Clone City

Zuriko dabbed the final touches to her make-up. Looking one way and then another, she felt satisfied. Her coal-black eyes were radiant and she knew, with a mere flutter, they could entice. Right now, they were smoky and had a lazy leonine look about them. She smiled to herself as she put the mascara brush back into its case and snapped it shut. Yes, she thought, I have done rather well to have climbed this high, to have Darvin as my… Pausing, she took a pearl necklace from an enamelled box and lifted it into the light to admire. Yes, she surmised, picking up the thread of her thought, as my source of information. Just then, a tap at the door made her turn.

A maid popped her head round and whispered, ‘It’s the Chairman. I’ve kept him waiting as you said.’

‘I’ll meet him now. You may go.’ Zuriko took one last look at her jet-black hair which was cut square at the front to emphasize the perfect balance and proportion of her face. Satisfied, she rose and went through the adjoining room to the spacious reception room in which Darvin waited with his hands behind his back, looking out of a window.

Hearing her, Darvin swung round and beamed at her beauty. ‘Why Zuriko, it hardly seems possible, but you look even more ravishing than when we last met.’

‘Ah, more flattery,’ Zuriko replied, laughing as she took his hand.

‘I have a little something for you,’ continued Darvin, taking a small gift box from out of his jacket pocket.

‘Oh, you’re too kind! Just put it there.’ She pointed to a low marble-topped table, ‘And help me with this, will you?’ She spun round and held the ends of the pearl necklace he’d given her. ‘Could you fasten it, Dee-dee?’

’Of course, I shall my Z and I do so like it when you call me ‘D’.’ He took the proffered ends, noticing as he did so how she had painted her nails purple. His favourite colour. As he linked the necklace, he inhaled the fragrance of her perfume and let his eye run down the alluring line of her neck. Involuntarily, a sigh of satisfaction escaped him. Instantly, Zuriko sprang away, sensing he was on the point of kissing her bare shoulders.

‘And what would my illustrious D like to have...’ she said and added coquettishly, ‘...to drink?’

Darvin smiled. How he loved her little games! He sat on the sofa, relishing the delicate pastel shades of pink and pale blue that suffused the room. ‘Oh, let me think,’ he said as nonchalantly as he could, ‘a dusk-bomb, my Zee-zee.’

‘A dusk-bomb,’ she said, impressed, ‘and what has my Dee-dee been doing today to so-so need a big-big dusk-bomb?’

‘Ahh, the corridors of power,’ Darvin answered with practised weariness. ‘But I’m afraid I shall only bore you my beautiful, and ever more beautiful, Zee-zee.’

‘No, no, tell me,’ Zuriko persisted, handing him his drink in a tall stemmed glass. ‘I do so love to listen to Dee-dee’s twoubles.’ She pouted like a baby. ‘And, besides, when I’ve heard your twials and twibulations, I shall know exactly how you’ll want me…and have me…later,’ she added, letting her forefinger glance his lips.

After glugging a large draught, Darvin put the glass down with a sigh of satisfaction.

‘I do so love my time with you,’ he said. ‘If I seem old and tired at times, can you forgive me?’

Zuriko went and sat beside him. Snuggling up, she murmured, ‘What’s twoubling my Dee-dee?’

‘Oh, it’s Gorvik. He’s pressing to have the Clone Laws reformed. It’s dangerous. But he’s persuasive and some are beginning to listen. And we have a clone deconstructing,’ he began wearily, ‘not that there’s anything new about that, but Q’zar – yes, him again – he thinks there’s more to it than Valchek’s letting on. He’s got the clone under observation. He thinks someone might be introducing subversive signs! The man is completely paranoid. Valchek couldn’t hatch a plot if he tried. He’s an egg-head, for Code’s sake!’

‘There, there,’ soothed Zuriko, getting up and going behind him to massage his shoulders. ‘But Dee-dee, what in the world is a subversive sign? How can there be such a thing? The Illustrious Codes forbid such signs, don’t they?’

‘Well, I probably, no correction, certainly shouldn’t be telling you this,’ he said, squirming, but now so fully ensconced in Zuriko’s aura of annihilating sweetness that he was unable to check himself. ‘The Codes were based on a discovery of a group of genes in the left perisylvian region of the brain. They control the transmission of messages, and, well, once the chemical processes involved in their transmission were understood, bio-semioticians put their heads together and designed a program that became the blueprint for the conditioning of the clones.’

‘The peri- what! How do you know all this D!’ cried Zuriko.

