by Magus Tor
“Yes, it is a little,” Aurelia said.
They walked to an elevator bank, and Elza opened the doors. “You're on the 54th floor, which you'll know already from your new number. I'm on 55, right above you, so feel free to knock if you need something.”
The elevator closed and began moving.
“You can eat in the cafeteria if you wish; just give them your number, though all accommodations do have a small kitchen alcove if you prefer. Everything you need should be right here in the hospital, so if you can't find something, just ask. You can call up a hospital map on your screen, of course.”
Aurelia felt that Elza was trying to fill up space with her words, not wanting to talk about something, but she didn't know what. She listened quietly whilst the hospital head explained about laundry facilities and the minutiae of everyday life. Soon they arrived at Aurelia's door.
She scanned her hand, and the door opened.
“Do you mind if I come in for a moment?” Elza asked.
“Of course not.”
Aurelia walked into a small living pod containing a couch, a built-in desk and a vid screen.
“How was your first day?” Elza asked, sitting down.
“Fine,” said Aurelia.
Elza smiled. “You're free to talk here; I promise you that anything you say inside your living pod will stay here.”
It dawned on Aurelia that Elza had not wanted to speak about anything that had happened whilst they were in the corridors of the hospital in case they were overheard.
“Listen, Aurelia. You've had an eventful day, which is putting it mildly,” Elza said. “You've done your job wonderfully, better than even I expected.” She paused, looking as if she were gathering her thoughts. “I know there are things that right now you're not understanding, and there's not a lot I can say tonight, but I can assure you that all will become clear. You are special, Aurelia, and big things are coming. Just be patient.”
Aurelia sat back on the couch and looked at her mentor. “You're the second person tonight who's told me this,” she said.
“Jonathon?”
“Yes,” Aurelia agreed. “If I'm being honest, I think it's unfair not to share information with me. But I think maybe I understand why you can't be as straightforward as you'd like to be.”
“Lunar is a complicated city at the best of times,” Elza said, sitting back too. “And right now it's a complicated city at a complicated time. There are things happening here, Aurelia. Things you know nothing about down on Earth.” She held up a hand to stop Aurelia, who was about to speak. “I too came here from City 01. I know just how much you don't know, if that makes sense.”
Aurelia nodded. “There seem to be a lot of things people in Lunar know that people in Earth Cities don't know.”
“Information is dangerous,” Elza said. She raised her eyebrow when Aurelia laughed.
“Sorry, but Jonathon was just telling me tonight that power is dangerous,” she explained.
“He's right. But the most dangerous thing of all is the combination of power and information,” said Elza. “Realise that you're not being kept in the dark because we don't want you to know things, but because it's for your own good. At least right now.”
Elza rubbed her eyes, and Aurelia realised that the woman was as tired as she was.
“You didn't ask for this, Aurelia. You just sort of fell into things. I know that feeling. I know because I've had it myself. I used to be you.” The woman closed her eyes, leaning her head back. “I remember the frustration. The anger, even. You're a lot like I used to be at your age.” She opened her eyes again to look at Aurelia. “What do you want?” she asked.
Aurelia knew what she was referring to. “I want to help people, society,” she said. “It's what I've always wanted, why I became a med Worker in the first place.”
“Me too,” said Elza. “And I think that you're about to help people more than you've ever realised. If it's any consolation at all, even though you didn't ask for this, you will more than achieve your ambitions in life.”
Elza reached up and tore off her stimulant patch, and Aurelia did the same.
“Can't sleep with them on, right?” Aurelia said.
Elza shook her head. “Nope. And you'll probably need a good half hour to get the stimulant out of your system after you take the patch off, so you'll have time to intercom your parents before you fall asleep.”
She said this so naturally, like everyone intercommed their parents, though Aurelia knew they didn't. Elza seemed to know a lot about her personal life. Maybe it was part of the hiring process.
“I've been watching you for some time,” said Elza, observing the effect her parental remark had had on Aurelia. “I know a lot about you.”
“And I know nearly nothing about you,” said Aurelia, but she smiled. “I'm guessing that's something else that I'll learn later.”
“I hope so,” Elza said, stretching and yawning. “I'd like us to become friends as well as co-workers.”
“I don't think that'll be a problem.” Aurelia laughed.
Elza got up. “I should leave you to sleep.”
Aurelia thought that she might have figured something out. “Can I ask you a question before you leave?”
“Sure.”
“Did you know Jonathon before you met him in the hospital today?” She was beginning to think that the two had at least been acquainted. It would explain the weird feeling she'd had when they met, and the fact that they seemed to think along the same lines.
“Everyone knows Jonathon Hansen,” Elza said with a smile.
“That's not what I meant, and you know it,” Aurelia protested.
Elza made her way to the door but turned before she opened it. “You're quick, I'll give you that.” Then she smiled again. “Yes, Jonathon and I have known each other for quite some time,” she said before she walked out, leaving Aurelia shaking her head in despair on the couch.
