by Sean Platt
Jonathan sighed. Neven couldn’t be sure, but he might have even rolled his eyes. In the end, it didn’t matter; what Neven said went. He didn’t need to explain the rest of the reason he’d wanted a clone; that the real Ephraim, like his brother, was natural. All clones — even this shaky one working with Fiona in New York — couldn’t help but be superior.
And so things would increasingly be, once the Hopper had verified that DataCrate would work, and even natural humans could improve in unorthodox ways.
“So how is prep for the relaunch going?” Neven asked, deflecting.
“Fine, I suppose. People want to believe in Eden so much that the idea that we’ve survived a massive burn-down won’t surprise them on a gut level. The fact that satellites don’t watch the archipelago will make it more plausible that the damage was never as bad as the world believed, and that much of what was here survived. But I’m not a PR guy. I just wonder if we should, I don’t know, do a press release or something.”
“This way is better.”
“But they’ll wonder. They’ll all ask questions.”
“You’ve already given the answer, Jonathan. When people want to believe something strongly enough, they rarely ask questions.”
Jonathan nodded and mumbled a tentative assent.
“Keep me updated,” Neven said.
Sensing his dismissal, Jonathan left the lab — but not until after a long pause, meant to convey that he was owed more authority than Neven gave him and that he didn’t appreciate taking orders.
Once Neven felt reasonably sure that Jonathan wouldn’t return, he moved back to the screen and tapped his chin, thinking.
The Ephraim clone was searching the web, groping through the fog to find nothing. Something had to be done, or they’d lose all they’d invested. And that would be a significant loss, regardless of what Jonathan thought.
Neven considered. There were many ways to go, but protecting Evermore’s investment in the clone was a primary concern.
He tapped around on a tablet beside his workstation. There was a pop of light and Connolly’s AI-infused hologram shimmered into existence atop the corner projector.
“Dad,” Neven said. “I think it’s time for this facility to welcome its first new client.”
CHAPTER 12
HOW YOU ARE
Fifteen minutes later Neven walked into Eden’s reinvented Enchanted Forest, the new client by his side. Unlike the old one, this Forest was functional, not beautiful. It had to be. Eden was an island and had been since the reclaimed land birthed the archipelago. Eyes were on it more intensely than ever. Loyalties shifted. People broke promises. Nobody was supposed to watch Eden from above or enter its waters without permission. But times were changing.
Eden had its protections, but outsiders could interfere. Outsiders like GEM would come in time; of that, Neven was sure. Unless Evermore planned to blow GEM’s boats from the water when they arrived — which Neven very much didn’t — they’d need to play the game for at least a little while longer.
The new glass enclosures in the Enchanted Forest had subtle speakers embedded in their bottoms, near the subject’s head, meant to begin the subliminal conditioning process. They had air circulators and sophisticated sensors to monitor the occupant. They were fully wired, positioned to collect and validate the fidelity of the mental drip. Where the previous enclosures had been “all show, no go,” these new devices were all go. Eden’s magic would remain behind the curtain, but guests would, more than ever before, get what they believed they wanted.
“Why is it a coffin?” the client standing beside Neven asked, looking around.
“It’s meant to be metaphorical,” Neven answered, tuning one of the sensors. “Your old life ends here where your new life begins. That’s why many classic fairy tales involve a glass coffin. It symbolizes rebirth. You go to sleep, then wake up as something new and beautiful. Like a butterfly in a chrysalis.”
Neven had felt terrible when telling the lie before, but this time it didn’t bother him. This wasn’t an Eden 1.0 client now climbing into a coffin. There was no need for the extraction phase this go-round — only the fidelity phase.
This time, Neven’s subject wasn’t an original, natural person. This time it was a cloned copy, needing only to undergo the second, unseen phase of the Tomorrow Gene. The first phase had been completed months ago for this subject. And that time, as for this time, the coffin’s literal meaning hadn’t come into play as it had for so many celebrity clients.
1.0 clients died in their coffins. Tomorrow Clones like this were born.
“Are you tired?” Neven asked. “I’m sure you’re tired.”
Eyes fluttered.
“This is the sleep you need. It’s the rest your body requires. You’re ready for this. I’m sure of it.”
Eyes closed, all the way.
Neven tapped a screen beneath a panel at the coffin’s head.
Other coffins filled the room, arranged in a ring, all empty. In the center was a waterfall, spilling directly down from above just like the old Enchanted Forest.
The process began. Neven checked the buffer, saw the key patterns in place. They had a decent mind map for this one already, and each session at this point only served to nudge the pieces around.
The process of creating duplicate personalities was as smoke-and-mirrors as the old Forest itself had been. He couldn’t copy a person’s entire brain. He could only copy pieces, then trust the brain’s plasticity to fill in the gaps. Brains hated gaps. If a brain believed it had been to A and then been to C, it would invent B so that it could explain to itself how it had moved from one to the other.
All memory — in reprogrammed, DataCrated clones or natural humans — was less than half real, more than half invented by the brain itself. There was magic in it, and Wallace had known it, even if he’d stopped short of what true innovation required.
“Where are you right now?” Neven asked.
