Clone City

Gorvik strode along the Topround corridor. He was thinking about his love-hate relationship with politics. It made him grit his teeth. On the one hand, he would rather spend his time in the laboratory with co-researchers. That was what he found most satisfying. On the other hand, he knew if he did not fight their corner on various committees, particularly the influential Home Affairs Committee, they would not have enough money to do any research.

His counterparts on the committees – he doubted if he could call them colleagues – were either consummate politicians who never committed themselves to any policy for fear of not being able to pull out if it went wrong or civil servants who defended the status quo because they did not want to create more work. Don’t rock the boat, leave the forms as they are was their motto.

It riled him to think how conservative the majority were. The nobles – Darvin, Q’zar, Valchek and O – were always harking back to what they imagined to be a golden age. Darvin was only interested in holding onto power. He knew he could rely on Lara as well as the nobles to block any challenge on controversial issues. He would arrange the agenda for meetings so that thorny issues were forced into the limited time allotted to ‘any other business.’ If he was not sure of support, a backroom deal was the solution. In short, he opposed reform.

Although Q’zar ran his department very efficiently, his was a narrow, elitist view. Valchek epitomised the ‘front-man’ – he could talk about anything and everything as if he cared. But he was a turncoat. His allegiance depended upon how much he could gain. As for O, he and his department may as well not exist. True, he did carry a vote, but since he never came to any meetings he could be discounted. Of the other three, citizens who, like himself, had reached the top through dint of talent and hard work, Arron was the archetypal civil servant. He was an admirable person – principled and intelligent. But, alas, another defender of the status quo. Small changes, yes, but anything radical, no. Lara was Darvin’s rubber stamp. But Sovran, she was different. Thanks to her leadership, Media’s use of technology was nothing less than brilliant.

At the last meeting, Gorvik had detected a willingness on her part to at least listen to his argument. It was for this reason he’d asked his secretary to arrange a private meeting. Her motivation might be different, more emotional possibly, but never mind that, he thought. If they could reach an agreement, it could prove extremely useful since only she had the means to address citizens directly. He had a gut feeling that the committee room was no longer the correct forum for change. He had to get Media on his side. Let the people have it, let them discuss it, let them judge for or against. If we can’t change the Seventh top down, we’ll do it bottom up, he thought as the door to Sovran’s apartment came into view.

Sovran glanced at the time. She was thinking a man as busy as Gorvik would not request a meeting to chat over a drink. He obviously wanted to harness her support on the free clone issue. She would listen. But, at bottom, she did not feel very sympathetic. There was one thing they had in common, however. In the same way, he could not get committee members to discuss that issue, she couldn’t get them to face up to the question of expanding Outward.

Code knows, she thought, here we are, cooped up in a densely populated city, unable to even talk about these issues. Dare she challenge that taboo, she wondered? She felt she would have to one day, but when? It was a huge risk. She would be putting her job on the line. According to Security, Media’s job was to communicate the rights of tradition, not the values of an uncertain future.

This made her think of the man who enforced those rules – Q’zar. At lower level committees, their secretaries met frequently to discuss how to present the news. They selected what should be shown, then discussed in nit-picking detail how to depict each event. What slant should be put upon it, what subliminal messages should be inserted and how. There were even times when events were staged to create the news.

She remembered the Pharo Affair. She had been a young journalist then and she was over the moon to be put on that story. It made her. It was the break she’d waited for and she rode it for all it was worth. She also remembered it was the first time she’d met Q’zar. Her first impression had not changed one iota. He was a control freak. The policy of nipping trouble in the bud that he’d proposed and gained permission to pilot had now become accepted practice. It was hailed as the major factor behind the fall in the crime rate. But it led to arrests being made prior to the crime. Once an arrest was made, there was no recourse to justice. There was no judicial procedure. The whole society was geared to consensus, and, as the proverb had it, the nail that stuck up was hammered down.

The official role of Media was to distract public attention from the realization that they were the last civilization by creating an illusion of well-being – ‘substitute reality’ was the term. But the result of so many years of careful manipulation was that few citizens realized or even cared about the distortions anymore. Life was so comfortable it sedated thought. All the talk was about cooking, new products, who was on the Big Show, who would win the championship, fashion, gossip, anything, except the fact that stared them in the face: they were the last outpost of humankind.

Sovran got up and walked across to a long window that ran the length of one side of her penthouse suite. She looked down at the tubular walkways that coiled away from the base of the Tower between high-rise buildings. Then, raising her head, she gazed out over the forest at the faint contour of mountain ranges in the distance. The dread that citizens have of the Outside, it has to change she thought. We can’t carry on pretending. We have to face our fears one day. I need an ally. I’ll listen to him.

The door chime startled her. She walked briskly toward the door. As she approached it, she could see from the screen above that it was Gorvik. She opened the door.

‘Hello, right on time,’ she said with a smile and waved him in.

