A cool breeze washed in as the door opened to the cramped bar and another couple walked in. Sara watched them as they approached a couple of the Naturals playing pool. The woman had wavy brown hair and the man was shaved bald. They went from person to person, apparently looking for something or someone. Then they turned toward Sara. Her mouth fell open.
“What’s wrong?” Autumn asked.
“It’s him.” Sara stood up from the table.
“The guy?” Autumn turned. “And he’s with another girl? Sara...”
“It’s not what you think.” Sara left the table and tapped the bald man on the shoulder. “Twelve?”
He raised an eyebrow. “What did you say?”
“Nick Corrigan?” She whispered the name.
He said nothing, but the surprise in his eyes and the identical expression in the face of his companion told her enough.
“Have you seen someone that looks like me? James?” the man asked.
She nodded. “Yes, I have, but not someone named James. I think we should talk.”
The answers to her questions seemed to have serendipitously walked through the entrance to the bar. She introduced herself to the couple, Nick and Kelsey. Each party traded partial stories until they felt confident in trusting each other. The links to her suspicions and her conversation with Twelve complemented the stories Nick told. “Are you sure you haven’t seen James, then?”
“No,” Sara said. “The only...clone...God, it feels strange to say that aloud. The only clone I’ve seen uses your name and he lives in Brunswick. We could go there now.” She clapped her hands together. “If we could just interview the two of you, show footage of you together, tell your story to all those following Kelsey on the Net, we might be able to start a movement. We could bring this to light.”
She watched for Nick to react. He seemed to be debating with himself. “I promised that I would help those I left behind, and I suppose this might be the first step.”
“Then we don’t have any time to lose. We’ve got to go get Twelve. If we can get him out of here with us, we’ll have all the proof we need.” She frowned for a moment. There would be no buses or commuting trains in service at this time. She spotted Autumn chatting with another Natural near the bar.
“Autumn, can we borrow your car?”
The young woman tilted her head. “Are you going to go visit your boyfriend?”
“Yeah, sure. Can we please use it? I promise I’ll bring it back tonight and have it fully charged for you tomorrow morning.”
Autumn shrugged. “Can I come with?”
Sara shook her head. “Sorry, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Autumn’s voice turned whiny. She was accustomed to getting exactly what she wanted, as Sara had learned. Autumn was a Natural not out of moral obligation but as an act of rebellion. And though she claimed to have had her Chip removed, she could still access a virtually bottomless trust fund set up by her parents. Unlike Sara, Autumn could leave this lifestyle whenever she chose.
Nick stepped in. “Because we need your help. Could you keep an eye out for a man named James?”
“That depends. Is he handsome?”
“He looks exactly like me, except I’m guessing he’ll have more hair.”
A wide grin formed across Autumn’s face. “Good enough for me. What do I tell him when he gets here?”
“Tell him to wait for me here. Tell him Nick will be back for him soon.”
“Is he supposed to be here tonight?”
Sara sighed, anxious to leave.
“I’m not sure,” Nick said. “He might be. He shouldn’t have been too far behind me, I hope.” He clasped Autumn’s hand and shook it. “Thanks again for your help. We appreciate it.”
The drive to Brunswick was tediously slow as Sara struggled to drive the manual car. She wasn’t used to a mode of transport that didn’t guide itself and, true to Natural fashion, the car’s autodrive was deactivated. When they parked on the road in front of Twelve’s house, she sprinted up the stairs, Nick and Kelsey tailing her. Sara pounded on the door, her heart matching rhythm. The lights in the house turned on.
As the door swung open, Twelve half-smiled at her.
“I think we have it all figured out,” Sara said, unable to restrain her excitement. She had uncovered Isis’s secret. “We can make people listen. We can help the others still left in those camps. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Twelve did not smile or share in her fervor. “Who are these other people?
“Friends,” she said. She motioned to Nick as he stepped up to the porch. “This is your...Original.”
Twelve’s eyes widened. “You want to leave right now? To do what?”
“We’ve got to get out of here and find somewhere safe we can relay your story. Expose this whole goddamned mess.”
Hesitating, Twelve chewed his bottom lip.
“Please,” Sara said. “You have to think of the others that are still imprisoned or being sold off as slaves.”
His eyes drooped as he backed into the house. “I’m sorry. I wish I could’ve warned you.”
“What?” She took a step into the doorway, her face contorted in confusion.
McCuller strode up to Twelve’s side. As she turned to run, two men appeared behind them and guided the group through the door with pistols out. For a moment, only the cool breeze whispered in through the open window in Twelve’s living room.
“All right, this worked better than I had anticipated.” McCuller smiled, brushing his fingers through his hair. “You just couldn’t let this go, Monahan. I didn’t want to have to chase you down, so thank you for visiting our friend here today. That certainly made my job easier.” He gestured toward Twelve. “Anyway, now that I have made you my captive audience and everything appears to be out in the open, I hope we can have a little chat to sort out this whole situation.”
She threw her hands up. “A little chat? Isis’s subsidiary companies are abducting and exploiting US citizens. What’s there to chat about?”
