Holding the bottle of beer out in the cold void of space, she only waited five seconds before pulling it back inside, cycling the air through.
The gravity clicked back into place, the pallet of cargo slamming into the floor. Crickett unclamped her helmet, taking a sip of the ice-cold beer. The glass was so cold it stuck to her lips for a moment, the refreshing icy beer piercing the warmth of her body. She could feel it moving down through her chest, more refreshing and colder than any drink she’d ever have back on Earth.
Back in her original body.
After two years Crickett was still struggling to understand what it meant to be a clone. She’d died. Killed at sea, an ambush laid by those bastard English.
One moment a cannonball had torn through her leg, Crickett falling into the sea below, her lungs filling with salty water.
The next thing she knew there was a dinosaur with a monocle checking her vitals. She guessed she was happy to be alive, but it felt like her death had been taken away from her. She’d had a choice in how she’d died, living free in the ocean. No one had ever asked if she’d wanted to be cloned. She wasn’t free to leave whenever she wanted, not like back on the Salty Seagull. She couldn’t leave the arena, couldn’t even escape.
She couldn’t even kill herself, since they’d just clone her again. A sample of her original body locked deep away inside the arena, there would just be another Crickett waking up a few days later.
Was that an entirely new person, or would the new clone have the same soul as she used to? What if they made two clones of her? They did that ten times over every week with that nasty Hitler fellow. Did each clone have their own soul? Did souls even exist?
It was enough to scramble her brains into existential mush. So Crickett tried her best not to think about it, instead focusing on living one day at a time. And for now, taking another sip of ice-cold beer.
Thankfully, Crickett was more useful outside of the arena than fighting for her life. Although she was sometimes made to scramble in the opening matches. Fighting robots with a cutlass and a gunpowder pistol was good for letting out pent-up rage, and the dinosaur doctor would heal almost any injury without any trouble.
But Crickett missed her crew. More than that, she missed the reason she’d worked her way onto a pirate ship in the first place.
She missed her freedom.
On the deck of the Salty Seagull, they sailed wherever they wanted. The crew were free to do as they pleased, away from the control of the bastard British empire.
She didn’t have to go into space twice a month, or be in bed before ten p.m., or have her intake of alcohol restricted.
Then again, the future had its perks. Like beer so cold she could feel it move down her body as she drank it. The medical technology was astounding, especially when it came to Crickett’s time of the month. No more dirty rags, instead the good dinosaur doctor had injected a chip into her arm, giving her complete control over her body. Scurvy was no longer an issue, a pill in place of spending hard-earned coin on fresh fruits every month or so. And on top of all that, she got to meet exciting and new people from across all the time periods.
Crickett took off the rest of her spacesuit as the elevator began its ride back down to the surface of Crimson’s Lament. She sipped from the icy cold beer, occasionally wiping the condensation from her hands onto her trousers as she carefully undid more wrapping on the pallet of supplies, looking for her pack of contraband.
She refused to bring in anything dangerous. No weapons. Nothing that could help someone escape. And no hard drugs. She’d seen enough of her sailors go through withdrawal on the sea; she wasn’t going to do that to any of her other clones.
And she wasn’t going to have some fool taking too much, the death leading back to her. She had to keep her business secret and safe. They were all replaceable, even though Crickett had worked hard to make sure it would be as difficult as possible.
Crickett found the contraband with ease, marked with red tape to keep it separate from the protein gels and medical fluids. She took out all the red packages, putting the wrapping back together, and pressing a few buttons on the arm of her spacesuit.
The nanites in the wrapping began to seal back together. A function for an accidental tear in space, it meant Crickett could reseal the pallet without anyone knowing she’d taken anything in the first place.
She then got to work, sliding her contraband supplies into her empty spacesuit. Every two weeks the servants scanned the pallet of supplies three times for anything illicit, while Crickett casually walked by carrying everything in her spacesuit.
Usually she put everything into the legs of the suit at a whim, only organizing everything once she got back to her bunk.
But today was different.
She found the special vacuum pack, placing everything else into the legs of her spacesuit first. Chocolates, alcohol, a few cigars. A not-so-surprising amount of porn magazines. Crickett piled them in, putting her vacuum-sealed pack on the top.
With another thirty minutes or so until the elevator landed, Crickett sat back on the old comfy sofa, listening to more David Bowie as the elevator returned to Crimson’s Lament. As the elevator moved down into the atmosphere, Crickett began to nervously tap her foot.
She’d faced down British bastards on the sea, fought dinosaurs in the Arena of Doom, and braved the void of space.
But the thought of opening up the bouquet of flowers and gifting them to the loveliest lady in the arena? The thought of that was finally enough to make Crickett’s stomach go queasy.
Chapter 10
The blood ran down Logan’s cheek, a few drips even curving onto his lips, dangling off the edge. As soon as Victor undid the strap on his head, Logan shook his head like a dog, flicking the drips of blood off his face.
“Hold still.”
Logan did as he was told, holding still in the chair as Victor held up the dermigel, spraying a thin layer of the thick blue liquid onto Logan’s wound.
