Maria had gone very quiet in the candlelight. Katrina handed the bottle to her, but she passed it on to Hiro without drinking.
Laughter sounded over the speakers. “Oh, this is too rich. Okay, Paul’s turn! Go Paul! Tell them what you found in your room! And in the gardens! Wolfgang! Ungag him! You’ll want to hear this.”
Wolfgang pulled the rag from Paul’s mouth. Paul spat once and then said, “Did you know it was here? The whole time?”
“No, but I know what it says now,” IAN said. “Tell them.”
“I’m Paul Seurat. That, you know,” he said dully. “I’m not a clone. Or at least, I wasn’t until a few days ago.”
Maria and Katrina swore, Hiro laughed, and Wolfgang just glared. Joanna folded her arms and looked disappointed.
“Who falsified your files so thoroughly?” Joanna demanded.
“My employer said he could have it done. The files were going to be sealed anyway, so I didn’t need to know what it said, just that I embezzled or something.”
“So who are you?” Wolfgang asked, reaching out and grabbing Paul’s bound wrists and dragging him closer.
“I was a human,” he said, struggling weakly. “They put me here to help make decisions in case the clones got too, well, clone-agenda-focused. They wanted there to be someone on board who wouldn’t agree just because I was a clone too.”
“But you were only going to be human for the first few decades. Then you were going to die like us, and come back,” Maria said. “What’s the point?”
He refused to look her in the eye. “I didn’t like clones. I never have. I grew up hearing about the Chicago riots. But when I found out who was on the crew, I had to come aboard. I had to see the person who murdered my family.”
“Your family?” Joanna asked, frowning.
“They were emergency personnel in the clone riots. You remember, lots of people fought and died and the clones just came back the next day—but my family didn’t.”
“And you think that is me,” Maria said softly. She racked her brain back to that time, remembering entering a burning building to rescue Sallie, being followed by firefighters who had begged her not to enter, and police officers who demanded she stop and surrender. The entire building had come down on them just as she reached Sallie.
“And your employer was, who can guess?” IAN asked gleefully.
“Okpere Martins,” Paul said. “Why?”
Maria went very still. She was shaking her head.
“Okpere Martins was one of Sallie’s high-level operatives after I quit. Sallie Mignon put you on this ship.”
“No, Sallie turned me down for a job, which forced me to apply for this one…” Paul trailed off. “Oh.”
“Did you know I was your target when you took the job?” Maria asked.
He shook his head. “I knew it was one of you. Then a few hours ago I found my paper journal. I’d hidden it somewhere. I guess I was worried the rooms would be tossed. There’s like twenty-five years of pointless shit, until the captain went paranoid. That helped me remember everything. I asked IAN to dig up some old news stories from Earth and found out the clone in the riots was Maria.” He stared at her with tired hatred.
Maria stood up, holding her head as if it were too full. She paced around, keeping clear of Paul, even though he was still restrained.
“Let me see if I have this right. Sallie Mignon hired a corporate assassin to captain the ship. She got a hacked Pan Pacific United man with psychotic yadokari inside to pilot us. A clone-hating human with a grudge hides in plain sight with false records. Joanna, you also knew Sallie, right?” she asked.
Joanna nodded. “She was a friend of a friend. I had some political crimes I was about to go to jail for. She said she could help.”
Maria turned her brown eyes to focus on Wolfgang. “And you, Wolfgang. What did Sallie do to get you on board?”
He shook his head, looking as if he wanted to deny it. “I was being hunted by Luna authorities for my actions after killing a high-profile target. I was in holding when I got a message—”
“Hand-delivered?” Maria asked.
Wolfgang frowned. “Actually, yes. It said I had an option besides prison. I took it.”
“And you don’t know who sent it?” Joanna asked.
He shook his head.
“I can guess,” Maria said bitterly.
Joanna spoke quietly. “And Maria? What’s your connection?”
Maria must have been too shaken by the near-drowning. She couldn’t focus on any one fact. “I was in the employ of Sallie Mignon for a very long time. I thought it was a good relationship but one time, shortly after the sabotage attempt on the Dormire, she used my skills to threaten someone. I didn’t want to be her tool for revenge, so I quit. I am fairly sure now that she was behind some missing parts of my life. I was a hacker, but I have holes where I know I did some terrible things, then was killed, then cloned again. I think she was behind at least one of the mysterious disappearances.”
“And?” IAN prompted.
“I just discovered I programmed IAN from a human’s mindmap. And”—she swallowed—“I have no proof, but the holes in my memories, and my subsequent murders, coincide with the disappearance and cloning of Father Gunter Orman”—she nodded at Wolfgang—“and the assassination of high-profile Pan Pacific United politicians.” She nodded at Hiro. “It’s very likely I did the hacking behind those crimes.”
They stared at her.
Joanna broke the silence. “Wait a second. If you don’t remember, how can you be sure?”
“The time line fits. Both the abduction of Wolfgang and the murder of the Pan Pacific United ambassador by a hatchet clone happened during my missing weeks. I was cloned and the information about my dead body was conveniently lost. I was the best hacker of my day. It’s not hard to figure out. And of course—” She stopped before she mentioned Mrs. Perkins. The whiskey boiled merrily in her stomach, considering a return to the outside world. She didn’t want to meet anyone’s eyes.
“This is all circumstantial,” Joanna said, putting a placating hand on Wolfgang’s shoulder.
“I didn’t put it together until just now,” Maria said, focusing on Joanna, one of only two people in the room she hadn’t wronged. “You all telling your stories, they fit with some of my memories. Everything adds up.”
“Still—” Joanna said.
“Stop it,” Maria said. “I know what you’re trying to do. I appreciate it, but I’m not hiding. I know this happened.”
“How?” Hiro asked. He looked very small and wet in the candlelight, and Maria couldn’t look at him.
“Fine. Everything. I’ll tell you all of it.” She told them about how she had hacked her own brain to warn herself of dangers, and to hold the code she had used to damage Hiro’s clones.
“That’s—that’s not possible, is it?” Katrina asked, looking from Joanna to Paul.
“I’ve never heard of it,” Joanna said.
“That’s because it’s never been done before. After I’d done it, I didn’t tell anyone because I know it’s just another subtle yadokari and I didn’t want to give anyone more ways to exploit that.”