Clone Secrets_Book 2 of the Clone Crisis Trilogy

by Melissa Faye

  Yami got us to the trees and we slowly inched further in until we were sure we were well hidden in the darkness of the evening and the dark greens and grays of the area. The car was getting closer.

  I had a thought. I knew if I told someone, they’d stop me, so I didn’t bother. I leapt out of the car quickly, landing gently on my toes to minimize noise. Someone hissed a warning to me, but I waved them off. Even from far away, I could see the two passengers wore gray, and I thought I could almost see their silver and black insignia. I felt a chill run down my spine. These Gray Suits could have been a part of the raid on Matana’s camp.

  As I approached the road, I looked around for a place to hide. There wasn’t much. There was a few small group of rocks only fifteen feet off of the road, and I snuck towards the largest one, eventually crawling on the ground. If Yami or anyone was still scolding me, I couldn’t hear them. Plus, it was too late. The car was almost there.

  If only someone else had joined me. I knew I could take down two of these monsters if I had a little backup. The car approached, slowing down as the evening light grew dim. They didn’t seem to be in any hurry, especially since the car wasn’t in good shape. It was old, with scratches in the paint and a large dent in the back. It was getting so close and so slow that I could hear the Gray Suits talking. There was one man and one woman, both wearing the gray uniform. Only the woman in the passenger seat appeared to be holding a gun.

  “I’m just saying, this is not an area where there’s going to be much action!” the man said. “Not that I mind it. I don’t like using these things.” He peeked over at the woman’s gun then quickly looked away.

  “Just count yourself lucky we got this job,” the woman said. “I’m going home Silver, and I can’t say no to that. I was a Gray longer than you. I don’t think I would have made it much longer.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” the man said. It was obviously a conversation they’d had many times.

  I looked around the ground near my feet. I was lying on my stomach, and there were several rocks within reach. I picked up the largest one with both hands and prepared myself to attack. The car was so close I could almost make eye contact with the Gray Suits. With all the speed and strength I could muster, I shot up from my hiding spot and threw the rock at the car as hard as I could. The Gray Suits yelled and swerved off the road right towards me. Glass shattered and flew off the windshield and tires screeched on the gravel. I jumped out of the way and suddenly realized I was stuck – what was my plan? Throw a rock, and then what?

  “Where did that come from?” the woman yelled. “Where is your gun?” The man fumbled around the back seat with one hand. They had crashed right into the rocks I was hiding behind, and if they turned their heads downwards just a few degrees, they would see me kneeling in plain sight. With nothing to defend myself with. Without a second thought, I ran at them.

  The pair screamed when I approached. The woman reached for her gun, but I crouched below the car windows and reached blindly into the backseat for the man’s gun. Shots fired above my head. The woman wasn’t trained well; she missed me by a foot. I closed my fingers around something metal in the back, then dug my nails into what must have been the man’s flesh. He yelped. The Gray Suits were not as fearsome as they had seemed when they came after us a few days ago.

  I had the gun in my hand and was prepared to...I wasn’t sure what. I wasn’t a murderer. But hurting these Gray Suits felt like the only way I could get the revenge I wanted for what they had done at the camp. There was still the issue that I had never used a gun before. I held it in my hands and pointed at the defenseless man. He froze in place, shaking and panting. The woman took her gun and without hesitation, pointed it back at me.

  We stared at one another helplessly. I could kill her friend, right? But I knew I wouldn’t do it. She could kill me, but I wasn’t sure she was a killer either. The more I thought of it, the more her shot from a moment ago felt like a warning rather than an attack. We stared and waited for the other person to make the first move.

  Suddenly, the woman’s door flung open and Sven appeared, pulling the woman out and pushing the gun out of her hand. It went off, blowing a hole through the roof of the car inches from her colleague’s head. She screamed as Sven grabbed her by the hair and dragged her backwards until she lay on the ground in front of him. I had messed up. This was all wrong. Sven’s eyes blazed with a venomous light. I wasn’t sure if he was angrier at them or at me.

