Sky had a small moment where she wondered how many of the clones were actually operational. Perhaps she should’ve asked HQ? That would’ve given Sky an idea how many could’ve been turned already. It was too late now, she couldn’t afford the lapse in concentration to call Eve.
She was almost at the stairs when she heard a footstep. She turned instantly, opened fire with both handguns and shot straight through an empty tank. There was a thud amongst the sound of exploding glass.
Footsteps from behind suddenly. She spun, brought her aim up and fired at the approaching silhouette. A clone dropped at her side. A bullet hole in her skull. The clone was stark naked and it unsettled Sky a little.
Then nothing. Not a shred of movement or noise.
“…Don’t you feel guilty? You’re killing your own kind y’know…” it was Rain again.
Sky was braced for another attack, yet it didn’t come.
“I can’t believe you’d come here and be willing to kill your own sisters…”
Sky ignored her and slowly began to ascend the metal stairwell.
“…Why are you doing it Sky? Do you think your life is worth anything? Do you think its worth more than theirs?”
She continued to ascend. Underfoot someone ran between a row of stasis tanks but moved too fast for Sky to track.
“You’re replaceable y’know. You die and there’s another one waiting in line to replace you…”
Sky reached the top of the stairs. Up here giant vats of chemicals and fluids were stored and mixed. When combined they were the water the clones were suspended in. She had some understanding of the cloning process but not of the finer details, but she knew the fluids were filled with vitamins, special enzymes and cells that promoted growth for the cloning process to be successful.
“…But you’re already the replacement aren’t you…?”
The vats were large and kept at sub-zero temperatures, presumably to stop their active ingredients from spoiling. There was a large tank of liquid nitrogen overhead that was fuelling the air conditioning on the vats. She continued to walk round them, following the walkways as it snaked around the vats, very aware of someone watching her as she did. She glanced around but couldn’t find the gaze that seemed to be burning upon her.
“…Why do you give yourself so freely to the company? They made you. They own you. They don’t actually care for you… You‘re just another asset.”
A clone attacked from above, swiping down with two fists. A surprise attack.
She struck Sky and knocked her to the floor. Before Sky could retaliate another clone was upon her. A third joined from a nearby shadow and wrestled Sky back down with the others. They expertly restrained her and dragged her to her feet. Two of them took hold of her arms and pinned them behind her back.
“Come.” The clone had the same sort of timbre in her voice as Rain, but the smirk was new to Sky. But then she’d never met Rain herself, neither the original version or the rogue. The speaking clone began dragging her forward. Sky attempted to wrestle them off, but their restraint and strength was too strong. Too many of them to wrench free. They were heading towards the control room, exactly where Sky had been heading anyway. She stopped resisting and complied, a quick glance informed her the third clone was now carrying both of her pistols. They reached the doorway, bungling her into a well lit office. The two clones squeezed harder as if they anticipated she would try to wrench free, but she didn’t. They brought her before a seated Rain.
“Hello Sky,” Rain smirked as she dropped the microphone in her hand. “Nice of you to drop in,”
“Rain…” Sky greeted coolly.
Rain was seated in an office chair that she treated like a throne. She was attired in a tight fitting dark blue set of overalls with surprisingly clean white boots.
The rogue clone had dyed her hair completely white, or so it appeared. Sky wasn’t so sure if the cellular transformation was as physical as Zena’s had been. If Rain’s transformation was the same as Zena’s, did it also mean the original Sky was in there too? It was an interesting idea and Sky figured it might be her best bet. She’d play it by ear, figure Rain out before she tried to appeal to the Sky buried deep in the consciousness.
“So pleased you came. You certainly are an impressive specimen…” That same smirk rose to the face of the real Rain. It made Sky want to punch her. “You would be quite the addition…”
“I don’t want in on your little squad if that’s what you’re getting at…” Sky snarkily dismissed.
