by Jason Taylor
“I agree. As a group, they have been trending toward an increase in this type of behavior, but all the others were sedated before they could cause as much trouble as Suki did.”
“And you have no idea why?” Jill asked.
“All we know is that, what was a widely varied set of personality types a week ago, has transitioned into a single personality type now shared by all the clones. In the past week, they have moved well outside the normal range and into a set of traits that our diagnostics are labeling sociopathic.” Tros said.
“We must have made a mistake in the genetic encoding. That’s the only thing that I can think of that would account for what we’re seeing. If all the clones are becoming sociopaths, and they are doing it simultaneously, there must be a genetic error that we missed.”
“You could be right. It’s worth investigating. In the meantime, I am going to keep all of the clones locked down until we figure out what’s going on.”
Chapter 19
Over the course of two weeks, a new secured facility was built on the seventh floor of the lab. It was absolutely state of the art. On the day it was finished, the clones were sedated and moved to their new cells. Tros wasn’t taking any chances. Each cell had an upgraded firewall, programmed to allow only a limited set of commands and data-types through. Every cell was monitored, but not via a video feed. Given what had happened with Elizabeth, Tros decided that video was too risky. Instead, a constrained set of data parameters were transmitted to the control room in a steady stream. An AI construct was responsible for the first level of analysis, reviewing motion data, heat signatures, vital signs, and brain activity. If anything looked abnormal, the construct would notify the on-duty security officer in the control room.
An additional firewall was installed on the edge of the secured facility as a second level of defense. If one of the clones breached their cell’s node, they would, in theory, stay contained within the secure-facility-node. At the first sign of a breach, an aerosolized sedative would be released through the ventilation system. Theoretically, this should be enough to keep the clones from causing any more trouble, but Tros was still worried.
She knew that any system, no matter how securely designed, could be broken. Given enough time and intelligence, there was no such thing as total security. She had no idea what the full extent of the clones capabilities were, nor how much damage they could cause if their abilities were unleashed. To drive risks down to zero, needed a perfectly secure system and yet she knew that wasn’t possible. It was driving her crazy.
She had wanted to pull the implants from each clone as soon as they were sedated, but she’d been overruled. Senator Thompson, who unfortunately had control over the project, wouldn’t hear of it. To remove the implants had two immediate downsides. First, it would increase the public anger that already surrounded the Ganymede project. Crippling children, even if they were clones with unexplained powers, was not popular with voters. It was already hard enough to explain why they had to be kept in solitary confinement. Second, it would have the potential of neutering the clones’ capabilities before they were fully understood. The senator was very clear, the only reason Tros was still director and Ganymede was still being funded was because there was a chance of learning something powerfully important from what the clones had become.
The research teams still hadn’t figured out what was wrong with the clones. All of the cloned DNA looked perfect, an exact replica of each original. Something else was going on. Something that they weren’t catching in the genetic code. Something new and they didn’t know what they were looking for. She knew her team was doing everything they could to solve the problem, but she couldn’t help but chafe against all the waiting. She was a woman of action. She needed more information. Without new data, she couldn’t make a plan. Without a plan, she was stuck. She hated being on the defensive. It was only a matter of time before one of the clones found a way through the systems that she’d erected to contain them. While she didn’t know exactly what Elizabeth and the others were capable of, what she’d already seen was enough to convince her that they were uniquely dangerous.
As if that wasn’t enough, news of the murders had made it into the mainstream media feeds. She was having a hell of a time containing the situation. Half the country seemed to want the clones dead. The other half wanted them released immediately from the ‘evil government lab.’ A Senate hearing had been called. There were protests in the streets and on the Net. The situation was out of control.
Tros knew that she couldn’t be the public face for the project. She wasn’t good on the feeds – too stern, too military. It would be a disaster. Instead, she’d sent Jill to New Washington to talk to the Senate. Jill was smart, pretty, and personable – a perfect face for the project. But she was also naive and idealistic. Tros hoped Jill wouldn’t somehow find a way to make the situation worse. She dropped her head in her hands and massaged her temples. Christ, what a mess.
Jill took a sub-orbital flight from Seattle, landing at New Dulles two and a half hours later. She processed through security, then rode the elevators down into the capital city, spending the night in a hotel in one of the outer rings.
Now she was inside the Capitol building waiting for her scheduled time to testify before the hearing. She’d never been to New Washington, never met a real senator, much less a panel full of them. The only politics she knew was from what she’d caught on her feeds late at night when she couldn’t sleep. A good political feed would always do the trick, putting her to sleep within minutes. She hoped that senators in the flesh wouldn’t have the same effect. How embarrassing would it be if she fell asleep during the hearing?
She’d learned in school that the Capitol and the President’s residence had once been on the surface, open to the sky, white and gleaming. She wondered what that would have been like. Glorious probably. She’d seen historical videos of grand buildings, surrounded by vast fields of grass, monuments, and statues.
