friends,” the doppelganger said.
“I’ll come for you first, Thrush,” Kane growled.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Thrush-Kane replied. “After all, you wouldn’t know how to program the mattrans or the interphaser to reach the rest of me. Not unless you somehow beat the answer out of Enlil’s relatives or our errant brother yourself.”
Kane grimaced. “Either way, to get to your freakish robot brothers, I have to do the job you want.”
Kane knew that he didn’t have the cruelty in himself to duplicate his doppelganger’s evil grin of glee. “By all means, now that you know how to come after us…”
Kane drew all the strength in his right arm and lashed out, swinging at the creature before him. Thrush-Kane simply stepped back out of the path of the punch.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I really would be remiss if I didn’t get to work hunting down that alligator-hided version of myself,” Thrush-Kane said. He turned and released a wolf howl that cut through the forest.
Hollow, haunted cries echoed back.
“I’d say you have five minutes to get down off that tree before my cannibal friends show up,” Thrush-Kane said. “If not, we might have to skip plan B to put Enlil out of our misery.”
The doppelganger disappeared into the woods and Kane twisted, clawing at the bindings around his thighs and shins.
The wolf calls of the Appalachian cannibals resounded, drawing closer as Kane’s fingers tore frantically at the ropes restraining him. He kept clawing, even as he heard the unmistakable whistle of a thrown hatchet slicing the air behind him.
Then gravity seized the lone Cerberus explorer, and he crashed to the forest floor, dazed but free. He scanned around for a weapon, anything that would give him an advantage against the deadly monstrosities stalking the valley.
Something crashed into his forehead, the impact threatening to send Kane tumbling into an endless descent into oblivion.
Chapter 9
It had been vital that Thrush-Kane capture the Cerberus explorer he was designed to duplicate. Though his skeletal structure and genetic makeup were absolutely identical to Kane’s, thanks to the ex-Mag’s prior encounters with other iterations of the transdimensional hive mind that had assembled a large contingent on the pancasement Orb, there would be certain factors that could not be duplicated without face-to-face contact.
The cloned muscle, skin and hair that wrapped around the flat-motor enhanced polymer skeleton would only take a simulation of the human so far, the cyborg realized. His brain, a semiorganic plasma matrix with superior processing ability, could only fake so much without actual conversation and in-depth observation. The programmed speech patterns developed from recordings of Kane’s voice, taken from multiple sources, had held up to actual dialog with the captured human. The time span between the recordings and the current moment had allowed for some variation, but the plasma matrix brain adapted to the new patterns.
More importantly, Thrush-Kane was glad for thechance to look into every detail of his counterpart’s face. There were a few new bruises, not quite healed, that could be mimicked with pigment injectors provided for perfect duplication. A set of scissors had been the most vital, yet simplest implement of the disguise kit. The Thrush Continuum would not normally have taken such extreme measures for a simple subterfuge on such a backwater, technologically deficient world, but for the presence of one of Kane’s most trusted allies, Brigid Baptiste. Her eidetic memory and highly acute senses would pick up the slightest of visual imperfections, rendering the doppelganger ruse a wasted, worthless effort.
Thrush-Kane would have to be acutely wary around Brigid. One mistake, one stray from established identity had the potential of turning an infiltration and rediversion mission into a bloody battle that he did not want to engage in. Brigid was not the only wild-card factor
“I’ll come for you first, Thrush,” Kane growled.
“Somehow, I doubt that,” Thrush-Kane replied. “After all, you wouldn’t know how to program the mattrans or the interphaser to reach the rest of me. Not unless you somehow beat the answer out of Enlil’s relatives or our errant brother yourself.”
Kane grimaced. “Either way, to get to your freakish robot brothers, I have to do the job you want.”
Kane knew that he didn’t have the cruelty in himself to duplicate his doppelganger’s evil grin of glee. “By all means, now that you know how to come after us…”
Kane drew all the strength in his right arm and lashed out, swinging at the creature before him. Thrush-Kane simply stepped back out of the path of the punch.
“Now, if you don’t mind, I really would be remiss if I didn’t get to work hunting down that alligator-hided version of myself,” Thrush-Kane said. He turned and released a wolf howl that cut through the forest.
Hollow, haunted cries echoed back.
“I’d say you have five minutes to get down off that tree before my cannibal friends show up,” Thrush-Kane said. “If not, we might have to skip plan B to put Enlil out of our misery.”
The doppelganger disappeared into the woods and Kane twisted, clawing at the bindings around his thighs and shins.
The wolf calls of the Appalachian cannibals resounded, drawing closer as Kane’s fingers tore frantically at the ropes restraining him. He kept clawing, even as he heard the unmistakable whistle of a thrown hatchet slicing the air behind him.
Then gravity seized the lone Cerberus explorer, and he crashed to the forest floor, dazed but free. He scanned around for a weapon, anything that would give him an advantage against the deadly monstrosities stalking the valley.
Something crashed into his forehead, the impact threatening to send Kane tumbling into an endless descent into oblivion.
Chapter 9
It had been vital that Thrush-Kane capture the Cerberus explorer he was designed to duplicate. Though his skeletal structure and genetic makeup were absolutely identical to Kane’s, thanks to the ex-Mag’s prior encounters with other iterations of the transdimensional hive mind that had assembled a large contingent on the pancasement Orb, there would be certain factors that could not be duplicated without face-to-face contact.
The cloned muscle, skin and hair that wrapped around the flat-motor enhanced polymer skeleton would only take a simulation of the human so far, the cyborg realized. His brain, a semiorganic plasma matrix with superior processing ability, could only fake so much without actual conversation and in-depth observation. The programmed speech patterns developed from recordings of Kane’s voice, taken from multiple sources, had held up to actual dialog with the captured human. The time span between the recordings and the current moment had allowed for some variation, but the plasma matrix brain adapted to the new patterns.
More importantly, Thrush-Kane was glad for thechance to look into every detail of his counterpart’s face. There were a few new bruises, not quite healed, that could be mimicked with pigment injectors provided for perfect duplication. A set of scissors had been the most vital, yet simplest implement of the disguise kit. The Thrush Continuum would not normally have taken such extreme measures for a simple subterfuge on such a backwater, technologically deficient world, but for the presence of one of Kane’s most trusted allies, Brigid Baptiste. Her eidetic memory and highly acute senses would pick up the slightest of visual imperfections, rendering the doppelganger ruse a wasted, worthless effort.
Thrush-Kane would have to be acutely wary around Brigid. One mistake, one stray from established identity had the potential of turning an infiltration and rediversion mission into a bloody battle that he did not want to engage in. Brigid was not the only wild-card factor
Similar Books