“You wouldn’t have a choice,” Rain remarked with a raised eye brow and a smile of bemusement.
“Well if Ashley could fight it, I can…”
“Oh, so that’s how that worked out… Well dear, Sky, that was only an experiment of a different prototype. I assure you it would be much more permanent…”
“What exactly did you do to her?”
“I just added an experimental mutagen to the formula. But you’d already figured that out… You’re a smart girl. I knew you were hot on my trail so I thought it would be an appropriate present for you…” Rain smiled but it was a little sinister. “You just missed me, if only you’d have been an hour or two earlier, perhaps our little meeting would‘ve been different…”
“You wanted me to go to the Asylum… That’s why you pinged on the radar… It was a trap all along,” Sky answered.
“It was a feint Sky, a glorious trap. I wanted you to be caught up there while I came here,” she pointed around her. Straight from the horse’s mouth - it was a distraction, just like Encarta Island.
“Why have you done all this? What’s the point?” Sky asked. Her tone was a little dismayed and sharp.
Rain made a puckered face that seemed like she couldn’t believe Sky had to ask, but it quickly disappeared and a coldness washed down her features. “Because I was sick of being owned by the company. I wanted to be someone. Don’t you get that Sky?”
Sky didn’t respond, so Rain took that as her opportunity to continue.
“We don’t exist Sky, we’re ghosts in a system. Ghosts of some dead woman who one man can’t let go of. We are a by product of one man’s obsession to bring his dead daughter back! Only he had to sell out to the devil, had to make us super-soldiers. Had to turn us, these perfect mirror images of his daughter, into weapons… That was the only way he could achieve his dream,”
“You see Sky, that’s what we are… Weapons. We don’t have rights, we don’t get to have a normal life. We exist solely to be used as a weapon. An experiment to be poked at, dissected, studied, examined till you fucking scream! You’re just an asset to a company. You yourself were woken purely because the company needed someone to track me down… You weren’t even the first choice. This clone was… There’s no autonomy Sky. You’re just a machine, they just made you out of flesh and blood instead…”
Rain’s faced crumpled a fraction, like it stung to discuss this.
“And Sky, I got tired of it. I wanted normalcy. I wanted to live, but they couldn’t let me. They needed to monitor my every breath, every move. Every time I took a shit, there was someone there to analyse it! You surely know how that feels, to be so… invaded on a personal level.” She stopped and took a deep breath. Her monologue had begun to heat up and she needed to reign it back.
“They wouldn’t even let me love, wouldn‘t let me have relationships or friendships. I was a secret. I was a weapon. I was the latest science project! …And you know what, it wasn’t enough to make me some soulless version of a dead woman, no they had to put a leash around my neck too. My original body, it was weak and it was designed that way. The body degenerated very quickly, so I needed those shots to keep myself alive. It was their failsafe. They made sure I could never escape them, made sure I needed them, I could never be free… So yes, that’s why I hijacked this body. Why I transplanted my consciousness into this body. I wanted to be free of the leash they had around my neck. Wanted out of their control…”
“So why did
you hurt all those people? You instigated a bio attack that resulted in the loss of two hundred lives!” Sky cut in.
“Collateral damage. What did they ever do for me? Why did they deserve mercy?”
“They were innocent…”
“Oh nobody is innocent Sky! You know that,”
“Where was the justice?”
“Where was the justice when I was created in a fucking lab for the sole purpose of being a guinea pig and a soldier of war? Where was the justice when I said I wanted to live normally and they reminded me they could kill me yesterday and have a replacement ready for tomorrow… Hell, they did just that! As soon as I went rogue they made this Sky clone. When this clone went rogue then they made you… Where does it stop?”
“You don’t get to be the judge, jury and the executioner…” Sky dismissed angrily.
Rain shook her head exasperated.
