The Clone Paradox (The Ark Project, Book I)

by J. W. Elliot

  “Okay,” Kaiden said, with a note of annoyance in his voice. “How many do you know exist?”

  “Eight million clones have been produced by TAP in the last four decades. Another four million are now, or will soon be, in production. TAP is seeking ten million viable clones by the end of the year.”

  “And how do you know this?” Kaiden asked.

  “Because it was my job to know.”

  “Spit it out,” Kaiden snapped. “We don’t have time for bull crap.”

  The young man looked insulted, but he answered. “I worked in the Data and Statistics department.”

  “Then, why do they kill us when we turn twenty?” someone called out.

  The young man grimaced. “That wasn’t part of my department, but I have no evidence that we are killed.”

  Kaiden stepped forward. Willow tried to wave him down, but he ignored her.

  “I have seen clones executed by TAP,” he said. “We have the files to prove it.”

  “What has any of this got to do with The Flood?” someone shouted.

  “I believe,” the young man continued, “that we were created to replace humanity. Ten million is the projected number of humans the earth can support while its ecosystems recover. Why else create ten million clones from every ethnic group?”

  A murmur swept through the crowd.

  “What’s your name?” Jade asked.

  “Glenn,” he said.

  “May we consult you if we have any other questions?” Willow asked.

  Glenn nodded.

  “Anyone else?” Kaiden asked. The muscles in his jaw worked.

  No one responded, so Kaiden gestured for Willow to continue. Willow called up the image of the tree they found in Noah’s files and projected the holographic image in front of her. “Has anyone seen this anywhere?”

  Several hands shot up.

  Willow pointed to them one by one. A white woman with short, blonde hair and a gray jacket spoke. “I’ve seen that image on a computer in the nano-machine lab.”

  Willow glanced at Flint, who raised his eyebrows dramatically. If nano-technology was being used, that would explain the tiny glass vials Colt had seen. They could be some kind of nano-bot.

  “Do you know what work they were doing?” Willow asked.

  “No. I wasn’t part of that project.”

  A black man with light brown skin stood next. “We loaded boxes with that symbol for shipment to other TAP bases.”

  “Do you remember which ones?” Kaiden asked.

  “It was all hush-hush,” the young man said, “so I don’t know much. But I know some were sent to China, India, California, and Russia. I think we just sent a load to South America somewhere.”

  Willow glanced at Kaiden, who studied the speaker intently. The way his brow pinched and the way his mouth was set let her know he was thinking of Colt’s discovery.

  “Any place else?” Kaiden said.

  The young man shook his head. “That’s all I know.”

  Willow pointed to a brown-skinned man who wore a white lab coat and had a long blue tattoo on the side of his face.

  “There was a lab program with that tree symbol,” he said. “And no, I didn’t work on it. I had a friend who did, but the terrorists killed her.” He didn’t try to keep the anger out of his voice.

  Willow’s stomach tightened. Oakley’s betrayal had damaged so many lives.

  “Anyone else?” she asked.

  “Isn’t that the Tree of Life?” someone asked. Willow searched until she found a stocky white girl who couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen. She was too young to have gone through the memory transfer yet.

  “Yes, it is,” Willow said.

  “Why would the Tree of Life be associated with a flood? The Tree of Life was meant to protect and nurture, not kill.”

  “The best and the brightest.” Flint murmured. “TAP wasn’t kidding.”

  “That’s what we’re trying to work out,” Willow said. “Though in western symbolism, it could be used as a symbol of destruction with its roots fixed in Hell.”

  “So, why should we care?” A tall boy who looked Middle Eastern who couldn’t be more than sixteen pushed his way toward the front.

  Willow glanced at Kaiden, trying to decide how much she should tell them. But Kaiden didn’t wait for her to respond.

  “Because,” Kaiden said, “we believe Noah plans to destroy all natural human life on earth.”

  “Including clones?” the boy demanded.

  “I don’t think so,” Kaiden said, “just the naturals.”

  “Then why should we care?”

