Clone Legacy: Book 3 in the Clone Crisis Trilogy

by Melissa Faye

  “What does that tell you?” Jane asked.

  “The shock signals are coming from the main building, near the entrance.”

  “No surprise,” said Vonna. “That’s where the Chancellors go when they’re here. And where you were when you got in trouble, right?”

  “Yup. But it also means someone in that main building has the information they need to deliver a shock at the exact right time.”

  “Video cameras?” Jane asked. I shook my head.

  “Even if they had an individual camera on every person in camp, no person could react that quickly. They must be operating based on the collars’ tracking systems plus word of mouth from leaders and soldiers. Maybe even breeders. The mainframe controls all the collars by receiving all that information and sending signals back to the collars. Like a TV.”

  “Ok,” Vonna said slowly. “So what?”

  “It gives me some options,” I replied. “I can work on a program that disrupts the signals sent by the collar. For instance, I could make it that you could come here even if you’re assigned elsewhere. Your collar would send the ‘correct’ information to the mainframe. Or, I could intercept the collar’s shock system. The signals go from the collar, to the main building, and back to the collar. I could create something that blocks the signal in one direction or both.”

  “Well then do that!” Vonna said. She stood up on her knees with a big smile on her face. “You’d have a hundred NBs following you if you can turn off the shocking system.”

  “It’s not that easy,” I explained. “I don’t know if I can even do it. But if I could, I could do it with your collar while you’re with me. I don’t know if I could make it work for anyone else’s collar if I’m not within, let’s say, ten feet of them. And I don’t know if I could make it work for you when you’re elsewhere.”

  “What do you need?” Jane asked softly. “If that’s what you need to create, that program, what do you need to create it?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said. “No one else should be involved. It’ll take time, but-“

  “No, figure it out now.” Vonna scowled at me. “What do you need? You can’t get me excited about this then make excuses. Whatever you need, Jane and I can figure it out.”

  I flipped through the program to the screen I had hidden away. It was a detailed schematic of the collar, blown up about ten times the actual size. I read it over, tracing the circuitry pathways with my fingers, back and forth. Jane and Vonna stared but kept quiet.

  The diagram clearly showed the mechanics of the locking collar. The seam was there, though small enough to be invisible. The mechanism that kept the collar closed was simple – like a necklace clasp – but wired to the mechanics of the collar itself.

  “I can get the collars off.”

  Vonna and Jane waited for more information. Vonna couldn’t contain her apprehension and nervously wrung her hands.

  “I can get the collars off, but I shouldn’t,” I tried to explain. “I mean, we should get them off, of course. But not until the shocking system is turned off. And to do that, I need to interrupt the signals going to and from the mainframe.” I looked at the collar around Vonna’s neck. I felt the usual disgust at the sight of a human treated like that. Hundreds of them. Thousands. “I could just turn yours off, Vonna, and I’ll work on that. I can at least try to turn it off when we meet so we don’t have to worry about your shifts so much. But to interrupt the signal for all the NBs, we need to get into the place where the server is actually stored.”

  I wouldn’t let myself get excited. Progress meant nothing. My work wouldn’t mean anything unless I freed all the NBs from their unwarranted punishments.

  Vonna had to get back to her tent, so we walked her to Jane’s porch to send her off.

  “We’ll figure this out,” I whispered into her ear. “I promise. If Yami was here, she’d do it faster. But I can still do it.” I gave her a tight squeeze and suddenly felt a jolt of electricity pass through me.

  I reacted without thinking, pulling my arms away from Vonna. She shivered again with a new, larger shock, and dropped to her knees. Jane let out a scream, and I stood still, unsure what to do. The second shock appeared to be finished, and wasn’t followed by a third.

  I looked down the street and saw a truck approaching this part of the block. Inside, no doubt, was a hoard of Chancellor clones. Maybe some Gray Suits, too. I held my hands up, facing them and shaking my head. Jane followed suit.

