Counterpart

by Hayley Stone

  “You said you wouldn’t hurt anyone in this base, but the translator seemed to believe your threat was true. And now the commissar is conveniently…out of the picture.”

  That translator can take a flying leap. “Then he misread the situation. I wasn’t Kozlov’s biggest fan, sure, but I didn’t want him dead. Why would I? His death means we have to wait until the Russians can send someone else to negotiate terms and sign the treaty. That could be weeks from now.”

  “Someone more agreeable, perhaps?” Kapoor lifts an eyebrow.

  “You’re twisting my words.”

  “Rhona’s right,” Camus says. “This is nothing but empty speculation.”

  “There is something else, Commanders.”

  Hawking uses a small remote to cycle to another scene. One of “me” wheeling some sort of cart from Military into the express elevator. I’m wearing the same hoodie as before, and I’m not sure, but I think those might be my Adidas track pants. Oh, no.

  “We’re still trying to recover the rest of this footage. Many of the servers on Command were damaged in the explosion, but I think we can all agree what this looks like. There’s only one way a bomb could enter Command, and that’s if someone with access to Command planted it there. How do you explain this, Commander Long?”

  “That’s not me,” I say in a rush. “That can’t be me. I was with Kozlov all morning, and then with Camus. Find the footage of that.”

  It must be another clone, I think. But that’s impossible. All the other clones died when the machines invaded Brooks. Unless…

  Unless she’s not a clone at all.

  My mind bursts with fresh horror. It’s almost too disturbing, and too terrible, to consider. But it is a possibility—my predecessor surviving Anchorage. The machines tore Ulrich from the brink of death; it stands to reason they could have done the same thing with Rhona 1.0. No body was ever recovered.

  To confirm my story, Hawking instructs Clarence to rewind the footage. We review my movements around McKinley today, shifting from camera to camera—but there are gaps. Black, dead holes in the footage, and periods of time unaccounted for, such as before my meeting with Kozlov.

  “That’s not possible.” Clarence gives a helpless shrug when I look toward him. Think, Rhona. Think! There has to be some explanation. Some defense. “Ulrich was with me. He can confirm my whereabouts.”

  “Convenient,” Kapoor mutters under his breath.

  I shoot him a glare, but Hawking concurs. “He’s right. It does seem convenient that your only alibi happens to be your bodyguard and—as you yourself just stated—good friend.”

  They’re against me. I look past Camus to each of the other council members, though no one but Hawking is brave enough to meet my eyes. They’re all against me.

  My shirt feels like fire against my skin as several gross thoughts rampage through my mind. If Rhona is alive, what does that make me? An imposter? A crook? I’ve stolen her life, and the man she loves. I roll back my sleeves, but it doesn’t relieve the feeling of being back in that smoky elevator lobby. Burning alive. At the same time, my hands go cold and clammy, slipping as I struggle to climb over the side of the truck. I sense Camus hovering nearby. Oh, God. Camus! What will Camus think? Between the two of us, who would he choose? When I stumble on the fender, he helps me down to the floor.

  “Commander Long,” Hawking says. “Commander Long, where are you going?”

  “You’re wasting time with me when you should be out there, trying to find the person actually responsible. I’m just—I’m done with this.”

  “You are not excused.”

  I stop inches from the door, clenching my fists until my nails bite into my palms. She doesn’t understand. None of this is my fault, and she wasn’t there. She wasn’t there. Schwarzenegger and the composers…My ears pulse with tinnitus brought on by the blast, and I want desperately to close my eyes. Shut everything and everyone out. Why won’t this awful day just end?

  “I understand you suffered a terrible loss today, Commander. Your friend, Lieutenant Moore—isn’t that right?” Hawking’s words have the same effect on me as an ice pick cracking a glacier. I suck in a shaky breath, turning back around. “Do you imagine you’re the only one who lost someone important in the attack? Look around you. Notice anyone missing? Dahlia Cameron. Chad Masters. Valerie Johansson. Their bodies were found two hours ago. Dahlia was barely recognizable. Valerie was missing her legs.”

