Clone.
You failed Trent.
Clone.
Clone.
Your only son.
Clone.
You’re not a real person, and you’re definitely not a real father.
Logan sat cross-legged on the cold hard floor, breathing in through his nose, out through his mouth.
But anytime he cleared his mind with meditation, plucked the thoughts out of his river of consciousness, they’d start up again in a few minutes. Trapped in the cell, nothing to distract, all Logan had to do was think about all the things he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about.
Dead people didn’t have regrets. Didn’t sit in a cell for eleven days straight thinking about how his son grew up without a father.
It was worse than the pain of being blown up or having every nerve ending torn apart. And Logan knew that for an absolute fact.
If it wasn’t for Lord Zemka and his stupid Arena of Doom, Logan would just be dead. No regrets, no worries, no lingering doubts.
Or was the real Logan Rexington dead, and he was just a stranger with someone else’s memories?
Logan knocked the back of his head a couple times into the wall. He then began to pace, a meager attempt to burn off some energy.
He’d already done one hundred push-ups, sit-ups, squats, crunches, jumping jacks, lunges. He’d already gone through his tai-chi drills, boxed with the wall for a couple hours (his knuckles were soft, and needed to build up the damage resistance once again), and stretched his inner thigh muscles to try and perfect the splits.
There was nowhere for him to go.
When he heard a clink at the door, he frowned. Had he lost track of time so badly? Was it somehow already dinner?
No. The clinking was different; it wasn’t the serving hatch being opened. When the door to his cell swung wide, Logan couldn’t help but wince, shielding his eyes from the bright light out in the corridor.
It was so bright, the man opening his cell was even wearing sunglasses. And a fancy looking suit.
“You’re on cleaning duty.” Agent Glass kicked the bucket over to him, the metal grinding on the stone as it came to a halt near Logan. “Once you’ve finished with the origin tubes, then maybe you’ll be allowed back into the arena.”
Agent Glass then kicked over his cleaning instrument. Logan had been expected a mop, maybe a sponge.
Not a toothbrush.
Logan hadn’t seen one of those since basic training. An old-world device, originally used for cleaning teeth (despite being called a ‘tooth’ brush). Everyone used lasers for their chompers, even in Logan’s time.
And cleaning was usually left to the bots, who could work faster than any human could at the task.
He guessed it wouldn’t be a punishment without a little punishment.
“Origin tubes?” he eventually asked.
“Follow me.” Agent Glass waited expectantly before Logan picked up the bucket and toothbrush.
He could throw the bucket at Agent Glass, fight, cause trouble.
But what would be the point? He was trapped on a lawless moon, trillions of miles from his home system, without any kind of support, one hundred years in the future.
It was then the helplessness dawned on Logan. Even if he died in battle, or decided to take his own life; they’d just make another copy of him. He was stuck on Crimson’s Lament no matter how he looked at it.
No wonder no one had any hope in the Arena of Doom.
Logan followed Agent Glass, the bucket of soapy water sloshing as the two of them walked down a set of metal stairs. Down into the lower levels Logan didn’t recognize.
“So what’s your deal?” Logan asked as they reached another metal corridor. This one seemed dustier than the others, even a couple of cobwebs up in the top corners.
“My deal?” Agent Glass asked.
“You don’t fight in the arena,” Logan said. “Don’t even take your meals with the rest of us grunts. But you’re a clone, right?”
“From the twenty-first century,” Agent Glass said. “Died after eighteen days of advanced interrogation in North Korea, woke up here living in science fiction.”
“But why?” They’d made their way to a T-junction, Agent Glass turning to the right, leading Logan further down into the bowels of the arena. “If you’re not a fighter in the arena? And what’s with the geishas; not like they fight, either. Are they used for…” Logan tried to think of the polite word for prostitution.
“We have bots for that.”
As Agent Glass said that, they walked past an open door. Logan glanced in, noticing the beige plastic of the humanoid robots. The shape hardly human, the robots looked like they’d been through a war or two, all dented and smashed.
