The Eden Experiment

by Sean Platt

  And seeing it, Ephraim thought: Wait. The officers aren’t Eden security? They’re cops or something? And they’re going to take him, too?

  But he already had his answer. The woman was treating Original Ephraim more like a guest than a suspect, but she had a fresh set of cuffs.

  Before the officer moved or Original Ephraim complied, the two Ephraims faced each other: one restrained and panicked, the other with a smashed face, more annoyed than angry. He had the tablet, but it was clear that if he didn’t set it down soon, the security force would make him.

  “‘Don’t do it’?” Original Ephraim repeated, as if trying to understand the words.

  “Please!”

  But he just laughed wryly and said, “It’s already done asshole. What do you expect me to do about it?”

  Original Ephraim turned the tablet so Clone Ephraim could see as the officer slipped a cuff around his right wrist.

  Onscreen wasn’t the software program Neven had implied — one Eden used to kill its clones. Instead, Ephraim saw a sent message Neven had dispatched moments earlier to an address nicknamed “Agaléga Border Police.”

  The message read: Send your officers now.

  CHAPTER 56

  THE TRUTH

  Hershel Wood sat in front of a wide table in Interrogation Room Six, tapping a pen on its spring-loaded end just enough to make it jump. Ephraim sat on the table’s other side. In the corner was the GEM officer he’d seen before: the very blond man with the deep tan. Agent Kilik, he seemed to recall.

  Ephraim’s hands throbbed like rotten teeth. They’d been bound for hours, shackled behind his back. He’d stopped asking GEM to unlock them. Ephraim had killed at least three people, and all of the crimes were captured on MyLife, the last from the deceased’s point of view. Even after Neven Connolly’s heart had stopped beating, his eye had stayed open, displaying all of his assailant’s rage, his total lack of mercy.

  So, Ephraim’s hands hung behind him, inert, trapped in bandages and plaster. Useless. They might always be. If he’d ever played piano, he probably never would again. But that was okay because Ephraim had no idea if he’d ever played the piano. Or ridden a bike. Or kissed a woman. Or seen a sunset. Now that he knew his past was a lie, nothing was real and everything suspect.

  But at least now was now. At least his own MyLife had been removed and confiscated, searched, then destroyed. There’d been little on it, but Ephraim was glad to have it gone. Now he heard no whispers.

  Today, at least, was fresh and authentic.

  “Why did you do it?” Wood asked him. Again.

  “I told you Neven was going to kill us both. Me and Sophie.”

  “But he didn’t have a weapon.” Wood gestured at the room’s screen, where he’d paused a particularly grisly moment from the late Neven’s MyLife record. “And he wasn’t a very good fighter.”

  “He was going to kill us using a software program. I told you; Neven had an app that would erase and kill us, so that he could start over.” He forced the next bit out. “Because we’re clones.”

  “Are you talking about the real Sophie Norris or the clone?” Wood said the word like he didn’t believe it. Hadn’t he believed Ephraim’s story, despite the lack of proof? Or had that been more bullshit, meant to trick Ephraim into giving GEM’s head honcho what he wanted?

  If so, the joke was on Wood. The Quarry, which Wood had planned to use on Fiona, to pin her to the wall, had disappeared somewhere along the way — probably confiscated by the Agaléga officers who’d taken him into custody on Eden.

  Why had Neven summoned those cops, if it meant exposing his empire’s secrets? It was ironic that Ephraim hadn’t been able to bust Eden, but Eden had busted itself.

  And now there was a copy of Wood’s mind somewhere in the world, recorded in full on the missing Quarry. God help him if he had any fetishes he wished to keep secret.

  “I’m talking about the Sophie Norris clone,” Ephraim answered, resisting the urge to clarify that she was more than a clone. In his mind, she was “Sophie.”

  “I see.” Wood made a note on his tablet. “The clone you bought from an underground club my people can find no evidence of, and that you never actually showed me?”

  “She was stolen from my apartment! You said you believed me!”

  “Mmm-hmm. And you say you took this clone to Eden with you?”

