‘Would you like anything
else, sir?’
The
android waiter gave a patented smile. Devon Marsh shook his head,
keeping his revulsion politely hidden. Martyn had no such
peculiarities of taste, ‘What do you have on offer?’
A
new menu came up on their table screen, complete with visuals.
‘Care to join me? It all
goes down as entertainment allowance.’
Devon
gave one of his best vague-but-inoffensive excuses. Martyn's Company
was the best offer he’d had, it wouldn't do to offend him. He’d
already made it obvious that he thought Devon crazy to have given up
his job at Eurotech to work for a laboratory so small that it
couldn’t even afford to do it’s own testing.
Martyn
shrugged, gave him an accustomed look, and turned his attention to
the screen. Devon tried not to look but his eyes kept glancing down
compulsively, searching for her face. In the end he gave up and
looked. Carefully, slowly, all the way down to the very last.
Nothing. He wasn't certain if the cool empty feeling was
disappointment or relief.
As
a young man he'd had his first encounter with a clone prostitute at a
private party. Everyone had laughed at him for trying to chat up a
stunning redhead who'd turned out to be TZ327, a very popular model
in the Entertainment industry. He was to see her face again a hundred
times after that. That had always unnerved him about clones, how the
face on the mortician's slab could turn up again a day later at a
club or a month later in a lab practical. You were certain to find a
variation of it in the Copy shops. The secret clubs where the illegal
copies of copies were peddled at bargain prices to compensate for the
deformities and aberrations which overcopying produced. He'd heard
stories that was the whole attraction, the sales gimmick. He'd never
questioned further. Some things were easier to live with when you
weren't completely certain they were true.
It had taken a while before
world governments had given the go-ahead for comprehensive human
cloning. The world didn't want to wake up and find copies of itself
on every doorstep. The first human clone experiment results were
completely unexpected. Although physically flawless copies of their
‘Blueprint’, the word used for the original donor, they had a
distinct absence. A complete mental and emotional emptiness. They
could follow simple instructions, but that was about all. They showed
no signs of self-awareness or intellectual comprehension. Whilst the
scientific world had been bitterly disappointed the commercial world
had seen the possibilities immediately.
Clones
could take over almost any basic unpleasant job on Earth or
neighbouring space stations. Prostitution, hazardous chemical
factories... the list grew daily. It was only a step from there to
Testing. What better way to prove that your product was safe for
humans than to test it on human clones? The Animal Liberation Front
rejoiced as the religions went into mourning.
It
was finally decided that since being cloned went against so many
ideas on human rights it had to be viewed as something only done to
the lowest forms of humanity. ‘Life with Cloning’ was introduced
as the ultimate punishment for major crimes. such prisoners would
know that out there, whilst they saw out their lives in confinement,
copies of themselves were growing up in clone farms to be sent out as
the world's expendable slaves.
There
followed several decades of verbal protests against clone
experimentation followed by a smaller but more serious wave of
bombings and assassinations. The only surprise had been the negative
reaction of the NARCs. The New Age Reformed Christian Church had
never been known for its strong views, their whole success had been
due to their tolerant progressive Theology. Their concerns about
cloning was the first time they spoke out against anything.
But
all this had ended years before he'd even been born. When he'd chosen
medicine the only person in his family to voice any reservations had
been his grandfather. He could still remember how his grandfather had
been ridiculed for growing sad spindly vegetables in pots along his
unit's window ledge. The family had found it terribly embarrassing -
the shame of a foolish old man trying to grow food in a world that
had existed on synthesised nutrition for twelve decades. It made him
smile now, sitting there waiting for Martyn’s return, was his
refusing to pay for sex just another way of trying to grow your own
tomatoes?
He'd
chosen a life devoted to research, inspired by the horrific outbreak
of Ebola-7 in the last year of his studies. The visuals of people
dying had made him weep yet every day for years he'd deliberately
inflicted the same terrible disease on Lab Clones without feeling a
thing. He'd watched them die from behind the surgical suits and
protective windows, jotting down notes and already thinking ahead of
what he might try the next time.
The
next time.
‘Same place, same face.’
his lab partner, Josh, had liked to joke. They'd be busy putting a
corpse into the incinerator and Josh would look down and say, ‘See
you again tomorrow!’ It had seemed really funny back then.
In
a way he supposed that this had always been inevitable. Small things
adding up. The way the clone children in the section for childhood
diseases made him uneasy with their changeling expressions. He’d
chosen adult research. The faces were just as blank, but he found
that bearable in the adults. Real people weren't much different. Like
those he passed on his way to work each day, all expression worn away
by the dreary routine of worry and boredom. So many empty faces.
