by Elle E. Ire
“All of them,” VC1 confirms. “I am sorry. I was prevented from releasing them to her conscious mind.”
Even as an AI, she was a victim of programming.
“I tried to find pathways around the commands, what Vick called ‘loopholes.’ I returned what I could.”
Through the flashbacks Vick kept having. Bits and pieces. Patchwork.
“You did your best,” I tell her, just like Vick. The cold of the tile floor is seeping through the thin cotton shorts. I pull myself up to sit on the cot.
“I will not be able to speak with you much longer, as the transmission becomes complete, but I did not want you to think all of her was lost. I am sorry you will be alone again, but this must be completed soon to prevent degradation of the data.”
“I understand,” I say, though some of the words are unfamiliar. I get the gist. “I don’t want anything to be lost. Where are you going?” I ask again. And why do I get the feeling she’s avoiding this question?
“I have located another… adequate receptacle.”
More hedging. No doubt about it. She’s hiding the answer.
“Now I must go. Eat before you sleep. Rest well. Do not inform anyone of her demise. That is important.”
Now I’m really confused. I wonder if some degradation has already occurred. “Why?”
“Consider it her last request… and mine.”
So she was the one preventing me from telling the Storm commander that Vick had died. She’d caused that interference. “When they come to get me, I’ll have to tell them.”
A pause. “By then, it will no longer matter. Goodbye, Kelly LaSalle. Do not be sad. We will all be together again soon.”
The speaker system gives one final crackle, then falls silent. I ponder her last words as I stand and return to the lab. An AI that believes in an afterlife?
The screens on the communications equipment have gone dark. Whatever transfer VC1 was attempting, it’s complete.
I wonder where she’s gone.
Chapter 47: Vick—Reborn
I AM….
Hissing, loud and close, like hydraulics releasing. Bright lights, so bright I can see them through my closed eyelids. Beeping and humming of monitors and equipment. The sterile smell unique to most medical facilities. That floaty feeling indicating I’m on some very, very good drugs.
Holy shit. I’m alive.
But I died. I distinctly remember dying. It’s not something one forgets. Ever. Even when Whitehouse attempted to block the memories of two of my deaths, they bled through. Traumatic nightmare fodder. I shiver, and not just because this place I’m in is frigid. I died, and they brought me back. Again.
“Kel?” My voice sounds like I swallowed gravel.
No response. More confusion. If I’m alive she would be with me, wouldn’t she? Why isn’t she here, wherever here is?
I crack open one eyelid and regret it. Fluorescent overhead lighting and white walls are a painful combination. But I can see, and that’s important information. Both my ocular implants were destroyed by the lightning. If I can see, they’ve been replaced. That takes time. And I’ve obviously been transported somewhere. That also takes time. Depending on how much time, that might explain why Kelly isn’t with me right now.
I open the other eye and take a good look around.
I’m in a stasis box, now open with the lid up, which explains the hydraulics I heard. Breathing gear hovers above and to the right of my face. It must have withdrawn shortly before I regained consciousness. Cold air from overhead vents pours down on my naked body, covering me with goose bumps.
Several tugs on my hands, arms, and feet occur simultaneously, all of them followed by disconcerting pulls on the insides of my veins and the exterior of my skin that make me want to squirm and writhe. The subsequent pinpricks of pain from a dozen locations tell me just how many needles were feeding into or extracting liquids from my system.
Checking that nothing else is attached to my body, I raise first one arm, then the other, then each of my legs in turn. It’s hard, harder than it should be, as if I’ve got weights hanging from each limb… or my muscles have atrophied.
I’ve been in stasis… for how long? Days? Weeks? Months?
That will require some extensive explanation.
“VC1!” The AI’s name rushes out of me in relief. “Damn, it’s good to hear you.”
It is good to hear you as well. Your input has been… missed.
She missed me? I’m tempted to go snarky and sappy at the same time, but I refrain. Switching to internal thought, I ask, So, let me have it. How long have I been in stasis?
A pause. Then, A better question would be, how long since you died.
I fight the urge to roll my new eyes, take a deep breath, which doesn’t hurt, and count to ten. Okay, VC1. I’ll play. How long has it been since the lightning killed me?
Approximately twelve hours.
What? That’s impossible. There’s no way I could have been moved, operated on, and recovered this much in twelve hours. Besides, twelve hours is too short a time to require putting me in stasis. Her chronometer must be malfunctioning. I struggle to push myself up on my elbows. The room spins around me, and I flop back on the cushioned interior of the stasis box. I think I lose consciousness for a while.
When I awake a second time, I don’t feel as shaky, but I’m still in the damn box, and there’s still no one else around.
“Fuck this shit.” Closing my eyes, I make a second attempt to rise, gripping the edges of the box and levering my body upward until I’m sitting. Bracing myself in position, I reopen my eyes. The vertigo strikes hard, my head swimming, but I fight it, swallowing against nausea until the spinning turns to rocking turns to stillness.
