Birth of the Alliance (41 page)

Aaron hesitated again, and then opened the door slightly, allowing them to squeeze through into the room. Will wondered why Aaron was behaving in such a skittish fashion, but had his answer when Aaron shut the door.

A perfect replica of Aaron sat in a chair pushed up against the wall, hidden by the opening door. The clone wore a vacant expression. Will wondered if the man was tired.

“So… yes, I’ve experimented, as you can see.” Aaron nodded at his clone. “But it’s not working well. The clones can talk, but they have no depth of mind for intense conversation. They can follow precise directions, but struggle to follow subjective instruction or understand figures of speech.” He shrugged, glancing at his mirror image. “He’s pretty much useless.”

“But he’s… alive, right?” Hope asked.

Aaron shrugged. “Sure. He breathes, sleeps, and eats. No real control of bodily functions. He’s like an infant without a mind, and without the inherent cuteness babies bring. I don’t know why it happens like that. I can only speculate that the cloning function doesn’t work well on the brain.” He shrugged again. “Maybe we’ll figure out a way to improve things at some point.”

Will approached the clone, whose vacant expression showed no recognition of the fact that another person approached. “Hello, Aaron.”

The clone stirred slightly and blinked. “Hi.”

“What do you think of the weather today?”

“Good.”

“Are you afraid of dragons?”

“Good.”

“Do you agree with the basic tenets of Keynesian economics?”

“Good.”

Hope arched an eyebrow. “Well, if the Assassin decides to hold a deep conversation with a clone, the conversation might actually kill him. This could be interesting.”

Will thought for a moment before turning back to the original Aaron. “What else have you noticed about the clones?”

Aaron considered. “The key thing is that they don’t live very long. I don’t know if the apparently limited cognition has anything to do with it, but the clones I’ve created all die of seemingly natural causes inside a week of… birth.”

Will glanced at Hope. “I find our latest concept much less troubling now.”

Aaron looked at both of them. “What idea?”

“The Assassin doesn’t stop pursing his kill targets until those targets are dead,” Eva explained. “We’re trying to figure out how to convince him he’s killed his target—usually human—so that he moves on. Will’s wondering if we can swap out an original human for their clone and let the Assassin execute the clone.”

Aaron’s eyes widened. “I… I can see where that would be ethically troubling. And…” His eyes narrowed, his face adopting a thoughtful expression. “I can see where the issues I’ve described make the prospect of using clones much more attractive.”

Eva nodded. “Those issues make the clones seem more like machines than people, and the cruel reality that we are treating them as disposable seems less repugnant when seen that way. However, the question we must ask is this: are the clones sufficiently realistic to make the Assassin believe that he has killed his target?”

“There’s only one way to know for certain,” Will replied, his voice grave. He turned to Aaron. “What type of cells do you need to complete a clone? How long does it take to create each copy?”

Aaron shivered, as if the realization that they were seriously considering this approach had just hit him. “At the moment, the systems need hair, saliva, and a cell from the skin,” Aaron replied. “It takes about twenty-four hours to create a clone. And, before you ask, the clones have always lived at least three days from final completion, and last as long as seven days. If you’re using them as bait for the Assassin, that doesn’t matter. He’ll kill them within a couple of days anyway.”

“If we do this…” Hope paused. “
If
we do this, we’ll still need to worry about the timing. If we position them too quickly, it’s possible that the clones will die before the Assassin arrives.”

“It is critical then that the Alliance member being targeted by a Hunt become aware that they have been identified for a Hunt as quickly as possible,” Eva replied. “That has not been a problem in most cases. They will still need to contact the Defense Squad, but now, instead of trying to time their arrival to coincide with the arrival of the Hunters, the Squad will need to arrive almost immediately, hide the original human or humans, create their clones, and plant the clones to be found. Once the Assassin finishes, they will need to sweep in quickly, clean up the evidence, and bring the original humans back out of hiding, with no memory of the events.”

