by Greg Krojac
“I’m so sorry Philippa. I could have killed you.”
“You nearly did.”
“I know.”
“But you didn’t. That’s what’s important. You stopped yourself in time. You allowed the real you to come through. You’re a good person really.”
“And so are you, Philippa. You’re a good person. I didn’t want to believe it before, but I know you made sacrifices to save me. Without you, I’d probably still be in that place or even dead.”
Caitlin kissed Philippa on the forehead, taking care to avoid her broken nose.
“Can you ever forgive me? Can we start again from scratch?”
Philippa felt like saying ‘as long as you don’t try to kill me anymore’ but she knew that that would be crass and like throwing a hand grenade into a recuperation room. So she simply kissed Caitlin’s forehead.
“There’s nothing I’d like more.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
08:07 Wednesday 27 November 2069
The farmhouse on Dartmoor was awash with excitement. Children were rushing in and out of farmhouses, having been waiting for this day since the beginning of the month. Those who would actually take part were a little nervous but also anxious to see the results of the process. Of course, Philip had an advantage over everybody else; he only had to look at Ethan to see what he was going to look like at the age of twenty-five. The nine other children were excited to see what they were about to turn into. Jenny was especially happy when Philip made a particularly complimentary remark about her clone.
Several of the children were missing from the scene. It was important that sentries still patrol the perimeter of the farm, as the farm was remote but could still be discovered either deliberately or by accident. Any passing hiker would find a handful of children out playing and be fobbed off with a credible cover story, but they were under no illusion that they had rattled Marcus’s cage and that, although he had ordered the national purge and summary execution of Recarn children between the ages of eight years and twelve years old, he couldn’t be assured that the children who had been involved in the attack on his main research centre had been trapped in his net and subsequently dealt with.
The main barn was a large building with plenty of space to house the one hundred and fifty or so Recarn children who were there to watch or take part in the proceedings. Ten transfer machines had been set up, side by side, and were ready to receive the first batch of children who were going to have their souls transferred to adult clones. Each machine had a staff of three; one operator, and two assistants, whose jobs were to act as ancillary staff and do any fetching, carrying, and clearing up after the transfers had taken place. To the right of each machine, stood alongside the donating chamber, was one of the first batches of children whose stem cells had been taken to create the adult clones that already lay in the receiving chambers. The clones had been given the GHIH at 6 a.m. and their growth rate had now returned to normal. Like all clones, they had no soul as yet and acted on instinct only, sensing that they were being cared for and thus giving no resistance when the lid of each chamber was clasped shut. The children had been allowed to keep their underwear on, as some of them said that they would feel embarrassed until the time came to enter the donor capsule. From that point, they had to be completely naked in order not to upset the calibration of the equipment, but plastic screens would be put in place in order to shield their modesty and protect them from the gaze of those that were not undergoing the transfer process yet or were part of the operational team.
Ethan was seated in an armchair that had been brought from the farmhouse, making him look like a king on his throne, albeit a black leather throne with a few nicks in the material where a cat had once used it as a makeshift scratching post. The rest of the young audience stood behind him. He stood up and addressed the group. The transference would be repeated on an almost daily basis for a few weeks, but this inaugural transference deserved a bit of showmanship.
“Boys and girls. Settle back and watch with wonder as girls become women and boys become men. All in the space of a few minutes.”
He nodded at the assistants and the plastic screens were put in place after which the five boys and five girls stripped and climbed into the donor chambers. The lids were closed and fastened shut.
The operators simultaneously pressed their start buttons and the process was initiated. The crowd of children looked on as the ten children in the donor tubes started gasping for air as it was drawn out of the chamber and replaced with a vacuum. It was a horrible sight and. although they knew that the donor souls would wake up in their new bodies in a matter of minutes, it didn’t make the viewing any easier. The ten operators confirmed that the souls had entered the airlocks and closed the sealing door between donor chamber and airlock, before opening the door to the receiving chamber.
The operator of the machine that was transferring Philip’s body to his new adult clone, stood up.
“Ethan, there’s something wrong. I’ve lost track of Philip’s soul.”
“Are you sure? Check it again.”
The operator checked the readings again.
“I’m sure. It appears to have escaped the equipment somehow.”
Ethan feigned concern.
“How could this happen?”
It was a rhetorical question really. Ethan had gone into the barn late at night, ostensibly to check on things but in reality to create a miniscule hole in the airlock tube. This is why Philip’s soul was missing. The instinct of the released soul is to find a donor body. It is able to survive in a vacuum but as soon as it senses air it will head in that direction. That’s why the airlock system was necessary – to guide the soul to the new host in the receiving chamber, where it would also find air. Philip’s soul had found this almost microscopic breach in the airlock and had left the equipment, joining the thousands of other souls that were flitting to and fro in the atmosphere seeking their next body.
