MANHATTAN

SEPTEMBER 28

Romy Cadman sat at her desk in the New York branch of the Office for the Protection of Research Risks, skimming through the animal welfare report on the rat-testing protocols in Rast Corporation's psychopharmaceutical lab. The lab was testing the amphetamine potentiation effect of a number of compounds with antidepressant properties. Everything seemed to be in order.

Her phone double-rang. The British-style ring-ring meant the call was incoming on her direct line; an outside call, bypassing the switchboard. She picked up immediately.

"D-A-W," she said. If callers didn't know that meant Division of Animal Welfare, they could ask.

"Good morning, Ms. Cadman."

Romy immediately recognized Zero's deep voice on the other end. No surprise. She'd figured he'd be calling soon.

"Good morning yourself."

"You've heard, I assume."

"About the sim union thing?" What else would he be calling about. "Seems it's all people here are talking about."

"We should talk about it as well. Soon. When is good for you?"

"I was about to break for lunch anyway. I can be there in twenty minutes."

"Fine."

Where was not discussed. Romy knew.

She closed the report on her computer screen and straightened her desk, repositioning a brass paperweight inscribed withR. Cadman in large black letters; a gift from her mother years ago. Mom had wanted the engraver to use her full name but Romy had protested. She'd always hated "Romilda" and didn't want to see it every time she stepped into her office.

She ran a brush through her close-cropped dark brown hair, slipped into the jacket of her gray pants suit  - cut to show off her long slim legs and tight, firm butt - and grabbed her shoulder bag. On her way through the cubicle farm of clerks and secretaries she stopped at her boss's office and stuck her head inside.

"I'm heading out."

Milton Ware, a spry little man with bright blue eyes and a shock of white hair, looked up from his desk, then glanced at his watch.

"A little early for lunch."

"I've got some errands to do."

"When will you be back? I want to go over that Rast report with you."

"Later."

"When is 'later'?"

"After sooner. Bye."

She offered her sweetest smile and left him with the perplexed, frustrated expression that was becoming his trademark when dealing with her. Milt was one of the world's most uptight men, always worried about his performance rating. He needed to lighten up.

Really, what did either of them have to worry about? OPRR was a division of NIH. All federal money. Didn't Milt know how hard it was to lose a federal job, especially one that no sane person would want?

Romy had been ready to quit not too long ago. Sims had always offended her. Not the creatures themselves, but the very concept of a recombinant species of primates created to be slaves. She'd waited year after year for legislation to address the situation - if not outlaw them, then place sims under the aegis of OPRR's Division of Animal Welfare. The original classification of sims as somewhere between animal and human had blocked her division from having any say in how they were treated. Bills to change that had been introduced in committees in both houses of Congress over the years but not a single damn one had ever reached the floor for a vote.

She'd been typing up a scathing letter of resignation when she received a call, just like today, and first heard that deep voice on the other end of the line. It suggested that she might feel better about her job if she accepted an opportunity to moonlight in a related field. Intrigued, she'd agreed to a meeting. Turned out to be the best move she'd ever made.

Down at street level, Romy crossed Federal Plaza at a relaxed pace, enjoying the admiring stares from the other government drones. She worked hard on her body, and not simply for looks. She needed top fitness for her ballet classes. Not that she'd ever perform in public. The dancing itself was what pleased her. The resultant grace, coordination, and body tone were happy bonuses.

She glanced briefly at the graceful spire of the new World Trade Center, finally completed after so many years of squabbling over its design, and turned uptown, stretching her long legs as she strolled Broadway for a couple of blocks, then turned left onto Worth Street. She stopped before the soaped-up windows of an empty storefront; ideograms identifying the previous owner, a Taiwanese toy distributor, still graced the windows. Romy pulled out a key, unlocked the door, and entered.

The dust on the floor was tracked with footprints - her own and an indeterminate number of others.

Which ones are Zero's? she wondered. Or does he have a private entrance?

She strode to the rear and unlocked the door to the basement. This was the part she didn't like. Had to be rats down there. She'd never seen one, but that meant nothing. She'd seen plenty of their clean, docile, many-times-removed albino cousins, the lab rat. Those she didn't mind, felt sorry for most of them, actually. But she was not at all anxious to meet a Norwegian brown in its natural habitat. She'd handle the situation if it arose, but she'd rather not have to.

