“I didn’t see anyone following us,” James said. “I don’t think they spotted us when we took off. We might as well rest.”
“I hope you’re right.” Nick pressed his palm against the wound in his leg. “I think I figured out where we are.”
James gave him a hopeful look.
“We’re in Central America. Maybe South America.”
“I thought you said we were in the Congo.”
“I think I was wrong. You know those animals we heard earlier?”
James nodded.
“Well, they’re howler monkeys. Only found in Central and South America. I saw them once when I visited Costa Rica.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m not mistaking the animals. So unless they were introduced to Africa while I was stuck in those chambers, we’re in the Americas.”
James nodded. “So you know where we should go?”
He shrugged and offered a weak smile. “North.”
Slumping back and knocking off loose clumps of dirt, James raked his hand through his hair. “That base where the truck went was not American as far as I could tell.”
“No, I don’t think it was.”
“They unloaded boxes with markings on them I couldn’t make out. Smaller containers spilled out of one of the cargo boxes. They seemed to have logos—I think, anyway—that were red and blue. There was a picture of a gold knot or something between the red and blue circles.”
Nick massaged his temples. The description seemed familiar. He thought he recognized the vague images James described, tucked away in a distant memory. “Were there any words you could make out?”
“There was. I think it was ‘Asis.’” James frowned. “That’s not right. Damn. What was it?”
Nick’s mind clicked into gear and his head snapped around to James. He recalled the company named after the Egyptian goddess. “Isis. It was Isis wasn’t it?”
James nodded. “Ah, yes. That was it. Definitely. How did you know?”
“They’re a huge medical supply company. They provided the army with genetic enhancements, first aid kits for the battlefield, and prosthetics and implants for the Veteran’s Affairs hospitals.”
“They’re American?”
Nick shook his head. “No, no. I think they’re European. They’re huge. A global company. Could you tell what they were delivering down there?”
“No. Not at all.”
“So, after following the truck back to that base, we don’t know anything about it, other than that it’s not friendly, right?”
James let out a slow breath and brought his knees closer to his body. “I’m not positive, but I don’t think it’s too different from the camp we came from. You know those people that brought the boxes into that bunker?”
Nick nodded.
“They were all the same.”
“As in, they were all the same person? Replicates?”
“Yes. I saw more tents and barracks beyond the walls that looked just like the ones at our camp. Only this place was larger.”
For a moment, they both listened to the drops of water that plopped into the puddles and dripped down the leaves, still traveling down from the canopy. The singsong calls of birds announcing the coming dawn filtered into their hiding place.
James’s eyes filled with a mixture of wonder and fear. “Do you think there are more of these places?”
“I have no idea. I wouldn’t doubt it, though. It makes our trip north even more necessary.” Nick thought back to the clones trapped at their camp. In his most optimistic moments, he imagined them escaping out the gate that James had destroyed. But who would tear a hole in the fence for these other clones? How many others were being bred and enslaved, beaten and starved, worked to death?
More than ever, Nick wanted to return to Kelsey but that was not his sole concern or purpose in making it the United States. He could not help every clone they found in these camps, much less find where each of these camps hid. But maybe, if he made it back alive, he could tell the right people. With his connections in the army, he could spark a hunt for those illegal cloning facilities and have them shut down for good.
Twenty-Seven
Depleting the meager rations from their packs, Nick and James traveled north. They followed the cracked asphalt of the Carretera Interamericana from a distance and sought refuge in the forests along the way. Stopping under the wide branches of the guanacaste trees, Nick collected fallen seeds for them to boil and eat.
They passed through abandoned resorts with crumbling stone facades and peeling tangerine and peach paints. Climate change had resulted in increased temperatures throughout the country. The cloud forests Costa Rica had once boasted of had suffered from the hot, dry air and lack of precipitation. Without the pervasive mists that gave the forests both their name and their sustenance, the lush vegetation had withered. The animal life relying on those woodlands disappeared too. No longer a beacon of diverse flora and fauna, Costa Rica’s tourism, once a surging river bringing life to the economy, had slowed to a trickle.
Environmental groups had funded new research and strategies to restore the Costa Rican biome. Now, orchids rose from the blown-in dirt that filled the empty shells of pools in the resorts. The animal and plant life had recovered as cloud seeding augmented the environmental recovery taking place across the globe. Most developed nations had finally curbed their carbon dioxide emissions. But neither restored rainforests nor the improved global climate had reestablished the Costa Rican economy. When he had vacationed there with Kelsey, Nick had counted himself among one of the few Americans to visit the country.
Crossing into Nicaragua proved to be less troublesome than he had anticipated. They departed from the Carretera Interamericana when they neared La Cruz in northern Costa Rica. Instead, they followed a rural gravel road until it ended in a small, unnamed village. The community consisted of several ramshackle houses with tin siding and thatched roofs.
