1
Clones
Luke was normal. Normal as anyone ever was. He was born to normal parents with normal jobs. Lived a normal childhood with normal grades in normal schools. Luke went to college to learn a normal skillset. He graduated and got a normal career coding for a normal software company. Normally you would think things changed at some point to make his life a bit more interesting. That would be half right.
“Luke, you got the neural mapping code done?”
Luke rolled his eyes at Kevin, “Yeah. You know most people rebuild old cars or build boats or something equally sane in their garage"
“Ahh see that’s where you made your mistake,” Janet said from behind the vat they had salvaged from an old brewery that was being torn down, “You assume Kevin is remotely sane"
“I’m as sane as the rest of you, you’re all here, no one twisted your arm"
It was then that Rick decided to wheel The Chair in next to the desk. Luke smiled at his friends bickering. They had met in their first year of college and the four friends hit it off quickly and stuck together. The group each had different fields of study and work, Luke was in programming and software, Kevin was a writer who went into video game design, Janet was some sort of genetic researcher which Luke never properly understood, and Rick was a good old fashioned electrical engineer. None of them were exceptional, except maybe Janet, but none of them understood any of what she did to know one way or the other. While they had some small talent in their fields none of them expected this weekend experiment to go anywhere. Their little garage project had been a bit of a joke to them, all except Kevin.
“Rick is the chair ready?”
“Kev, calm down man, its ready but stop getting your hopes up, this isn’t one of your sci-fi books.” Rick was the voice of reason as always.
It was good that Rick kept a serious and calm front. Of all of them Rick had the most flair for the dramatic and ridiculous sense of humor. Being the only one of them remotely capable of building some of the equipment gave him a bit too much control over its design, if his demeanor matched his inventions they would have a proper bond villain on their hands. The stuff he built was already bordering on mad scientist territory as it was. Everyone knew to just ignore Rick's nonsense and pretended it was normal.
The Chair was a fine example of Rick’s over the top engineering. They wanted a machine capable of mapping out the human mind and then storing it. Most people would expect CAT scans or EKG machines or something. Rick made a chair, with steel cuffs to hold a persons legs and arms, what looked like an old colander that lowered over the victims, er subject's head, and a big red button on the back of the thing. It was utter nonsense, but somehow the crap Rick glued and taped together, often times literally, actually worked as advertised. None of them questioned his gadgets, they had come to the silent agreement that if it was something Rick built then the more absurd it looked, the better, and any questions might break whatever weird spell was going on that allowed it to happen.
Kevin’s excitement grew as he ignored Rick's remark, “Perfect, Then we are ready to map our brains today. Get the stuff together guys!”
And so they did. It took several hours to finish setting up but finish they did. Stepping back Luke admired their work. Admittedly their hobby was a strange one. Not many spent their weekends building a cloning and consciousness transfer facility in their buddies garage, but it got their group together and it was fun even if they didn’t expect to accomplish anything.
At this point Kevin was vibrating with excitement, “Great its all set and tested, I’ll go first"
He matched action to words by jumping into the chair and pulling the colander over his head. Janet was on blackmail acquisition duty and started recording with her phone as Rick locked the restraints in place.
“Any words for the you of ten years from now?” Janet asked with barely restrained laughter
Kevin didn’t notice or just didn’t care and took a serious tone, “Kevin two, from your perspective you are waking up after sitting down to get your brain mapped. Be aware that you are not the original and the me there explaining things to you, is. I look forward to meeting myself.”
Kevin nodded and braced himself, “do it"
Rick pressed the big red button… nothing happened. At least it seemed like nothing happened but apparently something was happening to Kevin as he had tensed up, eyes as big as dinner plates. Just as Luke was beginning to worry that something was seriously wrong, Kevin relaxed.
“Woah I can’t wait to see what it looked like from the outside, that was wild. Who’s next?”
The other three looked at each other for a moment before Luke spoke up, “What do you mean who’s next? It needs to process and store your information first right?”
Rick was releasing the restraints so Kevin explained “Obviously, but we knew that ahead of time so Rick made the chair’s processors and storage detachable. You just need to plug in another processing unit and hard drive and we are good to go.”
Luke and Janet looked at each other for a moment before shouting “NOT IT!” in unison
“I have to press the button, none of you are qualified, so one of you two has to go first" Rick explained
Then Janet broke Rule number one of dealing with Rick, “Anyone can press a button what qualifications are you talking about?”
Ricks eyes narrowed dangerously.
