by Barry Solway
The dreams faded, and she floated in blackness. A thought entered her mind.
Who are you?
The darkness gave way, and she found herself in the dining hall of Kathor’s ship, the Insight, sitting across from Kathor himself. A plate of perfectly whipped mashed potatoes and lightly browned roast chicken lay in front of her. Cutting into the chicken, she lifted it to her mouth with anticipation. Delicious warmth flooded her mouth, she couldn’t remember the last time she had tasted chicken.
“You don’t know where you will be,” Kathor said.
“I’ll keep trying to find out, but so can you. You have the technology here to spy on the Order or the architects. I’m telling you, it can work.”
“Why should I care about rescuing you? I won’t sacrifice my ship, or you, on a foolish endeavor.”
Mel stared at Kathor. It felt oddly deliberate yet against her will. “You’re dying, Kathor. For the last two months, you’ve been searching for information on the transfusion procedure—stem cell replacement for aliens. This ship doesn’t have records on the exact procedure and the Order has destroyed all records of it. But you know records could still exist, in some of the older cities. What if I can find it? Find a cure for you? The gauntlets all me access to cities that are normally off limits. I help save you and you help save me and my friends. If we keep doing the gauntlets, eventually I’m going to die.”
Kathor’s eyes twitched. Mel had the passing thought that this was a very vivid dream. “It is implausible. The old libraries, in the temples, would have that information. But there are only a few dozen left. And you would have to be at level 3 to access them. And yet… Very well. We can monitor the gauntlets. If you enter a game that would appear to give you access to the … perhaps we can arrange to rescue you.”
“And my friends.”
“Agreed.” Kathor’s eyes crinkled in mocking laughter. “I’m quite sure that when I find you, you will refuse to let me rescue you. That will be quite amusing.”
“That’s my problem,” Mel said.
Her eyes flew open. The darkness of the room confused her. Blocking out the phantom pain in her left foot, she sat up in bed. There was no pool, no dining table, no chicken. Just the creaking of the old farm house and the constant, low-level pain of her makeshift body.
She sat up in bed, drawing her legs under her. These dreams had become more frequent. Glimpses of herself on Kathor’s ship, completely human, no cybernetic parts. Having conversations with Kathor about rescuing her. The lingering taste of chicken still on her tongue.
What if they weren’t dreams?
That was impossible. She looked down at her artificial legs and arm, flexing her right hand, and smiled ruefully. A lot of impossible things were going around lately. But what did it mean? The implications were breathtaking.
Another Mel. That was the only thing that made sense, if you could call any of this making sense. Which meant Kathor had cloned her again. And somehow, improbably—impossibly—she could see and hear what this other Mel was thinking and feeling. Her heart raced. It was one thing to know she was a clone, but the clones that had come before her were dead. She struggled to understand who she was, but at least she hadn’t had any competition. To think there was another version of her, out there somewhere, with Kathor… the idea was exhilarating and terrifying. What if everyone decided that they liked the other Mel more? What if the other Mel was the real Mel, and she was a fake?
It was probably just a dream. How could she see and hear this other Mel when they were light-years apart? That would violate a few principles of physics. But there were the hyperdrive gates, so it wasn’t completely farfetched. But if it was true, what should she do about it?
Up to this point, all these ‘dreams’ had been random. It only seemed to happen when she was asleep, but the other Mel knew what they were doing with the gauntlets, at least partly. This other Mel hadn’t figured out where they were. Maybe she was getting random glimpses of Mel’s life as well.
Mel sat up, closing her eyes. This was a ridiculous idea, but she couldn’t ignore it. Concentrating on her breath, she tried to remember what it felt like in the dreams. How she floated in blackness, the feeling of merging with her other self.
She kept searching, reaching out in different ways. Grasping at straws with her mind, probing gently, sitting patiently. For a moment, she dozed off, catching herself and shaking her head. This was useless. A weird delusion that would have her committed to a psych ward on Earth.
