WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY

NOVEMBER 13

"I've got to tell you," Patrick said to Romy as they sat in the sim barrack. Anj was going through her now standard routine of draping herself across Patrick's lap whenever he visited. He'd found it cute before; a warm-fuzzy moment. Now..."After what I saw in that brothel, I'm not as comfortable with this as I used to be."

"That's understandable," she said. "You never viewed them in a sexual context before."

"I still don't...can't." The memory of the brothel still gave his gut a squeamish twist. "But knowing that other people do..."

She was out from the city again, checking on her investment, as she liked to put it. Night had fallen but she'd hung around. For the past week Patrick had entertained a faint hope that their ordeal in the ravine might forge a bond that would lead to a closer, more intimate relationship. That hope was fading. She seemed warmer toward him, but for the most part Romy remained all business.

"How's your car?"

"Totaled. Just like my house." And my love life, he mentally added. Why don't I just join a monastery and make it official? "Haven't seen any insurance money on either, but I'm making do."

"You still haven't been scared off then?" she said.

"I'm not looking to be a martyr, but no."

She smiled. "I never took you for the martyr type."

"You mean there's a martyr type? Who the hell would want to be a martyr?"

"More than you'd think. In the right setting it can be a form of celebrity."

"I guess so. Who was it who said that some people climb onto the cross merely to be seen from a greater distance?"

"Camus, I believe."

Patrick was startled - happily. "You've read Camus?"

She shrugged.

Here was a side of Romy he'd never imagined. He wanted to delve deeper but she steered him right back to business.

"Do you see any legal speed bumps ahead?" she asked.

"Not in the immediate future," he began, then noticed Tome hovering at his shoulder.

"'Scuse, Mist Sulliman, but Anj must eat." He tugged the sleeve of the young sim's T-shirt. "Come, Anj. Dinner come." As he led her toward the tables, Tome turned and said, "You eat too?"

Patrick glanced around. Most of the sims had gone through the line and were chowing down. He eyed the rich dark stew being ladled from the big pot and wasn't even tempted.

"No, thanks, Tome. I'm, uh, cutting back."

Romy lowered her voice. "Maybe we should give it a try. Just a taste...to be good guests."

"It's made from dining-room leftovers," he whispered from a corner of his mouth.

"I believe I'll pass too," Romy called out, then turned to Patrick. "By the way, are you still living in that motel?"

"Still."

"Aren't you cramped?"

"Yes and no. I thought I'd go nuts in a place like that - you know, without all my things. But I've found I don't miss them as much as I thought I would. No house, no furniture, no office, no status car...I should be in a deep depression but oddly enough I'm not. I've got this strange, light feeling...

unencumbered, I guess you could say. I feel as if I've been cut free from weights I didn't even know were there. That sound weird to you?"

"No," she said softly, and he thought he detected some warmth in her smile. "Not weird at all." She seemed to catch herself and looked away in the direction of the sims. "By the way, if we're not eating here, where do you suggest?"

"How do you feel about Cajun food?"

"Love it. I'll eat anything blackened - catfish, redfish, potholders, you name it."

"Great. I know this little place in Mount Kisco..."

They talked about their favorite foods - one of Romy's was sushi which, despite heroic efforts, Patrick had never developed a taste for. He was beginning to believe that the evening was shaping up to be ripe with promise when a loud groan and a clatter interrupted them.

Patrick turned and saw that one of the caddie sims had knocked his plate off the table and was doubled over, clutching his abdomen. As he watched, a second sim slipped off the bench and slumped to her knees, moaning.

"What the hell's going on?" Patrick said.

But Romy was already on her feet. "Oh, God!" she cried. "Something's wrong with the food!" She rushed forward, shouting. "Don't eat the food! It's bad!Bad! "

Too late. Patrick watched helplessly as one sim after another doubled over and crumpled to the floor, writhing in pain.

"What is it?" he said. "Ptomaine?"

She shook her head, her face ashen. "Spoiled food doesn't act this quickly. They've been poisoned, damn it! Somebody's poisoned their food!"

Patrick pulled out his PCA and punched in 911. "I'll call an ambulance - lotsof ambulances!"

"To take them where?"

"To the emer - " He stopped. "Shit!"

"Right. No hospital's going to take them. They're not human."

"Then how about a veterinary hospital?"

