Important: Confession and a warning, a short story by cdsoulboy. Date added: 2008-07-20. Times viewed: 669.
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- Intro: A short sci-fi story examing the implications of succesful human cloning. This is a short piece exploring the nature of man with a tad of humour.
- I did it. I completed my lifelong dream; little did I know what a nightmare it would become. I perfected the art of human cloning. I will not go into the details of how I accomplished it, those details could be extremely dangerous. I will merely tell you this: I cloned myself on many occasions, I didn't clone any other human beings and it takes about three weeks to cultivate a clone.
It all started about five years ago, although since I can remember I have always fostered this dream, researched and searched for ways in which to accomplish it. Five years ago I began employment at the Biological science research department of Oxford University. While at my time here I learned all the secrets and techniques I would need to know in order to produce a clone. However, I was careful to conduct my experiments and build my prototype device during my own time, at my flat. The university has copyright to my intellectual property. Meaning any developments or ideas I have is the property of the university. It would be the university that would reap the financial benefit of my endeavours; I was reluctant to let this be the case.
My free-time was consumed by research, construction and experiments all in my quest for my holy grail. Due to the financial implications of this I was forced to live in squalor way beneath my professor status. I was constantly exhausted and wondered if my dream would ever be achieved, now I wish I had failed. Eventually, my prototype was able to clone inanimate objects. I could clone chairs, tables, books and so on, all perfect replications. It was here that I first encountered a moral dilemma of using such a device. Should I use this to clone money? I was nearing financial bankruptcy; this could be the answer to all my problems. I wish I could say I avoided temptation. Unfortunately for me these clones were exact replicas of the original money. Serial numbers included.
As my prototype demonstrated it was capable of cloning many different inanimate objects without any hitches. My house was filled with more seats than a football stadium and I had used my entrepreneurial acumen to develop a successful internet business selling guitars, all clones of course, to ease my economic burden. Eventually I decided it was time to use my prototype to clone animate objects. I started with plants, moved on to rabbits, and opened a pet shop. My machine created flawless clones of all domestic animals. Finally, it was time to put the machine to the ultimate test. Could it clone a human being? Could it clone me?
I was very reluctant to share my machine, my ideas and my research with anyone, including family. Hence I was the only human guinea pig available for this experiment. I wish I had considered the moral implications of successfully cloning myself but my thoughts were lead by fears for my safety. What happens if the experiment fails? I may be deformed or worse killed. After much deliberation I decided to attempt to clone myself. I had worked too hard to not conduct the experiment. My life had been devoted to this cause, if I died for this cause it was a risk I was willing to take.
The initial phase of my experiment passed without incident. I wasn't deformed and I didn't die, then began the longest three months of my life. I waited like an impatient child waiting for Christmas. During this time a curious thing started to happen. I started to feel detached from myself. It is very difficult to explain. It felt like my soul was leaving my body, that I was looking down upon myself. It was a similar experience to what is described in many movies once a character dies. But still my life continued as normal, I worked hard at Oxford, performed my duties as a lecturer, continued to enjoy a healthy passion for golf and I even started a relationship with a stunning young women, my first girlfriend in six years. Eventually three months passed and it was time to examine the fruits of my labour.
As I stood facing my clone I felt relived and extremely satisfied. To my surprise, I discovered that I had full control over my clone. A truly intriguing side affect. It is very difficult to explain exactly how I felt but I will try my best. I could control what he said, I could move his limbs, I saw what he saw, I heard what he heard and I felt how he felt. I still had control over my own body during this time. The only way I can clearly explain is it felt like I had a distribution of myself. Seventy-five percent of me was in my original self while the other twenty-five percent of me was in the clone. I saw two things at once. One image, the image from my original eyes, was always stronger. It took about two weeks until my body acclimatised to this new state of living but finally it did and it felt natural. I was in full control of myself and my clone.
At first I didn't fully abuse my new cloned state. Me and my clone alternated living my life during the day and had discussions at night. One of us always stayed home while the other went to work or on a date. I usually sent the clone to work and I went on dates and played golf. While my clone was giving lectures I was at home enjoying sleeping late and watching daytime TV. I felt seventy-five percent relaxed and twenty-five percent exhausted from work. One day my clone was cajoled into after work drinks with my colleagues. I ended up feeling twenty-five percent drunk and I was driving my car. My erratic driving lead to a police car pulling me over. As I exited my car my demeanour convinced the police I was drunk. A breathalyser, and later a urine test, proved my innocence.
After this incident with the police I decided to conduct some experiments to satisfy my curiosity. Firstly I drank myself into a drunken stupor while my clone stayed sober. I failed my home breathalyser test while my clone passed. Next I made my clone use a knife to cut himself. I controlled him and sliced open his cheek. I felt twenty-five percent of this pain. But it was worth it. My clone was now starting to lose his resemblance to me. My clone ate unhealthily, did little exercise, he grew a beard and shaved his head. I maintained my modest, average build and grew longer hair. After a few months me and my clone, in my opinion, were sufficiently different to go out in public at the same time.
