by MJ Blehart
“And a murder,” Kara added. “Which included a pair of clones.”
There were murmured comments and conversations among the dozen clones, then the Dahl clone who’d initially addressed them stepped forward. “I guess we have some things to talk about. Please, follow me.”
Most, but not all, the clones joined them as the Dahl and Wang clones led them to a large, heavily patched building. It had been some sort of a gathering place when the community had been a corporate hamlet.
The inside was, in many respects, similar to the common area in the Emerson City tenements. Tables and chairs, a kitchen area, and another fifteen clones engaged in conversations, card games, or even, in two cases, drawing.
The other clones looked up as they came in and gawked unapologetically at Onima and Kara.
The Dahl and Wang clones chose a larger oval table and gestured for everyone to be seated.
As they did, the Wang clone said, “I’m Wang GB C4-1197. This is Dahl CC F3-0255.”
Onima held up a hand. “Please, what are your names?”
They exchanged a look before Dahl said, “I’m Frank, and this is Charlie.”
Onima offered a hand, and with expressions of complete shock, both clones took it, one after the other. Their shock grew as Kara did the same.
“Thank you for speaking with us,” Onima began. “This has been a rather convoluted investigation.”
Frank looked at Jace. “Are they for real?”
Jace smirked. “You don’t know the half of it.” He spoke a little louder for everyone else to hear. “Neither of my associates care about our assigned designations. If you meet, please give your name.”
Murmurs ran through the clones, and more than one stared at Jace and his companions with a combination of surprise and curiosity.
“Before we go into what we’re here about,” Onima began, “can you explain what you were referring to when you mentioned a non-existent rebellion?”
Again, the various clones exchanged looks.
Charlie said, “It started about a year ago. An official-looking, unmarked police force arrived here one morning and gathered us all up. They then told us to make sure all of the clones on the planet be made aware that they know that plans are afoot among us to overthrow the planetary government. They then informed us that they know the conspirators are hiding in plain sight among us and will not be tolerated.”
“What evidence have they offered?” asked Onima.
One of the clones Jace didn’t recognize snorted. “Evidence? They haven’t a thing. Just that they are not clones, and we are.”
“It’s not like we don’t talk amongst ourselves,” said Frank. “Nobody has been planning some sort of rebellion. It’s never crossed our minds.”
“That’s because it can’t,” said Jace.
“What?” said a Zang clone.
Jace waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll explain later. So, they show up, make this wild accusation, and then what?”
“Over the last year or so,” Charlie picked up the narrative, “two armored personnel carriers come here together. One is full of armored shell-wearing soldiers with no identifying marks and official-looking people who start rounding everyone present up. They then inform us that they are taking conspirators in for questioning, select random clones—always infantry clones, mind you—and take them away.”
“That’s appalling,” said Kara.
“Do the clones that they take come back?” asked Jace.
“About half,” replied Frank. “But the rest we never see again.”
“And about a third of those that come back,” started a Lavrinenko clone, “start to lose control of their bodies, then their minds. And then they die and turn to goo.”
Jace looked to Onima and Kara. They would be thinking the same as he was. It all tied together.
“Are any of you among the survivors of an abduction?” asked Onima.
“I am,” said one of the Tushabe clones who had not been seated with them. He approached. “I’m TC....Sorry, Devon Tushabe.”
Onima, then Kara, shook his hand.
Kara said, “What do you remember, Devon?”
He started to shake his head. “Not a lot. We were all gathered out there in the square, and this guy in a business suit started pointing and choosing clones to round up. All of us were infantry. Then we were loaded into an APC and taken about two, three hours away. We were told to exit the APC and were put inside the bay of a warehouse of some sort somewhere. The armor-shelled soldiers escorted us into a room with a dozen other clones.”
Devon stopped and looked puzzled.
“Then what happened?” Onima asked.
Devon shrugged. “I have no memory. I went to sleep one night, woke one morning, and then the process was reversed. When they dropped me back here, I was told I’d been gone for three weeks.”
“And you have no memory of those three weeks at all?”
“No,” Devon replied, looking disconcerted. “It only seemed like a couple of days had gone by.”
Onima looked to Kara. “We should get this info to Dr. Patel.”
“Did you find any unusual scars, bruises, or marks that you didn’t have before?” asked Jace.
“A freckle,” said Devon, holding up his left hand, “on the top of my wrist. That was not there before.”
“An IV scar,” Kara remarked.
“And this has been an ongoing thing for a year?” asked Onima.
“Yes,” said Frank.
