Replication (19 page)

Abby looked around at the shelves of sports equipment and sat down on a basketball. “They let you play sports?”

“It’s important we remain in good physical health.” Martyr sat cross-legged on the concrete floor. He draped an arm around Baby, who had settled beside him and leaned his head against Martyr’s shoulder. “I missed you, Baby. I’m sorry I left without saying good-bye. I never intended to be gone so long.”

Baby sat up and signed urgently, his face molded into a pout.

Tears tingled behind Martyr’s eyes as he watched Baby’s story and took in the horrible bruises on his friend’s face and neck. Iron Man and Fido had done plenty of damage while he’d been away.

“What’s he saying?” Abby asked.

“He’s telling me he spent two days in the infirmary.” Martyr laughed. “He says he can eat all the food he wants in the infirmary and no one bothers him.”

Baby’s expression sobered. He glanced warily at Abby, signing and grunting with fury.

“He says you are very kind and you smell nice, but he is worried for you because … No. We will keep her safe, you and I. I think it’s part of our purpose.” He tapped his chest, then reached out and tapped Baby’s chest. “Purpose.”

Baby grunted and banged his chest.

“Shh.” Martyr reached out to calm Baby, but the doors swung open. Martyr jumped up, staring into the dark void beyond the storage room door, heart pounding. No one made a sound. Had Martyr not pulled the door closed all the way? Maybe it had simply fallen open?

“Look who came back, Fido.”

Fear doused Martyr like a cold shower. He backed in front of Abby while Baby scrambled behind them both. A white-clad figure stepped out of the darkness and stopped just inside the door.

Iron Man.

A
BBY PEEKED AROUND
M
ARTY’S LEG.
A massive JD Kane stood in the open doorway, looking like some kind of wrestling superstar. This had to be the guy Marty said hung out with a clone named Fido and terrorized all the Brokens. He was no taller than Marty or JD, but his white T-shirt clung to his he-man chest and arms. It was almost gross.

Something growled in the darkness behind him. Slowly, another clone, also dressed in white, prowled into the storage room. It was beyond weird how they all had the same face. This one stood hunched, bug-eyed, licking his lips, and sniffing. Fido, no doubt. Not only was he emitting a perpetually low growl, saliva
dribbled out the corner of his mouth and glinted under the light. Was it cloning gone wrong or psychological abuse that had him behaving this way? If the guards had told him he was a dog all his life, he might believe it.

No wonder the boys who lived on the Farm needed a protector. These guys were messed up.

Iron Man gazed down at Abby with lupine eyes, but his words were for Marty. “Who is this?”

Maybe it was best not to show fear. Abby stood and shook out her hair, mustering up as much confidence as possible. She stepped around Marty and held out her hand to shake. Marty moved with her. She could feel him hovering behind her like some kind of static cling.

“I’m Abby Goyer. Marty has told me so much about you. Never thought I’d actually meet you two, but what do you know? Dr. Kane made an exception to his
no visitors allowed
policy. It’s my lucky day, I guess.” She laughed, and it came out in a nervous whinny.

Iron Man looked down at her hand, clearly uncertain what he was meant to do with it.

Think, Abby. The Farm doesn’t teach social skills
.

Fido sprang forward, snatched her hand with both of his, and brought it to his face. He sniffed it—each breath a raspy growl—then licked it with one long swipe of the tongue.

Abby cringed, holding back the gasp of disgust that wanted to leap from her throat. She forced herself to remain still. Show no fear. Maybe they all just wanted to play, like overgrown children. She spotted a ball on the floor. Maybe Fido knew fetch.

Iron Man clapped twice. Fido dropped Abby’s hand and shrank back as Iron Man stepped toward her, devouring every inch of her with those hungry JD eyes.

Uh oh
.

“Where did you find him?” Iron Man’s eyes didn’t leave Abby’s. She kept her gaze fixed on his, determined that looking him in the eye proved she wasn’t scared.

“Outside,” Marty said softly.

“Lies.” Iron Man stepped past Abby, nearly knocking her over with his sandbag arm. He instead used the momentum on Marty. Marty cried out as his head slammed up into one of the shelves, bumping the metal plank off its pegs and over Marty’s left shoulder. Five-pound weights clanged to the floor one at a time. Two landed on Iron Man’s bare foot, but he didn’t seem concerned, focused instead on the massive hand that gripped Marty’s neck.

“He’s not lying.” Abby pulled at Iron Man’s fingers. “My father is Dr. Goyer. He works here.”

Iron Man dropped Marty and swung toward Abby. He looped his arm around Abby’s waist and hefted her against his side like carrying a stack of books. Fido followed obediently. Abby looked back at Marty, who was scrambling to his feet, gasping.

Baby lay in a little ball on the floor.

