Prototype

by M. D. Waters

  Sonya’s eyes narrow at him. “She knows the way.”

  There is no need for words as he lengthens his spine and rolls his shoulders back. The tide of his reaction is a silent, encompassing fog. Sonya folds her arms across her chest, completely unaffected. She cocks her head pointedly at him, then looks directly at me.

  Dr. Malcolm clears his throat, his bright, friendly smile faltering. He bounces on his toes and lets loose a stiff chuckle. He leans toward the middle of our perimeter and singsongs, “Awk-ward.”

  I have to get out of here. Tentatively, I face Noah. “Will you let me know if you figure out what happened to Ruby?”

  He starts to nod, but Sonya releases a derisive laugh and rolls her eyes. “As if you care,” she mutters under her breath.

  Heat swirls in my face and chest. Swiping the palm tablet from Dr. Malcolm’s pocket, I place it in his startled hands. “Take this note down. Clones run on the same human emotion as everyone else.” To Sonya, I add, “Ruby was my friend. Not even you can take that from me.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Today’s top story has shocked the world,” the newsman says from behind his large desk. Behind him in the floating holo-vid is a picture of Ruby. She laughs at the camera, the gold flecks in her eyes sparkling. Her long curls are folded into a loose braid over one shoulder. “Ruby Godfrey, the Original Clone, was declared dead this afternoon. No word yet on the cause of death, but Declan Burke is expected to make a statement later today.”

  • • •

  I lie on a holographic beach, eyes closed to a sun, desperate for the surrounding solitude to take me away from recent events. But my heart hurts for Ruby and her child. I wish it hurt for Charles, too, but I know better than to believe him a grieving husband. Even if I had not seen his reaction with my own eyes, I know he did not value his wife the way he should have.

  I am also bothered by Charles’s words. They meant nothing to me until Noah pointed them out. One sentence in particular: I know what was happening to her. What could have been happening to her that would make him automatically believe her death was caused by a defect in the cloning process?

  Dr. Travista’s image fills my mind. I can see his office, with heavy books and nice woods and warm red colors. How he faced me in his chair, saying, You’re perfect, with a considerable amount of pride in his tone. Little did I know at the time what he truly meant by this: a perfect re-creation with endless possibilities. More than he bargained for.

  A cold shiver forces me to a sitting position. I blink at the holographic waves that a high tide has brought closer. The water recedes from under my feet and leaves behind white foam bubbles that sizzle and burst. A gray pebble gleams wetly under the sunshine, half-buried in the compact sand. Not unlike me, both free and captive in a place seemingly peaceful. But even a tide can drag a person down and steal her last breath.

  What sort of tide took Ruby? Charles? Or is he right about her body failing her? Will mine fail, too?

  You’re perfect, Dr. Travista’s voice tells me.

  Am I? Are any of us?

  I do not know, but I feel the need to see Ruby again.

  A seagull struts through the computer tablet beside me just as I reach for it. I wake the screen to the long list of holograms. I noticed earlier they are merely a single file in the larger network. I tap out of the screen and take a few wrong turns inside the network but eventually find myself staring at a list of names. At the top, Burke Enterprises. I tap into the file and then into the lobby feed.

  Because the tablet is set to holographic mode, the entire room transforms into the same lobby I watched from the command center a few hours ago. I stand in my surprise and jump when a tall, lanky man walks right through me to get to the security desk. I know I am not really in the room and that no one can see me, but it feels as though this is real. I even catch myself watching doorways for Declan to arrive and catch me.

  I let my heartbeat settle before turning the tablet to voice command. “Computer, play current footage from marker thirteen hundred hours, sixteen minutes.”

  The live feed pauses and, in only a second, resets the room to the time I requested. The lobby is brighter than it had been in real time due to the time difference. The abrupt cacophony of voices startles me. Charles is yelling at Declan again.

  “Mute sound.”

