At the bottom of every image was a single word: STEPFORD.
He was about to open a folder named “DIET PLAN” when in the hallway, a door closed. Shit. Javier hastily disarranged the photos with frantic gesturing, and got himself behind the bedroom door. He wiggled into its corner just as it opened. Holberton stepped in. He was alone. Javier made himself as still as possible. Holberton paused, looked at the pictures, gestured at them, and shrugged. Then he crossed the room and opened the bathroom door. The light came on, and he closed the door.
Javier was almost out the bedroom door when he heard the sound of bees, and fell. The charge ploughed through him like a freight train. He was instantly rigid and heavy. He fell without breaking his fall, his face pressed deep into white shag carpeting. From there, he watched Holberton’s shoes come close to his face.
“You know, when you said you’d find me, this isn’t quite what I had in mind.” Holberton used his foot to roll Javier over. He held out the taser. He shook it a little in his hand. “Move and I’ll use this again. Blink once for yes and twice for no. With a name like yours, I’m sure you’re familiar with the Pike method of communication.”
Javier wasn’t, but he blinked once anyway.
“Good. Now. Is your name really Ricardo Montalban?”
Javier blinked twice.
“Thought so. Are you a journalist, photographer, or in any way affiliated with the infotainment industrial complex?”
Two blinks.
“Excellent. Are you a spy sent from a foreign government?”
What the fuck? Two blinks.
Holberton straddled him and knelt. “OK. Here’s the really big question. This is the important one, so pay attention. Are you with New Eden? Did my father send you?”
Two blinks. Javier struggled to open his mouth. “No,” he said. It came out more like a moan.
Holberton stood. He sidestepped Javier and held out a hand. With difficulty – it felt like pushing a broken-down car – Javier lifted his arm and took it. Holberton helped him up. He pushed him over to the settee at the edge of the bed and stood in front of him.
“Who are you?”
The truth, again. “My name is Javier Peterson.”
Holberton whistled. “The Javier? From the island?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you were dead. Everyone does.” Holberton turned, pulled some images aside with his fingers, and brought up a square of footage. In it, Javier jumped clear of the destroyed house on the little home island. Nearby, his youngest was in the diamond tree, furiously prying at one of the branches. But six months ago, Javier had not seen that. He just walked out into the water. And then he fell into it, and didn’t come back up.
“Please stop.”
“Sure. Sorry.” Holberton wiped the images away with one hand. Now the room was lightless, artless. Only the light from the hallway came through. A single shaft of amber light, illuminating just the very edges of both of them. “What are you doing here, Javier?”
“I need your help,” he said, after a moment. He looked up. Holberton was very close to him. His eyes were a seaglass green. Just like Amy’s. They were, in fact, Amy’s eyes. Someone had reproduced them in her bodyplan, right from this very pattern. “New Eden killed Amy. A missionary by the name of Mitch Powell. Now I’m on the run, and I need someone who hates those Bible-thumping bastards just as much as I do.”
Holberton smirked. “Then it looks like I’m your man.”
11: The Suburbs
“Have you ever heard of CITE?”
Holberton drove a greened-up 1967 Impala sedan, black. Holberton told him something about going all the way to Detroit to get it printed from the original pattern, when an auction in Vancouver fell through.
“CITE was a prototype city, out in Lea County,” Holberton said, now. “Urban environment, suburban, everything. A place for companies to test new products, basically, without a lot of toxic internal corporate culture to fuck things up.”
Javier watched the desert blur past. “That’s the city I saw in your suite?”
“That’s the one.”
“And now a bunch of Amy’s clademates live there.”
“Yes.” Holberton moved to an on-ramp. “They’re mostly in one suburb, Macondo. That’s part of why the families agreed to go. More space.”
Amy had wanted a backyard. She had told him that, once. She kept designing the same treehouse, over and over, knowing she’d never see it. She and his youngest were working on one, together. They had been, anyway. When they were alive.
“At first, it was like any other product recall,” Holberton said. “Except the vN were all willing. FEMA sent out a message asking for them to come in and do an interview, after what happened with Amy and Portia, and they did. If they were already living with humans, that is. The homeless ones, that was different.”
“I know,” Javier said. “You rounded them up in trucks.”