by Mur Lafferty
But he felt different, still.
He scrubbed himself with a towel, his skin stinging as he abused this new body. He paused to look down as he dried himself. Before, by twenty-five he had already begun to gain the weight that had blocked his feet from view for the past several years of his memory. The years of sedentary work had kept his muscles weak. But this body was different.
The muscles were tight, with very little fat. Still not as strong as Wolfgang, obviously, but this body was definitely fit. He had often resented clones’ ability to erase bad decisions made in one life with a new life, but for the first time he saw the allure. He had never looked this ripped.
But that’s what cloning was. An allure. A lure. Unspeakable temptation to a world of abomination—that was what the anti-clone priest, Father Gunter Orman, had called them. That phrase had stuck in Paul’s mind. He had known so many people who wanted to be cloned, who desperately wanted to live again, skip puberty, and try to “get it right” this time. Whereas most people who were cloned kept making the same mistakes, he had read.
He shook his head firmly and went to his closet to fetch a new jumpsuit to cover the body he wanted to deny. He ran his hands through his hair and left it standing up in a mess. He stared into the mirror and started at the wild look on his face. He didn’t look like a human plant on a clone ship. He looked like an unhinged man who needed hospitalization.
But he wasn’t human. Not anymore.
How did the others just accept this way of living right away?
More important, how was he going to acclimate to it? And most important, how was he going to continue his mission from here on out, now that the plan had gone completely off the rails and everyone was suspicious of everyone else?
He started to hyperventilate. He sat down heavily on the foot of the unmade bed and took some deep breaths, closing his eyes, willing his dizziness to slow down. Nausea rose again, and he swallowed, his mouth suddenly full of saliva.
No more dry heaves, please. No more any of this.
I have to find that journal. Before someone else does.
I just want to go home.
Paul’s Story
49 Years Ago
November 1, 2444
Sallie Mignon, trillionaire clone, patron of Obama University in Chicago, looked a lot smaller than Paul anticipated.
“Mr. Seurat,” she said as he entered her office. He extended his hand over her desk. She didn’t rise to shake it, and he pulled it back nervously.
She gestured to the leather chair facing her desk. “Have a seat.”
He did so.
She considered him for some time and then rose from her chair. “I have to say I’m curious as to why you’re looking for a job here. Your reputation precedes you.”
He swallowed. “I don’t know what I have done to get your attention, ma’am. I—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Paul. We haven’t had an anti-clone crusader as vocal as you since Gunter Orman.”
He swallowed. “I don’t—”
“You think I don’t vet every person who works here?”
Paul stared at her. “Every person, at the whole university?”
“Everyone who gets to your level of the interview process. I’m close to firing the assistant who passed me your résumé. Did you sleep with him to get the honor? I can’t imagine why anyone like you would want to work here.”
“I need a job,” he began, and handed her his résumé.
She threw it away. “Do you think I haven’t read this? Here. Let’s do something interesting. Get up.”
Baffled, he got to his feet. She walked around the desk to face him and he had a dizzying fear she was going to hit him. She pointed to her chair. “Sit.”
He moved, stumbling slightly against the cherry desk. He sat in her desk, not knowing where to put his hands.
She sat down in the interviewee’s chair. “Now, Ms. Mignon, I’m a vocal clone-hater. Why should you hire me?”
His mouth hung open and heat rushed to his face. He swallowed his objection and tried to play along. “Ah, well, the job is running the computer lab, and the politics of cloning don’t enter into it. You look very qualified to take that position.”
“But many clones go to school here,” she said. “There’s a less-than-zero chance of me avoiding interacting with the unnatural abominations.” Her voice remained perfectly calm, but he could hear the malice behind it.
He swallowed, grasping for any reason for her to hire him. He finally went for the truth. “Times are tough, uh, Mr. Seurat,” he said. “When you need a paycheck suddenly the opinions your church has taught you about clones seem less important than having an apartment.”
“So I only want a job from clones when homelessness is the alternative? Wow, I must be pretty shallow.” He opened his mouth to disagree, but she continued. “But to be honest, I haven’t been to a church service in twenty-seven months. Not even for Christmas. I’m as holy as a chocolate Easter bunny.”
He flushed again.
“You see, ma’am, I come from a long line of firefighters and police officers. Burly, dominant, honor-driven men and women. But many of them died during the clone riots seventy years ago.” She paused, looking out the window. “It was a terrible time on Luna, in Mexico City, in Chicago, all over. So much blood, so much death. Hundreds of humans. Hundreds of clones. And hundreds of emergency personnel. They didn’t have a dog in that race, they just wanted to keep the peace and protect the innocents. And they died for it. And since many were humans, they didn’t get to come back. All the clones did, like the riots had been nothing.”
“And then you built your hypocritical memorial atop their graves!” Paul said, losing the game. “My family’s blood spilled on that street, for absolutely nothing.”
“Were you there, Ms. Mignon?” she asked coldly. “Did you see how that day changed everyone? Did you share in my family’s experience of dying in a fire, with your hair burning up and your skin burning and flaking away?”
