The Clone Paradox (The Ark Project, Book I)

by J. W. Elliot

  What was with this guy? Did he have a tracking device on her or a death wish? Jade slipped from hiding and scampered behind a looming dialysis machine and waited breathless while the thud of the boots faded into the distance. She let out a long sigh and stepped out from hiding to find Kaiden and Flint racing toward her.

  “That was awkward,” Flint said. “But I still want to know what’s going on.”

  “We’ll fill you in on the way back,” Kaiden said, “but you aren’t going to like it.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” Birch said as Kaiden and Jade filled in her and Willow on the night’s adventures. Flint had to report to early duty and couldn’t join them, but Kaiden and Jade had explained everything to him already. Kaiden wanted them all to understand the seriousness of their situation before he laid out his plans.

  “We’ve got a real problem now,” Willow said. “Whoever the woman was, she has probably already reported what happened.”

  “Which is why,” Kaiden said, “we’re going to have to work fast and plan on escaping if things go bad.”

  “I’ll work on that,” Birch said.

  “I may have another way if Birch’s idea doesn’t pan out,” Willow said.

  “Good,” Kaiden said. “I’ll want the details later, but for now, here’s what I want you to do.”

  He had lain awake long after returning to his quarters, figuring out how best to organize his team.

  “Jade,” he said. “On your off-time—”

  “Uh,” Birch interrupted. “We aren’t on suspension yet, in case you didn’t notice. We can’t sit around drinking and playing video games all day, like some people.”

  Kaiden smirked at her but continued. “Jade, I want you to check every hangar and search the cargo of every ship that comes or goes. Quill said there were strange shipments tied to this Flood thing. We need to find out what’s on board.”

  “I’ll get Colt to help me,” Jade said.

  “Who’s Colt?” he asked.

  “You’ve met him,” Birch said. “He’s the crazy one.”

  “Right,” Kaiden said. “I’m not sure we should bring anyone else in.”

  “He can be trusted,” Birch said.

  “TAP already knows I’m up to something,” Kaiden said. “The more people we bring in, the more opportunities for accidents.”

  “Stop sweating,” Jade said. “I got this.”

  Jade pushed her hair behind her ear in a way that sent a thrill up Kaiden’s spine. He didn’t know Jade well, but she had been brave and self-assured the night before, proving that he had made the right choice in selecting her for his new team. He found that he liked to look at her. She had a wild exotic look that stirred him. He cast a guilty glance at Willow. He had started to feel really connected to her, and it didn’t seem right that he should be attracted to anyone else. What a night, he thought.

  Kaiden turned to the other two. “Birch,” he said, “I need you to figure out where these stupid triangles we have tattooed on our backs came from, and, if you can play around with Quill’s cloaking device, we need to figure out how it works and if we can improve it.”

  “Quill was a genius,” she said. “Improving on his design is going to be tough. Maybe Flint will have some ideas.”

  “See what you can do,” Kaiden said.

  Flint had protested all the way back to their rooms after disposing of the body. He had pointed out that it wouldn’t stay hidden for long, and Kaiden was under no delusions that they would be able to remain at TAP much longer. Flint had agreed to secrecy and promised to help him. So Kaiden was fine with Birch working with him.

  “Willow, we need to know why these triangles are associated with our ID numbers, and we need more intel on the clone program. You’re our point man on the clones.”

  Willow raised her eyebrows. “Man?”

  Birch snickered.

  “It’s just an expression,” Kaiden said.

  “What are you going to do?” Jade asked.

  “I am going to play video games.” He winked at her.

  Birch clicked her tongue and smirked at him. “You gave us all the dangerous work so you can play video games?”

  “I never said the game wasn’t dangerous,” Kaiden said. “I’m going to find out what TAP is hiding from us. I’m hacking into TAP’s security system.”

  Willow waited until the others left before swiping to the holographic photo of a boy in blue jeans with soft brown hair. It had taken her years to recover this photo, and it meant more to her than anything she owned. Her memories of that last day with her brother were confused. Things had happened so fast. She had been giving a presentation on her research that did not go well. The scientists wanted to exploit her discoveries in unethical ways. Then, the glass walls had shattered, the guard was lying in a pool of blood, and her brother was dragging her from the room.

  The high-speed chase in the hovercraft had ended with her dangling from an open door as her brother stared at her with wide, frightened eyes, blood dripping from the wound on his head. Everything after that was black until she awoke in the antiseptic operating room.

  She shivered at the memory and swiped away from the picture. There was no time to get sentimental now that things were moving so quickly. Years ago, she had figured out how to isolate two memories, and she had tried to find a way to send them to him. She wanted him to know that she was still alive and thinking of him. But she had never managed to figure out how to send them in a format he would be able to read. She still had the files and carried them with her everywhere she went, just in case.

  Willow sighed and opened the file named The Flood. She swiped through the pages of thin, triangular-shaped arrows. Somewhere in the deep recesses of memory, she recognized them.

