“Bonita, where the hell is C30? He’s over two hours late,” panted the Plain Man.
“How many times C16? I told you I don’t know already.” Bonita groaned wearily at the balding, acne-scarred, most recent head to materialize in the space in front of her desk, hovering with half a dozen others like a school of guppies. Calvin30 had hacked her neuroview as well, so he could look back at his brother through her eyes. The new perspective did not improve the view.
“I’ll tell you when he shows up. Why are you always upside down?”
“Nothing. Nothing.” The upside-down head flushed as it struggled to right itself before abruptly disappearing.
“Whatever jerks your chain.”
Calvin30's Bonita view switched to again looking down from the ceiling as the Plain Man clumsily pulled the neurovisor out of his head again.
“Sons of a b-b-b-bitch. How they expect me to get any work done with substandard g-g-garbage like this?”
"What a drip," Calvin30 quipped, as the neurotically challenged object of his contempt hurled the neurovisor on the floor and stomped on it causing the center to crack.
Staring at the crumpled neurovisor for some minutes, the Plain Man finally bent down nervously to scoop it up as if it were a damaged baby bird.
“Oh, for P-P-Pete’s. They said they won’t give me another one.” Stooping, the Plain Man pulled open his desk drawer and took out some tape, which he wrapped, in a thick wad, round the broken bridge. Draping the jury-rigged result back over his forehead, he threw himself into his chair and turned his back on the universe.
“So good to see you are getting up and about bro,” Calvin30 offered from the floor by the door and in the flesh.
C16 spun about, his heels failing to stop his spin until his eyes had just passed by Calvin30's line of sight. He sprang up to face a face, which was, thankfully, a properly attired and so much better-looking version of himself.
C16 was piled into a threadbare suit and loosely knotted tie; not just out of fashion, but beyond any notion or awareness of style. Contrast that with Calvin30's polished man-in-green ensemble, a clean and calculated custom cut business kurta plucked from out in front of the latest trend. Here stood a man of substance sporting authentic leather jutti and immaculate makeup.
Everything else was depressingly identical, subtracting some minor indignities of age, both too thin to be imposing, soft light brown skin and branded with matching birthmarks on their prematurely balding scalps. His brother and he looked at each other with the same brown eyes outlined by full, thick eyebrows meeting at the top of distinctly pointed noses. Both had rather long fingers for the size of their hands.
But the differences, though subtle, were immense. C16’s face was screwed up with a constipated countenance, his skin beset by outbreaks of infected boils. Other than these unpleasing aspects he would be utterly unnoticeable. By contrast, there was nothing ordinary about Calvin30. Each morning in the mirror he appeared positively beatific with a broad, flowing grin that bestowed upon his otherwise humdrum face an odd yet compelling charisma, there for all to please.
“Disturbed about you bro. Idle at a desk all-day. Harsh for the heart, hard on the haemorrhoids.” Calvin30, man of many names and mastered by none held out a hand to his brother, who sniffed at it like it was rotten fish.
“I-I’ve . . . you’ve got a hell of a lot m-m-more to worry about. You. Any f-f-fregging nano ComSec is going to be in here ripping the cubes out of our neuroservers.”
Calvin30 yawned while his brother from no mother droned away.
“Bro. No need to profane in vain,” Calvin30 stretched, wandered to the center of the room, spread his hands comfortably on the back of his brother’s chair. He looked opaquely into C16’s eyes, which flinched away.
“Perhaps organize some plastic surgery, some triage on your loused-up visage of ours.”
Words swung confidently off an underlying cadence.
“See your acne’s back on the attack. Too much fuss must be pushing out the pus. You - need - to - re-lax.”
“I g-g-give you ten. Ten s-seconds to explain ex-exactly why I. Why I sh-shouldn’t report you to ComSec im-im-immediately. Who authorized the alteration of mneme ET190012? See, I-I know, I got you on th-this.”
Calvin30 smiled as his brother’s gaze burned holes in the wall somewhere to the left of him.
“How close did you nose that neuroseal bro? As a law you should go slow when leaping to the letter, because the number looks a little low to me. Whoever screened that mneme was a sweet sixteen. Who should that be?”
