At this point, David intervened. “I always wondered why we didn’t try harder to explore what is beyond the fog.”
“Or why we stay glued to the Digiscreens,” Mel added.
“We have little curiosity left at all. Nothing but complacency and passive aggression, escapism and overeating,” completed Daniel.
“You’re right,” Tom agreed. “I was troubled by the same things. And I wanted answers to my questions, even as a young man. The hypernet shows, the video games, the virtual reality realm; they never interested me much. I used to get headaches from watching too much Digiscreen, so I preferred reading old books, which are incredibly hard to find. They made me realize that we live in what has become a decadent society.”
“Have you tried to leave the city?” Jules asked.
“I attempted to leave the city a few times and go beyond it through the fog,” Tom answered, “but I never managed to do so. I even tried remotely controlled model airplanes and hot air balloons, in the hope I could see through the cameras what was going on. But I only managed to lose them in the fog. There’s something out there blocking us; either someone or something outside wants us kept in, or someone or something on the inside doesn’t want us out. Another possibility is that there’s nothing left out there on the whole planet, though I cannot accept that. Anyway, this leaves us with no solution but to stay put, as it were.”
“How did you become the head of Secure-IT?” David asked.
“Since my family was one of the richest and certainly one of the most influential in the city, when I became of age, I took the helms of the family’s company, Secure-IT. It had been established before the quakes as an information technology company.
“After the isolation, my father was put in charge of the city security, and he redefined the scope of his company with the mission to keep the people protected from eventual attackers from the outside. Then it evolved into ensuring that order within the city was maintained.”
“Has society changed a lot since you took over?” Allan asked.
“The difference between the classes increased, especially once the Servers lost the manufacturing jobs that had provided them with a reasonably good income. In the last few decades, the factories in the city became fully automated and needed only a handful of Professionals to function.”
“Nevertheless, people are satisfied; they have food, a roof above their head, and entertainment.” David remarked.
Tom replied, “You are right, yet in the last few years, things have gotten worse. Our citizens seem to be more lost than ever, more withdrawn; like sleepwalkers, especially in the Servers’ compound. Nothing interests them anymore, only food and entertainment. They go to work, then come home and just stay enraptured in front of the Digiscreen.”
He continued, thoughtfully, “It was my job to watch the people, so it seemed like a downward trend, a dangerous one, as if our men and women had lost the joy of living altogether. Cases of tortured or neglected kids, beatings or total isolation, people applying to go to the Happy Endings Clinic to put an end to their life --those were scary incidents that soon became commonplace.
“I correlated that with the fact that some of our most prominent business owners and pillars of society seemed to change their behavior in subtle ways, making decisions that contradicted the moral values they used to hold dear. We found out that some of them were clones themselves, yet there was no record of what triggered the replacement or when it had taken place. However, we had to respect the governing rules of our society, which allows such transactions to take place confidentially.
“At about that time, I started to have doubts about the morality of even owning clones and thought of releasing Allan’s double. I had never had one myself, just cloned genetic material.
“Then one day, at the end of February, one of my trusted associates, Serge, took me aside and told me plainly that an assassination attempt on my life was in progress. He had intercepted an encrypted message on the hypernet but couldn’t determine its exact source or destination. Without further ado, we got into a car together with some explosives, cloned organs, and blood that belonged to me, and he drove me away from the office.
“Somewhere along the road, we got out of the car and he remotely started it again and slammed it into a tree. The car burst into flames. I went into hiding, and we waited for the announcement of my presumed death, hoping we could identify the players. But no announcement was made. Instead, a new me was in charge of the company and living in my house, with no word of what had happened. I’ve lived with the Scrappies ever since, keeping my head down and trying to figure out a solution.”
12
“Now things are starting to make sense to me,” Allan began. “I had a gut feeling something was going on with you, father. For the past few months, you seemed more distant and preoccupied. I just thought that it was me growing up and changing, but in fact it was you who had changed. And then there were some small details and stuff we had done together that you didn’t seem to remember. How could I be so stupid and not realize it wasn’t you?”
“Don’t blame yourself, son. It was safer for you that way. Just imagine what would have happened had you started raising too many questions. I am so sorry for not being there for you!” Tom’s voice almost broke in a sob. “Thank goodness you’re all right!”
“Honestly, what I’m having the most trouble with is the fact that you basically abandoned me to live with a clone, one whose motives you had no idea about. What were you thinking?” Allan felt a deep hurt in his heart, even though he was somewhat ashamed that this was all playing out in front of his new friends.
“I was afraid, and I had no real plan,” Tom pleaded for understanding. “I thought that you were safe, and I had some people watching over you, Serge included. I would have come out of hiding at the slightest sign of danger for you, you have to believe that.”
“Let’s leave it at that for now,” Allan conceded. “I need to share with you what happened to me today, as it sounds like this is all tied together somehow.” He told them the whole story, including about how exactly he found out that his presumed father, the clone, was the one who had planned his death.
