Daisy coughed as she opened her eyes.
Red light filled the room, but as the hatch of the cryopod opened and raised up above her, more normal, soft white lights came to life.
There was a slime in her throat. The bronchial surfactant. It was an important element of cryosleep, vital to keeping a sleeping human alive for extended periods of time. Feeding you nutrients, keeping your throat from drying out with lubricant, protecting your lungs from collapsing – the goop did it all. Unfortunately, it tasted like lime-flavored mucus, and Daisy hacked and coughed as she climbed out of the cryo-pod and sat down heavily on a nearby bench. She rested her arms on her knees, and started trying to forcibly regurgitate the suspension fluid from her lungs.There was a clank, and someone set a bucket down beneath her head, perfectly placed to catch the ooze she was spitting up. She didn’t see much – just the man’s bare feet next to the bucket.“Thanks,” Daisy muttered, before racking her throat and trying to hawk a loogie into the bucket. “No problem,” said Corporal Navarro, as he turned around and headed towards the showers. “We’ve got an hour until leaving Slipspace, so take your time.”
It took the Spartan-II another minute to feel like she’d finally gotten the last of the goop out of her throat. She dumped the bucket’s contents in a nearby waste-bin, shivering at the feeling of the cold air on her naked skin, and then she headed straight for the showers.
The trainer was just finishing up as Daisy entered the crew shower, and they politely ignored each other, looking the other way rather than glance at the other unclothed person.
She started her shower, and quickly started the process of taking care of her blonde hair and wiping the cryopod’s chemicals off her skin.
Body-modesty had been trained out of Daisy, but this was still the first time she was actually naked around anyone other than her fellow Spartans, thanks to Doctor Halsey’s caution about naked children being anywhere near adults.
Technically, this was in violation of the Doctor’s longstanding rules, since Daisy was still only fourteen, while Navarro was over twice her age.
But there was no risk. The Corporal had been with the Program since the beginning, and was trusted. Even if he hadn’t been, he couldn’t have pushed Daisy to do anything that she didn’t want to. Nobody could, after the augments.
After a few months of physical therapy, Daisy was in full control of her augmentations, and she could have killed Navarro in a dozen ways, even naked. She still had a few years of growing to do, but she no longer tripped over nothing, or fumbled her drink at mealtimes. She was faster, stronger, better than almost anyone else in physical competitions. Even now, still as a teenager, she was a super-soldier.The other Spartans – the rehabilitated Spartans – were about to go through that same physical therapy process. The first seven of the ‘failures’ had just finished their augmentations right before Daisy and the rest of the Spartans had been dispatched on this ‘mission’. There was no official word on why it had worked a second time, but Daisy had heard through scuttlebutt that Doctor Meyer and Doctor Wu had come up with personalized surgeries for each and every one of them – and that they’d be doing the same thing for the other fourteen failures, in the near future.
Daisy remembered hugging her fellow Spartans just before she’d headed off. She had done her best to not wince at how carefully they returned the embrace. In a few months, those late-starts would have finished their own physical therapy, and they’d be ready to head off on their own homecomings.
She finished up with her shower, turned the water off, and headed back to the crew quarters with a towel wrapped around her.
The Vancouver-class courier ship was designed for a crew of two, and up to thirty-eight passengers. However, since the Corporal was a trigger-puller, and Daisy was only qualified on Pelicans and Longswords, they needed a third crewmember to actually fly the thing. Other than that, the ship was empty.
Warrant Officer Smythe was already sitting in the cramped bridge when she came up to the front, fully dressed in a set of UNSC day-dress coveralls. He outranked Corporal Navarro, being an WO-1 compared to Navarro’s E-4, but all three of them knew who was really in charge of the mission.
“Forty-five minutes ‘til we break from Slipspace,” Smythe was telling Corporal Navarro as Daisy entered the bridge. “Should take about two hours until we reach Sargasso itself. Planetary capital is Velho, near the equator. In fact, from what I’m seeing, most of the population lives around the equator. Real tropical paradise. Here, I’ve pulled up the planetary data on this ‘pad.”
