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  CLONE

  M.A. GELSEY

  CLONE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 M.A. Gelsey

  All rights reserved.

  Published by Bifrost Press

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  PROLOGUE

  1: ANNABEL

  2: JAVI

  3: EDGAR PRIME

  4: ANNABEL

  5: JAVI

  6: EDGAR PRIME

  7: ANNABEL

  8: JAVI

  9: EDGAR PRIME

  10: ANNABEL

  11: JAVI

  12: EDGAR PRIME

  13: ANNABEL

  14: JAVI

  15: EDGAR PRIME

  16: MIRA

  17: BOB

  18: ANNABEL

  19: JAVI

  20: EDGAR PRIME

  21: ANNABEL

  22: JAVI

  23: EDGAR PRIME

  24: ANNABEL

  25: JAVI

  26: EDGAR PRIME

  27: ANNABEL

  28: JAVI

  29: BOB

  30: EDGAR PRIME

  31: MIRA

  32: ANNABEL

  33: JAVI

  34: EDGAR PRIME

  35: MIRA

  36: ANNABEL

  37: JAVI

  38: EDGAR PRIME

  39: ANNABEL

  40: JAVI

  41: MIRA

  42: BOB

  43: MIRA

  44: EDGAR PRIME

  45: ANNABEL

  46: JAVI

  47: MIRA

  48: EDGAR PRIME

  49: MIRA

  50: ANNABEL

  51: JAVI

  52: EDGAR PRIME

  53: MIRA

  54: BOB

  55: ANNABEL

  56: JAVI

  57: EDGAR PRIME

  58: ANNABEL

  59: JAVI

  60: MIRA

  61: BOB

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  For my family

  PROLOGUE

  Conscience is but a word that cowards use,

  Devis’d at first to keep the strong in awe.

  -William Shakespeare, Richard III

  Finally, after so many years of planning and work, it was time for the birth. Initially, Dr. Edgar Midas had refused to leave the birthing room, determined to see his project through to the end. After the first few hours of watching the surrogate pace and pant and sweat (punctuated by the occasional agonizing wail), he decided to step out for some air. The nurses reassured him that there was still plenty of time, and they’d fetch him at once if anything changed. In the long white hallway, Edgar leaned against the wall and massaged his temples. He’d been more taken aback than he should have been as a scientist by the screams, the smells, the sweat and blood.

  After a moment he collected himself and headed to the cafeteria with a vague notion that coffee might do him some good. He texted Caden to meet him there; for some reason he did not want to face the rest of his team until he knew the outcome of the experiment. It was different with Caden, though. With Caden, he never felt the pressure.

  He was seated at a corner table near a window, staring at the forebodingly cloudy sky and sipping the vilest cup of coffee in the history of mankind, when Caden arrived. Edgar watched him approach. Caden was the very picture of elegant strength: tall with broad muscular shoulders, yet moving with a grace of a dancer. Caden had thick black hair, bronze skin and kind brown eyes. Nobody had ever held such sway over Edgar before, and he doubted anyone else ever would again.

  “Dr. Yang,” he said in greeting as Caden slid into the seat next to him.

  “Dr. Midas,” Caden returned, his mouth quirking into a smile. Using formal titles had become something of a private joke between them, something that had begun during the long hard years when they worked towards their Ph.Ds.

  Edgar did not speak, he merely looked at Caden. Without consciously making the decision, he leaned over and kissed him full on the mouth. It was the first time, but Edgar was a confident man, and he knew the feelings were reciprocated. He wondered why he’d never done it before; half-formed fears about upsetting their friendship, their working relationship, all stupid and meaningless. When they finally broke apart, Caden’s face was flushed.

  “Harlow is looking for you,” he stammered out.

  Edgar laughed. “Of course he is. Did you tell him where to find me?”

  Caden shook his head, and Edgar heaved a theatrical sigh. “I suppose I should go reassure him that his investment is safe.” He made to stand up, but Caden caught his arm and pulled him back into his seat for another kiss. Edgar had to fight the urge to drag Caden off into an empty on-call room, but there wasn’t time. Later, he thought. It wouldn’t do to miss the birth.

  He left the cafeteria with a most undignified grin plastered across his face, too elated to care. He nearly walked right into Damon Aldous Harlow III, his chief investor and a man renowned for being the first to amass a personal fortune of one trillion dollars.

  “Knew I’d find you here, Edgar,” said Harlow, clapping Edgar on the back in greeting. “I hope you didn’t try the heinous coffee, that’s just asking for trouble.”

  “Hello, Damon,” said Edgar. Harlow was a short man in his early forties with gray-streaked sandy hair and ice blue eyes that had an almost hypnotic quality to them.

  “The press is in the waiting room,” Harlow told him, chuckling appreciatively. “You’re about to become very rich, my friend.”

  “You mean we are,” Edgar corrected. “But it doesn’t matter. That’s not why I’m doing this, and you already have far too much money.”

  “You’ll never get into the four comma club with that attitude,” Harlow boomed. He gave Edgar another jovial pat on the back. “How much longer, d’you think?”

  “I’m on my way back to check, but it should be soon.”