“Not every show is violent. Some of the warm-up acts involve jugglers, dancing. And they’re good for working the crowd. Selling snacks, working the checkout.”
“You’re not a checkout boy, though, right?” Logan was growing tired of Agent Glass evading his questions.
“What Lord Zemka needs doing, I do.”
Logan waited for him to explain further, but he got the distinct impression that was all he was getting from Agent Glass.
A couple more minutes walking in silence, Agent Glass eventually pulled out his keycard, swiping it on a door. It swung open, Logan peeking inside.
It was the largest room he’d seen so far in the arena. At least twice the size of the barracks. There were rows and rows of cylindrical vats, all in varying sizes, as far as the eye could see.
Logan looked at the first one, a barrel about the size of a beer keg. Inside sat a skull, suspended in the liquid. Along with a ribcage, some of the bones chipped or missing altogether.
He peered down, spotting a name carved on a plaque at the bottom.
Yrsa
The next tube was a lot smaller. Logan would hardly be able to fit his arm inside. He had to squint to see anything at all in the vat of green-tinted liquid, eventually spotting one sole fingernail.
The name at the bottom made him stop dead in his tracks.
Logan Rexington
“Our DNA,” Logan said.
“Origin tubes,” Agent Glass corrected, walking to the end of the row.
Logan followed, noticing some dirt and grime had begun to build up on the vats, on the large tubes that connected up into the ceiling.
He frowned, a question coming to mind.
Why spend so much money and energy keeping the original samples? Why not just clone from the people directly?
“You can’t clone a clone.”
Logan’s frown deepened as Agent Glass grinned, the green-tinted vats reflected in his sunglasses.
“Something to do with the cloning process. I mean, in theory you could. But defects get amplified, the brain doesn’t exactly come out right. Severe mental instability. Prone to violence.”
“Is that what Yateley is?” Logan couldn’t help but ask. “A clone of a clone?”
“No, he’s just a jackass.”
Agent Glass nodded at him as Logan dipped his toothbrush into the hot bucket of water. Even though he was a good little boy in basic training, he’d had to clean a fair few rooms with nothing but a toothbrush. Logan almost chuckled as the muscle memory kicked in. Somehow his muscles had been grown back to exactly the same as before, and his body was practiced at something he’d physically never done before.
Logan supposed he hadn’t done a lot with his new body. Never drunk alcohol in it. Never fired a plasma rifle. Never had sex.
That did make Logan laugh. He’d spent the past two weeks worried about his son, but he’d technically never gotten laid. A virgin parent.
He never thought he’d have anything in common with Mother Mary.
Logan scrubbed down the grime collected at the bottom of the tubes, grinning to himself. When he crouched down to wet his toothbrush once again, he was surprised to see Agent Glass still standing there.
“You have to supervise me for this?” Log
an asked.
“No.” Agent Glass pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. “But I will be checking every day to see your progress.”
“So what can I help you with?” Logan asked.
“Despite his cold blood, Dr. Victor Cunningham has a bleeding heart. He cares for his patients, cares about what happens to them. Sometimes, just sometimes, doesn’t act in the best interests of the arena.”
Logan turned his back on Agent Glass, still listening as he went back to the grime on the bottom of the tube.
“You notice him not acting in our best interests, you let me know.” Agent Glass placed a hand on his shoulder, Logan suppressing his flinch. “Maybe I can get you back in Lord Zemka’s favor sooner rather than later.”
He patted him on the shoulder once before leaving the vast room filled with origin tubes.
Logan shivered, for a moment feeling as unclean as the vats in front of him.
Agent Glass hadn’t done anything directly hostile to him (except for that tasering that one time), but he still gave Logan the creeps.
Then again, he did need to make at least some allies while he was stuck in the Arena of Doom.
Then again, did he really want to align himself with a man like Agent Glass?
