“Corporal Thompson.”
“And her Maker?”
“Sylvia Mason.” I really hoped there wasn’t an actual person with that name. I would have crossed my sweaty fingers if my hands weren’t in full view.
He tapped a few more times before holding out a pass for me. “Go on up, Corporal. I’m sure they’ll have a comfy cell waiting for this one.” He gave Wren a pointed look and it took all my self-control not to reach into the booth and strangle the last breath from his neck.
“Thank you,” I said instead, accepting the pass. I tugged on Wren’s arm and she jerked forward. “Come on, Def. No dawdling, it’s not going to change your fate.”
She struggled against my hold, doing a good job of pretending to be upset. I wasn’t entirely convinced it was all an act. If Wren’s friend wasn’t in the building, she would have kicked me in the gut and run in the opposite direction the moment I’d suggested the plan.
We repeated the process at each of the next four checkpoints, telling the same story repeatedly until it rolled off the tongue with no effort at all.
Finally, we made it all the way up the hill until we reached the main building. The guard stopped us, looking us over carefully. “Name?”
“Corporal Thompson.”
“What’s your business here?”
I repeated the same story I’d told five times already. Either they were double checking stories to make sure they remained consistent, or they had really poor communication systems between booths.
This guard was older, world-wearied as he took us in. Dread started to pit in the bottom of my stomach. We were already in the belly of the beast, if he chose to confirm my story with my superiors now, we were as good as dead.
There was no way we could outrun them.
Hiding was never an option.
Wren struggled in my arm, giving me the perfect excuse to get angry. “Look, I’m just here to deliver her and do my job. I’d like to do it today, I don’t have all week here.”
The guard scowled at me, meeting my stare unflinchingly. He outranked me when I was on his territory but that didn’t mean I couldn’t give him attitude. I wouldn’t be the first trooper to get on his bad side.
“We’ve already had one delivery this week,” he said, not what I was expecting him to say.
“And you’ve got another one,” I replied sarcastically. “Lucky you.”
“Who’s her Maker?”
“Sylvia Mason.”
He raised his eyebrows and turned his attention to his touchpad, tapping in way more information than the situation warranted. If he was looking up her fake Maker or calling my sergeant it was going to be game over.
My heart thundered in my chest, threatening to choke me or explode – one or the other. Wren was completely silent at my side now, probably coming to the same conclusion as I had.
I wanted to warn her, tell her to be prepared to run if we had to. We wouldn’t get far, but we’d go down fighting.
“Look, is there a problem?” I asked tersely.
The guard pursed his lips as he looked at me. “You’re in a mighty big hurry, son. Got something better to do than serve your city?”
“No, I’d just like to get back to the serving instead of being a glorified taxi for a Def. The sooner I’m done with her, the better.”
“If your time is so important, I can call a guard and he can take her off your precious hands.” He finished with a fake smile that looked more like a sneer.
“My orders are to deliver her myself,” I replied, trying to force down the panic at being separated from Wren. Over my dead body would I leave her there.
“Right. And you follow all your orders, Trooper?”
“Yes, sir.”
He didn’t believe me, every tense muscle in his body told me that. He did stop tapping on his touchpad, though. After sizing me up some more, he licked his lips and reached for a pass. Holding it out for me, I was almost too relieved to take it.
“Be quick,” he warned. “Don’t be lingering in my facility for too long or I’ll throw you out myself.”
I took the pass and clipped it on, adding it to the collection on my vest. They really needed to update their processes, Stone could save a fortune. Maybe then there would be enough money to feed her people better.
After clearing the booth, we entered the long corridors of the labs. They stretched out before us in three different directions. I’d never been to this particular lab before so had no idea about the layout. I was, however, acutely aware of the guard watching our every move behind us.
I turned right, hoping it led somewhere I was supposed to be. Pushing Wren, she still oozed contempt. I was certain it wasn’t all an act.
We moved in silence as our footsteps bounced off the walls. Men and women in white coats occasionally passed by, quickly sizing us up and then giving us plenty of room to move. Defective Clones were distained more in the labs than anywhere else in Aria, they represented failure. Failure of the scientist who created them, failure of their job, their genes, their abilities to recreate a human life perfectly.
It was working in our favor today.
At the end of the corridor was a sign hanging over a door that led to another wing – General. It was as good a place as any. I shoved open the door and strode on through like I owned the place, dragging my captive the entire way.
Closed doors lined the way. I slowed down to a pace that would mean Wren could see through the windows and look for her friend. I had no idea what Rocky looked like so this mission was all up to her.
We passed rooms with clones in them, some ready to Serve Their Purpose and dressed for an operation that would end their lives. Valid Clones usually did it willingly, being so brainwashed they thought they were going to an utopia by laying down their lives for their Maker.
It was the Defectives that knew the truth.
No matter which way the Makers, Stone, and the scientists dressed it up, it was murder. For one life to go on, another was sacrificed in their wake.
