Clone Secrets_Book 2 of the Clone Crisis Trilogy

by Melissa Faye

  Clone Secrets

  Book 2 of the Clone Crisis Trilogy

  Melissa Faye

  © 2018 Melissa Faye

  All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Join Melissa’s Newsletter

  Join my newsletter so we can keep in touch! I’ll email you any time I release a new book, and 1-2 times per month with freebies, extras, and updates. Sign up now and you’ll get access to two free prequels to this book - Clone Crisis: Alexis and Clone Crisis: Beginnings.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 – Yami

  Chapter 2 - Yami

  Chapter 3 – Charlie

  Chapter 4 – Yami

  Chapter 5 - Charlie

  Chapter 6 – Charlie

  Chapter 7 – Yami

  Chapter 8 – Charlie

  Chapter 9 – Yami

  Chapter 10 – Charlie

  Chapter 11 – Yami

  Chapter 12 – Charlie

  Chapter 13 – Yami

  Chapter 14 – Charlie

  Chapter 15 – Yami

  Chapter 16 – Charlie

  Chapter 17 – Yami

  Chapter 18 – Yami

  Chapter 19 – Yami

  Chapter 20 – Charlie

  Chapter 21 – Yami

  Chapter 22 – Charlie

  Chapter 23 – Yami

  Chapter 24 – Charlie

  Chapter 25 – Yami

  Chapter 26 – Charlie

  Thank you for reading!

  Join Melissa’s Newsletter

  About the Author

  Chapter 1 – Yami

  Charlie and I stood in front of a woman named Etta and a young boy. I tried to hide my confusion, but Charlie couldn’t. His mouth drew open widely, his eyebrows low. Only a week ago, I helped my best friend Etta deliver a baby girl right here at the camp. That was after months of scrambling to keep Etta and the baby’s father, Breck, out of the hands of our community government who were desperate to figure out how Etta got pregnant after hundreds of years of global infertility. We helped them escape our old community, Young Woods, and delivered the baby here in the ACer camp. It was the first baby born in 300 years. Or so I had thought.

  Now we stood before a woman named Etta who looked just like my best friend, only twenty or so years older. We were twenty. This Etta appeared to be in her forties. Her son looked to be about ten years old, with hair only a shade darker than Etta’s and someone else’s green eyes. If I squinted, I could see how he might be related to Etta’s baby, a newborn girl she and Breck hadn’t named yet.

  We walked back to camp – Etta 2, the boy, Sven, Charlie, and myself – in a broken cluster, each looking at one another out of the corners of our eyes. The area outside of the camp, the noncomm that defined the spaces between actual government-sanctioned communities, was sparse, with grass, brambles, and the occasional patch of thickets or trees. Anti-cloning camps, or ACer camps, existed in these open spaces. Anti-cloning and anti-community. They were far enough away from communities to avoid attention. I didn’t even know they existed until I needed a place to escape with Etta and Breck.

  Sven led the way. He was the second-in-command at the ACer camp where we were staying. Matana was the de facto leader, settling disputes and ensuring things were fair. Sven was the one who managed the camp. He checked on resources, distributed supplies, oversaw work assignments, and greeted newcomers. Neither Matana nor Sven were outgoing; Sven walked now in silence, without a hint of the surprise registered across Charlie’s face.

  Charlie bounced while he walked and kept grinning at me. He had piercing blue eyes, deep like sapphires and surrounded by little wrinkles from smiling so much. I didn’t have any wrinkles like those. He playfully dragged me along next to him, my hand in his, tugging me a little more quickly than Etta 2 and the boy. Charlie was my former classmate and interned with me at the medical building before we escaped our community, Young Woods, to save Etta and Breck’s lives. Somewhere along the line, he became my boyfriend. There was a kiss, some hand holding, and a shared tent, and now, a week later, it was a thing.

