They walked into a gray cement building with a clay-tiled roof and faded Coca-Cola signs plastered across cracked walls. Inside, the shop attendant leaned over the counter. Her hair waved in the wind of a rotating aluminum fan. Sweat trickled down her forehead and tawny bare arms. She didn’t bother with so much as a greeting or raised eyebrow. Instead, she rested her head into her palms and closed her eyes.
Another man in torn blue jeans stained dark with soil and wear gathered up cans of soup and tuna into a dingy plastic basket. He regarded James and Nick for a while and then turned back to the groceries.
“Uh, do you have any medicine?” James asked the shopkeeper.
“Medicina?”
James nodded.
The shopkeeper pointed to a half-askew shelving unit with an array of small boxes.
“Can you read the packages? Can you tell me which ones you need?” James asked.
Nick squinted, trying to recall the words as he read them across the colorful packages. He struggled to make sense of the labels until he recognized the cognate, antibiótico. Handing a couple boxes to James, he said, “Here. Get these.”
James dropped the cartons on the counter. Without adding them up, the attendant gave a total. He raised an eyebrow at Nick for assurance.
“Just give her the money,” he said. “We just need to get out of here.”
After James passed a couple of metal coins to the woman, a loud whir and grinding of tires echoed in the small store. He lunged to the door and Nick followed. They watched the truck they had stolen drive off. James sprinted after the vehicle. He yelled at the driver to no avail. Stopping in the middle of the road, he cursed before trudging back.
“Fucking hell.”
“It wasn’t ours anyway.” Nick felt numb. He wasn’t sure if it was the infection or the meds or the memory of the driver’s lifeless body that contributed to his apathy. “At least we’ve got medicine and money. I’m not sure I can make it too far on foot until these meds kick in.” He pointed to a run-down bar across the street from them.
A couple of patrons slumped on stools. They rested their elbows on the bar next to sweating beer pints.
“Why don’t we grab food and then hole up somewhere around here for the night?” Nick asked.
“I don’t feel safe. Our packs were in that truck. Our rifles were in there.”
“You’ve got your pistol, right?” He wiped away the perspiration from his forehead. “You already proved you can use it.”
“What’s wrong with you?” James’s eyes narrowed. “You need to let it go.”
“Let it go?” Nick lowered his voice. “If you want to fit in here and in America, you’re going to need to calm the hell down. You can’t just kill someone because you think they’re out to get you.”
“Seriously?” James frowned. “You wanted to kill your way out of the camp.”
Nick’s head ached, the heat of his fever augmented by his anger. “That was different. We knew those guards and keepers were in the wrong. We needed to escape and we didn’t have any choices. But out here, you do have choices.”
His lips curling, James’s nose scrunched in a snarl. He opened his mouth to say something but refrained. His face relaxed. “Nick, I’m not like you. I was born and bred to be a killer and a soldier. Every one of your clones were. You have to realize that the idea of acting with consideration at the hint of danger is completely foreign to me. I’m blindly following you and your promise of freedom, but so far, I haven’t seen a hint of what this world has to offer me that makes my escape worthwhile. I almost feel more paranoid, more worried.”
He sighed. “If you want me to learn how to act like you, you’re going to have to be patient. You’ve had decades to learn how to be a human being. You can’t expect me to learn all that in a matter of weeks. No matter how effectively those facilities and trainers accelerated our growth and development, I doubt my training can compare to your lifetime of experience. If you want me to learn patience, you need to practice it with me.”
Nick rubbed the small scar on his wrist. “I understand.” The image of the driver’s body being flung from the cab burned in his mind, but the brunt of his anger was no longer directed at James. The selective breeding, the genetic manipulation, the training the clones had received all bore the responsibility of the clone that stood before him now.
The scent and sizzle of frying meat floated through the air in the open-air restaurant as the bartender flipped a hunk of blackened, unrecognizable meat on a gas grill behind the bar. Nick’s stomach churned, confused between hunger and sickness.
“You’ve never had a beer, have you?” he asked.
James shook his head.
They sat at a corner of the bar, away from the other patrons. Nick attempted to order whatever meat the man cooked along with a beer for James and a water for himself.
James scrunched his brow. “Where did you come up with my name?”
Nick took a sip of the water and closed his eyes. “Your name? James?”
“Right.”
“That was my brother’s name.”
James sunk his teeth into the blackened meat. Tearing it off the bone and chewing it, he wrinkled his brow. He swallowed it and licked his lips. “Not too bad. Better than camp, that’s for sure. So when you say that ‘was’ your brother’s name, what does that mean?”
“He’s gone.”
“Oh.” James offered no condolences, an evident blind spot in the social convention training he had received. “When did that happen?”
“He died when I was ten or so. It was a long time ago, but I don’t want to talk about that right now.”
After taking another bite, James took a sip of the beer. “Do you consider me like your brother now? Or more accurately, I suppose, like a brother?”
