Immurement: The Undergrounders Series Book One (A Young Adult Science Fiction Dystopian Novel) by Norma Hinkens

muscular and ruddy. Hardly a bloodless apparition.
    I watch, dumbstruck, as Mason’s double makes his way over to Owen. He mutters something under his breath and balls his giant hands into fists. “Who did this to you?”
    Owen swallows. “Rummy.”
    I scoot back another few inches, my heart catapulting wildly in my chest. Confusion floods my brain. My bound hands shake between my knees.
    Big Ed gets to his feet. “We … thought … Derry said you …” He frowns, throws me a perplexed look.
    Owen tries to lift his head, and then groans before flopping back down. “Rummy … thought I was a snitch tracking them.” He sighs deeply and closes his eyes.
    “He did his best to beat it out of you,” Mason says with a grimace.
    I stare at him in disbelief. Same thick, brooding brows, taut jaw, even the voice is right. But Mason’s dead, isn’t he?
    “How?” I squeak out. “No one could survive that fall. It isn’t possible.”
    Mason’s eyes snap briefly in my direction. “Neither are clones, far as the rest of the world knows.” He peers into the pot between us, as if to evade my manic stare.
    “I washed ashore a mile or so downstream,” he says. “Maybe I can’t die before my time after all.”
    Big Ed holds out his bound hands to Mason. “You knew before you jumped you wouldn’t die, didn’t you?”
    Mason pulls out his pocketknife and slashes the ties on Big Ed’s wrists. “Like I told you, I was cloned for an elite military. Our bodies are virtually indestructible. The proteins in our cells are engineered with a tensile strength equivalent to steel.” He pauses and gives a rueful grin. “First time I put it to the test though.”
    He gestures to me with the knife.
    I stand and hold out my trembling hands. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the notion that it’s really Mason in front of me.
    “What’s tensile strength?” Big Ed asks.
    Mason plunks down and tosses his knife on the floor beside him. “Clones can deform elastically, like spider silk, when force is applied. It’s not magic, just bioengineering.”
    Big Ed rubs his misshapen hand over his head.
    “You’re freaking them out, Mason.” Owen laughs softly.
    I suck in my breath. Owen knew ? My mind races, trying to piece together the clues I missed. I watch out of the corner of my eye as Big Ed cradles Owen's head in his lap, and spoons some stew into his mouth.
    “So why did you jump?” I ask, eying Mason’s burly frame.
    “Did you a favor, didn’t I?”
    A pang of guilt hits and I bite down on my lip. “I didn’t mean what I said. It was a stupid, reckless thing to say. I’m really sorry.”
    Mason studies me for a minute. His expression slackens. “I had to jump to prove to you who I really was. You had no reason to trust me. But, I came back for you, didn’t I?”
    I nod, but with some reluctance.
    “You’re going to have to trust me now. The only way we’re getting out of this alive is if we have each other’s backs. The Rogues know they have an intruder. If they find me they’ll kill me.”
    I furrow my brow. “ You took their weapons?”
    Mason grins. “Hid them, just in case we need to persuade them to cooperate.”
    “They have their own agenda,” I say. “They’re not going to help us.”
    “You heard them. They want that Hovermedes.”
    I rub my wrists distractedly. “So let’s say we take them to it. Then what?”
    “We promise them the ship if they agree to help us penetrate the Craniopolis. Once we’re in, we lose them. I have clones on the inside I can trust. We’ll find Jakob and fly the Hovermedes back out.”
    “What happens to the Rogues?”
    Mason tightens his lips. “Our mission is to get Jakob out.”
    He stares dispassionately at me. Evidently, he has no qualms about ditching the Rogues. I probably shouldn’t care what becomes of them either. After all, Blade didn’t flinch when he told me about the guards they butchered when they fled the reeducation center.
    I peer over at