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  X-25 worked quickly.

  “Teleport me back. I have the prize.”

  30617 teleported X-25 back. Slung over his metal shoulder was… a woman. A small woman who he cradled like a child. She was unconscious.

  “Thank you for your service,” X-25 said, setting the girl on the floor.

  He reached for his weapon and killed 30617. He hunted down the rest of the clones like rats, shooting each one of the three hundred clones between the eyes.

  Rory Blackmore. He’d need a good number for her. Something with π in it.

  X-25 laughed. Flesh didn’t have a sense of humor.

  4

  Pi

  001π watched him die. He’d come back for her after meeting Baneb and Sobek on the bridge. They’d disagreed about selling her to X-25, but Ramses convinced them against it. He’d paid a hefty price for it too.

  Rory tried not to think of herself as Rory anymore when he was around. If she messed up, he would do worse than punish her. He would punish one of them and make her watch.

  Rory was still human, fully human, but there were others now and X-25 fashioned them in his own image. They were Rory too, in a way. 002π dyed her hair red the first day. Rory had always wanted to do that. 001π was content with platinum blonde for now.

  007π was his favorite. He’d replaced her blue eyes with silver, metallic eyes and she sat next to him on the bridge. Rory thought he might be sleeping with her. But the thought disgusted her. He talked to himself often. The others couldn’t hear him. They were not fully human and could only hear whatever frequencies X-25 programmed them to.

  Rory could hear him. She could hear him whispering in the night. She could hear him singing. She could hear him reading out loud to himself, the history of his planet. The great alloy war. Metal and flesh — his greatest obsessions.

  Rory hugged her knees close as she slept. Her cot was in a private room. She was the prototype and protected by a metal prison during the night. The computer listened to her. When she was cold, she could make the room warmer. She could get her own food from a tiny hole in the wall.

  She tried not to listen to the steel creature that had kidnapped her. She tried not to think about Ramses and how quickly he’d been taken from her. The creature killed Sobek, sticking a sharp blade from his metal arm through the Arietan’s head. Then he killed Baneb. Ramses had been protecting her when he’d been shot.

  X-25 left the ship as easily as he’d come. He’d strapped her to a table, his grey alien skull shining beneath the fluorescent overhead lights. He’d taken her blood and used his instruments on her and then he’d named her. Rory rubbed the tattoo as she lay in bed — 001π. Her new designation.

  When he woke up the others, she could see herself in their eyes… but they were nothing like her. Clones. Each one was slightly different but mostly just like her. Rory wept when she heard the first one speak. They had her memories, they had her life, but they were new. Different. And X-25 had enslaved all of them.

  Rory sat up in bed. The rest of them never woke up in the middle of the night. They had Rory’s memories, but not her dreams or her nightmares. Since she’d been on board — three months — she’d been unable to sleep. To hold onto what she could from her past, Rory would whisper what memories she could recall to herself. Sixth form with Candice. Her first Mercedes. The last time she saw her mum. These memories were so distant from the life she had here now.

  X-25 had no interest in killing her. If he’d wanted to, he would have done it. He was confident that Rory wouldn’t escape either. Too confident. From the moment she’d realized he wouldn’t kill her, Rory plotted her escape. She had to see Ramses again. She had to be with him. So she listened and she waited for her chance. Investing was all about the art of waiting patiently. You had to read, to understand, and play human nature against itself to have any hope at success.

  Survival was the same game. Rory watched X-25 each day and she offered no resistance when he fetched her for blood work. He made no conversation as he took her blood. He mostly didn’t speak at all until he gave orders. But like all living things, he was driven by desire. Rory only had to find out what he wanted.

  By morning, Rory hadn’t slept a wink. An alarm sounded through the ship. Rory took a shower and slipped into the clothing she’d been giving, a skin-tight silver bodysuit, the same color as X-25’s robotic body.

