Young Writers Society

CHAPTER 3

Shen Grisinger listened vaguely to the OPI scanner as he pulled on the cheap marijuana joint, filled every square inch of his lungs with smoke and held it in. His neurons sizzled as the drug entered his blood stream and gave him that familiar high: tugging at his mind. Tugging at his consciousness. Suddenly, though, a violent puff of the smoke burst from his mouth and he had to gasp for air in between phlegmy coughs. Exasperatedly, he gasped again, glanced at the nail, and shook his head. He just couldn't hold it in like he used to. Getting a high was getting more difficult.

Shen coughed, closed his eyes and flicked the nail stub into the street gutter. It didn't really matter though. By the time the cancer set in he'd have the Clone who’d been locked away by his rich parents donating a lung or two so he could keep on smoking. It just worked that way. Originals nowadays were Frankensteins pieced together by the parts of their own Clones. After all, that's what they were for: menial labor, the military, and organ donations. Only the lucky Nobreeds lived past thirty. Of course, this hierarchy wouldn't last forever. Ethical puritan fanatics were getting louder, claiming Clones were living people, with souls and minds and hopes and dreams. Claiming that organ transplants were akin to murder. Shen snorted and watched the fog roll into Arlington as the sun set behind the skyscrapers. Murder was hardly the right word for killing a being that shouldn't exist in the first place. All of those protesting, free thought, free life people made him sick. A Clone was a Clone. Not to be confused with a living breathing person. If a geneticist wanted to play God, let him. But synthetic life could hardly be called life at all.

Sighing, Shen rubbed his bare tattooed arms and waited for the blare of the OPI scanner to sound. He had long since figured out that there was a spectrum of people, with the ethical puritans on one end and the Hyte on the other. Shen and his gang fell far right. In fact he and the sixteen men he laughed with and stole with and got high with were an offshoot of the Hyte. A street gang version. There was the mafia type, international version of the Hyte, the kind that embezzled money and killed important Clones and politicians. And then there was the street rat, gutter version; the people that mugged Clones, vandalized Pastless homes, and committed the occasional murder. He may not have been well paid and dressed in suit, but to Shen, what he was doing was just as important to their cause.

He smiled at the computer pad in his lap, which was scanning the surroundings for Clones. The OPI scanner picked up radio waves transmitted from the inhibitors implanted in a Nobreeds skull. When transmissions were found, the scanner would give the precise location of any Clone within range. And God could only help the unfortunate genetic mistake it sniffed out. The OPI scanner was the Hyte's digital bloodhound.

The smog churning in the alley was becoming oppressive; its gray leaden mass bearing down on Shen's body. He shivered again and wished he was inside like the rest of his gang with a nail in one hand and a prostitute in the other, heavy music popping his eardrums. If he listened close enough, he could just barely hear the vibrating roar of the titanium subwoofers behind the wall he leaned against. He would be warm there too...

The computer pad in his lap suddenly hummed and began to beep steadily. A pulsing dot appeared on the screen, winding its way through the maze-like intersecting concourses and alleyways of Arlington. Shen grinned. They had themselves a live wire.

He rose rapidly and pounded on the door behind him. It opened a crack and a single blood shot eye peered out at him. “Don't ask Shen. We're out of reefer -”

“No, no. We've got a Nobreed, Steve! Get a coupla baseball bats and guns and tell the girls to wait for us.” The eye scrutinized him for a moment before Steve slammed the door shut and roared to the half-stoned gang behind the wall, “Let's go scare some Clones!” The roar was returned. Shen's grin broadened.

“Hi ho the derrio,” He breathed, shoving the scanner into his pocket and staring into the fog, “A-hunting we will go.”

****

Jack wound his way through damp alleyways and semi-empty streets, lit occasionally by a lamp; head bowed, hands buried in his coat. He wasn't in a good mood. In fact, he could bet every Clone in the United States was seething at the death of Phillip Aston. Tonight would be a night of foul tempers.

Frowning, Jack kicked a plastic can out of his way and rounded a corner. Jerry Saddler hadn't been a happy man either. The implosion summary had been an hour late. Jack was forced to stay overtime and listen to his boss rant about ineptitude and laziness. Personally, Jack was just relieved he still had his job. Jerry was severely anti-clone and would jump at any opportunity to have a Clone scratched off of his payroll. But what could Jack say? He had been distracted by the slaughter of the only man that could give the Pastless people the slightest ounce of hope. He gritted his teeth and shook his head. Sometimes he wished his chromosomes hadn't been donated to the military. Sometimes he wished his mind had been destroyed at birth – like most of the Clone population – and that his catatonic body had been tossed in a pen to await organ butchering instead. It would've been less painful that way. He wouldn't have to suffer every day because of the inhibitor in his brain and the serial number tattooed on his neck. He wouldn't have been conscious. And now Aston was gone...