“I’m in a room. In my chrysalis.”
“Where is the room?”
“I … I don’t know.” Softly. Sleepily. The conditioning was fully triggered, whispered into reception by the speakers in the coffin’s bottom. “I feel like I used to know.”
“You are on Eden,” Neven said. “You came here to be made young, and the Tomorrow Gene treatment made you young. Do you remember coming to Eden, first by plane and then by tram, months ago?”
“Yes,” said the client. It wasn’t true, but Neven’s whispers and the programming process made it so.
“You were in the final group before the fire. With Pierra Page and Gus Harmon. And Ephraim Todd.”
A smile. “I remember Ephraim.” An implanted memory, just like all the rest. But this one was special.
“Where were you born?”
“Memphis.”
“When is your birthday?”
“November fifth.”
“What do you first notice about a man, when you meet him?”
“His face.”
Maybe that was true in the original. But it needed tweaking for this application.
“No, you notice his hands.”
Droning. Sleepy. A subtle nod of agreement. “I notice his hands.”
Neven tapped more buttons. On the digital readout, he could see the matrix shifting. Plasticity in action; the client’s thoughts were conforming to their new and adjusted normal.
“Do you know who has nice hands?”
“I do.” And a sigh, almost erotic.
“What is more important to you in another person? Power or honesty?”
“I’m not sure.”
Neven watched the screen. Tapped it. “To tell the truth, it’s hard to decide.”
“Honesty is more important,” she answered.
Neven tapped to bookmark a segment of the stream, then made a note. She’d taken the hook so easily, hearing the hint in his seemingly innocent words, persuasive as a hypnotist’s suggestion. To tell the truth became “Honesty.”
/> “How do you feel right now?”
She exhaled slowly. “I feel good.”
“What’s your favorite movie?” Neven asked. In truth, the woman in the coffin had seen no movies. But the donor had seen plenty, and her answer was somewhere in the map of the original’s mind — all those ones and zeroes. He just needed to make sure the memory copy was faithful — that the blank would come to believe as the original had.
“Dangerous Liaisons.”
Neven tapped. Made a note.
“Do you know which movie I enjoyed?” Neven asked. Then he answered, “American Beauty. The best movie ever made.”
“Mmm.”
“It’s cinematically … well, cinematically beautiful.”
“Mmm,” she repeated.
Neven made himself a new note — on paper. It was one thing to tell the clone that she liked certain films, but another to expect her to ad lib through a discussion. She would have to see American Beauty before leaving Eden, so she’d have points of reference when it eventually came up.
“I’ve known you for a very long time,” Neven said. “I’ve known you all your life.”
“Hmm?” Eyes closed.
“I know things about you that you probably don’t even realize about yourself. Things that are right there in the middle of your being.”
“You do?”
“For instance, I know that you love a challenge. And that you are a connector. You value relationships more than anything, but you’re not easily dissuaded. Sometimes, the more someone pushes you away, the more determined you are to make friends with them.”
“It’s true,” she said. But it wasn’t. Not yet. Not until this process was finished.
“Sometimes, your refusal to take No for an answer gets you into trouble. Because you’ll be inexplicably attracted to a man for no real reason. For instance, maybe you’ve noticed he has nice hands.”
A squirm from the glass coffin. A purr.
“But that man with nice hands might not be interested in you. He might push you away. But that doesn’t deter you.”
“It makes me want to get closer to him,” she said.
“It’s not healthy, but that’s how you are. It’s how you are.”
“It’s how I am,” she repeated, rehearsing the trigger. “I can’t help it.”
“The more a man pushes, the more attracted you become.”
“I wish I could be different,” she said, “but it’s how I am.”
Neven made more notes. Scrolled through the screen, showing the mind map. Previously vacant sectors were filling in. The clone was making her history. In time, when this was finished, she’d have invented enough to fill the gaps. Eden could give a brain a skeleton, then lead the brain itself to cover those bones with skin and meat. It wasn’t truly a copy, and errors and omissions sometimes came up like they had in the Jonathan and Ephraim clones. Inabilities to remember birthdays, things like that. But it was close enough. Copy-ish.
Neven dragged through the buffer, checking progress. All of the clone’s biologic indicators were green. Hard memory transfer, as much as it existed, was green. This one would need more time to rest and dream in her quiet glass enclosure — a process Jonathan called “baking” — but so far Neven was pleased. The current session was this clone’s best so far, and it was nearly finished. Wallace had been great at this. But increasingly Neven, as his father and his father’s work had intended, was better.
Neven tapped the screen. He looked down at the woman in the coffin.
“There are upsides to your unending persistence with people,” Neven said. “It means you’re determined.”
“I’m determined.”
“You’re intuitive.”
“I’m very intuitive.”
“And you hear what the world has to say. When the universe whispers in your ear, you know it’s always wise to listen.”
He waited. That one mattered. It made them susceptible to suggestions later on, when “the universe” came in the form of a MyLife whisper, just like Neven had been doing with the Ephraim clone.
“I listen,” she repeated.
Neven made himself another note, pleased.
After a minute, the clone’s breathing changed. She was falling asleep. In the end, they were people, nothing more and nothing less.