Darvin laughed, ‘The peri-whatever-you-like darling. Gorvik and the boffins have all the details, but that blueprint and its approved signs define the range of variation open to clone consciousness. It’s this that Gorvik wants changed. He’s saying the Seventh is no longer needed and should be scrapped. Scrap this, scrap that! Scrap indoctrination, scrap the generation rule... Codes, he’d scrap everything if he had his way! But, where was I? Ah yes, it was clear from the start that bio-semioticians could, if there weren’t controls in place, create clones other than those approved by the Clone Laws. How? By introducing subversive signs. Highly unlikely, but Q’zar – he who trusts no one – says the clone complained of a sign. So what! The clone’s going gaga! He could be dreaming of unicorns for all we know! As usual, Q’zar’s blowing it out of all proportion. He’s also insisting we find out where the new instructions for sorting the warehouse goods came from. Can you believe it! Check this, check that, check everything!’

‘He’s horrible. None of my girls like him. They say he’s as cold as the...’ Zuriko gestured toward the unmentionable Outside. ‘But it’s only one clone, isn’t it, Dee-dee? So, it’s nothing to worry about.’ She went and took his empty glass from his hand and placed it upon the table so as to sit astride his lap. She kissed his balding head, knowing full well that Darvin could never resist her breasts so close.

‘Yes, only one,’ she heard him say a jot unsteadily, ‘and only one of an early type. Valchek says he’ll find out where the new instructions came from, says it was another clone’s idea. I doubt if any of the newer batches will deconstruct. If they did, Gorvik would have more ammunition for free cloning, um…’

Zuriko drew his head against her breasts as the thought crossed her mind that, perhaps, something was afoot, a power struggle even. The thought of any change that might threaten her position as Head of the Aesthetics School made her eyes narrow.

Looking down, she slipped a shoulder strap off lest Darvin pull her dress out of shape. This is how I shall keep him, she thought. Until…

For Zuriko, having the Chairman as her consort and all the information that she could extract from him was not the pinnacle of her ambition. There was another matter that made her dig her nails into his back.

She scarcely noticed his squeal of pain as she recalled the first time she had learnt the importance of information. It was by pure chance. Though now, with hindsight, she believed it was fate. She was a young pupil of the Aesthetics School. The class had been told the lesson was over and they could go and play. The teacher had to speak to the Principal. She had hardly left the classroom when she realized she had forgotten her Kitty box and dashed back to get it. She was on the point of rushing into the classroom when she heard her name mentioned. She stopped in her tracks and listened unseen. As she listened, the blood drained from her face. ‘…Zuriko and Laia get on so well, truly like sisters. Of course, they have their little tiffs, but like the rest, they always make up. No one would think her mother had been murdered by Laia’s father…’ Gulping back a bewildering confusion of feelings, she crept away. When the day ended and she returned to her room, she collapsed in a heap and fell into a confused sleep.

On waking, she did not know what to do. Although she longed to know the truth, she decided to wait before deciding what to do. It turned out she did not need to wait long. They were summoned to the Principal’s office so that the whole matter could be explained to them. It was important, it seemed, that they heard the ‘right’ version – a version so watered down that it made their parents out to be fools. They were told to accept this and look to the future. Even now, it angered her to think how stupid the Principal’s story was. It was an insult. Her mother had been murdered before she could prove her innocence! And Drovny’s suicide had nothing to do with remorse – he was guilty of both murders. How Laia could have been so gullible to believe the Principal, she would never know.

She hated Laia. True, while young, they’d been like sisters. But when their adult selves began to emerge they became opposites. After graduating, Laia had chosen to enter the ranks of courtesans and they had little contact. Zuriko smiled to think how much better she had fared. She had risen to head the School and was in charge of the sex industry – Sex Friends for citizens and Sex Servicers for clones. She had worked hard at changing the image of the School to one of fun, enjoyment, therapy and health. Originally, it had been founded to provide an open sex service to rid society of sexually motivated crime. However, the demand of certain customers for certain men or women had introduced the notion of value. Payment became the only means for resolving this source of contention. Very quickly, the service became a financial enterprise and, equally quickly, there were several scandals concerning the huge profits being made. The new image she had worked to create had helped conceal the scale of the profits. Of course, there were limits to her power, but thanks to her wealth she was able to bribe well-placed individuals for information. In this way, she had got wind of Arron’s intention to make Laia his consort. It offered Laia a safe haven. She had to stop it and quickly. But how?

As she watched Darvin struggling out of his jacket, her eyes lit up with an idea. I’ll find out more about this clone. Warton’ll help, she thought. Warton was a Watcher who had been selling her information for better sex friends. Pity he’s so rough with the girls, she thought. Still, I’ll play him along. Delighted with the idea that was forming in her mind, she clapped both hands about Darvin’s ears. When he looked up, stunned at the ringing in his head, she got up and, twisting one of his ears, said, ‘Come along now, you naughty boy!’ and led him to the bedroom.