Jack sighed, shoved Aston from his mind, and found himself wishing he had a car for the millionth time. Nearly every day of the year he had to walk from the pentagon, to the bus station, and from the bus station to his apartment. If he had a car, he could cut the travel time in half. That, and the fact that Arlington was not a safe place to be on foot in. He glanced around at the thick, churning fog. Especially in this weather. It gave perfect cover for junkies and thugs. He felt naked and unprotected just thinking about it. Unfortunately, getting a car required money. Something he didn't have a lot of. Though they didn't publicize it, the Department of Defense was extremely tight when it came to paying Clones. He shook his head. No, a car was out of the question. Besides, he thought with a tight smile, walking kept him fit.

Jack turned and entered a narrow alley shrouded in mist and dotted with dumpsters. His apartment was only another block away...He heard a dog brawl in the distance and a car dart passed. He was alone now. There was no one around but him and his shadow. Jack shivered and found himself wishing for some company. The silence was unearthly...

Metal clattered to the ground not far behind him followed by muffled voices swearing. Jack stopped short, his heart suddenly pulverizing his rib cage. This was too much. Inadvertently, Jack felt his fists curl as he turned to face the noise. Show yourselves, you drunk bastards, he thought. Just pass on by. Maybe it had been his imagination. Maybe he was being paranoid. Besides, anyone had the right to be walking around Arlington. It didn't mean they were after Jack Burles...

A light caught his eye as he scanned the smog. He looked down. A red dot was dancing crazily on his thigh, skittering across his slacks. “What the hell?” He whispered reaching to touch it. But he stopped. Jack suddenly realized what he was looking at. He knew that dancing dot all too well.

It was a laser aim.

Jack didn't even pause. He gasped, turned, and set off at a dead run down the alleyway. Immediately, the sound of silenced bullets spat through the air and flew passed his ears. Running, though, didn't help. Within seconds, Jack felt a burning pain ripple up his spine and flash behind his eyes as a bullet ripped through his thigh flesh. He grunted and toppled face first into a puddle. Shouts and catcalls erupted behind him as the shooter met his mark. Footsteps followed.

If Jack had learned anything in the military, it was to never stay in one place too long while being pursued. If you did, you were dead. Driven by blind terror, Jack scrambled to his feet, despite the pain, and limped further down the alley. Every step caused shards of light to pepper his retinas. He felt like screaming. Obviously, his hunters had noticed he was on the move again because a fresh round of bullets carved their way through the air. One clipped Jack's shoulder, jerking it forward, pulling him back to the ground. Wildly, trembling, Jack crawled behind a dumpster and prayed to God whoever was chasing him would pass by. He pressed his hand to his wound. Blood pulsed against it. They had probably hit an artery and he was probably dead already. Just his luck.

The voices and shouts grew louder. “He's here somewhere!” came a muffled voice, “Put away the guns. If he's alive, maybe we can still have some fun.” Fun!? Jack thought, half terrified, half exasperated. As if killing him wasn't enough...

A flashlight beam fell on his face and he instinctively threw up his hands. “Found him,” rasped a voice. Jack's ribcage was dust by now. The light flicked off and in the dim half light, he saw fourteen men cluster around him, holding baseball bats and grinning like fiends. The man holding the flashlight stepped back and nodded to the man next to him. “You located him, Shen. You can have the honors.”

“Don't mind if if do, Steve.” A bald man oiled his way forward. His arms were black with tattoos and a lip ring jutted from his mouth. He smiled and hefted his bat. Jack's heart stopped midbeat.

“And don't come back, Clone,” he whispered, swinging the bat at Jack's forearm.

Metal connected with bone and Jack gasped. Something broke. And it wasn't the bat. The gang roared and pulled Jack bodily away from the wall, tossing him into the middle of the street. Blows began to rain down on him like bricks. He screamed and cried as people kicked at his face and groin and back. Someone rammed a bat into his stomach and he started coughing up blood. His OPI was twitching like mad, but he barely noticed it. Bone after bone shattered like twigs and he could feel every one of them doing so. They tore like parchment. Jack began gagging and breathing in his own blood; rich and coppery. His eyes were swollen to the point that he could barely see from them. And all the while people were laughing.

Memories and thoughts started to fade as amnesiac chemicals leaked onto his neurons and synapses from his inhibitor. What vision he had became hazy and indecipherable. Tears, though, still managed to squeeze passed his eyes and mix with the blood flowing freely from his nose. Why were they doing this? What had he ever done to deserve this? Jack had heard about Clone beatings before, but they had only been pictures on the news. Never a reality. He vaguely wished he had the ability to fight the bastards back...

