REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES (22 page)

Product Trudi 002 was very placid, not even crying, unlike
Professor Ingram who had suddenly realised the horror that was
about to happen to him. It’s all very well dying – that comes to us
all – but we all hope that it will be painless and quick. He had
never actually seen one of the experiments in process – he normally
entered the project after a transference had been made, but he had
heard that it was a very unpleasant experience. He pushed his hands
against the transparent plastic of the chamber lid but nobody paid
any attention to him. He punched the lid with all his might,
bruising his knuckles. He shouted as loud as he could but the rest
of the people in the room could either not hear him or were
ignoring his pleas. He whipped his head from side to side in panic.
He stopped suddenly as he felt a strange sensation in his hands and
feet, his whole body in fact, as the air was sucked out of his
chamber and he fought for breath. He managed to look down at his
body and was distressed by the sight of his swollen body just
before his lungs burst. Professor Ingram lost consciousness quickly
and was spared the terror of feeling his blood boil as he drifted
into a coma just before his organs shut down completely and he
officially died.

He sensed movement and that his consciousness was travelling
in the ether, but that ether was restricted to the confines of the
transfer apparatus. It was quite exhilarating and, as a scientist,
he found it fascinating.

The laboratory technician pushed a couple of touch controls
and Professor Ingram’s soul was forced into the other chamber where
Product Trudi 002 was waiting. He felt his essence first envelop
the baby and then felt himself sucked through the baby’s pores. For
a second he was aware that he was inhabiting a new body but this
was short-lived as his memory of being Professor Ingram became
involuntarily repressed and would not emerge until his new host
reached its seventh birthday or thereabouts, although of course
this was considered to be extremely unlikely as no clone baby had
survived beyond eighty days as yet and those that had reached that
age (eighty years physical age) still had the capacity and ability
of a new-born baby. Nobody knew whether Professor Ingram’s theory
was correct, and whether inserting an adult soul at such an early
stage in the clone’s development would work.

The baby clone Trudi 002 was returned to the clone monitoring
department, to be observed. Like all the other clones before her
she was to be given the HGIH on the twentieth day of her existence,
but nobody on the research team held any great hopes that they
would be successful and that the clone would survive much beyond
eighty days.

A glimmer of light could be
seen on the horizon as the six dark figures took their positions in
the woods surrounding the Cancer Research Institute complex. Cancer
had still not been conquered although many inroads had been made
against various forms of the disease so it was entirely feasible to
the general public that this research facility should exist. Indeed
it was seen as one of the few positives of the ONP government that
resources appeared to be pouring into the hunt for a cure for
cancer. The indiscriminate nature of the disease meant that people
from all walks of life were affected; if not directly, by
contracting one of the variations themselves, then indirectly,
having a family member or a friend who was suffering from or had
suffered from the illness. As had always been the case, cancer
research was considered a good and worthwhile cause.

There were many Cancer
Research institutes dotted around the country, some actually used
for seeking a cure for the disease, but many as a cover for ONP
research and experimentation. And none was as heavily guarded as
this particular facility. Dozens of automatic high powered pulse
guns scanned the area outside of the facility, ready to shoot down
any intruder before he or she could breach the boundary fence. The
area surrounding the establishment was dotted with small motion
sensitive sensors that sent an immediate signal to the cameras’
pulse guns and the threat would be neutralized within a fraction of
a second. These weapons were always set to ‘kill’; prisoners were
never taken, be they bona-fide intruders or innocent dog-walkers
who had strayed into the wrong area. Stories about dangerously
toxic chemicals being used in the fight against cancer were
encouraged and kept all but the most determined snooper away. The
public just assumed that the facilities were using some extremely
dangerous materials or chemicals in their research; if they had
known the truth it would have horrified them even more.

Inside the research
facility, Product Trudi 002 had just entered her forty-second day
of existence. She had been given the HGH at her creation and HGIH
on the twentieth day but her body had continued to deteriorate. She
had the appearance of a forty-two year old woman. Her mental
capacity was obviously higher than that of the previous guinea-pigs
– she had been able to be trained to use the toilet, thus
dispensing with the need for nappies – and she could feed herself,
but there was little more improvement than the basic skills that a
toddler could master. She seemed to be able to communicate simple
requests by gesture but her speech was minimal. She couldn’t even
speak as well as a two year old human baby, let alone have a
full-blooded conversation.

The lights of the Clone
Holding room flickered. The Clone Sitters, as the staff of the
Clone Observation Unit were nicknamed, paid little attention,
believing it to be caused by a power surge as an experiment was
conducted in another part of the building. They continued their
work, which appeared mainly to consist of surfing the internet on
their smartphones. Some things never change.

But this time the flickering
lights were not of little consequence. This time they represented
an actual breach of the research centre’s security. Outside the
facility, an electromagnetic pulse had disabled the research
centre’s primary defence system, leaving it vulnerable for a few
minutes. One Life researchers had managed to perfect a portable
Electromagnetic Pulse Generator that didn’t disable every piece of
electrical equipment in the vicinity. It was calibrated so that you
could shoot a pulse at a particular piece of electronic equipment
and it would send a signature back to the EMP generator containing
all the attributes of that particular piece of equipment. The EMP
generator would clone the pulse, disabling all other similar
objects in the vicinity. In this way, the defences were neutralised
in less time that it takes the average person to blink an
eye.

