The Recarn Chronicles- Omnibus Edition

by Greg Krojac

  Michelle had never heard Zafar swear before. Not once. This was a Zafar that she had never seen.

  “Plus we’d be killing millions of innocent people, people who have done nothing wrong, just because they have a mutation. That would be wrong. The only way to get rid of Recarns is to NOT kill them but change the physiology of their brains. We know where the problem lies. Their brains have mutated, the part of the brain that deals with memories. Most of us don’t have this mutation. Our memories act like the RAM memory in a computer. It’s wiped clean when we’ve finished using it. We die. We reincarnate. Of course we do. But we start again with no memories, ready to learn and experience new things. Occasionally a small residual memory may slip through – think déjà-vu – but it’s nothing to worry about. So we need another solution. And that’s where the Product comes in.

  “We need a way to switch off the gene that creates and maintains the mutation, but we need it now. That’s where the clones come in. Thanks to the advances in cloning that the Illuminati made we can create a never ending line of subjects for experimentation. And, remember, the donors are all volunteers.”

  “And they’re all Recarns?”

  “Some have to be. But some aren’t. We have to ensure that the Product only does what we want it to. 95% of people aren’t Recarns and we need to make sure that there are no adverse effects that will harm or even kill off the very people that we’re trying to help.”

  What she was hearing didn’t sit too well with Michelle, but she said nothing. She believed that clones were people too. She had said as much to her sister, when Caitlin had voiced her prejudices against human clones, considering them to be no more than organic robots. It certainly didn’t seem right to be breeding clones for experimentation. Zafar kept talking about the Product. What was the Product?

  “What exactly is the Product, Zafar?”

  “The Product is a virus, a virus that will destroy that part of the brain that stores past memories. We have to be sure of many things. We have to be certain that it targets only the specific part of the brain that we want it to. We have to be certain that it doesn’t kill Recarns. We have to be certain that it doesn’t kill non Recarns either. We’re not mass murderers.”

  “But clones need souls.”

  “We get souls from terminally ill patients. They’re desperate to help us. They want to be rid of their pain and suffering and start a new life, both Recarns and non Recarns. There are Recarns who see their ‘gift’ as a curse. Imagine that you had suffered continual pain during your life or died a horrific death. Imagine being unable to forget. Imagine not being able to erase the memory of what happened to you in another life.”

  Michelle knew that One Life had soul transference technology; they’d used it on Marcus when they had transferred his soul to one of the twins that Janice Hillary had been carrying in her womb. But it didn’t feel right. One Life was supposed to be the good guy, and here they were doing exactly the same thing that the Illuminati had done.

  “I can see you’re struggling to come to grips with all this, Michelle. It’s a lot to take in. But it’s for the best.”

  Michelle said little more, whilst Zafar showed her the rest of the operation. She saw the cloning process, from start to finish, she saw the research biologists creating various strains of the virus in their laboratories, she saw the viruses being applied to the adult clones and their responses to the exposure being monitored and recorded. It really was a lot to absorb. Zafar was talking about biological warfare. But biological warfare could never be right, could it? History was littered with examples, examples that had horrified later generations; the use of smallpox against Native Americans, the use of bubonic plague by the Japanese in World War Two, and the use of anthrax as a terrorist weapon to name but a few. Surely biological warfare was always wrong. It had to be. Didn’t it? But if Zafar was right, and nobody would be harmed, nobody would suffer pain, nobody would die because of it, was it necessarily wrong just because it could be labelled a biological weapon?

  One thing that she hadn’t considered until she was faced with the visual evidence was that testing on children would be necessary. One Life scientists had perfected the manipulation of the growth hormones and could arrest or accelerate growth at will. Michelle witnessed experiments being performed on clones of all ages, from newly created babies to visually elderly men and women, who had the physical appearance of people who had lived for decades and experienced joy and sadness in their lives but were, in reality, only a matter of weeks old and had experienced neither of these things.

  Seeing the baby and child clones being experimented upon had upset her. The clones were being treated like objects, like commodities or assets. They had no names – they were assigned product numbers – but they were people. Clones were people. And, as people, they surely deserved basic human rights.

  Michelle was torn. She had been a member of One Life ever since her father had returned home and taken his family under the protective wing of the resistance organisation. She had a loyalty to One Life, and her sister and her father owed their lives to Douglas. One Life had been good to her family.

  She wondered why she had been shown all this. Why her? She wished that she hadn’t seen it, that she didn’t know about the Product. She wished that she could forget what she had seen and been told.

  But she couldn’t.

  She suddenly found herself remembering something that her father had told her. They had been watching an old science fiction movie together, ‘The Wrath of Khan’, in which an alien crew member, Spock, had uttered what became the immortal lines “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Her father had turned to her and said, “Remember that. One day you may need to make a tough decision. This may help you make the right one.”

  Now was the time to make that decision. Recarns made up only 5% of the world’s population. They were the few. Normal people made up the other 95%. They were the many. Obviously. Of course, not all Recarns were bad, most were good people, but those that were bad were the ones that controlled the planet’s governments and reigned over the world’s population with an iron fist. Nobody would be hurt, not even Recarns. They would simply have an undesirable mutation stripped away from them.

