Clone Secrets_Book 2 of the Clone Crisis Trilogy

by Melissa Faye

  “There’s no plan yet for finding Hope. And Teo.” I looked at Etta 2 warily. I knew I should trust her because Etta trusted her. But I wasn’t sure yet how I could relate to her when she was so similar to my best friend but so unknown. That anger in her face worried me.

  Sven came in and nodded a curt hello. He was acting like Matana: taking care of business, watching after the campers. Etta 2 wasn’t part of the community yet, like Matana would say, but we still owed her all the care and help we could provide. He would help with her and Teo as much as he would with Hope, but it was a different kind of relationship that he would maintain.

  “Yami, I’ve been looking for you.” He looked at me and I saw how tired he was. I wondered if he slept at all that night. “I’ve talked with more of my contacts to confer,” he said. “There’s a community a distance away where the Underground overthrew the government.” My jaw dropped.

  “What?” I cried. “You never told us!” Charlie poked my back. There was no need for accusations, I supposed, but I was sick of everyone’s secrets. “You know that’s what they’re doing in our old community, don’t you? We need to connect our friend to –“

  “I don’t need to tell you everything I know,” Sven continued, ignoring my outburst. “But this is relevant now. The community – it’s called Gentle Acres, and they’re keeping the name for now – has been running itself without government resources for over a year. I don’t know if they’re the only community like that, but given how little we knew about children being born, I suspect there are many more. They could be the best place to take Matana for the urgent care she needs that we can’t provide here. And they have contacts all over. They’re likely to be the best people to talk to about Teo and Hope.”

  “How do we get there?” Etta 2 jumped in. She was usually quiet, like Etta, but also like our Etta, she was anxious to see her child again as soon as possible. She stood up on her crutches, wavering on her feet but steadfast in her demeanor.

  “You can’t go anywhere,” Charlie said gently. “Your leg, Etta.”

  “You just try to leave me here!” Etta 2 cried. Her face looked wild. I had never seen that face before, even from my own Etta. “That is my son, and I am not going to sit here while you – you strangers go looking for your own child.”

  “Etta,” Our Etta was much better at gentle calmness than anyone I knew. She smiled through her teary eyes. “We don’t have a plan yet. But you’re no good to any plan we have if you can’t walk. And no good to Teo if your injury doesn’t heal. We can’t do anything that will slow us down from saving our kids. Both of our kids.”

  Etta 2 swore under her breath and shot us all nasty glares.

  “Don’t you see?” Etta said quietly. She reached out and rubbed Etta 2’s arm, stepping closer. “Teo is my son too. Hope is your daughter. They’re brother and sister. I could never leave Teo –“ She tensed up and couldn’t finish.

  “There’s also Matana to think about,” Sven said, ignoring the emotional tension. “Gentle Acres may or may not have more information about the kids, but I’m certain they’ll have the capacity to save Matana’s life. We do need to go there. They have a Med. It’s Matana’s only hope.” He paused, then clenched his chin. “I’m going with you.”

  I nodded to him and bit my lip. We had no plan, but we had a lot of people who wanted to be part of the plan. At least Sven knew about the noncomm and about the community we would be visiting. And with his stubborn tenacity, even if his initial focus was on Matana, he would help get us answers about the kids.

  Etta 2 shook off Etta’s hand and made as if to talk again.

  “You’ll be better if you stay and rest,” Charlie cut her off. “Really, Etta. We’ll message you about everything we do. But if you don’t get off your foot your leg won’t heal properly.”

  Etta 2 opened and closed her mouth. I could see her eyes fill with tears. Her face was bright red. Charlie had an advantage; he had gotten so close to Teo. It was hard for Etta 2 to see him as an enemy.

  There was a moment of silence where no one wanted to say the wrong thing and anger Etta 2 more. Breck jumped in finally.

  “Sven, can you collect the materials we’ll need to get to Gentle Acres?” Breck asked. “We’ll need clothes, and fuel, and food...plus all the stuff we need to take care of Hope when we bring her home.” He eyed Etta 2 apologetically. “And Teo, obviously.”