The six intruders overcame
the security staff with ease and three of their number burst into
the laboratory, startling the Clone Sitters. There had been so
little time between the shutdown of the perimeter defences and the
appearance of the masked intruders at the door of Lab A1 that they
were unable to register what was happening. However, one of the
technicians, Sarah, who had reacted exactly the same as her
colleagues, wasn’t surprised; she was the SIMP who had informed One
Life of Trudi 002’s existence and allowed herself to be knocked
unconscious along with her colleagues as pulse beams hit each one
of them, rendering them unconscious for at least two hours, whilst
two of the Resistance team lifted Trudi 002 off her chair and
carried her out of the facility to a waiting SUV. The whole
operation had taken about three minutes from start to finish; it
had been a perfect example of team efficiency.

The six quickly made their
way outside of the compound to where an SUV was waiting. The driver
had already removed two high-powered motorcycles from the vehicle
and positioned them alongside the van, their engines idling, ready
to use as soon as the extraction team arrived. Michelle Boone broke
away from the main group and almost threw herself onto the waiting
motorbike. Another group member mounted the other. They both
dropped their respective clutches and accelerated harshly, the back
wheels of their steeds sliding for a second or two until they
gained traction.

The three vehicles drove off
at full speed, the van and the two motorbikes, only slowing down
momentarily when they arrived at a three-way fork in the road. The
two motorcyclists flipped a switch on their handle bars and an
exact holographic image of the SUV enveloped the bikes. The two
Jeeps that were in pursuit were suddenly faced with three versions
of the same vehicle, weaving in and out of one another’s paths
before each taking a different fork in the road. The driver of the
first Jeep looked at his passenger.

“Fuck! Which one shall we
follow?”

“How am I supposed to know?
You’re the bloody driver. Follow whichever one you want. You’ve got
a thirty-three percent chance of getting it right.”

The driver grabbed the
inter-vehicle communicator, the IVC, pressed the touch-screen and
shouted into it.

“Syrus. Which bastard van
are you going to follow?”

“Fuck knows, Dean. They all
look the same.”

“I know. How do we know
which one is carrying the stolen product?”

“We don’t. Just
choose.”

Dean forced the steering
wheel to the right and took off after one of the vehicles. The odds
on choosing the correct van had now increased to fifty-fifty.
Although it was tempting to take the left-hand fork, to maintain
symmetry, Syrus kept going straight ahead. Of course, this meant
that it was possible that the two were both chasing a wild goose
but it was a risk that had to be taken.

The SUVs kept thundering
along the country roads, the Jeeps closing in on two of them.
Dean’s passenger, Curtis, was getting annoyed. He was trying to aim
his pulse gun at the vehicle in front but, despite all Dean’s
attempts to control the vehicle smoothly, the potholes in the road
had other ideas. Curtis and his weapon were being thrown from side
to side, making an accurate shot nigh on impossible. He gritted his
teeth and fired his pulse gun. The beam of highly-charged red light
passed through what should have been the right-hand rear wing of
the SUV and destroyed a tree that was about twenty yards in front
of the vehicle. Curtis shouted at his driver.

“It’s a fucking
motorbike.”

Then, he took a sharp intake
of breath as a beam of red light rocketed towards them, the
motorcycle’s defence system having locked onto the source of the
attack and responded in kind.

On another road Syrus saw
the plume of smoke forming in the sky above where his colleagues
should have been and knew that it almost certainly signalled the
destruction of the jeep. Nevertheless he tried to contact his
colleagues via the IVC.

“Dean! Curtis! Are you
there?”

He battered the steering
wheel with his free hand.

“Shit, Fuck, Balls! It’s up
to us now.”

The road that they had taken
was in better condition than the other road, but there were many
more tight curves to negotiate, and locking the target was just as
difficult as it had been for Curtis; no sooner had his partner,
Rick, locked on the target vehicle than it disappeared around a
corner. The eternal game of cat and mouse continued through the
wooded road until Syrus heard a sound behind him and to the right.
Rick looked behind the Jeep to see Michelle’s motorcycle,
holographic camouflage disabled, leap out of the woods and take up
a position directly behind their vehicle.

“Syrus, there’s
a….”

Rick never got the chance to
complete his sentence as the fuel tank of the Jeep was hit by a
deadly charge of electricity and exploded. Dean, Curtis, Syrus, and
Rick were now four souls in the atmosphere, joining the multitude
that were already there seeking new host bodies.

The ride inside the SUV
hadn’t been a comfortable one, the occupants being thrown around
inside the vehicle like rag dolls. All except Trudi 002 that is,
who had been strapped in so as not to damage her. She was extremely
valuable cargo and must not be damaged at all costs.

Ten miles down the road, the
SUV slid to a halt alongside an unmarked delivery van. Trudi 002
was quickly transferred to the new vehicle, along with her escorts,
and the group continued on their way unmolested, whilst the SUV
disappeared into the distance to take a different route
home.

Just over an hour later, the
van pulled into the yard of an old remote farmhouse. The driver,
Flav, locked the vehicle inside one of the two barns and joined his
accomplices in the kitchen of the main house. Trudi 002 was sitting
in an armchair, having been released from her restraints. Michelle
spoke to the group.

“The SIMP who told us about
this clone said that she is sentient; she may look like a woman in
her late thirties, early forties, but she has the mental age of a
two year old.”

Michelle walked over and
looked at Trudi 002. The clone could feel her stare almost piercing
her skin.

“So, the interrogation
should be interesting. Anybody here got kids? Anybody speak
toddler?”

Michelle reached for Trudi
002’s hand, which was quickly drawn away. The clone assumed that
she was among friends (they had spoken about a SIMP) but she wanted
to wait a little longer before showing her true colours. Michelle,
went to take hold of the clone’s hand again and this time Trudi 002
allowed the touch.