Trace—or Ace, as he called himself, the first, the best—loomed over the printer. Amidst the walls of computer screens, the office rats buzzed with false hopes and exaggerated updates on their pet projects. Their dear intellectual hearts failed to realize one thing: it would take more than a fancy report to impress Ned Roper. 

As the head of Project Nephele, Ned would know that his chosen Template needed more than intelligence. The government wanted clones cut from someone in peak physical condition, ideally with combat experience. 

Ace flexed his bicep, straining the polyester knit of his lab coat. He ran a hand through his close-cropped hair. Last he checked, only one person in this building had seen war from outside of a laboratory, let alone been awarded a Bronze Star. 

He stretched, looking through the glass window that overlooked the lab a floor below. The entire office ringed around it like a giant donut, with its steel-chambered masterpiece towering at the center. Machinists inspected the conduits running along the floor, connecting the tubular scanning chamber to the cloning behemoth set just behind. 

Ace turned. Twenty feet to his left, a small, cased-off section of the office had been designated the control room. Inside, the management team rose from the rows of stadium-like seating that overlooked the lab, their morning meeting adjourning. 

Ace smacked the printer. “Work, will you?” He kicked the stand, scuffing the toe of his green high-tops. 

The screen flickered, warning that this document required managerial approval. He punched in his supervisor’s PIN and hit the green Enter button. The printer started to shake. 

“Yes, sir.” 

Ace’s pulse spiked as Ned strode from the control room, his business suit standing out like a black stain on the canvas of lab coats. 

“Yes, sir, we’re well on schedule,” Ned spoke into his phone as he followed the gray-tiled circuit that ran around the building, marking a clear walking space between the cubicles and meeting spaces. “Alright. I’ll call you when I have an update.” 

Snatching the stack of paper from the tray, Ace stapled the corner and ran. His coat billowed like a cape behind him. “Ned. Hey, Ned!” 

Ned’s gray, balding head glanced up for only a second. His cheaters perched on the very tip of his elongated nose as he texted with a single finger. The squeak of his shoes brought every employee to attention as he passed. “Trace Walters. You got something for me?” 

Ace held the report over Ned’s phone. “I was able to troubleshoot the cooling system and reran the tests this morning. This report shows the latest metrics.” 

“Fantastic.” Ned took the report, flipping to one of the status charts. “Have the safety inspectors looked it over yet?” 

“Everything is within our safety guidelines.” 

“Well, that’s promising. We wouldn’t want our Template torn to shreds.” He stopped outside his glass cube of an office. “Wait, I thought I asked Maria to head this up.” 

Ace coughed. “Of course, Res gave me the numbers, but you know how she is with English.” 

Ned flipped the report back into order and reached into his pocket. “This is great, thank you.” He drew out his keycard and swiped. The lock clicked and he grabbed the door handle. 

Ace’s hand jerked forward, “Sir, have you selected the Template yet?” 

Ned stepped back. “Not yet. We’re still in the process of reviewing candidates. It’s a lengthy process; lots of approvals.” 

“Well, I submitted my application last month.” Ace put on his best smile. “Maybe you could put in a good word for me?” 

Ned wrung the handle. His face tightened, lips pressed into a thin line before forcing out, “I’m afraid the board has dismissed your application.” 

Ace blinked. He clenched his fists. “Why?” 

Ned glanced around the office, then swung the door wide. “Come inside for a moment.” 

Heat poured from Ace’s ears as he stalked inside. The door clicked shut. Ned walked past the window overlooking the lab and around the smooth, onyx desk, dropping into his cushy chair. He gestured to the crimson five-buck lawn chair on Ace’s side. “Have a seat, Trace.” 

Ace continued standing, looming over the desk and jabbing his finger towards the glass. “You think one of those oversized brains is better suited than me? I graduated from Harvard before the war. While they were staring down a microscope, I spent three years overseas! Do you think the government will want ten of me, or ten of them?” 

Ned rubbed his forehead. “It’s a preliminary test. At best we’ll make two copi—” 

“It doesn’t matter! You’re not going to put the clones down, so the government will need to use them somehow. I’m your best option and you know it.” 

