The Rain In The Sky

by Antony J Woodward

  The room smelt strongly of body odour and Sky felt it slam her nose like a truck as she stepped into the room fashioned into a cell. Body odour and damp, it wasn’t a pleasant cocktail to walk into.

  Keith, the older male, held back letting Sky enter the small room alone.

  “Another one, to try and loosen my jaw no doubt, show me them titties, offer that pussy,” the man shrugged with a scathing mockery in his voice. His accent sounded a little Mexican. It wasn’t an accent she was all that familiar with, but it definitely had hints of Spanish ancestry. He slowly lifted his face up. He was much younger than she’d anticipated. He was barely into his twenties. He clearly worked out; he was muscular and took pride in his appearance. His square face was coated in grease and grime. His eyes appeared dark and his facial features seemed soft and malleable. He had a faint goatee.

  A smile rose to his lips as he identified Sky.

  He had a gold tooth and it distracted Sky for a brief second. He looked like a wannabe-gangstar who was trying way too hard. The smile faltered a little on his lips as his face crunched in surprise.

  “You’ve come for me, to rescue me…?” his voice cracked a little in excitement. He evidently recognised her even though she had never seen him before in her life.

  “Have I?” Sky answered ambiguously. Who did he think she was? She glanced behind her but Keith had disappeared.

  His smile instantly faded. Ever so slowly his face twisted upwards and he suddenly looked concerned and confused. “We did exactly as you asked, exactly what you paid us to do!” he whispered desperately. It sounded like a ply for her mercy… “We did exactly what you wanted…” he added pleading with eyes that were beginning to moisten in fear.

  “And what exactly was that?” she tried to extract the information carefully. She was convinced this man had her confused with someone else, someone she shared a resemblance with. There was only one person in the world that she could think of that she shared a resemblance with… She needed to know if the theory was right.

  The male’s confusion took on an undercurrent of anguish. He suddenly had a million thoughts flowing through his mind but he couldn’t focus on any of them. Had she returned to kill him? Was that it? It was a sobering and frightening realisation. He was a loose end and he suddenly realised that! So had she returned just to tie it all up and be done with the evidence? Had she infiltrated the group of survivors just to get close to him? To tie up all her loose ends, so nobody would know she was responsible for the bio-attack… Ice cold fear uncurled in his gut and set his heart beating like an alarm clock shrieking its wake up call.

  Yet, wrestling deep down with the fear, something about this woman struck him as odd, something he just couldn’t put his finger on… Something was ever so slightly off about her…

  “Y’know, unleash the virus on the island and then block the communication channels… set the trap…” he whispered.

  “And you obviously did it very well,” Sky remarked coolly. She dared a little smirk.

  “Exactly as you specified ma‘am. You were very particular about the way we used the virus you gave us. We infected them all just like you said… We followed your instructions to the letter, so have mercy please!…” He hissed in a whisper.

  So the mysterious woman holed up in the main-lab was indeed responsible for arming the mercs with the bio-weapon. She had also engineered the entire scenario, but why? And did that really mean that Rain was the one responsible? If so, why? Why had Rain orchestrated the attack?

  “Where are the rest of you?” Sky turned tack.

  “Sonia is dead, the others were in the lab with… you…” he trailed off. He suddenly remembered that the woman had taken his fellow crewmembers into the lab with her. What had happened to them? Why was she stood here without them? The reasonable fear occurred to him that she might have killed them after all. He was the last one, the loose end and he was easy prey. His pulse began to quicken as he considered their fates. “…With you…” he whispered. Oh god!

  Like a sun burning through a very dark and thunderous cloud he slowly came to a realisation. She had killed them all and was definitely now here to tie up the loose ends! She had come to kill him!

  “Please don‘t!…” he whispered desperately.

  “What did you do to the boat?” She decided she might as well utilise her case of mistaken identity. The fear he was afflicted with would no doubt loosen his tongue.

  His face crumpled in surprise, “Wha-? We… We disconnected the battery and jammed the engine,” Why was she asking these questions? What did the boat have to do with anything?

  She nodded acknowledgement and in a split second the sun of realisation parted a whole new set of clouds for the young merc. He saw the truth before him and his expression went from surprise to stunned. “You’re?” he whispered in disbelief. He saw it clearly, despite the identical facial features. She was not who he thought she was. “You’re not her… You’re the one she wants…” he whispered more to himself than for her ears. He recalled the woman had planned that there would be a doppelganger who arrived on the island, and nobody was to harm her. He was looking at it. That strange white haired woman’s plan had come right.

  Sky recoiled in surprise. “The one she wants?” she repeated. What did that mean?

  “Fuck you!” he spat. A glob of saliva hit Sky in the cheek.

  “Now that’s not very nice,” she took hold of his cheek and pinched it sharply. “Tell me what it means? Why does she want me?”

  “I don‘t know,” he growled, “but I ain’t tellin’ you shit!”

  “Tell me, what she wants with me?!” Sky whispered. She removed a handgun from her holster. She pressed the barrel to his forehead. She knew he knew something.

  “You won’t kill me,” the man sniggered.