“There’s a transport issue we must consider in that example,” Will replied. “And we
must
overcome that transport issue. The only cloning station we have right now is here in the Cavern. If the clone is needed in the northern hemisphere, we’d have to capture and isolate the target, transport the cells here, create the clone, and then get the clone back before the Assassin comes calling. Even if transport only takes one day each way, we’re still looking at a minimum of three days from our first contact with the human target before the clone would be in place. That’s not fast enough. Generally, Energy events result in the Hunters and Assassin being onsite and acting within a day or two.” He shook his head. “We need to figure out how to get the clone in place within a day at most. That means that we need to make cloning systems portable,
and
we need to speed up the process of cloning.”

Aaron sighed. “I’m not sure how to speed things up or make the process more portable. The device consumes huge amounts of power, for example. So—”

“We do have a large number of safe houses scattered around the world,” Hope pointed out. “They would have plenty of power available for a cloning station.”

“But there’s still the time issue,” Aaron noted. “Even if we have dozens of cloning machines throughout the world, we still haven’t fixed the problem of time. We need to reduce the time required to make the clones.”

“Aaron, any ideas on what might be keeping the timeline at the durations we’re seeing? Lack of computing power? Lack of energy to create the copied cells more quickly? Something else?”

“I
suspect
it’s a bit of each,” Aaron replied. “Is there any way to requisition more power and additional computing capacity?”

“We’ll need to ask the other research projects if they can give up computing cycles to test the theory,” Will replied. “The generators are being replaced with newer models which are projected to produce an additional twenty or thirty percent beyond what we have today. That’s a good thing, because we’ve been near our maximum capacity all hours of the day and night for the past twenty or thirty years. Computing power has been similarly maxed out. We need to upgrade
everything
.”

“That will benefit everyone,” Hope said. “I’ve heard that there are other teams of engineers here who have ideas to
triple
our computing power. We can stop by and ask them if that’s true.”

“I've mentioned that my research needs more electrical power on a few occasions to a few of my friends who are experimenting with different approaches to increase our capacity,” Aaron said. “One of them has developed a small device that’s supposed to be able to multiply electrical power, increasing it about fifteen percent, just by attaching it at the source. He said it’s basically an amplifier, and it can be installed anywhere from the source of the power to the destination.”

Will was intrigued. “So you’re saying that you could plug this amplifier into a wall outlet in a house, plug the cloning machine into the amplifier, and it increases the power available to the machine?”

Aaron nodded. “They said the device reduces the voltage for each watt delivered, so you’re drawing additional amps without actually increasing the number of watts produced or delivered to a location.” Aaron shrugged. “I don’t know what that means or if I’ve relayed their comments correctly, but if a boost in power to a cloning machine reduces the time required to produce a clone, then anything we’re able to do brings us closer to our goal.”

“There is an additional benefit,” Eva noted. “You mentioned Judith’s accident earlier, Will. Consider the distance we had to teleport her to receive the care she needed. If our safe houses have adequate power, they may be equipped with medical equipment and their own cloning machines. An injury such as Judith’s may be treatable at a nearby safe house, or at a minimum, stabilizing treatment may be rendered prior to transport to a port or the Cavern.”

Will nodded. “Agreed.” He glanced at Aaron, and at the man’s clone, staring vacantly at the ceiling behind his original. “Aaron, I’ll talk to everyone I can to get you more computing and electrical power while we wait for the upgrades we’ve discussed to be implemented.”

“I still can’t say I’m comfortable with the approach,” Hope mused. “But I’d like to avoid any more situations like Jordan’s. Perhaps, while we’re working on all of this, we’ll find another means to achieve our ends.”

“We may, or we may not,” Eva replied. “Understand that the Defense Squads will continue to seek approaches to protect humans in the long-term. Perhaps we can use empathy pushes to accomplish our goal. If something like that works, we may yet see unexpected benefits to these technologies. Cut the time to regrow a severed arm from hours to minutes is of unquestioned value.”

