Prototype

by M. D. Waters

  He points at a box near the top of the table and looks at me. “Foster said you’d have a password. Ours”—he motions between himself and Leigh—“will access only local files. He said you’d need to do a broader search.”

  He slips on a pair of black gloves with a metal circle over the pad of each finger while I debate the pros and cons of his password request. I may like him, and I am anxious to get the search started, but I do not know him enough to trust him with Noah’s password. What was Foster thinking?

  “I do not have a password.”

  He smirks, sucks in a deep breath, and exchanges a quick glance with Leigh. “Okay. Let me put it to you this way: I can hack in to help you, but they can’t pin it on me if I don’t actually hack in.”

  Leigh folds her arms and chuckles. “You couldn’t hack a woman’s bra, let alone Tucker’s network security.”

  Miles straightens, obviously prepared to rise to the occasion. “Oh, I can. And I will. Which would you like me to prove first? Your bra or the network? Both with one hand tied behind my back?”

  “That will not be necessary.” I step up to the glass and type “Europa” on the surface keyboard, unwilling to let Miles risk getting into trouble because I am being too careful. Foster trusts him, so I will too.

  Miles settles back in at the keyboard. After more typing, he reaches toward the center of the glass with his right hand, and thin blue rays of light connect between the fingertip pads of his glove and the screen. He draws his hand up, pulling the images from the table. Five different computer windows hover in the air over the surface. The blue glow of the walls serving as a backdrop dims automatically.

  With his gloved fingertips, Miles slides the hovering boxes around. One tap enlarges one box. Two taps makes more windows appear. “God, I love these rooms,” he says, and stands back to look at his handiwork.

  Now the title “gestural interface” outside the room makes sense. “Why have all those computers in the command center when you have access to this?”

  “Nice, huh?” Miles says. “Only problem is it’s not meant for longtime use.”

  He swings an arm like he is throwing a lasso, and the windows barricade him in a circle. Leigh and I now stand on the outside of his holographic wall, where he spins and reads from the inside. Every word on the see-through screens appears backward to me. He pushes at the air with both arms, and the windows fly back and around the perimeter of the platform, putting Leigh and me on the inside.

  “Fun as it is, though, too much time with your arms above the heart will wear you out. We only use it when we need to access a lot of data at once.”

  Leigh laughs from behind me. “Well, for Miles, any excuse will do: work, pen pal correspondence . . . Porn from the twenty-first century.”

  “Hey. It really was the kinkiest era,” he says, then links his fingers and cracks his knuckles. “I’m all in. Now you tell me what you’re looking for.”

  I allow myself to feel hope for the first time in days. I could find my parents today. “I am looking for my birth parents, Lily and Stephen Wade. They were resistance and imprisoned when I was around four. They escaped not long after.”

  He nods and scans the open data windows hovering in the air. “Cool.” He acts as if I did not just hand him next to no information.

  “A man I met in Mexico said he knew a Lily Garrett in the southeast region. She is not necessarily my mother, but she is the only lead I have.”

  Miles fingers through windows. They spin in a tight circle until he taps one and they stop. “Okay, let’s find Lily Garrett, then.”

  Leigh taps the toe of her boot on the metal-grated floor over and over and over. When I cannot take the sound any longer, I say, “I did not realize that the resistance was split by regions. I thought they were one big group.”

  Leigh stops tapping and glances sidelong at me. “The resistance is one large hive made up of multiple cells. Each cell has its own lieutenant colonel in command.” She pauses to look at me from under the bridge of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “The hive has generals and colonels to oversee the lieutenant colonels and their regiments. Lieutenant Colonel Tucker commands our hub but reports to Colonel Nathan Updike, who commands the mid-Atlantic region.”

  “Here we go,” Miles says, and pulls forward a window, then uses his fingertips to widen the frame. “Southeast region.” On the hovering window, he scrolls through a list of names.

  I cross over to stand beside him as the names fly up the screen. “There must be a thousand names there,” I say, my stomach fluttering with nerves. Please find her.

