No one dared turn away from 2112 during their awkward little jaunt back towards the dock… and, after squeezing together on the platform in avoidance of their lilliputian visitor, they rose into the Firmament´s bright central chamber, hoping against hope that 2112 wasn´t some type of Trojan horse.
Removing his plastic visor as the others took their suits off, Quentin ran a hand through sweaty hair and nodded for the humanoid to follow him.
“Through there. Have a seat.”
They walked towards the infirmary, and with the flick of a switch, he lowered the ceiling-mounted operating lamp down to the creature, while 2112 went to sit on one of the free beds.
“You know, maybe it would be easier if some of you watched from the hall…” Quentin offered, noticing that the crowd around him was still somehow casting shadows against the glare.
“Come on kids…” Evelyn started, before Quentin stopped her.
“You know, I think Lori found it… uh, I was kind of hoping the kids could stay for just a bit, just kind of explain what happened… you know, set the stage.”
She looked to her husband and, with a quick nod, decided to step out. Matvey and his comrades followed them, and immediately seized the opportunity to share their personal theories about 2112´s origin, before the door had even swung shut.
Rubbing his eyes, Quentin produced a stethoscope from one of the hanging lab-coat pockets, pushed a stool between the two beds and sat down in front of their unbelievable guest.
“Uh… May I?” he asked uneasily, motioning to listen to the thing’s chest… but it blocked Quentin’s charades by holding up its hand.
“My anatomy has been altered-”
“Aha! Wow… ” Quentin exclaimed, shocked to hear it speak English. “You… You can understand us!”
“You sound better,” Lori smiled, hearing how much more easily and comfortably it was speaking.
“Yes… I was close to death when you found me.”
Looking between the two and comprehending that he was a bit behind the ball, Quentin struggled to choose his next question.
“This is too weird… OK, so you- You’re… Who are you?” he managed to get out, surprised at just how dry his mouth had become.
“I am 2112, tasked with surveillance, maintenance and operation of the Olympus Orbital Outpost,” he responded mechanically, almost like from a script.
“Wait so… 2112 is your name?” Sander exclaimed, remembering his odd answer from the bunker and finally making sense of it.
“Yes. No. My original designation was… different.”
As he answered, Quentin saw an unexpected hesitation in its eyes, as the notion grew that this little person was perhaps more to be pitied than feared…
“What… what are you doing up here? Wh- that outpost… Olympic?”
“Orbital Outpost,” 2112 finished his sentence.
“Yeah… is that where they found you?”
He nodded his large gray head and Quentin continued, glancing quickly at the twins for confirmation.
“Can you tell me about this place?” the captain probed. “Who put it there?”
Staring blankly at Quentin, 2112 didn’t answer at first… but, after blinking a few more times, began to speak.
“I will explain my mission,” he said simply, before taking another, longer pause… only this time with his eyes closed.
They all waited… until, just as Quentin was about to say something, the gray man spoke again.
“The Olympus project began in 1949 under President Truman, as a way to counter Soviet space exploration. By 1969, both myself and the facility were operational-”
But something in the little man’s odd wording piqued Quentin’s interest, and he cut him off.
“So you… you’re fifty years old?” Quentin said, after halting briefly to do the math.
“No,” 2112 responded, finally opening his eyes again and looking to his host. “I was originally born in Manila, in 1912. My father was an American soldier who brought me to America when my mother died. When I turned 18, I enlisted in the Navy. Due to my physical, mental and emotional scores, I tested into a program that would later encompass what has been declassified as the Apollo launches. My metabolism and physiology were altered for prolonged, lunar presence and my genome was replicated,” he concluded, looking to the twins blankly.
They stared back, too stunned to speak. Quentin too remained speechless, running everything over in his mind.
“So… you’re American.” Barney said, breaking the silence with a muffled comment from the hallway.
The little man nodded.
“I suppose. I was a dual citizen of both the United States and the Philippines. Yes.”
“So why do you keep saying it like that?” Sander interjected, finally pinpointing one of oddities about their new guest that had been bugging him.
“Like what?”
“Like… in the past.”
But before 2112 could answer, Quentin had pieced it together.
“Because he’s a clone,” he muttered to himself, before turning to his guest and speaking up. “You’re a clone. All that stuff you just said… You were cloned.”
“Yes.” He looked at the twins. “What you saw in the outpost… Those are also me. This body has a limited lifespan of 30 years… ”
“There are more of you?” Quentin demanded, alarmed. “How many?”
“Don’t worry. They’re- you know, in tubes… they’re asleep,” Lori reassured him.
“What about the dead one?” Sander reminded her.
They all focused on 2112, and he resumed his explanations.
