Frequency

by C Scott Frank

  Damien flinched when he heard the crash against the window. Glass cracked under the barrage. One more hit would shatter the glass. The pilot swung the chair again, and this time the chair went straight through, clattering against the floor next to Damien, showering him in tempered glass. The doctor took a deep breath and stood to look at the pilot.

  “You’re an activist,” he said quickly, hoping to get him talking. Hoping to get him on the same side. He raised his hands slowly and continued. “I’m a pacifist. We’re on the same bloody side, believe me.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t,” the pilot said. “People can and will say anything if they believe their life is on the line.”

  “Is my life on the line?”

  “I can’t let you continue your work.” The pilot shrugged as if it was out of his control. “You must know that.”

  “Whatever side of the debate you’re on, we’re working to save humanity,” Damien pleaded. He hoped he believed it himself.

  “Humanity is relative.” The man’s harsh voice gave Damien chills. “Why should we be treated any differently than you? What gives you that right?”

  “We?” That… couldn’t be. That meant—Damien shook his head and cursed under his breath. “Bloody hell, he was right this whole time.”

  “What exactly did you think happened on that shuttle, doc?” The pilot edged closer to the doctor.

  “We assumed you had stopped the clone from sabotaging your mission,” Damien offered, shrinking backwards.

  “Well, you’re not entirely wrong. But it looks like you’ve completely misjudged the nature of my mission.” The pilot had Damien backed into a corner. “Exactly how many clones have you killed, doctor? How much blood is on your hands?”

  Damien looked at his own hands as if he expected to find them covered in blood. “I—I never asked for this. I’m not a murderer.”

  “Tell that to the bodies you’ve piled up.” The pilot worked his fists. “Don’t fight it and this will end quickly.”

  Damien looked over the man’s shoulder as he closed the distance. “Oh, thank God.”

  The pilot pulled up short and turned to look. Nothing. He screamed as Damien led with a sweeping kick into the side of the man’s knee. His balance wavered and Damien rushed past him out of the office.

  “You little whelp,” the pilot growled and steadied himself. Damien rounded the doorway of the office and gunned for the exit. Pain lanced between his shoulder blades and he went down hard. His face stung from the impact of the floor, the heavy book landing next to him on the ground, courtesy of the pilot’s throwing arm.

  Damien heard the pilot stalking toward him in the broken glass. He slid himself backward, around a table and out of sight. He inched toward a refrigerator on the nearest wall. He kept it stocked with various chemicals, something in there could cause some damage. He grimaced as his knee bumped a beaker off a low shelf, shattering it on the ground.

  The pilot emerged from around the corner with a grim smile and limped toward him.

  “You are a pacifist doctor,” the pilot said condescendingly. “I was bred for war. Do you really think this goes your way?”

  Damien ignored him and reached up to open the glass door. The pilot slapped his arm away with one hand and flung the doctor onto his back with the other. Damien used the momentum and swung his other hand around to meet his attacker. The pilot was a hair too slow, and the glass bottle in Damien’s hand shattered against the man’s cheekbone. The force of the impact sent the pilot sprawling onto the hard floor next to the doctor.

  Damien rolled and grabbed the shelf next to him and pulled it down onto the bleeding pilot. The man covered his head as glass and metal showered down around him in a clamor. With a shout, he erupted from the debris and pounced on the doctor before he could get away.

  Blood dripped off of the pilot’s face onto Damien’s as he tried to pin the man to the ground. He held him down with one hand and punched Damien in the face, the back of his head cracking violently against the floor.

  Damien’s nose crumpled under another vicious punch. Hot blood poured down his face and down his throat through his battered sinuses. Involuntary tears welled up in his eyes from the barrage, his vision blurred through the stinging pressure. Damien summoned up as much effort as he could, and as the pilot threw another punch, Damien wriggled sideways and the punch landed on the metal tile. The pilot howled as his fist crumpled against the floor.

