Author’s Note: Steal the characters and the muse of our work will hunt you down

Author’s Note: Steal the characters and the muse of our work will hunt you down. You don’t want that.

The grotesque heat of August in Alabama is disgusting. Everything seems to sit perfectly still, not a single breeze to even stir the dirt off the roads. There is no life outdoors, the birds don’t even come out to sing. Anything living remains safe in a cool place, either the shade of their nests or the pristine air conditioned living rooms. Anything except, of course, me. I was stuck driving a white-gutted mini-van with the words Annabelle’s Cleaning Service fading on the side down Eighth Street. This was the worst road to get stuck with. The houses were the largest, most elaborate of Southern mansions and therefore they tended to have direct instructions that went along something like this: It better be immaculate, Kylie, or I will have your head on a platter. Love, Annabelle.

I didn’t hate my job. Actually, I liked the monotony of the work. I just hated that I had Eighth Street and that I was being forced to work. You see, I had been caught at the end of the school year at a party with some underage-drinking going on. My parents decided that to teach me responsibility they would arrange for me to have a summer job with my aunt, Annabelle, who owned a house keeping business that flourished in our small town. I didn’t need the money, you understand. My parents were in banking and stock markets. I could have lived the rest of my life comfortably on their inheritance but apparently I lacked responsibility. So there I was slaving away for Aunt Annabelle.

I looked down at my list of addresses again. I rarely saw any of the inhabitants of the houses. They normally made sure they were away when I showed up with all my chemicals and rags. Especially 1080 Eighth Street, the biggest house on the block. It was a big white plantation style building owned by the local Commanders, a husband/wife team that ran the military compound a few miles outside of town. It was a secret structure. No one knew exactly what a Commander did anymore, only that they wore black uniforms with a single white stripe down the left sleeve. Rumors said they made millions and this house would vouch for that.

It sprawled across an expansive yard, a pristine white structure with a wide wrap-around porch. There were hanging baskets full of purple violets in the gingerbread of the roof. The inside of the house was always untouched. Sometimes all I did was throw a few dishes in the dishwasher. They were the only sign that anyone inhabited the place. There were bed but they were rarely used and I could tell the Commander’s had children. At least two of them: a boy and a girl. They were older though. I did not know them from school so they were graduated or educated on the military base. I had never seen them. I had never seen any of them. There was always a check on the table signed by a Commander Claire McGuire a note: “Thank you, you’re an amazing help. C. McGuire.”

I parked in the lot in front 1080, grabbed my little bucket of supplies, and slipped into the house. It was always a perfect 65 degrees in the large, high ceiling foyer. Whoever Claire McGuire was, she had an amazing sense of décor. Everything matched and every room was done in some different scheme but it seemed to flow. There were lots of blues and purples and greens. I headed to the kitchen, pocketed the check and the note, and put a few dishes in the sink. It was the same routine every day. I wondered if the McGuire family ever saw each other.

I turned the dishwasher on and checked the lights in the house. Nothing was on, as usual and I was about to leave when I heard the front door open and saw someone cross the foyer. I froze in my tracks. Annabelle had warned me that the Commander’s family had enemies. Every Commander’s family had enemies. It was strange that a robber crossed my mind before the actual members of the family did and I stood frozen in the hall until the person peered around from the kitchen and looked at me.

He was young, no older than I was, with a mop of blonde hair and blue eyes. He was dressed in black, similar to a Commander, but without the stripe. There was a helmet tucked under his arm and the rectangular sewn patch on his chest said L. McGuire. A vague memory flashed through my mind, something from school, but I couldn’t recall it. I wasn’t the best student. I just knew there was an L. McGuire somewhere in my head. “You must be Kylie,” he said quickly, stepping out from the corner. “I’m Luca McGuire. I’m sorry. I seem to have scared you.”

No. Luca didn’t ring any further bell and I dismissed the memory as being paranoia. This was just a teenage boy. “Umm…yeah, I’m Kylie. I’m sorry. I’ve just never seen anyone in the house,” I managed to recover, dropping my bucket and holding out a hand. He took it, shook, and smiled.

“No, you wouldn’t. We aren’t around very often. I just came in to grab some things and then I’m off again.”

I couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were pretty and he had a sort of intelligence about him that I saw only in adults. I recognized the uniform then as an Operation Eight trainee’s attire. He was being brought up to take his place in the Commanding society then. No wonder they were never home. The entire family was military. I heard stories about the Operation Eight compounds. There was something about it in my history book. They adopted twins and trained them to be two person special operations teams. They had also been the reason behind the Bottler Rebellion.

When my parents were young there was a scandal involving clones at the Operation Eight bases. Apparently they’d been adopting single babies and cloning them. This was all well and good. Cloning had been legal for about a decade but the clones were not considered human. They were placed under a strict set of laws called the Clone Codes. They had no civil rights, no allowance for marriage or reproduction, and were not permitted in churches at all. They were like intelligent dogs. Operation Eight, however, never told their clones what they were or even had them registered with the basic Holocaust-esque tattoo on their left forearm. Their clones were raised to be their genetic base’s twin. Furthermore, Operation Eight founded the Alpha Complex project. They genetically engineered clones to be inhumanely intelligent or abnormally strong. Only five of the six hundred tests had survived. One was raised in Operation Eight as his brother’s twin. Upon discovering what he was and being registered he lead the Bottler Rebellion. He ran around freeing clones from compounds and building havens in the streets under major cities. He was absurdly intelligent, the books said, and was having some illicit affair with a regular human female.