In the meantime, the other nine clones had absorbed their new souls and were ready to be released from their chambers. Once the clasps were unfastened the nine now fully sentient clones climbed out of their pods and were given a dressing gown to put on. As soon as her modesty was returned, Jenny, now a beautiful, tall strawberry blonde with a perfect figure looked anxiously at Philip’s clone, which was still laying in the receiving chamber of his transfer apparatus and quite obviously did not contain the soul of Philip. She turned to the operator.
“What’s happened? Where’s Philip? That’s not Philip in there. That’s just an empty shell. Where’s my Philip?”
Ethan decided that he’d deal with this situation himself.
“I’m afraid there must have been something wrong with the equipment. That’s all I can think of. He’s gone.”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“We don’t know. His soul has gone walkabout – or flyabout to be more precise.”
“We need to find him.”
“And how are we supposed to do that? He could be anywhere. He’s lost to us. He’s gone. Accidents happen. Deal with it.”
“But you don’t understand. I love him. He loves me. I was looking forward to his strong arms embracing me. I was so looking forward to being with him. As adults.”
Ethan stepped forwards, arms open.
“There’s always me, love.”
Jenny shuddered and pulled the cord of her dressing gown tight, before storming out of the barn. Ethan may have looked like Philip, but that was where the resemblance ended.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
03:20 Monday 2 December 2069
When Ethan sabotaged Philip’s soul transference he did more than rid himself of an inoffensive and faithful follower who had given up his own stem cells so that Ethan could be reborn in the adult body of a clone; he had stolen the love of this life of one of his other followers, Jenny.
Now blossomed into a beautiful young woman, Jenny had been looking forward to continuing her life with this strapping young man, the
younger version of whom she had already grown to love. She had dreamed of feeling his body next to her at night, of feeling him inside her, of hopefully growing old together in this life and – when the time came – entering their next lives together, remaining a couple in all their future lives.
But Ethan had put an end to all that. She knew that Philip would be reincarnated but he could be reborn as anyone and anywhere. He was lost to her now. Even if he looked for her and was able to find her, he would be at least twenty-six years her junior.
She tried to carry on as normal, but every passing day was a painful reminder of what would never be. All the children were now young adults and were happy with their new bodies, laughing and joking as they went about their daily business. But the last thing that she felt like doing was to laugh and joke. She, Philip, and Tommy had risked their young lives to free Ethan from his limbo and he had repaid them by casting out Philip’s soul. She couldn’t prove it but she was certain that Ethan was behind Philip’s death.
She couldn’t stay at the farm any longer; Ethan had broken her heart and, where before there had been loyalty and a belief in the cause, there was now only pain and anger.
***
At 3 a.m. she wrapped herself up in a warm quilted jacket and prepared to make her escape. The most dangerous part of her plan would be getting past the handful of sentries that patrolled the perimeter, although their main purpose was to prevent intruders from entering. They had no reason to expect that anybody would try to leave.
Jenny crept out of her room in one of the outbuildings and silently eased her way along the corridor, being particularly careful not to make any noise, knowing that if she woke anyone up she would have a tough job explaining why she was up and about at that time of the morning. She slipped quietly out of the building and made a dash for the cover of the nearest barn. The night was cold but fortunately not cold enough for snow. That would have made any escape impossible; the sound of footsteps crunching in the snow and the tell-tale tracks that she would leave behind her would have meant that her absence would have almost certainly been noticed before she was even across the yard. As it was, she still had to duck and dive between buildings and choose her moments to move carefully. Although it wasn’t a full moon, it was still 80% illuminated and was a pretty efficient flashlight. She made her way nearer and nearer the perimeter, dodging between buildings as and when the opportunity arose, whenever a cloud temporarily covered the moon and gave her some cover of darkness.
Finally, she was at the last building. The only thing that could stop her from escaping now was if the sentries spotted her. Tempted as she was to just make a run for it she knew that discretion was the better part of valour and that it would be much better for her to wait for the sentries to pass a couple of times so that she could gauge the time necessary to reach a group of bushes that stood about one hundred yards beyond the farm boundary. Quiet as a mouse she watched two sentries pass in front of her, one arriving from the left and the other from the right. They acknowledged each other with a nod as their paths crossed, and then continued along their path. Jenny kept a close eye on them, making a mental note of when they would be furthest apart from each other. She had planned to observe for two walk-pasts but decided to confirm her findings by waiting for them to pass a third time. There was no margin for error if she was to be successful in her escape. Once convinced that she could reach the shrubs safely she prepared herself for a sprint that would either see her leave the farm for good or be captured and face the wrath and punishment of Ethan.
As the two sentries were reaching the point most distant from each other, Jenny made a break for it. Her timing was critical; the two guards had to be far enough apart that they wouldn’t hear her as she dashed towards the shrubs, but not so far that they would be turning around to retrace their steps. Luck was on her side, as not only was her timing impeccable but a group of clouds covered the moon at just the right time, the darkness affording her extra cover.
