“Oh no. No, no. The robber scientists always do what they damn want?” Venus insisted. “I bet they don’t even notice the union just up and left. I bet they’re glad we’re all out of their hair, if they did.”
Christopher Goi reminded her, “The grad schoolers are picking at the scientists and undermining them. It’ll get so hard to continue. The scientists will give up someday soon. I’m sure of it.”
Thorn asked, “What exactly do the grad schoolers do? The union people aren’t sure.”
Venus shrugged and looked away. “We hate them.”
Christopher Goi answered, “There are many areas of the cloning they’d like changed.”
Venus said, “And yeah, you goofed and are basically dead. I’m talking to a dead man. Or a brand new man, I mean. We know that.”
Christopher Goi said. “It all always comes down to the mind. People have always abused their brains but they take their own minds very seriously. So how it’s cloned will be forever argued over. A person wants to wake up in their fishtank and feel like they’re really themselves, still, just merely waking up from a sleep.” Christopher Goi paced the room as he tried to explain. “That’s the prerogative of the new generations. They have their upstart arrogance against their elders. Science always slowly builds on the last waves of ideas and maybe the grad schoolers are onto something new that I’d have never thought of by myself. Maybe cloning the scientists’ brains is doing more than preserving knowledge, maybe it’s making it stay stuck in the same old flawed orthodoxy.”
“We can’t let all the clones be killed,” Thorn said. “We have to save them from the robber scientists.”
Venus shook her head. “Who the damn cares about endless same-faced clones. Come on already and get a damn grip. I’m the nicest person in the world but there are limits. There’s too many to deal with. Way too many. Our empathy can only handle small groups of things.”
Lady Hatchet grinned. “We stamped them out like buttons.”
Venus gave her a dirty look. “I took much more care in making my own damn buttons.”
“Phhh.”
Thorn said, “I may have disabled the freezer in Subco Gibeah when I inadvertently blew up the water tanks just beside it. Surely they were pumping that over into the freezer to mold the clones in. Poor Chrysalis Joy.” He and Christopher Goi nervously locked eyes for a second. Thorn shuddered. “I see him in your eyes. Him! Him!”
Venus said, “There’s a lot more where he came from. And there’s plenty of damn water around here, space is full of ice, and you didn’t disable anything for damn long.”
Thorn crossed his arms. “We must save them all!”
“How are we going to save your clone city?” Christopher Goi asked Thorn. “We are not an army. We don’t have the means. We don’t have the weapons to give us such audacity. We barely have the philosophy. And… I’ve been locked out of the main labs.”
Thorn said, “You know where they are. We’ll blast open the doors.”
“I’m locked out of their computers, too. I have only barely accessed these computers in this room, and I wasn’t even locked out of these ones.”
Thorn lost his stubborn pose. “Well then we just do what we can, where we can. We have the whole place to ourselves, now. We can fill it up with clones.”
Venus shook her head. “We only get them already dead. It’s too late to save them, then.”
“What about all the damn alphas walking around in Subco Gibeah?”
Lady Hatchet narrowed her eyes at Thorn. “If you can ever get in and out of there alive they won’t want to go with you. They’ll think you’re a wild thought.”
Thorn suggested, “We could rescue the clones taking the elevator.”
“Don’t ever go near that freezer,” Lady Hatchet warned him. “The claws will kill you. Damn, you were lucky to traipse through the first time but things were busy from the clone just before you, Chrysalis Joy coming up early. It was out of sync for just a moment and you had a lucky break. It usually can handle a crowd. It was built to handle a full elevator dumping new loads as fast as it can go up and down to get them. You won’t have that same luck again.”
“Yeah, the elevator was choking on ice when we went up.” Thorn clenched his fists. “I’ll go break it all again…somehow.”
The elevator chimed and its door opened. Eleven Jane and Malbri Three entered the room. She announced, “We’re going to take the clone project away from the robber scientists.”
“What are you doing here?” Christopher Goi asked, surprised.
