Chapter 27 · First Burn

The screen flashed red three times before the alarm started.

I didn't move. Couldn't. My reflection stared back at me from the bio-pod glass, except it wasn't my reflection. It was him. The original. Mark Weston, serial number 00, locked in cryo-suspension with tubes running into his arms and a breathing apparatus covering half his face.

His eyes were open. And he was looking right at me.

"Mark." Ava's voice cut through the alarm's wail. She was at the far terminal, fingers flying across the interface. "We've got maybe ninety seconds before this whole facility goes into lockdown."

I finally tore my eyes away from the pod. "How many?"

"What?"

"How many new ones." My voice came out flat. Dead. "How many copies are they spinning up."

Her hands stopped. She looked at the screen, then at me. Something shifted in her expression.

"Eight."

Of course. Always eight. One for each life I thought I'd been burning.

I crossed to her terminal in four strides. The schematic was clear enough even through the Cyrillic labels. Main cryogenics bay, eight pods in two rows of four. All of them showing green status indicators except one.

Except the one behind me.