Jack woke in his own bed, to the sound of his phone ringing. It was a ringtone he dreaded hearing after months of vacation time, especially while sleeping. He crept out of bed, following the instructions given to him. He yawned, grabbing a cold brew coffee and chugging it. He wiped his rust-colored beard before heading to the weight room, where someone was waiting for him. He arrived and sat down. Right when he sat, he tilted his eyes up, noticing the metal cone directly above his head as he sat in the chair. He was facing a woman just shy of his own 6 foot 2 height. She also had corn, silk blonde hair, and vivid blue eyes.
“You broke into my house, and you brought the cone…that’s never a good sign.” He said while getting settled.
“We have a problem, Jacky boy.”
“Seems like we always do, on this little moon.” He yawned.
“Oh no, this is an off-world matter." She sighed.
“That explains the cone. You don’t want me remembering this conversation, in case it goes poorly and I tell you to eat a dick and leave. Deniability, offworld, 2AM call in the weight room. Must be some heavy shit I already feel disinterested in.”
“Jack. I have an ultimate mission so important it overshadows everything we know, and I can’t tell you the mission, because it sounds so insane that you won't believe me.”
“Then why tell me that part?”
“Because it’s gonna get lonely being the only sane person who knows, so I’m gonna tell you, see if you get it, and if not, cone your memory and then do it again differently.” She said, looking high.
“Okay, just try it.”
“Everything we know is a simulation, the entire universe is just code and computation and the computation is in the form of a novel on some guy’s computer in another universes Earth, and I think I know how to break the 4thwall and get there, thus immortalizing our universe and becoming god.” She said with a dead serious look.
“I know you’re on drugs, because you always are on drugs, are you on anything new and cosmically powerful?”
“No but I know where the 4thwall is, we just have to open it.”
“Yea, cone me. This is too insane even for you. Do the cone, try again, but don’t lie to me, just omit details.”
“Fair enough.” She said, getting out her phone, and hitting the memory wipe cone app.
“You broke into my house, and you brought the cone…that’s never a good sign.” He said, quickly getting settled in a second time.
"Jack, I have a mission that is more important than anything we’ve ever done, and I’ve been sent by someone so high up you wouldn’t understand. So I can't give much detail. There’s a place we need to go, things we need to collect, and the universe is at stake…maybe more then one universe.”
“Fuck. I was afraid you’d say that.” He sighed.
“Too heavy? I can cone you, and try again.”
“I can tell by that look you have already. How many times?”
“If I told you, I’d have to cone you again.”
“Is it time sensitive?” he asked.
“Eh, not really. I don’t wanna dick around, but it’s not like we all die in 7 days or something. We have time to work. Probably a 6 month mission or better.”
...
“Well don’t be so quick to turn down an Operation. You haven’t performed surgery in a long time.” She said, as he drew a suppressed 9mm from his back, and placed it on the table.
“Long enough that my scalpel is getting rusty, and I’m itching to operate. But I have a job here. I’m married now. I have a wife, with medical needs, and friends who depend on me, I can’t go running off on a 6 month long trip and leave them, and I sure as hell can’t tell them I’m gonna go get myself killed on some mystery mission in space, and come back as a clone when I do. Vicki hates it when I come back cloned.”
“Well here’s the neat part. You don’t even have to leave. I just clone you now, and send clone Jack into space. In fact, you can bring a Vicki clone with you, and you won’t even be lonely. We’ll all be together. You, the wife, and me. Two other operators, off the books, can probably recruit some help along the way. I have a ship, the best and most lavish in the fleet, and an absolute force of luxury and power. The Keanu.”
“I’m not sending Vicki into space.” He said firmly.
“Well, guess what Punkin, I figured you’d say that, so I told her all of this before I told you. I coned her twice before telling her you need to go…which you do, the universe is at play here. She doesn’t want you going alone for 6 months, stuck with me. Don’t worry I used the memory cone after that so she won’t even know she agreed. But she did, in writing.”
