The Tomorrow Gene

by Sean Platt

  “I don’t know anything. I didn’t understand a bit of what I sent, so if your people think they understand, bully for them. But—”

  She cut him off, her words like knives.

  “They’re making clones, Ephraim. Do you hear me? They’re cloning humans, and it’s not just parlor tricks. Using Precipitous Rise, they can grow embryos to adulthood in months. But not just clones. Duplicates. Based on what you sent me, we think they might even be able to scan a person’s brain, create an archive of their memories and personality, and—”

  The line went dead, the Doodad suddenly a hunk of metal and glass, unresponsive to touch.

  “What did Fiona have to say?” Jonathan asked, making Ephraim jump.

  Although now that he thought about it, maybe this wasn’t Jonathan at all.

  CHAPTER 52

  KINKS AND COMPLICATIONS

  “Ephraim …”

  “I need to go. I need to get back.”

  Ephraim stepped backward.

  Jonathan came forward without any menace. They were two brothers having a chat. Two guys with nothing uncomfortable between them.

  “Get back where?”

  “To my house.”

  “But it’s late.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Your clothes are here. So is everything you brought with you to the Retreat. You’re a permanent resident if you want to be.”

  “If I want to be? I have a choice?”

  “Why wouldn’t you have a choice?”

  The air was molasses between them. Jonathan knew he’d talked to someone named Fiona, and neither of them, just now, had said her name. The Doodad had died, and Jonathan had watched it happen, but he hadn’t acted surprised. He must have seen Ephraim’s panic, and he seemed determined to ignore it. He’d tried to shake Ephraim’s belief in his sanity, while simultaneously rattling his faith in Jonathan’s.

  It was something a normal person wouldn’t do.

  Maybe it was something a person wouldn’t do.

  The man in front of him, though he looked just like his brother, wasn’t Jonathan. Too much was different. Too much was wrong.

  Was it nuts to think Eden could make clones that thought and acted like the people they were spawned from? Maybe. But so much of what Eden did was black magic.

  “Stay,” Jonathan said, advancing slowly.

  “What’s our mother’s name?” Ephraim demanded as the backs of his legs struck a hassock and forced him to detour.

  “What’s this about?”

  “Just answer the question!”

  Hands went up. “Sheila. Her name is Sheila.”

  “And our father’s name?”

  “We don’t know. We never knew him.”

  Ephraim’s began to shake his head, but then Jonathan raised a finger. “Wait. We did know his name. Mom told us once. When she was drunk. Or high.”

  “What was it?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Ephraim shook his head in a long, slow motion of denial. He took another step back. “Get away from me.”

  “I don’t remember! It was one time, and I was like ten years old! She never talked about him, never!”

  “It was Jacob,” Ephraim said.

  “That’s right. Jacob.”

  “But you didn’t remember.”

  “Goddammit, Ephraim, I’m shocked that you remember!”

  “I have a good memory.”

  “It’s more than that. It’s such an obscure memory that I can’t believe …” He sighed. “I’m just surprised that particular memory made it through the filter.”

  “Your memory isn’t as good.” Ephraim was to the foyer door, his hand on the jamb.

  “Ephraim? Take a seat, man. Sit down, and we can talk about this.”

  “Damaris was sixteen when she died. And she was my younger sister, not older.”

  “I know. I—”

  “You didn’t know before. You fucked it up.”

  Jonathan’s hands were up, trying in vain to pacify this complete loss of control. He was trying to stop Ephraim without grabbing him. To corral him into submission without scaring him away.

  “Look. This is all protocol. But I can explain. I told him I could just explain it to you, that you’re level headed enough to—”

  “Him? You mean Wallace Connolly?”

  “Yes. Well, no. Sort of.

  “Sort of?”

  “He—”

  “Is he what you are?”

  Jonathan looked hurt. “Ephraim, I’m your brother.”

