Babylon: The Rebel's Woman by Kaitlyn O'Connor (1)

BABYLON:

The Rebel’s Woman

By

Kaitlyn O’Connor

(C) Copyright by Kaitlyn O’Connor, February 2006

(C) Cover art by Alex DeShanks, January 2014

ISBN 97-1-60394-854-8

Smashwords Edition

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

www.newconceptspublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

“Give us the names of the others.”

Lena Silverstone managed to pry her eyelids up a fraction of an inch. It didn’t help much. The room she found herself in was dim and completely unfamiliar. Shadows moved about it, but she wasn’t certain whether the shadows were people or just shadows. Frowning in concentration as she tried to focus her blurring vision, she turned the demand over in her mind, trying to figure out what he was talking about, where she was, and why she was in this unfamiliar place.

Someone grabbed her by her hair, jerking her head back until the base of her skull cracked against something hard and metallic--the back of the seat she was strapped to, her mind supplied. She winced as the blow and the tugging at her scalp sent pain through her nerve endings.

“Names! Give us some names!” the command came again.

Her thoughts were disjointed but finally a fact emerged. She’d been drugged. It wasn’t just her vision that was out of focus. Her mind wandered drunkenly from one thing to another. Her tongue and lips felt swollen and numb. “Uders?” she finally managed to emit the sounds though they were slurred, as if she’d had one shot too many of hard liquor.

“The underground.” The words were terse, almost violent.

Despite the drug, her heart gave a little leap of fear. “Doan know,” she muttered after several aborted attempts, too confused to figure out what they were talking about.

The man holding her hair slammed her head into the chair back again and released his grip abruptly.

The pain that hadn’t even subsided exploded into harder, pulsating waves. When the man released her, Lena’s head fell forward. It felt too heavy for her neck to support it.

“What do you think?”

“I think we gave her too much,” responded another voice.

The new voice penetrated Lena’s half stupor. She rolled her head to one side and struggled to focus her vision and her attention, knowing instinctively that the conversation was of utmost importance to her.

“Or maybe not enough? She’s a stubborn bitch.”

“Don’t be stupid. If we kill her now we won’t get anything out of her. Look at her. She hardly knows where she is.”

“Maybe she really doesn’t know anything?” the first man said slowly.

“Get your mind off your dick.”

“What?”

There was a mixture of amusement and anger in the single word question that captured Lena’s attention. Dimly, she realized there was an underlying threat in the direction the conversation had taken. She just wasn’t entirely sure of what that was.

“We’ve only just started questioning her. Until we get what we can from her, or know for sure that she doesn’t have anything to give us, they won’t be handing her over to you.”

“I could break her,” the first man offered.

A shiver traveled through Lena then and she suddenly knew what he was talking about with crystal clarity, partly because she’d finally managed to get a good enough look at the man to see his expression. He had the look of a thug--close set eyes, a hardness about his features that said he knew all about cruelty and he enjoyed it. He was dark, hairy, and built like a gorilla. The other man was lean, more of an academic type. She figured he must be there to make sure the interrogation didn’t go too far.

There was a light in the ceiling above the chair she was strapped to. It acted like a spotlight, throwing a ring of light around her and leaving the perimeter of the room in dimness, but she could see that the room was little more than a cubicle and the walls, floor, and ceiling were made of materials to deaden sound.

That realization sent another shiver through her.

“Just take her back to her cell for now. Next time I’ll give her a smaller dose.”

The gorilla man was angry when he unstrapped her restraints. He slapped her hard enough it rattled her teeth. “Wake up, little bird. Time to go back to your cage.”

Lena struggled to get up before he slapped her again.

He didn’t wait for her to manage it, however. Grabbing one arm, he dragged her out of the chair.

Her legs felt like limp noodles. She couldn’t seem to lock her knees or manage even a wobbling step and sprawled on the floor.

Ignoring her difficulties, he began to drag her.

The icy cold steel tiles sent a jolt through her, reviving her slightly.

He paused at the door.

She struggled to get to her feet.

The man shifted his grip, wrapping one hard arm around her chest, just beneath her breasts.

She managed a half a dozen steps before he began dragging her again down an impossibly long, wavering corridor that seemed to undulate like rolling breakers.

Doors opened off the vein sporadically, but all of them were closed, and Lena was in no condition in any case to figure out what the rooms might be for.

They paused again at a set of double doors when they reached the end of the corridor.

Seconds later, the doors slid silently open, revealing another cubicle very little smaller than the one they’d just left.

Dragging her inside, the man released her, allowing her to slump to the floor, and punched a glowing button.

The doors slid shut.

The sensation of rapid movement that followed made Lena’s head swim even worse.

Settling with a sharp jolt, the doors opened again.

This time the man hauled her to her feet and slung her over his shoulder.

She thought for several moments she might be ill as her head swam sickeningly. She fought the nausea, partly because she wasn’t certain she could stop if she got started and partly because she figured he would react violently to having her puke down his back.

She gave up on trying to see anything, squeezing her eyes closed to help battle the dizziness. Around her, she heard whispers--the voices of both men and women--but she could only catch a word here and there and the whispers told her nothing more than the fact that there were other people nearby.

The man halted at last.

She opened her eyes and managed to get a quick glimpse of the area around her as she was set on her feet. In the next moment, she was shoved through a narrow door. The door slammed closed and she found herself in yet another tiny cubicle. This one contained two bunks stacked one on top of the other.

The woman sprawled on the bottom bunk eyed her with hostility. Her attitude was plainly territorial.

Lena looked up at the top bunk a little hopelessly.

It took some maneuvering but she finally managed to hoist herself up onto the bunk and collapsed. Her head was still swimming. She closed her eyes, gripping the hard mattress on either side of her. After a while, the nausea eased off. The disorientation from the drug didn’t abate appreciably. She found herself struggling to make sense of her disjointed thoughts, going back over and over the questions that had been bellowed at her and the argument between the two men.

The men had been wearing uniforms of some sort, she finally realized.

She was in an institution of some kind. Mental hospital? Prison?

The drugs seemed to indicate a mental hospital, but everything else that she could recall seemed to contradict that. Why would they interrogate a mental patient?

For that matter, why would they interrogate a prisoner? Presumably, one did not end up in prison until one had been tried and convicted for a crime.

The word crime prompted a sickening flood of memories.

She was in prison.

She’d been sentenced to life--for killing herself.

* * * *

Three months earlier

The tube shuttle jolted to a halt and doors all along its length slid open. Every passenger in the car Lena occupied tensed, as if fearful that someone would leap on, or that they might be grabbed and shoved out.

Lena was the only passenger in the car who got to her feet and moved to the door, stepping through moments before the doors slid shut once more and the shuttle shot from the platform towards its next destination. She ignored the stares of the other passengers who looked her over speculatively as she got off. She knew what sorts of things were running through their minds.

Station 157 opened to the worst part of Grand City, an area devastated by the hundred years storms and inhabited by the poorest of the poor; derelicts, druggies, thieves, and murderers. Ground zero for the worst of the famine riots thirty years earlier, this part of Grand City looked like what it was, a war zone, and although she was always careful to dress in her most worn clothing when she went to visit Morris, she knew from the way the denizens of the area studied her that she still stuck out like a cotton ball in a mound of pig shit.

The commuters were wondering what business she could possibly have that would take her into such an area.

It wasn’t business that had brought her though.

Focusing her attention on the cracked pavement as much because she wanted to avoid tripping over any of the debris that littered the ground as because she knew it was best not to see anything going on around her, Lena headed toward the stone stairs that led up from the tube system to ground level.

She’d tried for years to convince Morris to leave this area of the city, but he was a stubborn old coot. No amount of reasoning, begging, or threatening would move him so much as a hair.

He’d been born here, in the days, so he claimed, when it was a respectable part of the city. She found it hard to believe the area had ever been reputable, and yet she couldn’t deny that there were some signs to support Morris’ claim. The shuttle tube had been built to run through here, and the area had its own terminal. There were also signs that the broken shells of buildings that still stood had once been handsome structures. Care and craftsmanship had gone in to their construction and she supposed that wouldn’t have been the case if the area had always been mean.

A knot of young caucs were loitering across the street from the tube entrance when she emerged. In her own area of the city she wouldn’t even have noticed. Here, things were very different and it went well beyond the poverty and crime of the area.

It was a cauc enclave and rumor had it that the place was as rife with rebels as it was other lawbreakers.

She tried not to think about that. In a way, it was actually kind of sad to see them huddled in miserable knots of humanity, trying to find common ground for some sort of unity. They were a lot like the gangs that had formed in the way back, she supposed, desperate to find a place where they felt like they fit in--desperate enough they were willing to do pretty much anything to get that particular kind of high--rob, deal, kill.

Like the spokes of a wheel, this entire area of the city was sectioned off in territories. The caucs held the hub. The tino enclave lay several blocks to the east, the indy to the west and the negs to the south. They were bloods. Anybody that could claim, and prove, to be at least forty-five percent pure racial lineage could belong to the elite. Between the spokes were the breeds, those who belonged to two or more of the groups through breeding, but actually belonged to none since no one else would accept them.

There were only three things they all had in common: poverty, misery, and rebellion.

Morris was a rebel--not in the sense that he was active in opposing the government and breaking the law, but in his views. She was fairly certain, though, that in the way back, when he had been young, strong, and virile, he had been a force to be reckoned with.

She didn’t know why she loved the ornery old coot! He was the most argumentative person she knew.

He was also a blood and a purist and very outspoken about it. She couldn’t count the number of times he’d lectured her about the beauty and sanctity of the purity of the races, how important it was to hold on to the things they had left that set them apart, those special traits that made them unique from one another.

He was going to give her hell when he noticed what she’d done with her hair.

Lena sighed, flicking a nervous glance around her to make certain no one was paying her too much attention as she turned from the tube entrance and began to walk briskly along the broken, uneven sidewalk toward Morris’ place.

She was such a chicken! She hadn’t been to see Morris in months, not since she’d decided to go to the lab and have her hair done.

It wasn’t like the decision was pure impulse. She’d thought it over long and hard before she’d finally decided that it was ridiculous to cling to hair that was giving her pure hell only because it was a unique racial trait when she could have it genetically altered to something more manageable. It was all very well to stick to nature if nature had provided well for one, but she’d hated the way her hair broke so badly every time she tried to grow it long and she’d hated the way it crimped up every time she washed it.

Besides, anybody could tell just from looking at her that there’d been more than one cauc in her family woodpile! She’d been born with blue eyes, for god’s sake! She hadn’t had those done at the lab. For that matter, her brother Nigel had blue eyes, which meant a thick cauc genetic link and made her doubt Morris knew what he was talking about when he insisted she and Nigel were bloods. No one but Morris seemed to think they were pure negs anyway!

It occurred to her as she reached the corner that she was thinking up arguments to try to pacify Morris and she knew that just wasn’t going to happen.

Maybe he wouldn’t notice, she thought hopefully? She hadn’t changed the color, just slightly altered the texture and strand strength.

She discovered that she’d been so deep in thought that she’d reached the building where Morris lived with no memory of even walking the two blocks from the station. A jolt of uneasiness went through her.

This was not the sort of place to walk around in a distracted fog!

When she glanced around, she discovered that the cauc youths she’d noticed when she’d left the terminal had followed her. A knot of fear formed in her throat.

They saw it--or smelled her fear like animals of prey smelled it in their victims. One, a tall, painfully skinny boy with stringy blond hair, stepped from the sidewalk.

Giving up her pretense of unconcern, Lena shot through the door of the building and raced across the lobby to the rickety stairs. She could hear shouts behind her as she reached the stairs and headed up them at an incautious clip. By the time she reached the second landing, she heard the pounding of a half a dozen feet against the hard floor of the lobby, racing toward the stairs.

Thankfully, Morris was only three levels up. Reaching the door to the stairwell, she yanked it open and dashed down the hall, praying she wouldn’t discover that Morris was out.

Her heart was pounding in her ears and her breath rushing in and out of her chest painfully when she began to hammer frantically at Morris’ door.

Just as the door to the stairwell opened, Morris’ door was yanked open, a hand fisted around her forearm and she was jerked inside.

Gasping for breath, frightened witless, Lena had already thrown herself into the man’s arms before she realized the hard chest beneath her cheek didn’t belong to Morris.

Heady sensations washed over her. His scent was clean and as appealingly manly as the hardness of the chest she burrowed against and the strength of the arms that tightened around her. To her surprise, the arms tightened more when she realized her mistake and struggled to push herself away from him.

The face she looked up into was as purely cauc as Morris’ own but far younger and a great deal more handsome.

His expression, however, was grim, his blue eyes stormy with both desire and something else she couldn’t quite interpret.

Dragging her gaze from his, she spotted Morris, who’d pushed himself from his easy chair and was standing tensely in the center of his living room.

“Morris?”

“Lena! What in the world are you doing here, baby girl?”

Almost reluctantly, the arms around her loosened and the stranger stepped away.

“We’ll continue our discussion later,” the stranger said.

His deep voice sent shivers of awareness through Lena. She glanced up at him again.

He turned away, pulled the door open and went out, closing the door firmly behind him.

A wave of disappointment went through her at his abrupt departure. The temptation arose to jerk the door open and peer out at him, to see if he was as gorgeous as she’d imagined, but she killed the impulse forming. For one thing, she could hear the pack of cauc youths thundering along the hall.

For another--well, if he’d been even nearly as interested in her as she was him, he wouldn’t have taken off like his coat tails were on fire.

“Who was that?” she asked instead of answering Morris’ question.

He frowned but finally shook his head. Turning, he shuffled toward his favorite chair and settled in it heavily. “Just a neighbor. Bolt the door. I expect he’ll give those ruffians what for and send them on their way, but there’s no sense in borrowing trouble.”

Since she was already in the act of doing just that, Lena finished securing the multitude of locks on his door and followed him into the living room. When she’d leaned down to kiss his weathered cheek and hugged him, she sat on the lumpy couch across from him. “I haven’t seen you in months. I missed you, you old goat,” she said as she settled, her voice chiding. “That’s not much of a greeting.”

The look in his eyes was almost vague, but at her comment he seemed to shake off whatever thoughts were distracting him. “Thought I’d finally drilled some sense into you. You’re going to get hurt if you keep traipsing down here. This is no place for you.”

Lena frowned. “It’s no place for you, either. Why won’t you move in with me? I got a bigger apartment just so I’d have an extra room.”

He smiled at that but grimly. “Because I’ve no business on the other side, and you know that, too. The gov would be down on both of us so fast it would make your head swim, baby girl.”

“I’m not a baby anymore,” Lena muttered. She’d been so confident when she’d gotten the two bedroom apartment that she could talk Morris into coming to live with her! She’d been certain she could appeal to his intense protectiveness toward her. In this instance, unfortunately, it was his concern for her safety that had convinced him she would be better off with his absence than his presence.

Morris peered at her, his old eyes suddenly keen. “What’ve you done to your hair?”

Lena grimaced. “Come on, Morris, don’t start that again.”

“Start what?” he growled. “You’ve been down to that damned clinic, haven’t you, baby girl? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from that place? God knows what kind of experiments the gov is carrying on there, but you can be damned sure it ain’t something you want to be a part of!”

Sighing inwardly, Lena sought patience. “Nigel is a tech there. You know that. And they keep his nose to the grind stone. About the only time I get to see my big brother is when I go. And it isn’t a gov facility. You know that, too.”

He shook his head. “Lena, child, you’re a beautiful girl, a credit to your race. Why the hell would you let them take some of that away from you?”

Lena could feel a guilty blush climbing into her cheeks, but irritation surfaced. She released a huff of anger. “I’m a breed, Morris. I’m not a blood. I’m not any more pure than anybody else on the other side. Anyway, it was just cosmetic. I got tired of spending half my day trying to get my damned hair to do what I wanted it to.”

He snorted but shook his head. “Everything is too easy these days. That isn’t a good thing. Hard as the old days were, struggle gave folks strength. The whole human race is going to go down the tubes if they let the gov take all their strength and treat them like infants.”

She ought to have known the moment he noticed her hair he was going to go off on one of his gov conspiracy rants. “If you’d come to the other side of the city with me sometime you’d see everybody works hard. We’re not being pampered to death.”

Of course she supposed she didn’t have a lot of room to talk. She was a gov employee, a historian, and it wasn’t the sort of job that made one break a sweat. She wasn’t even a field tech. All she did all day was work on restoring the artifacts that were found, analyzing them, and recording her impressions.

