"This way, please." The nurse said, guiding Jason and his parents down the hall. Jason trailed a little behind his father's comforting bulk, and reached for his mother's hand as well.
The nurse glanced at him and smiled. "Is this your first cloning?" She asked. Jason nodded hesitantly and hung back behind his parents.
"He's a little nervous," His mother said apologetically.
"Well, that's understandable," The nurse replied, "although there's no reason to be afraid. Cloning is absolutely risk-free to the Original." The smile faded from the nurse s face. She stared at the floor for a moment, then shook herself and continued to lead them down the hall.
Jason studied the nurse. She was a high-quality clone; Her speech was perfect, and her left hand trembled only slightly--almost unnoticeably--as it hung by her side. Were it not for the blue ID tattoo on her forehead, Jason might have mistaken her for a real person.
They reached a waiting room and the nurse motioned for them to be seated. "The Doctor is just finishing with the last appointment. She'll be with you in a moment." The nurse gave a parting smile and vanished through a white door.
Waiting room chairs were not designed for six-year-olds. If Jason sat against the backrest his legs stuck straight out from the edge of the seat. If he sat forward he could at least swing his legs, but they still didn't reach the floor. Neither position was truly comfortable. Jason fidgeted with the scratchy hospital gown and glanced restlessly around the room.
Through an open door he could see a small storage room where two low-quality clones were stacking boxes on a shelf. One of them seemed to have trouble lifting the boxes; his right shoulder jerked spasmodically, making him lose his grip every few seconds. The other clone rocked nervously to himself and had a tendency to drool. Periodically he began to wander off, as though he had forgotten what he was supposed to be doing. Each time, his partner pulled him back and gave him another box to stack.
Then the clone with the jerky shoulder dropped one of the boxes. Plastic gloves and surgical masks fluttered to the floor. The clone swore and began to retrieve the supplies as his partner seized yet another opportunity to drift away.
The drifter shuffled absently through the waiting room and out into the hall. As he passed, Jason could clearly read the letters printed across his forehead: NAT-2. Beneath the first line was the clone's registration number: 806-431-2.
A clone's identification tag consists of a three letter abbreviation of the Original's first name, followed by an index number. Jason and his friends often played the naming game when they saw strange clones at school or on the streets. From the tattoo, Jason guessed that the drifter was the second clone of an Original named Nathan, or maybe Nathaniel.
Nat-2's partner finished repacking the box and placed it on a shelf. He glanced around and set off in search of his co-worker with an exasperated sigh.
A few moments later an efficient, graying woman entered the room. She consulted her clipboard and then scanned the waiting room. "You must be Jason," she said amiably. (He was the only child there) "I'm Dr. Kessan. Since this is your first cloning, I'd like to tell you what will happen so you won't be scared, ok?"
Jason nodded, more because he sensed that he was supposed to than because he wanted to be reminded about cloning.
"Good." The Doctor said. "In a few minutes we'll go into the scanning room. An attendant will have you lie down inside a big machine that can scan and record the molecular composition of your body. We'll give you a little shot to help you go into a special state of sleep where your brain activity is regular and repetitive. That way the machine will be able to read your neural patterns without too much interference.
"The entire scanning process takes about three hours. After it's done you'll wake up in the recovery room. Your parents will be there to take you home."
"What about my clone?" Jason asked, interested despite his fear.
"After you've gone home, I'll run the scanning machine's data through a special computer that checks it for inconsistencies and edits them out."
"You mean it fixes all the bugs?"
Dr. Kessan smiled and shook her head. "Unfortunately, the human body is much too complex for any computer program to catch all the glitches. The nervous system, in particular, is very delicate. The slightest mistake during scanning or reconstruction can create serious problems. Even high-quality clones--which require intensive, 17 hour scans and an additional 53 hour checking procedure--sometimes have difficulties with muscular control or minor mental instabilities. What the checking program does is ensure that all of the major organs will function properly and that the brain will be able to communicate reasonably well with itself and with the rest of the nervous system.
"After the scan checking is complete, the data is sent through another machine that reconstructs the body molecule by molecule. If there aren't any unexpected delays your clone will be fully reconstructed at about 11:00 tomorrow morning."
"When can we pick it up?" Jason's father asked.
"The hospital likes to keep clones for twenty-four hours after reconstruction," The Doctor replied, "We want to make sure that the procedure worked properly and that there aren't any serious defects. We'll call you when he's ready to be picked up.
"So, Jason," the Doctor continued, "Do you have any questions?"
Jason squirmed in his seat. He was afraid of the big machine, but the idea of having his very own clone intrigued him. "Will my clone play with me?" he asked.
"He most certainly will," Dr. Kessan replied. "As a payment for the gift of life and for the cost of housing and feeding them, clones are obligated to serve their Originals. But you must realize, Jason, that having a clone is not just fun and companionship. It's also a big responsibility. Clones aren't always as physically and mentally capable as true humans; they need to be taken care of in a world they don't fully understand."
