Micah

by Rebecca Royce

  It was dark, pitch black, by the time I reached the installation. My head spun, and my heart pounded so hard I wondered if I was going to have a heart attack. I put my hands on my knees. Blood dripped down the side of my face. Some twig got me or something. The whole day was a blur.

  A figure stood staring at the building. He was a slight distance away, and it took me ten seconds to realize I looked at the figure of Jason Ulysses Kenwood, Werewolf and one time suitor for Rachel’s love.

  I’d liked him until I hated him.

  And he was here now because I’d brought him back to life.

  He turned, sniffing the air, and then saw me. We stared at each other, only the quarter filled moon lighting the night.

  “Micah.”

  I held out my hand. “If you get near me, Jason, I’m going to kill you. My girl is in there. Oh, and if you get anywhere near my sister-in-law, I’ll kill you then, too. Or Chad will. Things have changed while you were dead.”

  It was then it occurred to me he might not have known he’d been dead. Chad hadn’t known he was cloned.

  “Why the fuck am I here?”

  “Well, isn’t that the existential question of the universe. Why are any of us here? The Werewolves want you. They’re probably not far. Go figure it out with them.”

  He pointed at the door. “Two guards through there. That’s lightweight, considering the rest of the place in there. I can’t… I don’t know if I can do this again.”

  I pulled off my machete. “If you want me to end you, I’ll go ahead.”

  It was the least I could do, considering he was here thanks to me.

  He shook his head. “We’ll see each other again.”

  I supposed we would. It seemed to be how these things went.

  Chapter 12

  I knocked on the door. Stake in my left pocket, machete on my back, whoever answered could either let me in or die. I was that serious. I didn’t think I’d live to regret their deaths. I was past caring about the outcomes of my decisions. My girl was in there. I needed her. Immediately.

  The door swung open, and a Vampire stared at me. They were answering doors now? Brynna had told me staking them was a gift. Fine, I’d dish out some. The Vampire didn’t even flinch or back away. The bloodlust must not have been riding him.

  A second Vampire rushed toward me, fangs displayed. This one wouldn’t be so mellow. That was okay. I had enough adrenaline to take out a whole horde of Vampires if need be. I kicked him back and then staked him.

  Breathing heavy, I whirled around. Where to go now?

  “Hello, Mr. Lyons,” a female voice called out to me as though through a speaker. It echoed off the walls. “You beat my expectations. I thought perhaps we would have to wait until tomorrow to be graced with your presence.”

  What in the hell? Doubleday had me on some kind of video feed where she could see me. “How about you come say hello? I want what is mine returned to me immediately.”

  A small laugh echoed. “And what is yours exactly?”

  Four doors I hadn’t noticed opened simultaneously. The doors had been made to blend into the wall. Four women wearing different colors of the same long, pencil skirted dress came out. I gasped, for a second not believing my eyes.

  Not only was each of the women identical in their dress, save for the colors, they had the same face. And it was one I knew, one I’d seen very recently. It was Margot.

  “Oh, I see you recognize me. Or a version of me. Yes,” the voice echoing through a speaker continued. “You’re seeing what you’re seeing, Mr. Lyons.”

  I was having trouble breathing, but I wouldn’t—absolutely couldn’t—allow myself to have a breakdown right here. I had to keep it together. Okay, there were… multiple clones in the room with me, and they all looked like Margot.

  An older version of the women entered the room. She crossed the space until she was right in front of me. Her dress was exactly the same as the younger versions, except it was black. Or, I highly suspected, everything about those four women was a version of her.

  “My name is Christa Doubleday.” I stared at her outstretched hand. Did she expect me to shake? She finally dropped her hand. “Oh well, fine. Your generation never had any manners anyway. Do you recognize me?”

  I swallowed, forced myself to do so several times before I spoke. “Should I?”

  “Well, I was quite famous when the world ended. You must not have watched the news.”

