I nodded.
"Perhaps Zenigra would enjoy seeing a bit more of you."
"Sure would," Zenigra chimed in.
Something about the way he said it rubbed me the wrong way. It wasn't forced so much as rehearsed.
"I dare say you might move your cot out of that tool shed and into his hut. We could procure you a mattress as well."
My eyes widened. I wanted nothing more than to get out of that dirty shed and into something resembling a real bed. Then, I thought about the other workers and what they would think. More special treatment.
Lucas watched as the excitement on my face turned to worry, "Don't worry," he said. "I've already come up with a perfectly good excuse for you to have to move your own place of residence."
I looked up at him, my eyebrows raised, "What's the excuse?"
Lucas chuckled for a moment before replying, "Nothing fancy. But with the colder weather moving in for the long haul and the potential for snow, that shed is going to need to be stocked with a lot more shovels. Someone will be bringing them in tomorrow. Jack will make it known that you were moved because of it and make it seem like it was an inconvenience to you, rather than a welcome relief."
I smiled broadly, "Thank you very much."
Lucas waved away my thanks with one hand, then motioned for me to stand with the other, "Here, come pick out a coat from my closet. You can return it later."
"It's really okay, I'll be fine.”
"Nonsense. One must keep warm on a night such as this." He walked over to an already open closet and beckoned me closer. "Pick whichever one you like."
I looked into the closet. It was neatly organized. Hanging from the rack were no less than ten heavy winter coats. I picked out a hunter green Eco Gear coat and slipped into it. Almost instantly I could feel my skin begin to get moist with sweat. These jackets were what the pros wore when they needed to brave the elements. I'd seen them in stores before, but I could never afford more than a cheap knockoff.
"Okay, then. Zenigra, walk him back to the dormitory to collect his things. Most everyone will still be at the feast so there should be very little fanfare to deal with. Then, bring him back to your place and get him situated. I'll have someone bring the mattress over now. It should be there before you arrive."
As we walked out, I thought I caught a look passing between Zenigra and Lucas. Their eyes met, and Lucas tilted his head downward slightly, his eyebrows raising, the hint of a smile on his lips. It was out of the corner of my eye though, and I might have just as easily have imagined it.
*
We walked back to the dormitory in silence. I had my hands pressed into the pockets of the Eco Gear the entire way.
It was completely empty save a man and a woman lying on a bunk, locked in an embrace. They didn't even break their kiss as we passed. There ain't no shame in a dormitory like this. You just do what you have to do and never worry if someone sees it.
With Zenigra's help, I collected my meager belongings and we carried them back to his hut. Zenigra unlocked the door and we walked in. As promised, a mattress was lying on the floor in the living room, between the couch and the TV. The couch had been pushed back a bit to allow the mattress to fit. I tossed my bedding down on top of the mattress and dropped my backpack beside it.
Kicking off my shoes, I plopped down on the mattress and looked up at Zenigra.
"Are you sure you don't mind me staying with you?"
Zenigra shook his head.
"I don't want to be a bother."
"Come on, Sev. It'll be fun. Been awhile since I had a roommate."
"I'm not worried about fun, mano. I just want to make sure I'm not going to be in the way or anything."
"In the way? Nah. It'll be nice to have summat around to play cards with."
I grinned up at him, "Is that a challenge?"
"Damn right it is. Make ya bed while I go get the cards."
As Zenigra went to his bedroom to get the cards, I tested out the mattress It was a twin, not much bigger than the couch at my parents’ house, space wise. It wasn't as comfortable as Zenigra's bed, but it was heaven compared to a couple of blankets on a cold concrete floor. I rolled off the mattress and onto my knees on the floor. I set about laying sheets across the bed, taking care to tuck them under the mattress so they wouldn't come loose as I slept. I had three pillows and I laid two side by side at the head of the mattress and put one along the edge for me to wrap my arms around while I slept.