"If they're such a bother then why do we make them?" Jason asked.
"Because any life, as long as it's happy, is better than no life at all. Clones do sometimes have frustrating disabilities, but they also get to experience life and all its joys." The Doctor paused in thought. "They're also a good investment. If a clone goes out and gets a reasonably well-paying job, he or she can earn back the cost of replication within about seven years. Clones are also happy and satisfied working at menial tasks that most humans would find unpleasant. Because we have clones, true humans don't have to work in factories or on farms.
"But the most important reason for having at least one clone is medical. You see, if you should ever get into a bad accident, or get a serious disease, you might need an organ transplant or blood transfusion. Having a clone guarantees that you will not suffer, or maybe even die, for lack of a suitable transplant."
Jason sat and listened in silence. Maybe this cloning business wasn't as scary as he'd thought. And it would be fun to have someone who couldn't tell him what to do; someone who'd do the dishes for Jason if he didn't feel like it, or sweep the kitchen floor.
"Well," Dr. Kessan said, glancing at her watch, "Let s get started." She rose and opened the door to the scanning room for Jason. An attendant helped him up into the big machine and fastened several buckles and leather straps around him. ("To make sure you don't move while you're sleeping," the attendant explained.)
Then Dr. Kessan wiped his arm with alcohol and inserted a hyperdermic needle. He held his breath as she injected the sedative, and then the pain went away. The Doctor put cotton over the site of the injection and asked Jason to count backwards from one hundred. He didn't get past ninety-four.
Jason searched for his mother's face as soon as he woke up. It wasn't there. Neither was his father's, and a cold tendril of fear crept up his spine.
He tried to sit up and discovered that he was still too groggy to lift himself. All he could manage was to turn his head to the side and try to make his eyes focus.
The room was empty except for the clone nurse. She was facing away from him, scanning readouts from a big machine on the far wall. He tried to ask her where his parents were, but his mouth and vocal cords wouldn't respond properly. Only a few half-enunciated syllables made their way through his lips. The nurse glanced up.
She straightened and pressed an intercom switch on the wall. "He's awake, Doctor." Then she checked his vital signs and disconnected some electrodes that had been attached to his skin. "Don't be scared because you can't talk," she said. "Reduced muscular control is a normal side effect of the procedure. It should go away within a few minutes of waking. Dr. Kessan will be here to make a preliminary analysis soon."
"Is something wrong?" Jason tried to ask. The words were only partially intelligible, but at least his mouth was beginning to respond to him.
"Don't worry, everything's fine." But the nurse wouldn't meet his eyes, and turned away to make some notes on her clipboard.
Dr. Kessan entered and helped Jason to sit up. She checked his eyes and ears, and listened to his heartbeat. Then she tapped on his knee with a rubber hammer. "Do you hurt anywhere?" Jason shook his head no. "Can you speak to me? Tell me your name."
"Jason Calloway." He stumbled over the familiar sounds, trying make his tongue respond correctly.
Dr. Kessan straightened up and took the note pad from the nurse. "He seems to be doing well," she said, marking something with her pen. "I think he'll maintain a slight slurring of speech, though. And watch for any tremors or lack of coordination."
The nurse took the notepad as it was handed back to her. "Will that be all, Doctor?"
"I think so. Take him through the Preliminaries, then send him down to the Testing Center." The nurse nodded, and Dr. Kessan left.
Jason remained sitting on the hospital bed, cold and frightened. "Where are my parents?" he asked. "When can I go home?"
The nurse looked at him as though she were recalling a distant pain. Finally she lifted him down from the bed and took his hand. "Come with me."
She supported Jason as he made his slow way across the room, then sank to one knee beside him and directed his gaze towards the full-length mirror on the back of the door. He stared at the mirror in puzzlement for a moment, then reached up to touch his forehead in disbelief. There, emblazoned in blue ink beneath the skin, were the characters JAS-1, followed by a registration number.
Jason stumbled back from the mirror and tried to rub the letters off, but they wouldn't come. The nurse grabbed his hands and held them firmly to keep him from hurting himself. "You have to calm down," she told him, "or they'll think you're unstable and terminate you."
"B-but I'm not a clone! I'm Jason!"
The nurse made him turn and face her. "Jason Calloway is at home right now, with his parents. You have all of his memories, but if there's one thing you must accept it is that you are no longer Jason. You're his first clone, and you must respect and obey him from now on."
Jason didn't want to cry, but the tears came anyway. The clone nurse held him and seemed to grope for comforting words.
"It isn't really a bad life, Jas," she told him. "It just... isn't the life you expected to have."
The boy made himself stop crying. It was frightening to think that he'd never be able to control his own life now. He had always been taught that clones needed people to tell them what to do, that they weren't capable of making responsible decisions, or of interacting with real people in a mature way. They had just been a part of the background of his life--like the house, or the furniture, or his pet canary; Things to be taken care of.
Jas-1 stared at the two ID tattoos reflected in the mirror and wondered what his Original would do if he knew clones were really just like people underneath the tremors.