Gene Drifters: The Clone Soldier Chronicles-Book III (16 page)

Chad considered himself to be very lucky, to have Dorian’s
help, and the rebels were lucky to have Dorian. Dorian had been made by the
military scientists at the Andros Island facility about forty years back, as a
prototype, half organo-digitally implanted, mostly human in form; he’d been
cloned to control the underground military complex in the desert. He was a
one-of-a-kind, and extremely dangerous. Luckily his wife Dina had found him,
and together they’d escaped, after she blew up his penthouse suite at the Las
Vegas games.

The rulers thought he was dead. He wanted that belief to
remain intact.

At rebel headquarters, Dorian put down his hot chocolate,
stretched his beautiful and perfect body, walked to the control panel, and
passed one glowing pale hand over several thousand access keys. Immediately, the
day’s trades from all over the world showed in 3D, complete with current transactions
and future stock projections. His gold, glowing eyes darted back and forth,
taking in all the information at once. He passed a hand through his silver
hair, and gave a mental-speak command.

“
Please show current R&R, Lanai stock status only.
Yes, now futures projections, and current offers. Thank you
.”

Dorian examined the data for several seconds, and then
passed his other hand over a panel, which opened access to all the earth’s satellites.
It took several more seconds and a couple of novel algorithms, developed as
needed, to program the buy and sell systems on Wall Street and the Hang Seng in
Hong Kong.

It would work; he’d own a billion Lanai R&R stocks in
about two days, then he would launder them through one of the free zones,
probably Israel, using a bogus Inc. They would end up as R&R stocks for a
fake holding company, owned by another, owned by another…
ad infinitum
.
It was a trick he’d learned long ago from the mortgage banks, pre-WME. But he’d
have to move them quickly, or the transactions could be traced to the rebels. He
had too many rebel citizens to hide and protect. This all had to happen fast.

And it did. By the following week, those R&R stocks were
archived as assets of
Anne Bonny’s Salt Water Taffy Conglomerate, Inc
.
It was Dorian’s rather strange attempt at humor, because Anne Bonny was a very
famous pirate.

That particular evening, Dorian was not yet finished. He still
had to deal with the toxic nutria-blend issue, although the CEO of Nutria-blend,
Inc. had been dealt with at the Kabuki Theater in Tokyo. He’d been found in his
orchestra box seat after the performance, sitting with his hand over his heart.
Apparently, he’d had massive heart failure.

Tonight Michael Segev would report back on his decision
about Max Peabody, whether to also eliminate him, or worse, make an example of
him. They’d discussed several options. Segev favored early retirement, care of
nutria-blend overdose. But the lab results were not back. Dorian was not sure
what too much nutria-blend would do to brain cells; would it kill Max or turn him
into a cognizant but frozen vegetable?

Dorian thought either was insufficient punishment for what Max
and the CEO had concocted. And make no mistake, while Dorian was immensely
beautiful to the eye, he was also extremely dangerous, especially when angered;
with his special abilities, he was even more dangerous than Michael Segev. But
of course, he was considerably kinder.

Dorian got up from his control panel and walked down the
hallway to the viewing window, to the east of the Donnerpass headquarters, the
one overlooking the hot as hell desert. It was near sunset, but the intense heat
still caused the entire Eastern desert to appear wavy from the heat. Dorian was
not really thinking about the desert; and no one went there anymore, except by plasmon
bubble tunnel at night, to access the historical DNA archives at Salt Lake. The
entire city of Las Vegas was also encased in such a bubble; otherwise the metal
in the buildings would have melted.

Several rebels passed Dorian as he stood by the window. They
bowed or nodded, according to rank, used to seeing their fabulous glowing white
elf leader at this time of day. He usually only left the control room once each
day to take in the sunset; even a global warming sunset was still gorgeous, and
Dorian had spent a big slice of his life living underground in that prison cell.

At the moment, he was carrying on an internal conversation,
practicing how he was going to tell Dina that their only child was planning to
spend her life with a clone soldier as her mate. He’d already taken care of
Chad’s request to delay shipment of the clones. It would be a simple thing at
this point to lose the shipment into bubble-stop #5. Michael Segev could make
it happen. But would Dina find them? Was it only a matter of time and her unforgiving
crusade?

