Replica (39 page)

“Did you honestly think I didn’t know about your … attachment to Bishop?”

Nate swallowed hard, wanting to deny it. The horror of “reprogramming” loomed large in his mind, as did the danger to Kurt. But denying it when his father so obviously knew the truth might make him seem weak, and it would be pointless anyway. Nate stiffened his spine.

“I honestly thought you didn’t know. I figured I’d be in reprogramming if you did.”

The Chairman dismissed that with a wave. “I don’t give a damn who you sleep with, as long as you’re discreet about it and don’t tarnish the family name. Any backups made of Bishop will have to be done in secret, and if we ever have to animate a Replica, that would have to be done in secret, too. But this is the only way a man of his low background could ever hope to have such security.”

Nate had to admit, the idea was tempting. He’d spent this last week terrified that he was going to lose Kurt, that Kurt would be killed because of his association with Nate. Now, he had a legitimate chance to protect him.

But of course it wasn’t
Kurt
who would be protected if he had backups made. The Kurt Nate knew today could still die; it was just that Nate wouldn’t have to suffer his loss. Just like his father had been able to kill him to prevent Thea’s secrets getting out without actually having to suffer the loss of his son and heir.

Beside him, Nadia turned to stare at the table she’d been strapped to, at the mass of nasty instruments that hovered over it. All the lights had dimmed, though Nate had a sense that the AI was still present, silently listening in on their conversation. Waiting to see what her fate would be.

He imagined lying on a table, sliding feetfirst into the claustrophobic white tunnel of Thea’s backup scanner, naked, helpless, and trusting as she took her readings and measurements. He’d been through the process more times than he could count, and it had never bothered him before. But before, he didn’t know she liked to vivisect human beings for a hobby. She might not be human, but she did at least mimic some human behavior patterns, like the blackmail she used to coerce the Chairman into bringing her victims to examine. Might she also be capable of holding grudges? And just how far had she gotten in her research into the mind-body connection? Enough that she could manipulate Replicas to her liking?

He and Nadia shared a look, and he could tell she was thinking the same thing he was: they couldn’t trust her. Wordlessly, he shook his head, and Nadia understood that he was rejecting the offer. She reached over and took his hand, giving it a squeeze.

“It’s a generous offer,” she said, but if she was trying to sugarcoat the refusal she might as well not have bothered. “But I’m afraid my terms haven’t changed. That thing”—she jerked her hand toward the table of implements—“is an abomination, and there’s absolutely nothing that can justify its use.”

“My research is of incalculable value to the human race.” Thea’s voice piped up, confirming Nate’s suspicion that she was listening to their conversation. “Mankind has sought after immortality for its entire existence, and if I am allowed to proceed, I will one day make that impossible dream possible. I am a scientist, not an abomination.”

If Thea were human, Nate would say she was offended by the accusation. Was an AI capable of being offended?

“What you’re doing is wrong,” Nadia countered. “Killing human beings in the name of research is wrong, no matter what the hoped-for end result is.”

The Chairman sighed. “If you’re going to enter into an ethics debate with Thea, we’ll be here all day. Believe me, I’ve had this conversation with her before, many times.”

Nate laughed. “
You
talking about
ethics
? If you’re Thea’s teacher, then no wonder she’s confused.”

“I am not confused,” Thea retorted, and this time Nate was sure the machine was actually offended. “Humans like to say that the ends do not justify the means, but they do not really believe that. They say it because they believe it should be true, but their actions say otherwise. I do not adhere to the human practice of saying one thing while meaning another.”

“So you cut people open and eventually kill them all for the good of mankind,” Nadia said. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“I will make mankind immortal.”

“And why do you care if mankind is immortal?”

Nate raised an eyebrow, curious to hear Thea’s answer. He wasn’t sure it was possible to fathom the reasoning of a nonhuman intelligence, but it was certainly a good question.

Silence reigned in the room. Either Thea was taking a very long time to think about the answer to Nadia’s question, or she was disinclined to answer it. Which led Nate to reach a rather disturbing conclusion of his own.