Zenigra returned with the cards and sat down on the couch. I joined him and together we tugged my mattress a bit closer. Zenigra pulled a rubber band from around the cards and spread them out on the mattress. There was no question as to what game we would play. We only ever played Memory.
As the game progressed and Zenigra and I bantered back and forth depending on who had the lead, I mulled over the scene that had unfolded in Lucas' hut. Something about it just didn't sit right with me. I had gone in expecting a verbal thrashing for eavesdropping at best and a vicious beatdown at worst. Lucas in a good mood and an invitation to start staying at Zenigra's had been an unexpected but pleasant outcome. Still, something nagged at me.
I was surprised to find that even with my attention only half on the game, I had only missed two matches. Zenigra seemed to be getting seriously frustrated. He'd only managed to find a handful of matches so far. I chuckled to myself, made a sly remark about how I was going to wipe the floor with him, then purposefully flipped the wrong card over. Zenigra's frustration melted like ice in a frying pan.
It took three full games of Memory before I thought I had the nagging sensation pinned down. It was the invitation to stay with Zenigra. The more I thought about it the less it seemed like an invitation. Looking back, it seemed more like an order. Polite, but still an order. Lucas wanted me staying with Zenigra. Not because I was an outcast within the camp that could use some company, but because I needed watching.
Did Lucas think I was going to get attacked again? Had Piner gone to him with the information about my eavesdropping after all? Was there something else entirely going on that I had missed? I thought about asking Zenigra to see if he had any of the answers I was seeking, but I didn't want to put him in the position where he had to choose between me and Lucas. It seemed obvious now that my moving in with Zenigra hadn't been a spur of the moment thought on Lucas' part. He must have told Zenigra he was going to bring it up beforehand and coached him on how to respond.
"Aight, I dun' think I can stand to lose to ya anymore tonight. Ya want something to eat? I got some microwavable pizza in the freezer."
I nodded, "Yeah mano, I could definitely eat."
Zenigra went into the kitchen to make the pizza and I picked up the cards from my bed. I shuffled the cards a few times then laid them out to play a solitary game of Memory while I waited. The game moved a lot faster with just one person playing. Within a minute, I'd found all the matches. I played a few more games and eventually, Zenigra came back with the pizza on an undersized cookie tray and a couple of paper plates. I put the rubber band back around the deck of cards and tossed them onto my mattress.
The pizza was a pepperoni and sausage combo and it smelled pretty good. I took one of the plates from Zenigra and put it on my lap.
"Damn, forgot a knife." Zenigra held out the cookie tray for me and I took it. The pizza, sticking off all the edges of the tray, and the metal it laid on felt hot to the touch. I felt the heat on my fingertips, but I felt no growing burning sensation in them. I held the tray in my hands for the minute or so it took for Zenigra to return with a knife and the minute or so after that it took him to cut the pizza into four jagged slices.
When Zenigra was finished cutting, I removed the paper plate from my lap and replaced it with the cookie tray. Zenigra and I both took slices and started eating.
"Does the TV work?" I asked.
"Yeah. TV on," Zenigra stated. The television turned on instantly and began displaying a blue screen. The light from the TV glinted
off the smooth ebony skin on the top of his bald head.
"What would you like to watch?" a voice from the set’s speakers prompted.
"Nice!" I said. I'd seen voice command televisions advertised before, but I'd never known anyone that actually owned one.
Zenigra chuckled at my appreciation and pressed the massive knuckles from his right hand into the palm of his left, and audible cracking could be heard as he said, "What do you want to watch?"
"I dunno. My parents’ TV only got a couple of channels. The news I guess."
"News," Zenigra said.
"There are currently two hundred and fifty-seven news broadcasts in progress in eighteen different languages."
Zenigra turned to me and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"New Light Media, Miami," I said, suddenly feeling very hungry for knowledge of what was going on back home.
The image on the TV screen shifted to a scene I was familiar with. The NLM-Miami TV studio. A man and a woman were sitting at a synth-oak desk in front of a real-time digital backdrop of the Miami skyline.
