Bert gave the animal a pat on the head, then shoved him aside so he could sit down. Weejy drove, handing the binocs to SoJo in the passenger seat. Bert climbed in back.

  “You remember how to get to my place?” Bert asked.

  “Do you remember who you’re talking to?”

  A clone of Sacagawea. Duh. “Never been lost once?”

  “Never.”

  “Straight A’s in geography class?”

  “A plusses.”

  “Good sense of direction?”

  “Damn near perfect. No one ever wanted to play Marco Polo or blindman’s bluff with me. Even with a blindfold, I could tag whoever I wanted to. It’s my everyday superpower.”

  “Sorry to question your abilities. Scared of the scary truck coming at us.”

  “Just buckle up, sweetie. I’ll get us out of here.”

  Weejy floored it, and the Land Rover rocketed to life, the vehicle drifting and skidding before the four wheel drive found purchase and their course straightened out.

  Bert, leaning forward, squinted at the center rearview mirror, his mind plagued by remorse, trying to spot their pursuer through the clouds of desert sand they were kicking up.

  Years of painstaking research.

  Two forged-in-fire friendships. One of them quite possibly true love.

  All that time, money, and effort.

  And now we’re being pursued at high speed by an unmarked black van.

  Bert didn’t know if this was a military operation, or private, or some grey area in between the two.

  Weejy (once a navigator always a navigator) drove Bert’s Land Rover like they were running for their lives.

  Which we’re probably doing.

  And it’s my fault.

  If I’d just left it all alone, we wouldn’t be in this mess.

  “They’re gaining.” Weejy’s cool brown eyes kept flitting from the flat, roadless, sand horizon ahead of them, to the pursuer in the side rearview mirror.

  “So go faster,” SoJo recommended.

  “Gas pedal is floored.”

  Bert took another quick look behind them. “How far is the main road?”

  “Eight point four kilometers.”

  “Can we make it before they catch us?”

  “At the rate they’re accelerating, it’ll be close.”

  Then the shooting started.

  Bert heard a motorboat sound, similar to someone making the raspberry fart noise, but many times louder. Bullets sprayed into their fender, striking like a rain of heavy hail.

  Bert ducked, peeking at the side mirror just as a hole appeared.

  And it’s a big freaking hole.

  “Dooooooooo!” Stosh blurted out. Less like his usual warble, more like a screech.

  SoJo glanced into the back seat. “Bert, put the dog restraint on Stosh.”

  Stosh wasn’t a dog, and didn’t like the restraint, but it fit him well enough when the straps were snugged and hooked up to the seat belt. Once he was secured, Stosh stared at Bert like he’d just been yelled at for eating the garbage again.

  “Sorry, buddy,” Bert patted his feathered head.

  “You, too,” SoJo told him. “Buckle up.”

  The ladies had their safety belts securely fastened. Bert, in the rear, was perched forward, his arms on each of their headrests, unsafely unrestrained.

  Rather than sit back and buckle up as instructed, he asked, “Should we fire back?”

  Of the trio, only Weejy had firearms training. But her 9mm Glock, though formidable enough to make Bert’s mouth dry up whenever he caught a glimpse of it, seemed puny compared to the firepower their pursuers were packing.

  Plus, she can’t drive and shoot at the same time.

  I got us into this mess.

  I need to do something.

  Ever since Tom and his best friend, Roy, moved to Los Angeles, they’d shown no interest in finding The Nine. Neither had Joan, who’d married Tom.

  But Bert had become obsessed with the search. Outwardly, he insisted it was for the good of humanity, since some of The Nine had very high potential to be very good or very bad people. But deep inside, Bert knew the real reason he spent all of his free time tracking them down.

  To truly know myself, I have to meet others like me.

  The previous owner of Bert’s ostrich ranch, a doctor named Harold Harper whose work in genetics had been decades ahead of its time, had left some semi-detailed notes in a footlocker buried under his burned house. Along with learning the science required to create Stosh, Bert also had leads on all of The Nine, and since he already knew the first Eleven, he began his search with Number 12.

