Popular Clone (7 page)

Fisher jolted upright, breathing heavily. He was covered in a cold sweat. He looked at the clock. It was almost 4
A.M.
He rubbed his eyes, shaking the remains of the dream out of his head as his heart gradually slowed back to normal.

As frightening as it had been, the last dream had given him an idea… .

He pulled his chair up to his desk, slapped down a few dozen sheets of white paper, and began frantically scribbling down new formulas and notes.

Clone Log. Sunday, 4:00
a
.
m
. Have recalculated entire experiment—proportions of AGH need to be LARGER. Must sleep again so that I can make an appearance at breakfast, otherwise certain parties may become suspicious of my activities.

Clone Log. Sunday, 11:00
a
.
m
. I believe I have finally
achieved the proper balance of elements and can begin the growth process. Stand by for updates.

Clone Log. Sunday, 3:00
p
.
m
. Growth process underway. Partial skeleton has formed in the isolation tube. FP is confused. I should probably eat something before the process of watching myself be grown in a vat causes appetite loss.

Clone Log. Sunday, 8:00
p
.
m
. Nervous system and blood vessels mostly in place. Organs are now forming. I am considering the philosophical implications and scientific importance of viewing a replica of myself slowly developing in a plastic vat. It is … weird.

Clone Log. Sunday, 8:01
p
.
m
. Note to self: research vocabulary more appropriate for expressing philosophical implications.

Clone Log. Monday, 1:00
a
.
m
. Organs continuing to grow at rapid rate, muscles starting to grow. Trying not to look at clone too much. The presence of excess fried-potato consumables in stomach may cause difficulties with over-observation.

Clone Log. Monday, 2:00
a
.
m
. Skin beginning to grow over now fully formed muscles and organs. This experience may or may not be extremely philosophical.

Clone Log. Monday, 10:00
a
.
m
. Subject is fully formed. Will now attempt to awaken. If clone turns into rampaging creature and takes my life, I bequeath all of my laboratory equipment to my parents, and my mint condition Issue #1 of
Vic Daring, Space Scoundrel to Harold Granger, Wompalog Middle School. My snacks I leave to FP, although he prob
ably won't wait for the will to be read.

Fisher looked the boy in the oversize tube up and down, studying him. Proportions were all correct, bone structure seemed perfect, his muscles (or lack of them) appeared to be properly formed. His limbs pressed up against the glass. The tube had once been used by his father to incubate giant squid eggs. Fisher hoped he had cleaned the tube sufficiently before beginning the experiment; he would hate to think that his clone was part-squid.

Fisher had to build up his courage for a minute before he could bring himself to more closely examine the clone's face.
His
face.

Or almost exactly his face; Fisher had three freckles on his own nose, while the clone had only two. But surely nobody would notice a difference so slight.

It was time to bring the clone out of stasis. Its organs were being held in suspension at low temperature while direct nutrient and oxygen flow kept them alive. In the final step, Fisher would give the clone the jolt it would need to truly live, like the Frankenstein monster coming to life with a bolt of lightning.

Fisher
really
hoped that his clone would not turn out to be like the Frankenstein monster.

“This is a glorious way to begin your existence, eh, Fisher-2? In a dark, little room full of equipment and empty potato-chip bags? Too bad the only witnesses to your birth are a sleep-deprived seventh grader and a winged pork chop.” He adjusted various knobs and dials in preparation for the final step of the process. “But I've got quite a future in store for you. In theory, if middle school is the first environment you're exposed to, you won't realize how horrible it is. To you, it'll just be how the world works. Hey, you might even like it.”

With that, he initiated the sequence.

The IV carrying nutrients and oxygen to Fisher-2 abruptly withdrew, and the tank began to warm up. Two metal probes whirred into place, one at the clone's chest, the other below his stomach. While the tank was instantly flooded with oxygen, the probes shocked his heart, which gave its first beat.

