Steven Kent - Rogue Clone

Fortunately for me, Amos Crowley was also a military man, the kind of man who understands the importance of good intelligence. He knew everything he needed to know about the Unified Authority military complex. Hell, he helped build it. What he did not know was how much I knew about his plans and how much of that knowledge I might have communicated to my superiors.

Staring down at me, his urbane smile as bright as ever, Crowley said, “Governor, Colonel Harris and I have some matters to discuss.”

“There are the articles …” Yamashiro began.

“Articles of agreement stipulating the humane treatment of prisoners,” Crowley said, sounding bored. “Yoshi, I assure you that Colonel Harris will receive humane treatment. Now, if you would excuse us, my interrogation team should be arriving.”

Yamashiro listened to this and appeared to consider his options. Lying down on the table, I felt like I was watching two dinosaurs battle above me. Yoshi Yamashiro, the short, solid man with the powerful build, was the herbivore—the Stegosaurus fighting for its life. Crowley, ever the carnivore, was the Tyrannosaurus rex.

“I will speak with you again,” Yamashiro said to me. He nodded to Crowley and left.

Crowley looked away from me to watch Yamashiro leave. When he looked down again, he had an expression that reminded me of a wolf staring at a wounded lamb. “I’ll give you one chance. How did you know about the attack on Tuscany?”

“I didn’t,” I said. There was no reason to tell Crowley the truth at this point. He would not have believed me. He would have tortured me to confirm what I said and to make certain I told him everything. I did not want to be tortured. More than anything I had ever wanted in my life, I did not want to be tortured.

“How did you warn the Navy about the attack?”

“I did not know about the attack,” I repeated. I was sticking to the truth in case they were monitoring me for physical responses. I knew how I warned the Navy, but I had not known about the attack.

Crowley pursed his lips. “I see,” he said. He reached a hand along the side of the table and I heard a snap as he flipped a switch. There were several video monitors around the table, just at the edge of the light. One down toward my feet showed body readings. Multi-colored lines ran across the screen displaying my pulse, my heartbeat, my stress level, and my brain activity. A score in the top right corner of the screen showed a computer-calculated projection of the veracity of everything I said based on those body readings.

“It would be pointless to lie, Harris. You know that.” He paused, waited a moment for me to study my readings on the video screen, then repeated his questions. “How did you know about the attack? How did you send your message?”

“I did not know about the attack,” I said.

“I suppose it is possible that some U.A. admiral got lucky and happened to station fifty ships around Tuscany,” Crowley said in a confiding voice, “but the monitor reading your vital signs does not seem to believe you.”

My pulse and heartbeat remained steady, but the lines showing my stress level and brain activity had turned into saw blades.

“I think there are things that you are not telling me, Harris. I’m not good at interrogation. We have other people who specialize in it. I’m betting that you will be a lot more helpful once they have a word with you.”

He stepped out of the room leaving me alone to think about what might happen to me. They would torture me. They would use every old and new technology at their disposal to make me suffer. The old forms of torture had not been forgotten. They were brutal and barbaric. The new forms were surgically precise, left little damage, and were incredibly effective. And I was going to go through this for what? To protect the nation I hated? To get paid by Huang? To get revenge on the men who killed Klyber? More likely, I would allow myself to be tortured because of neural programming. I was designed not to back down …and because, despite it all, I wanted to protect the Republic, earn my bounty from Huang, and kill the men who killed Klyber. But above all, I was going to be tortured because my programming would not let me help the enemy.

The chemical compound in the syringe was not lethal, but the medical technician let me know that having electricity-conducting toxins flowing through my veins was not good for my health. “Taken in large quantities,” he said, “it might cause cancer.” He did not smile as he said this, though he must have known that a long bout with cancer was the least of my worries. He also told me that the toxins would dissolve in my blood. Two or three injections, he said, should not cause permanent damage; and in his experience, no one had required more than two sessions with this particular compound.

After giving me the injection, the technician left the room and I was alone. My fingers tingled and my palms were covered with sweat. Lying alone in the darkness wearing nothing but my briefs, I noticed the air getting colder and wondered if that chill was in the room or in me. I had time to think about how I could twist information. I practiced lies and half-truths in my head and watched the way the monitor reacted as I convoluted facts.

I did not know if anyone had ever tortured or even interrogated a Liberator clone. I did not know what kind of strength the hormone—the adrenaline and endorphins— would offer. It would certainly keep my thoughts clear, but that might make the pain more acute.

At the moment, I saw no reason to suffer for the Unified Authority, the pan-galactic republic that created me. Yes, I had been made and raised by that government, but I had also been banned by it. The Senate passed laws to outlaw my existence. Che Huang sent me out to do his bidding, but he was no friend. The patriotic stirrings that I once felt for the Republic had been nothing but a misconception.

I looked around as best I could. Everything within that cone of blinding light shining over my table was bleached white by its brightness. Everything beyond the edge of the light was nearly invisible to me, shadows at most. Time moved slowly. I thought about the orphanage in which I grew up. I had a mentor at the orphanage—Aleg Oberland. He was the man who convinced me to follow current events. He kept in touch with me after I left the orphanage. He sent me two or three letters per year over the mediaLink.

I thought about Vince Lee, my old friend from my days in the Marines. Vince and I went on leave together. We were in the same platoon and we survived the slaughter on Little Man together. He was still an officer in the Scutum-Crux Fleet.

How long would they leave me alone to think? Was this part of the process—letting the fear of torture weaken my resolve? Maybe they just wanted to wait until their chemicals spread through every cell of my body, running through my veins like a mouse in a maze. I made the mistake of staring straight up, and the light above my head shined into my eyes. When I looked away, orange and black dots filled my vision. And the room around me was filled with absolute silence.

Time continued to pass. I watched the heart, stress, and pulse lines on the monitor. Minutes done were minutes gone. I thought about the people I knew, the clones and officers in my past platoons. I did not care for the Unified Authority, nor did I feel that I owed it anything, but there were individuals who had mattered at one time or another. There was Sergeant Tabor Shannon, a Liberator. He and I got drunk together the night I learned that I was a clone. During the battle at Hubble, he and I went into a cave filled with Mogats. He never came out.

There was Captain Gaylan McKay, a natural-born who showed no prejudice against clones, not even Liberators. He died on Little Man. McKay’s last act was ordering me to leave him behind. How could I ever look these men in the eye …even in my dreams? These men died defending the Republic. They believed in it to the last.