The Gate (3 page)

“Not as stupid as you asking your home
spy system,” Brenda said dryly.

Anger flickered, but Carly was obliged
to admit that Brenda was right. “Thanks!”

Brenda sent her a look.

“I mean it. Thank you! I know it’s
going to be a dead end, but I just wanted to know if any of the
contributors were here on the base or in the colony.”

* * * *

Devlin was confused and uneasy, and
frustrated because he couldn’t seem to focus long enough to figure
out what had happened or where he was. Something had happened. That
was the only thing that he was absolutely certain of because his
mind was curiously, scarily empty of memories.

There had to have been some kind of
accident, he decided. He didn’t remember being involved in an
accident, but nothing else that came to mind would explain why his
memories were gone. His mind was like a blank console screen—well,
pretty much blank. He remembered his name.

Actually, he hadn’t remembered that
much at first. It hadn’t scared the shit out of him because he’d
been too panicked about the loss of every other memory at first to
consider whether he even knew his own name.

He’d been assigned a name by the
computer system and that had shocked him, but that wasn’t a bad
thing because by the time he’d gotten over his shock he’d also
gotten over the panic and been able to focus at least enough to
start picking at his mind for the things that were missing. The
name he’d been given wasn’t the right one. It wasn’t his name. He
knew that much and it was a relief to realize that he knew
something.

He’d begun to get this creepy feeling
that he was dead and just didn’t know it, but he decided that
couldn’t be the case. For one thing, if he was dead, he wouldn’t be
thinking would he? He wouldn’t be afraid and confused. He wouldn’t
be thinking at all or feeling at all.

For another, he wasn’t alone. There
were other people around him. Not that he could actually see them,
but he could sense their presence. And he could hear
them.

It bothered him that it was like a
dream. He couldn’t really see anything. It was like he was
surrounded by a dense fog and what he heard was more like …
telepathy. He had the feeling that he was ‘hearing’ their thoughts
not hearing actual speech.

It felt ‘wrong’. He didn’t think he was
telepathic or that he had been before, but of course he didn’t know
because he still couldn’t remember.

* * * *

It was almost a week before Brenda
produced the information she’d promised. Carly was in a fever of
impatience, but she’d had time to consider what Brenda had told her
and she was careful not to do or say anything else that might send
up red flags.

Not that she actually believed the
comments about people going missing! She didn’t think Brenda had
lied either, but she knew there had to be another
explanation.

Trude never produced the report that
she’d asked for. That unnerved her more because the computer
certainly hadn’t ‘forgotten’ that she’d asked and should have
either delivered the report or given her an explanation as to why
it hadn’t been possible to compile one.

She could tell that Brenda was laboring
under some emotion when her friend gave her the ‘meet me’ code, but
she wasn’t certain what had prompted it until they did actually
meet. Brenda didn’t leave her in the dark long.

“My brother was one of the
contributors.”

Carly gaped at her, trying to
assimilate that startling information. She felt the color fluctuate
several times in her face as various realizations flashed through
her mind.

Her lover, or at least a part of the
sim, was her friend’s brother?

Brenda had said he was dead or missing.
Carly abruptly couldn’t remember which now that it was suddenly as
important to her as it was to Brenda.

What if he was the one that she’d
fallen for, she thought, feeling her heart sink?

She tried to jog her memory to recall
exactly what Brenda had said, moistening suddenly dry lips. “The
one you said …?”

Pain clouded Brenda’s eyes. “I only had
one brother.”

Carly felt herself flush at the tone
almost of accusation. “I’m sorry.”

Brenda looked away, but she handed
Carly something that looked and felt like a piece of cloth. Carly
stared at the folded thing in her head blankly. After glancing at
Brenda, she unfolded it. There were strange lines scrawled across
the inside, she discovered. “What is this?”

“The list. My friend went ahead and
tracked the information on the contributors … as much as he could
find anyway.”

Carly could see that. Frowning, she
focused on the symbols and finally realized it was
writing—handwriting, something she rarely saw. She couldn’t make
out half what it said and a sense of frustration filled her,
battling with confusion. “What is this stuff?”

“Paper,” Brenda said dryly. “Or at
least what passes for it now. We make it. There are a lot of things
it just isn’t safe to key into a computer.”

Those comments only deepened Carly’s
confusion and dismay. “You’re saying …?”

“Don’t get caught with it,” Brenda
cautioned. “If you think there’s any danger of that, eat
it.”

Revulsion swept through Carly. “Eat
it?” she echoed in disbelief, deciding that, maybe, Brenda was
pulling some kind of sick joke.

For a moment, Brenda almost seemed to
confirm that. She smiled wryly. “Tastes like shit, but your stomach
can handle it. It won’t hurt you—if you swallow it. That
information might hurt you if the wrong person discovers you have
it.”

“But … but … but … It isn’t like this
is a threat to national security! It’s just a list of people that
contributed to … uh … companion sims!” Carly exclaimed in
dismay.

“What it represents is big trouble!”
Brenda retorted. “My friend hacked the system to get it. And
they’ll know that immediately and that anybody capable of doing
that could get information a lot more dangerous. It pegs you as a
rebel, somebody that questions the system, and somebody with rebel
connections. It could get me disappeared, too. So read it. Memorize
the information and then flush it. Don’t, for god sake, leave it
lying around to be found!”

Chapter Three

Carly felt like a stalker.

She supposed that was because what
she’d been doing would be considered stalking if anyone ever found
out.

