Revolution (Replica) (11 page)

“Can we use these cables to make phone calls?” Agnes asked with barely repressed excitement in her voice. Nadia supposed she still had visions of her father smuggling the five of them out of Paxco and into Synchrony, back into a life that was safe and familiar.

Shrimp gave Agnes a wary look as he handed her a mug of tar-black coffee. Agnes took it with reverence, but Nadia looked around for the cream and sugar.

“It’s possible,” Shrimp said. “But you’d have to get Maiden’s okay, and he ain’t gonna give it.”

“Why not?” Agnes asked.

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Who you gonna call?”

Agnes pressed her lips together, as if somehow not answering the question out loud might make it so Shrimp didn’t know the answer.

“You think no one’s gonna notice if a call comes in to your dad over a landline in Debasement?” He shook his head. “You call out, they can trace it like this.” He snapped his fingers. “We signed up to hide you, not protect you.” The look on his face was as apologetic as it was implacable.

Agnes nodded grimly and took a sip of her coffee. She sighed with contentment at the first taste, as if the coffee had washed away her every care. But Nadia was sure her agile mind was still mulling over the problem, trying to find a way to reach out to her father without betraying their location to Dorothy.

Nadia filled her mug to the rim with milk, but that only managed to make the coffee a couple of shades lighter. She added in three teaspoons of sugar, but even then the stuff was too strong for her taste. She couldn’t imagine how Agnes was drinking it—and
enjoying
it—black. Still, despite everything that had happened, Nadia refused to abandon her manners, so she sipped at the toxic brew and made sure her face betrayed none of her distaste.

“What is Dorothy going on about?” she asked, jerking her chin toward the TV. Dorothy’s press conference was still in progress—or more likely at this hour, was being played over and over again.

Shrimp shrugged and frowned. “Some shit about stock prices. Nothing important.”

Shrimp might not think stock prices were important—and usually they weren’t, to Basement-dwellers—but Paxco’s stock had dipped over rumors that the Replica program was defunct, and Nadia knew the assassination of Chairman Hayes had halted any recovery those stocks might have been making. The fact that Dorothy had taken over as Chairman rather than creating a Replica of the late Chairman Hayes must have made the public even more convinced that the official story—that the Replica program was not defunct and was merely in a hiatus due to technical difficulties—was a fabrication. Dorothy wouldn’t be giving a press conference about it if things were going well, and if stocks dropped low enough and there was belt-tightening to be done, you could be sure it wasn’t the Executives whose belts would be affected.

“Mind if I give a listen anyway?” Nadia asked.

“Suit yourself,” Shrimp said, making a sweeping gesture toward the living room.

Nadia expected Agnes to follow her out of the kitchen, but she stayed behind to refill her coffee cup instead. Shrimp, leaning against the kitchen counter, said something that Nadia didn’t catch, and Agnes laughed. Nadia practically tripped over her feet in surprise. Agnes, in that kitchen, talking to a gang lord’s younger brother in the heart of the Basement, looked almost … relaxed. Nadia wondered if that was because of Shrimp’s easygoing personality, or whether it was just because she was outside the view of Executive society and didn’t have to worry that her every word and gesture would be scrutinized. There was a certain sense of freedom to leaving all of that behind.

Forcing herself to take another sip of coffee, Nadia sat on the couch and turned the sound on. Dorothy’s voice instantly filled the room, and Nadia found her gut muscles clenching at the sound of it. Images of Dorothy shooting Nate’s father filled her head.

Her Pavlovian reaction to Dorothy’s voice kept Nadia from immediately absorbing what she was hearing, but she shook herself out of it and forced herself to listen to the words, rather than the voice. What she heard was far from comforting.

“This is a difficult time for all the Employees and Executives of Paxco,” Dorothy said, and she knew how to mimic earnestness to perfection. “The economic downturn resulting from the brutal murder of our late Chairman is an undeniable source of alarm, and I cannot blame investors for being wary of us in this time of unrest.”