“She’s not a Surgeon, or a space explorer, she could die up there.” Jack snarled.
“I got a cloning machine on the ship. We land, we do some cosmetic work, if she dies, we print her off on the ship, and she’s waiting for you when you get back. Or if you die down there, you just step out and she’s already there to greet you. That’s the beauty of being a clone, after a while, death is just an annoyance. You know only 1 in 12 humans can cope with the psychological knowledge of being a clone? That means the other 11 freak out and need their memory wiped or they spiral into depression and insanity knowing they’re already dead. Humans are fucking weird. Vicki, however, did just fine, and you’ve been cloned so many times even I don’t remember what number you’re on. What’s one more? Plus she already wanted to go. She’s in the other room under the cone, if you wanna try and talk her out of it. How often does that work?” she asked.
“I don’t wanna watch my wife die, even if she does come back.”
“Jacky boy, I don’t think you understand your wife as well as you think you do. She’s a monster now, like us. Ever since the bug bite, she’s been drinking blood and eating literal manwiches, and you saw how she did on the underground rescue mission. She’s stronger and faster than you are. Hell, I could probably just bring her and get some of it done without you. Your wife is a killer, Jack, you trained her to defend herself, and you’re practically made for each other. She needs to hunt and feed, and we have plenty of terrible people who will get in our way, so why waste the meat?”
“You wouldn’t waste the meat anyway, would you?” he smirked.
“Fair point. I’d just eat the bodies myself, but that’s beside the point. You’re a couple of natural killers that are oddly good people on the inside, and that’s the morally gray team I need with me, because I can’t do this alone and frankly, if you turn it down, the other options suck, and I don’t wanna be on a ship for months with those dickheads. Pretty please, Jack. Make the universe a better place. Your father would want it.”
“You’re pulling that card?” He asked.
“Literally.” She said, drawing the Jack of hearts, with a roman coin printed on the back in a blue background.
“Well he’s dead, so what does that say about his opinion?” Jack sighed.
“Jack, he got old. I would have just cloned him back again and again as usual, but at some point, the human mind runs out of will and space. Humans are not designed to live forever, after a certain point, they stop being human. The human brain has a finite memory storage device and at a certain age, it just doesn’t have room left, so you start losing bits of yourself to keep going forward. When you run out of life, you stop living.
He was 97 years old, Jack. 97 very rough years, that’s a lot of mental weight. Now, you can stay with Vicki and keep her safe and live out your life as a peaceful construction worker on a nice little moon that I swear I’m close to getting renovated and de-bugged. Two more weeks, tops. And you two can live to a ripe old age together in boredom with your friends, AND, not or, AND, you can save the universe with me and have the greatest adventure of all time. And after a 6 month run, I bet you won’t envy them. I bet you’ll pity them, and their boring life. Jack, you sleepwalk missions, and Vicki has to simulate attacks and feed off Delmarian blood donations to be satisfied. That’s no fun. Tell me you don’t itch for a good mission. Tell me you can just leave her behind, and just not tell her you’re doing this. Tell me she won’t be happier with you adventuring, than you will be by yourself, and if you two hate it, and don’t wanna be cloned back, I just stop cloning you back when you die. Easy fix. If she sucks at it, she won’t last long, we bench her on the ship, or we let you both die together in some badass combat situation, probably having sex in a falling aircraft full of explosives or something. James bond kinda ending.”
“If that’s your first pitch, I don’t even wanna hear the backup pitch because you already made too many good points. I don’t like this idea, and I don’t like bringing Vicki into this lifestyle, but I know both of you are more stubborn than I am. And that's without the both of you working together to convince me.”
“Oh, good. Welcome to marriage, the contract of compromises. The second pitch had a musical number anyway, so I’m glad you didn’t make me twerk for this.”
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“I never wanna see you twerk, what in the hell made you think that would convince me to do anything?” Jack scoffed.