‘Ever punctual, you know.’ He smiled back, noticing she was wearing ivory white slacks and a loose-fitting blouse.

Once Gorvik had settled himself on a long beige sofa, she asked, ‘Would you like something to drink?’

‘Thank you. Tea would be fine.’

She did not need to make the tea. Chuck – the name she had given her home automation system – began the process in the kitchen. After exchanging a few pleasantries, Sovran fetched it when Chuck called.

After taking a few sips, Gorvik leaned forward and said, ‘I’m a busy person, Sovran, and I know you are. So, if you don’t mind, I’ll come straight to the point.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘The reason I wanted to see you is to talk about the issue of free cloning. As you know, every time I bring it up at meetings it has failed. Darvin is implacably opposed to it as are the others. But, correct me if I’m wrong, I thought I detected an interest from you. What you said about resurrection cloning was a fair point, though – I do apologize – at the time I thought it a side issue. To be honest, at that point I’d reached the end of my tether,’ Gorvik said, shaking his head.

‘Hardly surprising,’ said Sovran. ‘There’s enough deadwood on that committee to make anybody who’s got any get-up-and-go scream.’

Gorvik chuckled. ‘Couldn’t agree more.’ But then, looking at Sovran more seriously, he added, ‘It is odd, though. Don’t you think? Usually advances in science and technology make societies more liberal. And yet, Joypolis seems the exception. It’s so conservative.’ He paused to tug the end of his beard. ‘If that Seventh were amended, resurrection cloning would be available, you know.’

‘I guess it would, but it’s not the real reason you want the Seventh changed, is it?’

‘True.’

‘So what is?’

‘Well, as I said at the last meeting, I don’t like the present system of conditioning clones to do specific tasks. Machines could do that kind of work. That tea you just fetched, it could have been brought in by a simple robot. In fact, you probably know, the reason why machines aren’t used – and you’ll have to excuse this heresy…’

Sovran laughed. ’Oooh, I love heresies. Let’s hear it.

‘Well, you can call it a historical accident, but after the Andradist Uprising, all research into artificial intelligence came to a halt. Koron advocated a mechanized society in which robots, not clones, would lead the struggle for survival. Well, whatever Koron said or did certainly put a lot of people off robots. The effects can be seen now in the way we are surrounded by LPRs. I want to see people cloned for intelligence. Let machines do the repetitive jobs these Low Personal Responders do.’

‘Hmm. Clones from real people.’

‘I’ll be frank, I need your help. I can’t make any headway on this issue at committee level. I’m banging my head against a brick wall. Sovran, you and I of all people know how Darvin got to be Chairman.’

Gorvik was referring to the way he and Sovran had agreed to withdraw their candidacy to avoid a split on the Home Affairs Committee. They agreed that situation must be avoided. The lessons of the past, particularly the Andradist Uprising, had not been forgotten. It was in this way that Darvin, the rank outsider, became Chairman.

‘Yes,’ Sovran replied, thinking back to that time. ‘Looking back, it’s a huge irony.’

Gorvik nodded with a heartfelt sigh of regret.

‘But tell me,’ Sovran began, ‘with real clones, would they still die young? And be less human? Unable to have children. And what about Lara’s point?’

‘No, they wouldn’t be less human or die early. The ones we have now die young for two reasons. One is sequential cloning, and…’

‘Come again?’

‘The vast majority are cloned from clones who have also been cloned from clones…’

‘Got you.’

‘They’re all duplets.’

‘And the second reason?’

‘The indoctrination. It takes…I’m not sure how to put this, but in plain language, it takes the spark out of them. They are not exposed to the higher ideals that make us special – ideals that inspire some to devote their whole life to a cause or even sacrifice their life for the greater good. They have needs, but not love. By setting the range of possible experience, chemical-semiosis prevents them from being fully human. Of course, the coding unravels, and, though the time frame is not hard and fast, it takes the form of a natural decline into senility. And then, as you know, our laws permit a merciful death. The older models deconstruct when they get somewhere between thirty-five to forty years old, the newer ones around ten years later.’

‘Not very nice, wouldn’t you say? Manufactured, indoctrinated, dying young, childless and no love?’

‘Yes.’

‘And how’s all this done?’

‘Well, computers are used to stimulate reward or punishment to a variety of images and signals. For example, an image of a clone touching a female citizen results in a shock.’

‘But what about the Carers? Surely, they’re conditioned to care?’

’True. Dovan recognized a contradiction there and recommended what he termed ‘mundane measures’ to stop caring overflowing into a loving relationship.’

‘And what exactly did he mean by that?’

‘Well, if it is known that two Carers are meeting and forming a relationship, Security sees to it that their work shifts are altered so they find it impossible to meet. You can’t get much more mundane than that, can you?’ Gorvik chuckled.

