And I had to do it again to establish a pattern. A pattern with one connection. With one person.
But they didn’t see it. The police didn’t see it, so eventually I had to come out and do it more openly.
I made sure I was seen doing it this time, but only after I changed my hair and I covered up as many scars as I could, and I stole clothes that made me look like he dressed.
And then I made sure to be seen.
And then, once they came for him, and he began to get a taste of what my life had been like, I could decide what to do with his family.
Chapter Fourteen
‘Are you okay?’ Byrne asked me.
First aid had been administered, and the bullet had been removed. I had been injected with painkillers, and I had temporary material cementing together the fracture in my skull.
The bandage around my head felt comedic, but I was in surprisingly little pain even though I was groggy. I was sitting in a hospital chair, feeling nauseated but able to walk.
‘I’m pretty far from okay,’ I said. ‘I just found out that I’m a clone. I just found out that I’m not real. Am I under arrest?’
‘We saw the footage in the car park. Couldn’t believe what we were seeing, and certainly couldn’t believe you got up after that bullet. No, you’re not under arrest.’
‘If it helps, I wasn’t expecting to.’
‘We don’t know where they are. I’m sorry.’
‘Right.’
‘We’re looking for them. We think they’re still alive, and we’re looking.’
I nodded, and noted the slight swimming sensation that developed in my head.
‘You’re going to have a hell of a scar,’ Byrne said, ‘But you’re mostly okay physically.’
‘My IDRoPS aren’t working,’ I said. They weren’t. I couldn’t access anything.
‘Were they how you went invisible earlier? And why I could see you, when a bunch of others couldn’t?’
I explained about sending the transmission. He nodded. ‘The bullet,’ I said, ‘The impact from it, I think it damaged the display. I can’t see it any more.’
‘Welcome to normal vision,’ he said. ‘The guard in the cell, by the way – he’s banged up and he’s sore, but he’s okay.’
‘Good. I didn’t want to do that.’
‘We didn’t believe you,’ he said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat (and I couldn’t help but take a little satisfaction in that). ‘You were trying to protect your family. I … we understand.’
Just like that … when he said it, everything fell away, and I couldn’t feel anything. I felt cold. I felt just like an automaton. I didn’t feel like a person. I felt like a thing.
‘They’re not my family,’ I said. ‘I’m not me. I’m not real. I want them to be okay, but I don’t know what to do.’
He looked at me. ‘Why are you so bothered that you were cloned from him? You’re still you.’
‘I’m not,’ I said. ‘That’s the problem.’
‘Rubbish.’
‘Clones aren’t real people,’ I said. ‘He’s a real person. He’s a screwed up one, but he’s a real person. I’m a thing. A thing made in a lab to be tested on.’
He looked down. ‘Look, I’m sorry to have to tell you this. We wanted to wait until you’d been able to speak to a counsellor, but …’
I frowned, ignoring the wince of pain I felt. ‘But what?’
‘I lied. Rachel is still alive, but he killed Natalie. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to tell you yet, but it’s not right to keep you thinking she’s alive.’
All the blood drained from my face, and the world swam in front of me. ‘I …’
I wanted to throw up.
I wanted to die.
‘We did everything we could. The paramedics worked on her for hours.’
‘No ….I …’
‘I wish it had happened faster, but she was a fighter. Tried to cling to life. They tried to use painkillers, but they didn’t take.’
I couldn’t say anything.
‘Eventually,’ he said. ‘She just stopped responding. There was no point in life-support. It wouldn’t have done any good.’
I wasn’t aware I was crying, until I realised I could feel the tears rolling down my face. My breath caught in my throat, and I started to lose track of where I was.
All I could think of was how angry she’d been when she found out about the witchfinder. All I could think about was how I couldn’t even get that right when I told her about it. Thinking of how I first held her, thinking of how I’d seen her lying in bed illuminated by her reader.
I’d failed her. Utterly.
‘Look at me!’ Byrne said, grabbing my shoulder. ‘Look at me right now!’
I did, but I could barely focus on anything.
‘Think about how you’re feeling right now. Right now. Think about it.’
‘I . I …’ I couldn’t form words. I couldn’t say anything. Couldn’t think anything. All I could think of was Natalie, and how much she had been my life ‘I’m lying!’ Byrne said. ‘Think about how you’re feeling right now. I’m lying, she’s not dead. Just think about how you’re feeling.’
It was too much. I wanted to hit him. I wanted to kill him. Why had …?
‘He took her. Her and Rachel. And I need you to help us find them,’ he said. ‘But I need you thinking and working clearly on it, which means the clone thing, that doesn’t matter.’
‘Why …’
‘Think about how you felt when I told you she was dead, and then answer me this. Do you think something that wasn’t a real person could feel like that?’
‘I ….’
‘All that grief, everything that I saw go across your face. When I arrested you, you begged me, you begged me not to do it in front of her. You begged me.’
‘Yes.’
‘For her. All for her. If you’re not real, why would you do that? Why would you care? Why would you love her?’