Shaking her head, she tried again. Moments later, her head slumped forward, and she reflexively lay on her side without waking.
Chapter 31
“You’re playing Russian roulette, Mel. And you know it.”
Mel shifted in her seat, finding the joint where her right leg met her hip to be uncomfortable when sitting. She glanced quickly around the table but avoided making eye contact with anyone.
“We don’t have any other options,” Mel said.
“Let me try my plan,” Anna replied.
“You said weeks ago it wasn’t a good idea. And you’ve been… getting worse, with your condition. If you draw the Order back to us, or they manage to hack in and take you over, then we’re all dead.”
“If you keep doing the gauntlets, you’re all dead!” Anna shouted. Mel was a bit surprised at Anna’s vehemence and wondered if it was caused partly by her deteriorating processor and memory.
“It’s the same as it’s always been. No one does the gauntlets unless they want to. Simon…” she trailed off and had to collect herself. “Simon was a mistake. On both of our parts. We should have realized he wasn’t prepared. And I’m sorry that happened. Really, truly sorry. But we still have to get home, however we can.”
“I’m just wondering how many other people you’re going to bring down in the process,” Anna said. “Forget other people. Look at yourself, Mel. What does it even mean to get back to Earth with the way you are now? You’re going to tell the world you were abducted by aliens and that you’re three-quarters cyborg? I guess you could make a living off the talk show circuit and tabloids, at least.”
“I’ll think of something when we get to that point,” she said quietly.
“I don’t even know what you’re fighting for anymore,” Anna said, her voice full of frustration. “Riley, Evan, and you are barely human. Jon is the only one with a chance at a normal life back on Earth. I can’t believe you’re going to put everyone’s life at risk just for him.”
“Thanks, Anna,” Jon said.
“It’s not an insult. I’m just asking: how much is one life worth? And it’s not even a life we’re talking about. How much is getting one person back to a semi-normal life on Earth worth? Jon can do the same thing Evan has already done. The same thing all of us can do. Stay here. Become a part of this society. Join the Viro Kara. Or join the Order, whatever floats your boat. Make a life here. Is it really that much worse than being back on Earth? So much worse that you’ll put Beats and Gorgeous and Gem and Sheila at risk of dying?”
Mel straightened and looked at Anna’s holographic image firmly. She was tired of going around in circles. “They don’t have to do anything. They agree to help or they don’t. It’s up to them. But I’m going home.”
“At least try my way,” Anna said.
“Hear me out first,” Mel said. “You haven’t even let me tell you my idea.”
“Fine,” Anna said tersely.
“I can’t wait to hear this fabulous idea,” Jon said, “that gets us all home with no injuries or anyone dying, yet somehow involves playing just one more gauntlet.”
Mel looked down, barely hiding her embarrassment, but plowed forward. “Look, I’m not promising no one will get hurt. But I have an idea. We need to find Kathor’s ship. That’s the crux of our plan. But we’ve been going about it the wrong way. Trying to raise the money to find him is going to take too long. Instead, we need to have him come to us.”
The room went quiet for a long moment. �
��And how do we do that?” Riley asked.
Mel almost had a plan. It came back to her dreams, the dreams that seemed so real. The dreams that almost had her convinced she was going insane. She couldn’t just tell the others about the dreams, they would never follow her again. And she had no right to believe in them herself. But they felt right, like she was connecting with a part of herself she had known once, then forgotten. The challenge was discussing it in a way that would convince the others, without talking about the dreams directly.
“We have to make a splash,” Mel replied. “Something big that will get everyone’s attention. Big enough to get Kathor’s attention.”
“Which is?” Riley asked. He sounded as suspicious as Jon now.
“We bump up a level. Sign for a level three gauntlet,” Mel said. That’s what Kathor had said in the dream. They could only get the information he needed if they were level 3. It was so crazy that even Mel had to force herself not to giggle like a maniac. But she thought she had a way to convince them. Time for some hard truths.