Even here, they avoided the locals. Twin gringos stood out enough as it was. After Nick had found the Interamerican road, they had stopped in a local market bustling with farmers hawking their produce and merchants displaying dishware made from the red wood of the guanacaste trees or rolls of woven fabrics. Despite the antiquated scene, hagglers showed their forearms for the merchants to scan their Chips. Costa Rica had been quick to adopt the Chip system in another of its efforts to attract tourism.
Without a Chip or old-fashioned comm card to make any payments, they were no better off than the beggars resting by the cracked-brick fountain in the center of the market. He had figured that as long as they didn’t try to purchase anything, they could take refuge in a populated town. That shred of reassurance had fluttered away when James had spotted a couple of men drinking yellow cans of Imperial beer. They had worn the same military fatigues as the guards at the clone camp. Nick and James had turned their gray shirts inside out to obscure the numbers printed along the side, but their clothes would still be recognizable to those familiar with the cloning facilities and their occupants. After that sighting, any desire to be among people in Costa Rica was devoured by the more intense fear of being recaptured.
They had discussed the possibility of heading south, down to San José where they could find the American embassy. But that meant traveling back toward the cloning facilities. If soldiers openly traveled the cities and towns of the region, Nick wasn’t sure that San José would be any safer. Traveling through a populated city without a Chip for identification might lead at best to their incarceration as officials processed them for deportation to wherever the authorities decided they had likely come from; at worst, they might be killed or sent back to the prison camps.
Even if they did make it to the embassy, Nick might not be able to explain himself. A genetic sequencing test would prove his identity, but how would he prove James’s? He felt obligated to protect his clone and couldn’t abandon him in San José. Any delay or hiccup in demonstrating that they both deserved the protection
of the American government might lead to disaster. They might be stuck on the city streets without a safe haven from the foreign forces responsible for the cloning facilities.
Paranoia, rational or not, stung him as he wondered if the American government might be condoning the cloning operations here, or at least turning a blind eye. If these people walked around in a busy town without fear of being recognized for who and what they were, he worried what that might imply.
So he had convinced James their best route would be to Nicaragua. The country had not yet adopted the Chip system and their Net infrastructure was still lacking. Compared to Nicaragua, Costa Rica’s economy may as well have been a thriving hotbed of financial growth. The Central American country had grown isolationist and collapsed inward on itself, reverting back to a more agrarian culture. They could travel the country as expats joining the Natural movement and eschewing the cyber and technological addictions of modern society. Nick also knew from the talking heads on the news-holos that Nicaragua’s economy was not purely supported by fruit and vegetable exports. Rather, a burgeoning silk road of synthetic and organically grown narcotics made its way up through the country into Mexico and the United States. That meant, if the US Embassy there wouldn’t take them, there were alternative pathways. Such networks wouldn’t be his preferred method of travel, but it would be better than lying comatose in a cloning facility.
Once they crossed into the rolling hills and tall grass of southern Nicaragua, they followed another rural road north. The road was barely more than a couple of tracks worn bare from occasional use. As they hiked, the wound in Nick’s leg burned. The natural painkillers flowing through his blood no longer assuaged the agony in his inflamed tissues.
“Hold on a second,” he said. He rested under the shade of a carao tree with blooming pink flowers and rolled up his pant leg. When he caught sight of the wound, he gagged and put a hand over his mouth. He took several slow breaths to recover. Yellow pus oozed out around the black core of the hole. Before, he had counted himself fortunate the wound hadn’t been deep. Now, the superficiality of the injury might have made it more dangerous than if the bullet had torn clean through his muscle and tissue.
James cringed. “That looks awful.”
“Thanks. I wouldn’t have noticed.”
James delved into his pack. He pulled out the first aid kit and rifled through its contents. “We’ve got another dose of antibiotics, but they’re no different than the ones we’ve been applying. Plus, the spray’s gone. This kit isn’t exactly packed for an expedition.” He shook the small plastic container. “These are only bacteriostatic, though. We need something that will do more than just slow down the bacteria.”
“Thanks, doctor.” Nick grimaced as he probed the tissue around the wound. “I’ll take what you’ve got but we need to find something soon.”
“No kidding. My stomach was growling and I was thinking we’d need food, but thanks to your leg, I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Glad to be of assistance.” He popped the pill into his mouth. He uncapped the canteen but no water trickled out. After choking down the capsule, his mouth felt drier and grittier. “We need to find more water, too. I don’t think that’s helping anything.”
James lifted Nick to his feet. “Are you sure you’re okay to walk?”
“I’m afraid that’s the only choice we’ve got.”
As James helped him along, the distant whine of an electric motor caught their ears. They stopped. Kicked up in the wake of a small truck, a dust cloud floated in the air.
“Maybe we can catch a ride into town.”
James scowled, brushing his hand through his hair. His fingers came away dusty and grimy. “I hope that infection isn’t getting to your head because I don’t like that option.”
“Why not?”
“Are you kidding? This guy might just drive us back to the people we ran from. Maybe there’s a bounty out for people like us. Who knows?” James shook his head. “I don’t want to take the chance.”
Nick rubbed his knee below the inflamed tissue. Dried blood caked his pants. “I don’t think we have a choice. We need medicine, food, and water. At least, I do.”
