Affinity

Karina

Karina observed from behind the one-way glass as the technician conducted a final examination of the clone. He spoke, performing the last checks on natural language processing and ticking them off a list as the clone—no, she—responded.

Karina hadn't yet decided how to react to the figure before her. The clone possessed the familiar yet alien features of emerald eyes, red curls, and porcelain skin. She resembled Nadia perfectly, down to the very bone. The secret soldier cloning program, codenamed Titan, had been Kentauri's solution to the loss of their finest warriors. A select few of the army's best were chosen, their DNA captured, and their memories uploaded onto a mainframe at regular intervals—typically every two weeks. The person on the other side of the glass would be a version of Nadia from before her deployment to Tarzar, unaware of anything the real Nadia had shared with Karina thereafter.

Though her eyes remained the same natural brown, Karina had witnessed them glowing with an unnatural iridescent blue on previous occasions.

"Isn't she beautiful?" Dr. Orman remarked, standing beside Karina with a wide smile as he observed the procedure. "We are witnessing the future unfold right before our eyes."

"The future?" Karina inquired. "But aren't there already others like her?"

"Perhaps," the doctor chuckled. "You might be one yourself, for all you know. The same goes for me. They don't disclose everything to us. However, during my time here, this will be the first clone successfully integrated into the army after awakening."

"What happens if something goes wrong during the trial?" Karina questioned.

Dr. Orman pointed to a small red button on the wall. "We press that, and this facility goes into lockdown while being filled with a sleeping gas specifically designed to target her DNA. We must ensure no rogue clone leaves this place under any circumstances."

Karina turned to face him. "How many clones have you dealt with?"

The doctor shook his head. "I'm not permitted to say. The possibility of being killed by one of them does leave a bitter taste in my mouth. Nevertheless, as a man of science, witnessing such a remarkable feat of bio-genetic engineering fills me with awe."

Karina began to regret her decision to be present. Initially, she had been excited about the prospect of seeing her friend again, but this was an entirely different experience.

A sound reverberated through the lab, signalling the descent of the elevator.

The doors opened, and her father entered, his usual calm demeanour intact. He was accompanied by half a dozen guards, fewer than what he would typically have, but the Rogue King prided himself on being able to handle his battles. Karina had witnessed his deadly skills with the dragon steel at his side.

As he passed by, he nodded at her—a small gesture of acknowledgement between father and daughter that Karina cherished. The sight of the king threw Dr. Orman into a nervous panic, causing him to hyperventilate as he struggled to decide how to handle the situation.

"Welcome, Father," Karina offered, relieving the doctor of the burden of coming up with an appropriate greeting. "We're just wrapping things up here."

"Thank you for waiting," he replied. "My last meeting ran long."

He then turned his attention back to the glass window. "Begin."

The technician inside nodded and smiled, pressing something on his tablet. Karina noticed a change in the clone's green eyes as it rose to its feet. Reacting quickly, she yelled at the technician to step back, but it was too late.

The technician was violently hurled against the glass, the sickening sound of his skull shattering causing Karina to wince. Dr. Orman frantically reached for the button he had pointed out earlier, pushing it repeatedly to no avail.

Behind the now blood-splattered glass, Karina could see the clone holding the tablet. Those eyes stared up at her, sending a chill down her spine.

There was no emotion behind those eyes.

She turned to the guards. "Get my father out of here."

"I'm not leaving," the king insisted, reaching for his sword, only for Karina to hold his hand firmly in place.

"For once in your life, Father, please listen," Karina pleaded.

King Zelenkov paused, shifting his gaze from the clone to Karina. "Destroy it. That thing doesn't leave this facility."

Dr. Orman attempted to squeeze himself into the protective circle the guards had formed around the king, but Karina pulled him back.

"Not you," she said sternly. "You're the only one who knows how to stop... her. Figure out a way to make your contingency plan work."

She then refocused her attention on the clone.

"Karina?" it asked.

The voice was unmistakably Nadia's.

"Nadia..." Karina approached the glass.

Now, it stared directly at her. "You want to destroy me."

Did it possess feelings?

"No, Nadia. You're not feeling alright. I want to help."

There was a prolonged silence, causing a knot to form in Karina's chest.

"I could always tell when you were lying, Nadia," it said.

And then, before Nadia could react, it charged forward.

***

When Karina woke up, her head throbbed with pain. Lying on her back, she discovered her hands covered in cuts from shattered glass. Alarms blared incessantly, accompanied by a glaring crimson warning light above the remnants of the containment cell.

To her right, Dr. Orman's lifeless body slumped against the wall, his outstretched hands frozen mid-attempt to press a button. Though his head was missing, Karina couldn't bring herself to look at the gruesome splatter on the wall.

Touching the bump on her head, she found it smeared with blood. It wasn't a serious injury, but enough to have rendered her unconscious.

Nadia... had spared her.

A groan of pain emanated from behind her, prompting Karina to scramble to her feet. She further cut her palms on the shattered glass, but the pain faded into insignificance. The guards, her father's protectors, lay strewn on the ground in various states of devastation.

Yet, one of them miraculously clung to life despite the gaping hole in his chest.

"Where's my father!" she cried out.

Only a gurgling of blood answered her plea.

Desperately, she rummaged through the piles of death and debris, hoping to find something, anything, that could be of assistance.

Another gurgle and the soldier's head slumped to the side.

Leaning against the wall, Karina struggled to catch her breath.

Her father, the esteemed ruler of the northern territories, was gone, possibly abducted by a remorseless clone.

A dreadful screech pierced the air, followed by a heavy thud on the laboratory roof as something massive landed upon it. Karina sprang to her feet, bounding up the stairs two at a time.

It couldn't be.

She recognized that sound all too well, having heard it countless times before.

Emerging onto the surface, she burst through the door just as the colossal creature spread its wings and took flight. The resulting gust flung her backwards through the open doorway and down the stairs, bumping her head multiple times as she rolled down. Her head spun, and darkness encroached on her vision, but she remained certain of what she had witnessed.