by Cara Bristol
“I couldn’t stop myself. I don’t know why I did those things.”
“So you’re pleading insanity?” he scoffed.
“No—maybe…I don’t know.” She moaned. “It’s happening now, too. I need to tell you something important, but the words won’t come!”
“Maybe the truth would come easier.”
“Something is happening to me. I’m doing things I don’t want to do.” Her lower lip wobbled. “I didn’t want to shoot you or the Cy-Ops agent—is—is he alive, too?”
Her confessions of regret were as false as her identity. Would she be disappointed Andros still lived? That her plan had failed? Mikala was safe in her office at the capital of Terra United, Vincere in his at the AOP towers. Security for both had been heightened. Andros and the two Aym-Sec officers had returned to duty.
He was the one suffering lasting effects. The agony of betrayal never ceased.
“Yes,” he finally answered her question.
She buried her face in her hands and wept. “Thank the stars. Thank the stars. I didn’t kill anybody.”
Anger at the charade burned red-hot. Clap. Clap. Clap. He applauded with deliberation. “Well done. Your act is worthy of a theatrical award, but I’m not impressed.
“It will go a lot easier on you if you cooperate. As it stands now”—he lifted a shoulder—“you’re looking at a life sentence. Your incarceration can go relatively easy here on Terra—or it can be very, very hard on one of the mining colony penitentiaries.”
All color drained from her face.
He’d never send her there—she wouldn’t survive to live out her sentence—but he’d ensure she paid for her crimes. He leaned forward. “Who sent you? Who are you working with?”
“Nobody. I swear it. I don’t know why I did those things. I’m so sorry—” Tears slid into the corners of her mouth.
Thoughts of kissing away those tears, pulling her into his arms, promising to help her flooded him. Damn her.
He shoved away and stalked out before he did something he regretted.
* * * *
Carter rejoined the others. Grooves bracketed Brock’s mouth, and Solia frowned with concern. They watched as the cyborg guard returned to escort Beth from interrogation to her solitary cell.
Was she warm enough? Was she eating? Conditions in solitary were deliberately ascetic, but he’d given orders to mitigate the harshness. Why couldn’t he get her out of his head? Why couldn’t he treat her like another enemy combatant?
“I didn’t expect a confession, but her story didn’t waver. What was she doing with her hand?” Brock asked.
“An affectation to convince us she’s crazy?” He hadn’t been serious when he’d asked her if she was pleading insanity, but maybe she was. Perhaps she hoped to get transferred to a mental facility where it would be easier to escape than from Cy-Ops custody.
“I believe she’s telling the truth,” Solia said quietly.
“What truth?” He narrowed his eyes. “All she would say is she didn’t know why she tried to kill me.”
“That’s the true part. She genuinely doesn’t know. I sensed a lot of confusion, a lot of remorse, and tremendous anxiety, frustration, and fear. She’s terrified of something.”
“Being arrested and incarcerated.” He’d asked for Solia’s opinion, but it contradicted what he’d seen with his own eyes. What he’d heard. Just before Beth had shot him, she’d called him her adversary.
The Faria shook her head. “I was there when she snapped. The read I got was that her actions horrified her.”
He’d been there, too. “Then somebody put her up to it. Maybe she’s being blackmailed.” Beth had tried to conceal her cloning origins. He hadn’t thought she’d kill to keep the secret, but as the attack had proven, he didn’t know her as well as he’d assumed.
Solia pursed her lips. “Um…maybe, but I don’t think so. Perhaps I should talk to her? She might be more receptive to me.”
“I’ll consider it,” he said. If conventional questioning didn’t work, they could try it Solia’s way, maybe double team Beth with a good cop, bad cop approach.
The Faria tightened her wings. Her glance slid to Brock before meeting Carter’s gaze again. “Permission to speak freely?”
“Of course.” He motioned.