“In fact, the last round-up occurred just three days ago,” Charlie added.
“Do you know what direction the vehicle went after leaving here?” Onima asked.
“Yes,” said Charlie. “West, toward Lebassier City.”
“That’s no surprise,” said Kara.
“Pardon me a moment,” said Onima. She activated her comm. “Teru?”
“Yes, Marshal?” they replied. Onima had made it open, so that all might hear.
“We’re currently in Pao-hui-burg, about 240 kilometers east of Lebassier City.”
“The clone slums,” Teru replied.
“Yes,” Onima confirmed. “Can you access the planetary satellite feed?”
“Let me see,” Teru replied. There were a few moments of silence, then, “Yes, I can.”
“About three days ago, a pair of APCs paid a visit to the burg,” Onima said. “Can you check the feed and see if you can find where they went after they left here?”
“Give me a moment,” Teru replied.
The clones were staring. Jace completely understood their reaction. A non-clone taking any interest in clone affairs whatsoever was unheard of. That Onima had openly contacted an associate for more information confused them.
He knew exactly how they felt. Before joining Onima’s team and after the war, he’d never been treated with the slightest dignity by a non-clone. To be heard and reacted to was totally surprising.
Jace had not realized before how much indignity went into that.
“Got it,” Teru said via the comm, finally. “They headed straight for the city and a warehouse in a complex on the southern side of it.”
Onima and Kara exchanged a look before turning to Jace. Onima said into the comm, “Teru, can you tell me who owns or rents the warehouse they went to?”
“Of course,” Teru replied. A moment passed. “An affiliate of Gray and Chuang.”
17
Jace had been correct: they had learned important information from the clones of the local slum.
Before meeting and getting to know Jace, Onima had not given much thought to clones. She knew about them, was well aware of what they had been created to do. She might not have been a war veteran, but then, most of those were the clones.
While she’d never thought of them as lesser than others, she didn’t give them much thought at all. Now, after spending so much time with Jace and getting to know other clones, she saw the damage this had done.
Most people either didn’t see them a
t all—as she hadn’t—or saw them as less than other humans. As such, they were treated as though they were as disposable as automatons, afforded no rights, not even to their own names. The fact that Frank and Charlie had given their designations before the names they preferred was indicative of the problem.
It was the general disregard for the clones as a people that had allowed for the conspiracy to even gain the ground it had. Since nobody cared about the clones, nobody had questioned the origins of a virus that only impacted them. And nobody had done any research—save the faraway NGO, Clones Remembered—into their health and wellbeing
As time passed and Onima got to know more clones just like any other people, she was realizing how truly big that problem was.
But there was nothing she could do about it, save resolve the case in front of them.
Presently, the supposition they were working off of meant that the death of a large number of clones for political gain was on the horizon. That was something Onima could make use of and work with during the investigation.
She had decided that coordinating further with Teru would be easier from the Minotaur. She, Jace, and Kara had climbed back into the hovercar and returned to the spaceport.
One of the best features of the new private yacht that her team had been provided with was a state-of-the-art, direct link-up with their mothership: they could do secure, realtime data exchange with the Daedalus.
What was more, there was a chamber aboard the space yacht for precisely that.
Jace, Onima, Kara, and Yael stood around a holographic projection of Teru and their workstation. It was as if they were present on the yacht with them—but the cryptanalyst was still aboard the Daedalus in the MBCC.
“Once you identified the warehouse,” Teru was saying, “I ran a cross-check with the planetary satellite, security, and surveillance systems. While there are an unacceptable number of partial blind spots all around Lebassier City, this found some extremely useful information that will be of interest to you, Marshal.”
Teru swiped their hand toward where Onima and her team were standing, and a holographic screen appeared, just like it would have had they been present in the MBCC. It was a video image of an apartment complex, and it showed an old man in a fancy suit stepping onto the street.
“This,” Teru said, “is Doctor Yagnesh Deng. Daily, he goes for a stroll around his neighborhood for about fifteen minutes before he gets picked up by a hoverlimo that takes him across town.”
Onima watched the accelerated video of Dr. Deng on a walk. A vehicle pulled up to him. He got in, and it drove off.
“I won’t bore you with the details here,” Teru said, “but about half an hour later, this is where he arrives.”
The video now showed a warehouse complex. A hoverlimo—the same one they’d seen earlier—arrived at it. Dr. Deng climbed out and walked to the nearest warehouse building as the vehicle drove away.
“Can you guess where he is going?” Teru asked in a bemused tone.
“The warehouse where the rounded-up clones were taken,” concluded Onima.