  “Do you think? I’m not them survivors, I don’t need you as a bargaining chip. You’ve told me enough already. You’re as expendable as no doubt you were employed to be,”

  “They won’t let you kill me…”

  “They won’t care. They’re heading for the boat and they’ll gladly leave you behind…” Sky lied. The young male’s arrogance faltered a little bit.

  “Now tell me, what was the plan? Why does she want me? What is she going to do?”

  “I don’t fucking know…!” he spat again. “I was just here to release the virus and set the trap…”

  “The trap? For me?”

  He nodded. His glare was hot and penetrating. They’d set a trap?!

  “You won’t know anymore than that, she wouldn’t share that with you…” she reasoned with herself aloud. “I have no further use for you,”

  He realised her words too late to protest. She pulled the trigger angrily.

  The bang was violent but extensively muffled with the cushion of flesh and skull. She was lightly misted with his blood and brain pulp, but majority of the mess ejected out from the back of his skull. He fell backwards and landed flat on his back.

  Sky’s ears were ringing a little, she holstered the gun once more. She already knew that was a colossal mistake. She shouldn’t have killed him, he could’ve been a testimony. Something about being led into a trap just flipped her lid. That noxious smell of BO and damp was now mixed with gunpowder, blood and smoke. It was an even greater sort of unpleasant smell.

  “Just who the fuck are you?”

  A gun was pushed into the base of her skull. It was Nat’s.

  “I told you who I am,” Sky answered calmly.

  “That guy just recognised you. He thought you was the woman who seems to be responsible for all this fucking mess” She stressed through gritted teeth. “You better tell me what the fuck is going on, or I’ll swear I’ll blow your brains out right now!”

  Behind them a stampede of feet signalled the rest of the survivors’ arrival. They’d heard gunfire. They were surprised to find Nat holding a gun to Sky’s head and the Mexican already dead on the floor.

  “It’s a really long
story,” Sky offered calmly.

  “We’ve got time,” Nat nudged the barrel of the gun. She was angry, very fucking angry. Seething in fact. “But he just mistook you as the woman who came with the Alpha team, the one he says is responsible for the entire attack! Christian is right, how do I know we can trust you…” Nat’s words rustled a few feathers in the small crowd that had formed outside.

  To side with Christian also ruffled Sky’s feathers a little too.

  “You don’t know that, but you wouldn’t believe the truth if I told you. Perhaps you should concentrate on the fact that I couldn’t possibly have instigated anything as I arrived on the Island less than two hours ago…”

  “He said he was paid to release a virus on the Island, that doesn‘t mean you had to be here when it was released,”

  “What did you expect? He’s a mercenary, that’s what they’re employed to do… Carry out tasks for money,” Sky growled.

  “Don’t be a smartass with me,” Nat shoved the gun into the back of Sky’s head once more. It smarted a little.

  “If I was the one masterminding the entire thing do you think I’d come down here and execute him myself? Especially when I could’ve easily let the rest of the Alpha team wipe them out. Hell, I could’ve ordered everybody down here dead instead of coming down myself. Why go to such efforts to talk to you, when I could just kill you…”

  Nat didn’t respond to Sky’s justification, mainly because she had too many things to comprehend. Sky’s words made sense and almost rang true, but she couldn’t escape the fact the mercenary had mistaken her for someone else. The improbability that Sky had a doppelganger was too great yet she couldn’t shake it off.

  “We’re going around in circles Nat. I have not paid anyone to release anything… If that was truly my game, I’d never have come to the Island. And don‘t you think I‘d be a little better prepared for the infected victims?” She suddenly spun on the spot and took hold of the gun. She moved so fast it shocked Nat, she blinked as she stumbled backwards. Her backwards step took a moment to comprehend the gun was no longer in her grip. The sudden and swift disarming had thrown her and she couldn’t right her thoughts straight away.

  Eventually she took hold of herself and angrily went to attack, but the fact Sky threw the gun into the corner of the room stopped her. Something about that gesture educated Nat that Sky wasn’t a threat in the slightest. Her face that was contorted in thick anger and suspicion softened just a little.

  Her fists fell to her sides.

  “There’s much going on here that isn’t understood, but I assure you I’m not interested in hurting you or anybody else. I’m here to find out what happened…” Sky stressed calmly, “…and you heard him, it was all to make a trap for me…”

  Nat regarded her, the anger still slowly ebbing out of her system. She realised that whatever the fuck was going off in this island was more complicated than she’d ever have guessed. And she was right, the Island seemed to be some sort of trap for Sky. To what end though? Why…?

  Nat took a deep breath, then concluded that despite everything going off around her that Sky was probably the best means to securing her objective. The look in the woman’s eyes didn’t lie either, she was genuinely concerned by what the mercenary had said.

  “Ok. You‘re right, there‘s a lot going off here that’s hard to comprehend…” she admitted.

