The War Goes On

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25 minutes

Violence

Please enjoy this teaser from my upcoming collection of short stories, “Hearts Uncanny”.

I.

Seven hours. Kael sat up in the dark, and remembered the pack of cigarettes in his thigh pocket. He fished one out, and half of the tobacco spilled onto his tactical pants. He tried vainly to pinch the dry leaf back inside the paper tube, then gave it up, and twisted the paper down to keep what he had. He blew smoke toward the closet door, propped open with his boot. If they hadn’t located him by now, then he’d probably gotten away clean.

There were alleys on either side of the building, and this room abutted a utility room with a ladder that went up to the roof, and down into the basement. The basement connected to the storm drains. Lots of ways out. He knew the Replacers wouldn’t easily forget. This time, he’d hurt them.

Four, maybe five, of his best men were dead. Nathaniel had at least made it out. They’d failed to free the originals, but Kael’s team had breached the cube and seen the captives with their own eyes. Seven hours earlier, the sapper army around the world had flooded the public servers from a thousand different terminals with visual proof. That was too much data to catch, and too damning for even the Repos to obfuscate.

Once upon a time, Kael believed that truth had a way of coming out. Grim experience taught him otherwise. A million private people with a million personal experiences could never unseat a powerful lie. Plenty believed that the Restorers were really Replacers, but people were a simple, cowardly lot. They needed to both see the truth, and to know that the others had seen it too.

He finished that, and lit another. Kael thought he’d smoke one for every member of his team, even Crumb, whose mistakes had gotten them caught before the job was done. Maybe Crumb just lost his nerve when he saw his own wife in the cube, or maybe the Crumb on his strike team was a replacement. Kael had known for a while that the Restorers had been swapping out perfectly healthy people too in order to infiltrate the Sapper Zone. They lied about everything else, so why would they keep the treaty promise never to “heal” anyone without consent? The frustrating thing was not being able to prove a swap had occurred; not unless the original was deformed, or chronically ill. The Repos were way ahead of them there. Their detectors meant they could recognize their own.

He cracked the closet door again to let the smoke out, and heard something. It was an atonal creaking, a frustrated back-and-forth sound, like someone trying sharpen a pencil with one hand. The noise came from the alley on the east side of the building. It went on for a few minutes, retreating into the distance until he couldn’t hear it anymore. Kael relaxed, but he kept the door cracked.

“Raef,” he said, taking a long drag, “this one’s yours.”

He closed his eyes, and let the tears fall free. You couldn’t lose men without asking yourself some ugly questions. He’d asked them back when it had all started. He did it again now: Was he willing to be killed? Yes. To be caught, and swapped out? Yes. Was he willing to risk other men dying or being captured? Yes, because he’d pay that price himself. The hardest question of all: would he sacrifice others without proof that he was right? Same answer, because that was the kind of war they were in. And he could toss that last question now.

The terrible secret was finally out. The beings who called themselves Restorers were not taking the sick and deformed, and healing them. They were replacing them, and locking away the originals. Everyone should have known this. Hell, why else would they use detectors in the Repo Zone, or make cooperators carry passes? But some people just didn’t want to believe, and the Repos were always ready with a slick explanation, so he had to remind himself that the proof they’d found was worth losing men over. He took another drag.

“Sorry, brother. Wish it’d been me. You know I do.”

In the smoke, he could almost see Raef’s face; hear his voice.

Better slopped than swapped, said the ghost.

He had a way with words, did Raef. The creaking, squeaking noise came back down the alley. It could have been someone pulling a trashcan toward to the street, or bringing one back. Not that anybody’d do that over and over. The noise faded away in the other direction.

Kael wondered why cracking the cube didn’t make him more happy. It had only cost a few good men. There’d be more bloodshed, but that was alright. A good war was better than a bad peace. God knew he’d probably be following the others soon enough. But there was one question he’d never really asked himself: What did victory look like?

It was worth it to punch a bully in the mouth even if you knew he’d kill you for it later. Better that than pretending things were right when you knew they weren’t. But what if—even with the truth out—the Replacers wouldn’t leave, or people wouldn’t make the effort to make them leave? What if things just went on the same forever, with the Replaced and the Sapient living parallel lives, staring at each other across the borders for years and years, forced by circumstances to engage in commerce until one day every sapper was replaced anyway, or worse, nobody cared anymore who was real and who wasn’t? What if sapper victory was unachievable, not because it was too hard, but because there simply wasn’t any concrete scenario that corresponded to the word?

