The Clone Republic

by Steven L. Kent

  “Liberators must have come here a lot in the old days,” Lee commented. “They recognize you.” He never appreciated the tightrope act that the neural programming performed in his head. We followed heavy foot traffic into an alley marked “International Marketplace.” “Waikiki Bazaar”

  would have been more appropriate. Once we entered the market we saw stands, carts, and small shops selling toys, tropical drinks, and gaudy clothing with overly bright colors. Lee led me to a woman selling clothing out of a cart, which she kept shaded under a bright red canopy. The woman was tall . . . taller than me. She had long, blond hair that fell past her rather butch shoulders. The caked-on makeup around her eyes made her look old. Seeing Vince, she smiled daintily, and said,

  “Can I help you find something?”

  “We’re looking for shirts,” he said.

  “Oh, I’ve got shirts,” she said as she batted her eyes.

  “We’ll have a look,” Vince said.

  The woman watched as I sorted through a bin of T-shirts with pictures of colorful fish. The shirts and shorts on her cart looked like they might fall apart after a single wash. I felt threads break when I picked up a pair of shorts and snapped the waistband.

  “Two shirts for ten dollars,” the woman said. “Five for twenty.”

  “That’s cheap,” I whispered to Lee. He apparently thought that I wanted help haggling. “Twenty dollars!”

  he gasped with such awful melodrama that I wanted to laugh. “Twenty dollars for this? C’mon, Harris. No one in his right mind would pay these prices. Every cart on this street is selling the exact same shit.”

  Twenty dollars for five shirts sounded good to me, no matter how poor the quality. I didn’t want them to last my career, just two weeks.

  The woman gave Lee a wily smile. “Eighteen dollars, but you buy now. If you leave, that price goes away.”

  “Is that a good deal?” I asked.

  “I only know one way to find out,” Lee said loud enough so that the woman could hear. “Let’s go check some other stands.”

  “She said she wouldn’t give us that price again,” I said.

  “Look around here, Harris. This place is filled with carts just like this selling clothes just like these.” He spoke in a loud voice, making sure that the woman would hear. Even on vacation, Lee was political. But Lee was right. The marketplace was crowded with stores selling bright shirts and shorts like the ones I was holding. And there I was, in my long-sleeved shirt and heavy and dark pants, sweating up buckets. Every shopkeeper in the International Marketplace would welcome me.

  I decided to risk spoiling the deal. Purposely establishing eye contact with the woman, I tossed the shirts back into the bin and turned to leave.

  “Twelve dollars,” she barked angrily. “Twelve dollars for five shirts or three pairs of shorts.”

  “What do you think?” Lee asked.

  “They’re not great, but they’ll hold up for the next two weeks,” I said.

  “You have shit for taste, Marine,” Lee said.

  “Get specked,” I said.

  “Okay, smart guy,” Lee said. I did not like the mischievous smile that formed on his lips. He walked over to the woman and spoke to her in hushed tones that I could not hear.

  “Mmmmm,” she said, bouncing her head in agreement. She turned to me and winked, putting up a finger to ask me to wait for a moment. When she returned, she held five genuinely nice shirts all neatly folded. She handed me the shirts.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  I looked down and saw a photograph at the top of the pile. The woman had given me a portrait of herself. In the photo, she had a sly, alluring smile. She wore a bright pink bathing suit that did nothing to hide her masculine shoulders.

  “Looks like you found yourself some scrub,” Lee said, choking down a laugh. I looked at the photograph again and understood. The hips, the shoulders, the makeup . . . this was a man.

  I handed the shirts and the photograph back. “My friend . . .”

  “Leave my store,” the woman said with a very male voice and an impressive air of dignity. As we walked away from the cart, Lee laughed convulsively. I thought he might collapse on the ground. He clapped his hand on my shoulder and leaned his weight on my back.

  “Go speck yourself, asshole,” I said in a quiet voice. Then I thought about it and laughed. “Bastard,” I said.

  Lee started to respond, then gave up in another fit of laughter.