“It said that I knew too much. Except that I don’t know what it was referring to. Talking to Lan, I found out that he did not have the full memory of the Imaginarium or of the hospital, so I’m going to venture and say that the game I played with my friends triggered the other events.”
“What game was that?” Tom asked.
“It’s called the War of Sovereign Nations. I must have stumbled upon some kind of information it couldn’t afford to get out, so they tried to have me killed.”
“Are you sure nothing happened to your friends?”
“As a matter of fact, no, I don’t know that. I’ll have to find out from Lan. I’ll get him to call on them.”
“You’d better give us all the details of the game and perhaps together we can draw some ideas as to the real cause of the attempt on your life.”
At this moment, Jules intervened. “Don’t say anything until I come back! I forgot to close the chicken coop door and take the goats to the shed.”
As she opened the back door, she slammed it onto someone’s face. A tall person stood on the porch and Jules was able to make out Allan’s face. “The clone!” she yelled. Her first instinct was to put her arms in front of her and kick him in the groin with one knee. “Help!” she screamed, while Lan fell to his knees.
Everybody was up with whatever they could grab for a weapon. Allan got outside first and, seeing Lan down, signaled the others to calm down, then helped him up and inside the house.
“Sorry, everyone,” Lan exclaimed, taking a seat offered by Mel. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I was just trying to find my brother.” He let off a noisy sigh and lowered himself in a chair. He looked up at Allan. “I’m lucky I found you.”
Allan looked at him suspiciously. “How did you get here? I thought we agreed to meet tomorrow.”
>
“Before you left, I placed a tracking device on you. Remember the hug? I’m sorry, but I felt like if I needed to leave the house suddenly, I needed to know where to go. I took a cab to the Server compound. The hard part was crossing the forest on foot. Got scratched more than I care to remember. As soon as I was out of it, I used the tracking software on my tablet to pinpoint the device Allan was carrying, and it got me here pretty easily.”
“Are we safe? Did anyone follow you?”
“No one followed me, I’m sure of it. I’m sorry, I just couldn’t stand the fear of being killed anymore. I need as much help as you do. So I figured, why not get it from the same people you are? Oh, and hello, father,” he addressed Tom.
“Hello yourself. You don’t seem confused to see me sitting here,” remarked Tom casually, finally getting over the initial shock.
Lan shrugged. “I figured it out. No matter if I was a clone or an original, my real father would never have me killed. So he must be a clone too. And yet somebody must have re-programmed his mind or else why would he want us dead? Something bad is going on there. That’s why I decided to leave. And here I am.”
“Not a wise decision. He’s is going to look for you, and when he cannot find you, he’ll employ all the resources he has to track you down. We’ll be in extreme danger, because the first thing he’ll do is raid the Scrappie compound. Have you thought of that?”
“Am I supposed to just sit there waiting until the hammer falls? Can’t you keep me safe?”
“I believe you are safer living there. The clone, who I guess we can just call Thomas for now, can’t pretend you got sick at home and died, not when we have excellent healthcare and enhanced immune systems. He’d probably get you involved in something a bit unusual, like rock climbing, or some other type of adventurous activity that would allow for an accident to happen.”
“Besides, we needed you to keep an eye on him and tell us of his whereabouts, schedule, and report any unusual activity,” Allan added.
“Easy for you to say. Why don’t you take my place?”
“Because I don’t know whether Thomas has a way of telling that I’m an original or not. You, on the other hand, don’t have to fake it.”
“Are you on our side for real? It seems weird how easily you got convinced to go against Thomas and join Allan’s side,” David intervened.
“I have nothing to hide. My life is in peril. Allan heard what Thomas said, that the other one, meaning me, will die soon, as planned. What can I possibly gain if I turn you in?”
“Lan’s right. I heard it clearly enough. That’s why I rushed to help him instead of trying to get rid of him,“ Allan said, defending his brother.
“Thanks, I guess,” Lan replied. “Getting rid of me, like in murdering me. I like this world of yours less and less. You kept me in stasis, just in case, like I was a disposable item. And here I thought I’d gained my freedom, when instead I was just brought to some sort of twisted existence, and now I’m fighting for my life. You guys are crazy.”
“Our world is definitely a bit mad and out of control,” Daniel jumped into the conversation. “But you have to understand, the original intention was not to create full clones. I guess we started doing it simply because we could. And once we started on that path, there was no limit to where it could take us, other than our own imaginations. When somebody with a twisted mind puts a spin on the whole affair, everything just goes crazy.”
“That’s how we ended up in this mess,” said Jules. “Replacing humans with clones is inherently wrong. I’ve been a part of it at the hospital and it freaks me out every time, having to take the dead to the incinerator once someone else had their memory. How can people delude themselves into thinking that they’re hugging their dear child or brother or mother when they’re just holding a product of a lab? Sorry, Lan, I don’t mean to upset you, but in all honesty, I believe that clones are an aberration. We should terminate all the experiments and only keep the technology for cloning body parts.”
