by Anthology
“If I didn’t stop you first, Debra would kill you to protect the kids,” Josh replied. Nick cringed. “You’re not the first clone we’ve encountered, and their behavior can be unpredictable. If any ounce of Nick’s consciousness is in you, you need to trust me. I don’t want this to end badly for any of us.”
Nick nodded and looked down at the floor.
“I didn’t want to bring all of this on you, but I didn’t know who else I could trust,” he said. “You’re still the closest people I have to a family.”
“Don’t talk like that right now.” Josh looked away from him and started pacing. “I want to believe it’s you, Nick, but we have no way of knowing. Clint worked with two clones for over five years—sleeper agents who had infiltrated the IBI. One of them turned on the rest of the team, and the other tried to protect them.”
“Seems like they still had some choice in the matter,” Nick replied. “Regardless of what happens after your brother-in-law gets here, I can’t pick up where my life left off. At best, the IBI will send me into some kind of protection program. At worst, I’ll be treated as a potential threat—and I have no solid answers on how this happened. Do you think they will believe that, considering my best friend doesn’t?”
Josh started to reply, but his headset buzzed. He didn’t answer, and the headset announced the caller’s name. “It’s William Abbot. He keeps calling about the stock you willed to us.”
“I told Abbot to watch out for vultures, not to become one,” Nick said in a disappointed tone. Josh removed the headset and placed it on his desk. It continued to buzz. “I’d answer it for you, but I’d probably give him a heart attack. I guess I haven’t been a good judge of character lately—present company excluded, I hope.”
“Even if you’re not Nick, you’re still a sentient being—and Clint and his team won’t torture or dissect you for information.” Josh’s headset beeped a voicemail notification, and he decided to check it. “Abbot is at O’Hare. His flight is leaving in a few minutes, and he plans to come here after he lands.”
McFerrin Residence * February 5th, 2084
Nick couldn’t sleep. Despite how kind the McFerrins had been to him, each anniversary of his father’s death made him want to stay in bed until the day was over. This time it was on a Saturday, so he didn’t have to force himself to get ready for school.
Someone knocked on his door.
“Nick, I’m making breakfast if you want to get up,” Mrs. McFerrin said. From her tone, she seemed aware of the day and didn’t try to open the door. “I’m caught up on work, and I was thinking I could take you and Josh to the movies—maybe stop for pizza later.”
She was trying, and Nick knew it. Still, he didn’t answer. The floorboards creaked as she walked away and down the stairs.
“Nick?” It was Josh this time. “Get up. I want to show you something.”
“Not today,” Nick replied, but there were no sounds of Josh leaving. “What is it?”
“I’m not telling you, Nick. I have to show you.”
Nick sighed, but he got dressed and then opened his door. Josh grinned at him, and it was a rare instance where Nick felt annoyance towards him. Maybe that was part of being like brothers, too.
“What is it?” Nick repeated.
Josh led him to his room, and Nick’s eyes widened. In the middle of the floor was a spider-like robot the size of an adult’s hand. Josh handed him a tablet.
“Dad believes it’s a concept model—showed me how to put one together to surprise you,” Josh said. “There are more parts in the box if you want to make more. You can even program and control them. Did your father work for NASA or something?”
“I thought he was a doctor.” Nick walked around the robot, and it turned so that its cameras always faced him—even when he passed the tablet back to Josh. He jumped forward, and the robot jumped back. Nick found himself laughing. “Weird. I remember seeing Dad draw one of these, but I didn’t know they were real.”
“Boys, food is ready!”
Nick’s stomach growled at the smell of bacon and omelets. Josh laid the tablet and the model on his bed, but they heard a crash before they reached the stairs. The model had crawled off the edge and was in scattered pieces across the floor.
“We’ll get it later,” Josh said, and he didn’t seem upset. “It will make it easier to show you.”