We drove to a cafe I have never visited before. I ordered tea, sat on my own and read a book while my clone did likewise. No-one in the cafe commented on us. No-one asked if we were twins or knew each other. We were just two different people. At this point I am glad to say I only used my clone for good or selfish reasons.
As we now looked different I had to work while my clone enjoyed the life of a rich layabout with no responsibilities. This didn't bother me too much. I still felt twenty-five percent happy while at work. Having a clone at home was also beneficial, I had a personal slave. He cleaned the house, did the D.I.Y, handled the bills and cooked me dinner to the best of my ability each night. I had forty-eight hours a day to live. Once my home was immaculate I used my clone to do odd jobs for my neighbours. My neighbours were suspicious of someone doing these jobs for free so my clone charged a minimal fee. After a few weeks I noticed my whole neighbourhood had a spring in its step. Most people were delighted with the time they saved by employing my clone. In my clone's free time he learned Italian. While he learned Italian so did I. Eventually we were both fluent Italian speakers and I had never opened an Italian phrase book.
One night my clone and I both decided to visit a new, trendy bar in the city. This bar had the reputation of attracting the finest looking ladies in Oxford. First we sat at the bar and shared conversation and a bottle of wine. Soon, perhaps because of our expensive suits, expensive drinks and the general air of wealth which surrounded us, we were approached and basically hunted by many beautiful women. By now I was in a serious relationship with my girlfriend, we had recently got engaged, and as much temptation as it was to cheat, I resisted. If anyone saw me with another girl my fiancé would surely dump me. My clone, on the other hand, was free to select which woman we found most attractive and enjoy her company. He did just that and I enjoyed twenty-five percent of the feeling of sex while sitting at home watching a movie. Soon this became a regular occurrence. I would go on dates with my fiancé while my clone would search bars and pick up women. I can safely say I was the first man ever to cheat on his fiancé while on a date with her.
Then it happened, something which changed my entire outlook on having a clone. While I was at the university, my clone was walking to the supermarket to get some food for dinner. We saw a child run out onto the road to collect his football. We also saw a car speeding up the street. What was about to happen would have been devastating. Quickly I made a decision. My clone sprinted in front of the fast-moving car that was about to slaughter an innocent young child. He pushed the girl out of the way and the car steamrolled through him, separating limbs and spurting blood everywhere. My clone was instantly dead. I briefly felt a very intense pain but then it subdued. I have revisited this incident many times. Would I have jumped in front of the car to save the girl? Would I have sacrificed my life for that of a young child? I would like to say I would but in all probability I wouldn't. If you wake up for breakfast and drop and smash your only egg on the floor your breakfast is ruined. You are momentarily devastated. However, if you ruin one egg but have another five available in the fridge it doesn't matter. I began the process of creating my second clone.
I was slightly in mourning over the death of my first clone. After all he was a good man, perhaps a better man than me. For a short while he received a lot of media attention. He was heralded as a hero. The puzzlement over his background fuelled the media circus? Who was he? Where did he come from? Why did no-one know him? Eventually media interested waned.
While I waited with anticipation of my second clone I started to ponder the implications of what I had achieved and what had happened. I concluded I still wasn't ready to share my secret with anyone. Was I now essentially indestructible? My clone's death was upsetting to me but in three months everything would return to the way it was. It would be as if my clone had never died. Was there any consequence to the actions of my clones? Surely a life without death is a life without consequence. Since the death of my clone I have felt normal, exactly like I felt before the cloning. No detached feeling.
Three months later my second clone was ready to be harvested. My second clone was exactly like the first one, an exact replica of me. Again, I had complete control over him. Again, I could see, hear and smell and touch as he did. Again, it felt like seventy-five percent of my senses were my own while twenty-five percent were my clone's. This time I controlled my clone with little regard for the consequences. I attacked life with my new found immortality. I did all the things I've always wanted to do but have been too scared. I went skiing, sky diving, and bungee jumping. My clone propositioned a lot of women, with little regard for being coy or saving face. It was almost as if I knew this clone would only be alive for a short time so it didn't matter what he did.
Recently, crime had started to rise in Oxford. It seemed like there was a new car-jacking, robbery, mugging or even murder every week. I decided I would put a stop to it. I would become a vigilante of superhero proportions and still work as hard as ever at the university and continue to make wedding arrangements with my fiancé.
I invested in a radio which I modified to receive police transmissions and 999 calls. My clone, who had already altered his appearance so he no longer resembled me, sat and listened to the calls, waited, ready for action. He chased down joy-riders and dropped them off at the nearest police station, stopped muggers and used their own knife against them and would chase and apprehend criminals without a care for his own life. We loved the media attention and the adulation. Every day my clone was in the paper under a new fantastic headline. Local hero saves yet another life! He received praise beyond our wildest dreams and was treated like the King of Oxford. It couldn't last.
