by AJ Steiger
The one with the spiky green hair squints at me. She sports a faceful of piercings. They’re in her ears, in her nose and lower lip, and running in a diagonal line across her cheek. It seems impractical, like all that metal would get caught on things.
Joy elbows her. The girl glances briefly at me and says, “Shana.” She tongues the ring in her lower lip. “So, you’re the famous leaker.”
Leaker. It means whistleblower, but there’s something contemptuous about the term—like I’m a puppy who piddled on the carpet. “I’m the one who told the public about St. Mary’s, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
“That was very brave of you,” Noelle says in her whispery little voice.
Shana turns her face to one side and rolls her eyes. She’s not obvious about it, but she doesn’t seem to care if I see it, either.
“Is something wrong?” I can’t help asking.
“Oh, nothing,” she says. “It’s just that people have been telling the truth about IFEN for years. But no one listens to Fours and Fives, because we’re all paranoid wingnuts, right? You’re not the first person to come forward, or the first one to put her ass on the line. You’re just the first one the public’s taken seriously, because you were IFEN’s golden girl and the daughter of some hotshot scientist. So, no offense, but I get a little sick of people calling you a hero.”
“Shana,” Noelle whispers.
“What? It’s just the truth.”
She has a point. Still, I feel attacked. And I don’t like the way she referred to Father. “I’m not asking for any special treatment,” I say, keeping my tone carefully neutral.
She gives me an unpleasant smile. “Let’s see what you’re made of, then.”
“Enough talk,” Rhee says. She hands me a helmet with an eye shield of transparent plastic. “You’ll all wear one of these during the training session. It has an earpiece and a microphone inside, so you can communicate with each other. And you’ll get one of these, as well.” She holds up a pistol. “It’s not real—it shoots beams of light—but it’ll get you accustomed to using a gun, and it’ll keep a record of your progress, hits versus misses.”
“So what will we be shooting?” I ask.
“Holos. This room can generate holographic environments and enemies, like a VR game. The goal is simple. You run through the course—” she indicates the stacked boxes with a wave of her hand “—until you reach the red X at the end. You’ll have three minutes, and if even one of you doesn’t make it in time, the session fails and you have to start over again. Any holos get in your way, shoot them. Make sense?”
“I think so.” I slide the helmet on. The visor, as it turns out, is a screen. A map appears in the upper right corner of my vision, showing the maze of hallways and our positions. The other trainees and I are blinking blue dots, standing at the entrance to the maze.
Rhee steps back and pushes a button on the wall. Suddenly, we’re standing in a narrow hallway with white walls. It looks like an IFEN treatment facility. My pulse trips in my throat. I don’t feel prepared for this at all. I’m like a small child being thrown into water for the first time and told to swim.
Rhee gives the signal to start, and we take off running, veering down different hallways. In the map, the blinking blue dots diverge. I follow mine, watching it move through the maze. Then I see a red dot coming toward me. An enemy.
Just like a videogame, I tell myself. Not real.
A man in a white IFEN uniform appears around the corner and runs toward me. Holo or not, he looks frighteningly solid. He raises an ND, pointing it at my face. “Freeze!” he barks. I brace myself, raise the pistol, and fire.
I expect him to simply vanish. I’m not prepared for the spray of blood as the bullet hits his throat. He falls to his knees, gurgling and choking, eyes glazing over. More blood bubbles from his lips and dribbles to the floor, pooling beneath him in a dark red puddle. The ND slips from his fingers as he slumps against the wall.
For a few seconds, I can’t move. I just stare, watching as the life fades from his eyes.
“What the hell are you doing?” Shana’s voice hisses in my ear, making me wince. “Hurry up!”
I keep running. There are two more red dots coming toward me, converging. A man and woman burst into the hall. “Freeze!” the woman shouts, ND aimed.
I fire again, then again. They go down. Another spray of blood decorates the walls, but this time, I force myself not to look, to keep running. But the woman isn’t dead, just wounded, and I can hear her strangled screams behind me, fading slowly into silence.