“I detect conflict and ambivalence in you where Beth is concerned. This is obviously very personal…”
“And maybe somebody else would be better to conduct the interrogation?” He finished her sentence.
She nodded.
“Point noted. I’ll take that under advisement, too,” he said. Solia wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t right, either. He could handle the questioning. Seeing Beth had been harder than anticipated, but he would get his emotions under control. Personal feelings would not interfere with running Cyber Operations.
“If there’s nothing else…” Solia said.
“No, not right now. Thank you,” he said.
Solia had no sooner left when Illumina, the other Faria in his employ, shot him a message. We need to talk right away.
Is it about Beth? he replied to her PerComm.
Yes—and more.
What is it?
Better I tell you in person.
I’ll meet you in my office.
Carter motioned to Brock. “We have to go. Illumina found something.”
The Faria was seated in a chair, waiting in his office when they arrived. She was so tiny her feet didn’t touch the floor. His best computer person—the best in the galaxy—looked like a pixie. Except for her somber expression.
“What did you find out?” He skipped the preliminaries and took his seat in the Sensa-chair behind his console. Brock sat next to Illumina.
She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Clo-Ventures and ReGenCo are owned by Lamis-Odg.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“What?” Nanos rushed to his spiking heart rate as his brain analyzed the ramifications at hyper speed. “Beth is with Lamis-Odg?” His voice came out strangled. He’d asked the question in the first briefing after the Summit because it had to be voiced, but never in a hundred light-years had he expected it to be true.
If she worked for Lamis-Odg, Lamani had infiltrated Cyber Operations. Every mission, every agent, every protectee was in danger.
Brock’s curse indicated he’d reached the same conclusion.
Illumina glanced between the two of them. “Not exactly, but there’s more. A lot more. This is big. Very big.”
“Not exactly? Is she or isn’t she working with Lamis-Odg?” Carter asked.
“She is—but she doesn’t realize it.”
How could Beth be allied with the worst terrorist in history and not realize it? “I don’t know why I did those things,” her words replayed in his mind.
“She’s a sleeper clone.”
“What’s that?” Brock asked.
“In her brain, she has a microchip like a cyborg, but when hers is activated, it overrides directions from her cortex. She can’t control what she does.”
“I didn’t want to shoot you.”
Carter shook his head. “If she had a chip, we’d know it. Swain did a complete bioscan. He found nothing out of the ordinary.”
“Lamis-Odg has adapted cloaking technology at the micro level.”
If a huge spaceship could disappear with cloaking technology, why not something as tiny as a computer chip? It made perfect sense. Shit.
Illumina laced her fingers. “It gets worse.”
Worse than this? “Tell me.”
“She isn’t the only one. Lamani has a small army of sleeper clones, strategically assigned throughout the galaxy.”
Brock leaned forward. “That’s his secret weapon. Not a new MED, not a weapon of mass destruction, not a disease agent, but clones he can command to do his bidding.”
Illumina nodded. “I think so.” She scrunched a rueful face. “You ordered me to drop th
e Cornelius investigation, but he led me to the breakthrough.”
This wasn’t the first time an agent had disobeyed orders—and produced results because of it. You had to adapt to the situation. Carter narrowed his eyes. “Cornelius? You’re saying Vincere’s aide was a clone?”
“Yes. His official bio had stated he had a deceased twin brother. When I analyzed their DNA sequence, I discovered they weren’t zygomatic doubles, but progenitor and clone.”
“That’s pretty much Beth’s story,” Carter said.
“That’s what made me suspicious.” She nodded. “Their backgrounds were too similar to be a coincidence. Cornelius’s parents refused to talk to me, but I hacked into their PerComm records and discovered they had been approached by Clo-Ventures—not the other way around. A company rep had contacted them with his ‘condolences’ over their son’s death and offered a way to ease their grief. The O’Sheas reported the same thing. They hadn’t considered cloning Liza until Clo-Ventures planted the idea.
