The Origami Dragon And Other Tales (18 page)

Of course I
asked him why not and explained there was no harm in it.

“There is harm,
Doctor, great harm,” he said, “for you see, my DNA was encoded with
unique security codes. If you ran my DNA through one of the online
databases my old bosses would be alerted to both your location and
your identity. They would be extremely happy to see you, but the
feeling would be far from mutual. They regard me as a great
failure, you see, the kind they would prefer to erase from both
thought and memory.”

“You mean you
think you were genetically engineered?” I asked, somewhat rudely. I
didn’t believe it was possible, or legal. That is what I had every
reason to believe, but Rob gave me a long, slow stare that made me
feel incredibly uncomfortable.

“No, Doctor,”
he said with considerable patience, “I think nothing of the sort. I
know
I am genetically engineered, as were my seven identical
brothers. Do you want to know what I am, Doctor? Do you truly want
to know why I was made?”

I said that I
didn’t, although I was curious. Rob said nothing more that morning,
but eventually his silence became annoying. I wanted to know what
he had meant. My daughter was at school, and Rob and I were alone
in the house. I made a pot of tea and asked him to join me. As
always, I had my little recorder sitting in my pocket. If you don’t
believe me, I can play the whole talk back to you. I have listened
to it a hundred times myself, hoping each time that I will hear
something to prove that it was all a joke.

“Tell me about
your upbringing,” I asked.

“What changed?”
he asked, somewhat unkindly.

“I got bored,”
I lied, “and it’s this or the medical journals. I hate those
things, so tell me a tale.”

I wasn’t lying
about the medical journals, so he laughed, sipped his tea and began
to talk. I won’t blame you if you don’t believe a word, but I swear
it’s all true. With Rob, the least pleasant explanation was
generally the most correct one.

“You live in a
rational world, Doctor, but it is fake,” he began, “and there is
far more chaos and magic in this world than you have been led to
believe. You think of myths as quaint stories by primitive minds,
but every myth, every legend and every bedtime story has an element
of truth. There really are creatures in the attic, and witches in
the forest. There are reasons men are scared of the dark, and they
prowl on many long legs. Such things used to be far more common, of
course, back when the world was so young.”

I asked him how
I had never heard of such things if they were so widespread.

“You have both
heard and seen these things, but you deny them. Think of the
footsteps on the roof at night, the impossible noises when you are
home alone. Remember the shadows you see moving in the corner of
your eye? That odd feeling that you are being watched? These are
what I’m talking about. The creatures in the dark hate you, but
they know they cannot hurt you without being hunted. They cannot
draw attention to themselves, particularly not in this country
where you are so protected.”

“Protected by
who?” I asked. Our conversation was beginning to make me feel
uncomfortable, as so many of our conversations did.

“You mean
what
, Doctor, what. The Company protects these lands,
Doctor. They struggled for many years to find their way, but now
they are pretty good. I hear that Mister Sunshine works for them
now, although I cannot tell how they managed that. But it wasn’t
always like this, it wasn’t always a war,” he continued, “because
for the longest time humanity had a truce with the dark and magical
creatures, an equilibrium of sorts. Some of these creatures worked
with humanity, some against, but overall things were stable. This
stability was enforced by the wisdom and power of the dragons, but
when their whole race left the world to return to the dimensions of
their birth, well, things began to fall apart. Humankind began to
spread across the Earth like weeds, filling up every nook and
corner, pushing the odd and the mean and the magical out to the
very edges of the world. The magical creatures capable of leaving
did and the ones left behind felt abandoned by their kind and
driven out by our kind. They became bitter, violent and unruly.
Only the worst were left behind. The clash been man and monster
became more obvious, and more problematic.”

“I don’t
believe any of this, Rob,” I said, but he ignored me as I rose to
leave.

