Clone: A Contemporary Young Adult SciFi/Fantasy (Swann Series Book 3)

by Schow, Ryan

  I barely heard her the first time. Now it’s all she’s saying.

  “Yes, you are,” I tell her. But she’s not. Her modesty, the fact that she speaks intelligently, do clones do that? Can they? Of course not! Not if they’ve been born into a canister of pink goop and remained there all their lives. They wouldn’t know anything.

  “No,” she says, louder, more insistent. “I’m not.”

  “Then who are you?”

  “I…I think my name is Rebecca.”

  “You think?”

  “My head is…fuzzy. And it hurts.”

  “How old are you?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Twelve? I think maybe I’m twelve.”

  Holy shit. If she thinks she’s twelve, could it be possible she was…taken…at twelve? As in kidnapped? She looks nineteen or twenty, easy. Could she have been stolen from someone nearly a decade ago?

  “Do you know your last name? I mean, do you have one?”

  She thinks about it, then: “I…I don’t know.”

  I reach for her hand and say, “Come with me, I have to show you something.” She lets me take her hand and I start to pull her out of bed. She clings to the blankets, again, but for whatever reason I can’t figure. She’s dressed for heaven’s sake.

  “You don’t need those. I’ve already seen you.” She doesn’t let go. “Serious,” I say, “let go.”

  Reluctantly she releases the blankets. I pull her out of bed and she slowly, shakily walks across the floor, her barely clothed body now flush with blood and not so clammy looking.

  In the bathroom, I show her the full length mirror and she gasps. I watch her eyes slink down her beautiful, perfect body. From her face to her young looking breasts (which she cups with her free hand like it’s the first time she’s felt them), to her hips and legs. She pulls open her underwear and runs her fingers through her pubic hair, which is thick and curly and strawberry blonde.

  It’s terribly odd for me—to be perfectly honest—but in an uncomfortable, voyeuristic way. Like watching someone else give birth. Or have sex. I want to turn away, but I can’t. For some reason, my mind thinks she might see this as a sign of rejection.

  “I’ve never had this before,” she says, looking at her triangle of overgrown hair. Her eyes scale back up her body, pausing again at her chest. She lifts her t-shirt and stares at her breasts. “I’ve never had these either.”

  “What is the last thing you remember?” I say, not looking at her tits.

  “I…I don’t know,” she says, lowering her shirt. “My birthday, I think? I’m pretty sure I just turned twelve.” Her eyes fill with tears and she starts to come apart. I’m still holding her hand, to steady her, to comfort her. This sudden lapse into helplessness has her leaning on me for strength.

  I pull her into my arms and tell her it’s going to be okay. But it isn’t. If this girl is not a clone, if she’s real—maybe she’s someone’s lost daughter or sister—then nothing will ever be okay for her again. This just isn’t something you recover from.

  “Why am I here?” she finally asks.

  “Because I took you. Because I thought you should be free.”

  “Free from where?”

  “You were in a canister of pink fluid. I think you were being used for your DNA.”

  “A canister?” she whispers. “DNA?”

  “Your DNA. It’s what makes you so beautiful.”

  In my hand, my phone starts buzzing again. I didn’t realize I was still carrying it. I pick up and it’s Brayden. “What the hell, Savannah?”

  “Jesus Christ, Brayden, it’s Abby.” If I’m going to become Abby, the least everyone should do is stop calling me by my old name every time they get pissed off at me.

  “Fine, Abby. What the hell?”

  “You won’t believe this.”

  “What?”

  “The girl, the clone I took, she’s not a clone. I think she was kidnapped.”

  “Okay, wow. Holy balls, okay. Tell me where you live already. I’ll catch a cab.”

  “It isn’t safe. Tell me what terminal you’re at and I’ll come get you.”

  “What about me?” the girl asks.

  “We need to get you some pants and a bra. We’re going to pick up a friend of mine.”

  Just before I hang up, I hear Brayden asking if she’s naked. If I wasn’t feeling so overwhelmed, or so confused thinking this whole time maybe these clones were real people after all, just kidnapped, I might have laughed.

