Prime Read online

  "You've got a morbid imagination."

  "—for a clone."

  "I didn't mean that,” Bellow said. “Look, I'm sorry. You deserve more than I can give you. But I've got my mind on a job—"

  "I knew it!” Kara said, pulling away all at once and staring excitedly at him. “Chin-Hae wouldn't tell me, but you are here about the New London deaths! They hired you to go in, didn't they? You're going after the bug."

  "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. New London's got a sim they want someone to test before they take it public, that's all."

  "Bullshit. They're going to get buried if they don't fix this soon. You're the perfect guy.” She stared at him, wide-eyed. “I can't believe it."

  Bellow stood up and went to the OLED screen. He touched the pane and the scene changed from a sky full of sparkling stars to a cityscape at night. He heard her coming up behind him.

  "At least tell me about it,” she said softly. “What's it like to be inside like that? Do you see the code in your head? Or is it like some kind of telepathy?"

  "I just ... blank out. But another part of me is still there. And I start to feel what the machine is doing, what parts of it are right and what isn't supposed to be there. And I can feel where it's confused, or lost, or just different."

  He turned to her and saw her eyes were closed. “I'm just a little more sensitive to it, that's all. It's nothing."

  "No. No.” She opened her eyes and looked dreamily up at him. “Don't ever say that. People would kill to get what you have. People can get biochips implanted, but it's not the same. You're the closest thing to an actual transformation that anyone has ever seen. This is our chance to change for the better, to evolve into something more than we're capable of being alone. No, it's you, Will. You're it."

  "How come you know so much about this if you're a newborn?"

  "There's nothing wrong with being curious, is there?"

  Curiosity killed the clone, Bellow thought, but didn't say anything. She was worked up enough as it was.

  "Seems pretty strange that you're so interested in Gutenberg when you're involved with Chin-Hae's group. He doesn't exactly embrace the change."

  "It's not that I'm interested in Gutenberg, exactly. I'm not a member of the church or anything. A lot of what he wrote is bullshit. I'm curious about part of the process he described, that's all. Becoming a different type of person. It's evolutionary."

  "Sounds like splitting hairs, but okay."

  "So what did happen to you, Will? It's like you've been erased. The last piece of data I could find ended six years ago. Can you at least tell me that?"

  "There isn't much to it. I told you, I retired from the chase and hung around at home until I couldn't stand it anymore. I started thinking I'd get into managing for a while, looked into it. But owners get threatened by anyone who knows too much about what they're doing."

  Owners had investments to protect, stock points that were sensitive to the slightest business tremor. Rumors of a power struggle could send the market listings tumbling. And Bellow didn't go in for hiding the truth.

  "So why not own a wire yourself?"

  He smiled. “It's not that easy.” Although he had thought about it back then. He'd been young enough; he'd had all the experience and the money to show he was serious in attracting an investor or two. He'd even started planning a takeover, consulted with enough New Russian software experts to fill his head with smoke.

  "So why did you retire, anyway?"

  "I guess I lost my edge. Rumors spread over the web. Most owners wouldn't hire me anymore, and when they did I wandered around like a fighter after too many jabs to the face."

  "But you're back now?"

  He wasn't going to tell her about Mexico City. It was too long a road and the few memories he had retained were too frightening. Just thinking about it made the sweat trickle from under his arms.

  "I guess so, if you want to call it that.” He stared at her eyes and felt himself drowning in deep black pools. “You cut me up, the way you look at me. Clean through."

  She smiled. “Does it hurt?"

  "A little, but I can handle the pain."

  "I wish you'd tell me more about New London. I want to know what you're going to do. God, I swear I've dreamed about you."

  He didn't bother to deny anything more. She took both his hands in hers—warm, soft hands—and looked up into his face. “Now, are you going to fuck me or what?"

  —

  When he woke up the next morning, Kara was gone. He made sure nothing was missing, checked the hallway, sealed the door again and stumbled to the bathroom. He felt like he had a hangover, though he hadn't touched a drink the night before.

  Jesus, she was something else. Newborn clones were like that, he'd heard, emotional swings to the extreme and fantastic in bed. True and true. She was soft and wet, eager to try anything, ferocious and hungry and loud. There was a vulnerability to her, an undercurrent of gentle shyness that was appealing. They had used each other's bodies as if they were long-lost lovers finally getting the chance to be together again. He just hoped she wouldn't go off telling everyone how she'd slept with New London's celebrity bug-killer.

  There was something else about her, too, a depth he found astonishing in someone so young. The thing about the rabbit was disturbing, but showed a remarkable philosophical complexity. He wondered what else she might be capable of, given time.

  And she was interested in his mission. Maybe too interested for her own good. What she'd said about him might be right, and he knew that back before Mexico City a lot of people in Gutenberg's new church had become obsessed with the idea that he would be the first to change. They'd even started stalking him on his off-hours, and his celebrity status had grown to the point of being uncomfortable. Once he'd found a woman hiding in his shower, and she'd refused to leave until he'd promised to return for her after his ascent.

