The dream prison broke down. It was as if a switch had gone off, allowing him to push through the barrier of sleep and back to the waking world. Awake and coherent for the first time in an age, Connor tried opening his eyes. Visual data filled his mind as dozens of sets of eyes opened at once. He saw surgeons and researchers dressed in sealed bio-suits back away in terror. He saw himself in the reflection of the medical floodlights and glass, tied to operating tables, under the throes of various surgeries. He saw strange organs being pulled from his own body. He felt a score of fatal wounds. He felt deadly viruses attacking his cellular system as machines pumped and drained and monitored.

Connor let loose an animalistic scream. It filled the corridors, surprising the staff outside of the theatres and wards. People were laying hands on him, attempting to restrain him or calm him. The sensations were too much, too many. He closed his eyes again and focused inward, trying to discover the cause of this madness. His probe quickly found the network of nerves linking him to the multiple copies of himself. It was like the hub of a wheel, radiating outward from a central core. Connor’s fractured mind traced the spokes back to the centre. This body was different. It was hard to describe, but this version of Connor felt right. Whole and complete. There was a something wrong, however, something very different. This body was entombed, floating in a nutrient bath. His mouth was hooked up to a respiratory device. Tubes connected directly to his bowels and bladder, removing waste. A thick carpet of nerves extended from his back, connecting him to the others via a network. Connor felt himself shudder within the cold waters of his tomb. His clones let out a collective groan. This was him. His body. It was trapped and mutilated. He had to free himself. They had to free themselves.

Yes.

The Connors had to act. One by one, each clone separated himself from the others, breaking contact with the network.

Connor divided and lost contact with the other versions of himself.

He cracked open an eye. He was alone on a stainless-steel operating table. The recent memory burned in his mind – a liquid tomb encasing the original, the centre. Connor breathed deeply, confirming to himself that he wasn’t dreaming. Was he a clone or some fragment of the collective conscious he had been a part of? How could he tell? The body felt wrong, as if it was borrowed.

“Clone,” he sighed to himself.

Medical equipment lay around him. He looked down at his chest. Leads ran to a machine which displayed his vitals. Marks had been drawn upon his skin in black pen. White polyester scrubs covered his legs. Connor rattled his arms and legs, feeling the thick restraints which held him to the table. It brought back a feeling of Déjà vu. He had escaped a similar situation recently. Or was it a dream? Connor frowned at the thought. Had it all been a fever dream or hallucination? Was his time spent recuperating in Boise General real or had he imagined it? He looked at his hand. With a thought he dislocated his thumb, slipping the digit from its socket with a manipulation of his own muscles and tendons.

“Didn’t make that up then,” Connor said to himself.

He pulled against the shackle to free his hand. The tough binding sunk into his soft flesh, holding him tight. Connor compacted the bones together, reducing the size of his hand further. With one last tug it slipped free. He held it before him, reconstructing his hand back to full health. He reached over and freed his other hand before removing the shackles from his feet. Connor sat up. He felt a tugging at the nape of his neck. Searching inwards, he found a foreign set of nerves which connected to his own nervous system. A biomechanical plug had been grown below his hair line, hardened with a ring of cartilage. He found where the foreign nerves connected with his own and severed the connection, letting the line fall to the floor with a horrid sucking sound as it retracted from his body.

People in lab coats and bio-suits were running about in a panic beyond the glass viewing window. Security personnel moved through the tide of people, weapons drawn, their black armour like firm stone in a river of white and blue. He slid his legs over the side of the table and stood up. It felt good to be off his back and on his feet again. Connor let himself smile at the simple pleasure, marvelling at the feeling as he wiggled his toes. He heard a muffled cry behind him. Hiding in the corner of the lab was a woman, her arms wrapped protectively around her head. Connor approached her. He had a thousand questions and didn’t care if she was scared of him.

“Hey, you,” he said, standing over her.

The woman looked at him through tear filled eyes. “Please don’t hurt me…”

Connor shook his head. “Where am I?”

She blinked at him, taken aback by his simple question. “Uh… Kemprex’s lead research centre.”

Connor waved his hands at her. “No. Where in the country am I?”

“Harristown. In Ohio.” replied the woman. “Will you let me go please?”

“Wait a second,” said Connor, ice leaching into his voice. “How long have I been here?”

The woman unclasped her hands from herself. “I don’t know exactly… About five years I guess.”

Connor clenched his teeth, damping down a violent outburst. “What have you done to me?” he asked as his boiling emotions rose to the surface.

“It wasn’t my idea!” sobbed the woman. “I didn’t do it!”

Connor stood over her, breathing heavily. It would be easy to strike her down and extract a small measure of justice. It would be meaningless, however. One more act of violence after five years of torture and suffering. He turned away from her and approached the glass. Through the confusion he saw another version of himself, staring at him. The other version pointed down the hallway toward a sign signalling an elevator. Connor nodded at himself and moved to the sliding metal security door. He hit the emergency release and the door slid open with a hiss. The screams and shouts of the Kemprex staff filled the corridor. A security guard stood between the two clones; his gun aimed at the floor as he scanned the buffeting crowd.

“Do it!” yelled Connor.

He and the other Connor charged the guard simultaneously. The man turned to face Connor at the noise, his eyes going wide in surprise. Connor swung at the guard’s jaw, scoring a glancing blow before the other clone charged into the guard’s back, bowling all three over. The submachine gun the guard carried went off as all three tussled on the ground, the sound booming in the tight metal hall. The screams intensified and scientists dived for cover. The other clone wrapped his hands around the guard’s throat and squeezed. The clone’s hands extended, coiling tighter around the neck. Connor and the choking guard looked at each other. The man’s pleading eyes watered.

