by M. R. Forbes
“Not a twin,” Doc said. “They’re replicas. Genetic copies from the same source DNA.”
“Clones?”
“Not exactly. Replicas have had their genes modified. Enhanced.”
“So you’re stronger than the original?” Chandra asked, looking at him.
“Stronger, faster, probably not smarter,” Doc said. “Resistant to illness, an increased healing factor, extended lifespan.”
“I’m intrigued. I’ve never heard of replicas before.”
“There’s probably a lot about Edenrise you haven’t learned yet,” Nathan said. “And about Tinker.”
“I haven’t met Tinker. I still want to. Well, unlike the other Stacker, you don’t seem like you need any help with replacements. So what can I do for you?”
“We have another problem we were hoping you could help us with,” Doc said.
“We retrieved an old mainframe from a United States Space Force base out west,” Nathan said. “Tinker left Edenrise to attend to some other business, so we’re looking for someone who might be able to help us recover some data on it.”
“Did you say out west? Sheriff said he was from out west. Did he go with you?”
“No.”
“Where is Sheriff? Is he doing okay?”
Nathan was sickened by the question. Sheriff definitely was not okay, and he was trying hard not to think about that.
“He’s fine,” Doc said.
“I hope so. I told General Stacker, Sheriff Duke is a good man. He wants to protect people, that’s all. You can’t hold it against someone for wanting to keep justice and order in the world, right?”
“Right,” Nathan said, his heart racing. He couldn’t help but see Hayden in his mind, beaten to a pulp.
“Are you okay, Colonel?” Chandra asked.
Nathan nodded. He was sure his face had lost its color. “The mainframe is on the other side of the city, at the Liberators’ compound,” he said, forcing his voice to stay even. “I’d like you to go there with me so I can show you what we’ve got and explain what we’re looking for.”
Chandra circled the desk to stand in front of him. “I’m ready when you are, Colonel.”
Chapter 12
Nathan, Chandra, and Doc took a car from the hospital, across the city to the docks where Tinker’s primary research facility was located. There was no underground path to that part of Edenrise. The pod only made four stops, and none of them came too close to the water.
The sun was setting as they reached the nondescript building, stopping at the entrance while Nathan put his hand on the security panel. He noticed the guard-bot in the corner shift slightly to scan them before deciding they were safe and settling back into observation mode.
The door opened and they stepped in with Nathan taking the lead through the building to the lift and from the lift down to Tinker’s workshop. He felt strange being there without James or Tinker. He had never intended to use his similarity to James to enter restricted areas. Even Doc’s presence wasn’t making him any more comfortable.
In fact, he was getting less comfortable with every passing minute. He had spent the short car ride with his head turning back and forth, watching the residents outside for signs of someone or something following them, or for any other incidents between the civilians. Now that he was reasonably sure he and James hadn’t come back from their mission alone, he felt like he could see the threat everywhere and nowhere at the same time, lurking in the shadows or maybe even plain sight to catch him off-guard. The thing wanted him or wanted to kill him. And he didn’t know why. It was staying near him for a reason. He wasn’t convinced the mainframe would reveal anything useful, but at least the lab was isolated. The thing couldn’t get to him down here.
Not that it had any trouble waiting.
Of course, the Other, or whatever it was, wasn’t the only thing on Nathan’s mind. He couldn’t stop thinking about Hayden. He couldn’t stop seeing the sheriff’s swollen face, his blood-red eye, his knee covered in shit. Nathan had always known James could be angry and violent – he was no stranger to violence either – but this was over the line. Too far over it. He was mad at himself for not buying time for Hayden to recover. He felt guilty for abandoning the responsibility for the man’s well-being.
Chandra’s presence made it worse. She had traveled from Crosston with Hayden. He had saved her life by getting her into the camper and away from the virus. Nathan remembered the other man, Gus. He had helped James gun him down after Gus killed the Hellion.