Nadia snorted and shook her head. Of
course
investors were wary. Just a few weeks ago, no one had ever heard of Dorothy, had never had any indication that Chairman Hayes had an illegitimate daughter. Surely there were people who found it suspicious that she had come out of nowhere and then succeeded to the Chairmanship so quickly.

“Rest assured that I and your board of directors and the Paxco security department are working tirelessly to repair the damage done to our state by the Replica of Nathaniel Hayes. He will not remain at large for long, and when he is captured, our scientists will be able to examine him closely to determine what went wrong with the Replication process.”

Nadia gaped at the TV. She should have known Dorothy would pull something like this. Even before Dorothy had made an appearance, the press had been spreading rumors that Nate’s Replica was somehow flawed, that it had violent tendencies the original Nate hadn’t had. All this based on one brief loss of temper when Nate had shoved a reporter out of the way with more force than necessary. It made sense that Dorothy would take advantage of the ridiculous rumor to continue degrading Nate’s image.

“I want to reassure our customers that there are no known issues with our backup storage or scanners. We will continue to process scans and to store backup data, but we will not create another Replica until we are certain we understand what went wrong with the Replica of Nathaniel Hayes. Safety must always be our first priority.”

Dorothy sounded firm and confident, and her gaze as she stared into the cameras before her was regal. She looked every bit like a Chairman, in control of her state and with a bright future ahead of her. But though she had successfully seized the Chairmanship, her own Replica program had backed her into a corner. As long as she continued to claim it was on hiatus, Paxco’s stock crisis would continue to worsen. But the moment she admitted it was up and running, people would expect her to create a Replica of Chairman Hayes and put him back in power. If she didn’t—if she, for example, claimed that the Chairman’s backup data was damaged—people couldn’t help but begin to suspect her of foul play.

“Our state is strong and resilient,” Dorothy said, holding her chin at just the right angle to communicate pride. “There will likely be some dark times ahead. We may be forced to introduce certain austerity measures to preserve and protect our economy.” Her voice rose, filling with power and purpose. “But we will not allow these troubles to defeat us. We will show the world how resilient the people of Paxco can be! We will overcome all obstacles, and we will be great again!” She pumped a fist to emphasize her point, and everyone in the room burst into applause.

Nadia had never heard applause like that at a press conference before, but she thought it had been started by a handful of board members who were standing in the background behind Dorothy. They were cheering loudly and enthusiastically, and their excitement seemed to be contagious. Nadia had the cynical suspicion that Dorothy and those board members had choreographed the scene in advance, trying to make the news sound exciting and promising when in fact Dorothy was telling people things were going to suck for a while.

The image went still and was reduced to a small box in the upper right corner of the screen while a serious-faced reporter behind a desk looked into the camera and said, “That was the scene earlier at Paxco Headquarters.” No doubt he would soon begin an ad nauseam analysis of everything Dorothy had just said. The picture from the press conference/pep rally remained in the upper part of the screen, Dorothy’s triumphant smile immortalized. Fearing she might throw something at the TV if the reporter started rhapsodizing about Dorothy’s speech, Nadia turned the sound off once more.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nadia
wasn’t entirely sure what she’d expected of her time hiding in the Basement, but it wasn’t boredom. Shrimp informed everyone in no uncertain terms that they were not to set foot outside the building until they’d been introduced to Maiden and received his approval, but Maiden was clearly in no hurry to talk to them. He was supposedly planning to invite them to dinner at his place, but as the days passed one by one and no dinner invitation was forthcoming, Nadia began to feel more like a prisoner than a paying “guest.” The boys were having an even harder time, thanks to Dante feeling like a third wheel and thanks to his and Nate’s mutual dislike. They generally came up to Shrimp’s apartment shortly after sunset each night, though sometimes Nate and Bishop appeared noticeably later.

