by Jade Kerrion
Zara snorted, though his words tickled fear within her. Did Danyael blame her for wrecking his life? “Whoever reframed her memories has been watching too many soap operas. She’s delusional.”
“There’s no deceit in her,” Danyael continued. “She truly believes she’s you.”
Galahad shook his head. “That’s crazy. A lie so disconnected from reality isn’t sustainable beyond a day or two. Certainly no more than a week.”
“Her life span may not be much more than a week.”
“How can that be? Even age-accelerated, she’s at least a year old,” Galahad said.
Danyael shrugged. “I can’t explain it. I can only tell you what I’ve sensed. I didn’t get the impression that she was hunting you, though, just your clones, so that they wouldn’t kill me before she could.”
Zara rolled her eyes. Definitely too many soap operas.
Galahad frowned. “So, whoever created her is responsible for the Zara clones but not mine? Are we searching for two clone masters?”
“It seems like it,” Danyael said. “She mentioned that an associate, Suresh Sharma, is supplying her with information. He’s on Pulau Hantu. She also said something about a bomb shelter…a false back in the tourist information center.”
Zara inhaled deeply. “I’m sure it’ll make sense when I see it.”
Danyael looked at her. “You’re not going alone.”
“Sharma isn’t expecting me to bring visitors back.”
“You have no idea what’s out there.”
“I do. One Indian scientist and several deluded clones of me. I can handle it. I may be able to blend into the crowd.”
“Zara—”
She smirked. “No, Danyael. Unless you marry me, you don’t get veto power over my decisions.”
“I’ll come—”
“You’re not coming. Crazy clones who think that they are world-class assassins and bear a grudge against you are inherently troublesome. I don’t want you anywhere near them.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ll head out now; I’ll be back in time for lunch.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The thin spray of the prior night’s drizzle evaporated as the sun rose over Pulau Hantu, casting a luminous glow over its beaches and meadows. Within an hour or two, Zara suspected that the island would be filled with day-trippers toting picnic baskets, but at that moment, she had the run of the small island south of Singapore.
Pulau Hantu, translated literally from Malay to English, meant Ghost Island. Zara snorted. She could not have come up with a more inappropriate name for the pretty little rock that oozed unthreatening charm, or found a more innocuous place to hide a laboratory creating emotionally unstable clones of a trained assassin.
The tourist information center was little more than a small one-room building, framed on either side by restrooms. In the main room, a ceiling fan spun, its slow and lazy motion doing little to dispel the humidity. Display cases of hotel and restaurant brochures surrounded the unstaffed desk. The room, Zara suspected, remained perpetually open—a self-service center for tourists. There was nothing worth stealing, which meant that there was little practical need for the sophisticated camera that swiveled in a corner of the ceiling—unless Suresh Sharma used it to monitor activity outside his laboratory.
Zara walked out of the door and circled around to the back of the building, pushing her way past tight clusters of Helliconia plants, their contorted yellow flowers contrasting with the deep green of their broad and waxy leaves. She paused in front of a trampled plant and then turned to face the wall. Eyes narrowed, Zara ran her fingers over the concrete wall, tracing a scarcely visible seam from the ground up to the wooden rafters supporting the roof. Right about… The coarse texture of wood gave way to cool metal. Here…
She pressed down. The seam cracked wide. Zara swung the door open—a false concrete front over a well-oiled steel door. The door opened into what seemed like a square closet, no wider than four feet by four feet. She scanned the steel walls of the closet, but it offered no clues. Sometimes, all you can do is take the next step. Zara stepped into the opening, narrow and dark enough to give vampires claustrophobia, and pulled the door shut behind her.
The lock clicked into place. The floor moved, an elevator smoothly carrying her down into the bowels of the building. The “walls” of the closet, the elevator shaft, fell away moments before the elevator stopped. Zara stepped out into a wide-open space, as large as an airport hangar. Bomb shelter was her first thought. Unwieldy partitions had been erected to carve up the space, but it still looked like an interior designer’s nightmare—a maze of interconnected rooms.
