by Greg Krojac
“Shit! Which one shall we follow?”
“How am I supposed to know? You’re the bloody driver. Follow whichever one you want. You’ve got a thirty-three percent chance of getting it right.”
The driver grabbed the Inter-Vehicle Communicator, the IVC, pressed the touch-screen and shouted into it.
“Syrus. Which bastard van are you going to follow?”
“Fuck knows, Dean. They all look the same.”
“I know. How do we know which one is carrying the stolen product?”
“We don’t. Just choose one.”
Dean forced the steering wheel to the right and took off after one of the vehicles. The odds on choosing the correct van had now increased to fifty-fifty. Although it was tempting to take the left-hand fork, to maintain symmetry, Syrus kept going straight ahead. Of course, this meant that it was possible that the two were both chasing a wild goose but it was a risk that had to be taken.
The SUVs kept thundering along the country roads, the Jeeps closing in on two of them. Dean’s passenger, Curtis, was getting annoyed. He was trying to aim his pulse gun at the vehicle in front but, despite all Dean’s attempts to control the vehicle smoothly, potholes in the road had other ideas. Curtis and his weapon were being thrown from side to side, making an accurate shot nigh on impossible. He gritted his teeth and fired his pulse gun. The beam of highly-charged red light passed through what should have been the right-hand rear wing of the van and destroyed a tree that was about twenty yards in front of the vehicle. Curtis shouted at his driver.
“It’s a fucking motorbike.”
Then, he took a sharp intake of breath as a beam of red light rocketed towards them, the motorcycle’s defence system having locked onto the source of the attack and responded in kind.
On another road, Syrus saw the plume of smoke forming in the sky above where his colleagues should have been and knew that it almost certainly signalled the destruction of the jeep. Nevertheless, he tried to contact his colleagues via the IVC.
“Dean! Curtis! Are you there?”
He battered the steering wheel with his free hand.
“Shit, Fuck, Bollocks! It’s up to us now.”
The road that Syrus took was in better condition than the other road, but there were still many more tight curves to negotiate, and locking on the target was just as difficult as it had been for Curtis; no sooner had his partner, Rick, locked on the target vehicle than it disappeared around a corner. The seemingly never-ending game of cat and mouse continued through the wooded road until Syrus heard a sound behind him and to the right. Rick looked behind the Jeep to see Michelle’s motorcycle, holographic camouflage disabled, leap out of the woods and take up a position directly behind their vehicle.
“Syrus, there’s a….”
Rick never got the chance to complete his sentence as the fuel tank of the Jeep was hit by a deadly charge of electricity and exploded. Dean, Curtis, Syrus, and Rick were now four souls in the atmosphere, joining the multitude that was already there seeking new host bodies.
The ride inside the van hadn’t been a comfortable one, the occupants being thrown around inside the vehicle like rag dolls. All except Trudi 002 that is, who had been strapped in so as not to damage her. She was extremely valuable cargo and must not be damaged at all costs.
Ten miles down the road, the van skidded to a halt alongside an unmarked delivery truck. Trudi 002 was quickly transferred to the new vehicle, along with her escorts, and the group continued on their way unmolested, whilst the van disappeared into the distance to take a different route home.
***
Just over an hour later, the truck pulled into the yard of an old remote farmhouse. The driver, Flav, locked the vehicle inside one of the two barns and joined his team in the kitchen of the main house. Trudi 002 was sitting in an armchair, having been released from her restraints. Michelle spoke to the group.
“The SIMP who told us about this clone said that she is sentient but, although she may look like a woman in her late thirties, early forties, she still only has the mental age of a two-year-old.”
Michelle walked over and looked at Trudi 002. The clone could feel her stare almost piercing her skin. Michelle rubbed her chin.
“This should be interesting. Anybody here got kids? Anybody speak toddler?”
Silence.
Michelle reached for Trudi 002’s hand, which was quickly drawn away. The clone assumed that she was among friends, but she was still nervous. At least she was away from that horrible place. Michelle went to take hold of the clone’s hand again and this time Trudi 002 allowed the touch.
“It’s alright. We don’t want to hurt you. It’s not an interrogation. It’s more of a debriefing.”
She stopped what she was saying, realizing that this kind of language would be far too complicated for a two-year-old to understand. No toddler had words such as ‘interrogation’ and ‘debriefing’ in its vocabulary. She started again
“My name is Michelle. Michelle Boone. I’m the mummy of this little group. What’s your name?”
One of her team members interrupted.
“Mummy, please can I have a glass of water?”
Michelle shot a dirty look at him and he sheepishly mouthed ‘sorry’.
The clone looked around her at the others in the room. They seemed a lot friendlier now than they had seemed in the laboratory.
“Trudi 002.”
Michelle smiled.
“That’s good Trudi. Well done. Good girl. May I call you Trudi? It’s a very pretty name.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what – who you are, Trudi.”
“Yes.”
“Who are you, Trudi?”
“A clone.”
“A clone. Yes, you’re a clone. But that doesn’t mean you’re not a person, Trudi. Not to us anyway. Do you know your birthday?”
