A Hundred Stolen Breaths
A Hundred Stolen Breaths
JAMIE CAMPBELL
Copyright © 2016 Jamie Campbell
Smashwords Edition
Jamie Campbell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author.
Section 3(a)(i) A Clone must always be prepared to Serve Their Purpose for their Maker. It is the responsibility of the Clone to ensure they comply with all regulations at all times.
Excerpt from Clone Legislation, 2056 Edition
Chapter 1: Wren
Four walls.
Four white walls.
My cage. My prison. The cause of my insanity. I had been locked up for three days within these four walls and I was barely keeping hold of reality with the end of my fingertips.
The scientists knew who I was.
The guards knew who I was.
The only clone to President Stone and I was being kept prisoner until they decided what to do with me. They were waiting for her, my Maker. Once she arrived, she would have the sole say on my fate.
They would probably kill me after her decision was made. She wouldn’t risk losing me again, not when she had been hunting me for so long. She wanted what I had, what she had given me. Her DNA, my organs, whatever she needed belonged to her.
I couldn’t take not knowing for much longer. The walls were growing smaller around me every day, threatening to take away all the air in my cell.
My fingers traced over Rocky’s name carved into the bench – the only piece of furniture in the room. I tried to wrap the memories of my best friend around me and use them like a shield.
He had been in this cell before me and I had no idea what had become of him after that. Everything in my logical brain told me he was already dead but my heart wouldn’t let me believe it. He had to be alive. I could not let him die.
Thinking of Rocky made me think of Reece. He was the Trooper that was helping me rescue my friend. He was the reason we gained access to the laboratory without being caught much earlier than we had.
I didn’t know what happened to him either.
The last time I saw Reece he was being held captive by security guards. His punishment would probably be equally as deadly as mine. Soldiers in the President’s Trooper Division did not associate with Defectives and they certainly didn’t help them.
He did it all for me.
The guilt was unbearable.
If they intended to kill me by denying me the information I needed for survival, they were doing a really good job of it. None of the answers I needed were written on the four white walls.
Or the ceiling.
Or under the bench.
I checked.
Sometimes, deep in the heart of the darkness when they turned all the lights off, I wondered if the world outside still existed. That perhaps it had melted away and left just me and the cell. That if I stepped outside by some sheer miracle, there would be nothing except a vast expanse of nothingness.
I was definitely going insane.
If the lights never went out I wouldn’t be able to tell whether it was day or night. My cell had no window, no way to look into the sky and see the sun or the moon. I had been taking the phases of the earth for granted for the last eighteen years of my life. I should have been celebrating their rise and fall every day.
The door of my cell rattled, making my bones shake. I quickly stood, moving away from the bench so they had no reason to think I was thumbing over Rocky’s name.
They could not find my connection to him.
It would definitely be his death sentence then.
Two guards of Laboratory Delta entered my cell, making the four white walls close in around me even further. They took up all the space, all my space. I didn’t have much and they had no right taking the little that I did.
“Stay still, Def,” one of them muttered, his face twisted into a scowl.
They clutched my arms, holding one each so I had no choice except to let them do their job. I just wished they didn’t enjoy my pain so very much.
The pace they kept was fast and unrelenting. They didn’t care about my defective left foot, that it was deformed and the disability made it difficult for me to walk. Not to mention the pain any physical exertion caused.
My foot was the reason they called me a Def. It was the derogatory slang word for Defective Clone. We were the scum of Aria City, treated like lepers and hunted as soon as our Makers needed our organs.
It was the first time I had left the cell since I was pushed into it three days ago. Contrary to what I suspected, the world outside had not dissolved into the galaxy. The corridor was still stark white, the air still held traces of bleach, and the floor was as solid as ever.
There was no escape.
The guards took me to an office. There was little more than a desk and a few chairs scattered around, marring the pristine white lines of the boxy room.
I was shoved into the center. “Wait here and don’t move.”
So many orders for one little clone. They gave me one last push before leaving me alone in the room. At least it was bigger than my cell, that was something.
My foot was throbbing with pain from the walk but I didn’t dare move to one of the chairs to rest. I didn’t deserve to sit, not when the seats were designated for humans.
The door banged open, making me jump. I fixed my gaze on the window and tried to calm my shaking body. I didn’t want to know about whoever it was standing behind me. If this was the end, then I would go out while watching the birds in the trees outside.
Their freedom was enviable.
High heeled shoes clicked on the linoleum floor, followed by several heavier-footed feet. At least one woman joined me in the room. They circled me until I was surrounded.
The woman was President Portia Stone.
