by MJ Blehart
Finding a terminal, Onima ran the hack Teru had provided. She hoped it would wirelessly download the data to her card. After a moment, it beeped softly.
“I don’t know how much time we have,” Onima said quietly, “but anything of interest, get a scan to your datacards, take pics—whatever you need to do. Let’s try not to make a mess.”
Neither Jace nor Kara said anything as they searched.
Onima listened in on Teru’s discussion, making certain that Ms. Nazari was still there. It wouldn’t be much of a distraction if she left the meeting and paid a visit to her office.
Ms. Nazari was explaining to Teru about the wellness center’s reputation for the unusual surgery they were consulting on.
A click sounded from across the room, toward the lounge space. Onima looked up just as a bookshelf dropped into the floor, revealing an opening and someone standing within it, holding a pistol.
Someone all too familiar.
“Hello, Feroz,” Onima said.
Both Jace and Kara turned to look, drawing their pistols.
“I really should have made sure the Aquila didn’t survive the blast,” Feroz remarked.
“So you want to add murder to your list of crimes?” asked Kara.
Feroz grinned. “‘Crime’ is a relative term. When you are working for the winning side, it’s called ‘patriotism.’”
“Does that help you sleep at night?” asked Kara.
Now Feroz chuckled. “Deputy Martinez, I don’t really feel like I missed you all that much.” He turned his attention to Onima, who had still not drawn her own pistol. “Onima. I would love to offer you a deal.”
“Really?” Onima replied. “You mean, join you and your so-called ‘winning side’ and betray my oath of office, the Bureau, and the AECC?”
“Something like that,” Feroz said. “We both know you don’t get paid nearly well enough to do what you do. You could make triple your annual salary working with us—and a directorship in the CBI or its replacement.”
“You think your friends’ plan is that good?”
“Of course I do,” Feroz said. “The Confederation is weak, our plan is strong, and you are in our way. You really don’t want to be there, Marshal Gwok.”
“So you have no problem killing my kind?” asked Jace.
Feroz looked at him. “You only think your kind matter, Jace, because you think you’re as real as any of us are. But you aren’t. You’re half human at best. Whether you are fodder for the NEEA, NECC, or our plan makes no difference. Cannon fodder is all you are, and all you’re good for.”
Onima drew her pistol. “Feroz Jones, you are under arrest for sabotage, conspiracy, attempted murder, and sedition. Come quietly, or I will shoot you.”
Feroz shook his head. “So...no, then, right? You’re rejecting my offer?”
“Just as you rejected your oath,” Onima said.
“I had to try,” Feroz said.
Plasma bolts fired out from around Feroz.
Onima, Jace, and Kara dove behind the largest desk. Jace and Kara toppled it over, the top side offering a better shield.
Onima glanced up. Feroz was now flanked by three others in medical scrubs but armed with a pair of pistols each.
Jace, Onima, and Kara took turns returning fire. Feroz and his pals dove for the lounge area, using the furniture and coffee table for defense.
Onima fired several shots, then ran for the door. It opened to an empty hallway. “Come on!” she shouted to Jace and Kara.
They exchanged fire with Feroz and his associates before reaching the door. Onima closed it, then blasted the lock.
It seldom did any good to do that, but it felt good.
“Back to the exit!” Onima called.
She led Jace and Kara back through the hallway, the map still projected on her monocle.
They turned and stopped abruptly.
Eight people in armored shells stood there, rifles at the ready. They were not the blue armored shells with black helmets. In fact, they appeared much older and more worn.
Standing with the eight was another familiar figure—Vladimir Bettani.
“Well then,” Bettani said, one hand on his hip, the other holding a pistol. “This time it’s not my office. I don’t much care if we make a mess killing you.”
10
Jace debating opening fire. But between the armored shells, the three-to-one odds, and the open hallway, it would be suicidal.
“Kill them here and now,” Bettani ordered.
The eight armor-shelled thugs raised their rifles.
Jace tensed, and so did Kara and Onima. All of them were ready to take their chances and pounce.
“Hold your fire!” called out Feroz, coming up behind them.
“You’re not in charge here, Jones,” Bettani said as Feroz and his three associates arrived behind Jace, Kara, and Onima.
Jace considered if maybe Feroz and his friends would make good shields. But as fast as he was, Jace didn’t think he could avoid being shot in the process.
“Shooting them here and now is likely to bring down more CBI agents on us,” Feroz said coolly. “Even if they don’t know as much as these three do, they still know they’re here on an investigation. What’s more, Special Agent Amber is probably planetside somewhere.”
“Who?” asked Bettani.
“Her pilot,” Feroz replied, gesturing with his pistol to Onima. “Clearly they recovered from my wrecking the Aquila in my escape. New hacker recover some of the data I spiked, Onima?”