Calvin30 walked to the window. Surveyed the scene. Paused for the insinuation to sink in.
“Wouldn’t twirly squirrel about it my twin.” He caught himself yawning again. “Space is a long place for things to go wrong. Tell them it’s a neurolink glitch at the Saturn transponder you tried to fix. Sell them that song or drop the bad notes and just carry on.”
In his mind Calvin30 composed a bass line around the rhythm of his brother’s grinding teeth. Here was something for the nosy shrew to chew on. Fool goes looking for a new clue, so what does he find? Finds he don’t even own his own brain signature. Stop the presses for the non-headline. What’s a clone without his ID? Same inside as outside, just a no one, no one at all. Calvin30 enjoyed the moan as the red in his brother’s face bled into the monotone blend of the carpet.
“Got to mind what might cling to your behind bro or consign yourself to wiping it down. Either way re-lax. Everything is copacetic. Documented. We never received the original. Got it?”
“The or-original? What are you saying?”
“We never received the original,” Calvin30 clicked his fingers like a hypnotist, “the message spliced when we received it. From Saturn. This is not your-or-my problem.”
“Bull-Bullshit,” C16 protested feebly, “I don’t believe a goddamn word that comes out of y-your twisted little m-mouth.”
“Believe what you conceive. Quantum-encrypted. Check the source brother. How could I have anything to do with it?”
“Faked,” C16 cracked his knuckles, leaned forward, sucked his breath, clutched at straws, put on a brave face, and a stiff quivering upper lip.
“Peruse the codes if you’ve no better row to hoe. Gotta go. Loathe you later, brother.”
Calvin30 flicked a manila envelope to an off-guard C16 who fumbled the parcel to the floor. He stood there like a stunned pigeon staring at its reflection it just hit. Let the impudent drip take on August Bridges if he dared - who else could switch the signal out on Saturn? It was almost lamentable that C16 lacked the balls.
The door to his sorry brother’s office swung away and Calvin30 strode assuredly forward down the corridor. That grimace on C16’s face had undoubtedly made his day. Unhooking his ‘pipe’ off its hoop, lipping the reeds, he blew a few licks of a luscious Antoinella Marsalis number, a syncretic meditation on 21st Century jazz standards. Pulsing lyrics darted gaily down the bureaucratic corridors, luring out both furtive smiles and Gaelic salutes. Calvin30 held his instrument out to venerate it. SlySynth 88, electronics hand-tuned, smooth fat tenor, a true classic. He’d traded a battered Altoharp pocket sax for it, with some techno who was a collector. That old Altoharp didn't play like this baby though, even after Calvin30 had the all the necessary extras installed.
And why not celebrate when friendly fate designates a humble clone to play the solo break for the whole solar system. Buried beneath the deep note in that double bar polyphonic measure his buffoon brother had uncovered was the ET key that would set him free. Into only his waiting palm the aliens had passed over such a spectacular aria of promise and ill omen. The specifics of that message were more sublime than even he, Calvin30, could possibly have imagined.
He paused at Bonita’s office and seduced her with a serenade. She frog-lip smiled. Eighty-seven brothers and just one with style. Go figure.
Life, in the first round, was a downer. Being a clone, owned by the Com, was like being a dog. Throw y
ou a bone you jump how high. Sure, word was clones had rights now. In days of yore, Coms owned every neuron in your noggin. This was the reason for your season. Intellectual property control. A once off’s wits and soul had wings, but a clone’s had to stay fixed. Nowadays a clone can walk straight out that door. Don’t matter. People have expectations and it’s too hard to be anonymous when there are so many copies of your face floating around the place.
You could change the face, get a total plasto, but what was the point? Fact was a clone’s genes were gummed in the machine. They’d engineered you to feel filial obliges with some sort of kiss-ass allele, for the Coms had made more than the man. They made the family. They made the world. Then the biological problematical - all clones knew their Coms to be the only possible means of reproducing. The Com’s success was the clone’s success. Not vice versa because a clone, like a lone termite, was entirely dispensable to his nest. They’d taught you that all your life and they never let you forget it - most of all the other clones.