The Government was underground now. The Great Unrest had taken care of that. Old DC was a wasteland. The entire city had been leveled in the fighting, and due to the radiation levels it wouldn’t be habitable for millennia. New Washington was underground. Not just underground, also underwater. She was in the new government complex, located ten miles offshore, on the edge of the continental shelf, burrowed into bedrock. It was as physically secure a location as she could imagine.
Jill triggered her interface and called up an image of herself. For the hundredth time, she checked her hair and makeup, straightened her skirt, and rubbed her ring for luck. It was her lucky ring, hadn’t failed her yet. Her handler, an unassuming young man in a government-issued suit, sat in a chair by the door, ostensibly to keep an eye on her. She had a sneaking suspicion he was checking his feeds or playing a net-game. No one could sit that still for that long without some kind of entertainment.
She wasn’t allowed to watch the live-cast of the hearing before her testimony. She was supposed to wait quietly until she was called, and then she was supposed to respectfully give her statements. She checked the time. She’d been waiting in this room for over two hours. She called up her notes and rehearsed once more, pacing the length of the room.
A congressional page opened the door and spoke quietly to her handler. Jill stopped her pacing and waited to see what would happen next. She figured it must be time for her entrance. It would have been faster to transmit a message, but protocol was important here. They liked to do things the old way. It connected them to the past, giving the Government weight and credibility. Attributes that were in short supply these days.
Her handler stood up and walked stiff-backed to her, formally extending his white-gloved hand. “Dr. Clarence, if you will come with me please.”
She let his fingertips close upon her own, following his lead out the door and down the long hallway leading to the Senate chamber. Their path was lined with the portraits of each president who had served their country, starting with President George Washington and endi
ng with Madame President Lily-Anne Morrison. Near the end there was a gap in the portraits, several empty frames, their blank, grey backgrounds representing the period of chaos during the Great Unrest. It was important not to forget.
The hallway ended in a set of large, wooden doors, heavily engraved with Romanesque curlicues. Members of the Senate Guard stood on either side of the doors, staring silently forward, their ceremonial uniforms resplendent. Jill’s handler stopped and presented his identification to the security system. After a moment the doors slid smoothly open, letting noise and commotion from the Senate floor enter the hallway.
They stepped into the upper levels of the Senate chamber, overlooking the Senators who were sitting in a semi-circle of plush chairs facing the Senate floor. A smattering of senatorial faces looked up at their entrance, then turned back to their work. A large table rested in the center of the floor, twelve senators seated behind it. A small table with a single chair faced the panel. The room was alive with conversation, senators leaning toward each other, wrapped in important discussion.
Her handler walked down the stairs toward the Senate floor with Jill following closely behind. As she made her way through the chamber, faces turned her way, and whispered voices trailed in her wake. When they reached the lone, empty chair before the committee, the Senator at the center of the panel waved her hand for Jill to sit, never once pausing in her work or looking up to see who had approached. Jill recognized Senator Thompson, ranking member of the Ganymede Commission, chairman of the panel.
Jill looked to her handler to see if he had any instruction for her, but he stared forward, protocol dictating that he could no longer meet her eye, so Jill liberated her hand from his and sat down.
She waited as the members of the panel conferred with each other. She could hear the other senators behind her talking and arguing. She sat with her back straight, reviewed her notes in her head, and tried to keep her nerves under control. Her fingertips were tingling. Her toes were tingling. For God’s sake, even her nose was tingling. She focused on her breathing.
The hammering of gavel on wood startled Jill back into the real world. The chamber fell into silence as Senator Thompson placed the gavel down. She was a regal woman, hair silvery blond, face lined with enough wrinkles to look wise, but not so many as to look old.
“I am calling Dr. Jill Clarence to provide expert testimony in regards to the Ganymede project. Dr. Clarence, would you please stand?” Senator Thompson spoke in a loud, ringing voice.
Jill stood.
“Dr. Clarence please acknowledge that you are under oath. You are required to answer all of the questions put to you and to only speak the truth, under penalty of perjury.”
“I acknowledge that I am under oath,” Jill responded.
“You may sit.”
Jill sat.
Senator Thompson leaned forward and peered at Jill. “Dr. Clarence, we are very concerned about what is happening at your lab. I admit that I am personally disturbed by what is happening to those young children that you have cloned. As you well know, the entire country is watching.”
“Yes, Madame Senator.”
“There has been loss of life. There have been injuries. You have imprisoned children over the objections of their parents. The situation is unacceptable.”
“I understand.”
“When we authorized funding for this project, we were made to understand that the science was well understood. We were told that it would be safe.”
“Yes, Madame Senator.”
“What went wrong? Were you people lying to us?” Senator Thompson leaned back and looked down her nose at Jill.
“We don’t know what went wrong. Not yet. But we are working on it.”
“What is your plan for these children? People have been complaining to my office for weeks. My entire staff has been consumed responding to concerned citizens. Half of them are angry about the illegal detention of minors. The other half are scared about the prospect of killer clones getting loose. What should I make of this situation, Dr. Clarence?”