  “The officers who arrested me saw her! Just like they saw the other Ephraim. They arrested him, for fuck’s sake!”

  Wood scanned through the tablet. “There’s nothing in the Agaléga report about two Ephraim Todds. Or about an extra, younger Sophie Norris.”

  Ephraim thought. “Maybe they were paid off. Agaléga was supposedly on Eden’s payroll. So they hid him. Hid them both, then gave me to you.”

  “Mauritius forces have occupied Eden,” Wood said. “They’re looking through everything with a fine-toothed comb, and they’re coopering fully with GEM. That doesn’t sound like someone ‘on the payroll.’”

  “Something changed. They got pissed off and stopped taking bribes.”

  “I see. So that’s why they invaded the building? Because they were pissed off?”

  Ephraim paused, unsure.

  Wood went on. “If the Agaléga Border Patrol came in because they were pissed off and had stopped taking bribes from Eden, why would they hide two clones from us and only hand you over? If they’re on GEM’s side, why not give us the clones? Or at least mention them?”

  “There was just one clone. Sophie. The other Ephraim is …” But he couldn’t say it again.

  Wood nodded. “Oh, that’s right. You mentioned that earlier. You’re a clone now. I forgot that part. You being a clone changes everything.”

  “You don’t believe me?” Ephraim asked. “After all you’ve seen, how can you possibly not—”

  “But that’s just it, Ephraim,” Wood lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Conveniently, I haven’t seen shit — not before you knocked me out and mind-raped me, and certainly not after.”

  “Then get the tablet!” Ephraim blurted, handcuffs rattling like Jacob Marley’s chains. “Check the tablet if you don’t believe me! Neven said that it contained the only full record!”

  Wood reached under the table and held up a bent, half-shattered tablet inside a large zipper bag, its interior smeared with red-brown gore.

  “Is this the tablet you mean?”

  Ephraim practically jumped. “Yes! Yes, that’s Neven’s! It’s—”

  “And yet,” Wood said, turning the tablet slowly in his hand as if in admiration, “there’s nothing unusual on it at all. It’s not even a research tablet. If I had to guess, it was Mr. Connolly’s personal device. It has all his logins. All his games. Mostly retro, like from the 2010s. Nothing about killing clones. But man, you should have seen his Angry Birds scores.”

  “Then he—”

  “And before you finish that sentence: yes, we’ve data-scavenged it. Our best nerds inspected this tablet, end to end. There’s nothing about you on here. No precious life records of your ‘mental evolution’ as a ‘clone,’ nothing deleted. No app for killing people.”

  “The software …” But Ephraim was losing his words, feeling hopeless. Neven had wanted to protect that tablet at all costs because its data meant everything to him, Wallace’s legacy, and all of Eden. If it was a personal device, why had he begged Ephraim not to destroy it?

  “Why would I have killed him if he hadn’t been about to kill us?”

  Wood frowned. “See, that’s exactly my question. Why would you kill him? Because I thought we had an agreement, you and me. A logical agreement. You agreed with me that Fiona was working against you.”

  “She was. She is.”

  “And you agreed that getting proof about Eden’s wrongdoing was the only way to clear your name.”

  “I know, but—”

  Wood raised a hand to stop him. “I know. I get it. Nobody expects to learn they’ve spent their life as a clone. It’s
always a shock. So clearly, the only option, before you even figured this terrible thing out, was to turn on me, then take what we’d discussed to the party most willing to work against us both. You ran to Eden. Think about how that must look to me.”

  “I—”

  “Where is the Quarry, Mr. Todd? Does Fiona have it?”

  “No! I told you, she—”

  “We’re looking into it. We’re trying to talk to Fiona about all of this, as Eden swarms with police. They’re unable to arrest your brother, for now, because of laws stating that—”

  “They found Jonathan? Is he on Eden?” His eyebrows furrowed. “Jonathan isn’t under arrest? But he was Neven’s partner! If Eden is being occupied and you think GEM will be occupying it soon, too, shouldn’t Jonathan be in custody?”

  “It’s complicated. Right now, I want to know about Fiona. I want to know if you tried to play her like you played me, or if you were in this together all along. Tell me now. I’ll find out eventually.”

