Floxham Island ~ Sinclair V-Log AZ267/M (20 page)

“Sir?” a voice
called.

“Yeah buddy,
what’s up?”

“We still have
a killer amongst us don’t we? What about him?” he said as he nodded
towards Nembier.

“Professor
Nembier witnessed nine of his friends murdered by Kitt and Eddy
back on Agrillia. That’s why he went on the run. He was running
from Kitt and Eddy and also because he was scared he would be
accused of the killings, which he was. I’ve been doing this job for
a very long time and I know guilt when I see it. Professor Nembier
is no danger to anyone here but the law states that I have to keep
him under restraint until his case can be fully investigated by the
proper authorities.”

“Okay,” the guy
nodded and looked at Nembier. “Sorry buddy.” Nembier nodded back
and blushed.

We spent the
rest of the evening relaxing and chatting and by the time we hit
the sack I knew I would have no problems sleeping.

CHAPTER
TEN

The next
morning I awoke feeling pretty good, despite having spent the night
on a pile of table cloths on the floor and after a wash down and
some breakfast, I decided I’d best take some food and drink down to
Kitt and Eddy in the cells. They were both asleep when I approached
the cells and I was pleased that I’d had the presence of mind to
ensure the guys put the kid in a cell three down from Kitt, rather
than in one of the ones opposite. I didn’t want them communicating
and formulating a story between the two of them and with the kid
supposedly being deaf and dumb, so long as he couldn’t see the old
guy, he wouldn’t be able to communicate and plot with him.
Approaching the first cell I called to Kitt and he awoke
immediately and leapt up. Jeez that guy has sharp ears; he was
snoring just seconds before and now he was up and alert and ready
for anything. No yawning or stretching, not even an early morning
fart greeted my presence, just a blank glare.

“Morning Kitt,”
I said without smiling. “I’ve brought you both some food and drink,
here.” His face remained expressionless as I slid his tray into the
safety drawer, pressed the button and watched as it slid through
into the cell. For a second or two his eyes held mine before he
reached in and retrieved the tray and looked at it. “It’s not
gourmet I’m afraid but you know our circumstances. It’ll keep
starvation at bay even if you don’t enjoy it. We should only have
one more day until the liner arrives and we can call for help and
you’ll be taken into the care of the proper authorities.” He didn’t
respond so I walked down to Eddy’s cell and was startled to find
him standing right at the front of cell, almost touching the laser
fence and glaring right into my eyes. It made me jump the way he
was just stood there like that. My heart was still pounding as I
walked to the safety tray and he walked with me, matching my
movements, glaring at me all the time. This was freaky but I forced
myself not to look into his eyes, although knowing he was willing
me to gave me the heeby jeebies and almost made me turn and run. As
nonchalantly as I could, I pressed the button and watched the tray
slide through into the cell and waited to see what he would do.
This was the moment when I knew I would have to meet his gaze or he
would have the position of power and, well you know me and power
games.

With every
ounce of strength I possessed, I forced myself to raise my eyes and
glared back into his and for several seconds we stood there staring
each other down and both wondering who would give in first. It was
almost me; so very nearly me but just as I was about to turn away
cursing myself, he turned and picked up the tray of food. He then
turned away and went and sat down on his bunk and started eating,
delicately, daintily, tiny morsel by tiny morsel. It was weird and
I walked back to Kitt to find him trying to peer sideways to see
what was going on with me and Eddy and I was delighted that he
couldn’t see. He still held the tray in his hands so I nodded at
it.

“Don’t let it
get cold buddy; it taste’s even worse once it’s cold.” He sighed
and went to sit down and began to eat. “I’ll come back for the
trays in an hour or so. Maybe then you might wanna talk about
things.” He still didn’t respond so I started to walk away but
before I got halfway to the door I heard a crash followed by the
sound of sobbing. That was one of those moments when I wasn’t sure
what to do for the best. Should I immediately go back and talk to
the guy or should I continue walking and let him mull things over
for a while? He made my decision for me by calling my name so I
turned and headed back to the cell. He was sat on his bunk, head in
his hands and the tray on the floor. For a moment I stood and
watched him sobbing, not knowing quite what to say. The guy’s a
murderer but a part of me felt sorry for him. I know, call me a
crazy dumb fuck but hey, I have a heart y’know.