Just a game.
I give my head a shake. Focus.
But I don’t notice the red dot coming up behind me on the map until it’s too late. I whirl around to find myself facing a tall, bulky man in white, aiming a pistol at my head. There’s a loud buzz, then the hologram vanishes, and I’m standing between stacks of boxes in the vast cement room. I look around, blinking, dazed.
Rhee approaches. “You’re dead,” she says. “Try again.”
We do the course a second time. I get killed when the goal is within sight. On the third round, we run out of time before I reach the target location. By round six, I’m exhausted, gasping for breath. Sweat plasters my shirt to my back.
Shana flings her VR helmet to the floor, points at me, and says, “I’m not working with her anymore.”
I tense. “I just got here,” I say, unable to keep the defensiveness out of my voice. “Give me a chance.”
Noelle studies her feet. Joy toys with one of her braids.
“Hit the showers,” Rhee says, speaking to the entire group. Noelle and Joy leave their guns on a table by the wall, then retreat, disappearing behind a free-standing concrete wall near the back of the room.
Shana remains where she is, glaring at me. “You aren’t taking this seriously. Is this a game to you?”
I frown. “What’s your problem with me, anyway?”
“My problem? My problem is that if I get stuck with you on a mission and you screw up, we both end up dead.”
“Shana, Lain,” Rhee says. “Knock it off.”
Shana doesn’t move. Neither do I. I’ve been through hell in the past forty-eight hours, and my patience is running dangerously low. “Well, your insults definitely aren’t going to improve my performance, so why don’t you just mind your own business?”
“This is my business! I’m not here to play babysitter to some spoiled newvie.”
For a moment, I feel like I’ve been punched in the chest.
Maybe I misheard. Maybe she said “newbie.” But no; I know that word too well. A rush of memories sweeps through me—children whispering together in the hallways of my old school, shooting cold glances at me as I walk past. The blood pounds behind my eyes.
“Shana.” Rhee’s voice is cold. “That’s enough.”
“Come on!” Shana whirls to face her. “I can’t be the only person thinking this! If we put her on the field, she’ll freeze up. Some rich, pampered bottle brat’s got no place—”
“If I hear one more word out of you, I’ll demote you to permanent cleaning duties, and you can spend the rest of your time here mucking other people’s filth out of the toilets.”
Shana narrows her eyes, her upper lip peeling back from her teeth in a snarl. She storms out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
I stand, struggling to control my breathing.
Rhee’s gaze flicks toward me. “You all right?”
“Fine.” I force a smile. Newvie, tubie, bottle brat—by age six, I’d already heard them all. By now, I should be used to it.
Rhee’s still watching me, so I keep my face schooled into a neutral expression. I don’t want her to know how much Shana’s words affected me. I don’t want her to think I’m soft, too. But the knot in my throat won’t go away. “What does it mean?” she asks. “That word.”
The question surprises me. I thought everyone knew. “It’s short for New Vitro,” I say, keeping my tone ca
sual. “The cloning procedure.” I’m not sure how Shana knows what I am, but I suppose it’s not a secret. I’ve always been fairly well-known, as the daughter of the eminent Dr. Lain Fisher, and now I’m famous—or infamous, rather. When you’re in the media’s spotlight, the private details of your life soon become common knowledge.
“Anyway, it’s not a big deal,” I continue, though the casual note in my voice sounds forced. “Nothing I haven’t heard a million times before.”
She’s staring at me intently, as if I’m a puzzle she’s trying to take apart. “Where else have you heard it?”
I shrug. “School. You know how kids are.”
“You went to public school?”
I wonder why she’s suddenly so curious about me. “Yes, I did.” Usually, clone children are sent to special schools where they’ll be among their own kind—not just accepted, but embraced as part of the elite. As the children of wealthy Type Ones, they’re groomed for cushy, high-paying jobs as future leaders of society. Scientists, politicians, IFEN officials. But Father didn’t want me to grow up in a sheltered, artificial environment where I’d be indoctrinated into a self-serving upper class. He wanted me to know what the real world was like.
