Your One & Only

by Adrianne Finlay

  The first clones are seventeen now and they assist us in the labs. They’re learning as much about genetics as we can teach them, surpassing us at times in knowledge and research.

  I wish we hadn’t fixed the eyesight of Hassan’s clones. I realize our genetic manipulation of the clones is only in the best interest of the project. But it’s so strange to see these young versions of Hassan working in the labs, whispering among one another, looking so much like him years ago when we were in school, only they’re without glasses. I remember him only a little older than the first generation is now, before we’d heard anything about the Slow Plague. His brow would furrow, and he’d tilt his glasses on top of his head and peer into the microscope, a pinched indentation on his nose. These clones of Hassan seem to be missing something when I look at them, and I’ve decided it’s the glasses. Hassan laughs when I say this, telling me they aren’t missing anything. The glasses, he says, are tiresome, and he constantly cleans them. Why should these new versions of him be subjected to bad eyes? But still. Without them, they will never be Hassan to me.

  August 19, 2097

  Viktor died today while rock climbing in the mountains. It was such a shock to us all. What was he doing rock climbing anyway, with his arthritis? It makes no sense. Such a waste!

  December 2, 2099

  It’s been three months since Hassan died from the Slow Plague, a plague that takes so many forms. In Hassan’s case, it was the celiac disease, though it could have been the arthiritis. It’s hard to tell at this point, we’re all afflicted with so many problems.

  They didn’t seem to care. The Hassans, I mean, although more and more, I find I can’t call them that. They’re not Hassan. The more I miss him, the angrier I become with them for not being him.

  That’s strange, isn’t it? That they nod and go about their work when the person who made them, whom they were made from, is dead. He died, and they skulk around the same as they always do, muttering in soft voices, discussing their secret plans. I don’t know who these clones made from Hassan are, but they are not him. They lack his warmth, his life, his brilliant mind. They are like reptiles, cold and passionless. They don’t trust us, either, those of us still living. They don’t want us in the labs anymore, that much is clear. One of the Inga clones told me I had to speak to one of Samuel’s clones if I wanted access to the labs. “These are my labs!” I said. “I’m the senior analyst.” She told me I should have a nap, then closed the door in my face. They treat us like aging grandparents, slow-witted and senile. I suppose they keep us around out of some sense of obligation.

  Perhaps it was arrogance to think we had any control to begin with. We may have created them, but like all children, they grow up and make their own lives. They reject the life we wanted for them.

  They refuse to collaborate on our planned shift from cloning to sexual reproduction. They say they like things the way they are! To me especially, as an evolutionary biologist, this is extremely bizarre. You can’t simply keep cloning—​it won’t work. You can’t disregard a billion years of evolution! It seems they think they can, however. They’ll outgrow this outlandish notion. After all, almost every species that’s ever existed has, consciously or not, been committed to propagation by sexual mating and to the goal of passing genes through one’s offspring. That’s how evolution works!

  Mei’s attempt to pair them romantically has turned into something of a joke. I told her it would never work. She was hoping they would embrace sexual reproduction instead of maintaining this now unnecessary reliance on the cloning, but that’s clearly failed. She suspects they have perhaps made the males infertile, but the clones won’t allow us to examine them.

  It’s been four years since we lost contact with Honduras, and six since we heard anything from the States. Almost certainly Global Health is completely defunct, and the World Commonwealth is an empty shell, its top leadership decimated years ago. There are other survivors out there, I’m sure, but we have no way to contact them. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen jet contrails passing overhead. Our last long-distance link to the outside has sputtered and died. We are truly alone in this.

  Mei now thinks the clones need a religion. They’ve rejected any of our ideologies, of course, as they’ve rejected everything else thousands of years of humanity has to offer. For some reason, we thought we’d have more time, and she thinks we need to work harder to provide them a compass in this empty world we’re leaving them.

  Sometimes I wonder if we made a mistake. We’re coming up on the new century, and we don’t have much longer. Perhaps humanity was not meant to continue. If man is made in God’s image and we fall so short of His perfection, what is this creature we’ve made? They have our faces, but something is missing. Elan says it’s their souls. Perhaps he’s right.

  How foolish we were, to act as gods.

  April 21, 2102

  Nyla died today. The Slow Plague, as usual.

  July 8, 2104

  Carson and I snuck into the labs and found their notes. It’s as we suspected. From the beginning, the clones have been manipulating the genetic codes of the new generations they’re creating. It’s one thing to fix eyesight, but what they’ve done . . . changing eye color, skin color, erasing the most inconsequential physical differences. They’ve taken minor traits present in each of us and either eliminated them or enhanced them somehow. From what we could decipher, they seem to be altering even the way they think. The notes called it Empathic Communal Bonding, though we couldn’t figure out what this means.

  The changes are so fundamental. They’ve become alien to me, less and less human every year, with each iteration. It scares me.

