by Nathan Lunn
“Just get this over with, please,” Kye said, his voice ragged.
“Not the answer I was hoping for, but I can interpret it a different way.” He stopped pacing, and the image changed to a live video feed of Kye as he was currently, his hunched figure staring wearily towards the camera that must have been built into the screen. His clothes torn and wounds visible, he was a mess.
“Tell me…” Kye breathed, as the camera focused on his face. He stared as Arthur spoke, watching himself and his reactions as though they were another’s.
“They revealed you, Kye. Don’t you see? This, this here, this tired, twisted and terrible version of yourself you see, this is the real you. You’ve been hiding yourself behind this mask of fear, but really it's a mask of anger, a mask you put on every day. And when we removed that mask for you, the real Kye came out,” Arthur finished and stayed silent, letting Kye sit with his comments.
“No. No, I’m not, I– I’m me, I’m still me,” Kye stuttered, his face scrunched up, contorted in the image on the screen. He stared at his arm, down at his eye, tracing his scar, all while the Crofts observed.
“How much of you is Kye still? How much remains in there, what you’ve had to change about yourself to survive. To adapt.” Lucille surged forward, grabbing his chin and looking at his working eye. “Your arm – gone. Your eye – gone. Even your brain has been altered by that program you cling to. Remnants of the past. Ghosts. But you’re worse than a ghost, aren’t you? You’re just a tool, Kye. A living weapon.” She threw his head back and Kye slapped to the floor, yelling uncontrollably as his mind started to spin.
“No! I’m human, I’m me. I’m still a human being!”
“Enough!” Arthur yelled, his voice splitting Kye’s eardrums. “You are no longer! No amount of flesh and alloy can ever make you whole. You’re a patchwork man, stitched together from stolen or bartered parts – how much of you is even in there. Are you even in control of it?” Kye shook his head in denial – Arthur tapped his temple and an electrical surge ran through Kye’s body from the metal plate, rebooting his systems and shocking his arm into action. It swerved out of its bonds and began to swing around wildly, as Kye attempted to stand and attack the Crofts, his feet still tightly bound together – the tendrils of his arm whipped and licked the air by the two fur coats, hungry and reaching to do damage. Kye felt his body thrown about as it moved for him, but his legs held steadfast, dropping him to the floor and directly onto his face, drawing further blood.
"You fuckers, get over here!" Kye roared as chips rained to the floor and the metal walls clanged – standing far back from the flailing body, the guards fired off a warning shot into the ground nearby, causing extra spikes to morph out of Kye's arm. The tips of his weaponry reached to the edge of Lucille Croft's face and brushed it lightly, five fingers forming that stroked her face and curled around her hair. Kye reeled back but his arm remained locked in place, perfectly poised and charming as it fondled the woman's earlobe. Arthur spoke.
"Quite an impressive piece, this arm. The newest from our nanotechnology range, only passed development a month ago, and sent for approval to our team a few weeks back. Your team intercepted this, and so goes history." Kye lay on the floor, stunned and disoriented. "Violence is an intrinsic part of human nature, Kye. This arm is bound to you as much as brutality is, and it moves for you. It understands that side of you, it can predict what you want to happen. Like Eddie." He paused, and Kye groaned. "Like Danny." His head shook frantically as his fleshy hand mashed at the side of his seam, scratching desperately to remove the purple appendage he had relied upon for so long.
"That was self defence. He was going to kill me…" Kye muttered to himself, tired of the same lie.
"And like us. You can't hurt us, Kye. Not really. We own that arm, so we own you. I control it. You see?" Arthur tapped his temple and the arm retreated to Kye's side. He moved onto his back, defeated, his head facing straight up at the bubbled cone ahead of him, the lights throbbing on and off, winking out of existence as his chest heaved. With his commlink and sight restored, it appeared off-balance, the colours slightly tilted. “You’re a social menace, Kye. You’ve done so much irreparable damage, and it’s only thanks to us that we could stop it.” Kye became fixated on the curves of the wires above his head, trying to block out the noise of the talking man. “Your stunt with the CommLock system makes you responsible for the failure of multiple open police cases, and many individuals' safety and health? Did you know that? Your time at the Gallant, though short – this hospitalised and eventually killed nearly fourteen individuals. Did you not think these actions would have consequences? Negative effects?”
A warm siren sounded as the light from the two nearest blue pods turned red. Arthur smiled calmly and moved above Kye.
"Would you mind standing for me? Just against the wall?" Kye stayed still ignoring him entirely. Arthur waited a moment and spoke again,
"Very well." A click of his fingers brought Kye to his feet once more, hauled by the guards and pressed against the wall.
"Just get off me," Kye spoke, his voice soft and broken.
"Do you know where we are?" Lucille asked, her voice taking on an interested air. She didn't wait for a response before continuing, "This is our premier new facility, not yet available to the public, but soon, tens of hundreds will flock here, all for a taste of what we will offer." She spread her arms wide. "Look around you. Croft enterprise is the future. We create the future, we dictate it. We can fund a war, or we can fund new medical research – we can save people or we can kill them, we have that power. And you?” She paused again, regarding Kye with indifference. “You want to stop that? You would be responsible for all those deaths? All the people we couldn't help, the people we couldn't stop from fighting?”
“You don’t give a damn about the public! You only care for yourselves!” Kye yelled, a final act of defiance.
