by Divya Singh
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Then I thought I actually didn’t have to wait to start the investigation I needed to carry out. I was looking at KEAH and I thought that she once told me that she was a human clone, 131st of a basic model.
Also, she was as much a human as one could be in this era. Her face looks like being a little mature, like 28-29 years of age and her skin is pale, but actually her biological age is just 21. But she has much more knowledge than a girl of her age would be expected to have. Could a girl so young have so much knowledge as to reanimate a brain, a head which lay dead for 431 years?
I thought although, so stubborn and abide by some kind of unholy hypothetical rules, my android could actually help me satiate my curiosity about KEAH and because he can read my thoughts, let me put up a question to KEAH via him and I looked at ZA-vi. He looked back to me and perhaps read my mind exactly what I had wanted. He said to KEAH-
ZA-vi: “She wants to know more about you. Explain everything to her all that you can since she has enough time to listen.”
KEAH: “OK! Here it goes, Miss! I am a cloned human. K-1.E-2.A-3.H-4. as we know of her was a basic model. That woman who died in 2252 i.e. KyliE AveliaH was your Cryo doctor in 2231. She donated her cells and eggs to be preserved in case of future destruction of humanity.”
“Till I was made, I had knowledge of 130 more clones of her having ever been created. She tried all her life to awakening you up from Cryo but was unsuccessful till her death. But I really do not know the details. There could have been more to it.”
“But you had to be preserved again for some reason I do not have knowledge of. But it was made sure that some of her memory was implanted into our brains too in the cloning process, but my memories got struck in the subconscious i.e. forgotten in a way.”
“My biological age is 21 but I look much older than that. There was some kind of mutation of a cancerous nature in our genes. Effected either deliberately or it could have evolved in us with time. Many clones of this basic model died of cancer. Earlier most embryos weren’t turned viable since the beginning, so the failure rate of turning them into a human was unimaginably high.”
“So some procedure of genetic engineering was carried out in the stored cell pool and embryo banks to correct the defective genes. But we are really not sure that the solution is actually working. I am just 21, and I have a lot of life ahead to come to know about that.”
“So that is how I came into being, without a biological mother or father. I am just a copy of a doctor who lived 200 years ago. I have been designed and brought up in a lab on this ship.”
ZA-vi: “She wants you to tell her that why was she opted for cloning?” ZA-vi asked her after I looked at him to convey my thoughts.
KEAH: “Because after as we call it, an Apocalypse, humans were wiped out in large numbers from Earth, due mainly to major atmospheric and climatic changes, deprivation of food, habitats, crimes etc. In these 400 years as I told you earlier that women have lost their fertility and cannot have a child naturally, so copying the genetic essentials of earlier healthy living humans was not a bad idea. Actually, it was the most favored solution of saving the race. It is like, losing a little than losing it all when you have time. So cloning although, not perfectly achieved till now was the best shot they had at that moment. This is how the Earth is as much populated today although; most of it is already lost.” I lowered my eyes for a second for thinking then again looked up towards ZA-vi.
ZA-vi: “She asks what the apocalypse was.”
KEAH: “I have also not experienced any of it and am so much used to this life that it all feels very natural to me. I have seen only this world under water, in which I have lived and nothing seems out of place to me. It’s like not knowing the good, being too familiar with the bad! I have grown on this ship. But here is the part we have learned from history-
KEAH: “Global warming went up to a dangerous level. Sometimes it melted the remaining ice in hours, increased the water levels of the oceans hence shores and beaches were lost. Tsunamis were caused, earthquakes occurred, submerging the fertile cultivable lands into the saline ocean waters. Raised acidic levels of sea water killed most of the flora and fauna.
“Due to the ocean water displacement, the seismic zones displaced, causing frequent earthquakes and subsequent Tsunamis. Tides have taken away lands, converting them to unmanageable lands rendered unfit for the cultivation. Influential and well-resourced people grabbed most of the lands and technology and helpless people were made to flee. Social structures collapsed, economies crashed, countries lost their entities. Putting this in a simpler way, the humans have doomed themselves.”
ZA-vi: “And she wants to know, what was your implanted memory about?” Said he as I gestured to let him know what I was asking of KEAH.
KEAH: “It was all related to medical procedures employed in cryogenics. It was all about the procedures attempted previously to wake you up from the Cryo sleep, mostly all those which we employed and which subsequently failed. There were more people that she was trying to reanimate. But it looks like in my lifetime; I could manage only to meet you. The implanted memories are recovered to a higher degree when the case is seen practically.”