It wasn’t right.
It wasn’t natural.
It was disgusting.
Money didn’t trump a life. It didn’t make it acceptable, or okay. They had no right to tell their clones anything different. Before the clone technology was invented people lived their lives and it lasted for as long as it was supposed to.
Now, the greedy continued on and the innocent were slaughtered.
They had tipped the balance and evil was winning.
At the end of the corridor, Wren gave a small shake of her head. He hadn’t been in any of the rooms. We turned left and repeated the process.
We must have walked past a hundred rooms, about half of them containing people – a mixture of clones and staff. They were easy to distinguish, the clones were the ones strapped to beds.
“He’s not here,” Wren whispered.
We were running out of time.
It would only take one person to recognize Wren, another to check my story. This needed to be a sprint, not a marathon.
The next wing was marked VIP. So they categorized their clones based on who their Makers were. It seemed fitting in a city where money bought you whatever you wanted.
We turned and hurried through the doors keeping the celebrity clones away from the general population. The differences were instantly apparent. The walls were painted a creamy yellow, the floors covered with hardwood, curtains were on all the windows. It made a stark difference to the white and sterile General wing.
It also made me sick.
It didn’t matter that the sheets on their beds were blue instead of white, the clones were all going to have the same fate. They were all going to die as soon as their Makers needed something from them.
I gnashed my teeth together as we stalked through the hallway. Wren gasped, grabbing my attention as I tried to see what had caused her surprise. She nodded toward one of the rooms.
It took a moment to work out who the clone was, he was younger than his
Maker by about thirty years. Nobody could mistake those bright green eyes, though. He was the vice president’s clone, strapped to a bed and under heavy sedation. He was too old to be newly-created which meant he was there for only one reason.
Organ harvesting.
There had been many rumors in the city about Vice Present Arnold Chancellor suffering with cancer. Some said he was well on the way to dying. If he was calling in some organs, the rumors were probably true.
I tugged Wren along, wishing she didn’t have to be subjected to this. She fixed her eyes in a hard stare, hoping she didn’t accidently see any more harvesting operations.
The VIP wing was much smaller than the first one had been. We exited out the other end of the corridor without being interrupted. My deception obviously hadn’t been noticed yet. That only meant we were getting closer to running out of time. The guards weren’t completely stupid.
We stopped at the next section.
Dead in our tracks.
This room wasn’t signposted, there were no warnings or indications of what lay beyond the doors. If there was, we certainly wouldn’t have entered.
There were bodies everywhere.
Discarded clones in the worst possible use of the word.
The corpses were piled high, haphazardly thrown on top of another and given no further thought. The bodies were refrigerated but that didn’t do much to quell the smell.
Lifeless eyes stared ahead while large, gaping gashes tore the bodies open. They were shown no respect on their deathbeds, treated like nothing more than carriers for organs.
I stole a glance at Wren. Silent tears were falling from her eyes, staining her cheeks in long streaks. She was looking at her future, maybe already her friend’s fate.
She might have known some of them.
I opened my mouth to say something, to offer some words of comfort, but nothing came out. There was nothing I could say to her that could erase the memory of the horror.
All I could do was take her away from them. I pulled on Wren until she moved, needing to half-carry her out while her body was frozen in place.
“That’s not going to be you,” I said under my breath, making her a promise rather than offering an empty platitude. I would use my last breath to make good on it if I had to.
She just shook her head. I wasn’t sure if that meant she disagreed with me or if she was just trying to shake the horrible thoughts from her memories.
After checking we were still alone in the corridor, I spun her around and crouched down to her height, getting right in her face so she had to look at me. “Do you hear me, Wren? That is never going to be you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”
Her head was still moving from side to side. “It could be. It’s what I was made for.”
“No. Okay? Just… no. Nobody will ever get the chance to do that to you.”
“They’re trying.” Her voice was little more than a whimper.
“And I’m not going to let them.”
“You can’t—”
“I will do whatever it takes,” I interrupted.
Before I could stop myself, I pulled her into an embrace and hugged her tightly. Her body was so tiny against mine. In that crushing hug, I tried to tell her what I was willing to do to protect her.
I doubt she understood my commitment.
And sincerity.
I let her go again quickly, gently grabbing her arm while we resumed our ruse. She was still crying but it would only help our charade rather than hinder it. With any luck the cameras hadn’t caught our private moment.
“Did you see your friend… in there?” I asked.
“No. I haven’t seen him at all.”
“We’re going to need to keep looking then.”
We were both keen to put as much distance between the cold morgue and us as possible so we hurried down the opposite hallway. It was difficult keeping track of where we were but my trooper training had taught me well. I was keeping a mental map of our position and where we’d been. Hopefully it would come in handy if we had to get out quickly.
The next wing wasn’t marked either. I dreaded what could be on the other side as we barged in through the doors. Two scientists looked up as we did.