“Jules, I hope you don’t truly mean terminate,” Tom stepped in, with a look of great distress on his face. “I thought you knew, but obviously not. There’s no real easy way to say it, but you are a clone.”
Jules stared at Tom, incapable of comprehending what he’d just said.
“Have you lost your mind?”
Tom slowly got up from his chair and got close to Jules. Looking gently at her, he knelt in front of her and said, “You look so much like your mother, Jules. We went to school together, ages ago. She had a daughter who died. You are that daughter’s clone, my darling.”
“That’s not possible, it must be a mistake,” Jules pleaded with them, grasping desperately at Tom’s arms.
Then she got up suddenly and ran out of the house through the front door. Mel started after her, but Tom put his hand on her shoulder and stopped her. “Let her be. She needs to figure things out for herself.”
He turned to the others. “It’s getting late and we had a lot happen today. I suggest we reconvene tomorrow with a clear mind. You can spend the night here, Lan. You can always explain it away with a night out with friends, something Allan did many times.” Both Tom and his sons smiled at this point. “But tomorrow you have to go back home. I’ll take you back to the Server compound; you can go further on your own. David, as always, you’re welcome to stay over. Jules is going to come back to her senses and will be back in no time. I trust her good judgement. Good night everybody.” He went upstairs, leaving the others to get ready for the night.
13
Jules ran as far as she could into the early night and stopped, gasping for breath, at the edge of the forest. Why is this happening? Why me? I’m losing my mind. This cannot be. I can’t deal with it. Oh God of heavens, am I real? Do I have a soul? Am I created? Did I just appear out of nowhere? I’m losing myself, like I never existed. But, how can that be? I have feelings, I like to help people, I have friends… Do I have friends still, now that they know about me? Oh, God, if you exist, please don’t let me lose my mind. Tell me I’m a human being, not an animal or a lab experiment. Oh, no, mother, mother, what have you done to me? How could you do it, who are you? Suddenly the thought struck her that her mother must know the answer and she desperately needed to know. Now.
She got up and ran in a frenzy through the dark forest, scratching her arms, falling a few times, stumbling through the dark and, when she couldn’t run anymore, she walked until she arrived at her mother’s doorstep. How she had wanted to forget those days of her former life. Yet, she had still yearned for her mother’s embrace, like when it was just the two of them.
Her stepfather had moved in when she was about twelve. For four long years she’d had to endure the “attention,” the smooth talk. Let’s be friends. Be good to me and we’ll have lots of fun together. Her mom, happy to share the burden of her Server life with a strong man, did not want to see it. She wanted someone who could love her just as she was, an ordinary woman and single mother.
Jules resisted his advances and made sure to never be alone with him. She would rather be in the streets walking until the time of her mother’s return, just in case he happened to come home early. She used to watch by the window to see him approaching the building, and when she spotted him she would run to the fire escape ladder and go down to the street or up to the roof to gaze at the early stars.
The roof was where she met Bruce, her neighbor, looking at stars through an old telescope. Bruce understood what was going on without many words between them, and they spent many evenings together as he taught Jules all kinds of things about the heavenly realm.
When she turned sixteen, almost three months ago, her stepfather told her that she was old enough to feel like a woman. He said that he would help her feel that way. Somehow, one day he arrived home before she had a chance to escape and he came to her room, red in the face, glassy eyed, and started pulling her towards him.
Instinctively, she did what Bruce once showed her to do in self-defe
nce and kneed him in the groin. The brute, who had not expected it from his “sweet girl,” crouched in pain. In a moment, she was gone. She had no coat on her, feet with only socks on, running like a deer from a voracious wolf.
Tom found her in the forest hours later that night, half frozen and incoherent. He put his coat on her and carried her in his arms to his house on the other side of the forest. For a few days she could not remember who she was. Then, memories of people and things that had happened in her life came to her slowly. She never told them to anyone, including Tom.
After a couple of weeks, she left Tom’s house for the first time and ventured back into the city, where she ran into Bruce. He introduced her at the hospital as his niece who needed a job. He took her ID card from her mother and told her that Jules was okay, but would not be coming home for a while.
And now, after all that time, Jules stood at the door, her heart pounding, not sure whether she could move on with this. Before she had time to decide, her mother opened the door with a garbage bag in one hand.
“Jules!” she exclaimed, the other hand reaching her mouth. “My God, you’re home!” She dropped the bag to embrace her.
She backed away apprehensively. “Is he here?”
“No. No, he’s gone. He left me.” She moved aside as Jules hastily pushed her way in, without paying attention to the extended arms.
“Tell me who I really am,” Jules demanded, without any preamble.
“What… what do you know?” her mother stammered.
“Just answer my question.”
The steel in her daughter’s eyes threw a shudder down her spine, and the middle-aged woman sat on the shoddy coach with a distant look in her eyes as she began her story.
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