Alternity (31 page)

Duske shrugs. “Because you know I am a man of honor?” he suggests. Then he laughs. “No, I guess that could not be it. How about because you need to know the truth? You’re desperate for answers and you know I’m the only one who can give them to you. If you’re going to die anyway, wouldn’t you prefer to die knowing the truth?”

He’s got me there. There’s no way I can even pretend the truth doesn’t concern me. After seeing my own face dead in a drawer, realizing the world I thought I was from is just a virtual dream, it’s now vitally important I find out who I really am.

I raise my sword again, the blade flashing under the lights. “All right,” I say. “Let’s do this.” Maybe he’ll be weak. After all, how does one grasp a sword with cut thumbs? But then I remember Dawn healing my wrist. He probably just went to an nT medic and had the skin grown back in minutes.

“Skye—” Dawn interrupts my racing thoughts. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Actually, I think I do,” I reply, feeling an inner power swell inside me. It’s a growing strength and retreating fear. This is a fight for the truth. And I have to win.

Duske brandishes his blade and steps forward. I launch into an attack, swinging my sword expertly in one hand. I don’t remember learning to fight, but somehow, something inside me knows how to do it—as if I were born with the knowledge.

You weren’t born at all,
an inner voice nags. I push it aside.

Our swords clash, the blades singing high-pitched squeals. I slide my sword downward, freeing the blade, then swing upward. Duske catches it again easily. He’s good, I realize. Maybe too good.

Back and forth we flurry, blades coming together, separating, then meeting once again. Sweat drips down my forehead, between my breasts, as I dance around him, looking for a sign of weakness. But he seems to effortlessly predict my every move. I’m not sure he’s even trying that hard. He certainly doesn’t seem winded.

Thinking I see an opening, I lunge. He parries with a twist of the wrist, tossing me a self-satisfied grin. He’s toying with me, I realize. If I want to win I can’t do it this way. I have to try something he won’t expect. Something that’s not “all fair in love and swordplay.” It’s then that I remember my character Allora’s finishing move in RealLife. The one my boss, Madeline, criticized for being without honor.
Chivalry is based on a code
, she had lectured. Everything is based on rules. But she was just an NUC, a computer-generated character.

And I’m done playing by the rules.

I drop to my knees, swing my blade, and slash at his ankles. He screams in pain as the sword makes contact with his Achilles tendon. He stumbles backward, bellowing in rage. I leap to my feet and point my blade at his now unprotected throat.

“You bitch,” he snaps. “You weren’t supposed to hurt me.”

“You’ll live,” I snarl back. “Unless I decide to kill you.” I press the blade against his throat, just enough to draw a tiny droplet of blood. One step forward and I can drive the weapon straight through and no number of guards can save his life. But, I realize, then I’d never find out the truth. And the guards will simply kill me and then Dawn after their master is dead.

Reluctantly, I lower the sword. The guards step forward and disarm me, then tie my hands behind my back. They do the same to Dawn, roughly shuffling us both to one wall.

Duske reaches down and wraps a strip of cloth torn from his suit over his wound, still grumbling. It’s immediately soaked in blood. That’s got to really hurt. I can’t believe he’s still conscious. One of the guards kneels before him and takes the ankle in his hands, closing his eyes, just as Dawn did to my wrist. Must be a Healer. How convenient to have one on staff.

A few moments later, the bleeding’s stopped and Duske’s able to walk. He saunters over to me, positioning himself so he’s inches from my face. “You should have killed me when you had the chance,” he says with a bitter laugh.

“Yes, yes,” I reply, trying to sound nonchalant, while inside everything is trembling with fear. “But I didn’t. So how about you keep up your end of the bargain? Tell me everything.”

Duske grins. “Gladly. In fact, I’m looking forward to it. Ask away.”

I swallow hard, getting up my nerve. Ignoring my pounding heart. “Is Earth just a game?” I manage to spit out.

Duske frowns. “It’s not
just a
game. It’s the most miraculous creation in the history of the world. It’s a new form of reality. A virtual escape, if you will, for all that plagues the Terran people. An amazing recreation of Terra the century before the war.”

“Some escape,” I mutter, glancing over at the drawers of bodies.