Panarchists too, just like all good racists. If they didn't want someone to kick around, then they wanted someone to look down on. Take the whole Clone Rights Campaign. Was it to liberate the clone, or to litigate his elimination? Words like unnatural, aberration, unhuman, perversion. Were they talking about your status or your existence? Wasn't everybody happy now? Clones were “free”, and Coms stopped making them. Hypocrites could have their hate and eat it too.
Life sucked so hold the presses. So why not focus on a locus more fun? Take advantage of the pleasure in the treasure in your tragedy? Living as a clone could be a groove if you knew how to move with it. The Essence of the context, the key, the big light bulb in the sky, came one dreary grey morn, insides wrapped into a whorl, wishing to hell that anyone might notice. Slaving endless hours in Exec Services, fighting for the tossed crumbs, chanting the same dumb mantras as the other grey suited dwarves jockeying up and down the java powered pyramid, as if dissipating into cramped ambition was the subway to success. Desperately desiring distinction, owning something that would not be only a post-dated edition of someone else.
Then it dawned on Calvin30 that one fine day - he felt this way. So did everyone else. Clones and Originals and their dogs and their fleas - all blessed creatures needed someone to be.
Nothing had since been the same.
Everyone, Calvin30 surmised, every last wise guy one of Gaia’s own, were nothing more than mere marionettes twirled about on strings of fear of losing what a clone, by birth, by being, never possessed in the first place. Realness bestowed itself upon Calvin30’s Pinnochionic self in a blessed flash of satori. “There are no strings on me.”
Calvin30 began to cultivate buddies. His level in the Com pond lifted effortlessly upward. His upper hand - a clone is not an opponent. Like some wise cracking African American manservant in a memory lane movie. Like those boundlessly cool oppressed past captains of hip hop, bee bop, and swing. Like only the most splendid of niggers, black then like clone now, dancing on the bones of our presumed masters. We entertain you while you constrain us, but jesters will get their just desserts.
People now came to Calvin30, lapping at his font of fresh confidence like thirsty dogs.
“For a clone,” the Originals shop-gossiped, “that C30 is hunky dory. Yuck yuck yuck.” Not grovelling, grotesque, jittery, skulking, shifty or shabby like his ilk - a decent up-to-code sort of Joe. “You almost wouldn’t guess he was one of, you know, Them.”
Which he, unequivocally, wasn’t.
In this way Calvin30, the despised, metamorphosed into associate of foremost resort, savage noble, and counsel to the harried workers and contractors of Mirtopik. They in turn converted to begin to trust and depend upon him.
Which made them easy targets.
Calvin30, trusty true,
He gonna walk those miles in your shoes,
top that mountain, wind and climb
Look out, about, feel so fine in the sunshine
Fly bird, fly, flap sap, sing,
Marvel that world beneath your wing,
Rush the sun, then splat, fall flat
Down to waiting windows, power lines, hungry cats,
Spin down in a whirl, sad slow swirl,
Flag unfurled, come undone uncurled, meet boy lose girl,
down down
with those big bad world,
bad big bad world
Blues.
That was but one of the tunes Calvin30 played people on. Chords that just kept progressing round back into themselves. The dependable melody of free fall, which, if people were to be their honest selves was the fondest song they’d ever sing.
Take admiring Bonita. She was older now, a ripe sacrifice for the God of Small Comforts, swelling fat with sweet loneliness. Despicable in every diminutive way. Yet there was greatness in her. Desperation so deep she’d take come-ons from a clone; a potential for degradation beyond her mildest dreams.
Calvin30 posted romantic emails in idle moments that hinted at his identity in the blanks she filled in. Soon, one bad day settled in a long list of them, the emails might stop. Maybe become abusive towards the obtuse boob. Or, if Calvin30 were bored that week, he'd dip into some Mirtopik account and hire someone to stalk her. All up to the whims of minor muses. Today she was feeling pretty good. Smiles come before tears. Stopping for the shoe to drop.
“How’s your idiot brother doing?” she asked, hopefully conspiratorial.
“His last expression?” Calvin30 gave his impression, eliciting a jelly full belly laugh from the love-struck cow.