  “Charlie, get him out of the car.” I followed Sven’s orders without hesitation. Yami appeared at my side, panting, and wouldn’t look at me. She helped pull the man out of the car and stood over him while I kept the gun pointing in his direction. My pulse raced.

  “Who sent you?” Sven shouted at the woman. She reached for her gun, but it had fallen in the car and lodged itself under the seat. “Who is leading this?”

  The woman held her arms up over her face, shaking but not talking. Sven kicked her arms off to the side. “Who’s in charge?”

  I followed Sven’s lead. “Why are you doing this?” I shouted at the man, who looked up at me, the blood draining from his face. Yami gave him her deadliest stare. Sven leaned closer to his victim.

  “One last time,” he hissed. “Who sent you?”

  “It was our Chancellor!” she cried. “They told us if we joined the military, we could become Silvers. No more Gray work. We had to do it!”

  Of course they had to. Being Gray meant a life of hard work and little pay. Disrespected, barely scraping by. Being Silver meant an easier job and more money. Enough for a nicer house and more prestige. How could they turn it down? Except that what they were doing was despicable.

  The man looked back and forth between the three of us. “We’re just doing what’s best! Everyone’s better this way!”

  What could that mean? What were they being told? They must think they were the good guys. It’s the only way they would be part of this deranged, misshapen army.

  “What do we do, Sven?” Yami asked. I opened my mouth to speak but neither looked at me.

  “Take the car,” he said. “I don’t want to bring it with us to...where we’re going. But I don’t want these two driving off and bringing more Gray Suits to follow. You drive the car off, Charlie and I will hold them back, and we’ll leave them here.”

  Yami hopped into the driver’s seat, pulled the car into reverse, and took off towards one of the side roads. She disappeared into the blackness.

  “Give me the gun, Charlie,” Sven commanded. “Go back and get the others. We’ll go pick up...our other friend. And then get out of here.” It was thoughtful of him to avoid using Yami’s name; he didn’t seem to think I deserved the same consideration.

  I sprinted back to the truck. No one was with Matana. Breck and Etta sat in the front seat and started yelling at me as soon as I neared them, but I ignored it. I relayed Sven’s directions and hopped in the back with Matana. Etta eased the truck out of the wooded area then drove to pick up Sven. He was still pointing the gun at both Gray Suits, and had them toss over their TekCasts. He stepped on them, but they didn’t break. Etta drove over the small, tough circles with the truck; a satisfying crunch echoed across the noncomm.

  Sven backed towards the truck and hopped on next to me. With his gun still aimed, Etta drove off towards Yami. We found her far down the side road with the car lights turned off. For good measure, she took a scalpel from the medical supply bag and slashed all four tires. The car was useless. The trunk had some food and water along with a bag of army supplies – bullets, knives, a few things I couldn’t recognize. We left the food and water and took everything else.

  Yami got into the front of the truck and Sven joined her. I was left in the back, beet red, watching over Matana.

  YAMI CAME TO SIT WITH me a while later. It was late now, and Etta was still driving. Sven would take over soon; no one wanted Breck to drive anymore. I didn’t dare glance at Yami, though I thought I could feel her stare. She took Matana’s w
rist to check her pulse.

  “Have you been checking her?” Yami asked. It was like I was a small child. Of course I had been keeping an eye on Matana. I nodded.

  “What you did was stupid and selfish,” Yami continued. “You could have been killed. What would we do if you were killed? We could have been caught. They could have killed us!” I squeezed my eyes tightly shut. “We have a gun now and no one knows how to use it. Sven’s been doing some research on his TekCast. He thinks he can work it out. We have some more weapons and supplies, at least.”

