DoriaN A

by Jon Jacks

  Was Dorian supplying the rebels?

  Did he have more concern for their plight than I’d ever realised?

  If he was illegally supplying the rebels, I was surprised that I’d been able to enter this room so easily.

  I would have expected that even my DNA profile wouldn’t allow entry to such a contentious area.

  Dorian wouldn’t want me to know of any illegal weapons trading, even if it was for my own safety.

  But of course.

  The DNA access hadn’t been set up for my benefit.

  It had been set up to allow entrance to a trusted Tigerdroid officer.

  A Tigerdroid officer sent out to kill the head of the rebels.

  (Had Cally been threatening to reveal details about the illegal trading? Had she been quibbling about the price?)

  The DNA access had been set up for my copy, not me!

   

   

  *

   

   

  ‘I think you must know you’re not supposed to be here.’

  I spun around to see who had spoken.

  It was me.

  I was standing there.

  Telling me I wasn’t supposed to be here.

  Or rather, my copy was standing there. My perfect-in-every-detail copy.

  If she hadn’t been wearing a martial body suit, I would have sworn I’d spun around and caught my own image in a mirror.

  It was a far weirder experience than when I’d first seen Cally. Although Cally was – had been – my twin, there were a number of differences between us, most of them caused by the wildly different lives we’d led.

  This girl though – this girl was me.

  The eyes. The hair. The stance. The way she held her head.

  Wow, did I really look that haughty?

  The killer of my sister.

  ‘And you? You’re allowed access, I suppose?’

  Damn! What a childish thing to say!

  But I was shocked, seething, ready to kill her!

  She had killed Cally! She had killed my sister!

  But she was also weirdly, disturbingly, my copy. And something held me back from throwing myself at her.

  ‘Obviously.’ She answered my question nonchalantly. ‘Which is how you also managed to get in here, of course. I suppose Dorian’s going to have to place double checks on the locks. It’s so tiresome, a pain. But he’s had to suffer it himself, of course, to stop your friend Dean being a naughty little boy, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Dean? You know where he is?

   ‘He’s around. You sure you want to see him? He’s a bit of a mess.’

  She chuckled.

  ‘You could do better, you know?’ she added. ‘You’re quite a beauty, if I say so myself.’

  If the smile she gave me was the smile I used to try and a charm people, I needed to work on it.

  ‘You’re nothing but a set of spares, you realise don’t you?’ I said to her cruelly.

  Hey, I wanted to hurt her, right?

  ‘Spares?’ She managed to sound confused. ‘Oh, right; you mean like your precious Dean, yeah?’

  I grabbed a knife from a nearby display. I held the blade up to my face.

  ‘If you like to think you’re beautiful, just remember I could destroy it all as quickly as Dorian destroyed Dean’s beauty.’

  Wow, did I just mention Dean’s beauty?

  My copy laughed gaily, tittering like we were out having fun at the fair.

  ‘Oh, I think you’re far too nice to do that. Besides, I don’t think you’re brave enough to risk scarring your own beauty.’

  ‘I’ve seen Dorian cut himself; seen it heal in moments.’ I moved the blade down towards my arm, pulling up the sleeve to bare the flesh. ‘Why should I be scared of cutting myself?’

  She was looking at the blade, her eyes twinkling with amusement.

  ‘Go on; dare you!’ she said brightly.

  I pushed the blade deep into the flesh of my upper arm

  Gawd, that stung like crazy!

  My legs almost gave way I was in such pain.

  But I held firm, held her sparkling, laughing eyes. I didn’t want her to know that this was hurting, if only for the briefest moment.

  This incredible pain would be over soon. Then she’d be the one wailing in agony.

  To increase the effect, I dragged the blade across my arm.

  The blood flowed, dark and red, down my arm and dripping to the floor.

  My copy continued to grin. She pulled up the sleeve of her own arm, baring her own flesh.

  She stared at the area of her arm where the cut should be appearing any moment now.

  ‘Nope; doesn’t seem to be working,’ my copy nonchalantly declared.

