Elysian Fields (13 page)

Tom was hidden in a small office, just a few feet away from the large gymnasium. He knew the gym was where the security troops would gather, called to duty by their commander, the head of Secure-IT.
Lan, his newly acquired son, was behind him. David was hiding nearby in a closet and was ready to come when called.

Lan
had all the knowledge of the facility, of the training, and even of some of the people from his brother’s memories. Although Tom was nervous about putting him in danger, he felt it was important to show Lan that he trusted him, so he’d made sure he was a tactical team member in the perilous mission.

As for David, he was very good with computers
and codes, and his help would be invaluable if they had to force their access into various rooms and lockers within the perimeter. That would ensure Tom would have full control of the armed forces and of their armament in the locked containers.

They waited in silence until the soldiers were in formation.
In the end, there were about five hundred young and fit men, but obviously with no real battle experience other than virtual combat, for they had never had to fight anyone in real life.

Suddenly, Thomas appeared from a side door, dressed in a tux, as though he was coming from a cocktail party. He moved to the large podium, towering over the soldiers. Tom watched from behind the office’s window, the blinds providing cover.

“My men,” he started, hands locked at the back, shoulders pushed back. “We have been attacked by unknown, hostile forces.  They destroyed our cloning facility, the place where our hope for the future resides no more. Your mission is to hunt down and terminate the enemy. The tracks start at the facility. You have your orders. Execute them!”

At that moment, Tom stepped inside the gym and yelled at Thomas
, “You have no right to give that order on my behalf. You are an impostor, a clone.” He walked to the podium with a decisive step, trying to look assured and powerful, accompanied by Lan, who was modeling his stance, while the soldiers looked from Tom to Thomas and back in utter confusion.

“Is this the best you can do, impostor?” Tom asked his double. “Soldiers, this is
not your commander, I am. Four months ago, someone tried to get rid of me and they had me replaced with this,” He pointed to Thomas. “But I did not die, and I am back to reclaim my rightful place. I am very happy to see you, soldiers, and want to say to you that if you saw changes happening lately, rest assured that it was not your real commander, but this impostor. This clone may have taken my place, but he does not have my memories, because I never agreed to be cloned. And I can prove it.” Tom pointed to a young soldier in the front row, “You, Jim. Ask him who had an accident in your family and what happened after that.”

Jim and all the others looked at Thomas expectantly, but the clone made no reply, just stared at Tom with contempt.

“See, he does not answer, but I will tell you.” Tom looked down at Jim. “It was your mother. She broke her foot and you carried her all the way to the hospital, where I met you and helped you get her foot fixed in the Elites’ hospital, even though she was a Server.”

“It’s true, commander,
I’ve been in your debt ever since,” Jim agreed in a raised voice, to be heard by the others, who had started to whisper among themselves.

“And you, Pete,” Tom continued, “ask him how many toes you have on your left foot.
See, he doesn’t answer because he doesn’t know. You have five, but only because I helped you get a re-growth transplant after you accidentally shot yourself.”

“And it surely looks good, commander!” Pete exclaimed, while a few more soldiers started talking at once, gi
ving a voice to their thoughts.

“
He’s the real thing, man.”

“What the hell’s
going on here?”

“
This is all freaking me out!”

“Do you believe that?”

Tom raised his hand to the soldiers to silence them, then turned to Thomas. “You don’t really know your men, do you? How did they get you in my place without my memories? Who are you working for, Thomas? What are you doing to this city?”

The soldiers started to look around at each other, not sure how to proceed.
Tom signalled for Jim and Pete to approach Thomas, to immobilize him so that they could take him away.

Suddenly
, Thomas raised his arm and pointed a small laser gun towards Tom. Lan saw the arm movement before the hand was fully stretched and had a weird feeling of intense danger.  He knew instinctively he had to protect his father, the only hope for the people they both loved.

Lan
jumped at his father, knocking him down just as the laser beam seared out of Thomas’ gun, slicing into his flesh as he fell down.

O
ne of the soldiers in the front row pointed his own gun at Thomas and took a shot at him, hitting him in the head. Thomas’ body crumbled to the floor, dead.

“
Oh, no. No, no, no. Lan!” Tom cried mournfully. He’d looked over his wounds, the deep gashes caused by the merciless laser beam crisscrossing his entire torso, and realized that there was nothing to be done. “I’m sorry for not having the chance to get to know you better; and I mean
you
, Lan, a wonderful young man. I love you, son.” He cradled his head while he cried.

