Nijinsky and Anya leapt. She touched his face. Nijinsky took his pulse.
“He’s alive,” Nijinsky said. “He’s alive.”
“He’s catatonic. What have you done to him?”
Nijinsky slid a hand under Vincent’s head and raised him up. Vincent’s eyes never moved. No change of focus.
Nijinksy slapped his face, not hard.
Anya drew back, but she did not object. Instead she said, “Harder.”
Nijinsky delivered a stinging slap.
Nothing. Not a flinch. Not a blink.
“Again,” she said, and somehow now she was in charge, delivering orders.
Nijinsky took a deep breath. This time no open-handed slap. He delivered a short but very sharp closed fist punch to the side of Vincent’s head.
Nothing.
Both of them drew back, staring in horror at those blank, empty eyes.
Then Nijinsky saw something that made him gasp.
But what he saw was not in the room.
Perched at the back of his own eyeball, one of his own biots gazed passively at Vincent’s still, inactive biot.
“What is it?” Anya demanded.
“Just . . .” And he didn’t say what it was, because he didn’t know, all he knew was that the flesh on his arms rose in goose bumps because for the first time, Vincent’s biot had stirred.
Nijinsky felt a chill. He could barely breathe.
“What is it?” Anya demanded.
Vincent’s biot turned eerily Vincent-like eyes on Nijinsky’s own biot. Then, while the real, macro Vincent stared blankly, catatonic, seeing nothing, his biot walked uncertainly to Nijinsky’s creature and extended a claw to touch.
“Anya,” Nijinsky said, his tone awestruck. “He’s …He’s aware.”
NINETEEN
“Aren’t you a bit young to be playing with guns?” Burnofsky asked Billy. Burnofsky looked bad. He’d spent the night tied up and staring longingly at the bottle of vodka. Jealously when he’d watched Nijinsky come and take a long pull.
Billy the Kid said nothing, because he had wanted to say, “I’m not playing,” and then there had been this huge rush of memories and it was like he’d swallowed poison or something. Like he wanted to heave up his guts and he’d already done that.
“Certainly young to be a murderer,” Burnofsky said. Again, Billy was on the verge of saying something and stopped himself. What he wanted to say was, “I’m not a murderer. I just defended myself.”
Except that wasn’t quite true, was it? He had gotten out, after all. He had then walked around the block and come back into the bloody safe house.
He had been safe. Free and clear. And then he had gone back. Of course he’d thought all the bad guys were dead. Right? Right, Billy?
As if he could read Billy’s mind, Burnofsky laughed. It was a bitter, angry sound.
“Maybe I’ll shoot you,” Billy said, irritated. “Might as well,” Burnofsky said. “If you don’t, one of the others will. Or more likely they’ll wire me.”
Billy noticed him glance at his suitcase. And Burnofsky noticed the curiosity.