Master wu, p.23
Master Wu, page 23
“I like very much,” he said, then moved to pull out her chair and invited her to sit.
She sat as he walked around to his seat and sat opposite. Jayne decided the best way to keep Thurston from trying to have sex with her was to be sincere and consistent about Winter’s new needs and wants. She could not deny him forever but hoped she would not need that long. Both Spike and Rafferty jumped into her head and lined up with Thurston’s new body. Her mind scanned the three of them as if she had to choose. She shook her head, chastising herself, and the images vanished. “Let’s eat. I am starving,” she said.
“I hope you like what the chef has prepared. He convinced me that it was very special.”
“I hope it is not pieces of some animal.” The look on his face indicated meat was on the menu. “Sorry, William, but this new body does not like animal flesh. It disagrees with me. I had to become a vegetarian. I don’t mind, though. I really like this body, and I want to keep it for a long time.”
Thurston was becoming more comfortable with this version of Winter. “I don’t understand why you care. When that body gets a little worn, I will get you a new one.”
“I doubt there are many brains with these abilities in the solar system. Either way, you seem to adjust very quickly to your new shells, but I find it very difficult. I was very nearly overcome by that bitch Jayne Wu. Now that I have her body, I want to enjoy it for a long while—even if that means not eating meat. I hope you understand and don’t think I’ve lost my allure.”
He nodded but did not smile. “Would you like some wine? Don’t tell me you no longer love a good chardonnay.”
Jayne held out her glass. “No, a little wine would be good.”
He poured wine into her glass and lifted his own. “A toast to you and me and to living forever.”
Jayne did not speak, but she lifted her glass, clinked his, and drank. “To forever,” she said.
A server entered the room, and Thurston instructed him to bring his guest a selection of fruits and vegetables, both cooked and raw. Jayne nodded in agreement.
“Sir, will you be having the grilled venison with berry compote and scampi?”
“Absolutely.” He turned to Jayne and whispered conspiratorially, “You must have a memory of what you will be missing. In your past life, you would be drooling. I remember.”
Jayne shrugged.
The server left. They both sat silently staring at the table and alternately glancing up at each other, avoiding making any sort of eye contact.
Finally, Jayne broke the silence. “Well, William, what are you doing on Biome 7?”
“A better question is, what were you doing on a HUB ship inspecting the surface of Biome 7?”
Jayne smiled and took another sip of her wine. “I tell you what. Let’s play a little game. I tell you something and you tell me something. As a measure of good faith, I will go first. Is it a deal?”
Thurston swirled his wine in his glass and peered through it at Jayne. He sipped and said, “Deal.”
“Alright. I have a new job. I am working for HUB Central. Now your turn.”
“You have got to be kidding. Why would you work for them? What are you doing? How did…”
Jayne held up her hand in a stopping gesture. “My turn. You had your turn. One question, one answer, those are the rules. If you want to continue to play, you must give to get. So what are you doing on Biome 7?”
“I am here to pick a few things up,” he said cryptically.
“Like what?” snapped Jayne.
“Hey, one only. They are your rules.” He pursed his lips, trying to choose and phrase a question that would provide a satisfying answer. “What is the exact nature of the job you are doing for HUB Central?”
“William, you are so cute. It seems I can talk you into anything. You realize, of course, that this game will take forever. I don’t have forever.” She grinned, “On second thought, I do have forever, but I do not wish to spend it playing cat and mouse with you. Let’s just give each other the information we desire. We are still friends after all….” She paused. “Aren’t we?”
“Is that your question?” he asked.
“William, I know it is hard, but do try not to be an ass. Here is what I have been doing since we last saw each other.” Jayne sat up in her chair and popped a piece of fruit in her mouth. “I was contacted accidentally on Wu’s VID. I decided to play along. I could be Jayne Wu considering I still look just like her. As an aside, I have an idea on how to deal with that problem later. Anyway, HUB Central contacted me and offered Jayne Wu a job investigating the biomes for possible intrusions and any secret features that were not on the original specs. She is—or was—a master fixer, after all. I saw that it would be a perfect cover for a perfect spy. I could be privy to what HUB Central and the Sentinels are planning. I might even find a way to get myself on a biome with all my lab research equipment secreted away for future use. That is, if I do not get a place on Biome 13.”
The lies flowed from Jayne with ease. There was so much truth that it almost seemed as if she was not deceiving anyone. The only true lie she was telling was that she was Winter Bancroft. She told Thurston about her plan to make herself look less like Jayne by using the enhanced facebots provided by her lab. She told him just enough information about her position and potential as a spy to intrigue him and capture his trust.
“You mean to tell me that you have high-level access to HUB Central, Sentinel Central, and the World Police? Now that could prove very valuable—and lucrative!”
Jayne nodded. “Exactly. Now it is your turn. Give me the rundown on what you have been doing since I last saw you. You obviously dumped Ranovich’s body. What did you do with him?” She paused and rushed on. “Don’t tell me. You put him back into his head.”
Thurston grinned.
“Well, that’s brilliant.”
