[Secret Project] Chapter 4

Dupes Chapter 4: Fred Dead Resorption

I was at the Academy when it happened. A wave of disorientation washed over me, as if I’d just downed half a bottle of whiskey. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor. My chair lay on its side. Lucie was laughing at me. I looked up at her in groggy confusion.

Her laughter died, and her expression turned to one of concern. “You okay there?”

Wordlessly, I staggered to my feet, picking up my chair with trembling hands, before collapsing into it. No. No I was not okay. I’d just drowned. Hadn’t I?

“Fritz, you look like shit,” Lucie said. “Should I call a doctor or…?”

I shook my head, still unable to get words out. A jumble of memories were swirling about in my head, colliding with one another and becoming hopelessly tangled. My memories, and…

And his. My clone, Fred. That was what had happened. Fred had just died, and his memories had transferred to me. As we’d suspected, our memories right up until he found himself in that broom closet were identical. Our lives had diverged over the following few weeks, forming two separate memory strands. Those strands had just merged in me, the survivor.

This kinda blew the whole parallel world theory out of the water, didn’t it? If he’d travelled here from another version of Earth, then died here, there was no reason for me to get his memories. And lab-grown clones? Forget about it. Whatever had happened had been even weirder than either of those things. I was out of ideas that made even the slightest bit of sense. Now that he was gone, I might never know the truth.

But figuring out the truth wasn’t first on my agenda tonight. I had a more immediate problem. If Fred’s shady colleagues at Quick-Load fished his body out of the water, things could get complicated. Someone might connect him to me.

Had Fred’s death even been an accident? Bertram might have deliberately knocked my clone into the water to silence him. It didn’t seem likely though, not least because it hadn’t just been Fred who went into the water, but the service mech as well. Those things weren’t cheap.

Accident or not, the death of a worker would normally result in some sort of investigation. But if they were smuggling weapons out of the country for M3 or some other syndicate, Quick-Load wouldn’t want the enforcers or anyone else to come sniffing. So what would they do?

Dispose of the body. Pretend it didn’t happen.

It was the obvious answer, although granted, I didn’t know the minds of criminals. If they did make Fred disappear, it would solve my problem quite nicely. It would save me having to explain to investigators how I could be alive and dead at the same time. I’d have to go all-in on the twin story, and that story wouldn’t hold up to an in-depth investigation. There was no record of his existence.

“Speak to me, Fritz,” Lucie said. “If you’re having some kind of medical episode, you should see a doctor. Because I’m not doing mouth-to-mouth. Just so you know.”

I started at the sound of her voice. I’d been so lost in thought that I’d forgotten she was there. Recovering quickly, I quipped, “Considering where your mouth has been, I’ve got no problem with that.”

Her artificial hand flexed menacingly at me.

“If it’ll put your mind at ease, this isn’t a medical thing,” I said hastily. “I feel fine now, apart from…”

I trailed off, staring at her prosthetic. An idea had just occurred to me. Possibly the worst idea ever—or maybe the best. At that moment, I felt it could go either way.

“Apart from…?” Lucie prompted.

“What’s the range on that hand of yours?” I asked, ignoring her prompt.

“Remote control range?”

“Yep.”

“A few hundred metres, give or take,” she said.

I nodded to myself. That should be enough. “And that thing is waterproof, right?”

“Wouldn’t be much of a prosthetic if it wasn’t.”

“Could you hook up a camera and microphone to it?”

“Already have ’em.” She plugged a cable into her arm socket, and attached the other end to a flickery black-and-white video screen. She opened her palm and waved her hand around. The image on the screen followed her movements.

“That’s perfect,” I said. Actually, the video was grainy and indistinct, but it would serve my purpose.

Detaching the cable, Lucie turned back to me, her eyes narrowing. “What’s this about?”

I hesitated. Did I really want to bring her into this? It wasn’t her problem. Hells, it might not even be my problem. I just wanted to know one way or the other what they did with Fred’s body. It might mean the difference between having to drop everything and skip town, or being able to go on with my life as though nothing had happened. Lucie’s unique capabilities might give me a way to find out without having to show my face at Quick-Load.

