Read Online Sims by F. Paul Wilson - Free Book Online Page B

thought. Me. Just me.
    â€œI can’t go into that, Harry.”
    â€œThen can you tell me what’s wrong with the main breed that you want to correct?”
    Everything!
Ellis wanted to shout.
Every fucking thing!
    â€œI’m afraid I can’t go into that either.”
    â€œIt has something to do with the sealed section then.” A statement.
    The sealed section . . . only a handful of employees in the basic research building knew it existed, and even they didn’t know that most of it was underground. No access through the main areas; the only entry and exit was through an enclosed loading dock on the northwest corner of the building. Sealed staff never mixed with other employees; they ate and slept where they worked, leaving only on weekends in enclosed trucks.
    This he could answer truthfully. “No, Harry. It does not.”
    Harry stood silent a moment. “Then what? I would think that I’ve proven myself loyal enough by now to be entrusted—”
    â€œPlease, Harry,” Ellis said, holding up a hand. “It’s not a question of trust. It’s a matter of . . .” Of what? What could he say? “A matter of deciding which way the company should go in the future. We haven’t agreed—haven’t decided on which way that will be. But when we do, I assure you, you’ll be the first to know.” Ellis noted that this seemed to salve Harry’s wounded pride. “But until then,” he added, “bear with the frustration. I promise you, it will be well worth it in the end.”
    If
I succeed.
    Harry’s smile was lopsided. “I’ll trust you on that.”
    Harry left and Ellis was alone with the chrome-framed faces of his children staring at him across the desktop. Robbie and Julie . . . God, he missed them. Somewhere along the course of his consuming monomania he’d forgotten about them. He didn’t know exactly when he’d metamorphosed from husband and father to something other, something distant . . . obsessed . . . a shadow . . . a ghost drifting through their lives, through his own life as well. But Judy and the kids hadn’t been able to live with what he’d become, and so he’d lost them.
    He wasn’t bitter though. Just lonely. Didn’t blame Judy. He’d deserved to lose them. But he was working toward getting them back—
earning
them back.
    And when he deserved to have them call him father again, he knew he’d win them back.
    But not until he’d fixed SimGen.

11
    MANHATTAN
    The green room of the
Ackenbury at Large
show was neither green nor roomy, but Patrick had it to himself. Half a dozen upholstered chairs surrounded a maple table that had seen better days; a small refrigerator against the wall sported a fruit bowl and a coffee maker. A wall-mounted monitor leaned from a corner near the ceiling; Patrick repeatedly glanced at it as he paced the beige carpet.
    Reverend Eckert was running his line for the late-night network TV audience, but in a far lower key than on his own show. Instead of working himself into a red-faced, spittle-flecked frenzy, he was coming on as a calm, intelligent man with a mission: SimGen was doing evil by producing sims, and so it had to be shut down. Any products made by sims were the devil’s handiwork and all God-fearing people should shun them.
    Not good, Patrick thought, drying his moist palms on his slacks.
    That was the role Patrick had planned to play—a calm, reasonable, compassionate counterpoint to Eckert’s frenzy.
    Now what?
    Maybe this hadn’t been such a good idea.
    Upon leaving the sims this morning he’d placed a call to Ackenbury’s offices. After being shuttled around for a good ten minutes, he’d finally found himself on the line with one Catherine Tresor, assistant producer. She didn’t recognize his name, but when he explained that he was the attorney for the sims