“Tee hee. You’re so funny. Hey, I’ve got a call for you from Luna City. Sounds important.”
“The Man on the Moon as always ataxia in perpetuum, no down time for the wicked.” He awarded her with a wink.
Hee haw.
“Don’t I know it. Anyway, the woman told me to make sure you called right away. You’re not starting something on the side, are you?” There was a more than a little interest in what his response would be.
“Ah, no, my paramour. You know there’ll never be another you.” So, fortunately, true.
As Calvin30 wandered away towards something new, an elevator door opened to spit out a tousled youth bedecked with a bicycle helmet. Intently chewing betel nut, the boy browsed the flow of mnemes in his neurovisor. Calvin30 made way with a flourish allowing the courier to elbow through. The genuflection captured the boy’s attention.
“Hey, yo a clone isn’t yo?” The courier poked rudely at Calvin30’s torso. “I know cause I seen some of yo series last time here. Freaked I out. All the same yo guys, like quadzooplets.”
“Alive to be at your service.”
The bozo shifted the tuft of betel in his mouth and flashed a pink stained smile. “Sure. Yo know dis fat ass moc sits down the hall there? Yo take this stuff to her. Yo know always thought yo dudes is straight down, made for the work, right?”
Calvin30 swivelled dutifully to point out Bonita’s unoccupied office. She had vanished, along with most everyone else on the floor, off to a staff meeting with free pizza. Timing was everything.
“Here,” the boy thrust a handful of neurocubes onto Calvin30. “Give ‘em to the old moc when she get back. I’m late.” Thanks. Boy. Now, did the presumption of young massa upset Calvin30? Not one bit. After all, to be a clone was to be of service. And one couldn’t fault a puppet for his strings.
Now Calvin30 would give those strings a pling. Quick call to front desk security on the neurovid. “Hola, Mister Ray. C30 on the phone. Yeah, that’s right, me. Hey, is a flycycle parked illegally near the base level elevator doors? There is? Cause I think I just saw the owner coming down the lift.
See you later elevator. Calvin30 kept the neurovid channel open to watch the security man no longer watching the monitor mnemes as they hovered after him, flapping like bats. Ignoring them as he followed the boredom easing purpose of pursuing the bad guy.
One eye on the ComSec officer who wasn’t watching him, Calvin3
0 swung off to pass out his largess. A minute later he returned. Empty handed. Gifts delivered to all God’s children.
New Alan’s promo to old Jorge’s desktop.
Promises betrayed might trigger a work stop.
Unpleasant surprise, hapless happenings
Old Jorge had applied for that same opening.
Top rush job to do now under in-box overflowing
When Joe never finds it his boss will be glowering
Vaguely worded memos on the top of the bin
And Urgent work slid further deep down within
Gossip office Noel gets one breathy letter.
Married Angela to Kent one-man-better.
A manager doling out great over-time.
With sighing and kisses and bottles of wine.
Ho hum dee dum do dee dee.
A meander of meaningless maleficent monkey wrenching. Don’t mean a thing if you ain’t got no swing. Calvin30 was not some cat who would drop notes out of place. The direction of this section of Mirtopik, Business Development Integration, the Beady Eye, was in the middle of a rapacious ingestion of a lesser section, Intelligence Information Assessment. IIA was the Com’s eye on the ball, auditing information flows from the Syns that spied on Mirtopik’s competitors and clients. BDI was originally the public relations branch. Through means smooth and nefarious, Calvin30 had encouraged the courage of a nervous BDI boss to grab the horns by the bull and steer Mirtopik up its own ass. To stop the leaks of “sensitive” information at source by keeping the awful truth out of the Com entirely. The takeover had become a perfectly proactive bureaucratic prophylactic for reality. And to properly mushroom the ensuing information vacuum, a powder keg of office politics needed a spark to start the fuse. And the scratch of today’s mail mismatch might help light it off.
Calvin30 checked the wall clock in the elevator. Still set 15 minutes behind so those running late this morning had been just that fashionably extra bit late. The devil was in the details. Calvin30 set it back 15 minutes forward.
Ten Directions Page 11