Read Online Sims by F. Paul Wilson - Free Book Online

complex and searched for calm while he waited for Harry to bring in the sim. He toyed idly with the ExecSec plant on his desktop, brushing his pen against the leaves and watching its tendrils whip around the shaft and hold it in place. Then he’d tug on the pen and the tendrils would release it. Back and forth, give and take, noting with pleasure how the plant rotated use of its tendrils to avoid fatigue.
    He sighed and let the plant keep the pen as he leaned back in his chair. The ExecSec had been a modest success back in the days before SinclairGen became SimGen. He wished they’d stuck to harmless little gimmicky productslike this instead of going for the killer app. They wouldn’t be fractionally as wealthy, but how much money can you spend?
    And there’d be no sims wandering the earth.
    He rubbed his cold palms together. The artificial sunlight streaming through the frosted panes at his back did nothing to warm him. More and more lately he craved a real window. Just one. But that was out of the question. Basic research’s windowless design was his own doing, for he knew as well as anyone that a window to the outside was also a portal in. So he had allowed not a pinhole through the walls of this lead-lined box of steel-reinforced concrete.
    To keep the place from looking too much like the Berlin Wall, mirror-glass panes had been set into the exterior to simulate windows and, perhaps, to tempt industrial and media spies to bounce the beams of their snoop lasers off the glass in vain attempts to hear what was being said on the other side.
    Ellis could not allow anyone to know the reasons behind what he was doing here. Not even his assistants knew. Only Mercer. And then there was the sealed section, with its separate staff who were ferried in and ferried out with no one ever seeing them. If the truth about either ever leaked . . .
    He shuddered.
    He heard the door open and looked up to see Harry step through, followed by a handler leading a young male sim by the hand. He’d asked Harry to bring in the highest scoring sim from the latest batch of the special breed.
    â€œHere he is,” Harry said. “F27-63—at your service. We call him Seymour.” He turned to the handler. “I’ll take him now.” The handler stepped out.
    Harry Carstairs, chief of sim education, had trained more of the creatures than anyone else presently with the company; a big man, six-four at least, and probably weighing in at an eighth of a ton. He towered over the sim.
    Ellis glanced down at his desktop memo screen. F27-63—yes, that was Seymour’s serial number. He had longer arms and looser lips than the average commercial sim. Smaller too.
    â€œAll right,” he said. “Let’s see what he can do.”
    â€œSit in the red chair, Seymour,” Harry said gently. He stood with his hands clasped in front of him, staring straight ahead as he spoke, allowing the sim no hints or cues from his body language.
    The sim looked around, spotted the dark red leather chair against the wall, and loped over to seat himself.
    â€œGood. Now turn on the lamp on the opposite side of the room.”
    The sim rose, crossed in front of Ellis’s desk, and stopped before the lamp. He looked under the shade, found the switch, and turned it on.
    â€œVery good,” Harry said. “Now—”
    â€œI’m satisfied with his comprehension,” Ellis said. Comprehension had never been the problem; he was anxious to cut to the chase. “What about his speech?”
    â€œIt’s getting there.”
    â€œ
Getting
there?”
    â€œHe’s a great signer.”
    â€œI’m sure he is.”
    Sims started ASL lessons in infancy because signing stimulated development of the speech cortex; this helped enormously with vocalization later on.
    â€œWant to see him sign?”
    â€œNo,” Ellis said, balling a fist in frustration. “I want to hear him speak.”