Clone Hunter (A Science-Fiction Thriller) Read online

  “Is that why you wanted to destroy Earth? Unity?”

  “I was wrong.”

  “Yes, you were. But I can alleviate your guilt.”

  She thrust out toward me like a spear, cutting through the air. I dodged her initial blow which hit the ground and a shower of sparks went up. She spun around without missing a beat and attempted to lop off my head. I leaned back as far as I could, the heat of the blade on my face as it cut across the tip of my nose.

  I lunged forward and tackled her. She spun out of my grip and came up with a kick to my jaw that sent me flying backward. She was in the air before I even landed and I twisted away from the blade, which entered the floor where my chest had just been.

  I spun to my feet and ran around the ship to the open doors leading to an elevator. I sprinted for it as I heard her leap into the air. I rolled and hit the wall and ran along it several steps before jumping into the elevator and hitting the button.

  She darted for me as the doors closed and it began to climb. I heard the groan of steel below. She must’ve cut through the closed doors.

  I went as high as I could and stepped off, ignoring the pain as blood began to come through the bandages and drip to the floor. I was near the mess hall. I went in and looked for weapons, but there were none. I heard the elevator activate behind me.

  I ran into one of the crew quarters. A locker was there and I opened it and squeezed in, shutting it just as the elevator doors opened and I heard footsteps. They were calm, almost casual as they searched the mess hall and the various crew quarters. I slowed my breathing. I could hear lockers opening in the other quarters. The footsteps came into the room where I was hiding.

  She checked the locker next to mine, her blade held in front of her. And then, before she could close it, I leapt out and crashed my elbow into her face. It was unexpected and she didn’t have time to brace herself. Several bits of teeth flew out of her mouth and she stumbled backward, the plasma blade cutting across the locker and imbedding itself into the metal.

  I jumped at her, both hands locked around the hilt of the blade, pressing with everything I had into her, trying to get the blade pointed at her. She let go suddenly with one hand and thrust her fingers into my stomach. I screamed and my grip loosened on the blade and she swung.

  It sliced across my throat but I had parried just enough that it cut only a small thread and not my windpipe or arteries. I kicked her in the chest and then flew up with a knee into her jaw before I flipped away and out into the corridor. I landed in a cat stance, hair in my eyes, blood pouring down from my stomach onto the floor, but she didn’t come out of the room. Slowly, I began backing up when I heard a thunderous crash and she came flying down out of the grates in the ceiling. She landed a blow with both feet against my chest that sent me back against the wall. She thrust with her blade and I moved and it entered nearly up to the hilt into the steel of the ship.

  I spun and kicked her in the head, and then spun again using the momentum to knock her off her feet before punching her with both fists in the body, shooting her into the wall. Before I could pull the blade out of the ship, the elevator opened and a blonde woman stood there.

  “Karma,” the hunter said, “get out of here.”

  The blonde shook her head. “Not this time.” She held up a particle detonator. “None of us are getting out of here.”

  The hunter was quiet before saying, “What are you doing?”

  “How can you even ask me that? We’re not soldiers, Calista. We’re murderers. And I helped you every step. I’m just as responsible.”

  “Put the detonator away, Karma. We’re done. She’s wounded. Help me finish her and we can leave. We can go back to Silore as heroes.”

  She laughed, but it was a laugh that came with tears in her eyes. “No, I don’t think so, Calista.”

  As the two of them were looking at each other I jumped into the nearest door, the mess hall, and lifted a metal table as cover. I heard the electric hum of the detonator. An explosion ripped through the air, shaking the entire ship. The force hit me and I slammed into the wall so hard I lost consciousness.

  When I woke, I saw that the table had taken most of the impact from the blast. I was coughing from the smoke, and flames were covering the rooms and corridor. Bits of the ceiling and grating were falling and the auto extinguishers were shooting out puffs of white crystallized powder.

  I got to my feet, covering my mouth with my arm. My hands were burnt, the skin on my fingers gone. I stumbled out into the corridor and saw the path to the elevator blocked by fallen beams. If I sprinted, I might be able to jump through them.

  That’s when the blade pressed against my throat.

  It wasn’t ignited and it looked severely damaged from the blast. The hunter had her hand on my forehead so that I couldn’t bring my jaw forward, my throat completely exposed.

  I could see her face. Half of it had been blown away, one of her eyes missing, her hair burnt off, revealing a peeling scalp.

  “Now you die,” she gasped, smoke escaping from her mouth.

  “Now we both die.”

  I grabbed her arm and spun the blade downward so that the tip was against my stomach. I pushed on the hilt, using the momentum of falling forward to get it all the way through. The blade went out my back and into her chest and I heard her groan as it exited through her spine.

  We were together in death, linked and unable, either of us, to move the other. I could hear voices somewhere as I collapsed, the hunter on top of me as I blacked out, uncertain if I would ever wake.

  4

  I sucked in air like I had been drowning and then fell back against the bed. The room was white and for a single, horrifying moment, I thought I was back at Icarus. The illumination was too bright to see; I had to squint, and I heard Larso’s voice next to me but didn’t see him.

  “Don’t move, just try to relax. They’ve given you a pain block. You won’t feel any sensations so you need to stay still so you don’t tear anything.”

  “Where is she?” I said, my voice nothing more than a scratchy whisper.

  “She’s dead. You split her heart open. You damn near killed yourself too.”

  “Where are we?”