  “Why haven’t you had the Tomorrow Gene treatment, Jonathan? You look old. I hear Eden can turn the clock back. It doesn’t inspire faith when the cook is unwilling to try his own food.”

  “It’s more complicated than that. We have a line to walk, as leaders of this place. Wallace never had it done, either. He’s the face of Eden. Always was. He’ll be old forever. Like this facility’s grandfather. He can’t change appearance, ever. He has to remain the face known and trusted by the world.”

  “We have a line to walk?” Ephraim repeated. “No. Not you. You’re not the face of Eden.” He shook his head, looking at this thing that resembled his brother. “Can you not do it? Will the Tomorrow Gene not work on you?”

  “I can explain.”

  “Then explain. Tell me why you can’t even keep your siblings’ ages right. Tell me why you write with your right hand when you always struggled as a lefty. Tell me why you’re lying to me now, and have been all along.”

  Jonathan’s eyes ticked down to his hands with a barely perceptible sigh. Apparently, he didn’t think Ephraim would notice that rather large change. Ephraim turned and stalked for the front door.

  “Goddammit, Ephraim! You can’t just walk out like this!”

  “Why? Are you going to stop me?”

  “You don’t see the whole picture. You’re not thinking straight!”

  “I’m thinking fine,” Ephraim said, anger finally swallowing uncertainty. “Just as I’ve been thinking fine all along. I don’t know why you’re trying to convince me that my memory is—”

  “Faulty! Untrustworthy! If you try to follow your gut, you’ll—”

  “I woke up. You were in a chair behind my bed. We talked. Elle and the doctor left the room. Then we fought. Right then and there. I didn’t meet Connolly. I woke the next day, and you were making breakfast. And six years ago, I came across a poor girl being mugged and I—”

  “That didn’t happen! How can you not even consider the idea that I’m telling you the truth? You know memories are fallible! Shit, Ephraim, we used to watch those hypnosis videos on YouTube together! Think back, will you? When you were under, for the treatment, I asked you what color Damaris’s shirt was on the day she died, and you didn’t remember. So what color was it, Ephraim?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “What color!”

  Ephraim stopped. Turned.

  “I don’t remember. Just like you don’t remember the things I asked. That doesn’t mean—”

  “How many men attacked her?”

  Ephraim tried to picture the scene. “Three.”

  Jonathan shook his head. “There were five. And her shirt was orange.”

  “What does that prove?”

  “What day did it happen, Ephraim? It was a day with some significance.”

  He didn’t remember that either.

  “It was your birthday, Ephraim! How can you not recall your sister dying on your birthday?”

  “Do you have a point?”

  “You don’t remember because you weren’t there. If you just sit down, I’ll explain.”

  “Bullshit. First the mugging and now this? You’re not even making sense. Even if you can fuck with my MyLife memories, I didn’t have a MyLife when Damaris died. Your bullshit story has a hole.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Just let me explain.”

  Ephraim opened the door. “Are you going to stop me?”

  Jonathan sighed. “Of
course not.”

  “Are you going to keep me from going home — all the way home? Am I in danger?”

  “Ephraim, you’re being—”

  “Answer the question!”

  A pause. “No. You’re not.”

  “Why? I know so much. How can you let me leave Eden with everything I know?”

  “You don’t know what you know.”

  “I know you’re not my brother.”

  Jonathan’s mouth ceased mid-opening, his expression that of a man slapped. His jaw scissored, trying to find words.

  “It’s not that simple,” he finally said.

  Ephraim felt as if a thousand-pound weight had rammed him in the chest. He hadn't believed Fiona — and even considering all Jonathan had managed to get wrong about “being Jonathan,” Ephraim couldn’t believe it now.

  People didn’t think such crazy things, and they damn sure didn’t say them out loud. But Ephraim had. And Jonathan — or rather, the clone pretending to be Jonathan — wasn’t denying it.

  “The ghost,” Ephraim said as Jonathan tried to recover. “The worker Altruance and I saw hit by the mowing machine. That happened, didn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are they? The ‘ghosts’?”

