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09:16 Sunday 10 November 2069
The last day of training had finally arrived. The morning was occupied with a written and practical test of the lessons that had been learnt in the previous days. The afternoon was to be a final evaluation of the recruits’ combat skills.
At 2.30pm, the remaining recruits were taken by closed truck to an empty aircraft hangar on the far side of the complex. Upon disembarking, they could see that they were not the only people there; another empty truck was parked in the hangar. An officer stepped forward.
“Recruits. My name is Major Robert Scales. This final session is a combat session and in this session, you will be pitted against someone from another recruit company. Someone you have not bonded with. Someone that you will feel no compunction about fighting. You are not friends with this person. The only thing that you have in common with this person is that you are both recruits.”
Caitlin was perfectly happy with this arrangement. She had a lot of pent up anger and stress to release and this would be an excellent way to do so.
“Recruits. You will go to a waiting room and you will wait there until your name is called. When you leave the room you will meet your adversary. There will be no crowd encouraging you. There will be only myself, Captain Michelle Boone, and a medical team.
Caitlin was unsure if she was glad or not that Michelle would be there. Hopefully, Michelle would be silently cheering her on and this would be an excellent chance to show her sister that she had overcome her ordeal at HMP666.
The waiting room was sparsely furnished, little more than basic furniture and uncomfortable looking chairs. One by one Caitlin’s fellow recruits left the room to face their opponents. She had no idea if they had won or lost their fights; nobody returned. Alone in the waiting room, she waited for her name to be called, for her opportunity to discharge some of her feelings of anger. The speaker on the wall called Caitlin’s name. She stood up, opening and closing her hands into and out of the shape of a fist, before leaving the room and walking over to face her opponent. She stared coldly at her adversary, her eyes boring into the woman’s skull.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“I’m training to be a field operative, just like you.”
Caitlin had mixed feelings about facing her clone, Philippa, in a fight. She’d been able to forget about her doppelganger for the last few days but now she was brought back to reality with a resounding thud. The physical reminder of what she had gone through at that prison was standing there, right in front of her. Now she could exorcise her soul of some of the need for vengeance that had been gnawing at her guts ever since her rescue. Major Scales stepped forward.
“This is not a fight to the death. A dead recruit is of no use to us. However, otherwise, no punches should be pulled. Consider your opponent your enemy.”
That would be easy for Caitlin. She already considered Philippa an enemy. But Philippa had no axe to grind with Caitlin. She felt guilt and remorse about the part that she had played in Caitlin’s ordeal. She wished that she could turn the clock back but that was impossible. She knew that she would have to fight, but she didn’t want to hurt Caitlin any more than she had already done so.
Caitlin had no such qualms.
“The objective of this fight is to immobilise your enemy, to render her unable to continue the battle. You may use whatever force you consider to be necessary. But I repeat, you may not kill your opponent.”
Philippa had actually volunteered to be Caitlin’s opponent, a request that Michelle had initially been loath to endorse. She knew that Caitlin had not fully faced what had happened to her, that there was a lot of pent up emotion and anger inside her. Fighting Caitlin was a great risk. Michelle didn’t know how her sister would react. She questioned Philippa’s motives and was afraid that the clone would allow herself to be a human punching bag, as a sign of remorse for her involvement.
“Fighters, shake hands and start fighting.”
Philippa held out her hand but Caitlin ignored it and instead took a swing at her opponent’s head. The impact of fist against jaw caught Philippa unawares and she momentarily lost her balance, tasting a trickle of blood caused by the involuntarily biting of the inside of her left cheek when the blow landed. Instinct led Philippa to raise her other arm in defence and she was able to parry the follow-up punch that had been aimed at her right cheek.
Philippa took a couple of steps back in an attempt to regain her composure, anticipating that Caitlin would move forward expecting to land more punches. As Caitlin did as Philippa had silently predicted, Philippa loosened her stance and suddenly hooked her right foot around Caitlin’s weaker left ankle, bringing it quickly towards her so that Caitlin lost her balance and crashed to the floor. Philippa didn’t want to hurt Caitlin, but if she allowed Caitlin to beat her too easily the Major and Michelle would know that she wasn’t trying that hard to win the fight. It had to be convincing. She followed through and straddled Caitlin on the floor but applied only loose pressure, allowing Caitlin to shrug her off with the minimum of effort.
Both fighters were now back on their feet, squaring up to each other, deciding upon their next move. Caitlin made a darting movement towards Philippa, which was easily anticipated by her opponent and she returned to her original position.
To the casual observer the fight would have seemed bizarre, two identical women brawling, but all Caitlin could see was someone who had been an accessory to her suffering and who needed to be punished as hard as she was humanly able to punish her. Michelle almost flinched when the two women converged upon each other again and Caitlin drew her head back before unleashing a violent head-butt, breaking Philippa’s nose in the process.
The pain was almost unbearable but Philippa knew that it would serve no purpose to give in now. Caitlin was still full of pent up rage and that rage needed an outlet. She stepped back and put her hand to her nose – a bad move. Even the slightest touch caused searing pain to spread across Philippa’s face.