“Sit down,
Doctor. You asked, and now you will find out. Decades ago,
humankind decided that they would no longer share this world. The
world’s many rulers came to believe - wrongly - that they finally
had the ability to consolidate their power over this world. A
policy of eradication was enacted, and armies of hunters were
trained and dispatched to the darkest corners of the world. Most
did not come back. The darkness fought back, you see, for it was no
lamb to the slaughter. Ancient animosities were put aside as the
remaining magical creatures realised that they could work together
or die alone. Alliances were formed, and the hunters found
themselves outmatched.”

“What has this
got to do with
you
?” I said, although the answer was dawning
on me.

“The war was
going badly, but it received a second wind with the improvement of
DNA and cloning technology. The graves of legendary warriors, made
famous for their ability to go head-to-head with the worst that
magic had to offer, were found and dug up. The precious DNA was
tested, modified and then used to create small units of super-elite
warriors trained from birth to fight for humanity. The Beowulfs
were the first success and led Scandinavia into a period of
relative peace. Dozens of clone teams followed, each based on the
DNA of a fallen hero. My brothers and I were one such unit, our DNA
stolen from the corpse of the greatest outlaw to ever grace British
soil. Like all clones, we were trained from birth for the silent
and dark war, expected to be obedient weapons in the hands of our
creators. Does this sound reasonable to you, Doctor? These are the
type of arrangements that keep you safe at night.”

“Did it work?”
I asked hopefully, realising too late that the question proved
Rob’s low opinion of humankind true.

Rob laughed a
long, merry laugh and gave me a knowing look.

“Legends don’t
take orders easily. The trouble started in Greece, who had hedged
their bets by cloning a combination of brains and brawn, in the
form of Ulysses and Ajax. The Ulysses refused to fight, saying that
they had no war with the monsters if the monsters had no war with
them. They declared their intent to leave their base and enter the
world of men. It was a peaceful rebellion, but it terrified those
in power. As is usually the case when the authorities felt
threatened, they resorted to brute force, sending the Ajax clones.
The Ajax clones are the very definition of brute force, and went in
guns blazing, but when the smoke finally cleared it was the Ajax
who were dead or wounded. The Ulysses had disappeared, the Ajax
failed, and that was the end of the Greek program. The surviving
Ajax are now mostly mercenaries. The Ulysses are easy enough to
find if you know where to look. On farms, mostly, surrounded by
their loving families.”

“Sounds good to
me,” I said, feeling in total agreement with Ulysses.

“That’s what I
thought, too, for a while. We were meant to be weapons, but men are
more than tools. There were many rebellions after that. The Swedish
Beowulfs refused orders, insisting that they would never obey the
inferior men who were their masters. Beowulf had been a king in his
time, and his headstrong bravery was unsuited to taking orders.
Seven of them survived the fallout of their insurrection and made
it out into the world. Three of them still survive.”

“And you?” I
asked, curious.

“My brothers
and I did not hear of these rebellions until much later. We did not
even know that other clones existed, for our masters kept us on a
tight leash. Since my escape, I must have run into every type of
clone at one point or another. We were bred and trained to be the
best of the best, and we have prospered in this crazy world. Some
of these clones I count as friends and allies, although they are
all dangerous men and women. Some are more than dangerous than
others.”

“Like?” I
asked, which in hindsight was a mistake.

Rob paused for
a long, long time before he continued.

“The most
dangerous of all are the Moriarty clones. James Moriarty, as if
once
wasn’t enough. They were meant to be the strategists to
lead humanity to victory, but those genes are rife with dark
passion and evil thoughts. Luckily there were only two such clones
produced, and now one is dead. The other-”

I had never
seen Rob look scared before, but he shook whenever he talked about
Moriarty. It only happened three times in the many years I knew
him, but these were the only times he ever looked like he might
lose control of his tightly held in emotions.

“The other
Moriarty stalks me in my dreams, Doctor. He created the Red Canary
drug, and I have dedicated my life to stopping him. I will die
trying, no doubt.”

“What about
Sherlock? Surely someone cloned him?” I asked, hoping to distract
him from his dark thoughts.