That was a terrible question, and Kael instantly regretted posing it. But maybe it had always been there, at the back of his consciousness, taunting him.

The squeaking sound again. Not threatening, but concerning, because he couldn’t identify it. He stood, stamped out Raef’s memorial smoke, and crept over to the window with his rifle at the ready. He was inside sapper territory, but it would be naive to think he was safe. Surely they’d be trying to scan every inch of the Sapient Zone from space, and he was only just inside the border. From the shadows, he looked down into the alleyway.

A little girl, maybe seven or eight, was riding back and forth on a tricycle. The ground was strewn with loose garbage, broken appliances, and even a few winos leaning around a trashcan fire. The girl weaved around these obstacles as she traversed the alleyway. She was pretty, dark haired, and of Asian descent. Korean, he guessed. He thought she was a little old for a tricycle, and that the vehicle was over-sized anyway. He soon understood. The girl had only one good arm and leg. Her left hand was a doughy, misshapen thing, like a claw. A shoe was mounted absurdly a few inches below her knee. As she picked up speed, dodging obstructions, her bad leg would sometimes slip off the left pedal, or her claw would lose its tenuous grip. The trike would pull hard to the right, and she’d scramble to correct just in time to avoid hitting something. In spite of this, the girl beamed at every little victory. She smiled to spite the spiteful world.

Kael leaned against the window trim, watching the girl play. She knew something about life that he’d forgotten. He saw that it was so without knowing what it was he’d lost. Maybe it was enough that people like her still had it.

And what was his next play? Seven hours since the upload. Enough time had passed for the news to get out. Yet he could look down the alleyway, and see the Restored territory just across the border road, where three women—real, swapped, who knew?—were walking down the sidewalk holding shopping bags. Truth didn’t glitter, or feed bellies. What would he do if it came to this: that everyone knew and nobody cared?

He looked back at the little girl, now wobbling toward the northern end of the alleyway. A police car marked neutral came up parallel with the alley, and slowed as the girl approached. She waved, showing her flesh-claw without shame, but she turned the trike around and started back the other way. Good girl. Mama trained her well. That street was the only thing standing between being herself, and being swapped out with something that only looked like her. Kael watched her zip southwards, this time dodging barriers without having to stop and correct. She was learning. He could see the pride swelling in her mangled frame. Kael sighed. If she could fight her little battle, then so could he.

She made a circle, and started the whole thing over again. There was something wholesome, maybe even holy, in that childish repetition of the simple and the good. After a few minutes, the girl returned to the northern end. Once more, a police car slowed down along the border road, and now stopped in her path. Was it the same car as before? Kael’s eyes narrowed.

“Shit, if I have to…”

He opened the window, and saw a fire escape thirty feet to his right. He tore out of the room, and down the hallway, then went left at the intersecting corridor. He climbed out the window, and quickly scrambled down a metal ladder to the alley floor. The girl was almost to the police car. Again, she waved. Kael saw the officers wave back. One of them rolled down a window. The girl stopped. The officer in the passenger seat was engaging her in conversation, and beckoning her forward. The driver opened his door and slowly circled around behind the car.

“That’s low,” muttered Kael.

He could try shooting them from here, but he’d be hard-pressed to drop them both before they got her across the border. Kael’s bike was parked in the west alley, and he cursed himself for coming out on this side, wasting precious time to be sure of their intentions instead of acting on his gut. He ran back into the building through the ground floor entrance. The motorcycle was where he’d left it. He hid his rifle in a shallow gutter, opened his chest holsters, and drove the bike toward the building’s entrance, shooting out the glass as he passed through. He re-entered the east alley just in time to see the squad car turn casually into Restorer territory, leaving an empty tricycle behind.

Kael revved the engine. It only took three seconds to cross the border road, and enter the enemy’s world. Three seconds, and no signs, or lights, or gates to separate City of Man from the City of New Gods. He quickly caught up to the squad car, which seemed in no rush. Dressed for war, with two guns on his chest and a cannon mounted on his bike, there was no question of concealing his intentions. Some on the streets pointed and gesticulated; the smart ones ran for cover. He drove his bike up on the sidewalk, just beside the squad car. The girl was not in the back seat, but he could hear her kicking and screaming in the trunk.