  She wandered to the mess hall where the clones at together. X-25 did not need sustenance. He watched them all with cameras to ensure that while they were free to converse with each other, they didn’t go getting any strange ideas about their freedom.

  Rory knew better than to talk about escape out loud. The clones loved conversing with her, and they had a lot to talk about. They asked her questions about earth, like it was a fascinating distant memory and not home. To them, she supposed, it wasn’t. Some of the clones had visible implants. A couple had silver eyes, the same color as the metal monster.

  Some were bald with protruding metallic plates on their skulls. The enhancements must have had different purposes, although Rory couldn’t tell much about them yet. Still, she observed every day. X-25 offered the clones relative autonomy.

  What they did during their off hours he didn’t seem to mind. The clones played together, ate together, dyed their hair, changed their outfits. But they had no aspirations, Rory noticed. They were her… but they didn’t question their world at all. They didn’t seek a life outside of working for X-25’s fulfillment.

  It’s almost like they’re dead, Rory thought.

  And although she wasn’t scared of the half-metal clones, she feared what would become of them, and what would become of her by the time X-25 was finished.

  After breakfast, Rory found X-25 on the bridge. He had no orders for her and he didn’t look at her as she walked on. She supposed amongst the others she must have been invisible to him. The only way to tell them apart certainly was the tattoos — 001π. He could read them without looking at her. So without acknowledging her, he processed her presence way too quickly to react.

  Rory walked up to him, standing just behind him where a person would have been able to feel her heat.

  “Excuse me,” she whispered.

  She hadn’t tried talking to him before and he didn’t seem to mind. After three months, Rory couldn’t stand it. The clones chatter was idle and she’d gained no more information than she’d had when she first arrived on the ship.

  X-25 turned to her.

  “Finally, you have spoken.”

  His lips didn’t move as he spoke. The sound vibrated out of his steel mouth which had structured steel panels like baleen on a whale.

  “I would like to speak with you.”

  “Let us speak in private.”

  “Okay.”

  Rory held her head high as she followed X-25 down the halls into his chambers. A chill surged down Rory’s spine as she observed the quarters the creature kept. The room was pure white except for a port in the wall with a hole the shape of a car’s cigarette lighter.

  X-25 turned to look at her. He didn’t exactly have eyes. Just large panels, like a killer whale’s white camouflage around their small black eyes. His sockets were tiny points with black eyeballs that Rory could barely see.

  “We are speaking. What is it you wish.”

  “You kill Ramses and the others. Why?”

  “That happened three months ago. I assumed you were finished grieving them by now.”

  Rory clenched her jaw and kept her head steady. In this negotiation of a lifetime, weakness wouldn’t work.

  “Of course I am finished. I am simply curious.”

  X-25 heaved, his exhales whirring like an exhausted hard drive.

  “Yes. Homo sapiens are curious. I learned that from the Arietan ship. You also make excellent clones. Over 300 and not a single one born deformed.”

  “Congratulations,” Rory replied dryly.

  She assumed the robotic metal man couldn’t understand sarcasm but he whe
ezed in what Rory assumed was a laugh.

  “Very few flesh organisms understand the beauty of sarcasm,” he replied.

  “Flesh organisms?”

  “You. The clones.”

  “Right. We’re flesh and you’re…”

  “Alloy. A form of artificial intelligence. Although there is nothing artificial about me…”

  “Right,” Rory said, using silence to urge the alloy to keep talking.

  “… What’s artificial is what dies. We cannot die. We perpetuate ad infinitum. If there’s anything artificial, it’s flesh, which is here today and gone tomorrow.”

  Rory shivered as he said that. His black eyes stared straight at her, then.

  “W-what do you want from us?”

  “I have what I need from you. I want a crew — a functional crew with no defects. I have another original in the prison hold. We are bringing her to the Denebolan Territories to sell her.”

  “Another original? You’ve got other clones?”

  “I did before I found you. For flesh you are… exquisite.”

