DEADSTOCK

"That's all very interesting, but I don't have a chip like that."

"No? Well, would you tell me if you did? So you see, I don't trust truth serums and truth scans." He held the syringe up to the light, squinting one eye at the transparent cartridge. A silvery glitter writhed within. "What I trust is pain."

"What are you talking about?"

"These are nanomites. You ought to recognize them, huh? You produce similar creatures yourself. I used this type with a lot of success in the Blue War, on Ha Jiin prisoners. Oh, it was against the code. The nanomites were for emergency surgical procedures in the field. But their programming is adaptable." He held the instrument ready, and then moved toward his prisoner.

Fukuda stiffened. He had to force himself not to get up and bolt. Lounging back on a love seat nearby was Doe, aiming a handgun in his direction. Fukuda knew it was a type that fired beams instead of solid projectiles. He said, "Look, I told you the truth! I swear it on my daughter's life! I don't know what happened to Krimson Tableau!" Jones pressed the syringe's tip against the side of his neck. "Please, don't!"

There was no pain. Was it his imagination, though, or did he feel the rustle of thousands of microscopic clawed feet as the machine-like insects scurried into his system?

Jones pocketed the syringe, and in its place produced a little remote control device. He held it up for Fukuda to see. "It's simple, really-like a toy. One button will make the nanomites go to work on your nerves to bring about excruciating pain. And this button, here, will make them repair the damage they cause. They're very good at doing either." He smiled. "We're just waiting now, giving them a little time to spread around and make themselves at home."

From the love seat, Doe snickered.

"Please, listen, you know I'm a wealthy man. I can pay you men a great deal of money to stop this."

"We have a sense of loyalty, Mr. Fukuda, do you know that?" Jones's amicable demeanor began to crumble away. His eyes shone, and he spoke through clenched teeth. "It might seem hard for you to believe that factory-produced ma

"I didn't make you men, did I? I don't manufacture human clones!"

"What I'm saying is, you can't buy our loyalty. It's about more than the blasting money." Jones was so animated now that as he spoke he sprayed spittle in Fukuda's face. Had his skin tone been natural, he might have been flushed deep red. But he calmed himself enough to glance at a clock on one wall. Regaining his composure, he found his smile again. "I think that's enough time."

Mr. Jones pointed the remote at Fukuda, who yelled, "Don't, don't, don't!"

He started to shoot up from the chair but the pain slammed him back down hard. It was difficult to tell exactly where it was coming from- seemingly everywhere at once, like electricity crackling along every nerve. Fire up and down his arms and legs. Fire in his neck, making the cords stand out, fire across his back, in his fingertips and in the sensitive nerves at the head of his penis. He screamed. Tears bubbled up in his eyes.

Jones thumbed another button. The nanomites went to work fast to repair the gnawed nerves, but to Fukuda the process was agonizingly slow. He slumped in his chair nearly unconscious, drooling onto his shirtfront. He felt like he must be bleeding from every pore, though there wasn't a mark on him. It would have been hard to prove a military prisoner had been tortured, should someone investigate. Fukuda was a man possessed, but the tormenting demon inside him had receded. For the moment.

"They're like us," Jones went on. "Like soldiers. We were programmed with martial arts training, to break and tear another person to pieces. But we were also trained in ways to heal the body with just our hands. Set a broken bone. Get kicked-in balls to come down into the scrotum again. Stuff an eye back in a socket, if it was still attached."

"I don't know," Fukuda mumbled, still drooling. "I don't know where she is."

"I'd be afraid to admit it, too, if I'd killed her."

"I didn't kill her, you fu-"

Jones pressed the first button again. The nanomites became piranha again. Fukuda began to scream again. Once more he shook in his chair like a man being executed through electrocution.

There was no gunshot, really, just a poof, because the Darwin .55 was a pricey gun with a lot of features, one of which was an optional silent mode. Thus, it was as though Doe's wrist simply exploded on its own through some extreme medical anomaly. The ray blaster dropped to the floor with his severed hand still wrapped around the grip. He howled in surprise as much as agony.

Jones whirled around and saw Jeremy Stake there in the doorway behind him, holding his pistol in both hands to steady its aim. "Reverse it!" he snarled.

The clone pressed the button to turn the nanomites from demons back to angels, from soldiers to healers. Fukuda slouched down limp in his seat with a deep groan.

"Okay, now drop that thing!" Jones let the device fall to the carpet. "Hands on your head!" Jones complied, lacing his fingers atop his skull. As when he had ranted to Fukuda, his eyes shone and his teeth were clenched.

"You're a fool getting in this deep, Stake. You should walk away from all this now."

"You fuck! You fuck!" Doe was wailing, clutching his arm to compress its veins. He started rising to his feet.

Stake shifted his eyes to him. "Sit down!"

With the stump of his wrist squirting blood in rhythmic pulsations, the clone reached his remaining hand into his jacket for some backup weapon. Poof. This time, the .55 projectile went through the vet's throat and shattered something glass across the room. This time, the clone obeyed Stake's command. He dropped back onto the love seat, a wave of vividly red blood washing down his bright white shirtfront.

"I told him to sit down," Stake muttered.

"You fuck," Jones hissed, the same words as Doe and in the same voice. Yet, he had the better sense to remain motionless.

Stake moved further into the room. He circled around Mr. Jones until he came to Fukuda's chair, and reached down to the manacles binding his wrists. "What's the release code?" he snapped. Jones gave the numbers, and Stake punched them in with his free hand while keeping the Darwin trained on the security chief.

"You'll die for killing my man."

"Soldiers die, Mr. Jones. Like one of you told me, we're not on the same side anymore."

His hands now free, Fukuda rose from the chair shakily. He scooped up the dropped remote, afraid Jones would stomp on the pain button.

Stake went on, "If Fukuda did do something to Krimson Tableau, he'd have just told you. So you found out what you needed to know. Go back to your boss and tell him that."

"You're going to let him go?" Fukuda panted.

"As opposed to?"

In a whisper, Fukuda said, "We should take care of him, like that one!" He motioned toward Doe's corpse with its surprised-looking open eyes and flowing throat wound.

"I came to protect you. I'm not an assassin."

"Such a good soldier," Jones mocked.

"You and me both, huh?"

"Whatever. Let him go," Fukuda said. But he went to Jones and dug inside his pocket, fished out the syringe device. He saw that only a portion of its contents had been injected into him. Without hesitation he then jammed the tip of the instrument into Jones's side and injected him through his shirt. The entire remaining dose.