We’re through. We walk down a long hall that seems to telescope out before us. The doors have painted arcs on the floor in front of them to show where the swing could reach. Round bubble-like mirrors like those in hospitals perch over the intersections so you can see people coming at you. I can smell a strange chemical odor now, like that of the doctor’s office back as the compound. My heart is pounding freely now, my head is floating.
We reach the second vault. Outside we drop off our keys and leave our security badges with yet another guard. He gives me yet another badge, a dosimeter badge that will change color if I get too many rads. We walk through an airlock and an alarm sounds.
“Just the airlock,” explains Kieffer to my white face. “It does that if you don’t give the doors a chance to seal before walking through.”
We give the doors what they want and proceed into a room full of glove boxes. Long rubber gloves reach into leaded glass enclosures to work with trays full of radioactive material. Next to each set of gloves is a Geiger counter, ready to detect any contamination. The chemical smell is much stronger here. It assaults me, digging its way into my nostrils.
“This way,” says Kieffer and I follow him like a zombie. “Remember, don’t eat anything. Don’t even chew gum. If there is a leak and you ingest the dust, we can’t save you. Don’t sit down, either. Don’t even lean on anything.”
I nod vaguely. “What about the biological stuff?”
Kieffer shrugs. “They share this lab, but that’s another department. They’re making three-eyed polliwogs or something.”
I crack a smile. The man has no idea. I really want to make sure he gets out alive now.
He leads me to the computer workstation, all wrapped up in its own little environment, with its own air-conditioner and power supply. He looks over my shoulder while I work the membrane keyboard. For the first time I feel a bit at ease. I can even see what they have done wrong with the system, why they are having problems. Fixing networks like this was all part of my training, to make me more authentic. It’s the only useful thing I can do.
I’m stalling. I remember a video of a kid on a big rock, looking down into a swirling green chute of water, getting up the nerve to jump. There isn’t much time left.
Stepping back, I take a look around. There it is. I can see the thing: it looks like a lighting effect device in a dance-club movie. It’s stainless steel with tubes running in and out, like Sputnik with a thyroid condition. The particles shoot down those tubes into the center, where the genes are spliced and manipulated. Next to it is the rack of vacuum bottles. Their contents are frozen with liquid nitrogen.
How do I get up there? The thing is sitting on top of the stack of glass glove boxes. To climb up there on the catwalks will take a bit of time, and it will definitely be noticed.
I reach into my shirt, through the lab whites, and finger the detonator in my artificial belly. I turn to Bob Kieffer and he looks at me quizzically. I just stare at him, and finally, realization dawns there in his face. We communicate without words for perhaps five seconds.
“Better go now, Bob,” I say gently.
He opens his mouth once, blinks rapidly, bird-like, then turns and rushes for the doors.
Report: Dr. Robert Kieffer, TA 96.
There was something very odd in his eyes. Partly an apology perhaps, partly a deep sadness and concern. I have no doubt that he believed utterly in what he was doing.
I have never met up with insanity before. I had no idea that it was such a human thing.
Gideon’s Transcript:
I climb the aluminum catwalk steps and make my way to the Sputnik thing. I get there before the guard shows up. Leaning against it, I get a last moment of peace.
I don’t know if this will work. I don’t know if the bomb wrapped around my guts will destroy all the work done in genetics by this lab. The embryos and actual lab equipment will go, of course, and the hard disks with the primary database should all be lost. I don’t know if the secondary tape back-ups will go in the fire, though. Actually, I don’t even know if the bomb will go off. I never was taught much about the bomb.
I wonder briefly if they will ever suspect the truth. If anyone, even if they find the transcript of my thoughts, will believe that I come from another Technical Area in the same laboratory complex. From a compound that has decided to end the cloning.
It’s not that I’m murdering these embryos, you understand. Even killing the fetus locked in the sputnik thing isn’t really murder. For, you see, they are me and I am them. They are my clones, all of them. To kill them, then-I consider it an act of suicide. We, my brethren and I, have simply decided to end the copying of our genes. We believe we have that right. I wonder if others would agree.
The only thing I don’t wonder about is whether or not I will do it. There is no question of that, it’s in my genes.
Around me the lab gurgles and hums. The Geiger counters that are everywhere in the room ping to themselves, counting the particles that shoot through my body on a regular basis, disrupting the DNA in my cells. I recall from the orientation that working in the lab gives you a dose of radiation equivalent to one thirtieth of an x-ray per day. That is, if there are no leaks.
I smile to myself. Radiation hardly matters to a mannequin. I’ve already got cancer. All the growth-accelerated clones get it.
I hear pounding feet and shouting on the other side of the airlock.
I pull the detonator tab.
The first hint of insanity came during the live broadcast of “Orbital Hospital” late Thursday evening. October winds rattled windows and gave muffled screams as they rounded the sharp concrete corners of the studio building. Smells of strong coffee and hot electrical equipment hung in the air.
Director Zundra Chelton activated the communications module embedded in her brain with a twist of thought. She commenced transmitting enquire codes to the movie machine’s data interface. The interface responded with an acknowledgement, and the two modules quickly synched up and handshaking was established. A flood of data roared into her mind as the CPU uploaded the program for “Orbital Hospital”, her top-rated racy soap opera.
It was all there, just as always. There was no hint yet of anything out of the ordinary. Dr. Ray Wazer, the male lead, jumped off the disk and into memory like a puppet springing out of its box. His handsome brows, beaming smile and chiseled chin were perfect down to the last digital pixel of shading data. Wanda Morrison, the slutty hospital administrator with her exquisitely tanned legs flashed into being with equal grace, rendering onto center stage of Dr. Wazer’s office for the opening scene. With the lightning speed of molecular processors linked in parallel, the rest of the sets, cast and background data sprang alive. Zundra opened her eyes and for an instant she was aware of both worlds, the sets and scenes of “Orbital Hospital” superimposed over the dim-lit studio full of hushed computer operators and gleaming status lights. A digital counter flipped to zero, she gave the network boys the thumbs up and performed the mental equivalent of a tapping motion that started the script rolling through the system RAM.
WANDA MORRISON: Dr. Wazer, I’m beginning to believe you. Nurse Tai could have a twin sister that caused all these, ah… embarrassments.
RAY WAZER: Thank you, Ms. Morrison. (Places hands to face, careful to reveal flashy watch and not to hide chin) I was beginning to think that I was the crazy one. I’m very glad someone believes in me.
WANDA MORRISON: Call me Wanda.
RAY WAZER: (Raises head, close-up shot of slightly moist eyes. Hair tousled) Certainly-Wanda.