“Yes, it was older than what people drive now. There was not even a seatbelt in it.”
“Really? Were you scared?”
Robbie shook his head and grinned. “No, it was fun.”
“Who was sitting next to you?”
“Mr. S.”
“And was he a nice instructor?” she asked.
“I guess, but he always sounded funny when he said things.”
“Like what? Can you remember something he said?”
Robbie made a funny face, rounding his lips and furrowing his brow. He lowered his voice and said, “Poot your foot on ze clutch.”
Kate laughed at his imitation. “Do you think he was from Europe?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. He said words I didn’t understand.”
“Like what?”
Dr. Dobbins spoke into Kate’s ear, “Repeat this to him: ‘Bonjour, au revoir, je te reverrai ce soir.’ ”
“What about things like ‘bonjour, au revoir...’ ” Kate had forgotten the rest of the sounds and Dr. Dobbins repeated the last part in her ear. “Or, ‘je te reverrai ce soir.’ ”
“Yeah, that sounds familiar,” Robbie said, nodding.
Dr. Dobbins chimed again, “Try this: Buenos días, adios, por favor.”
Kate repeated.
“No, no Spanish.”
She smiled. “You speak Spanish?”
“No,” Robbie said, “but sometimes I hear it on TV, so I’ve picked up a few words.”
Dr. Dobbins chimed in yet again, and Kate tried to repeat the sounds he’d made. “How about ‘Gooten Morgen. Vee gait es deer’?”
“No, I don’t know.”
The doctor’s voice spoke one more time, “That’s all I’ve got. Sounds like Mr. S is French.”
“Did Mr. S speak in the other language with Juliet or Mr. C?”
Robbie pondered before answering. “Sometimes. When he was angry or happy, but not for very long.”
“Did you ever hear Juliet or Mr. C speak in that same language back to him?”
Robbie tilted his head and thought for a second. “No, I don’t think so, but Mr. C. often spoke fast, and said words I didn’t know. One of the men who was here yesterday spoke a little like him.”
“Maybe Dr. Dobbins? He’s British. Is Mr. C British?”
“I don’t know. He just speaks differently.”
Dr. Dobbins interrupted. “Hold on. I’ve got mock-up accents on my computer. Maybe he can recognize one of them. If we can narrow it down, it would help.”
Kate smiled across the table. “Robbie, if I played some voices, would you be able to tell me if it sounds close to his accent or not?”
He lifted his shoulders. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I’ll run out and grab a computer.”
“Will you really be back this time?” Robbie asked desperately.
“Yes, I swear,” Kate promised. “I just need to get a computer. I’ll be right back.”
Kate locked eyes with him, smiled again, and then went into the observation room.
Dr. Dobbins called her over to his laptop. “I’ll show you how this works.” He opened up a browser window to the bl.uk website, then navigated to the sound directory for the United Kingdom. A map of the UK with tiny people appeared. “You can click on it, and it will play some audio recording of what people sound like.”
A new FBI agent Kate didn’t know interjected, “You got an iPhone?”
Kate nodded.
“Use Siri to demo some of the other accents he may have confused with the British accent, just to make sure the guy isn’t Australian before you waste your time narrowing down which UK accent he may have.”
“How do I do that?” Kate asked.
He pulled out his phone, went to the Settings screen, then General, then Siri.
“See,” the agent said, pointing at the screen. “You’ve got English (Australia), English (Canada), English (United Kingdom), and English (United States). Test out the Australian English. Once you’ve set up Siri’s language, ask your phone questions or ask Siri to tell you a joke, and you’ll hear the voice in a decent-enough accent.”
She turned on her iPhone and took the doctor’s laptop with her back in the interrogation room.
“Hey, Robbie. We’re gonna play a little game,” she said, placing the laptop on the table, and taking out her phone.
“My phone!” Robbie got up and reached across the table.
“No, that’s my phone,” Kate said, clenching it.
“Oh...” Robbie sat back down, disappointment painted on his face. “Where’s my phone then?”
“It’s probably in a bin with the rest of your belongings that they wouldn’t allow in your jail cell. Why?” she asked.
“There’s something about my phone.”
This piqued her interest. “What?”
“I don’t know, but they use it to send me messages.”
“They call you?”
“No. I don’t know how they tell me stuff. Maybe you can figure it out.”
Kate hoped the agents behind the glass were already on this, getting Robbie’s phone to examine it. “Do they track your whereabouts using your phone?”
“Maybe, but they can do more than that without the phone.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think they placed something inside my head.”
Dr. Dobbins chimed in her ear, “Does he mean brainwashing by placing thoughts in his head?”
Kate paraphrased the doctor’s question aloud for Robbie to answer.
He shrugged. “Yes, but they also placed a real thingy in my head.”
“A thingy?”
“I don’t know what it is, but it hurts sometimes.”
“Where is it?”
Robbie pointed to the back of his head, behind his left ear, but a little more toward the center of his head.
“What kind of ache is it?” Kate asked him.