Malbri Three answered, “This tower isn’t in the city but is far from it. So here we are, dude, a place that isn’t forbidden for us to go.” He tapped the wall and it made a rapping sound. “And we’re here for real. We’re not holograms.”
Christopher Goi said, “I didn’t think holograms could come here, anyway. We’re too far away from their projectors in the city.”
“Come sit next to me,” Thorn said to Eleven Jane as he plopped down on the end of a couch. Eleven Jane ignored him.
“Look!” Venus pointed to the view of rubble out the windows. “They blew the runway up so scab rockets can’t come back. It was terrifying. I was sitting right here and saw it all.”
Lady Hatchet chortled. “Now that’s pretty damn funny. The union is so clever. If the robber scientists want war with us we’ll blow up their lousy crap.”
“Eh!” Eleven Jane nodded with satisfaction. “But the union didn’t do that part all by itself. We did most of it. We are sooooo ahead of you all.”
Thorn got back up off the couch. “What? You what? You carried out that level of destruction?”
She nodded. “And a big piece of it flying through space could have nailed this tower good. That’s why we waited to come up—to make sure there was still air up here.”
Lady Hatchet gasped. “Damn you, you reckless little slog! Damn both of you. Our windows got sprayed with crap and I thought we’d all be killed!”
Malbri Three put his hands up. “We didn’t think to warn anybody, sorry. We didn’t know you’d all be up here to watch the lift off.”
Thorn said, “That took a lot of clever planning and hard work. That took a space walk or two. I didn’t know you were all capable of so much.”
Christopher Goi said to Thorn, “Never underestimate the conniving of children.”
Eleven Jane flipped her long ruby hair behind her shoulders, arrogantly. “What do you think we do all day?”
“You’re anarchists, now?” Lady Hatchet asked.
Malbri Three grinned. “That was just for starters. You think that was good, we’ve got something even bigger planned. Far bigger!”
Thorn looked out the window at the destroyed runway and hangers. “Bigger than that? Damn!”
He grinned. “A total apocalypse to end all the scientists here for all time! And stop them fast! True anarchy is what we’ll be left with… the true freedom we’ll finally have.”
Christopher Goi looked puzzled as well as worried. “What? How can you do that?”
Lady Hatchet also looked worried. “What are you damn kids all up to? If it’s a gas attack there’s too many ways to lock yourself away from it.”
Malbri Three asked Eleven Jane, “Should I tell them that part right now?”
She shrugged. “We have to tell them soon. They’ll all be affected. Sure, tell them now while we’re all here. Tell them the worst of it.”
Lady Hatchet looked to Venus in worry. “This doesn’t sound good to me.”
Malbri Three grinned even bigger. “Dude! We are going to turn this entire rock on its ear!”
“What?” Venus looked confused.
Malbri Three nodded. “Tip the whole asteroid on its ear. Most everything big here is supposed to be bolted down but people aren’t and neither are all the robber scientists, nor the grad schoolers.”
Venus asked, “Are you sure you can do this? Is this wise?”
Thorn said, “I don’t know what you�
�re talking about but the freezer has to be disabled, first. The clones have to go free! That comes first!”
“The freezer will be disabled for sure,” Malbri Three said. “It’ll be smashed to bits with all that heavy ice sliding around. Tons of slippery ice.”
Lady Hatchet asked, “What do you really mean turning the rock on its ear? Turn it… how? How far? How!”
Eleven Jane smiled wickedly. “He didn’t say it right. Head over heels is more like what we have planned. Tip it over, all the way around, and back again!”
Venus glared at her. “I hate you!”
Malbri Three explained, “Anybody with a fishtank education knows an asteroid isn’t going to give you enough gravity to just walk around in, like we walk around. They’ve got a few firecrackers out there keeping us in a perfectly measured spin to stimulate Earth gravity.”
Eleven Jane continued, “We can stop the spin on this rock for short awhile as we drive the entire asteroid into a tight circle, changing the feeling of the gravity. We can make it feel like everywhere inside has capsized and then rolled back up again.”
