Clone Hunter (A Science-Fiction Thriller) Page 17

  We landed at a spaceport that had seen better days. It was in the middle of a jungle and from the way the vines and brush were growing over the tarmac it appeared that the jungle might overtake it at any moment.

  We got out and a small transport ship awaited us. A man asked to see our identification and Larso scanned his palm into a scanner and the man saluted him and asked if there was anything he needed. As we were transported back to the port, I stared at him and he noticed.

  “What?”

  “Is Larso your real name?”

  “Yeah, it is. I was born here though. Earth. A small city in Australasia called Ammon.” He looked around. “I miss Earth if I’m away too long. Do you have anywhere like that? Someplace you miss?”

  “I visited a place once called Zimmer Colony.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s nothing but crystal blue oceans and a bright cloudless sky. You could call it a resort colony, but so few people know of it that it hardly seems fitting. It was just calm there. Slow and peaceful. I think about it all the time, about living there and growing a garden, away from the rest of civilization.”

  The transport ship zipped around the tarmac and dropped us off in front of an entrance to the spaceport. We got off and walked through the port to the other side and Larso spoke with some military authorities and a hovercar was provided to us.

  “You have a lot of influence for a bounty hunter.”

  “I have a T1A security clearance. That’s all that matters around here, how much pull you have. A society built around pull.”

  The hovercar was small and yellow and fit both of us snugly. We lifted and blasted into traffic, Larso driving. The traffic was packed and underneath us, just a dozen or so meters off the ground, I could see the dim blue glow of repulsor fields, meant to save the civilians and architecture below in case of a collision.

  “This hunter,” Larso said, “is she ever going to stop?”

  “No. She’ll find us eventually. And she won’t care about that bomb. She thinks she’s under orders but it’s much deeper than that. She’s encoded to find me. She won’t be able to do anything that conflicts with that encoding. It’s buried deep in her subconscious.”

  “Kooney might be dead but I still have contacts at the Bureau. I could notify them to—”

  “I think you’re in the same situation as me. The vids on Goshin captured you helping me escape. The Bureau might be looking for you too.”

  “Good point.”

  “Even if they wanted to help us, they couldn’t. It takes months to encode a subconscious and it would take months to undo the encoding. They’re put into a deprivation chamber where none of their senses receive stimulation except for the messages the Bureau wishes them to receive. They receive memories, training, skills … it’s the only way to do it.”

  “So you’re saying there’s no way to stop her?”

  “There is. I have to kill her, or she has to kill me.”

  CALISTA

  Once we arrived at King’s Grace, finding the clone was not difficult. Information brokers were seemingly on every corner. Being a neutral planet, there’s was end to the units to be made handling and hiding the units of others: hidden money and information is the lifeblood of the broker business. We found one broker near the spaceport who stated he wished for ten thousand units to lead us to a small village filled with clones. Including, he claimed, male clones. I broke his wrists and he admitted he didn’t actually know where they were but that there was one man who might know. Another broker by the name of Tiberius.

  “He’s in the undercity,” the man cried as I held both his useless wrists in my hands.

  “How do we get there?”

  “Any transport can take you. Just hire one. Please, use mine. Use mine. No charge.”

  “Gracious of you.”

  I pushed him in front of us and he led us out and to an empty transport. We climbed in back and he had one of his assistants drive us. Karma was looking at me as we lifted and sped down the roads.

  “What?” I said.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Fine. Why?”

  “You seem off a little. There was no reason to hurt that guy and you did anyway.”

  “I feel … I don’t know. I feel in control, powerful. Decisive. Like my thoughts are coming in and out of my mind without my wanting them, and events are unfolding without my involvement.”

  “Well, how about you let me do the talking with Tiberius? You can get a lot more from men with a little flirting than breaking their wrists.”

  We rode in silence. The truth was I wasn’t feeling right. I tried resting by closing my eyes and the only image that flashed before me was of my blade slicing through that clone. All I saw was her, and her voice resonated in my head.

  We went underground before long and the stench burned my nostrils. People were huddled together for company, dirty food cooked on open spits. It appeared like they were eating rodents and insects.

  We stopped at one particular alleyway and the man pointed to a merchant’s shop. I went to get out and felt Karma’s hand on my shoulder.

  “Let’s do it my way,” she said. “Let me talk to him first.”

  I sat back down and watched as she hopped out and went inside. She was there a few moments before coming out and leaning against the transport.

  “He knows where they are. One town over. An entire family of ’em.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “He says he’s also been paid by someone else. Someone, a marshal, is coming in a few hours and he has directions to take him there as well.”

  “It must be someone else assigned to tracking the clone. They never send one person, they send several, none of them knowing about the others.”

  She shrugged. “What do you want to do?”

  I thought a moment. “We’re going to follow his other charter. I want to see who it is. Then we can take them all out in one place.”

  It wasn’t long before I saw who else had hired Tiberius. A marshal if I ever saw one. They carried themselves a certain way, had a certain look about them. And in the transport was a series 8, one of the deadliest models of war-bot ever created by the People’s Republic, along with three elite soldiers.

