The blood drive had been going on for about a half-hour when Gaby Marte noticed a sound like rain hitting the roof of the building. Almost immediately he saw Mr. Mullen slump in a strange way. Half his face was gone -then all of it. Gaby was on his way over to the man when he slipped on some blood. He looked down and saw that the blood was quickly disappearing. Within thirty seconds he was all alone in the gymnasium of Gyllenhaal Elementary, with lumps of clothing and empty shoes all around him. The other volunteer parents, and all the people who had been lined up to give blood for the war effort, were all gone.
He ran from the building and down the path past the cafeteria to the playground where his daughter Sara had been. He found her shoes with the leggings she’d been wearing still inside them at the feet. They were next to the swing and he saw the impression her body had made in the sand before she’d disintegrated. Her top must’ve blown away. He noticed a strand of black hair, Sara’s hair, caught in the chain of the swing. He pulled it out gently and held it up. It was evaporating towards his fingers and he let it go.
Gaby tried to wake up but he wasn’t dreaming. Everything was real, the day was real, the ground was real, the school was real, everything. The only thing that wasn’t real was him. Gaby’s car still worked and he left the school’s parking lot, wondering where he was going. There were wrecks all over the place and he passed a paint store that was on fire. There were no other people anywhere. He told himself that there was a war on, and that this was an attack. It wasn’t strange that the whole town had been obliterated, what was strange was that he was still alive.
He pulled into the driveway of his house and walked inside automatically, without intent. There was no dog barking next door. There were no kids playing ball in the field across the street. Mrs. McGill wasn’t sitting on her front porch reading. The first thing he did when he got in his house was to look in the mirror above the mantle in his living room. He looked real, a little weird and desperate, but not a ghost. He took a framed picture of him and Sara and sat on the floor, staring at it, not crying, not moving at all.
What right did Gaby have to be alive? The city was on fire, he could see the smoke rising out his front window, gray and evil. All the animals were gone so the fire could only eat plants and property. It would be unable to find anything to kill until it reached his house. He decided he wouldn’t run. He would let himself be burned. They said that the nanotech ate the top of your head and worked its way down, destroying the brain in a fraction of a second, which meant no pain. The thing that felt the pain would be gone by the time there was pain to be felt. Gaby decided that it was up to him to feel all the pain for the murdered citizens of Conifer, Washington. He would feel the pain for Sara.
He stood and looked out his front window until it got dark. The fire made the horizon glow a soft orange, but the wind was blowing toward it, and Gaby knew the weather would have to change for him to be burned alive. He watched clouds roll in and in the middle of the night it started to rain. Gaby’s legs were sore from standing, and he went and crashed on the sofa. As he drifted off he had a moment of certainty that he was in fact dead. His spirit had been moving around a purgatory that resembled his town only without people.
He woke up just after dawn and wished he could be certain he was dead again. He coughed and got up. He had to piss, and ghosts didn’t have to piss. He opened the fridge and set about making himself an omelette. He would’ve had bacon with it, but the package was empty. The nanotech got it. Bacon was too similar to human flesh to still exist. He sautéed some onions and bell pepper slices and whisked together three eggs in a bowl and dumped them in the pan. All he had was some organic cheddar cheese and he wished he had some processed American cheese slices like he used to eat when he was a kid. He would’ve given anything to peel open those plastic envelopes of salty orange goodness.
He got the coffee pot going and put two pieces of bread in the toaster. He told himself this was his last meal, so he’d better do it right. He plated his omelette and buttered his toast, poured his coffee into his favorite mug and sat down.
Next to him was the chair Sara sat in every morning. He looked at it and with one smooth gesture, wiped the entire breakfast onto the floor. There was a ceiling fan that he’d put in himself when he and Sara had moved to Conifer. The ceiling was high in the kitchen, and he’d spent a long time up on a ladder, bolting the thing to a heavy crossbeam. He got the long extension cord from the hall closet, and put a chair on the table and stood on it, looping the cord around the base of the fan. He had to go up on tip toes to reach. Once it was secure he made a rough slipknot with the other end. He tugged the cord to make sure it would hold, and then he stuck his head through.