Navarro took it with a nod of thanks, and glanced up to look at Daisy. He jerked his head to the side. “Keep watch, make sure we don’t hit any uncharted asteroids,” the Corporal ordered the Warrant Officer. “Will do,” the Warrant Officer drawled back, keeping his gaze fixed on the main display, since the front viewscreen shutters were still shut, as there was nothing to see in Slipspace.Daisy and the Corporal left the bridge, and instead moved over to the small room that functioned as the combination of mess hall and kitchen. Navarro locked the door and checked around the entire room for bugs with an ONI snooper for five minutes before they spoke. Finally, Navarro set down the datapad on the table for Daisy to peruse.“We’ll have a little more than a month on-planet,” he said to her. “After that, our ride will arrive in system, and it’ll be time to return. Remember, we are here to strengthen your cover identity, including accent and local knowledge, so we’ll need to act like locals the whole time. Technically, I am in charge of this trip.”Navarro paused, and gave Daisy a very significant look.
“That said…” the Corporal said slowly. “Doctor Halsey was clear that this choice has to be yours, and yours alone: do you want to see your hometown again?”
Daisy swallowed heavily.
She wanted nothing more than to see it. She had memories, but they were distant now. She could almost smell the salt and feel the sea-breeze on her skin. She remembered flowers in the backyard.
This wasn’t a test. That would be the kind of thing that ONI might do, giving her an inch of freedom, only to yank that leash tight the moment she went for it…
…but this wasn’t the Office of Naval Intelligence. This was the Spartan-II Program, and every single part of it, from the Doctor down to the grunts like Corporal Navarro, had always done their best to help out Daisy.
“I’d like that,” she said, hoarsely.
It was the cryopod gunk. Definitely not her emotions clogging up her throat.
“Will I…” Daisy started to ask, before cutting herself off before she could ask if she could see her parents again. If she could talk to them.“No,” Corporal Navarro said, already knowing what she was going to ask. “No contact with the locals. Nothing that might risk our cover.”That sucked, but it made sense. The Program was already bending the rules pretty hard, just to allow Daisy and the other Spartans to visit their home planets. Letting them see their parents… would have been too much.
Officially, it was all about their covers. Since the power armor wasn’t ready to deploy, the Doctor had come up with an excuse to keep them safely away from combat missions. At least until they had their power armor, and wouldn’t die to any random gunshot.In the fall, the first wave of Spartans – meaning Daisy and the other fifty-three that had succeeded the initial augmentations – would be sent out to the most prestigious naval academies in the UNSC. They’d attend them either until they graduated, or until the power armor was ready.
Daisy got the feeling that if Doc Sullivan finished up the power armor before they were done at OCS, Halsey would scream at him until the project got mysteriously ‘delayed’ again. It made total sense, of course: if Sullivan finished the power armor early, then the Spartans still probably wouldn’t be able to use it, because they wouldn’t been fully grown. What was the point in spending billions of dollars on a suit of armor that the Spartans would only be able to wear for a few months, maybe a year, before out-growing it? Better to wait until they were at their adult heights – however tall that wound up being, given the growth hormones in that thyroid gland implant.Of course, she wouldn’t be attending until the fall. That left a couple months of spare time to fill. The Doctor, showing her usual bleeding heart approach, had decided that the best possibly training for the Spartans… was to see their homes one more time. And to think, some of ONI’s brightest minds were convinced that the Doctor was a cold-hearted bitch. Daisy didn’t know whether to laugh at how stupid they were, or despair at the fact that those morons were running the UNSC's war against the Insurrection.
She took the datapad from Corporal Navarro, and stared down at the map.“One week in the capital,” she decided. “Then… local transport to my hometown. Belisk. We’ll stay there as long as I can stand.”Navarro nodded.“Why’s it shaded like this?” Daisy asked, pointing down at the map, where Belisk had been covered in a bright red cross-hatch pattern. “I haven’t seen that before.”
The Corporal glanced at it.
