Number 900 found Morto. He was directly over Morto watching him rest. The cyborg took out the electric charged spiked rod and held it, unwavering over the human.

Number 900: “You’re only mortal, Morto.”

He drove the spike down towards Morto’s heart, but surprisingly Morto was suddenly active and he dodged the rod.

Morto: “And you’re only numbers and figures!” Morto swung a heavy metal piece of scrap metal under Number 900’s knees, and cut the cyborg’s bionic legs off.

Number 900 caught himself with his sturdy arms and shot back at Morto with a hefty head-butt. Morto’s lip cut open and human blood poured everywhere. Number 900 beat Morto’s shoulder and the ligament could be heard snapping. Morto face planted onto the cold wet floor. Number 900 picked up his electric charged rod again and held it in front of Morto’s face.

Number 900: “Technology prevails.” The cyborg’s red eye seemed to wink at Morto. The red eye, suddenly was looking at Morto from the floor. M. Model 74 held onto a metal bar he had broken off from the window. He lofted the cyborg’s headless body outside into the mud and let the rain pound it into the earth.

“I want to leave,” said the clone.

“I’ll leave with you,” said the human.

But suddenly Morto laid eyes upon the corpse of the old man that had tried to help him in the flood. He wanted to know the man’s last wishes, to know where he would have wanted to end up at the end of his days…maybe even know his name. The clone seemed to read his thoughts, but interpreted it differently. “We need to get rid of the body, we can’t have anything relate to us.”

Fingerprints, DNA samples, all that mumbo jumbo could, yes, be figured out by Dracu’s robots…and cyborgs. Out of anger Moto punted Number 900’s head against the hard cement wall and listened to the machinery crack and sputter fragments.

“And what do you think we should do with the body?” Morto asked, head down and withdrawn.

“We can cremate it…there’s a factory I passed earlier when I was dragging a very pitiful sight.”

Morto looked up. “What?”

A sudden wave of silence passed through the room.

Morto bent his head again towards the floor. There, everywhere, were scattered remains of M. Model 73. Morto realized that scrap of metal he had used to sever the cyborg’s legs had been one of his fellow clone’s…and friend’s...limbs.

“Damn you,” Morto managed to say through gritted teeth.

“What was that?”

“Damn everything that kills…”

“Are you talking about me?”

“…Damn everything that murders!” Morto suddenly ran at M. Model 74 and he collided with him and kept running until they both plummeted outside into the rain and mud. Morto kept bashing M. Model 74 in the metallic skull with his fists. His fists were bleeding all over the clone’s face.

The clone closed his false eyelids and smiled, showing his false teeth. He let his false body absorb the rain and the rage from the human. His life now had meaning.

Morto looked up, an iron net scattered across his body and he was instantly entangled in the mesh. M. Model got quickly to his feet and tried to peel the net off Morto, but the clone soon had one on him himself. Together they fought to free their bodies and secure their minds…as the rain poured.

A man with a large brimmed hat and large brown overcoat stepped into a streetlight. He had twenty or so men behind him, fully armed, and fully anticipating action. The man spoke, his voice cut through the rain like a slung blade.

“Morto, stand up.”

Morto and the clone both stood up.

“One of you get down. Or we’ll shoot you both dead. I want to see Morto. I’ll talk to the other later.”

Morto and M. Model 74 looked at each other through the net, and Morto nodded and the other finally submitted and went to the ground.

The man with the hat smiled. “Morto, it’s so good to see you.”

Morto spit out some blood to clear his mouth. “Rex Malcolm, the pleasure is all yours.”

Rex continued smiling as he stepped forward. “I know.” He finally stood in front of Morto, and they both looked at each other face to face. “You always seem to pop into my business.”

“And what’s your business today?”

“I need to barrow your clone.”

“You can have him, you can destroy him.”

Rex’s smile went sly. “No, because if I did that, that would defeat the purpose of my business.”

“Explain it to me.”

“We’ll talk in my ship.”

Rex’s ship rocked in the reoccurring winds in the harbor just outside the boundaries of the city.

“You don’t trust the shipyards?”

Morto sat in a metal chair surrounded by Rex’s men. M. Model 74 was held in another room, the door was locked and bolted.

“You know I wouldn’t risk my men and I so willingly. By God, it would be like waving a piece of meat out to a beggar.”

“So you’ve been on Dracu’s hit list for awhile?”

“As soon as he learned my name, which I reckon was during the schooling experiments in Washington. You remember that don’t you?”

Morto didn’t say anything.

Rex swallowed a glass of alcohol from a shot glass and slammed it down hard on the dashboard. “How bout you, is Dracu on your ass?”

“For a while…but you know that.”

“Yes, bout four years I reckon…Laboratory 9! That was fun I remember. You were sorely pathetic! So much fun.”

“For you.”

“Yes, for me.”

Morto tried to stand but Rex’s men pushed him back down onto the chair. “I’d like you to get to your point, if you have one.”

Rex smiled and leaned forward so he was face to face with Morto. “Yes, I have one.” His smile suddenly faded and he looked grim. “Bring out the clone, and for God’s sake be easier on him. Anything happens to him and you’ll all pay the price in blood!”

Hesitantly a group of men went over to the locked door that held the clone. One of the men swallowed, then quickly slung the door open. But M. Model 74 came out quietly, his face stone.

“Bring it out!” called Rex to one of his onboard scientists, who quickly scrambled into something and came back wielding a hefty piece of machinery that looked like a glass bee. The scientists grinned ungainly. Sweat poured down his pudgy face.

“Rex, are you sure you want to risk it?”

“We’ve tested it out enough, it is sure to work!”

“But all the others died, this is the last one!”

“If it doesn’t work, than by God we’re bound to find more like him.”