“I guess so.” Nick couldn’t imagine his real brother killing a farmer on his way to the market, though. He might have been influenced by the fact that his brother had never reached eight years old, never lost his innocence and naivety. But Nick held that image sacred. One of his earliest memories as a toddler was climbing into James’s crib in an effort to stop him from crying. Their mother had been talking to someone at the door to their apartment, and he couldn’t stand to see his brother alone and upset. James’s red face and wails turned into a smile and laughter as Nick did his best to make his brother happy. Nick cursed inwardly for sacrilegiously doling out the name to a man as volatile as this clone, yet he found calling James by his brother’s name easy.
Confused and sick, Nick swallowed his last swig of water. “I’m not feeling so hot. Can we get out of here? Maybe find somewhere to hunker down for the night?”
“Sure thing.”
As they trudged to the boundaries of the town, they found no place suitable for temporary lodging. He hadn’t expected anything remotely hospitable to tourists in a rural town like this but clung to the miniscule hope that somewhere a bed that wasn’t made from fallen branches and leaves waited for him.
Footsteps plodded along behind them. The hair on the back of his neck stood up straight and he tensed his muscles.
It was the shopper who had been in the store earlier. The man was probably headed to his home, north of the town, and James and Nick were coincidentally hiking in the same direction. Still, his nerves itched and urged him to test the man—confront him or run. He refrained from acting as though the man threatened them, worried that James would react with violence.
The traveler caught up and fell into step beside them. “Where are you headed?” He spoke good English, slightly affected by a Costa Rican accent. His words and accent brought back painful memories of following Rocco into that abandoned prison complex in Tallinn.
Neither of them answered.
“You’re brothers?”
“We just want to be left alone,” James said. “My...brother is sick and we want to get home.”
“Ah, I see. What’s wrong with him?”
James stopped and glared at their in
terrogative friend. “We’re not looking to converse.”
The man smiled, his lips curling to reveal a set of jagged and yellowed teeth. “Truthfully, neither am I.”
James’s hand hovered above the pistol that poked out of his waistband, obscured under his shirt. “Then I suggest you let us be.” He wrapped his fingers around the pistol grip.
“I don’t think that would be wise.” Holding his hands up, the man said. “You’re clones, aren’t you?”
Twenty-Nine
Sara ran beside Palmer. This time, they had met early on a Saturday morning while wisps of fog still hung over the Potomac. She felt safer running south on the Mount Vernon trail than talking at either of their apartments or offices. She might be thinking irrationally, but she preferred not to take any chances given what they’d discovered.
When they had mapped out the deactivation of all the former servicemen’s Chips, the global map projected in Palmer’s living room provided them an uncanny image. There appeared to be several hotspots, all in countries outside North America, where the Chips had been deactivated. Numerous victims—and now, she was certain that these were victims, not fugitives—had gone off-grid in locations around Buenos Aires, Cairo, Bangkok, Tehran and Tallinn, among others. All of the service members who had vanished once served in special forces or elite units of the military, including the SEALs, Rangers, Green Berets, Marines and Exo-Specialists.
They had spent an hour mapping out other relationships that these individuals might share but had difficulty identifying any correlations in their data until she suggested they find out why these people had visited these locations. Each report claimed that the Chips had been deactivated or disconnected while the individual traveled for business. They discovered each victim had worked for one of various companies that offered consulting or contracting services ranging from network interfacing to augmented reality integration.
As they ran, Sara brought up a search engine on her AR lens. “So, someone picked these people up while they were on business. Why in these countries, though?” She conjured potential search terms to connect all the countries.
“That’s easy. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before.” Palmer shook his head as they followed a curve around the murky river.
“Enough with the suspense, oh great and magnificent genius. What is it?”
“Few of those countries,” he said between breaths, “have a Chip infrastructure in place.”
“Sure. Okay.” She raised an eyebrow as she lunged over a fallen branch in their pathway.
“And the ones that do are still relatively new at the whole Chip thing.”
Her eyes widened. “Right. So they’ve rolled it out for tourists, mainly, but don’t have the extensive built-in networks and emergency services we do.”
“Exactly! Imagine if a Chip were deactivated here. The police and an ambulance would be sent immediately. But as far as I can tell, that’s not the case in Egypt, Argentina, or Iran.”
“Nope. Not in Estonia or Thailand either,” she said after confirming their suspicions through her AR lenses. “If they have a Chip infrastructure in place at all, it’s immature at best.”
“Clearly, whoever is responsible for this has thought out exactly where the best fishing spots are for a good American catch, huh?”
She nodded, her ponytail bobbing and whipping behind her. They jogged on for half a mile in quiet. Another idea permeated through the whirl of theories swimming in her mind. “You said that these people are fishing for Americans, right?”
“It’s only a simile.”
“You mean metaphor,” Sara said. Palmer rolled his eyes. “What if these people aren’t fishing? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence? How long would they have to wait for a Navy SEAL to get a job with a firm that sends them to a country where they’re ripe for the picking like that?”
He smiled and clapped her on the back. “Are you suggesting that—”
“Yes, I think these soldiers are being sent to those places on purpose.”
“Holy shit. That’s high-level conspiracy, right there.”