"Is there one around? And even if there is, how do we get them there? I don't know of an ambulance service in the world that'll transport animals." She pulled out her own PCA. "But I know someone..."

"This organization of yours?"

She glanced at him, then turned away. He thought he heard her say "Zero."

Patrick had to do something. With frustration mounting to the detonation point he looked around and saw Tome still standing.

"Tome! You didn't eat?"

The older sim shook his head. "Not chance."

"Get up to the clubhouse! Fast! Tell them you've all been poisoned!"

As Tome ran off, Patrick hurried to the dorm area and began pulling blankets and pillows from the bunks. He couldn't do anything about whatever toxin had been used to poison them, but at least he could try to make the sims more comfortable.

"Good idea," Romy said, close by. He looked up and saw her beside him with an armful of blankets. "Help is on the way."

"Who? How much?"

"I don't know."

They hurried back to the eating area where it looked like a bomb had exploded: benches on their sides, tipped tables, spilled trays, and moaning, pain-wracked casualties strewn about the floor. Patrick recognized Nabb, his caddie when he'd played golf here - the last time he'dever play golf here - that fateful September day he became involved with these sims. He lay doubled over on his side, arms folded across his abdomen.

"Here you go, buddy," he said, slipping a pillow under his head.

"Hurt, Mist Sulliman," Nabb groaned. "Hurt ver bad."

He draped a blanket over him. "I know, Nabb. We're getting help."

He spotted Deek, another caddie he knew, and tried to make him comfortable.

"Why hurt, Mist Sulliman?" Deek said, looking up at him with watery brown eyes. "Why?"

"Because someone..." A blast of fury forced him to stop and look away. Who? Who would or could do something like this? He found it incomprehensible.

"Sweet Jesus!" someone gasped.

Patrick looked up and saw Holmes Carter and a slim, dapper man he didn't recognize standing behind Tome in the barrack doorway. The stranger moved into the room, leaving the pudgy Carter alone, looking like a possum frozen in the glare of oncoming headlights.

"Tome wasn't kidding!" the stranger said to no one in particular. "What happened here?"

"They started getting sick after eating the stew," Patrick said. "Who are you?"

"Dr. Stokes. I'm an anesthesiologist. And I already know who you are." He didn't offer to shake hands; instead he knelt beside one of the sick sims, a female. "This one doesn't look so hot."

Tell me something I don't already know, Patrick wanted to say, but bit his tongue.

"None of them do. Can you help?"

"I'm not a vet."

Romy's eyes implored him. "Help them! Please! You treat humans. How much closer to human can you get?"

Dr. Stokes nodded. "Point taken. Let's see what I can do."

As the doctor began pressing on the sim's abdomen, asking her questions, Patrick glanced around and spotted a small, huddled form under one of the tables. With a cold band tightening around his chest, he rushed over - Anj. She lay curled into a tight, shuddering ball.

"Anj?" Patrick crouched beside her and touched her shoulder; her T-shirt was soaked. "Anj, speak to me."

A whimper was her only reply. Patrick gathered her into his arms - Christ, she was wringing wet - and carried her over to Dr. Stokes. Her face was so pale.

"This one's just a baby," he told Stokes. "And she's real bad."

Patrick gently lay Anj on the floor between them. Romy was there immediately with a pillow and blanket.

"Diaphoretic," Stokes said, more to himself than Patrick. He held her wrist a moment. "Pulse is thready."

"What's that mean?"

"She's going into shock." He turned back to the first sim he'd been examining. "This one too. They're going to need IVs and pressors. What in God's name did they eat?"

Before Patrick could answer, he heard the sound of a heavy-duty engine, slamming doors, and Carter saying, "You can't drive that up here!"

He looked up and saw two grim-faced men, one in a golf shirt, the other in a sport coat, file through the door with some kind of cart rolling between them. They pushed past Carter as if he were a piece of misplaced furniture. Two more strangers, a man and a woman, both in flannel shirts and jeans, followed them.

"You can't just walk in here!" Carter said. "This is a private club!"

Ignoring him, they pulled stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs from the cart and fanned out into the room. The woman came over to where Patrick, Romy, and Stokes stood. She looked to be about fifty, her long brown hair streaked with gray and tied back. She nodded to Romy, then without a word she knelt beside Anj and the other sim and began taking blood pressures.

