by Jon Jacks
‘Can’t see as how that Oasis contraption is supposed to be part of your defence,’ Drad declared casually.
‘Look, if I’d killed Cally, if that’s what I was here to do, why did I come back? It doesn’t make any sense.’
Some of them shrugged, like they couldn’t figure out an answer, but they couldn’t see how it was anything important either.
‘You just tried to make out Cally was your sister,’ Drad said with the confidence of someone thinking he was seeing all the pieces falling into place. ‘Perhaps you were hoping to take Cally’s place; handing us all on a plate to your husband Dorian.’
‘She was my sister!’
‘So why’d she never tell me? Never tell any of us?’ Kerrsly demanded. ‘Is that such a hard thing for her to say; “Hey guess what, I’ve got a long-lost sister!”?’
It was hopeless!
No matter what I said, it counted against me.
‘Wait, wait!’
How stupid could I be? I’d been so shocked by everything that had happened to me – losing my sister, being accused of killing her, then actually seeing a video of me shooting her! – that I hadn’t been thinking logically.
Dorian had made a copy of me just as he’d made a copy of himself!
The officer who shot Cally was Angeic A, or whatever Dorian had called her.
‘It wasn’t me that shot Cally, of course!’ I cried out excitedly. ‘It was a copy. A copy of me!’
They each swapped bewildered glances.
Then they all laughed.
*
Chapter 25
Freeing me from the chair but keeping my hands tied, they dragged me outside into the square where I had supposedly killed Cally.
The sun seemed so much brighter after being held inside the dim hovel.
I blinked painfully, trying to adjust my eyes to the change.
‘I’m serious!’ I continued to protest. ‘Dorian can make copies, using DNA!’
‘How come we never heard? An invention like that – it would be on the news everywhere.’
Drad grimaced, like he wanted to believe me, if only to save himself from having to execute me in cold blood. But his face was also creased with frustration, like he was tiring of all this useless chatter. All these lies.
‘It’s still a secret, still in development!’
Towards the other end of the square, I could see the ScoutBot.
A handful of the rebels were nervously attempting to draw closer to it, doubtlessly eager to discover its secrets so they could turn them to their own advantage. But the ScoutBot sensed the danger and, like a cornered yet supremely confident animal, it backed off, jerked forward, swiftly twirled around, its wide array of guns constantly directed at anyone drawing too near.
If only I’d continued wearing the wristband! I’d be saved and out of here in a moment!
Leaving behind all of Cally’s painstakingly trained rebels dead upon the floor.
Perhaps it was for the best that the wristband had been snatched off me. It removed any temptation I might have to slip it back on.
‘Even I’ve only seen one copy so far!’ I persevered. ‘Well, two now, now he’s made one of me!’
‘Why’d he want two of you, eh?’ someone complained, wearying of my pleas to be believed.
‘This has gone on long enough!’ Drad growled, taking me by an arm and forcing me to my knees.
There weren’t as many people surrounding me as there had been only moments before.
They didn’t want to see me killed. Not because they didn’t think I deserved it. But because they’d probably never been faced with something like this; seeing a defenceless girl executed.
Some of them had returned to their homes. I heard their TVs being switched on, turned up loud to drown out the crack of the shot.
Drad glanced nervously about him, swapping the gun from hand to hand, rubbing them as if he were attempting to keep them free of sweat.
Kerrsly saw his nervousness.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said, taking out her gun and stepping in front of me. ‘Cally was my friend.’’
‘Friend?’ Humiliated by the comparison of Kerrsly’s determination with his own edginess, Drad took his frustration out on her. ‘I figured you wanted it to be more than that Kerrsly!’
Kerrsly pursed her lips angrily. She placed the barrel of the gun hard against my forehead.
Great; she seemed more determined than ever to pull the trigger.
So, this was it – I was about to die, executed for the murder of my own sister
*
‘Wait, wait!’
Flinging back the door to their hovel, someone rushed out into the square.
Someone who didn’t want to miss seeing me killed after all.
The cry had distracted Kerrsly. She’d stepped back, taking the gun away from my head as she’d looked around.
‘She’s telling the truth!’ the running figure yelled urgently.
Kerrsly grunted, annoyed by the unnecessary interruption,
She stepped back towards me. The gun’s barrel rested against my head once more.
I clamped my eyes tight.
‘On TV! There’s a copy of her!’
‘I saw her!’ Kerrsly spat angrily.
The gun’s barrel felt like it was being drilled into my skull. I felt it jerk slightly, Kerrsly struggling with her urge to kill me and the new information she was determined wouldn’t penetrate her brain until it was too late.
The gun painfully swung to one side.
It cracked ridiculously loudly. The rain of small stones scattered by the bullet’s striking of the ground stung my legs and side.
I opened my eyes.
Drad had pushed Kerrsly aside.
She had fired, intending to kill me.
Realising this, he expertly disarmed her with a quick twist of her arm.
‘We have to see if this is true!’ he declared firmly, staring the irate Kerrsly out. ‘We need to see why Pila thinks there really is a copy of her!’
*
I was at an elaborate convention, arm in arm with Dorian.