  Sven walked ahead of us without glancing back. I watched his broad shoulders for any sign of tension, but he maintained his usual calm, almost unreadable, demeanor. I stared at Etta 2, who stood a few feet to the right and behind me. I knew I should look away, but my eyes kept landing on Etta 2’s face. She was exactly like my Etta except for her age. It shouldn’t have surprised me, of course. They were clones after all.

  When the fertility crisis began in the twenty-first century, birth rates dropped. They finally hit zero, and no one became pregnant anymore. The world population dropped and economies couldn’t keep up with the lack of new workers and the end of children-related industries. A global committee decided to use cloning as a way to hit pause on society until a cure could be found.

  I knew our former community’s leader, Chancellor Lorenzo, had given up on finding a solution several years earlier. But none of us knew what it meant that Etta had given birth to a baby girl. Etta 2 made things even more confusing.

  A few people noticed as we approached. New camp members were uncommon, and a boy this young even more so. There was no one else at the ACers camp under eighteen. A woman stood up from her work in the garden. As soon as she noticed the new people, she leaned over to the side and shook her friend’s shoulder. He stood up as well and gave us a similarly confused look. When we walked past, they followed us.

  Charlie squeezed my hand in warning, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Etta 2, which is what I was calling her now in my head. Sven led us into the building where the ACers held all-group meetings, and the gardener and her friend followed. Sven left to get Matana so she could join our conversation.

  “I’m Charlie! What’s your name?” Charlie reached out to shake hands with Etta 2 and the boy. The boy frowned. He backed away from Charlie and towards his mother. Etta 2 gave Charlie a small, hesitant smile with suspicious eyes, but shook his hand.

  “I’m Etta,” she said. “This is Teo.” She placed her palm on top of his head and gave him a playful scratch. The boy stared at us, looking back and forth between Charlie and me. Someone had given him those green eyes, and it wasn’t Etta 2 or a second Breck, like the one who was father to my Etta’s baby. Who was his father? Teo looked at the ground and traced a circle in the dirt with his toe. I couldn’t help squinting at his face, trying to see the resemblance between him and Etta’s baby.

  “Nice to meet you,” Charlie said. He waved to Teo, who eyed him warily before staring straight down again. “Why don’t we sit down? Where do you two come from?” Charlie sat in one of the folding chairs, and after some hesitation, Etta 2 sat a few chairs away. She muttered something to Teo, who sat down next to her. His eyes darted around, taking in everyone like they might attack at any moment.

  “Who are they?” the gardener asked me as if the two strangers weren’t sitting only feet away. “Why is her name Etta? Are they...” Her eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open in understanding. She didn’t put it in words, but her friend did.

  “Clones!” he said a little too loudly. Etta 2 whipped her head towards him, eyebrows furrowed, and she placed a protective arm across Teo’s body.

  “Aren’t you a clone too?” she spat. “We all are! I - I
thought we could come here for help.” No one responded. I shot a scalding look at the gardener’s friend. I hadn’t met him before, but I knew he worked in the kitchen with my Etta before she was taken from the camp months earlier. Since giving birth, she hadn’t yet returned to work.

  Sven pushed through the fabric doors with Matana on his heels. Matana must have just been in the medical tent with Etta and Breck; some of the cloth diapers they were using for the baby hung over her shoulder. Her long hair was swept into a loose braid down her back, and her clothes hung off her like everyone else’s at the camp always did. No one seemed to ever have the right fit, even with a tent full of extras.

  Matana and I had a difficult history. I accused her of betraying Etta and Breck when they were stolen away from the camp during Etta’s pregnancy. She never really accepted us as part of the camp until we returned and she helped me deliver Etta’s daughter. That had cemented our relationship. It wasn’t a good or bad relationship exactly, but it was stable.

  If Matana was surprised to see Etta’s clone and a little boy sitting in front of her, she didn’t show it. Sven introduced them.

  “Welcome to the camp,” Matana said. “We haven’t had anyone your age here before, Teo. How far have you been traveling?”

  Teo kept his mouth firmly shut, but his mother answered.