“There was a… miscommunication.”
“Meaning?” Quentin continued to probe, now wondering if he hadn´t been too cavalier in bringing the clone aboard.
"Your arrival was perceived as a hostile act,” 2112 said, shocking Quentin by pointing directly at him. “Procedure, in such situations, dictates that the orbital crew locate the threat and eliminate it. I volunteered to find you. When I did… I failed to perform my duty.”
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“How did you find-” Sander started.
“I tracked this ship each day for two months,” 2112 interrupted. “Your family had not arrived yet. No one had.”
“So why didn’t you? Eliminate me, I mean.”
“My predecessor, 1109, had activated me… But I had never seen a human before.”
Closing its large eyes again, 2112 fell back into memory.
“Only the first generation met our creators. Later generations, like myself and my deceased colleague 2113, are awoken with a recorded message, explaining our duties. Up until I discovered your craft, I was certain of my place and purpose. When I finally found you and… saw you walking… something changed.”
While he spoke, his waxy features distorted into a strained grimace, as if reliving the moment.
“I saw you outside, doing repairs… I had the shot… But it felt wrong. Just looking at you made my dizzy. There was an echo, somewhere in my mind. Sights and sounds… even tastes… like ghosts from a past I’d never lived. All I could do was watch. My endocrine system was designed to reduce empathy… create a chemical dependence on task completion… But it was like an electric charge had penetrated my brain: my synapses had a new plateau. When I’d come to my senses, you had returned inside the ship. And I knew what I had to do.”
“What?” Lori asked with bated breath, totally engrossed in the little man’s story.
“I had to lie,” 2112 responded plainly, as his eyes peeled back open to fixate on her. “It felt odd… I felt sick. But for months, I reported that I couldn’t find you. That’s when the dreams started… I was not built to hide information, so nothing was suspected. But the more ships showed up, the less believable my story became. Then two weeks ago, we were ordered to initiate the outpost’s main function…”
“Wait… Its main- isn´t that against, like… Soviets?” Sander reacted, shooting looks around the room to see if he was the only one who missed something.
“The main purpose of the Olympus Orbital Outpost is to ensure full spectrum dominance. At the time of conception, that meant communism… At the time of completion, the Eastern bloc had been incorporated into the global power structure, therefore the aims shifted.”
“Shifted to what?” Sander pressed, growing impatient at what was turning into a history lesson.
“Those who create war… created me. They already control the majority of the material world. The next, logical step is to conquer the immaterial world.” 2112 looked around, to see if they understood him “They want to control your mind.”
“What are you talking about? Precisely?” Barney asked, his time cracking the door open and poking his head in.
“If my words or manners offend you, I apologize. I was never supposed to interact with civilians outside of controlled environments. Because of my origin, am aware of events and information that are not public knowledge. Part of that knowledge deals with the dominant power structure on earth, it´s tools and it´s motivations.”
Still struggling to follow 2112’s cryptic words, Barney looked to Quentin for help.
“During Viet-Nam, it became apparent that decades of global conflict had exhausted most appetites for war,” 2112 continued. “This was by design. The purpose was to reduce the human spirit to a state of passivity and subordination, so that the next frontier may be breached.”
“The next- OK, you mean… our brain?”
“Yes. I imagine you are aware of these attempts to some extent… is that not why you left Earth?
But Evelyn had a question of her own and spoke over him.
“Who’s they?” she said, skeptical about the whole doomsday vibe that 2112 had brought about.
“Whoever is empty enough. Names are meaningless, for all who serve the Great Work must first evacuate themselves…”
“Huh…” was all Evelyn could muster as a response, as the room tried to digest what had just been said.
“And so how does cloning a Filipino man, a century ago, lead to world domination?” Quentin asked, continuing Barney’s line of inquiry.
“As you can attest, my colleagues and I do not resemble typical humans. The shuttle that returns us to earth was also designed to appear extra-terrestrial. After decades of seeding UFO ideas into the public conscience, the media would claim to have proof of alien life. They would then build anticipation by staging the leak of a botched, governmental cover-up. Eventually, this fake lie would lead to a countdown.”
“What the fuck…” Sander said, as his head began to buzz.
“At the designated time, after landing at the United Nations’ headquarters, a new series of laws would emerge. These would be universally accepted, under the guise of helping humanity ascend to the next level of existence by ending violence and pollution. After years of fabricated chaos, this solution would appear impossible to refuse. In reality, the subsequent laws would aim to reduce the world’s population, eliminate human rights and install extreme austerity measures.”
“Sounds about right…” Quentin grumbled.
“A significant percentage of humanity prefers delegation to responsibility. And most will follow a fool, no matter how evident his folly… if he is praised.”
