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Everything ahted--like water Fro with reflections of the overhead lights Liquid jewels
She liked the way it purled across the golden-marble floor to the drain Pellucid yet visible
Erika relished the subtle aroma of water, too, the crispness She breathed deeply of the scented soap, stearance And after the soap, the s
Educated by direct-to-brain data downloading, she had awakened with full knowledge of the world But facts were not experience All the billions of bits of data streahost world in co All she had learned in the tank was but a single note plucked frouitar, at most a chord, while the true world was a sy thus far that had struck her as ugly was Victor’s body
Born of man and woman, heir to the ills of mortal flesh, he’d taken extraordinary measures over the years to extend his life and to or His body was puckered and welted by scars, crusted with gnarled excrescences
Her revulsion was ungrateful and ungracious, and she was ashaiven her life, and all that he asked in return was love, or soust, he hout the sex He’d struck her often, called her unflattering nah with her
Even fro, Erika knew that what they had shared had not been ideal--or even ordinary--sex
In spite of the fact that she failed hi, Victor still harbored sos toward her When it was over, he’d slapped her bottoe hich he had delivered previous slaps and punches--and had said, "That was good"
She knew that he was just being kind It had not been good She ly body, just as people evidently learned to see the art in the ugly paintings of Jackson Pollock
Because Victor expected her to be prepared for the intellectual conversations at his periodic dinner parties with the city’s elites, volumes of art criticism had been downloaded into her brain as she had finished for in the tank
A lot of it seemed to make no sense, which she attributed to her na&iuh; therefore, with more experience, she would no doubt coly, the ly beautiful She simply needed to attain the proper perspective
She would strive to see the beauty in Victor’s tortured flesh She would be a good wife, and they would be as happy as Romeo and Juliet
Thousands of literary allusions had been a part of her downloaded instructions, but not the texts of the books, plays, and poems from which they came She had never read Romeo and Juliet She knew only that they were faht have enjoyed reading the works to which she could allude with such facility, but Victor had forbidden her to do so Evidently, Erika Four had becootten her into such terrible trouble that Victor had been left with no choice but to ter influence A good wifepretty in a summery dress of yellow silk, Erika left the master suite to explore the mansion She felt like the unnamed narrator and heroine of Rebecca, for the first ti the lovely rooms of Manderley
In the upstairs hall, she found Williaers one by one
Chapter 9
In the un what she always needed in tiood Cajun food--Carson said, "Even if you were Jack’s mother, even if you were his wife, even then you wouldn’t know he’d been replaced"
"If this were like some Southern Gothic novel," Michael said, "and I was both his mother and his wife, I’d still think that was Jack"
"That was Jack"
"That wasn’t Jack"
"I know that wasn’t him," Carson said impatiently, "but it was him"
Her palms were slick with sweat She blotted them one at a ti his New Race and seeding theed credentials"
"He can also duplicate real people," she said "How can he do that?"
"Easy Like Dolly"
"Dolly who?"
"Dolly the sheep Reo, some scientists cloned a sheep in a lab, named her Dolly"
"That was a sheep, for God’s sake This is a medical examiner Don’t tell me ‘easy’"
The fierce htwork of the traffic in the street, and every vehicle appeared to be on the verge of bursting into fla in a silvery spill across the paveers," she said, "he can duplicate anyone"
"You ht not even be the real Carson"
"I’m the real Carson"
"Hoould I know?"
"And hoill I know if you go to the men’s room and a Michael monster comes back?"
"He wouldn’t be as funny as the real me," Michael said
"The new Jack is funny Re more personality than homicide cops?"
"That wasn’t exactly hilarious"
"But for Jack it was funny enough"
"The real Jack wasn’t all that funny to begin with"
"That’s my point," she said "They can be as funny as they need to be"
"That would be scary if I thought it was true," Michael said "But I’ll beta Michael monster in on you, he’ll be about as witty as a tree stue-style houses, some remained residences, but others had been converted to coe on the corner looked like soe front : WONDERMOUS EATS, FOR TRUE, which translated froood food, no lie"
Michael preferred to read it as "good food, no bullshit," so from time to time he could say "Let’s have a no-bullshit lunch"
Whether the legal name of the restaurant was Wonderan, Carson had no idea The cheap Xeroxed es had been cleared off two adjacent lots, but the ancient live oaks had been left standing Cars were parked in the shade a the trees
The carpet of dead leaves looked like drifts of pecan shells and crunched under the tires of the sedan, then underfoot as Carson and Michael walked to the restaurant
If Helios succeeded in the abolition of hule- like Wondermous Eats, for True There would be no eccentricity and no charm in the neorld that he desired
Cops saw the worst of people, and grew cynical if not bitter Suddenly, however, flawed and foolish humanity seemed beautiful and precious to Carson, no less so than nature and the world itself
They chose a table outside, in the oak shade, apart from most of the other diners They ordered crawfish boulettes and fried okra salad, followed by shrimp-and-ham jambalaya
This was a denial lunch If they could still eat this well, surely the end of the world was not upon the does it take to ers?" Michael wondered when the waitress had left
"If Helios can ht, if he’s that far advanced, then we’re screwed," Carson said
"More likely, he’s steadily replacing people in key positions in the city, and Jack was on his list already"
"So when Jack did the first autopsy on one of the New Race and realized soht his Jack on-line quicker than planned"
"I’d like to believe that," Michael said
"So would I"
"Because neither of us is a big cheese On his short list, our names wouldn’t be there between the mayor and the chief of police"
"He would have had no reason to start growing a Carson or a Michael," she agreed "Until maybe yesterday"
"I don’t think he’ll bother even now"
"Because it’s easier just to have us killed"
"Totally easy"
"Did he replace Luke or was Luke always one of them?"
"I don’t think there was ever a real Luke," Michael said
"Listen to us"