White Space Season 2

observatory?”
    “Another time, dear, OK?”
    “OK,” Emma said, disappointment dulling her voice.
    Blake turned and left the garden.
    Sarah met Emma’s eyes, but couldn’t help thinking of her daughter’s manufactured twin, murdered to bury a secret. Anyone willing to kill a clone, Sarah was certain, wouldn’t flinch at killing their own flesh and blood.
    She wrapped her arm around Emma and followed Bernice toward their suite from the garden. She had to figure a way to get back home — but how?

    * * * *

CHAPTER 8 — Warren Conway

    Though it was four in the afternoon, the sun tucking itself behind wide swaths of dark, billowed clouds made it seem closer to twilight.
    The press event was held outside the hospital in an oversized tent at the building’s north end. Hundreds of people gathered inside, networking, glad-handing, and taking advantage of the elaborate spread laid out across a long table draped with fine linens. A DJ played soft jazz tunes, the horrible kind. The sort Warren hated. Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Wes Montgomery, that was the real stuff. He preferred a hot band with great improvisations; a tight rhythm section with the horns in tune. Jazz fusion was awful, something Warren was convinced no one truly enjoyed, though people never had the balls to pipe up and demand the shit get muffled. Jazz should never be fused with anything.
    Karrie Penderson, the long-legged blonde who headed communications for the hospital paced between Blake, Warren, and the journalists in attendance, ensuring that everyone was well taken care of.
    Warren stood beside Blake as he spoke to Kenneth Everly, on the hospital’s board of directors, doing his job by kissing Father’s ass and spouting bullshit about what a terrific idea it was, adding the psychiatric wing to Conway Medical.
    Warren could hardly concentrate as his eyes constantly hopped from one side of the crowd to the other, weaving through the swarm, forever settling on Carl Kaiser, working security with a half dozen other Paladin officers.
    Kaiser nodded once, which Warren assumed meant that everything was proceeding as planned. He wanted to get things over with. Until they were, he feigned enjoyment, making small talk and counterfeiting affections.
    The music dimmed at 15 past the hour. The crowd settled, turning its attention toward the rear of the tent where Warren and Blake stood side by side, behind Ms. Penderson, fronting the podium as she delivered introductions.
    As the conference started, Warren pressed his palm to his stomach, as if it might mute the acidic sloshing inside it. He had decided to slaughter his father, but because every cell inside him knew it was wrong, Warren’s brain kept making new excuses, manufacturing fresh justification for why it was OK.
    He had convinced himself that Father had committed the original atrocity by destroying the person Warren was meant to be — a more subtle but no less evil sort of slaying.
    Then he tried convincing himself that there was nothing wrong with murder. History, after all, had smiled on some of the worst. The issue was scale. Stop a single man from breathing, and you were a fiend, but killing in large enough numbers could earn your parade. Perhaps, Warren reasoned, murdering Blake would prevent other deaths which occurred because of Project Phoenix.
    Sweat beaded Warren’s forehead and covered his palms. He would never get away with it. Even as everything inside him said he couldn’t , they also agreed that he shouldn’t . He felt he’d certainly be caught. Most murders were committed by someone close to the victim, whoever had most to gain. Even billions in the bank and a personal police force might not keep the courts from uncovering the truth.
    He had to pull the plug.
    Blake took the podium, waited for the light applause to die, then started speaking. Warren tuned him out, in no mood to hear another rousing speech that would see quotes pinned all over the Web by morning.
    Warren tried drawing Kaiser’s eyes to his, but the man wouldn’t turn. He stood at the tent’s entrance, searching the crowd for nothing in particular.
    Look over here. Look over here.
    Warren wanted to give Kaiser some sign; a red light to stop the shooting.
    But Kaiser wasn’t looking.
    Warren wondered if Kaiser was intentionally ignoring him, not affording him a line to change his mind, and forcing their plans into reality.
    Come on.
    Warren palmed his cell, then thumbed his text to Kaiser. He was