The accommodation consisted of a living pod, a bedroom pod and a bathroom. Aurelia's stuff had already been delivered, so she spent a few minutes unpacking after Elza left. Her brain hurt, she was so tired. She got ready for bed but then thought to check her screen for her agenda. She found an entry for a meeting in the mid-afternoon and a note from Elza. The note told her to spend the day familiarising herself with the hospital area and not to worry about rounds. Aurelia smiled to herself. She needed the day off. With a sigh, she thought about intercomming her parents, but she just didn't have the energy. Instead, she sent them a message saying that she was fine. Then she fell into bed.
As tired as she was, it took her a long time to fall asleep. With everything that had happened, though, the main thing keeping her mind busy was the thought of Jonathon and Nicholas. Or Nicholas and Jonathon.
Chapter Nine
Aurelia glanced around the small café. She hadn't really wanted to leave the hospital grounds, and she remembered that Jonathon had told her not to. But Nicholas had been persuasive, and the café was only a short walk from the hospital gates. It was in a narrow side street, though, and Aurelia clearly saw that many of the people around her were Clones. She took a table towards the back, feeling uncomfortable. People were looking at her, wondering what she was doing here, she could tell.
She pulled out her screen, wanting to look busy, and when Nicholas arrived five minutes later he apologised profusely.
“I meant to be here when you arrived. I'm sorry,” he said, taking a seat. “You must feel pretty weird here.”
Aurelia nodded. “A little. I don't understand why you couldn't come to the hospital.”
“Because I don't want us to be overheard. Besides, it's probably not your best career move to be seen hanging out with a Clone, is it?”
“Okay, but you could have come up to my room. We'd have been safe there,” she said.
Nicholas blushed. “I, well, I mean, it's your room, isn't it?”
She smiled at his naivety. He was so young, inexperienced. In that way, he was nothing
like Jonathon at all. “Alright,” she said, putting him out of his misery. “So I'm here now; what about that coffee?”
He grinned and got up to order coffees from the counter. When he came back, carrying the hot cups carefully, he sat down and sighed. “It's difficult to know where to begin.”
“I suggest you start at the beginning,” said Aurelia, coolly. She stirred her drink and took a sip.
“It's not really that simple,” said Nicholas. “I sort of wish that it were. It's difficult to start at the beginning because there really isn't one. Well, maybe there is. What do you know about Clone history?”
Aurelia shrugged. “Pretty much the same as anyone else, I guess.”
Nicholas put his cup down and leant on the table with his elbows. Then he began to give her the potted version of the story of the Clones.
Cloning technology, he said, had been around for a long time before the great War began. For a century or so, cloning had been used in food and animal technology, as well as on a smaller scale to clone medically needed organs, proteins and even blood. Old Earth law had forbidden the cloning of full humans, so it was only when Lunar City became a scientific hub that full-body cloning really took off. Even then, though, it was strictly controlled. Eventually a compromise came about. Because it was considered dangerous to let Clones breed (and possibly pass along mutated genes) it was agreed that Clones would be used only for military purposes. This meant that they could be kept under close watch, banned from breeding, and, most importantly for the Empire at that time, serve as a military force that was both disposable and renewable. It had, after all, been the Private Military Company, Lunar's cloned soldiers, who had rescued the Earth from World War 3.
Aurelia was sketchy on the details, but she had a basic understanding of the role of Clones in the Empire. What she didn't understand, and what Nicholas now told her about, was the lives of Clones themselves.
“Essentially,” Nicholas said, frowning, “Clones are tools. We are made, used and then disposed of when the time comes. The life cycle of a Clone is short. We're constantly tracked by our numbers, and once we've outlived our usefulness, which is at around thirty or so, we're injected. End of story. We have no families, no children, and no free will. If I were to be found disobeying a direct order, I'd be injected immediately. No hearing, nothing.”
She had known nothing of this. Her coffee was slowly growing cold in front of her.
“We're tools,” said Nicholas. “Just tools. There to be ordered around and to obey unquestioningly.”
Aurelia shook her head, not in disagreement with him but in disbelief of what she was hearing. To breed an army of men and treat them as robots?
“I think there's something that you should see.” Nicholas drank up and put his coffee cup down. “Come with me - it's not far.”
Silently, Aurelia pushed away her cold coffee and got up, following Nicholas out of the café. They walked down the narrow street and turned onto a broad thoroughfare bright with neon lights. Dodging squawking packs of Elite youths, Nicholas led her through Lunar. After ten minutes, they arrived at the back of a large, rounded building.
“It's the Arena,” explained Nicholas, ushering her in through an open door.
He showed his number to a sec Worker and then took her up several flights of stairs and out onto a glass-enclosed deck. Checking his time reader, he nodded.
“Take a seat.” There were benches by the large windows. “They'll start any minute.”
Aurelia was about to ask who and what and why she was here, but a harsh whistle broke the silence instead.
Within seconds, rivers of men were flowing through archways that led onto a circular piece of sandy ground. The Arena was the largest thing that Aurelia had ever seen, easily as big as the Earth Shuttle Bay. But as the long columns of running men wove into the open space, they quickly swallowed up its emptiness. The very deck under her was vibrating with the stamping feet of thousands and thousands of soldiers. And then the Arena was full, a glistening ocean of men, line after line after line of them, their faces turned to watch something that she couldn't see, something over her head.