“Would you be up for a bit of spying?” I asked.

Her eyes narrowed yet further. “Spying on who?”

“Whom,” I corrected. “If you squint any harder, your eyes will pop.”

She proved me wrong in the next moment, when her eyes remained intact even as she went full death-glare on me.

“Whoa,” Jaheem said, drawing a startled look from us both. Neither of us having noticed him enter the room. “Down girl. Don’t tear his throat out. Then we’d have to find somewhere to dispose of the body.”

A choking sound escaped my lips. Luckily I wasn’t drinking, or I’d have done an actual spit-take.

Jaheem looked at me with a bewildered expression. “What’s gotten into him?”

Lucie just shook her head.

“If only you knew,” I wheezed, as I felt insane laughter bubble up from within. When finally I recovered my composure, I turned back to Lucie. “You want to know who I want us to spy on? I don’t have time to give you the full story right now. Suffice it to say they’re criminals. Probably.”

Both of them looked at me as though my head had just spun a full three-sixty degrees. “Criminals,” Jaheem repeated. “Then call the enforcers.”

“If only it were that simple,” I said.

“It is that simple,” Jaheem insisted. “Witness a crime. Report the crime. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.”

I let out a heavy sigh. I really didn’t want to get into a lengthy explanation. Not least because they wouldn’t believe me. After the phone prank Fred had played on Jaheem a few weeks back, I’d told them the voice on the other end of the phone was just my relative visiting from out of town. Over the past weeks, I’d come close to revealing the truth to them several times, before pulling back. Now, that ship had sailed. Simply telling them wouldn’t be enough. Without physical evidence, they’d think I was crazy or playing another prank.

“Look,” I said. “I’ll tell you as much as I can on the way, and more once this is over. But I’m on a clock here. If you’re with me on this, we need to get down to the harbour, pronto.”

Jaheem looked incredulous. “What, now? It’s the middle of the night! We were about to head home.”

“Technically you don’t need to come, Jaheem. But I know you will if she does, so…” I shrugged.

“Let’s do this,” Lucie said.

Jaheem turned a pleading expression on her.

“Come on, loverboy,” she told him. “It sounds like fun.”

“I was hoping for a different kind of fun,” he admitted.

“Later,” she murmured.

I rolled my eyes at him. “I know it’s a terrible sacrifice, my friend. But please keep it in your pants a while longer.”

He turned to me with steely eyes. “You owe us big time for this, bro.”

“I know. Let’s get going.”

We had to lug the bulky video display and some other lab equipment out the door, but fortunately we wouldn’t have to carry it across the campus, nor take the metrocable into the city. Lucie had a skimmer parked outside. While en route, I gave them a rundown on what I thought Quick-Load were up to.

“Seriously?” Jaheem said. “M3? M-fucking-3? You want us to spy on some of the most dangerous criminals on the planet?”

“We don’t know they’re affiliated with M3,” I said. “I suspect they’re weapon smugglers of some description, though.”

“Oh, that’s fine, then,” he sarcasmed. “Just your ordinary, everyday, garden variety weapon smugglers. Hold on. How do you even know about these guys?”

“I know a guy who worked for them,” I said cagily.

We drove through wind and sheets of heavy rain, until I directed Lucie to park in an alley a short distance down the road from the Quick-Load warehouse.

With the video screen perched on a seat in the back of the skimmer, Lucie plugged herself in, and dealt her hand. I watched with baited breath as the camera view skittered up the side of the road, keeping well clear of the overflowing stormwater drains. As I’d expected, there were no enforcers or emergency response crews here. Just the usual bunch of burly guys in black clothes standing guard in the rain.

“I don’t like the look of those guys,” Jaheem muttered.

“I’m sure they wouldn’t like the look of you, either,” I said. “Better stay out of sight.”

“Oh, you think?” Lucie said. “If I lose my hand over this, you’re footing the bill for the components of the next one—and helping me build it.”