Many of the rooms were filled with research stations and scientific equipment that she recognized from her explorations of Pioneer Labs. The laboratory was well stocked with expensive and cutting-edge equipment.
An industrial-size refrigerator with glass doors took up most of the space in the next room. Zara tugged the door open, and removed a small vial of liquid from among the hundreds stacked in neat rows. The micro-camera implanted in her cornea snapped a picture of its label. She selected more vials from other stacks and recorded their labels. Perhaps Danyael could make sense of them.
She closed the refrigerator doors. Further exploration led her to a sealed door, the only locked door she had encountered thus far. Superb technology notwithstanding, the door was sealed with a traditional lock-and-key. Hackers like Xin could circumvent anything controlled by technology, and ironically, the lock-and-key was coming back into style since lock picking skills were harder to come by than computer hacking skills.
Zara, fortunately, had a host of unsavory skills to draw from. She pulled a thin metal wire from her utility belt.
Five seconds later, she slid the unlocked door open.
The large room was climate-controlled at a comfortable seventy degrees. The chill that shivered down her spine came from something else—her violet eyes scanned the room—sixteen something else.
Sixteen copies of her floated naked in gel-filled growth chambers, flat-bottomed glass cylinders, not unlike coffins. Although most of the clones seemed close to her real age, three were much younger—she would have pegged their age at about eight years, and another three were little more than toddlers, scarcely older than Laura.
Breathing apparatus covered their noses and mouths, and wires trailed from tiny electrodes implanted in major muscle groups. Every few seconds, the bodies twitched as if in response to stimulus. She ran her fingers against one of the growth chambers, half-expecting her clone’s eyes to open and stare directly at her.
They didn’t.
Her gaze traced the tangle of wires from the growth chambers. Several wires connected the chambers to the computer terminals that apparently monitored the condition of her clones, and other wires led to power outlets. Her generous lips pressed into a straight line. If she yanked the wires, her clones would die.
Zara knelt down, her hand lingering on the plug at the power outlet. Those clones were just physical shells, weren’t they?
Of course any person who considered Xin just a physical shell would be quickly disabused of that notion. Xin, though, had thirty years of experience in a thirty-year-old body. These clones had likely never opened their eyes; twenty-five years of growth flashing by in 365 days, their experiences, skills, and memories were limited to muscle stimulation and a twisted recollection of events.
Zara pushed to her feet and strode silently past the clone-filled growth chambers, and a handful of empty ones, to the door on the far side of the laboratory. The door opened into a smaller research station. She did not attempt to conceal herself. The man in the room stood with his back to her, apparently oblivious to Zara’s presence as he bent over another one of her clones. That clone, however, floated in translucent liquid instead of gel, a metal helmet encasing her head. Fluids pumped through an IV into both arms.
The man, slight of build, glanced at the computer screen. He crooned softly. “A few more minutes and all
your memories will be back in your head.”
Zara leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. “My memories, or a pile of bullshit?” she asked.
The Indian man spun around, his eyes large in his dark-skinned face. “Zara!”
She pushed away from the doorframe and stepped into the room.
He stepped back from her, his retreat matching her advance. A skinny and unassuming man with wide and terrified eyes, Suresh Sharma seemed nothing like the photographs she had seen of the confident and smiling A*STAR scientist. His unshaven face was haggard and his last bath was likely a distant memory. Zara stepped up to the computer terminal and spared a glance at the screen. “My memories, stolen from MetaScan, no doubt. I’ll have to have a word with their CEO when I get back to the U.S.”
She did not think Suresh’s eyes could get any larger, but they did.
Zara continued. “You must have altered my memories to get them to buy into whatever crazy story you were selling. What else did you pump into my clones?” she asked, tapping the clear bag of fluids attached to the IV pump. “The last time I was that clueless, I was in my mother’s womb.”
