The Condemned

by Claire Jolliff

  ‘How long had Beriael been there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. The first day I saw him was the first day he was brought to you, I’d never seen him or Bitsy before.’

  ‘How long ago was he first brought to me?’

  ‘Almost eight months ago. I was one of the guards who brought him. It was a part of my reassignment. I’d been moved up to the Clone Pen a couple of months before, then one day seven new ones were brought in and I got told to suit up and pick one of them, any one, didn’t matter which, then to take it to the experimentation wing. That’s where they kept anyone they were running tests on. Where they kept you.’

  Leci was stunned. Amato had been the one who had brought Beriael to her? Had been the one who had chosen him? Had condemned the Clone to his suffering? She tried to reason that he’d had no choice, was simply following orders and if he had not chosen Beriael he would still have chosen somebody, maybe even Bitsy, and nothing would have been any different.

  Although this was a rational way to look at the situation, she couldn’t seem to view it in that way, all that she could focus on was knowing that Beriael hated her for something she had been forced to do, but Amato had selected him of his own free will. She felt cheated somehow, as though she were being subjected to Beriael’s anger unfairly, unjustly. She felt hurt knowing that Amato could’ve prevented some of the pain she was now feeling, but had chosen not to.

  It seemed cowardly of him, allowing her to take the full blame when he had been more responsible than her and she found herself shaking with silent rage.

  She tried to get a hold of her emotions, it wouldn’t do any of them any good to be fighting amongst themselves, not when they were relying on one another for security, protection and companionship. Whether she would’ve picked these three people as her family, given the opportunity, she very highly doubted; a prison guard, an insane Clone and a woman who could read her mind didn’t seem all that great or reliable a combination to Leci, but she would never know, the choice hadn’t been hers to make and she was stuck with them. It would not help matters to irritate the situation or to cause friction between them.

  Suddenly so weary she could feel her bones aching, Leci felt old like she never had before. Emotionally drained, she stood without another word and didn’t look back as she made her way to the shelter. The Clones were asleep together in a lower bunk and she climbed onto the one she had woken on earlier in the evening. She expected her thoughts to keep her awake for hours, circling her mind, endless questions and conflictions preventing her from finding rest, but the moment her head touched the thin padding of the mattress her lids grew heavy and she succumbed to the darkness that enveloped her.

  Chapter 13

  ‘Leci, wake up... Leci...’

  She rolled over in her sleep and irritably swiped at the hand that was on her shoulder, shaking her.

  ‘Leave me alone. Let me sleep.’ She groaned, knocking aside the intruding hand and tugging the blanket up over her head only to have it ripped from her grasp as the entire thing was pulled away, leaving her exposed.

  In her sleep, the thin prison shirt had ridden up around her waist and she felt cold air rush over her where she was uncovered. She sat up quickly and yanked down the garment, claiming back her modesty before turning with a scowl to whoever it was had woken her so rudely.

  She found herself looking into the startlingly bright and very beautiful green eyes of Morgan, wasn’t sure why but she had expected Amato.

  Amato...

  Thinking his name brought last night back to her with a sudden jolt. The kiss, so gentle, tender, and so very much needed, maybe by them both, but then, the moment destroyed by the things he had told her.

  Her scowl deepened.

  ‘What do you want?’ She demanded gruffly.

  Mornings weren’t her best time. Somewhere in the back of her mind she quietly registered silent joy in finding herself at a liberty to make that decision for herself again. It was up to her now when she slept and she didn’t appreciate being poked and prodded out of it, it echoed of having sleep stolen from her by probing guards and suited experimenters, not quite to the same scale, but it was essentially the same thing.

  Morgan smiled and Leci couldn’t help feeling some of her annoyance fading away.

  What the hell was it with the creepy mind reading chick that gave her the ability to make everything seem a little bit better than it was?

  ‘I was wondering if you wanted something to eat. You must be hungry.’