  Even Kapoor seems uncomfortable with such brutal detail. “Renee,” he says. “Come on. Is this necessary?”

  “Commander Long seems to be under the impression that I am wasting the council’s time. This knowledge should serve as a reminder of why we’re here in the first place. The people of this base trusted us with their safety, and we failed them.”

  Everyone in the room is utterly still, a vast, swollen silence filling the space. It pushes into my lungs like water. I struggle to breathe. Hawking’s just hit upon the little imp that’s been hopping up and down in my head all day.

  Guilt.

  But it’s not my fault—is it?

  “Let me be clear: this is not a witch hunt,” Hawking continues, her voice softer. Weary. “I don’t want the commander to be guilty. She rescued us in Juneau, and I speak for many who are grateful for McKinley’s intervention. But I will not ignore the facts out of a misplaced sense of loyalty. We are councilors, not sycophants. Too many have died, and many more may still die if something isn’t done.” She turns at last to me, pinning me in place as surely as an arrow through my foot. “Do you disagree, Commander Long? I’d think you, of all people, would be eager to get to the bottom of this mystery.”

  “It doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice,” I answer in a thin voice.

  “Rhona.” Camus comes toward me.

  That’s the last thing I remember before the concrete ceiling fills my vision, and support beams loom like strange metal awnings. I feel as though I’ve just run a mile, though by my position, lying flat on my back, clearly that’s not the case. My muscles are sore, and I have to make a conscious effort to unclench my teeth.

  “Get back,” Camus says, waving off the other councilors who have gathered around me to gawk, except Matt, who he allows close enough to check my pulse. “Back! Give her some room. Rhona, can you hear me?”

  “Did you see that? She hit him.”

  “But did you see the look on her face? It was like she wasn’t even there.”

  “—clocked him right in the nose, practically.”

  “She didn’t hit me,” Camus snaps at the gossiping councilors over his shoulder. “She was seizing. Rhona?”

  “I’m fine,” I say, even though I have to lean on Camus to get back on my feet. Even though my stomach is doing cartwheels and I can’t stop shaking. Has it gotten colder in here? “I’m fine.”

  Camus ignores my protestations. “I move that we postpone these proceedings,” he says. “At least for a few days. Time enough for us all to recover some. Our decisions will benefit no one if they’re based on pain and fear.”

  “I second the motion,” Matt says. While I appreciate the support, I don’t like the way he’s studying me, as if I’m a lab rat that has just developed a somewhat alarming tic.

  Hawking hesitates, but eventually consents with a nod. Her fairness is scary. It reminds me this isn’t personal; she genuinely believes I’m capable of something this horrific.

  Doubt clamps down on me like a set of teeth. What if she’s right? What if I am capable of this? Not me me, but another version of me? Maybe even the original, warped and ruined by the machines, like wood cracked by the sun. But Brooks facility burnt. It’s all gone. The clones, the research. And Rhona—Rhona died.

  Unless she didn’t.

  “Very well, Commander Forsyth,” Hawking says. “But she must be watched at all times.”

  I almost laugh. As if I wasn’t before?

  “She’s not a threat,” Camus says heatedly.

  “That remains
to be seen,” Cordier says.

  Camus works his jaw for a long moment without saying anything. Frustration rolls off him in waves.

  “I’ll assign a guard,” he says at last. “In the meantime, Rhona will stay with me, and right now I’m taking her to Medical.” He looks at me and I nod, still leaning on him for support as the room tilts. Medical sounds good. Also, sleep. I’m beyond ready to be unconscious. In a normal, healthy way.

  “At all times,” Hawking repeats just before the door slides shut behind us.

  Chapter 7

  A loud rustling pulls me from a dreamless sleep, and for a moment I forget where I am.

  Rain, I think. London.

  The word frees my mind like a spell breaking. I remember warm bedsheets and an open window, the doughy aroma of biscuits floating in from a flat downstairs. Tires sighing through water on the street below. Outside, a pair of students are complaining about the weather and last-minute changes to the syllabus, but I have trouble concentrating on their words. Camus, his naked body snug against mine, is tracing lazy circles on my shoulder with his finger, waiting for me to open my eyes…

  Our first time together. I thought I’d lost all memory of it in that shadowy valley between Anchorage and Brooks.

