WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

OCTOBER 30

Romy glanced at the clock numerals glowing on the dashboard of Patrick's BMW. Hard to believe it was quarter to three already.

Time flies when you're having fun.

Well, not fun, exactly. But it had been a good night. And she felt very good about putting those sim abusers behind bars.

She watched Patrick as he maneuvered along the winding curves of the Saw Mill River Parkway, deserted at this hour except for the single pair of headlights a couple of hundred yards behind them. He'd handled himself well tonight. And she'd been heartened by how deeply the sim bordello had shaken him.

"Tired?" she said.

"A little. How about you?"

"Not a bit." She was totally wired.

"I could perk up," he said with a grin. "That is, if you decide to take up my offer on the rooming arrangements."

She laughed. "You don't give up, do you."

After those splicer slimeballs had been carted off, and the cops had returned to Manhattan South, and SimGen had picked up the sims, they'd retrieved his car from the garage, picked up her bag, and headed for the northern suburbs. Patrick had spent the early part of the trip on the make, pitching his idea of sharing a room. Finally he seemed to have run out of gas.

Romy had to admit that a bout of sweaty, energetic sex would be perfect right now. Might take the edge off this persistent adrenaline buzz. But not with Patrick Sullivan. They'd be working too closely over the next few months. That level of intimacy in their relationship would further complicate an already complicated situation.

And her track record with relationships of any sort was downright miserable. She no sooner got close to someone than she seemed to scare them away.

Like Jeff Hogan, a bright, funny computer game designer who worked for Acclaim out on Long Island. They started going out last spring, grew close, but not close enough that Romy could tell him about Zero and the organization. He must have sensed she was keeping something from him - no doubt thought she had another guy - and one night he went so far as to follow her. Fortunately she spotted him and aborted her planned meeting with Zero. But that was it for Jeff Hogan.

"Give up?" Patrick said. "I don't know the meaning of the words."

She smiled. "If you're half this tenacious on behalf of your clients, I don't think the sims can lose." The smile faded. "Still think all sims have it cushy?"

"Not those."

"Ever hear of a globulin farm?"

"Never."

Romy said, "When you get sick, when a virus or bacterium invades your body, you fight back through your immune system. It forms proteins, immune globulins known as antibodies, to kill the invaders. That's called active immunity. But let's say you jab yourself with a needle that's infected with, say, hepatitis B or C. You could ward off infection by either of those viruses through passive immunity - by being injected with antibodies or immunoglobulins from someone already immune to them."

Patrick was getting the picture. A few months ago he'd have to ask another half dozen questions to fill in the blanks, but after what he'd seen tonight, he felt up to doing some of the filling himself.

"Let me guess: Since sims are so close to humans, some slimeball gets the bright idea of kidnapping or hijacking a bunch and infecting them with viruses and selling off the immunity of whichever ones survive."

"Exactly," Romy said. "And sometimes if a sim survives one virus, they infect it with another, and then another, until they can harvest a multiimmune globulin. The more diseases covered, the higher the price per dose."

"Ain't science grand," Patrick said.

"But it's not a one-time thing. A sim will produce those antibodies for as long as it lives. All the farmers have to do is keep it alive and healthy and they've got themselves a cash cow they can literally milk for years."

"Great," he said in a sour tone.

"But even they don't have it a tenth as bad as some of the cases I've seen. Try to imagine a sim tossed into a cage with three pit bulls."

"Aw no."

"Or two sims shoved into a pit, knives duct-taped into both hands, and bullwhipped until they fight to the death."

"Stop!"

"And some are simply tied up in a basement and tortured for days, weeks."

"Christ, Romy,please! "

She'd seen too much, too damn much over the years. Tears welled in her eyes.

"I don't know why...maybe it's because they're so unassertive, or because they have no franchise, but sims seem to bring out the very worst in the worst of us. The racists who're so desperate to feel superior to something, anything, even if it's not human; others who think God gave them the animal kingdom as their playground, to do absolutely anything with that they damn well please; and the sick souls who want to vent their psychoses on something weak and defenseless. Serial killers, teenage gangs, they've found a new target: Kill a sim for kicks. Damn them." She heard her voice break. "Damn them all to hell."

"Easy," Patrick said, reaching across, finding her hand, squeezing it. "Easy."

Romy couldn't gauge the genuineness of the gesture, whether he really felt for her or was simply pressing his case to be roommates, but she didn't pull away.

