Multitude

by Swanson, Peter Joseph

  “So we can’t live forever?” Venus frowned.

  “No. We can clone you but we can’t keep it being you. You’ll die and won’t know that somebody else who looks like you, and has been given your memories, has started to live.”

  Venus asked, “Isn’t that good enough?”

  “Not at all. It’s as if somebody read your memoir. They know all about you after reading it but they’re not you no matter how exhaustive it was. You are still dead. Only the memory of you lives on in another.”

  Venus angrily pointed her finger at him. “Oh, you did mess up. I hate you! You better fix that one before the rest of us get cloned. I don’t want to die and merely pass on my damn memories to some strange damn woman who’ll just make fun of me! My memories are nobody else’s damn business!”

  Christopher Goi said, “We have to figure out what consciousness is, first.”

  “Consciousness?” Mack asked. “That’s all? That’s it? That’s easy, isn’t it? What is it?”

  Christopher Goi shrugged. “Beats me. That’s why we’re all still here,” he turned to Venus, “and that’s why you haven’t been cloned to new youth as you’d like.”

  “I wanna be cloned!”

  “No,” Christopher Goi said to her. “To do that to you now would be to merely kill you.”

  Thorn asked, “So you’ve been doing things to Subco Gibeah, sending a spare clone there of you, just to mess with the place?”

  “I had my ideas. They didn’t fit in with the ruling collective. I had ideas for my own tests. I was trying to test consciousness, with him. But it didn’t work out at all—consciousness wasn’t discovered. But I let him live those four extra years like that anyway.”

  Venus frowned. “You can make cars that are self aware. Why can’t you figure out something this damn important?”

  Christopher Goi asked her, “Are the cars really self aware?”

  Mack said to her, “Just because the cars have been made to be polite doesn’t make them conscious.”

  Thorn asked, “Why did the robber scientists allow themselves to die? Why would they do that knowing the process wasn’t perfect yet?”

  “They had no choice and cloning themselves was a compromise. They could have gotten different new scientists to carry on with the work, maybe. But they would have had to recruit and educate new scientists. Out here in the asteroid belt that’s very iffy. It’s a better bet to just clone ourselves in the manner we are so we have all the knowledge we need to continue the work. But I’ve had enough of their game. They’re gone. I don’t owe them my life They don’t own me. They’re dead. I’m going back to Earth. I want to learn to have my own life.”

  Mack stated to Christopher Goi, “You can’t leave this place. You can’t go back to Earth or anywhere. It’s the law.”

  “Why not?” Christopher Goi asked. “The robber scientists never followed their own rules. Rules are just for the little people.”

  Mack told Christopher Goi, “You’re a damn clone. Your lab is far from Earth for a reason.”

  Thorn asked Mack, “Why can’t clones go to Earth?”

  Mack said, “There’s the quarantine. They say that you’re not the same kind of people when you’re a clone.”

  Christopher Goi looked irritated. “There are many clones already on Earth, made on Earth, and have been for so many years. The scientists here have long fractured into different groups of different opinions that have even stopped talking to each other. I’m the only one who pressed to stop all the tests of improving the body—because it was perverting the entire line of the human species.” He regarded Thorn’s body. “Science always pushes nature.”

  Thorn asked, “What will my clone body be like in a few hundred years? How perfect will it turn out? What is perfect, anyway?”

  “Perfect is a matter of opinion. We could certainly make clones to be almost unrecognizable as human compared to those on Earth if you gave us enough time and ideas.”

  “How?” Thorn asked.

  Christopher Goi chuckled. “Have you ever seen what human breeding did to the turkey? And dogs and horses? And the tomato?”

  “I feel sick again.” Thorn moaned.

  “That’s monstrous!” Mack said. “I could have told you, don’t do to humans what you did to the tomato! Damn! How can we stop this, then? How can we make sure we keep it so that humans are just the way they are now one-hundred years from now! How do we stop this place from doing that? We know that if we all leave the asteroid then new labor will just be called up, scabs to replace us. And any grunt can do this work. Robots.”

  “It already has,” Christopher Goi said.