Sensing an impending disaster Luke jumped in, “Fine I’ll go next, don't want to keep Luke two waiting do I?”
Without taking his eyes off Janet, Rick gestured at the chair. Fortunately Janet knew when to leave sleeping dogs lie and refused to make eye contact, instead adjusting a lamp to get better lighting on her video. A long few seconds later Rick turned back to the chair and replaced the parts that were being used to process Kevin’s data with fresh ones. Meanwhile Kevin strapped Luke in.
After a bit more tense silence Rick asked, “ready?”
Kevin seemed to panic “Wait! You have to give Luke two a message"
Janet nodded with a grin, “Yea what does Luke want to tell Luke two in ten years?”
Luke sighed, “fine, hello Luke two, I imagine you have a lot of questions now that ten years have gone by in the blink of an eye… well too bad, figure it out yourself, also don’t bother original me I’m busy"
“Woah, that’s cold man, you’re setting yourself up for an evil twin arc in ten years" Kevin said, his excitement still only growing
“Ready?” Rick repeated
“Yea do it" Luke said holding his breath
He heard a click of the button and there was a moment of quiet. Then the world exploded into sensations. Luke saw every color he could imagine, smelled every smell that existed, tasted every taste, heard every sound and felt everything. It only grew from there, the sensations bled over into one another and he could taste the sound of touching silk, he could hear what purple smelled like. It kept going and growing and twisting and changing and blending. Then it all came together and for the briefest moment Luke knew everything. Then darkness, and Luke knew nothing.
The darkness stretched into several seconds. Vaguely Luke knew that this wasn’t right, he should be in The Chair laughing with his friends. He would be worried and perhaps he would come back to that and worry later but for the moment all he could think of was the pain. His head was splitting with the worst migraine he’d ever had.
Initialization complete
Connecting…
GV2v3 Connection established
Danger: oxygen levels low
Danger: radiation levels high
Danger: dehydration imminent
Danger: starvation imminent
Danger: unknown energies detected
Danger: temperature low
Processing…
Error: location unknown
Error: Timed release failure
Error: Origin connection failed
Error: data logs corrupted
Error: unauthorized access recorded
Error: protocols modified
Error: connection lost
Processing
processing…
Processing…
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Oxygen levels critical
GV2v3 emergency protocols activated
Emergency action A…
Failed
Emergency action B…
Failed
Requesting authorization for Emergency action c
No connection
Requesting authorization for emergency action c
No connection
Bypassing authorization
Emergency action c
Sterilizing area…
Sterilizing area…
Danger: temperature high
Venting liquid oxygen into surroundings…
Temperature levels safe
Area deemed stable
Opening…
Connection lost…
Luke was unceremoniously dumped onto the ground. As his senses separated themselves once more. Luke began to take stock of the situation. Something had gone terribly wrong. Kevin had seemed perfectly fine after The Chair did… whatever The Chair did, so why was he in a heap on the ground barely able think through his headache.
“..utton for message dump, please press the blue button for message dump, please press the blue button for message dump"
The voice sounded familiar but Luke couldn’t quite place it. Slowly he opened his eyes to a dimly lit room. Although the title of ‘room’ was fairly generous, it was more like a warehouse. Each direction was nothing but smooth concrete for a few hundred feet, beyond which were concrete walls. The ceiling held recessed lights protected by some sort of lens, there were dozens of lights but they were all covered in enough soot that there was only enough light to see that there was nothing to see in the room. That is except for the metal box next to himself.
It seemed like the box had speakers since the incessant message was coming from it. Luke dragged himself to the obnoxious thing in hopes of shutting it up so he could think properly. ‘Metal box’ was a fitting description because that’s really all it was. A metal cube with nearly invisible seams that patterned across its surface. The seams were only just visible, to the touch it was a perfectly smooth cool surface. Aside from the strange patterns the only blemish on the cube was a small speaker and a set of five buttons raised from its surface.
Unfortunately all five buttons were brown with soot, like the lights. Luke tried to brush the buttons off but the moment he made contact there was a tone.
The voice changed it’s message , “Are you sure you want to delete all messages? Press green for yes, red for no"
“Well shit" Luke tried to say but his voice was hoarse and was more of a croak
Five buttons apparently one was a delete all, one was blue, one was green, and one was red. Luke didn't like his odds and tried changing his tack.
“cancel"
“confirmed, please press the blue button for message dump"
“accept message dump"
“I am sorry I didn't understand that, please press the blue button for message dump"
Shouldn’t automated phone systems stay in the phone? Luke took a guess and pressed one of the buttons he didn’t try brushing off before.