“And if they abandon the cloning operations?”

Rex arose from his spot and eyeballed the scientist intensely. “How about this, if he dies, I’m throwing you off the ship, and it won’t be on the dock.”

The scientist’s legs almost crumpled out of fear, but he held himself together: he was holding something very precious, something he wouldn’t dare drop—especially in front of Rex.

“Get on with it,” Rex barked, and all of a sudden the whole ship became silent. Even the passing winds seemed not to thrash as hard. Everyone and everything awaited what it didn’t know, and couldn’t understand.

“It’s simple,” said Rex strolling in front of M. Model 74, who was held tightly by four men. “You put the machine to the clone’s head. The machine traces the origins of the material back to where it was originally manufactured. Back to the production yard, the headquarters of all those robotic pieces of shit…back to Dracu. By God that is where he will be. I feel it in my bones.”

Morto stared curiously at Rex. Could that crazy bastard be right?

Rex read Morto’s thoughts. “We have only to hope.”

Morto nodded. “Yes, but I’ll pray.”

“Do it: it might make all the difference.” Rex turned to face M. Model 74. “Will he let us? He seems subtle.”

Morto got up, Rex’s men let him. Morto walked to the clone and stood in front of him. It was true: the clone’s eyes were strange. “Can we?”

The clone seemed to twitch by this question. “Earlier I thought I figured out my meaning. It was to save you…for a reason I don’t know. I thought that was enough…and that afterward I could die quietly.”

Rex, his men, the scientist, and Morto all held themselves breathless as they waited in the clone’s pause.

The clone looked up at Morto and smiled, and Morto actually saw that the smile seemed pleasant. “If I am destroyed in this experiment, I will be pleased. If not, I’ll go on and see what else I have to do on this earth.”

Rex pushed Morto aside and cleared the way for the scientist holding the machine. Everyone could hear the scientist tremble holding the object; the rattle drew even M. Model 74’s attention. “Enough with your fear human, let it all fly!”

Rex, as if moved by this demand, grabbed the machine from the scientist and started to set it to operation. “By God, you robot of the devil, we’ll let it fly!”

The pilot started the engine and the ship briefly hovered then took off. The power from the engine radiated energy that the machine needed. Together the engine, that mysterious machine, and Rex braced themselves and began to light.

“Look at that…” whispered one of the men.

“It’s so bright,” said the scientist throwing on thick dark glasses.

“God…let this work!” prayed Morto, covering his eyes and slipping and gliding across the floor to impact the wall.

Rex was holding the machine; it was radiating so much light! He squinted, and despite his retina frying, his flesh melting, he wanted to see everything that was taking place. Dracu, here I come!

Suddenly the ship and the machine began working in unisense. They were powering each other now, but the machine guided the entire operation.

“I can’t steer!” declared the pilot, yelling on the top of his lungs.

Rex grinned. He knew it was working.

“Rex!” yelled Morto.

The rebel captain paid no head.

“Rex!”

He could smell his flesh singeing on the baking glass. Lights, lights! Swirling, dancing! The brilliance!

The pilot came into view and he was trembling. “I don’t know where the ship is going!”

Rex: “I do!”

Suddenly the ship, flying at lightning speed, suddenly halted—abruptly.

Morto, who had just managed to amble to his feet during the flight, found himself elevated in mid-air. He hovered for what seemed like an eternity at a tremendous velocity, until he finally collided with the far windshield. Or he thought he collided with it, but in truth he had his eyes tightly shut because he didn’t want to witness his own demise.

M. Model 74 had him tight. The clone had caught him, as if by shear effortless mobility, before the gruesome impact.

When Morto opened his eyes, he saw a very grotesque view. All of Rex’s men had, in that abrupt stop, literally catapulted into oblivion and shattered their bodies all around the interior of the ship, and out windows.

M. Model 74 let Morto walk on his own. The human seemed even more jolted by seeing all the human deaths than by the experience of almost having his own. “At least,” said the clone, trying his best to be sympathetic, “at least they haven’t started to smell yet.”

Morto glared at the clone, and he was about to unleash some anger upon him until a groan from a pile of corpses stopped him in his tracks.

M. Model 74 nodded. “Yes, I heard it.”

Morto and the clone went to the heap and began peeling through it. There, in the middle of it, was Rex, with his head bleeding and hands still omitting a strong scent. “Is the scientist alive?” said Rex. “Because he’s a doctor as well.”

The clone bent down to the man and confirmed that he wasn’t.

“Damn, I kind of liked that son of bitch…Here, help me up.”

Rex’s body shuddered as Morto lifted him. But when he turned to Morto, Morto saw he didn’t have the look of a dying man. His eyes still had the fire!

Rex put a heavy hand on Morto’s shoulder. “My crew is dead, isn’t it?”

M. Model 74 was about to say something, but the clone had the intuition that the man already knew the answer.

Rex continued: “We’ve got to do this on our own now,” he turned to the clone, then back to Morto. “All of us!”

In the dirty city of the Reunion, Leopard finally found his contact. The small man with a turban held up a piece of paper. “The coordinates.”

Leopard narrowed his eyes and grabbed the man by the collar of his blue robe. “Are they right?”

The man pushed himself off of Leopard. “Would I be here if they weren’t?”

Leopard waved the paper in his hands and a bead of sweat slowly rolled off his forehead. “Look at me in the eyes and say: This is where I will find Dracu.”

The man leaned his little body forward and looked Leopard straight in the eyes; his fowl breath wafted into Leopard’s face, but Leopard didn’t notice. “Follow these coordinates, and you will find Dracu!”

For the first time since Leopard could remember, he felt complete joy. The little man waddled away to go outside the alley—where people busied themselves buying, selling, and thieving. But in the alley, Leopard bent to his knees and began to cry.