Oddly enough, it was Morris--a cauc and died in the wool purist--who’d inspired her choice of profession, not the parents she could barely remember. He’d raised her and Nigel, though, and taught them pride in their heritage and she’d thought the best way to demonstrate that pride was to preserve the history of their race. It helped that she was actually fascinated by her people’s roots. Theirs was a long, long history of struggle. In the end, they’d pretty much been absorbed in the melting pot like all of the other races, but their unique genetic traits were as strong as the cauc’s at the other end of the spectrum. In spite of generations of cross breeding, many of their special traits remained preserved in the gene pool.

Another wave of guilt went through her when she realized she’d been more interested in pleasing Morris in her choice of profession than because of any real sense of heritage. And the worst of it was, he hadn’t been particularly pleased--not when he discovered she would be employed by the gov he hated with a passion.

Morris snorted, but to her surprise dismissed it after that short spurt of disapproval. “I wish you hadn’t, but it’s done now and you’re stuck with it. If I catch you going down to that place again, though, I’ll tan your backside for you! You might think you’re too grown up for it, but you’re still my baby girl!”

Lena was torn between amusement, love, and indignation at the threat. “Just to see Nigel sometimes. I promise.”

To her surprise and alarm, his face crumpled. “Not even for that, Lena. Promise me you’ll stay away from that place. I know you think my hate has turned my mind, but there’s something going on there.”

In a general way, Lena tended to turn a deaf ear to all of Morris’ talk about conspiracy, but there was real fear in his eyes that sent a current through her. Anger followed it. “That guy that was here--he’s a rebel, isn’t he?”

Morris turned so pale Lena was alarmed. She jumped to her feet and rushed to him. “Morris?”

With an effort, he seemed to recover himself, but she was more alarmed than reassured when he pulled her down on his lap and cuddled her just as he had when she was a small child. “There are rumors.”

She was way too old to behave like a little girl, and Morris was too old now for her to be planting her weight in his lap, but he’d scared her when he turned so white. She’d been certain it was his heart. Instead of struggling up, she settled against him, nestling her head against his shoulder. “There are always rumors,” she murmured soothingly. “I’m a historian, remember? I may not have been around until after the hundred years of storms and the famine riots, but I’ve read all of the documentation. It was nature that caused the famine. The gov did all that was humanly possible.”

Morris made a rude noise. “Sure they did. It was for our own protection that they rounded everybody up into camps. I taught you to think for yourself, baby girl, not to just believe whatever crap the gov decides to feed the public.”

“I do think for myself. Everybody was responsible for the imbalance of nature that caused the hundred years of storms. Maybe the gov had a hand in it because they were more focused on the economy than the environment and didn’t protect us like they should have, but they didn’t make the storms. And it was the storms that made it impossible to produce enough food to feed people.”

“The gov was responsible,” Morris said irritably. “They taught people to behave like children and let them make all of the decisions for them--and they made the wrong decisions! Those poor decisions were directly responsible for the imbalance that caused the storms. And they didn’t stop there. When the people were starving and fighting for survival, they turned our armies against us.”

“I know. You’re right,” Lena said quietly. “But that was a long time ago. Most of it happened even before your time. Things have changed.”

Morris stroked her back soothingly as he had when she was a child. “They have at that, but not for the better.”

Chapter Two

Three weeks later

“You’re starting to scare the shit out of me, Morris,” Lena muttered, chaffing her palms along her upper arms as she paced his tiny living room and stared out of the grimy window at the streets below.

“Language, Lena Marie!” Morris growled.

A mixture of guilt, amusement, and irritation flooded Lena. She turned away from the window to study him. “I learned it from you! Quit trying to distract me. Are you in to something?” she asked, returning to the couch and sitting down to face him.

Morris frowned, studying the worn patches of rug beneath his feet. “When did you get to be the adult around here? You think I’m so old you can boss me around like a child?”

This time only guilt and irritation surfaced. She couldn’t tell if he was up to something or if it was just the same old Morris, still predicting the end of the world by gov conspiracy. It didn’t matter what happened, or who was responsible, or even if anyone was responsible. Morris always picked every event apart and discovered the gov’s hand in it.

She couldn’t decide why she felt like this time it was different.

She hadn’t been able to sleep easy since she’d visited him last. Morris had always been protective. Ever since the day he’d found her and her brother, mostly starved, and hiding in an alley because they were too scared to come out and even look for food, he’d been fiercely protective of them, especially her, either because she was the youngest, or because of his old fashioned views on ‘weak’ females.

There’d been something unnerving about the way he’d behaved the last time she’d come to visit him though, something she couldn’t figure out, but also couldn’t put out of her mind.

Ok, so she also couldn’t get that blond god out of her mind either and maybe, somewhere in the back of her mind, she’d more than half hoped she’d run into him again.

Morris wouldn’t be happy about her interest in him, though, and she didn’t quite dare bring him up.

It occurred to her that she had the perfect excuse for bringing the stranger up, though. “That guy that was here when I came last time--is he trying to get you mixed up in something?”

Morris gave her a wide eyed stare of innocence and then frowned, as if he was struggling to recall an elusive memory. “What guy?”

Lena gave him a look. “The one that manhandled me at the door. I’m not buying this, Morris.”

Morris gave up the attempt to pretend his memory was faulty. “Seemed to me you was doing a bit of wallowing there. What’s your interest in my neighbor?” he asked sharply.

Lena felt a blush rising in her cheeks in spite of all she could do. “Nothing as long as he isn’t trying to get you in trouble,” she lied.

“Liar. I saw the way the two of you looked each other over. I may be old, but I ain’t senile and I ain’t blind. Don’t even be thinking about it. The guy’s cauc, as pure as can be found in this day and time. You promised me you’d give me some beautiful neg grandbabies to dandle on my knee--you and Nigel both. The young shouldn’t have the ability to breed. They’re too thoughtless. Got nothing on their mind but hot blood when they ought to be considering what they’re passing down to their offspring.”

Full fledged embarrassment swept through Lena. Even her eyeballs felt hot. “Morris! I never said I wanted to--uh--I’m not lusting over him, for god’s sake! I don’t even know him!”

Morris snorted. “It’s a chemical bonfire, baby girl. It ain’t got nothing to do with knowing somebody!”

Lena came to her feet and began to pace the room in agitation. Finally, finding herself in front of the couch again, she plopped down on it. It took an effort to paste a smile on her full lips. “Good try. If you’re not up to something, why won’t you come stay with me? I promise not to bother you. You’ll have your own room to yourself and I’m at work most of the time, so you’d have the apartment to yourself except in the evenings. You’re getting skinny. You need somebody to cook for you.”

Morris laughed with real humor. “You got somebody in mind? Cause the last I noticed cooking wasn’t one of your special talents, baby girl.”

Lena gave him a look. “I happen to think I’m pretty good. You taught me to cook!”

“Exactly!” he shot back at her. “So if my own cooking is making me skinny, yours ain’t going to help!”

Lena sighed, but when she’d glanced at her time piece, she got to her feet. “I have to go. But I’ll give you fair warning I’m not giving up on this. I’m going to keep on pestering you till you give in.”

Morris pushed himself from his chair, pulled the antiquated gun he carried around with him for protection from under the chair, and shoved it into his pants pocket. “I’ll walk you to the terminal. You’d make me happier if you’d quit coming here at all. You’re too pretty to walk alone around here.”

Lena didn’t argue with him. They both knew it wasn’t safe. If she looked like the south end of a north bound mule it would still be dangerous. “When you come to live with me I won’t have any reason to come here,” she pointed out as they headed out of the apartment and paused in the hallway for Morris to secure all of his locks.

Morris sent her a piercing glance. “I love you, too, Lena Marie. When I get too old and ornery to take care of myself, I might let you drag me home with you like a stray.”

They met up with the blond stranger when they reached the second landing.

Lena’s heart executed a peculiar little flip flop when she saw him mounting the stairs toward them. Her blood began to sing in her ears and disjointed thoughts collided in her head. Should she just smile politely and nod? What if he stopped Morris to talk? Could she say anything at all without making herself look like a complete idiot?

She was still scrambling for something clever to say when he looked up. Heat flashed through her and then cold, and then heat again as his deep blue eyes locked with hers. A wave of dizziness followed. It was almost like hitting an invisible wall, stunning, completely disorienting.

His gaze flickered over her assessingly as they came abreast and then he glanced at Morris.

The two men nodded and moved past each other as if they’d never met.

Lena was still in a state of shock when Morris shoved her into the car of the shuttle and the doors closed behind her.

* * * *

One month later

Morris was smiling when he opened the door.

Lena felt her jaw go slack as her gaze traveled over the neatly slicked back hair, his clean shaven face, and down the neatly tucked tunic he was wearing, to his shined shoes. “Baby girl! Come in! Come on in. Don’t just stand in the hall.”

Like a sleepwalker, Lena allowed him to lead her into the apartment. The sense of disorientation increased as she wandered into the living room and stood in the middle of the floor, staring around at it as if she’d never seen the place before while Morris secured the locks on the door.

It was spotless. The smell dominating the area was of cleanser, not the musty smell of dust and clutter, and the combined odors of cooked food from many meals.

“I’ve been giving a lot of thought to your invitation to come live with you and it finally occurred to me that that was the only way I could get you to stop risking your neck coming here.”

Lena turned and stared at Morris blankly. It looked like Morris. The man even sounded like Morris, at least his voice did. Nothing coming out of his mouth sounded like her Morris, though.

As stunned as she was, Lena noticed a flicker of something in his eyes that set warning bells to clamoring in her head. She forced a smile. “I knew you’d come around,” she managed to say, though her voice didn’t sound like her own, sounded distant to her ears. She licked suddenly dry lips. “You’re serious? You’re going to come with me?”

He grinned, gesturing toward the packed suitcase sitting on the floor by the bedroom door.

A hard wave of nausea washed over Lena. For several moments she thought she was going to throw up or burst into tears. Moisture flooded her eyes. “I’m so happy,” she murmured when he gave her a questioning look. “This is--this is so great! It’ll be like old times.”

She wished she hadn’t thrown that last comment in for good measure. It brought the urge to burst into tears so close it squeezed the breath from her lungs. Numbly, she watched as he hefted the suitcase and turned to look at her expectantly. “You’re ready?” she asked blankly.

He looked around. “Nothing of any importance around here. I’ve got my best clothes packed and grooming supplies.”

“What about the gun?”

Something flickered in his eyes, but he merely chuckled. “That old thing hasn’t worked in years. I tossed it.”

Nodding, Lena led the way out again. She had no idea what she said on the way to the shuttle terminal. Thankfully, the car was crowded when she and Morris climbed on. She fell silent, grateful for a respite, staring absently at the other passengers, at the blurred view beyond the windows that was little more than streaks of lights and the concrete walls of the tube until they surfaced beyond old city and shot skyward toward the skyline segment of the tube that traversed the newer areas of Grand City.

Morris, she discovered, was babbling about seeing the sights.

She smiled in what she thought was all of the appropriate places. A coldness had begun to creep over her that she couldn’t shake. Surreptitiously, she kept glancing at Morris--his hands, his build, his weathered face--his clothing, his neat hair.

Morris had never been slovenly. He was very particular about good hygiene and he bathed and groomed with regularity. Beyond that, though, he wasn’t a primper and he tended to be very careless in his appearance. He bathed. He raked the tangles from his hair every morning, brushed his teeth, shaved--thereafter, he didn’t give his appearance a thought. He wore whatever was clean, no matter how it clashed with other articles of clothing or how threadbare or ragged it might be. Once he’d combed his hair, he didn’t touch it, which meant it was all over the place within hours of rising, and he didn’t cut it until it began to be a nuisance--most often sawing it off himself with haphazard results.

Lena wanted, badly, to think that Morris had gone to so much trouble to groom himself so that he’d be a credit to her.

She didn’t believe it for one moment, though, simply because she knew it would never occur to Morris that he wasn’t.

Wild thoughts kept tumbling through her mind.

He hadn’t made one comment about the gov--not one, not even when they’d passed the building on the way to the terminal that had anti-gov sentiments painted all over it.

As the shuttle halted at her stop and she got up from her seat like a robot and followed the line of people getting off, something Morris had told her months ago popped into her head.

He’d said rumors had begun to circulate that the gov was replacing people with their clones, clones that had been carefully programmed to conform to gov policies.

She’d actually laughed when he’d told her that because it was just so ridiculous even to consider such a thing. In the first place, cloning humans was illegal. It had always been illegal, and it was unnecessary anyway for growing replacement organs. If anyone needed a replacement, they could grow the organ. They didn’t need to invest the time and money into growing a whole person, and the economy was still in horrible shape. Even after years and years of struggling, things were only just returning to normal. No way could the gov afford that kind of project. A private company, maybe, but not the gov, which had gone bankrupt during the famine riots and still hadn’t recovered.

And why would a private company want to do such a thing? Or feel the need for such a thing?

It would take years and years of research--illegal research that they would’ve had to keep secret all that time and there was no profit in it that she could see.

Besides, clones couldn’t be an exact replica of a person. People were too complex. Their personalities were developed and shaped by their life experiences. Sure, she supposed with enough research they might be able to copy a person, and they could use the same accelerating techniques they used to produce mature organs to develop them before the person they were copying died of old age, but they’d still just be an imitation. The moment they began talking and interacting with others, people who knew them well would know it wasn’t the person it was supposed to be.

She glanced at Morris again as they threaded their way slowly toward the people tubes.

He was old. Even she had no idea how old he was, but he remembered the famine riots. He even remembered the last of the great storms.

It was ridiculous. The thoughts tumbling through her mind were just plain crazy.

Why did she feel like weeping then? Why did she feel like somebody had just ripped her heart out of her chest?

Because she knew they’d done something to him. All these years she’d ignored his ramblings, certain that he was just paranoid, but he wasn’t the Morris that had been a father to her and her brother. They’d--somebody had--been fucking with his mind.

Or maybe she was just being paranoid? He was old. Maybe he’d had some sort of seizure?

Could something like that alter his personality?

She smiled at him again when they got into the lift tube and she’d pressed the 45th level. “How long since you had a check up?” she asked tentatively.

He frowned at her. “Why would you ask me a thing like that?” he demanded tersely.

Lena almost felt better. That sounded a lot more like the Morris she knew and loved.

Some of the shock was wearing off, but she didn’t feel a whole lot better. “You don’t eat right and you’re no spring chicken. I’m worried about you. I’d feel a lot better if you’d go in for a checkup.”

He shrugged. “I’ll think about it.”

The urge to burst into tears assailed her again, stinging her nose and eyes. That wasn’t like Morris at all.

She managed a tremulous smile. “We’re going to have such fun together. It’ll be like old times.”

It wouldn’t, though. She had a horrible feeling everything that was important to her was already lost and she would never get it back.

* * * *

One week later

Nigel glanced absently toward the tiny glass window in the door of the procedure room, stared at Lena without recognition for a moment and finally acknowledged her. She mouthed ‘meet me for lunch?’ motioning with her hands in the direction of the sidewalk café where they sometimes met to share a meal.

Another blank stare greeted that, but finally he nodded, mouthed something back at her, and held up ten fingers.

Twice.

Lena bit her lip but finally nodded. He was with a client. She’d just have to be patient.

Mentally reciting the mantra she’d been repeating to herself for a week now--‘act normal’--she headed back the way she’d just come. She would’ve liked to have waited for Nigel outside the procedure room because she knew how absentminded he could get when he was working. He was always totally focused on his job and probably wouldn’t even think to stop and eat at all if not for the chime prompters.

She hoped he didn’t forget he’d promised to meet her for lunch, but she was afraid to stay because no matter how many times she repeated the mantra in her head she felt--knew she had a tenuous grip on calmness at best. If she stayed, she was going to embarrass her big brother in front of his co-workers at the very least.

At worst....

Well, she didn’t know how anything could possibly be worse than they were already.

Either she’d lost her mind, or Morris wasn’t Morris anymore.

That didn’t even make sense to her, but she could not convince herself, no matter how hard she tried, that the man currently staying in her spare bedroom was the same man that had cared for her and Nigel throughout their childhood. She also couldn’t convince herself that whatever it was that was wrong with him was something natural, the results of some sort of medical problem.

Either someone had been screwing with his mind very deliberately, or....

The other possibility was just plain unthinkable. And impossible.

He’d managed to deftly evade every attempt she’d made to get him near a clinic. That was very like Morris who hated doctors and distrusted anyone in any kind of authority so that in itself wasn’t the part that bothered her. It was the way he went about it that bothered her. He didn’t argue. He evaded.

Morris loved to argue.