“Clone delivery,” I said to their silent question. They shrugged and got back to their work, letting us pass through.
The rooms here had smaller windows but were still starkly white and sterile. The pieces of glass were designed for convenience rather than observational viewing.
We came to a room with large open double doors. Inside were rows upon rows of beds. Not one of them was empty. They each contained a woman, absolutely no males amongst them.
Confusion washed over me for a moment as I tried to figure out what was going on. These women couldn’t all be clones. They weren’t tied down, free to move about with more liberties than any of the others.
There was one thing they shared, however.
They were all pregnant.
We were in the creation lab.
Chapter 19: Wren
It couldn’t be real. My eyes were deceiving me. They were poking fun of everything I was and turning on me in an endless loop of laughter.
Clones were made.
They weren’t born.
What I was looking at had to be a cruel joke. Or a dream. It had to be somehow fake and not true or real at all. I had stepped into a world where everything I wanted was true and everything I thought I was turned out to be false.
The women were pregnant, their bellies swollen with a child they nurtured in their wombs. They were all dressed in pink pajamas, some resting their hands on their stomachs in a loving manner.
They cared about the children they carried.
These were mothers.
Inside them were clones.
Posters taped to the walls gave them inspirational slogans, like ‘Happy mother, happy clone’ and ‘helping Makers everywhere’. Everything I had been told – everything everyone had been told – about how clones were brought into the word was a lie.
A stupid, horrible lie.
We weren’t born in a petri dish, overseen by a scientist who harvested our genetic codes until we grew into a baby in their machines so that could be assessed for our suitability.
We had mothers.
A woman carried me for many months, ensuring I grew into an infant. She gave birth to me when it was my time, brought me into the world just like a human.
I was born into this world.
If I wasn’t created, did that mean I had a soul?
Besides our genes being identical to our Maker, what separated us from humans? If we were both born, didn’t that make us human too?
Everything around me spun into motion, making me dizzy. I couldn’t comprehend what I was seeing with what I’d been told. A part of me still believed there had to be another explanation.
Was one of these women my mother?
They appeared to be happy and comfortable, did my mother choose to carry me? Did she know who my Maker was? That my fate was to serve the president?
Reece tried to pull me away but I wouldn’t let him. I needed to know more. I needed to know everything. I couldn’t leave without answers.
Because, if I was born…
I couldn’t imagine what the implications were. All I knew was that it would change everything.
Rocky needed to know, everyone at the village needed to know. They needed to see this with their own eyes so they could know they weren’t created but born. I wanted to tell Rocky more than anything.
But first, I needed to find him.
The room lured me in like a magnet. I stepped through the sliding doors before Reece could stop me. There were so many women, and they looked so… happy. They were carrying clones inside them and they were happy about it. They couldn’t see abominations, they could only feel a child.
“Can I help you?” one of the women asked. Her bulge was huge, sticking out in front of her as she waddled toward us. Her baby b
ump was so big it was making her pink pajamas strain over her belly.
My mouth opened and closed a few times before any sound could come out. “I was wondering how your… baby is doing?”
I sounded like a crazy person.
Hopefully she wouldn’t notice.
The woman regarded Reece and I kindly, smiling as she absentmindedly rubbed her stomach. “My baby is doing really well. She’s almost ready to be born and meet her Maker. Isn’t that exciting?”
“You don’t mind that she’s a clone?”
“Of course not.” She waved away my comment like it was nothing, as insignificant as an ant. “She’s going to Fulfill Her Purpose, contribute to Aria in a special way. She’s going to do great things.”
The woman never stopped smiling the entire time she spoke. Did they put pills in their food that made them so happy, or was it a naturally occurring phenomenon?
Surely they wouldn’t be this happy if they knew they were carrying a Defective Clone.
“Why… why are you doing it?” I asked, well aware we were on borrowed time in the wing. Reece was getting impatient beside me, shuffling from foot to foot and tugging on my shirt.
I couldn’t leave yet, though. Not when I was so close to so many answers.
“I’m doing it for the city,” the woman replied, like it should have been obvious. “Is that why you’re here? Are you planning on becoming a Breeder?”
Her question was laughable.
But there was nothing to laugh about.
“I… no… I can’t. I’m not…”
She smiled gently, her eyes so warm and kind I wanted to fall into them. If I was born, if I did have a mother, I hoped she was just like this woman.
“The process is very simple,” she continued. “Once you’re approved, you come in here and the scientists inseminate you. Then, you get a whole nine months to be pampered here. You can rest assured we are very well looked after.”
“That’s good to know, thank you,” Reece interjected, cutting off our conversation with no room for arguments. He steered me away, whispering in my ear. “Wren, we need to go.”
I didn’t get a chance to reply, my words were cut off by the blaring sound of the alarm as it peeled its way through the corridors. Red lights flashed overhead as doors started automatically closing.
Two Beating Hearts Page 19