I was still overwhelmed but … ‘You’re right.’
‘We need to find him, and that means we need to work him out, and that means we need to get you to help us.’
I closed my eyes. ‘How?’
‘We need to know where he’s taken them. And you’re him, so you may have an idea. But you’ve got to think, because if you can tell us where he’s taken them, we’ll go where you tell us to go. Our priority is finding them right now, and it’s got to be your priority too.’
‘I …’
‘He’s going to have taken them somewhere safe. We saw him take a car. He thought you were dead. He thought you were dead, John, so we’ve got an advantage over him right now.’
I tried to think. Was there anything I could think of? Anywhere? I needed to clear my —
Round and round
The
Mulberry
Bush
‘Yes.’
‘Yes?’ he said.
‘I know where he’s taken them,’ I said.
And I did. If I had done what he did, where would I take them?
I’d take them back to where it all began. You finish at the beginning. You take everything you were, and you finish it all there. It wasn’t about my life any more. It was about his.
I knew where they were.
Chapter Fifteen
It was dark, but I could hear her voice. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Please let us go. Let Natalie go at least.’
I ignored her. Too much noise in my head. Too much. I tried to recite the rhyme, but I couldn’t think of it. I could never think of it. Could never calm my head down. I thought killing him would do it, but it didn’t. It just made it louder.
‘Please, she’s not talking, she’s not responding. She’s shut down completely. Please, let me get some help for her. Please.’ She continued to plead. His wife. His child.
I didn’t know what to do.
I looked at the bed that I’d been restrained in, and it felt like home. It felt like I’d been away from it for a lon
g time, but I was finally back. I could finally start everything again and make it the way it should have always been.
I’d taken his work away from him. I’d taken his freedom away from him. And I’d taken his life away from him.
But now …
His family. Could I take that away from him? In another time, another place, that could have been my little girl instead of his.
I walked over to his daughter, and I sat next to her.
‘Don’t you touch her. Don’t you touch her!’ Rachel shouted at me. I glanced over to her, briefly worried that she would be a threat, but she was in the same kind of restraints I’d spent far too long in when I’d been kept here.
‘Rachel, stop talking please,’ I said.
‘Don’t hurt her, please don’t hurt her.’
‘Rachel, the more noise you’re making, the less I can think, and the more chance there is that I’m going to hurt her, so right now, please just shut up.’
I could hear her holding back further shouts. She bit down on it and swallowed it back, and I could hear the anger and fear coming from her.
But not from Natalie.
‘Natalie?’ I said.
She didn’t reply. She was just sat on the bed, curled up with her head against her knees still. She hadn’t moved since I put her there.
‘Natalie, can you hear me?’ I asked.
Her head moved. She nodded.
‘Natalie, what do you think I should do?’ I asked. ‘I’m trying to work it out. What do you think?’
She looked up at me.
The speed of the car was making my head hurt.
‘You’re sure about this?’ Byrne asked me, not looking away from the road ahead of him.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Right.’
‘I can’t be sure, because I’ve not had the same eleven years as him. But if he’s going to be anywhere that I would be able to guess, this feels right. It’s all I’ve got.’
‘Okay. It’s my gamble, not yours,’ he said to me. ‘If this goes wrong. It’s on me, it’s not on you.’
‘If it goes wrong, I’m the one that loses out,’ I said.
‘I know. We’ve still got the rest of the Department looking out for them everywhere else. We just needed a Hail Mary pass, and this was the only thing I could think of.’
I looked at the floor of the car, to try and cut down on the pain that the world speeding by was causing, and I tried not to listen to the sirens going off above the car. ‘I know.’
‘I know some people have issues with clones,’ he said. ‘But I think it’s ridiculous. Who you are is more than about where you came from and who you were. You’ve had eleven years, John. Eleven years. That’s you.’
I wasn’t so sure.
‘Tell me about Daddy, Natalie.’
She looked at me, with anger burning through at me.
I recognised that anger. I recognised that response. It wasn’t me, but there was an element of it there. I remembered what it was like to be a child and to feel that burning and that complete hatred when you look at someone.
‘He’s not like you.’
‘Do you understand who I am, Natalie?’
‘You’re like a photograph of him, but one that moves and thinks and talks.’
I reached out to stroke her hair. She almost flinched but she let me do it. ‘That’s close, but it’s the other way round. He’s a photograph of me that moves and talks and thinks.’
She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘He is, Natalie. I came first, not him.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
I dropped my voice a little bit and let the edge come back into it. ‘It matters.’
She slapped my hand away. ‘I’m not scared of you.’
I moved as if to slap her and stopped an inch away from her face. She bolted back in the bed. ‘Yes, you are.’
‘Not like I was when I thought you were Daddy.’
‘When you …’
‘When you first came. I thought you were him. And I was scared, because I didn’t understand.’
‘You think you understand me?’
‘No.’
I was thrown more than I had expected. ‘Then why are you less scared? Are you scared of Daddy?’
