There's Only One Quantum (9 page)

Eight.

Syngenetics is the world’s largest synthetics company, employing over 270,000 experts in synthetic genesis with one single-minded intent: to perfect human potential. Over the past four decades, Syngenetics was the first to successfully replicate every organ in the human body. As a result, organ donors, waiting lists, and needless loss of life, are things of the past. At Syngenetics, nothing is artificial; it’s real, it’s natural—it’s you. We create an identical copy of your heart, your lungs, your kidneys, your liver, your stomach. Because the organ is made from your own tissue, we have virtually eliminated the risk of rejection. At Syngenetics, we are proud to be the first synthetic genetics corporation endorsed by the Vatican. For the past eleven years, we have been honored to have the Archbishop of Zurich on our board of directors. At Syngenetics, we don’t play God; we are an instrument
of
God. As of the first of this year, Syngenetics transplants are now covered by 90% of the world’s top healthcare plans...

Ms. Hunter prepared the information in the form of a dossier.

Her name was Susie Blanchard. She was from a little Midwestern town called Brooklyn Falls. Age twenty-seven. Actress. Mostly commercials and bit parts in low-budget horror flicks. She went by the name of Susie Blackwell. She lived in the outskirts of the city, in a moderate priced, third-story condo unit on Lord Bigsby Way. Formerly an industrial site, the area—officially Kempton, though unofficially considered an outlying neighborood of Logantown—was newly gentrified having received a complete facelift by the state. She had never lived on Mars. She relied on relays to give the impression her vid-phone calls were beaming in from the red planet.

“Watch this,” Ms. Hunter said, typing away on her CRT.

Coe watched as the title screen of a Quantum training video appeared on her monitor.

There’s Only One...

The Quantum Corporation Presents...

“What Is A Conflict of Interest?”

With her perfectly manicured hand, Ms. Hunter skipped through scenes of various actors portraying fictitious Quantum employees and attorneys, vendors, clients, and assorted Quantum business partners. “Here we go,” she said, stopping when she was 7:37 into the training video.

A familiar face appeared on screen. Her dark hair was shorter, and she was slightly younger, but there was no mistaking it: it was Janeiro—at least the woman he’d known as Janeiro. She was portraying a customer service specialist known only as Ms. Brown. She was being tempted with symphony tickets by a Quantum client as reward for a successful business transaction.

“Is that her?” Ms. Hunter asked.

“Yes.”

“Why are you interested in her?” she asked, and Coe thought the tone in the way which she asked seemed almost wistful.

“She’s part of it,” he said.

“Part of
it
? Part of what?”

“Part of you, me, Revis, Quantum—everything,” he said.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Coe turned slowly to her. She was lovely—you could make the argument she was perfect. He wanted to scoop her up in his arms and run away with her. On screen, the actress formerly known as Janeiro, was being terminated for accepting the tickets—and a vacation from the gracious client.

He grasped her by the shoulders and said, “When this is all over, we should go away.”

“Away?” she asked. “Where? Wait...When what’s all over?”

“Something’s wrong,” he said. “With this corporation...with Quantum. There’s something—I don’t know—nefarious about it. It’s corrupt—”

“You mustn’t say that!” she said, and turned away from him. “If they hear you say that, they’ll—”

“If who hears me say that?”

“You mustn’t say.”

Her back was to him. She was facing the blue cloth of the cubicle wall. He placed his hand on her shoulder.

“Not here,” she said. “Not so close...not here.”

He removed his hand from her shoulder and said, “Do you have the street address for Susie Blanchard?”

She nodded toward a slip of paper on her desk. He picked it up, folded it, and placed it inside his suit coat. Ms. Hunter did not move.

He turned and walked away.

Coe signed out a hovercar. It was remarkably easy to use; except for takeoff and landing, it handled just like a car, with an accelerator and brake, a steering wheel, turn signals. He parked it atop the hoverpad on the rooftop to Susie Blanchard’s condominium.

He waited in the lobby of the building, sitting in a circle of chairs and reading the newspaper on a reader. There was a small article about Revis in
The Intelligencer
, a short blurb that recounted the details of the prior article—save for a link to his obituary. Coe was about to click the link when he spied Janeiro—Susie Blanchard—stroll across the marble floor to the wall of mailboxes where she proceeded to go through the day’s offering of bills and junk mailers.