  Cries of anger followed his words so loudly that Willow couldn’t calm them.

  “Quiet!” Kaiden yelled.

  The crowd calmed, and Kaiden spoke over the remaining voices.

  “Whether you know it or not,” he said, “you all have relatives out there who will also be killed. Billions of innocent people will be slaughtered for the crime of being born naturally into a world they did not create nor destroy.”

  “That doesn’t explain why I should care,” the belligerent boy persisted. “So long as I live, what do I care what happens to anyone else?”

  Kaiden glanced at Willow. “So much for the more altruistic species she was trying to create.” Then he turned back to the boy. “You’re free to leave,” he said. “Those who remain will be dedicated to stopping TAP from destroying humanity. If anyone wants to leave, now is the time. We won’t stop you. But, if you rejoin TAP, we will be forced to do what we must to stop Noah.”

  “Is that a threat?” the boy asked.

  Kaiden strode toward him. “I don’t make threats,” he said, poking him in the chest. “I make promises. If you betray us, I will hunt you down, and I will kill you.”

  “Looks like I came to the wrong place,” the boy said. He faced the crowd. “I thought we were going to save TAP, not destroy it. I’m not risking my life to save some natural-born who thinks I’m a monster.”

  A rumble of assent followed his words.

  Alarms sounded harsh and blaring in the enclosed space. Willow whirled to find Flint frantically clicking away at the computer.

  “Incoming!” he called. “Five airships.”

  Kaiden, Jade, and Birch joined him.

  “More refugees?” Birch asked.

  “They’re not transmitting the code we sent,” Flint said. “I’m initiating the cloaking software.”

  “Everyone to your assigned ships!” Kaiden bellowed.

  Willow glanced out the window. Colt was walking hand in hand with the little girl from the infirmary. They came up the last of the stairs from the caves when he glanced up at the sky, scooped up the girl, and raced up the hill toward the gunship. She clung to his neck. Willow’s heart skipped a beat as Colt stumbled and fell.

  “Come on,” she whispered.

  Colt righted himself, took two strides, and exploded in a flash of light, followed by a deafening boom. The shock wave rocked the ship.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Rio’s Revenge

  “No!” Jade screamed as Colt evaporated in a flash and cloud of dust and smoke.

  People rushed for their assigned ship. Kaiden spun away from the computer with a curse and began shouting orders.

  Willow could only stare. Why would TAP attack Colt and the little girl?

  “Birch,” Kaiden shouted. “Get this thing up in the air.”

  Birch sprinted toward the cockpit.

  “I’ll get the other T-60 up,” Kaiden said and raced out the landing bay. He raised his WT to his mouth. “Fire up that laser cannon,” he shouted, “when a rocket launches, lock onto the source and fire. Where are the T-60 and T-40 we had in the air?”

  As if in answer, an explosion burst over them, raining debris onto t
he ships below. The bay doors closed as the T-60 rose into the air.

  “Get that cloaking software up!” Jade yelled. “I’ll man the guns.”

  She bolted from the loading bay, leaving Willow and Flint behind. Not for the first time, Willow bitterly regretted not having any security or flight training. She felt useless, helpless—just like that little girl in Colt’s arms. A bitter ache filled her chest. No child, clone or otherwise, should die like that. Despite her best efforts, it seemed that everywhere she went, some child suffered.

  She stepped to the window slit in the side of the gunship to see if Kaiden had made it to the T-60. Several airships shimmered and disappeared as the cloaking software went live. The C-121 transport beside them burst into a ball of flame. She shielded her eyes from the blast as debris pinged against the ship.

  Birch swung the T-60 around, and Willow found Kaiden. A jolt of terror clenched her stomach tight. He hadn’t made it to the gunship. He was picking himself up from the blast, and the T-60 he had been racing toward sagged to one side with an engine in flames. He glanced up at them and then raced toward the laser cannon battery he had ordered to be set up the day before.

