“If Mark chooses not to be cloned?” Gena’s voice was soft, barely above a whisper, and the noise in the kitchen seemed to vanish as each of them waited to hear her next words. “Then… I would prefer to reverse my choice. I made my decision because it gave me the only chance to know Mark’s final decision, and to adapt accordingly.”
“We will not end your life,” Archie said, gently.
“But your very credo means you won’t prevent me from doing so on my own,” Gena replied.
Adam, who’d entered the kitchen, froze. “I see no reason to speculate on this,” he said, his voice shaky. “We have yet to present the information about current circumstances to either Mark or Deron. I suspect both men will, at a minimum, make the practical choice as you have, electing to undergo cloning to have the ability to learn what you’ve chosen.”
Gena sighed. “I don’t know if he will, though. Mark… he’s always been one willing to make any sacrifice for others, for as long as I’ve known him. But he hates the idea of asking others to do something for him. He might think it… I don’t know, noble or something. Allowing fate to take its course. Choosing to face that killer head on, even though he’ll not know it’s coming. Thinking that sending a clone to face the killer is somehow asking someone else to accept the fate meant for him.” She gritted her teeth. “I don’t know if it’s a given that he’ll choose cloning.”
Adam’s cheek twitched. “Only time will tell.” He glanced at Eva and Aaron. “When are the two of you heading out?”
“Now,” Aaron said. “Graham’s indicated that Mrs. VanderPoole is being a bit, uh, intransigent this morning.”
Ashley snorted. “Surprise, surprise, right?”
Aaron’s mouth twitched briefly into a smile. “Surprise or not, the longer she takes, the less time we have to act. We’ll be in position to move as soon as she’s gone. Judith and Peter are already off warming up the cloning machines to perform their double duty today. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”
Gena nodded at them. “Good luck.”
●●●
De Gray Estates provided a fleet of covered electric golf carts for use by residents. Since the homes inside were often a mile or more apart, they were intended to enable visits between neighbors as well. They were rarely used for that purpose, however. Myra VanderPoole had no interest in interacting with the others, and the remaining residents had no need for carts to traverse the space between residences.
The carts, though, were also used to travel to and from the entry without the accompanying need to park their own expensive automobiles outside in the elements. The wealthy residents used limousines to travel around the city when they emerged from the fortress, and didn’t want to spend the time signing their drivers up for community access. Nor did they wish to wait for the concrete gate to lower into the ground so they could exit or enter the community. There were more carts available than residents so that visitors could use the carts as well… and because residents who drove carts home wouldn’t return them until they needed to leave the neighborhood again
Eva and Aaron would take full advantage of those facts today. The golf cart they’d borrowed to make the drive home from the front gate had been modified, with new features that would come into play once they’d successfully removed the guards from the buildings near the entry.
The cart crunched over the gravel driveway leading from Peter and Judith’s home to the central roundabout near the entrance. As they neared the entry and came within visibility range of the tower, Eva drove the cart into the trees near the entrance.
And then they waited.
A moment later, a limousine moved into the roundabout and pulled up to the gate. The window on the driver’s side rolled down, and the face of an elderly man known as Frank appeared. “Good morning,” he said, speaking into a microphone mounted in the kiosk near the exit. “This is Frank, the driver for Myra VanderPoole. I am asking that the vehicle gate be lowered so we can leave.”
“Good morning, Frank. Out for a drive today?”
“Yes, sir,” Frank replied. “Mrs. VanderPoole has decided that some retail therapy is in order. I suspect we’ll be gone much of the day.”
“I have you marked down, Frank. I’ll start the gate now.”
A rumbling noise started, and the ten foot high gate slowly began its descent.
Once it went back up, it would be time for Eva and Aaron to act.
Frank’s head pulled back inside, and even from their vantage point, Eva and Aaron could hear the sounds of Myra VanderPoole speaking, and Frank’s exasperated replies. The driver leaned his head out the window once more, and, with an exaggerated sigh, spoke into the console. “Hold the gate, Mark. Mrs. VanderPoole needs to… powder her nose before we leave.”
“Um…I’m not sure I can stop the gate once it’s started lowering. Let me check on that. Can you come to the door to get the restroom key?”
“Of course,” Frank replied. He exited the car and walked briskly around the vehicle, exhaling deeply into frigid air. He cast a brief, worried look in the direction of Eva and Aaron.
“This is not good,” Eva muttered. “We do not have time for something like this.”
“There is some interesting irony in play here, though,” Aaron said. Eva smacked his arm, and he shrugged.
Frank knocked on the door, and Mark Arnold appeared a moment later, shortly after the gate’s descent halted. Mark, one of the men they’d come to collect, chatted briefly with Frank before handing over the key to the bathroom. They’d stopped the gate’s descent, but it would take nearly fifteen minutes after Myra reclaimed her seat in the car before the gate would allow the limousine outside. And Eva and Aaron couldn’t make their move until the gate was fully raised.
Aaron glared at the limousine. “I never did like that woman.”
There was nothing they could do but wait.
“We need to alter our plan,” Eva said.