  The abrupt silence leaves me with a ringing in my ears and the hollow sound of my breathing. I walk around the projected men, heart pounding, and pause in front of my ex. He glares over my head. I had forgotten how much taller he is. I lay my hands on his chest, then let them fall through his image with a silent curse. After all this time, and after all he has done, I cannot stop myself from falling into familiar patterns.

  Ruby’s body appears under my feet. Arm lying across her chest. One leg bent awkwardly under her. “Computer, pause footage.”

  I step back and kneel beside her. Wide eyes stare up at me. I once loved their light brown color with flecks of gold and green, but the life in them is gone now. She looks otherwise peaceful despite being dragged and tossed and talked about as if she were a dysfunctional product. She looks human.

  I wish I could hold her the way someone should hold her. With care. With love. I wish I could give her a proper good-bye. I wish I could shield her from the ogling men in the room. But it is far too late.

  “Computer, resume footage.” I stand and watch the feed continue. There is nothing to discover about Ruby’s death in this little bit of video. No clue as to what Charles Godfrey could have been referring to.

  What did he know?

  Declan lifts Ruby off the floor and passes her to Daxton. I am about to stop the video altogether, but Daxton passes Ruby to a security officer and I recall how he ignored Declan’s directive and ended up in a corner of the lobby on the phone.

  I find myself strangely drawn to this man, who cannot be much younger than I am. The unwavering compliant front he airs for Declan drops the second he turns his back. Before, Daxton was like the rest of them. The way he looked up to Declan, the eager-to-please employee. But now, with no one looking on but me, he releases the unadulterated abhorrence in his blue eyes and has my rapt attention.

  “Unmute sound,” I say, and a flood of clicking footsteps and the hum of conversation fill the room.

  Daxton tucks one hand deep in his pocket and lifts a phone to his ear while strolling to an empty part of the lobby. “Charles Godfrey just dropped his dead clone off in the lobby.”

  • • •

  Miles slides the gestural interface gloves on, his usual comical expression serious while he listens to me recount Daxton’s phone conversation. He brought us back to room GI4 once I explained I needed his help with another search.

  “Can you find out who he was talking to?” I ask after my long explanation.

  That perpetual smile finally breaks free, and he spreads his arms wide. “Of course, Wade. You came to the right place.” He pulls a blue stream of light from the clear table and assembles a group of computer windows in the air before him. The surrounding walls darken to a midnight-blue glow. “That is, of course, if he was talking to someone in our network.”

  “At the very least, trace the call. I want to know who he was talking to.”

  He pushes the floating windows to the outside of the perimeter, encasing us on the circular dais. “So bossy,” he says, but winks. “I dig it, though. It’s hot.”

  I rub my eyes. I had not meant to sound bossy, but I am still in shock over what I heard from Daxton’s side of the conversation.

  I stand near the table and out of the way to watch Miles work. With his arms raised and moving, lines of muscle flex from biceps to wrist. Even his shoulders, hidden under a black T-shirt, contract with every move. It occurs to me that if not for the messed-up nature of my life lately, I might have pursued Miles. Or at least allowed him to pursue me. He is tall, thi
n but sinuously carved in muscle, and funny. He is also more than boyishly cute. He is handsome in a way I doubt any woman could help but admire.

  “Did I really dislike you before?” I ask him.

  He glances at me, and there is amusement rather than surprise on his face at my odd question. “Without a doubt.” His hands resume their search through the windows. “We dated a really long time ago. We were barely nineteen and I had too much energy to settle into one relationship.”

  “By ‘too much energy’ I assume you mean you cheated.”

  A grin peels across his face as he jabs a finger at a window. “And like the bastard I was, didn’t even regret it. For what it’s worth, I do now.” He looks at me and jerks his head at the screen in front of him. “Come take a look. I think I found something.”

  I move up and settle beside him. He smells nice. Spicy. He taps into a few more screens until the outer area of Declan’s office appears in the window to my left. The walls are silver with thick and thin black lines weaving around one another, designed to look like a computer chip. A young, sandy-haired man sits behind a mahogany desk, feet kicked up and crossed.

