by J. W. Elliot
Willow came off her stool, hands raised, hot fury burning her face.
“Okay.” Birch stepped in between them. “You two aren’t going to agree on this.”
Willow wanted to push past Birch and start yelling. How could Jade be so dismissive of another person’s suffering?
“Why are you here, then?” Kaiden asked Jade.
Willow backed away from Birch and Jade, surprised that Kaiden had come to her defense. But she didn’t sit down. The fury inside her made her legs tremble. She clenched her fists.
Jade bowed her head. “I’m not opposed to cloning, and I think it might have some value,” she said. “Why not try it? But I do disagree with the lies, the secrecy, and the murder. I’ve been on too many missions where we assassinated people whose only crime was disagreeing with cloning. Why are we being terrorists and assassins? What is TAP hiding?”
“Is that enough for you to risk your life?” Kaiden asked. “Because, if it isn’t, you need to leave now and never mention this to anyone.”
Willow gave Kaiden an approving nod as Jade considered him. Willow half-hoped Jade would get up and leave. She didn’t like the way Kaiden looked at Jade, and she didn’t like the arrogant disdain that Jade seemed to have for her.
“Is it enough to resist a regime that murders helpless kids and assassinates political opponents?” Jade said. “Yeah. For me, that’s enough. I don’t have to disagree with cloning, but I can disagree with the methods they use.”
“Good,” Kaiden said.
“In that case,” Willow cut in, still annoyed with Jade, “you should know that we were all carefully selected because we had an aptitude or skill that TAP needed. We weren’t rescued from orphanages or airship crashes. We were kidnapped from our families and homes, and our DNA and memories were stolen.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Birch said. “Why go through all the trouble of cloning when they could just make us do what they want anyway?”
Willow gave her a sad smile and sat back down on her stool. “Because we are test subjects,” she said, “just like those clones up on the moon. TAP is perfecting its techniques and processes.”
“How do you know this?” Jade asked.
Willow hesitated. Did she dare tell them? How would they react? She swallowed. “Because I help run some of the tests,” she said.
“Whoa,” Kaiden said, coming to his feet. “You never told me this.”
“Yes, I did. I told you Cognitive Redesign was my specialty. Why do you think I was sent to monitor the clones you picked up at the lunar base?”
“But I didn’t realize you were running the tests on us.”
Birch glanced at Kaiden in annoyance and waved a hand at him. “Let her explain,” she said. “So, what happens when the tests are done? Is that why everyone gets reassigned or promoted on their twentieth birthday?” Birch watched Willow with an air someone who already suspected the answer.
“We die,” Willow said.
Birch lunged to her feet. “Just like that?”
“Yep. That’s the promotion.”
Jade cursed softly, and Kaiden looked like he might be sick. Willow guessed he was thinking of Quill.
“Wait a minute,” Kaiden said. “I’ve been to dozens of promotion parties, and I’ve read the letters with the new assignments. I even exchanged emails with some of them.”
“No, you didn’t,” Willow said. “The system monitors your messages and uses the information it contains about each clone to fabricate the messages. It’s all just an algorithm.”
“But why kill us at age twenty?” Kaiden asked. “I mean if they kill us that young, they only get six or seven years of work and testing out of us. Wouldn’t it be better to let us live for fifty or sixty years?”
“They’re on a different timeline,” Willow said. “A study that took fifty or sixty years to complete would have a hard time acquiring financing. The people who pay us want results—now.”
“Wait,” Birch said. “I still don’t have a clear view of the overall system. If we die at twenty, they have to wait thirteen years before they can start again.”
Willow sighed. This was proving more difficult to explain than she had expected. “You’ve got it all wrong,” she said. “Look. We were all harvested at different ages. Some folks might have been older or younger than we were. TAP seeks out the most gifted and targets them. If they can be persuaded to join TAP as naturals, they’ll be brought in and then cloned when they get older and nearing the end of their productivity. Others, like me, who refused to join, were kidnapped and murdered.”
“You don’t have to kill someone to clone them,” Jade said.
“No,” Willow replied, “you don’t. But people like me who would resist could be a liability. But to finish answering Birch’s questions, as soon as they have you, they begin the cloning process. By the time your clone dies at age twenty, another clone is ready. They perform a Synaptic Download to recover what you learned in the new clone edition for future study, modify the memory files, and re-upload them into the new clone. Always saving a copy.”
“But I’ve been in the nursery,” Birch said. “There’s no clone of me in there.”
“There wouldn’t be for precisely that reason. Your clone is being grown and raised at a different TAP center.”
“Sounds like a lot of trouble,” Jade said. “Wouldn’t it be easier just to pay volunteers to collect their DNA and their memories?”
If they only knew, Willow thought. “It’s crucial to the TAP program that no one knows what’s happening, or the program would be shut down since it’s completely illegal. They especially don’t want us knowing what’s happening,” she said. “If everyone knew they were just going to be killed, TAP would have a permanent rebellion on their hands. Even clones don’t want to die.”