Arthur remained calm and took over. “No more slander, please. We care deeply about both the public and their wellbeing. Why do you think we have introduced this place?” He pointed upwards and Kye followed his finger to the central point, where all the pipe had begun vigorously pumping liquid to the ground floor; the red pods to his side hummed and throbbed, and Kye spoke.
“What the hell even is this?”
Arthur lifted a finger and spoke, slowly. “Wait, wait. I’m glad you can be here for this. Just watch.” A small metal panel behind the Crofts opened and two clinically clean figures walked in, dressed entirely in pristine white overalls and scrubs, a bundle of clothes in their hands. Kye struggled, but they walked right past him to the nearest pods – right as they arrived, the membrane on the closer pod split and a disgusting mix of thick jelly spilled out onto the floor. Kye squirmed as it washed over his feet – it was lightly warm to the touch. The glow disappeared, and a thin body dropped from the bulbous sore, caught immediately by the sterile workers; the body was wrapped in a towel, and a small needle was placed into their neck – a glowing liquid slinked into their bloodstream and with a coughing gasp, they woke up. Kye stared with a creeping sense of worry, as the body was towelled down of jelly.
“What the hell is that?” Kye asked, shushed once more by Arthur. He pointed, and as the body stood, its back turned to Kye, now recognisable as a woman. The second helper took a small cylindrical device and attached it to the body’s temple – a disc was plugged into his end, and he hit the plunger, the disc travelling through the cylinder and into the body’s head. Kye recognised this as the application of a commlink device, and with this, the body turned.
“Hello,” the woman spoke, her voice new and fresh. Kye recognised it, and the woman instantly.
“Ellie? What is she doing here, in that?” Kye directed his question to Arthur through gritted teeth, who was happy to reply,
“Ellie here just finished her incubation stage. Quite a good timing, truly.”
“Incubation stage, what?” Kye asked, the guard’s grip increasing as he started
to push forward. “Some sort of quick healing pod?”
Arthur and Lucille chuckled, which Ellie joined in with, though it was a little delayed as she was busy getting dressed in fine clothing.
“What’s so funny?” Kye growled, his anger returning at the sight of Julie’s killer.
“It’s no healing pod, though you’re in the right vein of idea. Don’t you get it yet? This is a cloning facility.”
Kye laughed and looked at the group of them, all flat faced and staring back at him. He stopped after a while and spoke. “You can’t be serious. Cloning isn’t possible. You’re just lying.”
“We thought you may take some convincing. The world will, and as it happens, you have played right into our hands there. Observe, the wonders of Croft Cloning,” Arthur said, stepping away from the doorway. Filing into the room, one at a time, Kye watched as Isaiah Croft walked to stand by his parents, kissing his mother and father on their cheek as he went; he was followed by Godfrey, his imposing frame and scar filling the space to their left, cold silver hand-cannon absent from his arm; Alexis passed by the back, scowling at the far right, patting the top of the head of Morgana who joined him in the line, regarding Kye with an irritated indifference. His throat closed up as they stood in front of him, the fruits of his labour spoiled rotten and presented in front of him oxymoronic, perfectly preserved and encaptured. Each was holding a beautifully ornate silver knife, the handle beset with an immense sapphire, a lion carved inside.
“No defects, perfectly complemented as you can see. And soon to be available to the public at a reduced price – quite useful for bringing back loved ones who have been found recently deceased, or who are old and dying from a difficult disease,” Arthur spoke, as Kye gasped for air. “It’s bound to revolutionise the way the world works, I’m sure. Aren’t you excited to see that future?”
“Don’t you see?” Lucille spoke, as though she really cared if he understood. “We control all life now. For everyone. No more death for anybody.” She stopped and changed her tone. “Well, anybody we choose. And I’m afraid that doesn’t include you or your friends.” Kye looked up to Arthur as he walked over to him, fear and helplessness rooted in his eyes. He regarded Kye like he would a dead dog on the side of the road, and spoke quietly,
“I pity you. I really do. But the life of a criminal is rewarded with the death of a criminal, and I’m afraid you’re overdue.” He slipped his knife into Kye’s ribcage, and said his last words: “Goodbye, scum.”
Kye let out a little gasp as the knife was removed, numb to the feeling entirely. As they had filed in, the Croft family came up to him a slid their knife into his ribcage, his liver, his stomach, each drawing more blood to the floor to freeze and congeal immediately. The guards released him, and he dropped to his knees, tear streaks down his face as he looked up to the god-like figures residing in front of him. He tried to clap his hands together, but his purple arm wouldn’t move. A weakened fist was thrown uselessly towards them. A lifted hand to his temple, blood slick and running out of his abdomen and face.
The PseudoReality program launched automatically, and he tapped frantically, searching for someone to comfort him as he felt his life slip away. Charlie’s name flashed up, and he appeared by his side, staring emotionlessly down at the ebbing remainder of man. He tried to get Julie to see him one last time, but the error message displayed felt like another knife twisting in his abdomen, punching hard into his gut. Desperately, with the last of his energy, he typed out Danny and Eddie’s names, and an approximation of them appeared, mirroring Charlie and the Crofts as they looked down to him, a distinct lack of empathy and realism on their face – the results of his vengeance spree painted perfectly before his eyes. Uninterested, the Crofts and generated characters looked down, as what was left of Kye Jones dropped to the chilled floor, completely devoid of any previous hope and life.