“It won’t come to that,” I said, praying to the admins that I was right.

The hand squeezed through a hole in the fence, and scurried around the warehouse. It crawled through near-total darkness, before emerging around the back, where it afforded us a clear view of the more well-lit wharf.

There, I could see a crane hoisting the twisted frame of Fred’s service mech out of the water under Moh’s supervision. No sign of a body in the cockpit, but the camera image was too poor to make out much detail under these low-light conditions.

“Can you get a bit closer?” I asked.

Gritting her teeth, Lucie sent her little minion scurrying over the wharf, keeping to the shadows as best she could.

Then, without warning, the image vanished in a hiss of static. Lucie swore.

“What just happened?” I asked.

“Lost signal,” she said.

“I thought you said it had a range of a few hundred metres!” I said.

“Give or take.”

Now it was my turn to narrow my eyes. “Give or take what?”

“Give or take a few hundred metres.”

I groaned. “This was a terrible idea.”

Lucie moved to get out of the skimmer, but Jaheem stopped her. “Are you nuts? What if they see you?”

“I just need to get a little closer,” she said, shrugging out of his grip. Before he could stop her, she was out the door and running up the road.

Exchanging a knowing glance, Jaheem and I followed in hot pursuit. The three of us crouched behind an embankment, not far from where her hand had gone through the fence.

“This is bad,” Lucie hissed. “I should be close enough to feel the signal by now, but I can’t.”

“Dammit,” I muttered. “So, it’s either a bug, a hardware failure, or…”

“Or someone found it and disabled it,” Lucie said.

I glanced between the two of them, weighing up my options. Finally I sighed. “You two get back to the skimmer. I’ve already asked enough of you. I’ll go get your hand.”

Before they could object, I dashed out from behind the embankment and vaulted over the fence, surprising even myself. Wincing at the loud splosh my feet made as I landed in a puddle on the other side, I ran to the shadowy wall of the warehouse. Too late to chicken out now. I skirted the wall until I’d reached the back of the building, then peered around the corner, heart thumping fit to burst.

There it was, standing in plain sight. Lucie’s mobile hand wasn’t moving, but nor did it look busted. An LED glowed faintly on its side.

If it wasn’t physically disabled, then it was either a software problem or…could something have jammed the signal? Something on that ship, perhaps?

Later, I told myself. Worry about how it happened later. Right now, I just needed to snatch up the wayward hand and get out before anyone noticed.

I nearly made it.

Halfway back to the safety of the shadows, clutching Lucie’s prosthetic to my chest, I froze in my tracks as a voice bellowed out across the wharf.

“Hey you!”

Moh’s voice. Oh bugger. This was bad. Glancing back, I saw the metal gleam of a pistol in his hand.

In that moment, a sudden dizzy feeling overcame me. A sense of being in multiple places at once. I knew that feeling, but I didn’t have time to consider the implications, because whatever had happened, I was still staring down the barrel of a gun.

Now I was feeling a little stupid that I hadn’t brought a weapon of my own. I hadn’t planned to put myself in harm’s way, alright? Also, I didn’t own a gun, and I couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with one. Those damn barns; always dodging at the last second.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Me being an idiot. Give me a break. I was new at this.

Speaking of breaks, I could make a break for it, but I didn’t fancy my chances. Even if I got away from Moh, those burly guys out front would chase me down and play hacky sack with my balls. And the worst thing I could do was lead them back to my friends. Better to face the devil I knew.

Letting Lucie’s squirming metal hand drop to the ground, I watched through the corner of my eye as it skittered around the corner, before turning its camera back towards me. I nodded, and it backed away into the shadows. Good. My hunch had been correct. Now that it was further from the ship, Lucie had regained control of it.

I approached Moh as calmly as I could with a gun pointed at my face. As I came near, he slowly lowered his weapon—but not all the way. He did not look as relieved as I hoped he would.

“Fritz!?” he hissed. “We thought you were dead, kid.”