  “Better you than me,” Harlow jested. “I’ve never had any stomach for those sorts of things. Avoided the hospital when all three of my sons were born. Probably would have vomited all over the floor! None of the wives would have appreciated that.”

  Edgar nodded politely. Harlow had recently divorced his third wife, and rumor had it he was already living with the woman who would likely become number four.

  “I’ll update you as soon as there’s news,” Edgar promised.

  “See that you do, Edgar. The suspense is killing me,” Harlow said.

  Edgar returned to the birthing room just in time.

  “Baby’s crowning,” the OB announced. She looked up at the surrogate. “You’re almost there.”

  Edgar quickly approached to look over the OB’s shoulder and see the top of the baby’s head himself, but recoiled almost immediately. There was no avoiding the surrogate’s ear-splitting wails or the nurse’s cheerleading as the surrogate performed the final part of her role. Edgar resumed his pacing around the periphery of the brightly-lit, white room, wishing he could un-see what he had just seen. He was full of a bemused admiration for the doctors and nurses who experienced this sort of chaos and mess everyday. He much preferred the controlled elegance of the petri dishes and pipettes in his lab.

  He noticed that one of the residents — a gorgeous blonde — was eyeing him over the knees of the screaming surrogate. He gave her a brief smile, but did not otherwise engage. Edgar was used to the attention of women; he was tall and lean-muscled with skin the color of espresso, straight white teeth, and gold-framed glasses that he was told made him look the part of the handsome young genet
icist about to make history and win a Nobel prize by creating the first ever human clone.

  He had already given advance interviews at several prestigious publications so they could go to print the moment they received confirmation that the birth was successful and the clone was alive and healthy.

  As if in answer to this thought, the surrogate screamed her loudest yet, followed by what was possibly the most beautiful sound Edgar had ever heard: the wail of a newborn. Edgar watched transfixed as the OB handed the small, blood-covered infant to the resident at her shoulder, who carried it over to the nurses to be cleaned off. Frozen, Edgar listened to the music of the baby’s cries, overwhelmed in spite of himself. When a nurse carried the first ever human clone over to him a moment later, swaddled in blankets and quieter now, Edgar could barely breathe.

  Gently, he took the clone baby from the nurse, staring down at his genetic copy and thinking this must have been what he’d looked like thirty-six years earlier when he’d first been pulled out of his mother. Wordlessly, he carried the clone baby down the hallway to the waiting room where the rest of the team was assembled along with the press.

  The instant he opened the door, babble broke out amongst the crowd; questions flew at him about the clone, whether it survived, whether it was healthy, whether he’d written his Nobel acceptance speech yet. He held up a hand, cradling the now-calm clone baby in his other arm, and silence fell at once. His eyes found Caden’s in the back and he suppressed another huge grin, knowing that if ever there was a moment to look professional, this was it.

  “Our names will be remembered as some of the most daring and accomplished scientists ever to have lived,” Edgar began, addressing his team. “Your years of hard work and dedication have paid off. I’d like to introduce you to the first human clone. Meet Edgar Prime.”

  He pulled back the blanket for a moment so the crowd could see the clone baby for themselves, and more than one of them gasped in reverence; he was perfect.

  “Today, we’ve made history.” He covered Edgar Prime with the blanket, and the clone baby turned slightly, snuggling against his chest. “The world will never be the same again.”

  1: ANNABEL

  Annabel opened her eyes on the morning of her eighteenth birthday and immediately wished she could plunge back into oblivion. But it was impossible; Ms. Durant was already rapping her knuckles on Annabel’s door.

  “I’m up,” Annabel mumbled. She threw back the blankets and climbed out of bed, shivering in the cold early morning air.

  “Breakfast is waiting for you,” Ms. Durant said crisply through the door.

  “I’ll be right down,” Annabel called. She pulled on a soft white robe and slid her feet into slippers. Annabel had grown up in a large, lonely house in a small, lonely seaside town in New England. There were enough people during the summer months, but now it was only March and the landscape was as desolate as it was beautiful.

  Annabel sighed as she glanced out the window, taking in the gentle slope of the grassy hill that she knew would be full of wildflowers in the coming months, and the rocky beach and ocean beyond. She could hear the soothing roar of waves in the distance from everywhere in the house, which had been built in the traditional New England style of graying wood shingles and white trim with gorgeous old floorboards inside that creaked when Annabel walked on them.

  Deciding she’d delayed facing the day for as long as she dared, Annabel glanced at herself quickly in the mirror — braided dark red hair, ocean blue eyes and fair skin — before opening the door to her room and walking down the winding staircase to the kitchen where Ms. Durant waited with her breakfast.

  When Annabel entered, Ms. Durant looked up from the crossword she was doing on her tablet.

  “Good morning, my dear,” Ms. Durant said. “Happy birthday.”

  “Good morning, Ms. Durant.” No matter how she was feeling, Annabel had been taught to always be polite.

  She sat down and started eating her almond milk chia pudding with fresh raspberries while Ms. Durant scrutinized her from across the table. A sharp-featured woman with gray hair pulled back into a neat bun and gray eyes, Ms. Durant was the picture of propriety. After a moment, the older woman went back to her crossword, and left Annabel to stare out the large bay windows and listen to the waves.