The door to the workshop slid open, revealing Tinker’s inner sanctum. Nathan spotted the mainframe immediately, reconstructed on the left side of the room, its thick cables running through a conduit and into the wall. It was hooked up to a terminal on a small, portable desk.
“This place is unbelievable,” Chandra said, her eyes darting around the room. It was more than the mainframe. Tinker had all kinds of equipment in the room, including a large rifle that was still in pieces on another counter nearby. Of course, her head stopped moving when her eyes reached the sphere, sitting on the other side of the sealed glass enclosure. “What is that?”
“Nothing that concerns you,” Doc said forcefully.
“Right,” Chandra agreed, hesitant to look away. “What’s it made from? I’ve never seen metal that color before.”
“I said, it doesn’t concern you.”
“Ooookayy,” Chandra said. “I’ve got it, Doc. Focus on the computer. Pozz that.” She approached the terminal, tapping the control pad in front of it to activate the system. “What is this about, anyway? You both look like you’re afraid of something.”
“Do you always ask so many questions?” Doc said.
“Only when I’m interested.” She paused, looking back at Nathan. “The terminal’s got a biometric lock on it. Maybe your magic hand can help?”
He stood beside her, and she directed his hand to the control pad. He pressed a finger to it, and the display registered him as General James Stacker. Then the terminal unlocked.
“I can’t help you find anything if I don’t know what I’m looking for,” Chandra said, navigating through terminal screens like a pro. “This system is older than even the shitty ring interfaces I’m used to. Where did it come from again?”
“West,” Doc said.
“That’s so specific, thank you,” Chandra replied. “Give me something here.”
“It came from an old military base out west,” Nathan said. “Someplace called Area Fifty-one, if that means anything to you.”
“Not really.”
“The problem is we may have brought more than a computer back with us.”
“You mean like something alive?”
“Probably, yeah.”
“What kind of something alive?”
“That’s our question. We were hoping maybe the mainframe stored video feeds. If not, we’ll take whatever you can find.”
Chandra tapped on the control surface, entering commands and watching the display while they executed. “So this thing came to Edenrise with you, and you’re obviously nervous about it. Why?”
“It isn’t all that friendly,” Nathan said.
“Are you kidding? Doesn’t Earth have enough unfriendly aliens on it?”
“That’s what I was thinking, but it gets worse.”
“Nathan,” Doc said, warning him not to say too much.
“Worse how?” Chandra asked.
“It doesn’t matter right now. We’re looking for video feeds that might have been deleted like someone was trying to hide whatever this thing is or that it exists at all. Doc has a theory the entity might not be an alien at all, but more like a Hellion. A bio-engineered weapon that was supposed to kill trife and wound up going after people instead.”
“That’s why I like computers,” Chandra said. “There’s much less chance they’ll turn around and kill you if you program them wrong.”
She continued entering commands on the terminal. White text flew across the
dark display in letters and numbers and symbols Nathan didn’t understand.
She had been at it for a couple of minutes when Doc pulled away from them, whispering into her comm. “This is Major Anderson. You what? Fuck me. Okay. Hold tight. I’ll be there soon.”
She looked over at Nathan.
“What’s happening?” he asked.
“That was Sergeant Jacks,” she replied. “We’ve got another incident. Colonel, I know you wanted to keep this quiet, but we don’t have a choice. I have to tell General Neill about this, immediately.”
“What’s wrong?”
“The victims were soldiers. Guards.”
Nathan didn’t like the sound of that. “Where?”
“The shield spire. If it’s going after the shield generator—”
“Understood,” Nathan said, his body going cold. How would it know about the generator, and why would it go there? Why now? He’d thought it was after him.
“I’m heading back to the hospital to receive the victims.”
“Are they dead?”
“One of them is, the other is still seeing things. Chandra, keep looking. We need to find out what the hell this thing is and figure out how to stop it before it does something we can’t recover from. The trife in the area know all about the shields. If they fall, Edenrise is fucked.”