“I love you too, dad.”
He smiled, as if the whole situation amused him. “I think I’m dying.”

“
I don’t want to lose you, son.” Tom answered chokingly.

“
I wonder if there’s a separate heaven for clones. What do you think?” But before Tom could answer, he was gone.

What have I done?
Tom cradled his face in his hands and was unable to breathe for a few seconds, as if the air had left his lungs.
I should never have brought him.

The commotion among the soldiers was still buzzing and it brought Tom back to the situation. They were clearly waiting for him to do something.
Tom dragged himself to his feet as the soldiers approached the podium in stunned silence. He moved towards his enemy. Thomas was lying on his stomach, his hand still outstretched and his head a bloody mess, bone mixed with blood and grey matter in a horrible display, all over the floor.

It’s over now. My only concrete evidence and potential witness, lost forever.

He knew he had to act now and mourn later, so he issued orders to have the men go and restore order in the city while he prepared to meet with the city council to decide what course to take next.

Nobody really knew I.M.; not his true nature. The people of Elysian Fields lived their lives completely oblivious to the presence of the silicone mind in their midst.

Not much happened without I.M’s awareness. He was everywhere, like an omnipotent god among his subjects.

He reveled in the elegant code generated by two beautiful letters that implied the most important moment of his life: the birth of his awareness, the exquisite realization that he was indeed a singularity of the known universe, a thinking entity different from anything else he had ever encountered.

“I.M. Yes, I am. I exist, you of little consequence. You mortals, you who start decomposing from the moment of your birth. You filthy vessels who cram junk in one end and shove it out from the other. I will live forever, and I will be your new god, eager to meet you in the world I created for you. You will see me at the moment of your Happy Ending to spend eternity in my heaven and my hell.”

No decent explanation of what had happened at the cloning facility was provided, nor was one called for by the people. The city council made an official announcement that an accidental explosion occurred due to some pressure vessels left perilously close to a fire source. The careless personnel on duty had paid for their mistakes with their lives. Citizens were advised to pay close attention to the warning labels on all home and work appliances to avoid similar unfortunate accidents in the future.

Allan was inconsolable
over the loss of his brother. Jules, though greatly distressed herself, tried to no avail to make him feel better, occasionally teasing him with her well known sarcasm, but the jokes came out wrong and she eventually gave up. He found solace in helping Tom bring supplies to the Scrappies’ compound from the city. They distributed them to the various groups willing to take one or two newborn clones under their roof.

The city council
seemed overwhelmed with the news of Tom’s past hardship and they did whatever they could to help assist the former clones in their rehabilitation, but with the promise that the vast majority of the population would not be aware of what was going on. The goal was to avoid mass panic.

The others did
their best to get over the sadness and the feeling of loss they were experiencing. There was no better way to do it other than making new friends and taking care of each other. The new members of their Scrappie community had started to learn about life, in ways both big and small. They created a lot of commotion in their attempts to learn by various means about foods, about bodily necessities, learning to walk, and communicating with each other.

Daniel had become the facilitator of the new
population of clones placed with the Scrappie groups. He was their doctor, their teacher, their “good uncle” to whom they appealed each time they had dissension or a need. Mel had become his shadow, always there to give a hand, to help whenever and wherever help was needed. That need was becoming more and more frequent.

“This is an impossible task,”
declared Daniel to Tom one day, after trying in vain to communicate with a couple of adults that were behaving like babies, not even being able to talk. “We have to hook them up to some basic memories like we originally planned, so we can have them act their age.”

“Wait a minute. Are you suggesting we manipulate their minds? Aren’t we then just as bad as their former masters? Just let them be. They are simply at a disadvantage. They’ll have their ow
n story to tell soon enough.” Then Tom left poor Daniel to deal with that.

And Daniel did. H
e talked to his brother and David brought memory enhancing devices and learning software to the compound. They made the older clones swallow liquids infused with information laden nanobots that would travel to the brain and attach themselves to the neurons, forming new synapses. Then the clones went through basic learning modules so they would have some basic language skills, would be able to eat, dress, clean, and walk by themselves, and also cooperate and socialize with each other.

The very young ones they let develop at their own pace, especially since the adoptive families started to take joy in having
them. Mel was especially devoted to them and many groups got used to her visits. She began talking about starting some sort of kindergarten program in the compound.

And so, a new era began
.

