Clone Legacy: Book 3 in the Clone Crisis Trilogy

by Melissa Faye

  I’d never seen a Chancellor fight. Or even hold a gun. They surrounded themselves with guards to do their fighting for them.

  With one last look at the fight going on around us, we flooded into the building. It was similar to the mansion in its décor but the set up was completely different. The main floor hosted several doors on either side. We went through them one by one. When we found a civilian or guard, one rebel led them off to the group outside. We found a row of jail cells down in the basement, but no sign of Yami.

  The building rocked as an explosion pierced the air, followed by a second. And a third. The cloning facility. We hunched over, steadying ourselves before moving on.

  We continued up to the second floor. Doors led to another room, and we arrogantly pushed the doors open without fear. There we were met by a dozen guards standing between us and a single Chancellor holding Yami at gunpoint.

  He was the oldest Chancellor I’d ever seen. While his suit was dark as the others’, his hair was white, and his face was lined with wrinkles. He must have been spry for his age, because he held Yami firmly with one arm across her chest.

  “Back off,” he commanded. “I need to spend some time with this girl.”

  The guards swarmed towards us and formed a straight line across the room between us and Yami. We stood still, staring down the guards while they stared right back. Another explosion rang out, but no one moved.

  Chapter 28 – Yami

  The guards and the other Chancellors called him Zero. When my team entered, he kept his gun planted firmly against my temple. The guards lined up in front of the rebels, and the Chancellor dragged me backwards into a room behind us. With a strength that felt out of place with his age, he pushed me into a chair and sat across from me. He held his gun lightly in his hands, as if he knew I wouldn’t dare move. He was right.

  It wasn’t exactly fear that held me in place, but morbid curiousity.

  A worker hurried in from a side door and poured us drinks, then he scampered away. We each took a glass of tea. As if we were two friends at the park. I sipped it delicately, unsure what to do. The Chancellor held his in his hand, spinning the glass in slow circles.

  “Yami.”

  I didn’t speak. I finally understood. This was the original Chancellor. He was at least twenty years older than the oldest Chancellor I had ever seen. He must have developed his plan at a young age many years ago.

  “I’m so glad to meet you,” he said. I felt certain that he meant it. Like it was our destiny to meet. And this had to happen for either side to win the war.

  “I’ve known of your clone for many years,” he continued. “She has been a formidable opponent. I’m sure you’ve seen that. She’s the thorn in my side that I can’t shake. It’s no matter, though. She’ll always be weaker than us, because she cares too much what others think. She listens to too many people’s opinions. If she was more like us, she would stand a chance.

  “But now, we’ve found out where her headquarters is located. I have soldiers headed there as we speak. The war is lost, Yami.”

  My face turned red. It can’t be true, I thought. The soldiers are turning against the Chancellors. He’s bluffing.

  “Do you even have soldiers anymore? From what I’ve heard, they’ve turned on you. Except for your sycophants here, you’ve been deserted. How does that feel?”

  The old man laughed loudly until his laugh turned into a coughing fit. I watched him closely as I sipped my tea. His face and hair gave away his age, as did his cough, but he still had an energy about him. He was thrilled to have this chance to threaten and lie to me.

  “That’s an exaggeration. Yes, your clone has changed many minds. But we’ve turned them back. I know this is what’s best for everyone. It’s why I started my cloning so long ago. I knew this was the only way for us to survive, and I could only accomplish this with more allies. And what better allies than my own clones?”

  “If you needed to clone yourself to find someone who agrees with you, you don’t have a very strong case.” I thought of Other Yami. Her supporters were loyal to her because they believed what she did. They knew change needed to happen, and they eagerly followed her into battle.

  “I wouldn’t say I needed to clone myself, but it does help, doesn’t it? Imagine if the older, wiser Yami had cloned herself. She may have won this war years ago. But there are few people with a mind for strategy like my own.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “How can you believe any of this is better for us? How have you gotten away with this without interventions from other countries?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. The other countries have their own ways of maintaining this level of control. It’s the only way to ensure our future. I don’t understand you either, Yami. How can you believe in democracy when so much is at stake? The people can’t decide what they need. They need to be told what to do. They need to be packed together, funneled into situations that will assure the continuation of humanity. Democracy isn’t reliable enough. We need someone to be in charge. Your clone isn’t enough. She’s far too concerned with hearing everyone’s voices to take control of the critical problems we’re facing.”

  The Chancellor’s face swam before me. I blinked rapidly, but there were no tears in my eyes.

  “You think – you think democracy is wrong?” I stuttered. “You believe – you think life under, under a microscope, under a firm, unforgiving leader, is – is the answer? What did you...”