“I just feel that it is the way she wanted to pass this crucial information about who we have to reanimate and what processes failed to work at all on them. After we have accomplished fully in your case, may be by that time we will have a chance and opportunity to meet the others, she wanted to wake up.”
“But other than you, I have some patients to attend to on this ship. None of them are implanted in my memories. All are absolutely new entities I don’t recognize from my implanted memories that I have got.”
ZA-vi: “She is curious to know, whether she was woken up earlier.”
KEAH: “I think not. But it could be the other way around too. Remember, my memories are implanted? They could be false, synthetic ones, fabricated by some cognitive psychologist or neuroscientists in the lab and then implanted back into our minds. But till now the medical history I have stored in my mind has proven to be true because I had exactly the same strictly accurate experiences with you as were stored in my memories.”
ZA-vi: “Can you remember more about Doctor Kylie’s last attempt to awaken her up?”
KEAH: “No. I don’t think I can now. But it is not impossible, rather it could happen under special circumstances or so I believe. Because when I was told that these memories were implanted, I already began to have a feeling that they were somehow false to some extent. May be one day I will be able to remember if it was a lie or was just truth repeated in my mind. In fact, I have never thought about it much seriously.”
ZA-vi: “But she wants you to try to remember. If you were made a perfect clone of the original Dr. Kylie memories are also transferred.”
KEAH: “May be! But even if it would be remotely possible, I could remember only those events which occurred before she donated her cells for cloning.”
ZA-vi: “That is enough for now, she says. But she also might intend you to remember one day. Then you should try to remember.”
I looked at KEAH and tried to smile, she smiled back. I thought that things were really complicated. I wanted to know about me in this life, this new complex world, I would have to try to catch up with and the purpose of my life now, the reason which did not let me die in peace.
I could give away anything to know about this all. It was disturbing to know what KEAH told me. It wasn’t just her own story, but also the world which she said had deteriorated to the circumstances which could afford only survival of life to people, they were not living but surviving. One part of me was blowing up out of curiosity and to dig in for more and the other had just started to mourn on whatever little information was provided to me. It was certainly not a beautiful world. I was appalled and aggrieved. I didn’t hope for this. I had thought much better and beautiful things about the future, I was
born into. I didn’t want to hear bad things, but there wasn’t any backing out, but only surging ahead.
It is really excruciating to know that they say that we have lost our habitable Earth to our stubborn lifestyles and attitudes, curiosity and taking pride in playing the God. I would have never chosen to be reanimated in the future, especially in this world. Death, I believed was the final solution to a life; its eventual destination. Have we now to create soulless creatures in order to repopulate the Earth?
I never had thought that when I would wake up we would have wasted our Earth to such a dreadful extent. I am really seriously disheartened.
ZA-vi: “You cannot be. You have to contribute whatever you can to it. Repentance is not meant for you; rather you were recreated for taking indispensable action in your battle against evil in this new, hostile world.”
I then nodded a little so that both of them were assured that I was not more worried than I should be. Moreover, who knows what role I have to play in future, perhaps show them a hint of another direction they should go, stand by their side or even lead them? I must not be weak or show it to anyone. Everyone has moments of weaknesses and mine was now, but it was not appropriate to display the same.
But actually the Earth I had remembered in my memories and had envisioned was much more lively and beautiful that the one KEAH was telling me about. For me, future meant more beautiful, better and sophisticated life enriched with technology.
I was excited to know where the humans would have advanced in 400+ years when I lay dead inside a tank. I believed in science. I believed in marching ahead towards a utopian superior future. I had thought in all these centuries, humans would have learned how to strike a balance between development and the cost of resources that we exploited as a means to achieve it. But the Earth they are telling me about breaks my heart.
KEAH: “So Miss! You will be undergoing a surgery for hair transplant on Monday next week.” She said turning back to me. “I think then we will be able to call your case a successful reanimation. You can then go out to explore the world, perhaps after a few more tests and diagnoses, with the approval of a doctor.”
“But now you must rest and let the transplanted skin be accepted by your body.” She said injecting one bottle of a serum in my drip. Then she administered one more injection to me on my left arm and said-
KEAH: “This will sedate you and I have given you a slightly higher dose of immunosuppressant. Now you have to recover quickly and start walking on the dock!” Said she, smiling at me.
Chapter 10: New growing hair