Iron Man towed her across the dark track. Fido ran alongside, occasionally circling them like an excited animal. They walked down the long hallway to the stairs and paused as Iron Man flung open one of the double doors. Abby turned to see Marty sprinting after them. Baby loped behind like a wounded gazelle. This was starting to look like something from
National Geographic
. Abby hoped she wasn’t the carnivore’s prey.

She felt off balance, like her top half could swing over at any moment. She clutched Iron Man’s forearm with her right hand and let her left arm hang limp. Her left shoulder was a throbbing numbness she was sadly growing used to. “I can walk, you know.”

If he heard, he didn’t show it. Her leg snagged on the railing as Iron Man whipped around the landing, climbing the stairs to level two. She winced and shook off the sting. At least her weight appeared to be slowing the behemoth clone down; by the time he pushed the doors open on level two, Marty had caught up.

“Please.” Marty’s voice was an urgent whisper. “We must keep her from the guards. Dr. Kane is—”

Iron Man spun around in the dark hallway, swinging Abby’s head out like a pendulum. Her left arm slapped the wall, sending a violent tremor through her shoulder.

“No one is on guard,” Iron Man said. “They all left.”

Because the guards had been out chasing her. So why hadn’t the guards come down after them yet? A quick scan of the hallway ceiling brought a small, gray camera into view. It pointed toward a door a few steps away. Perhaps the guards were watching, waiting to see what their massive clone and his wannabe dog were going to do? Her chest constricted as her breath grew ragged. This was her life, not reality TV. She had to get away.

Marty met her eyes, his face a mask of concentration.

Abby sucked in as deep a breath as possible. Iron Man’s grip was cutting off the circulation to her legs, making it impossible to run even if she could overpower the guy.

Fido padded ahead and burst through the third door on the left, holding it open. Abby’s boots scraped the doorframe as Iron Man carried her inside. Marty followed.

Someone turned on the lights. Abby found herself in a large room filled with bunk beds, four on each side wall. An open, tiled area with showerheads, urinals, and toilets filled the back. No dressers, no TV, no personal items of any kind, no bathroom stalls.

Over a dozen half-dressed Jasons squirmed to life on the beds. Some sat up, some rolled over, and all of them squinted in the halogen lights.

Abby looked from face to face, taking in glimpses of JD Kane from junior high on up.

Unreal.

Iron Man finally put her down. She massaged her waist, certain he’d left a welt.

A skinny boy wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants staggered out of his bed. “What’s wrong?”

Abby jumped as a hairy bare leg swung past her ear.

“Who is he?”

“
What
is he?”

“She,” said Marty. “Women are she.”

“Martyr is back.”

“Martyr!”

The skinny boy in the sweatpants sidled up to Marty and clapped him on the back. “Where did you find the she?”

Abby wrinkled her nose as a chubby Jason, wearing nothing but a pair of tighty whities, stalked toward her. She averted her eyes from the horror and shrank back against Marty as the Jasons closed in.

Her
National Geographic
episode had turned sci-fi. Instead of
Gorillas in the Mist
, she was now living out some kind of
Planet of the Apes
. Make that Planet of the JD Kanes. The clones were intelligent, but—because of her—they were acting like primates: staring and grunting at each other.

“Ow!” She scowled at a shorter Jason, who’d plucked out a few strands of her hair.

Another boy stroked her cashmere sweater. A purple sweater. She winced, remembering Marty’s fascination with bright colors. Another Jason mauled the side of her face with his clammy hand.

Pawing at her like animals.

No. They weren’t animals. They were people. Children. Who had been psychologically abused.

And not loved.

Regardless, Abby thought back to the gorilla show she’d seen on the Discovery channel a few weeks back. Don’t show fear. That had been the main thing. Marty took her right hand in his and pulled her close, and his touch filled her with warmth. A Jason grabbed her other hand and rubbed it, frowning at her painted fingernails and purity ring.

“I don’t see what’s so special about him,” the bare-legged Jason said. He was still sitting atop his bunk bed.

Tighty-whitie boy fisted her hair. “His hair’s soft.”

“And long and twisting,” said the boy holding her hand.

“Like the dog.” Iron Man clutched her left arm at the bicep.

She sucked in a small gasp at the pain his grasp caused.
Dog?

“His pants are like Rolo’s eyes.”

“What color is his shirt?”

“Purple,” Marty said.

“He’s small, like a Broken or a J:10.”

“No, like a J:8. Like Mikey.”

Someone honked a dorky JD laugh. “Mikey! That’s funny.”

“Can he speak?”

“Is he like Baby? Martyr, does he speak signs too?”

Marty crushed her hand, almost at Iron Man’s strength. He didn’t look so hot at the moment. His eyes were bloodshot, and his face was pale—smooth since his recent shave. He wore an expression a father might give a guy taking his daughter out on a date.

