by Jason Taylor
The entrance to her hotel was a semi-circular hole carved into the bedrock just past the fifth-ring. It wasn’t fancy but it had served her needs. She scanned-in to verify her credentials and the door rolled upward, giving her access.
The lobby was furnished with a variety of practical chairs and tables, comfortable but plain. After a moment, she let the hotel-node put a filter in place so that she saw the lobby as they intended, and the room sprung into bright relief. Luxurious wall coverings hung from floor to ceiling. In the corner was a roaring fire, fresh wood stacked beside it. The chairs were Scandinavian antiques, rich in wood and burnished leather. The floor was covered in a thick, woolen carpet.
The fire called to her, along with a pint of beer, but she had a flight to catch, there was no time to dally. She proceeded to her room to gather her things. The hotel room’s door recognized her immediately and slid open to let her in. The room itself was beautiful, dominated by a huge four-poster bed, intricate lace hanging from each corner. On the far wall was an impressive window overlooking a sunlit, snow-covered forest. Mature fir trees marched into the distance, a river glinting in the sunlight, mountains on the horizon pink with alpenglow. She wished she had more time to enjoy the view. It was splendidly put together.
She reluctantly turned the filter off, seeing the room as it was: a bare rock shell with a bed in the center, a few dim lights illuminating the space. It wasn’t as nice, but at least she wouldn’t be distracted. She quickly packed her things into a backpack, threw the straps over her shoulders, and walked out.
Once she was back in the corridors, she triggered her interface for a map and proceeded down the fourth-ring road toward the surface-elevators. As she got closer the corridor quality improved, and by the time she arrived at the security checkpoints the walls were thoroughly insulated, covered in paint once more.
As usual, there was a line. Her interface indicated a ten-minute wait. She sat down, fingers tapping impatiently. She couldn’t decide if she should pull up a book to read. Ten minutes was an awkward amount of time. Short enough that it was hard to get anything worthwhile done, long enough to feel impatient.
Lost in thought, she didn’t notice the young girl sitting next to her until she started talking.
“Hey, I recognize you. Aren’t you the clone lady?” the girl asked.
“Umm…”
“I don’t mean that you’re a clone. But you work with them, right? I saw you on the feeds last night. They said you’d come to talk with the Senate.”
“Yes, that’s right. I testified this morning.”
“That’s so great. It’s my dream to be a senator one day. My mom brought me here so I could see the Government buildings for myself.”
Jill’s interface indicated that it was her turn to step through the portal.
“Good luck. I’m sure you can make it.”
“Thanks!”
Jill stood up, shouldered her pack, and walked to the portal. The waiting room was shaped like a fan so that it was widest at the back where the seating was, narrowing as you approached the portal entrance. The portal itself was in a separate room, roughly ten feet square. It was, in essence, a huge neural probe. Physical scans were a thing of the past. A neural probe could be used to see everything you had done in the past as well as what your intentions were for the future. There was a balance between security and privacy, and by law, they were only allowed to take two days worth of data from you, just enough to determine if you were a security risk. It was intrusive, but necessary.
Jill stepped into the portal, the door closing behind her. There were a variety of filters that could be used to make the experience more pleasant, but she left them off, closed her eyes and waited. She had a suspicion that the filters were designed as a distraction so the portal could more easily get what it needed from your mind. She wanted to remain fully aware of what was happening to her.
With a low hum the process began. Jill felt a disturbing series of tingling sensations working their way through her skull as the probe picked through her thoughts and memories. When it found anything of interest, it dug more deeply, the invasive irritation like an unscratchable itch deep within her brain. She gritted her teeth and waited. A few minutes later it was over, leaving her with a low, dull headache as the door slid open, allowing her to walk out the other side of the portal.
It had been relatively quick. The exit probe on the way out of the city was less thorough than the entrance probe on the way in, because there were fewer threats to scan for. On the way in, it had to test for possible intentions to cause harm. On the way out, it merely examined your memories for harm you may have caused during your stay. Even though she knew she had nothing to hide, it was a nerve-racking experience. She’d heard of people being pulled aside and forced to submit to multi-hour scans to check their memories more deeply. She didn’t want to think too much about what that would feel like.
She stepping into the surface-elevator terminal, and after a short wait she boarded an elevator car bound for the surface. The car was a stainless steel rectangle with room enough for fifty to ride at once. Jill found a seat near the back and turned on the elevator-filter. The walls fell away, replaced by large panes of transparent glass. Through the glass she could see the rough-carved bedrock of the surface-elevator shaft. Far above was a point of light showing the top.
With a rumble the car began its ascent, the rock walls moving steadily downward as the car climbed. Jill let her head rest on the back of her seat and watched the square of light grow steadily larger until they passed through, emerging into the depths of the ocean. In reality they were far too deep for sunlight to penetrate, but the filter illuminated the water, revealing a rich array of sea life around them.