Malbri Three smiled. “We’re at war and we’ll show we have the real power.”
Christopher Goi glowered. “You have really calculated how to make the rockets re-fire to do that? That’s a lot, to actually drive an asteroid in a tight circle!”
Eleven Jane nodded.
He added, “Impressive math.”
Malbri Three said, “And there’s nobody here to stop us from doing it, now that the rebel union is all gone. Nobody except for maybe just a few security robots that a good hammer can knock out.”
Thorn asked Eleven Jane, “Can you get close enough to security robots?”
“Do the robots even think people could go so crazy as to think to capsize their own city?” Eleven Jane suddenly looked crazy. “We’ve destroyed quite a few robots already. We walk up to them singing songs about peace love and new fresh vegetables and as they ask about new fresh batteries they don’t even know what hit them.”
“All security will be up,” Christopher Goi said to her. “But then again, the scientists are probably working overtime just trying to flush out the grad schoolers. If you stomp around in plain view outside an asteroid tugging at the gravity spinners, nobody will suspect a thing. Not from you hippisticks.”
“We’ll just make sure we keep looking normal.” Eleven Jane laughed. “We have so far. We’re already almost done. So much security has already been dismantled, key gravity rockets have already been moved, and this place is still in its same unsuspecting slow sick sleep.”
“We’ve even got the lake and waterfalls taken care of.” Malbri Three grinned waggishly. “The tanks that are supposed to suck the water away, in such an emergency, have been sealed off. They won’t now. That water will smash the entire city.”
Eleven Jane laughed, “What a marvelous way to get rid of Metroplex!”
Lady Hatchet’s eyes filled with tears. “Do what? W-what? Run that by me one more time? What are you doing to my house?”
Malbri Three smiled big. “Smash it to bits. Discombobulate it all to crazy hell!”
“But then where will I live? I ain’t living in no damn hippistick tent!”
Eleven Jane smiled at her. “It’s soooo beautiful.”
Lady Hatchet asked her, “How much LSD are you on? You’re crazy. Thorn! Grab these two vandals and lock them in a closet somewhere. Dry them out! We can’t have them doing anything like that to my Metroplex!”
Eleven Jane said to Thorn, “You can’t lock up all the hippisticks and we’ve already decided, and we’re almost done.”
Thorn grinned. “I kind of like the idea of smashing everything up around here. It’ll give the lab clones a chance to be free.”
Lady Hatchet slapped his arm. “What? How horrible to smash everything up! This is where I live! I plan to live here like this for a very long time!”
Thorn raised a fist. “I’d love to smash everything up with my bare hands if I could. I’m mad at everything. I was supposed to be a senior cop, not a stupid clone. And the elevator was supposed to take me to perfect bliss in Elysium Grounds, not a stupid freezer. I grew up feeling entitled but now I just feel so stupid and like nothing. I want to smash everything! Smash it up and let the clones be free!”
Eleven Jane applauded. “I kind of like you.” Thorn blushed. She added, “I was afraid you’d be our biggest impediment.” He smiled warmly at her, mesmerized by the fierce look in her eyes.
Venus said, “I’m going back to Earth so what do I care what happens to this awful place. Smash it up, I say. Throw the robber scientists and grad schoolers on their faces and break their labs to all hell! Smash the city, it’s a joke. Free the clones!”
Lady Hatchet was horrified. “I live in that city! That’s my home!”
Malbri Three smiled serenely. “We’ll have to save you from it.”
Thorn asked the two hippisticks, “What about your place where you live? Where will you live?”
“It’s just tents,” Malbri Three said. “We’ll pack them up, when we pack us up, and then take them back out again when we’re done, after we’ve cleaned the place out with our great terrible splash.”
Christopher Goi shook his head. “That should slow down the grad schoolers for a spell. If you don’t kill them all first as they bounce off their ceilings.”
Eleven Jane shook with excitement at the thought. “We can change the world! This world! We have real power!”
“That’s murder, technically,” Lady Hatchet said. “Real people will get hurt and killed if you carry out such a monstrous thing.”