  I turn in bed, finding myself caged in Camus’s arms once again. Now, as then, I smile. His eyes are closed, and I allow myself the pleasure of looking at him. His features seem proud even at rest—the high cheekbones, the Roman nose—but his brow remains furrowed, his lips caught in a small grimace, as if he can’t help being on the defensive whether awake or asleep. He breathes softly through his mouth, the warm air meeting my cheek, then pulling away.

  The rain continues outside our door, a constant flurry. That’s when everything starts to come back, the realization of where I am hitting me like a snapped rubber band.

  We’re at least half a mile underground. It can’t be raining.

  “Camus,” I whisper, loathe to break this peaceful moment. It was an effort to find a private space for us, but Camus insisted. He cited the need to maintain appearances with our allies, especially their elite. It wouldn’t do to have an icon of the free world slumming it with the injured. In hindsight, I think Camus just wanted to be somewhere quiet, where he wouldn’t have to put up with a symphony of strangers snoring. Can’t blame him. “Camus, do you hear that?”

  His arms tighten around me, and he closes his mouth, but otherwise offers no sign of alertness. “Mmm?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Mmm.”

  I lean in close. Time for drastic measures. “Hey, Camus. Middlemarch is a terrible book.”

  His eyes open slowly. “What did you say?”

  “Listen,” I reply, smiling. “Am I losing my mind or does that sound like rain?”

  Back in his quarters on Command, Camus often listens to the sound of rain to help him unwind after a long day. He doesn’t have to say it; I know it reminds him of his home in wet, merry old England. Sometimes he even sets the “windows”—digital screens programmed with an array of different ecological environments—to a storming countryside. I can’t count the number of times I’ve fallen asleep, my face peppered in bright spots, fake rain sliding down fake glass. It makes me feel like I’m trapped in an aquarium, but I suffer it for Camus. It’s a small sacrifice, anyhow. He never complains, but I know when he’s feeling homesick by the rain, and how often he listens to old English Premier League matches in the background while he works.

  Here in a common bunk room on Dormitory, however, there are no digital windows or soundtracks. There should be no rain. I watch Camus’s face as he comes to the same conclusion.

  I sit up the same time he does, though I immediately regret it.

  My head feels stuffed with cotton. I ache everywhere, as if I spent all of yesterday wrestling a bear. And lost. Down in Medical, Matt said the CT scans didn’t show any severe damage to my brain from colliding with the wall—I couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a minute—but he warned I might suffer headaches, fatigue, and even mood swings as the result of my minor concussion.

  As for my periods of lost time, Matt didn’t seem too concerned, even given the startling symptoms: arm and leg spasms, fluttering lids, paleness, and a look of absence right before it happened. With no history of epilepsy, Matt said he suspected psychogenic blackouts were the culprit. I made a face at the word “psycho” but he assured me it was only a Greek root referring to the mind. Psychogenic blackouts frequently occur in younger adults, but technically I’m not even one year old yet, discounting the time spent growing in that capsule. I asked if the blackouts were related to hitting my head, but Matt said no. They were a response to emotional trauma, my brain trying—and failing—to think its way past the painful memories of McKinley’s invasion.

  In the end, Matt prescribed me some extra-strength pain relievers (for the headaches) and advised me to get a lot of rest, and to avoid stressful situations whenever I could. “Try to relax,” he said.

  Camus sniffed at that, and I caught him in the shoulder with the back of my hand. “I didn’t say anything,” he protested, but what he didn’t say was the same thing I was already thinking. Like that’s going to happen.

  “Stay,” Camus says now, throwing his legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll check on it.”

  I get up anyway, kicking off the rest of the covers. “It’s fine. I’m already dressed,” I joke. We’re both wearing the same clothes we wore yesterday, and smell wretched. By the time accommodations were arranged, I barely had the strength to flop into bed, let alone shower or bathe. I don’t even remember Camus joining me.

