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The five clones stood on one side of the glass, horrified young faces fixated on their brother inside the room. They couldn’t hear him; the room was soundproof. But they could see his body twisting in agony, his fingers white as they gripped the side of the bed.
“I can’t watch this,” 9903 said, turning away, his big face screwed up in misery. 9903 was a head taller than even 9904, the next tallest of the group.
“It is possible that we will experience something similar eventually,” goggled 9902 said, his voice clipped and matter-of-fact. “We still have four years before we reach full maturity. That is plenty of time for any negative side effects of our mutations to appear.”
“That’s what makes it worse,” 9901 said. He was the most outwardly normal of the bunch, but his enhanced senses made him unique among the clones of Kamino. “I for one don’t like thinking about how one day I might go mad from being overloaded with sensory input. Do you fancy thinking yourself to death?”
“My increased mental capacity makes that highly unlikely. Though…” 9902 glanced into the room, then readjusted his goggles nervously. “No, you are right.”
“Come on,” gray-haired 9904 muttered. “He wouldn’t want us to see this. Let him die in peace.”
They pried themselves away from the window. They hadn’t gone more than a few meters before 9903 realized they were missing someone. He turned back.
“Hey, Zero-six, you coming?”
The diminutive clone didn’t budge. He stared in horror through the glass, hands rubbing the thick red sores covering his arms.
9901 and 9902 exchanged a glance as 9903 lumbered over to the youngest clone and put his arm around the boy.
“I’m surprised they let him stay with us so long,” 9901 murmured. He tried to ignore 9903’s gentle words to the small boy, but with his improved hearing, he had to keep talking to drown out the words. “They took Zero-eight a year ago, and his condition wasn’t nearly as severe as Zero-six’s.”
9902 shrugged. “Since his mutation allows him to regenerate tissue at abnormally high rates, they may be waiting to see if his body self-corrects the problem.”
“Do you think it will?”
9902 shook his head. “It seems to be an immune overreaction. His regenerative ability is tearing his body apart. Everything I’ve read regarding similar disorders is, well, disheartening to say the least.”
9903 finally led the sick clone away from the window and back to the others.
They made their way down to the mess, where they sat apart from the other clones at a separate table.
From the table nearby, they heard snickering.
“Problem?” 9904 sneered.
The other clones wiped the smiles off their faces, instead adopting an air of mock seriousness.
“Oh, no, not at all,” one of the said. “It’s no problem at all for me. I love watching the bad batch parade through the mess like a bunch of circus-performers. Look at that kid. He’s obviously too sick to fight.”
9906 cowered in his seat, trying to hide behind the other 99s.
“What I don’t get is why they even bother with you,” another of the regs said. “None of you will even be competent soldiers with all your mutations.”
9904 growled as he picked up a roll and hefted it, calculating its weight and the trajectory capable of hitting the largest number of regs at the other table.
9901 leaned across the table and put a hand on his brother’s arm. “Not today, Zero-four.”
Reluctantly, the young sniper set the roll down and settled back into his seat, shooting one last lethal glare at the other table.
“Tomorrow?”
9901 rolled his eyes. “Maybe they won’t heckle us tomorrow.”
“Oh, they will,” 9902 said, sparing a moment to glance up from his datapad and glare at the other table. “They always do.”
“We’ll deal with that tomorrow, then,” 9901 said. “We have enough to deal with today. The last thing we need is for one of us to end up in confinement for bad behavior too.”
The others muttered their agreement and went back to eating, though 9904 still kept one narrowed eye on the other table. The gray-haired boy was always wary, always suspicious. 9901 often wondered if the sniper’s sour disposition was a side-effect of his mutation.
9901 looked across the table and noticed that 9903 was absently stirring his food with a utensil. That wasn’t a good sign. The big clone was always hungry.
“You’re not touching your food, Zero-three,” 9901 said.
The big clone sighed. “He doesn’t even have a name.”
“Who?”
“9905.”
“Neither do we,” 9902 pointed out between mouthfuls. He looked up from his datapad. “I do not feel as though we are at any disadvantage.”
9904 rolled his eyes. “Not everyone wants to be just another number in a sea of numbers.”
9903 finally ripped his roll apart and stuffed it in his mouth. He swallowed. “Yeah. The regs pick out names for themselves. We’re supposed to be special, and we don’t even have names.”
For the first time that day, 9906 spoke. He still hugged himself, trying to cover the red patches on his arms. “If we give each other names, it’ll hurt that much more when one of us dies,” he pointed out.
9901 folded his arms over his chest. “Maybe. But it also gives our deaths more meaning, right?”
9902 arched a skeptical eyebrow over his goggles but didn’t take his eyes off the datapad. “We are the same people regardless of the name by which we are called.”
9903 snorted. “We’re people, not machines. Some of us care about what we’re called.”
9902 opened his mouth to make a retort, but 9904 jumped in before his hyper-logical brother could. “I think I’d like to be called Crosshair.”
“Like the crosshair on your scope?” 9903 said, whacking the thin sniper on the back. “I like it!”
9901 smirked. “You've been waiting for this, haven’t you? Had that name ready to go.”
Crosshair’s lips twitched upward in a ghost of a smile. “Don’t tell me you haven’t got one for yourself.”
“Hunter,” 9901 admitted. He turned to 9906.
“I’m not picking a name,” the boy said, turning his head away and frowning.
“And neither shall I,” 9902 said. He returned his attention to the datapad.