He watched her over the top of the reader, and when she had properly sorted her mail and deposited the junk in the waste basket, Coe stood and followed her. As she entered the elevator, Coe placed his hand inside the doors and stopped them from closing. She was slow to recognize him. It wasn’t until he’d said, “You’re a long way from the red planet, Janeiro,” did she react at all. She moved slightly away from him, hugged the wall.

“Have you ever even been there?”

“What do you want?” she asked. There was a detectable nervous lilt in her voice.

“I want to know what it’s about?” he said.

“Look,” she said. “I feel horrible I did that to you. Okay? It was just a job...an acting job. Work, you know? It was work. Who’s anyone to turn down work nowadays?”

“Who hired you? Quantum?”

“Where you work?”

“Yes.”

“That’s fucking crazy. Why would they—”

He grabbed her by the arm.

“Hey—”

“Who hired you?” He realized as he held her arm—touched her—that he would have given anything to do so when he thought she was millions of miles away. He relented his grip. “Who hired you?”

She rubbed her arm. “I never took you for a brute.”

The elevator opened. She stared at him.

“Are you going to allow me to leave?” she asked.

“Let’s go to your apt,” he said.

She walked slowly down the hallway, Coe walking a half-step behind. As they approached one unit, a door opened and an old woman exited. She smiled when she recognized Janeiro.

“Hello, Suzy-Q,” she said.

Janeiro managed a smile and said, “Hello, Mrs. Martin.”

The woman looked to Coe. He forced a smile. She then turned back to her door and locked it. Coe and Janeiro continued walking for several feet. Janeiro stopped suddenly. “Mrs. Martin!” she cried.

Coe tensed.

The old woman turned to them, suddenly alarmed.

“It’s raining out, Mrs. Martin,” she said. “Don’t forget your umbrella.”

The woman thanked her and made a spectacle of re-entering her apt. Coe and Janeiro continued to a door marked 710. She swiped her access card and the door opened.

“Ah, yes,” Coe said, upon entering. “Your Martian apt. Looks bigger on vid phone.”

“What is this?” she asked. “What are you planning to do to me?”

He walked around the living room. Paused to scan over a shelf of books, to run his hand over a marble bookend. It was cold to the touch. “Relax. I’m not interested in you.”

Her features softened. Coe detected what he thought could almost be mistaken for disappointment.

“What do you want?”

“I already told you,” he said, sitting down on a divan where he’d once watched her masturbate on vid phone. “I want to know who hired you.”

“I’ve been sworn to secrecy. It was part of the contract.”

“You’ve been paid?”

She nodded. “They weren’t happy about the job ending, but sometimes shit just happens.”

“You fucked with my life,” he said. “I’ve gotten myself into a jam because of you.”

“I told you I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone’s feelings would get hurt. They told me it was just an acting job—a goof. It wasn’t supposed to get so serious, so intense.”

“You played your role well,” he said.

“Thank you,” she said and briefly smiled before she seemed to realize there was no praise in the compliment.

“So a company hired you. Did you audition?”

“No. They—they had used me before—”

“Quantum.”

“Why do you keep fucking saying that? I’ve never worked for them—”

“I saw you in a Quantum training video.”

“I did those for Green Wall—”

“Who’s Green Wall?” he asked.

“A production company—”

“They hired you to fuck with me.”

“They hired me to portray a character.”

“Why me?”

“They said you would be calling me on a certain day at a certain time on a dedicated line they had installed here—I’m not even supposed to be saying this much.”

He sat next to her, held her arms by her wrists. “They knew I would call you? They knew about the mistake—”

“You’re hurting me,” she said.

He let go of her arms. “There was no data entry mistake,” he said. “I thought I was the one playing Quantum...but they were playing me the whole time.”

“What does this have to do with them?

“Where do I find Green Wall?”

“You’re not going to contact them, are you?”

“I want to know why they chose me,” he said.

