in business, government, media, and education who were too retrograde in
their attitudes to be persuaded of the need for change.
The clone was not a real person but more or less a machine made of
flesh, therefore, it was an ideal assassin. It had no awareness of who
had created and instructed it, so it couldn’t betray its handlers or
expose the conspiracy it served.
Clocker downshifted as the train of vehicles slowed on a particularly
snowswept incline.
He said, “Because it isn’t burdened by religion, philosophy, any system
of beliefs, a family, or a past, there isn’t much danger that a clone
assassin will begin to doubt the morality of the atrocities it commits,
develop a conscience, or show any trace of free will that might
interfere with its performance of its assignments.”
“But something sure went wrong with Alfie,” Paige said.
“Yeah. And we’ll never know exactly what.”
Why did it look like me? Marty wanted to ask, but instead his head
lolled onto Paige’s shoulder and he lost consciousness.
A hall of mirrors in a carnival funhouse. Frantically seeking a way
out.
Reflections gazing back at him with anger, envy, hatred, failing to
mimic his own expressions and movements, stepping out of one
looking-glass after another, pursuing him, an ever-growing army of
Martin Stillwaters, so like him on the outside, so dark and cold on the
inside. Now ahead of him as well, reaching out from the mirrors past
which he runs and into which he blunders, grasping at him, all of them
speaking in a single voice, I need my life.
The mirrors shattered as one, and he woke.
Lamplight.
Shadowy ceiling.
Lying in bed.
Cold and hot, shivering and sweating.
He tried to sit up. Couldn’t.
“Honey?”
Barely enough strength to turn his head.
Paige. In a chair. Beside the bed.
Another bed beyond her. Shapes under blankets. The girls.
Sleeping.
Drapes over the windows. Night at the edges of the drapes. She smiled.
“You with me, baby?”
He tried to lick his lips. They were cracked. His tongue was dry,
furry.
She took a can of apple juice from a plastic ice bucket in which it was
chilling, lifted his head off the pillow, and guided the straw between
his lips.
After drinking, he managed to say, “Where?”
“A motel in Bishop.”
“Far enough?”
“For now, it has to be,” she said.
“Him?”
“Clocker? He’ll be back.”
He was dying of thirst. She gave him more juice.
“Worried,” he whispered.
“Don’t. Don’t worry. It’s okay now.”
“Him.”
“Clocker?” she asked.
He nodded.
“We can trust him,” she said.
He hoped she was right.
Even drinking exhausted him. He lowered his head onto the pillow again.
Her face was like that of an angel. It faded away.
Escaping from the hall of mirrors into a long black tunnel. Light at
the far end, hurrying toward it, footsteps behind, a legion in pursuit
of him, gaining on him, the men from out of the mirrors. The light is
his salvation, an exit from the funhouse. He bursts out of the tunnel,
into the brightness, which turns out to be the field of snow in front of
the abandoned church, where he runs toward the front doors with Paige
and the girls, The Other behind them, and a shot explodes, a lance of
ice pierces his shoulder, the ice turns to fire, fire The pain was
unbearable.
His vision was blurred with tears. He blinked, desperate to know where
he was.
The same bed, the same room.
The blankets had been pulled aside.
He was naked to the waist. The bandage was gone.
Another explosion of pain in his shoulder wrung a scream from him. But
he was not strong enough to scream, and the cry issued as a soft,
“Ahhhhhh.”
He blinked away more tears.
The drapes were still closed over the windows. Daylight had replaced
darkness at the edges.
Clocker loomed over him. Doing something to his shoulder.
At first, because the pain was excruciating, he thought Clocker was
trying to kill him. Then he saw Paige with Clocker and knew that she
would not let anything bad happen.
She tried to explain something to him, but he only caught a word here
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