“I’ve got to change her mind. But how? If I bring the clones
here, would she allow me the time to test them? Or, would she just kill them all
immediately? No, I have to face this. She will have to accept my decision.”

It was hard for Dorian, not because he was afraid of her,
although she was a rather unusual mutant, with some really dangerous powers. He
was equipped with his own protective abilities; was even more powerful than she
was. No, it was hard because he loved her, because she had saved him, and
because he still felt guilt over his part in the death of her father. He’d
ordered Jordan into that fifth corridor during the Battle of Kyoto.

He was supposed to be better at recon, but Jordan had been
killed. Dorian had a part in Jordan’s death. And it had made him more accepting
of his wife’s clone soldier killing spree. He sighed and returned to his
databanks, worried, but happy his daughter was safe. Although back at #3 Gimlet,
though safe, was tired of being dragged across the floor of the tunnel.

“You can stop kicking me now, Chad. I think they got the
picture,” Gimlet said, after they turned the corner, and were out of the
guards’ hearing range.

“Sorry, did the bubble wrap work? I had to make it
convincing. Sorry, I still gotta drag you to the office in case someone turns
up here.” Chad pulled Gimlet across the floor to his office, keyed in his code,
and opened the door, pulling Gimlet in behind him.

Once the door was shut and locked, he passed out.

Roxanne hit him hard on the back of his head, with some sort
of glass knob thing, a paperweight from the desk drawer.

“Hurry, I’ll untie you, Gimlet. We have to get out of here.”

Roxanne stood before Gimlet, looking like the bride of
Frankenstein. Half her face was Roxanne Smoot, but the other was melted zombie.

“Oh my god, Roxanne, what happened to your face; does it
hurt? Is there a cure? What are you doing here?” Roxanne looked behind Gimlet
to where Rose was standing.

“Where have you been?” Roxanne asked, with a frown.

“Don’t look so miffed, Roxanne. I found them you know. They
might have left you here. The original plan was to escape to the sewers once
they’d contacted Dorian. We came back for you. Don’t be so impatient. You know
I always watch your back.” Rose was indignant.

“Sorry Rose, you’re right. I’m just pissed off at this guy. You
were fantastic. That dumb dog act was sublime.” Roxanne patted her head, kicked
Chad, and finished tying her whip to her waist. She’d already stashed her guns
into her boots, then remembered Gimlet’s question.

“What, oh right, my partial face is melting. I had to
disguise myself to get in here. I thought you were a prisoner. Who is this?”
Roxanne looked down at the floor, at a moaning Chad.

 “What are you doing with a clone soldier, Gimlet? Explain
fast, or I’ll shoot him.” Roxanne aimed a sonic directly into Chad’s head with
her finger on the trigger.

“No don’t, he’s a friendly. Well okay, he’s a lot more than
a friendly. We have to escape now, fast. I’ll explain on the way. Did you come
alone? Do we have to rescue anyone else?” Gimlet asked.

“Rescue anyone else? What’s that supposed to mean? I came to
rescue
you
. You needed the rescuing, remember? Okay I know, we gotta go;
explain on the way little sis. That guard I knocked unconscious will be waking
up soon. They’ll notice I’m gone. Let’s go. Do we leave him here?” Roxanne
asked.

She slid her sonic back into the back of her pants, and Chad
decked her.

He sat on top of her, pinning her to the ground, just
starring her directly in her half Roxanne face; only now one of her eyes was back
to green.

Gimlet held her breath.

This happened all the time. It got a little tiring, really.
She brought home a potential boyfriend and he went gaga over Roxanne. She
sighed, thinking it was inevitable. Chad would fall all over her beautiful big
sis, the one, and only Roxanne Smoot.

“Don’t hit me on the head again or I’ll risk your co-pilot’s
wrath to break your arm.” Chad was pissed. He’d have a head basher.

But, the weird thing was, he did not think Roxanne was
anything special; did not even seem to notice her at all. And this made Gimlet
smile.

“Okay, you two play nice. We gotta go before the #3er guards
find us.” She kissed Chad full on the lips, and he kissed her back, while
Roxanne staggered to her feet, glaring at Chad; then she glared at Rose for
allowing Chad to deck her.