Caitlin sensed an opportunity to finish the fight and moved in for the kill, but Philippa was not as vulnerable as she looked and she sidestepped the advancing punches and landed two of her own; a straight right to Caitlin’s stomach swiftly followed by a right uppercut to her chin. Caitlin doubled over with the first blow and the second punch righted her again, causing her to stagger backwards. Adrenalin had kicked in for both fighters and Philippa couldn’t prevent herself from aiming another right punch at Caitlin’s left eye.
She suddenly remembered that her intention had been to sacrifice herself as part of Caitlin’s healing process as well as to punish herself for her part in Caitlin’s ordeal and the punch didn’t land with such force as had originally been intended, but land it did, and Philippa’s knuckles opened up a small cut just above Caitlin’s left eye. Blood trickled down from the wound and obscured Caitlin’s vision for a few seconds as it made its way into her left eye. She wiped her eye on the sleeve of her white jumpsuit, the crimson of the blood contrasting sharply against the stark white of her clothing.
Philippa’s wound was much worse than Caitlin’s and the front of her jumpsuit was now a mottled design of white and red. Philippa looked into Caitlin’s eyes and still could only see the red mist of anger and hate aimed towards her. This fight was not over yet.
Caitlin ran towards Philippa, yelling like a banshee, her arms raised and hands open with the intention of grasping her opponent’s throat but Philippa side-stepped her at the very last moment and Caitlin ran past her, tripping over her own feet and tumbling over onto the floor. She seemed to have forgotten the unarmed combat training that she had received earlier in the program and was fighting solely on instinct.
Philippa turned to face Caitlin again and saw her pick up a piece of abandoned pipe that had been left lying around. This put a different complexion on the fight; Caitlin now had a weapon.
Caitlin strode forcefully towards Philippa with an evil glint in her eye. Philippa suddenly realised that she was in real danger now. Had Caitlin forgotten that this wasn’t a fight to the death? She hoped not but was now starting to fear for her life. Philippa had been a Navy Seal in a previous life and could have taken out Caitlin in the blink of an eye, but she realised that to leave Caitlin in this state would do nothing to help her recover from the post-traumatic stress that she was so obviously suffering from. She had to keep fighting. She had to give Caitlin the chance to exorcise her demons. She had no desire to be a martyr, but she felt an obligation to draw the fight out long enough for Caitlin to benefit from it.
Suddenly Caitlin dropped onto one knee and the metal pipe struck the back of Philippa’s knee with such force that she could do nothing to prevent her leg from buckling under her, making her drop to the floor in agony. As she hit the ground Caitlin jarred her knee into Philippa’s throat, causing her to splutter as she tried to breathe. Philippa looked up and could see the end of the pipe hovering above her right eye, Caitlin’s hand trembling as it prepared to deliver the killer blow.
Michelle rushed forward as the pipe bore down towards Philippa, but there was no way that she was going to reach the two women in time and stop Caitlin from killing Philippa. Time seemed to slow down and Michelle could see in clear detail and in slow-motion the pipe as it headed towards Philippa’s eye socket.
There was a loud clang as the pipe hit the concrete floor alongside Philippa. At the last second Caitlin had diverted the pipe’s path away from its intended target. She collapsed on her back alongside the clone sobbing uncontrollably, repeating again and again...
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Michelle ran over and cradled her sister’s head in her arms, doing her best to comfort her. Caitlin was still crying and begging forgiveness from anyone who could hear her. She hadn’t cried since the attacks and was a ball of pent up emotion, which was finally being released now. It was horrible to see, but Michelle knew that this necessary if Caitlin was to overcome the trauma.
A few feet away, the medical team was patching up Philippa’s broken nose. She would look a real sight for a couple of weeks. Philippa turned to Major Scales.
“At least nobody will be able to confuse us for a while.”
Michelle helped her sister to her feet. She was still shaking but the tears were now reduced to intermittent sobs. Supported by her sister, Caitlin staggered over to where Philippa was also on her feet, the medic confirming that the protective mask that had been applied was positioned correctly and not causing any additional pain. Anaesthetic spray had taken away the worst of the pain and it was now reduced to a tolerable soreness.
Caitlin slipped out of her sister’s supporting grasp and moved towards Philippa, whose instincts told her to move away from her assailant, but she could no longer see rage in Caitlin’s eyes. She could see only sadness. Caitlin put her arms around Philippa and held her tight.
“I’m so sorry Philippa. I could have killed you.”
“You nearly did.”
“Yes. I nearly did.”
“But you didn’t. That’s what’s important. You stopped yourself in time. You allowed the real you to come through. You’re a good person really.”
“And so are you, Philippa. You’re a good person. I didn’t want to believe it before, but I know you made sacrifices to save me. Without you, I’d probably still be in that place or even dead.”
Caitlin kissed Philippa on the forehead, taking care to avoid her broken nose.
“Can you ever forgive me? Can we start again from scratch?”
Philippa felt like saying ‘as long as you don’t try to kill me anymore’ but she knew that that would be crass and like throwing a hand grenade into a recuperation room. So she simply kissed Caitlin’s forehead.
“There’s nothing I’d like more.”