Falling Sideways

by Tom Holt

  ‘There you go,’ he said.

  ‘Thanks.’

  “S all right. Did you say two sugars?’

  David nodded.

  ‘That’s all right, then, ‘cos I put two sugars in there.’ David was so wrapped up in the computer problem that it took several seconds for the implications of that last remark to sink in. ‘John.’

  David asked the question very calmly. ‘Did you, um, nip out and get some sugar, then? Only there wasn’t any, if you remember.’

  John shook his head. ‘Well, there’s plenty there now,’ he replied. ‘Whole new packet. But I didn’t—’

  He didn’t get to finish the sentence; he was too busy sidestepping to avoid being crashed into, as David sprang up out of his chair and sprinted across the work­shop towards the back office. John called out some mildly bewildered enquiry after him as he grabbed the handle and tore open the door.

  The room on the other side of the door was (surprise, surprise) completely bare and painted a blinding shade of white. There was no trace whatsoever of a bag of sugar. But the room wasn’t completely empty.

  Standing in the exact centre of the floor was Philippa Levens.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘Oh,, she said. ‘It’s you.’

  —Which saved him having to ask, ‘Excuse me, but which one are you?’ On the other hand, it went some way towards answering the question, ‘Why did you come back?’ by ruling out the one answer he’d have liked to hear.

  ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘it’s me. What are you doing here? I thought you were going home.’

  ‘I was.’ She looked past him, presumably searching for the door. ‘I changed my mind.’

  ‘Oh. Why?’

  ‘None of your business. Where is this?’

  Well, he guessed she wanted something a bit more specific than ‘Earth’. ‘Watford,’ he said.

  ‘Never heard of it. Why am I here?’

  Neither the time nor the place for a facetious answer. ‘This is the, um, cloning place. Only it’s moved. We packed everything up and brought it here to get away from the police.’

  She nodded, dismissing the explanation as both suffi­cient and irrelevant. Marvellous command of body language and facial expression; she could probably do the whole of Peer Gynt just with eyebrow movements. ‘Who’s “we”?’ she said.

  ‘Me and Honest John. You know, the man who does the cloning. Your dad. One of him.’

  She shrugged, as if sliding out of a wet bathrobe. ‘Don’t think I’ve met that one.’

  ‘He’s different from the others,’ David said. ‘Actually, I can’t figure him out at all. But I trust him.’

  ‘Good for you,’ she replied, yawning. ‘Well, I’d better go and talk to him.’

  ‘All right.’

  She frowned. ‘I’ll find it much easier to do that if you shift your fat bum from in front of the door.’

  Actually, it wasn’t fat; even David, who’d always had the self-esteem of a soggy cardboard box, knew that. In which case, if the comment wasn’t factually accurate, it was an attempt to be deliberately offensive. Another less than optimistic sign. Without a word, he got out of the way.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ she called out over her shoulder. He followed.

  Honest John had gone back to tinkering with his machine. He was lying under it, with only his legs stick­ing out. She attracted his attention by kicking his ankle.

  ‘Mind what you’re bloody well— Oh.’ John looked at her. ‘I know you,’ he said, getting up.

  ‘John,’ David called out, ‘this is—’

  ‘Of course you know me,’ she said wearily. ‘And can we do without the small talk, please? I’ve had a thor­oughly horrible journey and I’m not in the mood.’

  John looked straight past her. ‘This is the one I did for you, isn’t it?’ he said.

  David chewed his lower lip. ‘Sort of,’ he said. ‘In a sense.’

  ‘Bloody awful attitude she’s got,’ John went on. ‘Maybe I didn’t set the jumpers right when I reconfig­ured. Sorry about that.’

  ‘Not your fault,’ David said. ‘In fact—’

  ‘Hey. I’m still here, you know.’

  ‘In fact,’ David went on, ‘my fault. All my fault. You see—’

  ‘Not a lot I can do about it now, of course,’ Honest John said, shrugging his shoulders. (Though not nearly as elegantly as she’d done it: imagine the ‘Dying Swan’ performed by (a) Pavlova (b) Mo Mowlem; that degree of difference.) ‘Least, not from the technical side. A good clip round the ear’s about all I can suggest.’