There are times when I’m grateful for that. Other times, I resent him. Sometimes I wish that, for once, he’d just made my life easy instead of trying to do the right thing.
“Go on,” she says, nodding toward the back of the room. “Get cleaned up. You’ll find fresh clothes on the rack.”
A doorway on the back wall leads into a large bathroom with rows of stalls and showers. Noelle and Joy have already finished showering and are slipping into fresh clothes. “Bye,” Joy pipes up. “See you next session.”
I force a smile. “See you.” Once they’re gone, I get undressed and wash off, soaping away the sweat of training.
Shana’s face flashes through my head, her teeth bared. Newvie, she hisses. Bottle brat.
I push her out of my thoughts. It shouldn’t matter. I shouldn’t care.
The water circles the drain near my feet, carrying suds, whirling around and around and then disappearing into the circle of darkness.
There are still those who believe that clones don’t have souls, that only naturally conceived children go to Heaven—a quaint belief associated with the lower class, to be sure, but it has a certain sticking power.
Father never had much use for organized religion, but I remember him talking about the soul, telling me that it was the most precious thing in the world, that part of you that made you yourself. It made me wonder where the soul lived. Was it inside your body? At school, we read about ancient revolutions, about guillotines, and we learnt that people are still conscious for a few seconds after you cut their heads off. They’re still themselves, in that tiny space before the light fades. So I thought the soul must be somewhere in your head, squeezed into one of the little curling furrows of the brain. When I asked, though, Father said that it wasn’t anywhere in particular.
“But sometimes,” he added, “you can see people’s souls in their eyes.” As a small child, I took that literally. I used to stand in front of the bathroom mirror, peering into my own eyes, thinking that if I looked long and deep enough, I might see my soul peeking out at me like a tiny person. But all I ever saw was blackness.
When I return to the training room, Rhee is still there. “We have a little time before lunch,” she says, handing me my gun. “Let’s practice.”
I hesitate, looking at the gun in my hand, my fingers curled around the cold metal grip. “I know how to shoot,” I say. “I mean, the basics. I’m just—not used to actually firing at people. Even if they’re holograms.”
“Then you’ll keep doing it until you get used to it.” She fiddles with a control panel on the wall. A holo materializes in front of me. This time, it’s not a simulated environment, but a single person—a guard in a white IFEN uniform. He shifts his weight, glances around as if he can’t see us, yawns, and rubs the back of his neck. His mannerisms are so lifelike, it would be easy to forget that he’s a holo, if not for the slight, occasional blurring and flickering around the edges of his figure. “I’ve adjusted the settings to make it easier,” she says. “He won’t run or attack you. He won’t respond to us at all.” Rhee wraps my fingers more firmly around the gun, positioning my fingers. “Like this. Now aim.”
I swallow, pulse tripping in my throat, and raise the gun. The holo stands just twenty feet away. Easy to hit, even for a beginner like me. But I have the feeling that that’s not the point of this exercise.
Though holos aren’t self-aware, they have a limited form of intelligence. Chloe, my computer avatar back home, could carry on simple conversations; she could tell when I was in a bad or a good mood by analyzing my facial expressions. These holos are probably much less complex than her, and they don’t actually die, of course, just reset. Still, something about this feels cruel. Like shooting a kitten.
I grit my teeth, take a deep breath, and squeeze the trigger. The gun jerks to the side, missing by several inches. Even though there are no real bullets, a loud bang splits the silence, making me flinch. I exhale a frustrated breath. “Sorry. Let me try again.” I start to aim, but Rhee grips my wrist.
“If you can’t even shoot a projected image, how are you going to defend yourself if you’re attacked?”
The blood burns in my ears. “My hand slipped.”
“Your aim can’t possibly be that bad.” Rhee stands with her arms crossed over her chest, her face a cool mask. “Shana was right about one thing. You’re not taking this seriously.”