“I’m sorry for
everything Sam,” he said between sobs. “Believe me I never wanted
to get into this mess but once things started happening I couldn’t
get out of it.”

“Start from the
beginning,” I sighed. “This isn’t an official interview by the way,
that’s not my job but I want to understand it.”

“Do you know
about the Agrillian Outbreak?” he asked and I nodded. “When the
outbreak happened, my grandfather, who was also a clone, was
ostracised from the community he’d lived in all of his life.
Despite being healthy and no danger to anyone, the neighbours made
his life a misery. One day they cornered his wife and beat her
nearly to death. She was a clone too and had just given birth to my
father. They both left the community that night and went deep into
the countryside and lived wild with their newborn. Pretty soon they
met a few other runaway clones, all of them healthy and no danger
and they formed their own secret community right out in the wilds
where no one could ever find them. My father grew up and took one
of the clone girls as his wife and they had a son, me. In turn, I
grew up and married too and had a daughter and she too, took a
husband from our secret community and they quickly had a child.
That child was healthy and fine as a kid but when he hit puberty we
quickly noticed things that told us he was the first one born into
our community who was bad.”

“So why didn’t
you?” I left the question unfinished and he looked up at me and
sighed.

“Why didn’t we
kill him? he asked and I nodded. “We were going to. We had a
community meeting and discussed it and it was agreed that he should
be killed for the good of us all and the greater Agrillian
community. We told him we were going for a picnic by the river and
he seemed to accept that but along the way we met some hikers and
one of them went to hug him and it set him off. That’s what does it
for him by the way Sam, hugging is his trigger. Every one of the
bad clones had a particular trigger that would set them off. It
could be anything; a word or even having certain colour hair. For
Eddy it was hugging and one of those hikers went to hug him and he
took her own knife from her belt and cut her throat.”

“Shit,” I
replied as I ran a hand through my hair. “Just a hug is what starts
it for him? That’s what sets him off?” He nodded. “But it’s so
natural for people to want to hug a kid.”

“I know and
that’s why I’ve always tried to keep him slightly apart from people
and why I never encourage anyone to get close to him or try to
engage him.”

“What happened
with the hikers then? Why didn’t you kill him like you
planned?”

“The other
hikers went nuts and ran off. We knew we were in trouble so we had
to leave and go on the run. My daughter was terrified and she
started to cry and forgot herself and put her arm around Eddy. He
still had the knife from the hiker woman and he used it to kill his
mother, my daughter. I was grief stricken at losing my daughter and
I just couldn’t kill my grandson too right there and then, so I
took him and we ran. He was my only link with my daughter you
see.”

“I understand
that but it was too much of a risk.”

“I know and I
always knew I would have to kill him sooner or later. We took to
living in a cave we found and everything was okay until that man
left his wallet behind and we knew we’d been discovered. There was
no choice but to either give ourselves up or deal with the guy and
move on again. I know what I should’ve done but have you any idea
how hard it is to make the decision to give yourself willingly to
certain death? We may be clone descendants Sam but our survival
instinct is the equal of anyone else’s and I know it was a failing
but I wanted to live. I’d never harmed anyone in my life.”

“And of course
if you had killed Eddy and he’d been found, you’d then be accused
of being one of the crazies and would be euthanased yourself,” I
said and he nodded.

“Exactly. It
was a no win situation for me. Anyway we went to the camp where the
workers were and it was the first time I actually instructed him to
kill. I tried to do it myself but you know what? I didn’t even have
the guts to do it myself so I told my grandson to do it and watched
as he went from tent to tent. It was as I watched that I knew I had
to deal with Eddy, so I changed our names and left Agrillia on the
Sally B. I knew the liner called at Floxham so I told them I was
visiting a relative here and booked a place on the shuttle. I
intended to give us both up when we got here.”