  It had to be better than killing them, didn’t it? And that would be pretty pointless anyway. Experience had taught her that.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  16:07 THURSDAY 18 MARCH 2077

  Nobody in their right mind would choose to hide out in the sewers. But when you have hundreds of highly trained and ruthless Defenders looking for you on the surface, there are not a lot of choices. Put your head above the parapet – or in this case, out of a manhole cover – and you risk having it blown off.

  The four fugitives had tried to hide out in various ‘safe’ houses, but the intensity of the manhunt was so great that they had only narrowly avoided being caught. To remain on the surface had become far too dangerous and the group had been forced to sacrifice daylight and fresh air for the darkness and putrid stench of the labyrinth of drainage tunnels that criss-crossed the city. Technology had come on in leaps and bounds but still nothing had replaced the sewers.

  Rebecca gagged as a fresh turd floated past. She hauled her feet even further away from the river of excrement that ran alongside the thin shelf that she was precariously perched upon, drawing her knees to her chest.

  “I can’t take this for much longer. I feel like puking. We’ve only been down here for a few days now. What food we have is running out, the batteries on our torches are almost dead. This isn’t living, this is more like camping out by the River Styx.”

  Liam was surprised at this reference.

  “How do you know about the River Styx? You’re seven years old.”

  “I read books, dipstick. I’m a very good reader. I’ve been reading for almost as long as I could talk. I’m precocious. If you know what that means.”

  She was right though. If anything came close to
representing the myth that was Hell, then spending a week underground, breathing in the noxious fumes of human waste and almost tasting the nauseating stench of rotting faeces, had to be it.

  They had ransacked a local supermarket before finding refuge in the bowels of the city’s sanitation system, scooping tins of food and bottles of water into their backpacks. Jazza had wanted to steal some beer but the others vetoed that, on the grounds that they all needed to stay alert. They were now down to their last tins of food; a tin of baked beans and a tin of alphabeti spaghetti. Fortunately, Liam had had the forethought to steal three tin openers and half a dozen packs of plastic spoons. Connor had wanted metal spoons – he liked the tangy taste of the metal on his tongue, but when confronted with the problem of cleaning the cutlery in a closed environment of piss and shit, he quickly changed his mind.

  Connor returned from a spot about one hundred yards away, just beyond a curve, that had been designated the group’s toilet. There was nothing there, but at least the children could do what nature demanded away from prying eyes. The current took the new waste downstream, away from them, so they didn’t have to acknowledge that they were adding to the disgusting soup that ran alongside them.

  Rebecca had had enough.

  “We’ve got no choice. We have to go outside tonight. We need more food and water and, more importantly, some bloody fresh air.”

  The other children agreed. They needed to escape their hellhole, at least for a while. Connor made a suggestion.

  “I think we should all go together, you know, like musketeers, all for one and one for all.”

  Jazza wasn’t so sure.

  “Don’t you think it would be better for a couple of us to go on a supply run, and the other two to wait here?”

  Rebecca interrupted.

  “And I bet that you’d be one of those two who gets to go outside, wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, it makes sense. I’m bigger than you lot. I can carry more.”

  Liam nipped the argument in the bud.

  “We’re all going. Rebecca’s right. We do need a breather. We need to stick together.”

  Liam trusted his brother implicitly but he couldn’t be so sure of the other two. Yes, Jazz was a Recarn and, in a past life, had been a colleague and associate of Thomas McCall, but he had never completely trusted him then either. And as for Rebecca, what did they really know about her? She had a vicious streak and swore a lot. That was all. He couldn’t be certain that, once outside their smelly prison, they wouldn’t abandon the two who had been left behind. And what if they were captured or killed? The two who were left in the sewer would still have no food or fresh water, and their torches would soon run out of energy and leave them in pitch darkness. Considering the conditions that they had suffered during the past few days, zero visibility could perhaps be a blessing in disguise. But it wouldn’t hide the stench.

  No, they would all go outside together.

  Visually, they had no way of knowing if it was night or day outside. Time had become an abstract construct with nothing to relate it to. Bereft of sensory clues, the four would have had no way to make sense of the passage of time, had Rebecca not had the presence of mind to steal a wristwatch from one of the dead Defenders back at her grandfather’s house. She took the wristwatch out of her pocket; she had to keep it there as the strap was far too loose to fit her seven year old wrist.

  “It’ll be dark in a couple of hours. That’s when we should move.”

  The wait for darkness outside seemed to last an age. It wasn’t helped by the continual requests for time checks.

  Finally, after waiting longer than the two hours that she had stated earlier, Rebecca felt confident that it was dark outside. The four gathered underneath the nearest manhole cover. Liam shone his torch over to where they had been sitting.

  “Whose backpack is that?”

  Jazz half-heartedly raised his hand.

  “The rats got to it. There’s a chunk missing at the bottom.”

  “OK. Can’t be helped, I suppose. We’ll just have to grab another one outside. Let’s get this bloody manhole cover open.”

