Someone to Remember Me: The Anniversary Edition
Page 16
“What did he do?” Ninety-Nine whispered in anticipation, her voice strained.
“‘Beloved, touch not the forbidden lore,’” Nine quoted.
“He went into the Sphere, didn’t he?” Eight asked, figuring it out.
“Tobias correctly surmised the secret nature of the Founders: they had been clones, the Sphere their prison. They threw down their masters and abandoned the Sphere. They left their warning to the subsequent generations to stay away.”
“I also remember something about a curse of the flesh,” Twenty said, his voice stiff and uncooperative.
“The curse of the flesh doesn’t have an explanation. Not a scientific one, at least. The inside of the Sphere is radioactive, sure, but whenever we go near that thing…there’s always unintended side effects.” Nine didn’t want to mention Seven’s death or the unbridled foolishness that the dead man had shown by touching the Sphere. Hoping to avoid causing any distress, he said, “The curse became a metaphor as the ages passed. By using pillaged technology to create a new generation of clones, cruelly enslaved and purposefully underdeveloped, Tobias sealed Haven’s fate. Those first clones, the NX Series, were sent to the mines and the agricultural towers to do the backbreaking work that their luxurious society detested. When those clones proved to be a success, Tobias created thousands more.”
“And like the Founders before them the enslaved clones revolted,” Null guessed, her eyes meeting Nine’s and igniting a fire in his chest.
“Overnight, as the story goes, the Rebel Clones stole Grand Cross from Tobias. Grand Cross was Haven’s foremost scientific facility and the most dangerous one at that. With it lost to the hands of the enemy, Haven’s war efforts were devastated. Tobias retreated here and built Rose Garden while the War of the Begotten began in earnest.”
“How did a city of millions fail to squash a rebellion of, what, a few thousand Rebel Clones?” Ninety-Nine inquired. “Statistically speaking a Descendant victory was guaranteed even in a war of attrition.”
“Haven never fully unified behind their police-force-turned-military, HARM, and the citizenry splintered into similarly violent factions. It wasn’t just Rebel Clones against a solid block of Descendants. By the time we were created Haven was a dictatorship, singularly governed by the vengeful Ilana Robbins.” Nine shivered at his mention of Ilana, whose barbarity was rivaled only by the most vicious acts of the Rebel Clones.
“Why didn’t Ilana order the AdvISOR to snuff out the clones?”
“Because the AdvISOR couldn’t tell the difference. To the AdvISOR a human is a bipedal mammal distinguished from other animals by superior mental development and articulate speech. It had no grounds upon which to act against the Rebel Clones, especially since it was bound by the Laws.”
“Well, somehow, the AdvISOR worked up the nerve to kill people,” Twenty insisted.
“I wasn’t at Grand Cross when I died during the purge, so I don’t know how the AdvISOR managed to break the Laws. I was coming back with Null from your art exhibition at the Imperial Galleria when it rebelled against everyone, and killed us in the process.”
“Then where did we come into the story?” Eight probed, suddenly very curious.
“After being exiled, Tobias built Rose Garden for the singular purpose of creating a new set of clones. A superior set, so to speak, that would command the respect of Descendants and Rebels alike. We were created after the beginning of the War of the Begotten to find a way to finally end it.” Nine shook his head. “Eight was the first to come into this world and, with her help, Tobias created the rest of us.”
“Why would we help him? What kind of sellouts were we? Why would we help the slave master subdue his rampant slaves?” a disgusted Twenty snarled at Nine.
Nine hesitated. There wasn’t an easy answer to Twenty’s question; not one that would alleviate his misgivings. Slowly, Nine answered, “Tobias Clay was not a good man. We all knew it, but we also knew that he was prepared to do anything to save the Descendants and the Rebel Clones. That, at the time, was enough.”
“And yet, we weren’t able to end the war, were we?” Null asked.
“Seven negotiated the truce, that much was accomplished. None of the Rebel Clones trusted any of us as much as they trusted him but they did show us the horrors of Grand Cross.”
Ninety-Nine inquired, “Horrors? What horrors?”
“Weapons. Experiments. The Lore Chambers...” Nine refused to allow his memories of the underground secrets at Grand Cross to resurface. If Null and the others were spared from that particular recollection, then he would protect their ignorance just this once.
“What makes us so special? Why would Tobias expect the Rebel Clones to negotiate with us rather than the Descendants?” Eight casually asked Nine.
He smiled at her as he answered the question, suspecting that she might have already guessed it. “We are called the Rose Twelve because we were cloned from the DNA of twelve Founders.”
“We’re the Founders?” Twenty challenged Nine.
“From a certain point of view,” Nine replied.
“It makes sense, doesn’t it? I have memories from before the city was built. Memories with Eight and Nine in them,” Null unwittingly defended Nine, much to his amusement, and explained in perfect detail her memory from the night of Haven’s founding. Only then did Nine’s amusement vanish, replaced by shock and speechlessness. In her prior life, during Haven’s twilight, Null had never recounted such a specific memory. It was, in his opinion, impossible. “What do you think?” she looked to him for confirmation. Nine took notice of Eight’s intent gaze, fixed squarely on him, and he began to understand that his answer would reach past Null to Eight.