He broke the codes though. I wished I could recall his name at that point. Until then people were told that clones had no souls and no emotion. On broadcast television he’d proved otherwise in one of the most famous speeches ever given. I couldn’t recall ever hearing about him again after that. The Codes had been repealed twelve years ago and again, I was not the best student and history was my worst subject. “Well,” I started. “I guess I’ll just get going unless you need something.”

Luca shook his head and turned back to the kitchen. “No. I may see you though. I’m working close to home for the next few weeks so don’t be frightened if I’m in the house.”

I nodded and hurried out the door. Something about him perturbed me and I thought more on his name as I loaded my van. I would have to search McGuire when I got home but I had to finish Eighth Street first.

I did so, half-heartedly, wondering more and more on the name. L. McGuire meant something. Maybe Luca didn’t, but another L name maybe. Lewis or Lucas. I couldn’t decide. It frustrated me and I didn’t even bother to shower when I got home, just sat down in front of the computer and booted it up.

“What are you doing?” my father asked, coming in and sitting down in the living room. Technically, I was not permitted on the computer. It was another punishment for responsibility.

“Research but, hey, do you know who L. McGuire is?”

“Levi McGuire. Led the Bottler Rebellion years ago. Why?”

My stomach plummeted but I didn’t speak. My parents were devout Catholics and therefore they still resented the clones and Operation Eight for breaking protocol regarding them. “Oh, I heard it mentioned on the radio today and I couldn’t remember who he was.”

“Well, devote your time to something more useful than that horrible war.” He turned back to his paper then and I went upstairs to my room.

So the Luca I had met that day had to somehow be related to the McGuire that led the rebellion but I couldn’t recall anything about Levi McGuire having children or becoming a Commander. If I’d been him I would have skipped out on the military career in general and gone for something more quite where people weren’t trying to shoot me because I’d been conceived with a test tube and a petri dish instead of in some raunchy backseat romp. Moreover, if Levi McGuire had children would they be as hated as he was by the more religious based community? I thought about Luca again. He had seemed nice. A little strange, slightly to the side of the normal line but if your parents were Commanders you would have been odd too. He’d said he’d be around often the next few weeks. I decided to ask him.

It didn’t take long for me to find Luca. He was sitting in his house before I even arrived the next day, a laptop open on the kitchen table and a coke in one hand. He offered me one and I sat down next to him. “You look confused,” he said, handing me the can and sitting back down.

“This is going to seem strange to you…or maybe not…I don’t know. I’m not you. But…your name sounded familiar so I decided to look around a little…”

He chuckled darkly and shut the laptop, crossing his arms. I realized that if he’d been trained to an operative his entire life there were probably dozens of ways he could kill me with his bare hands if he wanted to. I swallowed. “And you found something?” he asked, smirking. I wanted to slap the look off his face. Smug little prick.

“Are you related to the Levi McGuire? The Bottler King?” The Bottler King was a name given to the teenage boy that had managed to stir enough of the world into affection for him to change an entire law.

Luca sighed and then, with a small resignation, nodded. “Levi McGuire is my father. Now you’re either going to stare at me in awe or try to kill me. I advise against the latter.”

I stared. “No shit?”

He seemed shocked by the language and laughed out loud for the first time since I’d met him (grant it, I hadn’t known him that long). “Why would I lie about that? It’s dangerous to be related to him!”

“I don’t know…well, I mean. I don’t know much about the Rebellion or about your father. I’m not much of a history buff. I know the skeleton of it. He’s an altered clone, right?”

He winced at the word clone and corrected me. “We prefer the term Bottler to clone but yes, he’s altered and yes, that means I am too. So is my sister. My mother is regular, like you and yes, I was born before the codes were broken and am, therefore a clandestine child. So is my sister.”

If there was one thing everyone in the world knew, it was the Code. “They could have killed her for that….your mother, I mean.”

“I know.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

He shrugged. “I don’t remember my birth, Kylie. I’m not that superhuman.”

I giggled and he raised an eyebrow. “So he went on to be a Commander?”

“Yes. In fact, he runs the entire Operation Eight clone production. Of course, none of them are registered like he is now. Our whole family works out at the base. My sister and I are in training, my mother runs the operations and he’s a geneticist and a programmer and any other technician we may need. I’m on my first outsider mission. It’s like a test.”

“But you aren’t doing anything.”

Luca smiled and ran his fingers through his hair. He seemed suddenly like a child about to break into the cookie jar. “Of course I am. If you knew I was doing something, I would be a terrible special ops agent. The point is secrecy, Kylie.”

“Kyle is fine, actually.”

“Kyle is a male’s name.”

“I know. That’s why I like it more than Kylie. Kylie is so…weak.”

“That’s ridiculous,” he mumbled, opening the laptop again. There was an album open and he clicked on a thumbnail, bringing up a picture. There were five people, one of which was Luca. The two men in the back, identical in every aspect, were apparently his father and his father’s genetic base. I assumed the two women were his mother and his sister.

“So why do you get a mission and your sister doesn’t? I thought Operation Eight worked in twin teams.”

Luca smiled. “You did your homework.”

“No. I’m just not a complete idiot.”

“We are working in teams. She’s out there. I’m in here. She’s giving my laptop a live feed of everything she’s doing. I’m doing my job by sitting here.”

“You got the easy part.”

“Hardly.”

I glared and it was at that point that Luca stood up and cocked his head to the side. He was concentrating on something and I listened too, hard. There was a light humming, like an engine and it was getting louder. A speeding car, maybe? I didn’t have time find out. He had hauled me to my feet and pushed me toward the back of the house away from the road. I didn’t have to wait to listen to him. The front of the house erupted in a gunfire seconds later and we both would have been bulleted pin cushions if he hadn’t moved us.