Diving behind the shrubs, she looked back at the farm and checked the movements of the sentries. If she had been religious she would have thanked her particular god, but as an atheist, she put her successful manoeuvre down to good planning and a generous helping of good fortune. The sentries appeared to be oblivious to her escape and continued their patrol as if nothing had happened.
She knew that the next step would be the most dangerous of them all. Groups of shrubs were few and far between and she would have to rely on luck to allow her to reach the next piece of cover. Hidden behind the plants she again waited for the sentries to be furthest apart. As they neared the point where they would make a 180° turn and head towards each other again, Jenny sprinted as fast as she could towards the second set of bushes. This was make or break for her; if successful she could make her rendezvous with a One Life extraction team. If not, she imagined that Ethan would have no qualms about executing her on the spot for her treason.
Out of breath and needing a couple of minutes to recover, she dived behind the second set of bushes. She knew that she couldn’t stay there long; each minute spent in hiding was a minute more during which her absence could be discovered. As soon as she felt able, she scurried away from the farm, only standing upright when she felt it was safe to do so.
***
After fifteen minutes’ walk, she arrived at a map reference that had been supplied by One Life. She had been the liaison between the resistance and the group of child Recarns when the joint assault on Marcus’s principal research facility had been planned at the end of October. She hadn’t imagined for one minute that she would be contacting them again so soon, but so strong was her pain about Philips’s death that she couldn’t envisage a future for herself seeing his face every day but knowing that it wasn’t really him.
She looked around. Where were they? They said that they would be there to meet her. Surely they hadn’t forgotten? What she had in her pocket, a memory card containing the blue-prints and instructions for constructing a soul transference machine, was surely too important for One Life to ignore?
Suddenly, she saw a figure walking towards her. She recognised her as Michelle, one of the people who had been at the meeting in the disused factory. But where had she come from? There was no sign of a car or any form of transport, just the moor. Michelle held out a hand as a gesture of friendship.
“You’re Jenny, yes? My name’s Michelle. I think we met back in October. Of course, you looked a lot younger then.”
“Yes. I’m Jenny. We’re all a lot older now. We transferred our souls to adult clones of ourselves. But I recognise you. You haven’t changed.”
“Well, it has only been two months. Talking of clones, do you have the goods?”
“Yes.”
“Right. Let’s go then. But I’ll have to drug you so that you won’t know the whereabouts of our camp. We even do it to our own people the first few times they visit – until we’re sure that we can trust them. Will that be a problem?”
Jenny knew she had no other choice. She had burned her bridges behind her when she had decided to leave the farm.
“No. Of course not. No problem.”
“Right. Let’s get on the helicopter and get going.”
“Helicopter? What helicopter?”
“Follow me and you’ll see.”
Jenny followed Michelle, apparently towards the open spaces of the moor, when a helicopter suddenly came into view, rotor blades turning, primed for take-off. Jenny was amazed.
“How?”
“I’ll explain later.”
The two women clambered aboard and when seated and secure Jenny put her hand inside her jacket, pulling out a blue pen-drive.
“This is what you want. It has all the information that you need to build your own soul-transference machine. Not that I understand why you might want to do that, considering you want a world without Recarns.”
“We just think it’s better to have access to the technology. It doesn’t mean we’ll ever build the machine
. But it’s nice to not have a disparity in technology.”
Michelle tapped the pilot on the shoulder and the helicopter rose gracefully into the air, before heading off to the One Life camp. Jenny fell asleep, the effects of the recently applied tranquiliser kicking in quickly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
14:06 Friday 13 December 2069
The Businessman was sitting on the veranda of his tropical residence on his private island, sipping a frozen banana daiquiri and admiring the flora of his luscious garden, when Andrea, one of his personal assistants came running towards him, trailed by an out-of-breath man in a white lab-coat. The Businessman’s two o’clock daiquiri was a daily ritual never to be interrupted. It was sacrilege to do so. The fact that Andrea, who knew every personal whim and preference of the Businessman had taken it upon herself to interrupt the drinking of the cocktail was testament to the importance of what she had to say.
“Sir. This is Professor Lindquist. He has something very important to tell you.”
“It must be very important if it’s worth interrupting my afternoon’s indulgence. Let’s hear what you have to say, professor.”
Andrea nodded to Professor Lindquist and he opened his mouth to speak. It hung open for a few seconds and then closed again. The professor knew of the Businessman’s existence, he knew he lived on the island. He knew he worked for him. But he had never met him before. The Businessman was used to this reaction as it wasn’t the first time that it had happened.
“Stage fright?”
The professor nodded. The Businessman tried to dilute the professor’s nervousness.
“Take a few deep breaths.”
The professor took half a dozen deep breaths. The Businessman tilted his head.
“Better?”