“Isis has always acted like a bunch of cowboys. That’s true. But you’ve got to consider the potential. I’m trying to rein them in a bit.” He paced in front of her. “Working out a deal with Isis would mean we could control the entire cloning process. Right now, they’ve been reluctant to let us take a part in any aspect of the technology other than to clean up their messes or come to them as customers. They might be smart when it comes to science but they do a piss-poor job with security. I think we could do a better job of protecting these technologies and the clones if they allowed us to take those responsibilities over.”
“Protect the clones?” Nick scowled. “You mean keep them prisoner?”
McCuller sighed. “Admittedly, their methods aren’t something I’d openly condone. My hope is that, if we provide them a little assistance and a little pressure, we can change the way they operate. If we make it more humane, we could enlist volunteers instead of their unscrupulous methods of selecting Originals.”
“What they’re doing is wrong,” Nick said. “You can’t just breed people into captivity. Christ.”
McCuller tilted his head, apparently accepting the argument. “I can’t say you’re completely wrong. But Isis isn’t as terrible as they might seem. For example, if you’ve lost a child or a loved one, wouldn’t it be fantastic to bring them back?”
Kelsey’s mouth fell open. “That’s sick. It isn’t right.”
“Are you telling me you aren’t happy to have Mr. Corrigan back in your life? Would you have rather he disappeared for good? Imagine those other families who have lost someone with no chance of returning.”
“It’s not the same thing,” Kelsey said. “I learned that firsthand.”
“We might disagree on the nuances, but there are people who do choose to use Isis’s services. Right now, they have to do that in utter secrecy with enormous legal ramifications. In any case, Isis’s research is far ahead of anything our universities, institutions, or comp
anies have come up with.”
Sara huffed. “Because it’s illegal.”
“Monahan, you’ve got to realize that the CIA can’t always act in a strictly ‘legal’ sense if we’re going to protect the interests of our country. You should know that we need to be on top of technological advancement, whether it’s our own or our enemy’s. And if we can, we need to influence, if not control, that technology. Cloning and genetic engineering offer us tremendous opportunity in bolstering our national security through improvements in everything from our clandestine services to our armed forces on the ground. Besides, as you’ve found out, our enemies are using it against us. We can’t be technologically left behind by half-ass organized militias hiding in the jungles.”
“But you can’t just abduct and grow people at your own discretion, either,” Sara said. “One of our prime directives in working with Corello is that we identify and eliminate the use of illegal biotechnological weapons.”
“Corello isn’t involved in this. She wouldn’t understand the benefits of the technology. She's too worried about her black-and-white bioethics training.” McCuller’s face turned red. “And that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Monahan. I wanted to keep this under wraps until we could figure out a way to take over Isis’s cloning operations. We could make it ethical. Something even Corello might approve of.”
“No, no. Nothing like that could ever be ethical.” Nick glared at McCuller. “You can’t just breed people into the business of organized murder. Selective cloning, genetic alterations to design a human being. You sound like a sick neo-Nazi.”
A faint crunch of gravel from outside the window caught Sara’s interest. She listened, waiting to hear what caused it. McCuller seemed not to notice. Her heart beat, wondering if he had already sent for an escort to take them away, to lock them up or dispense of them so they would never be able to blow the whistle on the cloning operations.
“I wish this could be easier.” McCuller pointed to Kelsey. “You, with your infernal Net infamy, have made this difficult, beating me to reunite with our mutual friend. Since then, we’ve learned from our mistakes, but somehow Mr. Corrigan was resourceful enough to make it back on his own. The truth is, I need you on our side. Both of you.”
“And if I refuse?” Kelsey patted the spot on her arm under which her Chip lay. “I can upload this right here, right now.”
“You could.” McCuller smirked. “But Mr. Corrigan has not been documented in the United States and a man of his likeness is suspected of terrorism in Mexico, regardless of what you upload. It wouldn’t be hard to extradite him. I wonder if we might uncover any additional evidence to connect him to the attacks on a border security official and an innocent truck operator.”
Kelsey fell silent, grasping Nick’s hand.
“You might have thought you were ahead of us, Mr. Corrigan, but we found you, didn’t we?” McCuller faced Sara again. “Your talents, Palmer Stoudt’s talents, have both been invaluable to the agency and would be a great asset as we move to acquire Isis’s technology for ourselves. I would hate to terminate you because you’ve been found to be involved in treasonous activities. Your termination wouldn’t be the worst result of that charge, either. You can ask Stoudt how solitary confinement is treating him. If you are willing to help, we can make this easier for you, Monahan.” His expression softened, almost appearing sincere and pleading. “I want to make this right for those being cloned, too. With all of you working together, working with me, we can do that. I need you to trust me.”
The front door burst open with a crash and splinter of wood. McCuller’s men withdrew their guns and took aim at the intruder. Two gunshots rattled off. Sara fell to the floor, preparing herself for whoever had attacked them. Another man, identical to Nick and Twelve, stepped over the slumped, now bleeding bodies of the two agents who had accompanied McCuller.
As McCuller, now crouched on the floor, reached for his holster, the new clone aimed his pistol at him. “Don’t move.” The man’s eyes narrowed, though his countenance appeared calm.
