The Clone Apocalypse

by Steven L. Kent

  “The entire planet?” asked Watson. “That’s a lot of destruction.”

  “Ever wonder why the Avatari burned New Copenhagen and Olympus Kri, but never made it back to Earth?” asked Freeman.

  “The SEALs did that?” asked Watson. “Why didn’t you tell us that back on Earth?”

  Freeman didn’t answer. The answer was obvious.

  Across the way, two men and a woman left the group and began walking toward the ship. The men wore civilian clothing; the woman wore a uniform.

  Freeman stepped into plain sight followed by Watson and Emily. A bright light shone on them.

  Freeman squinted. Holding a hand up to shield his eyes from the glare, he could see the silhouettes of the three people. They were short. One of the men was stout, thick with muscle, not fat.

  A friendly voice called out, “Freeman-san, I’m very glad to see you. The last I heard, you were lying in a hospital. They thought you might be blind.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY

  They sat in a traditional-style Japanese bar. The tables stood a mere two feet off the ground. Tatami mats covered the floor from wall to wall. They had all left their shoes by the doorway.

  Freeman said, “We came here looking for Emerson Illych.”

  “I don’t know such a man,” said one of Yamashiro’s aides.

  Freeman said, “He was one of the SEALs assigned to your fleet.”

  “Illych? The SEAL . . . Ah, yes, yes, yes . . . the SEAL. He was their original leader,” said Yamashiro. He turned to the aide, and said, “Kage no yasha.”

  “Oh, kage no yasha.” The man nodded.

  Yamashiro said, “The master chief died an honorable death. He was one of the first men to die. The Avatari discovered him as he explored the outermost planet in their solar system. His team committed suicide protecting our fleet. They detonated their stealth infiltration pods, destroying the aliens and most of the planet as well.”

  Freeman had heard the term but had never heard of any being manufactured; stealth infiltration pods were single-man vehicles built around an unstable propulsion system called an impulse engine. There’s the superweapon, Freeman told himself. From what he had heard, impulse engines generated enough energy to destroy a planet . . . or a fleet of U.A. ships.

  This was not the first time Yamashiro had taken Freeman to visit a bar. From what Freeman could see, the man lived on rice wine and cigarettes.

  He said, “The reason we came . . .”

  Yamashiro held up a hand, and said, “Stop. Stop. Tonight we drink to your welcomed return. Tomorrow, we can discuss business.”

  Yamashiro, old and stout, with broad shoulders and a thick neck, was a man in his seventies whose hair had turned silver instead of white. He had dark brown eyes and walnut-colored skin, and he stood no taller than five-foot-six, making him a foot and a half shorter than Freeman.

  A waitress wearing a silk kimono brought three ceramic cylinders to the table. She bowed first to Yamashiro and the three men on his staff, then to Freeman and Watson. She placed the cylinders in front of Yamashiro, making a show of not looking in Emily’s direction, then she bowed and backed away from the table.

  Sounding apologetic, Yamashiro explained, “She thinks you are a secretary.”

  “Why would she think that?” asked Emily.

  “She doesn’t think you belong at the table,” added one of Yamashiro’s aides.

  “Where does she think I belong?” asked Emily.

  “Unfortunately, she believes you should be serving the wine, not drinking it,” said Yamashiro.

  Emily said, “I’m sorry I asked.”

  Yamashiro explained, “This wine is special. It’s from Sakura, our last ship. We only have the rice wine we brought with us. Once this wine is gone, we will switch to beer.”

  He poured saké from the cylinder and passed the cups around the table.

  “I’ve heard of this stuff. Aren’t you supposed to serve it hot?” Watson asked the man to his right. Emily sat to his left. Freeman sat on her other side.

  “We always served it hot when we were on Sakura. Back then, we had all the saké we needed. Now it is rare, so we drink it cold.”

  Watson nodded though he didn’t understand.

  “Where is Sakura?” asked Freeman.