  I shook my head. “I didn’t. I was too busy having sex and fun.”

  I knew I was being rude, but this woman had something—maybe everything—to do with the end of the world. I didn’t have to be polite.

  She sighed, putting her hand on her hips. “I believe your mother taught you better, Micah Lyons. I’ve seen video of you. You know how to behave. Anyway…” She flipped her dark hair over her shoulder. It was long and black. Stick straight, the likes of which I’d never seen.

  I knew enough about women to understand grooming. I’d bet my left testicle she was running a hot iron over it every day. What kind of life was she living in this mess of a world she had time for that?

  Christa kept speaking. “I was in charge of the response to the Vampire virus. I was the one on television telling everyone not to worry. My husband was a senator. Ring any bells?”

  “None.” And I knew my answer would make her nuts. This was a person who craved fame, even if it was notoriety in the end.

  She threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, I love you. Fine. You didn’t know me then, but you know me now. Now, you are here because you want Brynna. Don’t worry. You won’t soon. I’m breaking that mating. Rather brilliant of 72 to add the Werewolf gene. If I’d known, I’d have stopped her immediately. We don’t need any more mating nonsense in this world. It causes enough problems, to be sure.”

  “My being mated to her has nothing to do with anything. Whether or not she is my mate won’t change the fact I’m not leaving here without her. And 72 is Margot?” I had to work really hard to make sure I understood everything going on here.

  Her eyes lost some of their glimmer, and heated anger struck out at me instead of whatever this jovial pretense she’d been playing with remained in its place. “I’m afraid you can’t have her. Ever. She made me a deal. She came and will let me experiment on her. And in turn, I let Jason Kenwood go. A deal is a deal. You know, I never could have imagined this. When I destroyed the world, that we’d still be here today dealing with things as trivial as sex and love.”

  “Trivial as sex and love? There’s nothing more important.”

  She tapped my shoulder. “I forgot. You’re not as smart as Chad. Ho hum. Fine. You can’t have Brynna, so you should run along and get over the idea. You’ll feel better in an hour or two. Oh, and Margot, as you called her, doesn’t know she’s a clone. So if you really want to destroy her life, you can go ahead and tell her.”

  I took a step back. I knew how I needed to proceed. I had to be sure I got this exactly right. There were four of these women, and as a rule, I didn’t hurt anyone of the female sex. Still, I’d brought myself into this mess to rescue Brynna, and rescue her I would.

  “Grab him before he does something stupid,” the older Doubleday called out.

  No, not happening. As two of the women reached for me, I grabbed one and flung her into the other one coming at me. I winced. This was going to be a special kind of hell. “Oh for goodness sake, I’ll do it.”

  She lunged for me, nails out toward my face. They weren’t normal human nails but looked more like the Vampires. I dodged out of her way and ran for the door where one of her clones had entered. It shut behind me with a locking sound, and suddenly, I remembered what it had been like to be in a fun house back in the day during one of those summers at the Jersey Shore.

  There had been mirrors everywhere, I’d looked really strange in the reflection, and my twelve-year-old self had been silently terrified. There were mirrors all over this room. What in the hell was going on here?
>
  Another Christa walked toward me. She was old, like the one in charge in the other room. Her reflection was everywhere, all-encompassing in the space even though there was technically one of her.

  “Hello, Mr. Lyons.” New Christa. Back to the Mr. Lyons.

  She tilted her head to the side. “Are you confused? You just left me in the room. How am I here?”

  Exactly how dumb did she think I was? “No, I’m not confused. I get the whole cloning thing. I didn’t stop to think there might be multiples of you running around at the same time, but now I’m understanding what’s happened. I’m not leaving here without Brynna. If you want to keep playing games and getting in my way of doing what is going to happen here, I can kill you. I’m not above doing that. I’d even be doing the world a favor, and—wait—you could come back anyway.”