  “He thought I was someone else, someone who looks very much like me…” Sky reminded her. The truth was she was the one who looked like Rain, for Rain was older than her. Rain had been active for several years, while Sky had accrued nothing more than a few months on and off. She’d not spent any time longer than a week awake. Conditioning, that was the terminology the scientists had used. What Nat didn’t understand was that they looked identical because they were the same person essentially. That truth was far too fantastic to deliver, so it was best kept from them all. None of them would even believe her, let alone understand.

  “I want answers,” Nat vowed firmly. She turned from Sky to Christian and the other survivors crowded in the threshold. “Me and Sky, we’re going to head for the bio-dome. We need a higher level key card so we can gain access to the main-lab…”

  “Your brother is probably d-”

  “-Stop Christian, I don’t wanna hear it. He’s alive and I’ll find him…”

  She pushed her way into the group and disappeared beyond them.

  “Just because she’s willing to entertain your little story, doesn’t mean I am…” Christian stepped into Sky’s path. His eyes were dark and hard.

  “The battery on the boat has been disconnected, they jammed the engine too…” Sky offered as an olive branch, “And for the record, I don’t need you to believe me. I don’t give a flying fuck if you do. All I ask is that you get out of my way,” She glanced to the dead man and then back to him, as if she was making a point.

  Christian rolled his tongue over his teeth in consideration before he finally stepped aside.

  “I‘ll wait for her, but I ain‘t gonna wait for you,” Christian warned as Sky brushed past him.

  She weaved through the throng of survivors, most of them eager to get out of her way.

  “If they made a trap for you, does that mean everything that happened here is because of you?” Christian hollered down the passageway after her. She didn’t indulge him with a response, instead she just exited into the control room.

  Within a few moments she was hot on Nat’s heels. She didn’t talk though, she needed a few moments to decompress and throw her thoughts together.

  So Rain really had paid these mercenaries to release the contagion on the Island. Why? Was it part of the trap she’d laid? The contagion didn’t make a great deal of sense, especially because the incident had resulted in her being deployed to the island itself… or was that the plan too? But how was it part of the trap? Was Rain the bait?

  It dawned on Sky that Rain had obviously known about the protocols, she had known that in the case of Rain disappearing that Sky would’ve been deployed to investigate. Sky concluded her presence on this island was because of some malicious and thoroughly meticulous planning and it felt sinister. It also suggested to Sky that Rain was perhaps holed up deliberately in the main-lab, just waiting for Sky. But why? Why not just leave the door wide open? Or was that just too easy? Would Sky have smelled a rat otherwise?

  Just what was the endgame here? What was the point? Why had she gone to such extreme lengths just to lure Sky to the island? Especially when they lived in the same research centre… Did Rain have intentions that she couldn’t enact under the watchful eye of the corporation?

  That realisation sent a shiver down Sky’s spine.

  She was definitely in a trap, she just hadn’t sprung it yet.

  And was Christian right? Was everything that had gone down on this island because of her? Was it indirectly her fault?

  Sky felt the knot of anger, the one that made her blow the young male’s brains out, swell in her chest. She was angry and she couldn’t wait till she finally got Rain in her grip, she had a million questions and she needed every single one of them answering.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The pair of them were travelling through the network of sewer pipes in silence. They were jogging and making great progress, but neither woman spoke a word. Sky was too absorbed in her own thoughts and Nat was too busy considering the unsolved enigma in front of her eyes, despite their idle thoughts they made quick work of their journey for the bio dome. The bio-dome was the facility where the residents of the island grew and cultivated their own food. It also worked as a secondary lab for the experimentation on genetically modified crops. Sky knew, from a newsletter, that the bio-lab had been responsible for a particular strain of sweet potato that could grow in arid conditions. It had gone on to benefit third world countries greatly. So the dome was celebrated often within the corporation.

  Sky didn’t expect they’d find anything in the labs beyond plants and maybe the od
d infected but she recalled that Joey and Stormer, the mercenaries from the communication tower, had headed to the lab themselves. They had some unknown reason to investigate it, which gave Sky a slight sinking feeling. Why had the mercenaries deemed it important to check it out? What had they gone looking for?

  Sky surmised this Island affair was probably supposed to be a quick and simple job for the mercs, but it had turned somewhat sour for them too. While Sky had spent more than a few moments reflecting on her current situation it had surprised her to acknowledge she was grateful for Nat’s company. Despite the wordless company, she found herself comforted by her. Besides two sets of guns were better than one.

  Nat had simplified this mission greatly with her inside knowledge of the island, knowing far more than Sky knew, and that was a great boon. As Nat took charge of the situation, Sky could revert to a passenger and watch. It had given Sky time to attempt to reconcile what she had learnt about Rain.

  Sky had come to the island expecting to piece together the clues of what happened here; a possible accident, or even something as innocent as a machine fault. Yet she had never once thought it would be a bio-terror attack orchestrated by her predecessor…

  Or a trap…

  Was Rain really responsible for all this? That was the question that was clattering around in Sky’s head the most. The evidence all pointed in that direction, yet it seemed so incredulous. Or maybe it was because it seemed so reflective of Sky herself? The two clones were one and the same, so how did Rain go so far in the wrong direction? There was an argument about nature and nurture somewhere in it, but she didn’t have the spare capacity to ruminate on it.