  He’d found SoJo in Ohio, an assistant campaign manager for a well-liked senator. She’d grown up adorably believing she had a tattoo of a 12 on her foot because all adopted children were numbered. When Bert had told her the real reason for the number, she took the news surprisingly well. Since the candidate she worked for had recently been re-elected, SoJo agreed to go on a road trip and help Bert find Numbers 13-20.

  Number 13 was a waste of time. A complete douchebag. They located Number 14, Weejy, in Idaho, and the attraction had been immediate.

  You could even say it was chemical.

  Then, on to Number 15, whose donor’s genius rivaled that of Einstein and Edison.

  Which led to the desert.

  Which led to them being shot at.

  I just hope we all get out of this ali—

  The tire popped with a BANG! and the Land Rover fishtailed, then skidded onto two wheels. Bert had enough time to think I should have put my seatbelt on and then they turned over, rolling like dice, and then he was out of the door and spinning though the open air, which led to cartwheeling across the desert, which led to him plowing into a mound of sand, which led to blackness.

  Pain forced Bert’s eyes open. A headache, like the worst hangover ever, and something like sunburn along his right side. Bert looked, saw his skin was raw and bleeding, small pebbles and dirt sticking to his road rash.

  He checked around him, saw the Land Rover overturned fifteen meters away. Both the airbags had opened, and he couldn’t see Weejy or SoJo or Stosh.

  Behind them, the black SUV pulled up, and four men came out with guns.

  Men dressed in tan military fatigues, no insignia or markings. They wore crew cuts and aviator glasses and thick black vests, and carried big black guns. Within thirty seconds, they had dragged the women out of the wrecked vehicle. SoJo, bleeding from her nose, began to argue as they zip-tied her hands.

  Weejy wasn’t moving.

  Bert wasn’t sure what to do.

  They haven’t seen me yet.

  Maybe they won’t see me.

  But I can’t let them take my friends.

  So do I go with them? Or try to get away and find them after I get help?

  Bert’s dilemma was answered for him when shots rang out, coming from behind. He painfully peered over his shoulder and saw a pickup truck, parked up the hill, someone standing behind the tailgate and pointing a rifle. Bert watched as the stranger fired again, and he turned to see one of the men in tan get shot in the chest. He didn’t drop—his vest was obviously bulletproof—and two of the men returned fire while the other two pulled SoJo into the van.

  The pickup truck guy shot a few more times, hitting one of the men in tan in the back, to no discernable effect, and the pursuers went back for Weejy.

  Bert stood up, not sure what he could do, but knowing he had to do something. He began yelling, trying to break into a run, but something was wrong with his ankle and he flopped to the ground just as the men in brown unleashed a lead storm over his head.

  Being shot at ranked up there with the most frightening experiences of Bert’s life, and he’d had some pretty bad experiences. A trail of bullets stitched across the ground inches in front of him, kicking up dirt that sprayed his face, and Bert buried his head in his arms and tensed every muscle, waiting for the kill shot.

  The kill shot didn’t come.

  When Bert chanced a look, he saw they were carrying Weejy into their vehicle.

  “Sacagawea!” he cried.

  She moved her head, staring right at him, her lips mouthing, “Bert.”

  And then she was tossed inside, and the van was speeding away, and Bert once again tried to stand up and managed four steps before his ankle failed him and he ate sand.

  Sound, behind him. The stranger in the oversized pickup truck, driving over.

  My savior? Or another threat?

  The truck stopped a few meters away, and the driver’s door opened.

  A man stepped out. A middle-aged, thin man, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. He held a rifle.

  “You opened up the hatch?” the man asked. He wore khakis, a brown shirt and webbed vest with a lot of pockets, and a grey shemagh around his neck, pulled up over his chin and nose like a mask.

  “It’s a misunderstanding,” Bert moaned. “We were looking for someone.”

  “Who?”

