by Clay Ferrill
“Eleven stories deep underground, and giant exhaust ducts from each story join below ground and exit here. You will drop the thermite grenades in here and here” pointing to two large vent-looking structures in small square sub-pictures. “They will explode in one minute’s time, far underground. If they explode on impact, all the better.” He folded the map back into a single page and handed it back to me.
“Where will you be Adam?” I asked. He turned to me, glasses pushed down low onto his nose, his eyes large and sky blue. He fixed me in the eyes with seriousness. “Right by your side, Father, where I have been asked to be at all times when you’re in the field. Aside from the Saudi visit, that is. Two young priests would never have been permitted near the king. But one and a very charming one at that? Their guard was down.” I looked and noticed the divider was still down. I asked Siren “where will you be Siren?” she called back quickly, indicating she’s been listening to every word “placing the rest of the C4 charges at the structure supports on the other side of the mountain. We’re going to cave it in on itself and then melt the mass with thermite. There are multiple levels of live and growing human clone blank tanks that have all been infected. His Eminence wants them all destroyed.”
I didn’t respond and turned my face to the window and watched the countryside disappear as we sped in into the city of Prague. Those are human lives that will be taken. That they don’t yet have a soul from The Guf is not really the point. They would if they were allowed to breach one day. They have been carefully engineered and grown, for years sometimes. I’m now not sure if these two even know that I myself am a human clone. Not likely. It is very unlikely, actually. To be a clone and an ordained priest of the church at breaching? Yea, hasn’t happened before I don’t think. They don’t even suspect. To keep this from them seems wrong though. It’s really only fair to tell them. I’ll think about it more. Pick the right time for the truth of it.
In less than an hour Siren was pulling the quiet sedan into a short patch off a graveled road. She navigated behind some large overgrown shrubs for good cover, just ten feet from the main road on foot. She positioned the vehicle for a quick getaway, backing up and pulling forward a few times to the optimum angle and 3 egress points. Turning the engine off she turned her body so she could look into the back seat and fix us both in the eyes as she spoke. It was weird because just the look on her face conveyed authority over what we’re about to do.
She fixed Adam in the eye first “you and Cole head in that direction about 400 yards up this side of the mountain and you’ll be at the first placement. You’ll see it plain as day. Then just keep heading in that same direction and you’ll hit all five of your explosive placement points. Make dropping the thermite the last thing you do and for God’s sake do not accidentally drop those grenades. They are highly unstable. Once you drop those Father Cole …” she shifted her eyes to mine, “which His Eminence has requested you to do yourself Father, not Adam. He said it was about ultimate forgiveness and begged you to understand and comply. He specifically requested that I mention that to you.” She looked down and away from my eyes and cleared her throat. His Holiness had said more that she wasn’t telling me. I closed my eyes and handed over the power to her in my mind. I would do as she asks without question. She continued with a renewed, authoritative tone.
“You two need to get your asses back here as quickly as you can. I should already be done placing my charges and should be back here shortly thereafter if not before you. Just wait patiently in the car for me. Five minutes max. If I’m not back something went wrong. If anything does go wrong, the keys are right here on the seat and this remote detonates the C4. It must be exploded and if either of you have to push this button, I ask that you not consider my life and push the fucking button. Clear? You will feel underground rumbling but it will pass quickly. This map shows us safely placed here, outside of the way the mountain collapses in on itself and sinks into the explosions.” Her eyes shifted between us. “Total destruction.” She nodded yes and spoke to no one then, lowering her gaze momentarily and then looking back up at me. “Sorry about that. It’s Penny in my head. Guards and staff are all cleared out now.”
Her face made her look maybe 15 years old, she was so young in appearance. As I watched her she pushed the hood of her black pullover back and snugged a black cap to her head. I had not noticed before that she was completely shaved bald? She has always been hooded. Perhaps that is what makes her look so boyish and youthful. I elected to not ask who Penny was, though I am curious about the ‘Penny in my head’ comment. I just trust her. Another instinct. I have given her my power over this situation. Adam’s hand patted my leg as he looked at the iPad screen and then turned it off. “The last janitor has now left the facility and is leaving the grounds by truck as we speak. There will be no casualties.”
