Counterpart (8 page)

By and large, the damage is superficial. Some plaster detached from the ceiling, falling in pieces and coating his bed in a fine dust; a flower vase lies broken on the floor, bleeding water into the carpet and releasing the odor of moldy tea bags; his laundry hamper is on its side. Apart from those minor inconveniences, the room remains in good shape. Something about it makes me angry. This stupid chunk of space was spared while good people lost their lives—how is that fair?

I wander farther into the room, resisting the urge to slap a monitor off Camus's desk.

He hovers behind me, patiently waiting for me to turn around. It takes a few more seconds of pacing back and forth, trying to regain my composure, before I can face him. He's removed his dust shield, so I tug mine down as well.

“I know what you're going to say. I need to keep it together.”

“No. Just the opposite, actually.” Camus comes toward me, wraps my hands inside his. I find it easier to study his knuckles than to look at his face awash in sympathy. “I could care less what anyone thinks of you, or how you're handling this situation. But I am concerned. Have you eaten? Are you staying hydrated?”

“I'm fine,” I lie.

A pause. “I heard about Rankin.”

“I don't want to talk about it.”
Please don't make me talk about it.

“How's Hanna?” he asks me.

I shake my head. I can't begin to put into words my friend's monumental grief. It seems wrong to describe how she wept herself hoarse, or how the doctors finally had to sedate her in order to get her to rest, and because she was beginning to upset the other patients. Although, if anyone would understand the enormity of losing someone they loved so suddenly, it'd be Camus.

His brow squeezes into three rows. “Would it help if I…?”

He searches but can't find the right word. He doesn't know what will help. Neither do I.

“I honestly don't know,” I reply, and my voice breaks again. The backs of my eyes feel stuffed with nettles. “Everything's all messed up. How did this happen? We were so close. Alaska. The coalition. We were so damn close!”

Camus pulls me against him, my body thrumming with tension. We both reek of sweat and smoke and the blood of our friends, but as his arms come around me, all I can think is,
This is okay.
The world is going to hell in a handbasket, we're all probably going to die horribly, but this?
This is okay.

“It's not over yet,” he reminds me. “McKinley's still standing. You're still standing. Don't hand the machines their victory. You make them work for it.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, coach,” I murmur into his shirt.

I'm rewarded by the sound of a smile in his voice. “If the machines ever kill your sense of humor, that's when I'll start to worry. Not a minute before. Perhaps it would be best though, if—”

A knock at the door interrupts him. “Just a moment,” Camus calls back.

But the hammering at the door continues unabated. If anything, it sounds more urgent than before. Maybe they didn't hear him—or maybe it's simply that important. Before either of us can respond again, a deep, familiar voice booms from the other side.
“Commanders Forsyth and Long!”

So much for our moment of peace
. I detach myself from Camus's arms, march over, and fling open the door. “What?” The day has zapped my manners.

Two uniforms stare me down, while behind them, and down the hall, Ulrich is being led away by three other soldiers.
What's going on?

I shift my gaze back to the pair standing in front of me. The first is Orpheus Lefevre, Zelda's brother, whose solid bass would penetrate concrete, so it's no wonder I recognized it through the door. His companion is much younger, slighter in frame, with bright red hair and pink, shiny skin on his neck and face where his burns are finally healing. Kennedy Proust, boy wonder, who helped us out of a jam back when machines cornered us in Churchill. He looks taller and older than I remember, but that might be a side effect of the uniform.

“Commanders.” Kennedy targets Camus with the greeting more than me. His dust mask puffs as he speaks. “Please come with us.”

Panic buzzes through my calm like a saw. “Has something happened? Another attack?” My mind frantically cycles through the names of my friends, wondering who I'm to lose next. If I've already lost them, and just don't know it yet.
Hanna Ulrich Samuel…

“The council wants to see you both.”

My gut unclenches. Just a meeting then—or maybe Clarence has finally got a look at the security footage. Either way, nothing to fret about. I produce a fake laugh. “Talk about burying the lede, guys.”

“What's this about?” Camus asks.

“I'm…not at liberty to say. Please.” Kennedy motions for me to get moving. It's a little patronizing, to be honest, though I'm sure he doesn't mean it that way.