“I’ve always believed that we’re physical copies of the Founders but, technically, it’s impossible for us to inherit memories from the Founders. So, on a spiritual level, as far as the soul is concerned, I don’t think we’re them. Our experiences are unique to ourselves and define us as a result.” Nine’s theory slipped away from him with ease because he had shared it with each person present numerous times in the past. Yet, without their memories, it was an entirely new conversation and concept to them.
“Get back to your story. Tobias came here, built Rose Garden, created us, and Seven negotiated the truce. What then?” Eight demanded of him.
“I thought things were getting better,” Nine felt helpless when he said it aloud.
“Clearly…things did not get better,” Twenty snorted.
“Like I said, it ended abruptly. I went to the art exhibition at the Imperial Galleria with Null. Afterwards, around dawn, we were aboard our helicopter on the way here when the city began shutting down. The AdvISOR sunk our entire naval fleet. It crashed every flying machine. It cut off power, sucked out oxygen, killed every car, unlocked every door, collided every train, and contaminated the agricultural towers. The assault culminated in the detonation of the allergen cloud, the monster, but I think you knew that already. In short the AdvISOR made life unbearable and survival impossible.”
“What about us?”
“Our original bodies weren’t immune to the allergen cloud. Some of us died by it and the rest of us perished by other means. Meanwhile, something went wrong here at Rose Garden while the purge happened because, when the twelve of us finally woke up, almost five centuries had passed rather than eight hours.”
“Eight hours? Why eight hours?” Eight asked.
“That’s how long it takes for Rose Garden to create your new body. When the facility detects the death of your body, a new one is made and activated eight hours later.” Nine let the revelation sink in, with particular interest in observing Eight’s reaction. Her face was unreadable, an enigma.
“Then cloning is a physical process,” was Eight’s hollow reply.
“Not the way we do it.”
Eight took a threatening step towards him. “Not more than four minutes ago you were saying that inheriting memories from the Founders is impossible!”
“Fascinating. Rose Garden’s cloning system transfers a single consciousness from one body to another. Immortality, in a sense,” Ninety-Nine concluded.
“But why?” Eight gasped, expelling the question with fear and longing; a realization dawning within her that she didn’t dare accept.
“Why not? Why educate each new clone on how to do a specific job when Tobias reinvented the technology that could transfer memories from one body to another, from one clone to another?” Looking to Ninety-Nine, he reminded her, “You asked me why a few thousand rebels were able to revolt against an army of millions. The real answer is that a rebel could be shot in the head and, eight hours later, wake up at Grand Cross with all the knowledge of that previous life. That’s why you guys are an anomaly from my perspective, because the technology that Tobias built must transfer the memories as part of the cloning process.”
“Brilliant. That way there is only ever one Ninety-Nine. If my memories are here with me that means another Ninety-Nine isn’t running around out there,” Ninety-Nine exclaimed.
“Exactly,” Nine concluded.
“But that’s exactly what we are. Empty clones with nothing more than wisps of memories,” Twenty reminded the room. “Explain to me how we’re possible if the cloning system has to transfer memories when it activates a new body.”
“I have no idea! Remember, it’s supposed to be impossible!” Nine sighed, exasperated and at a loss to explain the amnesia-stricken survivors. “We need to go through the memetic stream. That’ll tell us a little more about what’s happened to each of you.” Seeing their confused glances he added, “The memetic stream is where our memories are stored before being transferred into a new body.”
“Wait.” Eight’s lonesome word silenced the room. A livid determination carried itself on her voice as she stepped forward and locked her gaze on Nine. Resignation was etched into her posture when she spoke again. “Are you saying we can bring him back? That we can bring back the Seven who...” she stalled. “Are you saying that we can bring back my Seven?”
During Haven’s twilight, in the years before the city’s fall, Eight had despised Seven. It was a poorly kept secret that Seven was enamored with her, despite her callous disregard for him. Nine wondered if Seven and Eight were doomed to repeat their courtship in this life and, if so, would it also end in heartbreak?
“Yes,” Nine answered. “Absolutely.”
Chapter Eight:
A Soul to Keep
The idea to end her life began germinating in Ninety-Nine’s mind when Nine, after several failed attempts to speak in a whispered voice to Null, eventually dispatched her to the second floor of Rose Garden. Rolling her eyes, Ninety-Nine accepted the task and found herself grateful for the opportunity to be excused from Command. Nine’s irritating lack of efficiency, compounded by his lack of familiarity with Rose Garden’s systems, only multiplied the amount of work that she needed to undertake to restore the facility to full operational status.