  “No! Fiona is—”

  Again, Wood raised his hand. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. We’ll get what we need eventually, despite Riverbed’s lawyers.”

  Wood leaned forward and bored his eyes into Ephraim’s. He wasn’t a friend, if he’d ever been. He wasn’t sympathetic. His eyes flicked toward the blond agent in the corner.

  “I could make life pretty miserable for you. Maybe I shouldn’t hand you to the police. Instead, I could convince them that there’s not enough evidence to prosecute you and they should let you go. I could make this all disappear, you know. Have you seen the latest Eden commercials, Ephraim? They’re touching. Neven Connolly is dead. Wallace Connolly is in mourning —alive, according to Eden, and crying his hippie eyes out over the loss of his son. Your brother is interim CEO of Evermore. Did you know that? They’re watching him like a hawk, but on the books, Jonathan is free and totally in charge.” Wood cracked a sinister smile. “And did you know that his first public act as CEO was to condemn you publicly for the murder? They’ve even circulated a clip. Not the gory stuff, but damning enough.”

  Ephraim blinked at GEM’s director.

  “We could all just let you go,” Wood said, making a little bird-fluttering motion with his hand, “and let the angry public rip you to shreds.”

  “But I’m telling the truth.” He said it without inflection. Ephraim was out of steam, unable to even be righteous or angry.

  “Sure you are.”

  “You believed me.”

  “I did.” He tapped his pen, then set it flat. “But look where that got me.”

  “Fiona—”

  “—is the last person who’d ever want to help you. You’re a pariah. A leper. Nobody wants to touch you.”

  “Then Sophie—”

  “The real Sophie Norris, you mean? The one who won’t acknowledge you at all? Or are you talking about the other Sophie? The clone who doesn’t seem to exist?”

  Ephraim opened his mouth to respond, but in the end, all he could do was close it. He looked down at the table. He let his head hang.

  “I’m telling the truth,” he repeated. “You have to help me. I can get you whatever you need if you’ll just …”

  Ephraim stopped talking when he saw Wood stand up from the corner of his eye. He looked up to see the man looking down, sliding on sunglasses despite the indoor gloom.

  “You have to help me,” Ephraim said again.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Wood said, “to help you like you’ve helped me.”

  “But—”

  Then Wood left the room without looking back.

  CHAPTER 57

  A NEW WORLD ORDER

  Lights flickered. There was a buzzing sound, then a ringing like tinnitus. This part of the process had never been tested — and neither, most perniciously, had the staff heading it.

  So much unknown. At first, all the uncertainty had been about the concept as a whole, but things had changed. Now that the deed was done, it was all about the execution; learning what, if anything, had gone wrong in the process.

  Would things be the same? Or would everything be different?

  “Blink,” said a voice. “It’s okay. Your tear ducts are functional, and you’ve been in a nutrient bath. You smell like shit, by the way. Like a baggie full of bile.”

  Eyes opening and closing. There were hands in view, strangely detached from consciousness. They were his own. Hands he’d grown into, gone and now back.

  “You want an invitation? The sooner you’re out of there, the sooner you can take a shower.”

  He looked up. The man in front of him had a shabby brown haircut, untended stubble, a silver watch, a stupid blue tattoo on one arm. His eyes were shifty — so over-the-top that his squirrelly nature almost looked like an act.

  “Mercer. You’re Mercer.”

  The man nodded. “Congratulations. Should I ask you if you know who you are?”

  Eyes closed. There was darkness. Eyes opened. Reality returned in fits and starts. The dream gripped him in soft hands. There had been no in between. He’d thought there might be, but how could you ever know without going all the way through it? Now that he had, the experience was already distant. He’d been in one place, then in darkness, then this new place. No time had passed for him, though it may have for the world.

  Was this what it was like for the others? Or did they arrive into life without any knowledge they’d been asleep, like marionettes with a heartbeat?

  “No. It’s all coming back. I just feel dizzy. Like I’m drunk.”

  Mercer squinted. “You’re sure you’re not drunk?”