She felt as if she was in mourning for a loved one. Almost from the time she’d encountered the complete stranger that was wearing Morris’ face she’d felt as if a vice was tightening around her chest cutting off her air. She hardly knew where she was half the time, or what she was doing. The focus of her entire world seemed to have zeroed in on the deep and painful sense of loss she couldn’t shake and she was barely aware of anything beyond that narrow scope of pain.

When she left the Quasar Corp. building, she stepped off the walk and threaded her way through the clutter of commuters on the south bound people mover. A number of people glared at her for cutting across instead of taking the upper level mover that was heading west, but except for begging pardon and trying harder to avoid collisions, she ignored them.

She was concentrating hard on containing the emotions roiling inside of her, but impatience was eating at her tenuous hold.

When she finally reached the walk on the other side, she glanced around at the tables of the café. Spying one tucked into a reasonably private alcove created by a potted plant and a low stone wall, she headed for it. Movement caught her eye before she was halfway across the courtyard and she glanced instinctively toward it.

It was a woman and she was headed for the same table.

Gritting her teeth, Lena made a dash for the table and plopped down in one of the chairs.

“Hey! I was going to sit here!”

Feeling abruptly territorial, Lena turned and glared at the woman. “So was I and I did. I was here first.”

“Because you ran,” the woman said sharply.

“And?” Lena growled challengingly. It was stupid and she knew it. There were several other tables available. It wasn’t as if she’d grabbed the only one.

And she knew the other woman had actually been closer than she was and had every reason to feel as if she’d had first dibs.

She didn’t care. As irrational as she knew it was, as dangerous as it was to argue publicly where they could easily attract the unwelcome attention of the home guard, she almost welcomed the opportunity to strike out at someone for all the pain and confusion that had been dogging her all week.

“What’s going on here?”

Both Lena and the stranger turned at the sound of Nigel’s voice.

Lena discovered when she glanced at him that his gaze was on the woman. His expression was hard to decipher but somehow she had the feeling that he wasn’t feeling the same sense of abuse as she was. There was something in his eyes as he looked the woman over that made her feel like squirming uncomfortably in her seat.

The woman, after staring at him for a long, long moment, dragged her gaze from his, glared at Lena, and finally whirled on her heel and stalked away.

Instead of closing the distance between himself and the table where Lena sat, Nigel remained rooted to the spot, watching the woman until she’d threaded her way between the tables and finally disappeared down the side walk.

“What was that all about?” the two of them asked almost in unison when Nigel finally shook off his stupor and settled in the chair across from his sister.

“Do you know her?” Lena demanded, redirecting the question.

Nigel frowned, but his gaze was pensive as he studied his little sister. “I don’t think that comes under the heading of your business,” he finally growled.

“You do know her then? She’s a mongrel. Cauc for sure, maybe some indy or tino thrown in to muddy the gene pool.”

Nigel’s face darkened. “I didn’t realize you were such a snob.”

And a hypocrite. She’d been lusting over that cauc she’d seen in Morris’ apartment right up until Morris had turned her world upside down and put him from her mind. She sat back at the snub. She hadn’t come to pick a fight with Nigel or nose into his business. She’d come … she wasn’t sure why she’d come. For reassurance maybe?

Nigel seemed to realize they’d gotten off to a bad start about the same time Lena did. “Sorry!” they both said, almost in unison again.

They’d done that most of their lives. She supposed it came from being so close. It was almost like telepathy the way their minds seemed almost to flow in sync.

“Something’s wrong,” Nigel said abruptly, sitting forward in his chair as if he’d just noticed the strain in Lena’s face.

The server bot appeared almost before he got the words out.

Lena shook her head and glanced at the menu scrolling across the screen set in the bot’s chest. “I’ll have a salad--no cheese on that. A chicken breast. A glass of….” She felt the abrupt urge to get something to numb the pain a little but quashed the impulse. “Purified water,” she finished. The bot scanned her retina, recited her credit balance, and swiveled toward Nigel.

When Nigel had ordered and the bot rotated on its base and headed toward the kitchen, he reached across the table and folded his large hand over hers. “What is it, baby girl?”

Lena’s chin wobbled in spite of all she could do at the pet name both Nigel and Morris had called her most of her life. Tears filled her eyes. Struggling to regain control, Lena looked away from the concern in her brother’s eyes. The world wavered and finally righted itself as she firmly tamped her wayward emotions.

The woman she’d vanquished, she saw, had returned and settled at a table on the opposite side of the café, but still within view of her and Nigel. She glanced casually in their direction as Lena watched.

Except it didn’t seem casual at all to Lena.

That certainty brought Lena’s feet firmly into reality. They were in public. And if she was even close to right about Morris, it was dangerous to behave as if anything at all was wrong.

She returned her attention to Nigel. “You’ll think I’m nuts.”

He uttered a humorless laugh at her attempt to lighten the mood. “There’s nothing new about that. What crazy theory have you come up with now on the origins of the races?”

Lena shook her head. “This isn’t about work. It’s about Morris.”

Several emotions flickered across Nigel’s face, alarm prominent among them. “He’s still refusing to come live you?”

Lena shook her head. “That’s just it. He isn’t. He moved in with me without a whimper of protest when I went to see him a few days ago.”

Nigel removed his hand and sat back as the bot returned and set their food out on the table before them. When the server had departed again, Nigel placed his napkin in his lap and picked up his fork. He was frowning thoughtfully, though, and Lena could see he thought that Morris’ behavior was as strange as she did.

“Maybe he finally realized he was getting to the point where he really needed someone to look after him,” he said slowly.

Lena swallowed against a knot in her throat and went through the motions as Nigel had, pretending an interest in her meal she didn’t feel. “I was in a state of shock, though.” Resisting the urge to glance toward the vid she knew was trained to observe all of the diners, she tried to formulate something to say that would sound innocuous to those who listened but would get her anxieties across to Nigel. “He seems … happy. He spends all day wandering around East end sightseeing.”

Nigel’s brows rose, but she saw alarm flicker in his eyes again. He managed a shrug. “He hasn’t visited this side of Grand City in years. It’s changed a lot.”

Lena forced a smile. “Yes. When I get home in the evenings, he always gives me an account of the improvements he’s seen. It’s good to see him out and about instead of huddled in front of the vid, watching the news all day. And he’s so cheerful and upbeat about absolutely everything that it keeps my spirits high.” It was hard to keep the note of hysteria out of her voice when she made that announcement.

Nigel stiffened. For a moment his dark skin turned a sickly, pasty shade, and she knew he’d caught the alarm she felt.

“I’d thought about taking him to the clinic, but he always makes excuses and I finally realized he’s just a … new man. I guess he just missed the two of us and that was why he always seemed so dispirited when I went to see him before.”

She could see Nigel was struggling with the hints she’d passed to him. Focusing on her meal, she allowed him to sort it out in his mind. “I should stop by for a visit,” Nigel said finally. “I haven’t been to see either one of you in weeks.”

Lena beamed at him. Relief flooded her, making her feel weak as the tension vanished. “That would be such fun! Tonight? I could stop by the market and pick up something special for dinner.”

Nigel glanced at his watch. “Sure. I have to work late. I’ve got five more clients to see today, but I’ll come as soon as I’m off and we can catch up.”

Lena couldn’t help but notice that she’d completely demolished Nigel’s appetite. She could see he was struggling to maintain a pretense of interest in his food. Guilt flooded her when she realized her own appetite had exerted itself now that she’d shouldered her anxiety off onto him.

She wished she could’ve just explained everything plainly. Nigel might have been able to dismiss her qualms without growing so alarmed himself, but there was no discussing anything private in public if one wanted to keep it private.

She’d never found that particularly disturbing before. The gov had vids everywhere to monitor its citizens and prevent crime. It was for their own safety, and it was a comfort to know that, unlike the old days, crime was now almost non-existent and one could walk most anywhere, at any time of the day or night, without concern for their safety.

Not that anyone except the home guard was allowed on the streets after curfew.

She supposed she shouldn’t worry about being overheard now. It wasn’t as if there was anything criminal in anything she might have said.

Yet she had felt real fear about voicing her thoughts and concerns aloud.

Maybe the problem was her, not Morris? Maybe she was just growing paranoid?

Chapter Three

Lena felt almost lighthearted as she looked over the displays in the market for something really special to prepare for dinner. After debating with herself for a good ten minutes, she finally decided to splurge and buy a real roast. The vegameat was almost as good, but she hadn’t had real meat in at least a month and she doubted Nigel had. Luck was with her. She managed to get the last one available. Ignoring the twinge of guilt that caused her, she collected the sides she had decided to nuke with it from the bin below the display, tucked it all into her tote and headed out of the market again.

When she reached the shuttle terminal, she discovered she’d dallied until she’d caught the homeward rush. The platform was packed almost shoulder to shoulder. After checking her time piece several times, she resolutely ignored the minutes ticking off. The shuttle would arrive when it arrived. There was nothing she could do about it unless she opted to walk and that would delay her even more.

Patience, she chastised herself. She would still have a good hour to prepare the meal before Nigel could possibly get to her place.

Trying to ignore her rising tension and the unpleasant situation of standing in such a closely packed formation that she could feel the body heat of the people around her, smell their combined breaths and the odors that clung to their skin, Lena tipped her head back and glanced toward the opening where the shuttle would appear when it arrived. As she did so, her gaze locked with that of a man who’d just stepped up on something to look out over the crowd.

It was the cauc, the one she’d seen in Morris’ place. Even as a heated wave of attraction washed over her, though, it filtered into her mind that he was wearing the uniform of a home guardsman. Pleasure was instantly replaced with alarm as he stepped down from whatever it was he’d been standing on and she could see the crowd ripple as he pushed his way through.

He was headed in her direction!

Full fledged fear sent a cold wave crashing over her.

Her panicked mind refused even to sort the conflicting information rushing through her mind. Acting purely on instinct, Lena began inching her way through the crowd in the opposite direction, trying to keep from looking as panic stricken as she felt and raising an alarm.

The shuttle arrived as she neared the edge of the crowd on the platform and before she could prevent it, she was swept up in the wave of humanity that surged toward the opening doors and into a car. Unable to think clearly at all, Lena continued struggling against the tide. She’d almost reached the doors to get off again when they slammed shut, trapping her inside.

As the car shot from the platform, she caught a glimpse of the cauc--still standing on the platform, searching for her face among those who remained to wait for the next shuttle. Weak with relief, Lena glanced around at the car and finally found enough room on a seat to wedge her butt into.

As reaction set in, her rioting thoughts calmed somewhat and she wondered what had possessed her to react as if she was guilty of something. She hadn’t done anything. Why had she felt so fearful the very moment she realized he was wearing the uniform of the home guard?

Because she was paranoid, she chided herself.

It was probably nothing more than that he’d recognized her and wanted to talk to her about Morris for some reason. Maybe he’d wondered what had happened to Morris?

He had been looking for someone, though. He’d stepped up on something to give him a better vantage to view the crowd.

That didn’t necessarily mean he’d been looking for her.

But if he’d been looking for someone else, why had he abandoned his search and headed toward her?

It occurred to her abruptly that she didn’t know he had even targeted her. He had seemed to be looking straight at her, but that didn’t mean he had been. She cast her mind back, trying to recall if she’d noticed anyone else who appeared to be attempting to evade him but discovered that was useless. She’d been too mindless with panic to think at all and certainly too frightened to notice anyone else.

As she emerged from the shuttle at her stop it finally dawned on her why she’d been afraid the moment she’d seen his uniform. Morris had claimed him as a neighbor and the only reason a home guardsman would’ve been living in old town was because he’d been planted there to ferret out rebels.

That thought instantly sent her into panic mode again and it was all she could do to pretend even a modicum of nonchalance as she headed out of the terminal and turned toward her apartment. As she focused on restraining the urge to run for all she was worth toward the only safe harbor that came to mind, she felt the watchful eye of the vids she passed beneath boring into her like lasers.

She’d already reached her apartment building and stepped into the lift tube before it dawned on her that her apartment was the last destination she should have in mind if she really thought they were after her. They could be waiting for her when she got there.

But what about Morris? And what about Nigel?

They could be blindsided if the home guard really was bent on arresting her for something.

There was no stopping the damned lift, though. She’d already punched in her level like a bot before her mind had even begun to make sense of her situation.

She wasn’t certain it was making sense even now. The sensation of being herded like prey had totally demolished her reasoning ability. She could do little more than allow her instincts to guide her--and her main instinct was to run for cover.

The corridor was empty when she reached her level. Goosebumps immediately erupted and chased up her spine.

Trying to ignore the alarm that sent through her, Lena’s hand tightened on her tote as she strode briskly down the corridor toward her door, her ears pricked for any sound that seemed out of place.

The apartment was empty. She knew that the moment she stepped inside and whirled to bolt the door behind her. “Morris?”

She wasn’t terribly reassured when she didn’t get a response. Striding through the apartment, she dropped the grocery tote on the counter in the kitchen and then, after looking around for something she could use to defend herself, searched the apartment with her wooden meat mallet. It wasn’t much of a weapon. The thing probably didn’t weigh more than a few ounces. At worst, swinging it as hard as she could probably wouldn’t cause more damage than a bad bruise, but she had nothing else that looked even vaguely threatening. On the rare occasions that she actually had real meat, she used the laser slicer. The closest thing she had to a knife was her butter knives and she would’ve had to saw somebody’s head off with one of them. The forks were probably more lethal.

She was somewhat relieved when she’d reassured herself that she really was alone in the apartment. If, as she’d thought, the home guard was after her for some reason, they would’ve been waiting for her--probably outside the building, certainly inside the apartment.

Those thoughts brought her little comfort though.

Ignoring the food she’d abandoned on the counter of her kitchen, she began pacing the living area, trying to make sense of her fears. Was she over reacting? Was the only threat in her mind?

She blushed when it occurred to her to wonder if the guy had merely recognized her and decided to further their acquaintance.

That was just wishful thinking, she realized almost at once. They hadn’t even been introduced, for god’s sake! She seriously doubted he remembered that very brief meeting.

Besides, there was no doubt that he had been looking for someone. It wasn’t paranoid to assume it was her he’d been after all the time when he’d come straight toward her. He wouldn’t have simply abandoned an order to locate someone to flirt with her.

Why had he been alone, though? If he’d been sent to find her, or anyone, wouldn’t there have been at least one other guard with him?

Becoming weary from her pacing and her wrecked emotions, Lena finally paused near the window and glanced at her timepiece. “Shit! Brainless idiot!” she muttered as it abruptly dawned on her that she should have tried to head Nigel off. If there really was trouble and it wasn’t all in her mind, he would be heading into it right now when they should both be headed in the other direction.

He would’ve left work by now, she realized. She should’ve just waited at the terminal. Deciding that was probably her best bet--just in case--she glanced around, wondering if she should worry about taking anything with her.

She’d left the food out, she remembered abruptly. As tempted as she was to simply abandon it, she had a deep seated antipathy for wastefulness, especially with something so expensive and hard to get as real meat. Sighing, she rushed into the kitchen, grabbed the tote, and tossed the entire bag inside the refrigeration unit without worrying about unpacking it and sorting it.

As she closed the door again, she heard the distinctive sound of the front door lock being deactivated. Torn between alarm that it might be the home guard and hope that it was Morris returning, she dashed into the hallway and skidded to a halt.

The woman who stepped through the door and closed it firmly behind her had a laser pistol leveled at her.

When she finally managed to drag her gaze from the muzzle of the pistol, a shockwave washed over her.

The woman staring back at her wasn’t just of the same general build, color, weight, and age as she was. It was her.

* * * *

Shock sent Lena’s mind instantly spiraling beyond any ability to reason. Nothing but disjointed words flashed in her mind, impossible to connect into a coherent thought. Pure instinct spurred her to flee. Since the woman was blocking the only exit, Lena leapt backwards into the kitchen and beyond her view little more than a split second before an angry red beam seared a hole through the wall directly behind the position Lena had occupied an instant before.

Racing around the kitchen in a mindless panic, Lena grabbed up and discarded a half a dozen items in a primal need to find something, anything, to defend herself with. Turning up nothing even vaguely lethal, she whirled and hurled the bowl she held in her hand as she heard the scrape of a foot on the tile at the door of the kitchen, diving toward her evil twin at almost the same moment.

Luck was with her.

The woman jerked a hand up instinctively to shield herself from the flying object.

Lena’s dive clipped one leg as she sailed through the doorway, knocking the woman off balance. Even as the satisfying thud of meat smacking solidly into tile reached her ears, Lena crumpled against the opposite wall of the hallway.

