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"I'm heading for the sky port said Jake. "I'll contact you from there, Doc."
ONE BOOTED FOOT resting on his suitcase, Jake was using a sky-port vidphone.
"Is there any way to find out?" he was asking Barry
Zangerly.
Their client was sitting in a wicker chair beside his hospital bed today,
looking somewhat better. "Alicia never mentioned anything like that," he said.
"Why would they have built an android dupe of her?"
"Number of reasons--security, publicity," said Jake, "chicanery."
"You're implying that Mechanix is involved--her father, probably."
"Yeah, but it's possible Alicia never knew about the sim. Her father and other
Mechanix execs sure must, though."
"This android--what makes you think one exists?"
"I've been through two separate bits of video footage of the thing," he
answered. "Can you determine if--"
i!
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"What sort of footage do you mean? Are you sure it wasn't actually
Alicia herself you saw?"
' "i'm sure."
"What's going on? You seem to be calling from a sky port Do you know where she
is, Cardigan?"
1'
Jake suggested, "Let me ask the questions for a spell. Can you
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, find out if Mechanix did build such a simulacrum? And if they i i did, what
uses it's been put to of late?"
{
"I suppose Roger can help on that. Could you, though, please,
tell me what exactly--"
"Not just yet." Jake hung up and grabbed his suitcase.
The Topeka Complex flight was boarding in seven minutes.
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ROGER ZANGERLY WAS sitting at his desk in his office at Mechanix
International. "Yes, yes, trust me," he said to the vidphone. "I am calling
you back on my tap-proof phone. Now suppose you tell me why
I'm going through all this rigamarole?"
On the phone screen Barry said, "I want to ask you something."
"If it's about your girlfriend, I have already told you every single damn
thing that I--"
"Is there an android simulacrum of Alicia?"
His brother cocked his head to the left, then started laughing. "Don't tell me
you suspect that you've been living with an andy all these months?"
"I'm serious, Rug. And, whatever you may think, I'm not loony."
"An android dupe?"
"That's right. Was one ever built at Mechanix?"
"Hell, I don't think so," said Roger. "Mechanix has, now and then, built
special androids, sure. For, you know, celebrities, politicians and the like.
As I recall, there's even one of Owen Bower that they used to send out to make
speeches at sales meetings in the hinterlands.
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But it's been in mothballs for years."
"What about Alicia?"
"Tell me what exactly put this notion in your head?" "Cardigan wanted to know
if there is such a thing." "Why? What the hell does he suspect?" "He didn't
tell me this, but I think--"
"You're awfully excited, even though you don't know for certain what the hell
is supposed to be going on."
"I've done a little thinking since I talked to Cardigan," he said.
"If they wanted to give the impression that Alicia has simply run off, they
could use an android for that. It would be a damn good way to spread a false
trail."
"Unlikely. Because why would anyone want to--"
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"Listen, Rug, can you, as a favor, look into this? I'd ask Dad,
but he's considerably more devoted to Mechanix. He'd figure this to be a
betrayal of his loyalty to the firm." "Whereas I, sneak and cheat that I am--"
"You're not as narrow as Dad can be at times." Roger sat back. "Why, that's
almost a compliment." "This is important."
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"Okay, you sound delirious to me," Roger told him. "But I'll do some sly
snooping around for you."
"As fast as you can."
"As fast as I can without putting my backside on the line." "I
appreciate this, Rug." "What are brothers for?"
REDHAIRED SAM TRINITY, clad only in his underwear, hefted the second metal
case up onto the wide oval bed and smiled a thin smile. "You look bored,
sweet. Are you bored? You sure look it."
The naked girl sitting on the opposite side of the wide oval bed shook her
head.
"You can talk, can't you?" asked Trinity as he opened the second case with his
chrome plated right hand. "Hell, I know you can talk, So when
I ask you a question, I want you to respond.
Are you bored? I wanted to know if you were bored, sweet."
"No, sir."
"No, sir, what?"
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"I'm not bored."
He smiled again. "Don't you remember my name? I told you my name, sweet. Don't
you remember it?"
"Sam," she answered very softly.
"Sam. That's right. My name is Sam." Reaching into the open case, he selected
another artificial hand and held it up for her to see. "Do you like this one?"
"Yes, Sam."
"Give me an opinion."
"It's nice."
"It is nice," agreed the OCO agent, touching the hand with the forefinger of
his real hand, stroking it briefly. "This particular prosthetic device is the
one I attach when I'm doing an interrogation.
Do you know what an interrogation is?"
The naked girl nodded. "Yes, Sam."
"Tell me then, sweet, make conversation. What is an interrogation?"
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"When you ask somebody questions."
"That's right, good," he said. "This particular hand can administer fairly
persuasive electric shocks. So that if I were to replace my present hand with
this one and then touch you in certain places, you'd find it extremely
painful. So painful, sweet, that you'd scream and cry and then you'd beg me to
let you tell me every single damn thing you knew. Would you like me to give
you a demonstration of how it works?
"No, Sam."
"No?" He carefully arranged the hand on the bed, in line with the eight other
electronic hands that were already on display there. "What sort of whore are
you? They told me you were the sort of whore who'd do anything. Isn't that
true, sweet? If I wanted to caress you with this particular hand of mine,
wouldn't you go along? Would you make me call up your pimp and ask for my
money back?"
"I'd go along, Sam."
"That's better." He reached into the second case for another of his hands to
show her. "Actually, sweet, all I want to do right now is give you a look. You
are enjoying this display, aren't you?"
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"Yes, Sam."
"Yes, Sam, what?"
"Yes, Sam, I'm enjoying it." "Very much?" "Yes, very much."
"Good, because it isn't enough that I have a good time with the whore I
hire for the night. No, I want my whore for the night to have a good time,
too." "I am."
"You're what?"
"I'm having a good time."
"Why are you shivering then?"
"Well, it's a little chilly here in your bedroom." "Is it.9 I happen to like
it this way. Don't you?" "Yes, Sam."
"Now this hand here has a lazgun built it," he explained,
holding it up. "It looks, however, like just a regular everyday hand.
It resembles, in fact, the hand I lost in the line of duty seven years ago.
But there's a lazgun built into this finger. I can use this hand to kill
anyone I want. It always surprises them, they never expect it.
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Because it looks so much like a real hand. It would surprise you, wouldn't
it?"
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"No, Sam."
"It wouldn't surprise you, sweet? Why wouldn't it surprise you?"
"Because you just showed it to me and I'd be expecting it," the naked girl
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