  I gasp. “He called Declan’s assistant?”

  With a brief nod and eyes narrowly focused, Miles pauses the feed. He sets to work inputting instructions on a second window. A moment later, the lobby of Burke Enterprises appears. He lines up the times to match and hits play on both feeds.

  The phone beeps in the office and Armand lifts it free of its cradle. “Declan Burke’s office,” he says in a chipper, professional tone that belies his laid-back posture.

  I look at Daxton, one hand tucked in a pocket as he repeats the side I already heard. “Charles Godfrey just dropped his dead clone off in the lobby.”

  Armand drops his feet to the floor. “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. Crazy bastard probably dosed her up. He’s blaming Burke. Threatened to take the company in a lawsuit. Anyway, we can use this to our advantage. Get ahead of the story in the media.”

  “Agreed. I can make an anonymous call to the Times. Imagine the press Burke will get if the world thinks his missing wife—”

  Daxton, glancing furtively around the lobby, cuts in. “As much as I’d love to put this on her, Burke won’t stop until he figures out it was you, then, by extension, me. No, we start by putting this on the resistance. Once that news settles, we’ll find a way to leak a connection between Emma Burke and Ruby Godfrey. The press will eat that up.

  “Lastly, we’ll reveal who the real Original Clone is. How Burke’s been misleading not only the world but three-quarters of his board and tainting his father’s legacy. When all is said and done, the world will know what Emma Burke really is, and who she was. Resistance.”

  Armand is nodding, a slow smile spreading across his face. “Brilliant. I’ll make the call to the Times. By morning, the world will think the resistance was behind the clone’s death. Will I see you later?”

  “Computer, pause feed.” I nod at the frozen men in the room. “What do we know about these guys? Anything useful?”

  Miles drifts close to Armand’s hologram window with his arms crossed. “Obviously, you already know this guy. Nothing much more to say about him other than he likes to be in the know of every single detail. Sneaky bastard. Gets in where he can, how he can, and nobody’s the wiser.”

  He faces the lobby and Daxton. “This guy . . . nothing. His parents, on the other hand . . . are confidential.”

  I am impressed he even knows what the word means. “Confidential meaning you are suddenly opposed to abusing privileges, or confidential meaning you will tell me anyway?”

  He snorts a laugh. “Lower the eyebrow, Wade. I’m getting to it.” He swipes a third window closer to him and taps until two personnel files appear. With a sweep of his arms, all other screens slide out of the way. “Meet Evan and Charissa Thomas.”

  I briefly met the Thomases at my gallery show last year. They, along with other members of the board, made me feel as if I were under a microscope. Now I understand why. A few of them knew me to be ex-resistance, as well as being the first successful clone. They were waiting for Declan’s pet project to turn traitor. Based on things I heard, I believe Evan Thomas is one of the few who knew everything about me.

  While the pictures show younger versions of the couple I met, the names on their files actually say Victoria and Ryan Owens. In the photos, they wear military-issue black. She has a heart-shaped face, soft pink lips, and sleek, dark brown hair. His dark hair lies in soft waves, and gray fans around his temple. His eyes are a beautiful shade of blue.

  “I do not understand,” I say, facing Miles.

  “Neither did anyone else.” He shrugs. “Or so I hear. We were barely out of diapers when they turned on at least four resistance cells. They’re why those of us low in rank never know the locations of the other hubs.”

  “They were double agents?”

  He nods. “Lived as loyal members of the resistance for roughly five years. Then things got hot, so they turned over what they knew, and Mr. Thomas got himself a sizable handful of shares in Burke Enterprises. Later, he was appointed to the board and promoted to chief financial officer.

  “Mrs. Thomas became the typical American wife. Handed their daughter, Olivia, over to a WTC without so much as a parting tear. She stayed at home to raise their son into the devious little snot you see today.”