  She threw her head back and laughed. In every version, this woman had a sick sense of humor. If she didn’t look exactly like her, I would say Margot didn’t remind me of her at all. She was human, or at least she seemed that way. This woman was a monster.

  Arguably worse than the Vampires and Werewolves together.

  “Do you think there is more than one Chad here? Do you think I’ve got five of them tied up in the basement?”

  I shook my head. “You’re sick in the head, lady. And I’m done.”

  She ran at me, the claws out again, and this time when I dodged, I shoved her backward. I’d never struck a human woman before. I couldn’t really label her as human. She wasn’t normal, and if I let her, she was going to scratch the crap out of me.

  The woman hit the wall hard, and didn’t get back up. I ran for the next door. This felt like a game, and I didn’t want to play it. Still, what choice did I have really?

  She had said something about downstairs. That’s where I would head. My mind turned with possibilities. There was no way Margot knew where she came from. What was she? A failed experiment? Something gone wrong? Or what this Christa woman wanted to happen? Some kind of test?

  And what did it mean Christa had ended up like this and she was essentially Margot? Was our doctor about to try to take over the world? Not that there was any world to take over anymore. But still, was she bound to be psychotic?

  Was this a nature versus nurture thing? The world had ended. Why did I still have to wonder about this shit? Chad still seemed the same as before. The cloning hadn’t changed him. Damn it, I didn’t know. Margot clearly didn’t have the memories of her clone’s life. Unless she was really good at faking it. Chad did.

  Why did this matter right now?

  I knew the answer: because I was freaked out to fucking hell.

  Okay, this was a maze. I had always been bad at puzzles. Where was Chad when I needed him? Fine. I’d think this through some. This was a game—I needed Brynna—but I wasn’t going to play. They couldn’t keep pushing me through doors like some lab rat they wanted to watch. At some point, there would be a way they tried to stop me from going, and that would be the way I went.

  I stopped with that thought. Why not start now? They kept moving me forward, fine. I’d go back. I turned and returned to the room where I had been. It was empty now.

  “Mr. Lyons,” Christa, whichever one she was, spoke over the loudspeaker again. I ignored her like I used to disregard whatever the principal in my high school said. I’d never done well with people who liked to hear the sound of their own voice better than anything else in the world.

  There had been four doors. One of them would take me where I wanted to go, and if I ran into a hoard of Christas running around, then I’d deal with them. So far, I’d aptly avoided getting scratched. She wasn’t great at defending herself from being shoved. I’d keep shoving.

  The first two doors got me nowhere but an empty, doorless, windowless room—the same one—and by the time I reached the third, I had the clones back. Sure enough, there was a staircase. I pushed them all aside and went down. That was good. I didn’t feel like pushing off clones while I pressed the walls for whatever trapdoor had to be there so Christa Clones One-Two and however many got in and out.

  Margot really lucked out not being trapped here.

  The stairs were old. They creaked. No one followed me. That was either really good or really bad news. Maybe I had played right into their hands by simply assuming I’d been clever.

  The howl at the bottom of the stairs stopped me in my tracks. Maybe they didn’t want to encounter whatever made such a horrific noise. It sounded like a deranged Werewolf.

  I swallowed. I dealt with fear all of the time. It wasn’t new for me. In fact, lately it seemed like a constant companion. I wasn’t afraid of Werewolves. But something about that sound? Yeah, it made my instincts scream to run in the other direction.

  Fortunately, my need to get to Brynna was stronger. I pushed open the door and nearly reared back from the stench alone. They must have really good ventilation in the other rooms because I hadn’t smelled the stink until I’d come through the door.

  Something—or maybe lots of things—was dead in here. The howl again. Since I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going in this deranged fun house, I might as well start with whatever that was. I walked toward the howling and then wished I hadn’t. In front of me was a line of cages. It looked like an animal shelter where they would keep the dogs before they euthanized them.

  I wished I’d never seen the sight, but Tia had gone through an animal activism phase, and I’d been her chaperone. I had come out of that experience an animal rights guy myself. Tia had moved on from it. I hadn’t.

