The Clone Apocalypse (17 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

As a show of his confidence in his New Olympian allies, Tobias Andropov only sent a platoon to arrest me. He could have sent a division and declared martial law in the Territories. By Unified Authority standards, the New Olympian Territories qualified as a lawless state.

Kasara waited with me in the hospital room, taking updates every few minutes and relaying them to me. She sat beside my bed like a wife sitting vigil with her dying husband. We weren’t married, but considering the future Andropov had for me, she was sitting vigil.

“How do you feel?” she asked.

I hadn’t tried sitting up. I tensed my stomach muscles, made my back rigid, and tried to sit up. My head spun. It felt like someone had attached an air pump to my head and started inflating my brain.

“Did somebody put some drugs in my saline?” I asked.

Kasara said, “I don’t think so.”

“Then I’m probably sick,” I said.

When I first met her, Kasara couldn’t chat without flirting. So much had changed in her. She gave my joke a knowing smile and let it pass.

Kasara’s phone rang. She listened to what the caller had to say, said, “Thank you,” then said, “They’re at the capitol building.”

“Are they meeting with your uncle?” I asked.

She laughed, and said, “He’s not the governor.”

“But he’s the one who handed me over?” I asked. I knew the answer, but I asked anyway.

“Yes.”

The platoon leader’s visit to the capitol was just a formality. Andropov knew Brandon Pugh ran Mazatlan.

The door opened. Kasara saw who stepped through, and said, “Speak of the devil.”

Brandon Pugh said, “You never told me you were religious.”

He came sans bodyguards, though, I supposed, the sentries at the door would have protected him if I tried anything. I wouldn’t have tried anything; he was big and strong and menacing, and I was weak as a child. Pugh was powerfully built but heavy, like a professional athlete who has retired and learned to enjoy life.

He stood in the doorway, and asked, “How are you feeling, Harris?”

I said, “Like a dead horse.”

When I saw his flummoxed expression, I decided to help him out. I said, “‘I’m not putting money on a dead horse.’”

“Oh, you heard that,” he said. “I thought you were down for the count.”

“I was. You spoke so loud, I heard anyway.”

Pugh turned to one of the guards, and said, “He says I talk too loud,” as if it were a joke. The guard laughed. I got the feeling he would have laughed no matter what Pugh told him.

Then he turned back to me, and said, “The doctor says you only got the flu, Harris. A little flu bug isn’t gonna kill you.”

“The Unified Authority will,” said Kasara. She stared at her uncle, her face frozen in anger, her eyes shooting lasers at his. She was skinny and tiny, but she radiated fierceness at that moment. She reminded me of a praying mantis preparing to strike.

Pugh ignored her. He said, “Look, Harris, I didn’t have any choice. They tracked your plane here.”

“How’d they know it was his plane?” Kasara asked.

Pugh didn’t say anything. Kasara did. She said, “Liar.”

Pugh said, “Honey, you don’t know what’s going on right now. All the clones are dead.”

“You told me that last night,” she said.

“Did I tell you that the Unified Authority Fleet came back from Terraneau? Andropov and his army marched into Washington this morning. It’s like the Enlisted Man’s Empire never existed.

“Your boyfriend isn’t a general anymore; he’s a criminal. He’s got nowhere to go and no one to help him.”

I said, “And there’s no percentage in betting on a dead horse.”

“I got trouble enough with Andropov without harboring his worst enemy.”

I wanted to blame Pugh, but I agreed with him instead. He was a gangster, and from his peculiar perspective, the Unified Authority wasn’t the law—it was the biggest gang.

He walked over to the side of my bed and tossed me a thermal pack. I caught it, but it cost me. My arms and shoulders had no strength, and the needle in my arm poked deeper into my flesh.

He said, “I heard you got a fever so I brought you a present. I had one like it back on Olympus Kri, used it when I got sick.”

It was a disposable thermal pack, a device our medics carried by the case into battles. At the moment, it wasn’t cold. If anything, it was slightly warm.

The viscous gel and radiating marbles inside its sack were designed to absorb and retain temperatures produced by a chemical caplet, be they hot or cold. Pugh had just carried the pack outside, in the hot Mazatlan sun. The gel had leached traces of heat from the air.

Pugh said, “It’s disposable; you only get to use it one time.”

I knew that. There’d be a small plastic vial, maybe an inch long and a quarter of an inch wide, in the center of the pack. They called it a “stick.” Snap the stick, and you initiated a chemical reaction either heating or freezing the gel and the marbles. Packs like this one would stay cold for an hour.

Pugh said, “Give it a good snap, and everything freezes. You only get to use it one time, Harris, then it’s trash, so I figure you want to use it when you get real hot. You got a long ride back to Washington.”

TWENTY-FIVE

“What are you doing, Brandon?” Kasara asked, sounding more than a little suspicious.