  4

  Me and the non-clone are leaving the house, heading to the airport to pick up Brayden. I’m holding her hand to give her stability, and we’re walking her down the hallway when Maggie steps out of her room and says, “Where are you two going?”

  The hurt in her voice is obvious. This was to be her summer with me and I’ve already betrayed her. Inside my mind, I’m wondering: which is worse, being raped or being held prisoner for seven or eight or nine years? In the contest of who gets the biggest dose of sympathy, I can’t really say who will win. All I can say is I’ll most definitely lose.

  “I have to pick up Brayden from the airport. Do you want to go?”

  “No,” she says. It feels like a thinly veiled lie.

  The phone rings. It’s Netty. Holy cow, I so don’t have time for this already!

  “Hello?”

  “Dude, WTF?”

  “I’m so sorry, Netty. I’m in the middle of a huge crisis right now. Can you come over? In like, maybe an hour, or hour and a half?”

  “I can’t. I already told you I have to work.”

  “Dammit, Netty. Can I just give you the money you’d make on your job and you can come live with me for the summer?”

  “Spoken like a true rich girl.”

  I cringe. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that. Yet somehow my mouth just keeps on saying the wrong thing.

  “I’m sorry, Netty. I’m being selfish. Things really are insane right now.” Maggie turns and walks back into her room, shuts the door. Rebecca is looking at me with those blank, confused eyes. She’s still not fully back. She’s still looking almost doll-like.

  I remember when I came out of my tank, how the fog that hung over my brain lingered for hours. That was me being under for a few weeks. Rebecca, from what I can tell, has been under for years.

  “Can I come over tonight instead?” Netty asks. “I can be there at six.”

  “That’s fine. Thanks. And sorry for being like this. It’s just that I’ve gotten in way over my head this time. But in a really bad way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s too long of a story, Nettles.”

  “Okay, but you suck for not giving me details right now.”

  “I know. Sorry.”

  Before leaving to pick up Brayden, I say, “C’mon, Maggie!” but she doesn’t respond. I knock on her closed door; she doesn’t answer. I try the handle and it’s locked. I pound for a few minutes. “Seriously, Mags?!”

  “I’m going to sleep for a bit,” she finally says, distant.

  “Fine. Suit yourself. I’ll be back shortly.” I wait for a reply, but nothing. “Okay then,” I tell Rebecca, “let’s go.”

  It only occurs to me after leaving the house that Maggie should have been at the recording studio this morning.

  Inside the car, we don’t talk. Rebecca is taking in the sights, mesmerized, or scared. Finally she says, “Am I ever going home again?”

  The question takes me by surprise. It shouldn’t have, but it does. “Where’s home?” I ask. “Is any of this familiar?”

  She shrugs her shoulders.

  “As soon as we know where your home is, I’ll take you there.”

  “Promise?” she says, sleepy.

  “Promise.”

  5

  Brayden is at the airport waiting just outside the United terminal. He’s sitting hunched over on his bags. He looks bored and annoyed. When he sees me drive up, he stands and opens his hands in a palms-up WTF-type gesture. Then he
sees Rebecca and his demeanor brightens.

  “Get out and let him pull the seat forward,” I tell Rebecca. She looks at me like she’s trying to process the words I’m saying, then opens the door and steps out, using a hand to balance on her wobbly legs. Already I’m asking too much of her. Already I’m wondering if the pink goop somehow keeps your muscles from atrophying, but only barely. It has to otherwise I would be rolling her around on a f*cking gurney.

  Still, she shouldn’t be walking, I tell myself. My brain is trying to make this impossible. But there she is, standing on her own two legs. The more I learn about myself and Rebecca, the more I wonder what we’re really capable of as humans. I also can’t help wondering if the things that have been done to us will one day have catastrophic, physical repercussions.

  The kind we can’t recover from.

  The whole time, Rebecca doesn’t once look at Brayden, much less speak to him. He says hello but she doesn’t reply. She looks away. Then she looks at the gigantic airport sprawl, seemingly lost in the chaos of so many vibrant distractions.