“Maybe it was just a joke,” she said, “an elaborate prank—”

He stood and looked down at her. It was like he had fallen in love with a character in a movie. “They gave you a bio on your character, too, didn’t they?”

She nodded. Her eyes glistened with tears.

“They created a character, a woman, they knew I wouldn’t—couldn’t—resist. Someone has done their homework on me...”

“I started to like you,” she said. “I honestly did. You’re sweet, Scotty. I started to—”

“Don’t say it,” he said.

“I had feelings for you, I did. It wasn’t all an act. I started to—”

“Your character did,” he said, moving toward the door. “Not you, Susie Blanchard; Janeiro did. You just got lost in your role.”

“Do you think you’re in danger?”

“One man’s already dead,” he said, turning the door knob.

“Am I in danger?” she asked.

He left her apt without answering.

He picked up on the tail as he left the condominium. Two hovercars. They stayed back off of him by maybe one hundred yards. There wasn’t much hover traffic; the cost of the machines—not to mention the fees, licensing, cost to maintain, and limited availability of hoverpads—made it still more of a rich man’s plaything. He decreased altitude and descended from the rooftops so that he was following just a few hundred feet above the street-level traffic, but still high enough to avoid light poles and power lines. His followers did the same. He called up Ms. Hunter on the dashboard vid phone. When her face appeared, he said, “Can you see how many other hovercars have been signed out of the company pool?”

While still online, she punched up transportation and checked the hovercar availability. “Just you,” she said.

“I’m being followed. Two hovercars have shadowed me from Blanchard’s building.”

“They’re not ours,” she said.

He turned onto a wide thoroughfare and increased his speed. His tails did the same.

“Are you in danger?” she asked.

“I’m not sure. If they’re the same group that shot up my apt, I definitely may be.”

“Be careful, Mr. Coe,” she said. “I love—”

He disconnected. He adjusted the focus on the rear cam, zoomed in on the pilot of the lead hovercar. It was no good. From the distance, the face was grainy. He was unable to determine even the gender of the driver. Below him, traffic was snarled; thousands of people marched on along the sidewalks, the streets—faceless, anonymous, and ultimately meaningless.

He buzzed an open-air farmer’s market, flying so close to the tent roofs he could see the canvas ripple in the wake. It created a minor incident when the people below panicked, shoving one another to get out of the way. His pursuers took a similar trajectory. Coe abruptly pulled up, quickly ascending to the rooftops of neighboring buildings. Again, the hovercars followed; they weren’t even trying to be discreet and that worried him.

A hovercar traffic monitor broke in on the open radio. “Two-Seven-Two-Two-Five. You are operating your craft in a highly erratic manner. Identify yourself.”

Coe ignored the transmission. He wondered if the monitor had dialed up his pursuers, as well.

“Two-Seven-Two-Two-Five. Identify yourself,” the monitor said, this time with a hint of mounting anger.

“I’m being followed,” he said.

“Followed?”

“Chased.”

The monitor fell silent while processing the information. After a moment, he said, “Can you identify your pursuers?”

“Surely, you have them on your radar, they’re right behind me.”

“Negative, Two-Seven-Two-Two-Five. We show only your craft registered to The Quantum Corporation—”

Coe checked his rear cam. There they both were darting and weaving on his screen. “They’re right behind me. I’m looking at them!”

“Negative, Two-Seven-Two-Two-Five. We show only your craft registered to The Quantum Corporation,” the monitor said. “Have you been drinking?”

Coe did not respond. He slowed and turned quickly down an alley. One pursuer followed; the second continued straight.

“Two-Seven-Two-Two-Five...do you read? You leave us no choice. A patrol craft has been dispatched. Park your vehicle at the next available hoverpad and wait for assistance—”

Coe flew through the alleyway, not stopping for intersections. In his rear view, the other hovercar looked identical to his own.

In the distance, a siren sounded. Soon, a police hovercar appeared over the rooftops of a series of tenements, its lights flashing blue, red, and white. It dropped down in line behind the pursuing hovercar and joined in the chase.

A new voice broke into the hover traffic station. “Pull over,” the officer said. “Set her down atop of the hoverpad at the hospital up a head.”

“Do you see the hovercar following me?” Coe asked.