“You win the prize!” Teru said. “Unfortunately, that prize is nothing and of no value.”
“Funny,” Yael commented.
“What about Kaji Ivanov?” asked Onima. “Do you have any video of him paying a visit to the warehouse?”
“I checked on that,” Teru confirmed. “Sorry, boss: he’s never gone to the warehouse. Like...ever, as far as I can tell. He does regularly travel from his home to the office tower in the city, about every other day. But apart from that, I have no evidence of him being connected with that warehouse.”
“Thanks for checking, Teru.” Onima looked to Jace, Kara, and Yael. “Now that we can connect the warehouse to Gray and Chuang, and Deng to the warehouse, we need to take some action. I think I have a plan.”
“Will this involve stealth or bringing down a warrant team or two?” asked Kara.
“Stealth,” Onima replied. She turned to face Teru’s hologram. “Teru, can you run a check on local Gray and Chuang executives? Specifically, deputy directors?”
“What do you have in mind?” asked Teru.
“We know that there are only twenty-five directors akin to Kaji Ivanov. We also know that the next level down has double, if not several times more, that number. Any company office has to have several.”
“Right,” Jace said, catching Onima’s drift. “Like Palmer Cadoret and Jun Varma.”
“Exactly,” Onima confirmed.
Teru was doing the thing they did when they were going over data, eyes hidden by their private screen. “You’re correct, Marshal. There are a lot of deputy directors of Gray and Chuang. And there are at least a dozen locally.”
“Good,” Onima said. “Teru, I need you to work your magic.”
“What have you got in mind?” Teru inquired.
“I want to choose two Gray and Chuang deputy directors. Any two deputy directors that are not local ones. Two with little to no association with Kaji Ivanov, if possible. Once you do that, I want you to work your magic and contact Dr. Deng directly. He needs to be informed that these two will be arriving and visiting him at the warehouse tomorrow.”
“Fake message, block tracing, legit association to Gray and Chuang so it’s not questioned,” Teru summed up.
“Where are you going with this?” asked Kara.
Onima didn’t respond, but continued with, “Once you’ve done that, I need you to create some false credentials for those two deputy directors of Gray and Chaung. Make them the best that you can.”
“Who are my impersonators?” asked Teru. “They use biometric IDs at the company, so I need specifics.”
“Kara and I,” Onima said.
“You don’t think that’s risky?” Jace asked.
“Maybe,” Onima conceded. “But this is my case. The line we drew to Ivanov and Deng is indirect enough that I am unsure Bettani, Nazari, nor our old pal Feroz would draw it. And it’s not like any of them will be sending comms out warning everyone about us. As much as we might be a threat to them and their operation, there’s a far greater risk in sending signals out when they know we’re watching them.”
“Are we still watching them?” Jace asked.
“Yes,” Kara replied. “Teru left a connection to the planetary satellite system of Calvert to keep an eye on Nazari and Bettani. Feroz, unfortunately, is a bit more elusive than they are.”
“Overall, I think most of the players such as Dr. Deng are kept on a need-to-know basis when it comes to information,” Onima said. “He likely has little to no contact outside of Ivanov. This lessens how many people he could implicate if questioned. So, this should work.”
“What about me?” Jace asked.
Onima grinned. “I have an idea for that too.”
Jace waited, but Onima decided she’d share that with him later.
“Am I having one of the pilots get me down there tonight or tomorrow morning?” Teru asked.
“I’m going to send Yael to come get you in the Minotaur,” Onima said. She turned to Yael. “Before you come back in the morning, I want you to work with Teru to get a false ID for the ship so that it appears to be a Gray and Chaung transport.”
“Got it,” Yael said.
“You’ll also need to land at a different spaceport,” Onima said. “Preferably the same one the company uses.”
“That makes sense to me,” Yael said.
“You and Teru will stay with the ship, in case we need your help,” Onima concluded. She turned again to Teru’s hologram. “Got all that?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Teru replied. “You’re staying planetside?”
“We are,” Onima confirmed.
“Okay,” Teru said. “Need anything else from me?”
“I think we’re set,” Onima said. “Kara? Jace?”
Neither of them said anything.
“See you in the morning,” Teru said. A moment later, their hologram winked out.
“Is there anyt
hing else you need me to do besides get Teru?” asked Yael.
“Yes,” Onima said.
When she told Yael what she needed, her old friend and longtime pilot looked somewhat incredulous. But she knew Onima well enough to nod and agree to it.
“Jace, Kara, let’s go back to Pao-hui-burg,” Onima said.