Sean Cairns

HON 101: Sci-Fi

Memoirs of the Future

We don’t know when it started. It’s like we just woke up one day and there it was upon us; out of the darkest of nightmare, or perhaps the most sinister corner of our souls. In those few years, everything went from the highest point a civilization could perceive to the dank drudgeries of the worst slavery imaginable, inescapable. Fear was now our lives.

In the beginning, God created man, and it was good. Man created machine. It was good. Man invented fire, shelter, Wal-Mart, the Oreo, and they were, for the most part, ok. Then man created the clone. I think that’s where they started going a little wrong.

I can still remember where I was when it was announced that a cheap and reliable cloning apparatus had been invented. I was in Mrs. Manchu’s Biotechnology II class at the University of Kol-Tech, studying to be a robo-organic prosthetics surgeon. We were going over the XN-nerve interface devised by Dr. Korhol in late 2056 when a teacher’s aid rushed into the auditorium, advising us to turn on our TV. Mrs. Manchu rushed over and turned it on. The newscast was just beginning to repeat itself for the late-comers.

“…ay is a day that will be remembered throughout history. Today, cloning has become a reality. It began in 1998 with Dolly, a cloned sheep. Then extensive stem-cell research was conducted from 1999 until 2015, when the Riley Act was passed by the U.N., banning embryonic stem-cell studies through out the world and strictly enforced by the United States. Now, working in tandem with the military scientists of Operation Parallel, who created the first cloning apparatus designed solely to clone individual organs, the scientists at the University of Georgia have created a child-sized cloning tube. This tube can successfully clone a human baby, accelerating the fetus’ growth rate until it has matured to the equivalent of 11 months old, over an actual period of 3 months. During this time, a series of “flash-mem” sequences will be utilized, the same technology used by our military to permanently imbed training sequences into our troops, to teach the clone all of the basic life skills it would have learned in its first year as if it had been born naturally.” As the announcement ended, our entire class room, nay, the entire campus found itself in a long moment of absolute silence.

As you can imagine, this came as quite a shock through out the world. The U.S. and the U.N. passed numerous laws prohibiting or at least fiercely controlling the cloning technology to strictly theoretical and military applications almost instantly; countries that refused the U.N.’s jurisdiction became training grounds for the next generation of underground cloning scientists.

Over the next fifteen years, without public support or financing, the Hapsburg cloning procedure as it came to be known, was largely forgotten by the public, but opened whole new levels of science for academia. During these hectic years, I turned a large portion of my medical studies towards learning more about full human cloning, and how its technology could be interfaced with my studies of prosthetics. My research team and I were right in the middle of creating a scaled down version of the Hapsburg clone tube in order to re-create lost limbs for our numerous prosthesis patients, when on October second, 2075, the world was again struck with fear and awe as a band of outlaw scientists working in Cuba announced that they had taken cloning one step further: the surgical switching of brain matter between the body of an old man, and into his youthful clone’s body. Pandemonium ensued as many of the world’s richest men (the only ones able to afford the procedure’s $20 million price tag) began flocking to Cuba and undergoing the procedure.

At the academy where I worked, the Institute of Bio-Tech, Cloning, and Prosthesis California, there was an instant uproar from the faculty. Dr. Karl Robertson, the country’s leading expert in neuro-biology, Dr. Kathryn Louran, the original pioneer of the military’s Operation Parallel, Sir Jonathan Thomas, the nation’s leading human cloning expert, and I prepared and delivered a letter of recommendation to the President of the United States, Sarayah Dean, urging her to take whatever action necessary to prevent this type of illicit surgery from being practiced anywhere on the planet

The US and the U.N., seeing the procedure as immoral and evil, launched a full-scale attack against Cuba, which refused to give up the scientists peacefully for several weeks. The Cuban War was finished in three months, with the entire country overtaken by the U.N. However, a vast majority of the rogue scientists were not apprehended.