“I was gonna lock the door and keep doing it till you agreed to take the mission.”
“Glad I caved on the first pitch.”
“Well…if you change your mind, you know where to find the video. So…are you signing the paper? I believe Vicki already signed it, so that means if you wanna discuss this with her, you gotta sign too. Otherwise…” she sighed, pointing up at the cone.
“Fine.” He agreed.
“Now go back to bed, Jack. You have board games to play, and drywall to hang tomorrow. You’ll need your sleep for that level of excitement.” She chuckled. “Clone you has work to do. Sign here giving consent to copy you, and don’t read the fine print.”
He got up, signed, and headed out, stepping away from the cone and into the kitchen, looking around in confusion.
“This sleepwaking has to end.” He yawned, grabbing the bourbon and starting his old fashioned medication.
...
Gizzy pressed the button on the clone tank.
Jack opened his eyes, wincing at the bright light as he sat up from the phone-booth sized tube. It was still damp from the liquid. He was hit in the face with a towel, as the sound of chuckling filled the air.
“Welcome to the ship, Jack.” Said a harsh, maniacal smoker voice.
“Why are you short, blonde and naked?” he asked.
“Just haven’t bothered getting dressed yet, the other parts we’ll get to later. We’ve all been cloned before; the three of us have seen everything already. Actually this body design is brand new. I’m calling it the Charlotte 2.” She said while getting dressed in a grey jumpsuit that was fitting for space.
“You look pretty good for young guy.” Said another familiar voice, dark and smooth like aged wine, but oddly sensual and feminine. Vicki greeted him with a hug, dressed in a similar grey jumpsuit, form fitting like lycra, but dense enough feel like real clothing.
“You look good in stretchy rubber.” He added, noticing her holding a drink thermos with a straw.
“Fresh made, on tap.” She said. “Blood printers, we don’t even need a big fuzzy Delmarian on the crew.” She whispered, sipping as the opaque white straw went red and, her eyes took on a very slight red hue. At least, compared to their normal green.
“Well that solves the medication problem. Just have a blood spawner on the ship. You know I don’t like you drinking stranger’s fluids.”
“Well it’s expensive, but we don’t have very many Delmarian friends with assassination experience.” She whispered.
“Surgical experience. You gotta get used to the terminology. Technically, you’re in training, so that would make you a nurse.” Jack informed.
“So what’s my code name, then, the Phlebotomist?”
“We’ll work on that.” He said as they gathered at the table where the blonde Gizzy was sitting. She pulled Vicki aside, as if whispering a secret.
“From this point on, any time we’re off ship or in public, call me Charlotte. Don’t question it.” She muttered. “The name Gizzy carries a lot of weight, so I’m under cover until we reach uncharted space. You two are too unknown to need code names this far out, frankly."
“Okay," Vicky puzzled.
“We also have 2 highly trained space crewmen you’ll meet later, the best Grey pilot around, and the best Delmarian tracker money can buy. But for now, we have something special to reveal.” She said while pulling off a cloth from the table. “Now this device here, familiarize yourself with it.” she said holding up a metal sphere with alien markings on it, and bands of glowing blue light.
“The hell is it?” asked Jack.
“That is the prototype me. This, people, is the untested future of undercover wetwork. This sphere can be placed in any clone printer and print…me. The sphere becomes the center of the skull, everything else prints organic around it. Bone, flesh, tendons. Our enemies have become far too good at detecting Osirian technology, so even my human passable surrogate bodies can be flagged, and all hell breaks loose when that hapens. That means, lady and gentledicks, that you are looking at Portable Gizzy on a thumb drive, printed into a generic human body, undetectable to any scanners or x-rays. They can’t tell me from a human being, aside from the fact that I can’t bleed to death or feel pain, and I can push myself harder than a human being can for those reasons. BUT, if you cut me, I bleed like the rest of you. Unfortunately we’re testing this aspect where we’re going on the mission.”
