The Damned Lies Project

Wherein a clone is conceived of and conceived.

I replaced myself with a clone one summer.

It was the summer between high school and college.  Graduation was next weekend, and while I had a summer job, my life was otherwise uneventful.  Friends began to get apartments near school, threw themselves into summer jobs to make college money, or disappeared on their own adventures.  I also wanted to disappear too, but I needed to make money over the summer.  My parents would probably freak out too.

I don’t remember where the clone idea came from.  I think Bruce and I were sitting in his parents’ basement, talking about random shit and playing a fighting game.  He kicked my ass.  “You pretty good – you come back next year,” he taunted.

“What are you going to be doing next year?” I asked.

“College, I guess.”

“And the summer?”

“College job?  Come back here and do nothing?  Shit, I don’t know.  Something college-focused or college-involved.”

“And what are you going to do after college?” I asked.

“A job I guess.  Start a career based on the skills I learned and maybe internships.”

“So no time off?  You just go to college and you’re locked in for life?”

“That’s a really bleak way to put it,” he said.

“That’s the thing.  I’ve been thinking about that too.  This is really the last freedom we have.  After that we get put on career tracks, where even if we have time off, we’re required to be close to work.  You can’t just go somewhere spontaneously.”

“You’ve been really thinking about this,” he said.  “What would you do if not spending the summer here?”

“Travel, maybe.  A crazy adventure.  I just can’t, since I need the money I make this summer for college.  Beer money and that crap.  I don’t want to be the only college kid without beer.”

“That would be a tragedy,” he said dryly.  “So no travel for you, then.”

“If only I could be here and take that trip,” I said.  I frowned and stared off into space.  Bruce took this opportunity to kill me again in the game.

“I need a clone,” I said.

“Well, there’s that Evil Twin¹ across town,” he said.

“No, not like that.  I need a real clone.  Like me in every way, except he’s going to work the damn job and stay here.”  I zoned out again.  “You’re good at science, could you make me a clone?”

“A clone?  That’s impossible.”

“Nah, can’t be too hard.  Movies have them all the time.  It’s clearly just a theoretical concept that someone just has to go do.  I’ll give you ten percent of the clone’s wages if you make one.”

“It’s not an issue of money,” he said in exasperation.  “No one has ever cloned a human being.  And even if they did, it’d have to grow for seventeen years and wouldn’t have your personality.”

“Then just duplicate me,” I said.  “Some sort of transporter accident.  Or like they can only live for a few months before they dissolved.”

“Transporters don’t exist!”

“Okay, time paradox?”

“No!  Also impossible!”

“Geez, man, are you going to shoot everything down when I think of it?  Talk about a negative personality.  Ten percent of the clone’s wages isn’t a bad offer.”

“You’re asking the impossible,” he said flatly.

“Okay, twenty percent.  But that’s my final offer.”

Bruce sighed heavily.  “Okay, I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

The day before my graduation Bruce called me over to his parents’ house.  He said that while he couldn’t clone me, his little brother Vic said he might be able to do it.  Vic had been working on it all week in the basement.  The basement was vastly different than the last time I was there: boxes and packing popcorn replaced outdated rumpus room furniture.  There were some impressive looking machines.  I spent a long moment looking at a sparking Tesla coil.

“Wow, this stuff is cool!” I said.

“That?  That’s just something I got for when my sister’s stoned,” said Bruce.  “Tell him everything you told me, Vic.”

“The apparatus is over here,” said Vic.  Fifteen years old, pale, and wearing safety goggles.

“‘The apparatus?’  Who are you, Victor Von Frankenstein?”

“Hey, when you make the affront to the laws of nature, you get to name the equipment.”

He led me over to a standing glass tube attached with wires and cabling to various machines.  A computer was setup next to the largest machine.  The tube was big enough to fit a person and had a glass door on it.  There was a strange smell of brimstone – not strong, just a faint background scent that prickled my nose.

“So this will clone me?”  I asked.

“Technically, this will make a copy of you and transform that to data.  Then we take the atoms in air, then reshuffle them to a copy of your body and mind.”

“You came up with this in a week?”

“More or less,” he said, adjusting his safety goggles.  “I had a few ideas.  I spent most of the week building it.”

“But it can create me out of nothing?  It seems if you could do that, you’d win a Nobel prize.”

