“What are you going to do? Kill me? What good will that do? I have a clone, you idiot. I’ll still—”
“Remind me,” the other Constance D’Arcy interrupted. “You refresh your upload when? The first of every month, isn’t it? Such an admirably predictable life you live. Well, it’s near the end of June. That adds up to a month of lag for you.”
Fenton blanched.
“How will your clone figure out what happened, I wonder? Four weeks ago, none of this had even begun. And it’s not like an ambitious hack like you would risk leaving a paper trail. Does anyone even know about your meeting with Franklin Butler? No. You couldn’t risk that, could you? Then you’d have had to share.” The other Constance D’Arcy smirked, enjoying plucking the wings off her new fly. “Lag can be a cruel mistress, Brooke. My guess is your clone will lose her mind trying to understand why you died here tonight.”
“Please,” Fenton said, putting her hands out for mercy.
“As if you wouldn’t do the same in my place,” the other Constance D’Arcy said and pulled the trigger.
The shot sailed wide of its mark. Fenton stumbled back, eyes panicked ovals. Her heels caught in the gravel, and she fell gracelessly onto her back.
“Dammit,” the other Constance D’Arcy said, glaring at the gun as if it were at fault. She strode over to where the doctor lay babbling, begging for her life. A second gunshot cut Fenton short, but the other Constance D’Arcy kept firing until the doctor lay still.
By the time it occurred to Con that maybe she should run, the other Constance D’Arcy had swung the gun her way. Not that it actually mattered. Con knew she wasn’t going anywhere. She’d come too far for answers that at last felt within reach. She looked down at the body of Fenton bleeding into the gravel, then up at the other Constance D’Arcy, who was still pointing a gun at her. She was aware that her shoulders were shaking and that she couldn’t stop them. She wondered abstractly if this was what shock felt like.
“Calm down,” the other Constance D’Arcy chided, checking herself to make sure she hadn’t gotten any blood on her clothes.
“You killed her.” It was upsetting enough seeing herself kill someone, but the calculating, detached way the other Constance D’Arcy talked was almost worse.
“At this very moment back in DC, Fenton’s clone is already being prepped for its download. She has a long life ahead of her wondering what the hell happened, which is less than the bitch deserves.” The other Constance D’Arcy heaved the gun in the direction of the lake, but it never even hit the water—the police would find it in about five minutes. When she peeled off a pair of latex gloves, Con realized that was the whole point.
“You’re setting up Franklin Butler.”
The other Constance D’Arcy nodded as if that should be obvious. “It will sow a little useful confusion. Plus, when people get a load of the video I shot earlier, there will be endless questions about why the CEO of Palingenesis was meeting secretly with the mouthpiece of Children of Adam. Two birds with one stone as far as I can see.”
“It was you posing as Gaddis on that call. You orchestrated this meeting.”
“Well, I couldn’t very well show up to pay your ransom. Can you imagine Franklin Butler’s face? It would have made his tiny little head explode.” The other Constance D’Arcy apparently found the thought charming.
“What happened to you?” Con asked.
“We should go.”
“Who was that in the farmhouse?” Certain baseline questions needed to be answered before Con was going anywhere.
“We don’t have time for this,” the other Constance D’Arcy said. She drew a second gun and pointed it at Con.
Con found that nothing but funny. “You really should have pointed that at me a week ago back when I still gave a shit.”
“Believe me, we tried.”
“You can’t threaten me anymore. I’m past that.”
“You’re right.” The other Constance D’Arcy put the gun away. “But I won’t need to, will I? Not knowing is like a burning coal in your clenched fist, isn’t it? And only the truth will allow you finally to put it out.”
“Are you my original or another clone of us?”
“I’m not your original.”
That was a comfort. Con didn’t much like this version of herself. “Then who made you?”
“Come and see.”
“Answer my question,” Con said.