The clone's lungs contracted, then expanded. The clone took its first breath.

Fisher, meanwhile, couldn't breathe at all.

If Fisher had calculated correctly, once the clone's pulse and breath had been set into motion, his brain should be able to take over and keep them going. A few tense seconds passed as Fisher pressed another button, and the glass tank unfolded like a flower opening its petals, exposing the clone to the atmosphere for the first time.

The only sound in the room was the low hum of the equipment, and the background babble of his lab TV.

Seconds passed. Fisher's hand hovered over the emergency button that would shut the tube again and plunge the clone into a deep freeze to keep him alive if his breathing and heartbeat didn't continue on their own.

Three seconds. Four. Five, six, seven …

Then the clone's chest expanded as he took another breath, and a second tiny bleep came from the heart monitor.

Fisher threw his goggles off and almost shrieked out loud. He had done it! It was alive! Fisher did a little dance of joy, making FP snort and run off into a corner to avoid being trampled.

The clone's eyes moved back and forth under their lids, and his hands twitched. Then the clone opened his eyes.

Fisher looked at his new brother and smiled cautiously. He tilted his head to one side. After a moment, Fisher-2 imitated him. Fisher slowly raised his right arm, and the clone mirrored the movement exactly. Fisher raised both arms above his head, and Fisher-2 did the same. His eyes and basic hand-eye coordination appeared to be in perfect order. Now it was time for phase two: the Knowledge Implant.

Fisher lowered a machine with a curious assortment of lights on the end of a long arm down to the clone's eye level. He had designed it to help him study for big English tests, since he never did understand why a subject with no correct answers should be studied at all.

The machine began blinking rapidly, sending complicated light signals to the brain, like a subconscious Morse code, to activate certain learning centers. Simultaneously, a probe descended and clamped around the clone's ears. Fisher knew that the clone would be hearing rapid-fire speech patterns and vocabulary words, that would help him gain command of English—as well as basic lessons in biology, math, and history—in less than thirty minutes.

He began the process, and the clone's eyes darted up at the machine as it began pulsing rapidly. Within the first twenty or thirty seconds, a basic vocabulary should be in place.

Fisher decided to test its language center.

“Fisher-2? Fisher-2? Can you hear me?” The clone did not respond. Only the sound of the TV, playing an ad for the household cleaner Spot-Rite, answered him. “Can you hear me, Two? Blink if you can hear me.”

Once again, the only sound in the room was the Spot-Rite ad, with its irritating jingle. “Mommy likes to keep her whites brighter than the light of day …”

Fisher furrowed his brow. He couldn't understand why his clone, whose senses appeared to be functioning, wasn't reacting. Had he messed something up in the early development stages? Was the brain-activation-upload machine not working?

Then Fisher-2 said his first word.

“Mommy!”

Fisher froze in place. He realized that Fisher-2's eyes were focused just over his right shoulder on the television behind him. Fisher whopped around and saw the “mother” character in the commercial, an apron-wearing blond with a blindingly white smile, kneeling on a spot-less carpet with a golden retriever.

“Spot-Rite!” she beamed, holding the bottle up toward the camera. “Get your spots right out!”

“Mommy!” Fisher-2 repeated with an anguished cry as the Spot-Rite mom faded out and another one began.

“No, don't go!” The clone took another step toward the television. “Mother! Where are you going?” The clone lunged forward.

“Wait!” Fisher said. “The machine hasn't finished …”

But Fisher-2 ignored him completely and kept right on going … pushing the delicate uploader onto the floor, where it cracked, sparking. Fisher lunged for the fire extinguisher and doused it.

The clone kept charging toward the TV.

Sitting right in front of Fisher's lab TV was a delicate assembly of beakers and tube work from an earlier experiment. One of the vinelike plastic tubes wrapped around the clone's leg as he stumbled toward the TV, and just as Fisher caught up to him, he tumbled to the floor and brought the whole mess of equipment down around him.

