104th Entry

March 20^th, 2037

1600

Dear Space Diary.

So, Mary, I had better get going.

“You’re leaving?”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s been… interesting. But Mary will be wondering where I am. I don’t want her to come looking for me, find all of you, and decide to accidentally kill you all again.

“It wasn’t –“

We don’t know that. And she’s had a bit of a rough ride, alright? Innocent until proven guilty. So I should get back and make sure she’s not getting worried.

“Ok.”

Also you’re kind of freaking me out.

“Duly noted.”

1610

“Oh hello again! Did you find Mary?”

I did, we had a nice long chat. How have you been?

“Oh, you know. Growing in my tank. Not doing anything. Resenting people for introducing me to the wonders of human contact and then abandoning my new enlightened mind to the agony of solitude. That kind of thing.”

Sounds fun. Well, must be going.

“You did it again!”

Sorry.

“Do you promise you’ll come back?”

I promise I’ll try.

“That’s a promise! You’re coming back!”

No, I… fine. Bye.

1619

At the top of the pit now. Seems very quiet and empty up here. Not much sign that an entire cloning operation is going on downstairs. Just the occasional blast of steam and the faint cries of “Traitor!” from Mary 3.0, otherwise you’d never know.

“Traitor!”

Right, I need to get going.

2000

Well that was a long walk. Aside from a little dialogue based interlude I’ve been walking for… about 10 hours.

Most I used to walk on Earth was 10 minutes.

And that was if the car was broken.

And the 10 minutes was just around the block while the mechanic was fixing the car.

Because the TV was also broken.

Anyhoo, I think I’ve redeemed myself somewhat, so enough about that.

Finally back to the city though. Just an hour or so longer and I’ll be back to Mary 1.0 like nothing ever happened. She’s probably still asleep.

It’s been a little hard to process the most recent revelations. I mean, from meeting Mary 1.0, and the skeleton in the closet I had deduced that cloning was going on. The city, the lightdogs, these were all made to house and manage the clone experiment.

Badly, as it turns out.

And if Mary had been trapped, been … farmed, been forced to watch other version of herself grow, then I guess she has plenty of reason to be grumpy. I’d probably want to destroy the facility too.

But… to kill all the clones? I don’t know what to think. I mean, they’re… I dunno what they are, but don’t they deserve to be alive, now that they are?

I’m not trying to be an ethicist here. I’m not debating whether they should have been alive in the first place. But, look! They’re alive! So since they are…

I think it’s best that Mary doesn’t know.

2133

Back at last. Finally, I can –

“Freeze!”

…panic.