“Do you think our target knows it?”
“I’m not making assumptions about anything. I’ll speak with General Neill when I get there. I’m sure he’ll want a full debrief on everything we know. We won’t be able to keep this quiet for long once he starts deploying Liberators and extra police around the city.” She sighed. “Tinker picked a lousy time to leave.”
She hurried out of the workshop. Nathan watched her go, his mind working as she vanished from sight. It couldn’t be a coincidence that this was happening now when Tinker and James were out of the city. It had followed them back from Area Fifty-one. It had hidden on the Pulse. Where else had it managed to travel unnoticed once they arrived? How much did it know about Tinker and his plans?
Did it know about the virus?
Nathan closed his eyes. He had an idea, but he kept trying to counter it, to deny and ignore it. It was a dangerous idea. One that could help save the city if the city was really in danger, but also one that could get him in all kinds of trouble once Tinker and James returned.
There was an alien on the loose inside Edenrise. They needed someone with experience tracking things. Someone who wouldn’t panic at the sight of an alien or get unnerved in its pursuit.
He wasn’t sure if the idea came to him because he was eager to find a purpose to have it or because there was a solid argument to be made for the plan. He didn’t care which it was. The pieces had all fallen into place to make it happen, and he was relieved they had. Tinker was gone, James was gone. Doc had left him alone. He had a botter at his disposal, and he had a good reason.
He opened his eyes, his decision made. He didn’t want Niobe to have died for nothing, but he realized he couldn’t live with himself as the bad guy, either. Not when there was a clear danger. Not when he knew someone who could help. He couldn’t stand by and do nothing. If he didn’t act, there was a very real chance he could wind up with the city in rubble around him, the spire destroyed by the Other and the trife running rampant through the streets while his guilt gnawed away at his soul.
It was no way to live or die.
“Chandra, leave it,” he said. “We have something more important to do.”
“We do?” she asked. “What?”
“We’re going to get Sheriff Duke.”
Chapter 13
Lieutenant Shun didn’t speak.
Lieutenant Shun never spoke.
Not with his mouth, anyway. His lips remained pressed together, never splitting apart, never showing any sign of emotion as he leaned over Hayden.
Hayden watched him with his working eye. His body was wracked with pain, his heart racing. He didn’t know what the man was going to do to him next. He didn’t even care all that much. He had suffered a moment of hope when Stacker had arrived and started cleaning him up. He had suffered a moment of despair when Stacker had left him there to continue being tortured.
But he had also found something in between the hope and the despair. A smaller place of tranquility and emptiness. A place where he could hide from the pain of what was happening to him, where he could disappear from the present. Where he could exist with calm stillness and lucid peace despite the state of his physical form. He didn’t feel anything there. Fear, love, hope, anguish. It was gone. All gone.
As long as he stayed there, he could take whatever they gave for as long as they gave it until they either gave up or he died. He was fine with either option. He wasn’t worried about Natalia and Hallia there. They were strong, and they would fight back against whatever Tinker and James Stacker tried to do, and if they failed, if they fell, well that was how things were on the Forgotten Earth.
Hayden closed his eye as Lieutenant Shun descended toward his feet. He felt something grip one of his toes, but he didn’t feel any pain. Only a tingle that ran up his spine to his brain. He thought the man broke it. He wasn’t sure. He knew Shun was waiting for him to scream and beg him to stop, and to answer the only question Tinker had.
He wouldn’t answer it.
Not now.
Not ever.
Shun shifted slightly. Hayden opened his eyes, looking down at the man. He could see the broken toe sticking straight up from his dirty foot, and Shun about to grab another one. He wasn’t sure why the man was bothering. If the beatings hadn’t work, if the waterboarding hadn’t worked, if the more painful torture hadn’t worked, how was this going to help? Did Shun know he had lost? Was he going through the motions to make it look like he was doing his job? Hayden might have smiled if he were able to.