“Sometimes it feels like a little ‘whoosh—whoosh—whoosh,’ ” he said, closing his fist, then spreading his fingers outward, and repeating the motion a few times.
“A throbbing pain?”
Robbie shrugged his shoulders again. “Maybe, if that’s what ‘throbbing’ means.”
“Does it last long?”
“It depends,” he said.
Agent Lack spoke in her ear again, “We’ll X-ray a dead clone and extract the device; we may have more questions later. His cellphone is on its way up. Maybe he can unlock it and show you how he uses it.”
Kate went with his lead. “Robbie, if I go and get your cellphone, will you show me how you use it?”
“Sure.”
Figuring out Mr. C’s dialect seemed less important now.
They used iPhones to control their clones? Maybe the app could be traced back to the makers and to the Colony. Then again, no way Apple would allow a dangerous app to be sold through the App Store. His phone was probably jail-broken so whoever was in charge of setting up their phones could install their own unapproved programs.
Kate grabbed the doctor’s laptop and her cellphone before going back into the observation room, where she overheard Lack on his phone, “Yes, email Mr. S’s sketch to the French’s Département de la sécurité territoriale. Use our contact there. Let me know as soon as you hear.”
Someone knocked on the door just as Lack hung up. He opened the door, took the bin of items an agent handed him, and then placed it on the table near the one-sided window, so everyone could see its contents: a jacket, a pen, some pocket change, a set of keys, a cellphone, a small crucifix medallion on a thin silver chain, and a wallet. Lack opened up the wallet and counted the money aloud. “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one hundred, one twenty, forty, five, six, seven. One hundred and forty-seven dollars plus a driver’s license.” Lack opened up a small zipped pocket and tilted the wallet on its side. “And seventy-five cents. No credit cards, no bank cards. No rewards or points cards of any sort. Where does he get his money from? Under his bed?”
“I’ll ask him. Can I get the phone?” Kate asked.
Lack picked it up and pressed the home screen button, but nothing happened. He pushed and held the power button to turn it on. An icon appeared, indicating the bootup process was underway. Then, an empty battery symbol appeared, and the phone went back to a black screen.
“Ah shit. Anyone have a charger for this phone?” Lack asked.
The new agent inspected the charging slot below the phone. “My charger should work. I’ll go and get it from my car.”
“Technology,” Lack said, shaking his head. He looked at Kate. “Go ahead and ask him about the money in the meantime. I’ll bring the phone in once we’ve got it charged up a bit.”
“Yes, sir.”
She went back to the interrogation room and apologized to Robbie for not having his phone with her just yet.
“We’re finding a charger right now. I’ll be able to give it back to you soon.” Kate paused for a second, trying to come up with a way to ask about money. “Robbie, you must buy food or eat in restaurants sometimes, right?”
He nodded.
“How do you make money to pay for things?”
He cocked his head at her. “I use the money in my wallet.”
“I realize that, but when it runs out, where do you go to get more money?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “From what I see, there’s always money in my wallet. I don’t know who refills it or how.”
Kate wanted to snicker at that comment, wishing she had that same problem. However, she stayed on course. “Do you always pay cash for things? Or do you have a credit card?”
“Always cash.”
Dr. Dobbins clicked in. “Ask him if he believes he has an alter-ego that takes over his body during the days when he doesn’t remember anything?”
Kate relayed the question.
“What do you mean?” Robbie asked her.
“Do you think there are two people inside of you, and only one gets to speak at a time?” she asked more clearly.
“Maybe.”
“Do you think the other person would know where you get your money?”
Robbie nodded while frowning. “Probably.”
“Could you make him talk to me?”
This time, Robbie shook his head. “You wouldn’t like him.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“He’s evil. He’s no good. He’s like Mr. C.”
“And you?”
“I just want to help. I didn’t want to kill that senator. I want this to stop.” His bottom lip began to quiver. “I want to see Juliet, and I want to be hugged. I miss her.” Robbie’s voice had cracked a little on his last few words; his eyes were now watery.
Kate walked around the table, lowered herself to his seated height, and hugged him. “It’s going to be all right, Robbie. It’s normal to miss the ones we love.”
Her therapist had used those same words to her many times, many years ago. Now she repeated them in hopes of helping someone else. “Cry if you want, it’s allowed.”
Robbie cocked his head toward Kate and stayed quiet in her embrace. His breathing went from a light staccato to a more relaxed and steadier flow. She knew that pattern well. She had cried silently so many times before.
Robbie pulled out of the hug and looked up at her, his eyes red, their faces just a few inches apart. “Do you think I’ll see Juliet again?”
“We’ll do our best to find her,” she said.
Kate’s legs were starting to go numb from the quasi-kneeling position she’d been holding. She stood up and returned to her chair. “When was the last time you saw her?”
“I don’t know. Maybe two years ago? Time goes by so fast.”
“Yes, it does,” she replied without thinking. Kate still couldn’t believe she’d just turned thirty-three or that she’d lost her parents and brother two decades ago already.