“That’s a no-go zone,” he said, softly. “It means that ONI doesn’t want anybody going there. There’s no reason given, but…”He didn’t have to finish. Daisy was already nodding along. It was almost certainly because of her, and the Program. They didn’t want anyone noticing ONI spooks near where some kids had been kidnapped, and possibly figuring out the truth somehow. Well, screw that. Daisy was going home, and ONI would never find out. She looked up and met the Corporal’s eyes with a firm, challenging expression. To her happiness, the Corporal smiled briefly, and then nodded without saying a word.“Right,” Navarro said, coughing once and then changing the topic. “Other mission requirements include building up your cover. That will mean a civilian wardrobe, as well as souvenirs and keepsakes. Some of these will just be for training purposes, by increasing your ability to blend with civilians, but some of them will be brought forward to your next assignment.”Meaning that they’d be used as part of her ‘cover’ when she got to OCS. “And our cover for this mission?” Daisy asked. She hadn’t actually been told yet. “Discretionary,” Navarro said. “Sometimes in a mission, a perfect cover is a little too obvious, and you need to deviate a little in order to blend in. This time, it’s your responsibility. Come up with a good explanation.”She nodded.“Big brother and little sister,” she decided, keeping it simple. “You’re not old enough to be my father, and I don’t think cousins would work. So you’re my big brother.”
Navarro raised an eyebrow. “That’s one heck of an age gap,” he pointed out.“Obviously we don’t say it in casual conversation,” Daisy shrugged. “Besides, if someone mentions that, just pretend it’s embarrassing and look the other way. I’ll tell them that Dad cheated on Mom, and that’s why our parents aren’t around. Most people don’t react well to the social embarrassment of that hypothetical situation. Those who do, we’ll have earned their trust by pretending to confide a secret to them. Both work.”“If you say so,” the Corporal replied. “Alright. We’ll go with that for now. If need be, we can change identities. I’ve got four sets of documents here for both of us… but, obviously, if we have to change ID’s, then there’s a great chance that the municipal A.I.’s will flag us. The local ONI watchpost will know to cover us, but let’s make sure they don’t have to.”“Understood,” Daisy nodded back to him. “Just another aspect of this training exercise.”
She was quite happy with how professional she sounded.
‘Training exercise’ indeed, as if they were just doing another step in the Doctor’s schedule. If there was any one skill that the Spartan-II program had taught her and her fellow cadets, it was how to pretend that they were following orders like good little soldiers. Even if they weren’t. Especially if they weren’t.
They finished up their planning, and headed up to the Vancouver-class courier’s tiny bridge to pass orders to Warrant Officer Smythe.
“Landing in the capital? Can do,” the Warrant Officer nodded. “Navy keeps a platform in orbit for docking. Regular shuttles down to the capital from there.”
If Smythe thought it was weird to be assigned to ferry a Corporal and a fourteen-year-old Cadet to the edge of the Inner Colonies, he kept it to himself. A good sign of his professionalism. Daisy approved.There wasn’t really anything special about dropping out of Slipspace. The shutters over the main display retracted, but unlike the movies, there was no amazing field of stars, nor the shining star at the center of the system. It was just… blackness, with maybe a few small pinpricks of light.But out there, two hours of flying away, was her home.My old home, Daisy corrected herself, wincing at the thought. She longed to see it again, but she didn’t belong there anymore. Her new home was the Spartan-II Program, and the UNSC.She just… didn’t know if she would have chosen this, if it had been truly up to her.
Xxxx
Velho was a beautiful city. Classical Portuguese architecture along the equatorial tropics, an entire metropolis spread across an archipelago like it was a modern version of Venice.
Little canals and open water separated out the small islands. Sometimes you could walk between them on elevated bridges, and sometimes in undersea tunnels made of the same armor-glass that made up a Pelican’s cockpit.
It was more common to own a small boat than it was to own an automobile! Daisy asked, and Corporal Navarro rented one of them for them. He didn’t know how to actually pilot it, but Daisy knew. They had covered small boat operations in case of river insertions, swift boat style. It was pretty fun, actually, to zip around the canals and in-between the other boats, both as a challenge and just to see the Corporal hang on so that he didn’t get launched in the tighter turns.
The first week there was great, something that should have been a real highlight in her life.