  I slid down my chair. The room waved and bubbled in my vision. Something was wrong. My body was giving up, and I didn’t understand why.

  The Chancellor watched as I struggled to sit up straight. He looked down at his cup and back at me.

  “Does it matter what you think anymore, Yami? You don’t think about strategy, you think about people. And feelings. And –“

  I lost track of his words. My head was too fuzzy. The Chancellor sneered. He kept talking, but I sunk down lower in my chair. So low that I began slipping out of it. The Chancellor furrowed his brow and gave up on his lecture. I fell to the floor, knocking the lemonade off the side table as he spoke. I grabbed to hold on to anything around me. I had tunnel vision. The last thing I saw was the original Chancellor’s, Chancellor Zero’s face, eyes wide open now, as I slid into nothingness.

  Chapter 28 – Charlie

  I hopped from foot to foot, anxiously awaiting the rest of our team. Several rebels were taking Chancellors, guards, and civilians to the group holding everyone hostage. They should be here any minute, and they’d provide us with the numbers we needed to destroy this line of soldiers, rescue Yami, and remove the final Chancellor from the compound.

  My heart leapt when I heard footsteps coming up the stairs. At the same moment, one of the guard’s B-Band lit up. He pulled up a message, then hurried away to the room in the back. The Chancellor needed his help with Yami.

  A moment later, I heard a gunshot. My stomach dropped.

  The rebels stormed in and fighting ensued. I pushed my way across the room but was held back again and again by a guard. I felt blood on my face and a blow to my head. I staggered to stand up straight and fell to the ground. Now I crawled across the floor, taking kicks and shoves from all sides. I fell again and again but pulled myself up to crawl further. Before I got to the room, my own B-Band lit up.

  The oldest Chancellor. And Yami. Except Yami lay on the floor at his feet. Her face was pale and I looked for the rise and fall of breath in her chest. Nothing. I couldn’t tell where they had shot her; the camera wasn’t zoomed in closely enough. A rage built deep inside me and I screamed out. Two guards pulled me down to the floor, and as I lay on my back, the Chancellor spoke to us.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the rebellion, I have a short piece of information to share with you. The rebel leader’s clone lies at my feet. She attacked me, and my only choice was to kill her in self defense. As I speak, my guards, workers, and clones are fighting off the rebel intruders who attempt to hold them hostage. Y
ou cannot win. I have lost many followers. But as they used to say, I may have lost the battle, but I will win the war

  “When I was a young man, I saw the need for meaningful change in our society if we were ever going to be successful in solving the fertility crisis. I orchestrated many changes in the way my leadership team ran, but realized that it wasn’t enough. I cloned myself for the sake of our country and our society. I did what no one else was strong enough to do. I slowly took over communities around the country, managing cloning research and planning what we would do when our breeding program was eventually successful.

  “When one woman from one of our communities sought to undo everything we had put in place to ensure our towns ran smoothly, I let her be. She had a small group of followers and it was unlikely that they would survive. Her last living clone lies at my feet, dead. And soon the woman herself will be as well.”

  The oldest Chancellor kept talking but all I could see was red. My Yami. The girl I fell in love with. She was fierce and terrifying. She was angry with everything and everyone, but she couldn’t bit her cheeks hard enough to stop from laughing at my jokes when we worked in the Med. She believed in what the Underground was doing, but was too afraid for her loved ones to take action. And slowly she became the leader she was destined to become. I loved her so much it hurt. She came back to me. And now she was gone.

  One of the rebels pulled the guards off me and I picked myself up. I was scratched and bruised. And I needed to remove the love of my life from the feet of this monster.

  I stumbled across the room. I heard the rebels behind me, fighting off the soldiers. I heard the constant stream of chatter coming from my B-Band. The Chancellor’s lecture on everything we were doing wrong. That’s all this was. Both sides were so convinced they were right. People lay outside dead. Sven was dead. Hundreds of people I didn’t know were dead. And now the one person I cared about...It was true. No one else meant anything. And she was gone.

  I found my way to the door. It was locked. I shot through the door until I could push it open. I walked towards the Chancellor. Near a door in the back of the room, I saw one of the civilians shot dead. A soldier stood to the side, the gun he used to kill the worker still in his hand. He noticed me too late. I shot him quickly in the chest and turned before I could see him fall to the ground.

  The Chancellor had stopped talking in mid-sentence. I didn’t hesitate. I clicked off the safety on my gun, aimed it straight at his head, and shot him dead in front of hundreds of rebels watching his broadcast. Then I fell to the ground to hold my girl in my arms. I shook and cried, burying my face in her black curls.