His words implied they hadn’t found the body yet. The battered service mech was standing right there. I’d have thought all they had to do was look inside. I peered up at the cracked windscreen, expecting to see a corpse with my own face.

All I saw was a pair of empty seats.

Realising he was expecting an answer, I blurted the first words that came into my head. “Do I look dead to you?” In hindsight, probably not the best thing to say to a guy holding a gun.

Moh’s eyes gleamed in the dim, uneven light. “You get smart with me, kid, then yeah. Yeah you do.”

I held up my hands in what I hoped was a suitably placating gesture. “Look, it’s been a long day—night, whatever. But I’m still here.” With a low mutter, I couldn’t resist adding, “No thanks to Bertram.”

Moh’s eyes gleamed in the dim, uneven light. “I’ve already had…words with that bumblefuck. Don’t worry about him. Worry about me. Start by telling me where the hells you been.”

Thinking fast, I came up with what might be a plausible explanation. “I washed up further along the shore. Got back here as soon as I could.”

“You aren’t even wearing the same clothes,” Moh pointed out.

“Huh?” I looked down at my waterlogged pants. Then I remembered. Fred had been wearing warm, weatherproof gear—not this light, tidy outfit, more suited to indoor work. “I…went home to change.”

“Soon as you could, eh?” he growled.

“Well…alright, slight exaggeration.”

He put his nose to the air and sniffed loudly. “Smell that? You smell bullshit? I smell bullshit.” His eyes bored into mine. “You a blue?”

“W-what?” I stammered, caught off guard by the unexpected accusation. “Absolutely not!”

For those of you unfamiliar with Zealandian slang, blues were our local enforcers, responsible for maintaining order in the kingdom. At least in theory. In practice, it was sometimes hard to tell the difference between them and the syndicates they were supposed to be keeping in check.

Moh waved his hand dismissively, without seeming to notice that he still held a gun in that hand. “Just messing with you, kid. If you was a blue, we’d know it. If you ever so much as spoke to a blue, we’d know it. Understand?”

Without taking my eyes off his weapon, I nodded emphatically. I didn’t know if this ‘we’ he referred to were M3, but I was becoming increasingly certain Quick-Load was just the dorsal fin of a much bigger fish. A fish I did not want coming after me.

“Good,” Moh reached out to tousle my hair. “You’re done for tonight. Be back here same time tomorrow.”

“You’re not firing me?” I wished he would fire me—or rather, fire Fred. I could quit, but…no, quitting right now would likely bring about the abrupt termination of my existence on this planet.

“’Course not, kid. You’re a good pilot. Wouldn’t want to let that talent go to waste.” He also didn’t want me out of his sight for too long, I suspected.

Sighing inwardly, I told him what he wanted to hear. “Same time tomorrow.”

As I turned to leave, he called out, “One more thing…” He pointed at a sodden bundle of clothing lying at the feet of the mech. “Some of ’em might be salvageable.”

They were the torn clothes Fred had been wearing when he died. Wordlessly, I picked them up. Had they stripped them from his corpse?

“I didn’t know you liked skinny dipping, kid,” Moh said with a faint grin.

Clearly, Moh believed Fred had slipped out of his clothes when he escaped the submerged mech. But that hadn’t been what had happened. He hadn’t escaped. He’d died, and then…

And then his body had disappeared, leaving only the clothes behind.

“Well don’t just stand there,” Moh growled. “Go ho…” He trailed off, glaring at something behind me. “What’ve they dragged in now?”

A pair of toughs from out front were leading a bedraggled figure up the wharf towards us. My breath caught in my throat. Had my friends gotten themselves—

No, this wasn’t Lucie or Jaheem.

“He was skulking around in the warehouse,” one of the thugs said. “This the guy you was—wuh?” He squinted at me, scratching his head in confusion. It was easy to see why.

The guy they’d brought before us had my face. But he wasn’t Fred. Or at least, not the same Fred. His clothes were identical to mine in every way. And in his hand, he held Lucie’s prosthetic.

He was a new copy of me. And something told me he wasn’t the only one.