by Jay Falconer
Kleezebee grabbed Lucas’ right wrist and inserted his hand into the BioTex. Lucas held his breath when the viscous substance sent a warm sensation rippling across his skin. He could sense the synthetic being’s presence as it smothered his hand and wrapped around his nervous fingers. It felt like a freshly mixed batch of pre-heated Play-Doh as it seeped into the crevasses between his fingers. The pliable material had tremendous strength, squeezing his hand tight and partially restricting the blood flow. The DNA transmission was in full swing.
Lucas wondered if parts of his consciousness were being harvested as well. If that were true, would that somehow make him less of a human being? He considered the spiritual implications of the BioTex technology:
Certain religious groups might argue that one’s rightful place in heaven could come into question if he allowed his soul to be transferred to another being. Others might proclaim that once his consciousness was downloaded, the synthetic copy should be considered a sentient being and eligible for salvation. Even more compelling was the question of replica dissolution. What would happen if the replica’s handlers ordered it to dissolve into an inert state and effectively lose its self-awareness, would that be considered suicide, or perhaps homicide?
Drew and Lucas had both been raised to be good Christians by their mother. Dorothy was a devout Catholic, but never forced her religious beliefs onto the other members of her family. She allowed Lucas and Drew to find their own path and decide for themselves. “Faith is a personal journey,” she would preach. “Each of you must find your own path to God.”
Unlike his brother, Lucas had trouble accepting most of the Church’s doctrine, feeling that 90% of the world’s population had been tricked into donating their hard-earned money to something that could never be proven or quantified. He believed their fear of mortality was masquerading as blind faith.
Regardless of his own personal beliefs, Lucas had difficulty resolving the conflicting religious and scientific viewpoints raised by the BioTex technology. The more he thought about it, the more his mind fluttered. He decided it was best if those philosophical questions were discussed by persons with more life experience, certainly not by a naive college student who had just stuck his hand into the cookie jar.
Once his memory and DNA were downloaded, the BioTex released his hand and Lucas stepped away to observe the transformation process. One by one, his features began to appear from within the synthetic ooze. It was as if he were watching a rendering of a 3D computer-generated model, except it was occurring in real-world space.
Drew asked Kleezebee, “How long have you guys been developing this stuff?”
“Longer than I care to admit. It’s been a long, slow process but the results have been worth the effort.”
“I should say so,” Lucas replied. No wonder the professor was never in his apartment; with everything on the man’s plate, when did Kleezebee have time to sleep? Between his university duties, his real estate development operation, managing the silo, and developing all this cool new technology, Kleezebee must have been stretched pretty thin. It brought the meaning of multi-tasking to a whole new level.
Drew said, “I assume you’re using nanotechnology to manipulate its synthetic framework. Some form of real-time genetic engineering. I would love to know more about how this stuff works.”
“Perhaps, when we have more time,” Kleezebee replied, reviewing a batch of paperwork just brought into the room by a video technician.
* * *
Ten minutes later, the replica sat up on the medical table, turned its head, then spoke to Lucas using his own voice, “Hello, I’m Dr. Lucas Ramsay, pleased to meet you.”
Lucas studied every millimeter of his twin’s face, looking for imperfections in the replication process, but finding none. Even his jagged scars and dimpled cheeks were duplicated perfectly. The replica smiled at him.
“Nice job with the Xerox. Can I ask it some questions?” Lucas asked, wondering if this copy was more stable than the last. Or would Bruno have to tackle this one, too?
“Sure, fire away, L won’t mind,” Kleezebee said.
“Do you know you’re a copy of me?” Lucas asked his twin.
“Sure do. I’m a BioTex duplicate of the single greatest mind on the planet!”
“Oh, yeah, that’s you, all right,” Drew said after a moment’s chuckle.
“What’s was the name of Dad’s favorite TV show?”
“The X-Files,” his twin answered correctly. “Dad had a major hard-on for Scully, the redhead.”
“And Mom’s favorite?”
“Mom never watched TV. She preferred to curl up with a good book and a bowl of homemade strawberry ice cream.”
“Right again. But those were simple. Let’s try something a bit harder,” Lucas said, formulating a trick question. “How many girlfriends have you had and what were their names?”
“We have had only one real girlfriend. Her name was Jill and she was this smokin’ hot blond who lived up the street. We were fourteen at the time and spent hours making out in her parents’ basement. But she never let us past second base.”
Lucas looked at Kleezebee and nodded.
Then his replica added, “However, we did lose our virginity to a forty-year-old librarian named Robyn. Our performance lasted only thirty seconds before she ran off crying to her car because—”
“Okay, that’s more than enough,” Lucas said, throwing his hands up in the air. He realized the replica had no real emotions and certainly no shame. Otherwise, his clone never would have admitted his premature conclusion with the older woman, especially in front of his boss. He felt two inches tall and wished he’d never asked that last question.
“Convinced?” Kleezebee asked.
Lucas nodded, thinking about the replica’s curious use of the “we” term in its last answer. He wondered if it were a conscious effort on the part of the duplicate, or maybe it was some type of residual personality trait inherited from him? Too bad he hadn’t taken a few psychology classes during his undergrad work; he might have been able to answer that question.