She barely registered the collision that would’ve been painful if adrenaline wasn’t pumping through her body like wildfire. Scrambling to her feet, she slapped her palm against the emergency button set into the wall. A hole appeared in the wall a fraction of an inch from her hand. Lena stared at it a split second and fled away from the fire, into her living room, once more cornering herself with no avenue of escape.

Her nemesis, instead of chasing her, planted herself firmly in the doorway between the hall and the living area, leaving Lena with no option other than to race back and forth at one end of the room, trying to dodge the blasts and hoping against hope that the home guard she’d summoned would arrive before the woman managed to get in a clean shot.

Almost on the thought a beam raked along her arm, turning the fabric of her sleeve and the outer layers of flesh it touched into ash. She screamed, scooping one of her prized possessions, an ancient stone African fertility god, from its display shelf as she dashed past and hurling it in the general direction of her assailant. A meaty thud, a scream, and the sound of a metallic object striking the floor rewarded her effort. Without registering much more in her mind than the errant thought that she’d managed to knock the pistol from the woman’s hand, Lena charged her attacker, slamming into her hard enough to carry both of them into the wall.

Her fingers curled into the tunic the woman was wearing as she felt herself falling. They hit the floor in the hall in a tangle of arms and legs, and fury born of sheer terror sent Lena into a mindless rage of clawing, pummeling, screaming, and biting. She was vaguely aware of receiving almost as many blows as she meted out, but shock cocooned her from feeling any pain.

It also shielded her from rational thought. The woman broke free before Lena realized she was trying to reach the weapon she’d dropped. Releasing a sound that was part scream and part animal growl with a mixture of anger and fear, Lena launched herself at the woman again before she could completely break free, struggling to grab the pistol first. Neither of them managed to do anything more than knock the weapon further from their reach.

Giving up the effort after a moment, Lena managed to lever herself on top of her assailant, grabbed a handful of hair on either side of the duplicate’s head and used the leverage to pound the woman’s skull against the floor. The woman screamed, clawing at Lena’s hands and digging raw, bloody trenches across the backs. Gritting her teeth, Lena pounded harder.

Abruptly, the wiggling form beneath Lena managed to get a knee between the two of them, lifting Lena away and overbalancing her. She fell sideways, losing her grip on one handful of hair. The woman clubbed her on the side of her head with a balled fist. Pain exploded in Lena’s head and she lost her grip completely, pitching into the floor with the second handhold.

Disoriented, Lena pushed herself up and launched herself forward as the woman made a dive for the gun again but moments too late. Her doppelganger’s fingers closed around the butt of the weapon.

A desperate tussle ensued.

Lena managed to grab the arm holding the pistol, but she could not reach the pistol itself. The gun discharged as they struggled, shattering glass, furniture, ceiling tiles, and wallboard as each fought for dominance in a battle where they were evenly matched in strength, weight, and life or death desperation.

Lena’s focus on the gun hand cost her. Seeing she couldn’t break Lena’s grip on her arm, the woman began pummeling her again with her fist and finally jerked her knees up, managing to drive a knee into Lena’s side hard enough it knocked the breath out of her. It also pitched Lena face first into the arm she was gripping, however. As she fell forward, her weight drove the woman’s elbow into the hard floor, paralyzing it from elbow to wrist. The woman lost her grip. Even as Lena crashed, the pistol went skittering across the floor once more.

Both women scrambled to their feet and surged toward the gun again. Realizing the pistol had slid under her couch, Lena changed tactics abruptly. Trying to prevent the woman from reaching the pistol instead of beating her to it, Lena rammed her shoulder into her.

The blow knocked both women off balance.

As the woman staggered back a step, Lena fell against the woman and slid towards the floor. Coming down on her knees painfully, she grabbed at the woman, clawing along the woman’s clothing but failing to grasp a hold. Shoving herself to her feet again as the woman lurched toward the couch, Lena sprang toward her. The impact, when she struck, carried both them over the back. They rolled, with first Lena on top and then the other woman. Beneath them, Lena heard the crunch of broken glass, felt sharp needles of pain. The woman screamed, bucking Lena off and then slamming her shoulder into Lena as they struggled to their feet again. Lena staggered back a couple of steps, caught her balance, and charged again.

The second charge took both women through the shattered window of the living area. Shock and horror sucked the air out of Lena’s lungs as the realization hit her that they’d gone through. The woman’s buttocks hit the hip high iron railing of the faux balcony and both women teetered, clawing at each other as each tried to regain their balance. The woman screamed as her own weight tore her grip loose and she flipped over the railing.

Lena found herself staring round eyed at the face of the woman dangling by one arm from her balcony and the insect sized city streets far below. Abruptly, a large hand seized her, yanking her back into the apartment like a rag doll and releasing her so that she slammed into the floor and skidded.

“Help me! Please! For god’s sake pull me in!” the woman cried in Lena’s voice, sending a shiver down Lena’s spine.

A dark, hulking mass stepped through the window, stared down at the woman hanging from the railing dispassionately for a split second and then, to Lena’s stunned disbelief, he planted the sole of his boot on her fingers and bore down.

The sickening crunch of shattering bones sounded loud and horrible in Lena’s ears, but not nearly as terrible as the woman’s high pitched cry as she lost her grip. She screamed as she fell, the sound seemingly endless and filled with absolute terror as it faded into the distance.

The man glanced at Lena where she lay on the floor as he touched a button on the shoulder of his uniform. “Done,” he growled. “We’re in, but this place is a fucking mess. You’ll need a repair crew in here asap.”

“You killed her,” Lena muttered in disbelief. “You murdered her.”

The man blinked in surprise. Striding toward her abruptly, he caught her throat, lifted her by her neck, and used his thick fingers to peel her eyelids back. “Fuck!”

He shook her furiously and dropped her to the floor. “We’ve got a problem,” he growled into his radio. “The clone just went off the balcony.”

Stepping across her, the home guardsman leaned down, caught the torn front of Lena’s tunic and slugged her in the face with his fist. Pain exploded in her face and head and blackness descended abruptly.

Chapter Four

Lena roused with the jolt that seemed to travel throughout her body. The sense of falling ceased and she struggled to open her eyes. A gray stone wall was all that greeted her gaze when she finally managed to focus her eyes. She stared at it without recognition, uncomprehendingly. Slowly, it was borne in upon her that it was real. The nightmare wasn’t a nightmare but memories.

The drug still flowed through her veins, however, and she found she could not rouse herself to full alertness. Her head swam as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, and, for a moment, fear invaded her that she would keep moving until she hit the floor. Gripping the edges of the thin mattress she laid on, she closed her eyes until the room stopped spinning.

She was in prison. As difficult as it was to sort reality from dreams, she knew abruptly that she’d lived the nightmare, not just imagined it.

Why the drugs, though? She was no threat to them now, if she ever had been.

Per the new, harsher laws enacted during the food riots, there’d been no trial, no chance to tell her side of the story, to tell anyone that she hadn’t killed someone. She’d done nothing but defend herself. The guardsman had committed the murder.

He’d thought it was her.

A cold shiver went through her.

He knew he’d made a mistake and killed her replacement. So why was she still alive?

Her mind seemed to wander for an endless time wrestling with that question. Finally, an answer seemed to present itself.

They hadn’t managed to pry the information they were looking for from Morris before they’d killed him and replaced him. They thought she knew something.

She was still alive because of that, but she wouldn’t be once they figured out she didn’t have a clue of what was going on.

* * * *

No doubt the windowless cell in which Lena found herself would’ve made it impossible to gauge the passage of time even without the drugs that kept her off balance, but with them, she was most certainly lost, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Time passed. The sudden, sharp intrusion of metal scraping against metal roused her. She pushed herself up on her elbows just as two trays skidded across the stone floor, shoved through a narrow opening at the base of the wall. A hand appeared briefly, leaving behind two tumblers filled with liquid.

Lena’s throat closed with thirst. She could almost smell the water. Even as she rolled off the bunk, however, the woman in the bed below hers hit the floor and scurried toward the trays.

Lena narrowly missed landing on top of the woman. In the next moment, she was sorry she hadn’t flattened the bitch for as she struggled to her feet the woman grabbed the food off of both trays and began stuffing it into her mouth as fast as she could. Uttering a feral scream, Lena dove toward the tumblers.

Alerted, Lena’s cellmate whirled to meet her.

The struggle was brief. Lena was too incapacitated by the drugs in her system to put up much of a fight. She hit the floor, but rolled over almost at once, scrambling frantically to reach one of the tumblers, both of which were now rolling around on the floor.

Her questing fingers snagged one, and for a moment a sense of hope filled her. She discovered when she got it to her mouth, though, that little more than a few drops remained. The cooling drops didn’t do much more than dampen her mouth.

With a growl, the woman slapped at the cup in Lena’s hands, driving the edge into her tender lip and splitting it.

Blood filled her mouth. Pain completely disoriented her for a handful of seconds. It was all the woman needed as an advantage. Grabbing Lena by the hair, she dragged her across the cell and slammed her into the wall several times.

Apparently satisfied when she saw Lena was unable to do more than slap at her, she released her after a moment and scrambled toward the food strewn around the floor.

Lena stared at the woman dully for a moment and finally pushed herself upright.

Except for the puddle on the floor that her cellmate was sitting in, the water was gone. Lena studied the gleaming liquid for a moment, struggling with the urge to charge the woman again and collect what she could off the floor. Finally, she merely turned to the bunk and, after several failed attempts, managed to climb onto the mattress again.

When she’d settled, she rolled onto her side and put her back to the woman before she thought better of it. Realizing, dimly, that the woman might attack her again, she switched sides so that she could watch her cellmate.

Nausea and anger swept through her as she watched the woman gobble the food, stuffing it into her mouth until her cheeks bulged like a chipmunk. “I hope you choke on it, you bitch!” she muttered.

The words were scarcely out of her mouth when the woman coughed. Her body undulated, as if she was trying to disgorge what she’d just swallowed. Half chewed food fell from her mouth and splattered the puddle of water. Convulsing, the woman tipped over on the floor and drew her knees up, curling into a tight ball. As Lena watched with a mixture of satisfaction and horror, foam formed around the woman’s mouth, oozed between her lips and puddled beside her cheek on the floor. After jerking and twitching for several moments, she went still.

It took many moments for it to sink into Lena that the woman wasn’t moving because she was dead. The minute it did, bile rose in her throat. Briefly, she waged a battle with her stomach.

She lost.

When the spasms passed, she collapsed wearily on her bunk, but the tiny cell wreaked and the awful smell nearly made her throw up again. Grabbing her pillow, she covered her face, breathing through the fabric. Slowly, the urge to puke passed, but she wasn’t certain whether she merely became accustomed to the smell, or if the air circulating through the cell had finally whisked most of the odor away.

She suspected the former.

After her stomach ceased to revolt, she began to wonder what, if anything, she was to do about the body on the floor.

Would they think she’d done it?

Guilt teased at her. No amount of trying to reason it away helped. Even though she knew very well she couldn’t have wished the woman’s death upon her, she couldn’t dismiss the comment she’d made just before the woman choked any more than she could forget the sentiment that inspired it.

Despite everything, the drug eventually took the upper hand again and she drowsed. A metal scraping much like she’d heard before woke her.

“Fuck! You crazy bitch!”

The accusation in the voice jolted through Lena and she pushed herself up on the bunk just as the door to the cell opened. “I din’ touch’er,” Lena gasped, her voice still slurred from the drug. “She choked.”

The guard’s eyes were condemning. After a moment, he knelt, grasped one of the woman’s feet and dragged the body out, slamming the door again.

Lena had just begun to breathe a sigh of relief when the door opened once more.

Two dark figures seemed almost to fly toward her in the dimness.

Something stabbed into her hip and almost immediately dizziness and blackness swallowed her up.

At first Lena thought the movement she sensed wasn’t actual movement but the effects of the drug in her system. She finally realized, though, that blood pounded against her temples. She roused enough to lift her head. She was hanging face down across a wide back. When the blackness parted a little, she saw floor and, just a little to one side, a wall sprouted from the floor.

She was in the hallway again. She realized almost instantly that they were taking her back to the interrogation room. Fear battled the drug, but the drug had too hard a grip on her to allow apprehension to take dominance.

The man stopped and the sensation of falling washed over her. Instinctively, Lena began flailing her arms and legs in an attempt to catch herself. The guard, either under the impression that she was trying to fight him, or simply annoyed by her attempt to catch her balance, let go of her, leaning down to punch her a few times when she hit the floor in an ignominious heap.

The blows barely registered except to disorient her further. She continued to flail around as she was dragged up, deposited in a chair, and strapped down.

“Feel more like chatting with us today?”

A day had passed?

How many days had she been here, she wondered?

Her mind wandered along that path for a time, trying to put together enough information to give her some idea of the time she’d been incarcerated. A sharp slap on one cheek that made her head fly sideways and her neck crack emphasized the question the man repeated. “Give us names.”

Names? Lena thought blankly. “Wha...?”

A hand grabbed her jaw bruisingly and a face swam into her view. “Don’t play stupid with me!” he growled, spattering her face with flecks of spittle. “Your father was right in the middle of the rebellion.”

“Fauder?” Lena repeated blankly. She could barely even remember her father. It had almost seemed to her that she and Nigel had been alone forever--scrounging for food, sleeping in trashcans--until Morris had found them and took them home.

“Frank Morris,” he growled, obviously frustrated.

Grief descended upon her as suddenly and devastatingly as if it was a thing of substance rather than pure emotion. Her face crumpled. “Morris. Wa’you do t’him?”

He slapped her again. It seemed to rattle her brains in her skull, but when her ears stopped ringing her mind felt a little clearer.

“Keep that up, you idiot, and you’re going to break her neck. Then we won’t get anything out of her! She’s drugged. All you have to do is keep asking her. Eventually, she’ll tell us what we need to know.”

“This fucking drug you’ve concocted is useless,” the heavy set man snarled. “Pain and fear work best, and she doesn’t feel either when she’s flying on this stuff. We’ve tried it your way, doc. Now we’ll try it my way a while.”

Fear flickered through Lena. He was wrong. She could feel it. Her mind simply refused to focus for more than a moment at a time.

Confusion filled her when he began removing the straps that he’d secured her with only moments before.

It seemed it had only been moments. Maybe he had finished the session and was taking her back to the cell?

She didn’t believe that. He’d said ‘pain and fear’, she remembered suddenly. She began to struggle when he released her wrists and ankles, slapping at his hands ineffectually.

Unfortunately, the fight was over before it had barely begun. He slapped her back, stunning her, more because she’d dared to try to fight, she suspected, than because she’d actually managed to cause him any pain. Grabbing her by one arm, he hauled her out of the seat and, when she could only manage a few wobbling steps, began to drag her.

They left the cell and headed down the hallway she remembered and hope surged through her that he was taking her back to her own cell. Instead, she discovered when the tube lift jolted to a stop and they stepped off, that she was on another level of the prison entirely. She wasn’t certain how she knew, but she realized after a moment that her ears were popping and she couldn’t remember noticing that sensation before that told her they’d climbed very high, very rapidly.

She began struggling against the guard’s grip. “Where you tak’ me?” she asked in a slurred voice.

He laughed. The sound scared her like nothing else he’d done before. “I’m gonna introduce you to some real playful fellas. They’re gonna be your playmates for a while. Until you decide you’re ready to talk.”

Even as chaotic as her mind was, Lena sensed the threat on a primal level. She put on brakes, digging her heels into the slick floor. He continued to drag her as if he wasn’t even aware of her attempts to struggle against him. Her heels made squawking noises as her feet skidded along the metal tiles, but she couldn’t tell any difference other than that.

Looking around for a possibility of escape, Lena discovered the real difference between this floor and the others she’d seen. There were only two enormous holding pens instead of individual cells. Dark shadows clustered in both--many dark shadows.

“No!”

He ignored that.

“I’ll talk,” she babbled.

He stopped and looked down at her for several moments. Finally, a grin split his face. “After this, if you’re able. I’m overdue for some entertainment.”

Lena began clawing at his hand. When that failed to produce the desired results, she sank her teeth into his flesh.

He slapped her, twice.

Ignoring the ringing in her ears, she clenched her jaws tighter.

Finally, he merely grabbed her nose, squeezing off her air.

She struggled, twisting her head. Dark spots began swarming around her, the cloud growing until she could no longer stand it. She released her grip on him, sucking in a mouthful of air.

Grabbing a fistful of hair, he hauled her upward until he could wrap one meaty arm around her middle.

“Back away from the door!” he barked as he stopped at the cell door.

No one moved for several moments, but when he released his hold on her hair and pulled an electrified rod from his belt loop, the men in the cell began backing slowly away until they were packed near the back of the room.