  Damien seized the moment to kick his way out of the vice the pilot had locked him in. He rolled to his left and tried a kick toward the pilot’s head. The pilot ducked and took the brunt of the force in his shoulder, falling backward into the glass refrigerator door, the impact threatening to spiderweb the door.

  Damien stood to flee, but the pilot swept one of his feet. He fell to the ground once more with a cry of pain. He tried to scoot away, but the pilot was on him in an instant, landing blow after blow to his neck and ribs. Damien tried to hold his hands up to stop the attack, but couldn’t gain any valuable leverage.

  He threw his hands into the pilot’s face, trying to grab his throat in a desperate attempt to strangle him. The pilot was stronger. He peeled Damien’s nimble fingers back one by one, threatening to break them with each tug. Aside from the stifled grunts and occasional gasps of struggle, the room was silent, the only soundtrack coming from the air handlers gently humming in the background.

  The pilot planted a knee into Damien’s sternum, suppressing his diaphragm. Each breath became a struggle. As he grew weak and his arms fell quiet, the pilot grabbed the sides of Damien’s head, cupping his ears, and slammed his skull into the hard metal floor.

  After four heavy impacts, each one punctuated by a sickening crunch, the doctor lay still. Panting heavily, the pilot rolled to the floor next to the bleeding man he had just killed and caught his breath.

  Two short minutes went by, and the pilot heard footsteps from outside in the corridor. He stood up and looked for somewhere to hide. He found a perfect place to set an ambush: between the two glass refrigerators there was just enough room for him to slip into the shadows. The pilot hurried into his trap and silenced his breath as the newcomer entered the infirmary.

  “Oh no,” the man said as he walked through the doorway. “Damien, what have you done?”

  He walked cautiously through the rubble with his gun half raised, as if ready to draw down any direction at the slightest provocation. His boots crunched under broken glass and ruined lab equipment as he progressed through the war zone.

  When he noticed the doctor’s feet sticking out from behind a lab table, he muttered a curse and rushed forward.

  The pilot simply watched from the shadows as the man strode past the refrigerators without paying any notice.

  Day 363 - 10:14

  “How’s he doing?” Keri peered at the vital readings on the monitors above the clone’s head, data in neon colors against a dark background.

  “He’s doing great,” Emily responded clinically. Her eyes and nose were still red from the tears shed over the confrontation between Gibbs and Lincoln. “Better than expected, look at this.” She turned her display around to face Keri.

  “Unbelievable.” Keri inspected the screen. “That resting brain function. It’s—”

  The room went black. Stillness swallowed the lab. Even the hum of the air handlers disappeared in the absolute darkness.

  “What happened?” Edward voice appeared out of the shadow.

  “I’m not sure.” The black of the room absorbed every sense. Keri felt trapped in the ink. “Listen, the air handlers are off.”

  “How long do we have if they stay off?” Edward asked.

  “A few hours. Seven, maybe eight.” Emily’s voice held a slight tremor. Keri hoped the younger girl could hold it together.

  “Are we dark side?” Edward’s voice sounded more confident, but it was hard to tell through his accent. “Perhaps we have drained more resources than the batteries can store.”

 
; “Might be.” Keri knew that couldn’t be the case, but she didn’t want to alarm the team. Not with Lincoln still unaccounted for. “At any rate, the backups should fire on shortly.”

  The seconds dragged on like hours. The sensory deprivation of the dark room threatened to suffocate Keri faster than lack of air.

  “How long do we wait before we try and do something?” Edward asked from the darkness.

  “The backups should be on by now,” Keri admitted. She closed her eyes, despite the darkness, to try and remember the room. Each area had an allotment of flashlights for emergency situations. The lab had one mounted next to the entrance. As she stood to make the trek across the room, a whine pierced the quiet of the room. The lights came on shortly, at half power, leaving the room in a dusky gray.

  “Ah, there we go,” Keri said. “Now—”

  Emily screamed and jumped away as the clone, Michael, opened his eyes and lunged upward, restraints falling to his side. Edward reached forward to restrain him, but the clone threw an elbow around and connected with his temple. Before the unconscious man hit the ground, Michael locked Keri’s wrist in a vice with one hand and grabbed her pistol with the other. Keri threw her remaining hand up in surrender as the clone leveled the weapon at her.