"They're shocky," Stokes offered.

The woman looked up. Her face was expressionless, all business, but her eyes looked infinitely sad. "You a doc?"

"Yes, I'm an - "

"We've got saline in the cart. If you want to help, you can start drips on these two."

Stokes nodded and headed for the cart. The stranger moved on.

Patrick turned to Romy. "Who are these people?"

"Doctors."

"From SimGen?"

She shook her head and bit her upper lip. Romy's usually steely composure had slipped. She looked rattled, something Patrick never would have thought possible. Maybe it was the helplessness. Patrick felt it too - a need to do something but not knowing what.

"Your people then," he said. "Your organization. How'd they get here so fast?"

"They've been on standby."

"You mean you expected this?"

"Expected someone might try to hurt them." Her eyes were black cauldrons. "Excuse me. I need a little air."

He watched her breeze past Holmes Carter, still standing by the door, sputtering like an over-choked engine. Tome squatted against a far wall, his face buried in his arms. And all around Patrick, the strange, silent doctors, gliding from one sick sim to another.

Feeling useless, he decided he could use a breath of night air himself, but first he had something to say...

He stopped before Carter. "This your doing, Holmesy?"

Carter's round face reddened, his third chin wobbled. "You son of a bitch! If I was going to poison anyone it would be you, not these dumb animals. They're just pawns in your game."

The genuine outrage in Carter's eyes made Patrick regret his words. He backed off a bit. "Well...

somebody poisoned them."

"If you're looking to place blame, Sullivan, find a mirror. This never would have happened if you hadn't started poking your nose where it doesn't belong."

Stung, Patrick turned away. The truth of Carter's words hurt and clung to him as he stepped out into the night.

Some sort of oversized commuter van was parked on the grass outside. The doctors had driven it straight across the club's rear lawn to the barrack door; Patrick could trace the deep furrows under the pitiless glow of the moon peering down from the crystal sky. Up on the rise he spotted a number of Beacon Ridge members standing outside the clubhouse, gawking at the scene. And Romy...where was Romy?

He walked around the barrack and spotted her down the slope by the border privet hedge. But she wasn't alone. A tall dark figure stood beside her. After a moment, Romy turned and began walking back up the slope; the tall man faded into the shadows of the hedge.

"Who was that?" he asked as she approached.

"No one."

"But - "

Her face had settled into grim lines. "You didn't see a thing. Now let's go back inside and make ourselves useful."

Patrick was about to comment on what seemed to be a lot of hush-hush, undercover nonsense but bit it back. It wasn't nonsense at all. Not when poison was part of someone's game plan.

Romy stopped dead in the doorway and he ran into her back, knocking her forward. He saw immediately why she'd stopped.

Chaos in the barrack. The formerly silent, seemingly imperturbable doctors were in frenzied motion, pumping ventilation bags and thumping sim chests.

"I've got another one crashing here!" one called out. He was on his knees next to an unconscious sim. He looked up and saw Romy and Patrick. "You two want to help?"

Patrick tried to speak but could only nod.

"Name it," Romy said.

"Each of you get an Ambu bag from that cart and bring them over here."

Romy was already moving. "What's an Am - ?"

"Looks like a small football with a face mask attached," the doctor said.

Romy opened a deep drawer, removed two of the devices, handed one to Patrick. On their way back, to his right, he noticed Holmes Carter kneeling, using one of the bags to pump air into a sim's lungs.

Carter...?

To their left, the woman doc waved and called out. "Romy! Over here! Quick!"

Romy peeled off and Patrick kept on course toward the first doc. He stuttered to a stop when he saw the patient.

Anj.

She lay supine on the floor, limp as a rag doll with half its stuffing gone; the front of her bib overalls had been pulled down and her T-shirt slit open, exposing her budding, pink-nippled, lightly furred breasts.

"Don't just stand there!" the doctor said. He was sweaty, flushed, and looked too young to be a doctor. He had his hands between Anj's breasts and was pumping on her chest. "Bag her!"

Patrick's frozen brain tried to make sense of the words as they filtered through air thick as cotton.

"Bag...?" Was she dead?

"Give me that!" The doctor reached across Anj and snatched the Ambu bag from Patrick's numb fingers. He fitted the mask over Anj's mouth and nose and squeezed the bag. "There! Do that once for every five times I pump."