“You’re not seriously planning on going through with this?” The doctor demanded abruptly.

“Pain and fear, doc. The best lessons include both, don’t they bitch?”

Stunned and disoriented for several moments, Lena began struggling again at that, beating her heels against the man’s shins, trying to reach back to grab his hair or claw at his face.

A buzzer sounded and the door slid open.

Before Lena could do more than scream ‘No!’ she felt herself flying through the air as he pitched her inside. Pain seemed to shoot through her from every direction as she hit the floor and skidded.

For several moments after she’d stopped, it almost seemed as if everyone was holding their breath.

“What’s the matter? You guys forgot what a female smells like?”

Someone uttered a roar that sounded more animal than human.

The hairs on the back of Lena’s neck stood up even as she began scrambling toward the door. Someone kneed her. A body fell on top of her, crushing the breath from her lungs. It took Lena several moments to figure out that one huge man stood over her, pulverizing the other men that surged toward them.

She didn’t have much of a view of him from the floor, but she didn’t need one to know she didn’t want to wait around until he’d fought the others off of her. Wrenching free of the legs clamped on either side of her waist, she scrambled on all fours toward the door again.

The guard stuck his foot through the bars as she reached it, planting the sole of his boot on top of her head and giving her a shove backwards.

“You’re in luck, sweetheart,” the guard shouted over the racket of animalistic snarls and growls and the thud of fists, his voice threaded with avid amusement. “Black Stew don’t wanna share you.”

“Are you out of your mind? You idiot! They’re going to tear her apart,” the doctor growled. “I’m sounding the alarm.”

With a growl of rage, the guard took a running step, caught the doctor by his lab coat, and lifted him clear of the floor. “If you ain’t got the stomach for it, go!” he snarled. “But just so’s you know, if you open your mouth, or touch that fucking alarm, it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“Let go of me, you animal,” the doctor said in a strangled voice.

The guard shrugged, allowed the doctor to slide to the floor, and then planted his fist in the middle of the man’s face so hard the doctor’s skull ricocheted off the bars behind him. Blood spurted from his nose and lips. His eyes rolled back into his head and he slumped slowly toward the floor.

Someone grabbed Lena by her hair. She locked her arms around the bars and held on for all she was worth, squeezing her eyes closed against the pain shooting across her scalp.

“I owe this bitch one,” a new, vaguely familiar voice ground out behind her. “Let her go. She’s mine!”

A loud, meaty thud emphasized the demand. The hand that was tangled in her hair was wrenched free, yanking strands from her scalp. Something heavy fell across Lena’s back--an arm or leg, she was certain, because if that huge brute had landed on top of her he would’ve crushed her like a bug.

Ignoring the pain and the scuffle going on just above and behind her, Lena gripped the bars and struggled up again. “Let me out!” she babbled. “I’ll talk. I swear….”

The last word left her as an unintelligible grunt when someone grabbed her around the waist from behind and lifted her from the floor, forcing the air from her lungs in a loud woof. Instinctively, her fingers tightened on the bars, but she lost her grip after the second hard yank.

Darkness closed in around Lena as the man holding her dragged her, kicking and screaming, toward the back of the huge room. The world spun. Flickering, indecipherable images flashed past her vision as he shifted her abruptly and tossed her away from him.

The scream she’d drawn breath to utter came out as a grunt as she landed. She cringed, expecting an explosion of pain, but realized almost at the same moment that she’d landed on something relatively soft.

A bunk.

She dragged in another breath to scream but held it as he sprawled on top of her. Gritting her teeth, she slapped and grabbed at his arms as he tore at her clothing. Chilling air licked across her bare skin, pebbling it. The man caught her wrists, forcing them to the mattress on either side of her head. “Be still, little fool!” he growled next to her ear. “I’m trying to save your neck.”

She didn’t believe it, not for one moment, but there was something about his voice that tickled at her memory. Unclenching her eyes, she peered at the man as he levered himself above her. Even with the shadows cloaking him, the little light that penetrated so far gleamed off of the gold in his long hair. As her eyes focused, recognition slowly sank into her.

It was the man she’d seen with Morris, the same one she’d glimpsed, or thought she’d glimpsed several times in the city since.

She’d been right. He was a rebel.

“Lena! It’s me, Dax. We’ve got to make this look good, so scream!” he said low near her ear, his voice ragged, his breathing harsh.

Lena’s eyes widened to saucers as she felt something long and hard glide along her cleft. She needed no further encouragement to scream like a banshee, but there was more anger in it than fear. The bastard had lulled her, offered protection, and he had every intention of raping her!

The loud smacking of an open palm on flesh jerked her eyes open again. Expecting to feel pain, Lena cut off mid-scream, staring at the man in confusion.

He’d slapped his arm!

He’d missed?

He began shaking her. “Stop fighting it, bitch!” he growled in a loud voice.

He’d missed the ‘spot’, too, Lena discovered, her confusion deepening when he began thrusting and heaving over her, his cock plowing a wide furrow along her cleft and sending keen shards of indescribable pleasure through her.

What the hell?

She’d been shoving frantically against him, but the fight had gone out of her. The moment she’d recognized him some totally different emotion flooded her. He was bloodied from the fight, grimy from the cell--he looked like hell. He looked twice as delicious with all that manly grit and sweat according to the heat meter in her body which erupted into an inferno.

He settled his upper body weight against her, flattening her breasts. “Scream! I’m raping you!”

She managed a guttural groan, partly because he was squeezing the breath from her chest and partly because the stroking along her nether lips was rapidly generating a lot of heat that wasn’t friction. Her sex clenched. She tried to ignore the rising awareness of pleasurable sensation, but the drug worked against her as much as her own body.

His mouth covered her ear. The heat and moisture sent a stab of full fledged desire through her. “Help me escape, and I’ll take you with me,” he murmured when he ceased driving her crazy with his mouth and tongue.

She registered the harshly whispered words. Her brain refused to decipher them, however.

“Sounds to me like you’re enjoying it way too much!” a voice yelled abruptly. “I think I’ll have to give you to Black Stew after all.”

It was the guard.

Galvanized, Lena ceased groaning and began struggling to scream instead, arching and wiggling beneath the man who had called himself Dax as if she was fighting to thrust him off. Bucking was a mistake.

She managed to curl her hips upward at the same moment he thrust. The head of his cock grazed the mouth of her sex, generating pain for both of them if his sharp hiss was any indication.

Or maybe not.

“Keep that up and I’ll finish this the way I’d like to,” he muttered.

Lena was surprised at how tempting it was to pretend mindless incomprehension. She stopped abruptly, but she couldn’t resist the urge to shift against him until his thrusts were rubbing against her clit maddeningly. Breakers of delicious sensation rolled through her, making it nearly impossible to focus on uttering ‘frightened, pained’ cries.

The desire to feel him inside of her grew as he teased her clit. She could feel tension coiling inside of her until she could hardly draw breath to utter any sound at all.

Abruptly, he began to shake. He ground his teeth together, began thrusting faster.

Lena almost felt like crying when she felt his cock jerking and his seed spilling along her cleft.

He was still gasping hoarsely, supporting himself on one arm, when he began searching the bedding beside Lena’s head. Grasping something, he shoved it into the neck of her tunic, tucking it beneath one breast. “It’s in the food.”

She didn’t get the chance to ask him what he was talking about. She hardly heard the comment that accompanied his stranger behavior, for a loud, metallic clicking noise filled the area almost before he’d finished coming. Twisting her head, Lena saw metal sheets rising from the floor like closing teeth. Still confused by the drugs in her system, fear coursed through her, not understanding. As the metal sheets locked into place, however, she realized the room had shrunk.

The man dabbed at her face with one finger and then stroked the finger along her thighs. “For good measure.”

That comment was as cryptic as the previous one.

“Fun’s over,” the guard growled, one hand curling around Dax’s shoulder.

With a snarl, Dax swung a backhanded blow at the guard.

Lena screamed as a jolt went through Dax and entered her where his body still touched hers.

Grinning down at Dax’s convulsing form, the guard grabbed her arm, hauled her from the bunk, and dragged her from the room.

It wasn’t until the guard had shoved her into her own cell that Lena had the chance to try to put together what had just happened. Wilting to the floor, she stared at her bloodied thighs uncomprehendingly for several moments. Blood? He hadn’t penetrated her. How could there be blood?

She realized after a few minutes that he’d dabbed at the cuts on her face.

He’d transferred the blood--for good measure.

Still thoroughly rattled and bewildered, it was a while before Lena remembered the man calling himself Dax had shoved something inside her tunic. Shoving her hand into the neck of the blouse, she curled her fingers around the strange, small object and pulled it out to study it.

“Bread?” she murmured, more baffled than enlightened.

It’s in the food.

Realizing after a while that she’d begun to ache and throb all over, most particularly her face, Lena struggled to her feet, and looked around the cell. The tiny room contained nothing but a double bunk and a toilet. After staring down at the revolting bowl of the toilet for several moments, she gave up the search for cool water to soothe her throbbing face and moved to the bunk.

Her cellmate was gone, dead and disposed of like garbage. The idea of lying on the woman’s bunk made her feel ill, though, and finally she climbed up and settled on the top bunk.

It’s in the food.

He’d given her a small chunk of bread.

She dozed off still trying to make sense of everything that had happened. When she woke later, her head had ceased to swim and the pain she’d felt earlier had dulled. Once she’d shaken off the dregs of sleep, though, she realized she was hungry--and more clear headed than she could remember being in a very long time.

After staring at the squashed piece of bread in her hand for several moments, she lifted it to her mouth and took a bite, remembering her cellmate had beaten her to the food the last time it was brought and eaten both her own portion and Lena’s.

And her cellmate was dead.

She sat up abruptly as it dawned on her that that was why her cellmate was dead. She hadn’t choked on the food. She’d overdosed on the drug injected into the food. Fear and anger surged through her at that thought. She was lucid, probably for the first time since she’d been thrown in prison and that meant she had nothing to shield her mind from the horror.

She didn’t particularly welcome full consciousness. As disturbing as she’d found it to feel as if she was swimming through some strange nightmare, it beat the hell out of knowing it was completely real!

What the hell was she supposed to do now? They would come for her again. She had no confidence that she could fake being drugged out of her mind and beyond that, she was going to feel every blow keenly without something to dull her senses.

Some fucking favor he’d done her!

Tamping her fear and anger with an effort, she tried to think why he’d done it. He must have had a reason.

Why had he acted like he knew her? He’d seemed to think she knew him, too. Why?

He thought Morris had told her. That was why he’d expected her to recognize his name.

Was that why he’d protected her? Faked the rape to convince the guard that she was getting what he’d thrown her in the cell for--a lesson of what she could expect if she failed to cooperate.

Her thighs were still sticky with semen. Blood had been smeared through it and that, too, had dried. With revulsion, she studied her thighs, wishing she had some way to clean herself off.

She wasn’t touching the water in the bottom of the toilet bowl. It made her flesh creep just thinking of all the germs and bacteria swimming in it, as if they were, even now, climbing out and crawling across the room to reach her.

She was going to lose her mind if she had to stay in this horrible, filthy place very long.

That thought touched off a dim memory. She’d still been too drugged when it was happening to grasp much, but she finally remembered he’d said he would take her with him if she helped him to escape.

Maybe her memory was faulty? Because that just didn’t make sense to her. If she escaped, why would she need him to help her?

Her face where the guard had hit her wasn’t the only thing throbbing. Her head was pounding as if someone were hammering on it. Massaging her head with both hands, she struggled to piece together errant bits of memory into something that made sense to her.

She’d been questioned, daily, or almost daily, since she’d been incarcerated. Unless her mind was completely unreliable, she thought she remembered enough details to separate one session from another into a half a dozen.

Which meant she’d only been in this hellhole for about a week?

She was not going to survive much of this!

Pushing that thought from her mind quickly, she tried to focus on what she’d been searching for before and remembered that each time the man interrogated her, he had become more furious and frustrated until he’d begun threatening something. She hadn’t been certain at the time what he was threatening to do to her that he hadn’t already tried until she’d seen where he was taking her. She hadn’t been completely clear on what was about to happen even then. It had been more of an instinctual fear of being shoved into a cell full of men than a clear idea of the guard’s intentions that had made her fight him.

So, the guard had taken her to the cell with all the men, expecting to enjoy some entertainment while they beat and raped her half to death. The huge cauc monster with stringy black hair that the guard had referred to as Black Stew had charged her like a randy bull, beating off the other men, but Dax had seen a possibility that she might help him get out of his cell.

That was it!

He wasn’t expecting her to escape and get to him and free him. He’d thought there was a chance the guard would bring her back for another ‘lesson’ and he’d hoped, if he could get her off the drugs, she’d have enough wit about her to create a distraction.

She considered that for a while and finally decided that must be it, but he was out of his fucking mind!

He was cute, and he was sexy, but he wasn’t that damned cute and sexy!

How was she supposed to create a diversion? And, supposing she thought of something, how was she supposed to keep from getting dead in the attempt?

For that matter, supposing they managed to get out of the cell, this facility was a monster. They’d never get out of it alive.

Maybe dead was better, but she wasn’t ready to accept that.

She was still mulling the memories over, carefully avoiding the particulars about what Dax had done and focusing on what he’d said, when a sound suddenly jolted through her abstraction. Pushing herself up on the bunk, she saw a tray being shoved through the narrow space at the bottom on the wall next to the door.

Her throat closed instantly with thirst. She’d been trying to ignore the effects of dehydration on her mouth and throat for hours--days, it seemed. When the hatch closed again, she eased off the bunk and headed toward the tray.

It’s in the food!

She stared at the bowl of disgusting brown muck and the bread for several moments and finally reached for the tumbler of water. After sniffing it suspiciously, she took a small sip.

The tiny droplets of water on her tongue only increased her need to desperation, but she could detect nothing but water. After taking a couple of sips, she set the tumbler down with deliberation and waited to see if she felt any strange sensations creeping through her. Finally, deciding the water was safe if only because it would’ve been nearly impossible to lace it with anything that couldn’t be detected, she allowed herself a few more sips.

The water was tepid and she longed for something cold, but at least it was wet. As the worst of her thirst passed, the temptation grew to use a little of the water to soothe her face and bathe her thighs. She didn’t know when she’d get anything else to drink, though.

Finally, she carefully gathered the little bit of condensation that had formed on the outside of the vessel and patted her face gingerly. Blood had crusted beneath her cut lip and the little bit of moisture wasn’t enough to remove it.

She gave up after a few moments, knowing it was stupid to squander water her body desperately needed on the dubious comfort she would get from dabbing at the blood and dirt that smeared her bare skin.

The filth of the place was torture enough for anyone with a fastidious nature. There’d been a time, in the dark past, when she and Nigel had lived on the streets, that she hadn’t given a thought to the filth she lived in. She could barely remember that time, though, mostly because she had tried hard to purge it completely from her memory after they had gone to live with Morris.

Dismissing it with an effort, she stared at the food on the tray, trying to ignore the gnawing hunger in her belly--trying to dismiss the temptation to welcome the limited awareness the drugs in it would give her.

She didn’t really want to have her wits about her, did she? Did she really want to experience the full measure of just how horrible this place was?

She killed the urge to appease her hunger and embrace oblivion. She had to get out, she realized. Serving life wasn’t an option and the prospect of enduring this sort of hell for years was almost worse than the possibility of being killed outright.

Chapter Five

Lena was caught off guard and unprepared when they came for her again. The only thing that saved her from giving herself away at once was the fact that she was awakened abruptly from a deep sleep. Disoriented and uncoordinated from sleep, she was dragged from her bunk and hustled down the corridor to the tube lift before she was alert enough to realize luck had saved her so far, not her wit.

The surge of fear driven adrenaline that pumped through her with enlightenment made it nearly impossible to maintain the pose of a drug induced stupor. She struggled with it, fighting to maintain her breathing, to make herself remain limp instead of trying to catch herself. She was certain, nevertheless, that her pose would be noticed any moment for the poor acting it was.

Apparently the guard was distracted by his own thoughts, though, because he didn’t seem to notice anything different about her.

She slumped in the chair when he shoved her into it, focusing her mind on keeping her arms and legs limp as he strapped her in.

That was harder than anything prior to that point, because she’d still been groggy and uncoordinated when he’d been dragging her along the corridor. Fear again aided her when he began the questioning, because her mind was so chaotic with it she could only stare at him blankly when he jerked her head back to look at her.

“Give us names!”

