Your One & Only(67)
They didn’t seem to care. The Hassans, I mean, although more and more, I find I can’t call them that. They’re not Hassan. The more I miss him, the angrier I become with them for not being him.
That’s strange, isn’t it? That they nod and go about their work when the person who made them, whom they were made from, is dead. He died, and they skulk around the same as they always do, muttering in soft voices, discussing their secret plans. I don’t know who these clones made from Hassan are, but they are not him. They lack his warmth, his life, his brilliant mind. They are like reptiles, cold and passionless. They don’t trust us, either, those of us still living. They don’t want us in the labs anymore, that much is clear. One of the Inga clones told me I had to speak to one of Samuel’s clones if I wanted access to the labs. “These are my labs!” I said. “I’m the senior analyst.” She told me I should have a nap, then closed the door in my face. They treat us like aging grandparents, slow-witted and senile. I suppose they keep us around out of some sense of obligation.
Perhaps it was arrogance to think we had any control to begin with. We may have created them, but like all children, they grow up and make their own lives. They reject the life we wanted for them.
They refuse to collaborate on our planned shift from cloning to sexual reproduction. They say they like things the way they are! To me especially, as an evolutionary biologist, this is extremely bizarre. You can’t simply keep cloning—it won’t work. You can’t disregard a billion years of evolution! It seems they think they can, however. They’ll outgrow this outlandish notion. After all, almost every species that’s ever existed has, consciously or not, been committed to propagation by sexual mating and to the goal of passing genes through one’s offspring. That’s how evolution works!
Mei’s attempt to pair them romantically has turned into something of a joke. I told her it would never work. She was hoping they would embrace sexual reproduction instead of maintaining this now unnecessary reliance on the cloning, but that’s clearly failed. She suspects they have perhaps made the males infertile, but the clones won’t allow us to examine them.
It’s been four years since we lost contact with Honduras, and six since we heard anything from the States. Almost certainly Global Health is completely defunct, and the World Commonwealth is an empty shell, its top leadership decimated years ago. There are other survivors out there, I’m sure, but we have no way to contact them. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen jet contrails passing overhead. Our last long-distance link to the outside has sputtered and died. We are truly alone in this.
Mei now thinks the clones need a religion. They’ve rejected any of our ideologies, of course, as they’ve rejected everything else thousands of years of humanity has to offer. For some reason, we thought we’d have more time, and she thinks we need to work harder to provide them a compass in this empty world we’re leaving them.
Sometimes I wonder if we made a mistake. We’re coming up on the new century, and we don’t have much longer. Perhaps humanity was not meant to continue. If man is made in God’s image and we fall so short of His perfection, what is this creature we’ve made? They have our faces, but something is missing. Elan says it’s their souls. Perhaps he’s right.
How foolish we were, to act as gods.
April 21, 2102
Nyla died today. The Slow Plague, as usual.
July 8, 2104
Carson and I snuck into the labs and found their notes. It’s as we suspected. From the beginning, the clones have been manipulating the genetic codes of the new generations they’re creating. It’s one thing to fix eyesight, but what they’ve done . . . changing eye color, skin color, erasing the most inconsequential physical differences. They’ve taken minor traits present in each of us and either eliminated them or enhanced them somehow. From what we could decipher, they seem to be altering even the way they think. The notes called it Empathic Communal Bonding, though we couldn’t figure out what this means.
The changes are so fundamental. They’ve become alien to me, less and less human every year, with each iteration. It scares me.
This morning I found them in the church, about fifty of the clones standing in a circle holding hands. Their eyes were closed, and they swayed back and forth as if responding to a silent, unimaginable rhythm. I asked if they were praying. They smiled secretly to each other and turned away. A Viktor clone took me by the arm and led me out.
What is going on? What are they up to?
October 17, 2105
Carson found Elan and Miranda dead in their bedroom this morning. There’s been some talk about an autopsy, but no one seems to have the heart for it. Perhaps we’re afraid of what we might find?
I went to speak to the Althea clones again, but they refused to see me. I’ve been an irritant to them, it seems. They don’t like that I’ve disapproved of their plans, argued with them about sexual reproduction. As I was leaving the labs, though, an Elan clone followed me out. He spoke quietly, as if he didn’t want the others to hear.
“We’re thinking of leaving,” he said, leaning toward me conspiratorially. “We need your help collecting supplies. They won’t suspect you of planning an escape.”
I smiled grimly at that. Most of the original residents are too weak to walk, let alone plan an escape. I see the way the clones look at us, watch us. They are horrified by our physical deterioration, and I worry it has only galvanized their efforts to erase all variety in their genetic code. They’ll never survive that way.