Lack popped his head through the door and called out to her. “Here’s the phone, it’s got forty percent power. That should be enough for him to show you how he uses it.”
“Thanks.”
Kate returned to her seat, beaming. “Hey, look at what I’ve got!” she said, bringing the device to Robbie.
“My phone!”
Kate stayed by him and watched as he touched the code to unlock the screen: 9-9-9-1.
A collection of apps appeared. Nothing too strange at first glance: weather, alarm, calendar, web browser, etc. Similar stuff to what she had on her own home screen.
“Are there apps you really like? Some that you use all the time?” she asked, trying to prompt him.
Kate listened to Robbie talk about the photos he took of squirrels in the park as well as the weather app. This side of his persona was so innocent. His dominant ego would probably have much different taste and use for the phone.
“May I see your phone for a second?” Kate asked.
“Sure, you want to look at my pictures?”
“I’d love to.”
Robbie handed her the phone, and Kate started the photo app. She scrolled through the pictures he had taken. He indeed liked squirrels in the park. And birds on branches, ducks on ponds, and other animals and plants. His photos were pretty good, too. After going back through dozens of wildlife pictures, an unflattering image of Senator Russell eating ribs with sauce dripping down his chin appeared. It wasn’t something that anyone could have grabbed from a press release or media kit. It was as though a paparazzo had taken it without permission. She flipped to the next picture and saw the Senator casually coming out of a small deli.
“What about this one, did you take it?”
Robbie glanced at the phone. “No, I don’t remember that.”
Kate left the photo app and returned to the main screen. She flipped through the rest of the phone, trying to see if anything stood out as abnormal.
“You don’t use social media?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I don’t know who I would connect with.”
“What about schoolmates?” she asked.
“I don’t know their names,” he said flatly.
“What do you mean? Didn’t you have a best friend at school?”
“Juliet was my best friend.”
“What about the other kids?”
“We don’t know anybody’s name. We’re given numbers. I was 212.”
Kate sat back in her seat for a second. “So you’d talk to 156 and say, ‘Hey 156, can you help me in the garden?’ ”
His face grew quite serious. “No, we weren’t allowed to talk to each other.”
Kate was confused. “Didn’t you say you had group training sessions?”
“Yes, but the only person talking would be Mr. C. All we did was listen and obey.”
“How did the instructors know which numbers you were?”
“Our robes. We used a marker and a stencil to write it on the front and back of our clothes.”
“Didn’t you say that you changed robes a lot? The robes must be covered with numbers?”
“No, the ink goes away when we wash them. We had to write our number on them all the time,” he explained.
“So does 212 mean that you were the 212th student at school?”
“Maybe. The younger ones had high numbers, in the thousands.”
“How young were they?”
“Well, it depends.”
“Roughly. How old did most of them look?” Kate asked.
“Time doesn’t work the same there as it does here,” Robbie explained as he laced his fingers together.
“What do you mean?”
“Children. Here, where we are now, they take a long time to grow up.”
“Of course, they don’t become adults until they turn eighteen, and that’s pretty much the same everywhere.”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Not there.”
Kate’s confusion and disbelief escalated fast. She kept quiet whi
le trying to make sense of it all.
Robbie continued. “We become adults before leaving the Colony.”
“You said training lasted six years,” Kate added.
“Yes.”
“And Juliet played Legos with you as a kid. Were you a twelve-year-old kid then?”
Robbie’s own frustration was apparently mounting. “No... Maybe... No.”
Kate leaned toward him over the table. “And you also said you met Juliet eight years ago... At the beginning of your training. You look like you’re in your thirties. I’m really confused, Robbie.”
He banged his head on the table a couple of times, then returned to his previous position, a frown on his face. “I know. People’s ages confuse me a lot.”
“Tell me what you remember,” Kate said softly.
He let out a long sigh. “When Juliet rocked me in her arms, I was probably about this high,” he said, his hand lower than the table. “We spent six years, so six summers, falls, winters, and springs at the Colony, training. When I did my final test, two years ago, I pretty much looked the way I look now, but with fewer lines on my face and a little more hair.”
Kate nodded again. “You aged faster than normal?”
“I think so.”
She let that new detail sink in before continuing.
That explains why the clones can catch up to the originals in age and appearance.
“Is everyone at the Colony the same?”
“Yes, all pupils grow up really fast there. But not Juliet, Mr. S, or Mr. C. They didn’t change quickly like we did.”
Kate sat back in her chair and stared at Robbie for a few seconds. He did have some graying hair around his temples. Tiny crow’s feet adorned the outside of his eyes. Was that all there yesterday?
No one prompted her to ask this, but she felt it was necessary to say, “Would you let us run a full medical test on you? Maybe we could figure out why you’re aging so fast?”
Robbie’s head bobbed up and down. “Sure, but I think we’re running out of time.”
“Out of time for what?”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I think they know.”
She leaned in some more. “Who are they?”
“Mr. C and Mr. S.”
“They know you’re here?”
“Yeah.”
“How would they know?”
The Last Hope Page 21