Lena’s dive clipped one leg as she sailed through the doorway, knocking the woman off balance. Even as the satisfying thud of meat smacking solidly into tile reached her ears, Lena crumpled against the opposite wall of the hallway.
She barely registered the collision that would’ve been painful if adrenaline wasn’t pumping through her body like wildfire. Scrambling to her feet, she slapped her palm against the emergency button set into the wall. A hole appeared in the wall a fraction of an inch from her hand. Lena stared at it a split second and fled away from the fire, into her living room, once more cornering herself with no avenue of escape.
Her nemesis, instead of chasing her, planted herself firmly in the doorway between the hall and the living area, leaving Lena with no option other than to race back and forth at one end of the room, trying to dodge the blasts and hoping against hope that the home guard she’d summoned would arrive before the woman managed to get in a clean shot.
Almost on the thought a beam raked along her arm, turning the fabric of her sleeve and the outer layers of flesh it touched into ash. She screamed, scooping one of her prized possessions, an ancient stone African fertility god, from its display shelf as she dashed past and hurling it in the general direction of her assailant. A meaty thud, a scream, and the sound of a metallic object striking the floor rewarded her effort. Without registering much more in her mind than the errant thought that she’d managed to knock the pistol from the woman’s hand, Lena charged her attacker, slamming into her hard enough to carry both of them into the wall.
Her fingers curled into the tunic the woman was wearing as she felt herself falling. They hit the floor in the hall in a tangle of arms and legs, and fury born of sheer terror sent Lena into a mindless rage of clawing, pummeling, screaming, and biting. She was vaguely aware of receiving almost as many blows as she meted out, but shock cocooned her from feeling any pain.
It also shielded her from rational thought. The woman broke free before Lena realized she was trying to reach the weapon she’d dropped. Releasing a sound that was part scream and part animal growl with a mixture of anger and fear, Lena launched herself at the woman again before she could completely break free, struggling to grab the pistol first. Neither of them managed to do anything more than knock the weapon further from their reach.
Giving up the effort after a moment, Lena managed to lever herself on top of her assailant, grabbed a handful of hair on either side of the duplicate’s head and used the leverage to pound the woman’s skull against the floor. The woman screamed, clawing at Lena’s hands and digging raw, bloody trenches across the backs. Gritting her teeth, Lena pounded harder.
Abruptly, the wiggling form beneath Lena managed to get a knee between the two of them, lifting Lena away and overbalancing her. She fell sideways, losing her grip on one handful of hair. The woman clubbed her on the side of her head with a balled fist. Pain exploded in Lena’s head and she lost her grip completely, pitching into the floor with the second handhold.
Disoriented, Lena pushed herself up and launched herself forward as the woman made a dive for the gun again but moments too late. Her doppelganger’s fingers closed around the butt of the weapon.
A desperate tussle ensued.
Lena managed to grab the arm holding the pistol, but she could not reach the pistol itself. The gun discharged as they struggled, shattering glass, furniture, ceiling tiles, and wallboard as each fought for dominance in a battle where they were evenly matched in strength, weight, and life or death desperation.
Lena’s focus on the gun hand cost her. Seeing she couldn’t break Lena’s grip on her arm, the woman began pummeling her again with her fist and finally jerked her knees up, managing to drive a knee into Lena’s side hard enough it knocked the breath out of her. It also pitched Lena face first into the arm she was gripping, however. As she fell forward, her weight drove the woman’s elbow into the hard floor, paralyzing it from elbow to wrist. The woman lost her grip. Even as Lena crashed, the pistol went skittering across the floor once more.
Both women scrambled to their feet and surged toward the gun again. Realizing the pistol had slid under her couch, Lena changed tactics abruptly. Trying to prevent the woman from reaching the pistol instead of beating her to it, Lena rammed her shoulder into her.
The blow knocked both women off balance.
As the woman staggered back a step, Lena fell against the woman and slid towards the floor. Coming down on her knees painfully, she grabbed at the woman, clawing along the woman’s clothing but failing to grasp a hold. Shoving herself to her feet again as the woman lurched toward the couch, Lena sprang toward her. The impact, when she struck, carried both them over the back. They rolled, with first Lena on top and then the other woman. Beneath them, Lena heard the crunch of broken glass, felt sharp needles of pain. The woman screamed, bucking Lena off and then slamming her shoulder into Lena as they struggled to their feet again. Lena staggered back a couple of steps, caught her balance, and charged again.
The second charge took both women through the shattered window of the living area. Shock and horror sucked the air out of Lena’s lungs as the realization hit her that they’d gone through. The woman’s buttocks hit the hip high iron railing of the faux balcony and both women teetered, clawing at each other as each tried to regain their balance. The woman screamed as her ownweight tore her grip loose and she flipped over the railing.
Lena found herself staring round eyed at the face of the woman dangling by one arm from her balcony and the insect sized city streets far below. Abruptly, a large hand seized her, yanking her back into the apartment like a rag doll and releasing her so that she slammed into the floor and skidded.
“Help me! Please! For god’s sake pull me in!” the woman cried in Lena’s voice, sending a shiver down Lena’s spine.
A dark, hulking mass stepped through the window, stared down at the woman hanging from the railing dispassionately for a split second and then, to Lena’s stunned disbelief, he planted the sole of his boot on her fingers and bore down.
The sickening crunch of shattering bones sounded loud and horrible in Lena’s ears, but not nearly as terrible as the woman’s high pitched cry as she lost her grip. She screamed as she fell, the sound seemingly endless and filled with absolute terror as it faded into the distance.
The man glanced at Lena where she lay on the floor as he touched a button on the shoulder of his uniform. “Done,” he growled. “We’re in, but this place is a fucking mess. You’ll need a repair crew in here asap.”
“You killed her,” Lena muttered in disbelief. “You murdered her.”
The man blinked in surprise. Striding toward her abruptly, he caught her throat, lifted her by her neck, and used his thick fingers to peel her eyelids back. “Fuck!”
He shook her furiously and dropped her to the floor. “We’ve got a problem,” he growled into his radio. “The clone just went off the balcony.”
Stepping across her, the home guardsman leaned down, caught the torn front of Lena’s tunic and slugged her in the face with his fist. Pain exploded in her face and head and blackness descended abruptly.
Chapter Four
Lena roused with the jolt that seemed to travel throughout her body. The sense of falling ceased and she struggled to open her eyes. A gray stone wall was all that greeted her gaze when she finally managed to focus her eyes. She stared at it without recognition, uncomprehendingly. Slowly, it was borne in upon her that it was real. The nightmare wasn’t a nightmare but memories.
The drug still flowed through her veins, however, and she found she could not rouse herself to full alertness. Her head swam as she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, and, for a moment, fear invaded her that she would keep moving until she hit the floor. Gripping the edges of the thin mattress she laid on, she closed her eyes until the room stopped spinning.
She was in prison. As difficult as it was to sort reality from dreams, she knew abruptly that she’d lived the nightmare, not just imagined it.
Why the drugs, though? She was no threat to them now, if she ever had been.