Onima said nothing, but if looks could kill, Feroz would be dead.
“Probably,” Feroz said. “But I’m the best, so I still made it a challenge.”
“Kill them now or kill them later,” Bettani began. “It won’t make a difference. At least if we do it now, they won’t escape again.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions, Vlad,” Feroz said, and Bettani bristled at Feroz’s use of his first name. “Marshal Gwok is smart. It’s possible they’re being monitored in a way I can’t hack, and if they drop dead, someone will know to come here to look for them. Even our CBI friend can’t do much to stop that on this end. Remember, he’s working on his own part.”
“Then what?” asked Bettani.
“Let’s take them to an office. She’ll want to see them for herself,” Feroz said.
“We should finish them here and now,” Bettani pushed.
Feroz sighed. “Not a great idea, Vlad. Trust me, Nazari will have a plan for this.” He grabbed Onima’s pistol, and his three friends disarmed Jace and Kara.
“This way, if you please.” Feroz gestured.
They moved away from the front of the wellness center and toward the offices. Jace wondered if Onima was still in contact with Teru. But even as he recalled that Teru claimed to have known Feroz, Jace wondered if they were in cahoots.
Feroz led them into a large conference room. Before they entered, someone grabbed Jace’s arms, forcing his hands behind his back. He was cuffed a moment later.
Jace, Onima, and Kara were now standing with their backs to a wall. Before them were Bettani, Feroz, the trio of armed men in scrubs, and the eight in armored shells.
Jace looked about, trying to figure a way out of the room. It was windowless, save the wall with the door. There wasn’t even furniture for cover.
He glanced at Onima and Kara. Both looked as angry as he felt.
The door opened, and a woman in a smart business suit came in. She immediately commanded everyone’s respect, including Bettani’s and Feroz’s.
She marched straight toward Jace. She stared at him, cold fury and unmistakable menace in her bearing.
“You must be the infamous AC J7-2247, the so-called Jace Rojas,” she remarked.
A shiver ran through Jace. There was something disturbing about her.
She continued, “Who the hell do you think you are, infantry clone? Running around with real agents of the Bureau, brandishing a gun like you’re still a soldier? You’r
e nothing. You are cannon fodder that’s been discarded for better things. You and the rest of your kind are an utter waste of space. The AECC should have wiped you all out at the end of the war, rather than just leaving you to take up air and other resources. Did you really think running around playing at CBI agent would make you anything more than you are?”
“It beats living like a dog, taking whatever scraps get thrown my way,” Jace said.
Nazari raised a hand as if to slap him, but dropped it with an exasperated snort. “Worthless clone.”
She stepped up to Kara. “Deputy Marshal Kara Martinez. You had so very much promise, a great deal of potential. It’s a pity that you’ve decided to throw your lot in with her.” Nazari inclined her head toward Onima. “Rand would have made you his right hand, and you could have hand-picked your own team. You could have been so much more, if you only lived up to all your potential. Shame.”
Now Nazari turned to Onima. “Marshal Onima Gwok. You, young lady, are in so deep; you have no idea how far over your head this is. Such a nuisance. Persistent, but misguided. Nobody ever showed you just how small you are, how unimportant. You’re not half the marshal you think you are. And what have your violations of your mandate been worth, anyhow? They’ve gotten you nowhere.”
“Not so,” Onima replied. “They led me to you. Diane Nazari, by my authority as an agent of the AECC and the Confederation Bureau of Investigation, you are under arrest for sedition, conspiracy to overthrow the elected government, murder, and likely a lot of other crimes. Give up now, and maybe you’ll be spared a harsh sentence.”
“You’re such a fool.” Nazari chuckled. “You think you know what’s going on here? Your Confederation was doomed from the start.”
She pointed at Jace. “His kind were incredibly useful tools, but both the Coalition and the Alliance were too quick in ramping up the programs creating them. The IHCF and their allies stayed out of it, except that with all the clones and the fighting between them, the Federation started to see losses and battle spilling into their territories. But as the war rolled on, the Coalition and the Alliance started to make huge profits off the war. Since that kept taxes reasonable and the people mostly safe, it was nothing but profit for all of us.”
Nazari began to pace. “We should have paid more attention to the IHCF. We also should have been more careful to rein in the battles and not let them spill into Federation territory. That was probably what got their attention. Their leaders, and their alien allies, likely worried the clones might eventually be united to turn against them. And with all the money the Coalition and the Alliance were making, they wouldn’t have the ESCA to stand for long if attacked. So, they planned and carried out a bold—and, frankly, unexpected—attack on three different targets.”
Jace wondered what was driving Ms. Nazari to go through the history lesson. He admitted that he was curious, and she was filling in certain gaps in his understanding.