“Wake up Sky! We’re not like them, we’re not part of their world. You can’t deny that. You feel it, deep in your heart. That unshakeable feeling of how you’re isolated from the living world. How you don’t belong… That’s because we don’t…”
“You can say all you want Rain but I’m not interested. I may not be of their world but that doesn’t mean we get to destroy it… I‘ll protect them,”
“You’ll protect them? Don’t forget you’re a weapon, you are part of the problem…”
“No, right now you’re the problem, you’re the one who needs to be stopped. Amassing yourself a private army, collecting all sorts of biological weapons… Right now, you‘re a danger to the world,”
“And you’ll stop me? You’ll kill me to protect them? Protect those cretins who have the leash around your neck?!”
“If I have to…”
“You realise they won’t protect you right…? You realise the minute this mission is over you’re as good as dead? They won’t be able to trust you, knowing that I’ve transferred my cellular self into others clones, they won’t be able to trust you ever again. They’ll kill you. Then they’ll kill every single one of these clones and start all over again… Just to make sure…”
“No they won’t…”
“Are you so sure? Because really, what makes you so important? How could they know that you aren‘t me pretending to be otherwise?”
Sky didn’t have a response. Rain had punched a hole straight through to a truth she couldn’t deny. She was one of many. She was, no matter how she cut it, ultimately replaceable.
But what was the other option, let Rain go free? Let her continue her storm of bioterrorism? This was one of those moments where you had to pick the better of two evils…
“So you did all of this, because you just want to be free? What’s next? Where do you go from here?” Sky’s spirit was a little broken and it sounded in her voice. It gave Rain a distinct sense of pleasure.
“Well now that I’ve removed my tracker chip, I’m free to go wherever. To do whatever. To go live life… anyway I want.”
“Do you even know what that is? We’ve never had a normal life, we don’t even know what that even is… I don’t believe you did all of this just to be free… You could’ve done that before you returned to the C3LL facility. You didn’t need to come here and start turning clones into your personal soldiers…”
Rain smiled bitterly. How very shrewd.
“Perhaps I didn’t…” She shrugged. “But this conversation is done,” she gave a little nod to the rogue clone stood to Sky’s left.
The clone struck at Sky’s head, but Sky was prepared. She dropped to her right, flattened onto her side and kicked the legs out of the clone. The clone’s fist missed by a wide margin and she flattened flat onto her face. Sky was rolling and sweeping the legs out from under the clone to her right before anyone could react.
The third clone that had been positioned behind, leapt forward in a tackle and threw her arms around Sky. The arms squeezed tight around her chest, but Sky didn’t let it stop her. She tumbled backwards, rolled and slid out of her grasp. She threw her focus around the room, spotted her discarded handguns a few paces away. She threw herself towards them. She scooped them up just as the third clone leapt at her once more.
One shot. Directly into her neck. The blood-spray from the punctured cartoroid artery splattered up the two other clones closing in once more. It blinded one, making her recoil and claw at her eyes. Two more shots were fired. The blinded clone fell dead with a bullet hole perforated straight through her heart. The last clone managed to twist out of the way and the bullet caught her hip, she spiralled onto her side but wasn’t dead.
Sky jumped from her knees onto her feet. She spun, both guns aiming. She fired. Two more bullets. One caught the fleeing Rain heading for the door, the bullet struck deep in her shoulder, and other one hit the doorframe. Rain stumbled from the gunshot but managed to escape out of the room out towards safety. A shattering of glass nearby signalled the arrival of a new clone. Sky’s handguns turned to her right instantly and without looking she fired once more. The double volley of bullets punctured the clone in the gut and chest, sending it flipping back out of the smashed window where it plummeted to the factory floor.
“HYA!” A clone kicked Sky in the back, connecting in the space between her shoulder blades. She landed on her front, sliding a little towards the door, before she immediately flipped over onto her back.
The clone was running at her, two bullets saw the end to that. She crumpled at her feet.