Doctor Halsey had given them vacations before, of course. She had always disguised it as some form of training exercise, or networking event, but you could only rent out HIGHCOM’s preferred getaway resort so many times before it became clear that you had ulterior motives.
Sargasso, in comparison, had something… different. Maybe it was the relative freedom, the fact that Daisy wasn’t surrounded by all the other Spartans, or the rest of the Program’s personnel. Maybe it was the fact she’d spent the last eight years of her life on Reach, and she was finally off of it. Maybe it was the fact she’d grown up on this planet.
But in the end, it wasn’t enough.
The longer the days stretched, the more tension grew in her stomach. She ate the amazing seafood, tried out the local delicacies, and filled her luggage with souvenirs to help sell the official reason behind this trip… but her thoughts kept turning to the inevitable.
On the seventh day of the trip, they climbed into a large air-breathing sea-plane, and headed off for Belisk. Her hometown. The place where her parents still lived.They got in late on the same day, and Corporal Navarro didn’t say a word when Daisy chose to stay in the hotel and order pizza for dinner. Comfort food. She needed comfort.
The next morning, Daisy braced herself.
She dressed down in boring clothes, got a big sun-hat, and large sunglasses. They were useful for obscuring her features, and they’d blend in with the regular personal protective equipment worn by the locals. There was almost no chance that anyone would recognize her, not when she’d vanished from their lives eight years ago, but that was no excuse to get sloppy.
Corporal Navarro had already come back from an early morning scouting mission by the time she had finished with the hotel’s complementary breakfast, and he had good news.
There was a hospital nearby with a private garden in the backyard. It was intended for helping patients in the long-term care ward, but it was perfectly situated just near the edge of the main island – and it faced towards the private island of the Thompson family.
Daisy Thompson. That was her full name. She knew that already. Pretty much nobody had forgotten their original last names, but after the first six months of the Program, after the Doctor had mellowed out, the trainers had stopped acting like the use of last names was horrible and should be prevented.
But now, facing the possibility of seeing her parents… that last name suddenly became important. Not just trivia. Not anymore.
They left the hotel at nine in the morning. The garden was open to the public, though there was an unofficial taboo against abusing the space, which made it effectively private. None of the patients would be coming out until noon, at least. Corporal Navarro packed a bag with two sets of ONI-issue covert binoculars, the kind that could pretend to just be civvie-grade, so they could observe Daisy’s childhood home from the distance.
They walked through the brightly lit alleyways of the town. The pavers were powerwashed regularly, and they were a nice white color that matched well with the pastel pinks, blues, yellows, and other cheery colors that made up the town of Belisk. When they got there, Daisy wasted no time. She moved to the furthest corner of the garden, and pulled out her binoculars. The house was…
She shuddered. Her old childhood home was there. Their own little private garden. The bridge at the front, connecting it to town. Even the glass dome for Mom’s horticulture hobby.
For nearly half an hour, Daisy observed her home from the distance.
Then someone interrupted her.
“…excuse me?” called a girl’s voice behind them. It sounded familiar. Then, a second later, the voice continued: “Why are you looking at my house?”
Daisy stopped, and lowered her binoculars slowly.
By her side, Corporal Navarro had already been turning to handle the unexpected interruption – but now he was frozen, and she could see his face out of the corner of her eye. The Marine was pale, ghost-white, as if he’d just seen something impossible.
She didn’t want to turn. They had planned for this eventuality, and it was the Corporal’s job to handle it. His abrupt failure meant Daisy had to do it… but she didn’t want to. She wanted to keep looking at her old house, keep drinking in the sight.However, as the Doctor always said, wishing for perfection was a horrible way to go through life. You had to put the work in, if you wanted to really succeed.Daisy plastered a gentle smile on her face, and turned to address whoever had interrupted her.
…and it was her.
It was Daisy. It was a copy of her. The speaker, a teenaged girl, was sitting in a motorized wheelchair on the garden’s walkway. She had long blonde hair that flowed down to her shoulders. She was wearing a pale lilac dress with a lemon-colored light jacket over top.
She was, in so many ways, the total opposite of Daisy, who stood tall on her own two feet, had a chin-length haircut, and wore a more masculine set of jeans and a bland green t-shirt today.