Sharma’s jaw dropped. “Zara Itani?”
She took two quick steps forward and closed the distance to Sharma. “I’m sure there’s a lawyer somewhere who would happily sue you for using my genes without paying some kind of copyright fee, but for now, I’ll settle for answers.”
He gaped at her. “You’re the real Zara.”
“Answers, Sharma. I want them now.”
“I…Zara, the clone…is she dead?”
“Answers.” Zara pulled out her Glock and aimed it at her helpless clone.
“Did she kill…anyone?”
Zara smiled thinly. “No, she wasn’t that good.”
He sagged into a nearby chair and raked his fingers through his thinning hair. “Damn it.”
“You wanted Galahad’s genetic code. What did you do with it?”
Sharma looked up, a bitter smile on his lips. “Rakehell messed up, you know that, don’t you? He took shortcuts. He was sloppy. He didn’t test all the cross-genetic interactions.”
“And you did?”
“It would be a lifetime of work.” Sharma waved a hand at the computer terminal. “I’m scarcely 20 percent through the tests and I’m already finding serious flaws in Galahad’s code.”
“Like a tendency toward schizophrenia?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
Zara shrugged. “Go on. You obviously did more with the code than analyze it.”
Sharma shook his head vehemently. “I analyzed it—that’s all I did—but Ehimaya wanted more—”
“Ehimaya Sadgati?”
“You know her?”
“I know of her. She created the super soldier program.”
Sharma nodded. “She has been working on super soldiers for decades. It is her life’s work, and when she found out that I had Galahad’s genetic code, she insisted on a copy.”
“And you gave it to her?”
“We…” He hung his head. “No, I was responsible for his genetic code. I couldn’t sign it over to her, but I agreed to work with her on it. She insisted on replicating Galahad—just one copy. Of course, an infant was of no use to anyone. I…I had my doubts on the age acceleration, but I didn’t stop her until it was clear that something was wrong, and by then, it was too late.”
“Too late?”
“Galahad-One took over the program.”
Zara’s brow furrowed. “Galahad-One?”
“The first clone that was created. We underestimated Galahad. We underestimated him. He’s brilliant. He customized the others, not their genes, but the human growth hormones and drugs to which they were exposed as fetuses and later, as they were age-accelerated.”
“So the other clones are different.”
“More obedient, though no less lethal. Those are the clones that Galahad-One sends out.”
“To kill Galahad’s genetic donors? Why?”
Sharma shook his head. His hands trembled against the armrest. “Because he can? Only God knows. He also wants Danyael Sabre.”
“Danyael? Why?”
“Because Galahad-One is dying; age acceleration…he must be seventy now. He wants Danyael to heal him.”
“Can Danyael do that?”
“No one knows for certain what Danyael Sabre can do; only that he keeps exceeding expectations at every turn.” He looked up at Zara, dark eyes blazing in his small face. “Danyael cannot heal him. To perpetuate that insanity—”
“And that’s why you’re trying to kill Danyael? To keep him from healing Galahad-One?” Zara scowled. “God, why didn’t you send Danyael an e-mail explaining the situation instead of creating your own clone army? And why did you choose me?”
“Who else can stop Galahad’s clones?”
“Danyael.”
Sharma shook his head. “No. Oh no. To clone an alpha empath…to age-accelerate him would be insane. Even if I did, I could never replicate the kind of power Danyael has.”
“Why not?”
“His memories fuel his empathic powers. Without access to those memories, his clones would be blank slates. They would still be powerful empaths; they would be able to channel emotions, maybe even heal. But the power to kill, that comes from Danyael’s pain, his memories. Danyael’s clones wouldn’t have a fraction of his power, not without his memories.”
“And his memories are—”
Sharma’s smile was rueful. “Mercifully locked in his head. Danyael has never downloaded the neural patterns of his memories. He probably never saw any purpose in it. His memories are not what he would leave to anyone.”
