Ten thousand miles away, in Vienna Austria, Lucius Chenzhenko opened his eyes.
Around him, more than a hundred memory merchants milled in a congregation, each holding only a part of the vast store of information that made up Lucius Chenzhenko. The last two of them removed their hands from Lucius's skull.
Lucius knew that he was a clone. Experiments in Australia with human cloning had been done in secret as early as 1968, and this new body was the fruit from those experiments. Until now, Lucius had never had need of a new body. He'd always been able to extend his own life.
But Lucius was far more than just a clone—he was a poppet, too. Thus he was an exact duplicate of his previous incarnation in both genetic makeup and in memories and skills.
Adel Todesfall, the head of his security, wearing a fine young cloned body, handed Lucius a cell phone and pressed a button.
On it, a guard stood and took a shaky video of Lucius's enemy. His son. It showed a pathetic young man, secured to a chair, a piece of gray tape slapped across his mouth.
A thickly accented voice said, "This is video of Bron Jones, dream assassin...."