  “We can use the truck. I’ll work with Torrice to determine the best way to transport Matana in her current state.” Sven folded his arms across his chest. He seemed to stand up straighter now that we were sketching out our plan.

  “I’ve been working on a program...” Charlie hesitated to bring it up. I gave him a reassuring smile. His application wasn’t perfect yet, but if we were trying to hide from these Gray Suits, we might as well use all the weapons we had. “It should keep our communications hidden from detection. And we can use it on other TekCasts if ours get lost or...stolen.”

  Charlie showed the program to the team. Probably, like me, no one understood it, but they nodded politely and followed Charlie’s instructions for loading it onto their TekCasts. Charlie showed them how to install the program onto a new TekCast if needed.

  “The only problem is that with the new messaging system, only those who know our new identities will be able to contact us. We won’t be able to stay in touch with...” Charlie trailed off.

  Vonna. That’s who he was thinking of. Omer, too, but I suspected Charlie would send him the program without a second thought. Vonna was young and that much less reliable. Plus, her camp would be more likely to frown on this if they knew about it.

  “This is good work, Charlie,” said Sven. He had a new energy about him, even with the dark bags under his eyes and ashen face. “I’ll let my contacts know we’ll leave tomorrow at dawn.”

  Everyone agreed. Breck and Etta wanted to leave sooner, but were shot down easily. Etta 2 fumed. With the messaging system, though, we could keep her updated on our progress. Once she was healed, maybe we could even find a way to have her meet up with us. Or hopefully, we’d find the kids before then.

  I PACKED BAGS FOR THE trip while Charlie set off on a mission to collect information around the camp. He reasoned that even if Sven had the most contact with other camps and other Underground members, there must be others who knew things too. Etta sent Breck to help him when he wouldn’t stop pestering her with orders about how to pack.

  Etta and I collected food from the kitchen together. Sven said we could drive to Gentle Acres in twenty-four hours, so we took the smallest amount of food possible. Supplies were low after the attack, and the camp would struggle now that the garden was destroyed. People would understand that we needed to leave, but we couldn’t leave them without plenty of food.

  We met with Torrice. Sven told her to work on a way to transport Matana, but none of us were sure exactly how to do it. We couldn’t put a bed in the truck. Etta and I helped Torrice build a board with straps. We could hook her up to an IV while we traveled, but would still need to get to Gentle Acres as soon as possible to prevent dehydration or infection. One of us would ride in the back of the truck with her. We found tarps in the resource tent to cover the back of the truck and protect Matana and people sitting with her from the elements.

  Charlie and Breck returned triumphantly. Breck wasn’t smiling – I didn’t expect to see a hint of happiness on his face until we found Hope – but bobbed his head up and down positively.

  “There isn’t a lot of information. We probably should have known. But a lot of people heard about the community that was overthrown.” Charlie was out of breath but rushed to get the words out. “A woman told me she always heard rumors about people having secret kids and those kids being stolen, but she never would have believed them. She’s reaching out to other people she knows to try to find the source of the rumors.”

  “We also found two different people from two different communities who heard about increasing unrest in their old towns
,” Breck said. “There are potential uprisings happening. And Omer is trying to overthrow the Chancellor at Young Woods. I’m going to message him an update. Maybe he can connect with other Underground members trying to do the same thing.”

  I snuck off to send my own messages. I was not leaving Vonna behind again; she was fifteen and alone. I couldn’t imagine how the camp was treating her. They were probably nicer than Matana – most people were – but that didn’t mean she wasn’t scared or frustrated or lonely. I sent her Charlie’s program and instructions for using it.

  “Only for emergencies,” I messaged. “Don’t show it to anyone. Don’t even hint that you have it. But I let me know how you’re doing, or if anything happens that I should know about.”

  “Of course, Yami.”

  I imagined her rolling her eyes at me. She was a teenager, after all.