Why would a machine like Thea care if mankind was immortal? She obviously wasn’t defending the sanctity of human life. And if she was anything like most humans he knew, there was at least a kernel of self-interest at the bottom of her motivations.

Nate turned to regard the Chairman’s suddenly impassive face, and the answer came to him in a flash.

“You don’t care if mankind is immortal,” he said, his voice seeming to echo, thanks to the tension in the room. “You just want to make sure the
Chairman
is.”

The Chairman, who protected and fed and cherished her. The Chairman, who had proven himself willing to cave to her blackmail. The Chairman, who championed the Replica technology—and by extension Thea herself—against those who already thought it was immoral. Without a ruthless champion like the Chairman to protect her, would Thea have already been shut down by an angry mob? Like the one that had camped out in front of Headquarters? Nate had been stunned by their hate at the time, but now he was beginning to sympathize with them a lot more.

Thea didn’t answer Nate’s accusation.

“Shut down the experiments,” Nadia said. “Arrest Dirk Mosely. Give Bishop amnesty. That’s what I want for keeping the recordings from going public.”

The Chairman shook his head. “I can’t do that. Not unless you can convince Thea to keep making backups and animating Replicas even without her research subjects.”

“I will agree to those terms, if that is what the Chairman wishes,” Thea said, and that was when Nate—and, by the looks of her, Nadia as well—realized there was a fatal flaw in their demands.

“So you will stop your experiments and content yourself with doing backup scans and making Replicas?” Nadia said.

“I will. If that is what the Chairman requires of me.”

Nadia’s shoulders slumped, and she shook her head. “Everyone here who believes her, raise your hand,” she muttered under her breath.

“Even if she’s telling the truth, there’s no way we can be sure the experiments stop,” Nate said. “Even if we come to the Fortress for a daily inspection, we can’t be sure she hasn’t just moved her operation elsewhere—with or without the Chairman’s consent.”

“This is ridiculous,” the Chairman said. “I will give you amnesty for everyone involved, and I will give you access to Thea for backups and Replicas. It’s a more than generous offer. There’s no reason you should be so intent on tearing down all of Paxco.”

Nadia shook her head. “I’m intent on doing the right thing. I’ve stated my terms. If we have to shut Thea down entirely to be sure she abides by those terms, then so be it.”

“Shut her down? Are you
mad
?”

Nadia sat back in her chair and folded her arms, a picture of implacability. “Those are my terms. Take them or leave them.”

Nate almost felt sorry for his father. Distress had stolen the color from his face, and he looked like a different man without the mantle of confidence and authority he usually wore.

“Need I mention again that without the revenue from making backups, Paxco would go bankrupt in a matter of weeks? Is that really what you think is the right thing?”

Nadia gave the thought a moment’s consideration, then nodded. “Yes, I do. Lincoln freed the slaves despite knowing it would have a devastating economic impact, and, eventually, the United States recovered. I figure we’ll recover from the impact of losing Thea, too.”

“You self-righteous little brat!” the Chairman snarled, losing control of his temper for the first time Nate could remember. He shoved his chair back with enough force to knock it over and leaned forward to put his fists on the table and glare at Nadia. She didn’t shrink away from him.

“The United States had to go through a civil war to ‘recover’ from that economic impact. Is that what you want for Paxco? You want to risk the lives of thousands of ordinary citizens,
innocent
people, to protect a handful of convicted criminals here and there?”

“You’re forgetting, Mr. Chairman.
I
could have been one of those ‘convicted criminals,’ if you’d had your way. Mosely threatened to make my sister and my brother-in-law into ‘convicted criminals’ if I didn’t do what he wanted. And you were both willing to convict Kurt Bishop of a crime you committed yourselves. Experimenting on human beings would be wrong even if the test subjects really were genuinely convicted criminals, but how many innocents have you imprisoned for the sake of political expediency?” She shook her head. “No, Mr. Chairman. I know we will all be in for some hard times ahead, but this has to stop. If you don’t shut Thea down, I will release the recordings to the public. I think the repercussions of that would be far worse, don’t you?”