“And what if some enemy decides to torture you for information?” Jack asked, grabbing a bag of peanuts.
“Then this sphere becomes a small thermonuclear mining charge capable of leveling a building. People, I expect some of us to die on this extended mission, possibly me, and you agreed to that when you signed the contract. Jack, Selene…here are your identification briefcases, familiarize yourself with your character, and be ready to land in 2 hours. And if you look up, the cones overhead will do a quick memory scan in case something bad were to ha-” she stuttered, as everything went white and blurry. Jack struggled to remember where he was, feeling disoriented and foggy. Suddenly, everything became warm.
...
Jack sat up from the cloning tank, wheezing and confused. As his memories flooded back in, his pulse skyrocketed, and he flopped to the ground.
“Are you okay?” Vicki asked, “Who are you, what’s your full name?” She nervously asked, checking his eyes as they faded in and out of focus.
“I’m okay, I’m…Jack Greene…You’re my wife Vicki." He said, only mostly sure. “What the hell just happened?”
“Really jank-ass memory upload.” Gizzy said checking the hand scanner. “The good news is…it worked. You should remember everything right up till the brain scan, and nothing before the explosion.”
“Explosion?” He asked looking around and noticing 2 familiar faces along with Vicki and “Charlotte”. He felt confused again, like something was wrong. “Vinn…Nicole? What the hell are you guys doing on our ship?”
“Jack…this is MY ship.” Nicole said. “Your ship is…kinda fucked.”
...
Jack sat at a metal table, an ice pack laying on his pounding head. Gizzy paced the room like a teacher about to give a lesson.
“So, the mission encountered a slight hiccup.” Gizzy said awkwardly. "I was right. We were all going to die at some point in the mission, and we all did, basically before I started the engines. The ship was sabotaged, we don’t know by who, I suspect a very lazy reboot situation given the awkward jump.” Gizzy said, staring up into nothing, presumably at me for deleting 7 chapters and winging it on this part without telling my girlfriend.
“So…” Jack groaned. “Why do I feel like shit and why is Vinn and Nicole here…and where is here?”
“Here, is MY ship.” Nicole noted. “2 lightyears from Delmar. You remember when I left your moon with Vinn, took my ship, and headed out for adventure. Well, Apparently… ‘Charlotte’ here placed a tracker on my ship.”
“Why would you not assume I bugged your ship?” Gizzy shrugged. “I bug everything. Anyway, I bugged her ship in case we needed to track her down, and thanks would be nice, because it saved our asses…most of us. The bomb took out the ship, and all of us with it. Luckily in the event of my death, I automatically clone back and then clone all of you. The good news is that Vicki and me cloned perfectly fine. The bad news is that the crewmen you didn’t meet yet, their data files were damaged when the cloning tank took some shrapnel, and we didn’t know if we could bring you back either, Jack. We did, but god it was an ugly hack job, I used Chat GP to fill in 2 percent of your skin cells, just an FYI in case you get itchy. I’m amazed your memory came back, frankly. That’s why we keep backups of our friends.” She smiled, holding a thumb drive.
“So the other two are gone?” Jack sighed.
“Well, that’s what they get for wearing red shirts to a space mission. Shit happens, but, there is good news, let’s focus on that. It does mean we still have a full team. And conveniently, we saved the matching spacesuits, and we have a spare Delmarian sized one now.”
Vinn looked confused, scratching behind his antler stubs.
“The dead guy was a Delmarian?” he asked.
“Yep. Every spacecrew needs a giant furry monster guy, and that’s why we keep a giant furry monster shaped suit. So, my ship is basically gone.” Gizzy rattled off. “The list was in the safe, we saved some food and supplies, and that means the big mission is still a go. So, Captain Gizzy and her crew of…4 dipshits, gets to continue mostly as planned but on a, no offense, smaller shittier ship.”