Fifteen minutes later they were on the surface, and Jill found herself standing on the mighty, floating platforms of New Dulles. What had started as a seaport had evolved into an airport, and then into a city of its own. New Dulles sprawled across many miles of ocean, its flexible components floating in what was currently a serene sea. If there was a storm, the platforms moved apart, floating independently to avoid damage. When it was calm, like today, the platforms linked up, creating a structure so stable that the motion of the sea could no longer be felt.
Jill would have loved to tour the wonders of New Dulles, but there was no time. She had work to do and her flight awaited.
Back at the lab, Tros was thinking about Jill’s testimony. Before Jill had left, they’d talked in depth about her desire to interview the clones, but Tros hadn’t come up with a way to do it that she was comfortable with.
While she was pondering that problem, a high priority communication request came in from Senator Thompson.
“Hello Senator, what can I do for you?” Tros asked.
Thompson’s face loomed in front of Tros. “Did you watch that dog and pony show?”
“Do you mean the hearing? Yes, I did.”
“What kind of bullshit was that? You people don’t have a bloody clue what you’re doing, do you?”
“No, Madame Senator. We don’t.”
“What the fuck do I pay you for Tros? Get your head out of your ass and take some initiative. That’s why I put you out there in that hellhole of a city.”
“I’m doing everything I can to contain the situation.”
“For God’s sake, don’t give me that shit. Are you ready to stop pussyfooting around?”
“As you wish Senator,” Tros responded, containing her frustration.
“When you look at those clone children, what do you see?”
“I see a security risk. They’ve killed two people, and I believe they are capable of killing more.”
“Are you that goddamned short-sighted?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you blind? Those clones could be our salvation. Where you see a threat, I see an opportunity. Where you see children, I see weapons.”
Tros was stunned. “Weapons, Madame Senator?”
“Yes
Tros, weapons. Loaded weapons. Weapons that our enemies will never see coming. Your job is to figure out how we aim them.”
Chapter 21
The engines of the para-jet rumbled as it taxied toward the runway. Jill was thinking about her testimony, about the protesters, about New Washington and the nature of power in general. As an engineer she thought of power in concrete terms, as a force that could be used to accomplish work, to overcome obstacles. She was turning that idea over in her mind, thinking about how it could be applied to people and to politics, when the ramjets hidden within each of the para-jet’s flat, delta-shaped wings spun up, pushing her hard into the adaptive padding of her seat.
As the g-forces mounted, the padding shifted around her, cushioning her shoulders and neck, keeping her comfortable and aligned. She could feel the forces pulling the flesh of her face back, her lips parting to expose her teeth. The para-jet angled sharply upward, accelerating toward its maximum in-atmosphere velocity, just under 2,000 miles per hour.
After a few minutes, the forces on her eased and Jill was able to move again. She flexed her feet, first one, then the other to get the blood flowing and to stop her calves from cramping. Then she lifted her head to look out the window-screen. She could have triggered her interface to get a view without having to move her head, but she knew from experience that it was disorienting to look out the side-window view without physically looking to the side.
The view outside was a disorienting, flat grey – no depth, no shape, nothing to differentiate up from down. As she strained her eyes looking into it, she got the disconcerting feeling that they were flying straight up, then her mind flipped the orientation and tried to convince her they were flying upside down, heading toward the earth. She closed her eyes and focused on the steadily diminishing acceleration, using the force pressing her into her seat to re-orient herself.
A warning flashed in her interface, letting Jill know that they were nearing 50,000 feet and that the sub-orbital burn was about to begin. She reopened her eyes and aligned herself in her seat. The warning flashed from red to green, confirming that she was situated safely. Once the para-jet systems had validated that all of the passengers were adequately secured, the captain broadcast a short message. “Hello passengers, welcome to our flight from New Dulles to Seattle. Flight time today will be two hours and thirty minutes, with an estimated landing time in Seattle just after 10am Pacific. I’ve received confirmation that the cabin is properly secured, so I will be initiating the primary burn in a few moments. Please keep your arms and legs secure and your back properly aligned. I will give you another update before we start our descent back into atmosphere. On behalf of myself and our entire crew, thank you for choosing to fly with Uniflite today.”
With a roar that resonated throughout the cabin shaking Jill in her seat, the para-jet leapt forward. Jill felt the acceleration like a colossal hand pushing on her chest, forcing her backward, the pressure increasing until it was hard to breathe, stars popping in the edges of her vision. She closed her eyes and waited for the sensation to pass. She knew from experience that the burn wouldn’t last long, probably less than thirty seconds, but sometimes it felt like a lifetime.
And then it was over. The roar subdued to a whisper and she was released from the strain of acceleration, rebounding gently into her restraints. They were outside the atmosphere now, falling along the curve of the Earth in a long parabolic arc, gravity balanced perfectly against the centrifugal force of their inertia, giving the sensation of weightlessness. She swallowed hard, trying to ignore the impression that her stomach was crawling up into her throat. Then she opened her eyes to a scene of wonder.