Patrick dropped to his knees and managed to get his hands to work, squeezing the bag every time the doctor shouted, "Now!" and wishing someone would cover her. Every so often the doctor would stop pumping and press his stethoscope to Anj's chest.

"Shit!" he said after the third time. "Nothing! Keep bagging." He pawed through what looked like an orange plastic tool box, muttering, "No monitor, no defibrillator, how am I supposed to...here!"

He pulled out a small syringe capped with a three- or four-inch needle. He popped the top, expelled air and a little fluid, then swabbed Anj's chest with alcohol.

Patrick blinked. "You're not going to stick that into - "

That was exactly what he did: right between a pair of ribs to the left of her breast bone; he drew back on the plunger until a gush of dark red swirled into the barrel, then emptied the syringe.

The doctor resumed pumping, crying, "One-two-three-four-five-bag!"

They kept up the routine for another minute or so, then the doctor listened to Anj's chest again.

"Nothing." He pulled a penlight from the plastic box and flashed it into her eyes. "Fixed and dilated." He leaned back and wiped his dripping face on his sleeve. "She's gone."

"No," Patrick said.

But Anj's glazed, staring eyes said it all. Still he resumed squeezing the bag, frantically, spasmodically.

"No use," the doctor said.

"Try, damn it!" Patrick shouted. "She's too young! She's too..." Heran out of words.

"Her brain's been deprived of oxygen too long. She's not coming back."

Patrick dropped the bag and leaned over her. An aching pressure built in his chest. He felt his eyes fill, the tears slip over the lids and drop on Anj's chest.

A hand closed gently on his shoulder and he heard the young doctor say, "I know how you feel."

Patrick shrugged off his hand. "No, you don't."

"I do, believe me. We couldn't save her, but we've got other sick sims here and maybe we can save some ofthem . Let's get to work."

"All right," Patrick said, unable to buck the doctor's logic. "Just give me a second."

As the doctor moved off, Patrick pulled the edges of Anj's torn T-shirt together. They didn't quite meet so he pulled up the bib front of her overalls. Then he pushed her eyelids closed and stared at her.

How could he feel such a sense of loss for something that wasn't even human? This wasn't like puddling up at the end ofOld Yeller . This wasreal .

He pulled off his suit coat and draped it over the upper half of her body. He hovered by her side a moment longer; then, feeling like a terminally arthritic hundred-year-old man, he pushed himself to his feet and moved on.

The next half hour became a staggering blur, moving from one prostrate form to another, losing sim after sim, and pressing on, until...finally...it was over.

Spent, Patrick leaned against a wall, counting. He felt as if he'd been dragged behind a truck over miles of bad road. He'd cried tonight. When was the last time he'd cried? Romy sagged against him, sobbing. He counted twice, three times, but the number kept coming up the same: nineteen still, sheet-covered forms strewn about the floor.

The woman doctor they'd met earlier drifted by; he flagged her down.

"How many did you save?" he said.

She brushed a damp ringlet away from her flushed face. "Six - just barely. We've moved them into the sleep area. They'll make it, but it'll be weeks before they're back to normal. Counting the older sim who didn't eat, that leaves seven survivors."

"The bastards!" Romy gritted through her teeth. "The lousy fucking bastards!" She pushed away from him and began pounding the wall with her fist, repeating, "Bastards!" over and over through her clenched teeth.

She dented the plasterboard, punched through, then started on another spot.

Patrick grabbed her wrist. "Romy! You're going to hurt yourself!"

She turned on him with blazing eyes; she seemed like another person and for an instant he thought she was going to take a swing at him. Then she wrenched her arm free and stalked toward the door.

Though physically and emotionally drained, Patrick forced himself to start after her. But when he spotted Tome crouched in a corner, his head cradled in his arms, he changed course and squatted next to him.

"I'm sorry, Tome," he said, feeling the words catch in his throat. "I'm so sorry."

Tome looked up at him with reddened eyes; tears streaked his cheeks. "Sim family gone, Mist Sulliman. All gone."

"Not all, Tome. Deek survived, so did some others."

But Tome was shaking his head. "Too many dead sim. Family gone. All Tome fault."

"No-no-no," Patrick said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "You can't lay that on yourself. If anybody's to blame here - besides the son of a bitch who poisoned the food - it's me."