  “We call them ‘betas.’ The cloning process is very difficult and expensive. It's only quick once the kinks have been worked out of any specific job.”

  “The ghosts are the ‘kinks,’ aren’t they? The bad copies you make before finally getting a good one?”

  “Some are. Some are deliberately manufactured as quick and dirty copies. They make for great workers, if somewhat slow.”

  “What about Nolon? The copy of Nolon who came to my house? That happened, too.”

  Jonathan nodded. “We thought it would be too traumatic if you thought you’d killed someone. That was never supposed to happen. But there are no legal records for any of them, so killing one doesn’t leave a trail. Elle and Nolon are both lines that Wallace made from cobbling together desired qualities from a library of samples. There is no ‘original’ Elle or Nolon. They act as guides. There are several copies of each, and we use them in non-overlapping areas because they’re such outgoing people. So happy to serve.”

  “They’re things, not people.”

  “We’re all people, Ephraim. No matter how we were made.”

  “You knew all along, didn’t you? You didn’t just learn I was here after the lab tested my blood. You knew from the start that I was coming to Eden.”

  Jonathan closed his eyes. Opened them. “Yes.”

  “So why did you let it all happen? If you wanted to talk to me, why didn’t you just talk to me?”

  “It’s complicated.” Jonathan tried a halfway gesture beckoning Ephraim back inside. “Please. Give me a chance to explain. There’s beauty in what we’re doing here. Wallace’s vision will change the world, and I want you by my side to see it.”

  “I’m not like you. I believe in the law. In following the rules.”

  “That’s why I need you with me. You will approve, Ephraim. It’s only scary now because it’s new. But when you understand? That’s something else.”

  Ephraim looked inside the house, then out at the grounds. He was sure he remembered the way to the tram station. The world was dark and quiet. All peaceful, despite his inner tumult.

  “I’m not sure I want to understand this,” Ephraim said.

  But he could feel his resolve starting to crumble. He couldn’t summon the will to ask if the real Jonathan Todd was alive or dead. Despite the turnabout, he felt close to this man in front of him. This … copy … had most of Jonathan’s memories and all of his genes. Despite what science fiction taught, clones weren’t evil. They were, as Jonathan had said, just people — no different, biologically speaking, than twins.

  Maybe Ephraim could trust him. Maybe the whole thing wasn’t as absurd as his knee-jerk reaction led him to believe. Maybe the real Jonathan had indeed died, and creating this one had been an act of love to continue his life, rather than malice. Who knew? It was so hard to think.

  “Please,” Jonathan repeated, seeing the indecision on Ephraim’s face.

  “How long would it take to say what you want to say?”

  “Maybe an hour.”

  “And if I want to go afterward? What happens if I’m not swayed? If I want to leave Eden and never come back?”

  “Then you can go, like I said.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” Jonathan agreed.

  Ephraim watched the clone, halfway to considering. Then something snapped, and he shook his head. There were too many secrets on Eden. Too many deceptions for him to ever believe what they told him, or trust the company’s intentions.

  “It was nice seeing you again.” Ephraim turned to leave, then looked back. “Or meeting you, as the case may be.”

  “Don’t go,” Jonathan said from the door.

  Ephraim kept walking, not looking back.

  On the road, he turned around as Jonathan’s front door slammed.

  An alarm brayed.

  And all of the world’s lights came on at once.

  CHAPTER 53

  FLUORESCENT DAY

  Night turned to fluorescent day.

  Floodlights had been hidden everywhere in the trees and shrubberies, obvious now as they lit. Their hiding places created strange shadows of enormous black leaves dancing on the clipped lawn.

  “STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

  The order was electronically amplified, either by a megaphone held by someone in the dark or broadcast from a concealed speaker. Ephraim looked back toward the source at Jonathan’s house. At the clone’s house. The door was closed. The windows were drawn drapes without any features.