  ‘Angeic! Stop it! It won’t work with her!’

  Dean was suddenly alongside me, stemming the flow of blood by gripping the wound tightly with his hand.

  I recognised his voice. His head was covered, hidden beneath the tightly drawn hood of the combat jacket he was wearing.

  ‘De…Dean!’

  I was shocked. Were his injuries so bad he had to hide his face beneath a hood?

  ‘She said you were a mess. Are you–’

  Dropping the knife, I tried to pull the hood back. He pulled away sharply. He turned to a nearby desk, searching it.

  ‘We need a first aid pack,’ he said from beneath his hood. ‘’Ah, this will do.’

  He turned back, ripping the pack open and quickly drawing out a roll of Stemcell bandage.

  My copy observed our little scene with amusement.

  ‘Ah, beauty and the beast, eh?’

  Dean swiftly applied the Stemcell. It wrapped tightly around my arm, instantly sealing the wound.

  ‘Cutting yourself won’t injure her,’ Dean explained. ‘Dorian altered the effect of the morphic fields when he created her.’

  ‘In laygirl’s language, dear, that means you can’t injure me the way Dorian can hurt our poor, kind, but remarkably ugly beast here.’

  ‘Shut it Diana!’ Dean snapped, whirling on her.

  ‘Touchy touchy! Show her Dean darling; show her how beauty has become the beast!’

  ‘Diana?’ I said, confused. ‘Oh, of course; Anne, but with the DNA added again.’

  I reached out for Dean’s hood.

  ‘Dean, it doesn’t matter what you look like; I need to see.’

  He pulled away again.

  ‘No Angeic! You don’t!’

  ‘Oh go on; let her!’ Diana turned to face me. ‘Why do you think he’s been exiled down here? It’s not just because he was dabbling in things he shouldn’t have been anywhere near. It’s because no one could stand seeing his ugly face anymore.’

  ‘Dean…please.’

  I reached out tenderly towards his hood.

  Resigned, he undid the cords and snaps holding it in place.

  He flipped back the hood.

  I gasped in horror.

   

   

  *

 

  Chapter 28

   

  It looked as if almost half his face had been shattered by some form of chemical accident or explosion.

  The damage ran down his neck, disappearing into the areas beneath the jacket.

  Did one whole half of his body look like this?

  ‘How…how could Dorian do this to himself just to punish you?’

  I tenderly stroked the other side of his face.

  Dean laughed bitterly.

  ‘I don’t think anyone would do this to themselves on purpose. Even if you know you aren’t going to suffer the consequences,’ Dean said. ‘It just seemed to happen suddenly, like he’d suffered some sort of horrendous accident in his laboratory. It almost knocked me off my feet – half my body just erupted from below. Maybe he dropped something; a flask of explosive liquid.’

  He glanced over at Diana, as if he were pleading for confirmation of his assumption.

  She smiled back at him as if it wer
e no concern of hers.

  From below? An explosion? Up one side of the body?

  Hadn’t I seen something like that only recent–

  ‘Wait, Dean! When, when did this happen?’

  ‘Happen?’ He said it as if the timing wasn’t relevant. ‘Late this afternoon – well, yesterday afternoon, seeing as it’s now past midnight.’

  Late afternoon! That’s when the attack took place.

  When I saw Cally’s shot strike the human officer.

  From below.

  And up one side of his body.

  Dorian!

  Dorian had taken part in the attack!

   

   

  *

   

   

  Oh Cally Cally Cally!

  Little did you know you were injuring the man I love!

  No, not Dorian!

  Dorian would have deserved these injuries! He was trying to hunt my poor Cally down.

  But it’s my poor Dean who has suffered the–

  Did I just say the man I love?

  I grabbed him by the waist.

  ‘Dean. I don’t care how you look. We can leave, leave now!’

  He shook his head. He gave that bitter laugh once more.

  ‘I can’t. Dorian’s changed the DNA access on most of the locks.’

  He pulled me closer, swung me around so my back was towards Diana.

