The AI led the way through the house to a large room that opened out through French doors to the patio beyond. Beckworth sat with his back to them reading his newspaper.
“Who was it?” he asked.
“These gentlemen to see you.”
He lowered the paper and turned to see them. His face froze when he saw Brian; he slowly rose to his feet.
“Well, gentlemen — it is about time you showed up. I have been keeping track of your activities and am quite amazed at your lack of enterprise. But you are here at last.” There was no warmth in his voice; cold hatred in his expression. “So — Brian Delaney at last, and one of the new MIs. And I see that you have brought Ben as well. Still clumsily in charge of the investigation — which appears to finally have succeeded or you would not be here. Though I am afraid, Ben, that I cannot offer you my congratulations—”
“Why, J.J.? Why did you do it?”
“That is a singularly foolish question for you to ask. Didn’t you know that the parent companies behind Megalobe were about to retire me? No insult intended, they said, but they wanted somebody with more technical skills. I considered this, then decided that retirement on my own terms would be more beneficial. It would also let me get rid of the old house, and old wife — and even more boring and grasping children. I would make a new life — and a far more financially rewarding one.” He looked directly at Brian for the first, his face a sudden mask of icy hatred. “Why didn’t you die the way you should have?”
Brian’s face mirrored Beckworth’s, hatred — but hard memories of pain were there as well. He was silent for a long moment as he carefully put his emotions under tight control. Then he spoke quietly.
“Who is behind the murders — the theft?”
“Don’t tell me that you came all the way here just to ask me that? I should think that the answer would be obvious by now. You know better than I do who in the world is doing AI research.”
“That’s no answer,” Brian said. “There are plenty of universities—”
“Don’t be stupid. I was referring to national governments. Where else do you think the immense sums would come from to finance an expensive operation such as the one that was mounted against Megalobe?”
“You’re lying,” Brian said coldly, his anger suppressed, controlled. “Governments don’t commit murder, hire assassins.”
“My dear young man — have you been living under a rock? Anyone who has opened a newspaper in the last fifty years would laugh at your naïveté. Are you no student of world history? In this particular case the French government sent assassins to blow up a boatload of nuclear protesters — and succeeded very nicely in even killing one of them. And when the plot was discovered they whitewashed the whole thing, even lied enough to New Zealand to let the convicted murders go free. Nor are the French alone in this sort of operation on the world scene.
“Consider the Italian government and their undercover operation titled Gladio. Here the politicians authorized a secret network — in their own country and all of the NATO countries as well — with the criminally asinine idea of arming groups to fight guerrilla warfare — in the completely unlikely chance that the Warsaw Pact countries might not only win a war with them and occupy them as well. In reality Gladio gave weapons to right-wing terrorists and more people died.”
“Are you telling me that the French — or the Italians backed your criminal plan?”
“Consider the British. They sent troops into Northern Ireland with a shoot-to-kill policy against their own citizens. When this was investigated by a police officer from the mainland they bankrupted and ruined an innocent businessman in order to halt the investigation. Then, not satisfied with shooting citizens on their own islands, they sent a team of cold killers to Gibraltar to shoot down foreign nationals in the streets there. Then they even sent experts overseas to teach soldiers of the Khmer Rouge, one of the most murderous regimes in history, how to plant sophisticated mines to murder more civilians.”
“It’s the British, then?”
“You are still not listening. The Russian Stalin sent millions of his own citizens to death in the gulags. That fine monster, Saddam Hussein, used napalm and poison gas on his own Kurdish citizens. Nor are our hands that clean. Didn’t the CIA slip down to Nicaragua, a country we were theoretically at peace with, and plant mutes in the harbors there—”
“Which of them, then?” Benicoff said, breaking in. “I’m not going to deny that many crimes have been committed by many countries. That is one of the nastier legacies of nationalism and painfully stupid politicians that, along with war, must be eliminated. Nor did we come here for any political lectures. Which one did you approach with this plan? Which one is behind the theft and murders?”
“Does it matter? They are all capable and I can assure you that more than one was eager to do it. Perhaps I should tell you — but there is something far more important that I have to do.”
Beckworth reached into his jacket pocket and took out a pistol, which he pointed at them.
“I am very good with this — so stand where you are. I’m leaving — but first I have something for you, Brian. Something too long delayed. Your death. If you had died the way you were supposed to I would not be hiding here but would be a free and honored man. And exceedingly rich. I’m leaving — and you are dying. At last—”
“Killing forbidden!”
Sven roared the words, amplified and ear-destroying. Hurled itself forward at the same instant. Reaching for Beckworth.
Three shots sounded in rapid succession and the MI fell back. Holding onto Beckworth. Shuddered and fell to the ground still clutching the man in unbreakable embrace. Beckworth struggled to free himself, to raise the gun. Aimed at Sven’s head. Fired again — into the brain case.
The result was instantaneous — horrifying.
As every single branch of the tree manipulators sprung apart, largest to smallest, largest to smallest, countless thousands of them sprung wide.
Sharper than the sharpest knives, the tiny twigs of metal slashed through the man’s body. Severed cell from cell, sliced open every blood vessel in an instant. In a silent explosion of gore Beckworth died. One moment alive — then only blood-welling flesh.
Ben gazed at the terrible sight, turned away. Brian did not. He ignored the gory flesh, saw only Sven, his MI. His friend. As dead as Beckworth.
Still alive in its other incarnations. But now, here, dead.
“An accident,” Ben said, getting himself under control.
“Was it?” Brian asked, looking down at the two unmoving and silent forms. “It could have happened that way. Or Sven might just have saved us a lot of trouble. We’ll never know.”
“I suppose not. Nor will we know which country Beckworth went to. But as he said, I wonder if it really matters. It’s all over now, Brian — and that is what counts.”
“Over?” Brian raised his head and his face was cold and empty of all emotion. “Yes, it’s over for you. Over for Sven as well. But it is certainly not over for me. They killed me, don’t you realize that? They killed Brian Delaney. I have some of his memories — but I am not him. I’m half a person, half a memory. And I am beginning to believe that I am something not quite human either. Look what they took away. First my life — then my humanity.”
Ben started to speak and Brian silenced him with a raised finger.
“Don’t say it, Ben. Don’t try to reason with me or argue with me. Because I know what I am. Perhaps it is better this way. I’m closer to an MI now than I am to you. I accept that. I don’t like it or dislike it — I just accept it. So let it be.”
Brian’s smile was wry, crooked, not at all funny. “Let it go at that. As an MI I won’t have to mourn for my lost humanity.”
The wailing sirens of the approaching police cars were the only sounds that broke the silence of the room.