“So why did you
free Nembier?”

“I heard him
telling you that he was from the scientist’s camp and that he was
accused of the murders, so I set him free and hoped he would escape
and manage to evade capture. It was the only way I could think of
to try and make up for what we’d done. I didn’t want him to be
executed for Eddy’s crimes. It was while I was setting him free
that Eddy killed Jena Marks. She must’ve put her arms around him or
snuggled up to him or something. I’m so sorry for everything.” His
face crumpled and he slumped to the floor and sobbed.

“So how come I
got a DNA sample from the overalls?” I asked him. “They’re way too
big for Eddy to wear and when the sample came back as belonging to
Edward Kitt, we all assumed it was you and that you’d changed your
names.”

“He did wear
them. He sometimes wets himself overnight and I’d given him the
overalls after he had an accident,” he explained. “Later the same
night I got him up and told him to take a pee and I guess Mr Tyle
was there and must’ve put an arm around him or something. Eddy was
covered in blood so I got him a clean pair and hid the dirty
ones.”

“Is it just
coincidence that all the victims are Agrillian?”

“No it isn’t a
coincidence. All of us who are descended from clones have a strange
ability to know when we’re in the company of another Agrillian. I
don’t know why and the fact hasn’t been documented because we
haven’t spoken much about it. Maybe it’s because of our clone
heritage that we can recognise others who share our DNA, I don’t
know but all of the umm, bad clones only ever attacked Agrillians.
My grandfather used to tell us of a guy he worked with who was from
Earth. He married an Agrillian woman whose uncle was a clone. He’d
married another clone and had three kids who were all fine and
healthy. Two of them married clones and had children and one of
them turned out bad. They were having a family celebration one day
when the Uncle’s grandson went crazy and slaughtered them all with
his Uncle’s laser rifle he kept for hunting. The only ones who were
spared were the Earth guy and his mixed race daughter he’d had with
his Agrillian wife.”

“I wonder why
that should be.” This news was both intriguing and
unbelievable.

“Even we don’t
know. Maybe it’s divine retribution for interfering with nature,”
he replied with a shrug. “That was another reason I wanted to get
Eddy away from Agrillia. The likelihood of us meeting other
Agrillians would be much less and there would be more chance of me
getting him here without anyone else being harmed.”

“And what about
your names?” I asked. “Are you really Kitt Frail?”

“No I’m Frank
Kitt and he’s Edward Kitt. I changed my name but he won’t answer to
anything but Eddy so I had no choice but to risk it with him and I
gave us my mother’s name of Frail.”

“And is he
really deaf and mute?”

“Yes he is,” he
nodded. “A lot of the clones had other physical deformities and
disabilities and it’s something that’s always been passed down
through our generations. It’s part of the cost of cloning I
guess.”

“I wish I could
tell you everything will be all right,” I told him, “but I can’t.
They can surely do tests though to determine whether you are one of
the umm, bad ones or not, so once they find out Eddy is the one you
may avoid the death penalty. Just be honest with them and tell them
everything, like you just told me huh? I can’t make promises but
from what you told me, you’re not without hope. They’ll take your
family loyalties into consideration. They’re not unfeeling robots
buddy okay? Now, do you want some more food?”

“Yes please,”
he sniffed. “Thank you for listening and not judging.”

“Hey, many
folks call me a Merc, which I’m not but I am a good guy sometimes.
I do have some redeeming features y’know.” It was like a weight off
my shoulders now that I knew the story and I was smiling as I
returned to the canteen to get him more food. Baz was there eating
breakfast. “Hey buddy, sleep okay?”

“Not bad
thanks,” he said between mouthfuls. “Yourself?

“Yeah like a
log for once.”

“It’s great how
finally getting a mystery slasher finally behind bars can affect
one’s sleep huh?

“It sure is,” I
snickered.

“Oh by the way.
Morry and Chip have gone out to the shuttle to check the comms for
a signal from the liner; it should be within range now and should
get here sometime today or late tonight.”