Logan got back to cleaning the origin tube. The brush ended up making streaks on the glass, which Logan eventually wiped off with the back of his arm.
After a few hours, he was done cleaning the first origin tube.
Only a few dozen more to go.
Chapter 20
Logan really wished he had some tunes, maybe even a caster’s archive to listen to, as he carried on scrubbing the origin tubes. It was infinitely better than being stuck in his cell all day. But all Logan had done for the past four days straight was wake up, grab a bucket, and head down to the origin tubes.
Worse still, Agent Glass brought all his meals down to him, and took him back to a prison cell to sleep every night. He had hardly seen anyone else since his match in the arena. Not Victor, not James Love, not even Crickett or Yrsa.
It was a step up from the isolation, but only a little.
Which was why, to pass the time, Logan had found himself singing songs to himself. He hadn’t memorized lyrics to any popular songs, and often found himself having to improvise with his own.
“Logan Rexington, he’s the best-ing-ton,
“Got a really cool scar, and can shoot really far
“Died in the year twenty-five, fifty-one
“But that doesn’t stop him, from being the best in the game, son!”
Logan paused with the toothbrush, halfway done cleaning the glass of a Nazis’ origin tube.
Did Trent like to sing silly songs? Logan had suppressed the habit with each promotion, but he remembered singing as he cooked waffles for Trent, his five-year-old giggling and smacking his pudgy hands to try and join in.
Maybe he’d had a career in music? Or had he joined the military like his dad? Or studied farming—genetics like his mom?
The not knowing was beginning to eat him up inside. He just needed to send an info request to the Chaucer system.
No. Topaz. He’d moved there. Right?
“Not the worst sea chanty I’ve ever heard.”
Logan turned around, Crickett leaning up against one of the tubes behind him. He glanced down, noticing the heavy pair of seaworthy boots on her feet.
The floor was heavily grated; how had she snuck up on him like that?
“Crickett!” Logan grinned, overwhelmed with joy he had somebody else to talk to. Besides Agent Glass. And the left foot of Hitler, bopping up and down in the central vat.
She smiled back, but her eyes stayed locked on him, like she was readying to attack.
“Yrsa!” Logan all but yelled. “Is she okay? I tried to get her to stop attacking me, but she thinks this is the afterlife.”
“I saw.” Crickett took a couple of steps forward, this time her boots clanking on the metal.
Had she waited until he was singing to sneak up on him? Clever. Sneaky.
Worrying.
“And I didn’t kill her, at the end,” Logan couldn’t help but point out. “Pretty much the reason I’m down here.”
“I agree one hundred percent with what you’re saying.” Crickett nodded, reaching into her back pocket.
Logan tensed up his body. He could hopefully close the distance between them. It wouldn’t be pretty, but he did have a bucket of dirty water he could throw as a distraction if she attacked.
But Crickett didn’t pull a weapon out of her back pocket. Instead, a small package, covered in brown wrapping paper.
Logan gingerly took the package, Crickett still smiling at him, her brown skin shining with a tint of green thanks to the vats surrounding them.
He gently peeled the paper off the package, half expecting it to blow up in his hands.
Instead, he squinted, tearing off the paper to make sure what he was seeing was real.
“Banana Burst Bonanza?!”
Chocolate, with just a hint of banana flavor, sparkling candy inside, and pockets of ever-warm melted dark chocolate. It was without a doubt the best candy in all the ten systems.
“How did, I… where, what?!” Logan tore off the wrapper greedily.
Crickett took the toothbrush out of his hands as he took a big bite.
The melted dark chocolate burst across his tongue, the bitter taste quickly soothed by the hint of banana in the rest of the chocolate. Then the sparkling fizzy came, dancing across his tongue, completing the landscape of flavor.
“There’s fifteen documentaries about you in the standard archives,” Crickett said, “and three fictional films. It’s crazy what the biographers dug up.”