“Well, yes, we’re still working out the kinks. Right now it’s too expensive to run on a long-term basis. Do you think we want to be stuck intravenously feeding players for their entire Terran life spans? Or worrying about disposing of their bodily fluids? Also, we’ve found that after a few weeks, the Terran mind starts to decay from the fully immersive experience. So it’s far better to pull the ‘Gazers from their misery before their organs rot and their bodies are rendered unusable.”

“But you’ve promised these people a new life on Earth! Instead, you kill them.”

“But don’t you see? They
do
get a new life. We speed up the game. Twenty Earth years can pass within a day of Terran time if we want. When someone commits to a full emigration we put their life on fast forward. By the time their mind starts to decay, they’ve already experienced an entirely full life. They’re old. They’re
ready
to die.” He smiles, obviously proud. “And in return, here on Terra, we solve the overpopulation problem and help fund government programs. Besides, all of our subjects are perfectly willing to go.”

“But if they knew how they’d end up …”

Duske shrugs. “What’s the difference, because they never will. They’ll die peacefully, thinking they’ve lived out an entire life in paradise. What could be better than that?”

“What about Mariah?” Dawn interrupts.

“Ah, Mariah,” Duske says. “Beautiful, sweet Mariah.” He wanders over to the back of the room and looks adoringly down at the naked body lying on the slab. “We started noticing her poking around Earth about six months ago. She tried to give a false identity, but there’s not much our daemons—the program’s security subroutines—don’t pick up on. Not to mention it’s nearly impossible for a celebrated rebel like her to keep a low profile. We were amused by her interest, and so we let her take a peek around, knowing she would never find anything wrong. Not on the surface.”

“And then she got addicted?” Dawn asks.

“Sure.” Duske shrugs. “If you want to call it that. The more she jumped back and forth, the more taxing it became on her brain. With all the ‘Gaze she was inhaling, her life on Earth started seeming more real to her than her life on Terra.” He smirks. “So that’s when we decided to make our move—make it look like the infamous Mariah Quinn, would-be savior of the Dark Siders, turned traitor.”

“Make it look like?” Dawn repeats. “You mean she didn’t actually …?”

Duske stares at him, then starts to laugh. “Didn’t actually betray you?” he asks. “You really think she did?” He shakes his head in mirth. “You two may have been together, but you obviously didn’t know the girl very well at all. She was as loyal as they come. I mean, sure, she became a brainless, desperate drug addict, but still she refused to betray the Eclipsers up until the very end. And believe me, we tried a great deal to make her spill.”

“So then, how did you know about our plans to sabotage the seminar?” Dawn demands. “You knew things that only she could have told you.”

Duske smiles. “Once we realized that no amount of convincing was going to get her to talk, we simply allowed her to go ‘Gazing in a specially doctored booth. While she was inside, we ran a brain scan and stripped her mind of all short-term memories. After running a quick analysis through a supercomputer, we got all the details we needed to thwart your pathetic plan. And Mariah never had any idea.”

Dawn is silent for a moment, probably trying to digest this startling revelation. The girl he’s been thinking a villain all this time is actually an innocent victim. He must feel so guilty for judging her. But how could he have known that in this instance two plus two did not equal four?

“But she still left us,” he says at last, grasping at straws. “She still abandoned her people for a better life on Earth.”

“Please.” Duske snorts. “She didn’t go anywhere. She was too sick. Her brain wouldn’t have survived another trip. We didn’t waste the resources. Once we had the information we needed, we killed her and sent in Skye here to start ‘Gazing in her place.”

“So then who am I?” I interject. My head is spinning. “Where do I come from and why do I look exactly like Mariah?” Even as I ask, I’m not sure I want to hear the truth.

“You’re the spare.”

“The spare?” I think I’m going to be sick again.

“Sure. A clone. Similar to the nTs. We took a sample of Mariah’s genetic code and grew a new version. Then we implanted false memories of Earth, mostly stolen from our nonuser character designs. The idea was to send the new Mariah to Earth in place of the real one so people would see her there. We could relay back clips of your new life if we wanted, prove that Mariah had really migrated there. And if we needed you for something, we could bring you back. Hell, you never do know when a spare revolutionary leader turned traitor might come in handy.” He laughs.

