He pretended to be unafraid although cold sweat was breaking out and he was not sure how long he could remain standing before his legs gave way. The missiles came suddenly as if from nowhere. The heliships exploded in a ball of fiery orange flame. The Resistance was closely coordinating their movements
The battle had begun and they were moving briskly towards Genetica.
Mario was more relaxed and sharing details freely with Lilydeen. “He’s one of their new line clones; a great design, 18, very intelligent and strong.”
“And handsome,” she added drily.
“By their engineered standards, yes,” he said trying not to laugh. “After he was secretly fed those data he’s been questioning life there.”
“The accident?”
“They rebuilt him after the ski fall and we were able to come in and do our part.”
“Any other personal details?”
“They’ll beam you a pic. You’ll come out through one of the air vents in a supermarket. You’ll meet him there.”
She had trained for weeks on mannerisms in Genetica right down to the most subtle gestures so she could pass for a cloned inhabitant.
“Then what?” she persisted.
“You’ll know what to do. Don’t try to be too organic for these chemically fazed people,” Mario laughed at his joke.
Roan followed quietly behind them. In his own fumbling way Mario had done his best to make Lilydeen’s venture into Genetica as safe as possible. Unconsciously he put his arms around Mario.
“That feels good,” he said pleasantly. Lilydeen did the same.
Their moment of endearment passed very quickly as Mario jerked suddenly running towards undergrowth, “Incoming drone” he said as he punched in command codes into a tab like instrument he held casually. They kept moving forward at a very brisk pace. Shortly they would go through a disused sewer tunnel that would connect to one of the tunnels in Genetica. It would be a long walk underground but they had prepared well for this. They would put her through an air vent and then wait for her at a rendezvous point.
She would not return alone.
Mario shuddered and stumbled. His Oracle clock was faster. As he got up there was an earth shaking noise as the drone crashed. Roan and Lilydeen stumbled forward while Mario walked on unperturbed.
Roan felt tense and Mario hoped things would work out well. The clone that Lilydeen was bringing back was no ordinary teenager. The Oracle program had done many complex simulations and like a lottery he had been chosen from so many. The Resistance was banking on him to bring down the Corporation. The clone did not know this yet. He would go though trials and challenges and at the end of it he would know what to do. Like all simulations there were two outcomes, either he succeeded or he didn’t. Mario was especially keen to see that everything went smoothly from when he came out to the point when he would act. That was why he was wary of Roan. The hard part was that he couldn’t explain all this to Roan. Roan was attached to Lilydeen and Mario was apprehensive of how he would react if she and the clone were to like each other. The present and future had to go through their own motions.
Mario shuddered and Roan put a protective arm around him.
He couldn’t understand why Mario felt tense and thought he was probably overdoing the touchy feely comradeship thing.
Lilydeen huddled closer to Mario and knew that the most important issue that should have been discussed first was being brought up at this final point before she went through the air vent into Genetica. She was raising this question now because she knew that at this stage they could not abort the mission.
“How dangerous is Lazer?”
“He’s like an alter ego to the guy you’re coming back with,” he paused uneasily not sure how to frame his words, “If he came to you first, he’d make life difficult.”
“I know. He has fantasies of organic girls and after that I’d end up as protein supplement. I can defend myself.”
“He’s stronger, faster and lethal. But the Oracle would not have sent you if it was not convinced that the probability of success was a little higher than average.”
“That’s reassuring,” she said lightheartedly. “How did he know about me?”
“Laser works as an apprentice in their Super-Machine Complex. That’s where the guy you are bringing out used to work before he got transferred into the Genetica Institute. The Complex coordinates everything there and Lazer would have seen and heard things and connected the dots. He’s also active in the Twilight Web. By their standards you’d be an irresistible beauty.”
“You’re joking,” she laughed.
“I wish I were but I’m not. He may have seen you in the StatsLIne page because that is where we had initially inserted you. He may have played around with their monitoring system that wherever you are sighted, he is told. So don’t be surprised if he sees you in the supermarket.”
“But won’t he report me.”
“He’s a tech wizard. He’s going to try and get you through StatsLine first and play ignorant if you get caught out as an intruder.”
“He wants a bit of the action before he turns me in?”
“I’m not that randy so I wouldn’t know,” Mario said weakly.
She held on to him. “I want his name?”
“Wolfgang. Everyone calls him Wolf.”
She kissed him. Mario gently pushed her away. “The excitement may be too much for me,” he teased her.
“Act your age sometimes,” she laughed. “And if you continue to irritate me, I’ll get a girlfriend for you.”
“I’m allergic to chemicals.”
“Don’t push me.” They laughed while Roan smiled and shook his head and pushed her into the air vent for her long winding walk to Genetica.