The basement was a dusty, dim-lit space with water dripping in one of the dark corners. A long folding table stretched across the far end. Zero sat behind it. Romy had never arrived before him, so she assumed he called her from here. Back-lit by a low-watt incandescent bulb that reduced him to a silhouette, he was dressed as usual in a bulky turtleneck sweater, a knit watch cap pulled low to his eyebrows, dark glasses, and a scarf wrapped around his lower face all the way up to and over his nose. She'd gauged his height at around six-two, and despite those broad shoulders he appeared to be thin.

She'd almost bolted on her first visit. She'd been anxious - no, make that dry-mouthed, heart- pounding, what-the-hell-have-I-got-myself-intoterrified - but his calm, soothing voice had eased her jangled nerves. And just when she'd begun to relax, he'd jarred her with how much he knew about her: her BS in Biology from Georgetown, her doctorate in Anthropology from UCLA, the intense lobbying she had done for protective legislation for the sims, the furious letters to the editor she'd written, even the fact that she was on the verge of quitting OPRR.

But then he'd really floored her by revealing what he knew about her wild youth - the arrests for DWI, the shoplifting and assault-and-battery convictions, the month she'd spent institutionalized. He also knew how the doctors had cured her...or thought they had.

How had he found out? Juvenile court records were supposed to be sealed, and medical records were supposed to be privileged.

But Zero didn't care about her past. He was looking to the future and he offered her a way to work for her cause,their cause, behind the scenes. He said he had the money, now he needed the people.

For Romy it had been a dream come true, but she'd hesitated. Zero knew all about her, but what did she know about him? And why all this melodrama with the cellar and the hidden face and the corny code name?

Necessary, he'd told her. Absolutely necessary.

Okay, she could handle that - for a while. But one thing she couldn't handle was terrorism. She told him she wasn't going to help blow up office buildings or shoot up SimGen trucks or any of that stuff.

Not that she had qualms about destroying SimGen real estate. She was simply afraid that a certain hidden part of her would enjoy it so much she wouldn't be able to stop.

Zero told her then that the whole idea behind his organization was to wage war against SimGen and its allies in the government without their ever realizing a war was on. That was why their organization would have no name, no logo, would write no letters, make no bragging phone calls. Its style would be covert; its field of battle would be the interstices - infiltrating, instigating, creating a fifth column in society, within the company itself. Whatever it did to sabotage SimGen's plans and operations would appear to be random or, ideally, accidental.

The ultimate goal? Shut down the sim pipeline by making sims unprofitable for both the lessor and the lessee. Wake up the world and turn it against anything fashioned by slave labor, even if the slaves weren't human.

Sign me up, she'd said.

Excellent.

Then Zero had asked her why.

Good question. Romy couldn't say exactly. She wasn't trying to make up for some past failings, had no hokey memories of an animal she'd mistreated as a child or a beloved pet who'd died because of her neglect or carelessness.

It was wrong, she'd said. As wrong as wrong could be. A stain on humanity that needed to be scrubbed away. How could she describe how every fiber of her being howled at the shame, the disgrace of it?

Fair enough, Zero had said.

He wanted her to stay in OPRR. Her position in the Division of Animal welfare would explain her repeated presence in areas sensitive to the cause. She might not have a legal right to be there, but as a representative of a government organization - an overzealous representative, perhaps, but a representative nonetheless - she'd have a plausible excuse.

That had been two years ago. Gradually, as she'd proved herself, she'd been allowed to learn more and more about the organization. First off, it was bigger than she'd imagined, and well financed. She knew only a few of its income sources - one of them had surprised the hell out of her - but the source of the bulk of Zero's money remained a mystery.

So did Zero. Romy had done her damnedest to pierce his veil of secrecy. She knew from his voice - he didn't use a distorter to disguise it - and from glimpses of pale skin at his throat and between his gloves and cuffs that he was a white male. But his age was indeterminate; twenty, thirty, forty - it was a guess.

One thing she knew for certain: He was intimately connected to SimGen.

He possessed information about the company only an insider could know.

As Romy slipped into the folding chair opposite Zero, she noticed a slim briefcase on the table between them.

"Two questions," she said. "First: Don't you think it's about time I saw your face?"

She was used to the mask by now, but that didn't lessen her frustration. Her early awe had given way to admiration, and each encounter increased her need to see the face of this remarkable man.

"Not until SimGen stops producing sims."

"Somebody in the organization must know who you are. Why not me?"

He shook his muffled head. "No one knows. It wouldn't be good for the organization."

"Why not?"

"It might prove...disruptive."

"Disruptive? How - ?"

