Prodigal Son

came alive.
        The cordless Crestron panel, by which the TV was controlled, currently lay on Victor's nightstand, untouched.
        Some bodiless Presence seemed to be channel surfing. Images flipped rapidly across the screen, faster, faster.
        As Erika put down her fork and pushed her chair back from the table, the Presence selected a dead channel. A blizzard of electronic snow whitened the big screen.
        Sensing that something bizarre-and something of significance-was about to happen, she rose to her feet.
        The voice-deep, rough, and ominous-came to her out of the dead channel, through the Dolby SurroundSound speakers in the ceiling: "Kill him. Kill him."
        Erika moved away from the table, toward the TV, but halted after two steps when it seemed unwise to get too close to the screen.
         "Shove the scalpel in his eye. Into his brain. Kill him."
        "Who are you?" she asked.
         "Kill him. Thrust it deep, and twist. Kill him."
        "Kill whom?"
        The Presence did not answer.
        She repeated her question.
        On the plasma screen, out of the snow, a pale ascetic face began to form. For a moment, she assumed this must be the face of a spirit, but as it developed character, she recognized Victor, eyes closed and features relaxed, as though this were his death mask.
         "Kill him."
        "He made me."
         "To use."
        "I can't."
         "You're strong."
        "Impossible."
         "Kill him."
        "Who are you?"
         "Evil," said the voice, and she knew that this Presence was not speaking of itself, but of Victor.
        If she participated in this conversation, she would inevitably consider betraying Victor even if only to make an argument that it was impossible to raise a hand against him. The mere act of thinking about killing her maker could bring her own death.
        Every thought creates a unique electrical signature in the brain. Victor had identified those signatures that represented the thought of taking violent action against him.
        Implanted in Erika's brain-as in the brain of every member of the New Race-was a nanodevice programmed to recognize the thought signature of patricide, of deicide.
        If ever she picked up a weapon with the intention of using it against Victor, that spy within would instantly recognize her intent. It would plunge her into a state of paralysis from which only Victor could retrieve her.
        If thereafter he allowed her to live, hers would be a life of greater suffering. He would fill all her days with imaginative punishment.
        Consequently, she moved now to the Crestron touch panel on the nightstand and used it to switch off the TV. The plasma screen went dark.
        Waiting with the control in hand, she expected the TV to switch itself on again, but it remained off.
        She did not believe in spirits. She must not believe. Such belief was disobedience. Disobedience would lead to termination.
        The mysterious voice urging murder was best left mysterious. To pursue an understanding of it would be to chase it off a cliff, to certain death.
        When she realized that she was trembling with fear, Erika returned to her chair at the table.
        She began to eat again, but now her appetite was of the nervous variety. She ate voraciously, trying to quell a hunger that food could never satisfy: a hunger for meaning, for freedom.
        Her tremors-and the fear of death they represented-surprised her. There had been times since her "birth" six weeks ago when she had thought death desirable.
        Not now. Something had changed. When she had not been looking, that thing with feathers, hope, had come into her heart.

CHAPTER 54

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        ROY PRIBEAUX HAD GUNS.
        
        He retrieved them from the closet where they were stored in custom cases. He examined them lovingly, one by one, cleaned and lubricated them as necessary, preparing them for use.
        Throughout his adolescence and twenties, he had adored guns. Revolvers, pistols, shotguns, rifles-he had a core collection of each type of weapon.
        Shortly after his twentieth birthday, when he had come into his inheritance, he bought a Ford Explorer, loaded it with his favorite firearms, and toured the South and Southwest.
        Until that time, he had only killed animals.
        He hadn't been a hunter. He'd never acquired a hunting license.