Finally, mercifully, a bat swung against the back of his skull and his brain seemed to burst into flames and sparks and shards. Something shattered. Jack gasped feebly and sunk into unconsciousness, his body limp and broken. The beatings faded.

“Alright. He's dead. Stop.” Steve muttered, pushing the last few zealots of his gang aside, nudging the Clone in the stomach. Grinning slowly, he drew a nail from his pocket with a bloody hand and started gnawing on it. “Well, I'd say that was a good night’s work. Marc, scan the area for anything we may've left behind. I don't want the cops bangin' on our door tomorrow morning. Everyone else,” He grinned even broader and lit the joint; “the girls are waiting.”

****

The ambulance lights painted a bloody collage on the alley walls as paramedics and newscasters alike swarmed around the gurney which held the sixth Clone beating victim of that year in Virginia alone. The Clone had been practically mummified with topical healing bandages and an oxygen stabilizer which wound its way around his indecipherable face. Cameras were trained on his broken body as the medics darted around the stretcher tightening straps and hooking him up to life support systems.

Doctor Sasume sighed as she knelt by the man's side and glanced over his vitals. They didn't look hopeful. He was wavering on the thin line which separated unconsciousness from catatonia. The beating hadn't been a robbery or a mere mugging. Rather, an execution. Whoever had done this to him had meant the Clone to die. They had caused him to loose several quarts of blood, break and shatter sixteen bones, receive massive internal bleeding, and had mangled his face. Sasume glanced at it and shivered. This guy was going to need one hell of a plastic surgeon.

But his appearance wasn't something she needed to worry about right now. They had just barely managed to inject an Accelerated Blood Replicator into him before he died of blood loss and his red blood cell count still wasn't stabilizing. Sasume was worried they had injected the ABR too late. If she had, the man's life was as good as gone.

Sighing again, she stood and motioned to a paramedic, “Okay. Load him in. If he dies he dies on the road.” The paramedic nodded and with the help of the others, shoved the gurney into the ambulance. The doors slammed shut with a definitive clang.

“Doctor Sasume,” someone shouted. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. If it was another reporter... “Doctor Sasume! I'm Lieutenant Marquardt. I'd like to speak with you.” Sasume turned to a bulky police man with sagging jowls, waving at her from behind the medical yellow tape. Grudgingly, she made her way over to him and shook his hand.

“I'm Lieutenant Marquardt,” He said.

“So you've shouted. What do you want? I've got a half dead body in my ambulance that really needs to be hospitalized.”

The man waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the empty gurney, “I need to know who did this. I'm going to need any evidence you collect, any trademarks. You know, the usual.”

“Obviously.”

Marquardt ignored her sarcasm, “Do you see anything right now. Just by looking at him. Was he shot?”

Sasume glanced over her shoulder and nodded, “Yeah, he was shot. In the thigh, right through the femoral artery. Might've been clipped a few times in the shoulder, too.”

“Well, include that in your report, will you. And can I count on you getting the bullet to me ASAP?”

Sasume snorted condescendingly, “Yes, seeing as it's the law.”

“Good,” he said, smiling tightly, “Just thought I'd remind you...”

“Goodbye Lieutenant,” she said, “I really have to go now.” And without waiting for a reply she whirled around and stalked back to the ambulance. She could care less who did it. To her, all that mattered was how it was done and with what could it be fixed. Whodunits were superficial.

The computer pad under her arm beeped and she glanced at it quickly. He had a stable blood cell count. Finally. She nodded approvingly, climbed into her vehicle and told the driver to head for the hospital. With any luck, the poor Clone might live to see another day.

For better or for worse.

****

For the millionth time in his career, Julian Dair wondered why he had ever begun the campaign that had launched him into three long years of presidency. Being the United States president meant enemies, assassination threats, war, stress, body guards and decisions he'd rather have some other poor bastard handle. He felt like Pontius Pilate. All he wanted was a tub of water and a drycloth. Let the American public crucify some other up-and-coming politician. Some things just weren't meant for the shoulders of one man.

With a groan, Dair fell back into his leather chair behind his oval office desk and massaged his temples. Another thing he hated was the press. If he bled even a drop, they were there with a band-aid and a camera. Every problem the country had was a scandal caused by president Dair. He had come to realize that was all presidents were: scapegoats for a country. Winning candidates spent millions of dollars for the privilege of living in a big white house, and then got their names dragged through the mud. They were blamed for every crisis and every problem and were expected to fix it. Immediately. If people died, it was his fault. If wars were started, it was his fault. If the economy failed, he was blamed for incompetency. An unpopular president meant a big headline. And he was getting tired of it. Just two days ago, Secretary Phil Aston was murdered. The media had had a field day. “WHO'S NEXT?” the headlines proclaimed, “Is Dair failing to protect his country's leaders?” It was ridiculous. And after Aston died, Clones with damaged OPIs had gone berserk. Two fires had been started in businesses that were rumored to support the Hyte and a rich anti-Clone CEO of some monopoly had nearly been assassinated. From what Dair read in the newspapers, the man was still recovering from knife wounds in the hospital.