  It hadn’t really occurred to her until now that she hadn’t eaten for a long time. The last meal she’d had was her regular daily tray of unidentifiable gloop back at the prison, hours before the escape. As though in sudden agreement, her stomach growled loudly and she felt herself flushing slightly as she crossed her hands over her belly, willing her traitorous gut to be quiet.

  Bitsy laughed and handed over a hunk of cheese and some bread that looked a little greenish. Alecia accepted them gratefully and tore into the bread with her teeth. It was hard and stale and tasted like cardboard, the rubbery cheese followed it quickly and it felt like the best meal she’d eaten in years.

  She wanted more but was satiated and wherever that meagre amount had come from, she was sensible enough to know they would be rationing out supplies between the four of them and not to be greedy.

  Bits sat on the bunk across, watching her without a word and when the food was gone she passed Leci a dented and battered plastic bottle, half full of dirty water. The liquid was kind of warm and had a strange coppery tang to it. It wasn’t any worse than she’d drunk before, fresh water was practically nonexistent. She gulped down half of it before handing it back and running the back of her hand across her mouth and chin to swipe away escaping droplets.

  ‘Thanks.’ She looked around, her and Morgan were alone in the shelter.

  ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Went to take a look at the town nearby, Amato wants to head out today if we can, doesn’t feel that it’s safe here for too long.’

  The blonde girl frowned vaguely... something didn’t seem quite right about that.

  ‘Won’t Amato be a pretty easy target out there? I mean, he’s walking around in a freakin’ flameproof suit, he’s sorta hard to miss...’

  ‘No, it’s ok, Beriael scouted ahead a little, stole some clothes that were strung out.’ Bitsy grinned and for the first time since waking Leci noticed that she wasn’t wearing the prison issued inmates overalls anymore.

  The woman looked far less conspicuous in a pair of faded and torn jeans cut off just below the knees and a loose fitting baggy grey shirt that buttoned up the front and was tucked into the waist of the pants. The Clone handed a small folded pile to Alecia and she accepted it with a nod of thanks.

  ‘There wasn’t much choice, he just grabbed what he could, and we still got no shoes for now. They were gonna see if they could grab some.’ Bitsy explained apologetically.

  Leci held up a ragged blue t-shirt. It was small, looked like it was for a child but it was in relatively good condition, faded, a few holes here and there, but wearable. She tugged off the shirt she was wearing and slipped the blue top over her head. It hugged her figure but wasn’t tight or overly small, the hem rested level with her navel. She looked down at her front and saw a strange, blue furry creature with cartoon-comic googly eyes holding up something round, there were words below the image, but they were meaningless to Alecia.

  ‘What does it say?’ She asked.

  ‘Cookie!’ Morgan replied with a shrug.

  Leci wrinkled her nose slightly, the reference meant nothing anymore to anyone, but it seemed to be a cute reminder of something from the past. She tugged on the pants she had been given. The tattered denim looked as though it would fall to pieces at any moment and the jeans were a little large around her waist. She tore a strip of material from the discarded prison shirt and fashioned a makeshift belt. Satisfied, and feeling much better for wearing actual clothes, she sat back down on her
bunk.

  She didn’t like the way Bitsy was looking at her. She made a conscious effort to clear her mind, paranoia that the telepath was in there, reading her thoughts, was very disconcerting; Morgan had assured her she didn’t spy, but how had she known Leci was worried about just that unless she had been in her head when the girl was thinking it?

  Ugh, it hurt her brain.

  ‘Are you ok Leci?’

  She blinked. Surely the other woman knew the answer to that already?

  Oh well, best to just play dumb.

  ‘Sure I am, as right as any of us can be I s’pose... I mean, we’ve been labrats for who knows how long and we’ve suddenly been set free, gonna take some adjusting to, right?’

  ‘You know, if you want to talk about anything... I’m a good listener.’ Bitsy smiled again, Leci didn’t like how disarming such a simple facial gesture could be.