Thurston beamed at her compliment. “I keep copies of everyone I scan. His was a little old. I think it was taken when he was about 16. I tweaked it a little before I gave it back to him. I did not want him remembering anything about me.”
The server entered the room. Thurston told him to delay the main course. He poured more wine into his glass and offered to fill Jayne’s glass.
Jayne’s instinct was to refuse, but she was pretty sure that Winter would not. She nodded and pushed her glass closer. He poured and settled back in his chair. “I got this body a few months ago. He was once a trapper in the Wilderlands. I have found several potentials there. I needed to clean him up a bit. I plan to keep him a while and then put him back. That ensures there will be no long-term problems. He disappears for a while and then he reappears, none the worse for wear. I just plan to borrow his body for a year or two.”
“And?” Jayne tried to keep the question innocent. She wanted him to spill it all.
She was thirsty, and the wine wasn’t quenching her thirst. There was no water on the table. Just then, she realized the alcohol in the wine was having absolutely no impact on her. The bots must be breaking it down. This was a very opportune turn of events: now she would be able to out-drink Thurston to the point he would reveal his deepest secrets and also be too drunk to insist on sex.
Before he could begin, she made a show of downing her glass and asked, “William, dear, would you send an order for another bottle of that chardonnay? It is a really good vintage.”
Thurston seemed to have accepted her and opened up. “My plans haven’t changed, just grown in scope. I am closer to the inner circle of the Omega Group. I am hesitant to tell them how advanced my research into connectome transfers has progressed. I have a plan to take over the entire biome project. It is quite audacious, and I am not going to tell you the details just yet. I will tell you I have some new friends in the Consortium. That is how I got your body the second time. First, I tried to buy it but the price was just too high, so I did what I do best: I stole it.”
Jayne felt her face burn with anger. She wanted to bring this bastard down. “So you are not going to tell me your plans? I thought we had a deal. All you have told me so far, I could have figured out on my own.”
“Oh, Winter, I hope to tell you everything, but I need a show of good faith. I need something from you. I need some information. I want you to use your new affiliation with Sentinel Central to obtain the security codes for the Biome 6 landing protocols. I can get them, but I would rather not spend the credits. Do you think you can do this for me?”
“What is so special about Biome 6?”
Thurston shrugged. “All the biomes are special. Can you do it or not?”
“I can try.”
“That’s all I can ask. If you succeed, I will tell you my plans.” He leaned over the table and reached out for Jayne’s hand.
She stopped herself from instinctively pulling away from this disgusting man. He squeezed her hand. Jayne smiled. “Let’s eat. We can talk more later. And do pour us each more wine. This feels like old times, and I want to celebrate.”
Dinner was brought in. Thurston chattered and Jayne ate and listened.
He pushed his plate away and reached for his empty wine glass and the now half-empty second bottle. He looked at her glass, which was still half full. “Tired of the wine already?”
Jayne shrugged. “Too much wine is not good for my youthful complexion,” she said with a grin, “and besides, I have no intention of letting you take advantage of me. That will have to wait until I trust you again.”
She stood and held her napkin in front of her chest like a veil. She leaned over the table and let the napkin slip from her fingers. She knew her breasts were half-exposed because his eyes had followed the dropping napkin and then back to her chest. He stared.
“They are nice, aren’t they?” she said coyly. She stood quickly. “Trust, William, trust will bring many good things. Now arrange for me to go home.”
Thurston stood. His expression was confused. It was like he could not decide whether to be angry at her manipulation or excited at the possibilities of what her body was suggesting. He seemed to choose the latter. “Yes. And when will I see you again?”
“Soon, William, soon.” She smiled and left the room.
CHAPTER 30
Private Plans
Biome governance was similar to the state or provincial governance of the century previous. The development of that governance took one generation. Each biome was allowed to develop a governmental system of its own as long as it was able to accommodate all the rules and regulations of the WG. These governments were able to create, with little interference from the WG, all the typical structures common to developing countries, such as a set of laws and a constitution. This process was deemed to be of prime importance to the success of the entire project. Top-down governance might cause the populations to rebel. The success would be seriously diminished if such social unrest were to occur. Self-rule was seen as a primary axiom to a happy, successful population.
Despite all of Thurston’s drunken prattling on about how clever he was, he never revealed the key details of his operations. Jayne would leave his ship with little concrete information to act on. What she did gain was a deeper insight into Thurston’s emotional state, and most of that was frightening. With his delusions of personal omnipotence and importance and a total lack of conscience or respect for the moral and legal standards of society, Jayne knew a psychiatrist would label Thurston as having both narcissistic and sociopathic personality disorders. This dual diagnosis meant that Thurston would never ‘play well’ with others, as he couldn’t make true friends and would never accept anyone to be either his boss or a trusted subordinate. The loneliness and self-doubt his abnormal personality had generated over his lifetime had only ever found one channel for relief: a love-hate, masochistic sexual relationship with another brilliant sociopath, Dr. Winter Bancroft. He needed her as both a confident/idolizer and a stimulating competitor—there was no one else in the world he’d ever encountered like her. That explained why he was so fixated on keeping Winter’s mind alive, despite the immense difficulties and dangers to himself and his ambitions.