  I heard a sniffling sound and realized Yami was in tears. My heart thumped against my chest as if trying to escape my own shame and humiliation. I finally looked at Yami. She was sweaty and tired. Her curls flew around her face like Medusa’s snakes. And as if she was Medusa, just looking at her turned me to stone. I didn’t know what to say or do. So I sat still, listening to the sound of the tires against the road. The truck’s groans were familiar to me now, like I was sleeping next to a loud snorer.

  “Go to the front and get some sleep,” Yami sighed. “I can’t – I just – I don’t want to talk about this anymore. If anything had happened to you...” She sniffled again. “None of that was worth it.”

  Yami yelled off the side for Etta to stop so I could switch move to the front.

  “You’re an idiot,” Breck said. He smirked for a second before adjusting his face. “A real idiot.”

  Sven didn’t talk. He had taken apart the gun and sat with the pieces, putting a few back together. Yami was right. Having one gun wasn’t worth doing what I did. Not to mention the fact that none of us had any training. Or any desire to shoot someone.

  I leaned against the window in the back seat. The truck’s snores lulled me to sleep.

  I AWOKE TO THE SOUND of my friends laughing and crying out with excitement. It was sunny - I must have slept all night. Sven was driving, and in the distance we could see a community.

  “They should know we’re coming,” Sven said. “But just in case, we’ll park a little ways off and approach on foot. I’ll leave the gun here.”

  We were greeted by several community members. They looked different – no insignias, and many of the bands on their TekCasts were stripped off. They must have found a way to ensure all citizens had the same resources available to them without career assigned color bands. Sven introduced us. A few people went back to the truck to help Yami transport Matana.

  Someone went to get the person they called the Director. She was a small, stocky woman in her late forties named Ann, and she greeted us with firm handshakes all around. Yami and the helpers arrived a few minutes later carrying Matana on our homemade stretcher. Someone drove a storage cart over to transport Matana directly to the Med.

  As Ann greeted us, more townspeople came to inspect the new arrivals. The air was different. Young Woods was caring and friendly, and everyone always seemed happy. Now that I saw the people at Gentle Acres, I could see how it was all fake back then. Were we truly happy under the Chancellor’s control? Being Gold, or Silver, or Gray and not having the same privileges as our neighbors? Segregated by career assignments we were give at fifteen? The air was lighter here, like a weight lifted off everyone’s shoulders.

  One moment Yami was standing beside me, holding my hand. She suddenly dropped it, and her mouth fell open. She took a step forward, then a few more, staring at someone in the crowd. Her eyes grew wide as she took off towards the woman. The woman was tall and lean, with long brown hair and a toughness that reminded me of Yami. The woman’s face exploded in surprise and delight when she saw Yami. They greeted each other with a long, tight hug. Both women’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Alexis,” Yami cried. “I never thought I’d see you again!”

  Chapter 9 – Yami

  I knew I should be following Matana to help the doctors try to treat her, but I couldn’t tear myself away from Alexis. We hadn’t seen each other in so many years, and I was desperate to know everything she had been through. It had kept me up too many nights for me to wait a second longer.

  “I’m so sorry I left you like that, Yami!” Alexis said. We stood alongside my friends and some of the community members, and I ignored their curious faces. “I thought about it every day for so long. You must have been terrified when I told you about the F-Lab in the cafeteria that morning. I was scared out of my mind that we were about to be caught.

  “I was banished, but I was with my friend Javi – he’s around here somewhere, I don’t know if you’ve met – and we walked for days. We didn’t know where we were going, but we found a monorail station and learned about a nearby ACer camp from one of the workers there. We stayed at that camp for a few years and helped them expand. We eventually moved to another camp who needed more people to get themselves up and running. When we found out about Gentle Acres, we knew we had to see it for ourselves. We took a few other ACers with us, and ended up here right after the rebellion. Ann was named Director, and welcomed us in.”

  I had spent so long wondering where Alexis was and worrying that her fate would be mine. The fear followed me around, haunting me. Now that she was here, standing before me, I didn’t know how to proceed. Her fate was my fate, and it wasn’t the nightmare I imagined. We were doing important work, looking for Hope and helping Matana, and here was Alexis helping to start a community without color assignments. I explained how I ended up there: Etta’s pregnancy, finding Matana’s camp, the baby, the attack.