“Jesus, I knew it!” Jon exclaimed, slamming his palm on the table. “You can’t even just be, like, normal horrible, can you? You always have to take everything to the most extreme!”
Riley almost laughed, although Mel couldn’t tell whether he was laughing at Jon or at her. Beats, Gorgeous, and Evan muttered to themselves. Only Gem kept her normal tranquil expression.
“Here’s the thing,” Mel quickly said, trying to regain control of the conversation. “We don’t have to win. We just have to be there. Let Kathor come to us. And then we make a deal.”
“With what?” Evan asked. “We don’t have anything to bargain with.”
“Maybe he likes the yellow fruit,” Riley joked.
“We give him me.”
“What the hell does that mean?” Jon said.
“Kathor wants me. He needs me. It’s been part of his plan all along. It’s never been about winning the gauntlets. Kathor is dying and he’s trying to find a cure for himself. I don’t know how I fit into that, but I do. We let Kathor find us, and then I’ll offer to help him. And once we’re on the ship, we take it over.”
“Yeah, that went real well last time,” Jon said. “You’re really full of yourself, aren’t you, Mel? What makes you think Kathor gives a rat’s ass about you?”
“Ask Anna. She knows some of what Kathor’s up to. And… there’s something else, about me, that I haven’t told you.”
“She’s right,” Anna said. “About Kathor. He is dying, and he’s terrified of it. He’s ruined his life and put his family in jeopardy trying to find a cure.”
“Okay,” Evan said. “So we do have some leverage. But why does he want Mel?”
“Tell them, Mel,” Anna said.
Mel let out a whoosh of air. “I’m not me. I mean… I’m a… I’m not Mel. Not the original Mel. I’m a… a…” She paused, surprised at how hard this was to get out. “I’m a clone.”
That even punctured Gem’s calm demeanor. “A clone?” Riley asked. “You’re not… I mean, that’s stupid. How is that even possible?”
“What’s a clone?” Gorgeous asked.
Evan looked at Mel carefully. “It’s a way of recreating an exact replica of a person at a genetic level. Mel, you’re serious? You think somehow you’re a clone? That Kathor made a second body, grew it in a lab… and what? Transferred your mind across? That’s a bit hard to swallow.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And it’s not a second body. The person in front of you now—me—is the fourth Mel. The third clone. I don’t know how any of the technology works, but Anna knows. She helped Kathor do it.”
“It’s true,” Anna replied. “Very sophisticated technology, but not any more so than my original artificial construct. Cloning was pretty standard five hundred years ago, before the Order took over. It’s been banned ever since the Insurrection, even for lower life forms. The cloning itself isn’t particularly hard once it’s perfected. The mind transference is more complicated.”
“Why did he just do it on Mel?” Riley asked.
“The ‘once it’s perfected’ is doing a lot of work,” Anna said grudgingly. “He attempted it on seventeen subjects before he got to Mel. The same way he went through fifteen subjects figuring out how to do the genetic modifications on you. Once he successfully cloned Mel, he had what he needed and didn’t bother doing it to anyone else. Not counting the fact that he was running out of test subjects at that point.”
“This is crazy,” Jon said. “So, what the hell are you, then? Are you even human? Are you even Mel?”
“Of course she’s Mel. Don’t be stupid,” Evan snapped.
Mel placed a hand on Evan’s arm. “It’s okay. I ask myself the same question every day. And the answer is: I don’t know. I don’t know who I am, Jon. I wonder if the process changed me or if there was a mistake in the transference that has made me a different person. I know that I want to be Mel. I feel like I’m her… me. But I don’t really know.”
“You are Mel,” Riley said. “None of us even suspected you might be a clone. It’s not like with Anna. She acted weird right from the beginning. We didn’t know why, but we knew something was up. But I’ve never once thought you were weird or someone else.”
“Thanks, Riley,” Mel said.
Jon’s mouth opened then quickly closed as he looked away from Mel. Evan suddenly stiffened and his eyes grew wide.
“What?” Mel asked.