James’s face contorted. “Fine.” He lifted his shirt and patted the handle of the pistol he’d taken from the keeper back at camp. “But I’m keeping this here in case we need it.”
“As long as the rifles stay disassembled and in the packs, I’m okay with that.”
As the truck rolled closer, Nick waved to catch the attention of the sole passenger. The rusted pickup slowed as it neared and the driver rolled down his window. His face weathered and wrinkled, he greeted them in Spanish. Nick tried to explain in broken Spanish that they wanted a ride to a place where they could find food, water, and medicine.
“Tiene dinero?” the man asked.
“What’s he saying?” James asked Nick.
“He wants money for a ride.”
“We don’t have any money.”
“I know. Do we have anything to offer the guy?”
James nodded and stepped forward. “You think you’re going to die if we don’t do something about that leg, right?”
“Yeah.” Nick shrugged off his pack and pulled out a bag of guanacaste seeds he had saved. He held them out to the man. “Está bien?”
The driver waved him off. His eyes glued to Nick’s shirt, he frowned, and pointed at the faint outline of the numbers. The edges of each printed character were visible through the fabric. With eyes wide, the driver questioned them, his voice frantic.
“What’s he saying now?”
“I don’t know,” Nick said. “He’s talking too fast.”
Dread filled him as the driver’s voice grew loud. The man wagged his finger at them, his nostrils flaring. Nick could make out the man’s repeated demand for money. More money.
Nick held out his empty hands.
The man lifted his shoulders and shook his head. After making the sign of the cross, he leaned across the seat to roll up his window. James grabbed the door handle and tore it open. The truck sped forward, whipping back and forth. He held on, pulling out the pistol from his waistband, and two loud shots echoed over the road.
As the truck swerved into the long grass, Nick’s heart froze. The pickup jolted to a stop. The man’s body flew out of the truck. James waved from the cab of the vehicle. He turned the truck around, plowing through the grass, and drove back.
James swung open the passenger door. “Damned thing is completely manual. No option for autodrive.”
“You killed him.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“You killed an innocent man.”
James’s nostrils twitched, his face red. “Are you joking? Your life—my life, even—depends on getting you medicine. We had no money, no transportation, no food or water. Now, we have all of that. I saved our lives. Besides, the guy was freaking out. We can’t trust people like that.”
“We have no idea what he was going to do.” Nick tugged at his hair. “You killed an innocent person.”
James jumped out of the truck’s cabin. “You have to be kidding me. What did we have to do to survive back at camp? Do you remember strangling the life out of a poor clone? Or is that all he was to you? Just a clone. Not a real person. He didn’t count. How about everyone who lost their lives when we escaped, huh? I thought this was all about the greater good. A few lives will be lost for us to make it somewhere safe, somewhere that you promised me can deliver the rest of those clones out of enslavement. And, if that guy recognized us for what we are, there’s no way we’d make it out of this damn place to save the others.”
James glared. He punched the side of the truck. “Damn it.” He shook out his wrist.
“I’m sorry. You’re right.” Nick’s words came out weak, diffident. He couldn’t justify the death of this Nicaraguan man, but James was not entirely wrong either. Nick felt sick and he knew that this time he couldn’t blame the bacteria festering in his leg.
“Goddammit. This is fucking terrible.”
Face still scrunched in a snarl, James pointed at the truck. “Get in.”
Nick did as James commanded. He stared straight ahead as James dug around the contents of the truck bed. The clone hoisted himself into the driver’s seat and dropped a soiled plaid shirt on Nick’s lap.
James pulled on a new shirt of his own. “If that guy recognized us, we’ve got to try to blend in better. You need to put that on.”
Without a word, Nick slid his arms into the shirt and buttoned it up around his chest. James handed him a canteen filled with water. “When you’ve had your fill, pass it to me.” He took a bite of a mango. “There are crate-loads of these in the back.”
After chugging water and giving it back, Nick rubbed his face with his palms. “Did you find any money?”
James dug into his pocket and placed several metal coins and a plastic comm card into Nick’s hands. “You think this will do?”
“It will have to. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Twenty-Eight
Despite the unrelenting heat, Nick’s body tensed and shivered. He held his arms close and groaned each time the truck shuddered on the bumpy road. They weaved between lush fields where cattle roamed, separated by short wooden fences. Besides the occasional ranch attendant watching them pass by, they met no one else.
James glanced at him. “How bad is it getting?”
“It hurts like hell.”
“You look like hell.” As he drove, James stretched out his arm, pressing the back of his hand against Nick’s forehead. “Shit, you’re on fire.”
The dirt tire tracks they followed gave way to a more uniform gravel road as they approached a small town. James had to swerve around a skinny dog too lazy to move from the road. A couple of shirtless children chased the dog off with sticks after the truck passed. James slowed and parked between another rusted truck and a cart full of folded clothes. He got out and helped Nick from his seat.
“I’m going to need your help here,” James said. “Can’t translate the Spanish myself.”
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