  “Destroyed. All of our ships were destroyed,” said Yamashiro. “They deposited us here, then they went to fight. My son-in-law was in that battle. He was the captain of the ship.” Yamashiro’s tone and expression revealed the pride he felt in his son-in-law’s honorable death.

  “Your son-in-law, Takahashi?” asked Freeman, who had met the man eight years earlier.

  “Takahashi Hironobu,” Yamashiro agreed. “You met him during the Mogat War.”

  Yamashiro’s aide raised his cup, and said, “Takahashi.”

  All of the people around the table did likewise and repeated the name, then the aide yelled, “Kampai!”

  The Japanese didn’t sip their saké like they might have sipped tea or a glass of fine wine; they threw back their heads and tossed it down their gullets. Watson emulated their example. Freeman tossed his first cup to show his respect, but he wouldn’t drink any more. Emily sipped hers steadily, taking less than a minute to drain the small cup.

  The man sitting across the table from her nodded his approval.

  Yamashiro emptied a tokkuri with each round that he poured. He started a second round, pouring saké in everyone’s cup except his own. The aide sitting beside Yamashiro poured the saké into his cup.

  Freeman remembered the last time he went to a bar with Yamashiro; he and his officers drank specifically to get drunk. It didn’t take long. The saké was strong, and they absorbed it like sponges.

  Freeman allowed Yamashiro to refill his ochoko, but he wouldn’t drink the saké.

  One of the aides yelled, “Kampai,” and everybody drank except for Freeman. The man sitting across from him saw this, and asked, “Don’t you like saké?”

  Freeman ignored him, and asked, “Did all of the SEALs die on that mission?”

  Yamashiro said, “That’s right, you didn’t drink last time, either.”

  “I don’t drink,” said Freeman.

  No one argued with him as Yamashiro emptied the third tokkuri into each of their ochokos, then he clapped his hands, and the waitress brought three more tokkuri.

  Freeman didn’t drink any. Emily only sipped at hers, nursing it like a cocktail. Watson, on the other hand, was already getting tipsy. Yamashiro and the other Japanese watched him drink with satisfaction.

  Freeman repeated his question. “Did all of the SEALs die?”

  Yamashiro looked at the man beside him, and said, “He wants to know about the kage no yasha.” Then, to Freeman, he said, “Now that we are settled, the kage no yasha no longer live among us. They claim they are not fit to eat our food.”

  * * *

  The Japanese didn’t live in tents or shacks or partially destroyed buildings, as Freeman suspected; they had an entire city to themselves, complete with apartments and stores.

  Beneath the ruins of Valhalla was an underground city, one Freeman would have wanted to have known about during his first visit to New Copenhagen defending the planet, the battle with the Avatari.

  The bar had been in the lobby of the building. Once Yamashiro and his men finished drinking, they led their visitors to a steep escalator that ended three hundred feet beneath the building. Halfway down, the walls gave way to a wide, clean expanse with trees, parks, working fountains, and gleaming, marble walkways. There were stores and theaters and a gym.

  Watson, who had overestimated his ability to handle saké, looked at the grounds below, and said, “Shit! We’re back on Earth.”

  Yamashiro heard this and smiled.

  Emily kept an arm around Watson to make sure he didn’t trip on the escalator.

  Freeman positioned himself in front of Watson and tightened his grip on its rail. If Watson fell, Freeman would prevent him from rolli
ng.

  Yamashiro said, “It was empty when we found it. There were no survivors. We brought generators from our ship, and many of my men are trained engineers. Now it is our city. We finally have our Shin Nippon.”

  Freeman knew the term; it meant, New Japan.

  “But you left family on Earth,” said Emily. “I remember after the war, the Unified Authority gave you an island on Earth.”

  “Furui Nippon,” said Yamashiro, as they reached the bottom of the escalator. He stepped onto the floor with such decision that he almost looked sober. Sounding profoundly melancholy, he said, “My daughter. My wife.”

  “Are they on Earth?”

  “Ah, yes, so it is,” said Yamashiro.

  Freeman and Yamashiro both projected a stoic front. Yamashiro, a man of passions, put away his stoicism when he drank. He shared his inner demons. Freeman kept his demons locked away.

