by K. C. Sivils
I was responsible for so much suffering. So many people had looked to me for safety. The Space Marines in my squad. My failure to disobey the Lt. and move them to a safe distance had led to their deaths. Hesitation had cost Sarah’s sister her life. The guards, I knew they were dead. Dead because I’d had Josephson lock them up.
It was too much, just too much guilt. I stopped trying to focus, trying to see who was calling my name. I welcomed the black darkness as it pulled me down. It seemed comforting, peaceful even. I stopped struggling against it and embraced it, drifting away.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
I JUST WANTED TO SLEEP. I was tired, and some bonehead was determined to wake me up. My right hand for some reason felt numb like I had slept on it. To make matters worse, my head was throbbing as well. That one I couldn't figure out. I'd been sober for over a year, and I didn't think I'd tied one on.
I finally gave up and opened my eyes to see just who it was that was so determined to wake me up before I was ready to wake up. It took me a few minutes to be able to focus. I was less than thrilled with what I saw when my eyes finally focused.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“I’m going back to sleep.”
“No, you aren’t,” Father Nathan replied, shaking me to prevent my drifting off to sleep.
“Why not,” I demanded.
"You have a visitor. It was all your visitor could do to work up the nerve to come and see you. It's been all I could to keep her here until I could wake you up. So, wake up so she can go, bless her heart, poor thing."
I was curious now. I sat up and squinted my eyes. It took me a second to get my cybernetic eye to focus, allowing me to see clearly. Sitting in a chair by the door was a slender young woman. The mysterious Sarah.
Gone from her face was the nasty wound. Sitting without her coat on and shirtsleeves rolled up, the nasty laceration I’d seen open up on her forearm was gone.
I glanced at Father Nathan, confused. “How long have I been out?”
He smiled. “Not as long as you think.”
“How long,” I demanded.
“Just over twenty-four hours.”
I couldn’t believe it. “What happened?” I asked Sarah. “I saw your wounds. They couldn’t have healed that fast.”
Frightened, she looked at Father Nathan to know what to do. He smiled and nodded, speaking softly in his encouraging manner. “It’s okay. Sullivan will never tell anyone.”
"Tell anyone what," I said. I was confused, didn't feel well and had just realized I was hungry. It irritated me there was something I should know, and this pair was taking their sweet time getting around to telling me what was going on.
I watched as Sarah looked down at the floor of my room. “I healed,” she whispered.
I wasn’t sure I understood her. At least my expression must have conveyed that.
She looked up and swallowed. “I healed.”
“I thought that was what you said. It’s not possible. Not in twenty-four hours.”
“Sullivan, there’s more to it.”
Father Nathan nodded at her again, telling her without speaking to explain.
“I’m a clone. My sisters I told you about, we’re identical physically. We have different personalities, but we’re physically identical. Well, we were until Maria died.”
“Clones? That’s illegal.”
"I know, but that's what I am. Military grade too. Most injuries heal in hours. Heat and cold do not have the same impact on me as a normal human. I am susceptible to a limited number of viral and bacterial infections. I have heightened senses."
Now my head was really spinning. “Who? Why would...”
“My template was dying. She paid to have her DNA altered to cure the disease she was dying of and had us grown. The scientists didn't know if the procedure would work, so they made three of us. All of us survived to their delight. Our template died before our organs could be harvested. Then they didn’t know what to do with us.”
“You said you were military grade...”
“That’s why I heal so quickly, can deal with heat and cold. But it made me a valuable commodity. My sister Ellie fled when Maria was murdered. I have to find her. We’re safer together, I know it.”
“How many people know about your existence,” I asked.
Sarah shrugged. "I just know we'll always be pursued. Bounty hunters looking to sell us or our organs to the highest bidder. The military would love to get their hands on us. For some reason, we attract the sickos, like the one that killed my sister and the one who hunted me. We'll always have to be ready to run. That's why I came here, to find Ellie."
I still couldn’t believe it. “Clones are illegal. They were banned after the Expansion Wars.”
"Cybernetic implants are controlled," Sarah snapped back. "You should have a normal prosthetic eye and hands. Not the set up you have, complete with a microcomputer installed."
“What did you say,” I asked. Something about what Sarah said puzzled me.
Again Sarah looked at Father Nathan, uncertain how to respond.
“Sullivan, I don’t think you remember.”
“Remember what?”
“You lost the fingers on your right hand in the fight with the Cowboy.”
I raised my right hand slowly and looked at it. Swathed completely in a plastiskin bandage, I counted five fingers.
“I count five fingers.”
"Five new, military grade, cybernetic fingers. In fact, the surgeon who worked on you is an ex-Space Marine, oh, wait, excuse me, there's no such thing as an ex-Space Marine. He's no longer on active duty. You had too much damage, so he gave you an entirely new hand. This one is better than your left. Complete sensation ability. Once the skin regenerates, nobody will ever know unless they scan you or you tell them. Your left hand is as good as new too. He upgraded it as much as possible."
