by M A Gelsey
“Are you lost?” she asked.
He blinked. She wasn’t as pretty as Stella or Imogen or Annabel, but he felt drawn to her nonetheless. “Yes,” he said, and she smiled.
60: MIRA
After the raid, they’d all been drunk with their success, even John who hadn’t wanted to do it in the first place. Drunk and arrogant, thinking they’d managed to win something tangible, to make a dent, however tiny, in Harlow’s black market clone trafficking enterprise. They had good reason to celebrate, of course; the raid had gone better than they’d hoped. They’d managed to apprehend the buyer, a blonde man in his fifties who had made his fortune importing precious gems, the staff of the shelter, and Bob Smith, who had presumably been there in an advisory capacity to facilitate the transaction. They were particularly excited about Smith, who was sure to be a gold mine of information if only they could get him to talk. They had also safely relocated the twenty-six clone children ranging from newborns to young teenagers, including the four year old boy who had been auctioned. All in all, it had been a good day. A victory.
Then Edgar Prime had been murdered, shocking them all. Even with everything Mira knew about Harlow, she’d never dreamed he’d go that far. The gunman was identified as Graham Sheehy, the same one responsible for Omar’s attack. There’d been no opportunity to question him; he’d been shot to death by police on the scene. Mira threw a chair at the wall when she found out. It took all of her effort not to scream, and when Jack put a hand on her arm in an attempt to comfort her, she wrenched away from him and stalked out of the office. It was pouring rain outside, but Mira didn’t even attempt to shield herself and was drenched in seconds. By the time she got back to her apartment she was shivering, and she stripped off her wet clothes and huddled under a blanket, unable to sleep, unwilling to do anything else.
She silenced her phone and ignored Jack’s calls until he showed up and began knocking on her door. She didn’t answer, pretending she wasn’t home. Eventually he left, but the worried text messages didn’t stop. When she finally responded it was just to tell him to leave her alone. Mira couldn’t forgive herself for not figuring out what Harlow was going to do, for not stopping it. She had failed, and Edgar Prime had died for it. For the first time, Mira seriously considered quitting her job at the FBI. Clearly she wasn’t cut out for it. Even in the midst of her swirl of guilt and rage and grief, Mira registered how thrilled her mother would be to hear that Mira had given up on her wholly unsuitable career, and that made her even angrier. They hadn’t spoken since Mira abruptly canceled her trip home for Memorial Day. She’d lied and said she needed to work overtime on a case that weekend, but in truth it was because she couldn’t face them after her abysmal failure.
The morning after Edgar Prime’s death, Harlow gave Mira a massive file room and told her all of it needed to be resorted and organized by the following day; an impossible task for three people, let alone just one. Mira set to work, and wasn’t even a quarter of the way finished by the time she left the office twelve hours later. She spent every second of that day seething with rage, fueled by fantasies of shoving Harlow off the roof of the seventy-story building. By the following morning, she felt empty.
Mira had only been at work fifteen minutes when Harlow called her to his office. She stood waiting as he scrutinized her from behind his massive desk.
“I think you know why you’re here, Mira.”
“I don’t, sir.”
That seemed to amuse Harlow. “Then allow me to enlighten you. You’re fired.”
Mira blinked, dumbfounded. “Why?” she managed.
In answer, Harlow opened a desk drawer and pulled out the tiny microphones she’d placed around his office shortly after beginning work there. Even though her heart skipped a beat, Mira kept her face as neutral as she could. “I don’t know what those are.”
Harlow quirked an eyebrow. “I’d have expected someone in your line of work to be a better liar,” Harlow said. “If you want another reason, fine. You fail to complete assigned tasks in a timely manner.”
“No one could have reorganized those files faster.”
Harlow shrugged. “Security will escort you from the building. Your things will be delivered to the address we have on file.”
Mira wondered if he was subtly hinting that he knew where she lived. She glanced over her shoulder, and saw two armed security guards standing just outside the door.
“Good luck with your future endeavors, Mira,” said Harlow. “I do hope they’re more fruitful than this one has been.”
