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“I’m glad you’re here,” she said.“And it’s not just because of your tech or what you’re doing for us.”
A warmth that had nothing to do with his warring hormones filled him, and he tried to smile.“I’m glad I met you.”More than anything or anyone else, Rhys was glad to have found Hannah.Smart, determined, beautiful Hannah.
She looked like she wanted to say something, but paused.Finally, she said, “I’m going to go back to the agri center.”Disappointment welled up in him, but he nodded again in response.
“I’ll see you at dinner,” he promised.
And until then, he would ruminate over everything that had just happened.
Hannah considered skippingthe rest of the day and returning home to reflect on the events at the power station.There was more than one kind of electricity in the air!In the end, common sense won out.She returned to the agri center.There, she found SP29 and a couple of other cyborgs assembling a machine in the barn.“This is a scaled-down clone pod,” SP29 explained by way of greeting.
It took a second for her to switch gears and turn her thoughts back to her job.“This is how you’re going to make new chickens!”she exclaimed, fascinated.
“Cows too.Jasmine said she missed cheese and steak.”Was Hannah seeing things, or did SP29’s features soften when he mentioned Jasmine’s name?“Animal cloning will take longer than using sowing enhanced seeds,” SP29 continued.“We expect to have chicken embryos ready within the next ten days, and hatched chicks about three weeks after that, assuming their gestation is normal.We’ve never done this with animals before.It’s a little more complicated than growing a human.”
“You can’t be serious,” Hannah protested.“Are you outfitting the chicks with X-ray vision and data ports?”
SP29 grinned.“We are not.But we’ve never done this before with a chicken, and we want to get this right the first time.No sense in causing a creature to suffer if we can take precautions.”
“Good point.”Hannah had never considered the finer points of cloning and ethics.
Hannah watched another cyborg attach a plastiglas cover to the pod’s top.SP29’s last statement reminded her of something she’d been dying to ask a cyborg about, but she didn’t know if it was polite or not.SP29 had been more willing to talk about the specifics of being a cyborg and clone than Rhys had, and she thought he might be more receptive to answering her questions.“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not trying to be rude, and you don’t have to answer.Do you ever have memories from your other clones or your original?”A shadow crossed SP29’s face.Hannah immediately regretted asking.“I’m sorry,” she said.
Just as quickly, it was gone.“Don’t be,” SP29 replied.“This was going to come up sooner or later.Old memories have been known to resurface for some of us.They’re rarely pleasant.”His voice dropped.“Walk with me.”
Intrigued, Hannah did so.They strode out of the barn and into the sunshine.It was nice to look at the fields and not feel overwhelmed at what needed to be done or be terrified of losing food before it could be harvested.Lettuce and wheat had been planted, along with a couple other varieties of vegetables she was unfamiliar with but had been assured would be a good match for the New Eden soil.The sight of the tended fields and vegetable patches was a balm to Hannah’s soul.
But she wasn’t here to gaze on the fields.“What haven’t you told me?”she asked.“Is there something I need to know about your people?”
“There’s nothing untoward that we’ve been keeping from you,” SP29 replied.“Truthfully, we don’t know why we were created in the first place.”
“Rhys has said as much.”
“We’re certain it was for something terrible,” SP29 continued.They walked past an herb garden, the smells of basil and rosemary pleasant.“War or terrorism purposes.Some of us have had memories of our originals or iterations doing horrific things or horrific things being done to them.I’ve had a few weird memories resurface since I was cloned.”
“Aren’t there other cyborgs who’ve been around long enough to tell you what could’ve happened to a previous iteration?”
“I’m sure there were, before our predecessors made themselves independent.But we have no records of a cyborg rebellion.We think our previous iterations destroyed them as a means of protection.All of us were grown in clone pods and have been traveling together for the last twenty-eight years.”
“You woke up in the pods one day as full-grown adults, and that was that?”
SP29 nodded.“Essentially.We were born with the technical knowledge necessary for space travel, speech skills, all of that.We don’t know why.”
“And you aren’t keen on finding out.”
“No.We’ve kept our trading and interactions with other peoples to a minimum.I’m one of the cyborgs who most easily passes for an organic human, so I was often the one recruited to do that.”Another unreadable look crossed his face.“DL16 is the other one who most appears human.He doesn’t even have wrist ports.No idea why.”
His voice took on an odd, strained note when he mentioned DL16.Hannah recalled that was the other cyborg Jasmine was enamored with.“Have you considered using your original’s name?”
“No.I’m not him.I don’t want to be him,” SP29 replied shortly.“Maybe I’ll pick a name later, maybe I won’t.I haven’t decided yet.”
Hannah didn’t ask more about his original.“Should I be worried about Rhys?”she asked.“Are his flashbacks and memory resurfacing something to worry about?”
SP29 gave her a look that reminded her of Jasmine’s when she’d guessed that Hannah had feelings for her new roommate.“I worry about him,” she added.“We’re friends.That’s what friends do.”