  She didn’t like the feeling of trust it gave, didn’t like that she felt she was too easily being pulled into liking the other woman. On the other hand, it would be kinda nice to have another girl she could speak with about...

  About?

  About girly things?

  What the hell did girls talk about with one another?

  ‘Why are you askin’ me this? Can’t you just read my mind to get everythin’ you wanna know?’

  Morgan shook her head and Leci raised an eyebrow disbelievingly.

  ‘No. Maybe I didn’t explain things all too good before. I don’t hear your thoughts just randomly. I gotta go inside someone’s head to do that, like, consciously, I have to look into their mind. I told you already I don’t normally do that unless I feel like I need to. I won’t ever invade your privacy unless I think you’re in trouble or something. All I can feel is...’ She paused, her nose wrinkled and her brow furrowed as she tried to find a way to put it into words.

  ‘It’s like... A person gives off waves into the air around ‘em, like, I dunno, an aura or something. How they’re feeling changes how the waves feel, like, if you feel sad, the waves are sad. I can feel them around people, I can pick up feelings and emotions. Right now I can see that you’re confused. You’re upset about something aswell. So, if you want to talk about it, don’t ever be afraid to come to me, ok? Maybe I can help.’

  She smiled again, that horribly reassuring expression that Alecia felt herself weakening to and she found that she was returning it. It might not be so bad to have a friend. She was confused, and she was upset. She had no clue how to approach those feelings but if she didn’t have to do that alone then surely Bits’ offer was a good thing?

  ‘How old are you?’ She wondered aloud.

  ‘I was twenty-four when I was cloned.’

  That explained why the other girl didn’t really look much older than Alecia.

  ‘I’m thirty-two now.’

  Leci wasn’t great with numbers. Xavian had taught her as much as he could with the help of coins and she was fairly proficient up to around the thirty marker, so she was able to do the quick sum in her head, with the subtle use of her toes to help her out.

  ‘Eight years? You’ve been a Clone for that long? Were you in the prison all that time?’

  Bitsy hesitated, looked away and then nodded slowly.

  ‘They did the operation a few days after they took me in. They run a load of tests on you first, find out if you’re any use to their experiments and then if you are they make sure they can use you again and again.’

  Her voice was dull, flat and emotionless, but Leci could read the hurt in her eyes. She may have learned how to mask the pain for the most part but she couldn’t hide it everywhere, and most certainly not from someone who knew where it was coming from, could recognise it like a pro.

  ‘Then they test and test and test, keep on finding new ways to make you die and then just bring you back to start over again. I’ve been starved to death, I’ve been drowned, I’ve been beaten, electrocuted, stabbed, thrown off a roof. They set a pack of wild dogs on me one time, ripped me to pieces. I couldn’t believe how much that one hurt. I kept on hoping shock would kick in and I’d stop feeling but it just didn’t and I felt every...’

  The woman trailed off, shaking her head slowly, her eyes fixed nowhere in the shelter but on some distant place, she winced slightly as though she could hear the dogs, feel their fangs as they gripped her, pierced her flesh and tore her limb from limb...

  Leci felt something wet and warm on her cheek and lifted her hand, bringing it away she was surprised to find that she was crying, tears that were not for herself, but for the woman in front of her. She had shed countless tears over the last few years but the majority of them had been borne out of selfishness, pity at her own plight. She stared in wonderment at the wetness on her fingertip. It seemed more likely they were nothing more than tears of gratitude that she herself had not been subjected to such things.

  Perhaps.

  ‘Amato and I kissed.’

  Ok, that worked... Bits seemed to have been pulled out of her reverie and back into the present as she shifted her attention back to Alecia with a mildly questioning look.

  ‘I sort of figured you did, or, that something had happened anyways. There’s a whole shitload of tension between the two of you.’

  ‘There is?’

  ‘Yes.’ Morgan nodded. ‘Around him you get even more confused and you seem like you’re almost fighting yourself, some big conflict like you don’t know what you want, or you do know but you know you shouldn’t want it. Usually he seems to have something around him that I can’t figure out, but when he’s with you it drops a little, like he’s opening up, letting his guard down, it’s not like a vulnerability thing it’s...’ She shrugged.

