Turn About

Chase 04

My answer is to awkwardly rip my dart gun from the holster with my left hand. He seems unconcerned as I draw the weapon, and doesn't make a move. I'm not the type to question good luck, and squeeze off three shots into his chest. My left hand is steady, and the shots all hit.

He doesn't even flinch.

"How did you..." I trail off, stunned as he casually plucks the darts from his chest.

"Gene therapy, DNA splicing, genetic engineering...whatever you call it, they built me to last. Ignore little things like toxins, and be able to take care of situations like this," Alex grinned, "didn't you ever ask Alex what he was working on? Digital brain imagining and transfer, perfect genetic duplication."

I stand up and stare at the man standing in front of me. I've worked with Alex for a few years, and he looks exactly like him.

"You're a...copy? Not just a clone, but an actual copy?"

"Close, but not exactly. I'm an enhanced copy. Same mind, same looks, but all put into this very special body," he smirked at me, "I had the body on the outside, but the files and info were still in the building so I had to smuggle them out, inside my own mind. I used the program to scan my own brain and DNA, then when I reached the train station I met my golem. He was operating on a digital intelligence that was fairly advanced, but erased when he absorbed my genetic material."

"Basically, he turned into me, just before I died. Let me tell you...strange seeing myself dead."

My hand drifts around my back to the sheath where I keep my knife. Super clone or not, my knife can cut through steel, it'll get the job done. I notice he stopped talking, so I try to stall, "You want to know why I was sent after you?"

"I know why, someone wanted my research."

"No," I say loudly enough to get his attention off my hands, "I know the truth. Don't pretend with me, Valin. You sold out to another company! That's why you had the body built already, in exchange you were going to give them the digital brain research you were doing."

Alex grins at me.

"We know you were going to sell out the company! That's why I'm after you, just trying to even things up. Traitors die," I slide the knife from its sheath.

"What do you expect me to say? This body is immune to every known disease, five times stronger and faster, heals faster, and the lifespan...I'll be around at the end of the world having tea with the roaches. Who wouldn't trade their secrets for that?"

I take the knife in a reverse icepick grip, and palm the bottom of the handle so it'll be hidden behind my arm. If he's being truthful about his abilities, I'll only get one shot at taking him out.

"Keiretsu, the corp is our family, the family is our life, we give our life for the family. What happened to you, where's your sense of corporate loyalty?"

Valin shakes his head, I can tell that he's getting tired of playing with me. He's going to come in for the kill any second now. He's fast, strong, and smart, but he doesn't have experience in this sort of thing. You don't kill people with words, and when you kill people too many words get in the way.

"Time to die, Chase," Alex lunges at me faster than I've every seen anyone move.

He predictably uses both hands to strangle me, and I don't even try to stop him. Not a chance I could pry his hands free. Instead I stab the knife into the right side of his neck, and then rip it out to the side. Arterial blood sprays over my face and body, shooting out in pulsing crimson geysers. The knife is so sharp that it takes him a moment to realize what I've done, and then he recoils in horror and tries to stem the flow of blood.

"Carotid artery," I choke out, "cut at an angle, you're dead Valin."

He keeps stepping backward as he clutches at his neck. The fact that he's still standing is pretty damn impressive to me. Inevitably, he does fall to his knees and gurgles a few times before hitting the floor.

I massage my bruised throat, luckily for me he went for an air choke instead of a blood choke. I hack a few times, and realize my trachea is bruised but not crushed. Then I pull a bandage from the tiny first aid kit I keep on my calf, and wrap it around my hand.

My phone buzzes inside my skull, and I activate the display. A pulse digitally sent through my optic nerve shows me the boss sitting at his desk.

"You saw, sir," I wheeze.

"I got it all," he says with a dry smile, "did you mean all that about keiretsu?"

"For both of our sakes, I hope so."

The holophone is cut off, and then I set about getting Valin's body ready for extraction. Looks like Christmas is coming early for the R&D department. As for me, I think I'll take tomorrow off.