Neven initiated the sleep routine, preparing to lower the enclosure’s oxygen levels and increase playback through the speakers beneath her pillow.
But then she shifted, and with her eyes closed she said, “When will I go home?”
“Soon.”
“I’m happy,” she said.
“You always are. It’s one of the reasons the world loves you. It’s the reason you’re a star, Sophie.”
“A star,” the clone repeated.
CHAPTER 13
ANSWER THE QUESTION
Ephraim was practically asleep on his keyboard, dreaming. Dreams were nice. Weird things in dreams were easy to dismiss. It’s just a dream, people said. The same wasn’t true of reality. When you saw creature-like men in black chasing you in life, the same excuse didn’t fly.
It’s just reality, he’d told himself. But no, that still boiled down to crazy.
He heard a tri-tone blip, realizing as he lifted his head that he’d heard it before while dozing. Someone or something was calling him, and when he looked up, Ephraim realized the noise was coming from his browser, something in the corner, flashing and making noise. A stupid pop-up that must have infected his system. Hardly surprising, considering the dark corners of the web he’d been visiting last night.
Last night? He had no idea what time it was.
Ephraim went to the window and peeled back the curtain. The sun was offensive.
Blinking away, he found his Doodad and checked the time. It was nearly ten in the morning. If he’d had a job instead of being Fiona’s plaything, he’d have already been fired.
The tri-tone blip repeated.
Annoyed, Ephraim clicked the box to make it larger.
Stupid fucking malware.
He should have known better than to follow the rabbit hole of pics. But he hadn’t been able to help himself; they’d looked so real, he’d started to wonder if they were. Logically, that didn’t make sense. Why would a person who’d paid handsomely for an illegal clone take pictures of it to share on the internet?
But he’d followed the trail, trying to find more and more pictures of this depraved version of Sophie Norris. It was strangely compelling; almost like looking back in time. The Sophie in the photos (if she was Sophie), was a young, flat-bellied, ripe-breasted version of the 47-year-old woman he knew. He felt like he was plundering her secret stash from decades ago, his emotions as guilty as they were intrigued.
But were they old? Or new pictures of a young woman?
“Sophie’s” hair looked modern. Her clothes (when she was wearing any) appeared contemporary. Even if someone had taken a younger Sophie’s head and stuck it digitally on a porn star’s body, wouldn’t her hairstyle be dated?
It was a convincing illusion.
He masturbated, but then felt bad about it.
Now his computer was shooting him annoying, loud pop-up windows. He probably had viruses. Someone would probably steal every digital belonging he had, including his identity. Not that his identity was worth much these days.
The window, once Ephraim maximized it, showed him a trashy-looking webcam vixen wearing only panties. It was a video loop meant to look real, to trick him into clicking something he shouldn’t. He went to close the window, but his finger hovered, then stopped.
The message in the chat window below the vixen said: HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
A strange thing for a seductress to ask. But Ephraim was too tired to ponder it long. His head hurt; he felt disoriented, almost drunk. As he rubbed his cheek, he could feel the impressions of the keys he’d fallen asleep on. Maybe the window’s question was strange, but he didn’t have the energy to care.
The woman in
the window leaned forward as if typing. Then a new message appeared: WHO DO YOU WANT TO MEET?
Ephraim’s finger paused. He’d “gotten here” by searching for “meet Sophie Norris” — meet as in find a copy of her. He hadn’t expected to find anything. Unless you counted fabricated porn.
The woman typed, WHY AREN’T YOU ANSWERING ME?
Screw this.
Ephraim clicked to close the window, but it stayed where it was. Stupid fucking viruses.
Too tired to troubleshoot, Ephraim pressed the button on the machine’s side to kill the power.
But pressing the button hadn’t shut the computer off. It was only asleep. The tri-tone sounded again. And again. And again.
The screen lit up again, but the window that had previously contained the girl was now dark. It wasn’t off, though; Ephraim could tell that her lights were off but the cam was filming a pitch-black room.
Onscreen, a phantom rippled through the shadows.
Leaning in, a logo on the bottom of the window caught Ephraim’s curious eye: DIGISAFE. Of course. Because this wasn’t just porn; if they trapped him into entering payment info, it’d be pay-to-see porn. The site was using screen-flicker technology. They only wanted people to see what they paid for once — not make MyLife memories they could watch again and again later for free.
Ephraim squinted as the dark shape moved through the dark room again. His MyLife wouldn’t help him augment it. On MyLife playback, the webcam window would be an indecipherable blur.
A new message appeared in the chat window:
WHAT WOULD YOU BUY, IF YOU COULD AFFORD ANYTHING?
Ephraim pressed the machine’s power button again. He held it, waiting for things to shut down. But nothing happened.
A new message came: DO YOU PARTY?
Aloud, Ephraim said, “What the fuck?”
DON’T PRETEND YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. YOU CAME TO ME.
Did the message mean Ephraim had come to the girl? Because he hadn’t done that — not intentionally. And besides, was she even answering him? Had the virus somehow commandeered his computer’s mic, and maybe its camera?
