Krishna kumar Mani - SFS2 - Science Fiction Short Stories

“We’re their prisoners right now. And they’re money minded people. They’re not going to share Einstein with the world, they’re going to sell him to the highest bidder. Maybe it will be fine, but maybe that knowledge will be used to hurt people.”

My clone replied, “So we delay the process. In the mean time we create multiple clones of us and let us fight and escape from here and take Einstein with us.”

“Even if we had ten of us we couldn’t beat them. Our mind is strong, but our body is weak.” We both laughed. “However, Box 2 will save us. You’re right though, we need to delay.”

“Okay, so Box 1 is Einstein, but who is in Box 2? I thought it was another clone, like me?”

“I know you think that, but that’s just for safety purposes in case it goes wrong you can say that I tricked you. He will save us though. He has to.”

Bob2 checked Box 2 but he could not recognize the man inside.

I hid the second box when I heard the Chairman approaching.

“How is the progress?” he asked with a smile.

“Chairman, I got the person, he is Einstein!”

“Wow that’s great, is he alive?”

“He’s not ready yet. There’s been some delays.”

He saw the box and was content. Thankfully he didn’t look around for a second box.

“What are you going to do with him?” I asked.

“He has a great future ahead of him and a country is ready to take care of him. He will be leading a team to start new research.”

I could barely control myself. This could lead to disastrous consequences.

“Next week I will come here with a renowned scientist. I’ll explain to him about your research and how it works. He’ll also start to work with you.”

I told him that will be fine.

Once he left, Bob2 came to me. “We are in danger. If you tell him how it works, he no longer needs to keep us alive. He will kill us! We have to do something. Call him and ask him for a week leave. Let us escape from here.”

Bob2 continued sadly, “At least for me get two days leave. I’ve only been alive for two weeks. I haven’t even been outside of the lab. There’s all these memories, but they’re not real.”

I laughed. Bob2 was very sad but he didn’t know what I had planned. It was nice to see how I would react in a different situation.

“Don’t worry,” I said, “Box 2 will save us.”

“Who are you cloning? Superman? Batman? Because unless it’s a superhero, I don’t know if that will happen.”

I told him to trust me or trust himself. Bob2 wasn’t convinced. A few days later both of the boxes were ready. I activated Box 2 and told him about our situation and kept him inside the room.

The chairman entered with the scientist and a few other people who looked like pretty bad guys. I counted seven people in total. If myself and Bob2 could each take two, that would leave 3 for the person in Box 2. But maybe we would be lucky to take out one a piece. I felt sick to my stomach. I didn’t think this was going to work. The only hope was the element of surprise working in our favor.

“Is Einstein ready?” asked the Chairman.

“Soon. He was over 50 so it will take an additional few…”

The Chairman took out his pistol and pointed it at me. He asked Bob2, “You know how to make Einstein live, right?”

Bob2 was shocked and said, “Yes.”

“I think one person is enough.” We put up our hands in protest.

“You know everything? ” asked the Chairman to Bob2.

“Because I am going to kill Bob. You will be the only Bob hereafter. You will be the original Bob. You’d get to go on living and get to see the outside world too.”

I was shocked. I was counting the seconds before I died.

Unexpectedly, Bob2 stepped in front of me and crossed his hands. Chairman warned him to move out of the way.

“Chairman, Bob is a good person. He already finished Einstein, he’s just in testing so he’s not ready yet. Please go and meet him. Using the hair he created two versions, Box 1 and Box 2. But the Box 2 process produced better results, go in and see him. He’s waiting for you.”

The Chairman was surprised and happily went into the room. Then the next person followed. And the next after that. They continued to go, but didn’t come out. Eventually they were all gone. I smiled.

“Thanks for pretending to be me, Bob2. I thought the Chairman might kill me, so I asked you to take my place for the plan to work. I couldn’t allow him to kill you so I had to get in front of the gun.” We embraced one another.

“Who is the box 2 person?” asked Bob2. “Tell me.” “

“I won’t tell you. But you can see him. He’ll be familiar to you.”

I said loudly, “Mr. Box 2 please come outside.”

From that room, Mr. Bruce Lee came out

Bob2 was surprised, “Oh, you saved us!”

He replied, “You have given life to me, man.”

Bob2 was confused. How was it possible to get Bruce Lee’s hair. I took the Chairman’s bag from the table and pulled out a hardcover book.

“Do you remember this?” I asked Bob2.

I opened it and said, “I saw it on eBay. A barber had a hobby and collected famous persons hair with their autograph. After his life was over, his son put it on auction on eBay. It was too expensive to buy.”

“But once the Chairman knew about our research he purchased it, yet he only gave us the hair from Einstein first.”

“Well, then how did you get Bruce’s hair?” asked Bob2.

“Once I saw the hardcover I tried to recall where I’d seen it before. One day he forgot his bag and I looked through it. I saw Bruce Lee’s hair and I decided that he was our best chance.”

“Thank you again, Mr. Lee.”

“Hey, you know guys, I’ve always wanted to meet Einstein,” said Bruce. And so we activated Box 1.

True or false? Yes or no? Success or failure?

Any one of these is only possible at one time. For example my statement can either be true, or it can be false. It can’t be both true and false. But in the case of my research, I’ve found a way to have both success and failure, what’s known as a successful failure.

I am an army scientist. I don’t want to share my name with you because you may be able to guess which country I belong to. My research is classified at the highest levels. We maintained it as above top secret even after implementation of the more practical aspects. No one need to know about it. Only three people knew about the research. And I was one of them.

Why does it need to be secret though you ask? Well, if you know history, you’ll know why. Do you know the history of the word “OK?” Alright, well I’ll tell you. It was a long, long time ago. Every day an army captain would send a status report to the base about how many were killed in both sides of the war. If none had been killed, he would report it as 0 Killed. And shortened it to 0K. Now “ok” is used in everybody’s life. Another thing is that we couldn’t live without the internet which was invented for the army. If my research wasn’t top secret, it might catch on like these other things have. And that would not be good.

However, I trust that you’ll speak to no one about what you’re going to read here. So I will share this with you. Of course our research is for our soldiers, but it could be helpful for all soldiers around the world.

If I question one of my soldiers and say to him, “You are in the war but you don’t have any weapons. You cannot escape. You have two options: either die or be captured by the enemy.” My soldier’s response will be, “I will fight. If I am about to be caught I will commit suicide.” This is because of war crimes. If he gets caught by the enemy, it will not go well for him. This is real to him. To the world it might be on page 4 of the newspaper if it’s in there at all.