Chapter 6: Genetica: Escape Plans
On returning to his apartment, which he shared with Roneel, he found that he had gone away. There was a cheery note saying that he would not return immediately. Wolf knew that he had not written the note. It was too neat and planned. Someone was manipulating events. He recalled that Roneel’s troubles had started after he made the unflattering comments about Chloe’s art work not realizing that there were listening devices. How had he accessed the highly sensitive data that he had shared with Wolf? Wolf hoped he had escaped but there was no way of knowing. They all used the twilight web but because it was highly dangerous they avoided communicating within it. He wracked his mind for any vague details. He remembered that Roneel had once subtly used an eel as an icon. Could he have used that in the twilight web?
Coming back from work one evening he saw Chloe waiting. She looked concerned.
“Hi, is everything okay? I was worried about you and came by to hang out a bit.”
He knew that she had thoroughly searched the apartment and found nothing incriminating. He tried to be as friendly as possible to put her off her guard. He was going to say, “I’m terribly sorry. I’m not in the mood. So many things have happened.” But then he relented. Sending her away would only make them use other tactics and he didn’t want to antagonize them. He was convinced that Roneel had left a secret message. But where?
He would spend some time exchanging pleasantries over Kodial, the energy drink, before she left. As she smiled, it suddenly hit him why he was disturbed about her. She was either a clone or one of the newly produced robots that was highly sophisticated. He sensed that she had been configured on his genome so it would be like exchanging intimacies with his alter ego. But he had prepared for this moment!
“Wolf, this is not going to be easy. I’ve been having dreams.”
He knew immediately that she knew more than he did about his future.
“About you,” she continued. “You’ve been going through a great deal especially with your accident. It’s not been easy for you. I’ll be honest because I love you.” She paused dramatically. “You’re fed up with your life here and you want out.”
“I’m sure it’s something I can handle. Even if I wanted to leave
there’s no way I’d be able to do that,” he chuckled. He desperately wanted to entice her into dangerous ground; to provoke her to provide whatever confidential information she had.
“Sometimes you find that the other side is not what it’s made out to be. We would be rejected as not being fully human. This rejection can be an overpowering feeling for someone who does not find love there. It can be the equivalent of being half dead.”
“You make it sound so dramatic,” he said breezily.
“Being an idealist can be a romantic and powerful feeling,” she paused, “but as an artist with a special paint brush one can create anything one wants here; this is the perfect life anyone would wish for.”
She had touched on a sensitive topic. Now he didn’t care if he was treading on dangerous ground. He had made up his mind, “But Chloe, don’t you find it numbing to live a life based on fiction? Genetica is a huge lie.”
“You’re an idealist Wolf. You’ve got to come down to earth,” she said with a faint hint of sarcasm. “Our lives are based on ideas that we adopt as our own and it becomes real for us. Genetica is our perfect new world and we cannot be drawn back to the past.”
“I’m sorry Chloe.”
“Knowing you, I sense you’ll want to go on a great adventure but when all is said and done, you’ll find the other side is just a glorified hell hole made to look glamorous. You’ll be left clinging only to the dark empty space of ideas found in museums.” She knew that she had lost him. “Here, you can paint up your own world Wolf.”
Before she left, she hung her gift high above his bedroom. It was a picture of him holding a paint brush and ready to paint a white wall. His eyes looked serene and all knowing. He realized that it was her eyes staring with what seemed like love. Her eyes were enigmatic and seemed to also say, ‘I’m like your alter ego so it’s a self preservation kind of love because whatever happens to you affects me too!’
“I hope you’ll turn from that space and come back to me,” she said before she left.
+++++
Lying in bed, sensing the drone hovering by the window, he had a very disturbing revelation.
He hoped he had vigorously resisted their chemical serum to reveal names. He hoped he had not betrayed Roneel. He debated whether he should warn him on the twilight web sent to his eel icon by making an oblique reference.
They had drugged him and tried to retrieve all the information by firing up his memory neurons. They were anxious to find out if there had been a leak from inside their system. The information was extremely sensitive and someone had hacked into it.
He had stopped having the dream about the girl replaced by one from his childhood that had flashed to him in Aspen. Dr Mengele looked like a super-machine with robotic hands drawing on a white wall. He drew Wolf’s picture clearly showing his blue eyes, blond hair and perfectly constructed body. Then he blew into it and he gave life to another clone of him. Dr Mengele gave him the paint brush encouraging him to give life to whatever he drew. But he hesitated. In fact his memories of this recurring dream were of him hesitating, almost recoiling. In this last scene, he took the paint brush but was overwhelmed by the dynamic power that came from it.
They had thoroughly checked his brain’s memory system and come up with nothing of value. This had deeply rattled them; that there was software that could hack into their system with relative ease and retrieve damaging information that could bring the Mx Corporation down.
They had continued to monitor him closely.
Lazer had come by to wish him well. As he left, he confided that he was obsessed with the girl whose image he had shown Wolf. “I am now convinced she exists,” he said as he looked very closely at Wolf’s face for telltale signs of concealed information.