‘No. I was scared he didn’t love me. But he did love me. And you killed him.’
‘He didn’t love you, Natalie. He wasn’t capable of loving you.’ Why was I trying to argue with her? Why didn’t I just kill her?
‘Don’t be stupid. You’re being stupid. He loved me.’ She really wasn’t scared of me. Not really.
‘He didn’t know how to love you.’
‘Shut up,’ she said. ‘You’re just a stranger with his face, so stop asking me about him.’
‘You could have been mine, you know that?’
‘You’re not my Daddy!’ she shouted at me, and this time I flinched. Flinched so much that I actually got to my feet.
I needed water.
I’d almost left the room when I realised how stupid I was being. While I was there, she couldn’t do anything, so there was no need to restrain her. But with me gone, she’d either escape or take the restraints away from her mother.
I couldn’t have that. Had to control her as well.
I grabbed her, and pulled her to the restraints that I’d spent so long in. See how she could deal with it.
Rachel was shouting at me, but I’d stopped hearing her now. I tore up an old blanket and used strips of it to gag both of them.
I needed water and I needed to be alone for a minute. I walked out, ignoring them shouting and went to get some from the bottled supplies that were still there. Old, stale water, but still. Water.
‘Is that the car?’ I asked.
We pulled into the facility. There were abandoned cars there, but all older. There was only one car that looked fairly new. The car was silver and large. A family car. It looked like it had been driven quite some way, but otherwise it didn’t look abandoned.
‘It could be,’ Byrne said, pulling up.
As we got out of the car, I realised there was something I should probably say. ‘I’m sorry for headbutting you, by the way.’
‘Sorry for putting you in prison.’
‘We even, then?’
He looked at me. ‘I figure we are. Do you?’
‘I figure we are as well.’
‘Okay then.’
‘I’ve sent a signal through for backup,’ Byrne said. ‘But it’s going to be a while before they’re here. Here,’ he said, coming around to me and holding his hand out, passing me a gun.
‘I’m not comfortable taking a gun,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how to use them.’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘He has one. If you get in a gun-fight, you’ll need a gun, otherwise you’re just getting shot again. Take it.’
I took it, but it felt wrong in my hand. Too alien. Too weird. ‘Do I just point and —’
He reached over to it, and clicked a switch. ‘You do now, yeah. Just don’t point it at me or anyone other than him.’
‘Right.’ I still didn’t like it. But he was right. I may have been lucky with one bullet, but I couldn’t assume I could do that again.
‘If I see him, I’m going to take the shot. I suggest you do the same.’
My stomach plummeted. ‘Right.’
‘John?’
‘Yeah?’
‘He has your wife and daughter. If you see him, take the shot.’
My thirst was quenched, but I didn’t feel satisfied. I stared at the wall for a while, angry.
I couldn’t think. There was too much noise in my head. Too much of everything. The love that girl had for him …
I should kill them. That was in my head. I should kill them. Finish it all.
Maybe I could convince them that they should be with me.
Yes. Maybe I could. I could show them that I could be every bit as good as that bad copy of me. That I could deserve them. Maybe …
I didn’t feel in control. I didn’t know what to do. I slammed my fist hard against the wall, and the pain travelled from my knuckles like a soothing balm, and it quietened my head for a couple of moments by just drowning everything else out.
And then I had made a decision, and it brought me calm.
I knew I needed to kill them. I needed to kill Rachel first. I needed Natalie to be scared of me before I killed her.
Yes. That’s what I needed to do.
Not the gun. The gun would be too easy. I needed to use the knife.
Chapter Sixteen
Byrne opened the door. As we walked through, I noticed that even though the morning was bright, the building was dark. The power had been cut a long time ago. There were weeds growing in parts of the floor in the corridor. There was a musty, damp and disgusting smell that made me want to retch.
He held his gun out in front of him. I came to the side of him and did the same. Even if I didn’t feel comfortable with it, the other me obviously was, so I could at least do my best to bluff him.
We walked through the main corridor.
‘He’ll be in the cells,’ I said.
‘Cells?’ Byrne asked. ‘I thought this was a testing facility.’
‘It was more like a prison,’ I said. It was an uncomfortable feeling being back here. It felt like returning to the scene of a crime. In some ways, I supposed it was.
‘Whereabouts are they?’
‘They’re down this way,’ I said, and walked towards the stairs.
I was almost back to Natalie and Rachel when I heard voices. I couldn’t make them out, but there was evidently someone else in the building.
I couldn’t be calm with someone else there. With an element out of my control. That was what all this was about, after all. Taking control of my own life.
I’d deal with Natalie and Rachel later. I had to find out what was going on. Who was there.
I put the knife down, and drew my gun again. Then I crouched down, and made my way slowly towards the source of the noise.
‘Keep it down,’ he said. ‘Don’t talk from here. Just signal.’
I nodded.
He gestured for me to follow him down the stairs. He flattened his back against the wall, and crept down, step by step. I began to do the same, looking around. I wished I still had the IDRoPS. I could have had more information.
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