Tribe
Ben Langdon
ISBN 9781476039077
Copyright 2012 Ben Langdon
####
Blood always tastes bitter when it's your own.
The broken rib was still stinging, and Carlos wiped his arm across his forehead, smearing the line of blood which had risen in the wake of the razor-tipped whip. His other hand felt the rough surface of the brick and pushed away from it, forcing himself to stand and face the gang of youths who stood across the width of the alley.
"Vayase," Carlos said softly and sucked on his bloody lip. "Go away and you won't get hurt."
The youths laughed. They moved like hunting dogs.
He had been in Puerto Rico for less than a week and already he was getting into a fight, and it wouldn't matter that this time it wasn't his fault. His government handler wouldn't care. She loved to smirk at him from across police reports and reprimands.
The trouble had started in some bar tipico in San Juan, with Carlos cradling a drink and trying to unwind after a day full of surf and sun. He'd been minding his own business, wordlessly deflecting any interest from locals and tourists, but then he'd overheard some loose-lipped business suits next to him. They were already drunk and their excited whispers were rising to earshot even with the bar's horrendous bass ringing in his skull. He heard them bragging about an American girl. His hands clenched automatically as the men described their night, their conquest, and then giggled into their drinks with insinuations of her disappearance.
But Carlos had come to Puerto Rico for some waves, not crime fighting, not avenging injustice. He needed to unwind. He needed to get away from Florida and the weirdness he felt being around the team at Seriatim, especially after the White House debacle and his rather large part in it. But no matter how much he wanted to ignore the unfolding story, the little men kept supplying him more incriminating details of what had to be a rape. He wasn't stupid. He could read between the lines. He could smell the sweat, could smell the predator on them.
But it wasn't his problem.
Carlos ordered another drink and looked down at the bar top, his hands now splayed out in front of him, no longer clenched by his sides. He forced the slurred voices out of his mind, replacing them with strategic thoughts about this eventual return to Florida. Seriatim was top secret, the stuff of conspiracies and weird science, but to Carlos it was just a job. Most of the time he worked in an office with the other duplicators. He followed up case work, filed reports, avoided his handler and occasionally tried to score dates with the attractive interns. As a duplicator, though, Carlos was one of only a handful of people who could create instant clones of himself. No one knew how or why, but Carlos didn't really care. He got to play spy every now and then, and people saw him as something special, maybe even extraordinary.
His mind turned back to the girl in trouble. She was probably ordinary, unlucky, in need of help. Carlos drummed his fingers on the bar, his eyes still on his untouched drink.
As if on cue, the men stumbled from their stools and jostled their way to the door. He didn't turn around, but he could imagine their arrogant gait.
He knew he didn't have to follow them.
But Carlos Teramond was a hero. Dammit.
And so he had followed the two suits, discretely generating two genetic copies of himself to follow from flanking positions. They slipped into the crowds of the bar, each moving like a wolf, working as a team. The men bumped along the street, laughing at their private jokes and gesticulating wildly at every girl who passed them.
Carlos was too confident. He had underestimated them.
The alley seemed typical, and Carlos walked straight into it, not seeing the youths who fell into step behind him. As the two suits reached the end of the alley, they turned and seemed to sober up in an instant. He could see their predatory sneers even in the half-light. They weren't drunk. He turned around and saw the flick of a whip as it snapped across his face. It stuck there for a second, toxin releasing into his bloodstream, before it was ripped back to its owner.
Two gangbangers ran forward and slammed their fists into Carlos' stomach and he doubled over. Another kicked him hard in the groin, followed by a haymaker which sent him into the wall of the alley. Something broke inside of him, a rib.
Blood always tastes bitter when it's your own. Especially when you're a stupid, na?ve amateur.
The youths hovered in a circle, waiting for the word. He steadied himself against the wall and spat blood into the dark.
"Buenas noches, senor Teramond," one of the men called out. Carlos searched the man's face but he looked like any other middle-aged Latino gentlemen. Perhaps a little overweight and with an ugly, self-satisfied grin. "Allow me to introduce myself, while you recover your breath. I am Senor Figueroa and you would not believe how many American dollars I have been offered to make sure you do not leave this island."
The man grinned and stepped closer, almost within kicking distance. Almost.
"Someone certainly has a, er, a hate-on for you, Teramond."
"I'm flattered," Carlos said. "So there's no girl?"
Figueroa shrugged.
"Unfortunately, no," he said. "Your profile suggested you would react best to a damsel in distress."
"You've read about me?" Carlos asked, honestly impressed that someone had bothered to actually sit down and research his life. He wanted to ask more questions, especially about where his profile could be found and what else was in it, but Figueroa didn't seem like he wanted to elaborate.
The youths were getting restless.
"So when do we dance?" Carlos asked, finding the strength to stand straighter.
Figueroa shrugged. He pulled out a pistol, leveled it at Carlos' head and fired. Twice.
###
Carlos Teramond wasn't smiling. He sat on the rooftop of a decrepit backpacker's hostel overlooking the alleyway which had just become the scene of his murder. He clutched his stomach and squeezed his eyes shut, trying to fight the pain and fear which wracked his body.