“We did what we had to do to contain the problem. If we had not acted immediately, there may have been more deaths. We know that the clones are dangerous. What we don’t know is why. Nor do we know how Suki and Elizabeth have gained their newfound abilities,” Jill said.
“Is this supposed to fill me with confidence in you and your project?”
“I am not trying to instill confidence. I’m trying to convey the truth of the situation to this committee.”
“I am listening. We are all listening.” Senator Thompson swept her arms open to encompass the room. “Tell us what you know.”
“We have monitored the clones closely over the past seven years. Up until two weeks ago, they were, by all indications, normal human children. They were remarkable only in that they were exact genetic copies of their mothers, the originals.
“As the children reached their seventh birthdays, something changed. We didn’t catch it at first, but in hindsight, the markers are obvious. As a group, their personalities shifted, and there were corresponding changes to their blood chemistry as well as to their brain patterns,” Jill said.
“They have become little sociopaths, isn’t that right?” Senator Thompson asked.
“There were two violent incidents at our lab, and two outside the lab. During these incidents, the clones Elizabeth and Suki displayed surprising capabilities. Elizabeth reached through a network connection to brain-hack one of our personnel. She killed him instantly. Suki, despite her age and size, managed to hold off a squad of soldiers in tactical armor for nearly ten minutes before she was overpowered.”
“I have reviewed the analysis of both incidents. I understand you played a key role in resolving the situation with Suki?”
“As you say, Senator.”
“What do you propose we should do? I hope that you have come to us with a solution in mind.”
“I don’t know why the clones have suddenly become violent. I don’t know how they’ve gained their new capabilities. All we have to work with is the data that we gathered from Suki and Elizabeth during each incident and the ongoing data we are gathering from the clones in their cells. We are analyzing what we have and we are looking for answers.”
“And what, pray tell, have you learned.”
“I’m sorry Senator, I don’t have any additional facts to present. All my theories so far have proven false. I believe we are going to have to use a new approach."
“What are you suggesting?”
“I would like to ask the clones themselves. I propose interviewing them.”
“How would you accomplish an interview while maintaining the level of security you currently have in place?”
“We cannot maintain the current level of containment Senator. In order to do what I propose, we are going to have to take a grave risk.”
Chapter 20
Jill left the Senate chamber drained but satisfied. She had done her duty, said what she needed to say, and now she could go home. Her handler escorted her out of the Capitol Complex, then left her to find her own way back to her lodgings. She stood at the top of a staircase in a large, rectangular atrium hewn from bedrock. Behind her were the cold, steel doors of the Capitol. Arrayed in front of her was a crowd of angry people, hundreds of protestors, the air swarming with news-drones, a line of soldiers trying to keep the peace.
Voices assaulted her from all sides. “Dr. Clarence, what did you tell the Senate?” A drone flew in close, shining a bright light into her eyes.
“I um… “ Jill stammered.
“Dr. Clarence, is it true that the clones have broken security protocols and commandeered tanks out of Fort Lewis?” another drone asked.
“Absolutely not, that’s…” Jill managed to get out.
“How could you imprison children, Dr. Clarence? Our audience wants to know exactly when those children will be returned to their families,” a third drone buzzed in.
Jill held up a hand
to protect her eyes from the light. “That wouldn't be a good…”
A squad of soldiers broke away from where they were holding the protesters at bay and surrounded Jill, leading her down the stairs, forming a protective cordon of muscle, armor, and steely eyes. The drones swarmed over her head like a cloud of mosquitoes, firing questions at her. One of the soldiers triggered his interface and erected a security perimeter around them, pushing the drones away with a virtual no-fly zone. “That’s enough questions for now. Dr. Clarence has to make her flight.”
The soldiers continued to push their way through the crowd, encircling Jill until they were clear of the protest and in the safety of a corridor leading away from the complex.
“I’m sorry that was necessary, Doctor.”
“It’s ok. Thank you for your…” Jill responded, but the soldiers had already turned and she found herself talking to their backs.
Jill took a moment to get her bearings. The city was laid out in a spoke and hub pattern, the Capitol and Presidential Residence at the center, with corridors leading away in all directions. A series of perimeter roads arranged in concentric circles connected the spokes. The entire city was roughly a square mile in size, and while it continued to grow, it did so slowly given the difficulty of carving through the surrounding bedrock. Most of the population lived up above in New Dulles, commuting to their jobs down below.
Jill triggered her interface and called up a map that would lead her to her hotel. As she walked, the appearance of the corridors changed, becoming rougher, eventually revealing the raw-stone from which they had been cut. She knew she could turn on a filter to view her surroundings in any number of styles, but she preferred to see it as it was.
Close to the Capitol Complex the bedrock was covered in thick layers of insulation and paint, punctuated by the occasional mural to celebrate historical events. The ground she walked on was layered in a rubberized material, providing grip and comfort. As she moved outward, she noted that after the first-ring the murals had disappeared. After the second-ring, the paint was gone and the insulation had thinned, leaving the air noticeably cooler. By the time she reached the fourth-ring, she was walking on raw-stone, the walls dripping with accumulated condensation.