by Gayle Katz
“They think?”
“Yeah, it looks promising. It seems to be working on their test subjects.”
”If that’s the case, I think it might be time to bring this whole mess to a close.”
“A close? What are you talking about? We don’t even know if they have a viable cure yet. Listen to me, please don’t do anything until they confirm the cure works.”
“Fine. We’ll sit tight for now. How are you feeling? Do you have any side effects from the cure?”
“I had a minor reaction and passed out. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine now.”
“OK. Good. Glad to hear it. Listen, there’s something else you should see.”
“Something else? Wait. What did you show me before? My brain isn’t working so good right now. I can’t remember.”
“You can’t remember? What do you mean you can’t remember?”
“My mind is… is… uh… a little hazy.”
“That’s not good. What are they doing to you in there? I showed you footage of your clones turning into zombies and infecting people in the largest cities in the world.”
“Oh shit! That’s right! I don’t know why I couldn’t remember.”
“Maybe it’s something in the cure? Maybe there’s something in there designed to help people forget what happened to them, if they’re able to get to them in time.”
“I don’t know if that’s good or bad. I guess if I was a zombie, ate someone, and somehow changed back, I might not want to remember either. Now that you reminded me though, it’s coming back slowly. You have control over the facility. Can you stop them from sending out more clones? Shut them down? Turn off the power to their cloning lab?”
“I only have control over some mid-level security functions in here. Unfortunately, it seems like after those clones are programmed and activated, there’s no way to stop them.”
“None?”
“None, well except for killing them outright. Go over to the computer.”
I sit up and look at the computer on the desk. I walk over and sit down in front of it. “OK. I’m ready. What’s next?”
“Turn on the monitor, wait for the screen to come up, and click on the file folder titled JANE PRACTICE.”
“No password this time?”
“I was able to bypass it for you.”
When I click the file folder, it opens to reveal hundreds of video files named Jane0001, Jane0002, and so on.
“Wha-What is all this? Why are all of these files named after me?”
“Click the Jane0002 file.”
“Why not the first one?”
“You don’t want to watch that one.”
I click on the file and start to watch the video playback. It shows Brie’s lackeys throwing me into the zombie attack simulation, just as they had done not so long ago. Geez, when was that? I can’t remember. It couldn’t have been too long ago. I’m not sure of the exact timeline. Still thinking, I can’t quite figure how much time has passed. Being cooped up in this place, I’m losing track of the days.
I watch myself walk deeper into the experiment and go directly to the doors to try and escape. The doors open and zombies rush in, knocking me over. Biting my nails, I watch intently as the zombies pile on top of me, hold me down, and start gnawing at me. I hear screams. Wait. That’s not how I remember it happening. Then I hear a voiceover. It’s a man’s voice and it sounds familiar.
“Geez. This might be her clone, but she definitely isn’t as resilient as the original. I do very much enjoy her screams when they rip her apart though. Bring in the next one.”
“I-Is that Malik?”
“Yes. This is how they prepped the Jane clones for their missions, making them stronger so nothing can stop them.”
“I can’t watch this anymore. I can’t, I can’t take it. I feel so… so disconnected from the world, Jack and myself. How do I even know I’ll have a life to go back to when this is over? Maybe I’ll get lucky and wake up from this bad dream.”
“Let me help you reconnect, all right? No matter what you think or how you might feel now, Jack needs you.”
Without touching anything, another video immediately starts to play.
“I didn’t do that,” I say as I pull my hands away from the keyword.
“I know. I did.”
I see Jack from the chest up on the left side of the screen and, strange enough, our dentist on the other. They’re at the dentist? That’s odd. The dentist is hovering over the Jane clone, who I assume is lying back on the chair.
“I can’t stand dental appointments,” my Jane clone mumbles as the dentist’s instrument is in her mouth. “I can never get used to someone scraping my teeth. It’s unnerving.”
“Just relax. I’m here.” Jack brings her hand to his mouth and kisses it. “You know Joe. He always treats us right and you’ve been to the dentist a bunch of times. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about. You know that.”
A few more minutes pass by and Joe the dentist is poking around in the Jane clone’s mouth with one of his dental probes. As the probe travels from tooth to tooth, I can hear the scraping of the dental instrument against her teeth. His brow wrinkles, forming an eleven between his eyes, and he stops his examination. He puts his instruments down on the sterile table, sits back, and rolls over to his small desk, adjacent to the patient exam chair.
“Is everything OK, doc?” Jack asks.
“Hmmm. I’m not sure. Something is definitely odd here,” Joe says, tapping his finger on the desk.
“What’s wrong?” the Jane clone asks anxiously.
“I’m not sure. Either my assistant filed the wrong X-rays and films in the wrong folder or all of your crowns and fillings are gone.”
“What? That’s strange,” Jack says, looking down at the Jane clone sitting in the dentist chair. “It must be a clerical error. I remember she complained for weeks after you put in that last crown.”
“That’s right! I did complain. Getting a crown is such a pain,” I say to no one.