“Trace,” Ned’s voice came gently. “Just sit down.” 

Ace rolled his eyes, but plopped into the seat. 

Ned’s chair squeaked as he leaned forward, folding his hands over his desk. “At an intellectual and physical level, you are a clear candidate. However, when we consider applicants, we also look at the person’s mental state.” 

Ace blanched. “So?” 

“So when we received your application we dug into your files. You received a Bronze Star when you were discharged, correct?” 

Ace bit his lip, nodding his head. “Yes, sir.” 

Ned spread his hands. “Do you recall what you did to earn that honor?” 

“I took down an enemy squad that killed most of my unit.” 

“Bludgeoned, I believe was the word used in the report.” 

“I wasn’t myself.” Ace set his teeth. “War does that.” 

Ned raised his hands. “I’m not arguing with you, Trace. All I’m saying is that I still see that ferocity in the way you interact with your colleagues.” 

“Sir—” 

“Trace,” he tilted his head, eyes piercing from beneath bushy eyebrows. “You screamed at Nadia the other day for using your pen. It’s been reported to me on several occasions that you’ve stolen passwords. And you refuse to work with anyone. Now I respect your genius,” he gave a half laugh, “that’s why you’re here. But I think it’s time you see someone about these instabilities.” 

Ace’s jaw hit the floor. 

“The fact is that we aren’t sure how these instabilities could magnify during the cloning process. So we must be very cautious who we choose as our Template. Understand?” 

“I understand.” Ace gripped the arms of his chair. “I understand that you’re making excuses. What do you think I am, stupid?” 

Ned smacked the desk. “You’re a hothead. Reckless and insubordinate actions are how projects get shut down. I won’t have it!” 

Ace shot upright. He grabbed his report off the desk and, throwing aside his chair, stalked from the room. 

***

“He’s wrong and he knows it,” Ace grumbled, reclining in his desk chair. He’d printed up Ned’s headshot and tacked it to the back wall of his cubicle with an inky red bullseye. 

Ace flexed a rubber band between his thumb and pinkie, tucking the notch in his pencil eraser into one end and drawing back. The shot went wide, crinkling the corner of the page. 

His chair groaned with him as he lurched upright. “It’s not fair.” 

“Not fair.” 

He glared over the cubicle wall at the black-haired mechanical engineer they’d hired out of South America, Maria. She straightened her lab coat and smiled at him—a colorful, plastic-like smile, comparable to a tan-skinned clown. She tended to work early mornings, so they’d stuck her in Ace’s space since she’d only be there half the time. 

“Yes, not fair,” he answered. “They’re a bunch of nepotistic teases.” 

“Nepotistic teases.” Her tongue twisted around the words as she repeated them into her phone. Maria, or Res as he called her, didn’t speak a lick of English, though apparently was good enough with numbers to warrant a plane ticket out of whatever swamp she came from. She had this insufferable habit of repeating back every word that was said, sometimes not even for translation. Ace was convinced she just liked the sound of her own voice. He’d taken to calling her Res, short for Resonantia, which he thought was clever because it was the Latin word for echo, and Latin was basically Spanish. Maria claimed it wasn’t the right word, but clearly she was wrong and had realized so later, since she accepted the nickname like a champ now. 

Ace sighed, picking up the report he’d given Ned and laying it across the barrier between their cubicles. “Here, I printed off your report.” 

Her eyebrows drew together. “¿Por qué tienes eso?” 

A sharp ping sounded from his computer. Ace rolled his chair over to the monitor, pulling up his email inbox. The top message was in Ned’s name. Ace scrambled to his feet, leaning over the screen. 

Had he reconsidered? Had he— 

He bit down on the edge of his tongue, shaking his head. 

“¿Qué es?” Res rounded the wall into his cubicle, looking over his shoulder. 

“They’ve selected Nadia as the Template for the trial.” His voice dripped with scorn. “Nadia!” 

“¿No estás feliz?” 