Down in the alley he was dead and bleeding out.
He had seen the bullet.
The smoke? Had he seen the smoke from the gun? Was that even possible?
And then the pain and shock had overwhelmed him, knocking him to the ground and into unconsciousness. When one of his tribe was hurt, they all shared the pain. His other body, the third one, had been hanging around the end of the alley and crashed into a pair of trash cans, setting them clanging to the ground. He was out cold when they found him. Three bullets were fired. His third body convulsed and bled into the darkness.
And the last Carlos Teramond lay dying, alone, on the rooftop.
It had never happened before. It had never actually gone that far.
Never.
People had talked about it. Some of the experts at Seriatim had even suggested he was immortal, that as long as a duplicator had one active body it was possible to cheat death. But there was a world of difference between talking about the ability to withstand your own death and actually testing it out.
The moon was still high in the sky, he noticed. The smell of vomit wafted around him and threatened to force him back into the dark solace of unconsciousness, but Carlos knew that he was still in danger. Figueroa had known about his abilities. His thugs were probably scouring the city looking for more of him, knowing his clothes, expecting his prone, discarded body. Just another tourist in party clothes, passed out on the streets alongside the trash. If he'd been on the street level, he knew he would have been dead.
All dead. No back ups.
He tried to generate another body, tried peeling himself in two, but it didn't happen. His body refused.
"Oh shit..."
He tried again, focusing harder on his body, feeling it with invisible fingers, coaxing the c
ells to split and give him another life.
But there was nothing, no change. He lay his head back on the rooftop and locked his eyes onto the moon. He was so tired.
And he had lost control.
"Come on... you stay here and you die," he whispered.
For an instant, he imagined he saw Alsana Owens standing on the edge of the roof. She wasn't looking at Carlos, but he imagined his handler was frowning. She was always a little standoffish, but that was probably just a result of being forced to clean up after a duplicator and deal with being human. And being human was having one conversation in your head. Being a duplicator, on the other hand, meant having dozens of conversations bouncing around your tribe-mind. There was always a buzz, always a question or an answer flying around.
But now everything was quiet.
There was no more tribe: just the one.
And Alsana.
"Are you going to take me home?" he asked, surprised at the emotion in his voice. Was his body really falling apart? His voice wavered, threatening to break. His throat seemed tight. Was he going to cry?
"Alsana?"
But she wasn't really there.
And neither was Gypsy.
She sat on Carlos' other side, her knees spread to either side and her fingers trailing on the rooftop. Her hair fell in front of her face and she looked almost bestial, as if she were hiding some dangerous force behind the veneer of a beautiful woman. There was so much pain there... and anger.
She was the most unhinged duplicator at Seriatim: the wild one.
"Are you going to take me home..?"
She looked up at him, her eyes red and dark. And silent.
And then Alsana walked past her and Carlos' eyes followed his handler's impressive legs. Who was Alsana Owens anyway? An enigma wrapped in a mystery... or whatever the saying was. She kept walking and didn't even look down at Carlos.
It was as if she had more important things to attend to.
"Damn it," Carlos said and pulled himself up so that he was sitting cross legged and looking away from Gypsy. "Even my bloody hallucinations ignore me. Bad enough I get shot twice in one night, but now I can't even get sympathy from my imagination."
Alsana tilted her head down to the street, and Carlos thought he detected a smile before the phantom disappeared.
He didn't even bother to look back at Gypsy.
He was on his own.
Great, he thought.
And despite everything, Carlos shrugged it off. At least one of him was still alive.
###
The strip of commercial hotels, condos, restaurants and bars along Avenida Isla Verde looked like Highway 1 in Florida, complete with all of the familiar American chains. The Hungry Sailor sat looking a little worse for wear between a McDonalds and a Comfort Inn. The restaurant was tagged on to the end of the Condado Racquet Club and was famous for cheap meals. Carlos sat munching on a Monte Cristo sandwich, hiding his fatigue behind Mako sunglasses.
The sun was taunting him.
A second Carlos came to sit next to him, stealing a pair of fries from his plate and squinting out to the sea. They looked like brothers, but Carlos had shorn his black hair that morning and now looked like an Army brat. If someone had a profile of him, he had to change his look. Get rid of the surfer locks, the designer surf brands, and get native.
'Still haven't found the bodies?' came the first thought as Carlos dipped his chip in sauce.
'Let's not think about it.'
They looked at each other for a moment and then found themselves looking away. It had been three days since their murder and the local police still hadn't even filed a report. Carlos Teramond had been murdered, twice, and yet no one was doing anything. It was mildly depressing - almost like going to your own funeral, only to find out that no one else bothered turning up.
"Your brother's at the airport," one Carlos said. "Keeping a low profile."
"Good move."
They didn't need to verbalize their thoughts. Everything happened instantaneously between them, but since whenever they thought inwardly they inevitably brought up images and concerns about their recent murder, it was refreshingly distracting to speak openly.
"I reckon they're watching the exit points. Just in case we survived and are trying to get out again."
"No doubt."
"Got a cigarette?"
