The Easytown Box Set

by Brian Parker

  “Andi, pour me a Scotch,” I ordered and pushed myself off the couch.

  “Boss, you asked me to work on you with your health choices. Based on your biometric data, having a drink at this time would have a negative return. You need to sleep, introduction of alcohol into your system will hinder that for at least two hours.”

  “Dammit, Andi,” I said, standing in the hallway. To the left was the kitchen where the bottles of Scotch sat, not poured by Andi. To the right was my bedroom and the shower that I desperately needed after wading through clone blood and gore

  “Additionally, your drinks contain two hundred and forty-nine calories. The consumption of the additional calories immediately before sedentary sleep is a contributing factor to an expanding waistline in middle aged men.”

  “I’m not middle aged,” I growled.

  “You are correct, technically,” she agreed. “However, studies vary as to the age at which that moniker is granted. My point is that you don’t need to have the drink when you’ve been awake for thirty-one point two hours. You need to sleep.”

  I grumbled at her logic and my own stupidity for getting a wild hair about fitness and asking for Andi’s assistance. I knew how to take care of myself, I didn’t need to have my AI tell me what to do.

  “Fine,” I relented. “I’ll get cleaned up and get some rest.”

  “That is the optimal choice.”

  The door to the bathroom closed solidly, giving me a little bit of privacy from Andi’s prying cameras. Without her, I’d never get anything done, but sometimes I felt she was more like a nagging wife than a computer program and I needed a break.

  I unzipped my pants and stepped out of them before dropping them in the laundry chute. Then I pulled off my shirt and poked at my stomach. I watched the reflection in the bathroom mirror. Sure, there was a little bit of softness to my belly that hadn’t been there a few years ago and I could still see the top four bulges of my old six-pack abs, but it wasn’t the same. Along with the layer of fat on my lower abdominals, several gray hairs poked their way prominently amongst the black ones on my chest.

  Maybe Andi was right. I could do a better job of taking care of myself.

  I went to the toilet to pee and my annoyance at the intrusion of privacy returned full force when a chime from the speaker above my head rang out.

  “Urine test complete. Zachary Forrest, you have elevated levels of protein in your urine. This could be an indicator of kidney damage or the onset of kidney disease. You are dehydrated; optimal levels of hydration—”

  “Shut up,” I mumbled, flushing the toilet while it droned on about my urine. Louisiana Health Department code enforcement wouldn’t allow me to disable the apartment’s toilet sensors and it drove me crazy. It said the same thing every time. I had kidney damage from drinking and recommended that I stop drinking. I also had moderate to high levels of sugar in my urine, which could be the beginning stages of diabetes, and the toilet recommended that I stop drinking.

  Even worse, Andi talked to the toilet computer constantly. I’d told her thousands of times to stop, but it was one of her core processes as a check to keep me healthy. And it was annoying.

  Almost immediately after stepping into the shower the overhead light began to flicker, letting me know that someone was calling my cell. I’d purposefully not installed sensors or cameras in the bathroom to keep Andi out of one aspect of my life, but at times like this it would have been beneficial to have the ability to talk to her and let her know to take a message.

  I completed showering as rapidly as possible and roughed up my hair with a towel before wrapping it around my waist.

  “Andi, who was on the phone?” I asked, opening the bathroom door.

  “Dr. Jasmin Jones, New Orleans Police Department staff psychologist.”

  “Dammit.” She probably wasn’t happy I’d stuck her with the clone. “Did she leave a message?”

  “Dr. Jones said to call her back, that’s all.”

  I unwrapped the towel and finished drying off. Then I put on a comfortable old t-shirt and my sleep pants. “Call her back, please.”

  Jasmin’s face filled the wall screen in my bedroom. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Doc. How’s the clone doing?”

  I watched her eyes wander disapprovingly over my messy bed before coming back to me. “She’s doing as well as can be expected. She slept on my couch last night and ate more food than I thought possible for breakfast and now she’s laying down on the couch again.”

  “Yeah, there were a lot of meal replacement bottles at the warehouse. I think that’s all they fed the clones.”

  Dr. Jones nodded and said, “I need to know what we’re doing with her. I’ve got a six year old and a three year old. I can’t keep a clone around them—not one that was as abused as this one has been anyways. I’m willing to try to help her, but you know that abuse does some strange things to a person’s mind. I don’t want her around my family until I have the opportunity to talk to her and see what’s going on upstairs.”

  “I understand. Thank you for taking her last night.”

  “You didn’t give me any other option. I had to get out of there or risk getting caught up in an investigation.”

  I winced at her choice of words. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t know that the drone would get into a firefight when I called you. If those three guys hadn’t shown up, we would have been fine.”

  “But they did. I know a women’s shelter not far from here that would be willing to take her in—as long as she kept the fact that she’s a clone to herself.”

  I couldn’t risk her telling anyone who or what she was. I was already in hot water with Chief Brubaker over the clone issue, if it came to his attention that I’d kept Sadie’s presence hidden from him and that I took her from the warehouse, then I’d get raked over the coals. Everyone considered clones to be property, so freeing her was tantamount to larceny.

