The Clone Sedition (29 page)

He entered the hall—ten-foot ceilings, offices instead of stores. This had been a public-access area of the spaceport, one used by travelers who had lost their luggage or needed assistance. He passed generic office spaces from which the doors had been removed. People seemed to occupy every inch of available floor space.

As he neared the administrative complex, Watson smelled a sharp odor of burned plastic in the air, something he had not
smelled in other parts of the spaceport. He turned the last corner and saw the buildings…what was left of them.

The area was a cul-de-sac, a rounded dead end with a raised ceiling. In the briefings, the buildings of the administrative complex looked like they were three buildings on a street. They had façades like office buildings with doorways and windows.

Two of those buildings had burned to the ground. Their walls had melted, and glass from the shattered windows sparkled among the debris. The buildings had been made of plastic, but now only their twisted and shriveled skeletons remained.

Unlike the grand arcade and the halls, the cul-de-sac was abandoned. This was the first empty stretch Watson had seen since the warehouse. He had not liked the crowding. Now he liked the emptiness even less.

His arms crossed over his chest, he reached a hand into his jacket and gripped the S9 pistol as he looked right, then left, and walked to the third building, the one that had not been burned.

As he took a step, he felt pressure on the spot between his eyebrows. It was not hot or hard. As he reached a finger to touch the spot, he saw the scarlet light play on his fingertips. It was a laser, an old-fashioned aiming device. Someone wanted him to know there was a gun trained on his head.

Watson stopped. He left the pistol in his jacket and held his hands out so that anyone watching would know they were empty.

He waited. No one spoke. The person aiming the laser did not ask for his name or tell him to go away, and the laser continued to shine on him.

Keeping his hands up and out, Watson traced the beam to an open window four floors up. He saw the pixel-sized glowing red dot and the barrel of the rifle below it.

A young woman came out of the building. Moving with graceful self-assurance, she picked her way toward Watson. She stopped twenty feet away from him, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

The girl was pretty, but Watson did not care. He could still feel the laser on his forehead. He could feel his heart pounding. He said, “Governor Hughes sent for me.”

She said, “I doubt that,” and turned to leave.

Beginning to panic, Watson said, “It’s the truth. He sent the message to Admiral Cutter.”

She stopped and stared at him quizzically. “What message?”

“He said that he had Howard Tasman. He told the admiral not to send a clone.”

“You’re not a clone,” the girl agreed.

“I work for Admiral Cutter.”

Her long blond hair hid the discreet earpiece that she wore. Watson didn’t notice it until she pressed a finger against her ear. She stood listening for a moment, then she said, “He says you can come to the building, but he’ll kill you if you’re lying.”

“Who will kill me?” asked Watson.

“Mr. Ray Freeman, that’s who. He’s the one who sent the message.”

Freeman was not one of the three armed men who met Watson as the woman led him to the door of the building. Those men were just over six feet, athletic, and so uniform in appearance that Watson nearly mistook them for some new class of clone. He thought they might be brothers.

The men moved in quick, precise motions. One held the door, another stood to the side, pointing a military-grade M27, the third dodged behind Watson and shoved him into the building. Watson didn’t know about the other two, but the one who shoved him had powerful arms.

“Ease up, Liston,” said the one at the door.

The girl gave Watson an apologetic glance. She said, “This is only the welcoming committee, just wait until you meet Freeman.”

Watching the three men, Watson saw what they were hiding. They were scared. Their eyes darted back and forth. They spoke in fast bursts. They were irritable, men on edge.

Watson watched the girl and realized that she, too, was scared. She hid it better than the three men; but for all of her talk about the terrors of Freeman, she was petrified of something else.

One of the men—Watson thought it might have been Liston, he seemed to be the man in charge—shoved Watson into the wall, then searched him for weapons. Without saying a word, he reached into Watson’s jacket and pulled out the S9 pistol. He said, “You’ll be safer without this.”

They stood in a spacious lobby with marble floors and leather furniture. Elevator doors opened at the back wall, and out walked Ray Freeman, tall and massive and dressed in combat armor.