  The idea of all those people looking to him for guidance made Bellow break out in a cold sweat, and maybe that had had something to do with what had happened in Mexico City. He knew he was no savior. There were probably others out there already who could do much more than he had ever dreamed of doing. He'd heard rumors of children who had been virtually nursed through the network, who could code computers through thought, enter the web without any interface at all. Seen in that context, he was something of a dinosaur.

  He blinked in and laid a misleading trail of false hits and identities to try to confuse anyone who might be watching, and then brought up what he could find on Stephanie Vaille. Her ID holograph showed a slightly overweight woman with an easy smile and bright, inquisitive eyes. She wore simple clothing and had an impressive list of degrees to her name, and she'd published a study on art in the new century two years before. He compared the vid capture of her blackened, ruined face and mapped the features to make sure it was her. The points matched. Then he dug deeper for information about her parents, but there was precious little other than what he'd already seen.

  He probed at New London Tower's entry ports. Static broadcasts and infomercials; he hadn't paid the subscription fee. The server took him through a demonstration of endorphin rides, virtual vacation packages, gene surgeries, and implant options. He slipped through the smoke and probed deeper. The system became more sensitive to his requests for entry. He sensed an awakening, a series of responses gathering somewhere as the server spun another welcome sim that acquainted him with everything wonderful about New London Tower.

  They were keeping him busy while they searched down his access code, which was still scrambled but not impossible to decipher. Security had been notified. If he was going to have a chance, he needed that clearance. And the board would only give it up if he were locked inside one of their cubicles.

  Bellow blinked out and got into his hotsuit, the material adjusting temperature and clinging to his body like Lycra. He sensed fate coming hard down the track toward him, and he knew that it would find him whether he liked it or not.
He had never been one of those people who could live a life blissfully clean and away from the underbelly of the world. He was once again at a crossroads: trust the company that had hired him and use what they gave him to get the job done if he could, or assume that everyone was an enemy until proven otherwise. He knew that his decision had already been made. He could feel himself on the edge of something big, a whirlpool swirling just beyond his feet, and he was about to get pulled in.

  He threw on an overcoat and went down to New London Tower.

  A reporter from the network was waiting. When she saw him she flicked on a spotlight and centered her remote camera unit. Wheels whirred across pavement, motors clicked into place. He could see himself holographically recreated inside the lens.

  "We're streaming live on the web. Mr. Bellow, if I could speak with you a moment—"

  "Fuck off.” He shouldered past her, the light hot on the back of his neck.

  She stayed with him. “You have to admit, Mr. Bellow, your appearance here is more than coincidence. New London has kept these deaths quiet long enough. Isn't it true that you've been hired to debug the New London server?"

  He spun to face her. “Turn the camera off."

  She looked at him eagerly, searching his expression for any hint of confession. “I can deal with that.” The hotlight blinked out and the camera unit went limp. “Now, what do you say? Tell me why they're going with you. I'll quote an unnamed source."

  "I'm sure the building manager would be more than willing—"

  "Fuck Crowther. I want the truth. We know about Mexico City, how you got lost inside and they had to send someone else in to drag you out. You spent how long—six months in rehab for that and years afterward off the map? They had to nanowash your synapses, isn't that true? There were rumors you died. You've never done another job."

  "I had a little problem adjusting. Jet lag and all."

  "It was a bit more than that. Mr. Bellow, we want to know what New London plans to do about the deaths of our city's citizens. Why would they hire a burned-out bug chaser to do such an important job? No offense."

  "Anybody ever tell you you're a perfect case for gene manipulation?” When she opened her mouth again Bellow held up his hand. “One more word and you'll be fishing that remote unit out of your ass. Excuse me."

  He left her standing there, mouth open, camera sagging at her side like a drunken old man who had fallen asleep at the bar.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  -8-

  Deborah Acevedo was indeed in Tower Level G, behind a foot-thick pane of shatterproof glass in a room made to look like a vacation lounge rather than the prison cell it truly was. Bellow wondered whether anyone was ever fooled.

  He watched her for a moment through the glass as she got up and poured herself a glass of water, then returned to sit at the table set up before the six-foot OLED screen that displayed a wash of bright, abstract colors sifting slowly back and forth like sea grass in the tide. The glass chirped and cooed as it tracked her movement. She was a plain, pleasant enough looking woman, but carried herself with slumped shoulders and shuffled gait. She would have been the perfect sidekick for a more vocal Stephanie Vaille.

  He nodded at the two New London security officers, who stood with folded, meaty arms, watching him from behind mirrored monitor shields. Crowther had not been happy to grant him access to Level G, but he had grudgingly complied when Bellow had threatened to walk off the job. It seemed that the board had grown even more desperate in the hours since their meeting, and they were willing to give him everything he required. Until, of course, they weren't. This was the nature of boards. In Bellow's experience, the sudden reversal usually occurred at the worst possible time.

  He told security to let him in, and one of them unlocked the door without a word, standing a little too close for an extra beat, an intimidation tactic that fell short although the man had close to three inches of height on Bellow. The New London forces were not exactly known for their subtlety.