  “Very funny.”

  “Maybe you tell me who you are,” Mercer said. “Let me cross that particular question off my list.”

  “I’m Lazarus.”

  “Ha-ha. At least we know the Hopper captures a sense of humor, or lack thereof. You’re still unfunny as hell.”

  He stepped out. The space looked like a dungeon. Somewhere beyond these dingy walls, there was blue sky, fantastical architecture, and all the freedom that Eden had so recently lost.

  Jonathan probably thought he’d won something now that the island was his. But he hadn’t won anything. Not with GEM snooping through the late Wallace Connolly utopia and all of Eden’s private business.

  The island would die. It would suffocate under new oppression, then draw its final breath. Fortunately, Eden was only a small part of the plan.

  Neven looked around the dank room, blinking his brand new eyes.

  “Are we at the Domain?”

  “You should know,” Mercer said, “seeing as you had it built. Seeing as you set up the lab to capture digital souls.”

  “It looks like a sex dungeon.”

  “What can I say? I made it my own.”

  “Who’s running the Den back in New York?”

  Mercer shrugged. “Who the fuck cares? Let the Gimp deal with it. The Den is just a decoy now, like Eden.”

  “You had a Gimp?”

  “What fancy restaurant doesn’t?”

  It wasn’t clear whether Mercer was kidding.

  “When do I get paid?” Now, he wasn’t.

  “You haven’t already authorized millions of credits from Evermore’s account?”

  “Jonathan controls Evermore’s account now.”

  “Not the real account,” Neven said.

  Mercer waited. He knew Neven didn’t trust him, but that was fine because he didn’t trust Neven. Mutual loathing was the glue that made this plan stick.

  If Mercer had been able to work out where Evermore’s true wealth was hidden, he’d have found a way to get it without Neven. As things stood, with Neven keeping secrets even his own mental transfer didn’t lay bare, only helping Neven respawn in his new body would get Mercer paid. It was win-win, a devil’s bargain built on a foundation of hate.

  Good enough.

  “You haven’t told me if you know your name,” Mercer said.

  Neven waited this time, but Mercer was appar
ently serious.

  “For Christ’s sake. I know my name.”

  “Then give it to me.”

  Neven wanted to object on principle.

  “C’mon, Champ,” Mercer went on. “I don’t know about you, but I’ve never moved a mind from one body to a new one before. Your old corpse is gathering flies somewhere. Personally, I feel lucky the FedEx guy didn’t open your package, plug the Hopper into his PC, and start spooling off new Nevens. Humor me. Make me believe the upload went right, and that this body that looks like you is you.”

  “Fine. I’m Neven Connolly.”

  “Close,” Mercer said. “Neven Connolly is dead. Turns out, you’re a clone.”

  Neven ignored the joke, true as it was. “Did the transfer work? Is it complete?”

  “Fuck if I know. What’s the last thing you remember?”

  “My final upload into the Hopper. Before I called the Ephraim clone into the room.”

  “You don’t remember dying?”

  “It happened after my last upload. So, no.”

  But Neven was curious. Once he fully deployed the Quarry’s technology, this process would be much less clumsy. Real-time DataCrate backups in the cloud would eliminate the need for a slow, hardware-centered Hopper drip.

  It was possible that Neven would be the only person ever to experience a transfer in quite this way. It was disorienting. Back in his original body, he’d intended to goad Ephraim’s clone into killing him so he could escape Eden as a mind without a home, sneaking out on a drive while Agaléga and GEM swarmed the place. It was strange to realize he’d accomplished his goal; and yet, the mind in this new body hadn’t been there to experience it.

  “How did it happen?” Neven asked.

  “He beat you to death with your tablet.”

  “I thought he’d use the letter opener on my desk. I left it in plain sight.”

  “What can I say?” Mercer said. “Your boy Ephraim was full of surprises.”

  “Did I,” But this was weird to ask, and Neven stalled. “Did I miss anything important between my last upload and my death?”

  But it wasn’t my death, was it? It was my old body’s passing. A copy of me that preceded this copy of me.