Watson, who stood six-foot-five, was used to being the
tallest man wherever he went. With Freeman in the room, he felt a disorienting shudder to his psyche. At a glance, Watson could tell that Freeman was taller, stronger, older, more dangerous.

He had dark skin and nearly black eyes. The icy indifference in his expression revealed nothing. He had a rifle and an oversized particle-beam cannon strapped to his back. Bandoliers packed with ammunition and weapons crisscrossed his chest.

To Watson, Freeman personified death.

A tiny man with white hair stood beside Freeman. At first, Watson thought the white-haired man might have been a dwarf, because the top of his head was even with the big man’s chest; then he remembered Freeman’s height and realized that the white-haired man might have been five-eight or even five-nine. It was Gordon Hughes, the governor of Mars.

Freeman asked, “Do you still work for Harris?”

Watson shook his head. He said, “I think he was reprogrammed.”

Freeman nodded, and asked, “If you’re not with Harris, who are you with?”

“Admiral Cutter.”

“Does he know what’s happening in the spaceport?” asked Hughes.

Watson said, “Nobody knows what is happening. You sent us a message about having Howard Tasman; that’s the only thing that anybody knows.”

Hughes looked up at Freeman in astonishment, and asked, “You got a message through?”

Freeman ignored him. He asked, “Where is Harris now?”

“He’s retired. Cutter relieved him of command.”

“Gone to the islands?” Freeman asked.

“I don’t know where he went,” Watson admitted. “Admiral Cutter relieved him of command, and that was the last I heard.”

“He relieved Harris of command?” asked Hughes. “He relieved Harris, and he’s still alive? That’s a good sign. Maybe there’s hope.”

Freeman did not answer. He listened and considered the news.

Watson said, “If that’s Harris.”

“What do you mean, ‘If that’s Harris’?” asked Hughes.

“I saw a video feed of you assassinating Harris.” Watson spoke to Freeman, not Hughes.

“You shot Harris?” asked Hughes.

Freeman did not answer, though the slightest of smiles formed on his lips.

“What about Tasman?” asked Watson. “You said you had him.”

“He’s upstairs resting,” said Hughes.

“He’s the one who got us in this cockspeck,” said one of the bodyguards. “Him and Harris.”

“Things never went back to normal after Harris arrived,” said Hughes. “They’ve been blocking all communications.”

“Who?” asked Watson. “Is it the Martian Legion?”

Freeman said nothing.

Hughes said, “The Martian Legion? Gawd, you’re not still talking about the Martian Legion; Harris massacred those misguided bastards.”

Location: Hawaii
Date: May 1, 2519

I wasn’t under arrest, or Cutter would have locked me in a brig. I wasn’t under house arrest, either. I lived in officer housing on Kaneohe Marine Base, and I could come and go as I pleased.

I was under surveillance. They—“they” probably meaning Naval Intelligence—had people watching my house. When I borrowed a jeep from the motor pool, it came complete with a tracking device in the steering column—a small sender about the size of a ladybug. It included a microphone, a camera, a stress sensor that read my pulse and heart rate, and a locator—a marvel of eavesdropping engineering.

The incompetent speck who installed the device did a shitty job. I didn’t even need to break anything to find it. Running my hand along the bottom of the steering column, I felt a tiny pimple, and there it was. I could have yanked the device, but I didn’t think they’d let me off base without some kind of tracking device. Had I not found it, I would have still assumed it was there, just like I assumed there was a backup monitor hidden somewhere else in the jeep.

I drove the jeep to the front gate, and the guard let me out.

Oahu had bases for all of the branches, an Air Force base and a Naval yard along its south shore, an Army base in its central region, and a Marine base in the northeast.

In my borrowed jeep, I set out to exercise. I drove a few miles and parked near a long stretch of sandy beach.

It was a beautiful day, bright sun, turquoise water, powder blue sky. The Hawaiian summer had already dried out the brush growing on the nearby hills, turning it gray.