“No. No feliz.” He whacked the monitor. “I’m ticked off. All my work and the first person to ever be cloned is a ditzy analyst whose most notable achievement is wearing a pencil skirt.” 

“Wearing a pencil skirt,” Res echoed, ironically smoothing out her skirt as she popped a hip. 

Ace huffed. Why should it be Nadia, when Ace deserved this? The government wouldn’t be happy with it. The office would laugh about it behind Nadia’s back because clearly the only reason she was selected was that she’d gotten Ned’s…attention. 

Ace had worked for this. He fit the qualifications. So what if Ace just…did it himself? Sneak into the office after hours. Make a couple copies. Ned wouldn’t be happy, but please, Ace didn’t need this job. 

The grin spread over his face. “I might just need to work late one night. The machine needs more testing, certainly.” 

Res repeated this into her phone. 

“Now if only I have a key…” He stared at her pointedly. “A clave.” 

Res gasped and bent over the wall, reaching for her purse. Beaming, she held up a lanyard with a dangling silver keycard. “Una clave!” 

***

Ace glanced at his watch as the doors to the test chamber slid open. He lifted his head to the frosted glass skylight that usually showered the lab with natural light. The lights from the parking lot gave the dome an orange cast. The gleam caught the seams between office windows and the railing of the staircase running directly up to the control room. 

Ace flicked the lights on. The panel ceiling tiles surrounding the skylight five floors above alighted. He turned to find Res staring at the scanning chamber set into the front of the machine. If he didn’t know any better, Ace would have taken the thing for one of those wind tunnels that blows cash or tickets around, save a helmet hung inside it. And Ace wouldn’t be catching tickets, but fame. 

He glanced at the dozen steel compartments attached to the scanner. Each one could knit together an Ace in less than a minute. 

“Well, Res, you ready to get started?” 

He crossed the room, climbing up the staircase. He threw open the door. The constellation of screen savers from the office beyond might have been enough to see by, but with the light shining in from the lab, Ace didn’t even bother trying to find a switch. He went to the control panel—a small podium fitted with gauges and sliders like an audio mixer. Res powered it up and a single monitor slid out. She hunched over the board, running her fingertips gently over the buttons. 

“Alright, what now?” 

Res blinked at him, then vaulted backwards, throwing her hands in the air. “No yo.” 

He rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “Ugh… What do you do in this place anyway? Here, step aside, I’ve got this.” 

Res blinked. 

Ace made a shooing motion and stepped up to the console. He flicked a few switches and adjusted the dials until electricity whirred below. He grinned. 

“Alright.” He glanced at Res’s confused face and wondered why he even bothered. Grabbing his phone out of his pocket, he spoke into it. “You stay here. When I give you the thumbs up, you hit this big red button. Okay?” 

His phone spit out the translation and Res lit up, nodding. 

“Good.” He threw open the door and darted down the stairs. 

The giant helmet hung on the wall inside the scanner. He fitted it to his head and stepped inside the glass tube, sealing the door behind him. 

He shook out his hands, rolling his shoulders, then glanced back to the control room and gave Res a thumbs up. She repeated the action with a dramatic smile, looking at Ace very much like an overjoyed lunatic. She hit the button. 

The chamber lit around Ace’s feet. Energy became tangible, like static on his fingertips. He kept his gaze ahead, feeling the tickle of warm light run up his legs. It shot over his head, the red glow blinding him for a moment, then again as it passed back over. 

The scanner powered down and Ace threw off the helmet as he tripped out the door, whirling to face the cloning chambers. 

Eerie silence. He waited, thinking there might be a delay in the power. 

He spun towards the window. Res shrugged. 

Ace felt his cheeks redden. What had that foolish girl done? 

He stormed back up the stairs to the control room. Res scrambled to get out of the way as he flipped switches, checked gauges, and typed useless commands into the computer. 

He spun on Res. “What did you do?” 

She stepped back, holding her hands over her heart as she poured out desperate foreign words. 