O’Hare International Airport *Chicago * Twenty-Nine Years Later
“Is this seat taken?” Agent Clint Rossetti asked. A brown-haired man in a business suit shook his head. “Sorry to crowd you. I hate booking last-minute.”
“Seems like all I do lately,” the man replied. “Hey, do I know you?”
Clint shrugged as he put his briefcase in the overhead compartment. “I live in Arizona now, but I grew up about thirty minutes from here. What high school did you go to?”
“It was in New York.” The man shook his head and then glanced out his window. “Sorry, it’s been a long day.”
“No problem.” Clint realized he knew the man from Nick’s funeral but wasn’t certain of his name. He considered changing seats, but his other options were worse—putting him next to a woman with overpowering perfume or a hairy-armed man who seemed possessive of the joint armrest. He could later claim IBI strategy if he learned anything, but this was more about surviving the next two hours. “I’m Clint.”
“William Abbot.” The man opened his tablet and rested it on his tray table. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to catch up on work on the way. My business partner was murdered a month ago, so I’m handling what used to be both of our positions. It’s been a rough transition, to say the least.”
Clint nodded and started to say something, but he noticed Hairy Man scratching his ribs a few rows ahead of them. He could smell Perfume Bather behind them, and some poor soul was already coughing from being in closer proximity.
“I’ll be right back.” Clint stood and took a deep breath, exhaling once he was inside the restroom. He logged in to the plane’s wireless network to check if Josh or Debra had tried to reach him. Instead, he found a message from Nina Johnson to call her once he landed. He tried her number.
“That was fast,” Nina said. “Are you already in Raleigh?”
“Not yet,” Clint said. “I’m still on the plane. William Abbot and I are seat buddies, but I don’t believe he recognized me. What did you need to tell me?”
“One of my team members found something. We’ve assumed the shot came from the parking garage across the street from AMI’s headquarters—the angle and trajectory match. The security cameras appeared to have nothing, but everyone who viewed them watched the videos in real time—assuming any hit man would be human. Take a look at this, but watch it at ten times the normal speed.”
She sent a file, and Clint opened it. He found the speed setting and watched as something bobbed up and down across the parking garage’s ceiling. It reminded him of a giant spider, and he shuddered as the video repeated.
“Some sort of robot—rover?” Clint asked. He tried to zoom in, but the rover was in the shadows and blended with the surrounding steel and concrete. “Someone programmed this thing, rigged a gun to it, and just waited? How could they have known where Nick would be at any given time? How could it know?”
“If his medical implants were sending out a signal, they could have been tracked,” Nina replied. “Be careful, Clint. We haven’t connected this to Abbot, but he has the technical background. We’re looking at employees in AMI’s robotics division, too—anyone who could have benefited from Nick being out of the way.”
Someone knocked on the door and jiggled the handle.
“Is anyone in there?” a man asked. “Don’t mean to rush you, but this is urgent.”
“I have to go, Nina,” Clint said. “Thanks.”
As Clint returned to his seat, Abbot handed him a tablet. He had found Clint’s IBI profile.
“Would you like to split a cab, Agent Rossetti?”
Ecto
tech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina
“Once Debra leaves with the kids, we’ll move to the house,” Josh said. He pulled a curtain back and raised the blind. The sun was setting. “You can stay in the spare bedroom until Abbot is gone. If Clint gets here first, it would probably be safer for you to go with him.”
“Safer for me or you?” Nick asked, but he grinned at Josh’s reaction. “It’s like we’re kids again—playing spies or hide-and-seek. How are your mom and dad? I heard Jack took up golf?”
“Mom sometimes goes with him for the entertainment value,” Josh said but hesitated. “We can’t tell them about you. I think it would wreck them—Mom, especially.”
Nick sighed and picked up a small holographic display from Josh’s desk. It was playing short video clips from the previous Christmas, which Nick had missed spending with them due to a blizzard.