  “What?” Venus grew angry again.

  “Yes, more workers have already been sent our way.”

  Venus clenched her fist. “War! Shoot ‘em out of the sky!”

  Mack crossed his arms. “The rules are the rules. I vote we regular people boycott this rock and ship off to Earth and leave all you clones to your labs and tubes and weird dead stuff.”

  “Yeah.” Venus twisted her cuff button unhappily. “I’d rather grow old and die on Earth. Who cares what goes on up here in space if I’m not going to get anything out of it. Before the super humans take over Earth someday, I long to do normal things. I want to dump poison on dandelions. I want to drive over the mountains.”

  Thorn asked her, “What made you just change your mind? I thought you wanted to live forever?”

  Venus sighed. “Who doesn’t but if we can’t be cloned accurately to still be us what’s the point? If I’m going to die then let it be damn nice in the rain. I can’t believe I’ve spent my whole life waiting for this. Dammit! Just strung along in an asteroid! I’m so foolish!” She wiped her tears.

  Christopher Goi and Thorn looked at each other in awkwardness. Thorn said, “I want to return to Earth, too.”

  Venus went to the railing and looked around. “I remember Earth as a big garbage heap relieved by thunder storms. There’s no weather, here. They didn’t think to fake some weather for us all. Lady Hatchet came here to get away from the rain, but not me. Now I miss it something awful. They say the storms have just gotten worse on Earth. They say there’s tornadoes all the time. This I’ve gotta see!”

  chapter 8: party and flee

  Thorn held Lady Hatchet’s elbow to help her navigate across the stretch of green lawn of fake grass to the waterfall to the hippisticks’ camp cave, since she was crying too much to see well for herself.

  “They say Venus came here, I have to throttle her damn throat.”

  Thorn tried to calm her. “We’ll ask Eleven Jane or Malbri Three if they’ve seen her.”

  “I’ll throttle her, too, how dare she grow an opinion! Mack should order her diced into meat cards and tossed to the lab clones!”

  “That wouldn’t be very nice. They’re not used to eating women. Be nice.”

  “She needs it anyway.”

  Thorn shook his head. “No, she’s too special. We can’t talk about such special people like that…Eleven Jane is too beautiful.”

  As they stepped up to the lip of the cave, Lady Hatchet hollered. “Where’s Venus!”

  Eleven Jane stepped out of a tent, smoothing her snug mini-dress over her hips. “Soooo… what’s wrong with you?”

  Thorn smiled at her, loving how she looked. “Hi, how are you?” He was ignored.

  “You!” Lady Hatchet shouted as she walked up to her and slapped her elbow to make sure she wasn’t a hologram. “Damn you! You’re trying to tear our whole world apart! You split the union! I say we throw you into the deli slicer and make a bunch of new crackers for the lab clones!”

  “Stop being such a bawl-bat.” Eleven Jane stood defiantly. “Your world isn’t falling apart. Your world was never glued together. You were always in denial that you had a life up here.”

  Lady Hatchet stomped her foot. “A damn lie!”

  “You union workers were in as much a clown land as the clones.”

  “Phhh!”


  Eleven Jane flipped her long ruby hair behind her shoulder. “You thought things were safe and kind. You thought the future was decided and you didn’t need to worry. You were too greedy for eternal life to question anything. Now the silly dream has all crashed. You lived an empty life of menial labor to help robber scientists that you hate, that you don’t even know, who don’t care for you. The original ones are all dead of old age, anyway.”

  “Where’s Venus?”

  “She stopped by to plead with me about something that’s already over with. She left that way.” Eleven Jane pointed to the bridge.

  “Thank you,” Lady Hatchet said. “Now go get crackered!”

  Lady Hatchet grabbed Thorn’s arm and hurried him across the green lawn and towards the bridge where they spotted her. Venus was sitting on the low wide railing, making a melancholy image, watching the long glossy ripples of the lake. Lady Hatchet stomped up to her, violently grabbed her and pushed her so that she slipped off the railing and fell into the water. “You damn tart! Take a damn drink if you like this place so much!”