He shook his
head sadly.

“I’ve looked
into that, but not with much luck. Sherlock was, unfortunately, a
composite character based on many extraordinary people. When we
move on Moriarty, it will not be with the great detective at our
side.”

There was
something about the way he said
we
that caught my
attention.

“We who?” I
asked.

He shook his
head and braved a smile.

“I am not
without my friends, Doctor, but that is a story for another time.
Let me talk now of my brothers, because I know you are curious. We
were eight, genetically identical, the youngest of all the clone
batches. Although we were born of the same genes, and trained in
the same way, we were different. I sometimes think that we shared a
body but did not share a common soul. Perhaps we have no souls, but
the many little differences had immense influences. We shall never
know for sure. Alpha was the first of us to be created, a trial of
sorts. He was four years older than the rest of us and was our
masters’ obvious favourite. He was given more information and
better weaponry than us, and we looked up to him. As we grew older
and more independent his power over us slipped, and I think he
resented it. Bravo was the weakest of us, although I don’t know
why. He lacked the willpower required for the training and was
always being left behind. He worshipped Alpha, and followed his
every order. Foxtrot was the quietest of us, Delta the quickest,
Charlie the most violent. As we grew older these differences became
more apparent.”

“There were
more missions, so many missions. Sometimes I worked with my
brothers, sometimes alone. We enjoyed our work, Doctor, can you
understand that? We were young, talented, determined to live
forever. And why not? We had known no-one who had died of old age
in our sheltered military upbringing. We were judged to be the most
fruitful of all the clone projects, the cause of much back slapping
and self-congratulation amongst our bosses. It wasn’t to last.”

“Nothing does,”
I said sadly, and Rob nodded.

“The mission
that changed me the most was in my second year of hunting,” he
continued, “I had known nothing but success until then, and was
overconfident. We were hunting trolls, tricky work. I was in charge
of a team of soldiers, although in truth they were more to watch me
than help me. I captured most of the trolls, but the oldest troll
managed to get close enough to run me down. I would never let such
a thing happen now, but in those days I was little more than a
talented amateur, and I suffered for my mistakes. I received the
best medical treatment available, but, as you know, my jaw never
quite healed. I’ve tried magic, and I’ve tried science, but there
is nothing to fix the pain I feel when I eat solid food.

I curse my jaw
every day, but it was the making of me. I was away from my trainers
and my brothers while I was recuperating in hospital, the first
time I was ever left to my own devices. I was given an electronic
reading tablet loaded with manuals to keep me busy, but unbeknown
to my bosses, the tablet also came preloaded with Catch-22. Their
oversight was my liberation. I read that book a dozen times while I
was in hospital, and it changed me. It was the first fiction that I
had ever read, and it was a struggle for me to follow it. The
madness of the book resonated with me. I was part of a team who
were trying to force rational values on to an irrational but
beautiful world, an insane action. The book also made me wonder if
my bosses were more concerned about their perceived successes than
any actual change. Or my safety. For the first time in my life I
wanted to live, to experience the world, to be free. Does it
surprise you to hear that I faked a liver problem to stay in the
hospital longer than I needed to? It was my first rebellion, and
its success made me bolder.

I emerged from
the hospital wiser than I went in. I watched my bosses more
carefully, looking for any sign that they were out to get me. I
played it cool, and acted like nothing had changed. I think they
noticed, though. I was chosen for more dangerous missions than
those of my brothers. As Yossarian would say, it’s not paranoia if
they really are out to get you. The paranoia kept me alive, kept me
free.

Our gene-sire
was an outlaw, so it surprises me to think how long it took us to
reach our own point of rebellion. It was probably inevitable, but
it needed a catalyst. Hotel’s death was that catalyst. I always got
on well with Hotel. He was my brother, and I loved him in the
manner of our kind. He was the first of us to leave this world,
taking with him our shared illusions of immortality and
importance.”