by V. J. Deanes
“Rumors have persisted for a long time about Farlane’s ability to clone humans. No one has ever found any proof. I don’t believe that you have a twin Mr. Mars, but there is someone else who is exactly like you.”
“That’s quite a story,” Kalan remarked. “You expect me to believe this?”
“I understand this must be a shock for you,” Mia remarked. “You came here this morning confident of your identity and now you are told that you might be someone else.”
“You think that I was adopted, or cloned?”
“Can’t rule it out,” Mia answered.
“How can I be sure?”
“If my theory is correct there are no records of adoption. If you believe the urban myths, Farlane had a network of families who could not have children of their own. He provided them with clones. It was faster than trying to adopt. Birth certificates were forged. The families went on with their lives. If you want to be sure you need to find Doctor Farlane.”
“Who is a recluse whose whereabouts are unknown,” Kalan added.
“Precisely,” Mia added. “He is probably as interested in finding you as you are in finding him. If he is still alive.”
“Why would he be?” Kalan asked.
“If Doctor Farlane successfully created a community of clones over the past few decades he would want to know if any of them suffered the poor health and immune system failures that plagued early experiments with cloning animals. My guess is that he wants to keep an eye on all of his creations. Your parents must be part of the network. Ask them how to reach Doctor Farlane.”
“Can you tell if I am the original, or if I am the clone?” Kalan asked.
“I have no way of knowing ” Mia answered. “Doctor Farlane will know the answer.”
Kalan looked over at Rain.
“Let’s go some place and talk,” Rain said.
“Please wait outside in the hall Mister Mars,” Mia added. “I need to speak with Rain for a moment.”
Kalan walked out, confused.
“Stories about Damien Farlane have been floating around for years,” Mia remarked quietly. “I dismissed them all as groundless speculation, until I saw those two birth records and identical DNA samples. I have dealt with many identity cases, but I have never seen one like this before.”
“Do you know anything about Farlane?”
“No, not really,” Mia replied. “If you believe the urban mythology powerful people want to bring Farlane to justice. Other powerful people want access to his secrets. My guess is that you will become a very rich woman if you can make either of those happen. Or, you will end up dead. Think about how are you going to play this situation. You likely don’t have much time.”
“Are you in any danger?” Rain asked Mia.
“No, I’ll be fine. I hacked this information with secure aliases.”
“Thanks for helping me out. I owe you one,” Rain said as she left the office.
Kalan and Rain walked for a few minutes to a small park before he felt like talking.
“We hear about robots that behave like people. Machine intelligence that will surpass human intelligence. Experiments with editing genes. Farming organs. It all seems to take place on the periphery of our lives. There is a buzz about it for a while then it goes away. You just don’t care that much because it doesn’t affect you. Then someone who knows more about science than you do looks you in the eye and says that someone else might be you.”
“Try to relax,” said Rain.
“I’m furious,” Kalan blurted out. “Have I been lied to my whole life? You saw that guy in the church earlier, saying that he recognized me. I am an only child. I don’t have a sister. I’ve never been to church in my life. I don’t know who I am anymore.”
Rain reached out and took Kalan’s hand. “Go back to my place. Lay low. In case you are being watched, get to this address first. I’ll make sure that Cecil knows to expect you. There is an old tunnel. It leads to the distillery underground. He’ll see to it that you get to my place in one piece.”
Kalan thought about Rain’s offer. Perhaps a safe place to rest was what he needed. Maybe she knew too much. Perhaps a safe place would tie him down. Perhaps he should keep moving. Her intentions seemed genuine. “Fine,” he replied.
A few minutes after Rain left to go to the shelter Kalan strolled out from beneath the tree cover in the park and unsuspectingly into full view of surveillance cameras on the roof tops of nearby buildings . He worked up the nerve to make the call. He nervously dialed the number.
Jane Mars didn’t recognize the number when her phone rang. On any other morning she would be out in the barn tending to her animals. “Mother,” he said.
“Kalan,” she said in a surprised tone. “You sound exhausted.”
“Is Dad there?”
Jane shook her head. “No. He’s away until tomorrow.”
“Might make things easier,” Kalan said.
“You can’t shoot your mouth off like the last time and expect to come back here whenever you want. You’re a grown man. You need to act like it.”
“I’m not calling to try and fix the past. I don’t need a scolding. I need to find Damien Farlane.”
There was a long silence.
“I don’t have much time,” Kalan said. “I need to know. Some guy who looks exactly like me tried to kill me. Then someone told that me I have a sister. What is going on?”
“We need to have this conversation in person. We can’t speak about this over the phone.”
“That’s not going to happen any time soon,” Kalan replied. “I need to stay hidden. How can I reach this Farlane guy?”
“I can’t tell you that. Where are you Kalan?”
“That is nobody’s business.”
“Doctor Farlane doesn’t take appointments on request,” Jane remarked. “If he wants to see you he will find you.”
“So it’s true,” Kalan remarked.
“I don’t know what you have been told Kalan,” Jane answered. “Come on home for a while.”
Kalan hung up.