  Yami’s face was ashen, but her body was still warm. I searched her body to see where she was shot, but there was no wound. Her face was covered in my tears, and her eyebrows gave the slightest flutter. I laid her back down on the ground and felt her pulse. It was so slow I almost missed it. I leaned my head onto her heart and heard the familiar, but faint, sound. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub.

  How stupid I was. One final lie I was dumb enough to believe. I killed him in cold blood for killing Yami. But it was over now, and Yami would come back to me. I held her in my arms again, rocking her back and forth. One of the rebels joined me and his jaw dropped when he saw her move. He bent over and felt her pulse like I had. Someone found the cup of tea Yami had knocked to the floor and the untouched cup still sitting in the Chancellor’s lifeless hands. Someone tried to poison the Chancellor. They poisoned the wrong person. But the Chancellor was dead anyway.

  Another rebel joined us. They helped pick her up and carry her to a truck. I drove her back to HQ, refusing to take any breaks. I realized hours into the drive that the Chancellor’s blood still covered my hands.

  Chapter 29 – Yami

  After dying on a live broadcast – or at least someone making it look you’re dead in a last ditch effort to swing the war in your direction – people are quick to provide you with what you need to ensure your health and wellbeing. Like immediate emergency medical care for the poison no one could identify but someone eventually cured. Like a small cottage down the street from Breck, Etta, and Hope. Like a live-in boyfriend who nursed me through several weeks of rest and recovery before proposing.

  Vonna stayed at HQ to be with Enzo and serve on the final tribunals for the other Chancellors. Many had been killed in the battle, while others were judged by the courts. It was almost impossible to separate who did what, and the Chancellors were happy to create confusion and wreak havoc on our judicial system. It would take a long time to figure out, but meanwhile, the Chancellors no longer had any power.

  No one was sure what to do with Enzo. His clone line was retired, but it wouldn’t stop him from making the same choices his clones had made at such a young age. Vonna sent me messages about how it felt to fall in love. I showed Charlie, and we shook our heads and laughed. Love at seventeen isn’t the same as love at twenty-five. Or thirty. Then again, I was going to be married at twenty-two.

  Breck, Etta, and Hope were a family of three until their son Sven was born. Hope was enamored with him except on the days when she was furious that her parents were giving her less attention. Charlie and I babysat so Breck and Etta could escape for a few hours at a time.

  At some point, there was an election, and Other Yami won in a landslide. They set up a national capitol in the same location as the one that existed hundreds of years ago: midway down the east coast. Other Yami was the government’s leader, but her power was overseen by a board of directors made up of people from each of the former career assignments.

  Someone worked out a system for new career assignments. I wanted my days of leadership to be over, and insisted on staying out of the limelight. Charlie pulled me back in when he got involved in helping Omer develop a job application system. The director of Gentle Acres, Ann, spearheaded a national committee to focus on continued breeding. Some breeders chose to donate their genetic materials to create biological children who could be raised by infertile families. Charlie and I planned on applying for an adoption eventually.

  I planted a small garden in our front yard with Hope’s help. She mostly searched for roly polys and ladybugs, but I still appreciated her company. We grew vegetables to donate to the town, and I helped start a communal garden to lessen the load for agricultural workers.

  It would take years to get the country back on track. We’d spent so long unaware of the freedoms we were missing that figuring out how to get them back would be a long struggle.

  I had a family. It was unlike the families I read about in history textbooks. We didn’t exist as separate entities, but as shifting and melding units of people who loved and cared for each other. Etta was my family as much as Charlie was. Vonna was my little sister who lived far away but called every week, and whose boyfriend I didn’t always approve of. Matana was my stern aunt who came to visit and snapped at me when I was out of line. That was Charlie’s favorite part of Matana’s visits.

  Still, I had people in my life who would be part of me forever. And a future husband. And maybe one day a child. And as I slowly warmed up to the person I knew I could be, stepping into the role I was genetically destined to take on, I felt myself open to the possibilities around me. Life was good.

  Thank you for reading!

  Dear Reader,

  I hope you enjoyed Clone Legacy: Book 3 of the Clone Crisis Trilogy. I’m so happy you took the time to join me on this journey.

  Please consider posting a review of this book on Amazon. It helps potential readers see what others thought about the book and decide if they, too, want to read it. If you decide to write a review, here’s the link.

  Thank you again for reading Clone Legacy. Join my newsletter to be the first to know when I publish my next book!

  Melissa

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  About the Author

  Melissa Faye is a former teacher who loves sci-fi, reading, and writing. She lives in Colorado with her small dog and likes yoga, rock climbing, and thinking about weird dystopian futures with snarky heroines who save the world.