Like an angry mob, more clones began to swarm into the room from the door opposite where Rain had escaped through. She had managed to convert quite the number of clones it seemed! The thought only fanned Sky’s rage.
Sky rolled over in the opposite direction to the chasing mass, rolling feet over head. She reached the threshold of the door, spun 180 on the spot and turned towards the mob following after her. She fired into the mass of clones pouring into the room before her, taking careful and deliberate steps back with every round of gunfire. She stepped over the threshold of the only other door out of the room just as the hammers on the guns clicked on empty chambers. In an impressive feat, she ejected both empty clips simultaneously and reloaded them. There was a reason Sky kept a pair of fresh clips in her belt and that was it.
There was too many clones and her bullets, while they were hitting their mark, weren’t stopping the horde. She turned and ran from the room. She weaved around the tanks, heading for the nearest stairwell. She spied movement ahead, Rain was hurtling down the stairs back to the factory floor. She couldn’t escape, not now!
In a moment of genius Sky reached the stairwell, vaulted over the banister and spun in the air. The gang of twenty something clones were pounding the metal gangway after her in hot pursuit. She fired two shots, then two more. Each bullet hit their mark. There was a groan and then a loud explosive hiss. Liquid nitrogen erupted from the tanks, and then sprayed from the heavens like a water sprinkler.
She fired two more shots, aiming for the same sites. The bullets weakened the metal and it buckled open. Sub-zero liquid mist exploded out in an avalanche of ice, water and mist.
There was a cacophony of screams and wails as the clones were swept up in the sub zero plume, they all succumbed to the deadly freeze.
Sky landed on the stairs, had a brief stumble but managed to stop herself from rolling down to the bottom in an undignified heap. Her attention was already back on Rain, the dead clones dealt with behind her. She rushed down to the ground floor, ignorant of the sight of the clones shattering and splitting apart in the walkway above. Rain, the main target, was already hurtling through the network of tanks towards the opposite end of the factory.
There was a chance for a clear shot, she took it without question.
Sky opened fire, but Rain dodged into a different row. She followed, jumping around a stasis tank. A clone suddenly emerged from Sky’s right but was shot down instantly.
Rain was out of the range of her guns, weaving systematically between rows. Sky vaulted
onto a nearby tank, height would be her advantage. She hurriedly hopped along the tops of the stasis tanks, raining bullets down on the fleeing Rain. Eventually her aim was true and she took out Rain’s kneecap. The fleeing clone slammed onto her front and landed with a brutal thud.
Gotcha!
Sky cleared the small jump to the next row and headed towards the fallen clone. She jumped from the stasis tank to the next, preparing to hop down.
“Bitch!” A hand grabbed her ankle and tugged. There was no way to respond and Sky was suddenly falling. She landed on her side roughly and felt her guns clatter out of her hands.
She scrambled away but somebody leapt upon her, landing on her back and digging their fingers into her face. Her attacker was strong and Sky couldn’t manage to wrestle herself out from under. She bucked and struggled but the aggressor was far too nimble, keeping her balance upon Sky. Frustrated and out of other options Sky did the next best thing. She pushed backwards with her arms and then threw herself onto her side. It worked, the pair of them hit the deck. A sound of a dull thud on metal and cracking glass told Sky she’d smacked her foe into a stasis tank for added, but unintentional, effect. The split second her aggressor’s fingers were loosened was capitalised on and Sky was away scrambling for the pistols. She grabbed them, rolled onto her back and was almost skewered by a long pole. Her attacker was another clone. She rolled to the other side as the clone brought the pole down again. She missed, by a wide margin.
Frustrated the clone swung the pipe like a golf club and whacked Sky in the side. It stung and smarted. Sky fired her guns in retaliation but they were empty.
“Shit,” she cried as the clone swung the bar down at her head. Sky avoided the attack by a hair’s breadth. She clambered to her feet and spotted a second clone charging to join the fray.
The Rain In The Sky Page 19