Logan hadn’t even thought about that. He guessed after blowing up the mainframe, people would have been interested in him. Had journalists gone to his mother’s house? Camped outside his ex-wife’s apartment. Harassed Trent?
He hoped not as he took another bite, his stomach grumbling as the processed sugar began to seep into his system.
“Marge does her best,” Logan said, “but this is… holy cow!” Another bite; this time he didn’t find a pocket of melted dark chocolate, the banana and sparkling candy working all the same.
“You spared Yrsa’s life.” Crickett nodded, twiddling the toothbrush in her hands. “…you also shot her twice.” She stopped twiddling.
“Yeah… what?”
Logan swallowed his mouthful, looking up as Crickett snapped the toothbrush in half.
“Wait!”
His hands full, Logan didn’t have time to react as Crickett jammed one of the jagged shards of plastic into his thigh. It pierced through his trousers, his skin, embedding itself a few centimeters, pain rippling through his body as blood began to drip down to his knee.
“Argh!” Logan roared in pain, clutching his bar of chocolate tight, breathing heavy.
“That was for the first bolt,” Crickett said.
“The first?!”
Another stabbing pain, this time directly in his belly button. Logan would have been impressed by the precision, if he wasn’t groaning in pain.
“But I didn’t kill her!”
“Yes. That’s why you got a chocolate bar.” Crickett nodded, leaving both broken ends of the toothbrush embedded in his flesh. “But you shoot her twice, I stab you twice. It’s simple economics.”
With that, Crickett slid herself under his shoulder, helping him walk out of the vast field of green-tinted vats.
Logan grunted with each step, the plastic in his thigh and stomach searing in pain every time he moved.
His instinct was to pull them out, but his military training told him to keep the plugs of blood sealed as they moved.
The stairs back up were a lot harder to traverse with two stab wounds. But Crickett was there every step of the way, helping him limp up.
“You’re a little bit demented, you know that?” Logan said as they made it back to the ground floor.
/> “I’ve been told.” She patted him on the head, wiping off the sweat from his forehead onto his shirt, as she led him into the arena complex.
Logan hadn’t been to the medical wing since his arrival. Even then he’d been wheeled out unconscious. One of the few areas he hadn’t had time to map out.
He’d spent his first day fighting in the arena, then in a cell. The next day training, then fighting, then back in his cell. He hadn’t slept on a bed since… well, he guessed technically his whole life. All two weeks of it.
In those two weeks, Logan hadn’t had enough time to do nearly as much recon as he would have liked. But as Crickett led him past the mess hall, past the barracks, he began to expand his internal map.
He was beyond surprised when Crickett led him out of a doorway, onto a rocky path. There was a tarp above him, leading to a large open doorway. It was like they were leaving the building entirely, heading towards a large open door to another structure.
Wait.
No.
Not a doorway.
A hangar.
It was wide, large, open. Logan recognized the design. Made for stretchers to ferry injured soldiers off the battlefield. As Crickett helped him up the ramp, at least five meters across, they entered a large chamber. Logan could see boxes of supplies left on the elevator pad in the corner, a doorway to the right welded shut.
But Logan had been inside a ship like this more times than he could count.
“We’re in a medical ship?!”
Crickett frowned, leading him towards one of the doorways. Logan could see the blast shields in the walls, ready to slide out and seal off in case of a hull breach. “This is the medical wing.”
“Yeah, but it’s… computer?”
Logan called out, but heard no response.
“They must have powered down the CPU.”
“Okay, then.”
Crickett carried on ferrying him. Logan glanced through the windows in the corridor they entered. It was dark, but he could just make out the disused surgery rooms, the empty examination beds.
Somehow, at some point or another, Lord Zemka had gotten himself a hold of an old medical vessel.
Logan recognized the design. It was old. Twenty, maybe thirty years old. Basically a flying small hospital. Made for triage, but had other sections for more specific problems.
Arena of Doom (Clone Squad #1) Page 11