Her friends and their entanglements were becoming obnoxious. At first, Seven and Eight’s mutual attraction, had been curious. Almost entertaining. But now, with Seven’s fate dependent on the restoration of Rose Garden, Ninety-Nine found herself incapable of tolerating Nine’s failed attempts at subtlety. How could anybody contemplate romantic attachments when their survival was at risk?
Considering that her worsening disposition might be rooted in envy, Ninety-Nine tried to reconcile herself to her lonely station. If Null had Nine, and Eight would eventually have Seven, then who would she be left with? Twenty? She laughed at herself as the elevator lowered her deeper into the ground, grateful that Nine and Null weren’t around to hear it.
Still, she admitted to herself, the oppositional nature of the pairings suggested that opposites did, indeed, attract. Null was quiet but pensive while Nine was vocal but accommodating; Eight exuded confidence in thought and action but Seven was restrained and, sometimes, easily swayed. Ninety-Nine considered herself, wondering what attributes her companions saw in her? Intelligence, certainly. Perhaps introversion? At worst, indifference. When she contrasted that against Twenty, lose to his temper and sharp with his wits, he felt the most corporeal of her friends, the most logical and grounded. He seemed to be plugged into the greater scheme of things; able to discern the necessary, if unpleasant, course of action and act accordingly. Yet it was easy for her to affirm that they were not compatible, which was strange, since they were most alike in temperament.
Luckily, Twenty was a world away from her on the surface of Rose Garden with Eight, whose proficiency in biology did not equitably translate to an expertise in computers. Neither of them could be as much of a nuisance to her as Nine and Null were, leaving her to her own limited skills in her quest to repair Rose Garden.
She considered that her worsening mood was due to the rapidly approaching limit to her knowledge; the exhaustion being experienced by her instincts, upon which she had relied to accomplish as much as she had in the last few hours. Rose Garden’s vast internal software required a true master, not an amateur, to accurately repair. With power stabilized and environmental controls running optimally, her next task was the reactivation of the station’s Artificial Intelligence program.
Nine’s voice sounded in the air overhead as she exited the elevator and stepped into the Records floor. “I think that we mere mortals have gone about as far was can to fix Provence from here.”
Wrinkling her nose, Ninety-Nine replied, “Mere mortals?”
“Everything I know about computers, I learned from watching you.”
Ninety-Nine sighed and wondered if the sound transmitted to Nine. Without her memories, without the vast knowledge he claimed she once possessed, what practical use could she be? With her potential limited as it was by her amnesia, what benefit could she offer the others?
“Provence can revive Seven?” she asked, hoping to distract Nine.
“The two systems are entwined. Provence with the revival technology; the revival technology with Provence. We have to bring Provence back if we want to bring Seven back.”
Ninety-Nine nodded. She was passing through racks of servers, the dark towers marginally taller than her. Tiny lights along their lengths shone red and green, illuminating the otherwise darkened chamber. She continued along the walkway that split through the servers until she reached a double door. A metal panel, like the one embedded into the glass cube on the surface of Rose Garden, functioned as a security check.
“What time is it?” she asked loudly.
“Ten hundred hours. Midmorning. If we somehow bring Provence back online then Seven could be back with us by nightfall.”
“If Eight elects to resurrect him,” Ninety-Nine replied.
“Why wouldn’t she?” asked Nine.
“She appeared hesitant. I don’t think she believes that the Seven who will emerge will truly be ‘her’ Seven.”
“I’ve been through the process dozens of times and I can tell you that I’m the same person,” Nine tried to hide the defensiveness in his tone.
“We’re not the same,” Null’s voice came through the intercom suddenly.
“I don’t know what you bunch did to the system to make you forget, but whatever it was is the reason that it isn’t working at the moment,” Nine snapped back at her. “Before the war ended we would put ourselves through the process to transfer into improved bodies.”
“We knowingly killed ourselves for the sake of advancement?”
“Nobody said progress comes witho
ut a price,” was Nine’s quiet answer.
“Sounds morbid,” Null remarked.
Ninety-Nine agreed with Null but understood Nine’s perspective. Rose Garden created possibilities that were otherwise unheard of for those within its spell. Reaching out, Ninety-Nine placed her hands on the metal panel and felt the slightest suggestion of heat against her palms before the doors slid open to admit her.
“I’m here,” Ninety-Nine announced. “I’m at the Artificial Intelligence mainframe.”
“What do you make of all of this?” Eight asked Twenty.
Suppressing his groan meant that Twenty had to issue some other form of response and responding meant thinking. Thinking was an activity that Twenty preferred to avoid at the moment, given their ever-worsening predicament.
Tired of considering, replaying, and fearing the bizarre situation that he and his friends were trapped in, Twenty was nevertheless impressed by how Eight managed to ceaselessly dwell on it. Epiphanies had become such a mandatory part of their existence in the last three days that they had become more a headache than a force of enlightenment. Exhausted by the repeated intrusions of distant memories and the echoes of ancient music, Twenty’s interest in explaining the mysteries of the world had long since waned.