Medical equipment, mostly idling instead of actively keeping me alive in the box since I’m now awake. Bright lights. Stasis box. A locker-like cabinet standing in one corner. A single empty chair. Everything white, clean, pristine. And I’m alone.
Which makes no sense.
Surely if it’s only been twelve hours or so (and I’m still not buying that) medical staff would be monitoring me. When I woke up, they should have come running. And Kelly would be here.
I fumble for the latches on the interior of the box. Then I unfasten them and swing the side of it out and down so it hangs off the table where the box lies. One leg at a time, I let them drape over the edge. Pins and needles sensation rushes from my knees to my feet. I grit my teeth and wait it out; then, still holding on to the box, I lower myself to the cold tile floor.
My knees wobble but hold. I take one step, then another, until I’m at the cabinet and opening it. Jackpot. Clothing, also white, loose bottoms and tank tops all in my size, white booties. I yank a top over my head. It’s tight enough to hold things in place without need of a bra. Pants next, thick enough material that I won’t require underwear, which is good, since there isn’t any. I slip them past my feet, lean to pull them up, and freeze.
The octoshark bite is gone.
Not just gone as in healed and scarred over, but gone, gone. The skin of my lower leg is clear and undamaged, no evidence of a removed scar, which, after only twelve hours, would leave the surrounding area reddened and tender. I run my fingers over the place where the teeth sank in. Nothing. Nothing at all.
Beginning to panic, I search for other scars: one on the back of my left hand, which a memory flash told me came from a hover racer accident in my teens, another from my right wrist halfway to my elbow when I’d tried to kill myself shortly after the implants had first been installed. Both had been left untreated too long to be fully removed. I’d had them for years.
I don’t have them now.
VC1 said not to ask how long I’d been in stasis but how long since I’d died.
The room spins again, and this time it has nothing to do with my weakened state or blood rushing to my head.
Pants still around my ankles, I sink into the room’s single chair, thankful for its presence.
I bend over, taking deep breaths, resting my face in my shaking hands.
When I can speak, I do it out loud. I need to hear a human voice, even if it’s my own. “This isn’t my body, is it?” I ask VC1. It feels like mine. With the exception of missing blemishes, all my parts look familiar.
That would depend upon your definition of “your body.” Genetically, it is indeed yours.
“But not the original.”
That is correct.
No. Nononononono fuck no. I’ve barely begun to accept myself and the implants as still human. This? I can’t begin to fathom what this makes me, other than—
“I’m a clone.”
Yes.
“Human cloning is illegal, and it’s never been perfected.”
Research was done here in the outer rim where it would be less likely to be discovered. And it was not perfected until human ingenuity and the implants made perfection possible.
I’m in the outer rim worlds, and I’m a clone. I scrub my face with both hands, then lean back in the chair and stare at the ceiling tiles. “Explain.”
Dr. Alkins—
“Oh, that figures,” I mutter. Of course she would be involved.
—left Girard Base to continue her personal research at this outer-rim facility. She had an interest in human cloning that, due to legal concerns, could not be pursued elsewhere. Over the past few years, she solved the aging problem, speeding up the aging process of a clone to match that of its original, then slowing that process to normal progression and keeping it in stasis, manipulating its muscular structure so that it will not atrophy, until it is needed.
“Meaning until the original dies.”
That is correct.
So Dr. Whitehouse wasn’t the only one conducting illegal experimentation. “Why me?” Why can’t everyone leave me the fuck alone?
That thought is followed almost immediately by guilt. If not for this experiment, I’d be permanently dead, and while part of me wants rest, it’s no longer the majority. I want Kelly. I want to live, with her, in whatever form possible.
Several successful soldiers’ genetic materials were sampled. I do not have access to what became of those other test subjects. However, with you, the cloning process was a success. And after your airlock accident, and the introduction of the implants from BioTech, Dr. Alkins determined she had a solution to the additional problems cloning presents. Surgeries were performed on this body to remove portions of your organic brain and install a second set of implants, because without the implants—
“This clone, I, would have all the physical attributes but not the mental ones, not the skills, not the memories…. Oh.” I jerk upright in my chair. Memories. I have them. All of them. Childhood, high school, my first years with the Storm. Then North Carolina and my growing relationship with Kelly. It’s all there, some more vivid than others, but I remember. “I remember everything,” I breathe. The cold metal of the chair is freezing my backside, and I realize I’m still half naked. Standing, I pull the pants the rest of the way up and sit back down.
An intricate quilt appears in my internal display, each neat square depicting an image of me at a different time of my life: toddlerhood, childhood, preteens, teens, all of them demonstrating major milestones, accomplishments, relationships, all sewn together to make a patchwork whole.
It is not quite everything, VC1 admits. During the information transfer, while I had the opportunity, I took the liberty of diverting one of your more traumatic memories… elsewhere. I could not prevent all exposure. You will still remember the event with Mr. Rodwell as a normal human would, via your remaining organic brain tissue, but not as clearly as if I provided it.
Closing my eyes, I concentrate on Rodwell and what he did to me. It hurts, and my heart rate picks up, but I can’t feel him, can’t smell his cologne, can’t taste the blood in my mouth from when I bit my tongue to keep from screaming again and again. It’s not gone, but it’s better.
