March
21st, 2037
1010
Dear
Space Diary
…I’m
not sure I quite follow.
“It
seemed a simple enough statement. The cloning facility in the pit belongs to
me.”
Ok. I
have a follow up question if that’s ok.
“Go for
it.”
WHAT?!
“I
rebuilt the facility.”
But
they trapped you in a facility for over a year. You were imprisoned and they
farmed you for DNA! And you destroyed the facility, killing everyone inside and
making sure nothing remained. Why off Earth would you rebuild something like
that?!
“Look,
if you’d wiped out a facility and killed everyone inside, leaving a large pile
of rubble and no survivors, what would you have lots of?”
I don’t
know… kidneys?
“Guilt,
you idiot. I have lots of guilt.”
Oh.
“So…
After I saw you, and after I realised you could get me home, I reprogrammed the
lightdogs, and I sent them far away from me to rebuild. Then the new clones
could come back to the city and live happily in peace, and I could never see
them again. Everybody wins.”
In a manner
of speaking. But, I can’t help but notice that you are walking around happily
and well and not, you know, trapped in an evil lab being cloned.
“I may
have made some modifications to the system.”
Such
as?
“Not
being trapped in an evil lab being cloned. I added a little extra to the
lightdogs’ programming. They’re set up to work from a pre-existing supply of
DNA that I’ve donated.”
Donated?
“I gave
blood.”
Eww.
“The
beauty of it is, once the supply runs out, they’ll revert to their existing
programming and, not finding a test subject, simply shut down. Thus, we have a
controlled population of clones that get to live and be happy, and the facility
simply shuts itself down. Easy!”
Yeah,
easy. But, um, tell me Mary, what would happen if hypothetically, they found
another test subject?
“…What
did you do?”
Me? I
didn’t do anything!
“I
don’t believe you. Prove it.”
1047
Mary,
I’d like you to meet… Mary.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
“You
look a lot like me.”
“I bet
you say that to all the girls.”
“Less arms,
of course, and you’re right leg is a little hilarious.”
“It
hasn’t finished regrowing! Cut me some slack.”
1100
Going for a
walk. Leaving the two Marys to get acquainted. Not sure where I should go…
“So are you
just going to float in that tank all day?”
“I’d be out
sooner if you could lend me a hand.”
Darn it, can
still hear them. Need to go further.
1110
Can’t hear
them anymore. Excellent.
Mary 2.0 has
regrown considerably, fortunately for her. Still a ways to go but her body and
most of her legs and the starts of her arms are there. It’s a weird looking
process. It looks like she’s melting in
reverse.
The facility
is pretty quiet. The Marys just float in their tanks. A bit of peace at –
“You’re
back!”
…last.
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