He didn’t answer. His face felt hot, while his neck felt clammy.
“I don’t remember,” he finally said, his mind a blank how to challenge this kind of interrogation.
“My family has held the pitchfork aloft for clone heads ever since. It’s admirable how they’ve managed to pass the hate down the generations until it got to me. We don’t go to church, but we do visit the Blue Shield Memorial every November.” She paused. “But we don’t go inside.”
After that, she dismissed him. Outside the brick building that was OU Admin, he looked at his tablet, at the last available job opening, the last one on the list because it was absolutely so far-fetched that he could get it, as well as the one he definitely didn’t want.
But he had nowhere else to go. He couldn’t even get a job waiting tables, and the bottom had fallen out of farming for online video game treasure. He’d already sold everything of value except his computer.
God, but this job. Leaving Earth forever. Working closely with clones. Getting cloned himself at the end of his life. Homelessness might be a better option.
He took a deep breath and made the call.
Two nights later he was sitting in his apartment, three days before eviction. He didn’t want to move home to the upper peninsula. Michigan had nothing for him anymore. He no longer had family in France. He stared blankly at his computer, flipping from an article on the local homeless shelter to the latest screed against cloning.
His messenger pinged. He opened the program and saw the head of a large man with dark skin. Okpere Martins, the man who’d interviewed him today. “Mr. Seurat,” he said, “it’s nice to see you again. Have you had a pleasant evening?”
“Sure,” Paul said, thinking bitterly about the terrible printed soup he’d gotten in the lobby of his apartment building.
Okpere looked as if he was waiting for a pleasant small-talk-fulfilling reply, but Paul was too depressed to comply. Finally the man cleared his throat. “I wanted to talk to you about th
e job.”
“Not right for the job? Already filled? What is it this time?” He didn’t bother with politeness. He was pretty sure Okpere was a clone, anyway.
“Not at all. You’re nearly perfect for the job. But we worry you won’t feel up to the task once we give you full disclosure about a few things.”
Perfect? He was perfect for the job? How was that possible? He perked up, cautiously hopeful. “What is it?”
“First, the ship is crewed by clones. That is how the generation ship will run with such a small crew. We’re unsure whether it’s wise to clone you for the first time while you’re already in the midst of an interstellar journey.”
“That’s a dealbreaker,” he said, nodding. Cloning would never be an option. He’d die for good first.
“Ah, well, I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” Okpere said, looking disappointed. “I hope you have a lovely night.”
Paul sighed loudly. Curiosity got the better of him. “Wait, all right, what’s the second thing? I might as well know everything before I decide.”
“This may be a larger issue,” Okpere warned. “The clones running the ship are criminals.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Paul said, the breath leaving his lungs in a slow wheeze.
“Not necessarily,” Okpere said, raising a finger. “It allows us to get cheap labor, and they will be working to clear their records. We anticipate no problems; the crew will have many reasons to keep their noses clean.”
“But who’s policing them?” he asked. “A bunch of criminals in charge of a ship in outer space?”
“An AI will have full control of the ship should something go wrong. That’s where you come in. Where you would come in, that is, if you were to take the job. A backup to the AI.”
Handling the computers of such a ship, with an advanced AI. Paul was momentarily dizzy at the opportunity, even forgetting the downsides.
But that was a lot to work against. “I’m neither a criminal nor a clone. Why would you waste your time calling me?”
“My assistant suggested something to me that we think may be a good workaround.”
“I won’t be killed tomorrow just to be cloned, will I?”
He laughed, a short, sharp “Hah!” that startled Paul. “Not at all. We will falsify a past for you. Past clones, past crimes. No one will be talking about their pasts on the ship anyway, so you don’t have to think up a bunch of lies. You’d be a cloned criminal on paper, that’s all.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it. “I—you mean you really didn’t find a clone, even a shoplifting clone, as good for the job as I am?”
Okpere leaned into the computer as if they were close in person. “There are some people who are working on this ship who do not like the fact that it’s crewed by only clones. They like the idea of one human on the crew. Being older clones, and criminals, the crew is headstrong and stubborn. They want one more stopgap: a human who won’t toe the clone line. If they decide to mutiny, steal the ship, kill the cryo cargo, enslave the humans aboard, you will have to stop it.”
He sat back and raised his voice again, losing the conspiratorial tone. “But as you said, you don’t seem up for it. I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Good evening, Mr. Seurat.”
And he hung up.
“No—wait!” Paul cried, watching the window disappear from his computer. He slammed his fists down on the desk.
“Dammit,” he muttered.
He stayed up all night, drinking coffee and pacing. There were so many factors, he had to go over every bit. Okpere had acted like the job was his if he wanted it. But he had shown reluctance.
Idiot. Principles are easy to have when you have a place to live and regular meals.
During the interview, Okpere told him that he would start getting paid immediately for training, even though it was a few decades until launch. He was promised a land grant on the other side of the journey, as well as a free cryo slot for a friend or family member. He didn’t have anyone like that, but he could sell that for a nice price, he figured.
He’d have income. An amazing job working with an AI. An exciting adventure on a new planet. He wouldn’t be evicted.