“Not out of nothing.  Ex Nihilo is impossible.  We’re just taking matter, in this case air, and then changing it.”

“That’s still pretty damn impressive,” I said.  “That’s going to change the world.”

“Technically, this isn’t something I would want to share with others.  I’m not sure they would approve.  There are some consequences,” he said vaguely.

“Like what?”

“Oh, there’s all sorts of balance in the universe.  So there’s some backlash.  Things get better here, maybe worse elsewhere.”

“Still, like what?”

“Oh,” he said, looking at a clip board.  “I calculated there’s a 67% chance that doing this will cause an orphanage in Lima, Peru to spontaneously combust.”

“What?”

“It’s just theoretical,” he said.  “I’d have to do a few more tests to confirm causation.  Those orphanages on CNN could have simply been coincidental.   One or two are within the margin of error for my calculations.”

“Are you kidding me?” I said, looking at Bruce.  He simply shrugged and gave me a that’s-just-my-little-brother look.

“I’m more concerned with the power usage during the running mode,” said Vic.

“Does it run up a crazy electric bill?” I asked, looking at the machinery.

“It doesn’t run on electricity,” said Vic strangely as he flipped pages on his clipboard.

“What does it run on?  Orphans?” I said sarcastically.

“Oh no, of course not,” he said.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“It consumes hope, positive feelings, goodwill, that sort of thing.”

I turned back to Bruce.  “What.  The.  Hell.”

“It’s what you wanted,” Bruce said sheepishly.

“I didn’t know I’d need to burn the world down to do it!”

“Technically, the world won’t burn,” interjected Vic.  “The world itself is mostly inflammable.  Parts of it can burn, but the world itself isn’t in danger of burning.”  He paused.  “The world will just become a less hopeful place each time the apparatus is used.”

I shot Bruce a do-you-see-what-I-fucking-mean look.

“Look, you asked for this,” said Bruce.  “I had to front a little money for all this equipment, so I really need to get that twenty percent of wages.”

“Doesn’t this thing freak you out?”

“Look, I’m used to my brother being a little creepy.  That’s just how things are.  But I don’t think it’s all true.  He likes playing things up.  Don’t worry about it.  I mean, have some balls for Chrissakes.  If you don’t do this, I still want twenty percent.  I’m not losing money based on your ball-lessness.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, but sighed.  “Alright, alright.  What do I need to do?”

Vic opened the door on the tube.  “Please step inside.”

Reluctantly I walked in and they closed the door.  It was oddly cramped in there.  If the glass was opaque, it would be severely claustrophobic.

“This better not mess up my hair,” I said. “Graduation’s tomorrow and I’ll have those pictures my whole life.”  Neither Bruce nor Vic acted like they heard me.  I looked up and down the tube and noticed a distinct lack of air holes.

Vic was typing keys on the computer while Bruce looked over his shoulder.  I’m not sure if I was running out of air or I panicked from perceived lack of air, but I had trouble breathing.  I tried banging on the glass, but it was thicker than I thought.  I noticed that it wasn’t even glass, but a thick plastic.

In a moment, some type of smoke or mist began filling the tube from below.  I banged on the tube harder, but failed to get their attention.  I screamed, but I was the only one who heard it.  My breathing grew more difficult as the mist filled the tube, obscuring my view.

Soon I couldn’t breathe anymore.  I blacked out.

* * *

I woke up staring at the sizzling light of a Tesla coil.  I lay on an old couch on the other side of the basement.  Dizzily I pulled myself to sitting posture and rubbed my eyes.  Across the room Vic sat had the computer while Bruce looked over his shoulder.

I staggered over to them and managed a grunt.  Bruce turned to me and smiled.  “Almost done,” he said, pointing to the tube.

Inside the tube, leaning to one side and unconscious was me.  It was a strange experience.  We see ourselves only in mirrors and pictures, maybe the odd video.  But to see ourselves right before us, where we can circle or move our head for another angle is just a bizarre experience.  “It looks just like me,” I managed.  It was a stupidly obvious thing to say.

“That’s amazing,” I said, as I pulled myself to a standing position.

Bruce nodded and smiled oddly.  “Yeah.”

“There’s only a 36% chance that he’s homicidal,” said Vic.

* * *

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