A glint appeared in Crosshair’s eye. He loved a challenge, and 9902’s weakness for a well-reasoned argument was irresistible to the clever young sniper.
Crosshair leaned forward. “In the heat of battle, it is more efficient to be referred to by a shorter name than a five-syllable number, is it not?”
Grudgingly, 9902 muttered, “I suppose.”
“Efficiency in battle could make the difference between life and death, could it not?”
“It could.” 9902 sighed and set the datapad down beside his tray. “What name do you propose, then?”
“Tech,” Hunter said, tapping the boy’s datapad. “Since you’re always fiddling with something.”
Tech sighed, bowing to Crosshair’s unrelenting logic. “Fine. But that means 9906 needs a name too.”
9906 suddenly stood up and stormed away.
9903 made to get up, but Crosshair set a hand on the bigger clone’s forearm. “Let him go. Besides, you need a name too, Zero-three.”
9903 winced. “I…uh…I dunno. You guys have such cool names, but I…I’m just clumsy. I just wreck stuff.”
“One day, you will wreck the enemy,” Tech pointed out. “Hm. I rather like that thought. How about Wrecker?”
Wrecker’s big face split into a grin. “I rather like it too. Wrecker.”
A moment later, Nala Se appeared at the edge of their table, her face drawn and tired.
“Unfortunately, CT-9905 will not be able to return to your squad.”
The boys’ grins melted.
“Is he dead?” Tech asked.
Nala Se blinked slowly. “No. But he has sustained enough damage that he is unable to continue his training.”
“What will happen to him?” Hunter asked.
“We will find another use for him in the city,” Nala Se said.
The Kaminoan woman left them, gliding away.
“You were right, Hunter,” Wrecker said softly. “Even though he’s still alive, he’s gone, and it just doesn’t feel right for him to not have a name.”
“Then let’s give him a name,” Crosshair said.
“He won’t ever know it,” Tech pointed out. “I doubt we will ever see him again.”
Hunter shrugged. “I’m sure I can track him down and tell him.”
The boys all nodded in agreement.
“Well,” Wrecker said, “he was really fast. Always overheating because of it.”
“Indeed,” Tech said. “That is most likely what caused the damage.”
The boys fell silent, remembering just half an hour ago when they’d been running drills. 9905 had gotten angry at Crosshair and in his desire to beat the young sniper, had pushed himself too hard. The memory of his flushed face and glassy eyes as he lay on the floor panting as medical droids clustered about him, was one they would not soon forget.
Hunter heard the crack of thunder overhead.
“Lightning?” he offered.
“Here one minute, gone the next,” Crosshair said quietly. “Just like him.”
The others nodded.
“Lightning it is, then,” Hunter said.
Tech said, “9906 can be Patches.”
At his brothers’ questioning look, he said, “He cannot be the only one without a name. He is one of us, after all, even if he tries not to be.”
Wrecker stood suddenly. “We should go find him and make sure he’s okay.”
They tossed their uneaten food in the incinerator and left. They found Patches in the barracks in his sleeping pod, sobbing.
“Leave me alone,” he said and swiped at the switch that would trigger the system that would pull the pod back into the wall.
Wrecker blocked the boy’s spotted hand. “Nope. Not today.”
They all clambered up to sit on the bunk, which groaned under their collective weight.
“We have decided to adopt names,” Tech informed the boy. “I am Tech, he’s Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair. You are Patches.”
The boy Patches pulled his thin blanket over his head. “Great. My nickname is making fun of me,” he mumbled.
Tech adjusted his goggles nervously. “That was not my intention. I thought it appropriate considering your mutation allows you to heal quickly, as though you have built-in med-patches.”
Hunter looked skeptically at Tech, but knew the intellectually-enhanced boy probably was telling the truth. His mind worked in odd ways sometimes.
To Hunter’s surprise, Patches emerged out from under the blanket. He looked at Tech. Apparently he’d come to the same conclusion as Hunter. “Really?”
Tech’s head bobbed up and down earnestly.
Patches let a shy smile sneak onto his face. Beside him, Wrecker wrapped the boy in one oversized arm.
“We’re not just a team. We’re a family,” the big clone said with a grin. “We’re all that’s left of us 99s. And we’re all making it out of here alive. Even you, Patches.”
Crosshair said, “We need a unit name, like Commander Wolffe’s Wolfpack.”
Patch’s smirked. “Well, we are a bad batch of clones, so why don’t we use that? Own it, right? That way no one can ever use it against us again.”
The sting of the reg’s words in the mess flitted through each of their minds, twisting painfully as it did every time someone reminded them how out of place they were in an army of a million identical faces.
Hunter put a hand on Tech’s shoulder to calm the fidgeting clone. “I like it. The Bad Batch. The best clones Kamino has ever produced.”
“Yeah!” Wrecker yelled, bouncing on the bed a bit.
The bunk jolted and groaned. All five boys’ eyes went wide.
“Wrecker! Stop!”
“Sorry.”
But it was too late. The bunk leaned downwards, pulled by the jealous force of gravity. They scrambled off the pod as fast as they could.
A second later, the pod crashed to the ground with a metallic crunch.
When the clone on barracks duty came to investigate a moment later, he found the five youngsters hiding behind the remnants of the bunk, hands over their mouths to stifle their laughter and embarrassment.
“Sorry, Hunter,” Wrecker mumbled. “Got us in trouble again.”
Hunter smirked. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from the Bad Batch. At least we’re in trouble together.”