  Thorn leapt off the bridge, swam to Venus and tugged her up to the surface. She spat water as soon as she could inhale. A few dozen hippisticks who had been wading near the waterfall swam over to them.

  Thorn said to them, “I thought the water was off limits. I thought it wasn’t safe.”

  A man assured him, “It’s all right over here. It’s shallow at the waterfall and we can see anything coming.”

  “Are you leaving for earth?” Lady Hatchet hollered down at Venus, “If you’re not going to drown first, then good riddance!”

  Venus yelled back, “I hate you!” Thorn carried her out of the lake and followed the hippisticks as they made their way back to the waterfall. As the two old women came close to each other, Thorn held out his arms to keep them from clawing at each other. Venus said, “Of course I’m leaving this place. To get away from cheeky monkeys!”

  “No,” Lady Hatchet yelled at her. “You’re not going back to Earth with those damn traitors. You’re staying here with me and the real union! Or you’re a traitor!”

  “You tried to kill me!”

  “I did not!”

  Venus cried, “I could have drowned!”

  “The clone saved you, I knew he would. Besides, aren’t your lungs brand new?”

  Thorn said, “Please keep me out of your fights.”

  Venus coughed. “You knew I’d be saved?”

  Lady Hatchet nodded. “Of course Thorn would fish you out.”

  Thorn looked at how he was dripping water. “I’m not the life guard.”

  Lady Hatchet said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that it was too tempting with how you were sitting there. And I knew Thorn was there. Too damn tempting. It was an impulse. I don’t know why I did it. Oh now I remember. I’m damn mad!”

  Venus calmed. “Come with me and let’s both get out of here. Let’s leave this pitiful asteroid. We don’t belong in Gaol. We belong back on Earth. We’re real humans.”

  “No. I’m staying and fighting off the scab invasion. Stay and fight for the union. We finally have a real war now and we can’t just run! We have a war! We finally have a real war!”

  Venus pleaded, “Just give up the work here and come back to Earth. Don’t you want to see a sky again? Come back with me.”

  “Phhh! You’ll give up everything? Now? We finally have a real war. We have more to fight for than we ever did before.”

  “We aren’t going to live forever, not at all,” Venus insisted. “Let it go. Come back to Earth and just let it go.”

  “I’ll never give up anything. Dammit. I’ve worked too hard all my life. And we have something brand new to hate!”

  Venus said, “A rocket is leaving tomorrow. The first of several.”

  “Are you on it?” Lady Hatchet asked.

  “I’ll wait for the last rocket if you want me too. I think we’ll all have to get away. I think there will be new sabotage. It’s going to be dangerous to stay here. We have to get away.”

  Lady Hatchet waved that off. “Don’t worry about the grad schoolers or their sabotage. The damn robber scientists beefed-up all the security after all the miners got sucked out into space, I assure you of that.”

  Venus posited, “But…what if the hippisticks have their own attack? There are rumors that the hippisticks are going to do something big to the whole place, to mess it all up everywhere.” They looked at Eleven Jane. “Right?”

  Eleven Jane stepped closer. “I have no idea who has been talking.”

  Venus said to her, “I heard the whole asteroid is going to get so messed up that we can’t even have a union war. Everything will be too messed up for war!”

  Eleven Jane gave them a crooked grin. “How funny. Anarchy ruining a good war.”

  Venus told Lady Hatchet, “It could kill everybody here. This place isn’t entirely safe on a good day. Let’s all go to Earth… to all the real people!”

  “I’ll take my chances, dammit. I’m staying here. I wanna live forever! They’ll fix it so we can, soon, I believe.”

  They heard shrill screams from the waterfall. Thorn hurried over to see frantic splashing as the hippisticks fought to clear out of the lake. He jumped into the water again to rescue a girl who was floundering, uncontrollably gulping water. When he put her down on the shore he saw her feet and lower legs were mostly dissolved away to the bone. Other swimmers had less harmful but still painful red spot eaten into them.

  “The monster! The monkey mob!” they cried.

  “It’s true! It’s real!”

  Eleven Jane ran down to the water’s edge. “What happened?”