  Despite Lee’s sense of humor, I bought six shirts, three pairs of pants, and a pair of sandals before leaving the Marketplace. My entire wardrobe cost forty dollars.

  At night, the streets of Waikiki took on a Roman Circus air. Rows of glowing red lanterns lined the streets. Strings of white Christmas lights blinked from every tree. Tourists and party-loving locals filled the sidewalks. Bartenders and sober-looking businessmen came to take advantage of them. Lee walked over to a small tiki hut to purchase a drink. I watched him carefully, purposefully memorizing the look of his clothes. Half the crowd seemed to be made up of vacationing clones, and I was not sure how I would find him if we got separated.

  When he returned, Lee had a yellow-and-green fruit that looked like a squat bowling pin. Holding the fruit with both hands, he sipped from a straw that poked out of its stem.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” Lee said. “The fruit is papaya, but I have no idea what they’ve poured inside it.” He took a sip. “It makes you feel like your head is on fire.”

  A gang of boys stopped to watch Lee drink from that odd fruit. “What’s their problem?” Lee slurred.

  “Probably don’t like drunks,” I said.

  “Oh,” said Lee. “Me neither. You wanna try this?”

  I did not know what was in Lee’s drink, but I decided it would be safer if only one of us tried it. I led the way up the street, trying to keep Vince from bumping into people. It took a lot of work. A few more sips, and he could barely stand. Whatever else they put inside that drink, some of it must have come from Sagittarian potatoes.

  A double-decker bus with a banner that said, “Free Historic Tour,” came rolling up the street. Vince did not look like he could walk much farther, and I thought the night might go easier if I kept him off his feet. I waved, and the bus stopped for us. Our ride took us away from the crowded streets of Waikiki and out toward the airport. We drove past a harbor filled with boats and large ships.

  “This is historic Honolulu Harbor,” the bus driver said over an intercom.

  “Oh, look at the ships,” Lee said, moments before vomiting. The woman sitting across the aisle from us focused all of her attention straight ahead, completely denying our existence. The young couple in the next seat acknowledged us. Lee’s vomit splashed their feet, and they turned back and glared. When the bus stopped to let people walk around the harbor, I led Lee away from the tour group. No one seemed sorry to see us go.

  We stopped on a bridge and watched swells roll across the top of the moonlit water. The salt air seemed to do Lee good. He took deep breaths and regained some strength, then threw up again over the top of the bridge.

  “Pathetic bastard,” I said as I patted him on the back.

  This part of town was not nearly as crowded as Waikiki, but a steady trickle of pedestrians moved along the streets. “Are you up for a walk?” I asked Lee.

  He did not answer. I took that for a yes.

  Most of the buildings along the streets were dark. We passed a bar, and I heard dance music and noisy chatter. The farther we walked from the water, the more people we saw, until we reached a building that looked like an auditorium or maybe a movie theater. The sign over the door said, “Sad Sam’s Palace” in foot-tall letters. Under the sign was a marquee that said, “Big-Time Professional Wrestling.”

  Dozens of clones in civilian clothing milled around the entrance. Some sat on benches, others lounged along the walls. Many of them had been on leave for a while and had bronzed tans. A f
ew also had women tucked under their arms.

  “Want to watch wrestling?” I asked Lee as I led him toward the door.

  “Do we get to sit?” he asked.

  “As long as you don’t puke,” I said.

  Lee leaned on the pedestal of a bronze statue as I went to buy the tickets. When I returned, he said,

  “Sad Sam Itchy-nose,” and laughed.

  “What?” I asked.

  “This is Sad Sam Itchy-nose,” he said pointing to the sign.

  I looked at the plaque. It said, “Sad Sam Ichinose, 1908-1993.” “He must have been a famous wrestler,” I said. “Are you okay now?” I asked. “Are you going to puke?”

  Lee shook his head, but he looked awfully pale.

  On closer inspection, Sad Sam’s Palace reminded me of an oversized bar. The building was old, with chipped walls and no windows. We entered the lobby and found ourselves in a crowd waiting for the doors to open.

  “What’s wrong with him?” a clone in a bright shirt asked as we came through the door.

