“But--who’s doing it?”
“If we knew that, we’d know how to stop it.”
Lena frowned. “Morris always thought it was the gov. I can’t see it. In the long term, it wouldn’t make a lot of difference to the president. He won’t be in office much longer anyway.” She thought that over for several moments. “You think he’s planning on making himself a … dictator?”
“It’s possible. It’s also possible he doesn’t even know about it.”
Realizing the examination was over, Lena sat up, massaging her temples absently. When Mel started to move away, she caught her arm. “I know who I am. I know I’m not a clone.”
She could tell from the way Mel was looking at her that Mel didn’t believe she would know.
“The thing is,” Mel said finally. “The clones are usually stronger and heal faster than their counterpart and the thing that’s bothering everybody is that you managed to overpower yours. Statistically, the odds are against the real Lena having survived. We all know that. Dax knows that. That’s why he doesn’t believe you are really you even though I think he wants to.”
Lena stared at her in frustration. “I didn’t overpower her. It wasn’t me that killed her. It was the home guard.”
Mel’s brows rose. “What did happen?”
Feeling more hopeful when Mel seemed open to at least listening to her side of the situation, she very carefully related every detail about that night that she could remember. She was disappointed by Mel’s reaction. She looked thoughtful but not completely convinced.
It took an effort to contain her anger and frustration. She could see Mel suspected that she’d made up the entire story to cover her butt, and she supposed she couldn’t really blame her for not taking the word of a complete stranger, but how was she supposed to clear up the misconception if no one would even listen to her?
“Dax didn’t believe me either,” she said dully.
“He’s afraid to. We all are.”
“Why did he even bother to help me escape?” she said irritably.
“To stop Nigel from going in after you.”
Lena glanced at her sharply, horror flooding her at the idea of Nigel trying anything that crazy. It warmed her that her big brother wanted to take care of her, but he was a tech, for god’s sake. He wasn’t a soldier. How could he even have considered doing something like that? It wasn’t just hard to imagine. It was impossible. “Oh god!” She covered her mouth with her hand.
Still shaken by the idea of Nigel risking his life to do the things that Dax had done, Lena climbed off of the table, discarded the towel sized ‘sheet’ she’d covered herself with and picked up the uniform, slipping her feet into it. She’d already pushed her arms into the sleeves before it dawned on her that Dax had no more reason to care about Nigel than he did her.
When she’d first realized that Dax was Morris’ son, she supposed, in the back of her mind, at least, she’d thought the reason he’d rescued her was because of his affection for his father, because he’d realized Morris would have tried if he’d been able to. If that wasn’t the case, though, then it couldn’t be the reason he’d decided to help Nigel either.
“Why? And why Dax?”
Mel sent her a questioning look.
“He doesn’t care anything about Nigel or me. Why would he risk his life to help either one of us? And why do it himself? Why not just send someone?”
Mel glanced away uncomfortably. “Because there’s a chance Nigel can help us track the data,” she said finally. “He wouldn’t agree to try it unless we got you out.”
Lena was too stunned at first to feel anything at all, but fury washed over her when she realized that they’d used her to get her brother to risk his life for their damned cause. Nigel was no rebel. He was an academic. They were going to get him killed!
As much as she wanted to tell Mel there was no way in hell she was going to just stand by and let Nigel do what they wanted without making a hell of a push to talk him out of it, she realized now was not the time to address that--and Mel wasn’t the one she needed to talk to about it anyway. Mel wasn’t in charge.
Maybe Dax wasn’t either, but he made a better target.
“Why Dax? Why not send someone else in after me?”
“Because he never sends someone else to do a job he wouldn’t do himself. Maybe because he felt like he owed it to Morris. I don’t know. I’m not sure he knows, either, but I do know no one was expecting to see you on that roof and it’s the first time since I’ve known the captain that he failed to do what he went in to do.”
Lena frowned at her questioningly.
“He went in to terminate you. It’s what we do. It’s all we can do, because we don’t know who’s behind this or how else to try to stop it. We terminate the clones we locate.”
Chapter Eight