“I feel like a ghost, Josh. I was excited about being alive and seeing all of you again, but right now I’m just as scared as you are about what I am and how this happened.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Josh replied. “Did you take a look around the lab before you left it?”
“It wasn’t huge, but I was disoriented at the time—grabbed the clothes I’m wearing out of a locker and got out of there as fast as I could. I think I could lead the IBI back to the building, though.”
Debra’s vehicle pulled out of the driveway and went right towards the city. Nick reached for the lab’s front door, but Dakota jumped and knocked him off-balance. A bullet struck the door at Nick’s head-level and lodged into a support post, narrowly missing him and the dog. “What the—”
“Get behind the table!” Josh shouted. It had some metal plating at its base but was better than nothing. Josh kept a small pistol in his desk and ammo in a locked cabinet, but he doubted a sniper would get within range for them to be effective. He still grabbed both. “Does anybody else know you’re here?”
“Just your family and Clint. I didn’t broadcast it or anything.”
Josh loaded the gun and then grabbed his tablet. He ran a scan of the room that found that something in Nick’s body was sending out a digital signal. He targeted the program to the location and ran the scan again. “Actually, I think you did. You have a huge implant in your head.”
“What?” Nick asked in confusion. Dakota licked his face, and he sputtered and wiped his mouth. “Can you get it out?”
“I don’t believe it would be operable. I might be able to shut it down, though. Give me a minute.”
“Don’t have anything pending on my schedule,” Nick replied. “Can your tablet scan the surrounding area, too—maybe pick up who’s here?”
“I can try. The implant looks like older tech—older than me, anyway.”
“Got anything?” Nick asked after a minute.
“Just got your implant’s signal shut off,” Josh replied. “The bad news is that something is moving on the roof of my house.”
Raleigh-Durham International Airport
“Whatever that thing is, we didn’t make it,” William Abbot said as he watched the surveillance video from AMI’s parking garage. He handed Clint’s phone back as a taxi stopped for them. “The closest I’ve ever seen to it are the A-676 spider rovers—self-contained, solar powered, very slow moving. NASA replaced them with much smaller models that require less power, but there are a few still operational on the Moon and Mars.”
“Do you think someone could have stolen or rebuilt one—maybe even a prototype?” Clint asked. Abbot shrugged and put his suitcases in the taxi’s trunk. Clint added his briefcase. “Do you have any employees who may have been connected to the A-676 project?”
“Not unless they were children at the time,” Abbot said, but his expression sobered as they got into the backseat of the cab. “Nick’s father consulted for NASA at one point. Nick never mentioned it to me, but I read it in the biography. Maybe there’s a connection through him.”
“Where to?” the driver asked. Clint gave her the street address. “Ectotech—busy place lately. Are you buying one of their suits?”
“Potential investor,” Abbot said. Clint gave him a skeptical look. “The moment Josh and Debra have Nick’s stock, dozens of other people will be calling every other minute. I’m trying to do the right thing and keep AMI intact as best as I can.”
Clint’s phone rang, and he answered. “We’re about fifteen minutes away. William Abbot is with me in the taxi.”
“Something is shooting at us.” Josh was loud enough for both Abbot and the taxi driver to hear. The driver slowed the car and pulled over. “It’s on the roof of my house.”
“Does it look like this?” Clint asked, and he sent a copy of the video. “Watch it in high speed. This is what killed Nick. It’s some sort of—”
“It’s an A-676,” Josh interrupted. “Nick and I had smaller models when we were kids. The impound company gave them to Dad from Dr. Mathis’s truck.”
He stopped talking. Clint and Abbot exchanged glances.
“Josh, are you still there?” Clint asked.
“I think I know how to disable it, but stay away until I do. I’ll call you back and let you know if it worked or not.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Clint said, but Josh didn’t respond. “If you’re still there, I’m calling for backup.”
Ectotech Labs * Outside Raleigh, North Carolina
“Stay here.” Josh stood and walked toward the door. “Its programming shouldn’t be any different from the small-scale model we had. If I put it into recharge mode, it won’t be able to move or target anything.”
