Authors: Timothy Zahn

Soulminder (40 page)

Sommer winced. “How much?”

She started to speak, hesitated, then waved a hand. “Doesn’t matter,” she said. “What matters is that your little stunt has shaken confidence in Soulminder. Shaken it
big
time.”

Sommer took another deep breath. It was a little easier this time. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I know what the money means to you and your research. But Soulminder had a purpose once. A noble purpose. That purpose has slowly been polluted and twisted. This was the only way I could think of to bring it back.” He looked at Blanchard. “It
has
been brought back, hasn’t it?”

“The understatement of the month,” Blanchard said dryly. “Walkabout USA and the rest of the body-sharing companies are as good as dead, either straight-up closed down or teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.”

“Those private and highly suspect wings of certain nations’ Soulminder facilities are also emptying out,” Everly added. “We’re already in negotiation with a couple of those governments to bring those wings back under the local office’s control.” He pursed his lips. “The downside, of course, is that things like the Professional Witness program are also on the edge. We may lose some of them completely.”

“I know, and that one I’m sorry about,” Sommer apologized. “It’s done a lot to bring murderers to justice. But it had to be done. Soulminder was meant to be a medical safety net. No less, but certainly no more. I needed to bring it back to that mission. It sounds like it’s at least on its way.”

“Assuming that public confidence doesn’t drop so low that everyone completely abandons us,” Sands warned. “You lose twenty thousand people in the space of a couple of months and people start to get really nervous.”

Sommer felt his mouth drop open. “Twenty
thousand
?” he echoed in disbelief. For a horrifying moment he was back in the trap, tracking painstakingly through his code and trying to find a flaw in the work. Had he indeed screwed something up? “How in the world did we lose—no. We couldn’t have. How did—?”

“Easy, Adrian,” Sands soothed, a hint of gallows humor peeking through. “You give yourself a heart attack and you’ll just go back inside that thing. Of course we didn’t lose twenty thousand people. Not
real
people, anyway.” She jerked a thumb at Blanchard. “You can blame Little Miss Psycho for this one.”

Blanchard winced, her face reddening. “It—well, it wasn’t hard to figure out what you were up to, Dr. Sommer,” she said hesitantly. “Your talks with Frank and me … Anyway, when we saw that the political prisoners and a few others were leaving their traps, we decided to give the process a little nudge.”

“
We
?” Everly murmured. “It was
your
idea.”

“You signed off on it,” Blanchard countered. Her eyes flicked to Sands. “Both of you did. Anyway, we just generated twenty thousand ghost occupants—that’s probably not the best way of putting that, is it?—twenty thousand fake client names. And then while we were putting your body back together we systematically dumped them.”

Sommer felt his eyes go wide. “You did
what
?”

Blanchard sighed. “Small disasters don’t catch the public eye anymore,” she said, an odd sadness in her voice. “Even several hundred deaths don’t hold anyone’s attention for more than a couple of weeks. We had to make it bigger—terrifyingly bigger—if we were going to get the results you wanted.”

“So like she said, we invented twenty thousand new names and then dumped them,” Everly said. “Thereby making it look like over six percent of Soulminder’s clients had suddenly been lost.” He waved a hand. “You wanted Walkabout and Everlasting Torture, Incorporated, out of business? They’re gone.”

Sommer looked at Sands. “And you agreed to this,” he said, just to be sure. “Knowing that our finances would take an enormous hit, you still agreed.”

She smiled faintly, a bittersweet expression. “I told you once, Adrian, that you were the symbol of Soulminder. But you were more than that. You were also its heart and conscience. I’ve always trusted that you knew what was best. I have to trust that you were right this time, too.”

“Thank you,” Sommer said quietly. “But I can’t come back, Jessica. The world needs to think that I’m dead.”

“Of course it does,” Sands said. “Your death hit people hard, even harder than those twenty thousand fake deaths we created. If you really want this change, you have to stay dead.”

Sommer stared at her, then at Everly, then at Sands, his heartbeat suddenly picking up its pace. Two months ago, when he’d set up the deal with Jacobi, he’d been ready and willing to die. Knowing that his death would bring about a greater good.

That greater good had now been achieved. But to his surprise, with the world again bright around him, he discovered that his earlier willingness to sacrifice himself was gone.

He wanted to live.

But Blanchard was right. If he came back from the dead now, it would all have been for nothing. The world’s fear would subside, and Soulminder would once again become a toy for the rich and a tool for the monsters. Not right away, but it would.

Sommer was alive. But no one knew it. No one except the three people facing him where he sat, strapped and helpless, in a long-since forgotten resurrection machine.

And they, too, knew that he had to stay dead.

With an effort, he found his voice. “You’re right, of course,” he managed. “How do we do it?”

The solemn faces facing him wrinkled a bit with puzzlement. “Do what?” Sands asked. “You’re already dead. The whole world saw it.”

“However, and luckily for you,” Everly said, “a former Army sniper named Adam Jacobi is alive and well.”

Sommer blinked. And then, for the first time, he looked down at the body strapped into the Soulminder machine.

Everly was right. This body wasn’t his.

But apparently it was now.

He looked up again. “What about the body-soul interaction?” he asked. “Jacobi
was
a murderer, you know.”

“But not a psychopath or sociopath,” Blanchard assured him. “I went through his profile, very carefully, with the proverbial fine-tooth.”

“And then she had to sell it to us,” Sands murmured.

“Right,” Blanchard said. “But it’s all right. Jacobi just killed people for the money. No psychoses, just a talent and an area of expertise and a taste for the good life.”

“Ergo, as long as we give you a decent allowance, we figure you’ll be all right,” Everly said dryly. “Besides, you know the signs of that sort of thing. You get even a hint that something odd is happening, you give Carolyn a call. She’ll get you straightened out.”

“In whatever spare time she’ll have from now on,” Sands added. “You’ve left us some big shoes to fill, Adrian. But I think together the three of us can give it a decent shot.”

“I’m sure you can,” Sommer said. “So. You going to unstrap me, or what?”

Five minutes later, with the final farewells, hugs, and handshakes behind him, Sommer found himself walking down the street. Walking away from the only life he’d ever known. Walking toward … what?

He didn’t know. But he was eager to find out.

And whatever danger might befall him, he could face it with the comforting knowledge that Soulminder would always be there.

If I should die before I wake …

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Timothy Zahn is a
New York Times
–bestselling science fiction author of more than forty novels, as well as many novellas and short stories. Best known for his contributions to the expanded Star Wars universe of books, including the Thrawn trilogy, Zahn won a 1984 Hugo Award for his novella
Cascade Point
. He also wrote the Cobra series, the Blackcollar series, the Quadrail series, and the young adult Dragonback series, whose first novel,
Dragon and Thief
, was an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Zahn currently resides in Oregon with his family.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Cover design by Amanda DeRosa

978-1-4976-4618-6

Published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com