But the similarities were impossible to avoid. Her voice hadn’t just been familiar. It had been Daisy’s own voice, slightly different, with a tone of polite hesitation that Daisy herself would have never used. Their hairstyles, so different, had the same bangs and side-bangs. And the face… the blue eyes. The nose. The shape of the chin.
Daisy Thompson stared, dumbstruck, at the sight of a perfect clone of herself.
A clone, she thought to herself, the thought sticking in her head. But… nobody can clone a human. That’s not possible. The technology isn’t good enough.
Flash cloning had existed for centuries. It was a superior replacement to organ donors, back in the bad old days. A modern hospital could grow you a replacement organ in just a few days, sometimes a little slower or a little faster, and because it came from your own DNA, there was virtually zero chance of rejection.
That was for organs. Not humans. You couldn’t grow a full human as a flash clone. Growing an organ had problems, but you could just grow five or six of them, and toss away the ones that had degenerated due to DNA replication errors. Doing that for a full person was much more expensive, and prone to way more errors due to the increased scale. Even attempting it was illegal, and for good reason!
Yet Daisy couldn’t think of any other explanation. She didn’t have any siblings. Even if her parents had decided to have another child after she’d been conscripted, that child wouldn’t have looked so exactly like her, and matched her age.
She gasped, as the pieces clicked together.
You could flash-clone a human, technically. They would look normal, and they’d live for a short time. Weeks, maybe months if you had them in a medical environment. Eventually, however, the imprecise nature of the technology would reveal itself, and the flash clone would die of seemingly natural causes: sudden onset organ failure. Their body would fall apart from the inside out.
But what if you knew that? What if you knew in advance that the flash clone would die… and you were okay with it?
Such as if you were cloning a kidnapped child. Parents would go looking for a missing child. They’d search endlessly for their daughter. They’d search so hard that they might find the pattern, and discover that more children, of the same age group, had also mysteriously disappeared from their bedrooms.
The Office of Naval Intelligence… plenty of intelligence, but no morals. They’d seized upon the failure of the technology, and they’d turned it into an advantage.
Flash-clone the kidnapped Spartans like Daisy herself. Take the real child, leave the clone behind.
Once in a blue moon, Daisy would wonder if her parents had tried looking for her. They clearly hadn’t succeeded, and knowing as much as she did now about the capabilities of ONI, that made sense.
Now she was facing a far more terrifying possibility: her parents hadn’t looked for her, because to them, she had never left.
The flash-clone – Daisy didn’t know how to refer to her, because what could she do, call the girl ‘other Daisy?’ – was still expecting an answer. She was staring at them with a firm look that showed no hesitation, no trembling, despite the fact she was sitting on a wheelchair below them.
Daisy tried to speak, but she couldn’t get the words out past the enormous blockage in her throat. It was like she’d swallowed a seagull.
What should she do? She didn’t know. All the training in the world, all those eight years of cramming every single piece of useful information and skills into the heads of Daisy and her fellow Spartans, and they’d never been trained for something like this.
Tell the truth? Blow ONI’s secrecy in a semi-public space, revealing a crime so heinous that it could turn the Insurrection into a full-blown civil war. To one of that crime’s direct victims? Impossible! She would never!
But lies were even more abhorrent. There was a tugging sensation in Daisy’s heart, as if it was leaping out to try to jump straight over to the flash-clone. How would she have felt, if she’d been the one in the wheel-chair, and the clone had been the Spartan?
Corporal Navarro was unfreezing, and he went to speak, probably to come up with some excuse that would have gotten them out of there.
Daisy raised a hand, and set it on the Corporal’s shoulder. She gave him a quick look, trying to convey that he should follow her lead – and he nodded.
She looked back to the flash-clone of herself, and slowly, she reached up and pulled off her sunglasses and removed her large hat.
The flash-clone stared, her eyes widening as she looked at Daisy. She looked exactly like how Daisy herself felt: like she’d been stabbed without noticing it. Like the world had just rocked on its axis, and it would never return to that safe and familiar orbit.
Daisy gave her a few moments to handle the shock, and then she began to speak.