The interior of the car brightened. Romy glanced in her sideview mirror and saw that the car behind them was closer now, coming up fast. Patrick noticed it too.

"Looks like someone wants to pass," he said.

She felt the BMW decelerate as Patrick eased up on the gas to allow the other car to go by. She looked out her window at the ravine beyond the guardrail and suddenly had a premonition.

"Don't slow down!" she cried.

"Wha - ?"

"Hit the gas! Don't let it pass!"

Too late. The other car had gained too much momentum. It pulled alongside - Romy could see now that it was a big, heavy Chevy van - and then cut a hard right into the Beemer's flank.

She screamed as the impact sent a shock of terror through her chest. Patrick cried out and the car swerved as he was knocked away from the steering wheel. Metal screeched, sparks flew as the steel guardrail ripped along the outside of her door, just inches away. Patrick grabbed the wheel, trying to regain control, but then the van hit them again, harder, and this time the Beemer climbed the guardrail, straddled it for an endless instant, then toppled over.

Romy's window exploded inward, peppering her with safety glass as the car landed on its passenger side - she heard someone screaming and recognized the voice as her own. She hung upside down in her seatbelt as the Beemer rolled onto its roof, then over to the driver side where it slidbounced-rattled the rest of the way down a slope of softball-size chunks of granite. She felt as if she were trapped in some wild amusement park ride that had gone horribly wrong. Finally the car hit the bottom of the ravine and bounced back onto its wheels.

Battered, shaken, her heart pounding madly, she shook off the shock and looked at Patrick. He was a shadow slumped against the wheel - the airbag hadn't deployed. She heard him groan and thought, We're alive!

But this was no accident. Someone had tried to kill them!

And then she saw forms moving into the beam of the one remaining headlight, crouching shapes in dark jumpsuits, looking like commandos.

Realization stabbed into her brain: Already down here! Waiting for us! All planned! We were targeted to be knocked off the road at that point!

She found the door lock toggle, hit it. Locks wouldn't do much good, but Patrick's window, though cracked, was still intact. She leaned close to him.

"Don't move!" she whispered in his ear.

He gave her a groggy look. "What?"

"Keep quiet and play dead!"

She pushed his head down so it was resting against the steering wheel, then slumped herself against him and watched through narrowed lids.

Three of them, moving quickly and cautiously, squinting in the light. Must have been waiting in the dark for a while. She thought she spotted a fourth figure hanging back at the edge of the glow.

She slipped her hand into her pocketbook, searching for something, anything she might use to protect herself. Her fingers closed around a metal cylinder, twice the length of a lipstick. Oh, yes. In the confusion she'd all but forgotten about that.

"Somebody kill those lights!" said the middle figure.

"Got it."

One figure veered toward Patrick's side of the car while the other two approached Romy's. A hand snaked through her window. She steeled herself as fingers probed her throat.

"Got a pulse."

"Great. Get her arm out here. I'll shoot her up. Got that recorder ready?"

The third man was rattling Patrick's door. "Hey, it's locked. Find the switch over there."

A hand fumbled along the inside of her door. Over the first man's shoulder she saw the other lift an inoculator.

No!

She felt her fear nudging Raging Romy. Come on! she thought. Wake up! Where are you when I need you?

As soon as she heard the door locks trip open, she began spraying. Not a five- or ten-percent capsicum spray, but a concentrated stream of CS tear gas. The nearer of the two caught the full brunt of it. Clawing at his eyes, he cried out and lurched backward, knocking into his partner; Romy was moving too, pushing open her door and leaping out, arm extended, giving the inoculator man a faceful. He shouted and, arms across his face, turned and tried to run blind, but tripped and fell over the first guy.

Raging Romy was back.

"What the fuck?" she heard the third man say from Patrick's side of the car. She turned and saw him start to move around toward her.

"Run, Patrick!" she screamed. "Run now!"

Before taking her own advice, she went to work on the two bastards on the ground, using her boots to hurt them where they lived, putting all the considerable strength of her legs and much of her body behind the kicks. Raging Romy wanted to give them more, take the time to do the job right so it would be a long, long while before they were able to try something like this again, but the third man had reached the front of the car and she had to run.

  Patrick lay trembling against the steering wheel, trying to control his bladder, afraid he was going to be killed. The guy on his side of the car had just yanked the door open when all hell broke loose to Patrick's right - shouts, cries, moans, and then Romy telling him to run. The guy outside his door was moving away and so Patrick kicked it the rest of the way open and did just that.

