Death of a Clone

by Alex Thomson

  “Nope.”

  “Ashton, would it make any difference to you?”

  He shakes his head, slowly.

  “In which case, this whole thing is irrelevant. Certainly, it’s nothing to do with what happened to your poor sister.”

  “But aren’t you curious?” I nearly cry. “If Ashton is different, don’t you want to know why?”

  “Time for you to piss off, Leila,” Ashton says, a frosty smile on his lips.

  I stamp my foot and stalk out. As I leave, though, it may be my imagination, but I can’t help feeling the atmosphere between the three of them has changed—strained and heavy.

  IT DOESN’T TAKE long for Mr Ortiz to turn up. He enters my cabin an hour later, angry and less in control of himself than last time we crossed swords. I’m sitting on my cot, picking my nails.

  “What’s this I hear about you stirring up the Ays?” he says.

  For all their bluster and alpha-male credentials, the Ays really are a bunch of pussies. Always running to Mr Ortiz if their nose is put out of joint in the slightest. “Last I heard, the Ays were big enough and ugly enough to look after themselves,” I say. (I read that in a book somewhere, a sassy heroine said it. Made me laugh.) “Why have they got you running around for them?”

  He freezes, and I worry I’ve gone too far. Especially now I know he’s killed nine men. “What did you say?”

  “I asked you about the Ays last time,” I say, “and you said you weren’t their nanny. That I had to speak to them.”

  “That may be, but I’m stepping in now. This has gone on long enough. Now, more than ever, we need to be pulling together, not fighting. You’re going to be working with the Ays in the depot!”

  “I was just conducting an experiment. Is that so wrong?”

  “You’re in too deep,” he says softly. “Back away, girlie.”

  “I’m right, aren’t I? Ashton is different from the rest. His eyes—”

  “Absolute rubbish. They’re identical. Genetically, they are duplicates. As are the Bees, as are the Jays. How hard is this to understand?”

  “But maybe he’s from a different batch? A different vat? I don’t know how it works—”

  “You’re right, you don’t know. So drop it.”

  “I’m not sure why you’re getting so cross.”

  He doesn’t speak, but tenses his jaw, and I can tell he’s wrestling with what to say. Eventually, he comes and sits next to me, pats me on the knee. My skin crawls. I try to swallow back a bit of bile.

  “I’m going to give you some advice, Leila, for free. You’d end up learning it on Earth, anyway, but I’m going to tell you now. There are times in life when you have to learn to look the other way. To pretend you don’t see what’s in front of your eyes. Times when you have to do something distasteful, not because you want to, but because it’s… what’s it called… ah, yes—the lesser evil. And no matter how much you have to hold your nose, you do it anyway, because it’s the only path left to you. The others get this: the Ays, the Bees, the Jays, they all know when to look away. But you Ells…” He gives a short, harsh laugh. “You’ve always had this stubborn streak. Now, I don’t know if Ashton is different, I don’t fucking care, to be frank—but regardless, it’s only something that’s going to cause a fuss. So we look the other way. And we get our term done, without killing each other. Yeah?”

  No, I think, because I’m Jane ruddy Marple, and you are a multiple murdering bastard, and I’m going to see my sister’s killer pay, whoever it might be.

  I mutter something that could be affirmative or negative. He scowls and gets up, goes to the door. “This can be easy, or it can be hard, sweetheart. You want to go to Earth? Take my advice.”

  I’ve never responded well to bullies’ threats. “I’m not one of your Ays,” I say. “I’m not desperate to go to Earth. So don’t try to threaten me.”

  “You think you’re safe,” he sneers, “hiding behind Mr Lee. But you watch your back.”

  I deliberately turn my back on him, and busy myself with tidying my cot. “Don’t worry about me. You just look after yourself. Lot of anger out there after your little announcement. I’d keep an eye on all those angry brothers and sisters.”

  There’s no response, and I wonder if that was a misstep. Mr Ortiz seems in control most of the time, but he’s liable to lash out if pushed too far.

  Eventually, he just gives a low snort.

  “Maybe. But something tells me it’ll all blow over.”

  His footsteps echo out the cabin and I’m alone again.