  Two more ships exploded as the rest managed to get off the ground. The cloaking software connected with the smart chips engaged, and the rest of the ships shimmered and disappeared. The T-60 she was in rotated to face the direction from which the missile had come.

  “What’s Kaiden doing?” Willow gasped. “He can’t even see them.”

  “Lock us onto them,” Kaiden’s voice crackled over Flint’s receiver.

  “That’s what he’s doing,” Flint said. He touched a few buttons. “You’ve got the first one,” he said into the mic. “I’m going after the big T-60. Jade, follow that signal.”

  “How can you see them if they’re cloaked?” Willow asked.

  “Because I wrote the dang software so I could.”

  The laser cannon fired, and the tranquil blue sky erupted into an inferno of fire and debris. Willow watched the pieces of smoking metal and still churning engine of the TAP gunship fall in slow motion from the airship she hadn’t been able to see. It was an odd experience, seeing a fireball boil through the clear blue sky when nothing was supposed to be there. Their gunship shook, and another explosion sounded high above them.

  “Nice shot, Jade,” Flint yelled. “Birch, let’s go after the other T-60.”

  As the ship passed above the smoke billowing in and around the cavern, a line of black-clad TAP security personnel advanced on foot toward the rise that overlooked the cave. Willow’s blood ran cold. Kaiden and his little band were alone and trapped.

  Jade locked onto the signal Flint sent her and squeezed the trigger. The T-60 shuddered with a burst of fire as the gunship banked and swung away. Tears blurred her vision. Colt had been her only real friend at TAP before she met Kaiden and Birch. She had asked for his help because he was good at covert operations, and she knew she could trust him. Now, he had died just because he was kind to a little child. She couldn’t believe he was gone.

  Flint sent her another signal, and she locked on. The gunship banked, and she squeezed the trigger. The gunship shuddered, and she followed the trail of the missiles as they streaked through the sky to explode into a ship she couldn’t see. Maybe she couldn’t save Colt, but she could still punish them for killing him, and she could keep Kaiden alive. The gunship banked again, and her window tilted toward the ground. The sight that met her gaze sent a jolt of terror through her. Kaiden was on the ground at the laser cannon battery, looking up at her. Why wasn’t he on a ship?

  Kaiden watched the debris of the ship settle to the earth with a grim sense of satisfaction. This wasn’t the ideal situation for a commander in battle, but what choice did he have?”

  “Give me another one,” he said into his communicator.

  “You’ve got bigger problems,” Flint said. “They’re on foot on your right flank.”

  Kaiden snapped his head around. A line of TAP security personnel advanced over the rise on the other side of the gully.

  “Fall back to the boulders,” Kaiden ordered. He grabbed the laser cannon and half-dragged, half-carried it downhill toward the cave where a pile of boulders offered protection. He and his men had almost reached them when bullets fell among his team. The bullets kicked up the dirt and whined past his ears to slap into the boulders and the stone walls. These were exploding rounds intended to kill clones. Three of his team fell before the rest dove behind the rocks.

  Kaiden scrambled to get the cannon set up while the rest of his little group returned fire. He set the cannon on the tripod, aimed, and fired. The laser cannon tore a hole in the line of TAP soldiers, and they sought cover among the boulders and burned stumps of trees. Kaiden set the laser for rapid pulse firing, and soon TAP soldiers were aflame and screaming as the laser ignited their clothing and roasted their flesh. He swept the laser along the length of the advancing soldiers. Some of the charred stumps ignited, as well, burning like candles. Acrid smoke smelling of burnt flesh and charred wood filled the gully.

  The scene sent the shame and horror burning up his neck and into his face. Those men and women were just following orders. A few weeks ago, he would have been among them. Clearly, Rio was serious about following through with his threat to hunt them down and kill them.

  Two more of his team fell.

  “Get down,” Kaiden ordered. “Stop the bleeding. Let the INCR do their work.”

  Several explosions echoed through the canyon, and Kaiden hoped Flint and the gunship were taking out the TAP ships. But, if TAP had landed the soldiers, they had more than five ships, and at least one of those must have been a transport to carry that many men.

