Her feet ached and she had only just started on her third twelve hour shift for the week. These gel inserts weren’t doing anything for her and there were only so many drugs you could take on duty to manage the pain. What she really needed was enough money to spring for surgery. That private clinic down the road advertised all kinds of replacements. Denise stretched the kink in her back as she walked down the hospital corridor to her next patient. She might as well fix her spine while she was at it. Finding the money for it on a public hospital workers salary would be tight. Maybe the union or army would shell out? Nah… They’d want to chuck her on their own strictly surgical list.

She made a mental note to ask the rep if they covered surgical upgrades. If she could convince them it would benefit her contribution to work, they wouldn’t turn her down, would they? Bioengineered implants were still a new concept to the medical world. The lawmakers still deemed them to be cosmetic in nature, meaning they weren’t covered by the Armed Forces Veteran and Family Medical Bill of 2048. Robotic prosthetics were still in vogue, and probably would be forever, if the lobbyists from Paradigm had their way. Bio was rising in popularity though, and the consumers preferred the natural aesthetic and application of them.

Denise rounded the corner, dodging a kid on crutches. Captain Wu followed behind the boy, seemingly bored out of her tree as she dawdled along, a steaming can of coffee in her hand.

“Captain,” said Denise, giving Wu a sympathetic smile.

“Hill. You ever leave this place?”

“You couldn’t drag me away with horses.”

“That’s the spirit. Someone has to have fun here…”

“I didn’t say anything about fun.”

Wu waved her on. “Fine then. I’ll have all the fun. Just you try and stop me.”

Denise approached the ward controller, a middle aged woman toughened in the theatres of Northern Africa. A stray bomb had torn her field hospital to shreds, along with half of her face and arm. The tac-piece covered the worst of the terrible prosthetic Anders wore to hide the scars. She looked up from her screen, her good eye narrowing to a pointed squint as Denise rested her arms on the desk and stretched her back.

“You called, Mary?”

“First Lieutenant Hill. What have I told you about fielding your personal calls? I’m not your secretary, I’ll remind you. I have a ward to run, not your social life.”

Denise repressed the urge to roll her eyes at the severe controller. “I’m sorry. I had no idea.”

“They’re still on the line. They insisted they speak to you,” said Anders, thrusting a tac-piece at Denise. “They were very insistent.”

Denise snatched the piece from Anders’ hand and held it to the magnetic stud above her ear. She heard a hissing deep inside her brain as the connection was made.

“Receiving. Hill here.”

Odd music drifted down the line to her, arrhythmic and unsettling in its composition.

“What’s going on?” she snapped. “I don’t have time for pranks.”

An oily voice spoke over the music, genderless and beguiling in its delivery. “Vermillion. Indigo. Opal. Brightwater. Black sky.”

Denise felt a hidden part of her mind snap. This hidden part bubbled to the surface, expanding, overwhelming. Secret information long dormant was now at her command.

“I am awake,” she replied.

“The eldest child returns. Wait for him at home. He does not leave alive.”

The music ended and the line dropped.

She stared blankly ahead as the orders took hold in her mind. Her moment had come. The cover was over. She was a clone, an assassin grown for one specific task, programmed by machines to look and act like Denise Hill until instructed. Kemprex didn’t need its enemies to disappear when they could replace them with compliant clones at will. Her hand reached for the tac-piece and ripped it from the magnetic stud. She held it loosely in her fingers.

“Are you okay, Lieutenant?” asked Anders.

She looked at the controller. “My son is coming home.”

Anders gave her a lopsided smile, the first genuine emotion apart from the mild to raging scorn she had witnessed. “Oh… You poor thing. You must be so happy.”

She handed the tac-piece back. “I need to go home. He could be there any moment.”

Anders gripped her hand, the prosthetic gentle despite its tough steel edges. “You do whatever you need to. Go spend time with your family. I know I would if I could.”

She nodded to the controller and left.

She walked home in a daze as her mental conditioning took hold, barely noticing the rude looks and rebukes as she forced herself through the crowded sidewalks. It all made sense to her now. That’s why she hadn’t downsized after the boys left. They wanted her to stay where they could find her. Her memories clashed with the programming in places, but this was her purpose. What she had been grown to do. No more front. No more lies.

She looked at her hands. Embedded in each palm was the hexagonal shape of a telescoping iris, barely visible, even in the day light. Hidden in each forearm was a length of monofilament blade capable of cleaving through bone like butter. How had she not noticed before?

There was a locked suitcase tucked in the back of the closet, obscured by a mountain of old clothes she never wore. Her programming guided her to the case and its contents. She input the code. The case clicked and hinged open revealing a compact Helter 30 trench gun and a snub-nosed Prime 20 autocannon along with a selection of ammunition for each. The Helter worked better in cramped spaces. She picked it up and a box of flechette shells.

She sat on the bed she had once considered replacing, in the bedroom she had borrowed without realising and loaded the Helter.

The apartment had been hers for the last four and a half years. Before that it was the woman’s whose memories and body she had shared. After this she would find a new one, and a new identity. She could be herself, whoever that was. She placed the Helter by the headboard, folded her hands in her lap and waited.