  I GO TO Mr Reynolds’ cabin and rap on his door. I’m not sure what I’m going to ask him, though I know I can’t push him about seeing Lily’s murder, not yet anyway. As Bess said, it’s going to need finesse to eke out the truth from him. I could always confront him about the photographs and the Overseers’ dirty little secret, but let’s face it, that would not end well. So I’ll just have to wing it, and see what I can get out of him.

  There’s no response from within his cabin, which is odd as he should be awake by now. I give the door a shove, but it’s locked. He must have gone to the Community cabins while I was having a frank exchange of views with Mr Ortiz. Irritating.

  I’ve no interest in bandying words with Jays, so I go back to my cabin.

  I’m going to beat Mr Ortiz, somehow. His biggest flaw is his arrogance; I just need to drive a wedge between him and the other two Overseers. And the best thing I’ve got going for me is that, for now, I’m the indispensable last Ell. Which gives me a grace period, for a while anyway, when I can do what I want. I can’t play the long game like the Jays, though.

  I do always have the nuclear option in reserve. I’d have to betray the Bees’ trust, but it wouldn’t be difficult to persuade the Jays of the truth of where the Overseers come from. Then, boom, stand back and watch. It could be the spark that triggers the Jays’ revolution. (And leaves us stranded on Hell, with no means of ever leaving, let’s not forget that.)

  I have a shift in just under an hour, with Jeremy, showing him the ropes. I’m not really in the mood for it, but at least it will take my mind off things. I climb into Lily’s cot, crawl under the sheets, and stare at the ceiling. I semi-close my eyes, and my vision turns into brown, rotating whirlpools, juddering anti-clockwise in time with the throbbing of my headache. I try to jump into the mind of my dead sister.

  “Why didn’t you confide in me, Lil?” I say. “Would have made things a heck of a lot easier.”

  I need to know if a) she was really in love with Juan, or playing him, for reasons of her own; b) if she knew the truth about the Overseers, and if any of the Overseers knew she knew; and c) what was so relevant about Ashton’s teardrop eyes. As Andy said, did it make any difference? The truth is, I knew why Lily didn’t confide in me—she was protecting me, like I would have done to her.

  Mr Reynolds is the key, I remind myself, and I resolve to ask Jeremy for advice on how to get him to reveal what he saw. Until then, there’s nothing to be gained by agonising over it, so I clear my mind and watch the stars out the window.

  I’ve read about people who find the starscape beautiful—but is it really, when it comes down to it? A load of balls of burning gas, all about as bright as each other, dotted around the galaxy—what’s so beautiful about that? Whereas: look at a piece of quartz, the size of your knuckle—chipped off by the swinging pickaxe of an Ay. The random lines, the sparkling metal, the gorgeous grainy texture—there’s beauty, right there. All over Hell, there’s beauty, if you look for it. Inside the base, I grant you, it’s an ugly affair, a mess of faded grey plastic. But outside, where the Overseers fear—it makes me want to rip off my suit and roll around in the rocks.

  LATER, I AM in the depot with Jeremy, teaching him how to use the different acids on the swag. He listens carefully, follows instructions, and makes the occasional pleasantry. I told myself beforehand not to be charmed by him, that I can’t trust the Jays; but when you’re with someone in the flesh (or in
the suit, anyway), it’s a different story. When he’s with his brothers, he’s a bit more smart-mouthed, a bit more wisecracking; but on his own he’s annoyingly charming. There’s even a kind of old-world courtesy there (offering to help me with heavy crates, asking how my bruises are)—he can’t have picked it up from books, some instinct must have taught him that Ells react well to it. Part of me wants to tell him about the brake fluid and my certainty it was deliberate sabotage, but I don’t want him to get all macho and protective and spoil everything. Just having him watch my back is enough.

  We are on our knees, sorting a new batch of swag into the different types, when I decide to broach the subject of Mr Reynolds. I tell him what Becci said—it will be relayed around the community soon enough by Aaron and the two Jays—and ask him what he thinks.