Camus positions his dust mask back over his mouth, and I do the same. “Has the council gained access to the security archives yet?” I ask, heading toward the door.

I don't notice Camus isn't with me until I hear him say, “What are you doing?” and turn to see Lefevre has maneuvered between us, preventing Camus from following too closely.

Before I can ask Lefevre to explain himself, Kennedy takes my elbow, though to his credit he looks ashamed by the action.
Or is that fear?

“What's wrong with you two?” I demand.

Lefevre finally speaks up. “This isn't a summons.” He turns, focusing his gaze on a spot just past my head, as if he can't bear to look at me. “Rhona Long, you are being charged with sabotage, conspiracy to commit murder, and crimes against humanity.”

“In other words,” Kennedy says meekly, “You're under arrest, Commander.”

Back on Military, I stand in the bed of an old pickup truck and watch myself commit treason.

With the War Room out of commission and the movie theater in Entertainment too public, Camus's drive-in is the next best venue to reveal my crimes. I don't know what sort of technical witchcraft the council must have performed to get the security footage projected onto the screen, but there it is. All forty-by-sixty feet of tarpaulin covered in images depicting me and the machines. Gone are the themes of beauty, freedom, truth, and love from earlier this morning. Now showing:
Rhona's Worst Nightmare.

No matter how close I lean to the crumpled cab of the pickup, my head throws a shadow on the bottom of the screen. I feel like I'm falling. Down, down, down this twisted rabbit hole. I can't make sense of the images on the screen—this woman with my lips, my cheeks, my eyes, whose red hair falls out from beneath my hoodie, and who casually applies her hand to an identification scanner, allowing the machines to waltz right out of a Military training room.

This woman is the enemy. Responsible for the deaths of so many of my own people. Responsible for Rankin. This woman may have ruined humanity's best chance at banding together, rebuilding.

And she
has my freaking face.

Or something very close to it, anyway.

The footage is grainy and vague, the color drained to black and white, but it's still clear enough for me to notice that she's wearing a complete set of freckles, and her eyes don't look quite right. These differences that seem obvious to me are apparently less so to the rest of the council—particularly because everything else about her is on point. Base systems interpret the suspect's biology as mine, and her movement appears identical, carefully matching my stride; I know, because Clarence loops the same few seconds over and over again while Renee Hawking drones on about my guilt.

“This is obscene,” Camus interrupts at last, cutting the councilwoman off midsentence. “No one here can possibly believe Rhona responsible for these attacks.”

“The footage is compelling evidence,” Councilman Kapoor says from his comfy seat in the rear of a nearby hatchback. All of the council members have nested in various spots around the training complex, giving them a complete view of the proceedings. Their heads turn from me, to the screen, to Councilwoman Hawking and back, like an extremely tedious tennis match. From a group that lives to bicker, their silence is frightening. The day has stolen their voice. Dented their spirit. Even the ones who know the truth about me, who could offer some explanation for this doppelgänger, seem to be taking their cues from Camus and me. No one wants to be the first to say the word.
Clone.

“Obviously, it's been edited,” Camus says. “Who's had access to the footage?”

Unlike his fellow council members, Camus remains standing, probably out of disrespect for this whole circus. His words, not mine. When we arrived, and Hawking formally announced the charges against me, Camus snorted.
Snorted.
Called it ridiculous, a political farce, and tried to walk out with me in tow. Now he looks seconds away from pacing back and forth, like a lion that's just scented the gladiator on the other side of the door. He keeps crossing and uncrossing his arms.

Clarence, one of our technical engineers, shifts uncomfortably on the hood of a station wagon. “I wish that were a possibility. But Renee was there when I discovered the footage, and since then, no one else has had access to the archives but me.”

Hawking levels her gaze at Camus, her brows lifting. “Are you accusing Clarence of doctoring the footage, Commander Forsyth?”

“Of course not.” Clarence helped organize Operation Pigs in a Blanket, which put me back in McKinley's good graces—and began repairing the relationship between me and Camus. He came to the rescue again when I led a small team to investigate Churchill, providing guidance on the layout of the base. I like Clarence. I can't imagine him behind this, and I'm glad Camus appears to be on the same page. “Maybe it was done ahead of time, in preparation for the attack. Perhaps the woman in this footage is merely a remarkable look-alike…”

“Maybe. Perhaps.”
Hawking shakes her head. “I have two words for you, Commander. Occam's razor.”