“I just realized…” Evan said. “Oh my God. I did kill you. With that bomb and my stupidity. I would try to tell myself that it all turned out okay. That you were hurt, but Kathor healed you. But that’s not true.” His face went slack and he quickly looked away, bringing his hand up to cover his face.
Mel leaned forward. “Evan, don’t. Nothing’s changed. Blaming yourself all over again won’t help. Kathor did heal me. Kind of. Just not in the way you thought.”
Evan nodded, then straightened, his face a mask. “Sure, sure. I thought I put all that behind me. I guess not so much.”
Unsure what to say to Evan, Mel turned back to the others. “Kathor wants me. I’m the only human clone he has. Why that’s important, I don’t know, but it is. We let Kathor come to us, then we take back the ship. And the only way I can think to reach him is to join a gauntlet.”
“A level three gauntlet,” Beats said quietly. “We wouldn’t survive that.”
“We don’t have to,” Mel said. “We just need to stay alive long enough for Kathor to find us.”
“We’ll have no way to know if he’s coming,” Anna said. “Or any way to plan for him to pick us up if he does. And there’s another problem. If Kathor knows we’ll be there, then so will the Order. We’ll get caught before you even start playing.”
“Does Kathor have any other AIs on the ship? Backups of you?” Mel asked.
“The qCore was my backup, so no,” Anna said. “But he can pull up a blank slate construct. One without a personality core.”
“Can we encrypt a message when we announce? Something that will get Kathor’s attention, but not alert the Order?”
“Maybe,” Anna replied. “But we still have no way to know if he’ll get it or when he would show up. It’s impossible to coordinate.”
Mel hesitated. Should she tell Anna about the other Mel? But if she told them, they would think she was crazy, that her mind had finally cracked. She had already told them she was a clone and that she didn’t know who she was. This would just confirm the fears that Jon clearly had painted on his face, but to everyone. Even she thought she was crazy. But, for no rational reason, she still thought this plan would work.
“Anna, I’m asking you to trust me. Please. I know it sounds like a long shot, but it will work. I know it will. We don’t even have to fight in the gauntlet; we just need to be there.” Mel turned to the others. “What about everyone else? What do you guys think?”
“How do we take over Kathor’s ship?” Evan asked.
; “I don’t know yet,” Mel said. “We’ll need to figure that out. But we have Anna now. It’s just Kathor against all of us.”
Evan nodded, but avoided looking at Mel. “I need time to process all of this. I want to hear a firmer plan for taking over the ship before I would agree. And a plan for surviving a level three gauntlet. I have major doubts about that.”
“Think about it,” Riley replied. “It gets us a ship that can take us back to Earth. And it actually lessens the chances of dying in the gauntlets. We do one more gauntlet where we don’t have to engage, and we’re done. At the rate we’re going we’d have to do three or four more games, and there’s no way to know if we’d survive.”
“I think it’s stupid,” Jon said.
Gorgeous looked at Mel with pity in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Mel. I don’t want to be captured by Kathor again. And to fight again in the gauntlets, especially at level three… it’s foolish.”
Mel’s eyes slid to Beats. Riley was in, but Evan was lukewarm at best and Gorgeous a no. She could almost feel the group turning against her.
“I won’t… I can’t fight,” Beats said. “It’s wrong. Maybe… maybe if we have a plan to reach Kathor and if we have a plan to take over his ship, I would do it to help Mel. But I won’t fight.”
Gem nodded her head. “I will do this game if my brother is on the other team. If he isn’t, then it is not in my best interests to join.”
Mel cursed under her breath. That meant her and Riley for sure. Gem if her brother was on the other team. Evan and Beats would only join if they had a foolproof plan. Best case, that would be a team of five. She doubted they could find a sixth member after what happened to Simon. Glancing between Jon and Gorgeous, she finally turned to the alien girl. “Gorgeous, are you sure I can’t change your mind? You have to want to go, but you can do the same thing as Beats. You don’t have to fight. In fact, we’ll try to avoid fighting. We just need a sixth person.”