Just then, the driver looked up at him. Casual. Mystified. Why were tyrants always so surprised at resistance? Kael shot him in the head. The other cop reached for his sidearm, but got two bullets in the chest, and one more in throat for good measure. The squad car pulled lazily to the left, and struck a wall. Kael parked his bike, and reached around the officer’s body to grab the car keys.

By now there were sirens from every direction, and he heard the tell-tale CLIP CLOP of the robot sentinels. People stared out shop windows, or leaned down from apartment buildings. Everyone so outraged. He’d violated their precious tranquility.

He pulled the little girl out of the trunk, and promised he wouldn’t hurt her. As if nature weren’t cruel enough, the olive-brown skin of her face was marred by a white skin blotch that looked vaguely like a hammer. Maybe God had decided to hit her on the way out of the womb.

The girl fought, and tried to bite him, and he let her do it. He told her his name, and lifted her up to show her what he’d done.

“You’re one of them?” she said, sobbing. “The men who fight?”

He nodded. “Let’s get you home.”

He wedged her behind him, and turned the bike around. You could see the Sapper Zone from where they were. He was sure he’d make it, and couldn’t resist a parting shot at the the cooperators looking down from their safe windows.

“What’s the matter?” he said. “Don’t like to be reminded of what you’re serving?”

Screams and boos from above. He revved the engine.

“Hold on tight, sweetheart,” said Kael, and took off for the border road.

Someone shouted, “You won’t get away!”

Kael grinned. Let them try to follow him into sapper territory, where even the hobos had guns. He was within fifty feet of freedom, feeling pleased, when he saw his error. Two Repo float-tanks dropped down from the sky, and hovered in the center of the border road. At that moment, armed bodies appeared on the rooftops to either side of him. This hadn’t been some casual Repo kidnapping. It looked like the Replacers had known all along where he was hiding, and they’d waited for the right moment to lure him over to their side.

Behind him the little girl screamed pitifully. If she hadn’t been there, he might have had a chance to get away, but with the child at his mercy, he couldn’t take risks. The cynical bastards probably knew that too.

“Listen to me!” he shouted. “Are you listening?”

He felt her little head nodding against his back.

“I’m going straight at those thanks. I’ll fire my cannon through the center. Their shields’ll shove them off to either side, and then they’ll come after me. I let you off, and you run. Understand?”

Another nod.

“Tell me the plan!” he shouted.

“You shoot! I run!” said the girl.

“Good! Ready? Now!”

He fired the cannon twice, then came to a screeching halt only ten feet from the border road. The float-tanks spun sideways through the air, their shields crackling with blue energy. The girl almost flew off the bike, but Kael caught her, and set her down.

“Run!”

She froze, and turned around. “What about you, sir?”

“Run! Run!”

She scuttled forward pitifully on her cruel appendages. One of the float tanks came back into view, and Kael fired past the girl to knock it out of the way. The second tank jumped over the girl, letting her pass underneath, and turned its long gun on Kael. He didn’t budge from the spot. They wouldn’t shoot him. He was too useful alive. Kael waited until he saw the girl cross the border, then made a break for it.

Stun cartridges sizzled through the air, hitting the asphalt all around him. No way they shot that badly. They were corralling him deeper into Repo territory, keeping him from side roads and alleys, sealing the border behind him. Once he was contained, they’d drop him for real. Then they’d swap him out with another Kael Konstantius. He could only imagine what they had in mind for the real one.

He approached an intersection, hoping to turn hard right and loop back around toward the border. Squad cars rolled in from either side, and three more float tanks appeared above the roof tops. In the distance, the lift bridge was already being raised. No way forward; no way back. But one of the vehicles that had been forced to stop in front of the bridge gave him an idea. Kael scanned the buildings around him. Mostly residences, and a few shops. He fired wildly into the air, and the people looking out scrambled back inside their houses. That was good. He didn’t want witnesses.

Kael drove hard for the lift bridge. The squad cars were hot on his tail, and the float tanks, about ten of them now, dropped down to intercept him. There were two ways this could go. One gave him a chance in hell to slip away, and the other ended up with him in an inferno. Either was acceptable. Try questioning a piece of charcoal, he thought. He fixed his cannon on the fuel truck, fired, and leapt from the bike.

The explosion was instantaneous. Kael skidded along the asphalt, felt his arm break, and then felt the heat. A fireball rushed toward him, and he grit his teeth, bracing for the end.