“Yes.”
“When’s your birthday, Trudi?”
“6th of May, 2058.”
“So, do you know old you are?”
Michelle thought that this might be a stretch for Trudi to answer. Bearing in mind her obviously limited communication skills, her mathematical skills should surely be nonexistent.
“I look forty years old, maybe thirty-five on a good day, but I’m actually forty days old.“
Michelle and her friends were stunned. Michelle took a deep breath and spoke.
“So you can talk… I mean talk intelligently… I mean the talking like a child was just an act? The SIMP said that you only had limited communication skills.”
“Well, he or she would, wouldn’t they? I was hardly going to have a nice cosy chat with them, considering how I’d been treated. I didn’t volunteer to be put into this clone body, you know. I’m a respected scientist, a professor. And a victim.”
“Would you mind answering a few questions for us, Trudi?”
“On two conditions.”
“Two conditions?”
“First I want something to eat. I’m bloody starving. For real food. Not that crap they gave me at the facility.”
Federico, who was also the unelected chef of the group, muttered to himself.
“What does a clone eat?”
Trudi stared at him.
“The same as you, dickhead. My hearing’s pretty good too.”
Professor Ingram’s latent rage was coming to the fore, so Michelle thought she’d better try to calm things down.
“You said you have two conditions. What’s the other one?”
“The second condition is that when I’ve told you all you want to know… I want you to kill me. I don’t think I have the courage to do it myself.”
“Why on earth do you want us to kill you?”
“Do I have to spell it out for you? I age one year every twenty-four hours. I have at best another forty days to go. Forty days during which I shall deteriorate physically and become susceptible to all kinds of illnesses and organ problems. I’ve seen others go through it and it’s no
t a pretty sight. They haven’t got the process right yet. If I’d another forty years left then perhaps my life might be bearable for the near future. I could wait and see if medical advances could cure whatever ailments I’ll get. But knowing that the clock isn’t ticking by but sprinting by – well, that’s different. I don’t want to go through all that. I’d rather take my chance and see where my soul ends up next. So, if you wouldn’t mind. I’d like you to kill me. Quick like. Not a slow death.”
“I don’t know…”
“It’s not as if it’s the final end. I’ll come back again – just in a different body. I can do that. It doesn’t bother me. Preferable to what’s going to happen to me otherwise, anyway.”
Michelle looked at her colleagues, who one by one nodded their agreement to Trudi’s request.
Trudi’s next hour or so was spent eating her final meal of spaghetti bolognaise – Federico wasn’t that great a cook – and giving the group all the information that she knew or could remember about the research that was happening at the laboratory. Michelle and her colleagues no longer had to imagine the horrors that were taking place in the name of the Illuminati’s clone research. Hearing about how pregnant women and babies were arbitrarily slaughtered in the name of research made Michelle feel physically sick. Trudi ended her story.
“And that’s all I can tell you really. The research has progressed to the point where the scientists can create a clone, have it mature rapidly to adulthood and can transfer a human soul into it. I’m the living proof of that. However, they are still under the misconception that the mental development of the clone is retarded, that is, it’s not keeping up with the physical development of the clone. I saw no reason to let them think otherwise. The day will come – probably sooner rather than later – when the variables are correctly calibrated and applied and they’ll have succeeded in creating a fully functioning adult clone, one that isn’t racing towards death. Then Thomas will be in charge forever. Unless you can stop him.”
Michelle thanked Trudi for the information, pulled a handgun from where it was tucked into the back of her jeans, set the pulse to kill in one swift movement, and shot Trudi in the forehead. The chair stopped her from falling backwards so the dead clone just slumped forward, lifeless. Flavio hadn’t been prepared for the execution to be so sudden.
“Bloody hell, Michelle. You made me jump then, girl.”
“I had to make it quick, as much for my sake as for hers. Flavio and Rachel… take her to the local STC. Ask for Ali. Tell him we’ve got a Jane Doe to be disposed of. He doesn’t need to know that she’s a clone. You can’t tell just by looking at her.”
A large black plastic sheet was brought in from one of the farm’s outbuildings and Trudi’s lifeless body was wrapped up in it. Flavio and Rachel put her in the boot of the SUV and drove off in the direction of the nearest town. Michelle raised a hand and gave a discreet wave goodbye.
“Bye Trudi. Better luck next life.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
11:06 THURSDAY 24 OCTOBER 2058
Érica should have been at school, even though it was her seventh birthday, but she’d woken up that morning with a crippling headache. She liked school, so her mother knew that it wasn’t just a childish ruse to spend the day at home.
If the headaches had been just simple headaches, she could probably have coped, but they were accompanied by hallucinations of a past life. As the days passed, Érica realized that they were actually memories. At first, she only remembered being an old man, but the next time that she had a headache, it was accompanied by visions of a symbol of an eye encased in a triangle. She had no idea what it meant but she knew that it was important. Day by day, headache by headache, she began to remember more and more of her past life until, after a fortnight had passed, she was fully aware of who she had been in a past life and that she had a duty to take control of the Illuminati once more.