  “Is she okay?” Brayden asks.

  “Just get in.”

  He crawls in back, mumbling, “No hello? No thanks for coming, nice to see you? Nothing? You know what I gave up to be here, don’t you?”

  Turning in my seat to face him, I say, “It doesn’t look like it, but I’m super glad to see you.” My God, why can’t I smile when I tell him this?

  “Rebecca, get in,” I say loud enough for her to hear. She doesn’t move, she’s just staring at the airport traffic. A horn honks behind us. Two cars back is a policeman. My pulse quickens. I can feel him looking at us, at me. Gosh damn Rebecca, really?

  I get out of the car, walk around front and take Rebecca’s hand. Her eyes are streaming with tears. She’s like a child so overwhelmed with emotion it’s left her paralyzed. Inside I feel bad for her, but the male DNA in me is like, enough crying already!

  “What’s wrong, honey?” I say, tapping into the more nurturing parts of me.

  “What is this place?” she says. “I mean, what year is it?”

  “2015.”

  She coughs out a startled cry.

  “How…old am I?”

  I pull her into a hug and say, “I don’t know. Twenty, maybe? Maybe younger or older. I don’t know. Do you remember when you were born?”

  “Some things, they aren’t coming back and it hurts my head to think. To try to remember. And my body…this isn’t my body, or my face.”

  “We have to go, sweetheart. The police are watching us.”

  She slides out of my arms and into the car. I shut the door behind her.

  “So what’s the deal?” Brayden says, leaning into the center console, looking at Rebecca. I slip the Audi in gear and we get moving, but my eyes are mostly on the side mirror. On the policeman.

  When Rebecca doesn’t speak, I say, “I think she was kidnapped. Maybe all the people we thought were clones, maybe they aren’t.”

  “What?”

  “She’s been kidnapped, Brayden. Well, kidnapped before I kidnapped her.”

  “That’s what you said,” he replies.

  Looking at them both, I say, “Don’t talk to her just yet. She’s like a baby calf on unsteady legs. For Jesus’ sake, she just woke up after nearly ten years.”

  “So you’re still a kid in the head?” he says to Rebecca.

  “I told you not to talk to her!”

  “Who are you?” Rebecca says, her voice airy, wounded. Her eyes on Brayden are indeed the startled eyes of a newborn calf.

  “I’m Brayden. Her ugly best friend. Sort of. Not best friend, but ugly.”

  “I’m ugly, too,” she says. “Well, I was. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “Join the crowd,” I mumble.

  Keeping up with the flow of traffic, we pull away from the cop. I breathe a sigh of relief and it’s only then I realize I’ve been holding my breath for like, forever.

  Circles of the Flesh

  1

  Georgia was exactly the way she should be, Gerhard told himself. Perfect. But different. This is how he convinced himself she was a returnable item and not something non-salvageable. Looking at her, contemplating everything that has gone into making this version of her, he resigned himself to the fact that she would never look the same again. Not like the previous rendition anyway. Not like the version of the girl her parents paid tens of millions of dollars for.

  Still, she was close enough.

  Between himself and Dr. Cameron, every attempt to return her to her previous incarnation only made her look a little more different. This new version of her was a little darker. Less fun and a lot less vivacious. Almost like she bore a malevolent weight to her. Even the color of her skin seemed less pale and more…more…translucent at times. He watched her, studied her as she floated in stasis.

  He studied her a lot lately. Contemplating. Running theories and genetic equations in his mind. It was all he ever did anymore. And yet he couldn’t understand how, even in such stillness, she emitted an air of restlessness.

  Before, when he transformed this sick, ugly duckling into a swan, there was a lightness about her he was proud of. An aliveness. In this version of her, that peace was gone. Turning away from her, he shook the thought off, wondering if he was projecting his own failures upon her.

  “It’s the best she’s going to be,” Cameron said, coming up beside him. The man was practically reading his thoughts.

  “I know,” Gerhard said. These days, acquiescence sounded a lot like despair.