  Heavy machine-gun fire rolled across the dirt, kicking up great bursts of dust and rock splinters. Kaiden whirled the cannon, aimed it toward the little spurts of flame and smoke that showed him where the cloaked ship was and raised the cannon to its highest setting. He couldn’t believe that TAP had already developed cloaking software without them knowing. It clearly hadn’t worked as well as they thought because Flint had seen through their cover and was able to target them.

  Kaiden fired. An explosion burst in the clear blue sky. The image of a ship with a ragged hole in it flickered and materialized as the cloaking software failed. Kaiden hit it again, and it careened toward the floor of the gully. An earsplitting crash ripped through the air, followed by the grinding screech of metal on stone.

  Kaiden tried to fire again, but nothing happened. He glanced at the battery indicator on the cannon. It was drained. He tried again just in case, struggling to still the growing panic, but the cannon was no longer effective. Kicking it aside, he flipped his rifle around from his back and took careful aim. That’s when Kaiden saw him.

  Just behind the ragged line of soldiers, Rio stood with his head bare, staring at Kaiden’s position. He wasn’t firing. Just watching.

  “Son of a test tube,” Kaiden cursed.

  He leveled his rifle. He should have killed Rio earlier when he had the chance. Just as he squeezed the trigger, Rio dropped to his belly and rolled behind a boulder.

  “Filth,” Kaiden said. Then, he sucked in a deep breath to relax and let his training take over. He couldn’t afford to let his emotions get away from him. Not now. But he would save the last bullet for Rio.

  “Flint, where are you?” Kaiden shouted. He should have stayed on the T-60 with them instead of trying to get the other one in the air. He was blind down here. No answer came.

  “Aim carefully,” Kaiden called to the half dozen men and women he still had with him. “Conserve your ammo.”

  “There’s too many,” a young woman called to him.

  “Maybe,” Kaiden said. “Make every shot count. You know they aren’t going to let any of us leave this valley alive if they can help it.”

  The firing from Kaiden’s team
slowed, but the incoming rounds continued to screech and slap against the boulders. Two of his men were hit in the face with flying debris from the rocks. The heat was unbearable. He could feel his hands and face baking in the direct sunlight. Sweat rolled down his face. He had to get his people out of here. They wouldn’t last long in this heat without water.

  The roar of a gunship engine burst over them. Kaiden glanced up, but he could see nothing of the cloaked ship.

  “Down!” he yelled. “Everybody down.”

  The huge guns on the gunship rattled, and a rocket launched. Kaiden prepared for the end, but it didn’t come. Men yelled. An explosion echoed off the valley walls. Kaiden peeked over the boulder. TAP soldiers lay scattered over the ground, writhing in their final death struggles. Others were sprinting back over the small rise. He waited as the airship pursued the retreating soldiers with the staccato beat of its big guns. His team cheered.

  As the noise of the pursuit drew away, Kaiden stepped out from behind the boulder. His rifle was up, and he was prepared. But nothing stirred amid the smoke and debris of battle, save the TAP soldiers still dying in the dirt. His first instinct was to go to help them. He stepped toward them before he stopped. They had come to kill him and his friends. They had attacked them without any warning. One of them might still be hiding, waiting to pick them off. They had the INCR, too, and some of them might be coming around already.

  The sound of another airship made them dive behind the boulders again. But it set down and flickered into view. It was their T-60. Birch smiled down at him from the pilot’s window. The door dropped down. “Let’s go,” Birch’s voice crackled from his communicator.

  “Go!” Kaiden waved the others toward the ship. “I’ll cover you.” The last four of his team sprinted up the rise to the gunship carrying two of the injured who were still alive and clambered aboard. A few others who had been stranded on the ground in the attack joined them. As the last one disappeared inside, Kaiden rose up, stole one last glance at his dead companions, and rushed toward the ship. A single gunshot cracked. Kaiden felt the bite of the bullet as it passed through his thigh.