Gone Before Goodbye - 13
Ivan Brovski escorts her back to her bedroom. CinderBlock follows a few paces behind. When Brovski opens the door to her room, she moves to the window and looks out. There are more suited men scouring the front lawn. “What’s going on, Ivan?” she asks. “Nothing that concerns you,” Brovski says. “Here...
Ivan Brovski escorts her back to her bedroom. CinderBlock follows a few paces behind. When Brovski opens the door to her room, she moves to the window and looks out. There are more suited men scouring the front lawn.
“What’s going on, Ivan?” she asks.
“Nothing that concerns you,” Brovski says. “Here.”
She turns to him. Brovski extends his hand.
Her phone is in it.
Maggie resists the temptation to snatch it away. Doesn’t want to look too eager. Her hand reaches out and closes around it. Ivan holds on for another second. Their eyes meet.
“Just so you know,” he says, “we deleted your sister’s app.”
He waits for her to react. Maggie gives him nothing.
“Out of an abundance of caution,” Brovski continues. “I hope you understand.”
She doesn’t reply.
“You’ll be home soon. I’m sure your sister can provide you with a new one then.”
Nothing.
“Also,” he adds, “the battery is very low. Don’t worry though. A charger will be provided for you on the plane.”
Show him nothing, Maggie tells herself. “How long until the helicopter arrives?” she asks.
“Ten minutes.”
“This outfit is itchy,” Maggie tells him. “I’m going to change into something else for the trip.”
“Of course.”
Maggie heads into the bathroom and closes the door. The bathroom is what you’d expect—gold, marble, ornate. She waits to hear him leave. When he does, Maggie turns on the shower—and then she unlocks the phone.
Yep, the griefbot app is gone. Or at least, the little icon is.
Maggie doesn’t know much about technology, but what Brovski’s undoubtedly cocky experts don’t know is that Sharon sets up her proprietary apps so that they can not be deleted without facial recognition from both Sharon and Maggie, plus a password. If someone else tries to delete them—like Brovski’s experts—the icon does indeed vanish from the screen so that it appears deleted—but in reality, it just moves to a hidden folder.
Maggie swipes, hits the news app, which isn’t really a news app, and accesses the hidden folder.
And voilá, the griefbot app is there.
She allows herself a small smile. Sharon , she thinks, you friggin’ overcautious, anal genius .
She clicks the icon and AI Marc returns.
“Hey,” Griefbot Marc says to her.
The battery is indeed low, maybe 10 percent. No time to waste. “Tell me about your tattoo.”
“I must have told you a hundred times, but okay. I was in New Orleans—”
“That’s a lie, Marc.”
“What?”
“I need you to tell me the truth.”
The bot even perfectly mimicks Marc’s perplexed expression. Well, if Marc had indeed been genuinely perplexed when he was alive. Maybe that had been an act. Maybe it had all been a lie.
No, she tells herself, don’t do that.
Don’t start questioning everything about the man you loved.
“I need to know about the tattoo, Marc. I’m not angry or anything. You probably had your reasons for not telling me. But that’s in the past. I need to know now.”
“Maggie, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw a woman who had the exact same tattoo on her leg.”
AI Marc grins. “Hey, maybe it’s an ex,” he says.
“What?”
“You know, like as a tribute. Someone who couldn’t get over me. Come on, don’t be jealous.”
Maggie makes a face. The app thinks she’s joking.
“Though in truth,” he continues, “well, I show it to a lot of people. I mean, when I’m wearing shorts. Or at the beach or something. It always gets a laugh, you know that—”
“Marc, I need you to listen to me. I’m being serious here.”
Sharon had warned about this. She had created a griefbot so much like the real Marc that it would also withhold truths that the real Marc might. “If Real Marc would have lied about it, so would Griefbot Marc,” Sharon had told her. “Like, if Marc really didn’t like a dress you wore but would lie to spare your feelings, so will AI Marc. And to get more serious, let’s say Marc secretly gambled or had another wife in Akron or whatever—something he would keep from you—so will AI Marc.”
