Eleven

Chapter

“I’m not real.” Hayley’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. She could barely breathe. Thoughts whirled through her mind so fast it made her dizzy.

“What do you mean you’re not real?” Rom asked.

Concern flowed out from him. She could feel everything he felt through their bond. She clung to that, trying to calm the maelstrom of her own emotions. Rom needed to know the truth. She had to tell him. But saying it… Saying the words… She pinched her eyes shut, ignoring the tears that spilled out from them. Rom deserved to know.

“I’m a copy.” Her voice dropped down to a whisper. “I’m a clone.”

Rom didn’t blink. He didn’t flinch. The steady concern and… love flowing out from him didn’t blip at all. Did he not understand what she was saying? How could it not faze him even a bit?

“Rom, I’m not Hayley,” she repeated, her voice stronger as rage rose up within her. How could Norem have done this to her? To Hayley? God, all those people who hadn’t made it. All those versions of Hayley. Hayley, who was not her.

“I’m a clone.” Each time she repeated it, something in her hardened. Somehow, she was going to make Norem pay for what he had done. But first, she had to get through this moment with Rom.

He was still staring up at her, his brow pinched in worry, his hands gently holding hers. He wasn’t repulsed or even angry, just eager to help. It was as if he was waiting for her to continue, to tell him what he should do. What more did she have to say?

Finally, he said, “Okay…” dragging out the word. Then he shrugged. “So what?”

Her breath poured out of her in a gasp. “How can you be so flippant about this?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can feel how much this bothers you, but I don’t understand why it upsets you so much. I’ve met lots of clones. The crown prince of my people has a sister who’s been cloned so many times…”

Finally, his own anger rose up in him. He bowed his head, his spine plates rising with a menacing vibration. She tried to pull her hands away, but he held on. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him. She felt unworthy. Everything that had passed between them had been a lie. Her existence was a lie.

“Don’t do that, please.” Rom rose up on his knees, pulling her hands against his chest. “Don’t pull away from me. Please, tell me what’s tearing you up inside.”

“I thought everything was finally better,” she said. “I thought we would be rescued and I could have my own ‘happily ever after.’ But it’s not mine. It’s Hayley’s.”

“Hayley…”

She glared at him and he snapped his mouth shut. He blew out a breath and shook his head.

“What happened between us happened between us ,” he said. “This doesn’t change anything.”

She let out a mirthless laugh. “How can it not? I’m not Hayley. You were supposed to bond with her.”

“Just because there’s another Hayley running around out there doesn’t mean you aren’t you,” Rom said. “And it sure as hell doesn’t mean that I’m supposed to bond with her.”

A sharp pain lanced through her heart at the thought of Rom sharing the connection they had forged with another. The weight of it forced the air from her lungs in a sob. Rom wrapped his arms around her, pulling her firmly against his chest. He held her while she cried until she felt hollowed out. All the while, he poured his love for her into their bond, trying to soothe the ache within her.

“I have bonded with you,” he murmured against her hair. “Unity can only be achieved between soulmates. You are your own person. You have your own soul. I know it for a fact, because it’s the other half of mine. I can feel it. If there’s another person running around who looks a lot like you and has the same memories, good for them. But they have their own soul. They are fundamentally a different person.”

Could he be right? She felt connected to him in a way she’d never felt with anyone before. Not even her telepathic link with Mindy could compare. Rom really did feel like the other half of her soul. But what did that mean for the original Hayley? For ‘H-0,’ as Norem designated her.

It was too much. Hayley couldn’t bear to think of it. She clutched Rom’s back, clinging to him as if he was her anchor in a stormy sea. All the while, he kept whispering reassurances in her ear, the words finally breaking through the wall of agonized thoughts roiling in her mind. He pulled back, cradling her head between his hands.

“It doesn’t matter how you got here,” he said. “The important thing is that you are here. You are you. You are the other half of my soul.”

And then he kissed her. His lips were tender at first, gentle. Heat still flooded her at the touch. It burned away her worry, her fear. She might not understand who or even what she was, but she understood this. His touch. The way it made her feel. She was his soulmate, and that made her different from everyone else in the universe. That made her unique. It made her… herself.

She wished they had time for more, but too much was at stake for them to get distracted. It wasn’t just her own safety on the line. Katie and Mindy needed her, too. Rom broke off the kiss, pressing his forehead to hers. She loved it when he did that.

“I need to tell you something,” she said. “Something that didn’t make sense until now.”

Rom sat back on his heels, staring up at her intently. “I’m listening.”