There was a moment of complete stillness and quiet, as though the soldiers were statues, standing in ranks arranged by a child. Then the whistle blew again, and the men moved. As the whistle patterns became more complex, so too did the manoeuvres of the soldiers, but all moved in complete and perfect unison. The deep thud of thousands of boots striking the earth made Aurelia's insides vibrate.
“Clones, all Clones,” she whispered after a while, transfixed by the mosaic of men moving below her. “I had no idea there were this many.”
Nicholas laughed harshly. “This is a fraction of us,” he said. “There are many, many more.”
They looked down at the men swarming around.
“Aurelia, I need you to understand something.”
She tore her eyes away from the spectacle before her and looked at Nicholas.
“Do you think I am less than you?” he asked her.
She shook her head dumbly.
“I bleed when I'm hurt, just like you,” said Nicholas, his finger tracing a small scar on the back of his hand. “I get hungry when I don't eat, thirsty for water, cold in the winter. Sometimes I'm sad, and sometimes, when the light is right and work is finished, I'm happy. I fall in love. I get confused and learn things, I read and listen to beautiful music.”
Aurelia reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently.
“What makes someone human?” he asked.
She gave a small smile. “All those things.”
He shook his head. “All those things and more. The ability to procreate, to have families, to choose what you love to do and do it well. These are all things that I am capable of but not allowed to do.”
He turned again to look through the window below him. “And all those men out there are just like me. Identical. They are all people with feelings and hurts and hates and loves.”
“I understand,” said Aurelia.
“Do you? Do you really understand what it is to have complete reasoning and intelligence, the ability to weigh risks and make decisions, but still have to do exactly what someone else tells you to do all the time? It's like having your brain handcuffed.”
“Maybe I didn't mean to say that I understood.” Aurelia backtracked. “I mean, I agree with you. I understand what you're trying to say. But...”
“But you're a Worker, and what the hell are you supposed to do?” Nicholas's colour was rising. “You wouldn't want to lose your privileges because of Clones, right?”
Aurelia stood. “No,” she said, coldly and very calmly. “Not at all. What I was going to say is that I don't know how to help. But I completely agree with you that something needs to be done.”
Nicholas stood now too. He looked around him; there was no one else there, but he still looked wary.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I get...passionate. There's something that I very much need to tell you and a way that I think you might be able to help. But we need somewhere very private.”
“Come to my quarters,” Aurelia told him, remembering that Elza had said it was safe to speak in her living space. “We'll go now, and if we go through the hospital itself, you won't need to give your number; you'll be with me. No records. Come on.”
They hurried back through the city. The dome was starting to dim, and the air was getting cooler. As they arrived at the hospital, Aurelia slowed her speed. Walk with authority and look like you know where you're going, and no one will stop you, she thought. It took only a few minutes before they were safe in her living pod. Nicholas sat on the couch. Aurelia put some light music on through the vid screen, just in case anyone could hear them from the corridor outside, and then sat beside him.
“Okay, I'm going to tell you something, but I need you to hear me out. You've got to hear the whole story, alright?”
“Alright,” said Aurelia.
“Let's start with Jonathon Hansen,
then.” He held up his hand to stop her from talking. “See, you're already trying to interrupt! Bear with me.
“Hansen is different. I don't know why. Hell, I don't even really like the guy that much, but he's different.” Nicholas ran his hands through his hair, trying to think of the words to explain himself. “Yes, he's brilliant, but he's also got something, a sort of connection with people, an empathy maybe, that many others don't have. You could call it charm, but that's too superficial. It's something deeper, like he really, truly cares and wants to help. That's why he's going to be the next president, and I suspect that's also why he's about to get killed.”
Aurelia gasped, and again Nicholas held up his hand.
“Lunar politics are, well, special. The Ruling Class are no different from anyone else. They have their positions on things, and traditionally you can count on one family to bring one characteristic to the table and another family, something different. But Jonathon is an all-rounder; he's not abiding by the unspoken rules. There's an evil rumour going around that he might want...Change.” He actually pronounced the word with a capital letter.
“So why would the Ruling Class elect him into power?” asked Aurelia.
“Because he was the Golden Boy, everyone thought he was going to be president, and he's basically been brought up to be a leader. And no one wants to be the first to publicly say that they might have made a mistake, that Jonathon might not be the one they've been looking for. So instead, in good Lunar fashion, they sneak around behind each other’s backs trying to get rid of him.”
“How do you know all this?”
Nicholas grinned at her. “Er, were you not there when the shuttle was attacked? And I suspect that whatever it is that I walked into last night might have been another assassination attempt. Which you still have to explain, by the way.”
Gods, she'd almost forgotten about that. She briefly outlined what had happened with Ellis, thanked Nicholas for his help and apologised for not explaining before.
Nicholas shrugged. “I'm used to following orders, remember? Anyway, with Jonathon there and the head of the hospital around, it seemed pretty obvious that I wasn't helping your everyday murderer, so I did what had to be done.”