In short, if Real Marc wouldn’t tell her the truth about the tattoo, neither would AI Marc.
“This is life and death,” Maggie continues, because she needs to reach this… this artificial being. Not Marc. A hell of a facsimile but still just that. Not more. “Whatever reason you had for lying to me about the tattoo? It’s not important anymore. Water under the bridge. You’d do anything to protect me, right?”
“Of course. Maggie, you know that.”
“Then tell me about the tattoo. The truth.”
“I was in college. I was in New Orleans. I had too much to drink—”
“The truth, Marc.”
“That’s the truth. I was on spring break—”
“I just did surgery on a patient,” Maggie interrupts.
Griefbot Marc’s face changes. He is now the serious, focused, great-listening husband-colleague she could bounce cases off of. “Okay. Give me the details.”
“A twenty-four-year-old woman.”
“Procedure?”
“Breast augmentation.”
“Okay, right. So?”
“So when I looked at her upper right quadricep, she had the same Serpent and Saint tattoo you have. Not something close. Not like what Porkchop or the gang have. The exact same as yours. The same design. The same colors. The same location on the upper thigh.”
AI Marc shakes his head. “That’s impossible.”
“Marc—”
“I’m serious. That makes no sense at all. That tattoo guy in New Orleans. I think he was more wasted than I was. That’s where I got it.”
“It’s on her leg,” she counters, trying not to shout with frustration. “It’s real. I saw it. Marc—”
“Wait, I got it.”
“I’m listening.”
“It’s a prank.”
“It’s not a prank.”
“Has to be. I’ve done the calculations, Maggie. Wait, I bet it’s Randi. She always made jokes about the tattoo—and she loves pranks.”
Randi Edmunds had been Maggie’s lead scrub nurse.
“Remember that prank she pulled on April Fools’ with the ties on the surgical gowns. Randi has to be behind this. She drew a tattoo on your patient’s leg to mess with you. It’s just the kind of thing Randi—”
“It’s not a prank,” she snaps back.
Time is running low. Maggie knows that.
“It’s not Randi Edmunds. She’s not even here. Please, Marc, I need you to tell me the truth.”
Maggie hears a knock on the door and then someone enters. From behind the bathroom door, Ivan Brovski shouts out, “Doctor McCabe?”
The shower is still on.
“Sorry!” Maggie shouts back. “I just wanted to rinse off again. I’ll be out in a minute.”
There is a small pause. Then Brovski says, “The helicopter will be here in five minutes. Please hurry.”
“Right, got it.”
She drops her phone hand to her side and wonders what to do next. That’s when she hears Marc’s tinny voice coming from the phone:
“Maggie, why are you with Ivan Brovski?”
Maggie’s blood goes cold. She raises the phone back to her face, so she can see Griefbot Marc’s face again. “You know Ivan Brovski?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Where are you, Maggie?”
“At an oligarch’s house somewhere in Russia.”
“Oleg Ragoravich.”
“Yes.”
“What are you doing there?”
“Barlow got me a high-paying concierge gig.”
“To do what?”
“The breast augmentation I just told you about?”
“That’s it?”
“No, I also did three facial surgeries on Ragoravich.”
“Why did he want that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did I hear Brovski say something about a helicopter?”
“I’ve finished the surgeries,” Maggie explains. “They’re flying me home.”
“On the copter?”
“Yes.”
“Maggie?”
She looks at the screen and keeps it close. She recognizes that facial expression too.
Marc is scared.
“Whatever you do,” he says to her, “don’t get on that helicopter.”
The cold rips through her. “Why not?”
“There is an abandoned iron ore mine two miles away. No one knows how deep the hole is. Five, six thousand feet at least.”
“So?”
“So if you get on that helicopter, they will throw you into it.”
“Marc—”
“You don’t understand these people.”
“And you do?”
“You performed facial surgery to change Ragoravich’s looks, Maggie. They can’t let you live. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
The knock on the bathroom door startles her.
“Let’s go, Doctor McCabe,” Brovski says. “I’m losing my patience.”
“Maggie,” AI Marc says, “you have to run.”