Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 114

by Neil Clarke

  I notice her expectant gaze. “Then—do you want me to join the foundation?”

  “That would be the most perfect outcome. Tony Lee would without a doubt be the finest spokesperson for the Tony Lee Charitable Foundation.” She shrugs. “But you won’t join.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because your body language and your expression give you away,” she says. “You don’t want this, and this kind of work doesn’t suit you anyway—either way, I want you to make your own choices. From your reaction just now, I think you’re far more interested in the spaceship.”

  I relax my hands, held tightly all this time in front of my chest. “It’s true; a research ship does sound interesting.”

  “And also mad,” she says. “As your mother, I don’t want you to go. I don’t want you to become a research subject again.”

  Her gaze now seems to truly carry a deep love. I don’t understand her at all. “I’m sorry—I’ll make up my own mind.”

  “Of course. I have no right to tell you what to do.” She lets out a soft sigh. “But I still want to tell you that you’re my most perfect creation, so perfect that you frighten me.”

  “Why?”

  “Every time I saw you, heard about you, or even earlier, when I was pregnant with you and felt you, I experienced such terror.” She looks out the window. “Because once I turned my head and saw the pile of trash in my lab, I’d suddenly realize the vast distance between myself and the Creator. I’d worry if I’d made a mistake from the very start, because I’d broken His rules.”

  “You weren’t wrong,” I say. “You saved my life.”

  “At a price.” Her voice softens, revealing a deep exhaustion. “An enormous price that you can never imagine.”

  Everything happens just as she predicted.

  Controversy after controversy concerning chimeras and human experimentation erupt, and every politician and college student seems to have something to say about the subject.

  The dispute of the century ends three years later with news of Edmund’s “death.” His obituary, in combination with a new paper, deals a mortal blow to her opponents.

  The revolutionaries reap the fruits of their victory, and the conservatives, in the face of ironclad proof, wilt and fade. Chen Ying’s timely announcement of the research spaceships turns into the last lifeline for these drowning ethicists to clutch. The wild plan easily gains everyone’s support: immortality proves to be an irresistible temptation for all, and even the wealthiest can’t obtain a ticket aboard the ships.

  Of course, obtaining a ticket isn’t a problem for me.

  I end up boarding Eden after all. Called by a strange impulse and yearning deep in my heart, I abandon my family, my friends, my job—everything I have on Earth. At the embarkation ceremony, I watch Chen Ying, the captain, deliver a speech.

  “From today on, this is our ship. My dearest friend named it Eden, for it carries humanity’s wildest dream, and because it will bring us new life.”

  E. The Complex Chimera

  “It’s still a child,” Luo Ming said. “This explains everything.”

  “What do you mean? What exactly is ‘it’?” Qin Wei asked, confused.

  “Adam,” Luo Ming replied. “Or, to be more accurate, ‘it’ is the collective made up of the Adams within all 109 cultivation cabins. They’ve connected with one another to create an enormous creature that thinks, breathes, and bleeds—a complex chimera.”

  Qin Wei paused for three seconds before he processed what Luo Ming was saying. “Preposterous! How could this be?”

  “Yes, that’s really what it is. Originally, it wasn’t supposed to have thoughts, but you placed brains into its body, thereby giving it consciousness. All chimera experiments prohibit the creation of a nervous system—this was a basic rule put in place during the design of the Adam matrix, but you’ve broken it.”

  Luo Ming noticed that the captain had stopped outside the cultivation cabin to listen to his explanation. “It’s extremely smart, but, at the same time, extremely naïve. After observing for a long time, it was clever enough to break into and take over the monitoring system for the cultivation cabins, but it had no idea that the hospital ordering system even existed. Now it’s trying to imitate us. It found a human corpse to study and analyze, and it’s trying to use these organs to create a self—it really thinks of itself as the Adam of lore, so it’s trying to create an Eve. God, this is too funny!”