“Camus, she's right,” I say. “There is a simpler explanation. Do you want to tell them or should I?”

Camus takes a moment and massages his closed eyes. “If unedited,” he finally says, “it's very likely the woman in that footage is…a clone.” Then, in the space of a breath, he adds, “Just like Rhona.”

Everyone on the council who already knows this—that clones exist beyond scientific theory, and they're sitting in the presence of one right now—remain silent. The remainder exchange skeptical looks with their colleagues, cycling through a variety of disbelieving noises.

“A clone.” The councilwoman huffs. “Absurd.”

“No arguments here,” I say. “But Camus isn't pulling your leg. My predecessor,
donor,
whatever you want to call her—the original Rhona Long—didn't go missing after the botched Anchorage mission. She died. I'm her clone.”

“You expect me to believe…” Renee can't even finish the thought. Instead, she shakes her head.

“They're telling the truth,” Matt says. I'm grateful he decided to attend the meeting in his doctor's coat, as it lends his next words credibility. “Commander Long is the result of a century's worth of cumulative research, theory, and experimentation in the area of reproductive cloning. Doctor Lewis rigorously documented his process. Although many of his notes were lost with the destruction of a private facility in the Brooks Range, enough remain to prove that what the Commander says is true.”

Hawking still isn't satisfied, however, and since the claim is so ridiculous, the burden of proof is on us. We spend the next half hour rehashing the details of my cloning, while Clarence brings up anatomical diagrams, Samuel's procedural notes, and chemical charts that show, almost beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Rhona and I are genetically identical. Even then, some members of the council balk. They complain about the lack of transparency, and accuse me of worse than keeping secrets.

“Why wouldn't an artificial life want to help other artificial life? It could be instinct.”

“Footage doesn't lie.”

“Maybe the bombing was a distraction to cover up evidence of this…cloning.”

“The machines were once our allies, too.”

Every word pulses with paranoia, filling the room with more fear. The councilors rattle off crude explanations, each one a deliberate swipe at my character. It's like they're trying to make me bleed. Or force me to show my hand. But at the same time, they leave me no space to speak, and honestly, I'm not sure what I would even say. It all feels surreal, as though I've stepped out of myself, and am observing from a distance. I never realized how cold rage could feel.

This goes on for some time, until finally Camus, broadcasting a dark, irritated look at his colleagues, cuts off the litany. “
Enough!
Is it simpler for all of you to imagine Rhona—who
died
for this base, and was willing to give her life again in Juneau—would suddenly betray us?”

He takes a few steps, pivoting in a slow semicircle, meeting one councilperson's gaze after the other. Many become suddenly preoccupied with their shoes or lap. “Are we so eager to turn on our own that we'll accept such little evidence as proof of guilt?”

“That's the thing,” another councilman responds. Hector Cordier. He's never liked me—in either of my incarnations—so I'm sure the next words out of his mouth will be entirely complimentary. “Genetics aside, are we so sure this woman
is
the same as the one who died in Anchorage?” He glances at me. “For the purposes of this base and maintaining the resistance, we've all gone along with that assumption. But really, how much do we know about what Lewis created in that facility at Brooks?”

“
What
he created?” I blurt out, unable to keep silent any longer.

“You have to admit, his absence is more than a little suspect.”

“Oh, please. Samuel's with a team, searching hospitals and research centers for medical supplies and equipment—things to benefit McKinley, not harm her.” That was what he told me before he left, anyway. I didn't question it. After Juneau, after my decision to stay with Camus and investigate the feelings lingering between us, I figured Samuel needed time away. Were our places reversed, I wouldn't have enjoyed hanging around either, watching him with someone else.

“Maybe Lewis inserted some kind of sleeper program that's finally being activated,” Cordier says, ignoring me. “We all know where a love of technology gets you. Maybe he sympathizes with the machines…”

“He's a biologist, not a programmer—and anyway, you can't just demonize all of science for the sins of a few haywire creations,” I fire back, thinking of Zelda.