The boy holding her left hand had nearly rubbed it raw, like it was some sort of stress ball. Up, down, up, down. Tighty-whitie boy raked his fingers through her hair again. Iron Man still gripped her arm. And Marty still held her right hand. Far too many people were touching her.

She fought to think rationally. The only way out was the elevator or the tunnel, right? She concentrated to remember Marty’s map of the facility.

The dumbwaiter she’d seen while snooping. It came out somewhere down here. Marty hadn’t mentioned it, but if they could get away, she could look for it. The kitchen perhaps?

“It’s my turn,” someone called from the back.

“Me too.”

Close to twenty Jasons crowded around. Abby surveyed the room and spotted four cameras, one in each corner. Was her dad watching, worrying? Did he know what had happened to Dr. Markley? Abby gulped. Would the same thing happen to her?

“Dr. Kane lied to us,” Marty said suddenly.

She turned to find him scanning the faces around them.

“The air outside is not toxic. There is no disease to cure. Abby and Dr. Goyer live in a large house. I saw the sky and a moose eating a tree. Abby has her own cell with lots of colorful clothes. A tiny white dog lives with them. She made me bleeding eggs to eat.”

Say what?

“I saw birds and dolphins and huge dogs on a TV, which is a monitor with moving and talking pictures. I saw many cars. Some are called trucks and some are called vans. I saw people with different faces and different hair. I saw many women and colors I never dreamed existed. I ate red and green pizza and wore socks.”

“Like Rolo’s socks?” the tighty-whitie Jason asked.

“Yes,” Martyr said, “but they were red and warm and had green triangles on them.”

They
were
pretty rockin’ Christmas socks. Abby had got them 50 percent off.

The Jasons all started to talk at once about socks and creatures that ate trees. Marty pulled Abby toward the door, but Iron Man’s grip on her sore arm remained tight.

Marty yelled, “Quiet!”

The Jasons settled down.

Marty released Abby’s hand, reached down, and pulled something out of his waistband. He held it above his head and the Jasons gasped.

“A keycard.”

“Where did you get it?”

“Can I look at it?”

“Martyr, let me see.”

“It’s how I was able to go outside. Listen.” The murmuring stopped. “What Dr. Kane has told us is a lie. We don’t expire because we turn eighteen years old. Dr. Kane kills us.”

The mumbling started up again. A great ache seized her arm as Iron Man released it and blood started to flow. He stepped up to Marty and snatched the keycard, examining it up close. “It’s what the doctors carry.”

“It will take you outside,” Marty said.

Which wasn’t exactly true. Two cards were needed to work the elevator. Plus the guards were upstairs. The Jasons wouldn’t know that, though. Abby doubted anyone was going anywhere.

Iron Man strode out of the room. A herd of Jasons trailed after him.

Abby pulled Marty close and whispered, “Wait.”

They were the last two to leave the room. Baby stood in the hallway outside the door. Abby hadn’t seen him in the room. Had he been out there the entire time?

“Can we get to the kitchen? If we can, I think I know a way out.”

Marty stared at her, nodded, then led them after the Jasons
down the hallway, keeping a few yards back. The hallway ended, just like the one did on level three below, only instead of ending by the track, this one led into the cafeteria and playground. The small play structure sat off to the left of the open space, and long cafeteria tables stretched across the right.

Marty pulled Abby up to a door and held out his hand. “Give me your keycard.”

Abby glanced at the mob charging toward the double doors. She quickly handed the keycard over. Marty inserted it in a smaller reader above the knob and opened the door.

They entered a kitchen lit only by two dim, long halogen bulbs that flickered from the ceiling. Marty waved Baby in and closed the door behind him. “What must we do in here?”

Abby’s lips parted, hope swelling inside like a breath of hot air. A steel door of similar size to the one she’d seen on her barnsleuthing day was set into one of the walls. She walked toward it, trembling slightly. Could it be this easy? A switch hung on the outside of the door, identical to the one in the barn above. Her heart thumped wildly as she pulled the metal door open.

She laughed out loud. “Here!” But it wasn’t big enough for everyone. Maybe two, barely.
Maximum Capacity 300 lbs
was etched just above a small latch on the back of the steel door. Abby did the math. Not so good.

Marty walked to Abby’s side. “What?”

“This is a dumbwaiter—a mini elevator that goes outside. It’s how they get food down to you. I think we can ride it to the outside.”

Marty crouched and gathered her into his arms like she was a damsel in distress.

Abby squeaked. “What are you doing?”

Marty carried her toward the dumbwaiter. She put her right hand against the edge of the opening to keep him from putting her inside. “Wait! Marty, please!”

His brown eyes locked onto hers. “Is something wrong?”

Without thinking, she grabbed the back of his neck with her right hand and pulled his beautiful lips to hers. They were soft and slightly parted, spilling warm breath onto her face. He didn’t kiss
back at first. But when he did it was like something primal clicked and he suddenly knew what to do.