  * * *

  They spent the night in a penthouse with a window that overlooked the entire boulevard. Emily tucked Watson into their bed and went to the living room, where she found Freeman sitting by the window, staring down at the city.

  “What are you looking at?” she asked.

  He pointed to a loaf-shaped single-story building covered with chrome and flashing lights. The rest of the buildings were dark, but a steady stream of people flowed in and out of that one.

  “It looks like a casino,” she said.

  “It is a casino.”

  “Why do you care about it?” she asked.

  “I don’t. I’m looking for phantoms. I haven’t found them yet.”

  “But you think they’re coming?” Emily asked. She knew that Freeman meant the SEALs.

  Freeman didn’t answer.

  She said, “You’ve been right about everything so far.”

  He said, “I’ve been wrong about everything.”

  “You knew we’d find the Japanese.”

  “I expected twenty thousand people and four self-broadcasting battleships. There are two thousand people here.” Freeman took a deep breath. He said, “I thought they’d want to return to Earth. Yamashiro doesn’t want to go back; he’s just glad to be alive.”

  “And the SEALs?” Emily asked.

  “I was hoping for ten thousand of them. Yamashiro says there were one hundred of them when they landed here; the rest died fighting the Avatari.

  “One hundred or one hundred million, it doesn’t really matter,” Freeman said. “We can only fit fifteen people in our ship.”

  By New Copenhagen time, it was the first hours of the morning. The plaza below was mostly empty. Janitors swept the walkways. Gardeners worked in the park. Freeman didn’t see any policemen. Apparently the citizens of Shin Nippon behaved in an orderly fashion.

  “Do you think they’ll come with us?”

  “Illych might have. He would have come just to save Harris. They were friends.”

  “We could stay here,” said Emily. “I mean, if things are really hopeless, we could stay here. There’s room and food. I bet you Yamashiro would let us stay.”

  “I can’t stay,” said Freeman.

  “You need to save Harris.”

  Freeman took a long slow breath. He never looked at Emily. The entire time, he stared out the window at the minor galaxy of parks and lights. He said, “I need to be sure that the Unified Authority doesn’t win.”

  “And Harris does?”

  “He’s already lost,” said Freeman. “His empire is gone. His people are gone. I’m not sure what he’ll do next. You know he’s a Liberator. He has a gland in his brain just like the other clones, only his gland releases a different kind of hormone.”

  Emily said, “The combat reflex; Travis told me about it. I know Wayson is a Liberator.”

  Freeman said, “That flu virus will do the same thing to Harris that it did to the other clones. He’ll get sick, and when his body has taken too much stress, that gland will release its hormone into his blood system.”

  “But it won’t kill him,” said Emily. “It’s not poison, it’s adrenaline.”

  “Adrenaline and testosterone,” Freeman agreed. “It won’t kill him; it should heal him . . . heal his body. That long, steady dose of the hormone is going to do bad things to his brain. He’s probably having paranoid delusions already. By the end of the month, he’ll be irrational.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-ONE

  “The kage no yasha no longer live in our city; they say they were sent to protect us, not to eat our food,” Yamashiro told Freeman the next morning.

  The two of them ate breakfast alone in an immaculate dining hall. White linen cloths covered the tables. The waiters wore white gloves and black suits. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons played in the background.

  “They were skilled fishermen,” said Yamashiro. “There are fish in Biwa-Ko. The kage no yasha will have created a village near the lake.”

  “Is Biwa-Ko a lake?” asked Freeman.

  “Ah, yes. You will have known it as Lake Valhalla.”

  They ate a sticky white porridge and drank fruit juice made from powdered concentrate—foods that traveled well on ships. Yamashiro held up a piece of toast, and said, “This toast came from a can.

  “We don’t have chickens and we don’t have cows. Our eggs, milk, and cheese are all made from powder.

  “We have enough food to last our two thousand settlers for many decades. How does the old saying go? ‘I would trade half of my kingdom for a couple of chickens and some cattle.’”