Lucas slid two steps backward when the replica jumped down from the table and stood uncomfortably close to him. He told it, “Don’t you need to go eat a box of candy bars or something?”
“Bruno, why don’t you take L down to outfitting? I’ll send the updates down when they’re ready,” Kleezebee said.
Chapter 21
Dreamscape
Replica L followed Bruno into the armory on Sublevel 5 where three more soldiers were putting on equipment vests and checking their rifles. Each was an exact copy of Bruno, making L feel like he’d just walked onto the set of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone. “How many of you are there?”
“Eleven in all,” Bruno said.
“How do you tell yourselves apart?”
“We can’t, that’s half the fun of it,” Bruno2 said, stepping aside to allow the other two Bruno copies to leave the armory.
“I assume the real Bruno is walking around here somewhere?”
“Actually, he died a long time ago. He was one of DL’s oldest friends and the professor’s been replicating us ever since,” Bruno said, handing L a set of combat fatigues and boots. “Here, put these on while I find a vest for you.”
L slipped out of his street clothes and into the camouflage green uniform before putting on and lacing up his heavy, black boots. Bruno helped him into an equipment vest. It fit perfectly. Suddenly, L’s stomach felt empty and he had an overwhelming craving for cotton candy, which was strange since he hated the sticky treat.
Bruno checked the sights of an assault rifle, then handed it to L, along with a metal clip of full ammunition. “Go ahead and load the weapon.”
L flipped the magazine around, inspected its contents, then inserted the open end into the rifle’s stock. He forced the clip upward, hearing a ratcheted click. “Did I get it right?”
“Yes, perfect.”
L pressed the release mechanism to discharge the c
lip, catching it in his other hand. He held up the open end. “Why do these bullets have crimped ends instead of a projectile?”
“Because they’re blanks. We never use live ammunition unless we’re left with no other choice.”
“Won’t this be a problem when we have to defend ourselves?”
“We’re not authorized to engage until we’re fired upon first, and when we do, we’re not to harm anyone.”
“Can’t we just miss them on purpose?” L asked, putting the rifle down on a storage container to his left.
“Even a poorly aimed weapon fire can cause collateral damage,” Bruno2 said.
“Kleezebee expects the mission to be carried out to the letter, which means zero casualties,” Bruno added. He handed L a semi-automatic M9 Beretta handgun and a magazine full of blanks.
Cool, a nine-mil,” L said.
Bruno reached for his beltline and pulled out his vibrating cell phone to answer it.
L rubbed the tips of his fingers over the 9mm’s contoured grip and polished barrel, waiting for Bruno to finish his call. He aimed the gun at an empty spot on the wall and imagined what it would feel like to squeeze the trigger and feel the weapon’s lethal recoil when the round left the barrel, traveling without thought to its target. He felt invincible with it in his hands, even if it was loaded with blanks.
He slid the gun into its holster and flexed his palm and fingers a few times, trying to loosen the soreness inflicted on the real Lucas by the BioTex. He looked at both sides of his hand, wondering why his body was registering pain from something that happened to someone else— before he even existed. Had he formed some type of empathic relationship with his donor?
He thought about his recent birth, reliving the moments leading up to his creation. He remembered how nervous he was slipping his hand into the gooey substance, right before his viewpoint shifted from one body to another. He recalled his first thoughts as a replica, sitting up and introducing himself . . . to himself. His head was swimming with childhood memories, all of which now seemed like artificial flashbacks inserted from someone else’s life.
His memory and emotions were alive, but was he?
During Man’s evolution on Earth, he wondered if there was a single moment in time when an ape’s pure instinct for survival evolved into self-awareness, thereby classifying the mammal as a sentient being. Was it an instantaneous change in perspective, or did Man’s primordial emotions slowly develop and adapt over time?
And what about laughter and humility? Did those emotions suddenly manifest or did they have to be cultivated and learned through complex social interactions with other bipedal primates? Maybe it was simply a random convergence of factors that developed out of necessity, or possibly, nothing more than the inevitable result of an ever-advancing intelligence.
When he was the real Lucas, he had studied every facet of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, pondering the complexities of time fluidity and the twisted paradox of Cause and Effect. Temporal Mechanics would cause a mental meltdown for most graduate students, but like his younger brother, he welcomed its complexities. He knew he was not caught in a time loop, but his distorted reality seemed to be governed by a close cousin to Cause and Effect.
His existence transcended the limits of a single life and a single consciousness, leaving him as both the real Lucas and the replica, but not both simultaneously. He was a stateless contradiction, living somewhere in between the worlds of theory and fact. Perhaps it was more accurate to say he was living somewhere between human and alien. Either way, his existence was difficult to quantify.
Then he realized that, as a synthetic being, he had no real family and no home. His life had been rebooted, bringing him back to where it all started. Once again, he was an orphan whose passions were imprisoned between the margins of fortitude and heartache.
Just before hanging up his cell phone, Bruno said, “Yes, send them down to the armory.”
L felt a cramp in the middle knuckle of his right hand, which soon spread to the rest of his fingers. His hand turned a scarlet color as it slowly wilted like a water-starved tulip. “Bruno, I need a little help here.”