XXXX
Cecil was a bigger man in the late afternoon light than Kalan remembered from the night before. “Rain told me to keep an eye on you. She thinks that you’re pretty wound up.” Kalan was silent.
The two disappeared into the underground tunnel.
“I don’t want any trouble. I just want to get some rest,” Kalan said as the pair emerged from the tunnel into the hallway that led to Rain’s space in the old distillery.
“The room is all yours,” Cecil said. “What are you running from? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“I wish I knew,” Kalan replied.
“You go on and rest up then,” Cecil encouraged. A few hours later Rain shook him with vigor.
“What’s going on?” Kalan asked slowly, as he opened his eyes to find Rain leaning over him.
“Sit up,” Rain said in an agitated tone. “What do you make of this?” she asked, as she handed Kalan a photograph.
Kalan took a few moments to collect his thoughts. “Where did you get this? Looks like it was taken this afternoon in the park when I called my mother.”
“A older woman brought it around to the shelter, asking if anyone recognized you. One of the guys on the kitchen staff asked her what she wanted. He played it
right. Didn’t say that we had seen you. Didn’t say that we hadn’t.”
“What did she want?” Kalan asked.
“She said that the person in this photograph is looking for someone.” Rain handed Kalan a note. “This is where you need to be tomorrow at one o’clock. You need to go alone.”
“If they knew how to get this note to you at the shelter, they must have followed you here,” Kalan remarked.
“Nobody followed me here. I took the same tunnel you did. No witnesses. No cameras.”
“They must know that I’m here.”
“That’s impossible,” Rain replied calmly.
“What if it isn’t?” K
alan protested. “The people who want me dead took that picture of me a few hours ago. At the park. Just after you left. They knew how to get it to you. So that you would pass it on to me. They must know that I am here.”
Rain walked over to pet her boxer. “If he is right will you keep us safe?” she asked her dog, playfully. Rain looked back towards Kalan. “Maybe the people who want you dead are connected to this photograph. Maybe they aren’t. Do they want to get to Farlane? Do they work for Farlane? No point fretting over it tonight. You will know soon enough.”
Chapter 5
People walked past Kalan as if he was invisible. He stood recessed in the shadows beside The Harrington Hotel, between 18th Street and 19th Street. Ozone fouled the dank humid city air. It left an aftertaste worse than the smoke from the pervasive forest fires that burned beyond the suburbs, in the Red Zone south of the Blue Zone border. He peered keenly through the haze down the street into the main square, wondering why there were two people fitting the description of the one person he had come to meet. Two men, each wearing long light colored trench coats and dark glasses, had staked out a space in opposite corners. Kalan watched how they grew restless once the meeting time had come and gone. Finally, the tension between them reached the breaking point.
When the man furthest away made the first move, Kalan decided it was time to leave. He walked away briskly, in the opposite direction. He heard the commotion, but did not stop to watch. A big man of color caught up to Kalan and said “Go in here,” as he ushered him into the old museum. “You don’t have much time.”
Moments later, Kalan found himself alone with the bulky stranger in one of the washrooms. The lock clicked shut.
“Who are you?” Kalan demanded, poised for a fight.
“That was smart,” the man replied as he took off his coat. “You did what I would have done. Left the scene just before it got out of hand. Put this on,” he said as he unzipped a second coat from inside the one he was wearing and tossed it to Kalan. “Quickly.”
Kalan was reluctant, not ready to let his defenses down. However, the man across from him wasn’t hankering for a fight. He pulled off his tearaway pants, revealing the shapely legs of a woman, from below a short leather skirt. A tattoo of a miniature Samurai sword was etched into one of her inner thighs, just above where a real sword was stored conveniently in a knee-high boot. She reached behind her head and yanked off the mask of a tough looking black man, revealing a young woman with long dark hair and deep brown eyes. Her speech was softer than Kalan would have imagined, once she peeled the thin audio distortion film away from her neck. “Put this on too,” she said, handing Kalan a different latex mask.
“Tell me Dagger Lady, who is Farlane?” Kalan demanded.
The woman spoke quietly when she made the phone call. “We need to get out of here,” she said to Kalan, ignoring his request. “Head for the silver car with the red wheels. I told it to wait for us.”
Kalan, disguised as an older Latino man, walked casually with Dagger Lady down 19th Street. The man from the main square passed them as he rushed to zone in for the kill, oblivious that his prey was camouflaged, strolling away in the opposite direction. He was not the man who had been sent to protect Kalan. That man was dead. Dagger Lady remained composed, but wary. She reached down into her boot to retrieve her weapon. It would be an easy kill, if required.
Trench Coat took note of the silver car, thinking that it would make for a perfect get away. He walked away in search of Kalan. Dagger Lady stood down.
“Entering Danor Township,” the computer remarked. Neither of them had spoken a word in the hour since leaving the old museum and traveling north east of the city. When the car came to rest beside a secluded house, Dagger Lady broke the silence. “You will be safe here.”
