SIMS

SIMS Page 101

Five men in full gear, plus the guard, made for a claustrophobic ride as the elevator crept to the fourth floor. When the doors opened, Luca and his team piled out and followed the guard to the operating suite.

The old man pointed to a pair of double doors. "The amphitheater's through there."

"That's where they're transmitting from?"

The guard nodded. "But the cameras are upstairs - through that door."

"Any other way out?"

He shook his head.

Luca ripped the guard's two-way off his belt and flung it against the tiles of the nearest wall. "Stand over there and don't get in the way." He signaled to Lowery. "You and Majesky take the stairs. The rest of you - with me."

He depressed the bolt catch release lever on his HK to chamber the first round and stepped toward the doors. He didn't expect resistance, but it never hurt to be prepared. And besides, he knew of no better attention getter than a three-round burst into the ceiling.

He kicked open the doors and stepped through. "All right - !"

Empty. The place looked like a cyclone had ripped through it, but not a soul in sight.

"What the - ?"

He turned, ready to go out and bang that guard's head against the wall for sending them to the wrong room when he noticed the shape under the bloody sheet on the table. Three quick steps took him to it. He hesitated, then reached out and pulled it off.

A dead sim, bloody, carved open from chest to groin. Looked like Jack the Ripper had been at her. He saw the gaping belly, the empty uterus.

The pregnant sim...this had to be her...but where - ?

Oh, no...oh, no...

His knees felt gelatinous, his arms weak, the HK a hundred-pound weight in his hands as he turned and saw the TV monitor - where the operation was still in progress...at this table...on this sim...right in this room.

They'd fooled him...played him for a grade-A-prime sucker...

He looked up toward the spinning ceiling, saw a camera pointed his way from the balcony.

"Lowery?" he whispered into his comm mike. "Lowery, what's going on?"

A helmeted head popped into view next to the camera. "They're running a movie of the operation."

"Stop it, Lowery," he said, softly at first but with his voice rising. "Stop it right now!"

"I don't know how!"

"Yes, you do, goddamn you!" He was screaming now. "Yes, you fucking well do!Now do it! "

"Okay, okay!"

Luca heard the clinking release of the bolt on Lowery's submachine gun, followed by one three-round burst, then another. The monitor went blank...

...but its final image had been Patrick Sullivan holding up a very human-looking baby girl...and Luca remembered how the Sinclairs had feared the birth of a girl...and he also remembered all that crap he'd read about inter- and intragenomic competition...

I took him a moment to piece it all together, but then suddenly he knew what had terrified them.

You slimy bastards! After what you did, you had the nerve to look down your noses atme?

Now more than ever he wanted that baby.