  Vonna knelt on the ground, holding herself as random trembles caused her to spasm again. I called out to the truck.

  “She didn’t do anything!” I yelled. “We were thanking her!”

  The truck came closer, and I ran down to talk to whoever was there.

  “Please, sir, she helped my friend with a clogged drain. That’s all. We were thanking her for doing such a – a good job.”

  I recognized the young Chancellor clone Enzo staring at Vonna from the passenger side window. The soldier driving the car pulled out a tablet and swiped through something.

  “I don’t see this house having requested maintenance,” the soldier said. “Why was the NB in your house if you didn’t need assistance?”

  Jane hurried over and trembled by my side.

  “I’m sorry!” she cried. “We saw her walking by with her equipment, and I asked her to come help! It’s all my fault, not hers.”

  Enzo watched Vonna kneeling on the steps and frowned.

  “It looks like she’s had enough,” Enzo said to the soldier. He addressed Jane. “Ma’am, you know you need to put in a formal request for maintenance. You can’t grab an NB off the street.”

  Jane nodded hurriedly and looked down at her feet. “I’m so sorry, sir.” She headed back to the porch to help Vonna up, and before I turned to join her, Enzo got my attention.

  “Sir?” he said. I stopped in my tracks and slowly turned to face him. He used his pointer finger to beckon me closer, then leaned slightly out of the window to address me quietly. “Please let the young miss know that next time she’s doing maintenance work, she should have her maintenance tools with her.”

  I HAD SUSPECTED THAT Enzo had a special interest in Vonna, but now I was certain. Vonna didn’t want to talk about it. She was convinced that any extra attention would only lead to trouble.

  “Leave her alone,” Jane said as we strolled towards an afternoon picnic in the park. “If he has a crush...I don’t think they even get crushes. I think they’re too full of pride and power to have feelings, in fact.”

  “Nope,” I said. “Nuh uh. You’re wrong. He was staring at her. Did you see that look? He wasn’t scolding her, or disappointed, or angry, or looking down on her. That was a teenage boy who wants to ask a girl to the dance.”

  The youngest Chancellor was spending more and more time at the Hideaway, and I couldn’t help snickering when I caught his eye during the picnic. A boy with a crush.

  Enzo approached me as I snaked my way through the crowd to the trash cans. NBs scuttled around, always careful to stay out of our way, replacing trash bags and sweeping up any garbage that missed the cans. Enzo seemed to barely notice them and walked directly towards me. They jumped out of his way, keeping a few feet in between themselves and Enzo as if they were magnets repelling each other.

  “Could I have a word?” Enzo asked me. He wasn’t fully grown yet – I could tell by the five inches separating him from the adult Chancellors – and with his skinny frame and oversized suit I felt like I was towering over him. He wasn’t fazed. Maybe being a Chancellor clone came with enough inherent confidence to protect him from any potential self-consciousness.

  “Yes, of course, sir,” I said. I followed him to the side of the lawn, admiring the way even breeders scurried away from him.

  “You’re Charlie, right?” Enzo asked. I nodded. “I thought so. I saw you when you got in trouble for attacking another breeder, right?” I nodded again. “And then the other day with the NB who received a warning for being in your fr
iend’s house without permission.”

  “Was that a warning?” I asked, my brows furrowed and my tone dripping with sarcasm. “It seemed a little severe for a warning.”

  “Yes, perhaps,” Enzo said. “It wouldn’t have been my first choice, I guess. It looked like she was a friend of yours saying goodnight.” I didn’t say anything. That’s exactly what it looked like because that’s exactly what it was, I thought.

  “When you were meeting with the gentleman who runs the camp, Lee, you mentioned seeing violence from citizens and security guards. But that’s not what I was told has been happening over the last few years.”

  I bit my lips to keep quiet.

  “You said someone shot your friend. Why would your friends have guns? The government doesn’t kill its own citizens.”

  I bit down harder.

  “You act as though the military is as much to blame for recent violence as the rebel troops. That’s not the case. The rebels have caused violence and destruction. The army protects the people.”