  Keri blinked as she realized his aim was off. The pistol pointed over her shoulder. She turned to find the pilot standing in the doorway with a handgun aimed back at Michael. The pilot looked at Keri over the weapon. Blood dripped down his face as he leaned to one side in the doorway.

  “Stop him,” the pilot said in a raspy voice. “He’s a clone.”

  “Of course I’m a clone,” Michael said. “So are you.”

  “What? No I’m not. I’m a pilot.”

  “What, pilots can’t be clones? Someone take his gun.” Michael looked first to Keri, then to Emily.

  “You don’t want to do that.” The pilot still peered at Keri over his weapon. “I’m the only thing stopping him from killing all of us.”

  “What’s the point in killing everyone here? We’re on a space station, and I can’t very well survive out here on my own,” Michael challenged.

  “Maybe that’s your mission,” the pilot retorted. “You know what they’re doing here, right? They’re trying to cure clones. Fix them. Make them human.”

  “Oh, and you assume that since I’m a clone, I have no desire to be human?”

  “Do you?”

  “I have very little interest in debating philosophy at gunpoint.” Michael’s eyes remained locked on the pilot, unblinking.

  “That’s a valid question though,” Keri joined the discussion, looking at Michael. “Do you?”

  “I’m here, right? Pointing a gun at him and not you.”

  “Maybe you know he’s the only way we’re getting off this thing,” Keri pointed out. “You could simply be cutting off our escape.”

  “Except that he”—Michael stabbed the weapon toward the pilot—“is a clone, and nobody’s escape route.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” The pilot shrugged. “Check the manifests, I’m the pilot.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” Keri confirmed to Michael. “He’s in the logs.”

  “That may be,” Michael conceded. “But I’m telling you, that man is a clone.”

  “Let’s end this, shall we?” The pilot took a step forward, closer to Keri.

  “Emily, report.” She wasn’t sure if the computers were booted back up from the outage—of course. The outage. She swallowed hard as it dawned on her.

  “Report on what?” The pilot asked.

  “The outage,” Keri answered. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

  “I thought it was him.” The pilot stabbed his gun in the air toward Michael.

  “He was here. Unconscious.”

  “He doesn’t look unconscious.”

  Michael sniffed in the pilot’s direction. “Yeah, a foul smell woke me up.”

  “Emily?” Keri prodded.

  “What are you doing? Step away from the display.” The pilot shifted his weight uneasily.

  “I don’t know,” Emily stammered. “The outage. It interrupted the sequence. I can’t tell.” The girl raised her hands over her head, eyeing the pilot warily.

  “Tell what?” The pilot asked again, looking from Emily to Keri to Michael and back.

  “Shall we?” Keri peered into the younger girl’s eyes. It was time for a gambit. She tried to tell her it would be okay with her eyes. Emily nodded. Message received.

  The pilot was still looking at Emily when the flat of Keri’s palm caught him in the neck. He flinched wildly as the wind was sucked from his throat. His gun arm went wide and a shot rang out through the small lab. Keri ducked as the man grabbed for his windpipe, dropping his weapon to the ground. Keri dove for the gun, rolling onto her back in time to see Michael fire two rounds into the pilot’s chest. The man fell to the hard metal floor of the lab, gurgling with every strained breath.

  Keri turned her weapon on the clone still sitting up on the lab table. He dropped his weapon and jumped from the bed and rushed behind Keri. She turned to see Emily crumpled on the floor holding her stomach with labored breathing.

  “We need to move her,” Michael said hurriedly. “She’s going to go into shock. We need to get her flat.”

  Keri helped him reposition Emily onto her back. She pushed her knees up to help release pressure on the wound.

  “Good, that’s perfect,” Michael said. He slipped his hand underneath Emily’s back, feeling up and down. “No exit wound. That’s a problem.”