  “Have you figured out the circular markings on her palms yet?” Cameron asked after a long silence.

  “No,” Gerhard answered.

  He often wondered about her palms. It was a genetic mutation, but what kind of an error was it? Did it have something to do with their new donor’s DNA?

  He was sure it did.

  Cameron’s gaze slid over to the other glass canister where the much smaller girl hung suspended in the pink gel. She was barely five years old. Yet she was a killer. Not on purpose, but a killer never-the-less. The murder, Gerhard knew, was committed in self-defense. Still, it was one of the darkest of murders, one never before seen in Canada, or really anywhere. The country was still reeling.

  Still hypothesizing.

  An older boy at school, a six year old deviant puke of a child—and the byproduct of a violently dysfunctional home—had taken to tormenting her. The teasing was relentless. Beyond cruel. The boy didn’t like that the five year old girl rarely spoke. She was the perfect target.

  The quintessential target.

  It was later discovered that the girl’s fear of the boy turned to anger, which became rage—hardly a reaction for any normal five year old. Kids threw tantrums, yes, but sustained rage? Not normal.

  One afternoon on the playground, after a suffering a torrent of abuse, the girl turned her hidden rage on the boy and, without even laying a hand on him, the boy’s eyes began to bleed. He started to scream. With both hands he clutched his face and screamed like a girl. Blood ran thick from his nostrils and ears, from his mouth, from his anus. His eyeballs went solid red then popped. Red mucus flopped down on his cheeks. He dropped to his knees, still screaming, bleeding from everywhere. The girl just stood over him, glaring from above, seemingly unfazed by what was happening.

  When she was done with him, the bully’s insides had liquefied, including his bones. He was nothing more than a heaping pile of smoked meat, bloody clothes and hair. She then raised her hand toward the ruined boy and the pile caught fire. All this in under a minute.

  It was a most gruesome affair.

  The media was not allowed to cover the story, however, the online press ran rampant with the news and soon word of these events hit media outlets across the globe. To minimize the public’s reaction to what some were speculating as the first “supernatural homicide” ever witnessed, the five year old was sent to a “special hospital.”

  They locked
her away in isolation.

  Officials said her incarceration was for “the greater good.” Off the record, she was sent there to alleviate the public’s fear. No one knew what she was or how she came to be that way, they all just knew they were terrified of her. That “out of sight” was eventually going to be “out of mind.”

  The country was dying to forget her.

  Eventually Monarch Enterprises gained possession of her. The parents, they wanted a better life for her, and Monarch promised to give their little girl a more humane existence. They said they might even be able to fix her. It didn’t hurt that they paid the parents five million dollars for her, a sum these “regular folks” found to be more than acceptable considering the condition of their baby.

  When Monarch couldn’t get the girl to kill on command, they reached out to Dr. Evan Cameron in Canada, a colleague and friend of Monarch Enterprises’ many outlets.

  She was just a little girl, yet her capacity for murder by telekinesis was not only fascinating, it was the kind of mutation men like Cameron and Gerhard had been dreaming about all their lives.

  Cameron took the girl on loan, for a tidy sum, of course. Two hundred fifty thousand a year. He phoned Gerhard the moment he got off the phone with the Director. Naturally, Gerhard was coming out of his skin to get up there. To lay eyes on this delectable gift. He told Cameron about the problems he was having with Georgia.

  Cameron said, “It looks to be an interesting summer, this summer of yours and mine.”

  By the time Gerhard arrived in Canada, Cameron had already identified the genetic indicators that made this child-on-loan a supernatural killer. Gerhard wondered if the man had even slept since acquiring the girl. He assumed not.

  Gerhard and Cameron wasted no time working on Georgia. Within weeks Cameron found the corrupted strand of DNA and the two men were able to trace it back to the virus used to deliver it. The corrupted genetic material, with the use of the virus as a delivery source, continued to replicate itself creating new, damaged DNA. The mutation. A new, more intrusive virus was sent in with new DNA and tested antibodies to counteract the old virus and stop it from continuing to degrade Georgia’s body.