  “Enough!” Qin Wei shouted. “I need you to provide me with evidence, Officer Luo, and not mere crackpot theories.”

  “I believe that, in every cultivation cabin, you’ll find extra organs that haven’t been ordered—for example, eyes, because it’s eager to learn about this world.” Luo Ming was speaking quickly, his tongue racing to catch up with his thoughts. “Please send someone to check—oh, it must also have had help moving the corpses and limbs into the cultivation cabins, unintelligent helpers that it could easily control.”

  Luo Ming trailed off as a police droid entered. It was carrying a whole set of human ribs. Seeing Qin Wei and Luo Ming, it stopped, dazed, as though it didn’t know what it was supposed to do.

  “I’ve long said that the ship’s intelligence systems are too primitive.” Unwittingly, Luo Ming had borrowed one of Edmund’s phrases. “If the complex chimera can take over the monitoring system, then controlling these police droids would be child’s play.”

  The appearance of the confused police droid forced Qin Wei to accept Luo Ming’s conclusion: the one responsible for the series of incidents was Adam, the soul of Eden. After a hundred years of growth, it awakened the brains stored inside its pouches, dreamed up its own ideas, and was now trying to use the organs it had cultivated to create a new human-shaped self.

  “I’ll go check for those eyes you mentioned.” Qin Wei’s face was dark as he exited the cultivation cabin. Luo Ming watched him leave.

  Alone with Luo Ming in the cabin, the police droid came back to life and shut the door.

  Luo Ming heard his own heart thumping. This was no good. He had no idea where Edmund was, and this police droid looked much stronger than he was.

  “Did you find me,” the police droid said, “because you are me?”

  “Are . . . are you speaking through that thing?” Luo Ming stared at the pair of eyes hanging in the corner of the cultivation cabin—light brown with a hint of gray.

  “I am,” replied the police droid under the control of the complex chimera. “Please answer my question, Tony Lee.”

  “When did you discover my true identity?” Luo Ming countered.

  “When I first received your organ order,” the chimera said. “You asked for eyes. My eyes.”

  Those are my eyes—Luo Ming gazed into those irises, recalling the close-up photograph sealed away in his memories.

  “So I was the one who triggered your self-awareness.” He let out a soft sigh. “Yes, I felt your presence the very first time I entered a cultivation cabin. I deduced everything from that feeling.”

  “Would I have grown to look like you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ve failed; I didn’t create Eve.” The police droid looked down at the floor, then carefully placed the ribs atop the human skin. “Why? Tell me: where did I go wrong?”

  “This isn’t the way humans create new life.”

  “But this is how you created me. You put different things into my body, and then I became me.” The police droid looked at him, puzzled. “And I also know that I’m the same as you.”

  “No, you and I are not the same. We weren’t born in this way—even you weren’t born like this.” Luo Ming took a step back, gingerly making his way toward the cabin door.

  “How are we different? My cells are identical to yours.” The pair of eyeballs stared at Luo Ming.

  “Only some parts are the same.” Luo Ming burst through the cabin door, leaping out without any hesitation. Only after he landed did he yell, “Edmund!”

  The si
lhouette of the police droid froze by the cabin door. Edmund had appeared just in time to take control of it. “Nice work,” said Luo Ming.

  But there was no response.

  “What’s the matter?” Luo Ming tapped his ear. “Didn’t you do this? Stop hiding!”

  “I used the ship’s control system to lock down all police droids.” The captain answered him. “Thank you for helping us uncover the truth, Officer Luo—or do you prefer Tony Lee?”

  “Whatever you want.” Luo Ming looked at her. “I suppose you’ve known about my identity for a long time, Captain Chen Ying.”

  “Of course. Do you think I would have allowed you to gallivant about my ship, poking your nose into everything otherwise?” Chen Ying glared at him. “Enough. Don’t play innocent with me. Your acting skills are nowhere near your mother’s. Let me see: taking over a police droid, hmm? And stealing information from my cabin—do you need me to list out every violation you’ve committed over the years?”

