MANHATTAN

It's over, Mercer Sinclair thought as he turned away from his plasma screen TV and staggered to his living room window. He stared out over the oddly silent Fifth Avenue at the pale, dawn-lit shadows of Central Park. We're done.

He hadn't been able to sleep so he'd turned on the TV and begun channel surfing. He'd paused when he recognized Reverend Eckert's face - that damn fool seemed to be on some channel somewhere every hour of the day and night - and stayed when he heard him rant about a sim giving birth to a half-human baby. And then he'dshown the birth.

Portero and SIRG had failed. Miserably. And worse, the sim baby was a girl, an all too human-looking girl.

What do I do now? he wondered, his gaze wandering to the squatting granite mass of the Metropolitan Museum a few blocks uptown. The markets were closed today in the US and most of Europe, and the trading day had already ended in Asia. But when the Pacific Rim markets reopened later tonight, SimGen stock would go into freefall.

Money wasn't the issue; even without SimGen he was worth more than he could spend in a dozen lifetimes. No, it was the company itself that mattered. He'd devoted his life to building SimGen. It was his child, his only family, and now the wild dogs he'd kept at bay for so long would leap upon her and tear her to pieces.

Mercer thought of the .38 caliber revolver he kept in the drawer by the bed. Maybe that would be the best way, the easiest way. Better that than -  He stopped.

What am I thinking? It'snot over! I'll fight this! Stonewall any questions, deny any and all allegations. Sims aremy property, and it will take years - decades! - before someone can say otherwise. And that someone will be the Supreme Court of the United States, because that's how far I'll take it. And I'll win that fight.

Oh, no. This is not over.