  I shrugged. I bit my cheek to keep my focus on the Chancellor rather than imagining how much I was acting like Yami at the moment.

  “Am I wrong?”

  I sighed. “I wouldn’t say you’re wrong, sir. It’s complicated I would say that you and I have had different experiences with the government. And that, yes, my friend was shot and killed by a soldier. As were a dozen citizens in a rebel camp who tried to stop you – your – the clone – the Chancellor from stealing their research and bombing their Fertility Lab.”

  “You’re wrong.” Enzo stopped in his tracks and turned towards me. “We don’t bomb buildings. I would know if that happened.”

  “If you say they tell you everything, I believe you.” I believed he thought that, at least. Though he’d have to be particularly naïve to believe this whole narrative.

  Enzo pursed his lips and tapped his feet impatiently on the ground. I waited for him to offer me an exit from the conversation.

  “If I were to want to find out about the events you’re talking about...where should I look?”

  “I don’t know. How do you get access to information right now?” I asked.

  Enzo held up his tablet. “We’ve mostly switched to B-Bands from the old TekCast technology. They’re easier to carry and track, and we can control who has access to different programming. But I have this tablet for taking notes, checking schedules, things like that. I can also use it to check on what’s happening in other camps or learn about citizen or camp’s histories.”

  “I’m not sure what to tell you. My friend who was killed? His name was Sven. He was killed at a compound where you – they – someone was holding all the bio kids. I guess that was before they set up Family Camps, right? The compound was called New Waves. And the rebel camp was called Gentle Acres. I don’t think either of them exist anymore.”

  I cursed loudly in my head. What was it about this kid that made him seem so unintimidating? Did he not look enough like the Chancellor yet for me to exercise some common sense? But he was a puppy. He wanted to be shown the right way. And who knows what bad habits the other Chancellors were teaching him.

  Enzo wrote some notes on his tablet.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t associate any of this with you. You’re a breeder. We don’t need you getting in any trouble, do we?” He smiled that awkward, underdeveloped sneer of his.

  “One more thing,” he said. “The NB you were talking with. According to my records, her name is Vonna. How do you know her?”

  “We grew up in the same community.”

  “Is that all? What else do you know about her?”

  “I think she’s around sixteen? Seventeen? She’s smart. She’s fierce. She’s a lot more grown up than a sixteen year old should have to be, but living here...” I didn’t finish. No need to throw more fuel on the “throw Charlie in jail” fire.

  “Is she seeing anyone?”

  The mini Chancellor’s question created a tickle in my throat that I couldn’t shake. It was an odd change of subject, and while it wasn’t surprising, it was not what I expected him to ask me about. He was completely insensitive when it came to understanding the living conditions of the NBs. I knew he had a crush. I didn’t know how little he knew about her life.

  “I don’t think NBs can date,” I said carefully. “I think they’re too busy working. And receiving warnings.” Not that carefully, I supposed.

  “They do have tight schedules, but don’t we all?” My eyes grew large. Who was feeding this kid information? How was he missing what was going on right in front of him?

  “Enzo – may I call you Enzo? – ‘tight schedules’ isn’t the right word for what the NBs have. They are essentially slave labor for our government. They have terrible living conditions and suffer punitive punishments for insignificant infractions. Their lives must be miserable. Can’t you see that?”

  I saw Jane out of the corner of my eye giving me a quizzical look. I shook my head slightly. I was digging my own grave. No sense in her picking up a shovel.

  “What’s best for the community, right?” Enzo said. “Their lives are harder than ours, perhaps, but it’s what’s going to ensure mating and breeding take place, and that the human race continues.”

  “If you are interested in Vonna, however you’re interested in her, it might serve you well to look around at what’s happening. Not just the violence I told you about. But what’s happening right here, at the so-called Hideaway. Otherwise, she’ll never see you as anything but a tyrant.”