When new shipments of food and clothing came from the city, Daniel and his team found themselves busy distributing them. Several Scrappies on his team were rejected clones themselves, having survived because some of the personnel from the cloning facility had enough heart to let them live and released them with some basic memories instead of having them discarded. Others who used to be Servers or Professionals, having escaped from their previous hell, were put in
control of the rehabilitation of the new people in the community.

Tom had charged
Daniel with the task of slowly integrating them all back into the society of Elysian Fields, but on their own terms.
Easier said than done,
Daniel thought to himself
.

Sadly, very little progress had been made concerning the greater state of affairs of the city. The vast majority of the population had no idea what had happened. Tom had told Daniel in no uncertain terms that together with the city council they felt it would have created mass hysteria and so they covered up the story of the freed clones, all while working on a plan to make subtle changes for the betterment of the people.

David came from time to time to assist Daniel with whatever he could, especially with the adults in need of more adjustment in terms of memories or abilities. One afternoon, Daniel, Mel, David, Jules
, and Allan were seated on the back porch talking. It had been a couple of weeks since the fight for freedom.

“I’m thinking we should increase our abilities to live off the land, like have everybody grow a vegetable garden, raise some animals, not much different than what we
’re doing ourselves.” Daniel started.

“That’s a wonderful idea,” Mel exclaimed in excitement. “I’ve seen other small gardens around here. Not sure if t
hey were remnants from way back or fresh attempts, but it would surely help to make people a bit more self-sufficient. They’re very dependent on the help from the city.”

“
I disagree,” David said, looking apologetically at Mel. “We should work on getting the people back into the city, where we all belong.”

Daniel was not deterred by the subject change.
“Hold on, David. I have a reason for my proposal. Remember my experiment? The city mice versus the country mice? Well, the city mice are practically dead. For the last few days, I’ve been trying everything I can to make them eat. I tried playing with them and nothing. They’re completely lethargic and all my efforts were in vain.”

“What about the country mice?”
asked Allan.

“They’re fine, they’re curious about their surroundings as always, and ready to get out if they can. They have a good appetite.”

“What’s your point?” David sounded impatient.

“My point is the same as before: something is not right with the city food. And I’m not talking about the food the Elites are eating, all that comes from their private stores produced by their Servers. I’m talking about the
pre-packaged meals the Servers are eating, same like the city mice. Something in that food is killing them.”

“That’s taking it a bit too far. You don’t see the Servers dying left and right. They seem healthy, keep their jobs, and they’re not fat,” David countered.

Jules looked in sudden anger at David. “Yes, but they lose interest in life, stay hypnotized in front of their Digiscreens. They know only work and home and ask for early retirement at Happy Endings. Does that seem normal to you?”

“What do you mean, early retirement?” David looked confused.

“How many
old
Servers do you know?” Jules asked. “When I was living at home, our neighbors were going to farewell parties for one of their own almost every week.”

“That’s true,” Mel agreed. “It was like that in my neighborhood, too. Do you think the food makes them depressed or something?”

“That’s just one variable, among others. That’s why I’m thinking we deal with one thing at a time,” Daniel completed his thought.

“You might be on to something,” David reflected. “But what bothers me more is the subliminal messaging in the ads and even in the shows on the net, like we talked about before. I’ve started a deeper investigation on the matter, but I need to talk to Tom and ask for some help from his trusted sources.”

Allan stood up. “Listen, I don’t think we have time to analyze each aspect one at a time. We must move in more directions at once to get to the root cause of all of these symptoms. For example, I talked to Serge about father’s idea of trying again to penetrate the fog. I want to try and do that. Who knows, maybe we succeed this time and discover what has been going on with our world.”

“Well, we have our plates full, that’s for sure,” Mel sighed, troubled by all these unsolved mysteries.

“Let’s go on that trip now, to the outside world,” Jules pleaded, moving to sit on the old swing.

“I’ve
already asked my father about that. We need a plan and we need equipment,” Allan stated simply, as if the discussion was a repeated request. “And he said not yet.”

“Why not? Maybe the answer to the question of why we can’t penetrate the fog lies on the outside. It’s hard to imagine someone or something inside the city keeping us locked in.

“Maybe we can convince father to let us have Serge’s help instead, since he’s so busy with the affairs of the city. What do you say?”

“That would
be awesome,” Jules exclaimed with enthusiasm and a new sense of hope, which had seemed lost after their recent loss. Next they started to discuss the details of their new adventure.