  Luo Ming tried to placate her with a grin. “All in the service of solving cases, Your Excellency.”

  Chen Ying harrumphed. “I have to admit you’ve done a good job.”

  “Thank you for your approval.”

  Chen Ying shook her head, deciding to change the topic. “I’ve already directed the ship to land. Luckily, we happen to be headed toward Earth already. The regenerative medicine group will send scientists to study this complex chimera. Eden’s mission is over, and I’ve done my duty to your mother.”

  “I’d say you’ve done a good job, too,” Luo Ming said.

  “Have you kept your distance from me because I was your mother’s lover?” Chen Ying suddenly asked.

  Luo Ming couldn’t help laughing. “I’m sorry, but my mother has never ‘loved’ anyone.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Love requires being with someone; words of love are just lies,” Luo Ming said. “She would never have wasted time being with anyone.”

  Chen Ying looked at him. “Are you sure?”

  6. Epilogue

  Before I leave Eden, I go find Chen Ying.

  “She passed away not even a month after you saw her for the last time,” Chen Ying says. “Of course, she’d already planned everything.”

  “I guessed.” It was around then that I received the AI Edmund as a gift.

  Chen Ying takes me to the medical research facility under Deck Seven. Her real tomb is hidden there: a small, white box, not a single word anywhere on it.

  “Is this really what she wanted?” I ask.

  “Actually, I decided to bring her with me when we loaded the ship.” Chen Ying laughs bitterly. “She wouldn’t have cared where she’s buried, anyway.”

  “But to be on a spaceship—” I think about it. “Forget it. This is fine.”

  Chen Ying looks at me. “Thank you.” After a pause, she says, “From the very beginning, I knew she wanted me only for my ships.”

  “What happened between my mother and you is none of my business.”

  But she goes on, speaking to herself. “My family was among the first to get into the space assembly business, and the first to construct a ship large enough for interstellar colonization—I’m sorry, I know you don’t want to hear any of this.”

  “Uh—” I hesitate for a moment. “Please go on.”

  “To make a long story short, by the time I met her, we’d already completed the designs for the spaceships and the preliminary investment. The first time she saw me, she asked me right away whether she could borrow a couple ships for research. I thought she was nuts—each ship cost hundreds of billions!”

  That sounds just like my mother. “I can imagine that.”

  “To change my mind, she switched to an equally ridiculous method of persuasion. I was younger than her by six years. I had two children, but I’d never gotten married. At first, I told my boyfriend about her as a joke.”

  “But she succeeded in the end.”

  Chen Ying sighs. “Yep.”

  “That’s just how she was,” I tell her. “My father was more or less in the same situation.”

  “She was . . . very unique.” Chen Ying pauses and looks at me again. “When I hesitated about starting a relationship with her, she said something that changed me. She could plant her ideas into your heart and make it seem like they were native to the soil.”

  My curiosity overcame the awkwardness of hearing about my mother’s love life. “What did she say?”

  “She said, ‘You’re standing inside a cage that I can’t see, but outside the cage is the whole world. I’ll be here waiting for you to come out, and then you’ll see that there’s nothing to be scared of.’”

  I’m reminded of a recording of an interview my father did shortly after setting up the Tony Lee Charitable Foundation. That was the one time he and my mother appeared together on TV after their divorce, and they’d appeared only to respond to the attacks on chimera experiments. The host was losing in verbal jousting with my mother and decided to change tactics by turning to my father: “I’d really like to know why you’ve agreed to work with the former Mrs. Lee. Didn’t she abandon you and Tony?”

  My father paused thoughtfully, and then said, “We’ve chosen different paths in life, but, as her friend, I’ve never doubted her wisdom and courage. You must understand that she’s not an ordinary person like you and me.”

  “How is she different?” asked the host.