The smoke was choking him. He swallowed burnt air with no oxygen in it. Strong hands suddenly gripped him beneath his armpits, and pulled him backwards. He couldn’t see who it was, couldn’t see anything at all in the fire and smoke. Again he tried to breath, but there was nothing for his lungs to gather. Somebody was coughing and wheezing. Kael was set down for an instant, then gathered up more forcefully, and dragged.

“Get it open!” said a muffled voice.

“I can’t see,” a woman replied.

“It’s right behind you!”

There was noise of heavy doors being lifted, and then dropped. Kael was pulled backwards, and down. It was a hole then; maybe a cellar. He looked up into a square of light and smoke and fire. A woman was descending, something wrapped around her face, but he saw only her silhouette, and the fire burning in her long black hair. She slammed the cellar doors, then screamed, and slapped at her head. The man set him down on a gravelly floor, and climbed up to slip a beam of wood between the handles before attending to the girl.

“Are you alright?” he said.

“Yes, it’s out, I think—” she looked at Kael, “—is he dead?”

“Give him oxygen,” said the man.

The young woman darted off, and soon returned with a tank and mask. Kael opened his eyes and drew long, deep breaths. The oxygen rushing in made him almost giddy, even though his left arm throbbed, and both his legs were beginning to burn as if they were actually on fire.

“Sedative,” said the man.

“No!” growled Kael.

He knew the stories about what happened to sappers captured in Repo territory. These people were probably after the reward. He struggled, but struggling only multiplied his agonies. The girl approached with a long needle, and tried to peel his jacket back. He fought her, and felt the sting in his neck instead, before slipping into darkness.

II.

Kael woke up to hard gravel, and a rifle in his face. A bright light shone down on him, and a dog that looked at least half-wolf hovered close to his head. The dog’s tongue lolled out, and its wet breath wafted over his nose and mouth. Rifle Girl was pretty, despite the charred ends of her hair. An old man sat on his haunches, surveying his legs. They hurt like hell, but his forearm was in a cast.

“You gonna to shoot me?” he asked the girl.

“Maybe?” she said, with a shrug. “Probably.”

The old man had what was maybe a stud finder sticking out of his vest pocket. He turned it on, and it beeped for a second before going quiet. The girl glanced at the dog, and moved the gun closer to his head.

“Watch him, Chuck,” she said.

Instantly the dog’s demeanor went from pleasant to downright evil. The old man waved the stud finder over Kael’s body, starting with his head, and moving towards his feet. His knee bumped against Kael’s leg, which sent pain knifing through him.

“Sorry about that,” said the man, absently.

He turned his face away, and began coughing into his arm.

“I thought you people weren’t allowed to have guns?” said Kael to the girl.

She narrowed her eyes. “Oh, so you’re taking notes on us?”

His coughing fit over, the old man continued scanning Kael. The funny-looking stud finder made a harsh buzzing noise, and turned red. The old man looked up at the young woman meaningfully. They had the same eyes.

Kael sighed. “Looks like I failed your test.”

“Yes,” said the old man, with another grating cough. “Lucky you.”

He looked again at girl, but she shook her head and kept the gun on Kael.

“Let him explain himself first,” she said.

“He isn’t one of them,” said the old man.

She looked hard at Kael, then blew an ashy strand of hair from her face. Slowly, she moved the gun until it pointed at the floor. The safety, Kael noted, was still off, and her neck and hands were taut as cables. He addressed himself to the man.

“You splinted my arm.”

The other nodded.

“Thank you.”

“Zara helped,” he said, nodding at the girl. “I’m teaching her.”

“Don’t tell him my name!” she snapped.

The man shrugged. “Why wait? He passed the test. If you aren’t going to trust him now, you might as well shoot him and be done with it.”

Zara looked like she was considering just that.

“I thought you said I failed,” said Kael.

“You did fail, therefore you passed.”

Zara rolled her eyes, and then surprised Kael with a sideways glance that was almost sympathetic. “You’ll be hearing a lot of that if you stick around.”

The flash of her smile lasted only an instant, but it was a good smile. The old man looked wryly back and forth between them. “Are you a praying man, stranger?”

Kael paused. “No atheists in foxholes,” he offered, with a judicious nod.

“Well, even if you’re not,” said the man, “you are a damned lucky one. Some stunt you pulled off, going after that girl, and then trying to hide in an explosion.”