She grappled with the demand, trying to put it together with other things he’d asked. Somehow, he, or rather the people he worked for, were under the impression that she was deep in the rebellion. “Morris?” she finally managed hesitantly, partly because she knew he was beyond their reach now and partly because she didn’t know of anyone else who even might be a rebel. She didn’t think that Morris was, or had been. She’d never believed it was more than talk. He was willing and his mind still alert, but physically, rebellion was beyond him anymore.

The interrogator’s response was a slap that slung her head sideways and nearly made her blackout. “We know about Morris!” he growled. “Who are the others? Who met with him?”

Dimly, through the blinding pain, an image of Dax emerged.

She couldn’t be any more certain about him than she was about Morris, though. Furthermore, they had him. From what she’d seen of his face, they’d invested a good bit of time interrogating him, too, so she couldn’t imagine telling them his name would do her any good.

Besides, she felt ill at the thought.

“Don’ know names,” she managed to say finally.

He grabbed her by her hair, jerking her head back and smashing the back of her skull into the chair back. “But you’d recognize them?”

Lena swallowed with an effort, feeling her stomach heave as she tasted blood in her mouth. “Only know M-morris,” she stammered.

“Lying rebel bitch!” the man growled, pelting her with a barrage of blows that made the room dim and, thankfully, the lights go out.

A deluge of icy water brought her around. For several moments, she spluttered and gasped, trying to free her air passages of water to suck in a breath of air.

“Where do they meet?”

Pain was pretty much all Lena was aware of anymore. The question hardly registered in her mind. He repeated it, emphasizing the question with another slap that nearly made her blackout again.

“They?”

“The rebels. Where do they meet?”

He was going to beat her to death, she realized dimly, if she didn’t give him something, but it was a battle to jog anything useful from her mind. “Underground,” she managed finally.

He grabbed her tunic, shaking her and the chair. “We know it’s the underground! Where do they meet?”

“’Neath subway.”

He stopped shaking her abruptly. “Under the subway?”

Lena wasn’t sure of why or even how she’d come up with that, but an errant memory had surfaced of a system of access tunnels leading off the main vein. “Old town,” she added.

“When? When do they meet?”

“Random,” Lena muttered the first thing that came to mind.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

Again, she babbled the first thing that came to mind. “Last Friday of the month.”

“Tonight?” His voice was threaded with excitement now.

Fuck! But how was she supposed to have known that it was Friday? Realizing there was nothing she could do now to name a time that might have worked better for her, she nodded.

“If you’re lying to me, bitch, you’ll regret it, I promise you.”

She already regretted it, but she’d been beyond bearing anymore. She’d felt like she had to tell him something to get some respite.

Once he’d pitched her back into her cell and left her, she had hours to deeply regret that she’d been in no shape to think anything through. The underground she’d spoken of might well have worked in her favor if she hadn’t inadvertently left herself such a small window of respite. As the worst of the pain subsided, she knew why it had popped into her head.

People lived there--dangerous demented people. She and Nigel had been there when they were children, looking for a safe place to sleep out of the cold. They’d very quickly discovered that it was no safe harbor. The people who dwelt there were more animal than human, and extremely territorial. They were fortunate the denizens had been satisfied with just chasing them off.

Even so, it made her feel ill that she’d probably just signed their death warrant. Whoever it was that wanted the rebels so badly would almost certainly send an army of home guardsmen down to cleanse the area. Trying not to think of the bloody battle she’d instigated, Lena focused on the forlorn hope that they would be so busy fighting they wouldn’t discover they were fighting tunnel people, not rebels.

Retribution wasn’t nearly as long in coming as she’d hoped. An hour, perhaps two, dragged slowly past and her aches and pains had only begun to dull to a low roar when her cell door slammed open again. “You lying cunt! You made me look completely incompetent!” the guard yelled, grabbing her and dragging her off the bunk.

She was too busy trying to get her feet under her as he jerked her around and dragged her along the corridor to think up a response that might mitigate his fury. “They weren’t there?” she finally babbled as he hauled her into the tube lift.

Venting his frustration in an animalistic growl, he punched her in the face. She almost lost consciousness. She might have except that the pain was too intense to allow her that respite. As the moments seemed to stretch out before her, she began to realize that he wasn’t taking her to the interrogation room.

He’d promised her she would regret it if she lied.

Was he taking her to Dax, she wondered, feeling a faint twinge of hope?

Dax had promised he’d get her out if she’d help him.

Struggling to push the pain to the back of her mind, Lena tried to formulate a plan, some plan--anything. Panic threatened to overwhelm her when jogging her mind produced nothing helpful, but she barely remembered the trip to the cell before. She couldn’t remember any details with any clarity.

She was still completely unprepared when she reached the moment of truth and the door of the lift slid open.

She was supposed to be drugged and frightened.

Stumbling around wasn’t something she had to feign. She was dizzy and nauseated from the pain and she could barely see. Weakly, she flailed her arms--she discovered she didn’t really have to fake that either. Abruptly, she realized that the only real strength she had was her dead weight. With a conscious effort, she went perfectly limp. The grip he had on her arm wasn’t enough to keep her up. She sprawled in the floor, wrenching free of his hand. Still without any real clue of how she was supposed to divert the man, she lurched forward the moment she’d settled, trying to crawl away. Grabbing her by the back of her shirt, the guard thwarted her feeble attempt to escape, wrestled with her briefly and then hefted her from the floor and slung her over his shoulder.

The blow of landing on that hard shoulder was enough to knock the wind out of her. She didn’t have to fake that either. As she was struggling to catch her breath, however, she saw the rod strapped to his belt loop and, abruptly, everything fell into place.

There was one minor, insurmountable problem. She didn’t know how to work the thing and it seemed certain she wouldn’t have more than a few seconds to figure it out. He would feel it when she jerked it free.

She also didn’t know how to work the door of the cell.

One thing at a time, she told herself.

She allowed her arm to dangle just above the handle of the thing.

He reached back to grab it as they reached the cell.

She hadn’t thought about the fact that he’d used it before to make the men move back before he opened the door.

Shit!

Realizing it was now or never, Lena grabbed it first, yanking it from the holder. As she’d feared, he knew it immediately. He swung her around in a dizzying circle, trying to grasp it and finally dumped her onto the floor. Her elbow slammed into the hard metal, almost jarring the thing from her fingers.

“The trigger’s on the handle!” someone--she thought Dax--yelled from inside the cell.

Even as she depressed the button, the guard grabbed the business end of the stick. He let out a jagged cry as electric volts shot through him. He began to flop around on the floor like a fish out of water. He’d firmly gripped the thing, and Lena found she couldn’t pry it from his hand and was in imminent danger of losing her hold on it.

“Ease off the button. He can’t let go.”

She did and then fought a round with her stomach which was threatening to revolt in earnest at the smell wafting off the man. A hand reached through the bars, settling on her shoulder and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “It’s me, Dax.”

She stared at him blankly.

“Open the door. I can show you the way out.”

She barely heard him. By now every man in both cells was yelling at the top of their lungs for release. Pushing herself up with an effort, she looked around, dazed, for any sign of a button that would release the gate.

“The control is on his belt,” Dax bellowed at her.

Still too shocked to work independently of the voice guiding her, Lena looked down at the man and promptly threw up. His whole body was smoking and the smell of burned hair and burned skin was too much.

When she finally managed to stop gagging, she found the control Dax had told her about and tugged at it.

The belt, she discovered, was looped through it on the back. She had to unfasten his belt to slip it off. Dimly aware that Dax was still trying to bellow instructions at her, she ignored him because it took every ounce of focus to figure out how to remove the thing.

When she’d finally gotten it loose, she turned around and looked for Dax. Dozens of arms were thrust through the bars, though, grabbing at the thing she held in her hand. She curled into a ball, holding the thing to her chest protectively.

“The key code! Key in the code!”

“I don’t know the code,” she yelled at him.

“Give it to me!”

She tried, but the men around him were also jostling to get their hands on the control and she wasn’t about to give it to them. Dax meant safety. Dax meant help. She had no idea whether the other men would help her, stampede over her, or decide to drag her in and rape her as they’d tried before.

She still had the taser, though, she realized. Gripping it firmly, she swung at the men trying to reach through the bars and grab her. When they leapt back, she shoved the control into Dax’s hands. Like a wave, the men surged forward again. Again she swung at them. “Hurry!”

Gritting his teeth, Dax pressed the buttons, trying one combination after another.

Lena had just begun to think it was hopeless when the door abruptly opened.

Dax wasn’t the first one out. The moment the door opened, the men inside charged, bottlenecking the small opening. Black Stew waded through them, pitching several through and knocking others to either side of him.

The stampede of men out of the cell galvanized Lena into moving faster than she would’ve thought she could. She leapt to one side, plastering herself against the bars. The din, already enough to rattle her eardrums, grew nearly deafening as the men penned in the cell across the way began yelling and cussing and demanding, or begging, to be released as well. Dax, exiting at last, tossed the control toward the waiting hands. The men instantly fell upon one another like a pack of dogs, snarling and struggling to get their hands on the control unit.

The men who were already free had split up and were racing toward either end of the corridor. Dax halted next to her. “Are you alright?”

“Compared to what?” Lena gasped, unable to keep the indignation from her voice.

For just a moment, she thought she saw a glint of humor in his eyes. It vanished so quickly she wasn’t certain, though.

“We’re not out of the woods yet. You think you can make it?”

She didn’t know if she could or not but she damn well meant to try. Either way, she wasn’t about to voice any doubts. She thought it more likely his concern was that she would slow him down than empathy for her state. She nodded.

“Good girl!”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Lena glanced up and down the corridor worriedly. “Which way?”

“Up,” he responded without hesitation, heading toward the group piled around the lift tube.

There were only a half a dozen or so men waiting now, Lena saw as Dax led her a little further along the corridor. The men in the cell on the opposite side of the corridor hadn’t managed to get out. Either they’d broken the control fighting over it, or they hadn’t figured out the release code yet. One group waiting near the lift had already piled on and disappeared. The men who’d charged off in the opposite direction had also vanished from sight.

“Quiet!” Dax bellowed, his voice so commanding that all of the men within the sound of his voice instantly fell silent.

Faintly, far in the distance, Lena heard a popping sound.

“What’s that?” she whispered.

“Gunfire! Those idiots must have headed for the ground floor. Either they’ll lock down the lifts or the car will be full of guards when it comes back and they’ll be crawling all over us,” he muttered, glancing around at the ceiling as if he could see through the panels above them.

A wave of nausea went through Lena. She should’ve known it was stupid to think they could get out!

After a moment, Dax turned away from the lift and trotted down the corridor a short piece, staring up at the ventilation shaft. Without a word, he climbed the bars and began yanking and tugging at the cover. Dust and debris began to rain down in the corridor. Finally, he managed to break the cover free on one end. He turned then and held out a hand for Lena. “In here.”

Ignoring the hand he offered, Lena handed him the taser she still held, scrambled up the bars, and leaned out to grip the edge of the shaft. He ‘helped’ her as she began hoisting herself into the shaft by planting one hand in the middle of her ass and giving her a shove. As scared as she was, that hand did more than give her a boost by lifting some of the weight off her arms. It sent a jolt of adrenaline through her that gave her the strength to pull herself up.

She heard the scramble of feet as the prisoners waiting near the lift charged back to jockey for position to go next. The sizzle of the taser sent the smell of burning hair into the shaft behind her. A moment later, Dax appeared in the opening and clambered in behind her. “Move!” he commanded. “They’ll be on us any minute.”

The prisoners? The guards? Both? “Which way?”

“Up!”

She didn’t argue, but going up sounded as insane as going down to meet the guards waiting for them below. Without another word, she crawled down the shaft as fast as she could, pausing only when she reached the first intersection opening above her head. She stood up, then, wondering how the hell she was supposed to climb the thing.

“Use the seams to get a finger grip and brace yourself across the opening,” Dax said, almost as if he’d read her mind.

The seams? Good god!

Do or die, she reminded herself, digging her fingers into the seam just above her head and lifting one foot to brace it against the side of the vent shaft. She was sweating so profusely with effort by the time she reached the next intersection her hands and feet kept slipping. Shaking like a leaf, she parked her rump on the ledge of another intersecting shaft and struggled to catch her breath. “How far are we from the top?” she gasped out in a breathless whisper.

Dax didn’t even look up. “Three levels.”

“More?” Lena asked in dismay.

“You want to go back?”

Gritting her teeth, Lena wiped her hands on what was left of her tunic and felt around for another seam. Her heart leapt into her throat as her foot slipped along the slick inside of the shaft the moment she tried her weight against it. Dax caught her foot before she slammed it into his face, forcing her leg upward until she could plant it firmly against the shaft wall again.

Fear rode her all the way up, as she slipped over and over, clawing at the seams that were little more than bumps until her fingers began to bleed, adding to her difficulties. When she’d made it to the next intersection, she tore a strip off the bottom of the tunic and wrapped it around her fingertips, tying it. The little spots of blood seeping through the thin fabric seemed to give her a little more traction. When she paused at the next intersection, she tore off two more and wrapped the strips around her toes.

She wasn’t going to make it, she thought glumly, even while she continued to go through the motions. She was going to make a misstep somewhere and slam into Dax and take them both down.

It became a litany pounding in her skull as she struggled on and on, ignoring the shaking in her muscles at the fear and strain. She was ready to admit defeat by the time she’d finally reached another intersection. “I don’t think I can do much more of this.” In fact none.

“We’re there.”

Lena blinked, her head popping up automatically as she glanced toward the top of the shaft. She couldn’t see anything but more shaft and then a blockage of some kind. “We are?” she asked doubtfully.

“Wait here.”

Lena moved further back into the horizontal shaft as Dax climbed past her. She watched him until he reached the end. Bracing himself carefully, he began kicking at the piece blocking the top of the shaft. She’d just begun to think he couldn’t get the leverage he needed to knock the thing loose when it fell to one side and a gust of air whipped past her, freezing the sweat on her skin. Before she could blink, Dax was over the side and out of her sight.

“Dax?” she called in a quaky, frightened voice.

He leaned over the opening, holding a hand down. “Come on, baby girl.”

Lena’s chin wobbled. Abruptly, all she could think of was that she wanted Morris. He’d always made everything alright. She needed Morris and he was gone. He was never going to be there for her again.

“Just a little further. Come on.”

Swallowing with an effort, Lena scrubbed a hand across her eyes to dry the tears that had puddled in them and moved shakily to enter the shaft again. Her heart seemed to stand still in her chest as she looked down.

“Don’t look down! Look at me!”

Too late! She didn’t think she could’ve made it this far if Dax hadn’t been behind her all the way, blocking her view of the miles of shaft below her, giving her the reassurance that he was there to catch her.

Never mind that she hadn’t actually believed he would, that she’d been afraid the whole time that if she fell she was going to take both of them down.

She needed the illusion of safety he’d given her.

“Lena! Get your ass up here!” Dax bellowed abruptly.

Stiffening her spine, still quaking like a leaf, Lena moved into the shaft and began struggling upward again. A jolt went through her when she felt a hand brush one shoulder. He caught her arm as she slipped, heaving upward. She managed to grip one side of the top edge. Her feet sought traction, slipped and she pedaled upward. Relief so potent it made her absolutely limp went through her when she tumbled to the roof in Dax’s arms.

She didn’t really have a chance to enjoy the sense of security, though.

He pushed her off almost at once and got to his feet.

More slowly, wondering what they were going to do now, Lena gathered herself into a ball and looked around to see what he was doing.

Without hesitation, he loped across the roof to what looked like a water tower, or perhaps some sort of electrical maintenance box. After feeling around the thing for a handful of moments, he pulled a small object from it. Glancing upward, he went still, as if waiting.

Lena looked up too. She could see nothing but blackness, the slightly paler black of clouds against the night sky and winking stars.

As she watched, however, one star seemed to detach itself from the others and shoot downward.

“Make it quick!” Dax muttered, drawing her attention.

It took more of an effort to push herself to her feet than she’d thought it would, Lena discovered as she gathered herself and tried to stand. She managed to get to her knees, wobbled for a moment and then, dragging in a deep breath, stood. Even with her legs braced apart, she almost fell down again when she looked up at the bright spec of light shooting toward them.

Staggering, catching her balance with an effort, she glanced at Dax questioningly.

“We’ve got company,” he growled warningly. “Quit fucking around and get down here!”

Lena felt her jaw go slack. Who was he talking to, she wondered blankly? The warning ‘company’ hit her right between the eyes just then, however, and she whirled to look around the roof for the threat as Dax charged across the roof toward a boxy looking protrusion.

He’d barely reached it when a door opened in one side, disgorging guards. Four men carrying automatics charged past him without seeing him, heading straight for her. She didn’t wait to see anything else. Letting out a shriek, she whirled and ran.