  He reached out an arm of metal bones and touched a finger to Rory’s chin. The cold sent a shiver down her spine. He was impervious to it. The temperature in the room didn’t affect him. Nothing did. He was soulless, she could see, and he’d fashioned the clones in his image.

  “What about this prisoner? Might I meet her?”

  “Why?”

  Rory thought quickly on her feet, “It’s boring talking to the other clones. Surely you must have read that I come from a social species.”

  “Are the clones too metal for you to accept?”

  “No! It isn’t that. It’s just… Well… They’re me. Even you must get tired of talking to yourself all the time.”

  “You’ve heard?” He wheezed.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t judge you. It’s just that… I could use someone new to talk to.”

  “I’m getting rid of her.”

  “I won’t argue with that. All I ask is that you get me another original.”

  She gave him her winning smirk, the Rory smirk that closed deals, the smirk that highlighted her winning blue eyes and her freckled cheeks. X-25 might not have been a human man, but he still had all the trimmings of one — arrogant, brash, in a perpetual presumption of his superiority.

  Rory understood men like that quite well.

  “Fine. I will send the other original to your room after her evening meal. I’ll need some time to calm her down.”

  “Okay.”

  “Is that all? I can hear they need something on the bridge.”

  “Yes, sir. I thank you.”

  X-25 wheezed.

  “You are less trouble than I’d expected.”

  “I know my place,” Rory countered, bowing low and following X-25 out of the room.

  She returned to her chambers quietly. Another prisoner. In all her time on the ship, she’d never been aware of another holding. Could it be possible? X-25 might have given them relative freedom, but he controlled everything. Rory realized that and she realized that she had to be careful, even with this alleged original prisoner.

  Rory could hardly sit still all day. She spent her time doing yoga. She took another shower. She got out a pad of paper and wrote semper ubi sub ubi on it twenty times in her finest penmanship. She did a handstand against the wall. Before dinner time, she wrote again, giving her predictions for next year’s big winners in the stock market. Like anyone would see it.

  She wrote a letter to Dave. She wrote a letter to Ramses. Please, Ram, don’t be dead. I’m coming. I’ll find you. I promise.

  Getting back to earth was far out of her mind. Rory knew now she could never really go back there. Try as she might, she couldn’t crave a Mercedes after she’d experienced the wonders of space. At dinner time, Rory sat near her window and stared out into the blackness. From earth, the sky at night had looked black and vast. Up there, she’d expected it to feel smaller. Instead, space was more endless than she’d expected and the galaxy a never-ending expanse that she could never hope to conquer.

  Rory ate dinner and waited for the new original. X-25 had promised, but after an hour or so of waiting, Rory started to give up. He’d fed her a line, she thought. When Rory strode over to her door to give X-25 an impatient lecture, the doors slid open. A female alien slumped over against his frame entered the room with him.

  “This is the defective clone mother. 30600. 001π, you may spend three hours with her and then I will return. We have word of a ship on an intercept course that I must address.”

  He left the room without further explanation, allowing the alien female to stumble in. Her skin was golden yellow with fine hair on it, like fur. Rory approached her and held her shoulders, trying to get a good look at the alien’s eyes. Her shaggy golden mane of dreadlocked hair fell to her waist.

  She couldn’t make eye contact. Rory felt her pulse. Slow. She had to be hopped up on tranquilizers or something.

  “I’m Rory, who are you?”

  “MMmm.”

  “Sit down. I’ll get you some water.”

  Rory sat the female down on her reading chair and rushed to get her some water. The female alien drank the water, slurping up every last drop. She yawned and Rory noticed the whiskers on her face, wriggling out like a cat’s…

  She gasped.

  “What? You never met a Denebolan slave girl before?”

  “N-no. Can’t say I have.”

  “What are you? A clone?” The alien slurred.

  Her voice was unusually high-pitched, like a little girl’s. Her fur or thin hair, Rory couldn’t tell which, was ragged, like she hadn’t seen sunlight in a while.