  ‘You’ve got to understand,’ he said surprisingly resignedly, ‘that you’ll only ever be able to find me from now on through Dorian, got that?’

  He’d given up. He felt beaten, destroyed.

  One of his arms slipped away from my waist. His body moved, like he’d swung his arm behind his back and was searching for something on the table behind us.

  ‘Dorian’s the number one round here. I’m just his copy. You’ll never find me if you don’t consider that!’

  ‘Ah, this is all so sweet,’ Diana scoffed. ‘But it’s time for me to escort our little sleep walker back to her apartment.’

  As she moved towards me, Dean swung me around once more.

  He slipped something into my back pocket.

  ‘I’m just the poor copy of the numero uno, Angeic!’ he said sadly, giving me a final, parting kiss on my cheek.

   

   

  *

 

  Chapter 29

   

  Dean was obviously a broken man.

  And who could blame him, after suffering such horrendous injuries?

  And me? Wasn’t I broken too?

  I’d failed to neutralise the Tigerdroids as a fighting force.

  Without Dean to help me, I wouldn’t even know what to look for – some form of control codes, even a control panel perhaps, who knows? – let alone know how to reset it all so the Tigerdroids came under our control.

  Besides, if Dorian was going to alter my DNA access codeing – as Diana implied he would, and as he’d already done for Dean – we wouldn’t be able to go wandering around anywhere remotely secret anyway.

  I showered and washed in my en-suite bathroom. I couldn’t face seeing Dorian’s smirking face staring back at me from the large mirror in the double bathroom we usually shared on a morning.

  Maria had set the breakfast table for both of us however. I was tempted to insist she moved my placing to the window table in my section of the apartment, but as Maria briskly brought in the food itself I changed my mind, resolutely deciding that I would have to face Dorian at some point anyway, so it might as well be now.

  The door to Dorian’s side of the apartment opened.

  Diana stepped out, half clothed in nothing but a towel loosely tied about her like a Grecian gown.

  ‘Morning,’ she said casually.

  She gave me a triumphant smile as she made her way towards the large bathroom.

  So, I thought; I suppose that means our copies have everything in place down there too.

   

   

  *

   

   

  Dorian sat down at the breakfast table.

  We could both hear the splashing water of Diana’s shower.

  He nodded me a greeting.

  ‘Pleasant evening?’ he asked.

  ‘Unusual, to say the least,’ I answered coolly.

  As he helped himself to the ham and eggs etcetera that Maria had set out on the warm platter, he indicated the bathroom with another nod of his head.

  ‘Oh, I hear you’ve already been introduced.’

  ‘Indeed. Will she be joining us for breakfast?’

   He shook his head.

  ‘She’s got a great deal on today.’

  ‘And in future, perhaps? Can we expect her to be around in future for breakfast?’

  He twirled his fork in the air.

  ‘Oh, perhaps, perhaps; I don’t see why not, do you?’

  ‘So our engagement – is that to be cancelled?’

  ‘Engagement?’ He had the grace to sound shocked. ‘Why no no! As I said to you earlier, many of my clients expect the people they’re dealing with to be happily married.’

  ‘And this would count as a happy marriage would it? You inviting other girls to your bed?’

  ‘Hardly other girls Angeic!’ He grinned, as if I had pointed out the craziness of my question.

  ‘I’m sure we both know what I mean.’

  ‘Of course, of course; we mean that you seemed to assume it was fine for you to cavort around with “Dean” but–’

  ‘Cavort? Nothing took place between me and Dean, Dor–’

  The bathroom door clicked open.

  Diana entered the room, as proudly naked as the day she was born.

  Which, of course, wasn’t too long ago.

   

   

  *

 

  Chapter 30

   

  I went through the rest of the day in a daze.

  ‘She’s got everything I like about you,’ Dorian had casually informed me as Diana had made her way to his bedroom to finish (or should that be start!) getting dressed. ‘Although, of course, I also took the opportunity to remove some of your more irritating little habits and foibles.’

  Had Dorian really developed his cloning to that incredible degree of detail?