Then
She arrived, early in spring. A new clone was always a thing of
interest, they happened so rarely, and she was exceptional. Perfect
features and eyes that almost seemed to hold awareness in their smoky
depths. Nefertiti reborn. Everyone was curious, the cafeteria buzzed
with speculations.
Devon
didn't know quite what to do with the latest addition. There was
something about her that made him edgy, more than just her beauty.
Her customary clone-blank expression seemed serene rather than
deficient. He just could not bring himself to inflict any of the
usual diseases on her, kept putting off the time when he'd have to
sacrifice her to something.
The
rumours began to spread that she wasn't to be found anywhere else.
Usually clones were grown in batches of twenty, so where were the
others? The mystery made her all the more alluring. At times during
the day when the pace was slow he'd go and stand by her window and
watch her. She was no different to the others. She'd sit the whole
day staring at the wall, but with her the effect was eerily
enchanting. Sometimes he'd find himself wondering how he would feel
if she were ever to show recognition, her perfect lips frame an
acknowledging smile.
He
thought about trying to trace her Blueprint, fantasised about their
meeting where everything was perfect by totally illogical means, but
he knew better than to try. The real woman could be old, even dead.
The whole idea was insane, but then so was the way he was starting to
feel for NC763.
She
haunted his thoughts during the daytime and ruled his dreams at
night. He knew it was absurd, he knew it was unethical, but he had no
more power to stop himself than he could stop the moon from rising.
He started to visit her, just to sit or perhaps to talk about his
daily business - as if she were capable of understanding.
People
began to notice. Josh came straight out with it one lunch.
‘You're going to have to get
rid of NC763 before Management get rid of you. Doctors who fall for
their patients are a really old cliché, Devon. It could be funny if
it wasn't a clone. They'll be sending you for psych-evaluation next
if you don't watch it!’
He
had her transferred to block V, where he wouldn't have to chart her
destruction. A section where he had few acquaintances, no-one who
might pass on information he didn't want to hear in casual
conversation. Not that it helped. Each morning he'd stop at the
junction of passages and think that if he turned left instead of
right he'd be directly outside her door.
He
put in a request for leave. It was granted with unusual ease. Three
weeks as far away as he could get, spending every moment doing
something energetic. Trying with all his might to forget why he was
there.
He
was in his room on the last week of his vacation when the story
broke. In an hour he was packed and on a shuttle. One hour more and
he was outside the laboratory forcing his way through a screaming
mob, the usual scavenger crowd.
A
small candle-lit gathering of NARCs wearing black were pressed up
against the steps. He knew why they were there. Their presence filled
him with a terror so great that he could hardly breath, the words
repeating in his head as they had since the moment he’d seen the
news. Don't let it be her. If the NARCs had decided to try an
Ultimate Protest that was their business, just don't let it be her.
But
he knew the answer already in the depth of himself.
No-one
had thought it could go this far. The NARCs and their allies with
their anachronistic concepts had become invisible, beyond ridiculous.
Who believed in God anymore? Who would believe their insane archaic
reasoning that clones were dysfunctional because they had no souls?
The
NARCs had decided to prove that the humanity had become so
desensitised that it couldn’t tell the difference between a real
human being and a soulless clone. A Narc posing as a clone had been
introduced into a laboratory and no-one had suspected a thing. They
had waited until their volunteer’s life was terminal, when there
was no way for the laboratory to apply damage control, before going
to the media with their statement.
He’d
watched Madeleine’s pre-recorded speech a hundred times since then.
So beautiful as she stood, calm and determined, before her fate,
‘People
will call my death a tragedy and waste, but how is it that we all
ignore the deaths of thousands of our reproductions every day? Has
our ability to feel empathy and compassion regressed so far? My death
cannot be a waste if it makes even one person realise that this has
to stop.’
The
world would remember her from that moment, but for him it would
forever be kneeling beside the narrow lab cot whilst the others stood
in silence. Holding her while she struggled to die. Watching her
face.
Later,
when the darkest months were over, he resigned from the lab and began
to pull himself back up into the bleak light of reality. Now he had a
new home on a new continent and the certainty of a clone-less job
before him.
Devon
was relieved to see Martyn returning. It had been a long evening and
he would be glad to get back to the solitude of his unit. On the way
out they noticed a clone-girl standing in the doorway of a
neighbouring club. Behind on the wall, in stark ironic contrast, was
a NARC poster with writing superimposed over Madeleine's face. A
shudder passed over him like a cold autumn breeze, full of the
warnings of winter. Martyn noticed, ‘Damn shame, all the trouble
the NARCs have stirred up.’
Devon
looked away towards the starless city sky, smiled sadly, ‘Yes… a
damned shame.’
----oOo----
copyright the author ~ Michelle Frost
2001
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