  A sour tang fills my mouth. “They did that to their own daughter?” I cannot imagine doing this to Adrienne, and I have spent only a handful of hours with her.

  “I’d love to say it was hard on them, but the Thomases sold out entire families for shares in a company bent on owning the world. The children who survived were either distributed out to WTCs or adoptive families.”

  The idea of someone living among us, planning this very same thing, makes me want to run down the hall, snatch up my daughter, and steal my husband away from his responsibilities. I would take my family to Mexico and live out the rest of my days. But my family looks to Sonya in my stead. She is the mother and, maybe someday, the wife. The only family I have is a mystery. Captured and imprisoned—

  “Oh my God,” I whisper. My lungs struggle to maintain a consistent airflow while my head wraps around a sudden realization. “The four cells. This happened around the time my parents were imprisoned for being resistance. Is it possible they were caught in these raids?”

  Miles seems to look past me; then his eyes begin to widen. “Holy shit, Wade, you’re right. You may have just figured out where to find your parents.”

  CHAPTER 17

  From an open doorway, the old man nods at a reporter, who must stand to the side of the camera filming his impromptu interview. “I saw it happen, you see. She was on her way out to tend the garden, same as every day. I’m minding my business on my back porch, reading the Times, same as every day. One minute she’s humming and walking; next she’s standing there, still as stone. Then she just collapses. Thought she passed out, you see. I called out to her, of course. She didn’t answer, so I went to check, but she was dead, you see. Just like that. Dead.”

  • • •

  Leigh sets a bowl of yogurt on my breakfast tray, then retrieves her own and continues down the stainless row. “Latest out of BE is that we poisoned Ruby Godfrey,” she says over her shoulder, just loud enough for me to hear over the hum of conversation and scrape of silverware filling the dining hall. “One day I’m going to stop being surprised when they blame us.”

  Poison. I cannot help but wonder if that part is true, and if not by us, then by whom? Charles?

  I pick up a small bowl of granola. All down the row, person after person reaches under the buffet glass for one thing or another. The aromas of cooked meat and saccharine confections fill the air.

  “Do you think she was really poisoned?” I ask, claiming a container of appl
e juice from amid a sea of beverages.

  “No. It was probably the best they could come up with on short notice after the neighbor talked last night.” Her long ponytail swings forward as she lifts a plate stacked with pancakes and a side of syrup from the stainless warming table. “If it wasn’t poison, it would have been any number of things. Strangulation. Snapped neck. Lethal injection.”

  And even if this liability had not been the first stage of Daxton’s plan, Declan would have made similar accusations. The only difference being he would have spun the lie in a fashion aimed at getting me back.

  I slide my tray off the shelf. “Any word on what really happened?”

  Leigh turns with me and we head toward a table where Foster and Miles sit with full plates. “No. Her body went straight to Dr. Travista, and no one’s said a word about it since. Nothing of any use, anyway.”

  When we are settled beside the boys, Foster says, “Miles was just telling me about last night.”

  My appetite disappears in a deep pit as I exchange a look with Miles. We made it through two of the four cells before calling it a night. Needless to say, I went to bed with my hopes freshly trodden. “I am beginning to think this is a huge waste of time.”

  Miles shakes his head. “We have two more to look at, and if your parents don’t turn up there, there’s still plenty more to go through. No worries, Wade. If they’re there, I’ll find them.”

  I have no doubt about that, but the question is, will he find them in time? Declan will never give up the search for them as long as I am still in hiding.

  Leigh kicks me under the table and beams. “Now, slap a smile on. You haven’t had to get inside a single coffin yet.”

  I roll my eyes but laugh.

  Miles grins. “Exactly. We’ll head back over after breakfast. You only have me till noon, though.”

  I am beginning to nod when the light tap-tap-tap of running feet heads right for me, followed by a soft slap-slap-slap on my leg. Startled, I find Adrienne in the aisle beside me.