Venus said, “I think you’re all just throwing a tantrum all over because the world isn’t the way you want it to be. That’s murder and destruction and I don’t know why you don’t see it, if I do.”
Malbri Three grinned big. “Didn’t Shakespeare say that what we wish for, we readily believe. And what we ourselves think, we imagine that others think also?”
Eleven Jane said, “I’m pretty sure that was Julius Caesar.”
Venus added, “And I think it was a criticism of you, not a validation.”
“What’s that?” Thorn asked.
Venus asked, “You don’t know who Julius Caesar was? I suppose most of the stuff in our old library doesn’t matter anymore.”
“No, not that. Listen. I thought I heard a moan.”
“No.” Eleven Jane smiled in exhilaration. “You’re just getting excited.”
Lady Hatchet slapped a tabletop. “I think you’re all bluffing. Or exaggerating. Or you just think too much of yourself but I don’t think this asteroid can be made to do all that. It just has too many safety features. And what you’re saying is just too crazy. Maybe you can pause the gravity for a little while but I just can’t see how you could pull off that much more. I don’t care how punk rock you’ve all suddenly become!”
Thorn put his hand up to her. “No, hush, listen. Something is moaning.”
Venus looked around. “Who would moan at a time like this?”
“We are digesting,” a tinny voice shot through Thorn’s head.
“I just received some kind of a message. An odd death message. I think,” Thorn looked about, nonplussed. He shivered.
“What?” Christopher Goi asked.
Venus asked, “Where?”
“In my head. That’s where it is. My radio!”
“Impossible.” Christopher Goi typed at a computer. “Well, unlikely. But you still have the radio charm on. It’s supposed to block everything.”
“I heard it as clear as day. But I couldn’t quite make all of it out.”
Lady Hatchet said, “Maybe all the damn frequencies are changing. Why not? They’ve broken through into your head, before.”
“The … digesting …” the message said again. “We… are…”
“Something is digesting?”
“We are digesting. We…”
“It stopped,” Thorn said. “It came
from different places. Some of it even came from the computer status in this room. I think that’s why I just heard it.”
Christopher Goi took out his pen and urgently called the lab, repeatedly, but nothing came up. “Nobody’s home,” he said, concerned. “But still, this pen says there’s life, there.”
Malbri Three asked. “How can nobody be home but there’s life there? Where could they go just now? Who could be there to replace them?”
Christopher Goi looked at the monitors. “No yachts are taking off from anywhere. Hmm.”
Lady Hatchet said, “The damn grad schoolers, got ‘em.”
“No,” Christopher Goi turned his pen back and forth sideways. “They’re there, actually. Odd. Faint. But they’re not there all the way.”
“Damn riddles,” Lady Hatchet said.
“No, look at my reading,” he said, showing her his pen. “They’re fading away. But they’re still there, a bit.”
“Digesting? Dissolving?” Thorn asked.
“Something like that but they’re not dead right now. They very soon may be. Maybe they are just becoming something else.”
“That’s damn scary,” Venus said. “Becoming what? Gas?”
Lady Hatchet frowned. “Stop trying to scare us more than we’ve already been scared.”
Christopher Goi shrugged. “I don’t know what’s happening but you look at the readings on my pen.” He put them onto a screen for all to see. Eleven Jane and Malbri Three sat before it and starting doing math.
“So?” Lady Hatchet shrugged. “Haven’t you ever tried to call somebody and they just wouldn’t answer?”
“No,” Christopher Goi said. “They’re answering, as they can, and they tried to send out a distress call that only your clone brain got.”
Thorn said, “Let’s go visit them to see what’s going on. Don’t you think it’s about time I said hi? I’m not even a hostage anymore. If I ever was.”
Venus shook her head. “You can’t just visit a damn robber scientist. Not up here in space. Damn.”
“Why not. We’re clones. The union is gone. We clones have a lot in common.” Thorn turned to Christopher Goi. “Let’s go.”
Multitude Page 20
