Free The Clone Assassin by Steven L. Kent Page B

Wayson Harris and Don Cutter. The prisoners in Sheridan had all been arrested for the same crime. There was a reason why the bomb had been placed on the third floor of the Pentagon. The Unified Authority was making its move. That much was obvious.
    Freeman had quietly checked the hotel room for signs of ammonia and chlorine.
He’s a butcher, but he knows what’s what,
Watson reminded himself. Thinking about Freeman sent a shiver down his spine. Worrying about ammonia and chlorine left him empty and scared. He finished his drink.
    Classified info,
he thought. There were things he wished he’d never heard. The clones that made up the Enlisted Man’s Empire had neural programming in their brains, programming that the insurgents had learned how to alter using combinations of common chemicals.
    The year before, the entire Second Division went missing at Camp Lejeune, the only signs of trouble that the investigators found were traces of ammonia and chlorine in the air ducts—fumes from common chemicals, wafted in the right combination, the right sequence, and the right amounts. When the clones inhaled them, the programming caused their brains to reboot. Freeman was right. Had the men who entered Harris’s hotel room pumped those chemicals into the bathroom, he would have fallen helpless and unconscious to the floor. They could have captured him without a fight.
    He reminded himself that Harris wasn’t the only clone on the scene. The three men he had killed had been clones as well.
     • • • 
    Watson remained alone in the dimly lit cabin, drinking himself morose. He felt guilty and ashamed as thoughts flashed like news headlines in his head: Cutter dead. Harris missing. Top Unified Authority war criminals sprung from jail. The Enlisted Man’s Empire left without leadership.
    The attack on the Pentagon didn’t play into his thoughts. At least they’d caught that one in time. Alan Cardston was an officious prick, but nothing slipped past Pentagon Security with him in charge.
    Watson wondered what would happen if the Enlisted Man’s Empire collapsed. The clones had been benevolent conquerors. Once they shut down the Unified Authority military complex and arrested a few key politicians, life had returned to normal. The clones had left the U.A. legal system intact. Lawyers, judges, and policemen, most of whom were initially hostile toward the clones, kept their jobs.
    Despite fears that the clones would use teachers to spread propaganda, the U.A. educational system continued unmolested. Since the clones had their own medical system, the civilian medical industry was left untouched. Rather than obliterating the U.A. government, the clones kept an eye on EME interests while the civilian government retained both its Senate and House of Representatives. Taxes had gone down, and the clones had successfully relocated New Olympians into the nearly unpopulated region of Central America.
    And yet the people still resented the clones. They were conquerors, benevolent or not. They had waged war against Earth. Few people viewed clones as human, and antisynthetic sentiment ran deep.
    It always had.
    Watson remembered conversations he’d had with Harris over the two years he had worked with him. Harris. On the surface, Wayson Harris was the gung ho Marine, all “
Oorah
this” and “Semper fi that,” but that layer of the man was little more than bullshit and polish. Sometimes, when he was alone, Harris’s demons came out of hiding.
    Harris’s hate for the Unified Authority ran deep. He’d borne the brunt of the prejudice from the people he’d been created to protect his entire life. He was worn-out and angry. He’d seen brave men, clones, die willingly to protect the natural-born civilization that betrayed them time and time again.
    He’d been sent into battles in which natural-born officers had calculated that every Marine and soldier would die. He’d known officers who placed a higher value on tanks and ships than the