“I keep having these visions—memories, I think. I’m in the tank and I see Norem watching me.” She felt Rom tense, but if she paused, she didn’t think she’d be able to get through this, so she powered on. “Someone else comes up to him and hands him…” She shook her head sharply, not wanting to focus on what was inside the cylinder. “He hands him something. I pound on the glass, and I can see that my left arm is made out of metal.”

Rom hissed in a breath, a wave of rage blowing out from him that would have made her gasp if she didn’t feel just as much anger herself. It bolstered her, helping her to go on. That wasn’t the important part. The important part was what she needed to say next.

“The other man was also Norem,” she said. “I thought it was just a weird dream or hallucination, but I’m sure of it now. If I have Hayley’s memories, I think this really happened. There are multiple Norems as well.”

Rom bowed his head, giving her a clear view of his spine plates. They vibrated so quickly, they blurred. She could feel his rage building, his efforts to calm himself. She cupped his face in her hands and tilted it up so she could see the vibrant violet glow of his eyes. Muscles strained in his jaw as he ground his teeth together.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It seemed important you should know that stopping him might be harder than you think.”

“It’s not that,” he said. “We also had just recently discovered that there are multiple Norems. We ran into another one right before I came for you.”

“Then what’s upsetting you so much?”

“Norem has a lot of projects going on,” Rom said. “I’d guess he’s made a clone of himself for each project and probably uploads all of their memories in some sort of repository for them to share amongst each other.”

“He can do that?” If such a thing were possible, it would explain how she had Hayley’s memories.

“Lots of species can do that.” Rom rested his hands on her legs. “The Coalition took it farthest—and to the worst possible uses—but the technology is floating around everywhere. When we went to Earth, we uploaded all of the languages into our brains so that we could talk to whoever we encountered. There’s cultural programming as well, but that’s only as good as our research.”

“You can program yourselves like robots?”

He flinched, his jaw muscles twitching again.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Norem probably used the same technology to imprint Hayley’s memories onto you when you were created,” Rom said. When she started to pull back again, he followed, wrapping his arms around her hips and pulling her closer again. “Listen to me. Every member of the Coalition of Planets is grown in a maturation chamber. They go through all their stages of development, from infancy all the way through adulthood in that chamber. When their bodies are ready, the Coalition’s genetic engineers download a set of skills into them based on the function each person is slated for in their society.”

“Oh my God,” Hayley gasped. “That’s awful.”

“Every Sadirian you meet is their own person, though. They start having their own life experiences as soon as they emerge, and it shapes them into a unique individual, even if they have the same base programming.”

“Still…”

“Things are changing,” he said. “Their High Council has been destroyed and most of the people who still call themselves part of the Coalition have moved to the Sol system. Earth has had a profound effect on them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did away with maturation chambers as soon as their society stabilizes from all the recent changes. But they might keep some, and the people who are created that way are just as valid. Just as you are.”

Maybe he was right. It was still a lot to process, but it didn’t hurt as much to think about. She didn’t have time to brood about it or try to figure out the nature of her existence, though. Too much was at stake. One last thing was niggling at her mind, though.

“If you already knew about the multiple-Norems, why did you get so upset when I mentioned them?” she asked.

He flinched again, then sighed. “Norem has a lot of things going on. He’s been working on the transit portal I used to get here, trying to make it so Tau Ceti can go through it without being pulped. Another version of himself has been adding Cygnian DNA to his soldiers, trying to make them stronger so they can withstand the portal’s effect and complete the trip through blue space in one piece. The Tau Ceti have a long history of genetic engineering as well.”

He glanced away, dread stopping his words.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she said.

He ran his hand through his hair, then shook his head. “The other thing Norem is known for is cybernetics. He… He’s been experimenting on his Tau Ceti soldiers, replacing body parts with mechanical versions to enhance their performance. If Hayley had a metal arm in your memory, that means…”

His eyes pinched at the corners and he trailed off, unable to finish. He didn’t need to.

Hayley didn’t dare close her eyes. If she did, she knew what she’d see. The contents of the cylinder. The part of the original Hayley that they had removed to make her a cyborg. That they had probably used… to make herself.

Hayley shook her head, then looked up at the ceiling. She couldn’t let this overwhelm her. She couldn’t give in to the rage and the fear. It was time to act. Time to take Norem down. With Rom at her side, she was certain they could do it. They would hunt down every version of Norem, wipe him out of existence, and save the original Hayley while doing so. She looked back at Rom, resting one hand on his cheek.

“Cygnians are warriors,” she said, with a question in her voice. When he nodded, she continued. “If I’m your soulmate, that means I have a Cygnian soul.”

“It’s true.”

“Then I think it’s time I went to war.”