‘That doesn’t mean anything; Kerrsly stormed. ‘It’s just old footage; old stuff we’ve seen so many times before!’
The screen globes they had in the shanty town weren’t up to the standards I was used to in the Oasis. But these were the best pictures of me – of my copy – I’d ever seen.
They just might save my life.
‘No, no! This is happening now!’ I said desperately. ‘It’s live! It’s the Gaia Convention I was supposed to be attending tonight – well, right now in fact!’
‘Well of course she’d say tha–’
‘Quiet Kerrsly!’ Drad ordered authoritatively. ‘Pila said it was live coverage.’
‘So? They can edit in old footage to make it look like–’
‘Kerrsly!’
Drad seemed relieved that he wasn’t going to have to execute me after all.
‘It doesn’t seem possible – a copy.’ Pila stared, entranced, at the screen.
‘I’m here – she’s there,’ I pointed out unnecessarily.
I didn’t want to throw away this opportunity to save my life.
‘Kerrsly might be right,’ Pila added unsurely. ‘It could be old footage, altered to look like she’s there. To fool us.’
She turned to glare suspiciously at me.
Drad pondered this, stroking his chin slowly with his hand.
He looked at me. Looked into my pleading, scared eyes.
‘Let her go; I believe her,’ he said finally.
*
Why had Dorian made a copy of me?
Why
had he sent her to kill Cally?
Did he have spies amongst the rebels, who’d informed him that Cally was their leader?
Had I talked in my sleep?
Had my own copy been sent to rescue me?
If so, why did she call off the operation as soon as Cally had been killed?
How long had he been developing this copy anyway? Had he planned it as some sort of weird surprise, the same way he’d created a copy of himself?
So many questions cursed through my mind as I sped along the road in the ScoutBot.
As soon as I’d slipped the wristband back on, the ScoutBot had stopped behaving like a cornered animal.
It had waited patiently as I’d approached, obediently swinging open its door, turning its guns menacingly on anyone foolish to step too close or make anything that could be interpreted as a threatening move.
Drad had asked me if I wanted to stay with them. He’d pointed out that, with the loss of Cally, her organisation might begin to fall apart.
I could play her part, pretend I was her, so that no one need know she had been killed.
I’d laughed. The first time I was expected to leap between two hovels, or spin in mid-air and come up shooting, I’d be found out.
Besides, as he had just seen, even Cally’s well-trained troops had no chance against the Tigerdroids.
The only way of ensuring the organisation survived was to weaken the effectiveness of the Tigerdroids.
I could help them do that, but only if I returned to the Oasis.
‘Hah, so you reckon you can persuade Dorian to tame his Tigerdroids do you?’ Drad had laughed good-naturedly. ‘He’s going to have a complete change of heart is he?
‘You could say that,’ I’d answered mysteriously. ‘Because, you see, Dorian’s made a mistake – he’s made a copy of himself!’
*
Chapter 26
As I approached the guards at the gate, I realised there might be a problem.
What would happen if one of them had only just come across my copy a few moments ago?
What, too, if I came across her?
What if she was in our apartment when I returned?
How would I react to someone who wasn’t just a perfect copy of me, but had also just killed my sister?
I should be nervous. My brain should be screaming at me that what I was attempting to do was crazy and could get me killed.
But I knew I could do this.
I knew because Cally, my twin sister, had done so much more with her life than I had with mine.
I knew too, ironically, because I had seen my own copy perform feats I would have said was physically beyond me.
Yes, I could do this!
The guards waved me through with only the most cursory of checks.
‘Evening Miss Havisham.’
‘Saw you earlier on TV miss Havisham!’ one said with a pleasant, admiring grin.
With any luck, I realised, my copy will have stayed on with Dorian for the drinks that would follow the Gaia Convention. Dorian didn’t like missing out on any opportunity to work a well-connected crowd, opening up the prospects for new deals and contracts.
Maria was tidying up the foyer as I entered the apartment.
‘Good evening Miss Havisham,’ she said with a pleasant courtesy. ‘Did you enjoy tonight’s convention?’
‘Yes, yes; bit tiring,’ I replied nonchalantly, ‘but no worse than expected.’
Good; if Maria didn’t see anything unusual about me stepping through the front door, and if she was asking me how the convention had gone, that surely meant that my copy wasn’t already somewhere inside the apartment.
With another pleasant smile, Maria turned back to her work.
I entered the main room.
Dean was there, sitting on the sofa, reading.
He smiled and rose as he saw me come in.
‘Dean, I need to talk to you,’ I said.
‘I’ve missed you,’ he said as we drew closer towards each other.
‘No, I mean we really need to talk an–’
His arms curled about me. He pulled himself close, tightly close, forcing me to arch my back as he leant forward to kiss me.
‘Dean, please I–’
I wasn’t expecting this. I turned my head to one side.
His kiss hit my cheek rather than my lips.
‘We can’t do this! Not now!’
His arms began to slacken, releasing me from his tight grip and allowing me to stand upright once more.
‘Why?’ he asked, sounding hurt. ‘Why can’t we do this?’
Why?
Because, once again, Dean had managed to leave me all confused.