It was about this time that I had my first encounter with a clone. U.S. mandates stated that all clones must be vividly marked as so, and while at a local supermarket, I met Sam II. While waiting in line to buy my glow sticks, bubblegum, beef jerky, and a new UCD (Ultraviolet Compact Disk, using UV rays instead of a laser to read information. It allowed several layers to be recorded over one another, quadrupling the disk size), I noticed him enter. Looking strange in a bright orange jumpsuit with the word “CLONE” emblazoned upon his back (and looking more akin to an inmate in an asylum than a free human [and some people, specifically the religious, would argue that he was even human!]), Sam II was immediately the topic of muted conversations across the supermarket. The entire building seemed to quiet down, except for the hushed whispers of fear and hatred, all expressed at Sam II. As I watched, the people around Sam II all pulled away from him sharply, clearing a path down the aisle for him, pulling their children away from him. The all glared at him with the sort of distain you would expect if Hitler himself were standing there, even the old greeting man at the door refused to smile, much less let Sam II use one of the hover-carts to hold his groceries.

One enraged old lady clutching her rosary spat on him, which led to a mild cheer from the rest of the crowd, and most people returned to their shopping, but always watching their back, in case Sam II came into their isle. The treatment of this clone by the people of my community infuriated me so badly, that instead of my planned lecture at the class I was to teach that night (Premature Organic Breakdown In Healthy Tissue Due to Gamma Radiation and Theta Waves 344), I gave a resounding speech on the ethics of cloning, treatment of clones (who didn’t ask to be clones, the ones who cloned them did), and the future of mankind and civilization if current attitudes towards these topics continued as they were unabated.

The next day, watching the morning holo-net news, I was very surprised to see a recording of my previous evening’s “lesson” airing, with the headline “Professor Demands Clone Emancipation!” So now I was an unwitting advocate for a clones’ rights movement. Not two minuets later, my phone exploded with callers, most well-wishers for me on my “fight for equality and emancipation”, some were calling to volunteer themselves to working with me, and a couple of them were threats to cease my pro-clone actions. Interestingly enough, nothing much came about from my “speech for freedom”. The only effect was that the U.S.’s mandates determining how clones should be identified were repealed, and most clones were able to assimilate simply into normal society.

Apparently this itself was enough to enrage numerous influential groups. One evening after my Synth-Flesh Prosthesis class, I was walking towards my brand-new Corvette-mV hovercar, when I noticed a black, unmarked hovervan. This partially aroused my suspicion, but I failed to check my surroundings for danger as my Self-Defense teacher had taught me (mandatory training for being a Professor in these days). Suddenly, three men donned in black jumpsuits and wearing power-gloves, used to transport criminals easily, leapt out of the shadows, knocking me unconscious and (as far as I can guess now) carrying me to the hovervan.

The next memory I have to speak of (besides a long, vivid dream of being disembodied) was opening my eyes suddenly, then squeezing them shut because of the blaring surgical lights directly above me. My head ached worse than anything I had ever imagined it could; the more I thought about it, so did my body.

Probably an hour later, as the sharp pain from before had lessened into a dull throbbing in my temples, I had strength enough to get off of the stiff, sterile surgical table upon which I had been laid. Looking around, I finally located a computer terminal, albeit a type I had never seen before. Logging on, the first thing I checked was the date, which, to my utmost surprise, read March 4^th, 2099! I had been “out” for almost 19 years! I attempted to log onto the holo-net and find out what had been going on, but an error came up, saying that the holo-net had been dismantled!

I then noticed a UCD (probably old technology now!) in its case next to the computer, with a piece of duct tape across the case with my name on it. Thinking it to be the answer to all of my questions, I put it into the computer drive. To my relief and dismay, it did hold the answers.

Popping up on the 3D display was a small, nondescript asexual person, who began to explain what had. In the 19 years I had been “under”, as the computerized person had said, a lot had changed in world politics. In 2081, the beginnings of an economic depression hit the U.S. Over the next four years, the depression spread to envelope the entire world, reducing once proud nations to ruins and bankruptcy. Seeing this as the perfect time to dominate their weakened opponents, several middle-eastern countries unified together to defeat the Western World once and for all. The United States could only watch as most of Europe was overrun by these middle-easterners. After Spain fell and its naval ships were assimilated into the middle-eastern navy, numerous amphibious attacks were launched upon the United States. The entire Eastern coast of the country had been taken over, and was being held by an overwhelming swarm of middle-easterners.

