Carmel was scared; more scared than she had ever been in her life. She was running on the street, dodging passersby and ignoring their cries as she brushed them aside. It was happening too fast; there was no time for anything but terror.

 She had just returned to Dal's after her ten o'clock fag. Normally, she'd slip in the back and straight up to her room, but there'd been a loading truck in the way today so she'd gone in the front. She'd only gotten a quick glimpse of a fabulous suit with its hand withdrawing from around Dal's throat; a low growl as Dal pointed in her direction (He was normally a pasty doughy man, but she'd never seen a face so _white_!), and a feeling of terror washed over her like she'd never felt before when the suit turned towards her. She ran.

 And then the suit was chasing her. He was fast, she was small. And hopefully, faster.

 She should never have started smoking.

 Headquarters for Branson SA.

 Somewhere within, a meeting was taking place. A subdued room with shadowy occupants discussing shady business.

 "Status report," said a grey man in a grey suit.

 An older, darker man looked up slowly, like an animatronic doll coming to life. His grey suit, while slightly rumpled, was far less wrinkled than his face. "Li Duc has disappeared. He was wounded when he was last seen... apparently the assassin's bullet passed through the woman and entered him... how badly he was hurt, we do not know."

 Grey man nodded.

 A younger man at the lower end of the table angrily raised his voice. "How can you be so calm! This is a disaster! What are we going to do?"

 Dark man frowned. Grey man nodded his head again and said, "This is what we will do... We cannot afford to have the Ng Li Duc industry tarnished in anyway. Therefore, all concerts, appearances, and recording sessions will continue as planned. Contact Genetics; have them rush through another, ah, specimen in time for the concert tomorrow night."

 "There's no time to generate a clone!" Young man shouted again.

 Dark man said, "Temporal department's latest model of time-acceleration chamber has recently come on line... utilizing this technology, the deadline is not a problem."

 "Meanwhile, we shall send out hunters of our own to find the wounded Li Duc, eliminating him and any chance he may have of disrupting our plans. There is no room for failure," Grey man continued.

 "I don't like it," muttered Young man.

 Grey man shook his head. Young man was wearing a blue suit; he'd never last in this corporation.

 She preferred Columbian.

 Benny nodded. "Besides, the clones aren't really considered people, so Branson SA doesn't lose any money paying royalties. Bastards." She took another bite of her breakfast burrito. A sliver of bacon slid free and dangled from her mouth across her chin. She nibbled furiously.

 Doyle sighed. "The fight for clone rights continues, but it will be years before they are granted full citizenship. At least on this planet. We are so advanced in many ways, and yet so backwards."

 "Why are you doing this?" Benny asked. Finishing her burrito, she waited for Doyle to swallow the dregs of her java before they continued to walk through the Mallscraper. Typical, she thought, 172 floors of shopping, and not one decent music store. They had come here after Benny had checked out of the hospital. The regenerative drugs she had been given had healed her shoulder, but it remained a little stiff.

 Doyle looked sideways at Benny as she peered through a windowed candle shop, then shrugged. "Call it a sense of civic responsibility," she said. "I think clones should have all the rights as we citizens have. Besides, what Branson SA is doing is wrong."

 "Cloning popular celebrities and using them to make obscene amounts of money?" asked Benny.

 "Nah," said Doyle. "The music's crap."

 He got to play God.

 He squinted his eyes behind his thick glasses as he finished reading his computer screen and summoned his assistant. Another Li Duc was needed, quickly this time.

 Behind him, he heard the pneumatic door swish open.

 "Doctor! What is it?" his assistant asked breathlessly. He had been five laboratories away when he was summoned and had to run through numerous corridors to get here.

 The doctor swiveled around in his chair. "Another #4NLD is needed... please retrieve me a DNA specimen package while I prepare the generation chamber. Also, please inform Temporal that I need to speak to a representative immediately." He swiveled back to his computer, running a hand over his wrinkled bald head.

 His young assistant spun on his heel and ran out the door, barely giving it time to swish open.

 The doctor began his work.

 Her Ng Li Duc mask slipped free from her head as the satin tie strings came loose. It had become her favorite once more following that awful concert. Briefly, it covered her eyes as it slid past; she careened off a large man in black wearing a trenchcoat and a battered black fedora. She didn't stop; couldn't stop...

 Mister Parris rounded the street corner after the sleeper rat... she had the info he needed, locked up in her head. The Dreamer system was allegedly foolproof for privacy, but he knew that sleeper retained memories of the event locked away in their subconscious for days afterwards , like the afterimage the eyes held after looking at one thing for too long.

 Suddenly, a large man in a trenchcoat with tall black boots stepped into his path. Mister Parris darted around him with a curse, just in time to see the girl disappear into a non-descript alleyway a block away... he ran down the alley after her...

 It was a dead end. There was no sight of the girl. Just old garbage and a subtle scent of sasparilla fading in the air.

 ...but she really needed a drink. After a couple of pints in the hotel lounge (and five shots and 12 mixers), she felt suffiently relaxed to head up to her room and sleep without the stiffness of her shoulder bothering her too much.

 (Excerpt from Bernice Summerfield's journal)

 I was having the dream again, the one I was having when I woke up in the hospital. I was back in that damn garden again... So peaceful and calming, and, quite frankly, boring. Birds were singing in the shafts of sunlight, and a faint scent of sasparilla hung in the air. I was in bed still, right there in the middle of the garden, and Jason was holding me in his arms...

 Damn it, I haven't thought of him in ages. Jerk. And why did it have to feel so good?

 Anyway, Jason was sleeping, holding me to his chest, and it was dreamy, wonderful, a nightmare I didn't want to wake up from because reality was so much worse... only I did wake up to my cheery non-descript politically-correct little hotel room, feeling frumpy and stiff and hung over, rolling over to go back to sleep...

 And suddenly realizing that Jason was still in bed with me....

 (Excerpt ends)

 "Doc... huh, huh, tor.... We huh, huh, have a huh, huh, problem... wheeze....."

 The doctor rolled his tiny black eyes. "What is it this time?" he angrily demanded.

 The assistant was bent over, huffing, with his hands on his knees. Why did the damned corridors always seem so much longer when you were running down them with something important to do? He wiped his mouth and stood up to look down on the wizened doctor. "The genetic material... it's been destroyed."

 "What?" shouted the doctor.

 His assistant nodded. "Sabotage of some sort, I think.... all specimens have been irradiated until genetically inert."

 To be continued......