  But she couldn’t focus. She, too, was still struggling with what happened on the lunar transport. The image of the clones with their brains blown out and the security crew floating in grotesque circles, their blood trailing around them like it was trying to form a cocoon, still haunted her. Even though she had known something like it would happen, the shock of death still troubled her. She took the first opportunity to snatch a gun from what she thought was Burl’s dead body, followed Raven, and shot her before she could kill Kaiden—shot her while Delano’s body twisted in death beside her.

  Willow swallowed the knot in her throat. She had to kill Raven. Kaiden couldn’t die. He was too important. She needed a good security officer, but deep down, she knew it was more than that. Kaiden had come to mean something to her. The thought of him dying sent a wild shiver through her. Whatever happened, she would make sure he survived.

  Kaiden clicked on a Mozart concerto and dumped all of Quill’s computer stuff onto his table. He hooked up Quill’s new game console and rerouted the system through Quill’s portable computer. He hacked into the security layout through a series of TAP servers to make it difficult for anyone to locate his position, and then wrote some simple software to keep it all working. He even created a tiny mouse avatar to show him where he was in the schematic. When he was satisfied that everything was in place, he began to play.

  This game wasn’t the complicated virtual reality games he and Quill used to play. It was more like a spy game in which Kaiden had to navigate his way through the security layout to the TAP compound, searching for anything suspicious while remaining hidden from detection. He counted on his sophisticated hack to mask his movements through the security files and layout.

  The schematic was a complex set of blue lines, like an architect’s drawing, with labels and notes on the appropriate security protocol. They were layered by level and stacked on top of each other. When he finished one, he moved on to the next level.

  Of all the assignments he had made, this was the most dangerous. He was the most likely to attract attention, and it would be impossible to explain why he had hacked into the system—espe
cially after what had happened to Quill. But Kaiden needed to do this. He needed to know why Quill had been silenced.

  Kaiden guided his avatar through the system, searching for any locked doors, any hidden spaces, any sections that couldn’t be explained. If TAP was running secret programs, they had to be housed somewhere, and they had to leave some sign or clue to their existence in the system. The trouble was finding those places in the vast underground complex.

  TAP had seven levels with nine sections per level. Since he didn’t have any idea where to start, Kaiden began at the uppermost and worked his way down. He wandered virtually through the dining and shopping areas, the gymnasium and training rooms, and into the living spaces. TAP was a world all its own. It even had hydroponic gardens and farm space where genetically modified chickens and pigs were raised in tiny cages.

  When Kaiden’s avatar reached the lab area on the fourth level, he found several rooms with heightened security, as shown by the flashing red light he had programmed the system to make when it encountered heavily secured areas. He noted the location in his search log for further exploration and continued. Hours passed as he worked methodically through the complex. Every time his avatar encountered a red light, he noted the location. By the time he reached the last level, he had half a dozen places listed. But the last level had a surprise—something different from all the other levels. Directly in the center, he encountered a vast area where there was a blank space in the schematic. It was simply empty. The security schematic had no information about what this enormous space contained.

  “What have we here?” Kaiden said as he sat up straighter. He worked his avatar around the blank area, seeking an entrance. No red lights flashed. He double-checked his security layout. Nothing was there. But the space was occupied by something—something invisible to him.

  “Why would TAP have such a huge blank space in the center of its operation?”

  Kaiden made note of the location and decided to finish his exploration of the last level when a metallic voice burst from the computer speakers. “Hello, Kaiden.” The word Atra- Hasis flashed in the center of the blank space.

  Kaiden jumped. “Holy crap,” he gasped.

  He rushed to click out of the program and shut down the computer. His mind raced. What had just happened? How had he been detected? How could the system possibly know that it was him and not Quill, since he was on Quill’s computer? Mozart blared in the background as Kaiden leaned back and passed a hand over his head, trying to decide what he should do. That’s when the pain hit him.

  It felt like a knife slicing through his brain. He groaned, slid to the floor, and curled up into a ball as the lightning flashes of agony rebounded inside his skull—gigantic spiders chewed on his body, their fangs stabbing into him with the rhythm of the flashing pain. Then he was trapped in the space elevator in free fall as it plummeted to Earth. He flailed about, searching for something to grab onto—anything to relieve the horrible swooping sensation in his stomach. The pain and the terror competed for his attention as the discipline went on and on. He wanted to die, anything to escape the torment.

  Then, a thin brown hand rested on his brow. The woman bent close and kissed his cheek. “The fever will be over soon,” she said. Her voice was soft and tender, filled with compassion and love. He smelled the hair gel and sweet perfume. He gazed up at her through the fog of fever and tears. He loved her. She was his mother.

  It ended as suddenly as it had begun. Kaiden sprawled on the floor, panting. Tears slipped from his eyes. His body trembled, and his limbs jerked as he struggled to regain control. He hadn’t been disciplined since his first year at TAP, and he’d almost forgotten the horror of being tortured from inside his own brain. But he had never experienced the soothing presence of the woman—his mother—before. The afterglow of the torture lingered alongside the longing for that tender touch, for that sense of being loved and wanted.

  Kaiden struggled against the tears. He had to force his mind to focus. TAP was onto him, now. How long would it take before they moved from discipline to simple execution—like they had done to Quill?