It made sense. Memory downloads were popular for those with backup clones, or for parents intending to leave a recording of their lives for their children. The latter had been Zara’s reason, after all. Her lifestyle was dangerous; her memories might have been the only part of her she could leave to Laura. Danyael would have had no reason to backup his memories. In fact, he would probably rather lose them entirely.
Sharma continued. “You…you were my next best option. Your genetic code was readily available, and you had recently downloaded your memories.”
“How many Galahad clones exist?” Zara asked.
“I don’t know. Ehimaya abandoned the program a year and a half ago. She left it to Galahad-One. She should have killed him.”
“Where is Galahad-One? Does he have a lab here in Singapore?”
Sharma nodded. “I think so, but I don’t know where. I’ve sent my clones to search out every possible location, but they’ve found nothing.” His shoulders sagged on a sigh. “I’m certain that he knows where I am. He’s toying with me, though I can’t imagine why. His clones have defeated mine at every turn.”
“All right, come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“To talk to Danyael and Galahad. The real Galahad.”
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
Zara casually swung her handgun around to aim it at Sharma. “Trust me. You can. You’re going to describe your research to Danyael.”
“Danyael?” Sharma snorted. “Danyael isn’t stupid, but the volume of information…it’s beyond him. He won’t be able to do anything with it.”
“Your way isn’t working,” Zara told him. “So we’re going to give our way a chance. Move it.”
At the point of her gun, she ushered Sharma toward the elevator, but she paused when she realized that the elevator platform was gone.
Sharma tensed. “Who came in here with you?”
“No one.” Zara stepped into the elevator shaft and peered up at the descending platform. “Who else knows about this place?”
“No one.”
Zara threw a glance around the large underground room. “Is there another way out of here?”
Sharma shook his head. Dread etched on his face. “No, there isn’t.”
~*~
The elevator descended through
the shaft of the bomb shelter. Legs appeared first—four pairs, likely male. She caught a glimpse of handguns in holsters too. More fool them for not coming down prepared for a firefight. They would pay for their complacence.
Zara did not hesitate. “Fighting fair” had never been a part of her skillset. She raised her handgun as bodies and faces came into view; her finger tightened on the trigger. Two precise shots, one after another took out two of the four Galahad clones—one through the heart, the other through the head.
She ducked without attempting the third shot. Bullets raced over her head, sinking into the partition behind her. Zara slipped away behind a partition and darted through the maze of panels. She had to keep moving. If the clones had Galahad’s uncanny spatial senses, they would be able to place her based on sound and the trajectory of her bullets.
Zara peered out from behind another partition in front of a cluster of desks. Two uninjured clones leapt from the elevator. Guns in their hands, their dark eyes scanned the room as they stepped over the bodies of their companions.
She inched up to take a pencil from the desk, and glanced out again. Their attention was on the other side of the room. She hurled the pencil from her hand and rolled behind an adjacent cabinet immediately. The clones spun around, firing—not at where the pencil landed and not at the pencil’s trajectory. They fired at the desk where she had been hiding a moment before. Damn. They did have Galahad’s spatial senses, and were almost as practiced as he was. Galahad, on the other hand, would have known to hold his fire until he actually saw something to shoot at.
I taught Galahad everything he knows. What do these clones not know?
Zara glanced over her shoulder. She had a clear path to the incubation room. With luck, Sharma had found a safe place to hide, and she had free run of the laboratory. Inching along the floor, she crawled into the incubation room and took cover behind one of the glass growth chambers. She studied the electronic keypad. The controls seemed simple enough; she had seen similar chambers when she had received a tour of an incubation facility two years prior. She had been pregnant with Laura at that time and had briefly contemplated the possibility of transferring the four-week-old fetus into an artificial birthing chamber so that she could work, unhindered by her pregnancy. In the end, though, she had decided to carry Laura for the full term of her pregnancy.