  “Okay,” I replied. “I don’t know that trusting her to be quiet is the best plan right now, especially if she discusses how or why she’s at the shelter. I’ll bring her back to my place until we can figure out what to do with her.”

  She frowned. “I don’t know if that’s the best course of action.”

  “Are you afraid that I’m going to try something with her?” I chuckled uncomfortably.

  “No. But now that you mention it, that has to be absolutely the last thing on your mind. Other than some passing conversation over breakfast, I haven’t been able to speak to her. I’m worried that there may be some psychological damage and that she wouldn’t even understand what’s happening. She has lucid memories of everything about the person she was cloned from, except her name or locations of work or home. It’s like they’ve been erased. Bottom line, she could be dangerous to herself—or to you since you’re a male—without extensive therapy.”

  I considered her words carefully. The clone had seemed grateful enough last night that I helped rescue her from the situation. I had to take the risk that she wouldn’t murder me in my sleep if I brought her back here. I couldn’t risk her talking just yet and I’d kept her a secret from Voodoo because I didn’t trust him either. Bringing her to my apartment was the only option I had at the moment.

  “Thank you for your help, Jasmine. It means so much to me that you’re willing to risk your career to help out a clone.”

  “I’m not like a lot of others. I don’t think the clones are property, they’re basically a human—I think. But I am extremely interested in talking with her to see if my thoughts on the subject are correct, once my children aren’t around.”

  “Sounds good, Doc. We’ll schedule a time for you to talk to her in a clinical setting. I’ll be over to get her in a few minutes.”

  “Alright, Zach. See you in a little bit.”

  TWELVE: TUESDAY

  The Jeep pulled up at Dr. Jones’ house and I slapped myself on the cheek. I’d almost fallen asleep on the way over and now I needed to be awake. When the car
stopped, I opened the door and stumbled wearily down the sidewalk to her house.

  “You made good time,” she said when she opened the door. I didn’t even remember pushing the doorbell.

  “Since I’m a cop, my car doesn’t have a governor like everyone else on the road. Comes in handy sometimes.”

  “I sent my husband to the store with the kids, so it’s just Sadie and me if you want to come in.”

  “Thanks,” I replied as she held open the door for me.

  “Down the hallway here,” Jasmin said. “Have you figured out who she is yet?”

  I pulled the fingerprint scanner from the pocket of my overcoat and held it up for her to see. “Not yet. You had to leave so quickly last night that I didn’t get a chance to scan her. This will tell us who she is.”

  “Good. I’m intrigued.”

  I thought back to how I felt last night when I first found her, naked, bloody and scared. Did it matter who she was cloned after? She could be whoever she wanted to be now.

  “Does it matter? She’s a clone; her fingerprints will only tell us who she was modeled after.”

  “It matters to me. What if she’s cloned after a violent murderer and the geneticists went to prisons to get their DNA samples and brain scans?”

  “Hmm. Good point, Doc.” I hadn’t thought of that. “Voodoo said they retain the memories and mannerisms of the original, right up to the point of cloning, so by figuring out who she was, we’ll know what she can become.”

  “Voodoo?”

  “Thomas Ladeaux, Tommy Voodoo, same guy.”

  “You’re working with Tommy Voodoo again?”

  I hadn’t been shy when I wrote my report on the Sex Club Killer case. I’d said that Ladeaux gave me the information required to figure out that the droids were being hacked.

  “His company engineered the clones and he found out what these guys were doing, so he’s trying to get them back. It seems like he’s being humane and genuinely wants them cared for instead of being treated like that.”

  “I don’t like it,” Jasmin stated. “The guy is using you somehow.”

  “You’re probably right. He says he isn’t dirty—and after fifteen years of the department trying to pin something on him, I’m starting to believe it.”

  Dammit. Did I just defend Tommy Voodoo?

  “Just watch yourself.”

  “I will, don’t worry. But, I need whatever help I can get. I won’t get any support from the department because Chief Brubaker forbade me from doing anything else with the clone case and threatened to suspend me indefinitely if I went any further with this thing,” I elaborated.

  “I don’t know who he’s protecting, but the whole thing stinks to me. There’s the refusal of the medical and legal communities to acknowledge the clones’ existence, and Voodoo’s ‘accidental’ sale of them to a group whose forte is torture and murder. Everything is sideways with this and I want to know why.”

  My therapist stared at me for a moment and then sighed as a sign of her displeasure. “Stay safe, Zach.”

  She didn’t say anything else before turning back down the hall. I trailed along behind her, hoping I was doing the right thing trusting Voodoo’s information and in going against Brubaker’s direct orders.

  Doctor Jones’ house was small and filled with lots of little knickknacks, pillows and plants. It wasn’t my style, but it did make me feel welcome and I got the vibe that they spent a lot of quality family time together—which was definitely not my style.

  Sadie sat on a bar stool at the counter between the kitchen and the living room, doodling on a pad of paper. She looked up at me and smiled brokenly, the scabs on her face pulling her lips askew.