The world was crashing down around his ears and the country was torn in half because of mounting party differences and the war in Asia. Fearing civil war was not being paranoid. It was being realistic.

Dair leaned forward again and rummaged around in his desk for a caffeine tablet. He glanced at the clock and popped one into his mouth. Four more hours until he got home. Four more hours of debating inwardly on whether or not he ought to sign the go ahead for the furthered research and mass production of the Manzetti implosive. He flipped through the file in front of him, scanning its statistics and vitals. To president Dair the Manzetti was a last resort. If the Republic of Asia got out of hand then he’d authorize the detonation of one, but not until. War was one thing. Slaughter was quite another. For a brief second, he wondered how Truman felt before dropping an atomic bomb. Determined or uneasy? Eager or reluctant? Dair shook his head. Too many choices. It didn’t help that there were probably only a couple hundred carefully selected people who even knew about the project. He was building a weapon of mass destruction behind the people’s back. He half wondered if they would consider impeaching him over it…

There was a quick knock at the door and the president looked up from the folder, “Come on in,” he said. Victor Parker, his chief of staff, stepped into the room and reverently closed the door behind him. He was smiling. Dair frowned and glanced back down at the Manzetti vitals. That was never a good sign.

“What do you need, Parker?”

Parker paused near the door, biting his lip, and then pulled a chair up to Dair’s desk, “I need to talk to you.”

“Is my term over yet?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Then go away.”

Parker rolled his eyes and leaned forward in his chair. Dair glanced up at him from his folder. He didn’t look good. Victor Parker was getting paler and thinner by the hour it seemed. He had entered into Dair’s cabinet three years ago with a full head of hair and two hundred and thirty pounds of fat resting heavily around his waistline. Now he was wavering on one-fifty and thoroughly bald. Dair smirked. He could make millions on a weight-loss program.

“I have some news about a Clone problem.”

“Good or bad?”

“Both…kind of. Which do you wanna hear first?”

“Do I want to hear either of them?” Parker wasn’t laughing. Dair sighed, closed his folder, and poured a glass of water. “How about the good.”

“The good news is that there is a solution to the bad.”

“Great. For once in my life. Keep talking.”

“The bad news is that we received a report from an anonymous source stating that an organized group of Clones are going to plant explosives in the Tru headquarters, two days from now and demolish the entire building.” President Dair felt a sudden surge of worry. Tru was a corporation which secretly supported the Hyte but publicly supported the president. Probably half of Dair’s campaign money had come from Tru donations. If Tru went under, he could kiss the chance of having any future government positions financed good-bye. That, and the substantial under-the-table, less-than-legal “money donations” which Tru slipped him every once in a while to turn the other way as they altered a few bank accounts. Since he was inaugurated, several Clone sympathetic corporations who competed with Tru found themselves mysteriously bankrupt. The FBI and – more importantly – the press were dumbfounded. He wished that would happen more often. They always seemed to know what he was doing and how he was doing it. His frown faded. But maybe, for once, the press could help his image in this situation. If Dair caught these Pastless rebels and sent them to Babilon, it might discourage further uprisings and keep Tru alive. He could kill two birds with one stone. The birds being his wallet and his reputation.

“How did we find out?”

“Someone made a call to the FBI. They’re now taking steps to protect Tru.” Parker paused and smirked, “Knowing their generous contributions in the past, I thought you might want to know.” He stood and headed towards the door, “You’ll be seeing a news spot on it sometime this week. Let’s pray, though, that they won’t find some way to make you look bad. See ya, chief. Have fun trying to get yourself impeached.”

Dair grunted and re-opened the Manzetti project.

Actually, impeachment didn’t sound that bad.

________________________________

NOTE: Alright. To me much of this chapter seems awkward. I can't my finger on it, but maybe you can. Tell me about the beginning: is it missing something, is it too quickly paced, is the marijauna smoking accurate (for all you out there who are...more familiar with it... ). Tell me about the beating: again is it well paced??? Is my dialogue well done. Are any parts of the story cliche and/or forced. How is the overall novel turning out? Is everything happening too quickly? Tell me about Jack and Dair. HOW AM I DOING *bites nails*

Anyway, thanks for reading.

-Kylan