The guards, two human men with severe buzz cuts and tatty army uniforms patched with a seemingly random collection of fabrics, approached her but without pulling their truncheons from their belt loops.
They must be expecting her.
Their bodies obscured the woman’s face and their voices were too low to hear, but after a few moments, they stood aside and let her approach the door. Denver couldn’t see her from this position, as the window was a couple of meters to the door’s left. Before the robed woman could try the handle, Denver dashed low under the window and across to the right wall beside the door.
A squeak of metal followed a rattle. The handle turned, hinges protested, and then the door opened, flooding the cell-like living quarters with the warm glow of morning. The silhouette of the visitor stretched out to fill the angular shaft of light on the bare wooden floor.
She waited, perhaps sensing Denver was there, behind the door, crouching, waiting, his breath held in his lungs with anticipation. The voices of the guards blew in on the breeze, words that were unimportant, jocular. A laugh or two followed, preceding a pair of footsteps creating barely audible thuds on the floor.
When the figure closed the door behind her, Denver launched forward. He grabbed her by the arms, pinning them to her body, and pushed her back across the living room until her back hit the wall separating the sleeping quarters.
She gapsed with the impact. Denver continued to press with his arms outstretched. “Who are you?” he said with a low growl, not wanting to alert the guards and hoping she wouldn’t scream.
“Let go,” she whimpered.
Denver released her right arm but only to push her hood back and reveal her identity. He staggered back, confused. Words tripped on his lips before he finally got a grip of himself.
“Maria? What the hell are you doing? How did you get past…” He trailed off as a blank expression stared at him, clearly not understanding something. “What? What is it? Maria, talk to me.”
She turned away from him as a shadow moved out from the sleeping quarters.
“Leave her, son; that’s not Maria,” Charlie said.
“What? I don’t understand.”
“Come,” she said, tugging at his arm. “We need to talk in there. I’ll explain everything.”
“Do as she says,” Charlie said. “It’s a wild story, but it’ll make sense.” Charlie gripped his son by the shoulder and urged him away from the woman. She slipped out, smiling nervously at Charlie, and headed into the sleeping quarters. His dad led him in after her.
Once inside, they closed the door and the woman explained who she was.
“I don’t believe it,” Denver said. Clones! How could he even know if ‘his’ Maria was even the same one he initially met? “This is fucked up. Are you even still called Maria?”
She nodded, her cheeks blushing. The poor woman looked scared out of her wits. He realized he was looming over her, his body tense. He relaxed his shoulders and stood back, trying to be less intimidating. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“I get it,” she said, reaching out for him and patting him on the arm in an awkward means of friendship. “I’ve known I’m a clone from the day I was activated. They told me everything. It must be confusing for you, but please, let me assure you I’m here to help—and very much my own person.”
Denver shook his head, letting out a small laugh. “This world gets more bizarre by the day, but hey, it’s not as weird as aliens coming to use the planet as a giant drug farm, so sure, I’ll go with it. But why are you here? Is it to do with the plan?”
Charlie remained quiet as Clone-Maria brought Denver up to speed on Charlie’s interaction with Hagellan and the general plan.
“What does he want with us now?” Charlie said.
Stepping closer to both men and lowering her voice, she said in hushed tones, “He’s happy you two have agreed to help. He said he understood how difficult a decision it was for you considering what your people have gone through.”
The way she said it made Denver want to correct her to include her within that statement but realized she was as much croatoan as she was human in mind if not body. Charlie snorted with derision, but Denver remained quiet. He nodded to urge her to continue.
“He’s liaised with a number of our engineers.”
‘Our’ wasn’t lost on Denver—it was clear who this clone’s loyalties were with.
She continued, “Lord Hagellan wants to speak with you, go over the plan. He has new information for you and wants to meet you.” She pointedly looked at Denver. “In the spirit of peace and cooperation.”
Both Charlie and Denver laughed at that.
Bad enough she referred to the turtle-looking bastard as a lord, but hilarious to think he could get away with the bullshit of peace and cooperation.
“Where was that when he and his generals nearly wiped out our race?” Denver asked.
“I… erm…” Clone-Maria looked away.
“Son, leave it,” Charlie said. “She doesn’t know all about that.”
“When were you activated?” Denver asked.
It appeared that was a sore subject. Clone-Maria sat down on the bed and scowled. “That’s not really important right now. I’m here as an emissary to—”
“Lord Hagellan,” Charlie filled in. “We get it, girl. We’ll go. But I hope he doesn’t expect us to do cartwheels and sing ‘Kumbaya’ around the campfire. Let me make this clear—we are not his kind’s friends. Never were, never will be.”
“We’re closer than you think,” she said.
“And how would you know?” Denver said, keeping his tone respectful. He admired her for coming here and didn’t see any point in escalating an argument.
She tapped the side of her head. “We all have it in here—parcels of croatoan knowledge. We weren’t cloned just for working in the harvesters.”
“Oh?” Charlie said, raising an eyebrow. “What else?”
“My group are, as I said, emissaries, but we hold within us the church edicts. We observe the rituals of the Elder Gods—the first croatoans to establish a home world and the revered Mother and Father.”
“Their idea of creation, eh?” Charlie said.
It appeared to Denver that this was at least something he could recognize as something they had in common: religion and belief in a supernatural origin story. From what Denver had read, it made absolutely no sense at all. All throughout the ice age he saw people of varied faiths praying, ritualizing, and praising God.
They all perished.
If there was a god, an Elder or not, it seemed his or her line was busy.
“No,” Clone-Maria said, standing up, “not their idea—the truth. Within every one of us we carry the DNA of those original mothers and fathers.”
“Us?” Denver shook his head. “You’re human, genetically and fundamentally. Your DNA is no different to ours. You’re not one of them. They use you like a tool to do their bidding—just like they used humans in their farm facilities. Just how much free will do you clones actually have?”
He thought about his Maria—did she also have this so-called knowledge in her mind just waiting to be ‘activated’? How much of Maria was the Maria he had come to know, and how much was some preprogrammed meat-puppet?
Clone-Maria ignored his questions. “Are you coming with me or not?” she said as she pushed her way between the two men. “I wouldn’t say no if I were you. Lord Hagellan is a fair leader but not one to cross.”