  I held my breath. “Tyrant,” while accurate, was pushing it so far, I could barely see the line I crossed in the distance. I watched Enzo’s face darken, but was surprised to see it quickly return to normal.

  “I like you Charlie,” he said. “I don’t mean it in that way where we appreciate our breeders and what they’re doing for society. I really like you. I enjoy talking to you. You’ve given me a lot to think about. You’re misguided, but I can see you want what’s best for Vonna. Thank you.”

  With a nod, he shooed me away. I hurried back to Jane.

  “What was that?” she whispered. “I’ve never seen him talk to a citizen like that!”

  “He doesn’t just have a crush on Vonna,” I said. “He has no idea how any of this works. He’s being fed the same lies they were feeding the biological children they stole from their parents – it’s probably the propaganda they’re teaching to kids at Family Camps as we speak!”

  “He’s not a Chancellor, is he?” Jane said. “He’s like their pet. If they teach him to control without letting him know the truth, I don’t see how he’ll stay on their side much longer. Kids rebel.”

  “I sure hope they do.”

  Chapter 17 – Yami

  My job was easy. Walk around. Pretend to yell at NBs, but mostly try to learn about their lives and avoid actually confronting and scaring them. I sent messages back to HQ every night through the tracker on my arm, but as the days passed my briefings got shorter. There simply wasn’t much going on here.

  Ben tried to talk with me every time we ran into each other. I usually walked past. That former me, who was so cynical and irritated, would sometimes come to the surface and I’d storm off after giving him a piercing glare. It left me fuming for at least an hour or two each time. No, I am not good at forgiveness, I thought. Not when it comes to that traitor.

  Spending time with Breck, Etta, and Hope became easier. My supervisor Vince knew they were old friends, and while talking to families was forbidden, he moved my schedule around so I could see them sometimes. He kept that from his supervisor, but most of the others on the squad knew. Only one soldier cared, an older man named Stanley, but when he got annoyed I offered to take one of his shifts. That settled him down.

  “What is the other Yami doing while you’re here pretending to be a soldier?” Breck asked one day as he lounged on an armchair with Hope in his lap. Her favorite hobby of late was seeing how loudly she could scream. They weren�
��t yells of anger or frustration, they were yells of pleasure, a chance to revel in the power of her own vocal cords. It made conversations more like obstacle courses.

  “According to my contact at HQ, we’re at a standstill. The Underground takes a community, and the government takes it back and moves the citizens somewhere else. Or the Underground destroys a camp that’s newly populated and takes in their citizens.”

  “But they want to find the Chancellor and all his clones, right?” said Etta. “None of it matters unless we remove him from power.”

  “They’re working on it, but I haven’t heard much about it,” I said. “Last I heard, a few weeks ago, they’ve counted and started keeping better track of the Chancellors they know exist. But they travel together and it’s been hard to accurately trace their paths.”

  “Etta had an idea –“ Breck said, nodding to Etta. “Tell her!”

  “I’m not sure it means anything,” Etta said uncomfortably. “I just can’t stop imagining what it means for someone to be cloned so much.”

  “As in, the Chancellor cloning himself repeatedly?” I asked.

  “Right. Scientifically, all the clones are genetically identical. But mutations still get introduced. Cloning is something like...99% successful. The process has gotten more streamlined, but the actual cloning part hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. That’s why I think we can have these mutations that reintroduced fertility back to part of the population.”

  “Ok, so do you think the Chancellor could be a breeder?”

  “No. I mean, he could be, but that’s not what I’m thinking. Do you guys know how cloning works?”

  Breck and I looked at each other and shrugged. We all took similar high level science courses in high class, but Etta was an actual cloning major. Her classes were heavily focused on the mechanics of cloning itself.

  “It’s not the best system, but the system itself is self-limiting. I mean, the way we do cloning makes it impossible for us to do it another way.” She put down her drink to gesture with both hands. “We start with a bit of genetic material from the last clone. And we use it to make the next clone. But every time we go through the process, we’re making a clone...of a clone. See?”