Ignoring his niece, Pugh said, “Harris, I got nothing against you. I hope you make it out of this alive.”

We left it at that. For what it was worth, I believed him. He’d been a criminal on Olympus Kri; he planned a life of crime in the Territories, and he couldn’t afford the Unified Authority breathing down his neck. Men like Pugh considered themselves businessmen, not outlaws, and preferred to maintain a symbiotic relationship with the law. He wanted the Unified Authority to view him as cooperative, so he handed me over to them. What happened after he handed me over, well, that was my business.

Kasara didn’t see it that way. I think she loved me; why, I’m not sure. She didn’t understand her uncle’s pragmatic motivations. She said, “Maybe I should go with you.”

Pugh said, “That’s not such a good idea.”

I agreed and said so.

“Why not?” she asked.

I didn’t know what little surprise Pugh might have hidden into his thermal pack, but he had something up his sleeve. Maybe he’d stashed a grenade among the marble-sized pellets.

Pugh said, “He’s not going on a joy ride, honey. Andropov isn’t giving your boy the key to the city. For all we know, they might just push him out of the specking plane before it lands.”

Kasara turned to me, and said, “They can’t do that.”

“That’s pretty much what I’d have my men do if I had Andropov,” I admitted. It wasn’t true. I’d captured Andropov before and locked him in jail. He escaped. If I ever caught him again, I hoped I’d have learned from my mistakes.

“I want to go with you,” she said.

I said, “No,” as forcefully I could, then I coughed up my innards. I made an idiotic pun in my head using the words “phlegm” and “phlegmatic,” and I laughed at my own worthless witticisms. This flu would kill me; I didn’t want it killing Kasara as well.

I squeezed the thermal pack with my clean hand and felt for a walnut-sized pellet among the pea-sized marbles. Nothing.
What’s in there?
I wondered. Pugh saw me squeezing and nodded his approval.

When the Unifieds arrived at the hospital, both Kasara and Pugh received a call. Pugh excused himself. Kasara remained by my bed.

“You should go with him,” I told her.

“I want to go with you.”

This was my day for puns. I said, “I’m a dead end.”

Kasara looked me straight in the eye, her irises focused on mine, and asked, “Do you want me to go with you?”

I said, “No,” and I did not look away.

“You killed me,” that was what Ava had said in my delirium. It wasn’t Ava or her ghost or her angel; the vision I’d had was purely my ego speaking to my id, but I didn’t want more lovers calling me from the depths of my subconscious. I liked the idea of dragging as many Unifieds as possible into my grave, but lovers need not apply. Too much had happened for me to go down with a clean conscience, but I wouldn’t take any more friends along for the ride.

The Unified Authority military had arrived—ten men in dress uniforms—nine enlisted men and the strangest-looking officer I’d ever seen—Major Joseph Conlon. A prissy wisp of a man wearing white gloves and formal dress greens, Conlon carried the same pearl-handled, nickel-plated revolver that Perry MacAvoy had aimed at me in my hallucination.

Kasara stayed as the Unifieds filed into the room. She asked, “Are you trying to protect me?”

It was a stupid question; of course I was. I said, “Yes.”

“What if I don’t want you to protect me?”

“What if I don’t want you to come with me?”

“For my sake?” she asked.

“For mine,” I said.

The major traded a few words with the policemen by the door, and they left. He turned to Kasara, and asked, “Are you his nurse?”

“I’m a friend.”

“I see,” he said. “Listen, friend, visiting hours are over.”

Kasara was dainty, but she had her uncle’s mouth. She said, “Who the spe . . .”

Seeing the major’s haughty demeanor and knowing that the bastard wouldn’t think twice about arresting her, I placed my hand on Kasara’s arm, and said, “Go.”

Major Conlon glanced at me, then smiled at Kasara. He said, “See now, friend, the prisoner has given you some very good advice. I’ll give you one last chance to take it.”

Kasara glared at him and smiled at me, but she knew that she’d been beaten. She kissed me on the cheek and left the hospital room.

Conlon watched her leave, then he said, “You like ’em extra bony, don’t you?” His men laughed.

I didn’t answer.

He stepped closer to the bed, and said, “I just spent the last year of my life floating in space thanks to you, Harris. I have a wife and two children. They spent the last year alone, again, thanks to you. They didn’t know if I died on Terraneau or I survived, all because of you and your specking rebellion.

“Don’t cross me, clone. My orders say I need to bring you in alive. They don’t say anything about bringing you in with both arms attached and there’s nothing about bullet holes or busted ribs.

“You get me, Harris?”

The bastard was only five feet tall and skinny; if he packed 150 pounds I’d have been surprised. He had brown eyes and blond hair and a forehead that spread out like the bow of a boat.

When I didn’t answer his question, he glared into my eyes. and I stared straight ahead as if he weren’t there. I didn’t just ignore him; I pretended he didn’t exist.