  “We’ll go to the church at half past two,” Ms. Durant said, not looking up. Annabel clenched her hands in her lap, but said nothing. She knew there was no use arguing. As Ms. Durant always said, Annabel was neither a natural born nor an original, she had been designed by someone to fill a specific purpose, and it was not her place to protest that.

  “Ten letters,” Ms. Durant said, tapping her tablet absentmindedly. “Unhappy wife of Charles.”

  Annabel considered for a moment. “Emma Bovary.”

  Ms. Durant gave an appreciative, “Hmm,” then went back to working in silence. Annabel forced herself to finish her breakfast, already feeling sick with nerves. She pushed away the empty bowl and told Ms. Durant she was going to the meditation room to practice yoga for an hour or two before she bathed and dressed for the ceremony that afternoon.

  “Don’t tire yourself out,” Ms. Durant warned. “You’ve got a big day ahead of you.”

  “I won’t,” Annabel said, although she doubted it was the truth. She wanted to stop thinking for a while and that was best accomplished when her muscles were aching and sweat was running down her face and body. She left the table and went back upstairs to the large empty room she used for her practice. Annabel threw open all of the windows despite the morning chill. The humid, salty air that smelled of the sea was soothing to her and she breathed in deeply as she laid out her mat on the floor.

  Annabel had never met the man who had commissioned her, but she supposed she would at half past two that afternoon. Ms. Durant, who had been hired before her birth to be her primary caretaker, had told her the story of her creation often enough. A successful young entrepreneur named Rex King had married the love of his life, Annabel Turner. They had six happy years together before she died of brain cancer at thirty.

  Just before her death, Annabel Turner consented to be the second person to have a clone made from her DNA. The following year she was born and named Annabel after her original. According to Ms. Durant, Rex King had not thought it seemly for him to be present for her upbringing so that once she reached adulthood they would be able to marry. He had been waiting for her for eighteen years, and it would not do to disappoint him.

  This marriage was her raison d'être, as Ms. Durant liked to remind her during their French lessons. The original Annabel had spoken French fluently, and so must she. Whenever Annabel showed the slightest frustration over her situation, Ms. Durant sharply informed her that she should be grateful to exist at all, and that less fortunate clones were sold on the black market to have their organs harvested or to be used for a thousand other sinister purposes. Was Annabel not safe and comfortable? How dare she ask for more?

  Before long, Ms. Durant was hurrying her into the shower so they’d have enough time to do her hair and makeup before they left for the church. Annabel took as long as she dared, wishing to postpone the moment when she had to don the white dress and walk down the aisle to meet her fate.

  Ms. Durant made her sit in front of the mirror for more than an hour as she combed out and dried Annabel’s hair so that it fell in long loose waves down her back. Afterwards Ms. Durant applied a few minimal touches of makeup, and had her step into the dress that had been chosen for her.

  It was a simple dress, ankle length and cream-colored, cut elegantly without any unnecessary adornment.

  “Beautiful,” breathed Ms. Durant when she regarded Annabel, fully dressed and ready. Annabel was surprised and a little embarrassed to see tears sparkle in the corners of Ms. Durant’s eyes, but they did not fall. She smiled at Annabel.

  “Rex will be overjoyed. You look just like she did on their wedding day,” said Ms. Durant.

  Annabel said nothing, but her tho
ughts skittered around like frightened birds frantically trying to escape their cages. Don’t forget to breathe, she reminded herself.

  At a quarter past two, a limousine pulled up outside to drive them to the church. Ms. Durant prattled on about how kind it was of Annabel’s intended to send the car, while Annabel reflected that the next time she saw the house she’d be married to a stranger. The fact that they would continue to live in the lonely seaside town in the only house Annabel had ever known gave her little comfort. Gravel crunched in the driveway as the car pulled away, and Annabel swallowed the lump in her throat.

  The small white church where the wedding would take place was located at the edge of town. Annabel had walked by it dozens of times but had never before ventured inside. The car pulled up and Annabel stepped out onto the pavement. She saw no sign of her intended, and Ms. Durant told her to wait by the front steps while she checked whether they were ready to begin.

  Annabel paced back and forth, staring up at the stained glass windows with their intricate geometric patterns wrought in red, blue, green, purple and gold. Within a couple of minutes Ms. Durant returned, gave Annabel a hug, and instructed her to walk down the aisle. Rex was already waiting for her inside with the priest who would perform the ceremony.

  Annabel took another deep breath, then crossed the threshold and stepped into the church. Colored light filtered down from the high stained glass windows, creating patterns across the white walls, dark wooden benches, and maroon carpet. The church was empty, aside from two figures at the far end of the long aisle and Ms. Durant, who gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and darted up to sit in the front row.

  Knowing she had no choice in the matter, Annabel began to walk. Don’t stumble. He won’t like it if you ruin the dress. There was a tall, tuxedo-clad, gray haired man standing at the alter with tears in his eyes and a white boutonnière pinned to his jacket: her commissioner and her intended, Rex King. When she reached him, he took her hands in his and gazed into her eyes.