  “We’ve been traveling for a long time,” she said. When she wasn’t playing defense, her voice had the same soft, sweet tone as my Etta’s. I squinted again at her face. I thought I could almost make out that kind, loving personality under many years of grief and stress. I turned away when Etta 2 stared back at me.

  “Where did you come from?” asked Matana. She folded the small cloths neatly in her lap as she spoke, as if it was the usual line of questions she had visitors answer. “We’re not too far from the monorail station and a few different communities. Perhaps you came by way of one of those?”

  “We haven’t been to any communities in ten years,” Etta 2 said. She reached for Teo’s hand and held it in both of hers. His face turned beet red and he looked down at his mother’s hands in his lap. “There was no way to stay in any of those safely since Teo...” She paused. “We avoid the monorails, too.”

  I noticed Etta 2’s TekCast. It hung from a make-shift ribbon around her neck and had the same gold border as my Etta’s did. Clones were always assigned the same careers. Since Etta had been a cloning researcher, Gold, Etta 2 must have been as well. Teo wasn’t wearing a TekCast, but I saw one sticking out of his pocket. It was dingy and half of the cover was shattered. A silicon strip hung off the edge, and it didn’t have a colored border. It was a used TekCast. I didn’t know they existed.

  “Teo’s your son, right?” I said. “You got pregnant, and had Teo, and have been on the run ever since.”

  A hush fell over the room. Charlie sneaked a smirk in my direction. He seemed to enjoy it when I was blunt. I wasn’t doing it for him, though. I didn’t think this needed to be dragged out. Etta 2 was just that – a second Etta. And Teo was clearly related to her.

  “Is it true, Etta?” Sven asked. “Is Teo your child by birth?”

  Etta 2 leaned forward, as if she wasn’t sure if she should stay or go. The gardener whispered in her friend’s ear. I wanted to kick her out of the tent, but it wasn’t my place. Etta 2 bit her lip and avoided looking at any of us. We waited for her response.

  “Of course not!” Etta 2 said finally with a shrill tone. “No one has babies anymore. He’s from my community. We left together.” Teo bit his lip, still staring at his mother’s hands in his lap.

  “Then what brought you here, Etta?” Sven asked.

  “We heard...we thought that...” Etta 2 bit her lip, and I could see how hers and Teo’s faces were the same. It was an eerie feeling. The only time I’d seen a child and an adult look so similar was just recently, when my Etta gave birth, but even then it was hard to see such obvious connections between an adult and the baby’s chubby face. “We’re in trouble. We’ve been in trouble for a long time, that is. We heard you might have...also...”

  She didn’t need to finish. Matana nodded slowly while she spoke. When Etta 2 didn’t finish her sentence, Matana slapped the fabric on her lap with her palms and stood up.

  “We might as well get to it, isn’t that right, Yami?” she said. Matana had a way of talking to me that made me feel acknowledged and scolded at the same time. “Teo’s your child. You must have heard we had someone here who also had a child just recently. Maybe you even heard that her name is Etta, too. Let’s take you to meet her and sort this out.”

  Matana led the way out of the tent. Etta 2 watched her go, breathing a little more quickly. I felt my own heart pounding in my chest with both excitement and fear. It suddenly occurred to me –was this a ruse? Chancellor Lorenzo knew we were here, and must know we had the baby. Was Etta 2 a plant?

  “Come on!” I said to Etta 2, perhaps a little too bitterly. I gestured for her and Teo to get up, and they followed me out. I walked behind Matana and realized she was heading towards the hospital tent. I ignored the campers’ stares as I hurried along to catch up.

  “Are you sure about this?” I hissed. “It’s a little direct, don’t you think? I don’t want to scare Etta too much with...whatever is happening.”

  Matana kept to a brisk pace. I snuck a peek back at Etta 2 and Teo. They walked along a little ways behind us, keeping their eyes forward as more ACers noticed and stood up to follow. Charlie was just behind me.

  “You don’t have enough confidence in Etta,” Matana said under her breath. “She’s stronger than you give her credit for. And she’s changed since she’s had a baby. Haven’t you noticed? She’s become a mother. She has someone to take care of now.”