  “He bought a fruit drink that didn’t agree with him,” I said.

  “Hey, I did that my first night. They fill that specker with Sagittarian Crash. I’ll never do that again,” he said cheerfully.

  “Is this wrestling good?” I asked.

  “Best show in town,” the clone said. “Just don’t come on Friday night.”

  “What happens on Friday?” I asked.

  “That’s open challenge night,” he said. I had no idea what that meant; but the doors swung open as he spoke, and the crowd pushed inside.

  “We should get a beer,” Lee said, as we passed the concession stand. He swayed where he stood. His jaw was slack, and slobber rolled over his bottom lip.

  “You’ve had enough,” I said. I wondered if I should take him home.

  Thick red carpeting covered every inch of Sad Sam’s Palace. Inside the second door, we entered a large, square theater with bleachers along its walls and a balcony. I estimated that a thousand spectators had come for the show—and the building was half-empty.

  There was a small boxing ring surrounded by tables. The only lights in the room hung over the ring, but the glare made the room bright enough for everybody.

  An usher asked for my ticket at the door. When I showed her, she smiled and led us to bleachers about a hundred feet from the ring.

  “Think we could be any farther from the action?” Lee asked.

  “Lee,” I hissed, “these are good seats.”

  He squinted at me. “My head hurts,” he said.

  A man in an old-fashioned black-and-white tuxedo entered the ring carrying a microphone. “Laaaaaadies and gentlemeeeeen, Sad Sam’s Palace is proud to present, Big-Time Wrestling.”

  The crowd roared. Lee covered his ears and moaned.

  “For our first match, weighing in at two hundred sixtyfive pounds . . . Crusher Kohler.” A fat man with bleached blond hair, yellow tights, and no shirt strode to the ring, growling at people who booed his arrival.

  “Weighing in at two hundred thirty-seven pounds, Tommy Tugboat.” In came a man with balding black hair, dark eyes, and black swim trunks. The crowd cheered for this one. Crusher? Tugboat? God, what kinds of names are those? I asked myself. I might have asked Lee, but he sat slumped forward with his head hanging.

  We had mandatory judo and wrestling at the orphanage. I knew what wrestling looked like, and it looked nothing like this. For openers, this fight was in a boxing ring, not on a mat. Tugboat and Crusher ran face-first into the ropes then bounced backward as if the ropes around the ring were made of elastic. The crowd roared.

  Tugboat smashed Kohler across the mouth, and the guy staggered like a drunkard. Another punch, and Kohler fell to his knees. Remaining on his knees, he put up his hands and begged for mercy. The crowd roared.

  “They’re faking it,” I said. “They must be.”

  By the time it was over, both Tugboat and Kohler had stumbled around as if half-dead, only to suddenly recover. Tugboat once lifted the flabby Kohler over his head, no small feat, then dropped him face first to the mat. After both men had been so pulverized that they should have been dead, the match ended with a simple pin.

  The crowd loved it.

  There were three more fights. Each took about fifteen minutes. Each had men who looked to be near death, then came back to health and performed Herculean feats of strength. I did not believe a moment of it, but it was fun to watch.

  When the last fight ended, the audience filed out quickly. Lee, however, still lay sprawled on the bleachers massaging the sides of his head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Honolulu was a city on an island called Oahu, which was part of the Hawaiian Islands, which was a state of the former United States on the planet Earth. Perhaps I should have known all of that. I studied geography in the orphanage; but consider, the galaxy had six arms. Each of which had thirty member planets. There were one hundred eighty member planets in the Republic. Before serving aboard the Kamehameha, I had never heard of Ezer Kri or Ronan Minor. Hell, I had never heard of the Templar System before landing on Hubble.

  My education was lacking in more than geography. The retired officers running the orphanage had left the term “transvestite” out of my education. They also neglected to mention professional wrestling.

