Replica

the face of the earth. And Nate would be too busy being “reprogrammed” to help him.

“That’s why I’m asking you to keep watch,” Nate said, and the flush of color in his cheeks said he was getting angry, too. He was not used to being denied, especially not by her. “We won’t get caught as long as we have you for a lookout. You’ll stand at the corner of the hallway and make some kind of noise if you see someone coming.”

“Oh no, I will not!” She’d never been good at standing up to Nate, but she was going to do it this time. She had to. There was too much at stake. She glared at Bishop, who was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, smirking like he was enjoying the show. “Why are you encouraging him?” she asked. “You could get killed over this.”

Bishop shrugged. “I guess I just have more faith in our Nate than you do,” he said simply.

“I think you’re confusing faith and stupidity.”

“If you want to go back to the party, be my guest,” Nate said. “Have fun chatting with the Trio.” He turned his back on her and pushed open a door that led to a small powder room. “We’ll carry on without you. If anyone asks why you’re coming back alone, you can just tell them we argued. It’s the truth, after all. And you won’t have been gone long enough for them to think we’ve done anything truly scandalous.”

His eyes flashed and he fixed her with his most challenging gaze. It was another attempt at blackmail, an attempt to make her worry about what greater trouble he would get into without her help. It had worked in the ballroom, but it wasn’t going to work here. Somehow, someday, she had to teach Nate that she wasn’t a doormat. Apparently, now was the time.

“Fine,” she said, though her nerves fluttered at the thought of what might happen. “Do whatever you want. It’s what you always do anyway. But you’re not going to drag me down with you.”

She whirled and hurried toward the darkened hallway that would lead her back to the ballroom. Nate called to her once, but she couldn’t make out the words over the roaring of her pulse in her ears.

* * *

Nadia awakened from a deep sleep when she felt the bed dip under someone’s weight. Her bedside lamp turned on, and she blinked in the brightness as she fought off the remnants of sleep to see her mother sitting beside her on the bed, looking pale and grave.

“What is it?” Nadia asked breathlessly, pushing herself up as her pulse suddenly raced. Someone caught Nate and Bishop, she thought in panic. He’s been sent to reprogramming because I refused to stand watch for him.

“It’s Nathaniel, dear,” her mother said, and Nadia’s chest tightened painfully. But the next words were not at all what she expected to hear.

“He’s been murdered.”

CHAPTER TWO

Nate awakened, gagging and choking, as a long plastic tube was removed from his throat. He tried to open his eyes, then quickly shut them again when something wet and sticky dripped into them. He wanted to wipe whatever it was away, but something was wrapped around each of his wrists, holding them down.

What the hell…?

He struggled to free himself, but his limbs felt sluggish and weak, and he wasn’t getting anywhere.

“Take it easy, sir,” a male voice said, and then someone wiped Nate’s face with a steaming hot towel and he was able to open his eyes.

He was in a sterile white room, sitting in a coffin-shaped vat of slimy green goo. Tubes and wires connected the vat to a terminal in the wall. He blinked in confusion. The last thing he remembered was coming to the Fortress for his monthly backup. How had he gotten…?

The thought trailed off in his mind as he realized what waking up in this tub of goo meant.

“Oh, shit,” he whispered. His head spun, and he feared he was going to be sick. “I’m a Replica.”

He looked at the white-coated lab tech who had wiped the slime from his face, a forty-something Employee with brown eyes and discreetly graying hair. The lab tech gave him a single nod of confirmation, then continued unhooking Nate from the machinery that had created him.

If Paxco had gone to the enormous expense of creating a Replica, that meant the original Nate Hayes was dead.

“What’s the date?” Nate asked, holding back panic as his brain tried to process what was happening.

“March fourteenth, sir,” the lab tech said. “Now hold still so I can get you out of there.”

Nate closed his eyes and took a deep breath, his heart hammering. He’d gone in for his backup scan on March 1st. As a Replica, he had all of Nate’s memories up to the date of that backup, but anything that had happened between then and now was gone, erased by Nate’s … death.

“I’m dead,” Nate murmured under his breath, trying the words on for size.

“You’re very talkative—and very reluctant to hold still—for a dead man,” the tech said drily, and Nate forced his eyes open once again.

Legally and practically, he was Nathaniel Edison Hayes, even if he was only a lab- created Replica, born in this vat of primordial ooze, constructed as a perfect facsimile of his original by the proprietary technology that made Paxco the richest and most powerful of the Corporate States. He tried a few tentative stretches, concentrating hard on the sensation of his muscles bunching and releasing. His joints were stiff and a little achy, like he’d been lying unnaturally still for hours on end, but the sensations were familiar. Normal. He still felt like himself, as far as he could tell.

The tech finally finished unhooking Nate from the mechanical womb. Nate felt weak and shaky as the tech helped him climb out of the ooze, which sucked at him as if reluctant to let him go. He wiped at the goo that clung to him, shuddering at the feel of it against his skin. Some of it glopped off onto the floor, but he was still coated with slime. Panic tried again to take over, but he shoved it down to be dealt with later.

“There’s a shower in there,” the tech said, steadying him by holding his elbow.

Nate shook him off. He could stand by his own damn self.

“What happened to me?” he asked, unable to wrap his brain around the idea that he had died. He’d have said this was a practical joke, if anyone he knew had that kind of sense of humor. How could he be a lab-created Replica of a dead guy and feel so normal?

“Your father will brief you after you’ve showered and dressed,” the tech said, glancing at his watch. “He’s scheduled to arrive at five o’clock, so you have half an hour to get ready. Do you need any help?”

Nate frowned at him. “I’ve been taking showers by myself for quite some time now,” he said, trying for a tone of dry humor. His memory insisted he’d taken a shower a couple of hours ago, right after he’d eaten breakfast and before he’d come to the Fortress for his backup. But these memories were from two weeks ago, and they weren’t really his, they were the real Nate’s. The real Nate who was dead.

Nate shook his head. He’d drive himself nuts if he let himself think about it too much.

“As you wish,” the tech said with a shrug. “I’ll be right out here, so give a shout if you need anything.”

“I need to know what happened to me,” Nate said.

“Your father will explain when he arrives, sir.”

Nate sighed. Patience had never been one of his virtues, but the tech had no doubt been ordered to keep his mouth shut. “Will you at least tell me whether it was an accident?” Surely it was an accident. Nate did enjoy taking risks, and if one of those risks came back to bite him, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise.

The tech hesitated, then lowered his voice. “It wasn’t an accident.”

* * *

Half an hour later, Nate felt a lot more like himself, the slime scrubbed from his skin and hair, his mind clearer, the panic mostly subdued. He’d examined himself closely in the bathroom mirror, and everything was just like he remembered it, down to the tiny tattoo on his ass he’d gotten for Kurt. (And because he