It had probably hurt more the first time Logan had gotten his scar. Other parts of his body had been burned, after all, and both his eardrums had exploded, blood pouring out his ears as he fired his plasma rifles at the onslaught of Necrotrons.
But being tied to a chair, helpless like a child or an animal… it had hurt differently.
Logan’s first instinct was to book a session with a shrink on the nearest base. Like anyone in a command position, he had to attend monthly sessions, had to talk out any psychological problems.
But he wasn’t in the military. Wasn’t even in the Chaucer system. He was lightyears away, and years in the future.
He was a clone. A DNA sample sitting on a shelf somewhere for years, grown back into existence against his will.
The cut above and below his eye began to sting, like he’d just had vinegar smeared into the wound. The skin began to knit itself back together, hours and days of healing accelerated into mere seconds. Logan resisted the urge to touch his face, the skin clumping together.
Victor had recreated the wound perfectly, using a bit too much dermigel so a layer of scar tissue would develop. Just like the harried medic had done all those years ago.
“Thanks.” Logan nodded at the doctor as he took a step back.
He now knew why he’d been thrown into an arena to fight a giant tarantula. Why Hitler had been in the medical wing next to him. Why his tattoos had all been missing.
But there was still one mystery to solve.
As Victor undid his arm and leg restraints, Logan stood up inside the dingy dungeon, looking the velociraptor up and down. Lord Zemka and the servants had all left as soon as the cutting had finished, leaving the two of them alone with a handful of droids.
“Why are you a dinosaur?” Logan asked point-blank.
Victor tilted his scaly head, blinking hard a couple of times. “You’ve just found out you’re a clone, and that’s your first question?”
“Guess I’m still processing.” There was a lot rattling a
round in Logan’s mind. The philosophical implications of what it meant to be a clone were burning at the back of his brain. Was he alive? Was he human? What was the difference between being born and being cloned? He had a perfect replica of his memories; did that make him Logan Rexington? If the original Logan Rexington lost all his memories, would he still have been Logan Rexington?
He shook his head once more like a dog.
“So, dinosaur. But also dress up like an old posh English person.”
“I am Victor Cunningham the Second,” Victor said, putting the dermigel back into his first aid kit. From there he brought out a scanner, gingerly holding it in his clawed hands as he approached Logan.
He turned on the holodisplay, the light fixing to Logan’s body, overlaying an X-ray vision of the body wherever Victor scanned.
“I trained as a physician, and helped many with their ailments across the years.” Victor paused by the shin, a circle appearing on the holodisplay, highlighting a minor bruise. “I had a wife, four children, thirteen grandchildren.”
Victor slid a small cylinder out the back of the display. Pressing it to Logan’s shin, there was a hiss and the burst of nanobots got to work, healing the internal injury.
“I remember lying on my deathbed, a dose of morphine to ease the pain, gently drifting away. Whether to see the kingdom of Heaven, or the gentle nothingness of death, I was at peace.”
The scanner moved up to Logan’s arm. A few minor cuts from where he’d been thrown around in the arena. Victor pressed a couple of buttons on the scanner, the light changing from blue to green. Logan could feel the pulse, the waves cleaning any dirt and debris from his arm.
“Then I woke up in a dirty pen, my arms and legs covered in claws and scales. My body cold, a tail and big gnashing teeth.”
Logan listened intently. The more he focused on Victor’s story, the more he could ignore his own for the time being. Pretend he was just a guy listening to another guy. Not a clone struggling with his identity.
“I’m still catching up on hundreds of years of technology,” Victor said as the light changed from green to orange, the small cuts on Logan’s arms itching as the skin began to knit itself back together. “In my time, the steam engine was a marvel to behold. But from what people have told me, a ‘computer glitch’ switched the memory synthesizer for me and this dinosaur. My memories were put into this beast, and the brain of the raptor was put into the man.”
“That’s rough.”
“Indeed.” Victor continued scanning the body, the light occasionally shifting as it cleaned a minor wound and then sealed it up. “Took me a while to learn to talk again with this strange tongue, peculiar lips.”
Victor finished his scan, cleaning and healing any minor scrapes. As he finished up, Logan felt a tug on his face. The freshly healed scar. It was pulling slightly as he moved his face.
Logan frowned, moving his forehead muscles up and down. The wound pinched slightly, not like his previous scar.
Trying his best not to think about his new cruel wound, he looked over at Victor as the raptor packed up his first aid kit.
“But why not just clone you again into a human body?”
“Each clone costs thousands of gold to grow, and Lord Zemka felt it was cheaper and better to just let me be in this body.”
“Gold?” Why was Victor talking about gold? “What happened to yen? Digicoin? Mickie?” Military Investment Credits was what Logan had been paid in his whole life.
“What’s digicoin?” Victor shrugged, his gentlemanly suit ruffling as he did. “Computer. Courtyard exit.”
From the stone dungeon, a doorway suddenly melted into existence, sunlight pouring in.
Of course. If the arena itself was an environmental sim, so was the dungeon underneath. That was how a hole had appeared beneath Logan’s feet. It had moved there. And had probably been slowly moving to the edge of the sim the whole time Lord Zemka had been talking to him.