Why this made him think this was a better outcome I do not know. I’m about to initiate the blowing up of a facility with hundreds, maybe even thousands of human clone blanks gestating. I myself had once been one of them, in that state. I knew this. There are no secrets about this kept from me. I am fully aware of not only my own creation, but the genetics processes that make human cloning even possible. All of it as a part of my education during the last three days before breach. I sighed heavily and Adam patted my leg. That their un-lived lives would end by my hand, I’ll admit, is making me feel incredibly anxious. Bordering paranoid.
I placed my hand on Adam’s leg and squeezed, pulling my rosary out and kissing it before lowering my head in a softly spoken prayer I was sincerely hoping God would hear. Asking for our safe passage on our important mission for the Catholic Church, and for the souls that had not yet been claimed in life that we would be ending today. Adam said aloud “bless you both. Let’s go, he just left the parking lot.”
The doors all opened and we got out of the car. The trunk lid slowly rose as Siren began handing out the ordinance. My satchel was heavy with thermite grenades and six bricks of C4 and detonators, which Adam expertly handled while he pressed in the triggering spikes now rather than later making sure their transmission receivers were operating. She loaded up her own green canvas satchel with the rest of the C4 bricks, detonators, and a two thermite bombs. The rest stayed there. She looked up at us and smiled. It’s the first time I noticed what she was wearing. A skin-tight suit stretched over her body tightly, not shiny but very smooth, the outline of large pistols on the tops of her muscular thighs the only thing about it that looked, I don’t know, weird. Out of place.
She snugged the knit cap again tightly, smiled, and sprinted off like a young gazelle in the opposite direction. Impossibly fast. Adam held out his hand indicating our direction and I led the short climbing trek through the dense forest up and up the mountain encasing the secret clone farm. The first structure in sight now near the crest, Adam crouched and pointed to it, leaning in to whisper to me, pointing up to the two large poles with rotating cameras, their line-of-site each sweeping the property 190 degrees to overlap. They rose on poles out of the center of the structure. The small single story of building showing, well barely showing on the surface. Almost hidden by trees and vegetation completely. It appears so small. I wondered if perhaps the intel was correct or not, so I asked Adam. “Confirmed and reconfirmed Father. This is the place.”
Pointing the laser device, the camera’s red light blinked out and it slowly lowered on its movement motor to face straight down against the pole. Adam repeated it with the second pole, watching the camera slowly drift down and come to rest against its pole, no longer powered. He stood up and reached into my satchel and handed me the first two bomb packs, already wired. Pointing to where the C4 packs needed to be placed. He smiled at me and extended his arm for me to walk ahead of him. “Move quickly now Cole, but please watch your step. These broken rocks are sharp” he urged. Like I had practiced this, which I had not, I placed the charges, one on the side and one on the outside of the cement feet where they connected to iron, large cemen
t-footed struts reaching underground. The explosions would fracture the supports to free them from their grip into the bedrock of the mountain. Imagine the steel claws of the giant steel hand reaching for the surface suspended there beneath your feet.
I moved on quickly to the next placement set without speaking or seeking additional direction from Adam. I get it. Plant bombs make boom. Once the fifth and sixth were placed, I reached in the satchel for more, not wanting to even touch what Siren had described as “highly unstable”. My fingertips found only the two large and very cold grenade bombs left. Seeing the air intake shaft and perhaps ten yards further, the larger and more distant main exhaust shaft, where I am to drop the thermite. These melt the structural steel from the inside out at even a small amount, so these would each do tremendous damage with two matching drops from Siren on the other side of the mountain. A modern-day Greek Fire.