He didn't pick a direction, he simply ran with everything he had. A quick glance over his shoulder showed no one in pursuit, and a slim figure, glints of light flashing from her glossy cleathre coat, fading into the night on the far side of the car. Romy. Thank God.

He ran on, still afraid for his life, but he had a chance now, and that left room enough in his panicked brain for questions: Who? Why? And room for shame. He was running instead of fighting. Even though he wasn't a fighter, he felt he should be back there kicking multiple butts to defend Romy. Instead, she'd taken the lead and sprung them both. What kind of a woman had he become involved with?

At least they were running in opposite directions. That would split the opposition.

He spotted a large dark splotch ahead to his right - a tiny grove of trees, tall bushes maybe - and headed for it. He could stop there, get his bearings, and then try to make it back up to the road.

As he entered the grove he had a vague impression of a shadow hugging one of the dark tree trunks immediately to his right, but he kept pushing into the foliage.

"Not so fast, little man," said a deep voice.

And then something rammed into his abdomen, a fist, plunging toward his spine, almost reaching it. As Patrick grunted in airless agony and doubled over, another fist slammed into the back of his neck, collapsing him to his knees. He retched.

"Got him!" the voice bellowed.

Through the red and black splotches flashing in his vision, Patrick was aware of a flashlight flicking on and off. A moment later he heard thumping footsteps approach.

"Ricker?" said the voice that belonged to the guy who'd opened his car door.

"Over here. Where's Hoop and Cruz?"

As Patrick's breathing eased and his head cleared, he glanced left and right: two pairs of identical black sneakers leading to black pants with elastic cuffs.

"Down. Bitch was playing possum. Maced them and took off. They're getting their eyes back but - "

"Damn fuck better! Got to catch her before she gets to the road and stops a car!"

"That might be up to me and you - she did some real damage to their balls before she left."

"Shit! All right, let's do this guy, dump him back in his car, and go after her."

Do?Panic clawed at Patrick's brain.

For the second time tonight, he felt himself grabbed by the back of his coat. This time he was hauled to his feet.

"Steady him," the big one, the one called Ricker, said as a pair of massive arms twined around Patrick's head and neck like anacondas.

"Wh-what're you doing?" he cried, although he sensed with a sick terrifying certainty what was coming.

"What the accident didn't, buddy boy," said Ricker's voice close to his ear.

Patrick writhed in their grasp and cried out his fear as he felt those arms tighten, but he was trapped and pinned and helpless as a moth about to have its wings plucked...

...and then a jarring impact, an agonized "Uhnh!" from Ricker, a startled "What the - ?" from the other, and the murderous grip loosened, the arms fell away, and something slammed against Patrick's back, knocking him face first onto the ground. He heard scuffling feet, grunted as someone's heel kicked him in the ribs, then winced as he heard a loud, wet, crunchingsmack! followed by a brief light rain of warm heavy droplets against his head and the back of his neck. After that, a heartbeat of silence, followed by the impacts of two heavy objects thudding to the ground, one on his left, another on his right. Then...

...silence.

He waited in panicked confusion, holding his breath, playing dead, praying he'd survive the night. Silence persisted. Warily he raised his head, inching it upward, spitting the dirt from his lips. To his left he saw a pair of blackclad legs and sneakered feet, only this time they were horizontal. With growing alarm he slowly rotated his head left -   - and scrambled to his feet with a startled cry when he found a bloodstained face and dead staring eyes only inches from his own.

Heart hammering, he backed away from the two still forms, the one who'd been struggling with his car door, and the bigger one, the one called Ricker, the one who'd been about to snap his neck when -  When what? What had just happened here?

He did a full, stumbling turn as he edged out of the grove, searching the shadows for something, anything that might account for the two dead men, but found only more shadows. When he reached the edge of the foliage he ran, blindly at first, but then a passing splash of light from above told him where the roadway was. He veered right and began to claw his way up the steep slope, stumbling, slipping, the rough granite tearing his pants, cutting his skin. Finally he reached the battered steel guardrail and pulled himself over.

No one else in sight. Where was Romy? God, he hoped she was okay.

Aching and bleeding, he slumped against the cold metal and tried to catch his breath.

Not in shape, he thought as he searched his pockets for his PCA. And even if he were, he wasn't in shape for a carjacking and dead bodies. He was a talker, not a fighter. He -  Shit! He'd plugged the PCA into the recharger in the car!

All right. As soon as he claimed a second wind, he was going to start running, and keep on running until a car showed up. And then he was going to stop it and have them call 911.