He finally collapsed onto his bed—which was a mattress on the floor—and slept fitfully, with nightmares of dying in vacuum with a hundred identical men watching him out of the portholes of a spaceship. He woke in a sour mood.
How did he think he could work with clones in close quarters for four hundred years? On a job that wouldn’t even begin for twenty-five years? The idea was madness.
There was nothing left to lose. He launched a call window and prayed Okpere would answer.
Okpere’s face popped up, looking confused but pleased. “Good morning, Mr. Seurat! What can I do for you?”
“Morning,” Paul said, sipping too-hot instant coffee and burning his mouth. “You said I was perfect for the job, but then rescinded it. What if I were interested?”
Okpere looked sad, as if he had to deliver news of a death. “I’m sorry. Right now, it’s pointless. I am going to have to rescind the offer, regardless of your interest. We were doing some research on you and, well, we found that your family was heavily involved in the Chicago clone riots seventy years ago. Is that correct?”
“That’s right,” Paul said, his mouth growing dry. “Mostly police and firefighters.”
“We found out—a staggering coincidence, this—that one of the prominent clone leaders of the time who was involved with the riots will also be on the Dormire crew. We could never ask you to work beside someone who caused your family such anguish.”
Paul’s mouth hung open. As much of a grudge as his family had carried against the people who rioted that day, they never knew the names of any of the clones involved. This was a present delivered to him, wrapped in his dream job.
“Mr. Martins, it’s been seventy years. It’s time to bury the hatchet in the interest of forward progress,” he heard himself saying. “I want the job.”
Okpere Martins finished the conversation with the suspicious yet eager human and then called his employer, putting in his earphone mike. He headed outside into the sunshine to walk to his favorite coffee cart. Watching Mr. Seurat drink cheap, obviously terrible coffee had made him long for the real stuff.
“Good morning,” he said when his employer answered. “Masterful work, ma’am. As soon as I told Seurat about his family’s old enemy being on board, he was desperate for the job. He’s accepted the position.”
“Very good,” said Sallie Mignon.
IAN’s Discovery
Where’s Paul?” Maria said as she came into the medbay with a tray of sandwiches and a coffeepot.
“He left because he’s bloody useless,” Wolfgang said. He was sitting up on his cot, glaring at everyone he could focus on.
“Pretty much,” agreed Joanna. “And lie back down if you don’t want to throw up,” she told Wolfgang. “You don’t need to be on constant alert. We’re fine.”
She stood back and wiped her forehead, which was glistening with sweat. She had been prepping Hiro for surgery, and he was asleep, his hip isolated with a tent. She’d moved him as far away from the others as she could. “I could use a hand. One bullet is still inside.”
Maria put the tray down on the counter near the doctor’s terminal. She grabbed a towel and wiped Joanna’s forehead, then went to wash her hands. “And how are you, Wolfgang?”
She glanced over when he didn’t reply. He had fallen asleep.
“Finally,” Joanna said. “He’s going to work himself into early dementia if he doesn’t get some rest. He wanted to chase Paul down for mutiny because he deals with blood about as well as he deals with nudity.”
“How’s the captain?” Maria asked, joining the doctor at Hiro’s bed. Katrina lay asleep on her cot, face heavily bandaged.
“Sedated. She’s got an IV drip of nanobot-enhanced Lyfe going in to mend her wounds. She won’t get the eye back, though.”
“Our third
day with possibly our final bodies and we ruin everything,” Maria said, touching her own swollen face. “I guess I got off lucky.”
Maria helped Joanna get the bullet out of Hiro and did the cleanup suturing as Joanna prepared the synthetic blood transfusion.
“The crew is down to three, Doc,” Maria said as she secured the last stitch. “Are you in charge now that the command staff is down for the count?”
Joanna went over to her sink and washed the blood off her hands. “I guess I am. But you know your jobs, right?”
“Make meals. Wash blood off the walls. Stitch up Hiro. Got it,” Maria said, and flexed her injured wristal, wincing. “I’m going to feel that in the morning. Maybe my next body will have better upper-body strength. If I get one.”
“Do you have the energy to get back to the cloning bay?”
Maria winced inwardly, but nodded. “I kind of have to, don’t I?”
“How about if Paul helps?”
“I think it’s best if I work alone. I’ve got a system by now,” she said. Besides, who knows what other clues I’ll find?
Joanna nodded. “Sure. I need to stay in here to watch them. I don’t know what will happen when Hiro wakes up.”
Maria was very glad she was alone in the cloning bay. IAN decided to keep her company.
“So guess what?” he asked.
“What?” Maria said, screwing the last clean filter onto the vents.
“That restraining code was a pain in the metaphorical ass. Because while you were adventuring belowdecks I found something.”
“Some logs?” Maria asked hopefully. “Mindmap backups?”
“Personal logs. Some people are better with setting firewalls than others. I found your logs.”
“Well, what did they say?” Maria tried not to show excitement. She was learning that the new and improved—or at least unrestrained—IAN loved stringing them along when he could.
Her own voice, tinny and far away, came through the nearest speaker.