“Yeah,” the Jane clone says. “You put that crown on not too long ago. And I distinctly remember having cavities that you filled.”
“Uh-huh. I remember that too. I’m sorry. Give me a moment, all right? I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation,” Joe says, standing up, removing his rubber gloves, tossing them in the trash, and exiting the exam room.
I see Jack look down at the Jane clone. Both seem to be baffled about these new developments.
For the first time in a long time, I have a smile on my face. The confusion on Jack’s face says it all. Maybe he’s finally waking up. It’s about time. Maybe all the evidence is piling up and Jack can’t ignore it anymore. I pray that the cryptic text message I sent to Jack weeks ago on Malik’s cell phone combined with what the dentist is saying will finally spark something in his fact-finding, journalistic brain. Maybe he’s realizing something is off about the Jane he was reunited with. Maybe he’s finally appreciating the fact this woman may not be who he thinks she is. I hate the dentist, but I’ve never been so happy to have had dental work before. I wonder if, during the cloning process, only tissues and other living cells can be cloned while foreign materials such as the gold and silver metals used in dental work cannot be replicated, at least not as easily.
The dentist comes back into the room. “So, Jane. Your teeth are fine.”
“Thanks, but what about my missing dental work?”
“We’re going to have to do a little more research to be absolutely sure.”
“Why more research? Were those my old dental records or not?”
“According to our files, those are your dental records, but clearly you don’t have any fillings from old cavities nor do you have the crown we both distinctly remember.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means one of three things is possible. One, I need to check if we have another patient with your same name. Two, we’re both remembering the same incident incorrectly. Or, three, you’re
not the same Jane who had dental work done.”
“But I remember everything like it was just yesterday.”
The Jane clone stares at the dentist and then looks at Jack. “What’s going on here? Jack? You don’t believe him, do you? I’m the same Jane, aren’t I? The one you met at the radio station. The one you love.”
He stares back at her, trying to comprehend what’s going on. “Of course you are. Who else would you be?” he says, smiling, taking her hand between his.
I’m not going to get my hopes up. I’ve seen Jack express his doubts before, but nothing seems to change. I keeping praying that his investigative reporter skills kick in, but nothing so far. Maybe this piece of hard evidence will be the kick in the pants he needs.
Despite all of this, I stare at Jack’s handsome face for a few more minutes. I want to remember what he looks like.
Then another video starts to play, but this time the screen is black. Giving the computer a second to catch up, I can hear people talking so I believe it’s working, despite not having a video feed. One of the voices is Jack's and he sounds upset.
“No. No. No. W-What happened? We were just talking and she collapsed,” Jack says with a catch in his throat.
“I’m so sorry. She’s gone,” another voice says.
“I-I don’t understand. She was so young… and healthy. It was just a bad headache. How could this-?”
“It’s tough to take. For now, I’ll leave you two together. Take as much time as you need.”
“Doc, no. I want to know what happened. Tell me.”
“They weren’t just headaches. Combined with the vomiting and the seizures, we think it was a cerebral hemorrhage, but we have to run some tests and perform an autopsy to be sure.”
The video freezes. “So Jack thinks I’m dead?”
“Yeah, he does. He’s hurting. He needs you. He’s the reason you have to keep going. You have to reclaim your life with him. You can’t give up now,” the Vulture says.
I can’t believe it. She’s dead? The Jane clone they set Jack up with is dead? How can I still hear what’s happening around her if she’s dead? She’s one of the clones so it would make sense that she’s got one of those microchips implanted in her. I guess the chip they implanted in her doesn’t need live tissue to transmit?
Tears well up in my eyes. Not from my clone dying I don’t think, but from the sound of Jack’s voice. He sounds… broken. I’ve heard him like that before and I swore I’d do everything in my power to never hear him like that again. My heart aches for him.
“Jane? Are you there?” I hear in my earpiece.
As I get lost in my thoughts, I replay what Brie said earlier. “…it’s a tracker, so we can monitor the clones,” she said.
Where have I heard that term before? I close my eyes and concentrate. “Tracker… Tracker… Tracker…” My eyes pop open. I remember when I first arrived in this country weeks ago, Lance masquerading as The Rat saying, “We injected your neck with a tracker. We’ll be monitoring you.” Why didn’t I remember that earlier?
Then another stunning thought occurs to me, what if it’s the chip that caused her death in some way? If that’s true, and I have one inside of me, what’s to stop it from killing me? Oh shit!
The realization hits me and my heart beats faster. I stand up and rush out of the Professor’s office in a tizzy. I have to find him. He’s got to get this thing out of me. I don’t want to end up like her, not after everything I’ve been through. Unsure of where the Professor is at this late hour, I start knocking on every door down the hall, shouting his name.
“Jane! What are you doing? Where are you going?” I hear the Vulture in my ear, but my brain is so focused on this new development that I can’t respond to him right now.
***
“Ben! Ben! Where are you?”
Nothing. I knock on another door.
“Ben! I need your help!”
One of the doors down the hallway opens and a sleepy Ben shows himself.
“Ben! I’m so glad I found you!”