  ‘I dunno, just like he doesn’t seem to want to pretend around you, or doesn’t feel as though he needs to.’

  ‘But you know who he is, right?’

  ‘I know he was a guard, I read that from him when you three rescued me.’

  ‘He’s more than just a guard.’ Leci answered, somewhat darkly, a bitterness creeping into her voice that betrayed more than her words and made Bits lean forward curiously.

  ‘He is?’

  Leci glanced nervously towards the entryway, as though Amato might walk through it at any second, as though she were talking about things she shouldn’t be... she wasn’t, was she? She didn’t think so, it wasn’t as if the information he had shared had been for her and her alone, the others had a right to know about it... just... maybe it should come from him, not her?

  Oh well, she’d gone too far to stop now.

  ‘He was the guard who caught me. He was the reason I was there at all.’

  Ok, maybe not strictly true, SHE was the reason she was there at all, but he had hardly helped the whole affair by being the one who shot her horse and handed her over, buying his big promotion into the bargain, trading her freedom for a comfortable ride.

  She heard Bitsy gasp in surprise but she didn’t look up, it was easier right now to be staring down at her feet, they didn’t ask her questions with their eyes or will her to fill in the blanks, they were just feet. Good old reliable, dirty feet.

  With toes.

  She wiggled the toes, enjoying her distraction.

  ‘How do you feel about that?’

  Leci looked up with a half-hearted smile.

  ‘What are you, my therapist?’

  ‘It must be upsetting for you, did he tell you that before you kissed him?’

  ‘I didn’t kiss him it was a mutual thing...’

  ‘Ok, before you kissed each other.’

  ‘No, he told me afterwards.

  ‘Wow, I bet that hurt.’

  Leci frowned.

  ‘Hurt? Why would it hurt?’

  ‘Well... you’re trusting him enough to kiss him and then something like that seems sorta like a betrayal...’ Morgan shrugged and Leci narrowed her eyes slightly but answered.

  ‘I guess that’s a big diff’rence between you and me then, I don’t gotta trust a gu
y to swap spit with him, I just need to be close enough to steal his cash while I’m doin’ it.’ She grinned mischievously to show she was joking, lighten the tone of where the conversation felt to be heading, but suspected that it didn’t convey her lack of upset as much as she had hoped that it would.

  Bitsy nodded slowly, watching Alecia carefully, as though reading her. Leci squirmed, worried that the redheaded girl was doing just that.

  ‘Get outta my head, Clone.’

  ‘I wouldn’t invade you like that, Leci. Not even when I know you’re lying to me.’

  Leci huffed a non-committal response and stood, beginning to pace the short room almost nervously.

  ‘When will they be back? Have they been gone long?’

  ‘They left just before I woke you, said they might be a while.’

  ‘It must be nice having Beriael back, bein’ together again.’ Nice change of subject, Walker, she praised herself silently.

  Morgan wasn’t stupid but she wasn’t pushy either and she let it drop.

  ‘Yeah, it’s really nice. We’re not really married but we’ve been together so long we might as well be, y’know? I couldn’t ever imagine life with anyone else. Ber an’ me were together when we got caught and taken to the prison, but we got split up a’course. Saw each other a few times between testing and stuff; if we both were in the Enclosure at the same time. I reckon my only consolation was knowin’ that he couldn’t die and hopin’ I’d get to see him again sometime. But then, when we were living the way we were, it’s not all that much of a relief to know someone can’t die and be put out of their misery when you know that every day is nothing but pain and suffering for them.’

  Leci winced, she had a feeling those words weren’t really aimed as a dig at her but it sure felt like they were when Morgan knew that Alecia was the one who’d been personally responsible for a big portion of Beriael’s suffering.

  ‘I never even knew Clones existed for real until I met Beriael for the firs- for the second time.’