“I should have known better than to think you could do one simple thing.” He stepped forward, poking her collarbone so hard she staggered backwards. “You’re so stupid you can’t even handle the push of a button.” 

“¿Estúpido?” 

“Yes you. You estúpido.” 

Res’s eyes watered. “Eres el estúpido y no sabes hablar español!” She turned her face and tore out into the office. 

Ace shook his head. If nothing else, he finally had some quiet. He folded his arms, staring at the control panel, when a dim, blinking light from the lab caught the corner of his vision. He crossed to the window, head tilting as he peered through two panes of glass. No, not the lab. The light came from the other side of the building. 

Ace took off at a jog, following the light through the office all the way to Ned’s workspace—his computer screen, flashing. 

Ace tugged on the door before remembering it required a keycard. Well, he’d had enough of keycards. 

He threw his elbow into the glass, shattering the door into a million pieces. He stepped through and rounded the desk. Ned’s computer flashed the warning: Duplication sequence initiated. Approve? 

Ace clicked yes, then typed in Ned’s PIN. Below, the machine hummed. The lights flickered overhead. Without recalling how he’d gotten there, Ace blinked and found himself standing before the cloning chambers, his mouth gaping. 

The machine steamed, engines thrumming. The squeak and grind of components echoed through the lab. The chamber doors lurched about an inch inward, blasting steam out of the cracks. The doors rotated to the side, and a dozen Aces in thigh-length lab coats and bright green high-tops stepped out in unison from their hazy chambers like he’d walked into a hall of mirrors. They turned their heads from left to right. 

Ace’s hands shook. He doubled over, screaming at the top of his lungs, “Yes!” He straightened again, running a hand through his hair. “Just wait until everyone sees what I’ve done.” He chuckled. “I’ll have Ned’s job.” 

Like they’d choreographed it, all heads jerked in his direction. 

“You?” one of the clones said. “Why you?” The clone jabbed a thumb into his chest, stepping forward. “I deserve it.” 

The clones bellowed in uproar. A few lunged at their fellow, taking him down in a fury of fists. Limbs bashed and cracked against the floor. The other clones tore pieces from the machine. One smashed the fire extinguisher cabinet, wielding the tank like a weapon. Others picked up the glass itself, callous to the jagged edges biting into their palms, producing a crimson spring. They turned on Ace. 

Ace slowly backpedaled, cringing at the howls of pain. “Look, I’m the original Ace—the first, the best. So the credit is mine. You guys will have your own achievements.” 

“What if I’m first?” 

Ace jumped at the acidy voice; they’d closed in behind him. He swallowed. “You’re not.” 

***

Ace fought heavy eyelids, trying to lift his cheek off the cold floor. Sirens wailed somewhere in the distance—had been for…he didn’t know how long. 

He stretched his arm, hand trembling as he clawed towards the lab door, past clones with bloodied lab coats and glassy eyes. His fingers slipped in the blood gushing from the slits across his hands. The gash in his stomach burned against the tiles. His cold fingers pressed in against his side, but he’d lost the strength to staunch the bleeding. 

His eyes fell closed again and Ace almost let the blackness overtake him before the clamor of footsteps spiked his adrenaline. 

“We’ve got a live one.” 

Ace looked up, finding a woman in a navy uniform, hair smoothed back in a ponytail. 

The woman looked over her shoulder. “I need a stretcher over here!” 

Ace felt a featherlight touch on his shoulder. 

“Sir, can you hear me?” 

“Y…yes.” His eyes drooped. 

“No, no. Sir, you need to stay awake now. Can you do that?” 

Ace nodded. 

“Can you tell me what you remember?” 

“We…attacked him. And then…I had to be the only one.” His eyelids sagged. “Me.” 

The best. The last. 

The world darkened.

J Hulse White

J Hulse White is a first-year apprentice at The Company. She grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, to which she credits her sense of humor, aversion to murky waters, and fondness for perogies. She, of course, loves writing, but in her free time also enjoys board games, slaving over eternally incomplete crafts, and being the passenger princess on sporadic road trips. Learn more about J Hulse White at JHulseWhite.com.