Mira’s mouth twisted like she’d just taken poison, and suddenly it was too much. “How can you live with yourself? I know you killed him. Edgar Prime.”
“His death was a tragedy, but it was the work of a madman, a radical fundamentalist in the anti-clone lobby. The small consolation to those who knew and cared for him is that the man was brought to justice.”
“Killed before he could testify against you, you mean.”
Harlow gave her a concerned look she saw through at once. “You’re not making sense. Perhaps you could do with a nice long vacation. You seem to be hysterical.”
“You paid him, to do a job. You had me deliver the money.”
“I hired him to oversee the landscaping of my summer house in the Hamptons. Imagine my distress upon hearing that the very same man was responsible for such an atrocity. I really should begin running background checks on my employees and contractors.”
“Enjoy your freedom while it lasts,” Mira spat. “You’ll be rotting in jail soon enough, wishing you were dead too.”
Harlow had the gall to laugh at that. “If you’re the best the FBI has to offer, I’m not worried. Now get out.” He nodded to the guards, who took Mira by the arm and led her away. She was shaking from suppressed anger; her cover was blown and Harlow was still free. The whole investigation had been for nothing.
The guards deposited her on the sidewalk and warned her that they’d call the police if she tried to enter the building again. Mira started walking, and a half hour later was surprised to realize that she’d made her way to Jack’s apartment without thinking about it.
She felt a chill of trepidation; she wasn’t sure Jack would want to see her after the way she’d behaved the other night. When she knocked on the door however, he opened it and immediately pulled her into a hug.
“I was worried about you,” he told her.
She stepped away from him, and sat down on the couch. His apartment was far more organized than hers was, here everything had its place. Jack sat down next to her, waiting.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. She couldn’t even look him in the eye.
“I understand,” he said.
Mira grimaced. “Harlow won.”
“He hasn’t won. We haven’t stopped. We just haven’t won yet.”
“What if it takes ten years for us to find anything on him? Fifteen?”
Jack shrugged. “Then it takes ten years. If we’re lucky one of his competitors will take care of him before then.”
“Then we’ll just go after the next one and the next and the next... it’ll never end.”
“You knew that when you started this job.”
“I did.”
“But you wanted to do it anyway.”
“I did. I do.”
“What we did wasn’t meaningless. There were twenty-six kids at that shelter. This’ll make a difference in all their lives. And who knows? Maybe one day one of them will grow up and decide to do her part in making the world just a little less evil. And that’ll be a win for us too.”
Jack took Mira’s hand and gave it a squeeze. The empty feeling eased just the tiniest bit. Mira still felt sad and disillusioned, but she knew she couldn’t dwell on it. There was always more work to be done.
61: BOB
Bob sat in his cell, staring at the ceiling. Tomorrow morning he was going to tell them everything. With any luck, they’d be able to rescue little Dolores from whatever hell he’d l
eft her in, in that surgically clean apartment in Rome. He still saw the look of betrayal on her face every night in his dreams.
It was too quiet in the jail, and Bob was itchy. He wished he could take a shower. He’d been placed in the cell all the way at the end of the hall, so he couldn’t see or hear anything that was going on in the rest of the police station. Bob stood up and paced, and rubbed at where the handcuffs had chafed his wrists.
He heard the door at the end of the hall groan open. Bob tried to look, but the angle was wrong and all he could do was listen to heavy footsteps thudding louder and louder as they approached him.
Finally, an officer came into view. He was tall and brawny with a deep tan and cropped black hair. The man stopped in front of the cell door and gave him a scowl. Bob stood in the center of the cell, hands raised, watching the officer quizzically as he turned the key and stepped inside.
“You’re on suicide watch,” the man informed him. “Take off your belt.”
Bob obeyed, moving carefully so as not to cause alarm. The officer took the proffered belt and began to walk a slow circle around Bob. He slid out of Bob’s peripheral vision, and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He resisted the urge to turn around with all his might. Then all of a sudden, the belt was around his neck. He tried to pull it away, but the officer was fearsomely strong. He tried stamping the man’s feet, elbowing his ribs, reaching up to claw at his eyes. It wasn’t long before spots of light began popping across his field of vision. His efforts were futile; the man was too strong. It was an eternity, and no time at all. Bob was in agony by the time the darkness descended and he was pulled into the abyss.