"...protests by Christian fundamentalists continued today outside of the Genetek Revival Recombination facility in Midtown. The protests were in response to the recent endorsement of the Eternalist Church by the Genetek Revival Corporation," the woman was saying.
The screen shifted to show a video of a large crowd standing outside of a pristine looking three-story building with a sign that read “Genetek Recombination”. The crowd was chanting the same thing over and over.
"Clones are evil. Clones aren't people."
The nursery rhyme like phrase didn't sit well with me.
"Bakas," Zenigra spit out. "What the hell do they know?"
"Do you have a clone?" I asked.
"Yeah, haven't updated it in a couple of years though. So a lot of good it's gonna do me if I get the ghost."
Human cloning had been around for something like seventy years now. Though only in the past thirty or so had Genetek perfected the mapping of the human mind. That made it possible for them to create a digital copy of the human mind and store it. It had only been twenty years since Genetek had perfected the technology to vat-grow a human clone and accelerate their growth to any age they wanted in only a matter of hours, making eternal life that much more attainable.
If you could afford it, you could go to any Genetek cloning facility where they would take samples of your DNA, do a download on your brain, and implant you with a device that would allow them to track your vitals. If at any point after that you died, a cloned embryo would be implanted with your DNA and its growth accelerated to match that of your body at the time of your last update. Then, they would imprint the clone with all your memories and you'd wake up feeling as though no time had passed since the moment you sat down in the mapping chair.
Along with taking your DNA and downloading the contents of your brain, the Genetek computers also took a full visual inventory of your body. This made it possible for them to use a complex system of lasers to etch your body with all the scars and wear and tear you'd come to expect to see when you looked in the mirror. This was a purely optional, though recommended, procedure. Whole branches of psychotherapy existed to treat the maladies that were created by the process.
Some people just couldn't get used to waking up in a body that by all means should have felt like home, but wasn't. Cloning with as many visual cues as possible to remind you that you were still you, could help alleviate some of the stress caused.
Updating your clone was of the utmost importance of course. If you left it off too long, you could wake up with a wife and kids you had no memory of. Stories like that were still the plot for many a book and movie.
I knew a couple of people who claimed they had died before. Kids from my school who swore up and down that they had clones. I was pretty sure they were all making it up. All of us were poor. Still, the stories they told were fun to listen to. They usually ran along the lines of dying while stopping a bank robbery or getting killed running from the cops.
Zenigra was most likely the first person I had ever met who actually had a clone. They were about as expensive as a luxury car, though they were getting cheaper every year. I'd heard my father talking to my mother about it one night a few months before I'd left.
"If Genetek keeps dropping the prices on clones, in a couple of years we might be able to afford one," my father had been telling my mother.
"I think that’s wishful thinking. Unless you're getting a promotion I haven't heard about," my mother chided.
"I'm serious. The prices have really been dropping lately."
"The price of a clone, sure. But I heard they've been raising the price on updating just as fast."
"What's that matter anyway? We wouldn't need to update all that often. It's not like our lives are that interesting. Unless you're planning to divorce me and you're worried I might forget."
I grinned at the memory of my parents. They bantered back and forth like that all the time but it was always good natured. Sasha and I had been starting to develop that kind of rapport before we'd been torn apart by the greed of Skywatch.
The newscast had continued on, but I was no longer interested in it. I had a million questions I wanted to ask Zenigra about cloning. I wasn't sure where to start. I decided to go with the obvious first question.
"Have you ever died?"
Zenigra looked over at me, seeming unsure of how to answer.
"You ain't one of those Christian chummers who thinks all clones are soulless demons that should be burned at the stake, is you?"
I shook my head, "No."
"Then yeah, I've died a few times. It ain't fun, lemme tell you that much. It’s scary really. One minute I'm sitting in the chair doing that download and the next I'm waking up in a vat of some kinda fluid in one'a the recombination tanks over at Genetek and they're telling me so and so amount of time has passed since my last update. Lost a year once."
