Mr. Murder

few visionaries."
        "Do they think this idea's new?" Paige asked scornfully. "Have they heard of Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-tung?"
        "What they think's new," Clocker said, "is that we've reached an age when the technological underpinnings of society are so complex and so vulnerable because of this complexity that civilization-in fact, the planet itself-can't survive if government makes decisions based on the whims and selfish motivations of the masses that pull the levers in the voting booths."
        "Crap," Paige said.
        Marty would have seconded her opinion if he'd felt strong enough to join the discussion. But he had only enough energy to suck at the apple juice and swallow it.
        "What they're really about," Clocker said, "is brute power. The only thing new about them, regardless of what they think, is they're working together from different extremes of the political spectrum.
        The people who want to ban Huckleber y Finn from libraries and the people who want to ban books by Anne Rice may seem to be motivated by different concerns but they're spiritual brothers and sisters."
        "Sure," Paige said. "They share the same motivation-the desire not merely to control what other people do but what they think."
        "The most radical environmentalists, those who want to reduce the population of the world by extreme measures within a decade or two, because they think the planet's ecology is in danger, are in some ways simpatico with the people who'd like to reduce the world's population drastically just because they feel there are too many black and brown people in it."
        Pie said, "An oranization of such extremes can't hold together "I agree," Clocker said. "But if they want power badly enough, total power, they might work together long enough to seize it.
        Then, when they're in control, they'll turn their guns on each other and catch the rest of us in the cross-fire."
        "How big an organization are we talking about?" she asked.
        After a hesitation, Clocker said, "Big."
        Marty sucked on the straw, exceedingly grateful for the level of civilization that allowed for the sophisticated integration of farming, food-processing, packaging, marketing, and distribution of a product as self-indulgent as cool, sweet apple juice.
        "The Network directors feel modern technology embodies a threat to humanity," Clocker explained, switching the pounding windshield wipers to a slower speed, "but they aren't against employing the cutting edge of that technology in the pursuit of power."
        The development of a completely controllable force of clones to serve as the singularly obedient police and soldiers of the next millennium was only one of a multitude of research programs intended to help bring on the new world, though it was one of the first to bear fruit.
        Alfie.
        The first individual of the first-or Alpha-generation of operable clones.
        Because society was riddled with incorrect thinkers in positions of authority, the first clones were to be employed to assassinate leaders in business, government, media, and education who were too retrograde in their attitudes to be persuaded of the need for change.
        The clone was not a real person but more or less a machine made of flesh, therefore, it was an ideal assassin. It had no awareness of who had created and instructed it, so it couldn't betray its handlers or expose the conspiracy it served.
        Clocker downshifted as the train of vehicles slowed on a particularly snowswept incline.
        He said, "Because it isn't burdened by religion, philosophy, any system of beliefs, a family, or a past, there isn't much danger that a clone assassin will begin to doubt the morality of the atrocities it commits, develop a conscience, or show any trace of free will that might interfere with its performance of its assignments."
        "But something sure went wrong with Alfie," Paige said.
        "Yeah. And we'll never know exactly what."
        Why did it look like me? Marty wanted to ask, but instead his head lolled onto Paige's shoulder and he lost consciousness.
        A hall of mirrors in a carnival funhouse. Frantically seeking a way out.
        Reflections gazing back at him with anger, envy, hatred, failing to mimic his own expressions and movements, stepping out of one looking-glass after another, pursuing him, an ever-growing army of Martin