I quickly sprinted to the first. I bent to place the satchel on the ground gingerly and squatted reaching in both hands. I felt the coldness of the chemical within, felt its liquid movement. Holding both against my body wrapped in my arm, I pulled the pins from both. I dropped the first one down one and paused just a few seconds to listen. No sound. Falling, falling. I walk very, very carefully, but fast, ten yards, and dropped in the other. I needed to pee again really badly. I threw the pins into the trees as I fought the urge to run screaming back to where Adam, my protector, was waiting for me hunched still in the tree line. I walked rapidly not wanting to risk tripping and falling on the loose, jagged rocks. Unforgiving earth, if I were to fall, I may actually die from it. The rocks are extremely large, unmoving, and very jagged. I walked past him into the trees and peed.
I could at first hear the metal-against-metal clanking and banging growing fainter and fainter as the second dropped many stories below the earth, finding their inevitable explosion points. Or one-minute’s time, whichever happened first. As I was walking back to Adam, I’m stone-faced and feeling shame. The first thermite bomb detonated sending a brief shaking shock I felt through my feet. We hurried back down the mountain, Adam closely at my side. We were just approaching the car when Siren ran up from the same direction she had sprinted, not even appearing winded. She flashed her eyebrows up twice smiling widely and climbed into the driver’s seat of the semi-stretch and started it. She has made this car feel like it’s a jet on land. Adam climbed in while I peed again. What?! I’m human and that was intense.
As soon as my door was closed she navigated us out the way we drove in and back onto the road as the main explosions began. She lowered the remote control held center-window and dropped it into the cupholder next to her with a loud noise. Moments later the dividing window rose, blocking her from my curious stare at her broad smile in the mirror. She’s not even breathing hard. I really like her. But we have caused great death in this action. She should not be smiling like that.
Siren drove us straight to the jet waiting at Vaclav Havel with priority position for immediate take off as soon as we’re on board. The Pope’s got some grease here apparently. I turned to the window and stared out, wondering what Luigi was doing and whether or not my new friend and lover even misses me. If he knew what I had just done. If I tell him, he will never love me. Just the expression on his face alone in the telling might kill me. What I had taken part in doing, in my mind forgiving myself for what I just did, but knowing the only true cleansing of my soul would happen when I confessed to my father, the Pope, in his private confessional. I sighed deeply at the latter, hoping he misses me, too.
I know I will tell Luigi though. I just have to think of a way, a pathway, to make sure I remain as open and honest with him in everything. Our time together is already going to be brief, so there just isn’t time for anything but truth. Unsure why I feel compelled to do that, though. It just seems like the right thing to do. I already cherish my relationship with him so unexpectedly. I had thought my short life would be task-centered, genetics sciences stuff. My educational focus. It was becoming centered on just one man now though. Luigi. All the rest of this seems peripheral. Not as important. Adam rested his head against my shoulder having worked almost the entire drive to Prague from Geneva. Poor guy was exhausted and fast asleep. I pulled my heavy overcoat over him to warm him and kissed his head gently.
We arrived at the private jet terminal 25 minutes later and Siren got out of the car and opened my door, just like a professional chauffeur would do. Even wearing a chauffeur’s hat and uniform?! I stepped out of the car at the curb and turned to her. “Um … Siren, you were just driving over 80 kilometers per hour, right? And you changed clothes?!” She just laughed at it. “That’s some serious fucking skill woman.” I bent down and kissed her cheek. In front of the small but modern building, the tail of our jet close enough to see the Papal Flag on the tail, the only jet on the small tarmac, engines just now winding up. Adam rushed past me into the terminal as I said good-bye to Siren. It was awkward. I really liked her but I wasn’t sure why. A vibration from her perhaps. I felt something like kindred toward her for some reason. I pulled her into an embrace and kissed the cap on her boyish head. “Good luck to you Siren. I hope to see you again someday.” She smiled as I turned and followed Adam into the private jet lounge and straight through to board the jet.