The sun-warmed sand felt good under my bare feet, and the temperature of the water was comfortable as I entered the shallows. Two feet deep, the ocean was clear as glass. I could see the sand beneath me and could watch for rocks as I started my run.

The sun beat down on my head and shoulders, and the water fought against my stride. Fifty yards out, surfers caught waves on boards and kayaks. Kids built sand castles on the beach. Dogs played. A little mongrel kept up with me for a few yards, running sideways along the beach so it could bark and snarl in my direction.

The heat, the air, and the exercise worked in concert to clear my thoughts. My thoughts. I kept wrestling the same questions. I remembered everything that happened on Mars, a full week’s worth of events; but the details remained hazy. I remembered landing in the spaceport and fighting the Martian Legion, but very little in between.

How had I lost those days?

I usually preferred swimming to jogging. I liked diving, my lungs burning as I struggled to wring energy out of every oxygen molecule. I liked pushing myself to see how deep I could go without wearing breathing equipment. I liked the feel of gliding through water.

In the past, I preferred swimming to running; but ever since returning from Mars, the thought of swimming made me nervous. I wasn’t sure why. I used to ignore my fears, but now I was giving in to them.

I stopped running and turned away from the shore. The water was only up to my knees at this point. I waded into thigh-deep water and paused. A swell rolled past. That first cold splash across my crotch was always the most bracing.

The water around me was the color of clean glass. It turned darker as I looked farther out. The bluing started a few yards away. Then there was the drop, where the ocean turned royal blue.

Before going to Mars, I could not have resisted the urge to dive into those depths. They called to me even now. Little islands rose out of the water not far from me. I wondered if I could reach them, dared myself to try.

I took another step out. The sky was bright, and the horizon
was a perfect division of pale sky and blue sea; but in my mind, I saw water so cold that the world seemed to freeze around it. I saw strange shapes gliding in water as dark as ink.

Looking for fins cutting cross the surface of the depths, I took another step out. The water came up to my waist. Cool water on a warm day, it felt refreshing.

I started to dive, but that was as far as I got. I stood there another minute, staring out to sea, hating the invisible barrier that stood in my way; and then I turned and walked back to my jeep.

Someone was tailing me.

They drove the most nondescript car they could find, a boxy white sedan that I might have mistaken for a tourist rental had it not had darkened windows.

These guys were not from Naval Intelligence. The swabbie spooks didn’t need to follow me; they had doped my jeep and programmed their satellites to track me. I couldn’t pick my nose without those clones watching, so why send a car to follow? Even military redundancy has its limits.

The car traveled a hundred yards back as I drove toward the base, then turned into a neighborhood as I reached the gate.
Well-trained monkeys,
I thought.
They’re smart enough to watch the gate instead of the subject.
Built on a small peninsula, Kaneohe Marine Base had only one entrance. Watch that gate, and they would spot me when I left again.

The sergeant at the gate saluted me as I entered.

I drove to my billet. Having been relieved of command, I should not have had access to weapons, such as grenades and S9 stealth pistols; but I was on a Marine base. Relieved of command or not, I was among friends. My first day on base, a captain had dropped by to look in on me and told me about the box of weapons he’d hidden in my closet.

I pulled out the small box and removed the grenade. It was the size of a golf ball, all black, with a little screen for setting detonation parameters. Not wanting to take any innocent bystanders with me, I selected the lowest possible setting. On high yield, the blast from this grenade would conflagrate half a city block. On low yield, it wouldn’t do much more than spray my guts and ceiling into the neighbor’s yard.

I held the grenade in my left hand, studied it carefully, and pulled the pin. The countdown would not begin until I released
the lever that my thumb now pressed. I released it. I had known I would be able to release the lever even as I had pulled the grenade out of the box. Now I sat and watched as the seconds ticked down on the screen. When the screen reached two, I casually covered the lever with my thumb and replaced the pin. I had no doubt in my mind that I could have waited those last two seconds. Had I wanted to, I could have detonated that grenade.