“Ten-one, we’ve located the survivor,” a voice called out, surprising him. He looked back and almost fell, but hands went onto the chair, steadying it, and a Well-Armed militiaman hopped up onto the table and took Gaby’s head out of the noose. There were two militiamen in his kitchen, both wearing black protective body suits, goggles and facemasks. They got him off the table, bound his wrists, checked his pockets and led him outside. They shoved him in the back of a transport parked on his lawn.
Gaby figured they must’ve been looking just for him because they made no other stops. The skeletal husk of a mini chopper stood on the corner of Fifth and Martin Street and the transport rolled into it and stopped. One of the militiamen got out and turned the vacuum locks, securing the transport to the chopper. He got back in, checked a couple of nav-screens and reported that they were leaving the debris field with the objective in tow. Gaby burst out laughing when he heard himself referred to as ‘the objective,’ and both militiamen looked back at him like he was crazy.
It was a four hour flight, southeast in direction. They finally landed on a concrete slab in the woods, and two men in white work suits were waiting. They opened the chopper door and looked at Gaby and then at each other. They pulled him out and led him to a small shed. A code was entered on a screen beside the door, and somewhere inside a latch clicked. They opened the door and took him down four flights of stairs, through another door, and then down a hall that stretched a half mile at least. Another door and they were at an elevator. They went down a long, long way.
The men in white work suits weren’t alone, there were a lot of people dressed the same way in a big open space like an airplane hanger or factory floor, only cleaner. It was well-lit and Gaby drew curious looks from the workers as he was led through the space and into an interior office. “Sit.” One of the men told him, pushing him onto a chair at the back of the beige room. The other man left and came back with a kid, a teenager, wearing a black version of the work suit.
The kid stood there and looked at Gaby and Gaby looked back, thinking he knew the kid from somewhere. He thought for a second that it must be one of Sara’s friends, but no. It was the reverse image of the face Gaby saw in the mirror when he was that age. It was him. “I guess we know why he survived,” the kid said. The voice was Gaby’s only coming from the wrong direction.
“This a joke?” Gaby asked. “Is it some kind of brainwashing technique?”
The kid laughed but the two men in white didn’t react at all. “Certainly not,” the kid said, “but your confusion is completely justified. Don’t worry, you haven’t lost your mind. It’s a remarkable piece of luck that we found you. When reports came back that someone had survived the Conifer strike, we could only think of one reasonable explanation. You’re it. I’m very glad we were right.”
“Why did I survive?”
“Our genetic originator was the first person to weaponize nanotech in the laboratory. It was necessary for him to work in close contact with the material, so he built in an immunity to our genetic makeup.”
“Our?” Gaby looked at the kid.
“Yes, mine too.” He said. “I knew you when you were a baby Gabriel, I used to change your diapers. Your mother never told you that you were a clone?”
“How old are you?” Gaby asked.
“Biologically speaking I am 16 years old, but I have memories that stretch back before I was born.” He tilted his head. “Are you feeling alright?”
“No, not really,” Gaby said. “Am I a prisoner of war?”
“There’s a war on,” the young Gaby said, “and this is a military facility. You aren’t free.”
Gaby couldn’t help it, he began to cry. “I thought I was in purgatory,” he said, “but now I know I’m in hell.”
“You’re in a Well-Armed research lab in Idaho. You’re still alive Gabriel.”
“Why? Why not just kill me?”
“I couldn’t make that decision on my own. I’d have to get a consensus.” The kid said. “I think you’ll be kept alive as a source of study. The others will be curious about you.” He turned to the man in white who was standing next to his chair. “Take him to R-level and put him in one of the rooms with a code lock.”
The man pulled Gaby to his feet and took him from the office. They went up an elevator and through a series of hallways, and then he put Gaby in a small room with a bed, desk, and bathroom. “Welcome home.” He said. “I’ll send someone up with some sterile clothes.” He took a pair of clippers and snipped the restraints off Gaby’s wrists, and then left, locking the door behind him.
Gaby spent an hour sitting on the bed staring at the bright yellow wall in front of him. The room smelled like cinderblocks and glue. He heard the lock mechanism clank and the door opened. A woman in a white work suit came in and handed him a neon pink jumpsuit folded inside a plastic bag. “You’re causing a big commotion.” She said. “Work stopped and all the bosses are trying to figure out what to do with you.”
“They’ll probably kill me.”
“Doubtful,” she said. “Is it true that you didn’t know you’re a clone?”