She hadn’t found the man she’d become
obsessed with, though. She wasn’t certain if that was because she
hadn’t really interacted enough with either of the contributors
she’d managed to track down and couldn’t trust her instincts or if
she was right and neither of the two men she’d found had actually
contributed anything significant to sim Daniel.

She hadn’t felt a spark,
though.

She hadn’t felt the least gram of
attraction.

If any of them were the one, shouldn’t
she?

She felt like she would know
immediately when and if she found the major contributor—if there
was one.

Unfortunately, two of the men on the
list were on Earth, not in the colony, and it seemed unlikely she
would get the chance to track them down and arrange to ‘bump’ into
them as she had the first two.

And the other man had been killed in a
freak accident in the lab where he worked.

She couldn’t believe it was him,
though. She didn’t want to. Fate couldn’t be that sick, to snatch
the one man she could love away before she’d even met
him.

The man she felt like she had fallen in
love with.

Because she’d looked it up. She’d felt
safe enough to at least do that much research.

Devlin Bear had died almost a month
before she’d ‘met’ sim Daniel.

Then again, he was gone. How would she
ever know whether he was the one or not?

She discovered she wanted to know. She
felt like she had to know, that she just couldn’t stand
wondering.

It made her uncomfortable on several
levels to track down what she could find about Devlin Bear, partly
because of what Brenda had said about ‘the watchers’ and partly
because of Brenda herself. Brenda was her friend and she was still
grieving over the loss her brother. Carly doubted Brenda would be
happy to know she’d shifted the focus of her search to
Devlin.

She worried for a while about whether
to tell Brenda or not and finally decided there was no real reason
to tell Brenda and upset her. It wasn’t as if she could do anything
about it even if she found out that she was right and Devlin was
the man she’d been hoping to find her whole life.

In point of fact, Carly had hoped,
desperately, that finding out what she could about Devlin would end
in the discovery that he wasn’t the man she was looking for.
Instead, to her dismay, the more she learned about him, the more
certain she was that her sim Daniel was Devlin.

It wasn’t supposed to be that way! She
should have discovered that she felt no more toward him than she
had the other two supposed contributors that she’d met in person.
She shouldn’t have felt anything at all, certainly no chemistry,
when she couldn’t even meet him.

She did, though, and the more she
learned the more certain she was that he wasn’t just the major
contributor. He was the only contributor!

* * * *

In her more lucid moments, Carly knew
she needed help. It had been bad enough to be obsessed over her
lover sim when no rational person would get ‘attached’ to a lover
sim at all! Because that was the point in taking sim
lovers—fulfilling the need without the emotional drama, and
disappointment, of an actual relationship!

However, to take that obsession a step
further to ‘stalk’ a dead man ….

She couldn’t seem to stop herself,
though. She justified her behavior with the fact that he was dead
and a person couldn’t actually stalk someone that wasn’t among the
living. She tried to convince herself that she was just trying to
appease her curiosity and that, once she had, she’d move
on.

Moving on was the problem. She didn’t
think it was healthy to continue requesting sim Daniel under the
circumstances. She told Trude that she was getting bored with sim
Daniel and to select a new lover for her. After going through a
half a dozen, however, she’d had to accept that it just didn’t seem
likely that she was going to find one that was going to help her
forget Devlin.

She wanted Devlin!

She didn’t want just the sim, though!
It wasn’t enough anymore. It had ceased to be enough long before
she’d acknowledged that she was obsessed with her lover.

That realization led her to a decision
that she was afraid she would deeply regret, but she’d passed
beyond the ability to make ‘healthy’ choices.

* * * *

Carly felt weak and faint when the
crate had been delivered and the delivery droid had left. After
staring at the crate for several moments, she simply collapsed on a
chair. Covering her face with her shaking hands, she muttered, “Oh
my god! What have I done?”

“Your blood pressure, respiration, and
heart rate denote agitation.”

Carly dropped her hands abruptly and
looked up at the camera lens above her in the ceiling, searching
her mind for a response. “I’m excited,” she said a little stiffly.
“My companion cyborg arrived.”

“You have not opened the crate,” Trude
pointed out.

Carly narrowed her eyes at the lens.
“I’m enjoying the anticipation.”

She wasn’t, though. She actually felt a
little ill. To say that she had mixed feelings would be an
understatement. She wasn’t certain what had compelled her to make
the purchase.

Well, she did know that! She’d thought
long and hard before she’d invested most of her savings in the
companion—most because she’d ordered a custom designed
cyborg.

The mixed feelings were entirely due to
the fact that she’d used vids of Brenda’s brother as her
template.

And had the factory install the Daniel
sim.

Because she was as crazy as a
loon!

She desperately wanted to open the
crate and at the same time she wasn’t certain she could face what
she’d done.

Brenda would never forgive her if she
discovered what she’d done, or—heaven forbid—saw the
cyborg!

Well, she thought, getting up abruptly,
she’d just have to make sure that Brenda never found out what she’d
done!

It had felt ‘wrong’ when she’d done it,
but she’d tracked down the other contributors to her Daniel and she
was absolutely convinced that Devlin Bear was the main contributor
if not the sole contributor! She’d been obsessed with him. There
was no whitewashing it.

Shaking off her discomfort, she moved
to the crate decisively and opened it. Her heart seemed to stammer
to a halt in her chest when she’d removed all of the packing
materials and revealed the cyborg. He took her breath.

She’d ignored the customer rep that had
tried to convince her that what she really wanted was a perfect
physical specimen, that she’d never be happy with a more ‘natural’
cyborg. But she hadn’t felt that he needed any sort of enhancement.
He’d looked wonderful just as he was.