The Clone who Didn't Know (The Genehunter) by Simon Kewin Page A

sure. We’re not the fanatics people claim.’
    ‘Really? Oh, good. You can untie me and I’ll leave, then.’
    ‘That’s not going to happen.’ Another voice, male, again unknown to Simms. It didn’t really matter who any of them were. They were a clONE death squad and pretty clearly that meant they were going to kill him. What he didn’t understand was why they hadn’t already. What did they want from him? Why the hell did people always seem to want something from him?
    ‘We tested you,’ the man continued, ‘to see if you really would supply the genetic code of Gina Paradiso. So many of your type are incompetent frauds. But you’re for real aren’t you? A genuine DNA Detective, making your living buying and selling people like they’re things .’
    Here it was. The great moral debate. Just what he needed.
    ‘I didn’t sell anyone,’ said Simms, shaking his head. ‘I sold a bunch of numbers, As, Cs, Gs and Ts in a particular sequence. It wasn’t alive. No one died. No one got born for that matter.’
    ‘Is that what you tell yourself? To help you sleep at night?’ The woman again. He could see her features now: dark hair, young face. She’d be pretty if it wasn’t for her angry scowl. Beyond her, plain whitewashed walls. It was hot, too. Damn hot. A dry, desert heat. Lines of sweat trickled down his back.
    He suddenly knew where he was. Did Kelly really hate him so much? This was her answer to all his attempts to get in touch? His whereabouts handed to a bunch of clONE killers?
    ‘Look,’ said Simms. ‘You spend your time defending the rights of clones. So, shouldn’t you be thanking me if I help bring more of them into the world?’
    He didn’t see the fist coming. The woman’s blow crunched into his nose. A brief spike of pain hit him before his plug-ins could smother it. Blood filled his mouth.
    ‘You’re disgusting,’ the man said from behind her. ‘All of you. You think you can treat people as commodities. You’re no better than slave-traders, selling DNA to collectors so they can fill their private zoos with living, breathing people. Do you know what happens in places like that? And do you know what happens to those who don’t make the grade? The mutations? The rejects?’
    Simms shook his head, spat out blood onto the red tiles. ‘I’m not responsible for the actions of others.’
    ‘Then you’re either stupid or self-deluded,’ said the woman.
    Simms shook his head again but didn’t reply. Without looking up, he lashed out with an EM attack plug-in, hoping to overwhelm their defences, inflict some pain at least. He was still going to be strapped to a metal frame inside their compound, no one coming to help him, but it might make him feel better.
    His attack got nowhere. He looked up to see the three assassins watching him, the man shaking his head pitifully.
    OK. They had good hardware, too. No great surprise.
    The third spoke now, another woman, older, her ID also unidentifiable. He figured she was the squad leader, standing there at the back and watching. She had long hair: black or dark brown. From the way she stood - poised, balanced - she must be a street-fighter or a dancer. Maybe she was both.
    ‘Tell me, Simms,’ she said, ‘Do you think about the people who get made from the DNA you sell? Do you wonder what happens to them?’
    He did, of course. What did they think he was? But he had to make a living didn’t he?
    ‘Look,’ said Simms. ‘We’re not going to agree about this. Your job is to hunt down the illegal cloners. Since you seem to include me in that, you’d better get on and kill me now.’
    ‘Maybe that’s what we should do,’ said the woman. ‘But we’re not going to. We’re going to let you live.’
    ‘Why?’
    The woman turned away from him and began to pace the room, as if he’d asked a fascinating question she’d never considered. ‘You are cruel, amoral, pathologically selfish,’ she replied. ‘But there are those in our