As always, the challenge lay in getting back to England. She’d always managed it before and the reason for this is that she’d always planned her return well in advance. She may only have been seven years old but the memories of her past lives were very strong. Not all Recarns had strong recollections of their past lives – some had only fleeting glimpses of who they had once been – but many, like Érica, had excellent powers of recall. She remembered being Nathan Smith, just as Nathan had remembered being Hans von Strohm, the son of a German carpenter, who had, in turn, remembered a past life as Valli Kapoor, the daughter of a poverty-stricken seamstress in Jaipur, India. No matter how difficult it may seem to make her way back to Britain, she had always managed to do so and would do so again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
11:09 THURSDAY 24 OCTOBER 2058
Thomas was feeling stressed. He could see the clock ticking away the years, months, weeks, days until he could expect a challenge for the Pindar’s seat of power. Nathan was out there somewhere, plotting his return to the Illuminati. For generations, Nathan had gone through the process of abdication of his position of power and the installation of an acting Pindar to hold the reins until he returned. For generations, Nathan had successfully retrieved his rightful place at the head of the organisation. This time would be different.
He had no idea where or who Nathan was, but he was aware that he must be approaching his seventh birthday if he hadn’t already reached it. Nathan would become a Recarn soon – if he were not already – and Thomas knew that from that point on, Nathan’s sole objective would be to return. He may be only a child at the moment, but he shouldn’t be underestimated. He had experience, almost three centuries of experience, of planning and dealing with similar situations.
Thomas’s disease was becoming more and more of an inconvenience too. His arm and leg muscles had weakened to the point where it took real grit and determination to move around, even with the help of crutches. By resting the top of each crutch under his armpit and gripping the crutch as tightly as he could between his arm and his torso, he’d found a way to move the crutch forward by thrusting his chest in a diagonal direction, thus forcing the crutch to settle in a more forward position. This was obviously very time-consuming, and indeed exhausting, but Thomas wasn’t a quitter.
If he’d been an ordinary man, in an ordinary job, perhaps he would have taken the route of self-termination and reincarnation into a new healthy body to escape this major inconvenience. It was a disturbing truth that, whereas before the Revelation, the majority of disabled people had incredibly strong resolve and wouldn’t let their disability dictate their lives, the thought of a completely fresh start was too strong a temptation for many. However, a significant number still fought and overcame their respective problems; they weren’t quitters.
But Thomas wasn’t an ordinary man, he was the Pindar, and if he took what some may consider to be the easy way out, he would be throwing away everything that he was working towards. He would be reborn into unknown circumstances anywhere on the planet and, more importantly, he would create a vacuum in the leadership of the Illuminati that could cause untold chaos and conflict; he did feel some pangs of loyalty to the Illuminati even though he was mostly fuelled by personal ambition. The Order had been good to him. And when Nathan returned – as he surely would – it would be much easier for Thomas to retain his position of Pindar, if he hadn’t made too many enemies within The Order.
Thomas looked at the clock on the wall of the room. Time was advancing at the normal rate although if it were in his power he would make time pass quicker on this particular day. He decided to listen to some Pink Floyd on his iPod. The music was almost ninety years old but had lost none of its power. Other bands came and went, the members of Pink Floyd were now just memories, but their music lived on, timeless. Track six, ‘Us and Them’, had just started playing when Alison, his personal assistant knocked and entered the room.
“Excuse me sir, but the delivery you have been waiting for has arrived.”
Immediately Thomas’s stress disappeared.
“Thank y
ou, Alison. Please show them into the reception room. Tell them I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
Thomas would have liked to have been able to stride or even run to the reception room, but his limbs were feeling particularly weak that day and his breathing wasn’t all that he would have liked it to be either. But he wasn’t going to resort to a wheelchair today of all days, he hadn’t done so yet and wasn’t going to start now. He’d started the day, just as most other days, in poor health but he knew he wouldn’t finish it in the same condition.
***
A few minutes later he dragged his body into the private reception room where three people were waiting for him; two installation engineers and one male nurse. On the large table that stood in the middle of the room was an open box, inside of which lay a battleship grey exoskeleton suit. This is what he’d been waiting for. This is what would release him from the chains with which his disease had bound him and would allow him to fly again – metaphorically speaking, of course.
The suit had the appearance of very fine chain mail and was designed to hug the skin tightly. As one of the engineers explained, the suction cup feeling would disappear after a couple of days, when the skin became used to being constantly touched. The exoskeleton was made up of thousands of tiny receivers which received electrical impulses from the brain via a wire-free implant to a micro-transmitter situated at the back of the collar. The collar was higher than Thomas would have liked but this was necessary to hide the electrical inputs that would assist the muscular movements of Thomas’s internal organs, such as his lungs and throat muscles, making it easier to breathe, speak, and swallow. It was this respiratory problem that had made Thomas finally invest in this very expensive, state-of-the-art piece of equipment, although the cost was a drop in the ocean considering his position in the Illuminati.