  I considered this. Etta and I had been best friends for many years. She put up with me at my grumpiest, and I put up with her unending optimism. I had always been the stronger of the two of us. I helped her when she was worrying about her schoolwork or her relationship with Breck. I calmed her down before we received our career assignments. I figured out when she was pregnant when she told me her symptoms. I pushed her to escape when she mistakenly thought she could trust the community government. She was my best friend, but she was fragile.

  Still, what Matana was saying did make sense. Etta and Breck were changing. Since the baby was born, they were both exhausted and focused. They were obsessed with the baby and rarely spent time away from her. They oohed and ahhed over every new thing she did. All understandable. But they also had developed a fierce protectiveness when others were around. They rarely let anyone pick her up besides Matana and myself, including Charlie. Just that morning, Etta practically snapped at Matana when Matana told her to calm down over the baby’s temperature being too high. It wasn’t out of anger or exhaustion, though. It was protectiveness. And maybe just a little backbone. She spoke boldly; she wanted information and wouldn’t give up until Matana’s explanation satisfied her.

  Before I could ask Charlie if he had noticed, we arrived at the hospital tent. It was one of the nicer buildings in the camp, if you could call it a building, with space for a few beds, counters, and cabinets. I worked there every day. We didn’t have the latest technology that communities had access to, but we did the best we could with what we had. Like the other buildings, the tent “doors” were just heavy fabrics. Someone had recently painted a sign on one of the hospital tent doors: an oval with a V in the middle. The symbol of the Underground, the group that existed in communities all over the country and fought for freedom of information and better societal structures. It was an owl to represent knowledge.

  I turned behind me to see Etta 2 and realized half of the camp was following us. Word spread quickly over such a small group located in such a small space.

  “Back up, please,” Matana said. She only had to say it once, with a hint of her signature impatience in her voice, and people backed off. They edged away from the group of us, leaving a large space between themselves and the newcom
ers. I didn’t bother moving; Matana would expect Charlie and me to follow.

  We slipped into the tent – first Matana, then Charlie and me, then, with much hesitance, Etta 2 and Teo. Etta and Breck leaned over a hospital cot where their baby girl lay snuggled into a blanket. They whispered to each other while Torrice organized supplies at the counter on the other side of the tent.

  Matana cleared her throat, and Etta and Breck practically jumped out of their shoes. Etta gave me her usual sweet smile, complete with a new glimmer in her eyes that I noticed whenever she saw me with Charlie. Whose hand I realized I was holding. I dropped it and stepped aside so Etta 2 and Teo could come in.

  “Oh, hi! Who is –“ Etta began. She stumbled backwards when she saw Etta 2’s face; Breck caught her with his arm, preventing her from falling over onto the baby.

  “This is Etta,” said Matana. “And Teo.”

  Etta 2 looked as surprised as my Etta, though she stood her ground. Teo gaped, though. He looked at his mother’s face, then Etta’s, then back. “Mom, who is –“ He gasped and covered his mouth with both hands. Calling Etta 2 “mom” was definitely a giveaway, though his error after the shock of seeing my Etta was understandable. Etta 2 held Teo’s shoulder but didn’t speak.

  Etta looked down at her clothes. They were dingy and oversized. She just had the baby, so she didn’t fit in her own clothes. The used clothes Sven found her in the resource tent were good enough at first, but after days of staying up with the baby, they were messy and stained. Breck handed her a clean towel, and she wiped her hands on that as if wanting to make a good impression. Finally, she stepped forward towards Etta 2.

  “My name is Etta,” she said. “Hi.” She reached out to shake Etta 2’s hand, then Teo’s. “You probably knew that, though.”

  “I had heard someone here had a child,” Etta 2 said. “I didn’t realize it was...you.”

  “I didn’t expect to see you either,” my Etta said. She stepped back to pull Breck towards Etta 2, then went to pick up the baby. “This is our baby. We haven’t named her yet. And this is the baby’s father, my boyfriend Breck.”