“I don’t want to fight you,” the fake Lily started.
“What, now that I can fight back?” Emilena snarled.
The imposter nodded. “I won’t lie. I’ve read your file,” she dropped her pan and raised her hands. “I know you would kill me in a fair fight.”
“Then you should have read it harder, because I’ve killed surrendering opponents before…” Emilena swiped the scalpel from the operating table before her opponent got any ideas. “But first I want to know who you are and why you lured me here!”
“I’m a clone. The Purifiers grew me using the same pod and the same DNA you and Mr. Whent used to create the Lily you know.”
“Are you working with the Purifiers then?” Emilena demanded.
“No, I abandoned them first chance I got. I’m only in this for myself.” She motioned to Lily’s body on the table. “If I can kill her under the right conditions, conditions I have setup in this room, I can steal her psionic powers. I’ve already worked with Mr. Whent to sever her totem with him, it was preventing her from dying.”
“What’s a totem?”
“A mental connection caused by two minds inhabiting the same body. Lily formed it when she
briefly inhabited Mr. Whent’s body back in Lanthae. Mr. Whent broke that connection after we lured her to an alleyway and tranquilized her.”
“Axel agreed to that?” Emilena asked.
“He was pleased to be rid of her! Wouldn’t even take payment.” The clone balled her fists. “But it wasn’t enough. I performed the operation a dozen times, but she just keeps reviving herself. I’ve spent a fortune on black market sedatives, she’s been clinically dead for weeks, but
she won’t stop healing!” She glanced at the word carved into Lily’s thigh. “Until you sent that message, and I realized she must have another totem. One even stronger, strong enough that you two were sharing wounds. She can’t die while you live.”
Emilena almost asked when Lily would have had the chance to inhabit her body, but then realized
the most likely occasion. She glanced at Lily. “Hmm. And if you had been able to kill me right now, and it had all worked...what then? What were you planning on doing with these powers once you had them?”
The clone shrugged. “Honestly, I haven’t thought that far ahead. I just want them.” Her eyes glinted. “We’re both clones, she’s no more original than I am. Why should she get them, while I don’t?”
“Because life isn’t fair.” Emilena lowered her scalpel. “But we might be able to come to an agreement. If I help you get those powers, will you help my team? We’re preparing to go on an extremely dangerous mission, and we could really use a medic.”
Lily’s clone raised her eyebrows. “I...why on earth would you trust me with that?”
Emilena tossed the scalpel aside, where it embedded into the woodwork. “If you’re a clone of Lily, you’ve got her brain chemistry. You’ve got her predilections. And, in all honesty, you look and sound more like Lily than she has for these past few months.”
The clone’s hands trembled. “I don’t understand.”
“You could have carried a gun and just shot me when I walked into this room, you could have murdered Axel because he was a totem. But you didn’t. And that makes you more of the Lily I remember than the person on this table.” Emilena holstered her pistol. “I want my friend back, before she became an amoral, narcissistic psychopath. If that has to be you, I can live with that.”
The clone gulped. “But...I’d have to kill you. Your bond is stronger than the one Lily had with Mr. Whent, it’s an outright mental link.”
“You said you put Lily into a state of clinical death,” Emilena pointed out. “Do that to me.”
The clone bit her lip. “I don’t have the tech to bring you back out.”
Emilena sat down. “Then the millisecond you get those powers, you know what to do.”