  “You know what strikes me as odd?” Jeremy says. “Not that he saw it happen and didn’t expose the killer. That’s to be expected; the Overseers don’t want the killer found, they want the fuss to die down. They want us to reach the quota without any drama. What I find strange is that she’s saying he was scared. Mr Reynolds wouldn’t admit to being scared by a brother or sister, not even to himself. Or scared by Mr Lee or Mr Ortiz, for that matter.”

  I stay quiet. Jeremy doesn’t know that Mr Ortiz is a nine-times gangland murderer. But even so, it does jar with what we know of Mr Reynolds’ personality.

  “I don’t think we’ll be able to guess why he was scared,” I say. “The only way is to get the truth out of him.”

  “Really, we need to get to him when he’s been on the pills again,” Jeremy says, stretching and standing. The pile of swag is still ominously big. “But we need the Bees on board. He trusts them. The only thing is—can we trust the Bees?”

  “Remember your duplicate key, though,” I say excitedly. “How about I hide myself somewhere in the cabin beforehand? I’ll hear everything when the Bees speak to him.” It’s a bit farcical, a bit sub-Wodehouse, but living through my own Miss Marple mystery has convinced me that real life can imitate fiction.

  “It’s risky,” says Jeremy. “You make the slightest movement or noise, he’d hear you. And I don’t think the Bees would go along with it.”

  “Why not?”

  He scratches at his neck, even though he surely can’t feel anything through the hood. “Well, what do you think the Bees get up to in that cabin with Mr Reynolds?”

  “What? No!”

  “I don’t know for certain, but sometimes you just get a feeling.”

  “The Ays would never stand for it!”

  “The Ays are oblivious to anything that’s not shoved in front of their fat noses. If Mr Reynolds is careful, no reason why not.”

  I think of all the women in the photographs, all looking away from the camera.

  “I guess I’ll just ask the Bees, then—we’ll have to trust them.”

  We work together for a while longer. Jeremy doesn’t make mistakes, and I know I can trust him with the depot. All it takes is patience and an ability to follow a system, time and time again, without flourishes or showboating. I thought a Jay wouldn’t be able to resist putting their own stamp on it, but he’s followed what I’ve said to the letter.

  I decide to ask him about Ashton too. I was planning to keep it to myself—the reaction from the Ays and Mr Ortiz rather dampened my enthusiasm—but Jeremy has been a good sounding board, and I want to get his opinion. So I tell him about my experiment, and how Ashton’s eyes were different to his brothers. He listens patiently while sorting the swag.

  “Peculiar,” he says, when I’ve finished. “But without more information on the process by which we were made, there’s not a lot more we can do about it. Is there?”

  “I don’t like it, Jeremy. Remember the glasses. That was a deliberate attempt to hide the difference in eyes: either by Ashton or by Mr Ortiz. Which means they’ve been lying. If it’s a harmless difference they know nothing about, why the cover-up?”

  “Perhaps. But, just because he’s different to his brothers—what has he got away with? What crime has this genetic quirk allowed him to commit?”

  “Maybe he’s not an Ay at all,” I suggest. “Maybe he’s some kind of imposter. A good one—but he didn’t count on the Ells spotting him!”

  “Um,” he says. “Maybe.”

  I don’t think I’ve convinced him. He’s failed to give me any good advice on the Ashton Question. Personally, I love the idea of Ashton being an imposter. If this were Christie, he’d be a cousin who emigrated to South Africa, come back in disguise to kill Lily and claim an inheritance.

  But it’s not Christie, worse luck, and there’s no inheritance, no South Africa and no mysterious strangers.

  We are stacking crates together when Jeremy stops and turns to me.

  “Listen,” he says. “I want to say something to you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know what Juan and Lily had—I wondered whether…”

  “Whether?”

  “It could be something we had too. You know. Me and you.”

  I put my crate down and stare at him, through our two visors.

  “Maybe,” I say. “But first, I need to know I can trust you. If you start helping me, and not hiding things from me, I might consider it.”

  “Whatever you want.”

  “Answer me this first: what’s the deal with Jupiter? Is there something going on between him and Juan? Did he hate Lily? Was he cross that Juan was sleeping with her?”

  “How did you know about that?”

  “Just answer the question.”