  They haggled with Tiberius a bit and he brought clothing out for them and they put the clothing on over the armor. When they left, we followed.

  They weren’t even looking behind them as they raced through the city and into the jungles and over long stretches of road leading to the other small towns surrounding King’s Grace. They were completely unaware that anyone else was interested in their prey.

  We came to a small village and their transport shot up and around a hill and I went the other way. We stopped near the home and waited a few moments. I used the transport’s ocular enhancers to bring up the home we were looking at on the viewscreen. At least a dozen people there, eating at a table. I recognized Prator.

  I jumped out of the transport. “Flirting won’t help here,” I said.

  Casually, as if coming for a visit, I walked to them. They didn’t even notice me until I was upon them. The women looked curious, and one of the males, a large, muscular man covered in tattoos, looked at me with lust. But Prator knew me. He had the appropriate reaction. He stood up and shouted, “Run!”

  I was in the air before the word was even out of his mouth. I cut through two of the women and a third tried to hide under the table. The plasma blade went through the table and into the ground and then I flipped backward over the male with the tattoos. He had a sword with him, some sort of hemlight steel blade.

  He growled like an animal and charged me. I swung out, trying to sweep his legs, and he flipped in the air and tried to catch me on the top of my head, but I was too fast. I fell to my back and sliced upward and through his shoulder. He landed as blood drained out of the wound. I grinned and he roared and rushed at me again.

  I blocked and parried his blows, which were sloppy and full of rage. I coul
d see that he had skill and precision. But clouded by anger, he was just a wild beast. His sword came down to chop at my head and at the last moment changed trajectory to cut through my arm. I stepped to the side and put the sharpened hilt of the plasma blade into the ground and grabbed the man’s head with both hands and jumped, forcing him down with my bodyweight into the tip.

  The blade entered his mouth and punctured his skull and I left him there a moment, impaled, so that Prator could see the full horror of what was done.

  I took the blade and it made a metallic hum as it withdrew from the man’s flesh. Prator got down to his knees.

  “I am your father as much as any of them. I am the father of all clones.”

  “You are nothing.”

  “I was like you. I hunted our own kind. I trained others to hunt our own kind. But you don’t have to do what they tell you to do. They’re using you. You’re a weapon, and when they feel you’re not useful anymore they’ll send someone just like you to come knocking on your door. Do not do it. Do not let them win.”

  “I feel … just rage. Just blinding rage.”

  “I know. That’s programming. They’ve turned you even against yourself. But you can fight it. Don’t give in. Fight.”

  I resisted. I lowered the blade and felt a pounding headache and my throat clenched shut. I fought but it was like trying to stop a broken dam with an umbrella. I wasn’t there anymore. There was just the rage.

  I stuck the blade into his chest and lifted him into the air. I watched his eyes as life left him and I heard shouting. I turned and saw the clone I was looking for sprinting at me. I slid the corpse off the blade and spun with the sword, a blast of plasma energy rocketing toward her. It hit her dead-center on her body and she must’ve flown twenty meters before tumbling to a stop.

  I walked to her and the man that was with her, a thrill I had not experienced in a long time filling my body. But it was stolen from me with an explosion. Bits of shrapnel tore into my flesh and I saw three men appear. Elites, all of them with the repulsor gloves and boots they were known for, deadly weapons that could crush steel with a single blow. I saw the marshal take the man and the clone. They would pay for this inconvenience.

  The Elites formed a standard “A” formation, with two behind and one in front. The purpose of this formation was for the Elite in front of me to push me back into the other two.

  “I have no fight with you,” I said. “Leave now and you can live.”

  As a response, the one in front rushed me. He swung with his fist, aiming for my skull. I ducked low and came up with the plasma blade. He blocked with his right foot which had a repulsor field and then he kicked at my head. I felt the other two close in behind me. I leapt into the air as a blow came for the back of my head and the kick struck the Elite in front of me instead. I swung down on the helmet and the blade shaved part of it off but left the Elite alive.

  I rolled away and was on my feet. I lifted my blade and ran at them, feigning a frontal assault. One of them took the bait and came in with a kick that would have crushed my ribs. Instead, I fell to my knees and swung with the blade in an arc, cutting just above the repulsor field. His legs detached from his body and he toppled over, but he didn’t scream.

  The other two were on me and I had to swing, block, and parry several blows until I got out of range. I flipped up onto the roof of a house and they followed me. I blocked their blows, countered, and jumped off the roof and onto the grass. One of them followed and I flipped backward and landed a kick to his chest that sent him into the wall of the house as the other crashed down and I rolled, missing his fist by millimeters.

  As I stood, one of them flung a weapon at me and it burst into flames. The light blinded me. I flipped backward as far as I could and tried to sense their approach by the vibrations in the ground, but they were cleverer than that. They approached me silently, like snakes coming in for a kill.

  I tried to open my eyes but they would slam shut from the pain. I gripped the blade tightly and waited for the first blow.