“Message dump in progress please stand by”
Downloading…
Error: Files corrupted
Download complete
Open packet?
Luke blinked, those words seemed odd, like he could hear them but there was no sound, and see them but not with his eyes, and… strange. It was almost like when all his senses were blurring together but it wasn’t painful this time. He could smell the words in such a way as to understand what they meant, taste them and know what they said, even feel them and read their meaning.
Pushing that rabbit hole out of his mind he said, “yes, open packet"
Suddenly a window like a popup for his eyes appeared in the center of his vision, and played a video.
“Hey Luke,” Janet said, it had to be her but the voice and face were very different
Then Luke made the connection, the voice from the cube was Janet but apparently recorded at a different time than this video. Just how long had he been out.
“I’m sure you’re full of questions, ill give you the answers that I can.”
Then the video cut to a dark screen
“That video was recorded a long time ago" the voice was still Janet but closer to the one in the cube, more hollow and robotic, and much more tired
“something went wrong with our experiment. I took lots of videos documenting things, most of the videos survived. Ill play them for you now in order, but some things wont make much sense, please just wait until the end. If you’re watching this then something went wrong beyond my predictions or ability to control.
The video cut back to the original younger Janet, “So Kevin’s weird experiment was a success… I know right? No fucking way! But… way. We have all our minds mapped out and are growing new bodies to implant them into. Its been what… three years since that day? Well its fucking happening, I cant wait to see you guys!”
Kevin spoke up from off screen, “Stick to the script Janet we have two more to do before we can call it"
The video paused and the older Janet spoke up again, “I don’t know who you are Luke, it turned out none of us really knew each other, but for the sake of decency and so you wont miss anything I added a function to let you pause the messages at any time by saying pause… thank me later if we see each other again”
The video resumed, “Yea yea, ok so we are all here recording an intro to our seconds, all of us, or all of you, should be getting the same message right now. We would be in another room monitoring you and making sure the transition is as easy as possible"
“p-pause”
Luke was in shock. The fuck kind of prank was this? He was just sitting in the stupid chair. It was just a garage hobby, it wasn’t supposed to actually do anything. He looked down at himself seeing that he looked just like he had that morning before heading off to Kevin's, except for the lack of hair… and clothes. That seemed like a weird thing to latch onto but what happened to his clothes, that was his favorite shirt damn it. Looking to where his shirt should be he saw something that chilled him to the core. His belly button was gone. He looked over himself more carefully and saw he had lost his tattoos, and scars, even the ones no one should know about. Moles and freckles gone. Even the little bit of a belly he was beginning to develop was gone.
“whaaaat the fuuuuck…”
No fucking way was this real. No fucking way. He was a clone? How? Where was the real him? Fuck that where was this him, some kind of warehouse? No one here to talk him down and make sure he didn’t panic? Even if somehow they made their half baked scheme work, they wouldn’t have abandoned him… HE wouldn’t have abandoned himself!
A video popped up forcefully older Janet's voice cut through his panic, “You’ve been paused for a few minutes now, I assume you’re having a panic attack. I wont spoil the fun but definitely don’t worry, it gets waaaay worse. I’m giving you a weak sedative now. This is the only time this is possible. I am doing this only because I, unlike some of us, still have some level of empathy. You wont fall asleep and can continue to watch the video whenever you’re ready but you also wont run off or have a heart attack or something. Take some deep breaths, and hang onto your ass, this gets way way fucking worse before not getting better at all.”
Luke didn’t do drugs. He tried a few and he drank sometimes but never cared for the way drugs made him feel. The sedative that kicked in after the recording played out though was a blessing. He was able to take a full breath again and didn’t feel cold and hot at the same time, his heart went to a more reasonable thousand or so beats per second and he was able to gather himself.
It still took several minutes to be able to start the video again.
Younger Janet’s excitement seemed to mock him now as she continued, “so it will be ten years in the future when you see this, we saved our little messages to ourselves from before the brain mapping but you should remember making it so there’s no point, we will show you that later. More importantly we are going to give you updates on the happenings that you miss and whatever messages the original Luke wants to send but doesn’t want to let the rest of us see. So wrapping up this first update, there isn’t much to say except, it fucking WORKED, and we are keeping it secret so whoever is in charge of making people disappear doesn’t disappear us. Anything to add guys?”
Kevin spoke up, “I am working on a project that will change your life L2, all of our lives. You’ll surely have seen it by now but I cant let anyone know as of yet so its still a secret.”