  Lady Hatchet firmly told her, “We have to take her to the city. She’s been injured by some damn creature or acid.”

  “The city?” Eleven Jane gasped as if they had just slapped her face.

  “Yes, damn you.”

  Eleven Jane insisted. “It’s forbidden. The city is evil.”

  “It looks nasty but we can fix her up as good as new at the clinic in Metroplex. Let her go, dammit! She needs to be treated!”

  “But…” Eleven Jane stood shuddering, confused and frustrated. The sight of the bleeding girl was so ghastly. “It’s forbidden! It’s just very forbidden!”

  “Forget your pride and just let her go.”

  Without saying yes or no, Eleven Jane wiped tears from her eyes then angrily turned and walked away.

  Venus yelled, “We’ll bring her right back as good as new! I’ll cover her eyes so she can’t see a damn sinful thing in the city!”

  “Hurry, before she loses all her pretty blood,” Lady Hatchet urged Thorn, who was staring down at her in his arms in dismay. As he turned to the bridge he saw a car, already having been called, racing to them to pick them up.

  Venus said to Thorn, “We’ll grow more nerves and skin and toes on her feet in no time. Don’t worry.” After they sat in the car and were racing off to the Metroplex clinic, she assured them again, “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be damn good as new.”

  “Eleven Jane didn’t protest,” Thorn said. “But crossing this bridge to the other side was such a big deal to them. It was so taboo.”

  Lady Hatchet said, “Religious conviction doesn’t mean much at the moment you need a doctor. Eleven Jane is a righteous anticity woman but she certainly isn’t going to turn that into this poor girl living the rest of her life without feet.”

  “The girl’s going into shock,” Thorn alerted them.

  The car instructed them as if it was an inboard doctor. “Just lower her head a bit and hold her close. Keep her warm. We’ll be at the clinic with autobot class A robot Red nurse staff waiting in fifty-four seconds. Red nurses 36, 76 and 87 are on hand and waiting.”

  Lady Hatchet said to the trembling girl, “Don’t worry about Eleven Jane. You have every right to the best city care.”

  Venus added, “And when you have your toes back again I’ll make sure you get a nice vanity veneer put on
your toenails as a shiny souvenir of how sinful our city can be.” She pretended to laugh.

  The car screeched into the door of a tall glass edifice and three bots flew out to receive them and took the patient away.

  When Venus noticed that blood was smeared across her front, she proposed, “I think we should take a bath.” She walked across the street and sat in the water of a wide chrome fountain, leaning wearily against its mod central sculpture. “I always hate it when I’m dripping in blood and we didn’t even get a damn clone war, huh Lady Hatchet.”

  Lady Hatchet sat on the edge and stayed dry. “I didn’t get any blood on me. I don’t need to get wet.”

  Thorn entered the fountain and made sure he stayed between the two old women so that nobody else would get hurt, although it seemed their fighting was over.

  * *

  That evening, the new rebel union and the old original union joined for a farewell party. Thorn promenaded into an ostentatiously festooned hall with Lady Hatchet. She was wearing her customary hair twist, however it was now up at the very top of her head and went to a point. She almost looked like a unicorn.

  Thorn said, “I’m surprised at how many workers there are when everybody is in one place.”

  She smiled. “As long as they can all see me.”

  “It looks so completely cheerful. Odd.”

  “Cheerful? It’s a damn party, idiot. It’s a shame you can’t smell these flowers. They’re like a dream.”

  “No, I mean, I thought they were fighting,” Thorn explained himself, “the different unions. The old and the rebel.” He put his nose to a flower, anyway. He sadly sniffed in blank air.

  She laughed. “There’s nothing more conciliatory than permanent goodbyes, now is there.” She sniffed at one of the elephantine white calla lilies. “These must have been made just for the occasion. I’ve never seen any like this before. So big! Damn.”

  In the central courtyard he saw people hugging and smiling, some through tears. He said, “That war melted down fast.”

  “People’s hearts melt fast.” She pulled him along. “It’s a shame you can’t appreciate these snacks. The flavors are so much more than salt.”