Steven Kent - The Clone Republic

Lee had rented the house sight unseen based on Captain McKay’s recommendation. The place belonged to a retired combat officer who rented it to him for $200 per day. McKay said that that price was cheap, and that was undoubtedly correct. The truth was that everything in Honolulu was cheap; the U.A. government subsidized the economy and encouraged off-duty military men to visit. Rooms at the Hale Koa, for instance, were free to enlisted men.

I half expected to find that Lee had rented a dilapidated hut. When we reached the rough-hewn stone wall that surrounded the house, I thought Lee had the wrong address. The wall was tall and thick and made of perfectly matched lava stones. He typed a code into the computerized lock, and the gate slid open.

“Vince, you got this for two hundred dollars per day?” I asked.

Looking as stunned as I felt, Lee nodded. We stepped into a perfectly manicured courtyard. A pond ran one length of the yard. Reeds grew in the pond, and fish swam near the top of the water, causing ripples on its smooth surface.

A tree with white and yellow flowers stood in the center of the small courtyard. I stepped into its shade, and for the first time since I had landed, I felt a cool breeze. “Lee,” I said, “this is the prettiest place I have ever seen.”

Mynx’s eyes narrowed on its prey and its triangular ears smoothed back against its skull. It kept its gold and black body low to the ground, hiding in the brush as it prepared to pounce. The sinewy muscles in its haunches visibly tightened.

I leaned over and scooped Mynx up with one hand, and the cat purred as I lowered her into my lap. She had claws, this skinny feline, but she did not swipe at me. She stretched and made herself comfortable across my thighs, plucking gently at my pants with her claws. As Mynx curled up to sleep, her intended prey, a butterfly, flitted out of the garden.

“Careful, Wayson, you might get scratched,” Lee warned as he joined me for a beer in the courtyard.

“The note in the kitchen says that Mynx is friendly,” I said, absentmindedly stroking her back. She took a lazy swipe at my hand, but her claws were not extended.

“Don’t say that I didn’t warn you,” Lee said in a singsong voice. He flipped the cap off the old-fashioned bottle. “To many days of absolute boredom.”

I held up my bottle and nodded. Mynx, still lying across my lap, stretched her body and dug her claws into my legs again. I laughed, though it hurt a little.

Warm air, cool shade, cold beer, green plants, and garish flowers—it was paradise. “I don’t imagine that life gets much better than this,” I said.

“It beats the hell out of Hubble,” Lee said.

I saluted that comment with my bottle, though it reminded me of my open wounds. We found beer in the refrigerator. It tasted sweet, but it was weak. I could never have gotten drunk on the stuff.

“Hubble,” I said. “I was just starting to forget about that shit hole.” I rubbed Mynx behind her ears, and she purred.

“I saw you packing,” Lee said. “It looks like most of your clothes are government-issue. Want to do some shopping?” Unlike me, Lee owned plenty of civilian clothes.

“I’d like that,” I said. Sweat had soaked through the long-sleeved shirt I wore on the plane. At the moment, I was lounging with no shirt.

“Either that or you can go around in your armor. That ought to attract some scrub,” Lee said. “Scrub” was the term we used for one-night romances.

I looked down at the nearly sleeping cat on my lap. “Careful, Vince, or I might toss you a Mynx ball.”

In many ways Honolulu was designed to accommodate vacationing military men. The store owners recognized every clone as a potential customer. As we walked past storefronts and street-side vendors, people looked at Vince and launched into sales spiels or tried to attract his attention by yelling, “Hey, soldier!”

“Liberators must have come here a lot in the old days,” Lee commented. “They recognize you.” He never appreciated the tightrope act that the neural programming performed in his head.

We followed heavy foot traffic into an alley marked “International Marketplace.” “Waikiki Bazaar” would have been more appropriate. Once we entered the market we saw stands, carts, and small shops selling toys, tropical drinks, and gaudy clothing with overly bright colors.

Lee led me to a woman selling clothing out of a cart, which she kept shaded under a bright red canopy. The woman was tall…taller than me. She had long, blond hair that fell past her rather butch shoulders. The caked-on makeup around her eyes made her look old. Seeing Vince, she smiled daintily, and said, “Can I help you find something?”

“We’re looking for shirts,” he said.

“Oh, I’ve got shirts,” she said as she batted her eyes.

“We’ll have a look,” Vince said.

The woman watched as I sorted through a bin of T-shirts with pictures of colorful fish. The shirts and shorts on her cart looked like they might fall apart after a single wash. I felt threads break when I picked up a pair of shorts and snapped the waistband.

“Two shirts for ten dollars,” the woman said. “Five for twenty.”

“That’s cheap,” I whispered to Lee. He apparently thought that I wanted help haggling. “Twenty dollars!” he gasped with such awful melodrama that I wanted to laugh. “Twenty dollars for this? C’mon, Harris. No one in his right mind would pay these prices. Every cart on this street is selling the exact same shit.”

Twenty dollars for five shirts sounded good to me, no matter how poor the quality. I didn’t want them to last my career, just two weeks.

The woman gave Lee a wily smile. “Eighteen dollars, but you buy now. If you leave, that price goes away.”

“Is that a good deal?” I asked.

“I only know one way to find out,” Lee said loud enough so that the woman could hear. “Let’s go check some other stands.”

“She said she wouldn’t give us that price again,” I said.

“Look around here, Harris. This place is filled with carts just like this selling clothes just like these.” He spoke in a loud voice, making sure that the woman would hear. Even on vacation, Lee was political.

But Lee was right. The marketplace was crowded with stores selling bright shirts and shorts like the ones I was holding. And there I was, in my long-sleeved shirt and heavy and dark pants, sweating up buckets. Every shopkeeper in the International Marketplace would welcome me.

I decided to risk spoiling the deal. Purposely establishing eye contact with the woman, I tossed the shirts back into the bin and turned to leave.

“Twelve dollars,” she barked angrily. “Twelve dollars for five shirts or three pairs of shorts.”

“What do you think?” Lee asked.

“They’re not great, but they’ll hold up for the next two weeks,” I said.

“You have shit for taste, Marine,” Lee said.

“Get specked,” I said.

“Okay, smart guy,” Lee said. I did not like the mischievous smile that formed on his lips. He walked over to the woman and spoke to her in hushed tones that I could not hear.

“Mmmmm,” she said, bouncing her head in agreement. She turned to me and winked, putting up a finger to ask me to wait for a moment. When she returned, she held five genuinely nice shirts all neatly folded. She handed me the shirts.

“What do you think?” she asked.

I looked down and saw a photograph at the top of the pile. The woman had given me a portrait of herself. In the photo, she had a sly, alluring smile. She wore a bright pink bathing suit that did nothing to hide her masculine shoulders.

“Looks like you found yourself some scrub,” Lee said, choking down a laugh.