  This morning I found them in the church, about fifty of the clones standing in a circle holding hands. Their eyes were closed, and they swayed back and forth as if responding to a silent, unimaginable rhythm. I asked if they were praying. They smiled secretly to each other and turned away. A Viktor clone took me by the arm and led me out.

  What is going on? What are they up to?

  October 17, 2105

  Carson found Elan and Miranda dead in their bedroom this morning. There’s been some talk about an autopsy, but no one seems to have the heart for it. Perhaps we’re afraid of what we might find?

  I went to speak to the Althea clones again, but they refused to see me. I’ve been an irritant to them, it seems. They don’t like that I’ve disapproved of their plans, argued with them about sexual reproduction. As I was leaving the labs, though, an Elan clone followed me out. He spoke quietly, as if he didn’t want the others to hear.

  “We’re thinking of leaving,” he said, leaning toward me conspiratorially. “We need your help collecting supplies. They won’t suspect you of planning an escape.”

  I smiled grimly at that. Most of the original residents are too weak to walk, let alone plan an escape. I see the way the clones look at us, watch us. They are horrified by our physical deterioration, and I worry it has only galvanized their efforts to erase all variety in their genetic code. They’ll never survive that way.

  The clones take care of us, though, in our afflictions. They revere us in their own cold, detached way.

  I asked Elan why he wanted to leave—​the clones always seem content with each other. I had no idea the Elans were unhappy. He told me about a disagreement among the clone groups.

  “You know how we play music at the dances,” he said. “The others want to erase music from the genetic code of the new Elan generations. They say it’s a waste. They think they’ve isolated the trait, and in its place they want to implant something useful for work in the labs. That’s not what we want, and the disagreement has become intolerable. Some of us have decided to leave and make our own way.”

  I told him I’d help in any way I could.

  I hope the Elans do get away and start something new. I hope they make a better world than we did—​this stagnant, rigid community full of these alien creatures, a mockery of everything human.

 
November 13, 2106

  They are monsters.

  They’ve killed their own. Hundreds at once. Last year’s babies, all dead. The Elan clone, the one who told me he was leaving, his whole generation is dead. And the new Althea clones, because of the birthmarks . . .

  Inga and Kate tried to stop them. They were in the nursery when it happened, and they threw themselves in the path of the clones, desperately trying to shield the babies, and now they’re dead too. The clones killed them both.

  They keep us locked in the residences now, but one of the first generation finally showed up after I’d requested to meet with them countless times. It could have been the one I used to call Rose, but who can tell? They don’t want us to be able to tell them apart. They’re disturbed by the very notion.

  When she arrived, I asked her how the clones could have done such a thing.

  “They failed to meet our genetic standards,” she said. “We want only to improve upon ourselves. You’re the one who taught us about natural selection.”

  “This isn’t natural!” I said.

  She took down the photograph I keep on my bookshelf, the one from ’77 of me and Hassan and everyone else on the project so long ago, after the first generation was born.

  “Una Vispa taught us that humanity should be enhanced, that we should create a suitable culture,” she said. “Well, we’ve done exactly that. These are our enhancements, this is our culture. What made you think they’d be the same ones you wanted?”

  She handed the picture back to me, and I gazed down at it. Tears came to my eyes. So long ago. We looked so happy, so hopeful.

  “We will always honor you,” she said. “You gave us our start. But we will shape the future in our own way.”

  They threw the bodies in a pit and set fire to them, as if they were no more than cut logs. They don’t care. We can make more, they say. A new batch. The cookies are burned, let’s start again. Plenty of eggs, ha ha.

  The smell lingers. It won’t wash out of the curtains.

  I never imagined, with so many of them now, they would end up seeing these lives they’ve created as disposable.

  I’m surprised they tried to explain at all. The horror on our faces meant nothing to them.

  January 29, 2107

  There are just the three of us now, myself, Mei, and Carson.

  We found a note tacked to Samuel’s door this morning: “Gone rock climbing.” We know he won’t be back.

  I’ve decided I have to stop them.

  The last straw was when a Nyla clone asked me yesterday how many human samples are stored in the Ark. I turned away without answering. I’ve heard them talking; I know what they want. They don’t want to repopulate the earth, which they’re perfectly capable of doing now if they wanted. They could create more clones, and with enough variation, they could continue toward sexual reproduction the way we wanted them to. But no. They want to use whatever humanity has left to give. They want to use the genetic material in the Ark to integrate it into their own, twisting and shaping it to their own ends.

  It doesn’t matter. I don’t want them to make more of us. The Original Ten will all be dead soon, and the clones should die with us. I’m going to destroy our genetic samples. They’re kept in the lab with the tanks, and I think I can destroy those too. I don’t know what they’ll do to us when they find out. We’re too ravaged by the effects of the Plague for our genetic material to be of any use. They need the stored material, from when we were young.

  In any case, without the original samples, they’re finished. They’ve altered their genetic code so much that making more clones from their own corrupt cells will be impossible.

  I’m the one that has to do it. I don’t care if the clones kill me, and Mei and Carson are too weak. It is my own hell, to know my responsibility in their creation.