“Get down!”

Lena reacted instantly to Dax’s bellowed command, slamming into the roof top and plastering herself against it even as the scream of laser blasts filled the air above her head. Cringing, without any place to run to even if she was near enough to reach any kind of shelter, she covered her head with her hands. Around her, she heard yells, the sizzle of the taser, laser blasts, and then above that, drowning out all of the other noises, the shrill whine of an engine. Heat seared her, blown away from her almost before it touched her by a hard blast of air.

Pulling her hands from her head when the sounds of battle diminished, Lena turned her head first one way and then the other to see what was happening. Hovering just above the roof ledge was an enormous deep space craft. A dozen men had spilled from the gang way extending from it and were running across the roof. The four guards she’d seen, like her, were plastered face down on the roof, their arms above their heads.

Dax knelt beside her and hauled her to her feet. “That’s our ride.”

Stunned, Lena got up with an effort and allowed him to lead her across the roof toward the waiting craft.

“Bring them,” Dax yelled above the roar of the ship’s engines. At once the soldiers prodded the guards to get on their feet, herding them toward the gangplank with the tips of their guns.

“Hustle it!” Dax barked as everyone began pouring on board again, his hand tightening around Lena’s arm as he pulled her to one side to allow them to pass.

Still stunned and bewildered by the turn of events, Lena stood docilely beside him, trying to figure out how it was that a ship had been waiting for them. The troops filed in, disappearing down a narrow gang way and through an air lock. The whir of the gang plank being retracted caught Lena’s attention, and she turned, watching as it disappeared into a crevice, like a tongue into a mouth, and the outer door closed.

“The prisoners have been secured, Captain Morris,” said a male voice.

Lena’s head snapped around so quickly a bone in her neck cracked. A shockwave washed over her as she stared at Dax in wide eyed disbelief. “Morris?”

He turned to look down at her. His blue eyes were as cold as ice. “Good. Take this abomination down to Mel. When she’s patched it up, secure it in the brig. We’ll see what information we can get out of it.”

Abomination? It?

One shock after another rolled over Lena, making it impossible to do anything but gape at Dax. She didn’t even try to resist when someone seized her arm and led her away.

* * * *

An unaccustomed sense of doubt plagued Dax as he watched the guards escort Lena below. The problem was that reason and instinct were in conflict where she was concerned. Statistically speaking, they’d discovered that the gov had a 1-0 batting average when it came to replacing people with their cloned copies, which made it highly unlikely that Lena had escaped the fate planned for her.

On a gut level, everything in him was telling him she was the Lena, the one and only.

Tamping the vague sense of uneasiness plaguing him, he strode briskly along the gangway and climbed the tube to the bridge.

“Captain on deck!” an enthusiastic recruit announced the moment he appeared through the opening, clicking his heels smartly and saluting.

Discipline was necessary to form an army that was worth its salt, but Dax wasn’t particularly enthused about the rigid ceremony of the traditional army, partly because it made him uncomfortable since he wasn’t regular army, and partly because it reminded him too much of the people he’d come to despise.

Nevertheless, he returned the salute.

“Captain! It’s good to have you back in one piece--sir!” Rodriguez said as he spied Dax.

“It’s good to be back in one piece,” Dax responded somewhat dryly.

Rodriguez grinned, relaxing when he saw that Dax didn’t mean to stand on ceremony, but shook his head. “We’d begun to worry you wouldn’t be able to pull it off.”

Dax glanced at his pilot speculatively a moment before he turned his attention to the map the navigator had pulled up. “How much did you lose?” he asked, his voice tinged with amusement.

Rodriguez chuckled. “Naw, man! I won! I told them you’d have her out by the end of the week.”

Dax nodded, but his amusement vanished as he focused on the screen. “Plot an evasive course to this point.”

The navigator glanced at him sharply. “She’s carrying?”

“We have to assume she is. Either that was the most incompetent sons-of-bitches ever brought together in one place, or we’ve been set up.”

* * * *

Lena was scarcely aware of the sights and sounds of moving along a narrow corridor and through one air lock after another, climbing down a tube, traversing yet another corridor. Throughout most of it, her mind was pure chaos.

It wasn’t until she’d been shoved down on a gurney and strapped to it that she even began to emerge from the shock and by then it was too late. A woman approached her, stabbed a needle into her arm and almost at once she began to drift away.

Light was flicked into her eyes. Someone grabbed her eyelid, turned it inside out.

“This isn’t the clone,” a woman’s voice said sharply.

‘Abomination’ suddenly made sense, but Lena didn’t have the chance to muddle through why it made sense or what difference it might make to her. Her sight dimmed and the sounds around her dulled and finally flickered out.

“She’s out,” Mel muttered. “Let’s get her cleaned up. She’s such a mess, poor thing, I can’t tell where she’s hurt. Wait! The Captain said to scan her first for a locator.”

A tech moved a scanner into position and keyed in the command. Slowly, so slowly it was hard to detect the movement of the thing, the machine began its trek down her body. Mel moved to the screen, frowning. “Her vitals look a little shaky. I’m seeing borderline malnutrition and dehydration. Tom! Get a needle in her and start a drip. Let’s see if we can’t get her plumped up a bit.”

When she saw him swipe her arm and insert the needle, she returned her attention to the scan read out. “Somebody beat the hell out of her, and more than once from the looks of it. Looks like she’s got fractures everywhere. We’d better take care of those first--assuming we don’t find anything internal that takes priority--bath next and then we’ll have a look at the cuts and see if any of them need sealing.”

They would’ve missed the locator if it had been left to the human eye to catch. The scanner paused, however, when it reached her chest, setting off an alarm as it pinpointed what looked like little more than a black speck near her spine. Drawing the scanner back, they released the restraints and rolled her over. Using a micro-viewer, Mel removed the tiny sensor carefully and used a laser to close the wound.

Dropping the locator into a metal receptacle, she left her assistants to turn Lena over again and moved to the com. “We got one, Captain.”

“Make sure it’s only one, and not just a decoy.”

“Sneaky bastards. We’ll start another scan.”

The scanner had located five more by the time it reached her feet. Mel was already starting to feel fatigued and she hadn’t even gotten to patching yet. Dropping the last locator in with the others, she glanced up and saw Dax on the other side of the viewing window. “I think that’s got it. Tom, get the laser out and start on those fractures--not her face, though. I’ll take care of that when I get back.”

Scooping the locators into one hand, she headed out of the surgery. “Six all together. They knew we’d come after her,” Mel said grimly, opening her palm.

Dax barely glanced at her. “I thought it was too easy.”

A faint smile curled her lips. “You thought that was easy?” she murmured but then frowned. “She isn’t the clone.”

That comment caught his full attention. He glanced at her sharply. “You’re sure?”

Mel sighed. “Almost a hundred percent. All the others had a code in the eyelid. Unless they decided it was too risky. My money’s on her being the real deal, though. She’s got fractures from head to toe. They beat the hell out of her, repeatedly, and I just can’t imagine they’d risk that much ‘realism’ if they wanted to make a plant. I don’t know how she even managed to climb out of that fucking hell hole.”

A speculative frown drew Dax’s brows together. “You don’t think that points to the likelihood that she’s a clone? You think she bested the one they sent for her, managed to live through their interrogation tactics, and climbed that shaft and she’s human?”

Mel shrugged. “People can do amazing things given the right incentive.”

Dax’s lips tightened. “And yet all my father, or her brother, could talk about was how fragile she was,” he pointed out.

Mel turned to study the young woman through the viewing window. “Morris loved her. Her brother loves her. Men are inclined to think women are weak anyway. Maybe she’s got a lot more strength than they give her credit for.”

“And maybe she’s a fucking clone.”

Anger surged through Mel. “Suit yourself, but I don’t buy it.” Catching his hand, she slapped the locators into his palm. “You didn’t say what you wanted me to do with these.”

He closed his hand around the tiny bits of electronics.

“I need to check you out, too. Looks to me like your face stopped a few fists.”

“Later. Right now I’m going to get rid of the stench of prison.”

Irritation washed over Mel as she watched him go, but after a moment she dismissed it. Maybe he was right. She didn’t think he was, but she supposed she was inclined to hope for the best. It was hard to accept that they--whoever they were--could simply replace people at will and nothing could be done to stop the bastards.

“Is there a point to this?” Tom muttered without sparing more than a glance in Mel’s direction as she returned.

Anger washed over her. “Give me the damn laser!” she snapped. When he’d handed it to her, she glared at him. “Yes, there’s a point. Until and unless we find out otherwise, this is a human being and she needs care.”

Tom stepped back. “She was riddled with the things. You think they planted them on her without her knowledge? Even if she’s human, and not a clone, she’s on the wrong side if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you!” Mel snapped, uncertain of why she felt so protective of Lena but unwilling to examine it. “Look at the drug readouts and if you still haven’t figured out how they managed to get the implants into her without her knowledge, go take a fucking refresher course on medicine, ok?”

Tom glared back at her, but after a moment he merely moved out of her way, studying the read outs while Mel finished mending the multitude of tiny fractures she located.

The bastards had been using her for a punching bag, Mel thought angrily. Whatever Dax thought about it, and she knew the clones were stronger and healed better than ‘real’ humans, she still didn’t think they would’ve gone so far to convince them Lena was authentic. The clones cost money, big money, and regardless of how miraculous their research was, it would have to take a lot of time to generate that much tissue--right down to every little hair follicle.

When she’d finished, every muscle in her body was aching, but she felt euphoric. Lena’s face was going to look as good as new once the minor cuts healed. After running another scan to make certain she hadn’t missed anything, she moved away from the gurney, watching critically as Tom and her other assistant, Risa, cleaned the young woman up. When they’d finished, she moved up once more and examined each cut carefully, using the laser to seal the worst of them.

She wasn’t nearly as happy once she was done, though, and she remembered Dax had ordered that Lena be taken and secured in the brig. They were holding four guardsmen in the cell already. She wouldn’t have bet her next meal that they’d leave Lena in peace to heal.

Shrugging, she stalked to the com unit and summoned a couple of troopers. “Take her to the captain’s quarters.”

The two men exchanged a glance. “We were told we were supposed to take her to the brig,” one finally responded.

Mel waved that away. “I just talked to Captain Morris.”

Shrugging, the men moved to each end of the gurney and guided it out of the surgery.

Mel had mixed feelings as she watched them leave. She dismissed her qualms. If Dax wanted to send her down to the brig, he could tell them. She wasn’t about to, not when she’d just spent the last two hours patching her up.

Dax hadn’t returned. She wasn’t surprised. She’d known even when she suggested he let her check him out that nothing short of a gun to his back was going to get him into her infirmary.

Dismissing Tom and Risa, she removed her steriles as she moved to the com unit.

“Captain Morris?”

She leaned against the wall while she waited for a response. She was just wondering if he meant to ignore her when his voice broke the silence. “Yes?”

“I’m done. You want a report now? Or can it wait?”

“I’ll be right down.”

Shrugging, Mel found a stool and plopped down on it, her thoughts veering off abruptly to Lena’s brother. Nigel wasn’t going to take it well if he found out they’d rescued Lena’s clone instead of his sister, Lena.

Chapter Six

“What’s the verdict?”

Mel shrugged tiredly. “Which one?”

“How is she?” Dax asked irritably.

“Like I said, beat all to hell. I’ve mended everything, though. She isn’t going to feel wonderful for a while, but there won’t be any lasting damage--not physically, anyway. Otherwise, it’s a little more tricky. That sort of experience isn’t something people put behind them easily, especially when they’ve managed to make it to adulthood without seeing too much of the ugly.”

Dax frowned. “Lena’s seen the ugly.”

Mel studied him for several moments but finally, instead of reminding him that he’d already made up his mind the real Lena, the one who’d had those experiences, was gone, she merely shrugged. “From what I heard, she wasn’t much more than a baby. I doubt she remembers too much about that. I meant since your father took her in. Anyway, she’ll get over it. The drugs--it’s going to take a little while to get all that nasty out of her, but I’m going to keep her out for a while to give her plenty of time to heal up. She’ll sleep most of the withdrawal off. She won’t be really lucid for at least thirty six hours.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Make it forty eight. We’re headed for Antaria to lose the trackers. Once we’ve pulled that off--if it goes smoothly--I can focus on questioning her.”

A twinge of guilt flickered through Mel, but she dismissed the temptation to confess that she hadn’t sent Lena to the brig. She was out and would be for a while. Even if it turned out that Dax was right about her, it wasn’t like she was going to be in any condition to try anything. “Are you going to let me check you out?”

Dax arched a brow at her. “You are always so anxious to get my clothes off, doc.”

Mel chuckled. “You got me. I just can’t resist using that tight little ass of yours for a pin cushion.”

Dax’s smile flat lined. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Don’t be such a baby! Jeez! Your face looks like somebody was using it for a punching bag and you’re worried about a needle?”

Uttering a long suffering sigh, Dax caught the front of his uniform and gave it a tug, unsealing the opening from neck to groin. When he’d shrugged out of the top, he peeled the one piece suit down his legs and dropped it to the floor. Giving him an irritated glance as he climbed up onto the examination table, Mel snatched the uniform from the floor and dropped it onto the stool she’d vacated.

He was a gorgeous specimen of manhood, top to bottom, but he could be a real pain in the ass!

It dawned on her abruptly why she’d felt so badly for Lena. It wasn’t just that she could tell the poor girl had already been through hell. It was the fact that she’d managed to get on Dax’s bad side and that was a really unpleasant place to be.

The scan revealed bruising--a lot of it--and several cracked bones in his right hand. When she’d mended the damaged bone with the laser, she shoved the scanner out of the way and told him to get dressed.

“No needles today?” he asked as he bent down to step into the uniform again.

Mel checked his ass out. “It’s oh so tempting, but I couldn’t find an excuse. You must be made out of titanium.”

His lips curled wryly as he sealed the front of his suit again. “I felt every one of those damned bruises.”

“Want something for pain?”

He shook his head. “All I need right now is a few hours sleep.”

Mel sent him a startled look, but he’d already stepped out of the med lab before she recovered enough from the jolt of that announcement to consider saying anything. After a moment’s thought, she decided against trying to head him off.

Retreating to her quarters, Mel grabbed her toiletries and headed for the shower. She’d just lifted her foot to step into the chem bath when she heard the captain’s voice over the com unit. “Mel!”

Jumping all over as if he’d sneaked up behind her, she whirled to stare at the com unit for a moment and finally leapt to answer it as he bellowed into the speaker again. “Sir?”

“Where did I tell you to put the prisoner?”

Mel grimaced, glad the ship was too bare bones to have a vid com unit. “I wasn’t told to treat the prisoners, sir,” she hedged.

“Lena!”

“Uh … I thought we were rescuing her. Is she a prisoner?”

“Are you anxious to check out the brig, doc? Because I can arrange it.”

“No, sir. I’ll send someone down to remove the prisoner from your quarters right away, sir.”

There was a noticeable pause before he responded. “I’ll handle it.”

Mel slumped weakly when he said nothing else.

“You’d be wise to spend a little less time worrying about what Nigel might think and a little more worrying about me,” Dax retorted finally. “I don’t know if he will thank you for putting her in my bed, but I do.”

Mel’s eyes widened at that subtle threat, but although she was tempted to ignore the order to leave well enough alone she didn’t dare meddle any further in the captain’s business.

Dax leaned against the bulkhead beside the com unit for several moments and finally turned to study the woman sleeping in his bunk thoughtfully. He was dead tired, and he’d been looking forward to sleeping on something that wasn’t crawling with bacteria from dozens of other occupants.

He was in no mood to deal with this kind of problem at the moment. The last thing he needed was to climb into bed with a piece of ass he wanted but didn’t dare touch.

He found that the longer he stared at her, though, the more reluctant he was to summon the guards to remove her to a holding cell.

His irritation finally waned.

Crossing the cabin, he placed a knee on the bunk, scooped Lena up, and deposited her against the edge of the bed nearest the bulkhead. As small as she was, and as wide as the bunk ordinarily seemed, it still looked too crowded for comfort--his comfort--but he shrugged the thought off after a moment, slipped beneath the cover and settled beside her, rolling away from her.

It took less than five minutes to answer the question of whether or not he was too exhausted to have to worry about arousal being a problem. Just knowing she was in the bed behind him was enough to make him acutely aware of her, but he began to think he could smell her delicate scent weaving through the faint odor of decon-cleanser on his own skin and hers. He began to think he could feel her warmth radiating into his back, hear the soft sigh of her slow, even breaths. All of it together brought up a mental picture he’d been trying real damned hard to get out of his head.