  She gave John a look you could have cached a mam­moth in. ‘Whoever this person is,’ she said, ‘he’s not my father. Looks a little like him, I suppose, but that’s all.’

  David took a step back, scrutinising each of them in turn. One or both of them was pretending, but so far he hadn’t seen anything to indicate which one it was.

  ‘What’s she on about now?’ John asked.

  ‘Nothing,’ David said. ‘At least—’

  ‘You.’ She pushed past him and planted herself about eighteen inches from Honest John. ‘You set all this up, didn’t you? All the cloning stuff.’

  John nodded. ‘What’s it to you?’ he said.

  ‘And you cloned someone just like me? From a bit of old hair?’

  ‘Dave.’ John was frowning. It was a rather ominous sight. ‘What did she mean by that, someone just like her? Isn’t this the one I did for you?’

  ‘Not really.’ David had a very strong urge to be some­where or someone or even something else. ‘Same pattern, but not the same, um, individual.’

  ‘Bloody hell. So where’d she come from, then? Jump out of a birthday cake or something?’

  ‘I, um.’ They were both looking at him. ‘Well, you weren’t there, and I was feeling thoroughly pissed off, and—’

  ‘She’s not the one I did?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then who did her?’

  What’s the single most embarrassing word in the English language? At that moment, David knew exactly what it was. ‘Me.’

  ‘But you don’t know how,’ John said. ‘You don’t know how to do the settings or compensate for drift or any of that stuff. You can’t just go dropping things in tanks, it’s asking for a bloody disaster.’

  ‘You know,’ said the Philippa clone, dangerously sweetly, ‘you’re wasted in this line of work, you should have been a diplomat. Just think of all the fascinating wars you could’ve started.’

  ‘I know,’ David replied. ‘At least, I know now. I didn’t then. It, um, seemed like a good idea at the—’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud.’ John shook his head, as if this was the most terrible thing he could possibly imag­ine. ‘You don’t set the jumpers right, you get corrupt data paths, random meme fluxes, personality disorders like you wouldn’t believe—’ He sighed, like the wind whispering through the ribcage of a buffalo skeleton on the open prairie. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said, ‘people are flicked up enough as it is without that kind of stuff as well. I wouldn’t do what you just did to a frog.’

  Interesting example to choose, David couldn’t help thinking, but that wasn’t really the point at issue; at that precise moment, frogs were so far down the agenda you’d need a spade to reach them. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. Like I said, I didn’t know.’

  ‘Just a minute!’ The Philippa clone had a surprisingly loud voice for someone of her size and build. ‘There you two are, talking about me as if I was Chernobyl or something. I hate to contradict you gentlemen, but I’m not actually as bad as all that.’ She glared at them both. ‘One of you agree with me quick, or I’m going to start breaking bones.’

  ‘Oh.’ David’s face turned the colour of raw steak. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, there’s nothing really the matter with you—’

  The clone made a noise like a suspension bridge in the last throes of metal fatigue. ‘Thank you so much,’ she snarled. ‘Nothing really the mat
ter with me. I’ll say this for you, you don’t muck about with all that com­pare-thee-to-a-summer’s-day palaver. Nothing really the matter, for God’s sake!’

  ‘See?’ Honest John said sadly. ‘Skip the set-up proce­dures and this is what you get. Hysterical outbursts. Yelling and stamping and chucking things about—’ He ducked, just in time, as a medium adjustable wrench whizzed through the space his head had been occupying. ‘Not to mention bloody awful hand-eye coordination,’ he added, rather unfairly.

  David scuttled across and stood in front of Honest John. ‘Really,’ he said, ‘it’s all my fault.’

  ‘Oh, shut up and get out of the way,’ the clone replied. ‘You’re not to blame, you’re just an idiot. But he shouldn’t have left all this stuff lying about in the first place.’

  ‘You should have told me,’ John went on, ‘really you should. This is delicate scientific equipment, you could’ve screwed up all the default settings. Why the hell people can’t just leave well alone . .