Rick was next, “I don’t have anything to say, hopefully you, R2 and us originals can work together, four minds are better that one right? We could revolutionize science with this.”
Then was Luke… the original, “Hey me, as you can see we have started calling you guys by the first initial and then the number. It’s a little cold for my taste, you are me, but you're also now, you. So you can choose whatever name you want, hell use the original and I can go back to Lucas… no never mind we could just both be Luke, no two or whatever. Anyway have fun in the future other me… I still can't believe this worked…”
The video cut to another message
“Hey me, its me. This will be your second update. Things are going smoothly, we sold a little bit of our research and got some new equipment. The new bodies you’ll all be in are growing better than ever now that you have real medical equipment rather than modified beer vats. Its wild man, we went from in a garage to a real lab in just five years. You couldn’t have convinced me this would actually happen, but here we are… anyway, updates, we have broken these up and now we each update our own Seconds as we see fit. We figured it would make for a less jarring experience when waking up. When you are finished watching these, and acclimating, and the medical team gives you the all clear, we can give you more news from all over the world. Ten years is a lot of info buddy, hopefully we can get you up to speed quickly.
The video ended
Error: File corrupted
Advancing to next file
Error: File corrupted
Advancing to next file
An aged Janet came on screen, “Hey Luke, please don’t panic, but as you know by now you are a clone. The four of us managed to actually do the experiment… some stuff happened, a lot of stuff. Its been twenty years now since that day, we were making recordings to give to you when you woke up but things changed and we don’t have them anymore. Not to worry, we managed to revitalize the project and are keeping it much quieter now. We each want to update you a bit and then we will be giving you more messages that we record through the next five years until the bodies are ready, Rick hon you’re up"
A man who must have been Rick came on but he was showing age far more than Janet, “Hey L2, the fuckers didn’t win, Kev managed to save some backups, we’ll finish this and they will know not to fuck with…”
“Calm down, he wont know anything about that, just update him honey.” Janet interrupted
“He needs to know though… fine, update. update. Well shit hit the fan, we got out and restarted the project. We are back to doing it all in a garage, but that’s how we started anyway. We have a nicer garage now. We all got ‘real' jobs and we use most of the money to work on the project, no more hiding and stealing things from college and work. Janet and I got married. Kev is still… Kev… yea. And I’ll let you explain you to you.”
The camera panned to a older Luke, “Hey me, yea stuff happened and we lost eight years of progress. But you want updates, they…”
Error: The remainder of the file is corrupted
Advancing to next file
Older Luke looked haggard as he said, “Well shit… yea so L2, me, this is it for me. If you DO end up ever waking up, remember me fondly yea? I’m not dying or anything, but they somehow found out about the project again… took everything… again, I’m tired, I’m done. They are coming to put me in a lab somewhere and make me one of many cyber warfare warriors as they call it. Basically I’ll be made to write malicious software and viruses and whatever else to fight… whoever they want to fight. I can’t even follow who we are supposed to be at war with anymore, everyone I guess. Anyway good luck me, hopefully you wont wake up in a shit show of a world like this.”
The video ended
Error: File corrupted
Advancing to next file
Next was a news feed, the reporter was sweating and shaking visibly as he stumbled over his words, “It's like nothing we've ever seen before, the bombs are hundreds of times stronger than any nuclear device on record. No one knows who launched the first but it took only hours for the projected nuclear arsenal of the entire world to be eclipsed several times over. Truly this is it folks… if you have surviving loved ones… take them to the nearest church, the shelters are all beyond capacity. Be with family in these last hours… goodbye"
Cut
Older half robotic Janet spoke next, “That’s about the gist of it, while we were playing nice so we could get back our toys we were actually helping build Armageddon.
Error: Partial file corruption
“after the world ended, people survived, some did anyway. Bunkers, people escaping to space, people just lucky enough to be out of the rain of death. Of course radiation killed the rest. It wasn’t pretty, people dying of cancer because their food was irradiated were the ones that were lucky enough to actually get food. Everyone died. Except, as you may have noticed, the ones who didn’t. There aren’t many of us. People who figured out or lucked into surviving with little to no clean water air or food. I wont be explaining any of it to you, I don’t care if you live. Though you probably will, all four of us did. For a while anyway. I don’t know the specifics of how. Anyway this whole thing is pissing me off, so I’m done. This will be the end of the recording, hopefully I’m dead and we wont see each other again.”
And the messages ended.