  “That’s a big problem,” Keri agreed.

  “Okay, we need gauze. That’s perfect, okay now a wrap.” Michael packed the gauze over the wound. “We’ll just wrap this here, that’s good. Keep some pressure there while this settles down. Where’s your doctor? Surely there’s a doctor here?”

  Keri pulled out her comm and keyed it on an open channel. “Damien. Damien come in.”

  Silence.

  “Damien, do you read?”

  “Where was the pilot?” Michael asked.

  “He was in the infirmary, sedated. He shouldn’t have been able to stand, much less come down here with a weapon.”

  “Well, he did. My best guess? Some of us have implants to assist in tissue repair.”

  “Rapid healing?” Keri asked suspiciously. “I’ve heard the theories, but I was never convinced it was possible.”

  “How about an army of human clones bearing down to wipe out the human race?” Michael chuckled. “How’s that for improbable?”

  “Good point,” Keri said, unamused. “Speaking of, how do I know I can trust you? Did the treatment work?”

  “I don’t know anything about your treatment, but for starters, I had a gun and I haven’t pointed it at you yet. Secondly, I’m going to help you win this war.”

  “Forgive me if I’m not reassured.” Keri sized the man up. His odd mix of wise-cracking and bravado made him hard to read.

  “Well, it’ll have to do.” Michael picked the gun up and checked the chamber. “You stay here with her and make sure she doesn’t move. I’m going to go check on your doctor.”

  Without another word, the man walked out of the lab and started down the corridor, gun in hand. Keri waited until the sound of his footsteps faded before she keyed her comm.

  “Lincoln, come in,” she waited. After a moment she continued, “Lincoln, do you read? I’m not sure if you’re getting this, but everything seems to have hit the fan.” Her heart pounded in her throat as she surveyed the room, trying to make sense of it. “Edward is unconscious, Damien isn’t responding, Emily has been shot, and we all saw what happened between you and Zachary.” She paused. What had they done? They never should’ve woken the clone up. “Look, the clone we woke up is out and about. We tried the treatment on him, and it seems to have worked, but I can’t be sure. He might be on the lookout for other threats.”

  The sound of Emily’s ragged breathing tripped her voice. This could be
it. Her final words to Lincoln were scarcely more than a whisper. “Be careful.”

  Day 364 - 01:03

  “And you’re sure there’s no sign of him?” The tall man in the black suit peered at the stocky marine with an air of frustration. “Aren’t you guys supposed to be the best of the best?”

  “Sorry sir, but we’ve looked everywhere,” the marine in gray fatigues said impatiently.

  “I’m sure you have. Okay, run along now.” Black Suit peered around the control room of the station, his piercing blue eyes wolfing down every detail. Just shy of a year on this garbage heap, and everything hits the fan. He had trusted Lincoln’s team. Shipped them out here to Ceres with a full budget, and look where that had gotten them. “Can I tell you something? These clones,” he wasn’t speaking to anyone in particular, “are special. Not in a ‘momma’s boy, can do no wrong’ kind of special. They are a special kind of pain to me.

  “We have all these flowery hippies back home rallying for clone rights and whatever nonsense, but out here in the black, this is a real war. We’re not fighting ideas here, we’re in it. In the thick of it. Blood and bone. Meat sacks masquerading as human beings.” He spat on the floor as if the idea itself physically sickened him.

  He turned to look at the other inhabitants of the room, and realized he was alone.

  “Maybe we’re all human meat sacks,” he said to himself. “Either way, I’m going to break them.”

  Black Suit picked his fedora off the console next to him and walked out of the command center. He met the platoon in Airlock 2 and strode to the lieutenant who waited there for him. The soldier opened his mouth to speak, but Black Suit spoke first.

  “I already got the report from the grunt. They didn’t find anything. I got what I needed. Torch the place.”

  “Torch it? With all due respect, this is a two hundred billion dollar station, it’s not like money grows on trees during wartime,” the lieutenant shot back, all business.