“How much did it cost?” he asked. “Normal ReBirth, the models and such that NewYew packaged before the crackdown, goes for five to eight thousand dollars on the street. How much did you, or your business manager, pay for Victoria Carver?”
“Are you for real?”
“Please just answer my question.”
The woman sighed and sat down. “We could have done this in a restaurant, you know, where I could get something to eat.”
“I don’t want to discuss this in public.”
She shrugged. “My ‘business manager,’ who is not the guy at the front desk, paid twenty thousand dollars for this body. That’s cheaper than most because Victoria’s pretty common, but most of them are on the West Coast and I’m one of the only Victorias back here in the East, so…” She gestured vaguely, as if that explained itself.
Lyle furrowed his brow, shocked at the price. “There’s no way you’re making that back at two hundred dollars an hour.”
“Most of my appointments are prearranged,” she said, “high-priced call-girl stuff, fancy hotels and everything. This with you is after-hours work, something for my own pocket instead of his debt.” She pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
“That’s bad for your health,” said Lyle, feeling immediately stupid about it. Smoking was probably the least dangerous part of her lifestyle.
“Shows what you know,” said the woman, and lit one up. “ReBirth heals my lungs faster than I can screw them up, and since you’re not letting me eat…” She took another puff.
“You’re right,” said Lyle, nodding. He hadn’t thought of that, and decided that his own dose would protect him from the secondhand smoke just as easily. He ignored the wisps of blue smoke and got back to business. “So. Victoria Carver’s DNA comes at twenty thousand dollars a pop. Are there others, other women, that have more expensive DNA?”
“It’s not the DNA, honey, it’s what you do with it.”
“But there are others?”
She nodded. “My ‘business manager’ has other girls, yeah. Cristina Francis and Hermione Granger and like that—big with the nerds. Says if he could get a Princess Leia he’d be a millionaire, but that ship has sailed, hasn’t it?” She took another long draw on the cigarette, and blew out a cloud of smoke.
Lyle nodded. “Do you know how much those other girls cost?”
“Hourly or for the night?”
“I mean their DNA.”
She tapped the cigarette into the motel ashtray—which hadn’t been cleaned since the previous occupants, Lyle noticed. Maybe even before them. “Why are you so interested in all this, huh? Sick of being Joe, want to make the switch to something new?”
Lyle looked at her closely. “Joe?”
“Joe Average,” said the woman. “You thought I wouldn’t recognize you? I had a client three days ago with the same exact face, same wonky color in his eye, so either you have amnesia or a twin or you got some bad lotion that made you who you are. Maybe that’s it, then: you got some bad ReBirth and want revenge on the sellers?”
Lyle put his hand up, half reaching for his eye with the heterochromia, and stopped halfway. “How many of these ‘Joe Averages’ have you seen?”
“Only the two,” said the woman, “but I’ve heard the stories. Bad lotion on the market, people thinking they’ll turn into Enrique the shirtless fireman, and getting Joe instead.”
“And you put it together that I was one of them.”
She held up the cigarette with a smile. “You understood what I meant about my body rebuilding itself faster than the smoke could hurt it. And you didn’t say anything about the secondhand smoke.” She took another puff, and blew the smoke out softly. “That doesn’t make a lot of sense for an anti–tobacco crusader, but it makes all kinds of sense for another ReBirth clone.”
Lyle nodded. “You’re good at this.”
“I’ve been in this business a long time.”
But you’re barely in your twenties, thought Lyle, looking at the girl, then realizing that while the body was mid-twenties, the woman inside could be almost any age at all. “How long?” he asked.
Her eyes narrowed, her mouth curving up in a smirk. “You really want to know?”
“It’s okay, I’m a doctor.”
“I’ve heard that one before.”
Lyle’s face reddened.
The girl leaned back in her chair, draping her arms across the armrests like a woman totally in charge of her situation. “Let’s just say I was in this business long enough to get out of it, and then to get back in again when someone offered me a brand-new, twenty-five-year-old body.”
Lyle stared, then laughed drily. “I can’t say that I blame you.”
“It’ll be fun while it lasts,” she said, nudging her curves here and there, straightening her clothes. “I’ve been twenty-five before.” She looked up. “Nothing lasts forever.”
“This will,” said Lyle softly. “Same as the lungs, same as everything; it rebuilds itself back from any damage it takes, including age. You’ll be twenty-five forever.”
She raised her eyebrow. “You serious?”
Lyle nodded.
She gazed at him oddly, studying him as if for the first time. “How do you know that?”
“I told you, I’m a doctor. Sort of.”
“Who are you?”