At least it was a comfortable captivity. Maiden might not have extended an invitation to dinner, but Shrimp did so every night. And, although it was a skill Nadia never would have expected from the brother of a notorious Basement gang lord, cooking was apparently one of Shrimp’s favorite hobbies. Every evening, Nadia and Agnes would awaken to an array of mouth-watering scents wafting from the kitchen. Nadia let Agnes have dibs on the shower, and invariably when Nadia was all dressed and ready, she’d enter the living room to find Agnes had joined Shrimp in the kitchen. She wasn’t just being social, either—it appeared Shrimp was teaching her how to cook, and that she was having fun.

Nadia enjoyed the nice meals as much as her friends, but she couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt. Shrimp always had the best ingredients—no doubt thanks to the thriving black market trade the Red Death engaged in—but she couldn’t help remembering the sights and sounds and smells of the Basement streets when he’d guided them to this building. He and the other Red Death bigwigs had a comfortable home and high-end food and extravagances like the huge TV, while their less powerful fellows lived in squalor and sold themselves body and soul to survive—and were no doubt forced to give a high percentage of their hard-earned money to Maiden’s enforcers.

Every night after dinner, Shrimp would head out to conduct Red Death “business.” No one asked him what that business might be, probably because no one really wanted to know. They would then have to face a long night in their apartments with
nothing
to do except talk or watch TV. Talking almost invariably led to bickering—they had all spent way too much time in each other’s company—so usually they watched TV instead.

As depressing as it was, Nadia couldn’t help checking the news every night. She hoped against hope to hear that her parents had been released, but of course Dorothy had no intention of letting them go, or she wouldn’t have had them arrested in the first place.

Phone service was not restored, and Dorothy’s press secretary informed the public that it had been cut off in an effort to quell unrest within the Basement. Nadia wasn’t sure how cutting off phone service was supposed to quell unrest, but then obviously Dorothy didn’t have much regard for the truth. After all, any unrest that might be occurring had happened
after
phone service had been cut off, not before.

The decline in Paxco’s stock had slowed, but not stopped, and by the weekend, Dorothy held yet another press conference.

“Thanks to the generous support of investors and foreign allies, I am happy to announce that we have begun the process of rebuilding the Paxco economy,” she said, smiling at the cameras. This time, she was wearing a conservative navy blue suit and had added a pair of glasses she surely didn’t need. For someone who wasn’t really a human being and hadn’t had to choose outfits until recently, she was doing a good job of building up an aura of authority and competence. “However, our state will not be restored to its former glory overnight, and we must do all we can to hurry that restoration along. To that end, certain nonessential services to the Basement will be temporarily halted.”

Since the government provided only food, shelter, power, and rudimentary health care to its poorest citizens, Nadia wondered what those “nonessential services” might be.

“Let me assure the working people of Paxco that these austerity measures will not affect you. You are the backbone of our society, and together, we will weather this storm and come out the other end stronger for it.”

“If you’ve made so much progress,” Nadia muttered at the TV, “then why is there a storm still to be weathered?”

But if any of the reporters at the press conference thought to question Dorothy’s assertions, those questions and answers didn’t make the news. And it soon became apparent that Dorothy considered the stupid blimps “essential,” because there was always one or two of them hovering over the Basement at night, blaring out messages.

Power outages were becoming annoyingly common. Usually they lasted only a few minutes, and Nadia wondered if Dorothy was actively ordering the outages to save money, or whether she was saving money by willfully neglecting maintenance issues. One thing she was certain of: the outages were Dorothy’s doing, not random acts of nature. And they were happening only in the Basement, not in the “respectable” parts of the city.

The news never spent much time covering anything that happened in the Basement, and they probably wouldn’t have even mentioned the phone service if it weren’t for the fact that Executives were being inconvenienced by their inability to call their black market contacts. Anything Nadia learned about the doings in the Basement came from the recaps Shrimp delivered every morning when he returned from his outings.

The news Shrimp had to share was as ominous as what they heard on the TV. Predictably, Basement-dwellers were starting to get cranky about the phone and power outages. Tempers were running short, and more than one Employee or Executive tourist had found out the hard way that despite the money they spent in the Basement, they weren’t well liked there.