“So…” Logan squinted at the bright sunlight pouring in. “I guess Zemka owns us all. Like, owns us as property.”
“I study medicine, not law,” Victor said, “but clones don’t have much of a say in anything. I’ve been here for sixty years. Not one inspection from an outside force, not one member of law enforcement has visited. We’re left to our own devices on Crimson’s Lament.”
“You’ve been here for sixty years?!” Victor had spent more time as a velociraptor than Logan had been alive.
Or was that true? Had Logan been alive for thirty-three years, or thirty-three hours?
He shook his head one more time like a dog, looking out into the light.
“So, you gonna give me a tour of this place?”
“If you’re not busy.” Victor gestured to the doorway, filled with light. “And it’s Lord Zemka. Not just Zemka. He gets very particular about that.”
Logan nodded, heading to the doorway of light.
He didn’t know exactly who he was, where he was, or what the rules were. But he knew angering his captor for no good reason was a terrible plan of action.
The life he’d known had disappeared in an instant. Every soldier he’d served with was either an old pensioner or long dead. Even the system he’d grown up in must have changed over the last one hundred years.
What new technology had been developed? What was the political relationship like between the systems a hundred years on?
As he stepped out into the courtyard, he sure as hell hoped Victor was up for answering a few dozen questions.
The first one was the most important.
“What happened to my family? What happened to my son?”
Chapter 11
The first thing Logan needed, what any soldier needed for any mission, was intel. Stepping out into the light, he squinted as his eyes adjusted to his new surroundings. He was in a courtyard of sorts, red clay stonework all around him. The ground had a light dusting of sand, smooth brickwork underneath. It wasn’t the quick build metal of a military base. It was retro, made to look older than it was.
“You need food,” Victor said, leaving clawprints in the sand as he walked. “Follow me to the mess hall.”
“Wait, do you have any info?” Logan stopped in the courtyard. “I had a wife. Well… an ex-wife. But my kid! Trent Rexington. What happened?”
If it had been a hundred years, Trent would be an old man in his centennial. Logan felt a stab of guilt in his stomach, worse than any wound from the tarantula. He’d signed up to the military mainly for the social credit. A couple tours of service would help with any job in the system.
Then the Necrotrons had been forged, beginning to tear across the system. Two tours had turned into four, become eight. His wife had divorced him (rightfully so), but his son Trent and he had bounced back messages all the time. Fourteen years old, even during his rebellious teen phase he’d still sent a message to Logan once a week. Even if sometimes it was just a picture of his middle finger, or a video clip of him drinking alcohol he’d snuck from the kitchen.
Little shit. Logan loved him more than anything.
After the mainframe, he’d meant to have gone back. Spent more time with him. He knew he couldn’t make up for the time they’d lost, but they could still make something new. That was the sacrifice of a soldier. He’d missed out on organizing playdates, on barbecues, on guiding Trent through caliber tests in his early teens.
But he’d just missed out on his son’s entire life. In the blink of an eye.
“Last news article is from fifteen years ago,” Victor said. “He was retired, in the Topaz system.”
“Topaz?” Trent had moved systems? “No chance you have a handy condensed history of the last one hundred years?”
“We have files, but nothing specifically like that,” Victor said, beginning to walk through the courtyard once more.
“How about a map of this place?” Logan followed a few paces behind.
“No one has ever escaped in my sixty years.”
Logan ge
nuinely hadn’t even been thinking about that. But that was useful intel.
Halfway across the courtyard, Logan glanced over at the atmospire in the corner. At least fifty meters squared, he glanced up as the thick beam of metal disappeared up into the sky.
“What year is it?”
“2661,” Victor said, pausing as Logan looked up the atmospire.
“So exactly one hundred years since I died.” It felt so surreal to say out loud. Logan had died, had vivid memories of his death, but was still walking and talking. With a dinosaur no less.
“Your centennial,” Victor said. “Good for sales.”
“Is that what I am now?” Logan asked, breathing slightly heavier. “Am I a product?”
“You, like every clone in this arena, are my patient,” Victor said. “Descartes once said ‘I think, therefore I am’ — the rest of his musings were lacking, but that still holds true.”
Logan raised an eyebrow, wincing as the scar tissue pulled on his face.
“I’ve had sixty years to think about this. Trust me.” Victor sounded a lot more convinced than Logan felt.
Victor turned back around in the courtyard as Logan heard a whooshing sound.
A large pod slid down the side of the atmospire, slowing to a halt as it landed on the ground. A group of servants scanned the pallet of supplies before they began to unload them, each of them taking packets and carrying them in separate directions.
“Is everyone here a clone?” Logan asked, turning back to Victor. “Apart from Lord Zemka, of course.”
“Yep, every single one. Well, there’s the good scientist who runs the cloning process, but she’s locked far away from anyone and everything. For security reasons.”
Logan nodded. Good to know he had people on his side. In a prison camp, Logan would be mounting his soldiers against all the captors. Lord Zemka had made a mistake, making himself the sole original human. People often began to think in ‘us vs. them’ — and Lord Zemka had made himself the only ‘them.’
Arena of Doom (Clone Squad #1) Page 6
