The Clones; The Virtual War Chronologs--Book 2

Gloria Skurzynski is the author of more than forty books, both fiction and nonfiction, including Virtual War, Spider's Voice, and, most recently, Rockbuster. Her books have won many major awards, including the Christopher Medal, the Golden Kite Award, the Golden Spur Award, and the American Institute of Physics Science Writing Award. She and her husband, Ed, are the parents of five grown daughters, and live in Boise, Idaho. Her E-mail address is gloriabooks@qwest.net.

Chapter One The sky was blue. A real sky, a real color, with real clouds, not a collection of pixels in a virtual-reality Box. Every once in a while, when he had a brief moment to himself, Corgan would let this real world seep into his senses, reminding him how much better even one minute of reality felt compared with the fourteen years of virtuality he'd experienced inside his Box.He bent down to pick up a rock, a hardened piece of the lava that a couple million years earlier had spewed out of the ocean to create the Isles of Hiva. The rock filled his cupped hand with a satisfying weight. He ran his thumb across its porous surface and then, taking aim, hurled it toward the top of a tall coconut palm, smiling when he heard thethwackof rock hitting nut. The coconut he'd chosen fell neatly into the sand at his feet.For no particular reason Corgan calculated the speed of his throw and the arc of its trajectory. At one time he'd been able to split microseconds in his mind, but not anymore. Glancing again at the treetop, mentally computing its height to be 11.47 meters, he happened to notice a small black dot moving in the sky above the palm fronds.Too high for a seagull, it might be a frigatebird, but frigatebirds didn't fly that fast. As the object grew larger he heard the drone of an airplane. The Harrier jet! But the lab at Nuku Hiva wasn't scheduled to receive a flight for a couple more weeks, so why would the Harrier be coming now? Corgan ran toward the landing strip and reached it just as the jet dropped vertically onto the concrete pad.After the engines slowed and quieted, the hatch opened, allowing the passenger seated behind the pilot to climb out. A helmet and a blue LiteSuit hid the passenger's identity until gloved hands reached up to remove the headgear, releasing a cascade of golden hair. Sharla!Corgan's heart beat loudly enough that he could calculate its rhythm without even trying. Four months earlier he and Sharla had said good-bye, not long after celebrating their fifteenth birthdays together. Now here she was again, for whatever reason -- it didn't matter. She'd come back to Nuku Hiva; that was enough.He reached her and threw his arms around her, but she returned only a one-armed hug because her right hand clutched a flight bag. "Wait!" she told him as she carefully set the bag onto the tarmac. "Make sure you don't step on it," she said, laughing a little, and then both her arms flew around him, and she kissed him until he grew dizzy."Where can we go to talk?" she whispered. "Privately, I mean.""Uh...you remember the barn where I work with the transgenic cattle?""It's only been four months -- of course I remember. I'll meet you there. Take this bag, handle it very carefully, and don't look inside until I get there. I have to check in at the lab first. As soon as I can get away, I'll come to the barn."Waiting beside the Harrier jet, Pilot called out, "Sharla, hurry," and then both of them were gone. Corgan stood there, bewildered, growing even more perplexed when he thought he saw the bag move slightly, not more than a few millimeters, but...no, he must have imagined it.When he picked it up, it was heavier than he'd expected. Trudging up the hill toward the barn, he started to swing the bag, then remembered Sharla telling him to handle it carefully.The barn smelled of hay and manure, which Corgan didn't mind. During the fourteen years he'd spent inside his virtual-reality Box, he'd never smelled anything the least bit unpleasant. Here on Nuku Hiva this pungent, earthy order in the barnyard was just one of many signals that he had his freedom now.He set the bag on a shelf in the back room where he stayed when he waited for the cows to give birth. The herd numbered forty-seven now; no bulls, all cows, and twenty-eight of them were pregnant. Nuku Hiva was such a lush, green, overgrown island that a hundred times as many cattle could have grazed