  What do I tell him? That we came here looking for Nikola Tesla?

  “We were looking for Number 15. I’m Number 6.”

  If the man knew what Bert meant, his face didn’t show it. He checked the perimeter, then began to walk over.

  “The Beige Boys took your friends.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “No.”

  “Who are the Beige Boys?”

  “Long long long story.”

  “Are you here to hurt me?”

  The man’s eyes widened, and he stared down at the gun in his hands. Then he pulled down his mask, his receding chin making him appear much less menacing. “No. Of course not. I’ve been watching this area for a while. One of my reconnaissance drones spotted you on camera. Do you have any idea what this this this place is?”

  “Do you?”

  The men stared at each other. “I’m guessing we have much much much to discuss. I’m Frank Frank Frank Belgium.”

  Bert ignored the man’s stammer and took his offered hand. “Albert Blumberg.”

  Frank helped Bert to his feet, and gaped at him oddly.

  “I don’t mean to stare. But you look look look a lot like a young Albert Einstein.”

  No shit. “I get that a lot.” Then he remembered his pet. “Stosh! He’s still in the truck!”

  Bert half-ran/half-limped to the overturned SUV, Frank a step behind him. When he peered into the back seat, he saw his best friend lying on his side, unmoving.

  Bert quickly took off his harness, and the bird began to stir, opening its blue eyes, its giant beak stretching open to coo, “Dooooooo.”

  Whenever Stosh opened his maw, the curves made it look like he was smiling.

  “Is that…?” Frank asked, his words trailing off.

  “Raphus cucullatus,” Bert said. “Commonly known as a dodo bird.”

  He helped Stosh out of the wreckage, and the bird stood up to its full height, almost a meter tall. It flapped its stubby, useless wings, and then dragged a huge claw across the desert ground, kicking up dirt and sand.

  “Dodos went extinct,” Frank uttered.

  “In the 1600s. But now they’re back.”

  “He’s… incredible.”

  “You can pet him, just go slow and let him see your hands. That big bottle-shaped beak might look silly, but Stosh can snap a tree branch in half.”

  Frank gently reached out to the bird and patted him on the head. Stosh cooed.

  “They’re related to pigeons,” Bert said.

  “I can image what a mess a flock of these would make in an urban area.”

  Bert nodded. “He poops pretty big. Like a bulldog.”

  “Did you clone him?”

  This guy is sharp.

  “Yeah. I used an ostrich egg.”

  Frank eyed Bert. “Are you a clone, too? Of Albert Einstein?”

  Bert had seen comic double-takes in movies, but for the first time in his life he actually did one. “You think I’m a clone?”

  “I’ve done a lot of research on secret government programs, and I’ve worked on a few. One of them involved cloning famous dead people. And I I I can see by your expression I’m striking a chord.”

  Bert stared at the stranger, staying silent.

  “I’ve seen things,” Frank explained. “Amazing things. Terrible things. For years, I kept secrets, fearing that they’d get out. They ate ate ate away at me. So instead of hiding, I went searching for answers. My research has brought me here. I’m guessing yours has as well.”

  That’s right on the money.

  Bert felt an immediate sense of kinship. Trust. Like recognizing like. Same as when he met SoJo, and Weejy.

  Same as when he met Tom, so many years ago.

  Dr. Frank Belgium has seen some shit. Like I have.

  Should I tell him the truth?

  He just saved my ass. He attacked the ones who took my friends.

  And everyone needs allies.

  “Yes,” Bert admitted. “I’m a clone of Einstein. I’m Number 6 out of twenty. Twenty that we know of.”

  “There are twenty clones of Einstein?”

  “Twenty clones of various people from history. My friends, the ones the Beige Boys took. They’re Numbers 12 and 14. Sojourner Truth and Sacagawea.”

  Stosh stuck the tip of his hooked beak into the ground and dug a small hole. He did that a lot, looking for worms.

