CHAPTER 31
FOUR OF THEM
“Mr. Todd?”
Ephraim couldn’t put the call on speaker with Sophie beside him. It would be a pointless precaution, perhaps. She’d shown no surprise at being led to a U-Haul behind the club instead of a valeted BMW under its awning, so maybe nothing would faze her.
But still, Ephraim flinched. This wasn’t the real Sophie Norris calling him this time; the new call was the head of the Committee for the Oversight of Genetics and Evolvable Machines. And although Hershel Wood’s power was less limited than it seemed. Most of the world’s politics, agriculture, and policy revolved around genetics in some way, and Wood held all the keys. He wasn’t just a bureaucrat. He could make all the trouble for Ephraim he cared to make.
With one hand on the wheel and another on his Doodad, Ephraim flicked his eyes toward the Sophie clone and answered Wood as casually as he could.
“Yes?”
“This is Hershel Wood. We need to meet.”
Ephraim wondered what he’d been thinking, sending Wood his intentions. It had felt sensible before entering the club, another line of insurance. But since Wood had waited to reply until after Ephraim received his illegal goods, contact now felt dangerous.
Wood pretended to be a friend, but Ephraim wasn’t in GEM’s employ. He was a suspect with them, same as with the FBI, Interpol, who knew who else. By Ephraim’s admission, Eden had burned because he’d left it, and his brother’s clone was dead by Ephraim’s hand.
It was easy to forget that he was in trouble. But he was. Heaps and heaps of trouble, even if he claimed he’d been double-dealt.
“It turned out to be nothing. The club was only a—”
“Not over the phone,” Wood interrupted. “This line might not be secure.”
“I have another phone I can use.” Ephraim was thinking of Sophie, beside him. She had a Doodad. He’d seen it when she’d gone into her purse for lipstick, then kissed air seductively in his direction.
“You might not be secure,” Wood said.
“What do you …?” Ephraim stopped without thinking, his hand straying to his MyLife’s controls. Was someone listening? It was maddening to think so, like a ghost he couldn’t see or fight.
“I can secure a private conversation. I just need you to—”
“It’s not a good time, Director Wood.”
“We need to talk soon. Very soon. There are other parties involved.”
Ephraim frowned. By “other parties,” did Wood mean Eden? Or Fiona? He wouldn’t be specific until they were face to face and the man could enact whatever precautions he had in mind, but Ephraim couldn’t allow that. Not now. Because as things stood, this all looked terrible. Yes, he had his evidence. But the details were an accusatory finger pointing in his direction.
Sophie smiled as Ephraim looked over. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she seemed to know him. She’d already changed the radio station to land on something he liked; she’d already rolled her window up without being asked because air flow in a car always gave Ephraim a headache.
“I’m not at home,” Ephraim told his Doodad.
“I know.”
“I’m headed to Fiona’s. I told her I was coming, so I have to show up.”
Might as well play them against each other.
“No, you’re not. And no, you didn’t.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Just pull over. Pull to the side of the road.”
Ephraim looked at Sophie, who was no help.
His side mirror lit up. The car behind him had turned on its flashers; not the red and blue of the police, but GEM enforcers’ yellow and green.
“I can set up jamming equipment in the back of your truck,” Wood said. “I’d rather not go back to your place. It may be watched.”
“You’re behind me?”
“Just pull over, Mr. Todd.”
Panic crept in.
What now?
He couldn’t play Fiona and Wood against each other until he had Fiona in the loop, and he couldn’t bring her into the loop until he got Sophie home.
If he heeded Wood now, the Director would probably steal Sophie for himself, same as Fiona had stolen the MyLife.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted Ephraim’s help — but nobody wanted to help Ephraim.
The ball was temporarily in his court. For now, he held the ace. He had to keep it, then play for keeps at a time of his choosing, not Wood’s.
“No,” Ephraim said.
“I’m sorry?”
“I don’t want to pull over.”
Wood cleared his throat, obviously annoyed. “I’m not asking.”
“Do you have a warrant?”
“I thought we had an agreement.”
“We do. I’ll honor it. I have things to prove.” Ephraim looked over at Sophie, who suddenly struck him as innocent. She hadn’t asked to be created. What would they do with her, if Ephraim jumped into bed with GEM? “But I need to think before I show you what I have.”
“Do you have what I think you have?”
“Not over the phone,” Ephraim parroted. “This line might not be secure.”
And then he hung up, his heart hammering.
The Doodad buzzed immediately. He sent the call to voicemail.
It buzzed again, and he turned it off. He looked up at Sophie, then forced himself to smile when he saw her puzzled expression.
“Prank call,” he explained.
In the truck’s tall rearview, another car lit with green and yellow flashers. Then another, and another.
Four of them. If Wood only wanted to talk, why had he sent four cars?
Ephraim pressed the truck’s pedal to the floor.
But trying to flee was a joke; the U-Haul’s electric engine was as good as any but geared for torque rather than speed. The automatic transmission downshifted and attempted to peel away, but in ten seconds he’d only gained nine miles per hour. Meanwhile, the GEM cars flanked it like escorts.
“What are those cars?” Sophie asked, looking out her window.
Ephraim felt a bolt of panic, then reached out to slam Sophie back against the seat. The truck was higher than the sedans, but if she put her face to the window, they’d easily see her.
“Nobody,” he said.
“I think they want you to pull over. Cops?”
“Cops flash red and blue.” He was trying to look casual. His forehead was sweating. He could feel blood throb past the strained tendons in his neck.
“Ephraim?”
“No big deal, Sophie. We’ll be home soon.”
Ephraim could see Hershel staring up at him through his window on the truck’s left side. In the passenger seat, wearing sunglasses, his black hair parted and slicked. He stared through the lenses, then pointed. Pull over.
“Ephraim,” Sophie repeated.
“It’s just some jerks. Ignore them.”
“Ephraim!”
But she wasn’t just trying to get a response; she’d been trying to alert him. Sophie shouted as the GEM cars dropped back. Ephraim had a few honeymoon seconds between watching the side window and turning to the windshield, and then he saw the intersection ahead.
The light was red with cross-traffic in flow. Worst of all, there were four cars stopped not thirty feet ahead of them, two in Ephraim’s center lane and another in each of the lanes to the sides.
No time to scream. He didn’t shout profanity or pray to a deity. Ephraim obeyed instinct, leaned right, jerked the wheel, and dragged the truck across both lanes.
He was on the thin shoulder, one wheel skimming the edge of the curb. A bicyclist waiting at the light startled and leaped clear before the truck bumped and crushed over the abandoned bike, which was crushed by the cross traffic.
Horns blared from all sides. The truck barreled through the stream going sixty, but the oncoming traffic was thin enough to give the other motorists time to dodge and swerve.
Ephraim couldn’t evade at all; he was correcting his skid from bouncing out two lanes. A sedan swerved and jerked to a stop at the berm. Another honked, careened to the left through the turn lane, then clipped a road sign and kept right on going.
It was over before Ephraim knew what to think. His breathing came shallow and fast, eyes blurry and blinking. The horns and melee were behind them — but so were the GEM cars and all their flashing lights.
Ephraim eased up on the accelerator, willing his breath to slow.
Beside him Sophie was ramrod straight, staring at him, petrified.
“That didn’t happen,” he said, alternating his gaze between Sophie and the road. “We’ve had an easy, relaxing, uneventful ride home.”
Sophie blinked. Then she smiled as the memory evaporated.
“I just love spending time with you,” she said.