  “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “It’s called Gentle Acres,” I said. “They overthrew the government. They can help a woman who was injured in the attack, and maybe help us figure out where the kids are.”

  “I bet they can help,” Vonna said.

  “We’ll see!” I sent her a map of the location.

  “If you find someone to come with you, you can meet us there.”

  “I doubt it,” Vonna said. “They just have us all working. They’re nice, but boring. No one’s interested in being a part of Underground stuff.”

  “If that changes, let me know immediately.”

  I snapped my TekCast shut when Etta came over to check on how the packing was going.

  “What were you doing?” she asked innocently, with a hint of a twinkle in her eyes.

  “Nothing!” I said, perhaps too quickly. I calmed myself down. “Nothing, really. Just looking at a map. I can’ t get a map of the new region, but I can at least see part of the trip.”

  Etta nodded, her hands on her hips. Unconvinced. “As long as you’re staying out of trouble, okay?”

  “Of course,” I smiled. “We have enough trouble as it is.”

  Chapter 8 – Charlie

  I couldn’t help my excitement when I woke up the next morning. I was up before Yami, and pinched her until she woke up. “What?” she yawned. “Is it time already?” Her black curls were strewn around the pillow, forming a big arc around her head. I pulled a few of them jokingly.

  “Nope, just wanted to see how you’re doing,” I said. My face was still tender, but Yami’s black eye looked much better. “Do you think you’ll still like me with a crooked nose?”

  Yami looked at my face closely, squinting and frowning, and made me turn in both directions. “Probably not,” she said. “This is probably it for us.”

  “It was nice while it lasted, I guess,” I said. “Now get up! It’s almost time!”

  Yami shot me one of her patented glares when we crawled out of the tent and she saw how early it was. “You couldn’t have let me sleep longer?” she hissed. “I’m going to have to take a shift driving, and I’ve never driven before. Don’t you think sleep is important right now?”

  “Nah, you’ll be fine,” I said. I pulled her up to stand next to me. “Let’s check the bags.”

  It was an hour before Sven joined us by our tents.

  “The bags are set,” he said. “Torrice is going to help us with Matana. I’d like to stay with her as much as possible to keep an eye on her.”

  “No, we should have a doctor there as much as we can,” said Yami. I hadn’t seen anyone else stand up to Sven yet, but Yami seemed to have shaken off the sadness and kindness that lingered over us the day before like a blanket. They stared at each other until Sven looked away.

  “Fine,” he said. “We’ll trade off at least.”

  Breck and Etta crawled out of their tents with more puffy, red eyes. I tried to imagine how they were feeling. What if my mentee, Jaime, was kidnapped? I knew it must be different. I only got to speak with Etta a little bit while we were preparing our packs the day before, but she admitted it was like a part of her was missing.

  “Like someone took something that makes me who I am. Not even my heart. Something even more fundamental, like my sense of hearing. Or all my memories of high class.” She pinched her lips together without looking at me. Now, on the brink of leaving, she avoided eye contact.

  “We should be able to leave very soon,” Sven said. “But I’m concerned about our lack of weapons.”

  “Do you think we’ll see more Gray Suits?” I asked. I imagined what I would do if I saw them. The thought of their faces, and their guns, and the sight of them threatening to kill Teo...I felt a rock in my stomach and realized I was wringing my hands tightly together. I wouldn’t mind seeing them again. They deserved any revenge we could get.

  “I don’t know,” Sven said. “If we do, we need to stay away. We don’t have a way to defend ourselves.” Yami began to pick up the bags we had left outside our tent. When I tried to take some from her hands, she shooed me away. The camp was silent around us; it was barely sunrise.

  “What other tools are there around here?” Breck asked. “Crowbars, metal pipes, anything?”

  Sven paused, thinking this over. “I suppose,” he said. “I’ll grab some things and meet you at the truck. Torrice can help you load Matana.” He began to walk away, but stopped and turned back to us. “I don’t want any of you thinking we can engage the Gray Suits. Nothing we have at the camp will be any match for their weapons. If they’d wanted to, they could have easily killed every one of us.”