Kael shrugged, then winced as the motion made his arm bump on the gravel.

“My duty, that’s all. Thought I’d probably just burn up.”

“Ah. The man of war,” said the old man, sighing. “Hardened by it. Probably can’t imagine any life besides one spent fighting.”

Kael considered the comment, which was so obvious as to be nonsensical. “Live or die,” he said, “the war goes on.”

The old man rubbed his chin.

“Some say so. Let’s get you upstairs, and then we’ll talk.”

II.

They helped Kael into a comfortable chair in a small sitting room that shared the same four walls with a rather large kitchen. The pain in his legs had become almost unbearable, and Zara and the old man had practically needed to carry him up the stairs. The old man reclined Kael’s chair, and studied him with obvious concern. The kind face was suddenly contorted again by a fit of coughing. He pounded his chest to get the cough under control.

“Sorry about that,” said the old man. “Cold keeps hanging around. Anyway, we’ll need to get those pants off. Unfortunately you woke up before we finished, and that was the last sedative we had on hand. I do have some strong liquor to help with the pain.”

Kael thought about it, and shook his head no. He’d need all his wits about him.

“As you like then. We’ll tend to your burns, and then talk about some things. My name is Apollo Wright, by the way.”

Kael nodded, but did not share his own name. The old man gently prodded the black tactical pants with his fingers. Kael grimaced.

“I think, to be on the safe side,” said Apollo, “we’ll just cut these off.”

Apollo looked up at Zara, who stared back at him with exaggerated puzzlement.

“What? I’m not gonna do it.”

“Well, he can’t,” said the man. “And you need to practice burn care. These old hands get shaky, and I’m afraid I might poke him with the scissors.”

“I have a few burns of my own, Dad,” said Zara, taking a chunk of hair, and wagging it at him.

“That can wait.”

She stood rooted in place for a moment, then stormed over to Kael.

“Look,” Kael said, “you don’t have to—”

“Oh, shut up,” she said. “Just get that ammo belt off, and undo any clasps. That is if you’re not too crippled to move your other arm.”

Kael did as she asked, and helped her as much as he could, bracing himself as she took a pair of medical sheers and began to cut through the material. It was an awful process that seemed to take hours, though it might have lasted fifteen minutes. He had friction burns from the crash, but his skin was also scorched from the explosion. Some of the cloth stuck to his wounds. It was all he could do to grit his teeth and drive his head back into the chair, trying not to scream, regretting his decision to refuse the liquor. When she’d fully exposed his legs, Zara gasped, and wrinkled her nose.

“You really need a bath.”

“Zara!” said her father.

Kael stared at the ceiling, pain and embarrassment giving way to a growing anger at being so confined. Grateful though he was for the help, he wasn’t used to being cared for, nor could he shake his constitutional suspicion of anyone in the Repo Zone. If these were good people, not replacements or cooperators, then why were they here? When he finally looked back, Zara seemed to have softened.

“Sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t kind.”

The girl and her father began cleaning his legs. Both were swollen and red, and a great deal of the hair was burnt off from his ankles to about halfway up his thighs. Zara’s wound care was considerably gentler than her talk. Though less knowledgeable than her father, she did the work with more grace, and less pain to him. Apollo seemed to have a medical background, and would often stop to give her pointers until the job was finished.

“There,” said the old man, finally. “Not as bad as it looks, and it should heal well. The burns are extensive, but only superficial. We got you out just in time. You won’t need grafts.”

He left the room, then returned with a bed sheet, which he drew over Kael’s bandaged legs.

“I have some clothes and a robe that you can borrow for tonight. Tomorrow I’ll go out, and buy you something more your size. We’ll also need more sedatives and painkillers. Antibiotics wouldn’t hurt either, to prevent infection.”

Kael frowned. “Go out and buy something?”

“Well … yes? You don’t think we grow supplies in here, do you?”

Kael glanced casually at his two chest holsters. Both were empty. He might have lost one gun in the accident, but two? He was suddenly wary again, and his eyes darted back and forth between his two rescuers, and then stopped on the large dog, which now lay on the carpet only four feet from him.

“Is something wrong?” said Apollo.

“You’re not saps,” said Kael, coldly. “And you’re not in hiding here, if you can just go to the store without being detected.”

Apollo shook his head. “You don’t understand. We still have to talk.”