  The motion sensors pick up our movement and trigger the lights. I clap my hands over my eyes, blinded, and groan at the brightness. When I can finally see again, I spot a swollen purplish lump to the right of Camus’s nose. Kapoor’s voice drifts back to me. She hit him.

  “God. Did I really do that?” I ask quietly, gesturing to my own face as if the ugly bruise was there.

  “What?” Camus probes around his nose, wincing. “Ah. It’s nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing. It looks like I gave you a second nose.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just…Sorry I hit you.”

  “As I said. It’s nothing that won’t heal,” Camus tries to reassure me, his look uncharacteristically gentle. “And it wasn’t as though you intended me any harm. You weren’t in control of yourself.”

  “Right,” I say, thinking, That seems to be my problem as of late. I don’t know how else to respond, so I continue toward the door, desperate for a distraction.

  “Doctor Shigeru said you needed to rest,” Camus argues to my back.

  “I have. I slept for…” The digital clock on our nightstand shows the time as 2:27. “Wow. Is that p.m.?” We missed an entire half day. “See? Plenty of rest.”

  Camus shakes his head. “I swear, Rhona. You’re going to put me in an early grave…”

  I hesitate, my hand stopping just before the door control. “Don’t say that.” Grief squeezes me, dripping cold water down my spine. The rain—or whatever it is—continues outside, perforating the silence between us.

  Camus’s hand closes on my hip, drawing me back against him. “I’m sorry.” His voice is soft and mournful against my ear. “I wasn’t thinking…”

  I turn, touching my cheek to his. “It’s not you. I’m just—not good at this.”

  “Opening a door?”

  “Funny,” I say. “But, no. Grieving.” Losing, I think. Failing.

  I feel his mouth twitch. Not a smile, not a frown. Something in between. “Find me one person who is, and I will show you a machine.”

  “A quote?”

  “Not exactly.” He releases me, stepping back. “Shall we see what all the fuss is about?”

  I palm the door control.

  Big mistake. The “rain” comes at us sideways, drenching Camus and me before we’ve even set fo
ot in the hallway. Overhead, a furiously rotating sprinkler churns out water as steady as a showerhead. Someone runs past us, holding his hands over his heads, as if that will keep him dry. I try to pursue, to ask him what’s going on, but instead skid on the wet floor in my bare feet. I reach out just in time to stop me—and my toes—from crunching against the opposite wall.

  “Where’s the fire?” I shout at the next person who passes by.

  “Fire?” He shakes his head, using a finger to wipe water from his eyes. “No. Some idiot smuggled in contraband and lit up near a smoke detector.”

  Camus steps back inside the room, and a minute later I hear him on his walkie-talkie from the doorway. “Isn’t there some way to turn it off?” He has to speak loudly in order to be heard over the watery barrage.

  The stranger moves on, and I tilt my head up, letting the water needle my face. It’s lukewarm and smells faintly of plastic, but at least I can’t smell the smoke on my skin anymore. The death. I hold out my hands, palms up, close my eyes, and try to remember what it feels like to stand in an actual storm. The air bracing and electric. A surprise thunderclap loud enough to rattle your bones, just before the sky drops its weight on you. London. Take me back to London with all its people and life and stupid, petty inconveniences like the weather.

  Someone grabs my shoulder. I open my eyes, jerked from memory.

  “They need me in maintenance,” Camus says. Water slides down his face, and he licks it from his lips. “However, I promised Hawking you’d be supervised.”

  I almost groan. “Camus…”

  He motions me back into the dry shelter of our room. The door hisses shut behind him.

  Camus wrings out the bottom of his white shirt, practically made see-through by the water. Not that I’m complaining. I don’t know when Camus finds the time to exercise, but his lean body testifies to some kind of routine. “Lefevre will be here shortly,” he informs me.

  Recalling Orpheus Lefevre’s disappointed expression when he arrested me, as if I’d just told an offensive, off-color joke, performs all the work of a cold shower. I cross my arms. “Why not Ulrich?”