  Etta shivered. I felt my rage deep inside me stirring quietly, and tightened my fists even more. Sven watched me carefully.

  “They have guns. You saw what they did. If we see them on the way to Gentle Acres, we run.” With that, Sven left us to see Torrice.

  We finally set off a half hour later after double and triple checking our supply list. I was driving the first shift, and would spend my shift showing Etta how to drive in preparation for her to take over. Yami would be in the back with Matana and Sven, who had refused to sit in front. Breck lay out in the back seat. Etta tried and failed to convince him to get more rest. His eyes remained firmly open, staring at the landscape around us.

  We left as the sun finally rose above the horizon. It was a twenty-four hour drive, and there may be trouble along the way. I, for one, was ready for it.

  ETTA PICKED UP DRIVING quickly. I showed her how the pedals worked, and how to use the speedometer and read the fuel gauge. Her steering was fluid – maybe better than mine – and she mastered the whole thing within twenty minutes of driving. Breck sat next to her to learn for his shift. I left them to sit with Yami in the back. We made Sven sleep in the backseat. Stress lined his face like a carnival mask. I wasn’t sure if he’d slept more than a few hours since the attack.

  Matana’s vital signs were poor but consistent. Yami and I discussed a plan for the treatment we’d get her once we arrived at Gentle Acres. There wasn’t much planning to do, though – in the Med, the Care Unit systems would give us all the information and treatment plans we could need.

  “What I’d really like to know is what Omer is planning,” Yami said. “I get why he’s not sharing details over the TekCasts, but what could it be? How many people would he need to really take over the town?”

  “Half?” I said. “Maybe more, though. The other people...I don’t know what they’d do.”

  “I do,” Yami said. “When we first escaped Young Woods, when Etta was first pregnant, we ended up in a new community. When they realized we didn’t belong, they turned on us. It only took one all-community message to make them chase us down.”

  “I would never do that!” I said. I imagined hundreds of people chasing them through the streets. I wished I could have been there to help. “I would never turn on people like that.”

  Yami raised her eyebrows. “Really? Think about who you were a year ago. Or two years ago. If you trusted the community leaders, and they said someone was here to hurt us, you wouldn’t act on that?�
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  I didn’t want to answer. Yami was right. I spent most of my life being a follower.

  “You wouldn’t have done it,” I said after a pause. “You would have ignored the message. Stayed at work, or wherever you were. You didn’t follow the herd like I would have.”

  “I guess so. But does it matter? I wouldn’t have helped them, either.”

  We imagined what it would be like to see Omer and the Underground rally enough support to take over Young Woods. Did the Chancellor have guns? Did he have a secret group of Gray Suits? I thought about the people I knew who knew nothing about the Underground. How would they respond when the uprising actually happened?

  BRECK’S DRIVING WAS sloppy. We skidded around the road in wide arcs, stopping and starting with little jerks, until Etta snapped at him and made him stop. She took over for a few more hours and trained Yami. Yami was much better. I maintained that she wasn’t as good as I was, which she vehemently denied.

  The day was long and hot. There was no air conditioning in the truck, and even with the windows rolled down we were all sticky and cranky by evening. It was only sheer luck that made Sven notice another car, smaller than ours, approaching from the horizon line. Yami screeched to a stop, waking Breck from his mandated nap. Etta shushed him when he tried to ask what was going on.

  “See that patch of trees over there?” I pointed to a small copse of trees and brush a little ways off the road. “Drive us over there. Slowly. Keep the headlights off. If you head straight towards it, you won’t need the lights even as it gets darker.”

  Yami drove us slowly enough that the engine barely made a noise. It was an old truck, though, so every occasional sputter made us all grip the door handles tightly. Sven was in back with Matana, and whispered updates to us about where the car was heading. Unfortunately, it was heading right in our direction.