Read A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel Online
Authors: Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Tags: #Fiction
A Murder of Clones: A Retrieval Artist Universe Novel (47 page)
“Anything broken?”
“You okay?”
“Can you slide this way?”
Berhane tuned out the words and managed to pull herself upright. She was now standing on the window of the car, her back against the ceiling. The train had derailed, something she hadn’t thought possible. Weren’t they built so that they couldn’t derail? She remembered hearing about that in one of her classes. Something about magnetized couplings and nanobots and—
She wiped a hand over her face, and took another deep breath of the chemical-laden air. She was in shock, or sliding into shock, and she didn’t dare, because they were trapped in this car. Judging from the smells around her—those chemicals, the stench of burning—something had gone very wrong somewhere, and she couldn’t know if it was the train itself or if it was the dome.
The Peyti grabbed her leg. She looked down at the thin gray fingers wrapped around her pants.
“Please,” it said.
She reached down, and helped it up. Its other arm dangled at its side, clearly broken. She’d always thought the twig-like Peyti looked fragile. Now she knew that they were.
“Thank you,” it said.
“There’s something in the air,” she said because she knew the Peyti, with its mask, couldn’t smell what had gone wrong. “Something bad.”
The Peyti nodded and surveyed the area around them. Other survivors were moving, shuffling toward the side of the car.
The Peyti said something in its native language and looked back at her.
“What?” she asked.
It shook its head, a movement that looked very unnatural. It clearly worked among humans and had learned their movements.
“The dome sectioned,” it said.
She frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Do not look north,” it said.
She didn’t even know where north was. She was completely disoriented.
“Oh, my God.” The big guy was standing on the seat back beside her. “We got cut in half.”
Berhane didn’t understand him at first. She was fine. Except for broken bones and bleeding, everyone else seemed fine too. She glanced at the big man, then started to turn toward the direction he was looking in, but the Peyti grabbed her arm.
“Do not look,” it said. “The dome bisected the train.”
Her breath caught. “It can’t do that.”
“Not under regular circumstances, no,” the Peyti said. “The trains must stop when the dome sections, but clearly this is not a regular circumstance.”
The dome only dropped its sections when the mayor ordered the dome to get segmented off. He had done so during the crisis surrounding the Moon marathon. He had sectioned off one part of the dome, so the disease running through the marathon didn’t infect the rest of the city.
But that was the only time in her memory that the dome had sectioned.
And that sectioning had been
ordered
. Trains had stopped in time. Cars hadn’t been able to get through the area. People had been instructed to move away from the section before it came down.
Not this time.
“What happened?” she whispered.
“Something bad,” the Peyti said.
The something bad had happened in the forward compartments.
Then Berhane realized she was turned around. The sectioning had occurred behind her.
Where her mother had been.
“No,” Berhane said.
She scrambled past the people still picking themselves up, and climbed toward the door. It was half open, something that shouldn’t have happened either, or maybe that was a fail-safe when the train derailed (only it wasn’t supposed to derail).
Somehow she pried the doors open and squeezed through.
The air was thick with the smell of burnt rubber and fried circuits. Her eyes watered.
She could see the dome behind her, set against the famed university shopping district, but it looked wrong.
Black. Rubble. Smoke, billowing everywhere. Some of it near the sectioned dome, but most of it behind the protective barrier.
She climbed on top of the car. The train was twisted too. Cut in half. Sort of. Because in the back, past the section, she couldn’t see a train at all.
She couldn’t see anything she recognized.
“Mother,” she whispered. And then she shouted, “Mother!”
Her mother never shouted back.
The thrilling adventure continues with the fourth book in the Anniversary Day Saga,
Search & Recovery,
available now from your favorite bookseller.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
USA Today
bestselling author Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes in almost every genre. Generally, she uses her real name (Rusch) for most of her writing. Under that name, she publishes bestselling science fiction and fantasy, award-winning mysteries, acclaimed mainstream fiction, controversial nonfiction, and the occasional romance. Her novels have made bestseller lists around the world and her short fiction has appeared in eighteen best of the year collections. She has won more than twenty-five awards for her fiction, including the Hugo,
Le Prix Imaginales
, the
Asimov’s
Readers Choice award, and the
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
Readers Choice Award.
Publications from
The Chicago Tribune
to
Booklist
have included her Kris Nelscott mystery novels in their top-ten-best mystery novels of the year. The Nelscott books have received nominations for almost every award in the mystery field, including the best novel Edgar Award, and the Shamus Award.
She writes goofy romance novels as award-winner Kristine Grayson, romantic suspense as Kristine Dexter, and futuristic sf as Kris DeLake.
She also edits. Beginning with work at the innovative publishing company, Pulphouse, followed by her award-winning tenure at
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, she took fifteen years off before returning to editing with the original anthology series
Fiction River,
published by WMG Publishing. She acts as series editor with her husband, writer Dean Wesley Smith, and edits at least two anthologies in the series per year on her own.
To keep up with everything she does, go to kriswrites.com. To track her many pen names and series, see their individual websites (krisnelscott.com, kristinegrayson.com, krisdelake.com, retrievalartist.com, divingintothewreck.com). She lives and occasionally sleeps in Oregon.
Look for These Other Titles from
Kristine Kathryn Rusch
THE RETRIEVAL ARTIST SERIES:
The Disappeared
Extremes
Consequences
Buried Deep
Paloma
Recovery Man
The Recovery Man’s Bargain
(Novella)
Duplicate Effort
The Possession of Paavo Deshin
(Novella)
The Anniversary Day Saga:
Anniversary Day
Blowback
A Murder of Clones
Search & Recovery
The Peyti Crisis
Vigilantes
Starbase Human
The Masterminds
Other Stories:
The Retrieval Artist
(A Short Novel)
“The Impossibles” (A Retrieval Artist Universe Short Story)
Sign up for the WMG Publishing
newsletter
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wmgpublishing.com
Copyright Information
A Murder of Clones
Book Three of the Anniversary Day Saga
Copyright © 2015 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
All rights reserved
Published 2015 by WMG Publishing
www.wmgpublishing.com
Parts of this novel appeared in different form as the novella
A Murder of Clones (Fiction River: Moonscapes,
edited by Dean Wesley Smith, WMG Publishing, February 2014)
Cover and Layout copyright © 2015 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by Allyson Longueira/WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Madartists/Dreamstime
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ONE MONTH AFTER ANNIVERSARY DAY
Search & Recovery: A Retrieval Artist Novel