“I broke through the firewall and accessed Clo-Ventures and ReGenCo’s databases. They work hand in hand. When a person of strategic importance dies and the body is placed in cryostorage, ReGenCo notifies Clo-Ventures, who presents the family with the option of cloning. During gestation, the chip is embedded in the clone’s brain. They’re born, released into society, and act normally until the programming is activated.” Illumina tapped into her PerComm. “I’m sending you both a complete list of the sleeper clones.”
Carter scrolled through the list in his head. Son. Of. A. Bitch. He recognized many of the names: AOP ambassadors, planetary officials, high-ranking members of the military, spouses and family members of key individuals—and Beth O’Shea, daughter of one of the wealthiest families in the galaxy, and Cornelius, aide to the AOP Secretary General.
“Now we know why Cornelius attacked Mikala,” Brock said.
Carter frowned. “I’m not so sure. Beth said she tripped. What if falling in front of the blast wasn’t an accident? What if she was supposed to take the hit? What if the programming kicked in and forced her in front of Mikala?”
“What would be the point?”
“I think the attempted kidnapping was a dress rehearsal for the big show,” Carter guessed. “Lamani was testing his control over the clones before their debut.”
“But why wait? Why not kidnap Mikala when he had the chance?”
“Because of the impact of doing it in front of an audience of thousands—to create terror and wreak chaos. My hunch? If we compare the instigators in the tiers to the list of clones, I’ll bet we find some matches.” He looked at Illumina. “Can you prove Lamis-Odg is behind this?” He didn’t doubt her assessment, but he needed evidence.
She nodded. “I’ve documented the money trail. Lamis-Odg did a fair job of covering up, of laundering credits, but I located Clo-Ventures and ReGenCo’s original incorporation documents and traced the initial funding to Lamani. The account was closed years ago, but nothing is ever erased from cyberspace—not from me, anyway.”
“Illumina, you scare me—in a good way,” he said.
“Thank you.” She flashed a cheeky grin, but then sobered.
It didn’t take empathic ability to recognize she had more bad news. “What else?”
She fluttered a wing. “Most individuals in cryostorage at ReGenCo died of natural causes or disease. A few were victims of accident or homicide, but the ones who were cloned had been targeted by Lamis-Odg. Their records contained a special notation. Lamani had ordered their deaths so clones could be substituted.” She paused. “Carter…Liza O’Shea was targeted. Her death was no accident.”
“He killed her so he could place Beth with one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the galaxy.”
“I’m afraid so. It appears as though he hired someone to push her into the gorge.”
He squeezed his hand into a fist. The horror of it… “We need to move on this fast. We must locate every single clone and bring them in. Who knows what they’re programmed to do and when?”
Solia had been right. Beth was a victim, a pawn; Lamani had used her and the others. But, although she hadn’t intended to hurt anybody, he couldn’t let her go free, because she was still a threat.
A horrible thought slammed into him. “When Lamani didn’t need Cornelius anymore, Cornelius died.”
“Self-destruct programming?” Brock caught the drift.
“Without accessing the chip’s actual code, I couldn’t say for sure, but it’s possible,” Illumina said.
Beth had kidnapped Mikala and Vincere, but Cy-Ops had rescued them and arrested her. Did the terrorist have other plans for her, or had she outlived her usefulness? Would Lamani terminate her life?
Carter recalled how coldly he’d interrogated her. He wished he could go back and hold her, reassure her everything would be fine, that he would fix it. She could die, and he couldn’t do a damn thing to prevent it. “We’re always two steps behind that bastard.” He slammed his fist onto the console. “If only the chip could be extracted, but if it can’t be seen on medscans—”
“I might be able to,” Illumina said. “Well, not extract it, but I can try to integrate into the coding and try to switch it off and neutralize it.”
“If there is a self-destruct code, your integration wouldn’t trigger it, would it?” Brock asked. “Lamani went to great lengths to create and program his clones, to conceal the chip. He might have put in a failsafe.”