“They can just discipline us to control us,” Jade said. Her expression became dark. Willow understood. They had all been disciplined at least once.
“How does the discipline work?” Kaiden asked.
“All I know,” Willow said, “is that part of our brain has been genetically modified with the genes of an algae that cause it to be reactive to light. Somehow, they expose that part of the brain to light, which causes it to respond in the way it has been conditioned. For us, that means we experience intense pain and fear.”
“Yeah. We all know that,” Birch said.
“This changes everything,” Kaiden said and flopped down onto a stool again.
“Why?” Jade asked. She hadn’t shifted from her stool.
“Because I have less than six months before I get promoted.” He raised his fingers in air quotes.
Birch elbowed Kaiden. “I’ve got six months longer than you,” she said with a wink. “I’ll give you a nice promotion party.”
“That’s right,” Willow said. “The test ends at age twenty. Our memories are downloaded again and uploaded into another clone body that has already been prepared.”
“So, we never get to die?” Jade asked.
“Oh, we die,” Willow said. “And then we die again and again and again until TAP is finished with our DNA or no longer needs our memories to be active in a clone body.”
Birch stared at her. “How many times have you died?”
“Four,” Willow said. The memories of those experiences were bitter, and she struggled not to think of them.
Kaiden swore under his breath.
“They didn’t clone me until they kidnapped me,” Willow continued,” so they had to wait thirteen years before I could be uploaded into a new clone because they hadn’t started the accelerated growth program yet. I’ve been promoted every seven years since then.”
Willow could see them all doing the math in their heads. “Forty years,” she said to help them. “It’s been forty years since I was kidnapped and harvested.”
“So your brain is sixty years old?” Birch said.
“Uh, no,” Willow said. “It’s only nineteen years old, but I have almost sixty years’ worth of memories.”
“Didn’t you ever try to escape?” Birch asked.
“I did. Twice, and I was recaptured each time.”
“Wait a minute,” Kaiden said. He lunged to his feet. “That means there’s another Quill out there?” Hope blossomed on Kaiden’s face like a little boy expecting a present.
Willow hated to dash it for him, but she didn’t want Kaiden galloping off searching for another Quill clone. It would be a waste of time. That Quill wouldn’t even know him.
“Probably,” Willow said, “but you’ll never see him again. TAP is careful about that sort of thing. And, even if you did, he wouldn’t have memories of you anyway.”
“But you can make one,” he said. “If you know how to upload his old files. We just have to find out where his other clone is right now.”
“It’s not that easy,” Willow said.
“Why not?” Kaiden demanded.
Willow studied Kaiden. His desperation to have his friend back was making it so he couldn’t think straight.
“I tried to see if they made any new memory files before he died, but I couldn’t find anything. He probably died too quickly, which means he wouldn’t have any memories of you. Besides, I don’t have any of his DNA or the resources to use it if I did.”
Kaiden frowned. “But you said you have memories of your other clone lives.”
“I do,” Willow replied, “because before I die, I secretly perform a synaptic sync, so the new knowledge and experiences I have acquired are preserved. And, as I told you before, my brain doesn’t accept the overwritten memories.”
“What if they upload an older version of your files,” Jade asked.
“That’s a possibility,” Willow said, “but I update all the files on the central server.”
“So, we’re nothing but lab rats,” Birch said, “being bred in the name of science?” She stalked over and leaned against the door jam.
“That’s what Casey called the clones at the lunar station when we picked them up,” Kaiden said.
Willow said nothing. If they didn’t understand now, they never would. And even if they did understand, they would probably never forgive her for what she planned to do or for what she had already done. But it had to be done. There was no other way. She couldn’t fail this time. Something big was coming, and she would not get another chance.
Chapter Eleven
Tattoo
Jade slipped into the Genesis Room. The lights were low, and the motherless wombs glowed an eerie green color. Infants wriggled and kicked in the transparent membrane sacks. Tubes flowing with red liquid that must have been blood stretched to a long row of dialysis machines with blinking red lights.
The tubes carried in nutrients and oxygen and carried away the waste to be removed in the dialysis machines. Row after row of the motherless wombs filled the vast space. There must have been two or three thousand at least, and they were all in different stages of development.
Jade checked the cameras’ positions and peeked in to make sure no one was about. Then she strode into the shadows of the line of dialysis machines where the cameras would not be able to see her. It was best that no one knew she came here. It had become a sanctuary for her on restless nights when she couldn’t sleep.
She slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the little DWJ that Birch had given her just to make sure it was still there and running. She had clicked it on when she left her room. It was partly their discussion with Willow and Kaiden that troubled her. She desperately wanted to do the right thing, but how did one know what that was? By what criteria did one measure it? Though she knew TAP had bigger plans, she hadn’t been surprised to learn that she was a clone. She’d figured that out years ago, which led her to discover the Genesis Room. All of the missions she had undertaken were supposed to be about protecting clones like herself from extermination.
