“What,” he asked, brow furrowing, “is that smell?”
Didn’t look like the perfume had done the trick after all.
“Ethiopian food,” she said, implying she’d had it for lunch.
“What’d you do, bathe in it?” He dropped his fork operatically, appetite apparently gone, and pushed the plate away. Wiping his mouth with a corner of his napkin, he looked her up and down. More than looking. Analyzing.
“Something the matter?” she asked.
“Never seen one of you up close,” he said, as if she were an attraction at a carnival and he’d paid for a ticket to gawk at the freak.
His matter-of-fact tone shook her, but at the same time, she preferred he say it to her face. Growing up mixed, it had always been the whispers just out of earshot that got under her skin the most. Whatever it was he was thinking, better to have it out in the open. That way, at least, she knew exactly what she was dealing with. Still, it didn’t prevent her temper from flaring. She didn’t have a long history of biting her tongue, but she recognized that running her mouth wouldn’t get her anywhere. Instead, she gave him what she saw he wanted, lowering her eyes and apologizing a second time for being late. It did the trick. He relaxed now that he thought they’d established who was in charge.
She reached for the menu. “Would it be cool if I got something to eat?” Despite her big breakfast, she was already hungry again. It wouldn’t kill the Commonwealth of Virginia to pick up the tab.
He snatched the menu away. “Hey, we’re not having lunch. This isn’t a date. I need you to answer a couple questions, and then I’m getting back on the road. I’m late as it is.”
“Come on,” she said, giving him her biggest eyes. “I’ll eat fast.”
His expression indicated he was distinctly unwooed. “Feel free to order whatever you want. After I’m gone.”
He set a recorder on the table between them and recited his name, his badge number, and the time, date, and location.
“Initial interview with the clone of Constance Ada D’Arcy.” He said clone the way other people said pedophile. “How old are you?”
She sat there and said nothing. At least he had the dignity not to repeat his question; she’d give him that much. He stopped the recorder, tongue searching his teeth for any scraps of his lunch. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to antagonize him, but she had the feeling that if she let him bulldoze her, it would become a habit fast.
“I thought you had Ethiopian,” he said.
She shrugged. “I’m malnourished.”
“Fine.” He dropped the menu back in front of her. “What do you want?”
Con flagged down a passing waiter and ordered the first thing she saw on the menu, not wanting to give the son of a bitch the chance to change his mind. It had been a minute since she’d had meat loaf. What was it they said about beggars and choosers?
She reached across the table and started the recording again. “I’m twenty-two. Twenty-four now, I guess.”
“No, I mean how old are you? How long since Palingenesis brought you online? Is that the correct term? Online?”
The question caught her off guard. “Revived. I don’t know exactly. Didn’t you ask them?”
He typed a note on his LFD but didn’t answer her question. “So it’s my understanding that all of Palingenesis’s clients have a biometric chip implanted.”
“That’s right. It notifies Palingenesis of a death event. Gives them a jump on activating the clone. Guessing that’s why they knew before you did.”
He nodded. “Well, there should also be GPS data associated with Constance D’Arcy’s chip. Palingenesis insists they can’t access it.”
That was true. Several years earlier, the news broke that Palingenesis was collecting and storing GPS data of its clients’ whereabouts. It had sparked a furor over privacy concerns. Turned out billionaires didn’t like having their movements tracked any more than regular people. To stave off a public-relations crisis and client revolt, Palingenesis had reengineered their chips so that all GPS data older than thirty-six hours was continually erased. After the client died, the final thirty-six hours were preserved and exorbitantly encrypted. Now the only people who could access that information were the clients, designated representatives, or their clones. Con realized why she was really there, and it wasn’t so Clarke could interview her to get a feel for Constance D’Arcy.
“You want me to give you the GPS so you can find the body,” she said.