“Eat suck, suckface!”
I pulled the trigger and the gun twisted and fell apart in my hand. Why did I even carry all these guns? Had I gotten stronger all of a sudden or had I really not fired them in that long?
I was reaching for another gun when Hobardi dashed forward, did some kind of somersault, and kicked me in the face.
Thud.
He fell to the ground, caught himself with his arms, flipped back up and kicked me in the chest.
Thud.
“What’s going on here?” Valia asked.
“He’s a clone.”
“How do you know?”
Thud. He kicked me in the side of my head as I was talking to Valia.
“That’s what the Two Clem clone said. And he totally ignored your feminine charms.”
“Oh. Should I do something?”
“Yeah, kill him.”
I had another gun out and was handling it delicately.
Valia shrugged and drew her pistol.
Hobardi kicked her in the face, punched her in the stomach, jumped over her, then flip-threw her before I could even open my mouth.
“Whoa,” I blinked.
I aimed at Hobardi but he grabbed Valia from behind and put her in a chokehold.
“Shoot him,” she managed to say.
“I might hit you. My aim isn’t that great,” I apologized.
She lifted her legs and folded in her arms to make herself a smaller target, all while being strangled.
“My aim is really bad, actually,” I elaborated, though I appreciated her efforts.
She managed a curse.
I plodded toward them with my arms outstretched, hoping to help out.
“Shtop!” She said, her eyes bulging.
I stopped.
Hobardi had lifted her off the ground by her neck, when suddenly she broke out of his grasp. She didn’t wrench free, she kind of slipped out like a wet bar of soap. She hit the floor, scrambled backwards through his legs, and lay prone on the ground, her arms covering her head.
“Shoot him!”
I aimed. Fired.
Blam!
Er. Fired again.
Blam!
Hobardi was running now, that super athletic clone-running.
Blam!
I think these guns were flawed. Or I should practice with them. Or both.
Valia did a forward roll, recovered her pistol, rested one leg against me to stop her momentum, aimed:
Blam!
Hobardi went down.
Valia stared daggers at me but bit her lip.
“Good shooting, Kommilaire,” I said awkwardly.
CHAPTER 46
“Yeah, he’s a clone,” Delovoa said casually.
“I knew that,” I answered. “Why doesn’t he look like the Two Clem clone?”
“You know what a clone is, don’t you?”
“No. They had cancelled that class by the time I went to Supreme Kommilaire University—and just in case you were unclear, there is no such thing as Supreme Kommilaire University.”
“Clones are just… clones. Of people. They are copies of them.”
“But with bad brains?”
“With as much, or little, brain as they require to do their functions. This one is missing a lot. The point is someone copied Hobardi to make this.”
“So Naked Guy’s clones were copies of real people?”
“No, those were probably made from scratch.”
“Are you just making this up or do you actually know what you’re talking about?” I asked, annoyed.
“A little of both.”
“So Hobardi was a clone and Two Clem was a clone. So who decides how much brain they have?”
“The people who are cloning them,” he said.
“Who are they?”
“The people cloning?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“How should I know? I almost never leave this street. You’re about my only form of entertainment, which tells you how boring my life is. Oh, I built your voting machine,” he said, conveniently switching topics.
“Nice. Let’s see.”
In another room he had a giant machine full of sensors and gizmos and poles and wires.
“Is that going to kill people?” I asked skeptically.
“Not most people.”
“How does it work?” I asked, looking closer, but not too close. I didn’t see any controls.
“It deep scans your neural signals and takes an imprint of your dendritic web.”
“Yeah,” I said, making it clear that wasn’t a very good description.
“It can tell who you want to vote for based on your thoughts and then it records your unique brain structure so you can’t vote again.”
“Why couldn’t you just have had three buttons or something? Why do you always do this? No one is going to want to have their brain zapped.”
“Don’t tell them.”
“What about the Boranjame?”
“There’s only one of him, just ask him who he wants to vote for.”
“How do you know Zeti is male?”
“You can tell by how he walks,” Delovoa said dismissively.
“He’s a floating crystal… Anyway, what about the Dredel Led and Keilvin Kamigans and stuff without brains? Or normal brains.”
“They don’t get to vote.”
“What? Why? You can’t do that.”
“I don’t like the Dredel Led. I don’t trust them.”
“Since when?”
“Since they attacked Belvaille.”
“That was like a hundred years ago back during the Colmarian Confederation. They haven’t caused any problems since then.”
I was going to say he should get out more often, but I realized I didn’t want Delovoa out more often.
“Well, build your own voting machine then, smart guy.”
“Test it,” I said, pointing at the machine.
“It won’t work on me. I have three brains. I get to vote three times. Which only seems fair.”
“I’ll test it then,” I said, stepping forward cautiously.
“It won’t work on you either. Your skull is like a foot thick.”
“It’s just dense! So this thing doesn’t work on like half the species here and it might kill the other half. As Secretary of City, I’m not very comfortable with this.”
“But it will let me identify any other clones in the city,” Delovoa said with a toothless grin.
“If they vote.”
“Yeah.”
“Why would a clone vote? Is there a Clone Pride Movement I don’t know about? Can you make a clone scanner that I could carry around?” I asked.
“You could carry this around.”
“People will notice me dragging around a ten-foot brain blaster. I need something small.”
“I guess,” Delovoa pouted.
“And make another voting machine. With buttons. Or knobs. Something non-lethal.”
“How will it keep track of people who already voted?”
“I don’t know if anyone is going to vote. But we’ll give them a sticker. Or write down their names. We don’t have to scramble their DNA though.”
Delovoa rolled all three eyes as if I was taking all the fun out of democracy.
“Don’t complain to me if there’s voter fraud.”
“I just found a clone that was running for office. I’m not especially concerned if someone votes twice for Governor; a position, by the way, with no official duties or responsibilities. Besides, this is Belvaille. Fraud is part of our tradition.”
CHAPTER 47
“Kill any judges today?” MTB asked me.
“Day ain’t over,” I said.
We were sitting in my living room. I had to talk to him and I didn’t care if he was uncomfortable with it. He worked for me.
“I heard you killed Hobardi,” he said.
“I killed his clone. Well, Valia did.”
“What’s a clone?”
“It’s like a copy. With a bad brain. Like Two Clem was. Delovoa can explain.”