Carlos' eyebrows shot up and his hands stopped halfway between his plate and his mouth, the sandwich drooping slightly.
"What?"
"You know, I thought maybe I'd start smoking... take on a whole new me, you know?"
"Smoking? Why don't you just shoot us in the head... again."
"Sheesh, you're a little snarky this morning."
Carlos narrowed his eyes.
"So we've tracked down Figueroa to an export company on Culebra. He's worked for a handful of organised crime types in Florida and half way up the East Coast, but he's mostly small fry, which is why he's still in Puerto Rico."
"Yeah, except that he's not so small fry as to have a problem with shooting American agents in the head. He's either tough as nails or an idiot."
"My money's on the idiot angle."
"Right. I'll withhold my bet until after we nail him. He's got four hired goons on the payroll plus a few barrio gangs."
"Like the ones we ran into."
"Precisely. The other guy with him that night was a business associate. American dude with connections to pharmaceutical companies in Louisiana. Not head of the company or anything, but I think he might be a major link in the chain."
"He's the one who provided the profile on us."
"Most likely."
"Are you sure you don't have a smoke?"
"I won't even..."
"Bother, yeah, got it."
Carlos stood up and lifted his tank top to wipe the crumbs from his face.
His brother stood slower, eyes sparkling with excitement.
"Let's go," he said, exchanging hand taps with his brother's fist.
They paused.
Last time they had met Figueroa two of them had been killed.
Carlos suddenly threw his arms around his brother and hugged him, quickly, before letting go.
There was an awkward silence.
'That was so gay.'
'Shut up.'
With a smirk, Carlos walked out of the restaurant, while his brother followed three minutes later.
The sun was still sparkling across the waterfront.
###
The shivering started again as the wind changed, but it wasn't the cold that made his skin react.
It was death.
Carlos could still feel the bullets enter his body, could still feel the struggle for breath and then the final jerking moments before he died. It was like drowning, at the end: a desperate gasp for the next breath which just wouldn't come. He'd been a surf-brat for half of his life and he'd had his fair share of close calls in the ocean, but he'd never been murdered before.
Most people would say the same, he knew, but most other people didn't have the ability to peel another life from himself whenever he felt like it. At Seriatim Carlos was known as Tribe, a nod to his surfing days. Since waking in a beach shack with two other selves beside him, Carlos had rarely been alone. There seemed to have been another Carlos somewhere, whether standing beside him or connected to his mind in what Carlos quickly dubbed the 'Tribal Council'.
After his death, everything had become quiet.
The seagulls broke his despair, and Carlos looked up to the azure sky and squinted against the sun. His shades were perched atop his head, and he sat on the edge of a pier, the railing warm to the touch and the smell of fish wafting from further up where the fishermen unloaded their day's work. Of course, it was still the morning but for a fisherman the day had begun just past the stroke of midnight. The seagulls flew in circles, eyes on the catch. Carlos returned to his own catch, his eyes narrowing.
Figueroa worked out of a sun-damaged shopfront a
t the end of the pier, haphazardly rammed in against an abandoned seafood shop and a tawdy looking backpackers which looked more like a brothel. Figueroa's place looked respectable, in a way, although the windows were painted over and there was no way you could see what kind of business was being done inside the place.
There was a second storey and Carlos figured it was where he could find Figueroa. He had been watching the place for over 24 hours and knew that the gangster was inside, along with at least ten other men. He wasn't certain but given their similar scowls and uniform shades, Carlos figured they were hired muscle. Figueroa was probably a little worried about killing Tribe, although he hadn't been shy on the night in question. He had actually pumped lead into two Carloses.
But then, for a duplicator, two bodies probably wasn't the number Figueroa was expecting. A halfway decent intelligence would figure that Tribe had more bodies on the island. The exits were covered. Carlos had checked.
Airports were out of the question and the docks were similarly covered. Not that Tribe was ready to leave. He had a score to settle with his murderer.
###
Sam Figueroa rubbed his hand back through his hair, the sweat dripping from his nose onto his laptop. It irritated him that the air conditioner wasn't working, but he knew that the heat was bearable, given the sensitivity of the job he was currently engrossed in. Assassination wasn't new, per se, but the assassination of a freak cloning machine was. Normally he would have passed on the job, but there was pressure from his American contacts. The pharmaceutical company who often did business with him seemed especially interested in the duplicator's death. Several other associates were also involved, and Figueroa felt the stirrings of peer pressure - something he had not experienced since his fleeting high school years in Tampa.
He snapped the laptop closed.
The room was dark. The office was perpetually closed off to the outside world, shutters keeping the chatter and chaos of the pier out of his world.
And soon, perhaps he would be able to leave Puerto Rico behind for good. The hum of a desk fan served to calm him. It was constant. Like a clock.
He looked to the wall and frowned at the time. Not yet midday.
There was a knock at the door.
Figueroa gripped his pistol and stood up from his desk.
The goons never knocked.
He raised his hand and fired off three shots into the doorframe. Moving quickly he kicked the door and it sprung backward. The gun was already level again, his eyes narrowed and accustomed to the gloom.