The mental image of that animalistic coupling between them in his cell shouldn’t have been something to arouse him. It should have made him sick to his stomach, but the unavoidable truth was that he was a sick son-of-a-bitch because it made him hard as a rock every time he remembered it.

He had reacted instinctively to the threat to Lena when she’d been thrown into his cell to be raped to death. It hadn’t been planned. It hadn’t even been part of the plan, but his instincts were rarely wrong, and he hadn’t had time to question it anyway. The guard had ordered up a rape for his entertainment and he provided it.

Nothing else would have appeased the bastard. He knew that.

But he also knew that, even without penetration, even though he’d done everything he could to try to make it as easy on Lena as he could, drugs or no drugs, desperate situation or not, he’d probably scared the living hell out of Lena and thoroughly traumatized her.

The wonder of it was that she’d trusted him enough to help him out of the cell after that so that they could make the escape.

Except it wasn’t a wonder to him. The incident sure as hell wasn’t something he was proud of or wanted to talk about, which was why he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone and still had no intention of doing so. He was relieved he’d managed to give it enough realism by coming to convince the guard, but at the same time uneasy that he had managed it under those circumstances.

The main thing that bothered him about it now, though, the thing that had been plaguing him from the moment she managed to help him get out of that cell, was that Mel was right about how tenderly brought up and protected Lena had been. Between his father and her brother, she’d been shielded most of her life from the ugly things people did to each other.

Lena, the real Lena, he felt certain, would have been terrified of him after that. She wouldn’t have trusted him enough to let him out of that cell. She sure as hell wouldn’t have followed him blindly when he’d told her they were climbing up to the roof.

The only reason he could think of any of the time that would account for it was that she wasn’t Lena at all.

He supposed he should have told Mel. She was a woman and a doctor. She would know better than anyone else he could think of what the likelihood was that Lena’s reaction had been normal--or at least normal under the circumstances.

To his way of thinking it was the most solid proof they had that they’d pulled Lena’s clone out of that fucking prison.

Maybe her brother would know--and maybe not.

From what he’d been able to tell, Lena had spotted his father’s counterfeit right off. He’d trailed her to warn her, uncertain of just how much Morris had told her about him and about the movement and how much danger she presented to the conspirators, because her own danger was directly proportionate to just how threatened they felt by her.

She didn’t have a poker face, that was for damned sure. Every time she’d glanced at Morris she’d given away every thought and emotion that was going through her.

He deeply regretted the fact that he hadn’t managed to pull her out before they got to her. But she’d managed to elude him at the station and he hadn’t expected them to move on her so quickly, hadn’t thought they would’ve had time to clone her.

They were getting better at their acceleration techniques. There was no doubt about that. It wasn’t taking them months anymore. Nigel had only pulled her DNA a matter of weeks before the switch.

Of course Nigel hadn’t known, then, that he was collecting for them. Right up until Nigel had turned his sister’s code over to the bastards, he’d suspected Nigel was working for them, and well aware of it.

There was no doubt in his mind that Nigel had been an unwilling participant. He’d flown into such a rage when he discovered he’d turned Lena’s DNA over to them for replication that they’d had a hell of time holding him back long enough to convince him that he could do more to bring them down by playing stupid a while longer.

He would’ve given a lot to know just what had transpired when Lena got back to her apartment the day he’d gone to pick her up, but the security tapes had already been fixed by the time he’d managed to break into the system.

Frustration gripped him. They were going lose if they didn’t get better at this, because they were trailing dangerously behind.

Beginning to feel cramped from the tension in his body, and from lying on his side so long, Dax rolled onto his back to stare up at the overhead in the darkness.

He wasn’t certain whether the movement had aroused Lena from her deep sleep, or if she was merely seeking warmth, but she moved closer, throwing one arm and one leg over him.

The curling thatch of hair on her mound tickled his hip and the arousal that had only just begun to abate from before rolled over him like chain ball lightning until his cock was so engorged it was trying to erect a tent.

“Hell,” he muttered, grinding his teeth as her knee nudged his testicles and they drew up in a hard knot against his belly in reaction.

“Bad word,” she muttered, the words only slightly slurred by sleep.

Startled, Dax glanced at her sharply, wondering if she was feigning sleep after all. Mel had said she’d given her something to knock her out, though.

Grasping her chin, he pushed her face up to study it suspiciously. It was dim in the room, but his eyes had adjusted to the darkness and he saw nothing to indicate she was awake and only pretending to be asleep.

He decided to test her to find out. He sure as hell wasn’t going to be able to sleep in the same bed with her if there was even a chance she wasn’t asleep.

Lifting her palm from his chest, he moved her arm down and cupped her hand around his erection, watching her face. She didn’t so much as flinch. She did, however, curl her fingers around it tightly enough he thought for several moments he was going to pass out.

He’d expected, if she was awake, that she’d either try to slap the shit out of him, if it was Lena, or play coy and try to pretend she wasn’t aware of fondling him if she was the decoy.

Instead, she’d merely gripped it as if she thought she was supposed to hold on to it.

“Bad idea,” he muttered, trying gingerly to uncurl her fingers.

They tightened instead of relaxing, sending a sensation through his belly that was not unlike being punched in the gut and he let out a grunt of sharply expelled breath.

“Mine,” she murmured.

He didn’t like to argue about it, especially when she had him in a stranglehold. After a few panicked moments, he decided to try to focus on taming the beast. It wasn’t easy, all things considered, but, after a moment, he felt the blood ease from his member.

Unfortunately, the moment it began to go limp, she decided she’d dropped whatever it was she thought she’d had hold of. He knew this because she began to shake it. “Broke.”

“It will be if you don’t stop,” he ground out.

“S’not broke?”

“Just give it to me,” he hissed.

To his immense relief, she let go of him.

Grasping her hand, he moved it to his chest again, holding her palm over his frantically pounding heart until she relaxed and went limp.

He lay perfectly still for a while, struggling with his private demons, which had taken that really inappropriate time to prompt him with temptations he knew he had no business considering.

She was putty in his hands at the moment, though, completely compliant--almost completely--and it took all he could do to shrug off the temptation to take advantage of her and assuage his needs knowing she would probably yield without argument.

It might have been easier if he had not been thinking about their coupling in the cell only moments before. It certainly didn’t help that, except for that, he hadn’t touched a woman in nearly two months.

When he finally managed to get his mind off of fucking her brains out, it dawned on him that he had stumbled on what might be the only opportunity, short of torturing her, of getting reliable information from her. He lay pondering that for a while, trying to think of questions he could ask that would give him answers. Somehow, he doubted she could handle any question that was too complicated at the moment.

As far as any of them had been able to determine, the conspirators hadn’t figured out how to record real memories and implant them in the clones. They usually managed to put together and implant a pretty impressive background package--which meant they had access to the entire security net which missed damned little--so even though they didn’t actually remember the incidents because they hadn’t been there, they did know about a lot of the same events the real person knew.

“Do you remember meeting me?” he asked finally.

She nodded.

“Where did we meet?”

Her face crumpled. “Morrisplace.”

Dax frowned thoughtfully but realized after a moment that that still didn’t tell him anything. He’d been in the apartment to scan for surveillance cams and ‘spike’ them. They’d learned very quickly that simply deactivating them didn’t do much good. The very next time they went to a place they had to do another search and destroy. If they left them, though, planting a false feed, they could be pretty sure the goons wouldn’t be back to check on them.

The problem was, the cams might have caught his visit. He’d been as careful as he could about spiking them, and thought he’d made sure he had erased everything directly before the tampering, but he couldn’t be a hundred percent certain that they didn’t know that was the time and place he’d first encountered her. And even the real Lena wouldn’t know that he’d known about her for years.

The real Lena would know what hadn’t happened, though.

“You were happy to see me. It had been years, after all.”

Her brow wrinkled in confusion.

“I was glad to see you, too. That’s why I kissed you.”

She looked even more confused. “Didn’t,” she said finally.

“You kissed me back.”

She moved restlessly, as if wrestling to extract that from her memory. “Did? Doan ‘member.”

Dax frowned in irritation. That didn’t tell him a damned thing, and unfortunately he couldn’t tell if she was being deliberately evasive or if he’d just confused her because she did remember the incident but couldn’t remember something that hadn’t happened.

“Fucked. Din kiss me.”

Dax stiffened. Catching her jaw and tipping her face up for his inspection, he studied it searchingly. “When?” he asked sharply.

“While ago.”

“Where?”

“Bed,” she responded reasonably.

He was tempted to shake her. She might be thinking about the time in the cell, and she might not be. It was just as possible that she was faking the whole damned ‘asleep’ thing and thought something had happened at Morris’.

The line of questioning wasn’t doing him any good otherwise either. Pushing her onto her back, he rolled up onto one elbow to stare down at her for several moments. She lay sprawled as she landed, bonelessly, showing no sign at all that he could see of tension. Finally, he settled his chest against her, pinning her to the bed with his body and tried to focus on relaxing enough himself to sleep.

* * * *

“Captain Morris?”

The voice jerked Dax rudely from sleep, yanking his head upwards as if someone had grabbed him by the hair and lifted it.

“We’ll be docking at Antaria in about twenty minutes.”

Dax stared down in bemusement at the breast he’d been using for a pillow for several moments and finally rolled off the bunk and strode to the com. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

Struggling to shake off the dregs of sleep, he looked around for the uniform he’d discarded and finally spied it hanging from the corner of the mirror mounted above his shaving basin. Recalling, vaguely, that he’d wadded it into a ball and tossed it at the wall when he’d discovered his bed was occupied, he retrieved the jumpsuit and pulled it on, studying Lena as he pressed the front seal together.

She’d rolled over onto her belly when he got up, exposing a long shapely back and heart shaped buttocks that tempted him to explore the cleavage with his face.

Shaking the thought, he grabbed the edge of the cover and tossed it over her before leaving the cabin.

The smell of coffee led him to the galley. Grabbing a steaming mug full, he downed a mouthful before he was clear headed enough to think better of it, scalding the inside of his mouth, his esophagus, and his stomach. The burn more than the caffeine jolted him into alertness, and he headed out again. When he reached the bridge, he could see the busy space port in the forward viewing screen. They’d already been caught by the tractor beam and were gliding in for hookup.

He settled a hand on the docking pilot’s shoulder. “Stay put. We won’t be here long. When you check in with the dock master, tell him we’re headed to Andromeda to pick up a load of ore.”

Stepping to the com unit, he touched the pad. “Marx, Johnson, Gracia, and Vang--meet me at the main airlock--NOW!”

Vang and Johnson were the last to arrive, and they looked like he felt, glassy eyed from too little sleep, their hair standing on end, and their uniforms fastened crookedly. He glared at them. After staring at him stupidly for several moments, both men looked down at themselves and began trying to tidy their appearance. “Each of you are to take one of these locators, find a ship ready to leave that has a deep space destination, and make sure you get the thing on board without getting caught--and move your ass. If we stay put too long, they’ll be all over us.”

Saluting, they held out their hands for the locators, tucked them in their chest pockets, and hustled out the airlock the moment the door opened. Dropping the last two in his own pocket, Dax followed them. Walking briskly along the docking arm until he reached the main dock, he scanned the vessels lined up on either side. He’d just decided to try his hand at a freighter near the center when he spied Johnson talking to one of the crew members.

Changing course abruptly, he continued down the main concourse until he reached the furthest end and took a right along a secondary docking arm. He was in luck. He found a deep space rescue vessel that was loading supplies. Hailing one of the dock workers, he told the man he wanted to make sure the meds he’d sent over had reached the dock safely, gave him a fake name, and set him off to look. Wandering casually among the crates while he was waiting, he removed one of the locators and dropped it into the open crate the man had been trying to secure when he arrived.

The dock worker looked worried when he came back. “I didn’t find it. You sure it was supposed to be going out on the Mabel?”

Feigning surprise, Dax stared at the man a moment and then craned to get a look at the vessel. “Hell! Wrong ship! Sorry.”

The man glared at him irritably but kept his thoughts to himself.

Satisfied, Dax turned and strode purposefully away. The man would no doubt remember him if questioned, but that hardly mattered. Vids were everywhere. One could hardly take a leak without being examined thoroughly. He was just hoping the trackers wouldn’t stop to question anyone at this point or examine the surveillance vids.

When he reached the main concourse again, he considered what to do with the last of the locaters. Five ships would be leaving port with Lena on board--six if he planted the last one. Were they more likely to follow the six carrying her, figuring she must be on one of them? Or more likely to ignore the six, figuring they were all decoys?

Deciding to see just how clever they were, and how many were trailing them, he returned to the ship with the last locator and headed for the bridge. “Set a course for Andromeda,” he told the navigator as he settled into his chair.

“Yes, sir!”

His pilot, Rodriguez turned to look at him questioningly.

Dax returned the look in silence for several moments. “After we pass the seventh buoy, change course and head for the dead system and settle the ship into orbit around the sixth planet. We’ll wait there for a few hours and see if we’ve got company. If nobody shows, we can head back to main base.”

Rodriguez frowned. “They’ll pick us up right away if we deviate from the flight path we charted.”

“They won’t. Trust me. They won’t know until we don’t pass the eighth on schedule that we took a detour. That will give us a good three days lead on them. We’ll be home before they notice we’re missing.”

“The seventh buoy?”

Dax nodded. “It’s currently inoperable. I’m going to my cabin. Call me immediately if you pick up anything we need to worry about.”

Once he’d entered his cabin, Dax simply stood over the bed for several moments, wondering if it was even worth the effort of trying to get some sleep. It was only the reflection that he wasn’t likely to fare any better, for other reasons, in the crew quarters.

More than a little tempted to roust Mel out of her quarters and take her bed, he considered that option for a few moments and finally discarded it. Nobody, including him, wanted a med working on them that was dead on her feet.

What he needed was pain killer--some of the stuff doc had given Lena would do the trick.

The only problem with that was that he couldn’t afford to take anything that might make it hard to get his head straight if he only managed to get a few hours sleep.

A whole lot of Lena would work even better, but that wasn’t an option, be she ever so comfortably ensconced in his bed.

Muttering a curse under his breath, he finally decided on option number three--a stiff drink. One wasn’t likely to impair his judgment, but it would relax him.

Settling in his desk chair, he poured himself a couple of fingers of whiskey, chilled it in the freeze unit and sipped it slowly, allowing his mind to drift where it would as long as it didn’t drift in Lena’s direction.

He’d spent a lot of years resenting Lena and her brother Nigel for ‘usurping’ his place with his father. It was unreasonable, of course, and he’d been old enough to know better, but that sort of thing rarely touched on logic.

He couldn’t recall that he’d ever really gotten along his father. About the only thing he remembered with a lot of clarity about his childhood was that his father was hardly ever around--too busy saving the world to spend much time with his family. And pretty much all of his memories from when he’d been a youth were about fighting, mostly his father.

He’d been nearly thirteen when he’d decided to take off and find his mother. The old man had always sworn the feds had gotten her, but he’d never believed that. He figured she’d just gotten tired of him and his father and left. One day, she’d just left him a note that she had gone to look for food and never came back, and he’d figured, because that was what he really wanted to do, that she’d just kept going.

By the time he’d turned twelve, he had outgrown his father in size and decided he’d outgrown needing somebody to tell him what to do, too. His father had been training him as a rebel pretty much as far back as he could remember. Mostly it was just talk at first, but it wasn’t long before he began showing him how to make war, how to fight, how to kill quickly and quietly, always teaching him the art of warfare.

His mother had hated that. He supposed, in the back of his mind, he’d thought that was probably the main reason she’d left, because her husband was a conspiracy fanatic and her son was a budding killer.

As it turned out, he wasn’t as ready to take off as he’d thought. The first time he decided to take his old man on, Morris had beat the hell out of him in about two seconds flat.

The second time, he’d had time to add weight and muscle to his height and he’d put Morris down.

And then he’d left.

And it turned out that Morris was right. The gov had gotten his mother, rounded her up in the middle of a food riot, hauled her off to one of their camps, and kept her there until she died.

He’d cried like a baby when he had finally tracked her down and only found a grave that didn’t even have a name marker on it--just a fucking number.

He hadn’t gone back, though. He’d hated Morris then almost as much as he hated the gov and for the same reason.

He’d spent a lot of time trying to decide the best way to pay them both back for his mother and finally ended up focusing on the gov. They were the real villains, after all. It was because of them that his father hadn’t been around to protect his mother.

He’d been seventeen the first time he’d gone back, the first time he’d set eyes on little Lena. She’d been just about as big as a minute, spindly arms and legs and not much to her besides huge blue eyes.