Kalan took his mask off and wandered around to the back of the house. “I don’t think your definition of safe is the same as mine,” he remarked. He peered through the screen door. A gentle tug on the handle was enough for the slightly bent metal door frame to creak open. “Unlocked. You don’t seem to be the trusting type.” He walked inside, ready to take on any nemesis that was waiting for him.
“You live here?”
“I stay here occasionally.” Dagger Lady replied. “If required.”
Kalan walked through the spartan bungalow. The curtains were slightly yellowed. The couch was almost worn through in places. Rust stained the porcelain sink and tub in the small bathroom. The barely exposed shiny ends of Kunai swords that had been tucked into tiny spaces throughout the house caught his eye.
“There’s not much in here,” Kalan noted. “Except for this computer screen here on the table.”
“You might want to thank me,” Dagger Lady remarked.
“For what? Bringing me to a secluded place where you can kill me without anyone knowing. You could slit my throat with that sword in your boot, bury my remains out there in the wilderness and it would be a secret forever.” Kalan said pointing to the vast open space behind the house. “At least the air is better here.”
“For saving your life.”
“I could have taken that guy on my own. You intervened for your own reasons. Where is Farlane?”
“This situation is much bigger than you,” said a voice from the computer. The visual image of a bald, elderly man with a look of stern intensity came to life. “Sit down. I’m going to tell you some of what you need to know.”
“Damien Farlane,” said Kalan.
“If that’s what you want to believe,” the man replied.
Kalan reached down his shirt behind his shoulder. He pulled out his Silent Destroyer laser pistol, put in on the table and began to drum the fingers of one hand lightly on the barrel. “I don’t care for the drama,” he remarked dryly. “Just tell me what is going on.”
“You’re a man on the run, you’re not a killer,” the voice said. “Nisha is not going to hurt you.”
Kalan clasped the weapon. Once the sensor confirmed his fingerprint the power meter pulsed to maximum.
“Stand up,” Kalan said calmly.
Nisha nervously did as she was told.
“Turn around, then put one hand back on the table,” said Kalan. “Take your boots off with your other hand. Slowly. Who knows where you may have blades stashed away. I want them all. Keep facing the other way, reach behind and put them on the table. That hand comes off the table and you’ll get fried.” he added. “I’m not in a trusting mood right now.”
Nisha awkwardly did what she was told. Kalan collected a pair of Kunai swords, before switching off his pistol and placing it back on the table in front of him.
“So Farlane, where do we go from here?”
“This display of antisocial violent paranoia is disturbing,” said the bald man on the screen. “You have become a mystery Kalan Mars. You were such a pleasant boy when you were young. Then you left home. You’re just not the young man I expected.”
“Am I a clone?”
“I prefer not to talk about who is on the list and who is not on the list when others are in the room. I only discuss the list with people face to face. Nisha is one of my assistants. She has never seen the list.”
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t know what you were told. All I can say is that you grew up in the tranquil setting that I helped create for you.”
“Hadley’s Crossing is a colony, isn’t it? A place where humans who were grown in test tubes live without knowing their true identity.”
“Who told you this?”
“No one,” Kalan replied. “It’s my hunch.”
“People who couldn’t have children and who found the process of adoption too long and onerous came to me because I provided another option. They agreed to keep a secret in exchange for the fulfillment of their wishes.”
“The secret of who is a freak and who isn’t?”
“Now you sound like them Kalan.”
“Who is them?”
“These self proclaimed protecto
rs of human biology. The Society for the Elimination of Artificial People. The Church of Pure Humanity. The most dangerous adversaries you have at the moment.”
Kalan listened intently.
“They convinced politicians to initiate Fear of Clone legislation. All that has to happen for those laws to be enacted is proof that a clone exists at large in society. That’s the world we will soon live in Kalan. Two human beings will have exactly the same DNA. One will be free. The other will be reviled, labelled as an unworthy replica. Destined to be an outcast and openly discriminated against.”
“Who was the man in the park today?”
“One of them,” the bald man on the screen replied. “A zealot who thinks you are a replica.” The bald man’s face grew dour. “He found a way to break through the defenses that protect your secret. Others will follow. They won’t rest until they have captured you. Perhaps not even until you are dead.”
“Who are these people?”
“Nisha can tell you about them later. We have a more pressing matter to deal with. Someone told you about Farlane,” the man on the screen persisted. “Who was it?”
“That’s not important.”
“It is very important. You are the only one in the colony who has any awareness of the situation. As far as I can tell.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” said Kalan defiantly.
“You are the only one who has any reason to suspect that their identity is anything other than what they were raised to believe. Keeping that secret is worth something. If the secret gets out, lives will be destroyed.”
“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Kalan said.
“I took every precaution for this not to happen. You must believe me. My enemies are closer to finding the secret than I thought, based on what I have learned since yesterday. You called your mother.”
“That is how we found out that you know something of Doctor Farlane,” Nisha added. “One of these cults must know how to track your whereabouts. They likely know the whereabouts of your double. Two people with the same DNA who resemble each other more than twins would go a long way to proving their case that cloning has been practiced for some time. Won’t matter to them if you’re dead or alive.”