“What? Turnabout is fair play, Roxanne. As Gimlet said, he’s
a friendly. Please, we have to leave now. We’ll explain everything on the way.”
Rose trotted to the door, pawed in the exit code, and walked slowly into the
hall, checking for guards.

Chad raised an eyebrow at Roxanne, signaling a
let’s get
out of here
. Roxanne whispered, “WE’VE ONLY GOT ABOUT THIRTY MORE MINUTES.”

                                                           
                        
14

“THIRTY MORE MINUTES UNTIL WHAT? Wait…Joster contacted you?
What was that about? Was he tracking me? I hate it when people do that.” Gimlet
followed Roxanne, Rose, and Chad out of his office and into the hall,
whispering as they went.

“He said all the university students have tags now. I
thought you knew that. Anyway it’s how he knew you’d gone missing. He even
risked a flash freeze to get to us and deliver the message,” Roxanne whispered
back. She quickly relayed how Joster had climbed into their rig at three
hundred miles per hour.

“I owe him big time for that. I’ll be sure and get him
something special when I get back. What’s happening in thirty minutes?” Gimlet asked,
as they reached the portal.

“Enough talk, we have to move fast before the pirates
return. We’ll have a hard time explaining our way out of this one,” Chad interrupted,
as they stepped into the first Sewer City portal. Chad locked the door behind
them.

It was critical they get Roxanne, Rose, and Gimlet out of #3
so that Chad would have time to explain the stock purchase to the pirates
without letting them know the source of the stocks. He hadn’t even decided what
he would tell them yet. All Chad knew was, if the pirates found both Roxanne
and Gimlet in #3, it would be a no go. It would just be too tempting for the
pirates. Chad would never be able to convince them to let both the hostages go
and wait several weeks to get those stocks.

Plus, he couldn’t tell the pirates the rebels were in on it,
and anyway they’d never believe him. Dorian had been very explicit about keeping
that secret. And despite Chad being a clone soldier, he had a healthy respect
for Dorian’s ability to vaporize him.

As they started down the tunnel, Chad stopped, turned to
them and said,

“Wait, I have to contact my clone mate, Jason, at the
R&R, so he can meet us up top. You go on through the sewer tunnels. Rose
knows the way. Rose, take them back to where we found you, back at that
clearing. Be careful of those guards. There’s a hole in the fence, big enough
for all of you to get through. Behind that dumpster you’ll find two hoverbikes.
Hopefully you’ll also find a guy who looks like my twin. You’ll have to share
the bikes, but they have nitro-ramp speed controls. Hightail it to your rig and
take off. I’ll join you at the low-way on ramp, out of the stop heading west,
unless they catch me. Don’t wait for me. You have to get out of #3,” Chad
kissed Gimlet, grabbed a bot-com device and his gun, and took off down the hall
towards the guards.

Gimlet started to follow him, but Roxanne grabbed her arm
and said,

“Gimlet, come on, we have to leave. Now I only have twenty-five
more minutes.” Roxanne walked quickly in the opposite direction, tailed by
Rose.

“Until what? What happens in twenty-five minutes?” Gimlet
asked.

“The drones will come looking for me. I’ve got to be back on
the tracks in twenty-five minutes. Let’s go!” Roxanne followed Rose into the
bilge #1 tube, sliding down the scum-lined tunnel until she hit sewer city
level one. Gimlet glanced back at Chad, who was already back at the entry
portal. He waved goodbye, unlocked the door, and disappeared. Gimlet followed
Roxanne through the tunnel. The three ran along the metal walkway to the bilge
#2 station, trying not to slip on the scum, while both Roxanne and Rose kept
checking their palm, or paw timers.

“Keep going, we’ll make it. No wait, I’ll run ahead and
initiate the start-up protocol on the rig. It should give us some extra minutes
before re-track.” Rose took off at full canine speed, skidding around the corners.
She bolted the stairs to the exit, but then stopped.

There were guards outside the portal, lots of them. Rose
could smell over fifteen, maybe twenty of them. They were WME security/culling
guards, not local Lanai police. She could tell, because their protective
security uniforms gave off a sort of mercaptoethanol smell, like rotten eggs.
She’d have to do her dumb dog routine to reach the hoverbikes. Rose turned, and
whined a signal to Roxanne, who was about twenty yards behind, then exited the
portal, yapping like a happy puppy.

