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“I’d do her,” Dr. Chen says.
Dr. Anapura says, “There’s no need to be sexist, Doctor.”
Tommy is irritated, but he continues. “My guys weren’t that far behind you. Clever, losing them in the fog, but they found where you’d docked. They caught a glimpse of you heading east on the Embarcadero. I know the location of Austin Spiker’s studio. Two plus two. Give me some credit.”
“But you don’t have Eve,” I say.
“Mmm. Not yet. She’d been there but she’s gone. For her own safety we need to find her. So tell me. Where?”
“Will it bother you very much if I say, ‘screw you’?”
He grins. “Kind of expected it. It’s okay. We have your flash drive. And in a few hours we’ll have you doing whatever we like, including getting the girl.”
“You going to beat me?”
“No. We’re going to clone you. Going to make ourselves a whole new Solo. Thanks to the Plissken process, we can transfer—and edit—your memories for implantation in the clone. He’ll tell us.”
“The Plissken process. I’m honored.”
“Oh, it’s not named for you, bagel boy. It’s named for the geniuses who invented it, along with the accelerated cloning process itself.”
He lets it sink in. His eyes are bright with anticipation.
I blink and look away. I don’t mean to.
“Yes, young Plissken, that’s right. That’s the truth of it. Terra Spiker? She’s an A-plus businesswoman, but only a B-minus scientist. Your parents were the brains behind Spiker-Plissken Bio. As it was supposed to be known.” He clucks his tongue. “Your parents would be so disappointed in you. They knew to put science ahead of anything. They knew society’s restrictions are meaningless.”
The others nod heartily. True believers. Acolytes.
Acolytes, not of Terra Spiker, but of my own parents.
“They also knew the profit potential of that kind of power,” Tommy says. “My God, you can’t even begin to imagine it. With their work—and of course the interface designed by their former grad student—we can create humans to order. Do you know what people will pay for that? I mean: O … M … G, Solo! We can create humans from scratch. We can make exact replicas. Or we can let you design your own and make it any age you want, program it any way you want. For a price, you can be God.”
“And we could banish all hatred and evil and genetic disease,” Dr. Chen adds.
Tommy waves a hand dismissively. “Yes, yes, save the world and all that. And make billions of dollars.”
“Make the world a better place,” Dr. Anapura chimes in.
“Right, whatever, let it go, would you?” Tommy says with a sigh.
I hear Tommy. I know what he’s saying. But I can’t move past what he’s said about my own parents.
“My parents,” I say, having no completion for that sentence.
“They were brilliant! They were young gods,” Tommy says. “Terra found out what they were doing, that they were moving beyond mere theory, and she shut them down. She destroyed their work! She wiped their hard drives, burned their papers.”
“Terra destroyed their work,” I repeat.
Tommy throws his hands in the air. “It was a crime! And then of course, she sent Austin after them. And we know how that ended.”
I shake my head. No. I don’t know how that ended.
He’s starting to tell me when Dr. Gold, who’s wandered off to find something to clean his glasses with, yells from just out of sight. “Hey, Dr. Holyfield! Where’s the girl’s boy?”
Tommy stares at me, frozen. I stare back, just as frozen.
“What the hell are you talking about, Gold?”