  The cover rose a little and slowly turned to the right. Then, four sets of eyes became visible as the children scanned the surrounding area for signs of life. The sewer where they had remained hidden was tucked behind a warehouse on a small industrial park, and the workers had all gone home for the night. Nobody was around.

  Conner tugged on the sleeve of his brother.

  “Can you see any security staff or cameras?”

  Liam pointed at the buildings and the warehouse equipment.

  “See what bad condition they’re in? This place is on its last legs. They don’t have the money for security staff or even cameras. This stuff is so decrepit nobody would nick it.”

  “I hope you’re right. I’m still going to be extra alert.”

  “We should all do that. It goes without saying.”

  The manhole cover was hoisted completely clear of its seating and pushed rather noisily to one side. The four youngsters clambered out from their refuge and took large gulps of fresh air, interlaced with diesel fumes, as they stretched their stiffened limbs. Once sufficiently recovered they made their way to the perimeter fence, hunting for a weak point. To leave by the main gate would have been too dangerous. They had to be vigilant; a week had passed but there was no way that they were not still being hunted. Jazz hissed at Liam.

  “We’re in luck. Looks like someone cut their way into this place sometime and the warehouse owners never bothered to repair the opening. I’ll just fold over the sharp bits of the hole and we can climb through.”

  Jazz organised the break in the fence and the group scurried towards freedom. Rebecca sniffed the air.

  “I need a shower. I stink. And so do you lot.”

  There was no denying that, although they had physically left the confines of the sewer, the stench had accompanied them outside. It was trapped in the pores of their skin and the fibres of their clothes. Rebecca had an idea.

  “Look. There’s a small shopping precinct next door to this place. My sister works in a shop there. We can probably find some clothes to change into there.”

  The larger shopping malls were open seven days a week, until late evening, but Hodgeson Road shopping mall contained only about a dozen shops and it didn’t open on Sundays. The boys followed her to the shopping mall and they all tucked themselves behind a large wheelie-bin. Rebecca suddenly ran to the back door of a nearby shop. Jazz was about to call after her, but he felt the palm of Liam’s hand across his mouth, stifling any shout. Liam whispered in his ear.

  “Don’t make a noise. We don’t want to attract attention.”

  When Jazz was free to speak again, he pointed towards where Rebecca had run to and hissed at Liam.

  “What does she think she’s doing, running off like that?”

  “Shhhhh! A sound can be heard from any direction. To see us, someone would have to be looking in our direction. And there’s nobody around. It’s dead here. But, even so, we still can’t take any chances.”

  Jazz didn’t argue. Liam was right; it was quite obvious really. Suddenly, Rebecca reappeared carrying a large bin bag. Connor was intrigued.

  “What the hell have you got there, girl?”

  “Call me girl again and I’ll kick you in the nuts so hard that you’ll be coughing bits of them up for the following week.”

  “Sorry. What have you got, Rebecca?”

  “Clothes. I have no idea what they look like. My older sister works in that children’s boutique three doors along. On Saturdays. On the second Saturday of each month, they put what they call ‘seconds’, that’s clothes that have something wrong with them, clothes that they can’t sell in the shop, they put them outside in a black plastic bag for collection by a charity. Well, we’re tonight’s charity.”

  “Let’s have a look then.”

  Rebecca unfastened the string that was holding the bag closed, tipped it up and let
the contents fall to the ground between the four children. They sifted through a veritable goldmine of imperfect clothing pulling out six pairs of jeans; four pairs of boy’s jeans and two pairs of feminine cut. Jazz held up a pair of boy’s jeans and a pair of girl’s jeans.

  “What’s the difference then? They both look the same.”

  Connor held the legs of one of the pairs of jeans apart.

  “They do look the same. Maybe there’s a bit more room in the boy’s jeans, for… you know.”

  Rebecca disappeared again and quickly returned with a hosepipe dragging behind her. There was a constant stream of water coming from the nozzle; not enough to provide a jet wash but sufficient to remove the worst of the dirt and smell from their bodies.

  “Right. You’re all going to take a shower.”

  She put her thumb over the end of the hose to make the jet of water stronger and aimed the hose at her friends. To anybody watching the scene was one of four children having fun with a hose. And for a few minutes, that’s exactly what it was. Instead of murderers on the run, they were just a bunch of raucous kids. The three boys soaking wet, Connor wrestled the hose from Rebecca’s grasp and dealt her the same treatment.

  Once they’d finished playing, the children dried themselves off using some clothes that they weren’t going to wear, put jeans on and pulled GAP fleeces over their heads. Jazz was particularly happy.

  “Brilliant. A hoodie. I always wanted one but my mum wouldn’t let me. She said I’d look like a thug.”

  Liam rubbed the top of Jazz’s head vigorously.

  “Not everybody who wears a hoodie is a thug, Jazz, but you are. Remember I’ve known you for nearly two hundred years.”

  Rebecca found the whole Recarn thing fascinating. Of course, she knew about reincarnation; it wasn’t kept secret from children nowadays, but she had never actually met any before. Not knowingly anyway. It was strange hearing them talk so freely about their past lives. Liam stood up and went to walk out from behind the wheelie-bin.