Out of the Black - Lee Doty [69]
"It's the time when dinner is eaten." Alex muttered, looking a bit self-conscious.
Rae turned to Ping, "It's his pot of gold."
"Gotcha." Ping nodded.
The shark smiled, his eyes darting back and forth between the speakers, his face a window into almost childlike amusement. At times like this it was almost possible to forget the blood and shattering blades as five knife-wielding killers met their end in less than two seconds. It was almost possible to forget the look on his face as he stepped toward poor, evil Good Cop. Almost.
The shark's clear eyes settled on Ping. The amusement didn't depart, but his gaze seemed to focus- to bore into him in an offhand way. It took only an instant for Ping to shift from examining the shark, to feeling like a frog on a high school lab table.
Ping blinked. "I didn't get your name, mister...?
"Call me Dek."
Another connection. "Of course. Do all of the... whatever you guys are... get their handles from Blade Runner?"
"Nope, just Roy and me. It was our game. Even Ivo's other children thought we were a bit daft. You know the movie?"
Ping nodded, "So there are other...?"
"Replicants?" Dek nodded. "Most in the trade call us 'Torpedoes', but Ivo never called us anything like that. He thought of us as his children"
"You're saying that you and Roy are brothers? Android brothers?" Ping asked with much less irony than he'd intended. All eyes turned to Dek.
There was a pause as Dek considered, then finally, "There are a lot of labels that could describe us. I think 'Lost boys' is a lot more accurate, but you have to give Roy some latitude in the naming... he really loved that movie." Dek's lips twisted into a bitter smile. "We could both identify with being apart from humanity, different, disconnected."
"So, you're saying that Lutine was like Tinkerbelle Tyrell," Ping said, "All fairy dust and genetic engineering?"
"Well, that's not incredibly inaccurate. Before he found us, we were both orphans, completely alone, quite unwanted. He definitely changed us, but I don't understand the Loom well enough to say how much genetic engineering went on, if any."
He paused, so Ping asked, "So Lutine adopted you both?"
"Nope. He sort of collected Roy. You've got to understand that back then if an orphan with birth defects just disappeared, anyone who noticed would be mostly relieved."
"Back when?" Ping asked.
"1676 for Roy- in St. Petersburg." There was a moment of silence for temporal improbability.
"Peter Sieberg?" Ping grinned, remembering Roy's alias, "I can see why he wanted to pick his own name."
Dek's eyes sparkled with pleasant memory. "When I was a kid, Ivo used to call him Peter, I think it was his real name. If he had a last name, Roy couldn't remember it."
"You said birth defects." Rae said.
"Trisomy 21. Down's Syndrome. Roy and me both."
There was a subtle mental disorientation as understanding settled on the three of them. "What did he do to you?" Rae asked.
"Gave us balance. Clarified our minds, reworked our bodies- aligned us with the Loom. I can feel it you know, sizzling always around and through my thoughts. I can't use it consciously like Alex or Ivo, but it's always there, burning."
Ping fell silent, thinking. The conversational disjunction seemed to be shared by Rae and Alex, who were lost in their own thoughts.
At last, Dek broke the silence. "Ivo made me in 1989. He plucked me out of an orphanage for kids with disabilities after my parents died in a car crash. He made me for another Savant named Issak Kaspari."
"Kaspari?" Alex recognized the name.
"Who's Kaspari?" Ping asked.
"He's one of Ivo's friends. Major Savant from the east coast. I've met him twice, when he came to see Ivo. Very... self-contained guy. During both meetings, I think he said a total of six words. The last time was just a few days ago."
Dek nodded, "That's why I'm in town. My father got an urgent