“Lieutenant.”
Hayden’s head turned with Shun’s. He looked past the table where a dozen or more instruments of his torture had been arranged, to the doorway beside a metal shelf containing other equipment. A large, dark shape was there. Stacker, but which one.
“Undo his restraints,” Stacker said, coming further into the room.
Nathan. He had said he was going to come back to try again.
Lieutenant Shun unstrapped the ankle restraints, and then came to his head to undo the belt around his neck and the one around his chest.
“Sit him up.”
Shun grabbed at Hayden, causing him to groan slightly in pain.
“Carefully!” Nathan snapped.
Shun was more gentle. He still didn’t speak as he helped Hayden into a sitting position.
“Sheriff,” Nathan said.
“I’m not telling you anything, Nathan,” Hayden hissed, interrupting. His voice was dry and barely audible, but Stacker heard him.
“I don’t need you to tell me anything. I’m getting you out of here.”
Hayden’s laugh came out as a single, solid tone.
“I’m not joking. It’s not a trick. I need your help.”
Hayden laughed harder. He wasn’t sure himself if he was losing his mind, tumbling from the cliff of sanity to the sea of crazy.
“Colonel, General Stacker’s orders are to continue the treatment until he speaks,” Lieutenant Shun said.
“New orders, Lieutenant,” Nathan said. “I need him for something more immediate.”
“I’m sorry Colonel, I will need authorization from General Stacker or General Neill to allow you to take the prisoner from the facility.”
“Who else is down here with you, Lieutenant?” Nathan asked.
“No one, sir.”
Hayden watched Nathan lunge forward, grabbing Shun by the throat and lifting him effortlessly into the air. Shun was small compared to Stacker, and his feet shook as he grabbed Nathan’s arm with his hands, gagging from the pressure.
“I’m not requesting his release,” Nathan said. “I’m not even ordering it. I’m just going to fucking
do it.”
He threw Shun into the wall. The man hit it hard and slumped to his knees.
“You’re free to try and stop me.”
Shun glared up at Nathan. Then his eyes shifted to the tray of torture equipment. There was no lack of sharp objects on it.
“Stacker,” Hayden said, motioning to the tray with his head.
Shun went for it, but Nathan was ready, and he grabbed Shun’s arm before it could reach any of the tools. He turned it over and brought it down hard on the edge of Hayden’s table, right next to him. Shun’s arm cracked, the bone fracturing, and he cried out in pain.
“General Stacker will have you court-martialed for this,” Shun said.
“It’ll be a few hours before anyone knows anything happened to you,” Nathan said. “I expect we’ll be gone by then.”
Shun laughed. “How? Look at him? He can’t even walk like that.”
The lieutenant had a point, but Nathan didn’t seem phased. “I’m not too worried about it.” He took one of the devices from the tray and slammed it into Shun’s temple, knocking him out.
“He’s right,” Hayden said. “I can’t walk. I don’t even think I can stand.”
“Like I said, Sheriff, I’m not worried about it. I’m sorry I left you down here. I didn’t know what James was doing to you, and when I saw you…well, I’ve been struggling to make good decisions ever since Niobe died. I want to do the right thing. For her. For me. For everybody. I’m not sure what the right thing is. I’ve seen both sides, and I’m pretty sure this isn’t it.”
He leaned and reached for Hayden, to scoop him into his arms. Hayden didn’t try to resist. He wasn’t going anywhere under his own power.
“I’m broken, Nathan,” Hayden said. “Whatever you think you’re doing, I can’t help you.”
“Maybe not like this, but we’ll take care of that.”
“We?”
Nathan took him in his arms, cradling him like a baby. “Don’t worry, Sheriff. I won’t tell anyone about this.” He smiled. “We don’t have a lot of time. This isn’t about Tinker or the Cleansing right now. This is about the people of Edenrise.”