  “But only one Lily Garrett,” he says. He sweeps his arms and shoves aside all the windows but one. He taps her name, which opens a new window.

  A holographic folder appears, and Miles fingers the image open as if it were real. He throws aside a picture of a blond woman about my age. Beside it, he tosses up a legal document. A death certificate.

  My throat tightens, and I have to blink away tears as I read the dates. Lily Garrett died before I was born, on a mission meant to bug the main office building of Caulder Consolidated in Savannah, Georgia. She was never my mother. I am at a dead end.

  Miles sweeps the hologram windows into a pile, balls them up in his fist, and throws them to the side, where they disappear. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say she isn’t your mother.”

  Blood rushes into my head and throbs at my temples. I clasp my hands behind my neck and close my eyes. I can just make out the white glow of the computer windows from behind my dark lids. “I laid in a casket with a corpse to find out the name of a woman who is no one to me.”

  “Listen to me.” Leigh’s assured tone snatches my attention. “If anyone can find them, it’s Miles. Believe that.”

  The door slides open before I can respond, and Foster leans inside. “Wade. Tucker asked me to grab you. Something big is going on at Burke Enterprises.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Nobody says a word when I follow Foster into the command center. Leigh and Miles follow close behind. It seems as if the entire room is standing to watch the wall at the far end. Twenty smaller screens are set as one large frame to view the lobby in Burke Enterprises. Surrounding screens show different angles of the same scene, one I cannot believe I am witnessing.

  Charles Godfrey.

  A very angry Charles Godfrey. I have been on the receiving end of his anger, and it was not a pleasant place. From the moment I met him, the man frightened me. Always glaring, impatient, and distrustful of my methods when dealing with his wife, Ruby. He assumed I was coaching her into playing dumb, when in fact, she was still learning how to be human. I had been the same way, only Declan had far more patience. My ex sat with me every day, teaching me new things until I became the loving wife he wanted.

  The memories of those early days brush over me like a frigid breeze. It is hard to believe there was ever a time the idea of Declan caring for me made me warm with love for him.

  Noah appears around the side of a nearby desk and shoulders through a grouping of men in front of me. He wears a light gray suit with a striped tie hanging loose at the neck. “Godfrey stormed in a few minutes ago,” he tells me, and glances up at the screen. “He’s demanding to see Burke and trying to force his way past security. They’ve been holding him back and waiting for Burke to arrive.”

  “Where’s Declan?” I ask.

  “Off grid.”

  Which means he is in an area they cannot monitor. He is probably with Dr. Travista plotting their next move against me.

  I look up at the screen. For the first time, I notice someone hanging limply in Charles’s hand, but it has to be a lie. It is too unreal. He clings to the upper arm of a thin blond woman. He holds her so tight his knuckles are white. Her free arm drags on the marble floor under her as he shifts around looking for a weak spot in the security line. The chin length, curling strands of he
r hair hang over her face, but I know who she is.

  “Ruby,” I whisper, and move deeper into the room for a better look. Tears burn the backs of my eyes. “She is not moving.” Move, Ruby. Please move. Whimper. Something.

  With each passing second, an invisible constraint around my chest tightens. I knew Charles Godfrey could not be trusted to care for her. And she knew no better. Like me, her mind had been wiped, only she never regained her memories because Dr. Travista murdered her host after he realized the tie binding the host body to the clone. The survival of my original body is the only reason I have the few memories I do.

  “Where’s Burke!” Charles yells at the line of security. The stocky man’s face is red. Thick veins snake across his temples and forehead.

  A young man pushes through the line, his soft-edged features impassive, but with piercing eyes focused on Charles. His dark-brown hair is short and teased in a way that makes him look like he just rolled out of bed. His dark beard is trimmed close to the skin and cut tight around the edges.

  Someone stops just behind and to the side of me. Noah’s soft musk wafts forward, and I do not have to look back to know it is him.