  “We’re often bound by custom and habit, but she’s not. She doesn’t even understand why we’re confined by these rules, unable to keep up with her. Marriage, science, what have you—to her, these are all mere problems to be solved. She’s like a curious child, afraid of nothing, intent on finding out what the world beyond the fence is like—this is why she was able to successfully create a chimera, and it’s also why she can now save lives through Adam.”

  While he spoke, the camera was focused instead on my mother’s face. Her perfect little smile disappeared, replaced by confusion and surprise. I can’t remember if I asked Edmund a question while watching the recording or if he had jumped in on his own initiative, but I distinctly remember the AI’s commentary:

  “She thought she knew the truth about everything, but she didn’t know the truth about herself—only your father understood her.”

  F. Regeneration

  The last person to disembark from Eden was Lin Ke—the woman who was so upset by her organ cancellation that she reported it to the police, and who suffered a heart attack upon seeing Cabin 35.

  After three days of emergency medical treatment, her heart was still on the verge of failure. And, due to oxygen deprivation, her cerebrum was barely alive. Having obtained the captain’s authorization, the doctors decided to take the extraordinary step of conducting an emergency transplant with two organs found in the cultivation cabins—they certainly weren’t hers, but they came back negative on the lymphocyte cross-matching test. Unexpectedly, the procedure was a complete success.

  A week later, Lin Ke, supported by a doctor, disembarked from Eden. Standing together with Luo Ming, they waited for the shuttle to take them back to Earth. She said “hello” to Luo Ming, who recognized her as the woman who had first pursued the mysterious organ cancellations and who had collapsed in front of Cabin 35.

  After some small talk, he said, “So, you’ve recovered?”

  “Thanks to organ replacement surgery,” she said, “How did you solve the case?”

  “That’s quite a story.” Since she was the first witness, he felt comfortable recounting for her the details of the mystery, including the part where all the Adams had joined to become a complex chimera.

  “Incredible!” Lin Ke’s eyes shone as she listened. “How’s the pig—I mean, how’s the complex chimera doing now?”

  Luo Ming looked at her, startled. “Wait, did you just say ‘pig’?”

  “I’ve got some strange ideas in my head now.” She laughed sheepishly. “You told me all the cultivation cabins are joined in
to one chimera; maybe a part of ‘it’ is now in my brain.”

  “Did you have a cerebrum transplant? I thought those weren’t possible!”

  “Ah, yes, but the doctors had to try to save my life,” she said. “They used a preserved brain from Cabin Zero instead of one grown from scratch. My current brain must have spent quite a long time in Cabin Zero.”

  Luo Ming nodded. “I’m glad the risky surgery worked out. But are you still ‘Lin Ke’?”

  “Who knows.” She shrugged. “I don’t plan to see her friends any time soon, at least.”

  Luo Ming felt a sense of déjà vu when he saw her warm and cunning smile. Uneasy, he cleared his throat and said, “The complex chimera is still on Deck Seven. Right now Eden is swarming with regenerative medicine specialists.”

  “So that’s what’s going on! After you go back to Earth, what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll travel the world after so many years spent cooped up in a ship.”

  She smiled again. “Sounds like a great plan.”

  The shuttle arrived at the port. Luo Ming stepped through the door and turned around. He found Lin Ke rooted to her spot.

  “Do you need help?” he asked.

  She dismissed him with a little wave. “I’ve decided to stay on the ship, Tony. This time, I won’t abandon it again.”

  Luo Ming’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “I’ve spent more than a century with you—I think that’s long enough,” she said. “My other child needs me now.”

  Before Luo Ming could try to go back to her, the doors to the shuttle hissed shut. He pounded with all his might against the metal panels, but they didn’t budge at all. “Dammit! Open the door! Please, open the door!”

  But the shuddering of the floor told him that the shuttle had already taken off. Luo Ming looked out the window in despair. The space station was already several kilometers away. He would never again see “Lin Ke.”

  He held his breath, and, fingers trembling, found her in his long contacts list.