  He shakes his head slowly. “You’ve got it the wrong way round. Juan and Jupiter both wanted Lily. They fought over her, Joseph had to break them up. Bad business.”

  “What, so they were rivals for her affection?”

  “I guess so. But Lily chose Juan.”

  “And what did the rest of your Family think?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You were split, right? Camp Ell and Camp Not Ell?”

  He shrugs. “We’re not all the same, Leila. You know that. I’m like Juan. We think we should work with the Ells, that together we can beat the Overseers. Judas and Joseph think you come between us, cause trouble. Jupiter went over to their side after Lily’s rejection; he became the bitterest of all. Jolly’s on the fence.”

  I nod thoughtfully. I need to remember to treat the Jays as separate individuals, but it’s difficult when I can’t tell the difference between them.

  “So?” Jeremy says. “What do you say? I’ve kept my side of the bargain.”

  “It’s a good start,” I say. “But talk is cheap. I still want to see evidence I can trust you.”

  He flashes me a wolfish grin. And for a second, I completely see how Lily fell for Juan, I feel it inside. The problem is, there’s that other side to the Jays—you have their charm, but also their flashes of anger. Jeremy versus Jupiter, Juan versus Judas. And which Jay am I getting? Because I know Jupiter is lurking in Jeremy, as surely as Jeremy is lurking in Jupiter.

  14

  AN UNFORTUNATE ACCIDENT (2)

  WHEN I GET back on base, it’s to find another kerfuffle has erupted. Jeremy returns to his cabin, but I go to the Leisure cabin, where Mr Ortiz, Andrew and Alistair are talking in low, nervous tones.

  “What’s up?” I say.

  Mr Ortiz gives me a cold look. “Have you seen Mr Reynolds? He didn’t turn up for his shift, and we can’t find him in any of the cabins.”

  “Hello,” I say, “this sounds familiar.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t find that very funny,” Mr Ortiz says.

  “Sorry to hear that. No, I haven’t seen him. He was sleeping in his cabin when I left on shift with Jeremy.”

  Mr Ortiz and Alistair look at each other. “He’s got to be on the base,” Alistair says. “There’s only one jeep not in use, and it’s still outside.”

  “Have you actually been in his cabin?” I say.

  “It’s locked.”


  “But he could still be asleep.”

  “Not for fourteen hours,” Andrew rumbles. “And we knocked pretty hard.”

  “There is a master key,” Mr Ortiz says, “but of course, of the four Overseer cabins, it would be in his.”

  There is a prolonged silence. Mr Ortiz breaks it. “I don’t like this. We’re going to break the door down. Come on, lads.”

  The three of them stalk out the Leisure cabin, the Ays wearing identical tight-lipped expressions. I follow them up the spine. I read once about a character ‘dining out’ out on a story, i.e. it was such a great anecdote that everyone in the city was desperate to have that person eating with them, lighting up their social occasions with this fabulous story.

  Well, this is anecdotal gold, watching Mr Ortiz and the Ays go and break down Mr Reynolds’ door, and every Bee and Jay on the base will want the pleasure of my company over a protein shake and a freeze-dried beef stew.

  They reach the door. Mr Ortiz barks out, “We’re breaking this door down, Sam! Shout if you’re in there!”

  ‘Sam’? Well, well. Didn’t know that.

  There’s no answer, and Mr Ortiz moves aside for the two Ays, who are looking serious, although I know they just live for the chance to knock a door down with brute force. I suspect they’re pleased to have me here as a witness, though they probably wish a Bee was here instead.

  “Keep low,” Mr Ortiz instructs them. “Lead with your shoulder.” He carries on with some more tips about technique, gesturing with his hands, and I’m fairly sure the Ays are paying no attention to him.

  Andrew goes first, charging like a bull, veins standing out on his neck. There’s a dull thud as the door shudders. He steps aside stiffly, and Alistair takes a turn, brushing past his brother, but it’s not enough of an angle and he hits it flat. He retires as well, rubbing his shoulder.

  Andrew narrows his eyes, glares at the lock, and springs up into it—there’s a crack, the door swings in, and he goes stumbling into the cabin. Mr Ortiz is next in, then Alistair, and I bring up the rear.