Raising my left hand, I noticed it was covered with a plastiskin bandage as well. “Damaged in the fight?”
Father Nathan nodded.
Fatigue washed over me. I collapsed back on my bed, trying to sort everything out. A glance at Sarah squirming in her chair told me she was getting antsy.
“You’re a clone?”
“I told you so. It’s not something anyone would make up.”
“How could you tell I had implants?”
She frowned at me. "I told you my senses are sharper. Not that your right eye is an entirely different shade of blue from your left or anything. No, that would never give anything away. Neither would that scar on your face."
She had a point.
“Okay, okay. You’re a clone. I have no room to talk because I have military grade cybernetic implants.”
Sarah looked at Father Nathan, almost frantic now at being confined to my room. She needed to go.
“Sarah, wait,” I pleaded. “Father, give her the keys to my place in my pocket.”
More panicked now than before, Sarah looked back and forth between Father Nathan and me.
“It’s okay,” I told her. “I need to know you’re safe. I want you to have the key. You can get out of the cold when you need to or get something to eat. If you just feel lonely, you can come for a short visit. Or not. It’s up to you. But I need to know you have a safe place to go.”
Sarah thought for a moment and then took the key offered to her by Father Nathan. Without another word, she slipped out the door and vanished in complete silence.
“Do you think she’ll be okay?”
“She’s tough. Now she has someone who has proven he can be trusted looking out for her.”
I opened my mouth to object only to have my friend silence me with a motion of his hand. "She doesn't blame you for her sister's death. She blames the murderer and the drugs he was on when he slit Maria's throat. So you, my friend, need to forgive yourself as well. You almost died saving her. That means a lot to her."
I looked away. Father Nathan could be hard to take sometim
es. He had a way of getting directly to the heart of the matter, and it could be painful.
“I doubt you’ll ever have a visitor when you’re there unless a blizzard hits or she’s sick. I do think you’ll come home and find food missing or the couch has been slept on.”
A knock on the door interrupted. It opened, and a nurse pushed in Josephson, seated in a hoverchair.
“Well, I guess the stories are true,” he proclaimed with a broad smile. “You’re too tough to kill.”
"Whatever," I groused back, not in the mood for his puppy dog-like enthusiasm. "Glad to see you're doing better,” I admitted.
“Yeah, I’m going to be fine they tell me. I have to see the department shrink for six months, do rehab, you know, but I’ll be fine.”
I nodded. It was good news.
“Oh, you’re suspended with pay for two weeks,” he added. “I heard about the hearing and the video you played. If you ask me, the two weeks is just to cover their butts for even having the hearing.”
“Devereaux?”
Josephson’s face clouded up. “Suicide. Or at least that what the official report says.”
“The two guards?”
“Found dead in the Southeast Section of Capital City. Evidence pointed to Bland of all people. When Markeson went to arrest him, Bland shot it out with him.”
“Bland is dead too; I take it."
Josephson nodded solemnly while I sighed.
“The Cowboy was a guy named Edwin Long. He was the comptroller for the city and the planet government. He’s been skimming the melanothorazine for years and selling it on the black market on the Rim Worlds. I guess he and Devereaux were partners on the deal.”
“How convenient,” I murmured.
"You don't think that was all there was to it, do you," Father Nathan asked.
“Of course not. But at least we found the melanothorazine. I don't feel any remorse about the Cowboy. Evil like that needs to be eliminated, and I certainly don't feel bad for Devereaux, though he should have had a trial."
“Get some rest now. Everyone from Joe’s and the neighborhood says to get well,” Father Nathan informed me. “I’ll take this one back to his room.”
I watched as he carefully maneuvered my partner out the door. He paused and looked back at me, his cheerful demeanor gone.
“Get well Sullivan. You made a promise to me. Either you take care of the boss, or I am.”
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A Thomas Sullivan Futuristic Noir Thriller - Prequel to The Predator and The Prey:
The Fractured Man
Also in the Inspector Thomas Sullivan Series:
Last Train To Nowhere
Grey Sky Blues
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
THE PREDATOR AND THE Prey is the first installment in The Chronicles of Thomas Sullivan series by author K.C. Sivils. The author of over twenty works of non-fiction, including an Amazon Best Seller, The Predator and The Prey is Sivils first work of fiction to appear in print.
Sivils has traveled extensively, visiting three continents, twelve countries and forty-seven states. An avid reader and fan of classic films, The Chronicles of Thomas Sullivan, reflects his interest in classic film noir movies and science fiction.
For more details about the universe Inspector Sullivan inhabits, including short stories, and to be notified of releases of future books in The Chronicles of Thomas Sullivan, please visit www.KCSivils.com and sign-up for the newsletter, The Inspector’s Report.
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