He said, “Oh, I see, you’re a real tough guy. I tell you what, hero; I’m supposed to have a doctor look you over and say you’re fit for travel, but seeing what a tough guy you are, how ’bout we skip the doctor. What do ya think?”

He placed a hand on the crook of my arm, pressing his palm over the place where the needle entered my forearm. “What do you think, hero, are you fit for travel?”

Under his grip, the needle dug another half inch into my arm. Normally that kind of pain didn’t get to me. Maybe the flu had weakened me. I didn’t groan or pull my arm away, but my back tensed, and I exhaled sharply. Gritting my teeth, I said, “Let’s skip the doctor.”

Conlon said, “Good choice. The medics in these parts are all quacks anyway.”

None of the enlisted men made a move as Conlon bullied me. No surprise there, I suppose. Enlisted men seldom question officers. Nothing good ever comes of questioning officers; the officers themselves make damn sure of it. Also, I was the enemy. I was the last clone.

The soldiers didn’t bother wheeling me out on a gurney. They had come with a wheelchair with arm cuffs, ankle cuffs, and even a strap that ran around my gut. They wheeled the chair beside my bed and ordered me in. When I tried to stand, my blood rushed to my head, and I promptly fell on my face. Conlon and his detail snickered and applauded as I pulled myself into the seat.

Major Conlon, a poster child for the Napoleon complex, asked me if I planned to wet myself during the flight.

Conlon told me to place my arms on the armrests. I did. Two enlisted men strapped my wrists into place. I lifted my feet onto the pedals, and they strapped my ankles to the chairs. They wound the belt around my diaphragm and cinched it so tight that I had trouble breathing.

After they had fastened a thin strap around my throat, Conlon stepped in front of me, smirked, and asked, “Still feeling like the king of the galaxy?”

There is a world of things that enlisted men watch carefully and officers take for granted. He didn’t notice the disposable thermal pack in my hands. He might never have noticed it, but as his men strapped down my arms, one of them tried to pull it out of my hand.

I struggled to hold on to it, and a tug-of-war began.

“What’s going on here?” asked Conlon.

“He’s got something in his hand,” said the soldier.

Conlon looked at it. He asked, “Is that a thermal pack?” then he took it from me and tossed it in his hand. He fondled it, and said, “Still has a stick. Are you saving this for the ride?”

I said, “It could keep me from getting airsick.”

He probed the bag with his finger, probably searching for a grenade. Bright or idiotic, Conlon did something I hadn’t gotten around to doing. He opened the stem and pulled the chemical stick, then nearly turned the pack inside out as he searched it. He exposed the gel and the marbles and showed them to the other soldiers. “See anything?” he asked.

A few answered, “No, sir.”

He seemed to agree. After swishing the marbles and gel around with his fingers, he pronounced the thermal pack, “Harmless enough.” He pulled it right side in and dropped it on my lap. His aim wasn’t perfect, but he came close to the mark. The pack mostly landed on my left thigh, but some of the weight came down in the crotch.

He said, “Better hold on to it, clone. No one’s going to pick it up for you.”

And then we left, an eleven-man parade, with the major at the front and me in the middle. We marched out of the hospital. Well, they marched out of the hospital; I rolled out. No one pushed me. My wheelchair had a motor and a little sensor. It followed the sergeant, who followed the major.

People stopped and stared as we filed down the hall. They watched as the soldiers loaded me onto the elevator. When the doors opened to the lobby, I saw a new crowd of spectators. Kasara and her uncle hid in the crowd, watching me carefully, trying to remain inconspicuous.

The U.A. soldiers played to their audience. Major Conlon remained three paces ahead of his men. He strode on without looking back or to the side. His men marched in unison to his footsteps.

The lobby remained nearly silent except for the sound of their synchronized footsteps. A few people whispered. I heard words like “clone” and “execution” and paid no attention to them. I didn’t look at Pugh, even as I passed by him. For all I knew, the device on my crotch really was a disposable thermal pack. I would have preferred a grenade, but a regular pack might still prove useful. Anything that held on to temperatures the way that the gel in this pack stored them just about had to be toxic. One sip of that shit, and I wouldn’t worry about ropes or firing squads. I could die on my own terms. That idea appealed to me.

Is that why he gave it to me?
I wondered. Had he meant it as a suicide kit? That didn’t fit his profile.

The Unifieds loaded me into the back of a personnel carrier. We drove to the airfield, where a couple of transports sat waiting. The soldiers wheeled me into the first bird, and we flew toward Washington, D.C.

I sat in the kettle of the transport, a windowless, bell-shaped, metal chamber designed for conveying men into battle. They wheeled me in backward, allowing me to catch a glimpse of the Johnston Meadowlark as the heavy doors at the rear of the transport slowly closed behind me. I wondered if I should have flown somewhere beside Mazatlan and decided it wouldn’t have mattered.