Kael kept his eyes on the man, but felt around inside his tactical vest, probing for the hidden dagger. He palmed it, then rested his hand on the chair arm. He was too wounded to be subtle, and the old man followed his hand to where he’d placed it.

“I’ve set your gun aside for you. You are perfectly safe here, son.”

Kael smiled. “Sure, pal.”

His arm shot out like a viper, and he pulled Apollo over the chair arm, and pressed the dagger against his throat.

“No!” cried Zara.

The wolf-dog barked loudly, and rushed at Kael.

“Tell it to back off!” he hissed.

“I … I can’t breath!” wheezed Apollo.

“Tell it!” Kael shouted to Zara, lifting Apollo’s chin with the dagger.

“Heel, Chuck! Heel!” shouted the girl.

The dog froze, but leaned toward Kael, bristling with violence.

“Get it out of my face!” spat Kael.

Zara nodded, and dragged the dog across the kitchen floor, shutting it inside a small room. She quickly returned, the anger of betrayal on her face, tears running down her cheeks.

“Why are you doing this? We helped you! We saved your life!”

“You saved my body!” spat Kael. “For them. I’m sure I’m worth a lot to them, healthy.”

“No!” pleaded Zara. “Please, Daddy can’t breathe!”

Kael relaxed the blade enough for the old man to cough loudly and take several more labored breaths.

“You’re going to drive me out of here,” said Kael. “Or I’m going to kill him.”

She shook her head. “Fine! If that’s what you want, fine! Just don’t hurt him, please!”

Zara began to cry pitifully, and she sank to the ground with her face in her hands. Kael felt almost guilty, though he didn’t doubt his guess about their true intentions. He looked down briefly in order to adjust his headlock enough to leave the man’s windpipe free, and then turned the point of the blade against his jugular, daring Apollo to escape. When Kael looked up, Zara stood with her feet planted squarely. The rifle from before was pointed at his chest.

“Let him go,” she said.

The tears were gone. Zara’s tone was flat; her eyes emotionless. Kael was more stunned by the transformation, than by the gun. He seen killing eyes before. He decided that she would shoot him either way. Fine, then, he thought, better slopped than swapped. But killing the old man would make no difference now. Kael released Apollo, who slumped to the floor, wheezing and coughing.

“Ungrateful monster,” spat Kara, pulling the trigger.

“No!” cried Apollo.

The blast tore into his jacket, driving the air out of his body. Kael groaned, and clutched his chest. Zara swore, seeing that the round hadn’t penetrated his body armor, and she put the rifle to his temple. Kael looked up at her, offering no resistance. Swapped and tortured for information? No thank you. Dead? Well, he could deal with that. But Zara’s hands shook.

“Don’t kill him!” said Apollo. “I beg you. He doesn’t know.”

“He was going to kill you!”

“He was only trying to protect himself,” wheezed the old man. “Can you blame him?”

Zara glared down at Kael. Slowly, she drew the gun away, and handed it to her father. All the hard edges of a moment before melted in a second, and she covered her face with a trembling hand. That same transformation, but in reverse. Apollo displayed the weapon before Kael. He cleared the chamber, and made a show of tossing the gun away.

“Now will you listen?” he said.

Kael nodded.

“The knife,” said Apollo, holding out his hand. “Please.”

With a great effort, Kael turned the blade hilt-forward, and placed it on Apollo’s open palm. Apollo took it with a great sigh. He righted his chair, and sat beside Kael, gesturing for Zara to do the same. The girl came back over, but watched Kael with wary contempt. Kael met her gaze with respect, but without apology. Apollo reached out, and took Kael’s hand in his own.

“We are not replacements,” he began. “But neither are we cooperators. Not anymore. We live here, in occupied territory, hiding in plain sight. And in this, we are not alone.”

Kael shook his head. “How can that be? They’d catch you.”

“They’d catch us,” said Apollo, “if they could detect us. But they cannot. They think we’re replacements. That’s the key.”

Kael balked. “But the detectors—”

“—Are everywhere?”

“Yes,” said Kael.

“Yes,” repeated Apollo. “Not just in shops, and government buildings, but in bridges, and under the very streets. The enemy has total control.”

Kael stared, waiting for an explanation.

“And that is their weakness,” continued Apollo. “Overconfidence. If we were cooperators, we would have to show a pass, and go to them to have it checked and renewed. But replacements have full freedom of movement. That’s the incentive, you see. So the question is, how do we do it? Why do they mistake us for their own?”