  “I think the saying went, ‘My kingdom for a horse.’”

  “We have no need for horses,” said Yamashiro.

  Freeman said, “I know where you can find cows and chickens.”

  “You may know where we can obtain herds of cows and flocks of chickens, but I think you cannot carry so many animals on one small ship. Perhaps you have selected this ship for reasons of economy,” Yamashiro said as he spread marmalade on his toast.

  “We’re at war,” said Freeman.

  “The Unified Authority is at war?” asked Yamashiro.

  Freeman told Yamashiro about the war between the clones and their makers, including the flu and how quickly it had spread.

  Yamashiro said, “Then the war is over.”

  Freeman said, “There is one clone who won’t have a death reflex.”

  Yamashiro poured himself a cup of coffee and stirred in cream. He said, “Our mutual friend, Wayson Harris. If he is alive, the Linear Committee will have a problem on its hands; he isn’t the kind of man who forgives betrayal.”

  Freeman said, “You’ve seen how they work; they’re traitors and thugs.”

  Yamashiro put down his spoon, and said, “Maybe, Freeman-san, you are not so safe as well. Maybe they will not forget your indiscretions.”

  Freeman met Yamashiro’s eyes but said nothing.

  “Ah . . . so, so, so, this is why you want the kage no yasha. You plan to unleash Harris upon the Unified Authority.”

  Freeman said, “I am not familiar with the term, kage no yasha.”

  “I’m not surprised; it’s Japanese. It means ‘shadow demon,’” said Yamashiro.

  Freeman said, “Yes, the shadow demons.” That describes them, he thought. “I need to find them.”

  Yamashiro signaled the maitre d’, and said, “There is a man sitting in my office. Tell my secretary to send him down.”

  He sipped his coffee, and said, “I told you that they did not wish to eat our food and that they went someplace where they could fish. They had one further requirement when they looked for their new home. They wanted to remain close enough to watch over us.

  “To this day, they remain our guardian spirits.”

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  Jeff Harmer stood five-foot-two. He was three inches shorter than Yoshi Yamashiro, six inches shorter than Emily Hughes, fifteen inches shorter than Travis Watson, and twenty-two inches shorter than Ray Freeman. He was bald and had a charcoal-colored complexion. A thick bone ridg
e ran above his eyes. His fingers came to sharp points.

  Watson didn’t bother asking why the Japanese referred to him and his fellow clones as “shadow demons.”

  Harmer said, “We saw you land. Since we don’t have any form of early-warning system, we didn’t spot you until you reached the city.”

  Watson kept his voice and his expression neutral, but his thoughts ran amuck. The SEAL looked like a cross between a human and an animal, maybe an insect. He’s so damn ugly, he thought. General-issue clones were programmed not to see themselves when they looked in mirrors; Watson hoped Harmer had the same programming.

  Watson asked, “How many of you are there?”

  “There are 108 of us.” Harmer answered. He had a high voice. It sounded slightly girly but also like the voice of a sociopath.

  “A company,” said Freeman.

  Harmer nodded.

  “What kind of company?” asked Emily.

  “It’s a military term, M,” said Watson in an authoritative tone. “Fire teams, platoons, companies, battalions.” He hoped he had fooled her; it had taken Harris forever to educate Watson about the chain of command.

  “Oh. I should have known that,” said Emily.

  After a few more moments of pleasantries, Yamashiro said, “Perhaps now would be a good time for you to explain why you have come.”

  As Freeman didn’t speak up right away, Watson said, “How long ago did you leave on your mission?”

  Yamashiro answered, “Twenty-five fifteen.”

  “Four years ago,” said Watson.

  “Five,” Yamashiro corrected.

  “While you were hunting the aliens, the Unified Authority discontinued the cloning program,” said Watson.

  “Why would they do that?” asked Harmer.

  “Once the dust settled after the invasion, Congress wanted to know why we lost so many planets. The generals blamed the clones.”

  “And that led to a war?” asked Yamashiro.

  Watson said, “That and the aliens coming back to burn the planets they missed.”