  The Director, a small pudgy woman named Ann, wanted to know more about where we had been and what we knew, but once she saw how exhausted we all were, she encouraged us to take a few hours to rest. We took our things from the truck and followed Alexis, who invited us to stay at her house for the time being.

  On the way to Alexis’s house, I could see the impact the uprising had on the community. There were damaged buildings that still hadn’t been fixed. The curb disappeared for twenty foot sections. The symbol of the Underground, an oval with a V inside, was spray painted on walls.

  Alexis shared a nice cottage in what must have been a former Silver neighborhood with her friend Javi. Like the rest of the town, something about the neighborhood was off. Shutters were missing. Patches of grass were a brighter green, like they’d just been replaced. The house itself was stripped of a few basic amenities I expected in Silver housing, like the sanitation devices in the kitchen and bathrooms. The uprising impacted even the most private, personal parts of the community.

  I wasn’t convinced Javi and Alexis were just friends. He had dark hair, like me, and a nervous energy. It wasn’t like Charlie, who bounced around a room no matter what was going on around us. It was more anxious, like Javi was constantly wondering who was going to storm into the room next. He was welcoming, like Alexis, and helped us move our bags inside. I noticed how Alexis smiled coyly when they made eye contact and he leaned towards her when she spoke.

  Charlie appeared behind me and put an arm around my shoulder. “I’ve never seen you this happy!” he chuckled. “It makes for a nice change.” I gave him a playful shove and followed Alexis as she gave us a tour of her place.

  LATER, SVEN JOINED us from his visit with the doctors at the Med. “Matana is in a coma,” he said. “If we had gotten her treatment sooner, they think they could have helped her more. Now we just need to wait.” He collapsed into a chair in Alexis’s living room. Ann had arrived with him, and sat us down so we could compare information.

  “They’re trying to overthrow the Chancellor in our old community, Young Woods,” I explained. “They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t have weapons. How did you make it happen here?”

  “We weren’t able to make any headway with the Underground for many years,” said Ann. “There weren’t enough of us. I took over running the Underground when the former leader, Jackie, broke into the F-Lab overnight and was banished. We didn’t have any traction. Sometimes people would make a move here or there, but there were more banishments. Any time someone disappe
ared, our group decreased in size.

  “Everything changed after there was an explosion in the factory. We manufacture agricultural chemicals, and have a higher Gray population than other communities. Dozens were killed. The citizens were furious; an unplanned riot started at the mass funeral. The security guards couldn’t contain it. It started a chain of events over the next week – more riots and protests. People burned down the Records Room and camped out on the Chancellor’s lawn. It all happened very quickly. There were more explosions, but with so many people planning together and so few weapons available from the heavily secured armory, injuries were minimized.”

  “What happened to your Chancellor?” Breck asked. “Where did he go?”

  “He disappeared,” Alexis said. She saw our eyebrows raise and tried to clarify. “Really. He wasn’t banished, he just disappeared. It’s possible that he was killed, but no one knows. Or if someone does know, they aren’t saying. But he’s gone, and they held a vote. Ann’s the Director for now, though we vote for her and council members every other year.”

  I couldn’t imagine what it would be like at Young Woods. Omer said that they were planning something big. Could Gentle Acres help?

  “How many other communities are there like yours?” I asked. “Are there more? A lot more?”

  “There’s no way to know,” Ann said. “We’ve been developing our contact list over time and found several other places like ours. But it can be hard to communicate with those still inside their communities. And those are the people we most want to help.”

  “Meanwhile, we’re struggling to stay afloat,” Javi said from the corner. His arms were folded and his eyes darted around. “We need more supplies. We’re cut off from the UCA’s resource chains, and can’t keep our infrastructure updated. Another few years of this, and...”