The Chairman’s face had been pale, but now it was flushed red, and his eyes were practically incandescent with his fury. He stood up straight and reached into his right coat pocket.

Everything seemed to go into slow motion as Nate realized that pocket was hanging lower than the left one and as he remembered his own uncertainty as to where the gun had ended up.

“No!” Nate yelled, leaping from his chair and tackling Nadia to the ground, trying to make sure his own body was between her and the Chairman’s gun.

The gun roared, and Nadia screamed. Nate wrapped his arms around her, trying to shield every inch of her body as the gun roared again, the sound deafening in the enclosed room. There was a third gunshot, then the sound of something heavy hitting the floor, a sound he was aware of more from the vibration in the floor than from actual hearing because his ears were ringing so loudly.

The room fell deathly quiet. Nate risked a peek while making sure Nadia’s head was still safely tucked against his chest. What he saw made his heart skip a beat.

The Chairman stood facing away from them, arm hanging by his side with the gun still in his hand. On the floor lay Dirk Mosely, blood pooling beneath his head. His eyes were open, but lifeless, and there was a bloody hole in the center of his forehead. More blood spattered the floor all around him, spotting the uniforms of the two shocked security officers who stood in the doorway. Nate swallowed hard, hoping he wasn’t about to be sick.

“I couldn’t arrest him,” the Chairman said calmly, as if he hadn’t just shot a man in cold blood. “He was a patriot, and would have done just about anything for the good of Paxco—except spend the rest of his life in prison. If I’d tried it, he would have talked.”

Nate felt Nadia stirring against him, felt more than heard her gasp of horror when she looked up and saw what had happened.

Still eerily calm, the Chairman popped the clip from his gun and checked how many rounds were left. “I need another clip,” he told the security officers, holding out his hand without looking up at them. The two men looked at each other nervously. They’d shown no surprise at any of the secrets that had been revealed today, so they were obviously part of Mosely’s inner circle. But they were even more obviously unsettled by what they’d witnessed. They recovered quickly, however, each offering the Chairman a clip. He took both, reloading the gun and putting the spare clip in his pocket.

He nodded in what looked like approval, then snapped the clip back in.

“If this first taste of blood hasn’t brought you to your senses, Miss Lake, then come with me,” he said. “We can go destroy Paxco’s economy together.”

Without looking to see if they would follow, the Chairman shouldered his way past the two security officers and out the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

When
this day was finally, finally over, Nadia was going to collapse into a heap and have a fit of screaming hysteria. But for right now, at least, her body seemed to have run out of adrenaline, and as she gently extricated herself from Nate’s arms and rose unsteadily to her feet, she hardly seemed to feel anything at all. Just a drifty, floaty feeling of unreality, heightened by the ringing in her ears that made all other sounds seem distant. She looked down at Dirk Mosely, dead because of her, and she felt neither triumph nor guilt.

Nadia suspected she was hovering on the verge of shock, which was probably not a good thing in the long run. But for now, she was grateful for whatever it was that kept her functioning. Beside her, Nate looked a little green, and he was breathing like he’d just run a marathon. Nadia took his clammy hand in hers, giving it a squeeze. She would not soon forget how he’d shielded her with his body when he thought the Chairman was going to shoot her.

“Come on,” she said, tugging his hand so he’d follow as she picked her way around the blood that spattered the floor. “We can freak out later. Right now, it’s time to finish this thing.”

The Chairman might be giving in to her demands, but she didn’t trust him for a moment. If all he did to shut Thea down was flip a few switches, she was certain it wouldn’t be long before he’d flip them back. Somehow, she was going to have to make sure whatever he did was permanent.

Down the hall, the Chairman was standing in front of a heavy metal door with a series of electronic keypads and scanners running along its side. He put his eye to the retinal scanner, then placed his whole hand on a fingerprint scanner, and even that wasn’t enough to open the door, because even after the lights on both scanners turned green, the door was still locked. He punched in a long code on one of the keypads, but the indicator light above it remained red. The Chairman frowned and entered the code again, with the same result. He pounded on the door with his left hand in frustration.