Kael shrugged, still waiting.

“I’m a biologist by training,” said Apollo. “And the problem is essentially biological. If a replacement is a clone—albeit, one without any of the sicknesses or deformities of the original—than how can it be distinguished from an original? How would the detectors or the Repo sentinels know? It can’t be a matter of genes, or fingerprints, or retinal imprint, because the replacements are exact copies, minus imperfections. There had to be something else, and it had to be a simple mechanism. As a biologist, and, at the time, a cooperator, the problem intrigued me.”

Kael reached down and adjusted his recliner to a sitting position. He saw Zara flinch at the movement.

“You’ve got my attention,” said Kael. “You’re telling me you figured out how to trick the bastards?”

Apollo nodded. Kael whistled low.

“That’s the one thing we could never crack” he said. “It changes everything. We could walk right into their citadels, and kill them all before they even—”

“—Stop, please,” said Apollo, putting up a hand. “Hear me out entirely before you start making plans to go out and get more people killed fighting a war that can’t be won with bullets.”

Kael looked at him incredulously, but the old man continued.

“When the Replacers swap a clone for a man, they also introduce a novel mechanism into the clone’s cellular machinery. It’s a simple thing, really. Just instructions for a harmless cocktail of amino acids, which are then folded into a very basic protein. Call it the ID protein. It does nothing but sit there, and it’s the same protein in every replacement.”

“And you’re a biologist,” said Kael, drawing out the implications.

Apollo nodded. “Synthesizing complex proteins is difficult. If that had been the way of it, my theory would have been hopeless, even if proved. However, I guessed that in order to be useful, this ID protein would need a relatively basic structure. Something that could be produced quickly, yet distinguished at a glance by any number of detection systems. Once I understood this theoretically, I only needed the chance to verify the matter … experimentally.”

Kael noticed a shadow pass over Zara’s face. Was that sadness? Shame?

“You … got inside one of them, and looked?”

Apollo nodded.

“Was it someone you knew?” said Kael.

“My wife,” sighed Apollo. “Zara’s mother. Although, not really. Her real mother had cerebral palsy. We tried to keep her hidden from them, but her own cousin reported her. Out of love, you know. This was before the treaty, so…”

“And you experimented on the replacement,” finished Kael, looking at the old man with new respect. “That’s cold. Must have been damn satisfying, too.”

Apollo’s face became hard. He took a deep breath, and held it. Zara put a hand on her father’s shoulder.

“It was not like that,” said the old man, at length. “I am not like that.”

“Then how?” said Kael.

“I loved my own Genevieve. So, like many people, I could never bring myself to hate this new Genevieve. That, of course, is the greatest weapon they wield against us. Our sympathies, not to mention our fear of conflict. But for my own reasons, I chose to love this new Genevieve. I wouldn’t touch her as if she were my own wife, but I chose to treat her with kindness and respect. She has a soul, you know. The Replacers can’t create those. And the truth is the replacements themselves know, deep down, they’re only loved as replacements. So I chose to love her as a person. I never thought anything would come of this love. My theories were only a sort of desperate hobby. However, it was she who stumbled upon my notes one day, and, out of love, offered to help us.”

A tear traced its way down Zara’s cheek.

“A replacement helped you?” said Kael. “Did she let you … kill her?”

“No,” said Apollo. “That I could never do. But I ran many tests on her blood, and eventually found the hidden identifier. In time, I was able to synthesize it here, in my laboratory.”

He indicated the kitchen.

“So you inject it?” said Kael, flabbergasted. “And then walk about as you please?”

“Sometimes,” said Apollo, “if there’s a need for haste. Otherwise, we drink it in a mixture, and wait half an hour. To go out for extended periods, one must continue sipping from a bottle intermittently.”

Kael stared at him, finding it difficult to believe he’d pulled this off.

“What happened to this woman?”

Apollo sighed. “She left. Only a day after my greatest triumph. The very night that I first synthesized the protein … she … you see, she asked me if now I could love her as I had my wife. I told her that I did love her, but not as my Genevieve. I remember that moment like it was yesterday. She must have been hoping all along that … but what could I say? The next morning, she was gone.”

“She could have gone to the Repos, and told them everything,” said Kael.

“I feared that she would,” said Apollo, nodding. “We waited for a year, expecting any day to be raided. In that time, I tested out my formula. I left my pass at home, and found that I could walk among them without detection. Not only did the formula work, but my wife—the second Genevieve, rather—had not reported me, for my face never triggered a response from the sentinels.”

