F Paul Wilson - Sims 02 (15 page)

 
          
“Violence toward sims is not the way.
If you kill
sims
, you only give SinGen the excuse to
produce more. We want SinGen to stop producing
sims
.
We must use the law—the law, my friends—to cut off the supply at its source by
piercing the beating evil heart of the problem. And that heart is the devil
corporation that subverts the Laws of Creation by fashioning creatures that are
not part of God’s design.

 
          
“Please. I beg of you: Do not harm
sims
. That is not the answer—it is, in fact,
counterproductive. Spreading the word, boycotting businesses that lease
sims
, endlessly harassing SinGen in court until it finally
surrenders. That is the way, my friends.
The only way.

 
          
“And to continue fighting that
battle, I need your support…”

 
          
The screen went blank.

 
          
“His standard request for
contributions follows,” Zero said.

 
          
“When did he broadcast that?” Patrick
said.

 
          
“He hasn’t. He rushed it into
production and it’s going out to replace his previously scheduled message.”

 
          
“How’d you get it?”

 
          
“The Reverend Eckert is part of the
organization.
One of its major contributors, in fact.”

 
          
For the second time tonight Patrick
found himself speechless.

 
          
Romy
smiled,
her first in too many hours. The pearly enamel within her smile caught the
light, giving her a Cheshire
Cat
look.

 
          
“If only you could see your face! Oh,
God, I wish I had a camera!”

 
          
SUSSEX COUNTY
,
NJ

 
          
NOVEMBER 14

 
          
As soon as Luca stepped into the
room, the usually listless Sinclair-2 rose from his seat and came toward him.
He looked like he’d slept in his clothes; his face flushed as he started
shouting.

 
          
“It was you, wasn’t
it!
You killed those
sims
! You
monster! You
monster !”

 
          
“Calm down, Ellis,” Abel Voss said,
putting an arm around the man’s shoulders. “You can’t go makin wild accusations
like that.”

 
          
“I can!” Sinclair-2 cried. “I know
this man’s methods. And if he didn’t do it himself, he sent one of his hired
thugs!”

 
          
No, Luca thought. I did it myself.
A one-man op.
That’s what you have to do sometimes if you
want to be sure a job gets done right.

 
          
It had taken Luca about a week after
the
Saw Mill River Parkway
debacle to put all the pieces in place. Two nights ago he’d made his move.

 
          
But the op developed an early hitch:
a tail. If he hadn’t been looking for one, he never would have spotted it. But
he’d been prepared.

 
          
He’d driven into midtown
Manhattan
and valet-parked his car at the New York Hilton, then zipped through the lobby
and out a side exit where he hailed a cab that took him to a second car that
had been left for him in a lot near the theater district. He’d driven out of
town immediately, directly to
Westchester
where he’d
parked a good mile from the Beacon Ridge Country Club. He’d walked the rest of
the way, ducking into the shadows whenever a car approached. When he reached
the club, he’d huddled in the hedges until the
sims
were all in their barrack and the last human had left.

 
          
Or so he’d thought. That was when
he’d almost got caught. He’d been about to step out of the bushes when he
spotted two dark figures gliding between the shadows near the barrack. As he’d
watched, they separated, one swiftly climbing a tree, the other disappearing
into the bushes.

 
          
Someone had the sim quarters under
guard. Sullivan?
Cadman?
No matter. That hadn’t been
Luca’s destination. He was headed for the sprawling structure on the crest of
the hill, the club’s main building.

 
          
Soon he’d reached his destination:
the kitchen. Once he’d located the cooking pot labeled SIMS he removed a vial
of clear odorless liquid from his breast pocket. A brand new compound sent down
through Lister from SIRG; so new it didn’t have a name yet, only a number:
J7683452.

 
          
He’d emptied the vial into the big
pot and begun swirling the liquid around, coating the sides and bottom. When it
dried, it was invisible. The only thing that could have gone wrong was somebody
washing out the pot. But it had been hung up clean, so that was unlikely.

 
          
Amazing stuff,
J7683452.
He could have stuck his head into that pot, licked its insides
clean, and he’d be fine.
Perfectly harmless in that state.
But heat it to
a hundred-and-sixty degrees
or more
and…

 
          
Bon appétit.

 
          
As for here and now, he didn’t owe
the Sinclair brothers an explanation. And they didn’t deserve one.

 
          
“Admit it, Portero! You murdered
those nineteen sims!”

 
          
“Murdered?” he said with a
calculatedly derisive snort—few things gave him more pleasure than getting
under these twits’ skins. “They’re animals. They can be killed, they can be
slaughtered, they can be sacrificed to the gods, but they can’t be murdered.”

 
          
With a hoarse roar Sinclair-2
launched himself at Luca, only to be hauled back by the heavier, stronger Voss.

 
          
“You don’t want to be doin that,
son,” Voss said. “Trust me, you don’t.”

 
          
“Ellis, for God’s sake control
yourself
!” Sinclair-1 said.

 
          
“Listen to them,” Luca said softly.

 
          
He hadn’t moved a muscle. He’d take
no pleasure in hurting Sinclair-2—it would be like fighting a woman—but he
could not allow another man to lay a hand on him.

 
          
Sinclair-2 struggled a moment, then
pulled free and returned to his usual spot on the sofa where he dropped his
face into his hands.

 
          
What gives with that guy? Luca
wondered. How can he be such a wimp?

 
          
“Did you?” Sinclair-1 said, staring
at him. “Were you responsible for poisoning those
sims
?”

 
          
“Does it matter?” Luca said.

 
          
No one answered.

 
          
Just as I thought.
They don’t want to know.

 
          
“Just tell me one thing,” Voss said.
“And think very carefully on your answer: Will the perpetrator or perpetrators
ever be found?”

 
          
“My guess?”
Luca shook his head.
“Never.
But whoever they were,
they did us a favor. The Beacon Ridge club has surrendered. They’re giving the
sims what they want.”

 
          
“Since when?”
Voss said.
“I ain’t heard nothin about this.”

 
          
“That’s because they haven’t made the
announcement yet.”

 
          
“If that’s true,” the attorney said,
his eyes widening, “it takes the matter out of the court’s hands.”

 
          
“No precedent,” Sinclair-1 whispered.

 
          
Luca watched cautious optimism grow
in their eyes. He’d be sharing in that good feeling if not for a call he’d
received this morning. Nothing more than a hoax, he hoped—prayed. Or maybe a
wild fantasy cooked up by some drugged-out waste of protoplasm. He’d fed it to
Lister who’d pass it up the SIRG ladder, but he’d keep it from the Sinclairs
for now. He suspected a leak somewhere, and if he was right, the less said
here, the better.

 
          
But he dearly wished he could lay it
on these two. The mere mention now of what the woman on the phone had told
him
would snuff out the relief warming Sinclair-1 and Voss
as if it had never been.

 
          
Because if this woman had been
telling the truth about a sim named Meerm, it made the threat they’d just
overcome seem like a pebble in a mountain gorge.