  Mei says what I want to do is cruel, but I can’t understand how she thinks that while the stench of more burning bodies permeates the air out our window. I refuse to let this continue.

  I talked to Carson last night. If I don’t succeed, he’s promised to destroy the Ark if it’s the last thing he does. Without the original samples, they might turn to the stored human samples to survive, and I can’t let them do that.

  After I destroy the samples, I know I should destroy myself. I’ve been lucky, I’m not as bad off as the others. But because of that, I worry there’s a distant possibility that my skin, my hair, something in my cells might allow them to clone more Altheas. Perhaps turning my body to ashes is the sacrifice I must make for everything that’s happened. I think back to who I was when this started, how I thought this project was what I was born to do. I think about what I would say to Hassan if he were here. I would tell him that I finally understand what destiny is. I understand that my destiny is my own and, though I had a role in giving life to the clones, I also have a role in ending them.

  I can’t bring myself to talk to Carson and Mei about how this will all end. They have so little time, and so little left to them, so I say nothing. I know, whatever happens, all of us will be gone soon anyway.

  I’ll destroy the samples tomorrow, and that should end it. The sooner they’re wiped out, the better.

  Let the earth start again. Let it be something new.

  Eden.

  The word is a drop of poison on my tongue.

  The remaining pages of the journal were blank. With unsteady hands, Althea turned the last page, where she found a separate note, in different handwriting. It was written by Inga-296.

  Althea Lane’s death was recorded as the day after her last entry, but the record says she died from the Plague. She didn’t, of course. She killed herself. I don’t know exactly when Carson and Mei died, but I think it was at the same time as Althea Lane. Perhaps they were killed when the others learned what Althea did, but I prefer to think they died in the Tunnels, trying to help her.

  Through my research, I learned that Althea Lane did manage to destroy the original samples. When the clones discovered this, they came looking for her. She hid in the Tunnels, which back then were so vast it would have taken a long time to find her. They trapped her inside, intending to starve her to death, but they didn’t know about the explosives the Original Carson had secretly stored.

  The caverns collapsed with the detonation. It wasn’t an earthquake after all—​that was just the story we’ve been told. Althea Lane died, buried under a mile of rubble. She thought she would destroy the clones’ ability to produce more clones, but that was three hundred years ago, and we’ve successfully reproduced using the copied, previously cloned genes, mostly with no trouble. At least until now. She did succeed in destroying us, it just took three hundred years to come to fruition. Once we began cloning from our own cells, we deteriorated further with each generation. Without fresh genetic samples, we’ll continue to deteriorate.

  The clones back then made two more generations of Elans before they finally gave up and stopped making the model entirely. It wasn’t just the music; it was that they fractured all the time too, and caused conflicts. Maybe they were right to blame the music. I can hear it now, as I write—​Jack is in the other room with his guitar—​and I’ve fractured.

  The clones back then never could isolate the gene that allowed the Elans to understand music. I can’t isolate it in Jack’s cells either, and music comes so naturally to him, like an instinct. It’s the most human thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve looked, I’ve seen the ribbons of protein and molecules. Music doesn’t live there any more than my love for Jack does. They think we’re all contained in strings of code, but we’re so much more than what can be seen through the lens of a microscope.

  I understand now that we’re not what the Originals wanted. We were supposed to start reproducing the way they did, keep humanity alive, but we didn’t do that.

  I’ve heard other stories, about people leaving Vispera, leaving the communities. They slip away in the night like the Elans wanted to do. There’s a place—​the humans called it M
erida. It’s north, on the old maps in the Tunnels. That’s where I’ll go.

  I see how you look at him, Sam. You love him, and I think perhaps you love me, too. I hope you’ll find this, and if you do, I want to say I’m sorry. I can’t risk telling you where I’m going. You’re not ready to understand what it means to love someone, or to even recognize it, and you don’t want to leave Vispera. It’s your home; it’s where you belong. But it’s not my home, not anymore.

  It might be a long time from now, but if I make it out, I think there will come a day when you’ll want to find me and then we can be together.

  Until then, I hope you’ll think of me as not just another Inga, but as the person I’ve become . . .

  Your one and only,

  Inga-296

  Althea clutched the discolored book to her breast, her heart beating wildly. The poem Jack had shown her popped into her mind, the one that called loss an art. Even losing you, the poem said. Had Inga-296 thought of Samuel-299 when she read it? Was that why she kept it, because she knew she would lose him? She loved him, that was clear, even if the letter didn’t say it outright.

  What Althea had just read, it went against everything she was taught about her purpose, her people’s existence. The Original Althea had hated them all. She’d sought to destroy them. Althea felt dizzy as suddenly every belief she’d ever held became a maelstrom of questions and doubt.

  Feeling lost, she looked down at the two books in her trembling hands. She smoothed the cover of The Ark Project. She had to find Jack. The Ark was not a book, of course. She knew now what Jonah was looking for. She just didn’t know what he wanted with it.