"Next question," he said. "Which will be the fourth, by the way."

Romy sighed. She'd have to wait. "All right. Did we instigate this sim union thing?"

"No."

"Think it's legit?"

"I fear not."

"Well, doesn't matter anyway. Legit or not, there's not a chance in the world a sim union will happen."

"I agree. But I don't want a circus, and I don't want a shyster collecting donations from sympathetic people and then disappearing with the cash. It will set a terrible precedent and very likely undermine support for a legitimate case when it arises."

"Do weknow he's a shyster?"

"No, but I've researched him and find nothing that leads me to believe he has the sims' best interests at heart."

"Who is he?" Romy asked, liking this less and less. "And where on earth did they find him? Attorney World?"

Zero lifted the briefcase lid and removed an eight-by-ten glossy color photo. He handed it to Romy. "Patrick Sullivan."

She saw the head and shoulders of a decent-looking guy - not a hottie, but not bad - in his mid-thirties with wavy blond hair and bright blue eyes. But he was an attorney, a member of that vast slick crew using the letter of the law to circumvent its spirit.

"When was this taken?"

"Two days ago." She gave him a questioning look and he added, "Part of the backgrounding."

She repressed a chill, knowing Zero most likely had had people on her trail, photographing her before he'd made contact.

"He's a ruthless negotiator, willing and able to go for the jugular, with no sign of regret afterward."

"That's good, isn't it? I mean, as long as he brings that to the sim case."

"So one would think. But what disturbs me is his apparent lack of any guiding principles. He'll represent a union this week, management next, and be an equally passionate advocate for both. His voter registration says he's an independent. A string of women have passed through his life with no lasting relationships. No pets. He subscribes to law journals, news magazines, andPenthouse . He has never given a dime to charity."

"So Patrick Sullivan is a guy with no passions and no commitments. Doesn't sound like a man who takes up a cause."

"Not unless it pays well."

"Probably has the ethics ofE. coli ." Romy could see why Zero was concerned. "What do we do?"

"We don't interfere - at least not yet. Just as great literature can be created by an author writing simply to pay his rent, great good can sometimes be accomplished by people with less than exalted motivations. This Patrick Sullivan may simply be trying to turn a buck or looking to garner some cheap publicity. If that's his goal, we'll follow the progress of the case and see if we can turn things to our advantage along the way."

"And if he's an out-and-out crook?"

"We'll be keeping a close watch on him. At the first sign of any funny business, we move."

"Move how?"

"I'm not sure..."

The remark disturbed her. This was the first time she'd ever detected uncertainty in Zero.

"Something else I wanted to tell you," he said. "You'll be receiving notice soon that OPRR has succeeded in obtaining a court order allowing it to inspect the SimGen facility."

Stunned, Romy could only sit and stare.

"Something wrong?"

"How...how did you managethat ? We've been trying foryears to get a look in there."

"Vee haf vays," he said in a bad German accent, and she could imagine a smile behind the protective layers.

"No, seriously. How - ?"

"By employing the same tactics that SimGen has used to stall the inspection: bribery, cajoling, intimidation, the whole nine yards."

Romy frowned. "Is that the way we want to be?"

"It's the way we have to be. And even then it was pure luck that the petition came before a judge who was retiring and didn't give a damn about whatever pressure SimGen and its pet politicos were bringing to bear. He said to hell with it and signed the order."

"This is wonderful." Her admiration for Zero climbed to a new high.

"It's a start. The order allows a one-time inspection of the entire research facility."

"No follow-up visits?"

Zero shook his head. "Sorry. But at least it's a foot in the door. We've pierced their armor - now we get a chance to look into the SimGen abyss." He slid the briefcase on the table closer to her. "Take this with you. It contains various miniature spycams. Use them on your inspection tour, especially in the basic research facility. Be sure to ask for a full explanation of their security procedures - because you're interested in how well the sims are protected, of course."

"Of course. And who knows? Maybe I'll get a face-to-face with the Sinclair brothers."

"Don't count on it. But even if you do, prepare to be unimpressed."

Another shock. "You've met them?"

"Yes. A number of times."

"Then theyknow you?"

"Yes...and no."

"I don't get it. What - ?"

He raised his gloved hand, palm out: a stop sign. "We can't get into that now."

"When?"

"Maybe never." Zero rose and extended his hand across the table. "Good luck."

Romy shook his hand, peering closely at him, thinking: He knows the Sinclair brothers. Who is he? I'vegot to find out.