“What’s wrong? What’s going on?”
“I saw what happened to the Jane clone you sent to Jack. She’s dead and it might be because of the… the… I don’t know what it’s called a… a… device, tracker thing in her neck.”
“How do you come to that conclusion?”
“Just get it out of me. Get this thing out of my neck!”
“Calm down.”
“I can’t calm down. Get it out now!”
“Jane, I can’t, at least not now. We don’t have the right equipment here. It’s too deep to remove without killing you.”
“Please! Get it out of me. If you’ve really changed, then prove it! You might not be able to remove it, but the lab techs who’re inserting them might! Get them to remove it!”
“What time is it? Are they even there? They might be asleep.”
“I don’t care. We’ll wake them up if we have to. Let’s go!”
The Professor finally concurs after a bit more prodding and we walk quickly over to the cloning area. Inside, we see one of the researchers moving around. She comes over when she sees the Professor with me. The door opens with a hiss.
“Hello,” she says. “You two are up late.”
Before Ben can open his mouth, I burst out, “You put those things, those chips inside the clones, right?”
“Yes, why do you ask?”
“Why do I ask? Why do you think I’m asking? Don’t I look familiar? I look like every single one of those clones in there.” I point behind her. “I have a microchip inside of me and I want it out now.”
“Uhhh. Well. I’d love to do that for you, but…”
“But what?”
“But… we don’t know how to remove them. They’re not meant to come out.”
“Not meant to come out? Why not?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? You’re putting these things in and you don’t know how to get them out? Do you know how irresponsible that is?”
“Listen, lady. This is a job. Nothing more. It’s late. Why don’t you get some sleep? You look like you need it,” she says as she backs up into the cloning room, locks the door behind her, and picks up the phone.
“Gah! So frustrating!” I shout.
“We’ll get it out of you. It’ll just take some time, all right? Going crazy won’t help it get done faster.”
Brie comes walking down the hall, wrapped in her robe. “I just got a call from my overnight researcher,” she says, waving to her behind the glass. “What’s going on?”
“Your researcher doesn’t know what she’s doing,” I say.
“And why do you say that?” Brie asks.
“I believe I have a chip in me, but she said she doesn’t know how to get it out. How do you put something in and not know how to get it back out?”
“What we’re doing here isn’t an exact science. We’re researchers trying to map out a path, a cure, everything is in flux.”
“So you’re guessing? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“Not guessing. Experimenting.”
“Ben.” I turn and face him. “Do you know how they’re experimenting? Do you know exactly what they’re doing?”
“Brie provides summaries,” Ben replies.
“Summaries? So you don’t know what they’re doing or how Malik is torturing people? It’s inhumane! If you don’t have a handle on what’s going on, how can you trust Malik with the cure? If everything falls apart because Malik is trying to wage his own personal war, you’ll be his accomplice. He’s proven himself to be a madman, and you doing nothing is just as bad! I thought you wanted to help people heal? This is a funny way of following through on that promise.”
“Calm down, all right?” Brie says.
Frustrated, I shake my head at both of them and stomp away.
Stonewalled by their lack of concern, I rush over to the lab hoping to get better answers. I see Malik inside. I hate
him for everything he’s done to me, but I’m not afraid of him anymore. I punch the button so the hydraulic door opens and I stomp in.
“You look like you need more beauty sleep,” Malik says to me.
“Get this device outta my neck!”
He smirks. “Ha! I guess no one else will help you if you’re coming to me. Nah. I don’t feel like it. Why don’t you come back tomorrow? I might feel more generous then.”
“One day, man. One day I’m going to make you eat your words. Hell, I might just stuff them down your throat and make you choke on them! Everything you touch turns evil. Someone’s got to teach you a lesson.”
“And you’re gonna do that? Don’t make me laugh. Get out of here and stop bothering me!”
“How dare you! You have no right to do any of this stuff!”
“What are you droning on about this time?”
“You’re the one, right? The one who made so many clones of me?”
“It was a team effort, really.”
“You had no right to use my genetic material to create clones.”
“You wanted to help. You gave us permission.”
“I gave you permission to help find a cure, nothing more. And now you’ve copied me not once, but thousands of times. Why?”
“Well, if by some chance, we lost you or you were killed, we needed to make sure your DNA would survive for testing purposes.”
“If I were killed? Like what you tried to do to me earlier?”
“That was an accident. You heard Brie explain it.”
“Accident. Right. And now your army of clones is spreading the zombie virus when you’re supposed to be curing it. Is that an accident, too?”
“How do you know that?”
“You have your ways. I have mine. Never mind how I know. How could you? More people are dying, and now everyone will recognize me as the face that wipes out humanity!”
“Is that vanity I sense from you?”
“You have no right.”
“What? No right? That’s laughable. You think you’re special? That’s so cute. Is that what your mommy and daddy told you, too? I hate to break it to you, but you’re not special. You’re just as unremarkable as everyone else on this planet. And, if you must know, I’ve cloned four people so far and, unless you put a bullet in my head, I won’t stop there.”