She loped along beside Palmer and shot him a dubious look. “You don’t think it’s possible?”
“Oh, no. I definitely think it’s possible. In fact, I think you might be on to something very real and very scary. I love it.”
Thirty
James pulled the pistol from beneath his shirt and pointed it at the man. Again, the fellow traveler held his hands up as he smiled.
“My name’s Hector,” he said. “I’m not out to capture you or sell you back or anything like that. I’m a friend.”
“What the hell do you know about us?” James asked.
Hector waved his hands. “Nothing. Nothing, other than you look like escaped clones. I want to help you.”
“How am I supposed to believe that? If you want to help us, just let us go.”
Hector sighed and bit his bottom lip, whistling. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I saw your friend limp into that store back in Escamequita.”
“Esca—?”
“The town we just left. He’s not doing well, is he?”
Nick grimaced but said nothing.
“I want to help you,” Hector repeated. “If you come with me, I promise it will be safe. I’ve got better medicine than you’re going to get at any little market store. And the way you’re limping, I don’t think any store-bought antibiotics are going to cut it. My wife was a nurse and we’ve got supplies to share.”
“Supplies?” James face contorted in a skeptical expression.
“Yes. There are other sympathizers like me. I’m organizing a small network to get people like you out of these countries. Honestly, I’m surprised you haven’t been sent back.” Hector squinted. “You both look familiar. I swear I’ve seen you before.”
“Doubtful,” Nick said. “We’ve been stuck in a goddamned jungle prison for a couple years. Not exactly traveling the world.”
“Hmm.” Hector shrugged. “In any case, if it makes you feel safer, you can keep that pistol out while you follow me.”
Nick indicated that they should follow Hector, and James acquiesced with a begrudging look.
“Worst case scenario,” James said. “Hector dies with us.”
“That sounds fair to me, my friends.” The man smiled and lowered his hands. “But I promise that there will be no worst case scenario.”
***
They followed Hector back to a house tucked far off the road. A couple of mango trees grew in what might have been considered a front yard. Beyond a wire fence, a small flock of chickens pecked at the ground. Hector led them up to the torn screen door and removed his cap. He motioned for them to enter.
James adjusted his grip on the pistol and went inside before Nick. The smell of frying onions hung in the air. Her hair tied back in a black bun, a woman nodded at them as if they visited regularly. She turned back to the food. Hector stopped near the back door of the house with the bag of groceries he had bought from Escamequita. A young boy clad in a diaper waddled over and hid behind the man’s legs. The child stared up at them with wide brown eyes. Hector tussled the boy’s hair and smiled. “See? No worst case scenario.”
He laid the canvas bag down by the back entrance and directed them out behind the house. There, a man with blond hair and a powerful build sat next to a woman whose own frame and scarred face made the blond man appear as innocuous as a puppy. A couple of children, one with wiry black hair and dark skin and the other freckled and redheaded, drew in the dirt with sticks.
The scarred woman stood. “You escaped too?”
Nick and James nodded in unison.
“We did,” Nick said.
“What camp were you in?”
James shrugged. “We don’t know. We didn’t even know other camps existed until a few days ago.”
“We came from C-5. Passed by several camps on our way up with these two.” She indicated the two children, whose momentary curiosity at seei
ng James and Nick was overwhelmed once again by the allure of the dirt. “Clones from another camp attacked our transport truck.”
“What happened?” James asked. “Where’s the rest?”
The woman’s eyes fell to the ground and she shook her head. “We are the rest.” She set her jaw. “They were stupid. They should have just let the truck go. They didn’t stand a chance. I would’ve been fine fighting wherever they sent us.”
Nodding, the blond man crossed his arms. “Me, too. Now, they’ve forced us to run for our lives. I’m not meant for running and hiding.”
“Right,” the woman said. “And these two are not trained or bred like us.” She indicated the children. “I’m ashamed to say that I chose to help them rather than fight and die beside the others.”
“Ashamed? You saved their lives,” Nick said. “Protecting them is a good thing.”
The woman lifted her shoulders. “My keepers called that instinct a weakness. A problem with my batch.”
“No, you can’t still believe them. You’re free from them now.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t bother,” Hector said. “I’ve already tried and they don’t listen to me, either.”
Nick sighed. “So, what now? What are you going to do with us?”
Hector huffed. “What am I doing with you? I am trying to help you escape. As long as you are in Costa Rica or Nicaragua or even Guatemala, those people will take you back. I don’t think Mexico is much better, either. They pay good money for fugitives.”
Furrowing his brow, Nick crossed his arms. “People know that there are clones out here and that somehow hasn’t made it on the international news streams?”
“No, no. People think you are prisoners or demons or whatever the local rumors are, but not clones. The local officials have a way of keeping people tight-lipped with money, drugs, food...sometimes worse. It’s sad, really, trying to find anyone who buys this story. With so many stories circulating, no one knows what to believe. So, in the rare instances they see a disgruntled wanderer who appears to have no idea where they are going, people get scared or they try to take them in for a cash reward.
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