“Stop, Rose says there are WME guards at the portal. Here,
take this.” She handed Gimlet her sonic, removed her whip, and checked her Glock;
it was fully loaded. Gimlet set the sonic on stun. Killing a WME guard was
capital, and there was no sense in risking a life flash freeze. They both
climbed the stairs to the exit portal, trying to be quiet.

“Did she say how many guards are there?” Gimlet asked, in a
whisper.

“She said about fifteen to twenty, too many for us to take
on. And, they probably have security suits, maybe the stinging kind,” Roxanne
replied.

They reached the exit portal, waiting until Rose gave the yelp
signal. Roxanne could overhear Rose making
friends
with the outside
guards. But now there were angry shouts, and sounds of runners behind them, in
the last tunnel. Chad was being chased from behind, probably by pissed off
pirates. Apparently they weren’t patient enough to listen to Chad’s stock deal,
or didn’t believe him; probably thought he’d changed sides.

“Rose says more like twenty WME security guards are up top,
all in those god awful sting suits. We’ve got to keep going, Gimlet. I have to
make it back to the rig or all hell will break loose; it will be worse than the
security suit thing, much worse. If the WME security thinks a rig haul is
endangered they’ll target a laser sat at us. We’ll all be toast”

Roxanne exited the portal, slowly opening the door to the
backs of twenty guards, standing around a big black hand-licking Doberman.
You’ve got to love Rose. She’d given them several seconds for a surprise attack.

Roxanne crouched to the ground as two guards turned, astonished
by her sudden appearance at the exit portal. Usually the sewer city rats never
came out this way; it was too well guarded, as protection from the constant
attacks by food terrorists. But, here was this half gorgeous/half leprous fat/stunning
woman with a melting right side of her face. They hesitated, not knowing
whether to say wow, or yuck; it came out in unison as “wuck.”

“Wuck, to you too, guys.” Roxanne knocked three guards off their
feet with her whip, while Gimlet, who had just exited the portal, fired on them
with her sonic set to stun.

Now they had about three minutes to put a safe distance
between themselves and the rest of the culling guards. A sonic gun signal would
be recorded by the overhead recon satellite, noted by headquarters in Nigeria,
recorded appropriately by one of the new worker robots in Manila, and a giant
mass of mini-biters, nano-drones charged with a knockout drug, would descend
upon them.

A while back, the security division of the WME decided it
was easier that way. Just put everyone to sleep and send in the street sweepers.
They’d be scooped up, taken to a security holding cell, and the offenders would
be separated from the guards at a later time. First time offenders would be
given that inviting choice, slavery or the flash freeze. The guards would
receive purple hearts, and then sent to guard the maximum security prison, up
top and outside, in Leavenworth, Kansas, or the ADX in Florence.

But now, they all knew the fight was on a close time
schedule. Either one side would win in three minutes, or they would all be stunned
into oblivion. Once Roxanne went into fight mode, Rose turned into her
face-eating persona so fast she completely surprised the four guards who’d been
tossing her a ball. With one fast turn she grabbed a stunner in her mouth and stunned
the guard nearest to her.

A rapid fire fight was now in progress.

Roxanne and Gimlet were pinned down behind some porta-johns,
firing the sonic, and Glock, at the guards. Of course, Gimlet, with her glow in
the dark eyes had the advantage. For her, it was like target practice. Roxanne
was not so fortunate. She got surrounded by eight guards, using her whip to
keep them at bay. They were circling, coming closer.

One guard came from around the porta-john and grabbed
Gimlet, clutching her in a choke hold. At rebel headquarters, Dorian already
had him targeted with a laser satellite, but he was too close to Gimlet; she
would be fried along with him. He’d have to use his on the ground weapon.
Luckily Segev was in the area. The rebel alpha had been called in as back up.

Suddenly Chad,
only not Chad
, jumped screaming, from
behind a metal barrel of
Stem-wads
®
growth media. Unfortunately
he only had himself, no weapons. But half of his left hand was attached to some
strange metallic contraption that looked like a pink mini-growth chamber with
R&R embossed on it, the kind used to expand a bunch of stem cells in a
smaller batch. He used it to knock one guy out, grabbing the guard’s ankle
knife in the process. He missed the next guy, but he managed to slit the next guard’s
throat.