And she was not happy.
I’d never seen her up close before. If I was lucky enough to survive another thirty years, I would look exactly like her. I was looking into my future, the face at least. I could never be like her inside. She was too cold, too ruthless. I would rather die than end up like her.
Her dark brown hair was tied into a ponytail at the base of her neck, it was sensible but harsh. I imagined she always wore it that way, becoming more of a habit than choice. Her light blue eyes stared at me with the hardness of rocks, looking at me like I was a thing and not a person.
That’s how everyone looked at us.
They were all lied to.
Everyone was told clones were made in a laboratory, brought to life in a petri dish by the top scientists in the field. We could never be anything resembling human if we were created.
But we weren’t. We were birthed, just like humans. There was a whole wing of pregnant women in Laboratory Delta, all carrying clones in their bellies. Their insemination might have been carried out in the laboratory, but clones were born into this world by a mother that cared about them.
Even after three days to contemplate it, I was still no closer to working out what that meant. That, perhaps, I might have a soul just like humans did. That maybe I wasn’t a commodity, a creature, an abomination.
Maybe I was almost human.
“She’s skinny,” Stone said, breaking my reverie. I was pulled
back to reality and forced to face the most powerful woman in the country.
A scientist in a white laboratory coat stepped next to her. Daring to glance around, I could see the rest of our company were security guards. Either I had a reputation for being difficult, or they were there for Stone’s benefit only.
I really wished she was scared of me.
But she wasn’t.
Stone had all the power there and everywhere else. I was nothing more than a bag of organs for her to use when she required them. There was absolutely nothing for her to fear.
The scientist looked like he was in his forties, which probably meant he was well into his seventies thanks to age defying technology. His hands were linked behind his back as he spoke. “We have been feeding her twice a day and she has already put on weight.”
Stone dragged her gaze, as sharp as razor blades, from the scientist to me. “She doesn’t look healthy. In fact, she looks like death warmed up. Does she not understand how to look after herself?”
I was not going to lie, that stung.
Painfully.
“We cannot say what she was doing before she came to our facility. However, we have been taking good care of her.”
Stone took her index finger and poked me on the cheek. I refused to flinch, even though I felt like punching her. She would not know how much I longed to hurt her.
“Her skin is atrocious,” Stone commented. She picked up my arm and let it fall to my side. “Every part of her is limp. Where is her defect?”
“We have not been able to examine her yet,” the scientist offered by way of answer. They could have just asked me, I wasn’t a dummy for them to prod. “She has proven to be quite difficult.”
A ghost of a smile tugged at Stone’s lips. “Must be in the genes.”
The scientist relaxed a little, his tense stance faltered for just a moment before he put his walls back up again. “Indeed, Madam President. I would expect nothing else from your clone.”
She did a full rotation around me, looking me over from all angles while I stood there, mute and still. It took everything I had to stop myself lashing out – if not at Stone then at the rest of them. I had visions of diving through the window, experiencing freedom just one last time.
“Such a skinny little runt,” Stone said. “I can’t see her defect, unless you count that ugly blemish on her neck. How are her internal organs? Her blood?”
“Again, Madam, we haven’t been able to do a full examination yet. If you give us some more time—”
Stone held up her hand to silence him. “You’ve had three days. That is plenty of time. I’m taking her with me. Get her secured for transport.”
Working perfectly in sync, the guards moved toward me. Panic washed through my veins, her words terrifying me more than anything else she could have said.
I could not go with her.
At least in Laboratory Delta I knew what was going on. Reece knew I was there. If, by some small chance, he was still alive then he knew where to find me. Rocky had been here too, he might still be here. Once I was moved…
I would be alone.
Completely.
The first hand went to clasp around my wrist. I tugged out of his grip and started thrashing against them in earnest. My strength was miniscule but I used every little bit I had to fight back against them.
“Get off me!” I screamed, along with all the curse words I could summon.
The guards stepped in front of Stone, putting a protective barrier between us. They were smart to do that. If I was going down, I wanted to take her with me.
They shuffled her out of the room, completely unfazed by the whole thing. The moment she was gone the guards truly started on me. Two pulled guns from their belts and positioned the barrels squarely at me. The others swarmed on me like a bunch of wasps, grabbing onto anything they could to hold me down.
My feet went from under me, causing me to fall to the hard floor with a thud that shuddered through my entire body. The wind was completely knocked from my lungs, leaving me gasping.
And immobile.
It took every single one of the guards to hold me against the cold floor while they started to bind me. Zip ties went around my ankles and pulled them together. My gimp foot screamed in protest with searing pain.