“I know,” Aaron replied, raising his wrist to his mouth and tapping on the screen of the watch there to activate the communicator. “Peter, we have a delay at the entry. See if you can pull in extra electricity from our house to speed things up. We’re going to lose at least another twenty minutes before we can get started here.”
Peter offered a muffled curse of frustration. “I’m not a miracle worker, Aaron.”
“That’s not what Judith tells me.”
“Is that what she says about me? I’m sure it’s quite true, then.”
“Please, work on it, Peter. We’ll try to salvage as much time on this end as we can.”
“On it, boss. See you soon.” Peter disconnected.
“We can only hope,” Aaron muttered.
●●●
Thirty minutes later, the gate finally began rising above the ground. Mrs. VanderPoole suffered from arthritic pain in her legs, and the walk to and from the facility was an exercise in frustration for Eva and Aaron, who blew excess air from their lungs each time the elderly woman paused to rest.
“We need to begin immediately,” Eva said.
“But the gate—”
“I am fully aware of the gate, as it is directly in front of me. The fact remains that we cannot wait until it has completed its ascent to begin our work. Move out.”
Aaron nodded and hopped off the cart, followed by Eva, and the two marched toward the guard station. Aaron glanced at the restroom, amused at the key role the simple building would play in saving the lives of two good men.
As they walked, Eva and Aaron let loose tiny robots toward the guard station and tower, robots programmed to seek out Mark Arnold and Deron MacLean. Each robot contained a specially formulated serum which would be secreted into the bodies of the two guards. They expected that the serum’s contents would drive both men out of their seats and out of the buildings… and out of the range of the cameras recording their every movement.
“How long should it take?” Eva asked.
“Should only take a few minutes. The robots m
ove quickly, and the serum, I’m told, has an almost instant impact on the, ah, target.”
Three minutes later, as the “elderly” couple shuffled close by, Mark Arnold burst from the guard station, looking decidedly uncomfortable. He spotted them, and looked apologetic. “I called Deron, and I’m pretty sure he’s coming, but I couldn’t wait, I…”
Mark sprinted for the bathroom door, fumbled with the key, and managed to get inside, slamming the door behind him.
Aaron glanced at Eva. “The dosage may have been a bit strong.”
“Regularity is a good thing.”
“There’s such a thing as too much of a good thing, you know.”
Eva snorted.
A minute later, Deron MacLean burst from the inner door of the tower, trying to run for the bathroom, rather than the guard station. He barely noticed Eva and Aaron, so desperate was his need, and he sprang upon the door, seized the handle, and shook it with vigor. “Mark! Let me in!”
Mark’s muffled voice couldn’t be heard, but it was clear that whatever afflicted him hadn’t quite cleared up. Deron, desperate, darted into the trees a mere twenty feet from the golf cart, and the noises made it clear he’d failed to resist the effects of their serum long enough.
Eva glanced at Aaron. “I’ll let you work with Deron.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “Thanks a lot.”
He walked into the forest, ensuring he covered the ground at a slow, noisy pace to alert Deron to his approach. “Deron? Are you okay?”
Deron’s voice was weak. “I could use some help.”
Aaron nodded. He wrinkled his nose at the smell as he approached the stricken man, and moved to help the guard stand in his fouled clothing. As he did so, he scraped a sample of skin off the back of Deron’s neck and directly into a sealed vial. With the cloning sample collected, he injected a small burst of Energy into the sleep centers of the man’s brain, and Deron collapsed, instantly asleep. He floated the man’s body to the back seat of the golf cart and propped him into a seated position. Eva arrived a moment later, hauling Mark’s unconscious form with ease, as if the man was a slip of paper, and dropped him next to Deron. She wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell?”
Aaron smiled and handed her the tissue sample from Deron. “Like I said, the dose was too strong. Now it’s your turn to deal with it.”
Eva smacked his arm, climbed into the driver’s seat, and drove away.
Aaron pulled a photograph of Mark Arnold from his pocket and concentrated. Five minutes later, he emerged from the woods, looking exactly like the unconscious guard in the back of the golf cart racing to Project 2030 headquarters. He moved to the door of the guard station, opened it, and stepped inside.
Mark Arnold was back on duty.
To the outside world, it would look like business as usual at the entry to De Gray Estates.
●●●
Eva flipped the first special switch on the dashboard of the golf cart, and the open sides were instantly encased. The modification was intended to keep the two unconscious men from falling out of the cart, but she now had to deal with the unintended and unexpected consequences of the morning as well. They’d distilled some of the internal cleansing effects of morange to trigger an urge that the guards couldn’t ignore, the only non-Energy method they could conceive of to get both men to leave their camera-riddled work environments at the same time. The dosage had worked far better—or, perhaps, worse—than expected. Neither man had been successful in his efforts to respond to the effects of the serum before soiling his clothing.
The enclosed cabin gave Eva an opportunity to test just how long she could hold her breath.