Lights glowed beyond the curve to his left. As a car careened into view, he rose and staggered across the shoulder toward the roadway, waving his arms. Only when he was completely exposed and vulnerable did it occur to him to wonder whether it might be friend or foe.

Moot question. The car hurtled past without even slowing.

Patrick looked down at his wrinkled, torn, bloodstained suit. I wouldn't stop for me either.

Maybe he'd be lucky and the driver would call in about a disheveled crazy looking man wandering the Saw Mill. But the way his luck was running...

He ducked and turned as he heard a noise on the slope below...moving closer. Someone climbing his way. He peeked over the guardrail and sighed with relief when he recognized her.

"Romy!" he said, rising and extending his hand. "Thank God you're safe!"

And please don't say, No thanks to you, my hero.

He helped her over the rail and noticed she wasn't even breathing hard.

"Are you all right?" she said, giving him the once-over as she straightened her coat. "Where are you bleeding from?" Was that real concern in her eyes?

"What? Oh...only a little of that's mine."

He recounted what had happened in the grove.

She glanced between him and the dark pool of the ravine. "And you didn't see who it was who saved you?"

"Not a hair, not a trace."

She nodded, looking around. "Typical."

"What's that mean?" And then he realized she didn't look the least bit shocked or worried.

"It means the organization is looking out for you."

"What organization? Those 'friends' you mentioned earlier? Who - ?"

She pivoted and held up a hand to shush him. "Hear that?"

He heard a car engine gunning in the ravine. No way that could be his. They both leaned over the rail, squinting into the dark.

"When I was hiding in the brush down there I spotted another van just like the one that drove us off the road. On my way back up here I noticed that the two guys I gassed were gone."

"You think they took the bodies with them?"

"I'll bet on it. This wasn't a couple of beered-up Teamsters. These people had a plan and they were following it by the numbers, military style."

Patrick noticed her stiffen, as if a bell had just rung. "What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing."

As the sound of the van's engine faded, Patrick stared again into the dark ravine, trying to locate his BMW, and was struck by how perfectly their "accident" had been planned. If he had trouble locating his car in the shadows below - and he had a fair idea where it should be - a passing car wouldn't have a clue.

A shudder cut through his body. He began to tremble inside.

"Don't tell me 'nothing,'" he said. "Somebody tried to kill us and - "

"They were going to shoot me up with something first...to ask me questions."

"Oh, Christ! What are we into here? Whowere they?"

"SimGen, I suspect."

"No way! With their clout in court and Congress, they don't need to hire killers."

"Who's got more to lose?"

"No, Romy, I don't buy it - I won't buy it. They're - "

She leaned close. Intensity radiated from her like heat from a reactor core. "They're hiding something, Patrick. And whatever it is, the two of us - you, me - we've touched a nerve. We've somehow threatened that secret."

"Just great," he said. "One of the largest corporations in the world has painted a bull's-eye on my back." He held up his hands and watched them shake. "Look at me - I'm a wreck."

"The shakes are normal," Romy said, holding out her own trembling hands. "Just excess adrenaline. It'll pass. How do you feel otherwise?"

"How does terrified sound?" He wasn't ashamed to admit it: He was shaken to his core. "It's not every day someone tries to kill me."

"The all-important question is: Have they scared you off?"

"Oh, they've scared me, but not off," he said, hoping he sounded a lot braver than he felt. "You see, they made a big mistake when they ruined my practice: It left me with only one client. Ican't quit."

Romy smiled at him, and he sensed genuine regard in her eyes. Somehow that made the terrors of the past few minutes almost worthwhile. Almost.

"And I'll tell you something else," he said, feeling a growing anger blunt the edge of his fear. "I'm still not convinced SimGen was behind what happened here, but just in case it was, I'm putting them on notice."

Her eyes never left his face. "How?"

"I'm sure I saw the word 'SimGen' on the side of the van that sideswiped us. How about you?"

"Come to think of it," she said, touching an index finger to her temple, "I believe I did too."

"Of course you did. We'll make sure it's in the police report, and I'm going to mention it in every interview over the next week or so. SimGen will deny it of course, but a suspicion will be implanted in the public mind. SimGen will bepraying nothing happens to us."

"I love it," she said. "Turns the tables in a wonderfully underhanded way."

"I aced Underhanded 101 and 102 in law school."

"I'll bet you did." She pulled a PCA from her coat pocket. "Time to call the cops."