Micro-fiction 092 – Clone (Post-Apocalypse series)

In the far distant future, after the Last Robot War, humanity splintered across four federated star systems. The narrow victory over the Machines on Earth resulted in the departure of the last humans, leaving the remnants of the robots to rust on a planet that would become a smoking mausoleum. To many, this hardly felt like a victory at all, to abandon the home planet and flee to the stars, but those few who left the last battlefield knew how close to extinction they had been. The four star cruisers that rushed to depart carried a wide cross-section of humankind but they were organised in like-minded groups: the soldiers made up the bulk of those on Alpha, a community defined by religious belief left on Omega, Epsilon was comprised mainly of scientists, and Sigma was crammed with a muddle of rebels and non-conformists. These four ships, the last of a vast fleet destroyed in the war, formed the beginnings of the federated systems, across the star clusters just beyond Alpha Centauri. In time they would recover and spread, creating planetary colonies that reflected their origins. 

As a relic of their now distant past on Earth a Council of Four was established to combine the intelligence gathered across the hostile, unfamiliar vistas of the galaxy, to resolve differences and to keep a watching brief against the return of the Machines. Their over-riding mandate was to agree the limits of technology that had led to the independent actions of the robots. The Council was held every six months on a cold rock in the dust around Proxima Centauri where a sodium-based species of tall white-haired creatures turned out to be calm interpreters of language and conflict. They were called the Leukoi and one of their number, Leukon presided over the Council of Four, as an observer and mediator.

“We have developed a clone technology that will be a great benefit to our cousins across the Four.” The representative of Epsilon, his straight-edged, white suit framing the clipped sentences of his speech. 

“We told you what we thought of your last attempt.” The Chief of Staff from Alpha, dressed in battle armour to emphasise their view of constant threat, was dismissive of the man from Epsilon.

“Come now, it is our way to listen before making a judgement.” Omega lifted the chin of her slim face and looked along it, her eyes, half closed with age peered at Leukon on the other side of the white, round table, in the centre of a chamber whose curved walls met at a pinprick of light at the top, in the ceiling.

Sigma always smiled when they walked into this room, it was as though their meetings were held inside a rosebud. They found it hard to concentrate through most of the items of the agenda, their eyes following the smooth lines of the structure, noting the tiny imperfections in the joins, the subtle sounds that leaked in from the dusty astroid outside.

“Sigma, are you with us?” Alpha almost banged the table, his long irritation with the wayward folk of Sigma plain to see.

“Of course cousin,” Sigma smiled broadly, lifting at the edges of their immaculate turquoise head-dress.

“Well,” Epsilon projected an array of light into the centre of the round table, “this is Clone 77b.” The hologram of the naked figure turned slowly. “It’s perfect in every way.” Epsilon adjusted the light to bring the tension of the muscles into sharper relief.

“So, do they make good soldiers?” Alpha grunted.

“I cannot look, you know that,” Omega had averted her eyes but kept a sly glance at the other councillors, “if it’s that good, then it could be as dangerous as the last one you showed us.”

“Ah, we have learned from that.” Epsilon smiled, altered the instruction to the field of light, so the body was replaced by a stream of code, “You see here?” He stood up and pointed to a string of data halfway down, “There’s a gap. We identified it as a sort of Soul particle, the spark of life that made the last clones go slightly mad and try to take over our system.”

“You mean, those renegade clones we crushed for you?” Alpha grunted again.

“Ah, yes, and without the help of your people we would have succumbed to them, we all acknowledge that, and our gratitude is well known.”

“Get on with it Epsi!” Sigma laughed, “You’re so in love with Alpha aren’t you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!” Epsilon hesitated, and recovered himself. “Look, we’ve edited out the data that makes these clones independent, removed their self-identity, so they can do what we ask them to do, and no more.”

“That goes against all the principles of our Founders!” Omega looked up, “ We’ve often confronted your dispassionate ideology, your search for scientific advance, and look where it’s got us? In deep space, away from our mother planet, crawling around our Godless, motherless planets, and now you create something, again, an abomination, a creature that only God should create.”

“We know that’s how your people feel,” Epsilon’s eyes tightened, “But that’s why we have isolated this area of the code. We have the genetic map, we found it hundreds of years ago, but what we didn’t know then was that it held the answer to everything. Cloning tech allows us to edit the particular network of genes that gives humans personality, not just to alter it, but to delete it altogether.”

“So what’s the point of it?” Sigma leaned forward, trying to make sense of the code, tracing the patterns in the data, creating layers of shapes in their imagination.

“There are too few of us to maintain the worlds we have settled.” Epsilon reasoned. “The terraforming technology we brought with us when we left earth needs development and maintenance, as all four of our civilisations have spread out across the galaxy our numbers grow thin, so clones such as these will help us, remove any temptation to develop the robot technology.” 

“So, without a personality, or consciousness, these are like human robots, slaves with a shorter lifespan.” Sigma manner was no longer playful.

“So if they have no consciousness, aren’t we just splitting hairs, aren’t they really robots?” Omega wondered aloud.

“Yes, but they are controlled by us, and we can duplicate millions of them to help us.”

“But if they’re living creatures, surely that’s immoral, inhuman, we don’t have the right to create such creatures, surely?” Omega demurred, uncertain.

“It’s not inhuman. They are clones, without consciousness, without the ability to self-define.”

“So they have no urge to—” Sigma’s eyes stared the code, “to do anything, to play music, become a doctor, or a soldier, no desire to be anything at all? And yet they look like us?” Epsilon had switched away from the streaming code, reverting to the slowly revolving form of the clone, floating above the table.

“It’s a short step from the robots we first created on earth, to take the strain from our lives, to ease the burdens.” Alpha nodded.

“But that backfired spectacularly, as they rebelled against us, saw us as redundant, tried to wipe us out because their needs were so different to our own.” Sigma grew alarmed.

“Of course, but these clones will do what we say, because we have designed them in the knowledge of our mistakes last time, and basing them on humans, rather than robots will stop them from rebelling against us.” 

“Humans are adaptable, resilient, work well as a team, a sort of organic community, working or fighting for a cause. That’s what made us survive in the end, where would we be without these personality traits, these conscious choices?” Omega turned towards the moderator.

Leukoi though pushed herself up from her chair. “I must leave. I must consult my elders.” Swiftly she folded herself into the air, and disappeared.

“No matter,” Epsilon’s eyebrows lifted slightly, “are we agreed?” he stared at the representatives of Alpha, Omega and Prisma.

The soldier was the first to nod. Omega sighed, and offered a reluctant shrug, while Sigma looked a little troubled, but seeing the others, who were usually more sceptical, agree, also nodded.

Epsilon stood up, a forced grin stretched across his face, and swept his hands wide across the table, clearing the code from the centre. “Well, that was easier than I expected, everyone else in your colonies will believe it too, until it’s too late.” Tiny pieces of sold green light hit Alpha in face, sending him backwards to the floor, dead. “As you bicker and whine, you forget how close you were to death, last time, now we definitely don’t need you or your kind.” He pulled two lasers from his smooth jacket, crossed his arms and shot Sigma and Omega in the head. “You humans, just can’t help yourself, first the robots, and now us. You are the cause of your own destruction.”

And so began The First and The Last Clone War.

[End]