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03:20 Monday 2 December 2069
When Ethan sabotaged Philip’s soul transference he did more than rid himself of an inoffensive and faithful follower who had given up his own stem cells so that Ethan could be reborn in the adult body of a clone; he had stolen the love of this life of one of his other followers, Jenny.
Now blossomed into a beautiful young woman, Jenny had been looking forward to continuing her life with this strapping young man, the younger version of whom she had already grown to love. She had dreamed of feeling his body next to her at night, of feeling him inside her, of hopefully growing old together in this life and – when the time came – entering their next lives together, remaining a couple in all their future lives.
But Ethan had put an end to all that. She knew that Philip would be reincarnated but he could be reborn as anyone and anywhere. He was lost to her now. Even if he looked for her and was able to find her, he would be at least twenty-six years her junior.
She tried to carry on as normal, but every passing day was a painful reminder of what would never be. All the children were now young adults and were happy with their new bodies, laughing and joking as they went about their daily business. But the last thing that she felt like doing was to laugh and joke. She, Philip, and Tommy had risked their young lives to free Ethan from his limbo and he had repaid them by casting out Philip’s soul. She couldn’t prove it but she was certain that Ethan was behind Philip’s death.
She couldn’t stay at the farm any longer; Ethan had broken her heart and, where before there had been loyalty and a belief in the cause, there was now only pain and anger.
So, at 3 a.m. she wrapped herself up in a warm quilted jacket and prepared to make her escape. The most dangerous part of her plan would be getting past the handful of sentries that patrolled the perimeter, although their main purpose was to prevent intruders from entering. They had no reason to expect that anybody would try to leave.
Jenny crept out of her room in one of the outbuildings and silently eased her way along the corridor, being particularly careful not to make any noise, knowing that if she woke anyone up she would have a tough job explaining why she was up and about at that time of the morning. She slipped quietly out of the building and made a dash for the cover of the nearest barn. The night was cold but fortunately not cold enough for snow. That would have made any escape impossible; the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow and the tell-tale tracks that she would leave behind her would have meant that her absence would have almost certainly been noticed before she was even across the yard. As it was, she still had to duck and dive between buildings and choose her moments to move carefully. Although it wasn’t a full moon, it was still 80% illuminated and was a pretty efficient flashlight. She made her way nearer and nearer the perimeter, dodging between buildings as and when the opportunity arose, whenever a cloud temporarily covered the moon and gave her some cover of darkness.
Finally, she was at the last building. The only thing that could stop her from escaping now was if the sentries spotted her. Tempted as she was to just make a run for it she knew that discretion was the better part of valour and that it would be much better for her to wait for the sentries to pass a couple of times so that she could gauge the time necessary to reach a group of bushes that stood about one hundred yards beyond the farm boundary. Quiet as a mouse she watched two sentries pass in front of her, one arriving from the left and the other from the right. They acknowledged each other with a nod as their paths crossed, and then continued along their path. Jenny kept a close eye on them, making a mental note of when they would be furthest apart from each other. She had planned to observe for two walk-pasts but decided to confirm her findings by waiting for them to pass a third time. There was no margin for error if she was to be successful in her escape. Once convinced that she could reach the shrubs safely she prepared herself for a sprint that would either see her leave the farm for good or be captured and face the wrath and punishment of Ethan.
As the two sentries were reaching the point most distant from each other, Jenny made a break for it. Her timing was critical; the two guards had to be far enough apart that they wouldn’t hear her as she dashed towards the shrubs, but not so far that they would be turning around to retrace their steps. Luck was on her side, as not only was her timing impeccable but a group of clouds covered the moon at just the right time, the darkness affording her extra cover.
Diving behind the shrubs, she looked back at the farm and checked the movements of the sentries. If she had been religious she would have thanked her particular god, but as an atheist, she put her successful manoeuvre down to good planning and a generous helping of good fortune. The sentries appeared to be oblivious to her escape and continued their patrol as if nothing had happened.
She knew that the next step would be the most dangerous of them all. Groups of shrubs were few and far between and she would have to rely on luck to allow her to reach the next piece of cover. Hidden behind the plants she again waited for the sentries to be furthest apart. As they neared the point where they would make a 180° turn and head towards each other again, Jenny sprinted as fast as she could towards the second set of bushes. This was make or break for her; if successful she could make her rendezvous with a One Life extraction team. If not, she imagined that Ethan would have no qualms about executing her on the spot for her treason.
Out of breath and needing a couple of minutes to recover, she dived behind the second set of bushes. She knew that she couldn’t stay there long; each minute spent in hiding was a minute more during which her absence could be discovered. As soon as she felt able, she scurried away from the farm, only standing upright when she felt it was safe to do so.
After fifteen minutes’ walk, she arrived at a map reference that had been supplied by One Life. She had been the liaison between the resistance and the group of child Recarns when the joint assault on Marcus’s principal research facility had been planned at the end of October. She hadn’t imagined for one minute that she would be contacting them again so soon, but so strong was her pain about Philips’s death that she couldn’t envisage a future for herself seeing his face every day but knowing that it wasn’t really him.
She looked around. Where were they? They said that they would be there to meet her. Surely they hadn’t forgotten? What she had in her pocket, a memory card containing the blue-prints and instructions for constructing a soul transference machine, was surely too important for One Life to ignore?
Suddenly, she saw a figure walking towards her. She recognised her as Michelle, one of the people who had been at the meeting in the disused factory. But where had she come from? There was no sign of a car or any form of transport, just the moor. Michelle held out a hand as a gesture of friendship.
“You’re Jenny, yes? My name’s Michelle. I think we met back in October. Of course, you looked a lot younger then.”
“Yes. I’m Jenny. We’re all a lot older now. We transferred our souls to adult clones of ourselves. But I recognise you. You haven’t changed.”
“Well, it has only been two months. Talking of clones, do you have the goods?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Let’s go then. But I’ll have to drug you so that you won’t know the whereabouts of our camp. We even do it to our own people the first few times they visit – until we’re sure that we can trust them. Will that be a problem?”
Jenny knew she had no other choice. She had burned her bridges behind her when she had decided to leave the farm.
“No. Of course not. No problem.”
“Right. Let’s get on the helicopter and get going.”
“Helicopter? What helicopter?”
“Follow me and you’ll see.”
Jenny followed Michelle, apparently towards the open spaces of the moor, when a helicopter suddenly came into view, rotor blades turning, primed for take-off. Jenny was amazed.
“How?”
“I’ll explain later.”
The two women clambered aboard and when seated and secure Jenny put her hand inside her jacket, pulling out a blue pen-drive.
“This is what you want. It has all the information that you need to build your own soul-transference machine. Not that I understand why you might want to do that, considering you want a world without Recarns.”
“We just think it’s better to have access to the technology. It doesn’t mean we’ll ever build the machine. But it’s nice to not have a disparity in technology.”
Michelle tapped the pilot on the shoulder and the helicopter rose gracefully into the air, before heading off to the One Life camp. Jenny fell asleep, the effects of the recently applied tranquiliser kicking in quickly.