Reflecting on these insights, Jayne decided that Thurston’s twisted, anti-social mind would be incapable of tolerating the competition that a simultaneous version of himself would create. Even though Thurston wanted his personality to live forever, his connectome scan would only ever be installed in one body at a time. That thought gave her a small measure of comfort.
In the morning, Thurston, looking worse for wear after last night’s marathon wine-fest, returned her pouch with her VID and contents. Jayne, in turn, reiterated her commitment to get the security codes for Biome 6 landing protocols. Having that task meant Thurston would need to stay in contact with her—Jayne hoped the codes could be effective bait to entrap him later.
Thurston escorted her to the flier docked in the cargo bay of his ship and sent her on her way. His last words to her were, “Get the codes and I will tell you everything.”
As she’d entered the flier, she noticed it no longer had fake Greenway Group decals on the wings. It had a registration number on its tail and that was all. It took her to the HUB and dropped her off. As she walked through the flier port, she took out her VID and called Rose to assure her that all was well. They agreed to meet as soon as Jayne was able to get away from HUB Central.
Jayne was not surprised when two security men approached her. They were succinct in their demand. “Please come with us.”
She knew there was no choice in the matter. She said nothing, just nodded and walked between them. They led her to a PUT array and then to a security corridor where she was scanned and measured. Once the system was sure she was who she purported to be, a second PUT activated, and she arrived just outside a meeting room in the bowels of HUB Central. Fixer General Joel Kiseki was sitting at one end of the table. He indicated she was to sit at the other end. Jayne sat.
The two looked at each other for a moment. Jayne said nothing. She was going to present a very assured face to this man. She anticipated a bit of yelling and then, after her detailed explanation, he would understand that it was not her fault.
Kiseki spoke in a soft voice, “Jayne, tell me why you think the tragedy on Biome 7 happened. I know it must have been incredibly traumatic, so if you need some time to deal, please let me know. We know the obvious facts. I have seen the holos from the dome. They show the ship going down and you and the pilot exiting. They show the cleanup bots going out to remove the ship debris. They show both you and the pilot walking to the edge of the dome. I assume you were looking for one of the emergency PUTs. I was very impressed by the tactics employed to keep the bot going back and forth between you and the pilot. There are no holosats recording the underside of the biome. All I have is a distorted image of you and the pilot walking along the edge of the dome. There are some pulses of light coming from the underside of the biome and then the pilot is sliced in half, and you must fill me in on the rest.”
Jayne mentally replayed the images of Jax’s lower half tumbling spaceward, spewing blood. She suppressed the lump forming in her throat and steeled her emotions. That was for another time.
“Biome 7 Central did not receive our security codes. The dome systems did what they were designed to do. Someone was able to block communications for an hour. The laser shots were coming from a small ship concealed on the underside of the biome. I managed to escape by activating the emergency PUT. The pilot did not.”
She lowered her head for a moment, took a deep breath and continued, “I was helped by the omies. I sent for a private ship to pick me up. The ship that arrived was not the one I requested. I was taken prisoner and transferred to a cargo ship inbound to the biome. I spent the rest of the time as a prisoner on that freighter until I was released and sent back here.”
While Jayne spoke, she was desperately looking for a reasonable explanation that would not require her to explain that she was two different people. She did not think Kiseki was ready for that. She had to keep Thurston from knowing she was Jayne Wu and Biome Central from knowing her identity as Winter Bancroft I and II.
“Who captured you?”
Jayne sighed. She would tell the truth minus any facts that tied her to Winter Bancroft. “I don’t know. I saw him very briefly and from a distance. He was about 30 years old, tall, olive-skinned, and well proportioned. He never hurt me.”
Kiseki frowned. “What did he want?”
“I don’t know that either. I have been thinking of possible explanations. Perhaps he wanted to kill the pilot for revenge. Perhaps the pilot owed him something. I don’t know. Perhaps he got us confused, after all, we were close to the same size. He likely kidnapped me to see what I knew, but he never even spoke to me. Perhaps he realized that I was a master fixer and did not want the problems killing me would bring. He kept me for two days and then let me go,” Jayne recounted.
She knew everything she had just said was seriously weak in the logic department. “I am sorry about losing the ship, but perhaps you should vet your pilots better,” she said, to turn the tables and make him a little more defensive.
“Perhaps we shall.”
“I want to go back in a larger ship and check out the underbelly of Biome 7 in more detail. I know there is something hinky going on.”
“Yes. Maybe you can uncover information as to why you were shot down in the first place. If there are answers, you will find them on the biome. Just don’t lose another ship and pilot,” he said calmly.
Jayne could not determine if Kiseki was being facetious or not. “I will report back tomorrow and get started.”
“As I said before, you have carte blanche. I would like it if you came back with something a little more definitive, however.” He arched his eyebrows.
Jayne felt a hint of his disbelief, but to acknowledge it might bring more questions than she was willing to answer.
They both stood and Jayne left for the new home in SoCal set up by Rose.