My arms were pulled behind me next, pushing into the small of my back while they fastened them with zip ties too. Another guard placed his boot on my head to keep me from trying to move further.
Together, they hauled me to my feet. I couldn’t walk so they had no choice except to carry me out. They lifted me like I was a piece of cargo, following orders from the president with no thought of their own.
Did they ever wonder if they were doing the wrong thing?
Did they ever wonder what happened to the discarded clones?
Of course not.
The answer was obvious. Nobody gave clones a second thought, Defective Clones even less than that again. To them I was just something they had to deal with, nothing more and nothing less. They would forget about me two seconds after I left their presence.
I was planted back on my feet in a separate area of Laboratory Delta. Judging by the amount of security guards milling around, I would guess it was their own section of the facility.
They conversed amongst themselves, speaking so fast I couldn’t keep up with them. From the few grapples I could make of the discussion, they weren’t talking about me. Something else was going on in the laboratory.
I prayed it didn’t involve Reece.
Or Rocky.
Hopefully it was something else completely unrelated to Defective Clones and the torture they went through until their ultimate deaths.
The exit of the wing was dangerously close to where I stood. If I reached out I could probably touch it. If I could run, I might be able to make it outside.
If I wasn’t shackled.
They were teasing me, leaving me so close to freedom but still so far away. I hoped they enjoyed playing with me, messing with my mind until I was certain my feet were dangling over the edge of insanity.
“Not long now, Def,” one of the guards said as he faced me. He held something in his hands, something made out of black material. He grinned and it was the last thing I saw.
The material was a hood.
It was placed over my head and everything went black.
Chapter 2: Reece
The five people lined up along the tables in front of me were the ones who would decide my fate. Four men. One woman. Ten legs, five heads, fifty toes. Not an ounce of empathy amongst them.
They each wore a look so stern I was surprised they didn’t turn into stone and crumble down to pebbles. If looks could kill I would have been dead fifty minutes ago when I first walked into the trial room.
It took every piece of control I had to stop my knee jumping up and down. I didn’t need to give them any more fuel to add to my blazing fire. They already thought I was guilty, I didn’t need to act that way too.
Trespassing.
That was my official charge. I was caught on government-owned property with no excuse they could live with. I’d convinced the security guards at Laboratory Delta that I was there under President Stone’s orders. But convincing the superiors of the President’s Trooper Division was another issue.
They ate bullshit for breakfast.
No matter how many times I repeated my story – that I was in the labs purely to deliver the Defective Clone on behalf of the president – they didn’t believe me.
It was a lie, after all.
I’d lied through my teeth for the whole story and they found all the holes I’d tried to cover with my fast tongue and sharp mind. They were too savvy, too cynical. There was no such thing as giving someone the benefit of the doubt. If there was doubt, then it meant I was guilty.
I still didn’t have regrets about what I did. I was helping Wren find her friend and that was the least I could do for her. My real regret was that she had been caught and
I hadn’t been able to do anything about it.
Every day that passed meant another day she was in danger. I knew she was still alive. The few friends I did have with access to lab records confirmed it for me. As of eight o’clock last night, she was still imprisoned at Delta.
I had to save her.
It was the only reason I was going through the disciplinary process with the Troopers. If it wasn’t for Wren I would have slipped away and disappeared into the night, never to set foot on the base again. It would have been difficult but I would have found a way.
But, for Wren, I had to fight. I had to continue to hold my position so I could help her from the inside. If I was imprisoned myself, or stripped of my title, I would have no chance of getting back into that lab.
She was my sole focus, the shadow that lived in every thought I had.
I couldn’t let her go.
As much as I should have.
The five people sitting in front of me, the highest ranking officials on the base, were staring at me. I realized they were waiting for an answer too late, already incurring their insufferable ire.
“Sorry… what?” I asked.
The one in the middle – Grand Marshall Watson – narrowed his gaze at me. “I said, how do you plead?”
“Not guilty, sir. I believed I was there on official business. All I’m guilty of is trusting the wrong person giving orders.”
He took off his glasses and took a breath that told me he was over the whole trial. I didn’t blame him, it felt like we were going around in circles and not coming to any kind of agreement about what indeed was the truth.
His gaze was as blunt as his words. “Yes, this mysterious trooper who you say told you to take the Defective Clone to the lab. The one you can’t remember what they looked like or what their name was. Yet they handed you the most wanted clone in Aria and took off.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Let’s assume that’s the truth—”
“It is, sir,” I interrupted quickly. I hated the way they kept inferring that I was lying. They were right, but they didn’t know that for sure.
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