  “Who is he?” I ask.

  “Daxton Thomas. He’s an intern working with Burke. He’s also the son of Evan Thomas, the CFO who ran the business in Burke’s absence.”

  On-screen, Daxton snaps down the brown jacket of his three-piece suit, then holds up his hands to the man dragging his wife around the lobby. “Mr. Godfrey, I’m going to have to ask you to calm down. Mr. Burke isn’t in the building at the moment, but if I could get you to come wi—”

  “You tell that motherfucker he owes me a new wife! I paid a lot of money for her, and he gave me a faulty product!”

  I had hoped it was not true, but now there can be no question. Ruby is dead. Tears coat my eyes and I blink rapidly to force them back. I glance at Noah. “Do you know what happened to her?”

  He shakes his head, attention focused on the screen. Then he points and says, “There’s Burke.” He moves forward to the workstation in front of me and leans straight-armed on the desk between two analysts. “I want this recorded from all possible angles,” he orders.

  Declan’s security line steps aside to let him pass. I fight to keep from shrinking away from his screen presence: tall, demanding attention, the intensity in the sea of his eyes daring any man to cross him. His perfectly fitted three-piece black suit accentuates the broad line of his shoulders and the V shape of his torso. He stops and straightens his spine, expanding his chest.

  “You and Travista did this, didn’t you?” Charles asks. “Payback for my disagreement with your traitor wife.”

  I take immediate offense. Disagreement? He tried to beat the hell out of me for something I knew nothing about at the time.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere private?” Declan suggests. “That way you won’t be tempted to break any part of the nondisclosure agreement you signed. Let one of my men take the body off your hands and we’ll discuss your concerns—”

  “My concerns? Admit you and Travista sabotaged my wife. Admit you limited her life span to get back at me.”

  Declan’s nostrils flare. His fists clench and release. I watch with bated breath as he works to maintain control of his temper. Will he hit him? Throw him from the building? There is no telling how far he will go.

  Finally, he steps close to Charles and towers over him. “If I wanted to do something as childish as what you’re implying, I would have had Ruby disposed of the second you laid a hand on my wife.”

  His tone is cool and even. Underneath it, even I feel the warning that lies there. He is still angry over the attack. For a moment, I glow with pleasure. That is, until I remember that Declan is not my husband and what he is doing to me makes him certifiable.

  Charles grits his teeth. “You really are a stupid fuck. I know what was happening to her. You want to screw with me?” He drops Ruby’s limp body at Declan’s feet. Declan barely lowers his chin to acknowledge her. “You better hope you can salvage what’s left, or I’m taking you for everything you’ve got. This company and all its assets will be mine.”

  Noah starts shouting orders again. “Somebody find me Dr. Toro and Dr. Malcolm.”

  On-screen, Declan jostles Ruby up and off the floor. He hands her to Daxton, who sinks under the weight, grimaces, then rolls her into the arms of the nearest security officer.

  “Mr. Thomas,” Declan says to Daxton, keeping his gaze level on Charles. “Why don’t you show Mr. Godfrey to my office? I’m going to see Arthur. Let’s see what we can do to rectify this tragedy.”

  In other words, let us see if we can grow him a new wife by tomorrow. How very diplomatic.

  The security officer leaves with Ruby’s body. No one takes a second to look back, not even Charles Godfrey. I am alone in this grief.

  Sonya’s voice breaks through my thoughts. “What happened?”

  Noah turns from the desk and walks over to where the two doctors have stopped beside me. I have already taken an unconscious step away from them. Dr. Malcolm smiles up at me and waves but returns his attention to Noah the second he starts speaking.

  I do not listen to the recounting but instead look back at the screens. The interior of Burke Enterprises is slowly clearing out. Declan and Charles have already disappeared. The semicircular security desk is now visible, with its five officers manning the station.