“The IHCF enlisted some well-trained infiltrators to remove both the NEEA and NECC governments,” Nazari continued, “and while they struck the governments’ leadership, the canutus wiped out the military leadership on both sides. They were far more efficient and had powerful weapons they didn’t share with even their Federation allies.
“The war came to a rather abrupt end, as the clones no longer had a command structure in place to give them orders and instructions, and the Coalition and Alliance governments were taken apart. The IHCF infiltrators had been exceptionally good and left most of the leaders alive. The Earth Confederation courts were the venues where Federation legal teams tried both leaders.”
Nazari looked as if what she’d just said was so distasteful that she needed to spit it out. Jace suspected that was close to the truth.
Then she continued, “Encompassing both the Coalition and Alliance territories, the IHCF was reformed. A closer bond with the Earth Confederation, specifically the Bureau and their courts, paved the way for the formation of the Alliance of Earth Colonies Confederation. But that is where things began, right from the outset, to go wrong.”
Nazari stopped, looking from Onima to Kara to Jace. “The Coalition and Alliance, the NECC and NEEA, respectively, both centralized control over their systems, directly governing all the planets of all the solar systems. The Federation, the IHCF, handled central issues and cross-system matters and bureaucracy—but the systems had more autonomy and self-rule. The new AECC adopted the IHCF’s model, which created a great deal of chaos in the former NECC and NEEA systems.”
She pointed at Jace. “As the new government was being formed, the canutus and CBI together worked to destroy all research and data into whole-human cloning. Most of the facilities were destroyed, or at least rendered unusable. Most.
“But, you see, the nature of the new government that formed allowed for certain people to fade into the background, protect some of the technology and information, and wait.”
“Like you and Mr. Bettani,” said Onima with obvious contempt.
“That’s the funny thing about a war fought between disposables,” remarked Nazari. “When so few individuals are suffering and dying from war, and the soldiers are faceless and nameless, people don’t care. Which means intelligent and opportunistic people find ways to make a lot of ESCA from the machinery of war.
“In time, both sides were making so much that they really had nothing to fight about. But we both had clones, and the clones were built to fight and die. There were, unfortunately, times when regular people’s lives were disrupted by the ongoing conflict. But in the grand scheme of things, those numbers didn’t matter to anyone. Most everyone profited from the war in one way or another.”
“Yet here we are,” said Kara, “with tens of thousands of clones still out and about.”
“Yes,” Nazari agreed. “Some—the few specialized clones—make money for intelligent individuals who see the value in cheap employment you can pay far, far less for than you would pay regular humans. But the vast majority—the infantry, heavy infantry, cavalry, and support—they are more parasitic. They work for anyone, anywhere, who pays them in food and clothing.”
“Including major corporations like Gray and Chuang,” said Onima.
Nazari stepped in front of her. “Large corporations always need pawns and fodder. Clones are cheaper than drones and robots because they cost less and require no maintenance. Clones will do things so beneath the rest of the human race that even drones and robots are passed over for the cost savings they represent. That’s why I employ so many here.”
“And infect them with your virus?” Onima asked.
Nazari’s lips curled into a predatory smile. “That which turns a profit draws interest from a lot of parties. The IHCF was far too egalitarian to understand that properly. They believed that destroying the data about the creation of these whole clones and embedding their skills via brain scan would keep anyone from using clones to fight a war again. They also, naively, believed that their moral code would be more readily adapted by the former Coalition and Alliance systems.
“But the information was spread a lot wider than they realized, and even with the canutus helping them, they could not destroy it all. Clever people always find a way to keep valuable information.”
“So, what’s changed?” Onima asked. Jace wondered if Onima was drawing out the conversation rather intentionally.
“The canutus are gone,” Nazari replied. “Thus, the one thing that made the Confederation strong is no more. The time for us to take back what was ours has come.”
“And the virus?” Jace asked. Nazari stepped in front of him as he continued, “It didn’t give you control over clones. It didn’t work.”
“No, not as intended,” Nazari agreed. “But, my dear 2247, it is still going to serve our plans. In many respects, it may serve better than creating a mindless army that would have led to some ugly fighting.”
“How’s that?” Jace asked.
“Misdirection,” Nazari said. “A few clones dying here an
d there gets no attention. But when a whole slum of clones dies? Well, that will be another matter.” She turned away. “Listen to me, going on and on. I guess I still love to speak in front of an audience, and it only seemed fair to share with you that you were on the right track. But now we’re done.”
Nazari stood beside Bettani and Feroz and turned back to face Onima, Kara, and Jace. “To avoid another escape, you’ll be drugged now. If you manage to wake again, you will likely find yourself in the middle of a fire. More an inferno, really. Old, mostly abandoned and condemned buildings are so hazardous. Running power to them has always been an accident waiting to happen.”