Enemy Chapter One
{{EnemyMe|title=Chapter One|chapter text=
Pete had slipped passed the first set of guards undetected. The second set would be the problem. He lifted the binoculars up to his eyes and scanned the structure in front of him. A service door off to one side. He checked his watch. It was ten past midnight and the guard shift change was about to happen in three minutes. That was his window of opportunity. Get in, get to the freight elevator, enter the code and take the thing to the labs. There he would set off the explosives. It would set the company back a few years giving the others some time. He checked his vest straps by giving then a quick yank. The pack was a bit heavy, but what did you expect from 20 kilograms of Pent?
Pete Walker woke up with a start. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not this place. Not this time. He reached up and felt the oxygen mask tightly over his mouth and nose. That was good, but he still wasn’t supposed to be here. He couldn’t. Damn! Another failure. And with that another chance at redemption he supposed. Maybe justice, too. All of which didn’t matter at the moment. Something or someone had killed him. He took a deep breath and tested his eyes. The filtered light had a green tint to it, so the stinging shock of using his eyes for the first time wasn’t so overly painful, just maybe annoying. He took another deep breath and tested his hands. Each finger flexed. That was good. He looked up at a blinking display board over his head. It flashed “Purge in progress. Please standby.” He looked around and spotted the readout displays to his right. Little monitors flashed and displayed numbers and text. One display was counting down. Another was scrolling odd bits of information, like “You can do it!”, “This time for sure!”, “So close, yet so far!”, “It’s time to leave. Prepare.” That he thought odd. He looked over at the monitor that was displaying a countdown of sorts. Then he remembered. “Purge in progress.” He looked up and saw two metal rings. He grabbed them. Seconds later he felt the floor underneath his feet vanish. The green tinted fluid slipped away from his eyesight. He remembered the process now. He waited until the fluid completely drained. The system would cycle through several procedures. Purge was first, wash was second. Release was third. He counted to three and the floor came back. Seconds later the container he was in filled with some clear fluid – water he thought. It was warm and turbulent, like a washing machine. Minutes ticked by as the chamber filled, circulated, and drained several times. The little countdown display kept track and reminded him he was not the original. Intellectually he understood he was not the original. Waking up in a thick green goo fluid reinforced that too. When the countdown display reached zero he was hit with a blast of hot air. It whirled around him rapidly. He was dry in seconds. He lowered himself far enough to feel the grid floor and tested his legs. Strong, firm, stable. He let go of the overhead rings and with his weight fully supported by his feet he unsnapped his harness. There was something he was supposed to remember. The cloning process was perfect, the memory transfer not so much. There were gaps for sure, but were they important pieces missing? He looked around the cylindrical chamber trying to spot something that would trigger the memory, an important vital memory. The mask? No. It was still on his face, supplying oxygen. The readouts? No. The Grid floor? Couldn’t be, but close. The chamber door? The door. That was it. He reached out and pushed. Locked. The keypad next to the door? Embarrassment hit. Of course, it was the keypad. Getting out of here was important. He let his hand drift over the pad and fingers pushed in a code he hadn’t known he knew. Nevertheless, the inner door lock mechanism worked and he heard a loud audible click. The glass door whooshed up out of sight.
Pete stepped out and felt a chill. There were five empty chambers to the right of his and twelve chambers of different sizes to the left. He thought, “Five tries, five failures, five deaths.” But there was still something he couldn’t remember. Of course, it was going to nag at him for a while. Then his stomach rumbled. He “remembered” what an empty stomach felt like. In this case, everything was going to be “remembered” and used for the very first time. He made his way to the kitchen. “Okay,” he said out loud, “that was easy. But if I remember this so clearly, why do I think I’m forgetting something?” He walked through the entry way and found a sandwich waiting for him. Interesting. One of two things are going on here he thought. I made this for myself, or someone else is here. He stepped up to the table. The sandwich was cut diagonally. That was his clue to himself that it was meant for him. A glass of water and a computer tablet were next to the sandwich.
Pete sat down and starting eating. Thin slices of Turkey, Havarti cheese, Romaine lettuce, some sliced tomatoes, and deli horseradish sauce embedded in baguette bread. He tapped the tablet.
The screen brightened to the local news agency. In big bold letters, “Suicide bomber exploded high explosives on the 30th floor of the Taylor building. 30 died, 120 injured.”
“Jesus!” Pete uttered after a bite. He committed suicide by explosive vest. Pity, but it had to have been number five. Why else would he set the tablet to show this first? But thirty died?!? Was it really necessary? He himself, of course, did not set the bomb off. He did not kill all those people. But it was him who did. Not physically. He did it. The same mind did . . . maybe. Which of course begged the question, ‘was he the same person?’ “I am a clone, yes, but am I number five?” He noticed the date of the article. A twenty-year separation between himself and Prime. Six clones in twenty years. Short life expectancy at the very least. He finished the sandwich and followed it with the glass of water. He made his way through the passage way to the bathroom. Pete prime had some serious money to build this place. It was large and self-sustaining it seemed. He walked through the bathroom door and found the urinal. He walked up to it, looked down, and laughed. Arrogant bastard gave himself a bigger dick. Well, why not? He, and by default, himself were brilliant. Decades ahead of everyone in the field of gene therapy and cloning. Maybe next time he’d clone himself as a woman . . . a woman . . . the twelve chambers of different sizes. Several were kid size. He didn’t, did he? Pete finished, washed his hands and made his way back into the chamber room. He hurried past his chamber and pried through the glass doors of the others. He did do it! The next two chambers housed females. The next three after that had one boy and two girls. They looked to be about 16. The one after that had a Pete that looked 6 feet tall. Number thirteen was a dwarf. Pretty heartless he thought, but Prime didn’t know what the future held. He could walk outside and find a world full of little people. Number fourteen and fifteen was him but different. African and Asian. Interesting. Prime was mixed, but to create clones in specific races? Sixteen and seventeen were white females – one blond, one ginger. Number eighteen was at least seven feet tall and extremely bulky. Prime figured if eighteen was needed the end of days was called for. Eighteen would be the final run. The big guy would do the job by brute force. That was something to fear.