“Indeed,” Will said, quietly, glancing at the floor. “Unexpected benefits are often the best kind.” He looked up. “Here’s hoping our efforts to mislead the Assassin have the intended outcome, regardless of the form they eventually take.”

They left Aaron’s room.

Will remained in silent contemplation the entire walk home.

XXV

Bait

1994 A.D.

Today was the day Will had long feared.

He would perform his duty in spite of that fear.

The chosen site was a resort casino the Aliomenti had opened on one of their many private islands. Humans traveled to the island accessible only via private charter planes made available by the Aliomenti. Arthur didn’t like too much money remaining in the hands of humans, and though the casino resort provided significant opulence to its guests, the business made huge profits for the Aliomenti.

Will was truly exposed for the first time in centuries. His clothing was created without scutarium, and he intentionally kept his Shield down, letting his Energy leak out. If any Aliomenti were within a hundred yards of him, they’d know a powerful Energy user was nearby. If Porthos was within a hundred miles, he’d definitively know within moments where Will Stark was standing. Porthos would alert his fellow Hunters, and they’d drop whatever else they might be doing to descend upon the casino. The opportunity to capture Will Stark didn’t come around too often.

They’d had many encounters in the past, most recently at Pearl Harbor a half century earlier, where Will had eluded capture by teleporting the trio to the middle of the Pacific Ocean before watching the elder Adam die. Will’s secret to success was that he avoided human crowds out of habit, ensuring that when the Hunters approached, he’d be able to rely on his own Energy to escape the Hunters without any risk of human observation. In crowds of humans, the Hunters had the advantage. They knew Will wouldn’t expose his Energy skills to humans unaware that such abilities existed, even if it meant he’d be captured. The Hunters’ abilities were far more subtle and more usable in human crowds. Aramis could render most Energy users helpless with nothing more than a simple handshake. Will glanced up and admired the clear blue skies and enjoyed the gentle ocean breezes brushing against him. It was ironic that those clear skies would make one of his escape options—flight—impossible to utilize.

It didn’t matter. He wasn’t planning to escape this time.

Will spent his last moments of freedom walking around the casino, watching the humans play slots and poker and roulette, and his empathy senses were overwhelmed at the intensity of their experiences. The agony of losing everything, the joy of winning a huge jackpot… all of those powerful emotions lashed at him like a whip. The thoughts accompanying those emotions struck him as well: the fear that a big loss would reveal the charade of success that enabled the gambler’s presence here; the speculation that a big win meant some type of cosmic approval of a recent business transaction; the concern that maybe, just maybe, an addiction was becoming evident after losing yet another pile of cash to the casino. Will walked by a roulette wheel, sensing the situations of those gathered around, and gave the spinning ball a slight nudge to help the woman with the child recently diagnosed with leukemia. She felt guilty being here, wondering if she should be with her son instead, but it was a final bit of entertainment before the reality of treatment began. Her family had insurance and money to cover the treatment; Will hoped the gambling win might give her an emotional boost to survive the upcoming struggle.

He glanced down at his clothing. His attire was fashionable for the times, speaking to the level of wealth required to obtain admittance to the resort. While his clothing contained no special fibers able to mask his Energy, it did possess advanced Alliance technology. The microscopic pods were designed to swarm out from a central point—his prison cell—and locate a single person with DNA matching a coded sample. Upon locating the target, the pods would remain in place until a predefined date, when they’d open and allow the nanobots inside to escape. Most would line the cell walls with a material that repelled the Energy-draining force that made Aliomenti jail such a nightmarish existence. The others would project a message, explaining that Energy stores would be restored over a period of days or weeks, and that at a defined time, they were to teleport to a specific point, and meet up with an Alliance team able to take them home to the Cavern. The escape craft was shielded from Energy and other signals on the inside; even a GPS signal would be trapped inside. The captives could be freed of any devices buried in them by the Aliomenti before final transport to the Cavern.