DEADSTOCK

Jones spun and elbowed Fukuda in the face. He fell back onto the carpet, but the remote was in one hand and he pointed it like a gun. Depressed one of its buttons.

The clone instantly dropped to his knees, his mouth wide in a cry that wouldn't come. His eyes quivered in their sockets, as if they might burst from some pressure behind them. Then he pitched onto his face, unconscious but still giving spasmodic jolts.

"Enough." Stake took the remote from his employer and thumbed the button to order the nanomites to make their repairs. He pocketed the device. "You're lucky this is directional, or you would have just put yourself on the floor with him."

"I guess I didn't think of that." Fukuda placed a hand on Stake's shoulder, wagging his head. "Thank God you got here."

"Well now we've got to get him and his friend out of here. Where's the third one?"

"Apparently he took out the security man in the lobby, and has him restrained somewhere. Probably in the security office."

"What a mess," Stake seethed, his eyes roving over the scene. "What a blasting mess."

"Yes, and we have to get rid of them before Yuki comes home."

"How well can you trust your security people?"

"Very well, I think."

"We could go to the forcers with this, but I think we should dump Doe's body and drop off Jones near Tableau's company. If it comes back to us later on, a memory scan would show it was justifiable and it was just a clone, anyway. So why don't you call some of your men over here in a car. And you'd better have one of them stay with you in your place at all times now, until this is over and squared away."

"All right. Uh, what about number three, downstairs?"

"We'll have Jones talk to him and send him away, when he wakes from his nap." Stake knelt down and used Jones's own manacles to cuff his wrists behind his back. He then patted him down and took two pistols and a switchblade knife off him. "Jeesh," he said to himself. "Fucking Clone Ranger." He rose to face Fukuda again.

"I can't say you didn't warn me that Tableau might make a move, but I guess I still couldn't believe he'd go this far."

"Look, Mr. Fukuda, I told you I talked to the brother of Krimson's boyfriend. I told you the boyfriend didn't know where she went off to. But I didn't tell you all of it, maybe because it sounds crazy." Stake then went on to relate the circumstances of Krimson Tableau's disappearance from the Gentile brothers' Subtown apartment. All the personal belongings, clothing included, she had left behind. Finally, he described the ventilation grille that had been bent open behind the bed where Krimson had been resting with her lover.

Fukuda furrowed his brow. "I don't see where you're going with this."

"Now we know for certain that Krimson made off with the doll initially, yes. But later, I'm thinking the doll made off with her, in a way."

"What?"

"I think the doll escaped through that air duct on its own, after it did something to Krimson while she slept right there beside Brat Gentile."

"Did something? Did what-eat her?"

"Who knows? How does that thing feed, anyway? Like an amoeba?"

"What are you talking about? It gets what little nourishment it needs through photosynthesis. That doll could hardly consume a human being, then climb down from the bed, tear open an air vent, crawl away God knows where. None of that. The best it can do is wriggle and squirm a little! You met Yuki's friend Maria, remember? And you saw her kawaii-doll, Stellar. I created that doll, too. Dai-oo-ika is no more advanced a life form than that! A slug would be more active-and sentient."

"But Dai-oo-ika wasn't made in the same way Stellar was, isn't that right? You used a different approach for him, didn't you? Something sort of radical?"

Fukuda became wary. "What do you mean?"

"Hey, look over there, Mr. Fukuda!" Stake barked. "There's a dead man soaking his twelve pints into your nice expensive love seat! I did that, and now I can expect Adrian Tableau to make my life interesting. I guess you didn't think I needed to know about it before, and I guess I didn't think so either, but now I need you to tell me everything! Dai-oo-ika… you created him with information you inherited when you bought up Alvine Products, didn't you?"

Fukuda touched his lower lip, split by Jones's elbow, and studied the blood on his fingertips.

"Even if I get Dai-oo-ika back, I don't dare return him to Yuki as a harmless toy. If I'd known from the start the danger I might have placed her in."

"So it's true, then. And it wasn't just about your poor sad daughter, or even about a costly kawaii-doll. You can't let Tableau or anyone else get their hands on your special research."

Fukuda lifted his head and smiled at the detective with something like defiance. "If I can believe what you're saying, then maybe he even did something to Tableau's daughter out of anger. Knowing she'd taken him from Yuki." He almost sounded proud of the creature for that. His surprising prodigy.

"I can't believe you'd be so irresponsible as to use that fanatical cult's data to make a toy for your child."

"It was an experiment! But I didn't expect anything extreme to happen. The designer I put in charge of the project didn't anticipate any danger, either."

"I thought you were supposed to be the practical brother, and it was James who had the crazy schemes."

"James wasn't crazy!" Fukuda said. "Just more creative than me. More daring."

"Well, being daring and being reckless are two different things. Your best bet, if we can even hope to catch Dai-oo-ika now in this whole blasting city, is to just destroy him."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves. First, as before, we find him. Whether he walked away on his own or not."

"I'd like to talk to your designer. Just on the small chance that he might come up with something useful in tracking the thing down."

"His name is Pablo Fujiwara. He used to work for Alvine Products, in fact."

"Lovely."

Stake and Two of the security crew from Fukuda Bioforms rode down in the elevator with Mr. Jones. Knowing the martial training Jones had been instilled with from his conception, Stake kept the manacles on him and his Darwin .55 leveled at his back. Shortly after Jones had awakened, Stake had instructed him to call the third Blue War clone and tell him to go fetch their vehicle and wait outside. And to be sure not to try anything stupid when their party arrived in the lobby. Stake had also inquired about the apartment complex's guard. Jones had related that the man was drugged unconscious, but basically unharmed, in the security office. Fukuda had then said he would offer the security man some financial persuasion for not forwarding this whole matter to the law.

"What are you going to do about Mr. Doe?" Jones asked now, as they descended.

"I took your two guns. One of them has plasma bullets, I see. So I'm going to melt him."

"You'd be wise to melt yourself, too, because that's the only way you're going to be able to escape me, Corporal Stake."

"Just doing my job, Mr. Jones. Like you."

"My job will be done when your skull is cracking between my palms. I should have killed you at your flat, but I guess I got all soft because you were a vet. We're all permitted the occasional lapse in judgment, right?" "I suppose."

"And your lapse of judgment is letting me live, now."

"Yeah? Time will tell."

The elevator reached the ground floor, and Fukuda's three men watched the clone cross to the front doors, looking as dignified as he could in his pricey suit and bowler hat, despite his wrists being cuffed behind his back and the incongruous coloration of his flesh. At the doors, he turned to give Stake a nod that was not polite, not friendly. It was an assurance. We will conclude this business another day.