  I heard the roar of an engine and the clank of metal on metal. I felt wind on my face and heard Karma shout, “Jump in!”

  I leapt toward the voice and landed on my chest in the transport. It swung around the other way and I heard blaster fire and something pounding against the ship. It stopped after a moment and I lay back.

  “You okay?” she said.

  “He blinded me with a flash grenade,” I said, out of breath. “It’ll fade in a few hours. Get me to the spaceport.”

  “For what?”

  “I’m not letting that clone get away.”

  2

  It was difficult put not impossible to pick up the trace on the ship. All ships left residual dust from the FTL engines and you had to have the knowledge of what to look for. They had gone to the Goshin Republic Station. It was a place to refuel or hold meetings or trials and executions of dissidents that the PR didn’t feel like transporting back to Earth.

  We docked, ignoring the calls for identification.

  “You sure about this?” Karma said.

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “These aren’t rebel clones. These are Republic soldiers, good men.”

  “Then they should let us pass. Convince them and I won’t have to kill them.”

  We stepped off the ramp and about twenty soldiers were waiting for us, fully armed and armored.

  “Who’s in charge here?” Karma said.

  “I am,” a man said, stepping forward.

  “Commander, we are on a priority mission for Colonel Caleb of the People’s Armed Forces. We ask that you stand down immediately and help us carry out our mission.”

  He smirked. “Colonel Caleb sent two women to carry out a priority mission?”

  “Please check with him. He will verify our status. We request your help in a very delicate matter. We’d be happy to wait here until you have verified our identities.”

  “I don’t need to verify anything. You two are under arrest for trespassing on Republic property. We can let the courts sort it out and see if your colonel decides to help you then.” He turned to his men. “Take them into custody. Injure them if they resist.”

  That’s all I needed to hear. I flew over to him and thrust my fist into his mouth, my knuckles crashing through his teeth. I wrapped my fingers around his tongue and ripped it out as he screamed and warm blood spattered over me.

  I ignited my blade, and leapt into the crowd of soldiers.

  When it was through I stood there soaked in blood. The walls and floors had been white but were now smeared black and red. Karma stood by the ship, unmoving.

  “What the cap are you?” she muttered.

  “Stay here.”

  “Why am I here, Calista? You don’t need me. What did you choose me for?”

  “I needed a pilot; you’re the best one I had available. Wait here.”

  “You killed these men like they were insects. I’ve never seen a human being move that fast. Those last ones tried to run and you killed them anyway. They wanted to give up but you still killed them.”

  “No witnesses.”

  I walked out into the corridor. Men were darting toward me. A group of three began firing. I leapt onto the wall and sprinted at them so fast I was able to overtake them before a single blaster bolt hit me. I slashed through them. Several other guards were behind them and saw what I had done. They turned in the opposite direction and ran.

  I went up two floors to the main administrative offices of the facility. Alarms were going off now and people were in a panic. I ignored them as they ran past me. In a large office to my right a man was struggling to gather his things. I recognized him.

  “Hello,” I said.

  He stood, unmoving. He didn’t turn around.

  “Calista?”

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon, Administrator.”

  “Yes,” he said, turning around, his face ashen-white, “well, busy, you know. You’ve given every
one quite a scare. I just saw what happened on the monitors … in the docking bay I mean. Those were a lot of good soldiers you killed.”

  “Were they? They died so easily I couldn’t tell.”

  He swallowed. “You know, I could have you arrested and terminated for this. What you’ve done is treason. But I wouldn’t do that.”

  “My orders come from higher than you, Administrator. That’s the problem with a society based on pull and favors. There’s always someone with more.” I stepped close to him. “The night you raped me, do you remember that, Administrator Kooney? The night I was chosen for the program?”

  “That was … that was a long time ago. And it was consensual. You were a new recruit. That’s just what new recruits … that’s just what happens. The superiors get to use the inferiors for … that was a long time ago!”

  I lifted my blade.

  I killed the marshal and Kooney and at least twenty others, but couldn’t find the clone. I checked the facility’s logs and found that a ship, a small two-person X5, had fled the facility. Their FTL trail wouldn’t be difficult to follow. I headed back to the corridor and to the lifts and saw Karma standing there, staring at the bodies that were lying on the floor.

  “This has to stop, Calista. I didn’t sign on for this.”

  “What did you sign on for?”

  “I’m a soldier. Soldiers protect the weak. Murderers slaughter them.”

  “If you had seen the things I’d seen you’d know that the lines are blurry. So blurry that you can’t see them most of the time.”

  “Why is one clone so important that all these people had to die? What did she do?”

  “It’s not what she’s done. It’s what she’s capable of. If she were ever to have a child, Karma, the entire Republic could fall.”

  “What? How is that possible?”

  “Even with all our advances, we are just a slave economy. If those slaves decided they no longer wanted to be slaves, what would happen to the mining and the agriculture? What about the mechanics and engineers and the millions of other positions our populace isn’t trained for? What would happen to a government that still wanted them to be slaves?”