  Someone resets the larger screen back to multiple small screens, but every video is set to watch the same scene from multiple angles. In one, Daxton Thomas stands off to the side with a phone pressed to his ear. He was supposed to be escorting Charles Godfrey upstairs, but it appears he has forced that job on someone else.

  “Emma?”

  Noah’s voice snaps me out of my trance. I blink and return my attention to the room, where he and the two doctors stare at me. “Yes?”

  “I asked if you remember what Godfrey said about Ruby just before threatening to take the company.”

  I think back to that moment and replay the conversation in my mind, then repeat it aloud. “He said, ‘You really are a stupid fuck. I know what was happening to her. You want to screw with me?’ Then he made the threat. Does that mean something to you?”

  Sonya does not let him respond. “If he knew something was going on, we could watch some of their home footage—”

  “There is none,” Noah says. “Godfrey declined the security months ago.”

  I feel the burn of a stare and find Dr. Malcolm gaping up at me. I flinch in surprise. “Is something the matter?”

  My question draws the others’ attention.

  Dr. Malcolm says, “You have an eidetic memory, don’t you?”

  “A what?”

  He busies himself with digging in a pocket, then the other, shifting quickly between them a few times before settling on one. “Total recall,” he says. “I bet if we look back, those were Mr. Godfrey’s exact words.” He pulls out a palm tablet and begins thumbing the tiny keyboard across the bottom.

  “Are you keeping notes about me?” I ask. After our talk this morning, I cannot believe he is so quick to take advantage. Maybe I should have been more specific. “Dr. Malcolm—”

  “Emma,” Sonya cuts in, hand raised to stop me, “he’s keeping a record of details that may help us.”

  Noah takes the computer from Dr. Malcolm, shoves the device back in the doctor’s coat pocket, and looks directly at Sonya. The muscles in his jaw flex. “We talked about this.” He looks at Dr. Malcolm. “And Emma has always been able to recall details perfectly, so this won’t help you in the slightest.”

  Dr. Malcolm’s eyes brighten and he bounces a few times on the balls of his feet. “But, you see, it does. Nobody knows the full extent of transference from host to duplicate. Are certain traits learned or genetic? Emma’s memories aren’t there, but it’s as if ev
erything else about her works on automatic. Muscle memory where there shouldn’t be because her new body is, well . . . new. She fights as if she’s done it her entire life. She handles weapons with above-average proficiency.” He grins at me and reaches out to pat my arm. “Nice job in that simulation, by the way.” He turns back to Noah in the span of an eyeblink. “If I’m right, she has complete sensory recall, which—”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Noah says, and I could not be more grateful. It is as if every word Dr. Malcolm uses siphons the air from my lungs. “I won’t ask you to respect Emma’s privacy again. Can you find out how Ruby Godfrey died or not?” he asks Sonya.

  “Not without access to her remains, but based on what Charles Godfrey suggested, it could be a defect. Not that we’ll get a chance to find out.” Her dark eyes focus on me. “It’s not like I have another clone to look at.”

  I stiffen and curl my fingers into fists. I cannot believe she is resorting to guilt tactics.

  Noah snaps his fingers in Sonya’s face to get her attention. “If Godfrey says he saw what was happening, you can watch Lydia Farris. The Farrises have security monitoring their property.”

  “I’d rather have Ruby’s body,” she says. Her clinical tone turns my stomach. Ruby was a human. A mother. My friend. “We have people with pull at the medical examiner’s office. If we intercept the transport—”

  “You will never see her,” I say. When they look at me, I add, “We are Dr. Travista’s children. He would never let Ruby end up in the hands of someone else. He brought her into this world, and he will control how she leaves it.” For this, at least, I am glad. I do not want Sonya using Ruby as she would use me or anyone else she came into contact with.

  Sonya looks skeptical. “There are procedures that have to be followed. Laws against—”

  “Laws that protect humans. You forget who you are dealing with.” My throat feels tight, and I cannot take how they look at me any longer. “Anyway. I should let you finish this discussion in private.”

  Noah releases a long sigh. “I’ll walk you out.”