  I doubted it.

  It was all just a way of getting a dig at me, like he was digging away with an excavator.

  ‘Such as?’ I said as I’d continued to coolly pick at the fruit on my plate.

  ‘Well, all this new-found, warped morality you suddenly seem to be suffering from. You know, worried about the people on the outside.’

  ‘Whereas Diana’s a calculated killing machine, you mean?’

  He’d raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Ah, so you know it was her? The attack on the rebel base? You were impressed, I hope?’

  Like me, he refused to lose his air of nonchalance.

  ‘So there’s another way she’s better than you,’ he’d added cruelly. ‘She’s a feistier, much more athletic version of you.’

  At lunch, my friends noticed that I was a little distant.

  ‘Ah, I know what it is,’ Fullerana suddenly said with a mischievous glance at Gilleria. ‘She’s tired after last night.’

  Gilleria patted my hand conspiratorially.

  ‘Oh yes, come on now Angeic; even on TV, we couldn’t fail to notice that gleam in Dorian’s eyes every time he looked your way.’

  ‘Yes, yes Angeic, so we don’t just mean the Convention! We mean whatever went on after the Convention!’

  They both tittered and blushed, and looked at me both enviously and admiringly.

  ‘I mean Angeic! That dress! Wow? What did Dorian have to do? Pour you into it.’

  I grinned as best as I could.

  They meant well.

  They were trying to cheer me up.

  But only succeeding in making me feel worse by the second!

  ‘And Dorian looked so dashing
and handsome and happy and pleased with himself! What had you two been up to before you set out? You looked the perfect, happy, beautiful couple!’

  What had they been up to before the convention?

  Killing my sister.

  That obviously made them both very happy.

  Just how are you supposed to handle your fiancé having an affair with, well, not someone else, but me – only another me?

  Another, better me, according to Dorian.

  And even according to Fullerana and Gilleria.

  ‘Oh, oh, don’t look now, but either someone’s double just walked in or we’ve got trouble!’

  Even though she’d told us not to look, Gilleria was staring hard over my shoulder towards the back of the room.

  ‘No no, I don’t think that could possibly be a double Gilleria!’ Fullerana declared adamantly as she followed Gilleria’s gaze.

   Surely she wouldn’t–

  I swung around in my chair.

  Kerrsly!

  It wasn’t Diana – it was Kerrsly.

   

   

  *

   

   

  ‘What does she think she’s doing back here?’

  ‘Wasn’t she fired? Isn’t that what Mr Bodor had assured us?’

  ‘She was so rude to me – and to you Angeic! You should say something to Mr Bodor!’

  Kerrsly had caught me staring at her.

  She could hardly miss me, seeing as how I’d spun around in my chair.

  She’d ducked back into the kitchen where she’d appeared from.

  How had she got her job back?

  Did she still blame me for Cally’s death?

  Did she still want to kill me?

  Perhaps Mr Bodor had had a change of heart and rehired her. Perhaps Kerrsly had explained the dire straits her sacking had left her family in.

  I turned back to face the table.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ I said honestly. ‘It was too steep a price to pay for what she did.’

  ‘Angeic! She was rude! People from outside aren’t supposed to be rude!’

  ‘They should be grateful that they have a job!’

  I smiled lamely at my friends. I couldn’t begin to explain to them what it was really like outside the Oases.

  ‘Look,’ I said, ‘if it makes you feel better, I’ll go over to her later and make sure she’s learned her lesson, okay?’

  Their eyes widened in surprise. Then they nodded in agreement.

  Good.

  That meant I could approach Kerrsly after lunch without anyone wondering what I was doing. Kerrsly being here was a heaven sent opportunity to get a warning back to Drad that I’d failed.

  And I couldn’t see how I’d ever have the chance to neutralise the Tigerdroids without Dean’s help.

  Of course, as soon as Diana had left me last night after escorting me back to my side of the apartment (hah, I didn’t know then that afterwards she was just going to simply stroll across to Dorian’s rooms!) I’d searched my back pocket to see what Dean had left there.