EPILOGUE
“Why?” Dr. Edgar Midas ran a hand over his face wearily.
Across from him, Harlow shrugged. “He was meddling.”
“You encouraged that,” Edgar pointed out. “You told him what to do. You said that you were behind him.”
“A test,” Harlow said. There was a pause. “He failed.”
Edgar exhaled. He had never felt more exhausted in his life. “And the others?”
“If they’re smart, they’ll have gotten the message,” Harlow said. “If not, well . . .” He left the threat unspoken.
“You’re a monster, Harlow.”
Harlow seemed to find that amusing. “I prefer to think of myself as pragmatic.”
“I need to get back to the lab,” Edgar said. If I spend one more minute in your company, I may strangle you.
Harlow leaned back in his chair and actually grinned. “Now that doesn’t surprise me one bit.”
Edgar stood up. The calm order of Harlow’s office offended him. “Was it all about the money?”
Harlow laughed. “Come on, old friend. You know me better than that.”
Edgar turned and left, to keep from launching himself across the desk and pummeling Harlow to death.
Outside, his car was waiting. He got into the back seat and called Caden.
“Well?” Caden asked him, answering after the first ring.
“I’m sure you can imagine.” Edgar was so very tired.
“I never liked him.” Caden’s voice was bitter.
“Will you stay tonight?” Edgar asked.
“Now you want me to stay?” Caden said.
“I’ve never not wanted you to stay,” Dr. Midas objected.
There was a rueful laugh that didn’t suit Caden at all. “That’s not how I remember it, Edgar.”
Edgar clutched the phone like a lifeline, hardly daring to breathe. He’d always known there was a possibility that Caden would decide it wasn’t enough and walk out of his life forever. But he wasn’t sure he could survive that today.
“Please, Caden.” It was barely a whisper.
There was a long silence, so long that Edgar was afraid Caden had hung up. Then a sigh. “Of course I’ll be there, Edgar.”
For a moment, Edgar couldn’t speak. “I’ll see you later, then.”
He hung up before he could say too much.
When he arrived at the lab, he called Patrice into his office. She hovered by the open door.
“There’s an irony in all this, you realize,” Edgar said to her.
“Irony?” Patrice repeated, a blank look on her face.
Edgar waved his hand; she was being stupid on purpose. “With Prime,” he said. His voice almost broke when he said the name, but he managed to control it.
“I don’t understand,” Patrice said.
“Midas Labs primarily makes clones for people who’ve lost loved ones,” Edgar said. “People who are grieving — we’re the cure. And now, I’ve lost my clone. It’s a vicious fucking cycle.” He never swore, but no other word seemed appropriate in this instance.
Patrice’s expression softened into sympathy, but she did not speak.
“Whatever you were doing this morning, give it to a research assistant. I need you to get started on this immediately,” Edgar said.
“On what?” Patrice asked. She looked annoyed at being pulled off her experiment, but knew better than to grumble about it.
“You’ll need to prepare my sample for implantation in a surrogate — make sure to pick the best one available —”
“You mean — you want to make another clone?” Patrice interrupted.
Edgar stared at her, confused by her reaction. She looked horrified, but how could she not see? There were no other options.
“Of course I do,” he said. “I’m surprised you haven’t figured this out already, Patrice. It’s the only logical action given the circumstances.” As if this is about logic. He’s dead.
Patrice stood gaping at him, as he took another deep breath to steady himself.
“Now, get to work,” he told her. “There’s a lot to be done, and I’d like a summer birthday for Double Prime.”
She just stood there, eyes welling up, looking as though she might shout at him. But instead she fled, before the tears had even begun to fall.
About the Author
M.A. Gelsey is the author of CLONE, a novel that explores the unintended consequences of human cloning set in a near-future world. She also authored the Green Sleuths short stories, featuring Detectives Shea Harper and Jiro Winter as they attempt to solve the strange crimes of an east coast suburb called Purgatory. By day she is a software engineer and when not coding or writing she practices yoga and Brazilian jiujitsu.
