Darren Lemke - Gemini Man

“You okay, son?” Verris asked Junior.

Junior blinked at him. What the hell did Verris expect him to say to that— Sure, Dad, but I think I need a hug?

But Verris had already turned to Henry. “Know where I got the idea?” he said. “It was in Khafji.” Verris was actually smiling as he set his weapon down on a nearby shelf, one of the few that were still standing. “Watching you go house to house, wishing I had a whole division of soldiers as good as you, wondering if that could be possible. You should be flattered.”

Henry gave a single, humorless laugh. “ You should be dead. ”

Verris chuckled, as if Henry had said something witty. “You saw what I saw over there: friends being sent home in pine boxes or struggling with life-changing injuries. And the atrocities. Why should we accept that if there’s a better way?”

Keeping his eyes on Henry, he moved closer to Junior. “And look what we created.” He gestured at Junior, like a game-show host showing off the grand prize; it made Junior want to slap his face until his head fell off. “He’s got both of us in him. Don’t you think your country deserves a perfect version of you?”

“There is no perfect version of me,” Henry snapped. “Or him —” he nodded at Junior. “Or anybody. ”

“No?” Verris looked down at the dead clone, his face sad. “ He was on his way to Yemen—the perfect soldier for the job. Instead, thanks to you, his place will be taken by someone with parents . Someone who feels pain and fear—which we had edited out of this soldier—someone with just as many weaknesses as the terrorists we’re trying to kill. You’re going to tell me that’s better?”

Junior’s own words came back to him: You made a person out of another person.

Except a person had parents. A person felt pain and fear. If Verris had edited those things out of this soldier, what was left that made him a person ?

“You’re talking about people , Clay,” Henry was saying. “Screwing with their humanity to make them into your idea of the perfect soldier.”

Verris nodded as if he thought Henry was finally getting it. “Why not? Think how many American families we could spare. Nobody’s son or daughter would ever have to die. Vets wouldn’t ever come home with PTSD and kill themselves. We could keep the whole world safe without any actual grief. So who would I be hurting?”

“You hurt him ,” Henry said, gesturing at the dead man on the floor. “Like you hurt Junior. Like you hurt me. You can’t just use people and throw them away—suck them dry, take their humanity , leave them with nothing — ”

“Henry…” Verris shook his head, looking disappointed that the source material for his magnificent clone project didn’t understand after all. “This is the most humane thing we’ve ever done.”

Junior had had enough. “How many more of me are running around out there?” he demanded.

“ None .” Verris seemed surprised by the question. “There’s only one you, Junior.”

Junior and Henry looked at each other; he gave Henry a barely perceptible nod to let him know he wasn’t buying it and Henry did the same.

“ He was just a weapon,” Verris made a dismissive gesture at the dead man. “ You are my son —and I love you as much as any father ever loved any kid.”

Henry was right, Junior thought as he drew his Glock; Verris should be dead. “I didn’t have a father,” he told Verris. “Goodbye, Clay—”

Like that, Henry’s hand was on his, his touch gentle but strong, making him lower the gun. Junior stared at him in amazement. Henry shook his head.

“So what the hell do we do with him—turn him in?” Junior felt as if he were boiling with rage inside, on the verge of exploding. “You know they’re not going to try him and they sure won’t shut down his lab. We have to end this right now!”

“Look at me,” Henry said.

He didn’t want to, didn’t want to look at anything. The only thing he wanted to see was Clay Verris’s face when he pulled the trigger.

“ Look at me. ” Henry’s voice was calm, even tender, and Junior obeyed. “You pull that trigger and you’re going to break something inside of yourself that will never get fixed.”

Junior gazed into Henry’s eyes; they were so much like his own and yet Henry had seen so much more, knew so much more. He was only starting to understand how much he didn’t know. But one thing he knew for certain: Henry had never lied to him. Clay Verris, however, had lied about everything, even about who he really was.

“Don’t,” Henry said. “Let it go. Give it to me.”

Henry’s hand was still pressing down on his, steadily but gently, not trying to overpower him but to show him, help him. All the resistance drained out of Junior and he lowered the gun.

“You don’t want those ghosts,” Henry said as he took the Glock from him. “Trust me.”

Then he turned to Verris and shot him.

Verris dropped with a neat hole just above his eyebrows and a much larger, messier wound in the back of his head, where the bullet had exited with most of his brains and half his skull.

Junior gaped at Henry, wide-eyed, unable to move or speak.

But speaking wasn’t necessary. Henry jerked a thumb at the back door. Junior nodded and they carried Danny out between them.

Standing at the Copper Ground counter, Janet Lassiter was beyond pissed off and on the fast track to meltdown.

Every day there was another crisis she had to deal with, another five-alarm fire the agency and/or Clay Fucking Verris expected her to put out with nothing more than a squirt gun and half a pail of sand—and more often than not, the squirt gun was loaded with gasoline and the sand was actually gunpowder.

Yet somehow she always figured out how to pull it all together and keep the whole goddam shit-show ticking right along when she could have called in sick. Or suddenly decided to take all sixty-four weeks of vacation time she had built up. She could have even quit outright, walked away and never looked back. Talk about AMF! That would do it for the whole sorry bunch of them, Gemini included. But no, she kept coming in every day without fail. Good old dependable Janet Lassiter, lifeguard at the covert intelligence swimming pool, where there was no shallow end and everyone was always in over their heads.

And did anyone appreciate it? Did they hell. The whole time she’d been in this job, the closest thing she’d ever gotten to a thank you was—well, she couldn’t remember any more. The job had eaten her life and rewarded her with constipation, gingivitis, and high blood pressure, not to mention the never-ending joys of working in a boys’ club, with Clay Verris as the head boy.

So with all she had to put up with, was a goddam latte every morning really too much to ask? Ten minutes she’d been waiting for her soy latte— ten minutes , which put her behind schedule. She’d already paid but it wouldn’t ruin her if she just walked out and went somewhere else. The stupid barista would probably call her name three times, then drink it herself.

But dammit she didn’t want to go somewhere else. Copper Ground was a goddam hipster hangout but she didn’t mind too much because the coffee was actually good, they never ran out of soy milk, and, most importantly, the place was closer and more convenient to her office than any other coffee shop. But this was the third day in a row they’d kept her waiting so long she was running late.