighting helicopter as it filled its bucket from the lake near the fire.

  “Or the ‘documented facts’ that eelskin wallets erase magnetic cards and giant alligators infest New York City sewers, and on and on.

  “Brothers and sisters, I could spend the whole program cataloguing these tales, but that’s not why I’m speaking to you today. I pray you’ve caught my meaning, because I want you to believe that what I am about to say is not an urban legend.

  “As I told you earlier, I’ve had a revelation from On High. But some people, for their own selfish reasons, will want to deny its truth. My words, as they spread, will be written off by these professional doubters as just the latest in a long line of urban legends. But don’t listen to them, friends. I have it on excellent authority, not from a friend of a friend, but from the ultimate Unimpeachable Source that what I am about to tell you is God’s Truth.

  “That Truth concerns a sim, a female sim, lost, alone, frightened, hiding somewhere in New York City. Yes, I’m talking about the same sim that Satan’s own corporation, SinGen, has offered five million dollars for. But have you asked yourselves why SinGen is offering so much for one lowly sim? They’ll tell you it
’s to help bring murderers to justice, but is that really the case? The humans these murderers killed were criminals themselves. And sims are killed every day without SinGen offering so much as a dime to find the culprits.

  “So there I was today, sitting alone in my home chapel, spending quiet time in communion with the Lord, wondering what was so special about this particular sim to make the devil’s company squander so much of its tainted lucre to find her.

  “And then it came to me. In a blaze of inspiration that could only be the result of the touch of the Lord his own self, I knew!

  “This lost sim is pregnant!

  “Now, now, I know we’ve all been told that sims can’t procreate, but think about who’s been telling us that: the devil corporation run by Satan, the Father of Lies. Only God is perfect. Satan makes mistakes—that’s why he rules in Hell after all, instead of in Heaven. And Satan made a real whopper of a mistake this time.

  “What’s that? Yes, I hear you. I hear what you’re saying. You’re saying, ‘A pregnant sim, Reverend Eckert? How can that be? Who is the father?’

  “And that, brothers and sisters, is the worst part. This was no immaculate conception. No, this is an abomination. This sim pregnancy is the result of un-plumbed wickedness and moral decrepitude. For the father, I say to you, the father of this sim’s baby is human!

  “Of course, I use the term loosely, for what sort of human would defile himself so by doing such a thing to a helpless animal? But yes, you heard correctly, the father is human!

  “Now, I know what you’re saying in your hearts, if you’re not crying it out loud, ‘Why, Reverend Eckert? Why would God allow such an unspeakable thing to occur?’ And I must tell you, friends, that I asked myself the same question. I wondered if this could be a sign of the End Times: Could the child of this unholy union be the Antichrist?

  “But the Lord his own self was guiding my thoughts because I suddenly realized that this unborn child is just the opposite of the Antichrist. For it will not be born to establish Satan’s rule on earth, but to dislodge his foul foothold, destroy the satanic beachhead we know as SinGen!

  “That is the real reason the company is offering so much to find this poor, mistreated, pregnant sim.