  ‘Yes,’ David interrupted, ‘all right.’ He faced the clone squarely. ‘You didn’t say why you came back,’ he said.

  ‘None of your business,’ she replied. ‘Oh, all right, then, just so long as you stop staring at me like that. It’s enough to make me want to throw up.’

  ‘The question,’ David reminded her.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m just getting to it. I came back to warn you.’

  David did a double take. ‘Me? That is, warn me about what?’

  She tried to point round him. ‘Them,’ she said. ‘Or him. That’s where it gets confusing. Particularly,’ she added, ‘since you made such a mess of my memory. There’s great big bits missing, and so the people I was talking to—’

  ‘Who?’ John interrupted.

  ‘Back home. And I’m not talking to you, so shut up. The people at Immigration. At first they were going to arrest me, because they thought I was her.’

  ‘You are her,’ John put in.

  ‘Did someone just say something?’ she asked. ‘Or is there an echo in here? They thought,’ she went on, ‘that I was what was the charming way they put it? They thought that I was an illegal alien called Philippa Levens. But then I told them about how I’d been made out of slimy green goo a few hours earlier, and that got them interested right away.’

  ‘When she says “back home”,’ John said, ‘what the bloody hell is she talking about?’

  ‘Quiet!’ David commanded. ‘When you told them you’re a clone—’

  She nodded. ‘They’ve got another term for it,’ she said, ‘but it isn’t very nice. The point is, back home —and I would have known this, if I didn’t have a half-eaten plate of alphabet soup where my memory should be — back home, this cloning stuff is very, very illegal. They go berserk if you even mention it. So they said I couldn’t stay, I had to come back. So I did.’

  ‘Oh.’ David’s face fell like one of Galileo’s experi­ments. ‘You said you came to warn me.’

  ‘That’s what I’m doing, idiot. At least, if you give me half a chance, that’s what I’m going to do. What they told me was that at some stage, he — the original, I mean — he did a copy of himself, but he got it wrong, and it turned out bad. Really, really bad. Not just scram­bled-eggs-for-brains, like me, but nasty and horrible and vicious—’

  ‘Like I told you,’ John muttered, peering over David’s shoulder, ‘if you don’t set those jumpers — I mean, you can see for yourself. Look at that face she’s pulling.’

  ‘Vicious,’ the clone repeated, ‘and also vindictive and very, very cunning. And as soon as it found out what it was, and that it’d been called into existence just because its creator was too bone idle to wash his own socks and keep the workshop tidy, it decided to get its own back. And you know how it did that?’

  ‘I can guess,’ David said quietly.

  ‘Handful of hairs in the cloning tank,’ she said, ‘when the boss wasn’t looking. So, to cut a long story short, there’s one genuine one of him, and all the rest are just out to make trouble.’

  ‘Where did you say all this happened?’ John asked. They ignored him.

  ‘All right,’ David said. ‘Now, is there any way of knowing which one’s the original?’

  The clone nodded. ‘Apparently,’ she said. ‘Didn’t sound very convincing to me, but they’re sure it’ll work. Worth a try, anyhow.’

  ‘So?’ David demanded. ‘What is it?’

  She shook her head. ‘Don’t be a complete idiot,’ she said. ‘I can hardly tell you with him standing right there earwigging, now can I?’

  ‘But—’ What David didn’t say was that if what she’d said was true, he was ninety-nine per cent sure that Honest John had to be original, because he was nice. In a sense. Nice as far as miserable old gits go. But she was glowering past him at Honest John with an expression on her face that you could have dissolved iron in, so instead he said, ‘Well, I suppose you can’t be too careful. And if something’s worth doing—’

  ‘She’s off her rocker,’ John said. ‘Next off, she’ll be telling you she’s really from another planet, or some­thing.’

  David shook his head. ‘No, I know that already. Anyway, you be quiet.’ He looked back at the clone. ‘Come outside and you can tell me—’

  The clone scowled at him. ‘What, and leave him here on his own, with all these tools and equipment? I’m not turning my back on any of ‘em, at least not till we’ve figured out which is which.’