“Interesting choice of words.” Cordier runs his fingers along the chrome bumper of a rusting jeep, then goes right back to addressing the council as if I'm not one of the people on it. “I suppose there is another possibility. Perhaps the commander created another clone of herself and lost control of it. She authorized the program without the council's knowledge before. Who's to say she hasn't done it again?”

“Are you
kidding
me?” I say, at the same time Camus says, “You can't be serious.”

“Commander Long, do you have any words in your own defense?” Hawking finally cedes me the floor. How kind.

“Oh. So you
can
see me,” I say in mock surprise. “Here I thought I'd finally perfected my ability to turn invisible. Well. There goes my career as a ninja.” Camus gives me a weary look. I know I'm not helping my case any, but I can't resist at least one smart-aleck remark.

“Let's keep this civil,” Kapoor says.

“Civil?” I thrust a finger at Cordier, trying to hold my hand steady. “He just implied I was a
thing,
rather than a person. A sleeper agent, Hector? Really?” He gestures dismissively. “None of you, not one person here, had any problem using me to prop up McKinley all last year. But the first major crisis, and
I'm
the one you choose to nail to the wall? In the words of my good friend Ulrich, that's
scheisse.
”

“Rhona.” Camus gives a slight shake of his head. He wants to defend me. Pull me back from the edge of this abyss opening beneath me. Maybe later I'll find that sweet, romantic even, but right now it seems pointless.

Sorry, Camus.

I walk to the front of the truck bed, trying not to wobble on its uneven surface. “You all need to hear the words? Fine. I'll say it. I'm innocent. I would
never
harm this base, or anyone in it. Even if I wanted to create more clones—which I don't—Samuel lost so much of his research, data, and equipment at Brooks facility”—
not to mention my old memories
—“it would take years for him to reproduce the process. Even then, there's no guarantee he could duplicate the results.”

“What about Commissar Kozlov?” chimes in Peter Albany, one of the newer additions to the council. We just voted him in last week, after Councilman Gratham suffered a minor stroke. He's young, younger even than me, but seemed like a good choice, with a background in waste management. I think my exact words were,
Who better to help clean up around here?
Not my best joke, I'll admit.

The non sequitur throws me off. I hesitate. “What about him?”

“I spoke with Commissar Kozlov's translator, who was with him before he died.” Albany blinks rapidly. I don't think it's a nervous tic so much as a product of him thinking hard about what he wants to say. “He provided some, some interesting revelations about your discussion with the, with the Commissar this morning.”

I bet he did.

“Said you threatened Kozlov if he wouldn't agree to the coalition treaty?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

Blink. Blink. “Asking?”

Even though Albany's words add more dirt to the hole I'm trying to dig myself out of, it's hard to stay mad at him. He shares a lot of Samuel's gentle mannerisms, and his curly hair reminds me of a poodle.

“We argued,” I admit, “but all I said was I'd be willing to go over his head if he refused to be reasonable.”

“You said you wouldn't hurt anyone in this base, but the translator seemed to believe your threat was true. And now the commissar is conveniently…out of the picture.”

That translator can take a flying leap.
“Then he misread the situation. I wasn't Kozlov's biggest fan, sure, but I didn't want him dead. Why would I? His death means we have to wait until the Russians can send someone else to negotiate terms and sign the treaty. That could be weeks from now.”

“Someone more agreeable, perhaps?” Kapoor lifts an eyebrow.

“You're twisting my words.”

“Rhona's right,” Camus says. “This is nothing but empty speculation.”

“There is something else, Commanders.”

Hawking uses a small remote to cycle to another scene. One of “me” wheeling some sort of cart from Military into the express elevator. I'm wearing the same hoodie as before, and I'm not sure, but I think those might be my Adidas track pants.
Oh, no.

“We're still trying to recover the rest of this footage. Many of the servers on Command were damaged in the explosion, but I think we can all agree what this looks like. There's only one way a bomb could enter Command, and that's if someone with access to Command planted it there. How do you explain this, Commander Long?”

“That's not me,” I say in a rush. “That
can't
be me. I was with Kozlov all morning, and then with Camus. Find the footage of that.”