“Why don’t you just wait until Clint gets here?” Nick asked. Josh opened the door and sidestepped out of the way. Nothing happened. “If this thing can’t track my implant, it could switch to some other means—movement, body heat, my last known location—”
“We have neighbors with small children, and I don’t want to risk it leaving the area,” Josh replied. Dakota bolted out the door, and Josh whistled for him to come back. They heard a shot, and the dog whimpered and fell. “No, no, no, no…”
Without thinking, Josh started to run out the door. Nick grabbed him by his t-shirt and jerked him back inside. Out of reflex, Josh punched him but then stopped. Nick’s lip was bleeding red, not silver like the other clones Josh had seen. Nick took a step back.
“Turn my implant back on first.” He grabbed Josh’s tablet off the floor and handed it to him. “I’ll keep it distracted for as long as I can. You go help Dakota and tell Clint what’s happening. Don’t argue.”
Josh nodded and handed Nick his headset. “The moment we have it disabled, I’ll call you.”
Nick nodded. “Be careful, Josh. You have Debra and the kids. I—”
“You have a brother,” Josh replied. “Thank you. I’ll hurry.”
Josh reactivated the implant’s signal, and Nick bolted out the back door. Josh tried to look for movement outside, but he wasn’t at a good angle.
Dakota was in the grass about ten yards away, still breathing but lying on his side. Josh ran, scooped him up, and then brought him back inside the lab. Dakota relaxed after a tranquilizer injection and allowed Josh to keep pressure on the entry and exit wounds. Josh used his tablet to call Clint.
“This thing is faster than the one in the video you sent me, and it just shot Dakota,” Josh said. He opened a panel to access the rover, but both it and Nick were out of range. “How far out is your backup? I need a ride.”
“Less than five minutes,” Clint replied. “I left William Abbot with the cab, but the Raleigh team just picked me up. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Nick’s clone ran, but he’s trying to help us. He has an implant in his brain, and the A-676 is tracking it.”
“It’s trying to kill him?” Clint asked. “Hey—I may have to call you back. We’ve stopped.”
Josh listened to the background noises, able to make out Clint’s voice but no one else’s. He’d gotten Dakota’s bleeding unde
r control. It didn’t look as if the bullet had penetrated any vital organs, but he would need stitches soon.
“I wish I could say it was done with more finesse, but the spider rover is down,” Clint said. He turned on his video feed so Josh could see it. The bot was in pieces, but three of its legs were intact and attempting to move. “The driver ahead of us saw it in the middle of the road and ran over it.”
“Wait—it was just stopped in the road—doing nothing?” Josh asked. He opened another line and tried calling his headset. It rang, but the clone didn’t answer. The video on Clint’s feed blurred, and several agents began talking at once. “It killed the clone, didn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Clint switched off the video feed. “One of the Raleigh guys just found him. I’m so sorry, Josh, but he’s gone.”
Outside Raleigh, North Carolina * March 2114
“He was this tiny little boy—hair sticking up, pajamas above his ankles and wrists like he’d just had a growth spurt,” Mrs. McFerrin said as she and Josh walked to what was now Nick’s second grave. “I wanted to hold him and tell him everything would be okay, but I knew that was something I couldn’t promise. David Mathis had died on the way to the hospital, and I was standing in a house with a century’s worth of cloning research and a child who didn’t understand. I had to make a choice—your father and I both did.”
“You knew what Dr. Mathis had done—that Nick was some sort of accidental clone—and you covered it up?” Josh asked in disbelief. “Mom—”
“All your father and I could think about was, what if it was you?” she replied. “As parents, would we have wanted you treated like some test subject instead of a human being? Nick was a child with as much potential as anyone, and he deserved a chance. I wish we had known enough to warn him—protect him—but I’ll never regret having him in our lives. Do you?”