This shouldn’t be happening.
And – I didn’t want it happening the way Dean had just tried to make it happen. Almost forcing himself on me. Simply expecting me to just fall into his arms like I was some nineteenth century southern belle.
It wasn’t like Dean at all.
‘And what do you mean; “Not now”?’ he added suspiciously.
Wait; that hard, amused glint in his eyes!
Dorian!
He saw the sudden glint of recognition in my eyes.
He chuckled.
‘I had you going there didn’t I, eh Angeic? “Oh Dean, Dean” – priceless!’
‘Dorian! I’m tired of all this trickery! And what’s all this making a copy of me!’
‘Ah, so you’ve seen her? Ah, of course; the televised convention. So, Angeic, please tell me; what am I supposed to do when I have an important convention to attend? One jam-packed with potential clients, family men who see a happy family as an important sign of stability – and my betrothed takes it into her head to go on some wild, dangerous jaunt out into the outside world?’
‘Oh, and you just happened to have her to hand in your cupboard did you?’
‘I’d been working on her as a surprise for you! You’ve already guessed, I think, the amazing potential for the copies I’m creating; why would I want to remain ageless, Angeic, while my lovely wife aged before me?’
He tenderly stroked my cheek, my chin, gazing deep into my eyes.
‘But look; I’m answering all your questions. I should be asking you Angeic; what were you doing outside, when you know it’s so dangerous?’
‘How could I be in danger, Dorian, when I had one of your inventions to protect me?’
He stepped back.
‘Ah yes, the ScoutBot; fabulous, isn’t it?’
He didn’t wait for a reply.
‘Top secret, of course. Equipment like that doesn’t go out unnoticed; even when it’s logged out by “Dorian”.’
Damn damn! Of course Dorian or his team would keep tabs on anything like that being logged out! And Dean’s tracking chip! We’d negated mine, but forgotten all about making sure they couldn’t track Dean’s movements.
Anyone tracing him would have realised Dean had been down to the laboratories and then the gate. But he was still here, while the ScoutBot and I had disappeared. Dorian must have known almost immediately that I’d left the Oasis!
‘Dean was just trying to help me, doing what I asked him to. I needed to get outside; I, well, I – needed time to think,’
Yes, I really did need time to think! How could I explain why I’d left the Oasis?
‘Time to think?’ He looked at me sceptically.
‘I…I guess I realised it’s time to deal with this fear of suffering a death like my mum and dad. I’ve got to face up to that fear. Where better to do that than outside the Oasis – as long as, of course, I’m not in any real danger.’
He looked only slightly less sceptical.
‘Sure, sure,’ he said unsurely. ‘But all this Dean passing himself off as me, Angeic; it’s dangerous for everyone. It puts him in control of weaponry he doesn’t really understand.’
Dean understands it right enough, I felt like saying. An
d he’s going to help me take control of your Tigerdroids once I find him.
‘It was just the once,’ I said. ‘He won’t do it again.’
‘Oh, that’s right, he won’t Angeic.’
The way he said it; it made me shiver deep down inside, like it was full of hidden menace.
‘What…what do you mean by that?’
‘Well, Angeic; let’s just say your pretty little Dean has had a bit of a terrifying accident. He isn’t going to be passing himself off as me anymore.’
*
Chapter 27
Accident?
What did Dorian mean?
Surely Dorian hadn’t deliberately done something hideous to himself just to damage Dean?
I couldn’t find Dean anywhere I looked, even though I’d begun wandering into parts of the building I’d never bothered entering before.
If only I’d known how to trace him using his tracker chip code; that would make finding him ridiculously easy.
What idiots we’d been not to realise he could be tracked!
And the ScoutBot; wouldn’t that have had a tracker chip too?
Dorian could have been tracking my every move after all!
Is that what lead the Tigerdroids to the rebel camp?
Am I responsible for Cally’s death after all?
Still, it was fortunate that we had negated my own tracker chip. As far as Dorian was concerned, like him I had retired to my own section of the apartment.
Only dim night lights had been left on in the rooms I was exploring. It was now past midnight, and the only movement came from quietly whirring cleaner or maintenance Bots and Droids.
In all the time I’d lived in our apartment, I’d never descended into these rooms. I’d just regarded it all as part of Dorian’s domain, an area of my life I didn’t need to concern myself with.
Talking of concern, it was odd that Dorian had concerned himself with the weapons surrounding me in the room I’d just entered.
They were small scale, handheld arms. Sophisticated enough, but nowhere near the cutting edge technology Dorian developed and sold to the world. Even I could see that.
The lasers were at least fifteen years out of date. The armour would be useless against the weapons Dorian had developed ten years ago, let alone whatever he was working on now.
There were even crossbows, with explosive bolts, together with a number of the handheld versions favoured by Cal–
These were the exact versions Cally had used.
When she had shown me how adept she was at using them, I’d admired not only her incredible expertise but also the relative sophistication of the weapons she and her rebels were using. Sure, it was outdated, but still expensive.
Those living in the Oases had always been told (to reassure all those who expected the outsiders to erupt in open revolt at any moment) that there were strict regulations on any arms trading.