  “Did they they they use donor bodies?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Use a healthy human specimen with irreversible brain damage, add DNA and a… um… a bonding agent… and then the donor’s DNA replaces the subject’s to rebuild the entire genome.”

  “That’s different than how it was done with us. They used human eggs, and we were implanted and born.”

  “Fascinating. And unexpected. Raised from birth?”

  “Long story.”

  “I know how that goes. Are you you you a physicist?”

  “I own an ostrich ranch upstate, north of Albuquerque. You?”

  “Doctorate in molecular biology. What is an ostrich rancher clone of Einstein doing in Area 57?”

  “What’s a molecular biologist with a rifle doing in Area 57?”

  There was a buzzing, and Frank Belgium slapped his pocket, tugging out his cell phone. After reading the text he pressed the screen. “I’m fine, Sara. Let’s do lobster thermidor for dinner, and I’d like to eat as soon as possible. All the trimmings, and an extra plate.”

  Frank hung up and tucked the phone away.

  “That was some sort of code,” Bert guessed.

  Frank nodded, three times. “I told her our campsite is burned, to bug out, bring everything, including the first aid kit for a guest.”

  “Shouldn’t I go to the hospital? And the cops?”

  “The two nearest towns, Bakersbad and Fennworth, are owned by Project Esbat.”

  Bert crinkled his brow. A few years back, he’d read through the dictionary and memorized much of it. “An esbat is a witch coven meeting.”

  “They like scary names. Before that they were Monstrum, and before that, Samhain. An off-the-record government agency that only a handful of people know about.”

  “You’re one of the handful?”

  “I used to be.” He frowned. “Before everything went to hell.”

  I was right. Backstory there. “And Esbat owns the nearby towns?”

  “All of this land is theirs. That manhole you opened is theirs. The local governments and police departments are run by them. You could risk going to the ER.” Frank’s eyes narrowed. “But but but I wouldn’t. They’d pick you up before you finished filling out your insurance information.”

  “You seem to know a lot about Esbat.” Bert raised an eyebrow. “Do they know about you?”

  “I’m on their radar. Until now, I didn’t do anything to put myself on their wanted list.”

  “For what it’s worth, you have my deepest thanks.” Bert winced.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’d like to clean all the dirt out of this road rash. But I’m more worried about my friends. What’s going to happen to them?”

  “I honestly don’t know. They’ve taken people before. They’re never seen again.”

  “We have to help.”

  “I have no idea how. Project Esbat may not be officially sanctioned military, but they hire contractors. Serious people, criminals and mercs and killers. I don’t have any contacts that would know how to deal with people like that. I wouldn’t even know who to call.”

  Bert grimaced. “I do.”

  TOM

  Los Angeles, California

  “How’s the pain?”

  Tom glanced up from the television, focusing on Joan. His wife’s dishwater blonde hair was cut in a bob, and she was so adorable that the former cop felt himself grin so wide his face felt ready to split.

  “You look awesome.”

  “You’re sweet. And stoned.”

  “I love that outfit.”

  “It’s a stained sweatshirt.”

  “You’re so pretty.”

  “You doing okay?”

  Tom nodded. “I’m good. Just watching TV.”

  “You’re watching a Mexican channel.”

  “I am?”

  “You don’t speak Spanish.”

  I don’t? I really thought I was understanding what was going on. The big dude was the bad guy and he was threatening the woman with blackmail because she had too many fish in her basement.

  That doesn’t sound right.

  “How many edibles did you take?”

  Tom glanced down at his lap. His one hand, his injured hand, was bandaged from the second operation to rebreak and reset the bones. As he stared at it Tom sensed that it hurt. His other hand, all of his fingers wonderfully unbroken, held an empty plastic jar.

  Strange. There used to be THC candy in the jar.

  Did I take all of them?

  “I think I took all of them.”

  Joan ruffled Tom’s hair, which felt amazing. “So no pain?”

  “Just hungry. Do we have any chips?”

  Joan pointed to the table, at an empty bag of chips. Next to an empty pint of Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia.

  So why am I starving?