Kael became silent. “Where did she go?” he asked, softly.

“Away, we think,” said Apollo, looking at Zara. “Perhaps to the Sapper Zone. No one there would know what she was. Perhaps someone could love her. I like to think that she found love, though sometimes I fear that she took her own—”

“Daddy!” said Zara, her eyes pleading.

He shrugged. “I feel a certain guilt, but I simply couldn’t give her what she wanted—”

“Daddy,” said insisted Zara, “Stop it! You did nothing wrong. Everyone is proud of you.”

Kael considered the two of them. He couldn’t detect a lie. Still, it seemed too good to be true.

“You mentioned that you’re not the only ones?” said Kael.

Apollo straightened up, seemingly relieved at the change of subject.

“There are seven-hundred forty-three of us,” he said. “And growing.”

“Right here?” said Kael. “In the Repo Zone?”

Apollo nodded. Zara squeezed her father’s shoulder.

“Daddy is at the center of it,” she said. “He’s the one man who’s really given us a chance.”

Apollo waved off her praise, and then her protests. He looked hard at Kael, as if knowing what must be going through the other’s mind. Kael was thinking of his own men killed or captured over the years. Of the friends only recently lost. They’d paid the ultimate price to expose the truth. They’d paid in blood, and struggle, and years of going without. Could victory mean something as cheap as hiding? He wasn’t even sure he wanted to believe that.

“Daughters are wonderful,” offered Apollo. “It’s in their nature to take pride in their fathers, but mine is only one small success. Others have done as much or more. For example,” he looked at Kael, “those men who just died to prove the truth about the cubes. You knew those men, perhaps?”

Kael debated for a long time, but finally realized that his silence had already given him away. He nodded.

“We’re sorry for your loss,” said Zara. “And I wasn’t trying to say that you sappers aren’t fighting bravely—”

“Forget it,” said Kael. “I just … it’s hard for me to believe you’re telling the truth. And if you are telling the truth, then it’s hard for me to see how this all ends in victory.”

Apollo rested a hand on Kael’s good arm.

“As far as it being true, I can show you. After things have settled down out there, you can watch me from the window whenever I go to work—Oh yes! I’m able to work among them without detection—but as for how it ends, consider this: the Repos believe in genetic purity, and they have the weapons and the technology to enforce their vision. Over time, by force of arms, they’re bound to win. Your friends may have exposed them, but, in dying, they also proved how utterly incapable we are of—”

He broke out coughing again. Zara looked at her father with concern.

“Are you sure it’s only a cold, Dad? It seems like it’s getting worse.”

“It’ll pass,” he said, smiling. “Don’t worry.”

He squeezed Kael’s arm, as if to convince him too.

“I’m under the weather,” he continued. “I’ll need to calm this cough down before I go out for supplies.”

“I’ll go, Dad,” said Zara.

“Well, we’ll see. Anyway, let me finish. The Repos know that we know they could destroy us, if that became their goal. They also know how weak we are; how fickle, and given to comfort. They aim to replace us all, for what ultimate purpose, the Devil only knows. Maybe they believe their own propaganda. Maybe there’s a later stage, where all the clones become slaves. Whatever the case, the path to victory lies in reverse infiltration. We cannot outfight them, but we can outbreed them. You see, we can live among them, right under their noses, until there are more of us than of them. Others, men like you, will still fight them in the traditional way. A necessary fight. A good one. But tyrants rule by force. It’s their language, and they speak it infinitely better than we do. We shall defeat them, not by force, but by meekness. In this quiet way, we’ll inherit the Earth.”

He coughed again, three long, hoarse sounds. The dog barked loudly from across the room, and those noises blended with Apollo’s so that the two were almost indistinguishable.

“Daddy?” said Zara.

“I’m fine, girl. The smoke from before seared my lungs a bit. What I need is rest. I suppose you should go to the store after all.”

She nodded, looking anxious, and turned to Kael.

“I’m going to set a room up for you,” she said. “You can rest here until your body heals. Then, if you want, I’ll take you back.”

Kael thanked her. Zara and her father got up and walked toward the small room across the kitchen, their whispers drowned out by the barking of the dog.

© 2023 Joseph Breslin All Rights Reserved

Read the full story in my upcoming anthology, Hearts Uncanny.

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