“What makes you so sure?”
“I looked through the data base. She looks almost like one clone that was rejected. I think they were going for the organic look but found flaws in the genome design. She’s not in storage and there’s no trail to show she was used as protein supplement.”
“There could be a mundane answer to all this. They probably wanted clones that looked organic for Statsline but withdrew the batch after flaws seeped in.”
Lazer understood this insight very well and smiled. Wolf was speaking his kind of language.
“You’ve reported this?” Wolf spoke as casually as possible.
“No this is just a hunch. It could be nothing.”
“You seem to have a hunch that I might know something.”
“You had checked her out on a number of occasions on Statsline even though you’re not compatible. I thought you might know something I didn’t.”
Wolf pretended to look confused.
“When you had the injury I came by and couldn’t help looking at your g-tab.”
“If I hear anything I’ll let you know.”
“I know you want her too,” Lazer said with a wink, “so we’ll have a race on whoever is first to reach her. I’ve configured the monitors and I’ll get a signal wherever she’s sighted,” he laughed at his ingenuity.
“So they keep her in storage until someone calls her up?” Wolf pretended to be surprised.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Wolf had to admire the way Lazer’s mind worked. He knew that there was more to this issue. If he was investigated later, the impression he gave would be of a young randy teen looking for a new experience. If it turned out that the girl he was obsessed with actually came from the Fringes, he could catch her in Genetica and then get immense credit for being the one who broke the ring. It also had its flaws. If the alarm was not raised early, the person sent to Genetica could work stealthily at speed and then fade back into the Fringes before the alarm could be raised. Whoever was controlling the Fringe matrix knew how randy teens thought and acted!
+++++
Wolf went about the routine of his life.
Roneel was not mentioned at all in the office. His note in the apartment had simply said that he was away and would not return soon. His room was neatly set out as usual with most of his items in his wardrobe and closet. The impression was of someone going away for a short trip. Having walked around it he knew instinctively that someone had thoroughly searched it. He was not sure what they were looking for but every nook and cranny had been checked and rechecked.
He dared not ask around for his whereabouts. If Roneel was ‘marked’ then all those he interacted with would be in danger too. He desperately hoped Roneel had not been detained although every instinct sensed that this had not happened!
Wolf was in his apartment doing some exercises when a thought struck him that made him chuckle. They used to have their own secret where they would leave messages for each other. They were perceptive enough in those days to realize that Genetica had too many surveillance cameras and sometimes the concerns they wanted to express might be misunderstood. They often left cubes for each other behind the cartridge in the air pressure toilet. These cubes could be dismantled easily and discarded.
The drone was still hovering by his window.
He casually went in. Then he felt behind the cartridge with trembling hands. He forced himself to keep calm by counting to 7 before exhaling. There was a cube. He flicked on it gently using their prearranged combination. A message flashed up. There was a danger sign and another sign for ‘relax’ were drawn with the words ‘act normally. Be ready to leave. Don’t trust Chloe. Lazer is curious but don’t over react.’ There was also a drawing of a salamander. He dismantled it and hid it behind the cartridge.
He had not been imagining his dreams, he sighed with relief. But how would they get him out?
Then it all made sense. They were sending a girl. They had cunningly inserted her into Statsline knowing that the Corporation would assume he was just randy for a girl who looked organic like someone from the Fringes. She’d already be in their database and would not arouse suspicion. He sensed that the girl would have gone through intensive training and would come ver
y well prepared.
But why were so many resources being used to get him out? He just hoped he didn’t disappoint them.
Chapter 7: Genetica: Meeting Lilydeen
One afternoon immediately after work, he had gone to the huge supermarket. He had come just before the huge crowd of shoppers would come in. He came partly because he was listless and bored. How would this girl from her dreams contact him without all this surveillance cameras finding out? It was almost impossible to do that.
A young woman brushed by him and reached out to touch a fruit near where he stood. It was the way she touched it with subtle revulsion that caught his attention. She glanced at him very subtly and it would seem that she was doing so because he was partly in her way. He was compelled to follow her as casually as possible. She went to the stand for purple colored tomatoes (eaten for energy) and green carrots (consumed as a muscle relaxant). She made great effort not to recoil.
“You don’t have much time. They’re going to take you in!”
Wolf was about to say something when she brushed by him again as he reached for a carrot near him.
“Click me in your Statsline. I will show up in the catalogue.”
“But they’ll suspect we’re not compatible.”
“They’ve listed you down as erratic at times so your choice will be quite understandable. Besides you’ve clicked me a number of times.”
”I did?”
“Yes you have this obsession for organic looking girls. They’re supposed to be kinky or something like that. You’re friend is going to show up here so I’m moving.”
“Lazer?”
“We had to steer him in so it doesn’t arouse suspicion.”
“But that’s risky.”
“Life’s full of danger. And besides, how do you know we are not compatible. Get out of your comfort zone!”
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