At the top of the stairs I turned at the squeal of tires as I watched the black Audi semi-stretch accelerate away going really, really fast. Total bad-ass. I laughed and smiled and turned into the plane as Adam pulled the door closed and secured it. Before walking to his waiting heated lounge, he rapped quickly on the cockpit door twice and the engines began winding up quickly, slowly propelling us toward the runway for immediate take-off. As he was walking back toward me, he stooped and asked me what was bothering me, kindly. I had withdrawn and it was really obvious. he sensed it. He sensed that I was upset about something. Very human. Looking at him carefully, I teared slightly in the retelling of my meeting the young Luigi and how happy it had been to spend time with him. I even told him about the sex.
Adam had just smiled, knowingly. “You’re in love with him Cole. It sounds like he may also be in love with you, so do not waste the opportunity. We fly home to Rome now, but we have one final mission in a few days, which I will again accompany you on. Not blowing anything up, though, if that is what has you so down. We will be seeding the clouds above a large, wide area over Russian airspace. Mosquitos and mosquito larvae will be our bombs. A small “plague of locusts” if you will. They will move through the population quickly.” There is no God in that. Manipulating insects into weapons.
This is all just so troubling. It won’t smooth itself in my mind. It will not just lie flatly there and fucking hold still. Then there again, Luigi’s face in my mind. The troubling burden of those last thoughts just lifted away from me at the mere image of him appearing before my mind’s eye. I smiled warmly in thanks to him for the peace he brings me even from this distance.
Adam thoughtfully continued, showing more of himself to me. Showing me the man, if he is not in fact a fellow priest of God as he said. “Tonight then, we spend safely back in our own beds. You, hopefully with your Luigi. I will sleep in the arms of my husband, at our home just outside of Rome.” I turned to him, alarmed to hear him say that he was married, and to another man. As a priest? Adam smiled, sensing my confusion.
“I told you Father, I am not a priest. I meant that literally, not figuratively. What I am is a glorified errand boy for His Eminence, nothing more. I’ve known him many, many years you see, since I was a kid. In fact, he even performed a blessing over our union when we were married in England. Not in the church, of course. He was there with us personally, dressed simply in plain clothes, as our dear friend, not as His Holiness the Pope of Rome. As a man.” I considered the pontiff carefully in my mind. I know too little of this person as a man. I have only even seen him from a distance, while standing at the upper floor railing overlooking the busy people as the attendants walked the old man in the heavy robes into the din
ing room on that first day of my new life. He had smiled and looked up at me.
I smiled in the knowing that his blessing a union that has equal importance to the marriage of Adam to his husband. That he leads an organization that doesn’t recognize homosexuality as anything but a mortal sin. Unless I grossly misunderstand my church and our exclusion tenants. I closed my eyes as the jet reached cruising altitude and reclined to my full sleeper and fell quickly to sleep. Adam woke and placed a warm blanket over me, my last thoughts in consciousness of comfort and warmth. I will sleep the entire flight, though fitfully. My dreams, clouded with the silent screams of the clone blanks as their unknowing bodies boiled and burned in the tanks that were intended to see to their safety and nurturing. Such horrible visions imagined in those dreams. I tossed fitfully, often jerking, as Adam looked on, concerned and guarded of me.
The heavy jet bounced and jarred me awake. The runway at da Vinci International Airport, pulled forward by the gravity of the slowing jet as it sped along fast toward the private hangar. My lounge and Adam’s just finishing re-folding themselves into chairs from beds. Barely waking Adam as I stared, his body slumped forward. I smiled at him and he at me. His eyes narrowed slightly. “I will tell my husband of this. Of … what we have done together. I keep nothing from him.” He was being very sincere, I could tell. That deserved an honest response from me. “Well when you tell him, please mention that he may be rest assured that I will be forgiven before Sunday before midnight. That’s when I will die. I am a clone, Adam. Not sure if you knew that. I’m only allowed life for seven days.”