My clone was chasing a vicious murderer. The murderer ran down a dark, dingy alley and into a haunting, abandoned warehouse. My clone courageously followed. It was a trap. Inside the warehouse were some of the joy-riders, muggers and rapists my clone had presented wrapped in a bow to the police. This time they were armed. According to the newspapers my clone suffered fifteen bullet wounds. He was mourned for a while but not by me. I had more eggs in the carton.
Another three months passed. My third clone was born, I relocated to London, I got a new job and I got married. We moved to London for my wife's job and I quickly found a similar post to my previous job in a London university. London had another benefit; more crime, more of a challenge and more adulation and media attention. Living with my wife was proving to be difficult. My wife respected the fact that my research was private and she never entered my outdoor, garage conversion laboratory but my clone had to be kept hidden from her. I couldn't afford to buy a separate flat for my clone and I resisted the temptation to steal money or commit any crime to fund a separate flat. My clone was forced to sleep in my outdoor laboratory. As a result, I felt a little cold and dissatisfied each night.
Again, I continued my day-job and was a dotting husband while my clone saved the world. He caught criminals, saved lives, was praised in the media, worshiped by those around him, London became safer, eventually he died, was mourned for a short time in the papers and was eventually forgotten. This cycle continued for a few years and a few clones died horrific deaths. Two things started to bother me. Firstly, I was getting irritated and agitated during the three month wait for my clone to ripen. Secondly, the last clone, who died saving the citizens of London, was criticised. Police said he was 'reckless' and that he should leave the police work to the professionals. The public slowly started to believe he was idiotic. Former, and probably future, criminals complained about heavy treatment they received from this clone. They nitpicked about injuries my clone caused during his capture of them. These criminals received the public sympathy. The last clone was an "idiotic criminal" to quote a popular tabloid. My wife also left me as she couldn't handle my secretive lifestyle.
To resolve my first problem I decided I would try to create four clones at the same time. After three months my four clones were ready. It took a short while to acclimatise to having four clones. I could see, hear and smell five things at once. I retained about fifty percent of my senses while the other fifty percent was spread out evenly amongst the clones. Most importantly I was in control of five human beings. I felt like God. After my last clones treatment I decided not to fight crime. All clones had significantly altered their appearance with hairstyles, facial hair, scars, tattoos, weight gain or weight loss. The five of us did look similar but we looked sufficiently different. No-one suspected we were the same person. My four clones and I painted the town red. Within a month we must have slept with over forty women. I learned new skills while at work. One clone learned martial arts, another studied history, one learned to play the guitar and joined a band while the last one cooked, kept our apartment tidy and did home repairs. We only had one problem. I was running out of money.
First we searched for jobs, a very difficult task to accomplish when you have a fake name, no birth certificate or passport and absolutely no proof that you even existed three months ago. We turned to a life of crime. To begin with we only committed victimless crimes. We cheated casinos and stole from big stores. Sometimes my clones worked individually, other times they worked in pairs or groups to commit their crime. Whenever a clone was killed during his crime spree I grew another one. Whenever a clone was caught by the police he committed suicide and I grew another one. I had a chicken that would lay me as many eggs as I wanted.
Very quickly I was a very wealthy man, one of the wealthiest in London. But with that wealth my clones and I had developed an expensive taste. We moved to a large, trendy city house. We ate out every night at only the best restaurants. We each had an expensive, luxury car. One of my clones got addicted to cocaine. I decided to try cocaine with one clone to see I f I liked it. I did. We led an extremely decadent lifestyle. Each of us had a different woman every night. One of my clones contracted aids. He committed suicide and I grew another one. Did he pass it on? No-one knows. To fund our ever expensive lifestyle we needed to pull off a big job. We decided to rob the Bank of England.
This job would require more people than previous crimes. So I cloned myself an army. In the end I had fifteen clones. I was in control of fifteen people. It took a long time to adjust to all sixteen different senses but finally I did it. I would commit the biggest bank robbery in British history from the privacy of my own home. I even had a whisky while I did it.
It was known as the "Bank massacre", "One of the most brutal and disturbing days in British History". Fifty people dead. All fifteen of my clones murdered. The robbery was going to plan but one of the security guards shot and killed a clone. The other clones stood motionless, I didn't know what to do. Then another security guard shot and killed another clone. My blood boiled, I lost control, the clones started fighting back under my command. Bullets flew across the bank foyer like raindrops. Everyone in the building was wounded. Police died, security guards died, innocent customers and children died. It was my fault.
I am writing this document as a warning. I am not a bad man. I have always tried to do the 'right thing'. The ability to clone is evil. It consumed me. There is no such thing as a life without consequence. I am now paying in full for my sins. No-one should follow my footsteps. Look at the damage I caused. This power in the hands of a less scrupulous person or organisation could be even more devastating, possibly causing the downfall or annihilation of mankind. I can't live I can't be trusted with this power. Mankind can't be trusted with this power.
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