Fisher reached down to untangle his clone, but before he could, the clone began thrashing and punching as if he'd fallen into a nest of rattlesnakes.

“Let go of me!” he shouted at the inanimate mass tangled around him. “You'll never keep me away from her!”

“Stop it!” Fisher shouted. “Listen to me, this isn't a—” He was interrupted by the test tube that flew up and smacked into his nose.

There was a knock at the door.

“Fisher?” came his dad's voice. “Everything okay in there?”

The clone spun around to face the door and took a single running step toward it. Fisher dove and tackled him to the floor. Fisher, with strength he didn't know he possessed, held Fisher-2 down and clamped a hand over his mouth.

“Everything's fine, Dad!” he said. “Just pushed over an experiment setup by accident! I'll have it cleaned up in no time, no need to help.”

“All right then,” answered his dad as the clone struggled in Fisher's grip. “Just let me know if you need anything.”

Footsteps retreated from his door.

“Hey!” Fisher said.
“Hey!”
He jostled the clone, and finally his new twin looked back at him.

Fisher-2 squinted for a moment.

“Father? … No, no. Fathers are
old
. You are not old enough.” The connections in Fisher-2's brain were obviously working correctly, even if he was not exactly mentally up to par with the original. Then his eyes widened again. “Brother!”

“Uh … Yes, Fish—I mean, Two!” Might as well make him think that was his name. “It's me, your dear twin brother. How do you feel?”

“Where did Mom go? Why did she leave us?” Two's face fell into a frown.

Fisher sighed. He picked himself up off the floor and helped his clone do the same.

“Look, that's just a commercial. She wasn't really your mo—”

“I want to see her!” Tears started to form in the clone's eyes.

Fisher fought his frustration. At least the clone was rapidly proving that all of his basic functions were in working order.

“You don't understand, it's just a TV, that woman's an actor, and she—”

“Please go get her and let me see her!”

“Oh, for Pete's sake, kid, will you please listen—”

Without warning, the clone dropped to his knees and began to wail.

“I need to see her! There's a spot on my heart, and only she can get it right out!” Two buried his face in his hands and let out a shuddering sob.

Fisher couldn't believe it. Was it possible—was it remotely, humanly possible—that Fisher's clone was even
lamer
than, well, Fisher?

For a moment, Fisher wished he had never brought his clone out of stasis. If the clone kept wailing, there was no way his parents wouldn't come and investigate.

Then he caught sight of an old book of his,
The Iron Corsair
, lying on his desk (Fisher had been using it as a coaster for his cans of Dr Pepper). The book was about a swift-sailing soldier whose mother is kidnapped by an evil cult.

Suddenly, Fisher had an idea.

“Two. Hey, Two!” he said. Two stopped crying. “I know what's happened to Mom!”

Fisher-2 looked hopefully at Fisher and climbed to his feet. “Tell me.”

“Mom's been taken away somewhere—captured, that is—and we have to rescue her. We're being kept in this house against our will, though, so we have to be clever about it. The bad people holding us here don't know that there are two of us. They think we're the same person! If we want to find Mom, they can never know the truth! Understood?”

Two nodded.

“Here's what we need to do,” Fisher went on. “I'll stay here and work in this lab, and you have to go to a secret institution the enemy is using to train their evil agents. You go there every day, and you will learn things. Some of these things may not seem important, but with enough information you can gather the clues we need to find her!”

Fisher-2 stood up straighter, looking suddenly determined, like a man on a noble and heroic mission. “Any-thing for her, brother! I will keep my mission a secret and blend in with the evil henchmen around me. What is this institution?”

“It is called middle school, and it's the most fiendish, torturous, and horrible place ever conceived in the darkest corner of man's mind.” At least he didn't have to lie about
that
part.

“Very well. I shall covertly attend this middle school while you research rescue methods here in this prison. I will spend as much time as it takes to gather the knowledge we need.”