  “No. I’m… from a planet far away from here. I’m an original.”

  “Prove it…”

  “How…”

  “Bleed. The clones have silver blood.”

  Rory walked over to the panel on the wall, doubtful that she could manufacture a knife as easily as food. She’d guessed wrong. A knife appeared. She brought it to the alien female and stuck her hand out.

  “Cut me.”

  “No. You do it.”

  Rory took the knife and despite her trembling hand, she sliced her palm just enough so a few drops of red blood poured out.

  “Good. Good.”

  “Oi! What about you?”

  The alien took the knife and cut her hand. Red blood flowed out too.

  “Are you a telepath?”

  “No,” Rory replied, finding the question strange.

  “Good. You don’t look like one anyway. Except for the hair. I’m Corrin. He calls me 30600”

  “Corrin. I know a Corrin.”

  “No, not Corrin, it’s Corrin.”

  “Ah,” Rory replied, although she didn’t quite hear the difference.

  “Why did he let me out? Where are 30617 and the others?”

  “I dunno. I just got here. I’m 001π. Rory.”

  “Funny name,” Corrin whispered.

  Claws came out of her hands and Rory gasped.

  “You have claws?”

  Corrin wriggled her whiskers in frustration.

  “Yes.”

  “You’ve been drugged. What can I do about that?”

  “Ask the system for lythpuss herb and sumeriqat… mix it in water…”

  Rory did as Corrin asked. The drink smelled terrible. The sumeriqat was a tiny berry that smelled like durian, and the lythpuss was a foul herb that looked like sage but leaked yellow pus when you cracked the leaves open. Rory mixed the drink for Corrin and the woman growled and choked down the entire thing. Her yellow face turned green for a few moments. Then she sighed and sat up.

  “Good. I’ll be awake soon.”

  “Effective herbal remedy if you ask me. Ginger tea barely helps my cramps.”

  “Huh?”

  “Nevermind,” Rory said, “Tell me… Do you think we have a chance of getting out of here?”

  “On our own, no.”

  “Really? H
ave you tried?”

  “Have I tried? You don’t have any idea where he’s been holding me captive then?”

  “N-no,” Rory replied, “Sorry…”

  This cat-woman was a bit testier of an escape partner than Rory had imagined. She wasn’t sure she could make it out of this conversation without Corrin biting her head clean off.

  “Well, no matter. Xantha is coming with reinforcements. We have nothing to worry about.”

  “Who the hell is Xantha?”

  Corrin’s eyes narrowed and her claws shot out of her nail beds. With angrily twitching whiskers and a strangely high-pitched voice, she whispered, “You know, now that the drugs are wearing off, you’re starting to remind me of someone.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Rory mumbled.

  “Are you by any chance human?”

  “Yes.”

  Corrin bared her teeth and rolled her eyes.

  “I should have known,” she replied with her babyish snarl.

  “Oi, what’s wrong with being human? And how in the hell have you met a human?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve learned a lot about you since my last encounter. Turns out you’re right… You’re not a telepath.”

  “Um… thanks?”

  “Count yourself lucky,” Corrin squeaked threateningly.

  Despite her high pitched voice, Rory sensed the Denebolan wasn’t joking, and that she could make light work of any enemy she might have with those claws. Any enemy except X-25. But he was made of steel.

  “What do you know about X-25?” Rory asked.

  “The clone master?”

  “Sure.”

  “We came to free the clones. Xantha and I. There was a bit of an accident. We got into an argument. It was my fault. And I tripped. She thought I was right behind her. Then he caught me. He cloned me. He’s been holding me here ever since. She had time to get a message to me. Just one message.”

  “Right,” Rory responded, curious about the message as well as the rest of this strange story, “Who’s Xantha again…”

  “She’s… My… Wife…”

  Corrin’s head slumped over. Rory grabbed her shoulders and shook them.