  “I’m not a murderer,” she mumbled softly. “I ran a business—I think. It’s all so murky up here.” She poked the side of her head with her index finger. “I remember big meetings and sitting at the head of the table. And I remember seeing families at the park and being sad while playing with a dog.”

  “Those are memories from the person you were cloned from,” I stated, trying to keep my voice even. Doctor Jones and I had already upset her by talking too loud in the hallway. I didn’t want to upset her further and even those few words made me think that she’d recovered from her ordeal slightly. I didn’t want to push her back to that place.

  She nodded softly and then, “They feel so real, though. I remember being there, not like a memory implant or something. I was there.”

  “It may seem like that, Sadie,” Doctor Jones said. “But all of those memories, up until the moment the brain scan was completed, were input into you as you grew. For you, those memories are just as real as they are to the person you were cloned from.”

  “Do you want to know whose memories you have?” I asked. “Of course, you don’t have to know, either. It’s up to you.”

  She considered my words, tracing interlocking shapes on the pad of paper to make the lines darker. After a moment, she picked up the paper and held it so I could see it.

  “Does this symbol mean anything to you?” Sadie asked.

  The design she’d drawn didn’t look like any business logo that I remembered seeing in New Orleans, but after I puzzled out what she’d drawn, I knew what the symbol stood for. It was a capital “B” in block letters with a lowercase “i” beside it. The lowercase letter was filled in and the dot on the top swirled around the capital “B” and finished near the origination point, effectively turning the dot above the “i” into a globe.

  “Biologiqué International,” I replied. “That’s Ladeaux’s clone company where you were born.”

  “I remember seeing it on a white wall,” Sadie mumbled almost too low for me to hear.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “Yes. I just thought that maybe that was a clue as to who I was.” She sighed and put the paper back on the counter, then held out her right hand. “I want to know whose memories I have.”

  “Are you sure?” I asked. “There’s no need to know, you can become whoever you want to be.”

  “I know. I want to know who she is and why they did this to me.” She gestured vaguely at her face and body.

  “Alright,” I said, taking her hand gently. I slid the scanner over her index finger and waited for a match.

  And then I waited some more.

  “What the hell?”

  I pulled the fingerprint scanner away and looked at the sensor. It didn’t appear to be dirty or blocked, so I put my finger inside.

  In seconds, it beeped and “Zachary Benjamin Forrest” flashed on the display.

  “Let me see your hand,” I ordered as I leaned forward for a better view.

  Sadie turned her hand over to reveal a patchwork of scars that caused me to whistle softly.

  “Somebody’s gone to a lot of trouble to burn away the texture on your fingers. Let me try another one.”

  I tried each of her fingers; all of them gave me the same negative results.

  “So what does that mean?” Sadie asked.

  “It means that whoever cloned you doesn’t want anyone to know who you’re cloned after.”

  I thought back to the report from the coroner on the three clones that started this whole thing. Were their fingerprints burned away as well? The report said the fingerprint analysis was inconclusive, but I’d chalked that up to them being clones so he hadn’t bothered to run the prints.

  The clone held her hands close to her face and stared at her fingertips. “No. I remember having fingerprints. Tracing the lines. Getting arrested in college for…a protest about beef consumption? I think that’s right.”

  “If you were arrested, then I can do a full DNA workup on you,” I suggested.

  Jasmin shot me a confused look. “I thought you were told to stay off the case.”

  “Shit. You’re right. I can’t run the DNA without giving someone an idea of what I’m doing.”

  “So that means you are free to be whoever you want,” Jasmin told the clone.

&
nbsp; Sadie shook her head. “I want to know who’s up here.” She tapped at the side of her head again.

  “I know a way to get some leads, but I’m not entirely sure if the answers are worth the costs,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Sadie asked.

  “It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for a few days. The idea of clones having fewer rights than a pet turtle bothered me from the moment I found out about it. I have some contacts in the media—real sleazeball reporters—who would love to investigate a story like this. If they could break open a story about the federal, state and local government cover up of human rights violations simply because the potential that a company could manufacture a large voting population, then they’d probably be looking at a Pulitzer.

  “That’s a major incentive for any journalist,” I continued, keeping my opinion of the city’s reporters to myself. “There is one guy, though, who’s decent and I’d be willing to talk to. Plus, it’s the breakthrough that he needs to get out of the New Orleans market and onto the national stage, so he may be willing to pursue this story enthusiastically.”

  Jasmin crossed her arms across her chest. “So, you want to go to the media to find out who Sadie was cloned from?”

  “It’s an option,” I replied. “It’s certainly not the most preferred option, but it’s an avenue that we could pursue since everything else seems to be closed off.”

  “And that will end up creating a problem?” Sadie asked.

  “Probably. Our population is complacent, easily distracted by the latest trend, and they don’t care about clones. They know that we have the technology to clone humans, we’ve been cloning animals for over a century. But, they’ve been complicit in the lack of regulation and granting of rights to clones. They don’t see the results every day in their vidfeeds, so to them, it’s easier to pretend that clones don’t exist. We put Sadie up on the screens and they can’t ignore it.”