  Troops came from the edges of the lawn. From two directions at once. They weren’t holding guns up like cornering a criminal; they were just walking. Slowly. Almost reasonably.

  “I’m a guest here.” But Ephraim felt like an idiot. Whose guest was he, anyway? Sophie’s? Or was he the guest of Jonathan Todd’s DNA, which lived up the hill?

  “Just stay where you are, please.”

  “I want to leave Eden. You can’t keep me here.”

  “On your knees, please, Mr. Todd. With your hands behind your head.”

  They were in uniform, but no weapons had been drawn. Two groups emerged from the shadows to join the others, as if they’d been awaiting a sign. All was cordial and plastic under the floodlights, orders and implied threats at the ready.

  Get on your knees, please, Mr. Todd. Stay perfectly still. But no, there’s no problem here. We just want to give you a hot seaweed wrap and rub your feet.

  “I want to talk to Wallace Connolly,” Ephraim said, remembering some of what Jonathan had told him. According to Jonathan, Wallace had been there during his Tomorrow Gene treatment; interested enough to have been checking on Ephraim from the start. Like Jonathan, Wallace might even have seen through Ephraim’s farce all along. They’d lured him here like a honeybee to nectar, and that meant Wallace would care about this. Anything to stall.

  There was a woman in an Eden security uniform in the lead of the rightmost group. She removed a plastic zip-tie from her belt, the kind riot police used to quell drunken revelers. She had a Batman’s worth of peripherals at her waist on various loops, including a little flashlight, pepper spray or mace, handcuffs that she was for some reason eschewing in favor of the zip tie. There was something there that might have been a taser, but no gun. Eden wasn’t a place for guns. Just for altered memories and artificial brothers.

  “On your knees, please,” she repeated.

  “Did you hear me? I want to talk to Wallace Connolly.”

  “If you’ll just get down to your knees first, please.”

  The left group had arrived, now with polite hands on Ephraim’s arm, urging him to the ground. Not taking him captive. Just forcing him to comply.

  “Now.” He shook his arm hard, batting at the grip o
f a thin man with a tiny mustache. “NOW!”

  “Calm down.” The woman held out her hands, zip tie in one, almost offered, as if presenting a sniff to a nervous dog.

  Ephraim backed up, gazing everywhere. The lights were blinding. Beyond the first halo of illumination, more guards approached in silhouette. Ephraim’s eyes watered, heart hammering blood to his temples and making them throb.

  The lawn sloped away to the rear. At its base, if he went far enough, lay Eden’s bay. There might even be a dock; Ephraim couldn’t recall without turning to look. A dock and a boat, perhaps. Would they let him board it if he got there first? Or would they draw weapons and shoot him in the back? Would they hold him down? Make things go away again for a while, leaving him to wake up confused all over again?

  The guards continued their approach, walking but not reaching.

  “I’m leaving this place and you’re not going to stop me.”

  Backing up, he bumped against something.

  Someone.

  He turned to see the man he’d last seen on Reef island. He recognized the thick beard, the heavy eyebrows, and an expression that fell somewhere between compassionate and menacing.

  “Ephraim,” said the bearded man. “There’s so much here you don’t understand. You want to talk? I speak for Wallace Connolly. You can talk to me.”

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  But before the man could answer, the woman with the zip tie lunged. She got her hands on Ephraim but was easily shaken away, her momentum betraying her.

  Ephraim turned and she spilled forward, striking the bearded man’s feet.

  The others were behind and beside her, all wearing utility belts, but none prepared for conflict. There were many bodies, but no ready minds. A security force going through the motions. A force that looked right but was wrong inside, just like the clone at the mansion.

  The woman was clambering to her feet as the others surged in, seeming to decide en masse that they could make up in numbers what they lacked as individuals. A half-moon of bodies approached.

  Ephraim moved the only way he could. As the mass closed on like a fist, he broke its hold, moving for the open crescent.