  John pushed past David and stood looking at her for a moment. ‘Get real, son, will you?’ he said. ‘You don’t want to go believing anything she tells you. God’s sake, she’s a bad clone, the jumpers weren’t set, like I told you. Chances are she’s all those things she said, you know, vicious and vindictive and cunning, and she’s out to get her own back on you for making her in the first place. Who are you going to believe, Dave? Her or me?’

  ‘Why can’t I believe both of you?’

  ‘You just can’t, that’s all.’ Honest John looked away. ‘Go on, you tell him. I’m right, aren’t I?’

  ‘He’s right,’ the clone said, nodding assertively. ‘Bizarrely enough, I agree with him. Which of us is it going to be?’

  Actually, the question was pretty straightforward and didn’t require any thought. ‘Her,’ said David, hoping they wouldn’t ask why. (Because he’s more likely to be telling the truth, but she’s the one I’m in love with. Or words — desperately embarrassing words — to that effect.)

  ‘Bloody marvellous,’ John said. ‘All right, what do you want me to do? Wait outside?’

  The Philippa clone shook her head. ‘And give you a chance to make a run for it? Not likely.’

  ‘But hang on,’ David interrupted. ‘If we can’t go out­side, and he can’t go outside, and you can’t tell me while he’s listening—’

  ‘Who says I’ve got to tell you anyhow? Just so long as I know and you believe me.’

  This was getting silly. ‘Come over here,’ David said firmly — apparently he could do that, though he couldn’t remember learning how — ‘and whisper. All right?’

  She scowled at him, but by now he was moderately scowlproof. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘But if he hears, it’ll spoil everything.’

  ‘Fine,’ John grunted. ‘And while you’re doing that, I can be getting on with some work. You know, work, the stuff I’m paying you to do.’

  David walked over to the opposite corner of the work­shop. ‘All right,’ he whispered. ‘So what’s this special secret clue of yours? If it’s something like not being able to see his reflection in a mirror.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she whispered back, ‘it’s nothing like that. But all clones have got a mark on the backs of their heads. Look,’ she added, quickly glancing across at Honest John, to make sure he wasn’t watching. ‘There, see?’ She lifted her hair away from her neck. Sure enough, there was a little mark, a star-shaped twist of scar tissue.

  David nodded. He found it completely unconvinc­ing,
for some reason, which was awkward, since of course he had to believe her, on political grounds. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Stay there, I’ll go and check.’

  ‘I’m coming too.’

  ‘No, you aren’t. Stay there.’

  Remarkably, she stayed. No earthly reason why she should have.

  ‘Hello,’ muttered Honest John, without looking up from what he was doing. Of course, he had shoulder-length hair, just like all the other versions of himself. That made it impossible to see the back of his neck. Surprise, surprise.

  ‘John,’ David asked, keeping his voice down, ‘you know all about clones.’

  ‘Not all. Most.’

  ‘Whatever. Is there really a way of telling them apart from, um, real people, just by looking at them?’

  ‘Yeah.’ John picked up a spanner — a big, ugly spanner

  that’d make a pretty effective weapon. ‘Several, actually. But the one your bird over there’s probably thinking of is the scar on the back of the neck. Here,’ he added, and swept his hair out of the way. There was nothing to be seen. “Course, that’s easy as anything to fake. Any plas­tic surgeon worth spit’d have that off in ten minutes with a Stanley knife, and you’d never know it’d ever been there.’

  ‘Ah,’ David said. ‘Well, thanks, anyway.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ John tightened something with the spanner and put it down again. ‘You want to know a really good way of telling the difference?’

  ‘Well...’

  ‘It’s easy. All to do with loss of definition in the nerve endings. Clones aren’t ticklish.’

  All David could think of to say was, ‘What?’

  ‘Ticklish. You know, if you tickle them, they don’t laugh. Absolutely foolproof test, that is.’ David nodded. ‘Except,’ he said, ‘if you happen to know about it. Then, if someone tickles you, all you have to do is pretend to be laughing.’