Every Last Mother's Child
Page 50
Chapter 3: The Closer’s Safe House
Hozenbur had found a safe house in the country. She had purchased it and taken it the day before. It was the perfect base to work form. They could see trouble coming from a long way away. It had a place they could throw any clones they were to take back. It also had a nice big open field nearby that could be used for a landing zone if needed; or bury any bodies. The house was fully self-contained and wouldn’t need to interact with any utility save, telecommunications. She was unpacking her things when one of the closers came into her room.
“Captain, Foster’s gone,” The man said.
“What,” The security captain replied, “What do you mean gone?”
“They’re reporting on the news channels that a clone was killed by an undercover operative of Ebio who was killed by a Thonian military police officer.
“Fuck,” The captain said, “Do you know who she was going after? If she hasn’t gotten Lisa she’s wasted.”
“Some halfwit who owned a small eatery,” The man said.
“All right,” Hozenbur replied, “Pass the word that no out of season hunting. If a clone can’t lead you to Lisa, then keep your hands of them. At least for the next week or so keep a fucking low profile.”
“I’ll get the word out.” The man left.
Hozenbur knew it was her own fault. She had told her closers to close as many files as possible and as brutally as possible, and not to worry about checking in with her when they did it. Their first task was to take down the clone Lisa CD1984 AOB the second task was to make every escaped clone know that their day of reckoning was near. But Lisa had to come first. She was the most legendary of the escapees. She had been on the run for over twenty years. She had escaped closers at least twice before. She had even engineered the rescue of a shipment of young clones none more than thirteen years old. No one in the company knew where they had gotten to. Lisa had cost the company in just that one action 500 million imperials. She had allowed herself to be captured and manipulated the system to have her sent to Pleasure, ostensibly to be one of the play things the pimps provided their clients. Until a few weeks ago no one in company security had known where the halfwit had gotten to. Their instructions had been simple bring her in so she could be executed in front of a company breeding farm. If they couldn’t bring her in; they were going to messily execute her in public and let it be known that the company would take care of its escapees.
Although the company had been downsizing its cloning operation as it ventured into other endeavors, it was trying to recover as many clones as it could. There were two reasons for this. The first being that they were valuable property of the company or the individual their contracts had been sold to. The second being plain old fashioned physiological warfare against the clones. The clones were taught from the time they came into the world that the company was all powerful and knew what each and every one of them did even in their dreams, and in the most secret recesses of their minds. That was why when a clone tried to escape and was captured in the process they were brutally punished. It was why female clones were raped in front of other clones, and why male clones were brutally castrated. If the clone was a breeding clone, all the clones in their line were simply exterminated, or revated as the company called it. The idea was to condition the clones into instant obedience. While the company harshly punished escapees, the clones were not horribly treated when they behaved. In order to get the most out of the clones, the clones often lived in better conditions than the people teaching them and managing them. It was counter-productive to training and developing the clones into the valuable products they were if they forced the clones to live in squalid, crowded, dingy oppressive housing, and horrible conditions while they were being developed. Because of this Hozenbur didn’t understand why clones escaped. Though she suspected that since most of the escapees were either delta clones, with the omega alpha coding, or the gamma’s, both of which were bred for high intelligence to be either doctors, nurses, or personal assistants to business people and others, that their intelligence was able to see what they really were. They knew that regardless of how nice their surroundings were, how well they were taken care of, they were still sold like the slaves they were in all but name.
As Hozenbur thought about her situation, she had an idea that her way of life, the challenge of chasing escapees, bringing them back to the company would soon be a thing of the past. Something told her that this would be the last closure she would do, and it had better be done correctly and spectacularly. She finished unpacking wondering if this current assignment was even worth completing.