Apparently, clone soldiers had no fear of culling guard murder
legalities, or maybe they understood it too well.

“Chad?” Gimlet asked.

“No, Jason,” not Chad replied, with that same gorgeous
smile. Somewhere in the back of her mind Gimlet got this rather x-rated picture
of herself with two Chads, which she quickly discarded with a shake of her
head.

Not Chad looked over at her, grinned quizzically and said,
“Could be interesting,” and then threw his knife into the eye of an oncoming
guard. Roxanne and Rose worked to get free from their circle of new best
friends; seven still remained, and they could hear the pirates coming through
the sewer tunnels, yelling at the real Chad.

“Chad said not to wait for him. Let’s go,” Jason yelled,
after hitting one of the seven remaining guards with his incubator hand.

The guard hesitated, did not know how to counter an
incubator-hand attack; he was just kind of puzzled. It must not have been in
the WME official training program at their boot camp. A mano-a-mano was now in
progress. They were lucky to have the not Chad guy with them. A single clone
soldier could easily take out six fully armed and trained guards, except the
drones were coming, and the guards did have those sting suits.

Gimlet and Roxanne were no matches for these security
guards, not with those protective sting suits turned on. Every time you hit
one, you got a pulse wave shock that hurt like a killer bee sting. Even Rose
yelped every time she took a bite out of a leg or arm. She couldn’t even enjoy
the fruits, or rather meats, of her labor, because the dismembered hand or arm
would continue to glow, giving off a freaking sting pulse, and causing her lips
to swell. Rose was beginning to resemble a runway model with collagen-implanted
lips.

And Roxanne was getting exhausted, missing her whip aiming
technique; the circle was getting closer. Rose had the wind knocked out of her
from a strategically placed kick to her side. She wasn’t sure what hurt worse,
the kick or the stinging.

Jason, the not-Chad guy, was in a knife fight with a guy who
looked like
The Terminator
, and Gimlet was still held in a choke hold by
someone about twice her size, although she had managed to twist and grab his
crotch, one of the few areas that did not seem to give off a sting.

Back at rebel headquarters, Dorian was helpless. He couldn’t
possibly fire up a laser satellite without also zapping his daughter. And they
would not be getting help from the real Chad. From the sounds coming from the
bilge tunnel, Chad would not be bringing friendlies to the party.

To make matters worse, they could all hear the tranquilizer-drone
buzz in the distance. They had fifteen seconds to impact.

Everyone stopped fighting, squeezed their eyes tight, and
hunkered down, even the culling guards. Most had only been hit with a mass
attack of knockout drones one time, in boot camp training. It hurt like hell, your
legs and arms swelled up to twice their size, and you woke with a blasting
headache that lasted for three days.

The drones made their clearance, hopping off the containment
fence, heading straight to their individually designated targets. Someone at
the WME knockout drone production facility, with a rather psychotic sense of
humor, had programmed them to hum the
William Tell
Overture
.

The singing drones scampered towards their targets, while a
peanut butter and jelly sandwich eating vid secretary watched their approach
from her control desk, in Peoria, filing her nails, discussing how her kid was
progressing in Little League, and planning what she’d be bringing to the church
pot luck.

Then, just as the drones reached the clearing, a low-pitched
whine emitted from someplace…maybe a satellite…maybe an angel…maybe a Mossad
type person with a special digi-fry whistle, set to drone-zap mode.

No one was certain what had happened, and they all still had
their eyes shut; all except for Roxanne. She saw it all.

The drones just stopped, fell to the ground, several
crawling spastically in a last tragic attempt to reach their target, humming
the
William Tell Overture
, following the protocol. One finally did reach
the most peripheral guard, stinging him into oblivion, and then they were all dead
before they could sting the others.

What happened next would be debated among world strategic
arms committees for years. Oddly and strategically, those
Dorian-fogged
vids would be played back, data analyzed; a commission would be established to
come up with a report on their findings, at a cost of seventy billion gold
vouchers.

Someone on the commission felt the fogged vids were the
result of industrial espionage by the opposing political party. Their report
would be debated at great length in the news and late night comedy shows, until
finally three additional nonpartisan committees would be commissioned to study
it further, at a cost to the public of another seventy billion gold vouchers, for
each report.