Tome kept shaking his head. "No. Tome know. Tome ask Mist Sulliman. If Tome nev ask, Mist Sulliman nev do."

"That doesn't make you responsible for...this. You wanted something better for your family, Tome, and we're not going to let this stop us. I swear - "

"No, Mist Sulliman." He struggled to his feet. "We stop. Family gone. No law bring back. We stop. Other sim die if no stop."

"You can't mean that!" Patrick said, stunned. "That'll mean that Anj and Nabb and all the others died for nothing!"

Tome turned and slid away. "No union, Mist Sulliman. Tome too tired. Tome too sad."

"Then they win! Is that what you want?"

"Tome want sim live," he said without looking back. "That all Tome want now."

Patrick fought the urge to grab the old sim and shake some sense into him. They couldn't quit now -  public opinion would rush to their side after this atrocity. He took a step after him, but the utter defeat in the slump of those narrow shoulders stopped him.

He remembered the night they met, when Tome explained what he and the other sims wanted:Family...

and one thing other...respect, Mist Sulliman. Just little respect.

And now your family's been murdered, Patrick thought. And the only respect you've gained is mine. And what's that worth?

Flickering light to his left caught his eye. He saw Reverend Eckert's face on the TV screen in the corner. The voice was muted but Patrick knew the bastard could only be spewing more of his anti-sim venom. With a low cry of rage he stalked across the room, picked up an overturned bench, and raised it above his head. But before he could smash the set, a hand grabbed his arm.

"Please don't do that," said a voice.

He turned and found Holmes Carter standing behind him. On any other day he would have teed off on the man, but Carter had surprised the hell out of him tonight - worked as hard as anyone to save the sims. And he looked it: His sport coat was gone and his wrinkled shirt lay partially unbuttoned, exposing a swath of his bulging belly. Right now he looked shellshocked.

Patrick knew exactly how he felt.

"Why the hell not?"

"What will the survivors watch?"

Damn him, he was right.

Patrick lowered the bench and extended his hand. "I want to thank you, Holmes. I take back anything I've ever said to offend you."

"Sure." Carter gave the hand a listless, distracted shake and looked around. "Gone," he said dazedly. "Just like that, three-quarters of our sims...gone. Nabb...he used to be my favorite caddie, and now he's dead. Why?" He looked at Patrick with tear-filled eyes. "What kind of sick person would do this? What kind of a world have we created?"

"Wish I knew, Holmes. It gets stranger and stranger."

Carter sighed. "I realized something tonight. These sims...they're...they were...part of Beacon Ridge. We knew them. We liked them. I'm going to tell the board to grant collective bargaining rights, and I'm going to insist that the survivors remain together as long as they want."

Patrick opened his mouth to speak but found himself, for possibly the first time in his adult life, at a loss for words.

Carter smiled wanly. "What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" He gave his head a single sad shake. "Wasn't that part of the exchange that set this whole mess in motion?"

Patrick nodded, remembering their little confrontation in the club men's room. "Yes...yes, I believe it was. This is good of you, Holmes."

"I just wish I'd done it yesterday."

Without another word Carter turned and wove his way through the dead sims toward the door.

We've won, Patrick thought - a reflex. The thought died aborning. He looked around at the sheeted forms and knew that if this was winning, he'd much rather have lost.

He heard an engine rumble to life outside. He looked around and realized that the mysterious doctors had disappeared. He hurried to the door in time to see the truck roll away across the grass toward the road.

Romy stood there, leaning against the barrack wall. He approached her cautiously. She seemed to have spent her rage, so he filled her in on the latest developments.

"Tome's decision doesn't surprise me," she said in a low, hoarse voice. "Sims aren't fighters. But after what you'd told me about the club president..."

"Yeah. I guess I had him wrong. People never cease to surprise me, for good or for ill. Like these phantom doctors of yours. Where did they come from, where did they go? They pop out of nowhere with no explanation, and then they're gone."

"I told you - " Romy began.

"I don't want to hear about some nameless 'organization' again. How about some specifics? Who's behind you? And who killed those two guys when we were run off the road the other night? I want answers, Romy."

Her expression was tight. "Do you? Well then maybe you're in for one more surprise tonight."

"I don't think I can handle another." He noticed a strange look in her eyes, wary yet flirting with anticipation. "But I'll bite. What?"

"Someone wants to meet you."