“I still don’t know that.” Gaby said. “The kid looks like me, it’s true, but it doesn’t necessarily follow that I’m a clone. Maybe he’s a clone of me. I’m more than twice that kid’s age.”
“You’re the oldest boss I’ve seen.” She said.
Gaby noticed that she had kind brown eyes. “My daughter was playing on the swings when the nanotech came. I could still see the impression her body made on the ground.”
“And traitors from California killed my little brother.” She said.
“I’m not a fighter,” Gaby said. “These guys, the bosses, they’re going to kill me. What would you do if you were me?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked at her brown eyes. “Wouldn’t you hope some decent person would help you escape?”
She shook her head. “You should get changed,” she said. “They’ll probably call for you soon.”
“What’s your name?” He asked.
“Sara.” She said.
Gaby said nothing, he just stared at her.
“Are you hungry?” She asked.
“Yes.”
“I’ll send someone up with food.”
The bosses were all the same person, they were all Gaby. There were six of them, obviously made in pairs, seven to ten years apart. The one he’d met earlier was part of the youngest, teenage duo, then there was a pair that looked like they were in their mid-twenties, and a pair in their early thirties. Gaby thought that if he’d had a twin it would complete the set, he was forty years old. They were seated on either side of a long table, and Gaby sat at the head. They all wore black jumpsuits, Gaby wore pink.
One of the middle duo spoke first. “You are Gabriel Dieghton?”
“Marte.” Gaby said. “My mom married a man named Ernest Marte when I was six. He adopted me. My name is Gaby Marte.”
“Your mother was Elizabeth Rachel McMillen?”
“Yeah.”
One of the youngest set of clones spoke, “What do you do for a living Mr. Marte?”
“Chemist.” He said. “I work at a brewery. I don’t suppose any of you drink Barello out here, but it’s pretty popular in my country.”
All six faces smiled at once, the exact same smile. “You don’t work for the military?” One of the oldest duo asked.
“No,” Gaby said. “I did my bit when I got out of college, three years in uniform, mostly doing clerical work.”
“You didn’t work at the research labs in Palo Alto?”
“No, I’m not that type of chemist.” Gaby said. “I couldn’t sleep at night if I’d invented some new way to kill people.”
One of the youngest clones spoke. “The last time I saw you, you were four years old. Do you have any memory of that?”
“Buddy, when I was four years old you weren’t even born yet.”
“I was born in 1966.” He said. “This version of my body is much more recent. Not long after you were born I completed the electrical sequence mapping of my brain. You were supposed to be the first to receive it, but Rachel had other plans. I had to wait until you were fifteen anyway, so I let her run off and get married. I thought I had plenty of time, but then the crash came and I couldn’t find you. By then I had a good start on the next generation, so I let you go.”
“So what, when your clones hit fifteen you rewrite their brains? You really think that makes them you? Just because someone shares your exact DNA and brain function doesn’t make them you.”
One of the oldest clones spoke. “In any sense imaginable, it does.” He said. The five other clones all nodded in unison. “One human lifetime was not nearly long enough for me to complete my work. I needed to extend it, and in doing so I realized I could expand it as well. I run this entire lab by myself, all six of me. The work that I’m doing here will ultimately benefit the entire human race.”
“When a clone hits fifteen it has a whole set of memories of its own, it has its own identity. Do you just write over all that?”
“It’s unfortunate,” one of the teenage clones said, “but it’s a chance to do something great, to be a part of something bigger. The trade-off is worth it.”
“Look at you,” one of the twenty-something clones said, “you kept your identity and look what you’ve done with it. You make beer for a living.”
“So none of you have any individuality? No part of you from before you were fifteen survived?”
“Our brains were reconstructed on a cellular level over a six month period. We are one man, with one identity, one set of memories, one set of feelings and thoughts. The only thing that makes me different from any other person is the fact that I have six bodies. It’s a much more efficient arrangement.”
“If you think you’re rewriting my brain your fuckin’ crazy. I’d smash my brains out right here on the floor before I’d become part of your little circle jerk.”
All six clones laughed the same laugh. “We wouldn’t want you,” the two oldest clones said in unison. One continued, “your brain has certainly deteriorated with age. The process works on young, spongy brains, not the calcified, beer-addled mess you’ve probably got. Your identity as a solid mediocrity is safe Mr. Marte.”
