Clone? Who’s a clone?

Me?

Frowning, I hit the button again, and the loop starts to play once more. At my side, Sabrina touches her wrist and the same communication pops up, with the same recording.

“Lucky you. Turns out, you’re a clone. And not just any clone—”

“—but an illegally made one.”

A chorus of recordings hits the air, the message layering over and over again.

“Normally an illegally made clone is euthanized—”

I slap at my bracelet, trying to get it to turn off. If this is some sort of joke, it isn’t funny.

“Is a clone what I think it is?” someone asks in a small voice. “Like a duplicate person? Are we all duplicate people?”

“But…that doesn’t make any sense,” says another woman.

“Does any of this make sense?” asks another. She’s got a thicker accent, either Spanish or Portuguese, and dark hair. “Because I can’t think of a reason why my ass is naked in the snow next to a blue guy. There’s either some really good drugs involved or this is legit.”

“Drugs would be nice,” Sabrina says wistfully. She reaches over and pinches me.

“Ow!”

“I think we’re awake. Do you feel drugged?”

I shake my head, rubbing my arm. “Just cold.”

“I don’t feel like a clone,” someone else says. “What does a clone feel like exactly?”

My stomach churns. I don’t feel like a clone, either. I feel normal. But I can’t help but think of Flor and her question to me earlier. What’s your name? And I still don’t have an answer.

“So what happens now?” I whisper to Sabrina.

She just shakes her head, her eyes wide. If there’s answers, she doesn’t have them, either.

Chapter Two

SKARR

Just like with every new environment I find myself in, I assess the situation.

Cold.

Cold is not ideal, as my ssethri biology doesn’t do well with cold. It’s one reason that I was spliced with mesakkah genes—a stiff and slow gladiator benefits no one. I’ll have to be extra careful, push a little harder, just because I’m handicapped with the frigid temperatures. Even now, my joints ache and my tail feels like an icy log and I’ve only been out here a matter of minutes.

But I’ll deal with it. It’s just another challenge, and I’ve dealt with challenges before.

I crouch low near the fire, watching the others. I’m trying not to make my discomfort obvious, and failing. New plan, then. I let them think I’m more affected than I am, so when I fight, they don’t use their full power. I can make this half-frozen state work to my advantage. Lifting my hands toward the fire, I surreptitiously eye the others.

There’s both males and females mingling together. That’s…new. I skim through my memories, looking for implanted fights that aren’t gender-based and find none. Hmm. Perhaps this is a survival game of some kind, then? Whoever succeeds in staying alive the longest wins? This makes more sense to me.

“We’re clones?” one female sobs, as if the idea horrifies her.

Is it a surprise to the females, then? I have always known I am a clone. All splices are grown in labs and implanted with combat rules and regulations. I have distant memories of an older “Skarr” that won many battles, hence I have been created from his genetic material.

It makes sense to clone the best, after all.

As my gaze skims over the females, mentally, I dismiss them as combatants. They are not fighters. Even now they huddle and look soft and useless. Prizes, then. Or distractions. If they are surprised they are clones, they have not been implanted with battle memories and rules. They will not know how to play.

I eye the other splices nearby. The one nearest to me watches the females with glazed eyes. Praxiian dominant, if I don’t miss my guess. There’s a full-blooded praxiian as well, and what looks like a moden splice. And there’s even a soft-looking human male, his form hunched over with his arms crossed over his chest.

I size up his build. Another prize, I decide. That one won’t be winning any sort of combat trials.

All right. There are three other gladiators that look problematic and one mesakkah wearing furs and tending to the fire. I don’t know if he’s a combatant but he looks strong enough. This many females for so few males is puzzling, though. Do we win them through bouts? I’m not sure I want to win multiple prizes.

One female will be plenty.

I shift on my feet, sliding my tail closer to the fire. No clothes, no weapons. All right. I’ll have to rely on my teeth and my strength. I don’t have claws like the praxiians do, or horns like the mesakkah and one of the splices, but my scales are good armor. It’ll even the odds.

Kef, it’s cold. I’m not going to have to play up being sluggish. Everything in me aches. Truly, whoever is running this particular battle scenario could not have come up with a worse one for me. I move a little closer to the warmth yet again and cast another look at the gladiators. The other males have slitted eyes, assessing one another and I don’t want them to catch me doing the same. I focus my attention on the females instead.

If they’re to be prizes, I should pick out the one I want. A tall one, I decide. Perhaps the one with the bright yellow hair. She’s sharing a blanket with a smaller, softer-looking female who is terrified. Our eyes meet and she hunches down, quickly glancing away. She moves closer to the yellow-hair and I plan how to separate them and steal the one I want. Females tend to kick and scratch and flail, but a quickly snapped neck might do the trick. She won’t be more than a temporary problem. As I watch, she taps the message on her bracelet again, playing it once more.

“Okay, guys, listen up.”

A fur-clad female with golden skin and glowing blue eyes moves to the center of our huddled group, her hands raised to her shoulders. “Put your bracelets away. They probably all say the same thing. We don’t know if that’s the truth or not, and whoever dumped you here isn’t around to tell us. So here’s what we’re going to do. You’re all safe here with us. You’re probably tired and confused. You’re not going to think straight coming straight out of one of those pods. Trust me, I know. We’ll rest here overnight and then we’re going to get you khuis.”

Safe.

Khuis.

I narrow my gaze, watching the other males. They seem just as on-edge as me. No one is buying this “safe” nonsense. If they know what a “khuis” is, they’re not saying. They’re like me, ready to spring into action once the alarm sounds, or the bell rings, or whatever indication we have that things are beginning.

We’re waiting for the rules of the game.

The fur-wearing female isn’t aware of this, though. She continues to smile at all of us, turning to look at both females and males alike. “This planet requires that you have a symbiont to take care of you. With the symbiont, you’ll heal faster, and you won’t be so cold. You won’t feel it inside you, either, so don’t worry about that. Some of our friends are headed this way, and then we’re going to help you go back to our village on the beach. We’ll get you set up and comfortable. I just want you to know that you’re safe with us, and there are no alien overlords or slave owners or anything.”

That makes me pause. It sounds like no one is in charge of the game?

Perhaps there’s no game after all. Perhaps we’ve been cast out for being defective. My gut clenches. I don’t care what the bracelet or the woman in the image says. I know one thing and one thing only—how to battle. It doesn’t make sense for me to be here if there’s not a fight.

But the female must notice my skeptical look. “We have friends that used to be fighters and are now living peacefully with us.”

Peacefully…? I doubt that very much. Likely they are playing a long game and this foolish creature has mistaken it for peace.