I stare at him, unable to even breathe. “You mean?”

He smiles. “Yes, Skye. You are that clone. You have the same genetic makeup as Mariah. Same fingerprints, same DNA. But your brain is filled with a false life on Earth that we created especially for you. You are not now, nor were you ever, Mariah. In fact, you are not, nor were you ever, a real person at all.”

My face crumbles, tears robbing me of my vision. So, I’m not Mariah. I’m not the girl Dawn is in love with. I’m just a clone. A nonuser character. A fantasy. My whole life, every memory, is a lie.

“In reality, Skye, you’ve only been alive for about three months,” Duske says.

“But how come …” I’m grasping at the falling straws. “How come I remember sometimes? I mean, fleeting images, feelings. In Terra I feel like I have déjà vu all the time.”

Duske nods grimly. “Our experiment wasn’t a hundred percent successful. For some reason you seem to retain a few memories of Mariah. We’re still not quite sure why. You even tried to escape us once. Do you remember? Before we implanted those memories in you? Back then you were a shell of a person, with no past, present, or future, and yet you took off, almost escaped into the underground. It could have been a disaster had my men not captured you in time.”

The dream of my running through the underground flashes through my mind. I remember being frightened, absolutely terrified, not knowing where I was—or even who I was.

I had no idea that was because, in truth, I wasn’t anyone at all.

TWENTY-ONE

We’re thrown into a bare cell on the other side of the building, similar in style to the one that caged Glenda, though
style
may be the wrong word. The cell is filthy, the walls stained fecal brown, the floors damp and reeking of piss. A rickety cot in the corner is the only furnishing, clothed with thin gray sheets and a ratty yellow blanket.

“Sorry about the room,” Duske says as the guards lock us in, not really sounding all that broken up about it. “It’s the best we can do on such short notice. Next time, do warn us when you’ll be dropping by.” He pauses. “Oh, wait,” he adds, as if something just occurred to him. “There won’t be a next time. So sorry.” He peers between the bars. “Better say your good-byes now, dearies. In a couple of hours, Skye here will be going under another little memory transplant.”

“Memory transplant?” I repeat, my mind still reeling.

“Oh yes,” Duske says. “It’s a two-part procedure, actually. Part one will get rid of all the memories you currently have in your head. It’s like one big magnet, erasing your brain like a disk. And then, after that happens, my doctors will perform the second part. They’ll inject you with a little memory cocktail we’ve whipped up, give you a brand-new identity. We’re going to turn you into a Mariah who has spent time on Earth as herself. She remembers all of her past revolutionary activities but has now found peace and happiness in her new world. She has returned for one night only, to speak at my Moongazing seminar and let all the Indys know just how wonderful Earth really is.”

“That’s crazy!” I cry. “I’d never—”

“You’d never what?” Duske asks, his face darkening. “Lie for me? As far as you know you’ll be telling the truth, my dear. When the doctors are through with you, you won’t have any recollection of this conversation. Or
any
conversations, really, besides the made-up ones we’ll inject into your head. Sorry to break it to you, sweetie, but remember you’re just a clone to do with what we like. With just a small dose of serum injected into your cerebral cortex, we can transform you into anyone at all.” He pats the bars of the cell. “So, it was nice knowing you,
Skye
,” he says. “I look forward to meeting the new you very shortly. Maybe I’ll even throw in a crush on me this time. So we can finish what you started.”

He turns and exits the room, flanked by his guards. The metal doors clank shut, leaving Dawn and me alone in filth and darkness. I consider screaming and yelling, and even begging for freedom, but I know there’s no use, so instead I resignedly wander over to the cot and slump down on the grimy mattress. It creaks under my weight, but I’m so wrapped up in my terrified thoughts I scarcely notice.

Dawn joins me, his face ashen. He kneels in front of me, taking my hands in his. He brings them to his lips, pressing my knuckles against his soft mouth, capturing my eyes with his. We sit there for a long while, thoughts whirling madly inside our heads, but nothing seemingly worth saying out loud.

“I can’t bear this,” Dawn finally says in a choked voice, breaking the silence. He drops my hands and rises to his feet, pacing the cell like a wild tiger, caged. “To lose you again. It’s just …”