"No way."
"Yeah," Zenigra laughed, "that's what I said."
"Do you know how you died?"
"First time, yeah. Gang war. I'd updated that day ‘cause we knew it was coming. Only lost a few hours. Second time, I got no clue. That's when I lost the year. Third time, well, I don't want to talk about that."
"When was the last time, if you don't mind me asking?"
Zenigra shrugged his massive shoulders, "Just before I started out toward Boston. Lost a month or two."
"Is that why you decided to go to Boston?"
"Summat like that. Like I said, I don't feel like talking about it."
"Sorry."
"Ain't no thang."
"So you didn't get Degenerative Clone Disease or anything right? When you cloned, I mean."
Zenigra shook his head, "DCD? Nah. Usually, that’s only when you clone a bunch."
"I heard you can get it your first time and that it can really mess you up. Like you can come out with three arms or not knowing who you are."
"Three arms?" Zenigra chuckled, "Sounds like you been listening to them there Christians too much fer ya own good."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"From what I heard, an' this could be all hot air of course, you get DCD when you clone too much ‘cause of the copy of a copy of a copy thing that happens. You get a clone. You die. You clone. Your clone gets a clone. He dies. He clones. He gets a clone. On an' on an' on. Things get lost in translation. You can't remember where you went to elementary school or your hand tingles all the time. Once it manifests, it only gets worse the more you clone."
"They don't have a cure for it, right?"
"They got treatments you can get if you catch it early enough. Supposed to fill in the blanks in ya DNA or something. Rebuild ya memories. I dunno how it works, just that it's more expensive than ten clones combined."
I nodded, taking in all the information.
"I wonder if I'll ever be able to afford one."
"You're a smart kid. Gonna go on to do grea
t things, I'm sure of it," Zenigra said, grinning at me.
"Thanks."
"Sure. Smart kids need their sleep though."
I laughed.
The news had been playing in the background, though I had only been watching it absently as Zenigra and I talked. Then, a name rang in my ears and the full weight of my attention slid, along with my eyes, to the TV. A petite Asian reporter was standing in front of a building that looked like a courthouse.
"Earlier today, well-known bounty hunter Vic Lansing was spotted entering the Judicial Hall dragging a bloody man by his shirt. Judges on scene refused to comment but an anonymous source from inside the hall told NLM that Lansing brought in a wanted fugitive for the high bounty on the man’s head. This comes after several sightings of Lansing in the Red Sector were called into NLM earlier today. Wait, wait, here he is now, walking out of the Hall." The camera panned away from the reporter to get a close-up of a helmeted man in black armor with a very familiar gun on his waist. He was walking out of the hall with two Judges walking behind him.
"Damn!" I exclaimed.
Zenigra turned his head to look at me curiously.
"I thought that guy was after me for awhile."
"You thought Vic Lansing was after you? That's a bit crazy, Sev. That vid was from Withmore City, that's on the West Coast."
"I'm telling you, it was him. He cornered me in a parking lot and told me he was taking me back to Miami. He shot two cops before he had to run ‘cause a bunch more were coming."
"No way," Zenigra said and shook his head. His gaze was on me instead of the TV. His expression wasn’t exactly blank, but rather the studied blankness of someone who’s trying to keep their thoughts off their face.
"Well, he's not looking for me anymore. I guess I lost him." My voice was excited. Relief swelled up inside me. Lansing popping out of the shadows or showing up at the plantation gate with loaded weapons telling Jack to turn me over to him or else was the stuff of my nightmares.
"That don't sound like Lansing. He's good. More'n likely he just got a better offer over there in Withmore."
I nodded, thinking. There was no doubt in my mind that the man that had confronted me in the parking lot back in July had been the man I'd just seen on TV. There was something about the way he moved, the way he stood. It was the same guy.
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