Just as it seemed that the Western World was about to collapse, a solitary figure immerged from the Nevada Wastelands, commanding an army created almost entirely of clones, using technology he had stolen during the Cuban War. This man, Sir Jonathan Thomas, who had worked with me at the University, arranged an ultimatum with the American people. He agreed to lead an attack to push back the middle-easterners to Europe if, in exchange, he would become the President and lead the country to war against the Middle-East upon their own soil. This was quickly agreed upon by a staggering and statistically improbable 98.27% of the American population.

It was at about this time that several groups had decided to research exactly what had caused the horrific depression in the first place. Eventually, it was discovered that a core group of wealthy people, who had opted to have their brain matter transferred to a fresh clone body, had continued to gather the world’s wealth in such great amounts that they actually controlled more money, property, and land than most governments. This lead to a breakdown in the system that maintained and contained the world’s economy. Without this stability, everything crashed, starting with the stock market, causing more people to lose more money, and resulting in a further breakdown of the system. This downward spiral eventually ended in the worthlessness of most major currencies.

The clone armies lead a successful campaign into Europe, reclaiming almost all of the captured territory. The middle-easterners sued for peace several times, but the enraged European nations, along with Sir Jonathan Thomas kept on fighting, eventually capturing Turkey, Iraq, and The United Islamic Nation. With this Third World War wrapping up, the clones found themselves being called back to America.

Meanwhile, Sir Jonathan Thomas was busy rebuilding a nation on the verge of reverting to the Civil War-era societal norms and folkways. However, he underestimated the loyalty of his cloned army. The clones, believing that since the war was over, that they would revert back to second-class citizens, decided to stage a war of their own, against their own country.

The Second Civil War of America began on October 7, 2091, with the first offensive action of clones against humans in the Battle of Hinesburg, Pa. It was a bloody battle, with many human casualties. From there, the clone insurrection spread like wildfire across all fifty-three states. Two years of this struggle against the already poor and exhausted humans ensued before peace was finally reached. Sir Jonathan Thomas, the leader of the Combined Human Resistance (CHR) and Kyle Francis VII reached the “agreement” that all humans were to leave the fifty-three states of the United States of America, and all would be spared. Any humans left in the country after one year’s time would be sent to camps to live out the rest of their days. Reluctantly, Sir Jonathan Thomas and the leaders of the resistance, realizing that they had practically no other choice, besides going nuclear, sadly agreed to these terms on December 23, 2093

The last report on the UCD showed a news report in England showing the funeral service for Sir Jonathan Thomas, who had been assassinated a year after the agreement had been arranged. So far this year, being 2099, all humans have been out of the clone-controlled territory of the United States for 4 years. It also stated that an interesting and militarily exploitable anomaly had been recorded by clone researchers. It seems that clones lack the ability to reproduce. The continued cloning of clones has caused a previously unpredicted mutagen to become part of the clones’ DNA. It has been hypothesized that by 2150, the clones’ DNA should have de-evolved to a state that would let the United States be easily retaken through forcible action, due to the fact that the clones were becoming weaker, and less intelligent through each generation.

Finally, the computerized man instructed me to go to the only door in my white, sterile room, and that I was free to leave at any time. Puzzled by this message, I went to the door and stepped through. In the next room, there was a rack of clothing and a mirror. I glanced at the mirror and turned to the clothes, but my attention snapped back to the mirror. Horror struck, I recognized myself as I had been when I was a mere nineteen. I was a clone!

For the next ten years, I worked closely with the UN’s American Clone taskforce, working out ways to infiltrate America and sabotage the sprawling clone facilities throughout the country by introducing further mutagens into their DNA sequencers and creating less and less intelligent and more feral clones, even further than the natural mutations.

But that’s another adventure entirely.