Part V(a)
I sat upright with a violent jerk. I knew I had just been cloned. My lungs always had a wet feeling to them…
I clutched my chest. I had just been shot, I was bleeding—my mind echoed the pain. I had trouble breathing. I sobbed. Jodie died and I was dying. Or I had just been.
It was dark and dank. So dark and dank it seemed to have a physical presence. It certainly wasn’t my clone lab. I don’t think that antibiotics would have made much of difference. I rolled to my side and hacked viciously.
A dim light came on. I could faintly see Jodie’s face over me but I couldn’t focus. She brushed my hair from my face in a soothing fashion. I continued to weep and she comforted me. After I calmed a little she gave me a shot of something.
“Hey there.” She said, “I can’t afford antibiotics. This will have to do.”
“What is that?” I rasped.
“You don’t want to know. Synthetic Endorphins mostly, and methamphetamine… I just need you to wake up. I don’t really give a fuck if you get pneumonia. If everything goes ok, I won’t have to worry about that for long.”
“Where are we?” I managed as I felt the wave of whatever she shot me up with wash over me, nausea surfed in behind. Why didn’t she say ‘we’? I wondered.
“Somebody’s basement–Don’t even tell me about the dangers. I am no good at this homebrew cloning shit. I did what I had to. I raised the money and hired someone to do what you used to. I had to bribe the fucking cops to get a copy of you.”
I tried my best to sit up and I was immediately sorry that I did. Immediately I laid back down to stop the room from spinning. I felt bile at the back of my throat. What the fuck does a new clone have to throw up? After a moment Jodie leaned in close to me and for the first time I was actually able to focus and see her face clearly.
It was wrong. Horribly wrong. She was almost unrecognizable.
There were things about her face that I had never seen before. On the left side of her face there was a terrible scar that ran from her eye down her cheek to her jawbone. The mouth was all wrong too. It was disfigured. There was an attempt to correct it but it was horribly damaged. I think I would have noticed THIS before. There were worry lines and crows feet but that was minor compared to the scarring. I started to reach for her but my index finger wouldn’t extend. It took me a second to realize that it was still trying to carry out the last thing I was trying to do when I died; pull the pin on the grenade. I had to force it straight with my other fingers, and as soon as I released it hooked again. Very weird.
“What the hell s going on? I remember dying why is that?”
“The Yakuza Job. Everyone’s dead. It’s all gone. The apartment, the lab, our shit… I’ve been on the run for years, seven fucking years. Struggling to survive. Like the scars? Chics dig scars… right?”, an awkward noise, maybe a giggle.
The shock and weight of seven years came down on me.
It mixed with the horrible memories of dying.
It was claustrophobic—closing in on me.
I had a bad taste in my mouth I wanted to puke.
Jodie stood up with her back to me. She walked to a support beam and spun around it. I lost her in the dim light.
“We were set up by someone.” Her voice had moved. I turned my head to follow it, but it lolled uncontrollably.
“Maybe it was the Yaks,” She continued, “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. The cops had your memories and DNA but they nobody has ever tried to arrest me… only kill me.”
A few seconds later her voice came from another direction. “I really don’t know who to trust.” I heard her pick something up from the concrete. Whatever it was it sounded like it was metal–and heavy.
“Set up by who? You don’t think it was me?!? You know I would never betray you.”
That drew a ironic sounding laugh from the left.
“I love you.” I whispered, concerned.
A long silence, it felt like an eternity. Something was really out of sorts here.
Suddenly there she was on the right hand side, eyes wide—showing too much white. The same wounded animal look she gave DA the other night (plus seven years). I didn’t even have a chance to react as she swung a lead pipe at me. The pipe struck the lower part of my ribcage and the solar plexus. There was a sickening crack and my air left me. My vision doubled and went blurry from the tears. Did I see that right? Was she… smiling? Hard to tell with the new scars.
“Love me?!?”, she screeched.
“Trust?”,
“Betrayal?”,
“I’ll tell you about betrayal motherfucker!” She disappeared again into the darkness.
“You raped me.” It was from the left this time. She surged at me again swinging in a high arc, double handed like she was chopping wood. I squeaked pitifully having no air to scream. Weakly I raised my left arm to block it. The pipe snapped my arm like a pencil, but the arm absorbed enough of the blow that the pipe missed my head. I finally mustered enough air, and my scream came then. Oh yes it did. So did the blood. It sprayed out into the dark, stark white bone showing.
My senses failed me.
V(b)
I woke up very fuzzy. Some sort of narcotic haze. I tried to move and suddenly was very very sorry that I tried. My broken arm was in a sling but not set. The flesh looked gray, pale and dead. Maybe I was dead. Who knows… whatever she gave me didn’t really kill the pain but rather took the white hot level of pain, down to a dull orange. My head was large and thick, impossibly heavy. My head lolled around I noticed the tourniquet she had applied to control the bleeding. The main lights were on now and I saw Jodi sitting nearby possibly asleep? No, on a nod. A needle dangled from the bend in her right arm. A jolt of panic hit me what if she OD’ed? I would have been trapped.
“You raped me” she had said before she attacked. The words echoed in my brain over and over.
Serious words. I didn’t need to rationalize it. You see, I loved her. She didn’t reciprocate that. I didn’t know what to do. I had already by this this point encrypted the keys to us running away to our DNA. I thought that if we had a child—it would change how she felt about me. I had sex with the clone before I restored her mind. At that point it was technically just tissue. It was before her memories were implanted, nobody was home. So I didn’t really blame her for what she did.
It hurt to breathe. I wheezed like there was a 500lb man was sitting on my chest. I guessed two or three shattered ribs, and maybe a collapsed lung. I wasn’t in good shape. The tourniquet was on too long. My left arm was questionable.
She groaned and began to stir. It took her a few minutes to became aware and sit up. “You in pain?”
“Yes.” I admitted.
“Good, you motherfucker. I hope you hurt bad.”
“Why did you stop then? Why didn’t you finish it?” I asked.
“I wanted you to hurt before you died, but first I need you to get the money and the old memories/DNA.”
“Well you might as well finish it now. This is a field copy. This body’s DNA is shit.” I giggled, more than I wanted to. Whatever she shot me up with must have been pretty strong. I felt giggly as a schoolgirl.
“I know that.” She spat then pulled the needle from her arm. She threw it off into a corner absently. “I think you made a back door somewhere, and I really NEED to access the old DNA and memories. I want to rewind the clock 7 years, I want to forget all this shit.” She picked up the lead pipe again and got to her feet. She looked infinitely tired. “I want to forget it all… the running, the depression, the drugs, your bastard kid, all of it.”
She put the pipe up on her shoulder. “Ready? Ok, Let’s discuss how to bypass the system.”
“You don’t need the pipe.” I wheezed. “Just tell me about the kid. How is he? What’s he like?”
She gave me an evil grin, and placed the lead pipe tentatively against my right knee. The movement reminded me of a golfer lining up for a practice swing.
“SHE is very much like you. Looks like me, acts like you. She’s smart, too smart for her own good in fact. The very fact that she reminds me of you makes me hate her, almost as much as I hate you.”.
Jodi raised the pipe at that point.
I was smiling and thinking like every father does; when he finds out. Big shit eating grin, thinking about this child, this infinite potential, this miracle… then she hit me.
The narcotics, the elation; none of that helped a single bit when my kneecap disintegrated under the force of that lead pipe.
I shit myself.
