“The FBI had her,” Nijinsky argued.
“Yes, the FBI. Our FBI. The guys who chase bank robbers and terrorists, except now, suddenly they’re the enemy.”
“Listen to me,” Nijinsky said, stepping toward her. “I want you to listen to me, Plath—”
“My fucking name is Sadie!” she screamed.
There was a long, ringing silence. Anya Violet was looking at Nijinsky, watching to see how he responded.
“Listen to me, Plath,” Nijinsky said with barely contained panic. “I heard what Burnofsky had to say. And some of it’s true. Yeah, you’re trapped. Yeah, it sucks. But we are still the good guys. It wasn’t us who killed your father. We loved your dad. This is your dad’s fight. Your dad helped to create this, this, this …BZRK.”
Plath found she was having a hard time breathing.
Nijinsky pressed his advantage. “Your dad bankrolled us. Your dad saw where it was going, saw what was happening. And they murdered him. Your brother, too.”
“My afterthought brother,” Plath said bitterly. Then, “I miss them.”
“Look, I’m not trying to play the saint here,” Nijinsky said, hands spread in supplication. Those hands were shaking. “You want to say there’re some shades of gray here? You want to say we’re not always ethical or whatever, yeah. Did we k—” And suddenly he couldn’t say it. A sob just choked him in midword. The next words had to be squeezed out. “We killed Ophelia, who was my friend, who I would have died for? Is that what you want to lay on me? Because I’ve had a long day, too.”
Plath had seen Vincent stark, staring, twitchy, raving. This was almost as bad. Tears rolled down Nijinsky’s cheeks. He was falling apart.
“Plath …Sadie …I don’t know …I just know we are …maybe not right, but more right than them. We have to be. That’s all I’ve got. We’re more right than them.” He shrugged helplessly. “We believe in freedom. And your dad believed in it.”
Plath found her gaze drawn away from the desperate, sad Nijinsky to the seemingly eternally, organically sad Anya.
Anya said, “I love Vincent. Maybe you can save him. I cannot, but maybe you can.”
“He wired you,” Plath said, somewhere between scorn and pleading.
Anya made a helpless gesture with her hands. “And your friend, Keats, did he wire you? He is in your head.”
The idea shocked Plath. No way. No.
Anya said, “Listen, I am not saying he did. I don’t think he did. But you care for him. Because you like his face. Because you think he is attractive or funny or smart …What is the difference?” She shook her head impatiently. “What is the difference?”
“The difference is what this war is about,” Nijinsky said. He was reluctant, but he couldn’t stop himself; he couldn’t let it go by that there was some equivalency between genuine, real, honest emotions and the man-made results of nanobot or biot rewiring. “It’s about free will.”
Plath made a sound of disbelief. “Maybe we should get off this philosophy because it’s going in circles. Just tell me why we are in such a hurry with Vincent.”
“Because we are talking about taking on Bug Man inside his own brain. If we take him down and do it without the rest of Armstrong finding out …Their most trusted soldier would be ours. And we could wire …unwire …the president.”
“You don’t think that you, me, Keats, Wilkes—the four of us together—could take on Bug Man?” Plath asked.
“Put us on a number line,” Nijinsky said. “One to ten, in terms of skills as a twitcher. I’ll start with myself. I’m a three. Wilkes is no better, she’s brave, but she’s still a three. You, Plath? You’re an unknown. You haven’t really been tested. Keats has talent, and he may be as good as Bug Man some day. But Bug Man has the experience. You’re not getting the math right: Bug Man is the best. He’s a ten out of ten. If we all four go against him, all he has to do is make one kill against each of us.” He held up a single, manicured finger. “One kill and we’re done. That’s our weakness. All four of us at once? We’d be giving Bug Man a chance to wipe out our whole cell in a single fight.”
“Even if I can somehow help Vincent,” Plath said, “what makes you think Vincent can beat Bug Man this time around?”
“He will also have the new biot. Faster, stronger, better armed,” Anya said. “We’re going to grow one for him.”
“Also, we have no choice,” Nijinsky said. “It’s Vincent or we lose.”
Charles Armstrong had fought with Benjamin before.
Age twelve. Living in their grandfather’s gloomy mansion. Up in
the doll house.
The mannequins all wore clothing of recent vintage, the current
styles. All had eyes and mouths—the more abstract mannequins with
mere suggestions of faces were not for Charles and Benjamin. No,
their mannequins were people with personalities and opinions. And
hair.
Ludamilla, one of their grandfather’s maids, dressed the mannequins. The outfits came from buyers at Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s.
The mannequins themselves cam from mannequin supply companies.
On the occasion of their twelfth birthday they were presented
with a particularly attractive mannequin pair, both females, one with