  Deborah looked up as he entered the room, and he saw weariness in her eyes and a glint of a deeper, more profound pain. She didn't look surprised to see him.

  "I've told you people everything I know,” she said. “Why don't you leave me alone?"

  "I'm not ‘you people,'” Bellow said. “As a matter of fact, I don't like them much, and they're not very happy I'm here to see you. I've got a job to do. I want to find out what killed your friend and put a stop to it before it happens again. Anything else is debris."

  Deborah's eyes widened momentarily, and then she motioned to a chair. “Have a seat, Mr..."

  "William Bellow."

  "Mr. Bellow.” Bellow sat down across from her. “What's your role here, exactly?"

  "I'm a bug hunter."

  "So you do work for New London."

  "They're paying my fee, yes. But I couldn't care less about anything other than stopping these murders."

  "Sounds pretty virtuous of you."

  "Not really."

  Deborah shook her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again she was no longer completely there; a part of her, Bellow thought, was back in that room with her dead friend.

  "Do you believe in karma, Mr. Bellow?"

  "I think we make our own lives happen."

  "I'm not much for religion. But maybe we're being punished for our sins. Virtual encounters, sexual relations with a machine. God wouldn't have wanted it this way. But our dear government does. The population explosion makes it easy to justify. No mess, no fuss, no children. What could be simpler?"

  "Our government is getting paid under the table to endorse the concept. It's good for business."

  Deborah's eyes focused on him abruptly. “You're right, of course. But where's the humanity? Where's the connection? The world we think we know doesn't exist, does it? It's all mind control now. Ninety-nine percent of the population has no clue what's going on under the surface. Hell, they're so blind they pay to get their minds fucked. If that's Gutenberg's idea of being Transformed, you can count me out."

  "Those in the church would say you're just not trying hard enough."

  "I wasn't. I hated it, you know, what we were doing. But I went along because of Stephie. I even suggested this very trip."

  "What happened in there, Deborah?"

  "I don't know, exactly. I came out and I smelled her ... burning. She was on fire, jerking back and forth. I got up and tried to do something, but she was already gone."

  "Can you think back on anything unusual that happened during your time inside—signs that something wasn't right—power surges, strange sounds, or disruptions in service?"

  "Nothing.” She shrugged. “When I came out and was holding my gear, I got some sort of shock, I remember that. Like static electricity when you walk across a rug, only a lot stronger."

  "Did it burn you?"

  "I tossed the gear before it could. You know what's funny? Stephie's parents spent most of their lives lecturing her about what's gone wrong with the world, warning her to keep away from anything she can't touch with her own two hands. They would be devastated by this. But I've been locked in here and I don't even know if they know she's dead, or how it happened."

  "Stephanie's father is a member of the resistance."

  She looked surprised. “How do you know that?"

  "I have my sources."

  "Stephie was his pride and joy. Not like her sister.” Bellow managed not to look too surprised, but she caught it anyway. “Oh, you didn't know about her twin? Neither side had recognized the relationship for years. Julia even had her name officially changed and the records wiped clean. She works for New London—or worked for them, anyway. I don't know where she is now. Stephie stopped talking about her a couple of years ago."

  "Identical?"

  "Stephie used to say that when they were kids, it was like looking in the mirror. They used to fool their friends all the time."

  "What did she do for New London?"

&nbs
p; "I'm not sure.” Deborah drew in a breath. “You don't think—"

  "You've been a big help,” Bellow said, standing up. “I think we better end this now."

  As he was halfway to the door, Deborah caught his arm. Her eyes were glittering as she pulled him close and spoke in his ear. “Stephie told me once that her sister was involved with a project called Prime."

  "Never heard of it."

  "I don't know what it means, but the way she said it, it seemed important. Mysterious, like she wasn't supposed to talk about it. I didn't tell anyone else about that. I don't trust them. Maybe you can find out more."

  —

  A quick check of records didn't turn up a reference to Julia Vaille, but then again, Bellow hadn't expected it to. If Julia was good at her job, she would have erased the trail. Nothing clicked on the name Prime either.

  Nothing he could find in Stephanie Vaille's background would have made her anyone's target. Perhaps her death was simply a random event, as they'd been assuming all along. But it made him curious; someone, or something, targeting Julia Vaille and checking things like DNA signatures might, in the heat of the moment, make a mistake and take out her twin sister instead.

  That only made him more curious about the two earlier deaths. Mark Beiser had been the first; he was described in the public record as retired. There was nothing about his earlier profession, but a check into classified files revealed that he had been on the books of a software development company called Blue Ribbon, which, Bellow discovered quickly enough, was a wholly owned subsidiary of New London Industries. There was nothing on file anywhere about the exact type of work he had done.

  His wind up now, Bellow checked the second murder. Fernanda Rios was a geneticist working for a private lab specializing in gene therapy solutions to disease. No immediate connection, and at first he thought maybe he was looking down the wrong hole. But a flag on a citizenship database led him to a record of transactions occurring through overseas channels and behind closed doors, and through a series of dizzying switchbacks he found a reference to New London that could be a link.