“So what happened to your friend? 2113?” Quentin finally said, after taking a moment to process it all.
“He was not my friend,” 2112 snapped, showing a hint of emotion. “He began the procedure… And I couldn’t let him.”
But before 2112 could finish his incredible story, a tapping emanated from the hall´s window… and Quentin rose to his feet and peeked into the hall.
“Hang on…” he exhaled, walking to the door. “What?”
“I just was wondering… How is this going to work, with Mieke?” Evelyn asked, revealing a whole new problem that the twins could never have predicted, in cracking the door.
Listening intently, they surmised from the muffled conversation out in the tinted-glass corridor, that Quentin had convened to let Revis´ daughter-in-law stay in the Firmament and recuperate from a tenacious chest-cold… which obviously now put them in a conundrum.
“... could be dangerous… maybe story is all lie?” they heard Sergei say. “These rooms not have lock…”
“Shit. Yeah… Ah, shit!” Quentin conceded, checking his clock. “It´s already midnight, let me call them in the morning… I´ll cancel the deal, make up an excuse…”
With a glance at 2112, Lori saw his big black eyes scan the mirrored walls… and thought how cruel it was, to have him sitting there while hidden parties argued his fate.
“Sorry about that,” Quentin apologized, closing the door and returning to the bedside with somewhat of the same conclusion. “So, um… where were we? Oh, and do you want anything to eat, or drink?”
“My oesophagus prohibits the passage of solid foods.”
The teens shivered involuntarily, still not used to hearing 2112´s odd monotone amid their voices.
“That…doesn´t seem right,” Sander frowned.
“I know only the aspects of my metabolism that are necessary to my survival. Beyond that… I understand my body to the same degree you understand yours,” 2112 answered. “The tank you put me in, contained a nutritious solution that I absorb through the skin.”
“Would you mind if I took a quick X-ray?” Quentin requested, wondering what such a picture might tell.
2112 nodded, following the man into a special corner of the room, where lead-lined panels could be unrolled like projector screens… and a few flashes later, the pair printed out several transparent, plastic sheets.
“Wow!” Quentin exclaimed “I-I’m not a doctor, but from what I can tell… you’re kind of mixed up with… reptilian stuff. Almost laid out like a plant.” He held the image up to the light. “I mean, just going off of the X-ray... maybe that´s why you don’t need a suit outside: you basically runs on liquid photosynthesis.” He looked to the twins with a shrug. “Basically a cold-blooded mammal… if such a thing could exist.”
“That is correct. I was stripped of non-essential functions,” 2112 concurred, moving his large eyes to meet each of theirs, in an expressionless ballet.
Quentin inspected a second photograph.
“Your bones are different too…they´re thick as hell, see that?”
“The suction on this ship is intense for me, yes.”
“Yeah, I can imagine… and, wait…Could this be? It looks like you don´t technically breathe?”
Quentin pointed the opaque lines out to Sander, who nodded and actually surprised the man by asking a few follow-up, anatomical questions… but for her part, Lori cared less about his physical makeup and instead, kneeled closer to 2112.
“Hey,” she began, not knowing quite how to phrase what she was about to say. “You know, I… that thing you made, in the bunker…”
2112 looked intently at her, as if trying to read her mind.
“I´ve seen it too… that thing you were painting,” Lori continued, undeterred by his silence.
“He needs us,” 2112 responded simply, as if he´d just answered her question.
Then, seeing her reaction, continued,
“We are being called.”
“How… Where- What does that mean?”
“I don´t know. Until you found me, I thought I was hallucinating… or defective.”
Quentin chimed back in, having finished his sidebar with Sander.
“Yeah: the rhythmic rise and fall his chest does… I think that´s just to create homeostasis, right? Like, circulation and such?”
“Lori and I have had similar dreams.”
“What now?” their captain blinked, totally confused “Oh… uh, that´s… weird. About what?”
Looking to 2112 apprehensively, Lori felt an odd possessiveness surrounding the shared visions and worried about everyone´s reaction, should they reveal their mystifying link…
“You know what, you´re right… it´s late. Can we tell you tomorrow?” she smiled, emphasizing an opportune yawn to gain sympathy.
It worked like a charm, with both her brother and Quentin imitating her, and as he rubbed his eyes, the man stood up to stretch.
“Wise words… how are you feeling, little guy?”
The clone stared at Lori for a few extra seconds before agreeing that they should rest, and the auscultation ceased. When they got to the hall, nobody had gone to sleep yet, too busy gawking at 2112 through the glass… and Lori left for her room to pass out, obnubilated by what she´d uncovered.