Sovran found nothing to laugh about. ‘Don’t you think there’s a moral issue here?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Gorvik coughed before continuing: ‘They faced extinction. Dovan and his followers chose bio-semiosis because they believed it was the only way to guarantee survival. The moral issues must have seemed insignificant in comparison to the greater good. They got the social stability they were after alright. You could say they were too successful. It has stifled progress in other areas. Artificial intelligence is one of them. We need to do a lot more research on AI but can’t because of a stubborn resistance to change. Citizens seem to think the same. Don’t you agree? They can think some things, but not other things.’

‘It may surprise you, but I do,’ Sovran said, looking straight back into his eyes. ‘I feel locked in, unable to discuss numerous issues, and, whoops, my turn for a heresy, especially the question of expanding Outward. We can’t even talk about it.’

Throwing her hands up, she stood up and walked over to the window. She didn’t like Gorvik’s cold, scientific manner of thinking. We’re not on the same wavelength, she thought.

‘The two issues are related, you know,’ Gorvik said, wondering if he’d said something wrong.

‘Yes, I think so too.’

‘The LPRs provide the economic stability that prevents the shocks that force change – such as the need to expand Outward. And the other issue which I tried to alert the committee to is the gradual decline in the birth rate. I can’t help but think that the fact that the clones comprise the bulk of the workforce has something to do with it. You see, it provides one of the mainstays for survival – production of food. When a society becomes this artificial, surely it starts to break free from laws of natural selection?’

Sovran said nothing, but it occurred to her that the cause might be far simpler. If you weren’t too fussy, the Aesthetics School were offering sexual partners at very reasonable prices. The sheer convenience of the service must, she thought, lessen the desire for steady sex-love relationships.

After a pause, Gorvik continued, ‘It’ll be a major problem in two generations’ time. Look at how more and more births are arranged via IVF. A fresh approach to cloning is one way to re-ignite the impetus for change, such as expanding Out.’

‘But it’s worse than that, isn’t it? Three quarters of the population are clones. We’re surrounded by them and yet we don’t know or care about them. We don’t know who they’re related to. I can’t tell my readers we’re using humans, rearing them to be docile slaves and discarding them when they deconstruct. They’ve accepted the situation for so long, they think it’s normal. They believe the clones are sub-human and don’t matter.’ Sovran shook her head. ‘Media, me, we’ve fed them that line for so long it has given substance to the prejudice. It’s sickening.’

After a long pause, Sovran continued: ‘You walk around the city. You see how the people accept the apartheid as normal – separate work areas, separate living areas, separate walkways, sports clubs, restaurants, bars, sex parlours, everything.’

‘Sovran, it’s got to change. If we can’t change this at committee level, then it’s got to come from the people. Only you have the means to reach them.’

‘I could use resurrection cloning as an angle. It’s emotional, but that’s where its appeal lies. It might get people thinking about the Seventh. I could then lead them into questioning why we can’t change anything just because it’s constitutional. It might prise the debate open on the clone issue as well as attitudes toward the Outside. But I’m being too optimistic. Nobody thinks about politics anymore. They want everything to be decided for them.’

’Do it. I’m prepared to submit an article in support and put my name to it: ‘Real Clones from Real People’.’

‘Hey! That’s a good line. If you lose your job, we’ll take you on!’ Sovran said, jokingly.

Gorvik chortled.

‘Let me have it,’ said Sovran more sombrely. ‘I’m not making any promises. I’ve got Q’zar breathing down my neck. But you never know. If the right moment presents itself and a bombshell is needed…’

‘You’ll stick it under his ass?’ asked Gorvik, not disappointed to see Sovran crack up laughing. Glancing at his watch, he thought this might be the right moment to leave. ‘Well, I better go, but I hope the image of Q’zar blown to pieces keeps you in good spirits.’

‘It’s been an interesting talk. Let’s keep in touch on this one,’ said Sovran, walking to the door with him.

‘Yes, it has. Thank you, Sovran.’ Gorvik turned and shook her hand lightly.

As he walked away from her apartment, he was pleased. Good woman, he thought. Feisty. Tired of this walled-in mentality. Although he had not got a clear commitment, he felt there had been a meeting of minds. But there was one thing he dared not mention – he had already started free cloning.

This was a secret known only to himself and two of his most trusted colleagues. So frustrated had he been at Darvin taking the chairmanship, he had decided to go it alone. He had cloned three individuals, one from his DNA and the others from two colleagues’. The papers submitted to the authorities made it appear as if four or five separate experiments were being conducted. This had shielded them from suspicion. But the clones would soon be fourteen years old and would surely begin to ask why they were being treated differently. The moment their existence came to the notice of the authorities, there would be hell to pay. Where were their papers? Who were they? The parents? The donors? Free clones!

This was the bombshell that was forcing Gorvik’s hand and he wanted the storm to break from another quarter so he could present his three protégés as proof of the success of free cloning and so clinch the argument for the reform of the Clone Laws.