  “We’re on Earth. Easy, take it easy. It’s okay. I sent the bomb into the sun and it never detonated. What the hell happened on that ship? When I got there the hull was breached.”

  “Are you sure she’s dead?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. I left her there on the ship with the bomb. I barely managed to get you off in time.”

  “I thought that was your ship.”

  “No, she must’ve been listening in. I got there a short while after. It took me a bit to realize you’d gone onto the freighter.”

  “Where’s Casus?”

  “I let him go.”

  I closed my eyes. “What about me?”

  “You,” he said, leaning down over me, “owe me for saving your life. And I intend to collect.”

  He pulled away and smiled as he sat back down next to the bed, the low hum of the med-bot reverberating in the room as it went to work repairing my broken body.

  ADMINISTRATOR TALIB

  I walked into my predecessor’s office at the Bureau and was stunned by the ostentation. Gold trim, platinum desk with viewscreens taking up two separate walls. The view was amazing: the top floor of the tallest building in New Los Angeles overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I sat down at the desk and saw the screen on the surface.

  “Hello Administrator Kooney. What can I do for you today?”

  “Reprogram office portal, authorization 9H-4221.”

  “Authorization recognized. Good morning Administrator Talib. What can I do for you today?”

  “Have Lieutenant Summers come to my office please.”

  “Of course.”

  Within a few minutes, a young female walked into the office carrying a holopad. She saluted and sat down across from me.

  “First off, Lieutenant, we’re only technically pa
rt of the military. No need to salute. The military has its own operations and we have ours. Second, I need you to pull up everything you have on Clone X.”

  “The female, sir?”

  “Yes, the one that called herself Ava. I want her found. My information tells me that she now knows her capabilities and the … uniqueness of her offspring. Both she and any offspring must be terminated. The offspring, I fear, is more dangerous than she.”

  “Sir, if I may, the Bureau has been looking for her since she fled Earth months ago. Has something changed that we feel we have a better sense of where she is?”

  “No, nothing’s changed. But my superiors expect results. Contact Colonel Caleb on Silore, he’s the pointman on this. He has an army of hunters at his disposal and I intend to use them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Also, I’ve been made aware of a clone uprising on Telial in the outer colonies. Find out if it’s true, and if it is have the colonel deal with it. It might not be a bad place to start looking for Clone X either.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “That’s all for now.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As I watched her leave, the screen on the desk flickered and a ghost appeared. It was standing at its full height, a female, blue and black.

  “Sir, my name is Monica and I have been assigned to your office.”

  “Yes, I was told. I watched some of your recordings of Nephi’s last weeks. He was, at a different time, a dear friend of mine…so, what can I do for you?”

  “If I may make a suggestion, sir?”

  “You may.”

  “Efforts at capturing Clone X have proved difficult. I would recommend a better approach.”

  “And what approach is that?”

  “There is a way to have her come to us.”

  I looked her over. “Tell me everything you know.”

  AVA

  It was my birthday.

  I woke up in the room and saw my clothes neatly folded on the table across from the bed. I stared at the ceiling. It was white and smooth, some sort of steel. I sat up and went to the window expecting a frozen landscape of blue ice. Instead I saw the rolling waves of the sea and the white sand dotted with lush trees and shrubbery. I was nude and I walked to the balcony and opened the door and the warm ocean breeze ran over my skin.

  Larso got out of bed behind me and wrapped his arms around me and kissed my neck. I held his arm as I stared out over the ocean.

  “You forget everything when you’re here,” he said. “You don’t even think about what’s waiting for you when you step off this planet. It’s like time just freezes.”

  He reached down and touched my stomach, his wedding ring glimmering in the sunlight. We had been married not four hundred meters down the beach near some white limestone caves, the sea foaming at our ankles.

  His ring touched my skin and it was cold. His hand went over my belly, which was protruding slightly.

  “I want to raise him here,” he said. “I don’t want him to know anything else.”

  I smiled at the thought, but knew it wasn’t possible. Just over the calm beauty of the ocean and the sun’s golden rays painting the sky a light pink, war was coming. I could see it, and it filled me with dread at the things he would have to go through. I ran my hand over my belly and closed my eyes as a warm breeze washed over me again.

  Opus Two of the Clone Rebellion Chronicles Coming Soon.

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  BY VICTOR METHOS

  Science Fiction

  Black Onyx (A Superhero Thriller)

  Superhero (An Action Thriller)

  Clone Hunter

  Star Dreamer: The Early Science Fiction of Victor Methos

  Thrillers

  Diary of an Assassin

  Black Sky (A Mystery-Thriller)

  Plague (A Medical Thriller)

  Murder Corporation (A Crime Thriller)

  Jon Stanton Thrillers

  The White Angel Murder

  Walk in Darkness

  Sin City Homicide

  Arsonist

  The Porn Star Murders

  Creature-Feature Novels

  The Extinct

  Sea Creature

  Paranormal Thrillers

  Dracula (A Modern Telling)

  Savage: A Novel

  Humor

  Welcome to Hell, Earl

  Philosophical Fiction

  Existentialism and Death on a Paris Afternoon

  To contact the author, learn about his latest adventures, get tips on starting your own adventures, or learn about upcoming releases, please visit the author’s blog at http://methosreview.blogspot.com/

  Copyright 2013 Victor Methos

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  Please note that this is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All events in this work are purely from the imagination of the author and are not intended to signify, represent, or reenact any event in actual fact.