The quiet purr of electric motors covered any noises her boots made on the tiled floor. A caretaker was taking a reading at one of the machines, and Jade flattened herself against the warm dialysis unit until she finished and moved on.
Only two caretakers would be on staff this late at night. It was the best time to come. Jade found him swimming in a motherless womb about halfway down aisle seven. The plaque at the base of the glass bubble had a number and a strange triangular shape. Jade had seen ones like it on the necks of the other female clones in the common showers when she was training. She knew she had one and had heard that all TAP personnel had been tattooed with these triangles, but she didn’t know what it meant.
A number. That’s all this baby boy was to TAP. But he had nut-brown skin like her own and was developing a nice mop of black hair. It was plain to see that he was a Native American like her. She was sure of it. Cloning itself wasn’t the problem for her. It was this—a child cut off from his ancestors and from the land that should have nurtured him—the way she had been cut off from her grandfather and the land her people once occupied.
Scraps of memory and language were all that remained—that and the feel of her grandfather’s arms about her. The soft touch of his breath against her ear. “You are the last daughter of our people,” he said. “You must survive.”
Maybe Willow was right. Maybe this sense of aloneness, this lack of belonging, was the true-crime of TAP. Still, maybe cloning could bring her people back. Maybe it was the only way they could have a future. The baby’s hand waved in the water, and a lump rose in her throat. What was his name? Who were his people?
She raised her hand to rest it against the glass. It was warm. A longing to hold the child erupted into her chest, and she jerked her hand away. What was she doing? This didn’t help.
Her team had been her family in TAP, but after the last mission where they had been sent to eliminate an entire family, she had requested another transfer to a transport and security team, thinking she could protect better by guarding the clones used for the experiments, rather than murdering innocent people whose only crime was to disagree with cloning or some other TAP program.
Then, she found herself on the first mission sent to kidnap a senator, and she had witnessed Kaiden risking his life to save that child. That’s what TAP should be about, protecting and nurturing, not kidnapping. She had finally found a leader she could follow in TAP—someone she could respect.
The quiet slap of running boots on tile drew her attention, and she whirled around, swinging the rifle she always carried to the front. Caretakers didn’t run in the Genesis Room.
Jade crouched and shrank into the shadows just as a dark figure raced between the aisles of the motherless wombs. He slid to a stop beside a dialysis chamber and looked around expectantly. Jade slipped between the glass incubators, with their eerie green light, and circled around to get closer. This was an unusual place and time for a meeting—and certainly not a romantic one.
She peered around a dialysis machine, careful not to let the red blinking lights illuminate her form. A man, older than the average TAP employee, maybe in his late twenties, wore the engineers’ blue coat. A woman stepped from the shadows.
“I told you not to come here unless it was urgent,” she said.
“Kaiden knows about The Flood.” His voice was still breathless from his run.
“Shut up. I told you never to talk about that.”
The woman looked around and dragged the man closer to the dialysis machine. Jade tried to get a view of her face, but she couldn’t.
“He’ll have to be neutralized,” she said.
Jade’s pulse quickened. Someone was spying on Kaiden and was conspiring to kill him. She raised her rifle to nestle it against her shoulder. She couldn’t let them leave here if they intended to murder Kaiden. It was her job to protect him
. She sighted on the man through the scope.
“I’ll contact the asset,” the man said.
Jade squeezed the trigger once and swung to squeeze it a second time. Two shots rang out in rapid succession. Two bodies fell. She straightened and strode out from her hiding place to peer down at their still-quivering forms. The male was a young communications officer, but the woman was an older black woman—much older than most people who worked at TAP. The woman wasn’t dead yet, but Jade didn’t have the stomach to shoot her again. She would die soon enough. Jade never liked the sight of dead bodies or the act of killing. It always seemed like a failure. Her job was to protect, but to protect, sometimes you had to kill. It was one of the awful realities of life.
“I’m sorry,” she said and strode from the Genesis Room, being careful to walk in the dead zones where the cameras would not pick up her movement. Kaiden needed to know he was compromised.
“Kaiden. Get down here!” Willow’s voice burst from Kaiden’s wrist terminal.
He jerked upright in bed. “What?”
“Get down here, now.”
Kaiden glanced at the clock. It was barely four in the morning. He’d only been in bed a few hours.
“Why? What’s going on?”
“Just come now!”
Kaiden slipped the DWJ into the pocket of his pajamas and clicked it on as he headed out the door in his bare feet. He found Willow sitting at her desk with a holographic image shimmering before her. The bright lab lights shone in her hair. The little brown freckles on her nose were striking against her pale white skin
“What?” Kaiden said.
Willow glanced at him and then took a double-take.
“You came in your pajamas?”
He glanced down at his T-shirt and baggy blue and white striped pajamas. “You said now,” he said. “So, I came now. What did you want me to do, put on my formal uniform?”
Willow wrinkled her nose. “Clothes would have been nice.”