My shoulders stiffen. “I left my entire life behind me. I risked everything to come here. Do you think I see this as a lark?”
“No. But your heart is wavering, all the same. And the others can sense it.”
I stare straight ahead.
“Are you a Blackcoat, or not?” she asks.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Those catlike green eyes drill into mine. “Just answer.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I’m dodging, and I know it. But if I answer no, what then? “I just don’t understand the point of these shooting spree simulations. All right, I understand that rescue missions are dangerous and that we have to be prepared to defend ourselves, but you’re training us to go in with guns blazing. What are we planning to do? Storm IFEN headquarters and start massacring people?”
“A war is coming. Zebra will tell us the plan when the time is right.”
“So you don’t even know what you’re training for?”
“We don’t need to know,” she replies, maddeningly calm. “We’ve put our trust in him.”
“Well, maybe you should think twice about that.” I’m going too far, and I know it, but I can’t stop. “Look at what he’s done. He’s gathered up a bunch of desperate, homeless teenagers and molded them into soldiers because he has some personal vendetta against IFEN. You’re fooling yourself if you think that anyone here had a choice. You can’t call it a choice when the alternative is starving in the streets. Zebra’s no better than the people we’re fighting. He’s exploiting all of us—”
Her eyes flash like steel. She moves so quickly, I don’t even see it happen; suddenly, I’m on the floor, my arm twisted behind my back, and her boot is planted against my spine, digging in. I try to wriggle free, and she presses down harder. “Say whatever you want about me. But don’t ever let me hear you insult him again.”
Breathing hard, I glare at her over one shoulder. “Is this how things work here? Someone steps out of line, and you kick them down?”
She narrows her eyes.
My heart thunders in my chest, so hard I think it might burst. I’m quivering with pain. My arm is bent at an unnatural angle, and the longer she holds it in place, the worse it gets; if she exerts even a little more pressure, the bone will crack. “Go ahead.” I squeeze the words through clenched teeth. “Break it. It won’t change how I feel.”
T
here’s a pause, as if she’s considering it. Then, slowly, she releases me and steps back. I climb to my feet, dizzy with relief. My whole body feels shivery and weak, like a newborn foal’s.
“Come at me,” she says.
I blink. “What?”
She beckons. “Attack me.”
“With my bare hands? I’m not—”
“Do it.”
My own ragged breathing fills my ears. I charge and swing my fist. It’s clumsy, and she dodges easily. “Again,” she says.
I swing my fists. She blocks the blows with her arms, almost lazily, then sweeps my feet out from under me with a kick. I land with a bone-jarring impact. “Again,” she says.
I push myself to my feet and launch myself at her. She delivers a whirling kick to my abdomen that sends me stumbling back. Her braid swings behind her like a cat’s tail. I grab it and yank, hard. It catches her off guard; enough that I manage to land a blow in her stomach before she can stop me, but it’s like punching rock. She grabs my wrist and spins me around, twisting my arm behind my back. “Not bad, for a first try.” She releases me. “You see? You can fight, when you’re given sufficient motivation.”
I stumble away, lungs burning as I gulp in air. My whole body is bruised and tender, and my stomach hurts like I’ve swallowed something rotten. “You manipulated me into that. You deliberately provoked me.”
“If you hate me, then use that. Channel it.” She picks up the gun again and extends it to me. “Go on.”
The holo-man is still standing there, oblivious to us.
Fine. What does it matter, anyway? I’m sick of this game.
I grab the gun, aim it, and pull the trigger. A hole appears in the man’s cheek. His eyes widen, and he slaps a hand to his face, as if suddenly remembering something he’d forgotten. For an instant, I could swear his gaze focuses on me, and his expression registers wounded surprise. Then he drops to the floor. Blood soaks through his hair where the make-believe bullet exited the back of his skull. His form wavers and vanishes.
I toss the gun aside.
Rhee gives a small nod. “Better. At this rate, you might actually be able to save your own life if someone comes after you with intent to kill.”