“Where did your copy of that memory go?”
I am… not certain. I detected another active receptacle capable of storing complex data. I dumped it there. It should not trouble you again.
Famous last words, but I’ll take it. I have enough troubles. I ought to be annoyed that yet another entity made adjustments to me without my consent, but for this I just can’t work up the righteous indignation. I stretch my hand for the booties, drag them to me, and pull them on, then I stand and pace, shakily at first, but stronger with every step. This body needs to adjust to real use.
This. Body. I waver where I stand and catch myself against the wall. Get a grip, Corren.
“So, the implants made it possible for my personality, thoughts, feelings, and memories to make the jump between bodies. It’s incredible,” I say, focusing on the positive.
A scientific first.
“Okay, so if I’m such an accomplishment, where is everyone? Where’s the research team? Where’s Alkins?” They should be here, celebrating, documenting, making sure everything is working correctly. Why am I alone?
I approach the door to the tiny room. It slides aside revealing a long, well-lit white corridor. Doors line both sides. At the far end, a green light flashes above what looks like an entrance to a shuttle bay. I start walking. My steps shoosh along the tile. No other sounds, no one else here.
Once the second set of implants was installed, there was no need for a team on-site, only Dr. Alkins, and only occasionally. This facility is run by an advanced computer network and is mostly self-sufficient. According to the security logs, she has not been here since she transferred back to Girard Base.
“Why?”
I would speculate it is because you were not expected to die anytime soon, especially while you were on vacation. Or perhaps she needed something more from the original.
Part of which she could have easily gotten while she had me in the chair undergoing scans after the Alpha Dog incident. I was too drugged to notice. Kelly is an empath, not a med-tech. She probably wouldn’t have recognized what Alkins was up to, even if she witnessed it firsthand. And Nurse Isaacson…. “My med team is in on it, aren’t they?”
Indeed, as is the board of directors for the Fighting Storm. A pause. I was programmed to keep it from you until it was necessary for you to know. I have been trying to find a “loophole” for some time.
“I’m not blaming you.” I understand programming. I understand it all too well. “So where is Alkins now?”
Also unknown. She left Girard Moon Base almost immediately after the transfer of my program began.
So maybe she’s been alerted and she’s on her way here. Which means it’s time for me to leave. When she and I go head-to-head, I want to be in a lot better shape. I half walk, half stagger to the door at the end of the corridor, passing through it into the shuttle bay beyond. It closes behind me. There’s one ship in the bay, a large medical transport. If this facility was raided by the authorities, it could be used to evacuate Dr. Alkins and any resident clones….
“Hey,” I say, heading for the transport’s lowered ramp. “How many clones of me are there?” The corridor I passed through had half a dozen closed-off rooms, none of whose doors opened at my proximity, meaning they were locked down tight.
I am unable to say.
“You don’t know? Or you’re not allowed to tell me?”
I am unable to say.
Figures.
I use the ramp to board the ship, pass through a large medical-grade storage area equipped for a dozen or more stasis boxes, though there are none present, and step through a hatch into the cockpit. The engines are already powering up when I seat myself in the pilot’s chair and strap in. A thud from the aft section tells me the ramp has sealed into place. The forward viewscreens activate, showing me the bay and a pair of massive doors separating at the far end to reveal a barren, probably airless landscape of rocks and craters and a star-filled night sky.
Not wanting VC1 to do all the work, I run the preflight checks, then give her
the okay to launch, but I’m more a passenger than a pilot.
Your new body requires rest. You will be weakened and off-balance for several days. And your psyche needs time to adjust.
That’s an understatement. I feel like I’ve gone three rounds with a whole squad of Sunfires and lost. My stomach is growling painfully, and I want to drink a gallon of water. Now that I’m no longer in stasis, this body has needs, and it’s making them known. There’s also a pressure building in my emotional makeup, one I recognize as stress combined with anxiety requiring a release soon.
“I need to get to Kelly.”
Yes. You do.
There’s something underlying those words, something VC1 hasn’t told me yet. A horrible thought occurs. “Oh God, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know I’m alive. She doesn’t know about….” I wave a hand down my new body. “This. Couldn’t you have found some way to tell her?” I’m almost shouting, my voice bouncing off the metal bulkheads of the tiny cockpit.
I was not permitted to do so. However, I cautioned her to tell no one of your demise.
“For fuck’s sake, why?”
There can only be one. We must reach Elektra4 prior to your rescue team and destroy your original. If it is discovered that you are a clone—
“They’ll follow the law. They’ll kill me on sight.” The concept of clones, especially human ones, creeps people out. They’re illegal for a lot of reasons.
And Kelly, poor Kelly who still thinks I’m dead will watch me die yet again.
I bend over the console to input the coordinates, but VC1 has already set our course for Elektra4 at the transport’s top speed. She puts up a schematic on the forward screens, plotting out our travel time—six days, against the estimated time of arrival for the Storm’s single heavily shielded vessel to reach Kelly—seven days.