  Kaiden clicked his wrist terminal on. “Willow,” he gasped. His voice cracked, so he tried again. No one answered. “Birch.” Silence. “Jade.” Kaiden was surprised at how weak his voice sounded.

  “I gotcha,” Jade’s voice came out of his wrist terminal. Kaiden sighed in relief.

  “Listen,” he said. “We need to meet. Can you contact the others? They don’t respond to me.”

  Jade didn’t reply.

  “Jade?” Silence.

  Terror constricted Kaiden’s throat. TAP was coming for him. They would be intercepting his transmissions. Now, he had endangered his friends.

  A knock sounded on Kaiden’s door.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Caught in the Snare

  Kaiden lunged to his feet. They had come for him already. He scooped up Quill’s equipment and shoved it under the bed. He knew it was futile to try and hide what he had been doing, but what else could he do? The knock sounded louder, more insistent. Muffled voices came through the door. Kaiden prepared himself. His hand fell to his sidearm. He would not die like Quill—not without a fight. He touched the button to open the door. Jade hovered in the doorway, giving him a peculiar expression. Her hair fell over her shoulders. She looked good in the black security uniform.

  “Expecting someone else?” Jade asked. Birch and Willow poked their heads over Jade’s shoulders.

  “You look sick,” Birch said.

  “Get in here,” Kaiden said. He grabbed Jade and dragged her into the room. The others followed.

  Jade slapped his hand away from her arm. “Don’t yank me around,” she demanded.

  “He’s a bit jumpy,” Willow said this as if Kaiden wasn’t standing in the room.

  “He’s not usually like this,” Birch said. “Cool as a meese in a lake.”

  Kaiden had no idea what Birch had just said, and he could tell by the baffled expression on Willow’s face that she didn’t either.

  “You mean moose,” Jade said.

  “That’s what I said,” Birch replied. “But, I get the feeling Kaiden doesn’t really trust us to cover his back.”

  Kaiden gestured for them all to click off their wrist terminals and fidgeted with his sidearm while he waited for them.

  “Are your DWJs on?”

  They nodded.

  “Why didn’t you two answer when I called?” Kaiden demanded. “I thought something had happened.”

  The three women dropped into chairs. Jade picked up one of Quill’s nano-bots that Kaiden had missed and examined it.

  “We were busy following your orders,” Birch said. “Now, what’s got your pistol all in a twist?”

  “That doesn’t even make sense,” Kaiden said. He scowled at them. “Look. I got caught.”

  Jade dropped the nano-bot, and they all stared at him, openmouthed. Now, he had their full attention.

  “I hacked in through a complicated series of servers, and the system still knew I was there and knew who I was.”

  “How do you know it knew who you were?” Birch asked.

  “Because, it said, ‘Hello Kaiden.’”

  “The computer spoke to you?” Willow said.

  “Yes. Then, I was disciplined.”

  The girls paled, and Willow raised a hand to her mouth. Jade scowled.

  “We’ve got to find a way to turn off that switch,” Birch said.

  “Are you all right?” Willow asked.

  “Yeah, now listen.” Kaiden didn’t want their sympathy. “I found a big empty space in the center of level nine. The place was called Atra-Hasis.”

  “I thought you said it was empty,” Jade said.

  “The name appeared just as the voice spoke.”

  “What kind of name is that?” Birch said. “Sounds
like a sneeze.”

  “Maybe,” Willow said, “Atra-Hasis is the name of the person who spoke to you.”

  “What do you mean?” Kaiden asked.

  “I don’t know, but it’s a possibility. The point is,” Willow continued, “we’ve been compromised again. We need to figure out a way to escape in case one of us is caught.”

  “I already took care of that,” Birch said.

  “Good,” Kaiden said.

  Birch batted her lashes at him. “I’ve got your back, Captain,” she said.

  Kaiden shook his head at her. Birch was impossible. “Right,” he said. “So, what did you all find out?”

  “I’ve got people watching all the hangars,” Jade said. “And Colt is searching for records.”

  “He won’t find any,” Willow said.

  Jade picked up the nano-bot again.

  Birch held up her hand with a devious grin. “Watch this,” she said. She wiggled her eyebrows at Kaiden, and her hand disappeared.

  “Whoa,” Kaiden said.

  “Not too bad, huh?” Birch said. “Quill made one little error in his cloaking software that was messing him up. Flint says we can make this go bigger. It’s all about controlling the light waves to mask your presence and having the nano-chips in the right places in your clothing. I’ve been inserting the nano-chips into our clothing, so eventually, the software will be able to mask an entire group if we don’t get too far apart.”

  “That’s cool,” Kaiden said.

  “It’s dang cool,” Birch said. “And I have Flint playing with Quill’s nano-bots. He thinks he can improve those, too. But it’s gonna take time.”

  “Don’t know how much of that we’re gonna have,” Kaiden said.

  Jade’s wrist terminal buzzed. She glanced around at them and clicked it on. “Yeah,” she said.

  “Colt here.” The voice whispered. “We’ve got an unauthorized flight leaving bay twenty-two right now.”