“That’s a risk,” she admitted. “I’d be very careful, but I can’t guarantee if I enter the coding it won’t trigger a destruct sequence.”
Do nothing, and Beth could die. Try to alter the programming, and she could die. “What are the odds?”
Illumina lifted her shoulders. “Honestly, I don’t know.”
“Does it place you in any danger?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. If I trigger the destruct sequence, I think I can get out before it affects me. I want to do this,” she said.
“Dale won’t like it,” he warned. The cyborg was Illumina’s husband.
She wrinkled her nose. “Dale won’t know until it’s all done. Besides, he doesn’t consult with me before he accepts a mission.”
“We must do it,” Brock said quietly.
“It will have to be Beth’s decision,” Carter said. “She has to be informed of the risks.” So much uncertainty, but what other options did they have? “We have to shut down Clo-Ventures and ReGenCo. Deprogram the other sleeper clones. Lamani has produced his last clone.”
“We can’t destroy the facilities,” Brock said.
He shook his head. “No, the clones, even the ones who’ve been chipped, are innocent. Also, it would devastate the families. This calls for diplomacy. I’ll notify the AOP to approach the families, tell them their clones in the gestation tanks will need to be deprogrammed, and the bodies in the cryotanks have to be moved to a new facility. I’ll talk to Vincere. On this, I think he’ll be very cooperative.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Beth sank onto her narrow bunk in her stark cell and hugged herself.
Carter hates me.
His feelings had been revealed by the chips of ice in his eyes, his rigid posture, his cold tone. But he was alive! Alive! The other cyborg was, too. She hadn’t killed anybody. She could do somersaults in thin air.
However, her future remained bleak. Attempted murder and kidnapping would have serious consequences, and without understanding why she had committed those acts, she couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t go berserk again. Her inability to speak her mind demonstrated she still couldn’t control her own body. She wished they’d let her see Dr. Swain. Maybe he could discover an answer.
To no avail, she’d tried spelling out Lamani on the table, but Carter hadn’t understood. He’d probably thought she was suffering hand tremors.
The loss of control worried her, but the knowledge Lamani was hiding on Terra, serving as the
leader of the Association of Planets, was terrifying. She had to warn Carter.
The cell door slid open. Instead of a guard or the robo who delivered the meals, Carter entered, followed by Brock, Swain, and a Farian woman with metal wings. All four looked grim.
She stood and squeezed her hands together to quell the trembling. “What is it?” What have I done now?
Carter motioned. “Sit down, we need to talk.”
She perched on the edge. Her stomach churned.
Brock, Dr. Swain, and the Faria leaned against the wall. Carter surprised her by sitting at the other end of her bunk. He rested his elbows on his spread knees and laced his fingers. He stared at his feet for a moment then sighed and lifted his head. His face could have been carved from stone. “We figured out why you shot me and the security staff and abducted Mikala and Vincere.”
Was this another interrogation technique? The questioner pretends to have inside information to trick the suspect into a confession? It wouldn’t work on her because she had no clue! Or did he really have information? She swallowed. “Why, then?”
“You were programmed to do those things.”
Her jaw dropped. “I’m an android?” She couldn’t be. She was organic. Sentient. Wasn’t she?
“No. You’re human,” he said. “But, like a cyborg, you have a microchip in your brain. Clo-Ventures implanted it. In contrast to our processors, yours overrides your autonomy.”
She scanned his face. “You’re serious?”
He nodded.
“Why would Clo-Ventures do that?” Could they be correct? Could this be what had happened to her? She’d been conscious of her actions, but powerless to stop them. Her body had gone berserk, choking the guard, firing the blaster, forcing her to say what she had. It still overruled her actions and wishes. She could think Lamani’s name—Lamani, Benson is Lamani—but couldn’t force her mouth to speak it.
“I can’t share that information,” he said. “It’s classified, and as you are now, you’re a security risk.”