  Our small villa had a common kitchen, dining room, and den. It had two bungalows for bedrooms. Lee remained in his room late into the morning. Still hungover from that fruit drink concoction, Lee slept until 1000. I could hear him snoring as I drank a cup of coffee in the courtyard. I fixed myself a small breakfast of fruit and fish and went back to the courtyard to eat it. Mynx came over and joined me. She curled up in my lap and made herself comfortable. As I scooped meat out of pineapple, the sneaky cat filched my fish and ran off with it. The slice was nearly as big as her head, but that did not stop her.

  “Hey!” I yelled, for all the good it did me. Mynx hopped off the table, my fish hanging from her mouth, and paused to look at me. If I’d had my pistol, I might have shot that cat. Instead, I watched her leave with her tail sticking straight up in the air. I laughed and enjoyed a moment of complete relaxation. That moment ended when I put on my media shades and searched for stories. A coalition from the House of Representatives was calling for the Linear Committee to reduce the military budget. “We have an unprecedented stockpile of weapons,” said Speaker of the House Gordon Hughes, who represented Olympus Kri, a thriving colony a few hundred light-years from Earth in the Orion Arm. “We have more than twenty million clones on active duty, and the government keeps churning out nearly one and a half million more every year. The cost of supporting this build-up will pull our entire economy down.”

  Gordon Hughes of Olympus Kri appeared on the news quite often in those days. He wanted lower taxes, less military, greater territorial autonomy. He questioned the need of a U.A. Naval base on Olympus Kri and asked for a direct disc link with trading partners in the Sagittarius and Perseus Arms. In the House, Hughes was widely praised for his bold initiatives. In the Senate, they talked about the million-member march that the Atkins Separatists made to his planet’s capital.

  In a small sidebar, I read that the congressman from Ezer Kri challenged Hughes’s ideas. No surprise there. Ever since the invasion, Ezer Kri had supported the Linear Committee on every issue. Had the Linear Committee called for a ban on oxygen, the honorable congressman from Ezer Kri would have supported it.

  In another story out of Washington, DC, the Senate unanimously approved a bill calling for two hundred new orphanages. Open war between the House and Senate was nothing new. The Senate would naturally spin the request to sound like an attempt to help homeless children, but that would not fool anybody. The Speaker of the House called for fewer orphanages and the Senate unanimously thumbed its nose at him. Isn’t that how it goes? As a product of the New Order orphanage system, and a military clone, I shared the Senate’s view on the issue. So did somebody else. I looked at the visual
feed that accompanied the story. As the Senate leader announced that the vote had been unanimous, the camera swept the gallery to show senators and onlookers giving a standing ovation. The camera panned the VIP box. Most of the men in the picture wore civilian clothing; but there was a tall, skeletal man dressed in Navy whites. I stopped the feed. The picture was blurred, but the face was unmistakable. “What are you doing in DC?” I asked out loud. “I thought you were on the Kamehameha

  .”

  Klyber could have flown to DC quickly enough. Had he flown in for an important vote, or was there something else going on, I wondered.

  “I don’t feel so good,” said Lee as he slid open the glass door of his bungalow. He did not look so good either. He stood in the doorway rubbing his head. His dark hair stood up in spikes, and he had huge sallow bags under badly bloodshot eyes.

  “You cannot possibly feel as bad as you look,” I said.

  “I don’t remember much. Did I do anything stupid last night?” Lee walked to his chair, then stood and stared at it as if deciding whether he was physically capable of sitting. He turned and dropped into the chair.

  “Whatever you drank . . .”

  “That fruit thing!” Lee interrupted. “I remember. That goddamn fruit thing.” He groaned and rubbed his head.

  “You got sick on a bus,” I said.

  “I don’t remember a bus,” Lee said.

  “We went to wrestling matches,” I said. “There was this place called Sad Sam’s Palace, where they have fake wrestling matches in a boxing ring.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell,” Lee said. He spent most of the morning moping around the house, trying to get his head straight. He seldom drank anything stronger than beer. Now I knew why. By early afternoon, Lee became restless and wanted to drive into town. Neither of us had eaten lunch, and the idea of ordering a burger sounded good. The sun was up and hot, and I wanted to walk, but Lee insisted on driving.