Outside the window-screen, the luminous edge of Earth curved below her, rimmed in an impossibly thin smudge of atmosphere, the hard, black vacuum of space extending out to infinity. They were racing the light. The shadow of the sun’s limit arced across the globe, the artificial light of human cities on one side, the orange glow of captured sunlight on the other. It was like a fairytale planet, beautiful and perfect from this distance, all the scars hidden, the mistakes and depredations made invisible. Jill could never get tired of seeing the world like this.
She faced forward and tried to think. All that had happened, all that she’d done, the next steps they needed to take, the risks they would need to manage. It was overwhelming. Maybe it was best not to think for a little while.
She triggered her interface and searched through the available live-casts, looking for something that would take her mind off the cloning project for a few hours. Trained to her interests, the feed interface stopped on an image of a man wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. She thought about overruling the decision and continuing her search for something mindless, but the image had already snared her interest. Could this be Icarus? If so, what had caused him to pop up after so many years?
She turned the audio on, catching the live-cast host mid-sentence. “– confirmed recording from Icarus. This is the first time he’s surfaced since 2080 when he stole secrets from the Ganymede project and broadcast them to the world. What could have brought him out of hiding? Let’s listen in–”
The live-cast host started the Icarus recording and he sprung to life. He had placed himself inside a projection of a fire-lit cave, animating his mask so it would simulate expressions as he talked. He looked full into the camera and started speaking in a strong, resonant voice. “Citizens of the Earth, I am here to warn you of a betrayal. As you know, I have entrusted humanity with the secrets of cloning, unlocking the bounties of genetic engineering for everyone to benefit from. But now the beautiful potential of this achievement is being twisted for political and military gain. Like many of you, I watched Dr. Jill Clarence, waiting to see if she would come clean with us, wondering if she would reveal the corruption and shame that rests at the heart of the Ganymede cloning project. But did she tell the truth? Did she entrust us with the gift of transparency?”
Icarus paused dramatically, an unnaturally large smile stretching across his mask. “What started as a project to explore the miracle of life, has devolved into a shameful display. The cloning project is no longer about science. It is a naked grab for power. Our leaders are twisted by a lust for violence and a psychotic drive for dominance.” Icarus leaned forward, one finger pointing into the camera. “I have a responsibility to those clone children. After all, I was the one that discovered and released the information that led to their birth. Like a father, I have shared in their creation.”
His face moved closer, looming to fill the entire frame. “Because of this sacred responsibility, I cannot stand idly by as these innocent children are forcibly kidnapped and illegally detained. Are they to be tortured? Are they to be brainwashed to fulfill the megalomaniacal fantasies of power-hungry politicians and generals? I have learned that these clones have extraordinary abilities. In fear, your government has imprisoned them. In fear, your government seeks to forge them into weapons. Rather than revel in the perfection of their creation, the Senate will corrupt them, seeking to turn them against the rest of humanity.”
Icarus took a moment to compose himself, continuing in a soft voice. “I have been in touch with each of the mothers, and I have offered them my assistance. These women have had their children torn from their arms. Their pain is all of our pain. Their loss is all of our loss.”
Icarus scowled, his voice rising in volume until it thundered. “I will not stand by. No father or mother ever could. We must not. We cannot. Conscience demands it, liberty requires it, humanity clamors for it. The clones must be set free, for they are all of our children now. I call on every citizen of this great nation to rise up and demand the release of these children. We must resist the illegal detention of innocence. We must –”
The image of Icarus froze and was replaced by the the live-cast host. “What are we to make of these dramatic accusations? What will the Government’s response be? Where are the clone children now, and how are they being treated? We will be asking these questions and man
y more in the next segment when we interview the Presidential Press Secretary. Please send us your questions and comments so that we may share your concerns during that interview.”
Jill turned off the live-cast, troubled. Icarus was a known agitator and criminal. He couldn’t be trusted. And yet, much of what he’d said had resonated with her. Could he be telling the truth? Were there plans to turn the clones into weapons? The fact that he was working with the mothers could cause trouble. She regretted what they’d been forced to do while recalling the clones. She was barely on speaking terms with Mary, and none of the other mothers would agree to talk with her at all. Honestly, she couldn’t blame them. They were, as a group, investigating their legal options, and she couldn’t blame them for that either. It was a huge mess.
She wanted to talk to Tros about what she’d just seen. She thought for a moment, could it wait until she returned? No, she needed to speak with Tros about this now. It was too explosive to wait, and she needed to know the truth.
Jill triggered her interface and sent a priority connection request for Tros. After a minute, Tros’s haggard face appeared. She looked like she hadn’t slept at all since they’d parted two days ago. She looked like shit.
“Jill, what is it? This better be important,” Tros asked brusquely, biting the end off each word.
“Did you watch the Icarus broadcast?”
“I don’t know where he’s getting his information, but we need to shut him up. Do you think we have another spy?”
“I don’t know Tros, we can look into it. But, about what he said. Is it true?”
“Which part Jill? That we are torturing children? That we are brainwashing the clones?” Tros asked, her jaw working, eyes flashing. “You know just as well as I do how dangerous those clones are.”
