Steven Kent - The Clone Elite

“Were you living on Earth?” I asked.

“Not me. I had a small farm on Janus.”

“Janus? That’s not in the Orion Arm, is it?”

“It’s in the Perseus Arm. I’ll tell you what, when the Perseus Arm signed on to the Confederate Arms Treaty, I thought I was going to die. Me living in one of the Confederate Arms …If my parents had not died when I was a kid, that would have killed them.”

Every clone raised in every orphanage was programmed to believe he was the only true orphan on the premises. Learning differently could trigger the death reflex in a standard-issue clone. As a Liberator, I discovered my true origins within a year of joining the Marines. In my case, ignorance was not blissful, and learning the truth had not set me free.

“Did the Confederate Army ask you to join up?”

“Not to fight against the Unified Authority. They knew better. As long as they knew I wasn’t fighting against them, I think that was good enough. Truth is, I don’t think they were worried about me. I mean, I’m fifty-six years old. I’m no spring chicken.”

Hearing his age left me stunned. If the Pentagon was recalling fifty-year-old men, things were grim.

An officer came and opened a miniature movie holotorium at the front of the cabin. The compartment was four feet tall, seven feet wide, and two feet deep, a slightly curved concavity faced with a dull, snow-white finish.

“Look at that, they’re going to show us something. Maybe they’re going to brief us,” my new pal said. He sounded excited.

I expected a propaganda film about life in the military. That’s what they showed us on the way to boot camp when I was a recruit. Instead, the words “THE SUN ALSO RISES” appeared in large, three-dimensional letters that slowly revolved above the small holotorium screen.

The background of the movie was projected using old-fashioned two-dimensional technology. The foreground, the characters, the furniture, a door here or automobile there, was shown in holographic 3-D. The final product was a three-dimensional experience in which you could completely lose yourself.

“Holy speck, an Ava Gardner movie,” my new pal said. “If this is how they treat the recruits, I think I’m glad I’m back in.” We sat and watched our movie as the flight crew walked the aisles passing out beef noodle MREs. My pal tore his meal open, and said, “This is the life!”

I thought it a bad omen. In my experience, the services became more hospitable as the situations became worse.

“You think Ava’s a clone?” the guy asked. “I saw an old film clip with the original Ava—you know, the actress from way back when. They do look an awful lot alike. It’s kind of scary.”

“Does it make any difference if she is a clone?” I asked.

“Sure it does. I’d be disappointed if she is. I mean, you know, then she’s not the real thing.”

The movie was about an ancient time in which honor seemed to mean more than victory. When men fought, they knocked each other down and walked away from the fight. Gardner looked beautiful playing a young ingénue smitten with a bullfighter in twentieth-century Spain. Looking infatuated and innocent, she reminded me of Christina. “I’d take a night with her, synthetic or not,” I said, meaning both Ava and Christina.

My new friend and I traded a few more comments as we ate our MREs and watched the movie. When Gardner appeared on the screen, nobody on the flight spoke a word. Then the movie ended. As the credits scrolled, my pal looked over at me. “I’m Glen Benson. I guess it’s about to become Corporal Benson. Can you believe it? A fifty-six-year-old corporal. I guess they’ve come up with some sort of peacetime duties for us old guys like me.”

“Harris,” I said, offering a hand. As we shook, the cabin lights came on. Benson looked at me, screwed his eyes into a squint, then pulled back his hand.

The way Benson now stared at me, I knew he had something he wanted to ask. I also had a pretty good idea of what that might be. I decided to make it easy on him. “You’re wondering if I’m a Liberator?” I asked.

Benson’s expression remained flat. “I already know what you are. I thought all the Liberators were dead,” he said, sounding hostile.

“Let me guess, you were one of the soldiers they sent to Albatross Island after the prison riots.” A decade before I was born, there was a riot on a penal colony called Albatross Island. The Navy dispatched Liberator clones to handle the situation.

Liberators had been designed for combat in unknown and dangerous situations. Instead of a gland with a death hormone, our physiology included a gland that released a combination of testosterone and adrenaline into our blood, giving us a combat reflex that kept our minds cool and our thoughts clear. It was a pretty good idea with one problem—most Liberators became addicted to the hormone, and the only way to keep it flowing was to keep on fighting. When the Liberators finished killing the rioting prisoners on Albatross Island, they killed the hostages, then the nonrioting prisoners, then some of the guards. The Army had to send an entire battalion to take control of the planet.

“I went to Albatross Island,” Glen said. “I went to Volga, Electra, Dallas Prime, and New Prague, too. Albatross Island wasn’t the worst. They only killed adults on Albatross—guards and prisoners, at least they had a shot at defending themselves.”

“I wasn’t involved in any of those actions,” I said.

“I don’t see how you could be, a young guy like you. Those massacres happened almost thirty years ago, you weren’t even made yet, were you?” Glen asked.

Before I could answer, he said, “My question is why you were made at all. When did the Senate vote to bring back Liberators?”

I shook my head. “I’m one of a kind. Some factory worker made a mistake.”

“A bad one,” Glen said. “I was a private when all those massacres happened. General Crowley called my unit up to help with the investigations.

“You ever wonder why a decorated officer like Crowley would abandon his command to join the Mogats? I can tell you why. After seeing what the Liberators did, I wondered if the Mogats didn’t have it right after all. He must have figured traitors and religious fanatics were better than Liberators.

“Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I want to get some sleep before we reach Mars.” Having said his piece, Glen leaned back in his chair and shut his eyes, a frown remaining on his lips. He did not speak to me again for the rest of the flight.

As we prepared to leave the C-89, the men around me talked excitedly about returning to active status in the military. They had created successful civilians lives, but they were clones, built and bred to be soldiers. Some of the guys talked about stopping in the duty-free stores and picking up booze before they shipped out. Others talked about buying enough cigarettes to last for their entire tour of duty. Military men love a shopping bazaar as a rule, and these retired clones were no exception.

The last time I entered Mars Spaceport, it was brightly lit and packed with civilians. Men in suits and women in smart dresses crowded the clubs and business centers. Models in tight dresses stood at the entrances of fragrance stores trying to tempt men into sniffing some new perfume. Parents took young children to play in the solariums. Everywhere you looked you saw neon signs marking some gaudy new retailer.

The men ahead of me rushed down the gangway laughing, stepped into the terminal, and fell silent. I stepped off the gangway and fell silent. Mars Spaceport had become an empty shell.

Without the crowds and the lights, the spaceport revealed its true nature—a cavernous mausoleum. Metal gates hung like curtains over storefronts that looked as dark as deep-sea caves. Halls that had once teemed with an endless tide of humanity sat dark and silent, lit only by the plumes of red and green emergency torches.