“Since little can be gained here,” one of the middle clones said, “I propose that we alert the enemy alien division and have him transferred to a secure facility.” All six clones nodded solemnly.
“Can’t you ugly bastards feed me first?”
“The transfer will happen tomorrow morning, we’ll send some food up.”
Gaby sat on the bed in his room/cell and wished his mom were still alive so he could entertain the possibility of being angry at her. Yelling would’ve been the only option, he couldn’t ask her why she’d lied. He knew why. She did it so he could have a normal life.
The door opened and Sara came in carrying a tray of cafeteria food. She set it on the desk. “I got you an extra cookie,” she said. “The kitchen crew is gone for the night so there wont be any seconds.”
Gaby just stared at her, saying nothing. Her kind brown eyes looked away, and she left the room. Gaby wasn’t hungry, but eventually he went to the desk and looked at the tray. Ham slices, mashed potatoes and peas. There was
a small carton of milk and a bottle of water. Gaby noticed the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from under the milk. It was a note, written in his own handwriting:
I will help you escape. The cellular reconstruction did not completely erase who I was prior to the procedure. I am not like the five other clones but I have to go to great lengths to hide this fact from them. I see you as a brother because we are both victims of our genetic originator’s egotism. I will come and retrieve you just before dawn and do my best to see that you make it to the neutral zone.
Gaby tucked the note in his pocket and ate his dinner. He would need his strength to get back into Pacifica from the neutral zone. He was finishing his first cookie when he heard a noise at the door. Someone had slid a note through the crack. He picked it up and saw that it was also written in his own handwriting. Gaby started reading it and realized it was the same message, word for word, as the first note. Gaby thought that whichever clone it was had been worried that the first note hadn’t gotten to him.
He began eating the second cookie, but before he’d finished eating it the door opened. It was one of the oldest clones, looking nervous. “I’m going to get you out of here, don’t worry,” he said, barely above a whisper.
“Thanks, I knew you all couldn’t be equally heartless.” Gaby said. “When you come for me I’ll be ready.”
“The cellular reconstruction of my brain wasn’t complete.” He said. “Part of me is like you, a biological clone, but with my own identity.”
“Right.” Gaby said, wondering why he was repeating information he’d already relayed in two notes.
“I have to wait until I’m on my lab inventory shift.” He said. “I should be able to get you out in a couple of hours.”
“We’re not going to wait until just before…” Gaby stopped talking when he realized what was going on. “We’re not going to wait until the transfer tomorrow?”
“No, that would be too late. I want to get you out of here as soon as possible.”
“Okay.” Gaby said.
The clone looked both ways down the hall and then left. Gaby only had to wait a half hour before his door opened again. One of the twenty-something clones stuck his head in. “Hey!” He whispered. “I’m going to help you escape. Come on, come with me.”
“Now?” Gaby asked.
“Yes, come on.” He said. Gaby followed the clone out into the hall, and they ran and turned a corner and went through a door to a stairwell. They took a few steps up but the clone stopped and held Gaby still and they listened. Someone was coming down the stairs, so they went back out into the hall and waited with their backs against the wall. The door to the stairwell opened and one of the youngest clones walked out. He didn’t notice them standing there, he was moving fast and he turned the corner toward Gaby’s room. He was carrying a note.
“That was close,” the clone said. They went up five flights of stairs to a landing where the clone had left a white work suit and hat. He told Gaby to put it on, and once he was in the disguise they went out the door and around a corner to the elevator. They went up and up and up. They came out to a patch of concrete in a forest, almost exactly like the one Gaby had landed on that afternoon. There was a chopper/transport sitting there.
“The flyer is programmed to land in a field a half mile into the neutral zone.” He said. “Disengage the transport and head west. The first checkpoint you come to should be in Pacifica territory, but be careful.”
“If you’re doing this, that must mean that you’re not like the others.” Gaby said. “Some part of you must remain from before the cellular reconstruction of your brain.”
“That’s right,” he said.
“It must be hard to keep that hidden from the other five clones.”
“I hate those puppets,” he said. “One day I’m going to pull the plug on this whole foul operation.”
“What a day that will be.” Gaby said.
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The Floating Orphan of Rainbow Ridge