None of these thousand avatars successfully matched with avatar 000000000.
Abruptly, the watchful silence was broken by the beep of her cell phone.
Tara jerked in surprise, then fumbled for her phone, heart racing. The call had a Connecticut area code, and she didn’t recognize the number. She flipped the phone open. “Hello?”
“Tara?” the voice was faint, thinned by a wash of static, but nevertheless she recognized it instantly.
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“The Tank.”
“Thank God. And what did—?”
“Later. Where are you?”
“In a data conduit not far from you, I think. I—”
“Wait.” And Tara lowered the phone.
She thought about everything Mauchly said when he’d told her Lash was the killer. She thought about the diner, what Lash had begun to say. She thought about the look on his face when he’d appeared in her office, begged her to do just one more thing. Most of all, she thought about the six supercouples, and the mysterious avatar whose identity code was zero.
Tara was not by nature an impulsive person. She always examined the evidence, weighed the pros and cons, before making a decision. Right now, the cons were deadly serious. If Lash was the killer, she was in grave danger.
And the pros? Helping an innocent man. Solving the riddle of the two dead couples. Maybe sparing the lives of future victims.
Tara put her free hand into her pocket, withdrew two long, narrow strips of lead foil. She turned the strips over, looking at them. Maybe she wasn’t impulsive. But she realized that, this time, she’d made up her mind what to do long before setting foot in this room.
She lifted the phone. “Meet me outside the Tank. Quick as you can.”
“But—”
“Just do it.” And then she closed the phone, killed the running processes, logged off the control terminal, and turned her back on the dark and empty Tank.
FIFTY
When Lash rounded the corner, Tara was waiting. He approached quickly.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thanks for taking a chance.”
“You look even more beat up than before,” she replied. Something flashed silver in her hands, and for a ridiculous moment Lash feared it was a pair of handcuffs. Then he realized it was a strip of lead foil. He watched as she took his bleeding hand and wrapped the foil carefully around his identity bracelet.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Neutralizing the scanners.”
“I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Nobody’s supposed to. I got these from slitting open a lead apron in a radiology lab down the hall from my office. They’ll buy a little time.” She raised her own arm: an identical strip of foil had been wrapped around her own bracelet.
“Then you trust me,” he said, immensely relieved.
“I didn’t say that. But without the foil I’ll never get the chance to know whether you’re lying or not. Tell me one thing. You were kidding about them shooting at you, right?”
Lash shook his head.
“Jesus. Come on, we can’t stay here.” And she led him down the corridor.
They reached an intersection, turned the corner. “What did you find out?” he asked.
“I found out avatar 000000000 was a match for all six women.”
“God damn. I knew it!”
At that moment, Tara pushed him through a doorway.
Lash glanced around. “Is this a ladies’ room?”
“With my bracelet covered, I can’t unlock any doors. Here at least we can talk undisturbed. So talk.”
“All right.” Lash hesitated a second, wondering just what to say. It hadn’t been easy, even in the coffee shop; here, with his limbs trembling from the long climb and his heart hammering in his chest, it would be even harder.
“You realize I can’t prove anything,” he said. “The most important piece is still missing. But the rest of the pieces fit perfectly.”
She nodded.
“You remember what I started to tell you? How only somebody in Eden’s top echelons could have done this? Known every aspect of Lindsay Thorpe’s background, tampered with her medical orders, modified her prescription, faked the paper trail. Just as only somebody with all Eden at their fingertips could have doctored my records, morphed me into a psychopathic desperado. Somebody who’d been with the company back when it was a PharmGen subsidiary. Somebody highly placed enough to know about the early tests on scolipane. Somebody who’d been a part of Eden Incorporated since the very first client walked through the doors.”
“What are you saying?” she asked.
“You know what I’m saying. The person who did all this — the person who’s targeting the supercouples—is avatar zero.”
“But who…” The question died in her throat.
Lash nodded grimly. “That’s right. Richard Silver is avatar zero.”
“Impossible.”
But Lash watched Tara’s eyes as she said this; watched her travel the same path of discovery he’d already taken. Who else but Silver would have such a number? Who else could have been in the system all this time? Perhaps on some level, she had already guessed. Perhaps that’s why she’d come prepared with the lead foil; why she’d come at all.
Tara just shook her head. “Why?”
“I don’t know why. Yet. We’re taught if you can determine motive, you can determine everything else: personality, behavior, opportunity. I don’t fully understand the motive. Fact is, only Silver can tell us for sure.”
There was a distant flurry of conversation, the opening and closing of doors. They waited, barely breathing. More chatter, closer this time; a distorted voice on a radio. Then more talk, farther away. And then, silence.
Lash exhaled slowly. “The idea came to me in your office this morning, when avatar zero kept coming to the top of the search list. The only avatar without a name. But it wasn’t until I met with an old classmate in Cold Spring — when I saw the connections to PharmGen and scolipane, and its awful reaction with Substance P — that it came together. And Silver, watching everything from his ivory tower, must have realized how close I was. Thus the twenty-first-century smear job.”
“What about Karen Wilner?”
“I’ve barely had time to trace what happened to Lindsay Thorpe. I’m certain Substance P is at the heart of it. As for the delivery system, I can’t yet say.”
Tara looked at him. “Even with everything you’ve told me, it’s hard to believe. Silver might be a recluse, but he’s the last guy to strike me as a killer.”
“Reclusiveness is a red flag. Still, he doesn’t fit the obvious profile. But like I said, the profile’s contradictory to begin with. The murders are too similar, somehow. Artless, in a way. As if a child was committing them.” He paused. “Do I strike you as a killer?”
“No.”
“But you turned me in anyway.”
“And I might again. No one else believes you.”
“No one else has heard my story. Just you.”
“The jury’s still out until I hear what Silver has to say.”
Lash nodded slowly. “In that case, we’ve got only one option left.”
“What do you mean?” But from Tara’s eyes, Lash could see that she already knew.
FIFTY-ONE
Edwin Mauchly stood in the hush of Tara Stapleton’s empty office, scanning the room slowly. To an observer, the scan might have appeared desultory. Yet he missed nothing: the posters, potted plants, spotless desk with three monitors arrayed behind it, battered surfboard leaning against the wall.