Replica

The security officers and his bodyguard tried to hurry Nate along, but he couldn’t help stopping a moment, frozen in shock at the ferocity of the crowd, at their snarling anger, at their dismissal of him as a human being. “I am a person,” he wanted to shout at the crowd. Not that he could shout loudly enough to be heard over this roar, or that anyone would listen to him if he did.

The snippets he’d seen on the news had clued him in to the fact that the general public was wary and suspicious of Replicas, as had the protest outside the Fortress, but he’d never expected this level of hostility.

“Get down!” Fischer, suddenly yelled, pouncing on Nate’s back and knocking him to the ground.

Something zipped past his head and splatted on the open door of the limo. It was just an egg, not a deadly weapon, but the throwing of that single egg seemed to flip a switch. Until then, the security officers had been calmly controlling the crowd, holding them back but not ordering them to disperse. Now, they reached for their pepper spray. The egg thrower was hauled over the barricade as the others at the front of the line tried to retreat out of reach of the spray. One of the security officers started whaling on the egg thrower with his baton.

“No!” Nate yelled as he was hauled bodily to his feet.

The crowd was screaming now, placards dropping as those closest to the front saw the threat and tried to run. But those in the back didn’t know what was happening and kept trying to press forward, making retreat impossible as the security officers blasted pepper spray indiscriminately, not caring that the crowd was now trying to disperse. Those trapped between the officers and the wall of people behind them started fighting back because there was nothing else they could do. The egg thrower was curled up in fetal position, trying desperately to protect his head, but the security officer kept hitting him.

“Stop them!” Nate yelled again, but no one was listening to him. When he tried to move toward the melee, security officers grabbed each of his arms and hauled him forward, while Fischer grabbed hold of his collar and shoved on the small of his back for good measure.

Ignoring his repeated protests—and the screams of the crowd behind them—the officers forced Nate through the doorway and into Paxco Headquarters.

* * *

The interior of the Empire State Building had been almost entirely gutted when it had become Paxco Headquarters, but the architects had done their best to preserve the art deco lobby with its stunning ceiling mural and intricate glasswork. None of which was visible from the Chairman’s entrance, which sported a functional and ultramodern lobby with enough security measures to withstand the Apocalypse. The glass doors of the entrance were bulletproof, so thick that when they closed, the screaming and shouting from the riot was muted to almost nothing. No one inside seemed particularly alarmed at what was occurring on their doorstep, although a few people did look at Nate with open curiosity as Fischer and the security officers frog-marched him to the elevators. Adrenaline and horror had fueled him when he’d seen the start of the riot, but now that the immediate crisis had passed—at least for him if not the poor bastards outside—the adrenaline faded and his bruised and aching body shouted its own protests. The security officers seemed to sense his capitulation, and their hands dropped from his arms, but Fischer still had a hand on his back, right on one of his worst bruises.

“Let go of me,” he said in what he hoped was a level, rational-sounding tone. “I’m not going to try to go back out there.”

Fischer’s hand dropped away, but Nate was sure all three of his escorts were on high alert for any sign he was about to make a break for it.

If he thought running back out there and screaming for the security officers to stop would help the situation, he might have tried it. But somehow when that single egg was tossed, both the crowd and the security officers holding them back had lost their powers of reason and self-control. Nate had never seen anything like that before, and he hoped he never saw it again.

His security escorts waited until Nate and Fischer were safely in the elevator before walking away. Nate supposed they were going to join the fray, assuming it wasn’t all over by now. He hoped no one had been seriously hurt.

To his surprise, Nate found that there was a slight tremor in his hands as he straightened his jacket and tugged on his cuffs. All that hatred, all that violence, was because of him. Because he wasn’t really Nate Hayes, no matter how much he felt like it. He was a Replica, an artificial human being. How could he blame the people of Paxco for being horrified at what he was?

Nadia accepted him because she knew him, because she could talk to him and see that he was still the same person. She could be lulled into almost believing he was the original Nate Hayes because the illusion of the Replica was so powerful. The same could not be said of the faceless mob. Maybe his father wasn’t just being an opportunistic bastard when he wanted Nate to do this commercial. Maybe it was damned important that the public be more exposed to him so they could come to accept him.

“Seems hypocritical to me,” said Fischer, staring up at the numbers above the door instead of looking at Nate, “that people who depend on Paxco for their livelihoods are out there demonstrating against Replicas. Ungrateful bastards have to know Replica technology is our number one source of revenue. Do away with Replicas, most of them would be out of a job, maybe even out on the street.”

Nate rarely paid much attention to his bodyguards unless they did something to annoy him. Hell, he didn’t even know what Fischer’s first name was, had never bothered to ask. It humbled him that the usually taciturn man was trying to take some of the sting out of what had just happened.

“Yeah,” Nate said, though he wasn’t sure he agreed with Fischer’s point. Yes, the Replica technology was an enormous revenue stream and provided thousands upon thousands of people with jobs and salaries and homes. But it was a very unsettling technology, and the morality of its use was far from clear even in his own mind. But if Fischer was going to be nice to him …

Nate cleared his throat. “Look, I should have just let you get me out of there without throwing a tantrum like I did. Sorry I was a dick.”

Fischer kept looking at the lighted numbers. “It’s all right. I’m used to it.”

He said it completely deadpan, not a hint of amusement in his eyes or voice, but since Nate was 99 percent sure he was kidding, he laughed. Which his body instantly told him was a bad idea.

Fischer finally tore his eyes away from the floor numbers. “Are you hurt, sir?” he asked in concern.

“I’m fine,” Nate assured him, forcing a tight smile as he waited for the pain to fade.

Fischer looked skeptical, but the elevator had arrived at their floor, and the doors slid open.

* * *

Nadia drifted slowly back to her chair, staring at Dante—or perhaps she needed to mentally start calling him Sandoval—reshuffling the puzzle pieces in her head and trying to put them together. She wasn’t having a whole lot of success.

“You work for Dirk Mosely,” she said, speaking slowly as she eased into her chair. “You carried a message to me from Kurt Bishop. And Bishop isn’t rotting at Riker’s Island as we speak?”

Dante shook his head. “Not unless something drastic has happened that I haven’t heard about.” He crossed his arms over his chest in a gesture that looked almost defensive. Nadia hadn’t unraveled the riddle yet, but one thing she felt certain of: Dante was not supposed to be telling her any of this.

Unfortunately, now that he’d dropped his bombshell, he seemed reluctant to volunteer any more information. However, Nadia had no qualms about dragging it out of him. She wanted to spit out questions in rapid fire and shake the answers out of him, but she forced herself to take it slow. The last thing she wanted was to make him clam up again.

“Okay, fine,” she said as she settled on question number one. “If you’ve been in contact with Bishop, then why haven’t you told your boss?”

Dante reached up and rubbed at his eyes. “I can’t believe I opened my mouth.”

“Well, you did.” Nadia couldn’t make sense of the emotions roiling through her any more than she could make sense of the puzzle Dante presented. She was excited at the prospect of finally getting some answers, and yet there was also a good deal of dread about what those answers might be. And then there was the frightened, cautious, maybe even paranoid part of her that whispered this all had to be some kind of an elaborate trap, set by Mosely to trick her into revealing every scrap of information she’d kept secret.

Dante huffed out a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. “Right. But I need you to promise me something first.”

She understood his caution, but it was far too late for it. “We both know I’d promise you my firstborn child if