Tool

Chapter Five

Bounding back up the stairs, she shouted for Jonathon. He appeared almost immediately from one of the doors down the corridor.

"Didn't I tell you to get the sec Worker to escort you?" he said shortly.

"Call the search off," she said, her breath coming in deep gasps. "There's no one here."

"How do you know?" His face was suddenly worried.

"It wasn't someone coming in that triggered the alarms; it was someone going out." She tried to control her breaths, steadily breathing in and out.

Jonathon grabbed her by the shoulders. "What are you talking about?"

For a moment she thought he was going to shake her. Then she realized she probably sounded crazy. "It's Nicholas. He's gone. Escaped. Get the security holo-vid."

It wasn't until Jonathon saw the video that he actually called the search off. There was Nicholas, very clearly dressed in the blue tech Worker uniform that Aurelia had brought him, pushing through the barrier around the property. Aurelia watched him spare a glance at the control box mounted close to the boundary, then look down at his wrists, still bandaged, and obviously decide there was nothing he could do to stop the alarm system. Then he took the barrier at a run.

"But why?" Jonathon asked, as he watched the holo-vid again. "I don't understand why he'd bust out of here when we were about to get him to safety."

Aurelia sat next to him. "Neither do I," she admitted. "I know he wasn't exactly excited to leave Lunar, but when I spoke to him, he said he knew it was the right thing to do. Stay alive first and plan for the future second is how he put it."

Jonathon put his hand on her leg. "Aurelia, you're not going to like it, but I've got to report this."

"No," she responded immediately. "I'll find him."

He shook his head, his deep blue eyes sad. "I know how much Nicholas means to you, but I don't have a choice. Think of things from my point of view. Nicholas knows a lot, more or less everything. He's out there with information, and chances are he decided his best plan of survival is to turn me in for being in the resistance, rather than rely on us to keep him safe."

Aurelia sat up straighter. "He would never do that."

"But it looks exactly what he has done. If I report him as escaped, then any story he tells will likely be viewed as an attempt to save his own skin, and the resistance will be untouched. If I don't, then who knows what he's going to do with his knowledge? I have to, Aurelia."

"You don't have to. You're Jonathon Hansen, remember? You don't have to do anything." But deep down, she knew that he did.

She felt like a child and wanted to scream at the unfairness of it all. Jonathon was going to report Nicholas, and then he would be injected. End of story. Unless . . . unless she could find him first. She was absolutely and completely certain that Nicholas had no intention of damaging either of them. Her, because he loved her still, and Jonathon because he was the clone's only chance at getting equality. Sure, Jonathon hadn't agreed to help Nicholas yet, but he had agreed to consider the matter, and as far as Aurelia knew he was Nicholas's best shot at getting taken seriously. No, whatever the reason Nicholas had gone, it wasn't to betray them.

"Aurelia, I'm sorry," Jonathon was saying, softly. "I really am. I never want to hurt you, and I know how much this will."

Aurelia shrugged. "Fine," she snapped. "Do what you have to do, but that's not going to stop me trying to find him myself."

Before Jonathon could react, she was standing. She heard him shout her name as she walked out of the room and down the corridor towards the front door. But neither he nor the sec Workers tried to stop her leaving.