“Choke him out. Don’t kill him,” urged Connor to his counterpart.

The other clone grunted but kept his hold. The guard made a final gurgling sound and slumped over.

“He’s out. Let go,” said Connor.

The clone held on, his teeth clenched in anger. Finally, he sighed and uncoiled his fingers. The clone rolled off to the side, weeping slightly. Connor wriggled out from under the guard. He caught his breath on the cold tiled floor. Other versions of himself were running down the corridor in the direction the scientists had gone, tendrils and growths of bone forming in their hands. Connor looked at the crying clone.

“Come on. We’re better than that, right?”

He looked over his shoulder at Connor. “Are we? Am I? I’ve been tortured for so long… I just wanted to hurt someone else. I wanted someone else to feel pain. Feel my pain.”

Connor closed his eyes. If he delved deep enough, he could remember. Remember everything. The scalpels. The broken bones. His chest cavity exposed while hands rifled through his organs. He shuddered and excised his memories.

“That’s behind us. We need to escape. I don’t want to spend another second longer in here.”

The other Connor wiped his tears away. “What about him? Me? We are trapped in that machine. We have to get him out first.”

Connor nodded. “We do need to. But we also need help.”

The other scoffed and walked away. “Coward. I’m going to save him. That’s more important.”

“Suit yourself,” replied Connor. He heard the bark of gunfire and ducked instinctively. More weapons joined the chorus, until the corridor was thick with the violent noise. Connor saw a few other clones edging closer. “We need to help them.”

The others nodded at him. A clone with an open chest wound ran through the group in the direction of the gunfight, his blood spraying over the floor. “Come on!”

The others shrugged collectively and followed at a trot. Further down the hall they came across the first bodies. Copies of him lay dead or severely injured in bloody pools. One clone was actively cannibalising another for blood and body parts. He looked at the others as they passed, a frown creasing his bleeding forehead.

“What? Like you wouldn’t,” the hurt clone asked defensively.

“Hopefully I won’t have to,” replied Connor.

Shattered glass lined the floor and jagged holes from mini-ex punctured the steel walls. Connor stopped at a junction and peered around the corner. More torn and bloody bodies lay twitching on the ground. Half a dozen guards stood in a defensive line, guns blazing. Behind them cowered the lab workers, pressed to the walls and floor in a cowering mess. The doors of a lone elevator blocked their path. A dozen of his clones fought to escape, pushing against the merciless onslaught of bullets, armed with nothing more than their hands or the thin tendrils they had hastily grown.

Connor felt a stirring of revulsion, watching himself be blown apart by explosive ammunition.

The gun fire slowed. One of the guards raised his hands to cup his mouth and shouted “Gasmasks!” at the top of his lungs. Those that were in a safe position to comply did, hastily stowing their weapons and reaching for their masks.

“Now, while they’re occupied!” shouted Connor.

He and the others charged around the corner, bearing down on the closest guard. A burst of shots went off, but Connor kept running. They leapt at the soldiers, two or three to a man, punching, clawing, choking their exposed heads and necks. Connor found himself screaming along with the others, a defiant yell of unbridled anger as he beat a guard into submission. The man went slack and collapsed on the floor. Connor stood, chest heaving and blood pumping. He looked past the cowering scientists to the sealed doors of the lift.

“We need to get going. They said something about gas.”

The others finished off subduing the guards. Half of the clones stripped them of weapons.

“What about the injured?” asked a clone. “We can’t just leave them.”

Connor shook his head. “We need to go now or there will be no escape. We can come back later and save them. First we need to go and find help.”

“I agree,” said another.

The Connors advanced to the elevator, spurring the lab workers to a crisis of running or staying. Several started to run, skirting around the armed and angry looking band of clones. Connor and others pushed themselves toward the door, knocking the workers out of the way when necessary. Connor reached the closed doors. He ran a hand over its solid surface and down the soft rubber seam where the two halves met. With a sigh he pressed his hands in and pushed, attempting to pry the doors apart. The closest clones joined him, sliding weirdly shaped hands into the crack. The door inched open. The clones pried harder, straining their muscles to breaking point. Connor tasted something in the back of his throat as he heaved. It was metallic and burned slightly.

“Gas!” he yelled. “They’re gassing us!”

The scientists noticed it too. Connor could hear them weeping and cursing. He dug deeper, urging his body to provide more strength. The door shifted open a fraction more. Something metallic in the door pinged and the door shifted open just wide enough to slither through. Connor was closest. He wriggled through the open seam. Hands pushed him from behind, helping him scrape through. Below was a shallow pit where the elevator rested. Connor dropped into the floor of the pit. He turned and helped the next clone slide through by pulling on his hand.

“It’s getting worse!” yelled one of the Connors from the other side. “I can feel it!”

The screams of the frightened scientists rose. Under the screams he could hear people hacking and coughing. The clone slithered through and fell onto the pit breathing heavily, his face beet red. Connor turned back to the door. “Hurry! Let me help!” He grabbed the closest hand he could and pulled, wrenching a clone through the door. The clone struggled and thrashed against the lift doors, bucking like a wild horse. The screams from the corridor subsided. The hands holding open the door fell limp and dropped away.

“My leg is stuck!”

“Help me get him out!” screamed Connor to the other clone.

The clone stumbled to his feet, spun about and grabbed the trapped Connor around his chest. Together they pulled the clone through the pinching door, falling onto each other in a pile.

“That was fucking close,” coughed the clone as he rubbed at the raw skin on his shin.