Sims

 

 

Praise for
Sims

“Wilson turns some pretty good phrases . . . [and] keeps the intrigue up nicely.”

—
The San Diego Union-Tribune

“Wilson will lose no fans with this novel and will undoubtedly gain many new ones. His latest offering is full of action and suspense that will quickly hook the reader, for elements of mystery are woven in as well. Clues and misdirection suggest a number of possiblities, but Wilson's novel is full of rewarding surprises.”

—
Booklist

“[Wilson uses] his medical background to create a memorable plot. . . . Grippingly detailed [and] credible.”

—
Kirkus Reviews
(starred review)

“
Sims
does what good a narrative should do: it provides an interesting and suspenseful story involving characters deserving of the spotlight shone upon them. And for this reviewer, at least, the novel does something equally important: it encourages the reader to
think
.”

—
The Laissez Faire Electronic Times

“F. Paul Wilson's
Sims
is . . . disquieting, and I'm glad it's only a fiction. How long it will stay that way is the disquieting part. As a timely warning of what we mustn't do, where we mustn't go, this is a must read.”

—Brian Lumley

“F. Paul Wilson is a writer's writer, and I grab anything he's written with enthusiasm.
Sims
is no different.”

—Joe R. Lansdale

 

 

ALSO BY F. PAUL WILSON

 

REPAIRMAN JACK

 

SHORT FICTION

SOFT
AND
OTHERS

THE BARRENS
AND
OTHERS

AFTERSHOCK & OTHERS

 

EDITOR

FREAK SHOW

DIAGNOSIS: TERMINAL

F.  PAUL
WILSON

 

 

 

 

 

This is a work of fiction. All the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

SIMS

Copyright © 2003 by F. Paul Wilson

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor
®
is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:

Wilson, F. Paul (Francis Paul)

Sims / F. Paul Wilson.—1st Forge ed.

   p. cm.

“A Forge book”

ISBN 978-0-7653-0551-0

1. Genetic engineering—Fiction. 2. Chimpanzees—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3573.I45695 S57 2003
813'.54—dc21

2002035248

ISBN 978-0-7653-2665-2

First Hardcover Edition: April 2003
First Tor Trade Paperback Edition: May 2010

Printed in the United States of America

0   9   8   7   6   5   4   3   2   1

I owe a debt of thanks to the following:

Daniel F. Murphy Jr., Esq., for his generous assistance and advice regarding the labor relations issues and legal procedures so vital to the plot in Parts One and Two; Coates Bateman, editor-at-large; J. R. Peter Wilson, brother and defense attorney; Mitchell Galin for early encouragement; David Auerbach, genetics maven and fellow Jill Sobule fan; Barry Rosenbush for being a believer; David Hartwell, Elizabeth Monteleone, Steven Spruill, and Al Zuckerman for the usual editorial help.

 

Sims
takes place just around the corner, timewise, in your town, your country, your world. It may seem like science fiction, but it isn't. For right now, as you read these words, someone somewhere is altering a chimpanzee's genome to make it more human.
Right now
. So it won't be too long before we all come face-to-face with the same issues challenging the characters in
Sims . . .

 

 

 

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY
SEPTEMBER 20

A good walk spoiled, Patrick Sullivan thought as he trudged toward the rough where his slicing golf ball had disappeared. Somebody had got that right.

Patrick didn't actually hate golf, but he suffered from a condition he'd come to call GADD—Golf Attention Deficit Disorder. Nine holes and he'd had it. Maybe that was because during his first nine holes he racked up more strokes than most golfers did in eighteen. But today he was playing with Ben Armstrong, CFO of the Jarman department store chain and a valued client, who, although even less skillful than Patrick on the links, seemed immune to GADD.

Maybe it was the clothes. Armstrong, a florid-faced fellow in his sixties, sporting a neat goatee the same steel-gray shade as his hair, had decked himself out in a blue-and-raspberry-striped shirt, raspberry pants, and white golf shoes. Patrick wasn't into sherbet shades; he wore a white shirt, navy slacks, and tan shoes.

Golf or not, he was having a good walk on a bright September day among the luxuriously verdant rolling hills of upper Westchester where the Beacon
Ridge club nestled its links. The air was redolent of fresh-mown grass and money.

Christ, he wanted into this place. Not so much for the golf, but because golf was such a great way to do business.

Like today. Armstrong, a club member, had asked Patrick out for a two-some. Wanted to get caught up on the upcoming negotiations with the sales-clerk union. Patrick's specialty was labor law, and though he worked both sides, lately he'd found himself billing more and more hours to the management end.

Beacon Ridge was packed with heavies like Armstrong. A goldmine of potential clients and billable hours. Patrick's firm loved billable hours—little else mattered at Payes & Hecht—and if he could tap into this mother lode . . .

A sudden screech from ahead and to his left drew his attention. His caddie was pointing at the ground. “Here, sir, here! I find! Here!”

“Good eye, Nabb,” Patrick said as he walked over.

“Yessir,” Nabb said, his head bobbing as he grinned broadly at the praise. “Good eye, good eye.”

Typical of the Beacon Ridge caddies, Nabb was an average size sim, about five-three, maybe 130 pounds; he sported a little more facial hair than most sims. Armstrong's caddie, Deek, was a bit different—beefier, and seemed taller, although that might be due to better posture. They looked like hominids yanked from the Stone Age and wrestled into the Beacon Ridge caddie uniform of lime green shirt and white pants, but they moved with a certain grace despite their slightly bowed legs.

Beacon Ridge had introduced sim caddies a couple of years ago, the first golf club in the country to do so. Caused quite a stir at the time, but the club members seemed to enjoy the status of being pioneers in the transgenic revolution. Other clubs soon followed suit, but Beacon Ridge remained famous for being the first. By now sims were practically part of the scenery around the links.

“Come on, movie star!” Armstrong called from the green. “You can do it!”

Movie star . . . on their first meeting he'd said Patrick reminded him of Axel Sommers, the latest digital heartthrob. Patrick figured Armstrong needed glasses. Sure, they both had blue eyes and slightly wavy blond hair, but Sommers looked just a little too pretty for comfort.

Patrick waved and turned to Nabb. “Let me have the five wood.”

The sim's dark brown eyes shifted between the ball nestled in the rough against a broad-leafed weed, and the green a hundred yards away atop a slope.

“Seven better, sir.”

“That five's especially made for rough”—Christ knows I'm in it enough—“and this is as rough as it gets.”

Nabb pulled out the seven and handed it to him. “Five too far, sir.”

“What makes you think you know my game?” Patrick said, trying to keep his annoyance out of his tone. He'd take golf advice from just about anyone, even a sim, but he knew his own limitations. “This is the first time you've caddied for me.”