Eva forced herself to focus and hit the second switch. The engine power was amplified by an order of magnitude, and the golf cart shot forward down the gravel driveway toward Peter and Judith’s home at nearly one hundred miles per hour. It wasn’t as fast as teleporting, but in seconds she arrived at a door to Peter and Judith’s home, an opening just large enough for the vehicle. She entered without slowing down, and Ashley slammed the door shut behind her. With the scutarium shield fully operational, Eva teleported the entire cart to the cloning room in the sub-basement while simultaneously stopping the engine and halting the rotation of the four tires. The teleportation eliminated the inertial effects on driver and passengers, and her instant halt resulted in nary a movement from the unconscious men in the back seat.
Ashley joined her in the sub-basement level an instant later.
The noses in the room all wrinkled in unison as the cabin panels on the golf cart disappeared. Peter, whose eyes were watering, frowned. “I take it the dosage was a smidge too strong?”
“Yes,” Eva replied. She inhaled gulps of the relatively fresh air.
Peter and Adam nodded, and quickly stripped the guards down before using Energy bursts to clear the excrement from their bodies. They put fresh clothing on the two men while their original clothes were cleaned. They’d erase memories related to the serum’s aftereffects before returning clone or original to the respective work environments. Focus gradually returned as the air purifiers cleared the stench, and fresh air once more filled the room.
Eva handed the two tissue samples to Peter. “I think you need to start the process immediately, even before we have had the chance to talk to them. Time is too critical at this point. If they choose not to be cloned, we can interrupt the process or allow the clones to meet their natural end if they’ve already finished growing when we learn of the decisions.”
Peter nodded, and moved to the machines to initiate the cloning procedures. Within minutes, the tissue samples were examined by the cloning machines, and the cloning process was underway.
They awakened the guards in the same room where Gena, Dawn, and Dash had learned of the Aliomenti, the Alliance, Energy, and the impending events of this day only hours earlier. Both men were staggered at the news.
Deron looked disturbed. “I’m really not sure what to do, though.”
Adam nodded at him. “It’s not a fair position to be in, and I don’t envy you. I’d recommend talking out loud as you think things over, and don’t hesitate to ask questions. The only question we won’t answer is whether your loved ones chose the cloning process when given the option.”
“It’s not quite the same thing, though,” Mark noted. “In their case, it might be a moot point. If I’ve understood the story correctly, there’s no proof that they’ll actually die. Sure, there’s a greater chance now, especially for Gena.” He paused. “But in our case, you’ve confirmed it. It will happen. And you won’t stop it from happening, because of the greater good.”
Adam could only nod at the summation.
Deron sighed. “I feel like I’m cheating death, and I’m not sure if that’s wise. Yet if I have a chance to continue to live with my family, even though the world I’ve known thinks me dead, even if it means I must leave life as I’ve known it behind forever… I think I need to go through with the cloning process.” He looked at his hands, and then at the floor. “Maybe I’m just a coward, too afraid to accept my own mortality.”
“You aren’t a coward, Deron,” Adam replied. “It’s our nature to try to survive, to fight death to the very end.” He motioned to the door of the room. “Step outside and let them know your decision. They’ll take you to another room to wait out the events of the next day or two. When your clone is finished growing, we’ll return him to the tower.”
Deron left the room.
Mark watched him go, and turned to Adam. “Deron’s words and thoughts… well, they reflect mine as well. I’ve made my choice.”
Adam nodded. “Then you’ll need to step through the door as well.”
“No,” Mark said, shaking his head. “I don’t want to be cloned. I’m going back to my station.”
Adam froze.
“If it’s my time to die, Adam, then it’s my time to die. I won’t remember this, I know, and I won’t know what’s coming. But I’ve had the chance to meet Ge
na, to know love, and now I have the chance to play my part in something far bigger than me. That’s a good life, isn’t it?”
Pain scarred Adam’s face. “Are you sure? You don’t want to go through the cloning process, if only to find out what option Gena chose?”
“I already know what she chose to do, Adam. And she knew what I’d choose to do as well when she made her decision, even if she hoped I’d do otherwise. If I allow my clone to die in my stead, then, in my mind, I’ve basically asked another to suffer on my behalf. And I won’t do that. And who knows?” He smiled weakly. “Maybe I’ll land a good punch and knock that Assassin out cold.”
Adam looked at the ground as he fought to compose himself.
Mark walked over and clapped him on the shoulder. “I don’t blame you for any of this, and she won’t either. Just… tell her I love her, okay?”
Adam looked up, his face moist, and nodded once.
Mark took a deep breath. “Then let’s get going. I think you need to give me a ride back to the station and erase some memories.” He paused. “Just… don’t erase anything about Gena, okay?”
Adam stimulated the sleep centers of Mark’s brain, and as the man slumped toward the ground Adam’s Energy caught him, letting him stretch out in a deep sleep on a sofa in the meeting room.
Four hours later, they piled the unconscious forms of the two men—one of them a clone—into the back seat of the golf cart, and Adam climbed into the driver’s seat to take the men back to their stations.
By then, word of Mark’s decision had spread to the rest of the house.
Gena watched them drive away from an upper window of the house.
Her screams of agony and grief, and the pained emotions she projected, so overwhelmed Adam that he could barely keep the cart on the gravel road.
XX
Forgettable
January 7, 2030
“Happy birthday, Will.”
Preserving Will Page 28