  There were humans—sort of—in the cages. I stopped to stare at them. Calling them humans, even in my own mind, stretched the definition. These people had been experimented on. Or cloned badly.

  I didn’t know which one exactly, but I never wanted to see the distortions to the human figure like this again. Two men had been surgically attached. One guy had two heads. A Werewolf was half shifted and stuck. That explained the howling.

  Goosebumps broke out on my body, and if I let myself, I would puke. I battled back from the edge. Whatever else these beings were, they were in pain. I wasn’t, and they didn’t need to watch me get sick.

  What they needed was to be out of their misery.

  “Can any of you understand me?”

  No one answered, most of them staring straight ahead or rocking back and forth.

  Could I do this?

  I could. I didn’t overthink it. I’d open the doors to the cages, and if any of them came out seeming conscious, I’d leave them alone. They wouldn’t make it long outside in the world, but I wouldn’t mess with them. The others, I would put out of their misery.

  As it was, no one exited their cages. I took my machete, and I did it. Maybe someday someone would go into my head again and mess with my memory. They could have this one. The last one I ended was the half-shifted Werewolf. For a second, before my machete made contact with what was left of its neck, recognition and gratitude appeared in its gaze.

  When it was done, I put my hands on my knees and tried to breathe through my nose. Why would Christa have done this to begin with? I needed answers. But first, I needed Brynna. All of this was for her.

  How many Vampires had been in pain like that when Christa experimented on them, trying to cure them like she and the other scientists had managed to do with Brynna? How badly had Brynna hurt?

  There was a room at the end of the hall, and I walked toward it.

  “Micah, you have messed with my zoo. I don’t like that.”

  I didn’t care. She was watching me, and she could continue to do so. I was walking out of this mad house with my former Vampire, and if Christa wanted to spend the whole time observing me, she could go ahead. If she sent a million of her deranged clones after me, she could go ahead and do so.

  She wasn’t going to change any of my plans. “Look, lady,” I called out to the empty room, assuming she could hear me, “I think you and all the versions of yourself you’ve made have b
een alone too long. I’m not afraid of you. Keep attacking me. I’m stronger than you are. I will burn this place to the ground with myself inside before I let you keep Brynna here. Do you think I’m lying? I used to blow up Vampire lairs. I’m adept at destruction. Always have been.”

  Christa could let that sink right in.

  And choke on it.

  I swung open the door to find myself in another lab. It looked exactly the same as the ones underground and the one we used to have in Genesis. These people liked to keep things consistent. That was for sure.

  “Micah,” a naked man in a ceiling to floor enclosure called out to me. He was old and looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen him, save for the nakedness. Isaac Icahn, the most evil man I’d known until I discovered it was possible to be worse than he was. He reached toward me, but I didn’t move toward him.

  Why hadn’t I realized I was going to see him in this place? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. He was here, naked, and he seemed to be struggling to breathe.

  “She took one of my lungs.”

  He paused between each word. I shuddered, trying not to feel like my own chest was tight. This was a man who had destroyed us. Played with the minds of everyone I cared for and…

  No, he hadn’t done that. Not this man. He had the memories of the one who did, but he didn’t personally destroy anything. He’d been cloned and hurt. That was it. He wasn’t any more responsible for the suffering of humanity than Margot was for Christa.

  Chad was basically the same cloned as he’d been before, but he couldn’t be found guilty for things he’d not done.

  My head hurt. This was heavy stuff, and I wasn’t the right person to deal with these issues. I stepped toward him. “If this is some kind of trick, I’m going to rip your esophagus out and feed it to the next Werewolf I see.”

  Even if I was willing to see past the fact he looked like my worst nightmare, I wasn’t a total idiot.

  “I’m going to die. End it before she can do this to me again. Or worse.”

  I nodded. “I can. She can re-clone you, but for you, yes, I can make the pain stop.”