Crashland by Sean Williams Read Free Book Online

reached for the splinter.
    â€œI’ll try to be gentle.” That was what her mother would have told her.
    Sargent didn’t even wince when the splinter came out.
    â€œThere.”
    â€œThank you,” said Sargent stiffly. She blinked and a single red tear trickled down her cheek.
    â€œHow did you know that the shadow road was going to make it explode again?” Clair asked her, carefully not thinking of the dupe as her anymore.
    â€œIt made sense. Any unexpected transit would mean the living dupe had been discovered, triggering the explosive response. I should have thought of it sooner.”
    â€œThat explains why Libby’s body didn’t blow up in the train or submarine,” said Jesse, flicking away the last of his bony splinters. His jumpsuit looked like he had been wrestling with a cactus. “I wondered about that.”
    â€œThe second blast did more than frighten,” said Devin. Everyone else was hugging the walls, staying as far from the body as possible in case it blew up a third time. He alone approached it, extending the toe of one delicate shoe and shifting the body slightly. The floor beneath the dead dupe was a bloody mess. Through the hole where carpet had been Clair saw a cracked mirror surface. The booth was damaged.
    â€œIf this had happened before the last jump,” Devin said, echoing Clair’s own worried thought, “and you had stopped us jumping, PK Sargent, we could’ve been stuck a mile underground.”
    Sargent’s ears turned a shocked red. “I didn’t know. I was afraid of what a second jump would trigger.”
    â€œNot an unreasonable fear,” said PK Forest. Flick . The doors were opening. “Of no consequence now. We have arrived.”
    Through the door came a peacekeeper dressed in body armor, followed by the sound of alarms.

[7]
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    â€œI THOUGHT YOU said these barracks were secure,” said Jesse to PK Drader.
    Drader was a solidly built man of average height, with crooked shoulders, one higher than the other, a round face, and slightly protruding ears. His chin was dark with stubble and his uniform had seen better days. Under the fresh blood spatter there were smears of building dust and soot from the action in New York.
    â€œThey were supposed to be secure,” he said with a questioning look at the PK who’d just come in.
    â€œWe came under guerrilla attack on our northern fence line the moment your patterns were processed,” explained the PK. “We’ve identified six known dupes and spotted another three unknowns. Crystal City is on full lockdown.” She saw the mess in the center of the room. “Shit. This is one of only three operational cages. Get these kids out of here and I’ll call the techs in to see if they can fix it.”
    Clair bristled at “kids,” but PK Forest was already hustling her and Jesse out of the room ahead of him. PK Sargent followed, looking around her at the blank, gray walls as though expecting to be somewhere else, with Devin tagging along behind her. Clair looked over her shoulder. The prisoners in orange suits looked pale and lost, stuck in the booth with the body and PK Drader. The peacekeeper nodded at Jesse and raised a hand in farewell. Jesse didn’t respond.
    Clair refused to feel sorry for Tilly or Xia or however she thought of herself now. So what if she had turned herself in? She shouldn’t have done what she did in the first place. Who knew what the real Tilly might have grown up to become but now wouldn’t? Unless somehow Clair could find her pattern and reactivate her, too . . .
    Was that her mission now, Clair wondered—to hunt down all the lost girls and boys and bring them back? At what point did she draw the line?
    â€œThis way.” PK Forest hurried them along a series of corridors that looked identical to the ones in New York. Only the alarm was different, a piercing, repetitive siren that made