“Whoa. whoa, whoa.” Said Nicole, her black braids bouncing as she objected. “You seem to be a bit dizzy Gizzy, but this is MY ship. I’m Captain Nicole, of the Medusa.”
“Ship made of stone…captained by a hybrid seamonster. Clever.” Gizzy sighed.
“And I just rescued your asses. So until you get another ship, you're not captain of one, you’re just ranking officer to Jack and Vicki. This is a freelance Pirate vessel, we answer to nobody, out here in nowhere. This isn’t Delmar, miss Gizzy.” Little 5 foot nothing Nicole said, stepping up to six foot blue eyed buff human, roughly 80 pounds of muscle, and far larger than her. “So thank you, CAPTAIN Nicole, for saving our asses, and the mission is whatever I say it is. Next space station or habitable world, you can go or stay, and do whatever you want from there. This is a 2 person crew with one cleaning robot, and occasional guests, and you’re not captain without a ship, let alone captain of MY ship.” Nicole finished.
“Well, well, little Evee Nicole, you really did toughen up out here. I respect that, but we have a very important Mission, and frankly…Pirate?” she giggled. “You’re just playing Pirate, Nicole. By definition, a pirate has to rob another ship and crew. Have you ever stolen anything from another crew or ship?” Gizzy asked. Nicole stared her down, reached out and ripped a button off her shirt and ate it.
“I just robbed you of THAT, and you’re not getting it back. Pirate. Checkmate, matey.” She crossed her arms.
“Adorable, well in that case, We’re pirates too, because I’m officially pirating your vessel. As a fellow…PIRATE, YARRRR!!! I will be taking this vessel by force and the mission is back on.” Gizzy boasted.
“Bitch, I got you cloning approval on the Delmar M44 council, and my husband Vinn here has done a lot of favors for you. You owe us, and you’re gonna rob us?”
“Temporarily commandeer the vessel, honey, welcome to the wonderful world of Space Pirates.”
“No.” Nicole said as Vinn stepped up aggressively. Gizzy smiled, cracking her knuckles and looking back at her crew in matching assassin Lycra.
“Jack, Vicki. I give you permission to stand down, and not pick a side that will conflict with your friendships and loyalties. But right now, captain to captain, sorry little Nicole, but out here the strong take what they need, and we need a ship. YOUR ship. So unless you got a lot tougher then I rememb-” Gizzy said, as a massive Furry fist bounced her off the wall and flattened her out. Vinn Smiled.
“Kinda wanted to do that for a while actually.” He chuckled. “Damn she went down easy, this new surrogate must be really soft.”
“Welcome to the wonderful world of Space Pirates…bitch.” Nicole said, as Vinn picked up the Charlotte body and brought her to the brig. She looked at Jack and Vicki, crossing her arms. “So what the hell are you two doing out here?”
“Long story short, Vicki’s cancer medicine mixed with the spacebug venom and now she’s essentially a vampire. Codename ‘Charlotte’ cloned us for a very classified mission, and we need your help now, and I’d politely like to use your ship.” Jack asked.
“Yeah, that sounds about like how shit happens with this group. So literally everyone here is a cloned copy of someone else, somewhere else? Good, welcome to the club. Bar is around the corner. I’m gonna hit the shower, and when Gizzy wakes up, we can talk business. You two are guests, Me casa spaceship, you casa spaceship and stuff. Good to see you both again. We’ve both missed you.” She smiled cutely.
“You’ve missed our originals.” Vicki corrected.
“None of us are originals anymore, and I couldn’t care less about any originality.” Nicole smirked, strutting off.
“She’s changed.” Vicki nodded. “I like it. Jack, you should wait in the bridge for when Gizzy wakes up. She’s gonna be pissed.”
“She likes Nicole too much to be too angry.” Jack shrugged.
“Her ship is gone, the vintage wine is lost, and it cost 120 million credits to bring us all back.”
“She’s gonna be pissed.” Jack sighed, strolling down the hall.