“Check your vest’s pockets,” Bruno told him. “You’ll find candy bars and other sugar rations inside. Eat one of them now.”
L inventoried the contents of his pockets and found a five-inch caramel-covered chocolate bar. He tore open its plain white wrapper and consumed the snack in only three bites. Within seconds, a wild rush of energy surged throughout his body, invigorating him. “Wow, what a total rush,” L said, watching his malformed hand and fingers spring back to life in human form.
“I take it you were feeling hungry right before the deformation?” Bruno asked. “Hunger is precursor to reversion and means your sugar reserves are low. If you want to avoid a public spectacle, you should refuel immediately once hunger starts.”
“Seems rather impractical,” L said, pulling out a stale, golden sponge cake from the right front pocket of the vest. “To have us stop in the middle of whatever we are doing to fire down a five-year-old Twinkie.” L tapped the Twinkie against the metal rifle rack, emitting a loud CLANG.
“Your new body has had little time to build adequate fuel reserves, which means you’ll only have a few minutes to refuel.”
“That’s not much time to find sugar. Will it increase?”
“Yes, once your synthetic engine adjusts to your new human metabolism. It’s like breaking in a new car. Eventually, your body will give you more advance notice when reserves are low.”
L raised his eyebrows while looking at Bruno’s rotund waistline.
Bruno rubbed his belly. “I know what you’re thinking. I have a lot invested in my rather stout figure and must be able to go for days without a pit stop. But don’t forget, my size is simply an internal volume adjustment, nothing more. I can choose any programmed identity, like skinny little Mary, for example. My shape has nothing to do with how much onboard fuel I’m carrying.”
“It’s more about building up glucose,” Bruno2 said. “Your artificial nanocells need the stored energy to maintain their volatile memory. Without it, they’ll suffer a cascade failure and revert to pure BioTex.”
“Wouldn’t it make more sense for us to wear a device that acted like a fuel gauge?” L asked. “With all your advanced technology, I have to believe there’s something better than: When your stomach growls, run to the fridge and scarf down a dozen Ding Dongs.”
Bruno opened one of the corrugated storage boxes stacked in front of the rifle rack, pulling out a pentagon-shaped digital watch. “You mean something like this?”
Bruno2 pointed to the watch on his right wrist, which was partially camouflaged by his forearm tattoos. “We all wear them. They also double as a communication device, a proximity sensor, and a bunch of other cool stuff.”
“Awesome,” L said, taking one of the watches from Bruno. He latched it around his wrist. “How does this it work? Is there a hidden speaker and microphone somewhere?”
“No, it uses a non-linear, neuro-electrical connection. As long as you’re wearing the device, communications will be delivered through your nervous system and directly into your inner ear. No one else will hear it. To transmit, press the face of the watch and speak normally,” Bruno replied.
“Does everyone hear what I’m saying? Won’t that be confusing if we’re all talking at the same time?”
“They’re wirelessly networked through a central comm system, which uses artificial intelligence to monitor and deliver communications automatically.”
“Like a smart voice router,” L said. “Aren’t you afraid someone will steal them and reverse engineer the technology?”
“Not possible. They’ve been encoded with biosensors that allow them only to be used by our kind. If it loses physical contact, the advanced technology inside the watch self-destructs. To a human, it would appear to be just an ordinary watch.”
“So, basically, don’t take it off your wrist or it fries,” L s
aid.
“Correct, unless you turn off the self-destruct mechanism first.”
Before L could ask about the self-destruct mechanism, a mostly bald, male technician in a lab coat walked into the room. He was carrying an enormous syringe, big enough to scare an elephant.
“They’re here to install tactical programming,” Bruno said.
“Okay, but where are you going to stick that thing?” L asked, worrying about his backside.
“Left ear canal,” the tech reported. “It’s a direct neural interface device.”
Lucas pushed the tech away from him. “If you try to stick that thing into my ear, I’ll stab you in the eye with it.”
“You just need to deactivate your pain receptors,” the tech said, holding up the probe for insertion.
“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”
Bruno replied, “Close your eyes, tilt your head back, and concentrate on your ear’s cellular structure. You have the ability to control your shape, which means you can morph any part of your body into gelatinous form. It’ll allow you to receive the encoder probe without pain.”
“Like this,” Bruno2 said, tilting his head back. The side of his head began to lose its consistency, turning a scarlet color. He inserted most of his left hand into the shimmering glob, then withdrew it a second later. “See? No pain,” he said, while his ear canal retook human form. “Pretty cool, huh?”
L was still skeptical but decided to try the reversion process. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and concentrated on his left ear canal. He thought he might be getting the hang of it when he felt a watery sensation inside his left ear canal, but when his right eye drooped down across his cheek, he knew he was in trouble.
“Dude, your eye,” Bruno said.
“Oops, my bad,” L said, covering the deformity with his right hand. He quickly adjusted his concentration, making his eye return to its normal shape and location. “Whew, that’s better.”
“Go ahead. Try it again,” Bruno said. “Only this time, try not to think of anything but your left ear.”