“James,” Nick said, rising up as Kelsey cowered behind him. “James.”
James dismissed him with a wave.
“Ah, another one.” McCuller spoke calmly to the clone. “I’m sorry for what you’ve gone through, but I believe we can make this process better. And more useful.”
Shaking his head, James took another step forward. “You’re all the same. You think we’re just clones, just cattle. Synthetics, replicates, whatever you want to call us, it doesn’t matter. You refuse to accept that we’re human and you’re no god. You don’t decide what’s right for us.” He waved the pistol at McCuller. “Stand up.”
McCuller did as James commanded. “That’s what I’m saying, though. We want to make conditions better for you and your people. We can make this right.”
“No.” James shook his head. “As long as you’re acting in your interests, you aren’t protecting ours. Just waiting outside, I’ve already heard enough of what you think is right. You don’t need to try making it palpable for me now.”
As McCuller took a step forward, his mouth open to protest, James squeezed the trigger. The roar of the gunshot filled the small room. A red splash of blood and bone splattered from the agent as his body fell limp. James turned to Nick. “There’s no room in this world for me.” He gestured to Twelve. “Not for any of us.”
Kelsey stood, her hand against Nick’s back as she addressed James. “With your help, we can make room. We can help the others left behind.”
James shook his head. “I’ve seen what people who were born into this world are like. Selfish and scared, the lot of you. You can’t change.”
“Come on, James.” Nick placed a hand on James’s shoulder. The clone shrugged him off.
“You can do what you want now. You don’t have to worry about that asshole anymore, but none of these people are going to help me.” He shook the gun and strode toward the front door. “You can’t help me either. They all just want to use us.”
“James, wait!”
He spun around and pointed the gun at Nick. “Please, don’t make me do it. Don’t follow me, don’t try to find me. I can’t live like you. I can’t be one of you.”
Nick kept his hands in the air. “What about the others still imprisoned?”
“That’s up to you now. You do things your way, I’ll do them mine.” James walked out through the ruins of the front door. The electric whir of a motor whistled to life and faded as Nick and Sara ran to the house’s entrance.
“I don’t understand.” Nick stared off into the darkness. “I don’t get it.”
A trembling voice spoke from the porch. “Can I come in now?”
Sara swiveled her head out. Autumn sat with her arms wrapped around her knees on the edge of the porch. “Autumn? What are you doing?”
“You guys told me to watch for James, so I did. He wanted to know where you were and, well, I told him.” Evidently seeing the questions in Sara’s eyes, she said, “My car isn’t Natural-kosher. It’s hooked up to the Net and I located it with my Chip, okay?” She caught Sara’s eyes again. “Don’t look at me like that! I’ve seen you gazing off to use your AR lenses. Just because you pretend like you don’t have implants doesn’t mean people can’t tell. I hate pretending to be completely Natural.”
Sara offered Autumn a conciliatory smile. “Thanks for your help.” She sat down next to Autumn and wrapped an arm around her. “I don’t want to be Natural anymore, anyway. I think it’s time to get back to civilization.”
Forty-One
Autumn reactivated the car’s autodrive for their trip back to Crownsville. Sara sat in the front next to her friend while Nick stewed silently in the back between Twelve and Kelsey. Everyone knew what was at stake.
And Kelsey asked what everyone was thinking. “Should I upload the footage? Blow the lid on this whole operation?”
For a moment, Sara mulled over the idea. Spreading the video through the Net and making McCul
ler’s exploits known would likely incite a public response to the conspiracy. Then again, his claims, the very idea of using human cloning for developing an elite super-human force seemed so unbelievable that many might dismiss the video as nothing but a hoax, an elaborate prank. If they stood any chance of ending the CIA’s involvement in Isis’s exploits, they needed someone with the ability to influence the agency—they needed someone from the CIA.
And if McCuller’s judgment—and her own—were correct, Sara’s second director in Bioweapons, Lauren Corello, would want to see these programs shut down for good. She wouldn’t tolerate the US buying human slaves grown from cloned cells. “I’ve got to get my director on our side. She’ll be able to do more than uploading that video will accomplish.”
“You’ve got to be joking.” Nick shook his head. “You want us to ask for help from someone from your agency, the same agency that about had us all killed, that wanted to buy these technologies.”
“I know it’s hard to believe, but you heard it straight from McCuller. Corello’s main directive is to eliminate any and all biotech that poses a potential threat.” She hoped she wasn’t being naive. “There’s no way she would dismiss this, especially with the video you’ve got.”
Nick glanced at Twelve. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ultimately, we’re making a choice that will impact others like you,” Nick said, “others that haven’t been so lucky to escape.”
“I don’t feel as though I’ve escaped anything,” Twelve said. “Not living like this.”
Sara folded her arms across her chest. “Look, if we go public, if I go public, the CIA will deny everything. I doubt they want to lose the confidence of the American people, so they’ll eliminate any trace of ties I ever had with them, along with McCuller, and spread their own propaganda to destroy your credibility.”
Kelsey squinted, leaning forward. “But if we go to the CIA and we give your director a chance to eliminate this cloning threat, they have a chance to look like the good guys. Is that about it?”
The Human Forged Page 20