Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Where am I? I try to sit up and pain shoots through my head. My skull feels like it is ready to explode. I lay back against the cold surface behind me to calm the pulsing. My body is stiff. I blink my eyes a few times to dissolve the fog. Looking up, I see I am in between two brick buildings. A fire escape leads up to a few grungy windows on the building to my left, while nothing but an old ad for some forgotten leader covers the entire wall to my right the paint chipping and making a distorted view of whoever it might be. It stinks here.

I hear something rattling nearby; coming closer, but still cannot sit up to see what it is. I soon realize it is a person, a man, he is singing. I can't tell what he is singing, whatever song it is, it is all disjointed and nonsense. Here I am alone in this alley with some crazy man coming along and I can't do anything to protect myself. I close my eyes again and pretend not to exist; maybe he will pass me by.

He approaches me, the rattling stops. I can sense him looking down at me. He softly nudges me with his foot. I do nothing. Suddenly I feel a small jolt to the back of my arm and the stiffness in my body disappears. I open my eyes and look directly into my own face, only slightly older. Same blue eyes, same brown hair, same slightly crooked nose, same small mouth, the only difference in him and I is that he has a slight beard and looks a little more aged. I gasp. He grins down at me and lifts me to my feet. My head no longer hurts.

"Who are you?" I mutter feeling as though I hadn't spoken in ages.

"I am technically you, as much as you are me. We are one in the same. You are the fifth of us I have found today." He grins once again and starts to leave pushing a buggy full of odds and ends. The rattling starts and I look down to notice he has a trail of cans following behind him, which look to be tied to his feet. I continue to stare at him as he walks down the alley. He says without turning around, "Are you coming or not?"
Seeing no better options I follow him.

"You had best put this on." He reaches into his buggy and pulls out an old, grungy overcoat. He tosses it to me and tells me to skip as we walk. "If they think we're crazy, we won't be taken."

"If who thinks we are crazy? Taken where? You're not making a bit of sense."

"I'll explain later, for now keep quiet, unless you want to hum, but do so in a weird manner. We are leaving the alleyway now." He begins to sing disjointed again. I slowly begin to skip and hum, still having no idea where I am or where I'm going or why this man looks like me.
The alley leads out into the open street. The street is very dismal and grey. Run down buildings are here and there, some are torn down, except for a wall or two, others are nothing but rambles. Cars are crashed or destroyed on the sides of the street. The street reminds me of pictures from Germany during World War II. The streets gave off an inner feeling of loneliness and sorrow. The last I remember I was in my hometown of Sumtonville. It looked nothing like this. There where people everywhere. The town was clean and pristine. Everyone was happy, but then I was forced to do something I could have never thought I was capable of.

We walk down these streets, no sound…just the faint echo of our shoes, my companion's singing, my humming, and the constant rattling of tin cans. All the trees are dead, standing like tall people reaching up toward the night sky where stars twinkle merrily. There are no lights on in any of the buildings. No cars pass in the streets. No people. Desolation has struck this city.

"We're here." He enters another alley. I follow him to a grate on the side of the wall. He loosens it and waves for me to go in. "Go on, it's safe. You will find the answers you seek inside. Crawl straight, you'll know when to stop."

I crawl into the shaft. Darkness chokes me. He replaces the grate, and I hear him rattling away, singing into the night. I crawl straight as my companion had asked me to do. Crawling on my hands and knees through the dirty shaft, it seems like hours but was probably only a few minutes. My head bumps into a wall. A dead end? I reach up and place my hands on the wall giving it a hard push, nothing. I feel around and realize there is another grate to my side. I push on it and it swings open. I fall out of the grate and land on an old mattress. I lay still for a moment allowing my eyes to adjust to the darkness in this room. I notice a pale blue light coming from one side of the room. I stand up. The room is empty other than some old boxes and the mattress. I move toward the blue light.

There is a closed door shading the blue light. As I reach for the knob, suddenly out of seemingly nowhere two men jump up beside me. One grabs me and the other one places a gun against my neck. There is a sharp jolt of air from the gun. My whole body runs stiff again.
I'm carried through the door down a long hallway with spaced out, blue lights adorning the wall. I try to struggle, I try to speak out, but I cannot move and cannot speak. They continue down the long hallway. It curves and seems to be running downwards. We finally reach another door. The man on my right places his hand on some kind of electronic device beside the door. Momentarily the door opens and we enter a bright white room. They place me on a gurney. I look up at them, but cannot see them because of masks that cover their faces. They turn and walk back out into the hallway, the door closing behind them.

I lay there stiff and in pain for close to what seems like two hours. Eventually I hear footsteps approaching from behind. Two doctors appear wearing medical gear, including masks. They roll the gurney through the white room. As they walk I can tell one of them is a female from her shoulder length black hair. She looks down at me telling me with her eyes that she is smiling. "We thank you for your patience. Please deal with us a little longer and you may be free to go."
They push me through two double doors and down another long hallway lit with blue lights. This hallway has random doors running down one side. We enter one after passing quite a few. This room is a lot like an examination room. I can see stethoscopes on the wall, those little instruments that shine the bright light into you nose and ears, and computer equipment. The male doctor begins examining my heart, throat, eyes, and ears. While the female doctor takes what looks like a scanner from the supermarket. She lifts my right hand and places the scanner into it, the laser glows in my hand. It beeps. She stares at the computer. "He was dropped off at approximately 3:13 AM. The agency has not infiltrated him yet. His blood pressure, temperature, and sugar levels seem accurate. Once again, same as always, another Sam." She takes a gun much like the one the men used earlier and place it against my neck. I feel the whoosh of air; the stiffness and the pain are gone again. I sit up and start to get off the gurney.

"We would suggest you stay here. Here you are safe." The male doctor says.

"Where is here? Who are you? Where is my family?" I ramble as I stretch out my back and rotate my neck, feeling much stronger now.

"You are in the clinic of the resistors. We are Sam. You have no…"

"My name is Sam. What do you mean by saying 'we' are Sam?" I had a feeling I already knew. Everything was too strange. First the alley with the crazy man who looked like me, then the guys in the dark room, now these two doctors with eyes much like my own. They remove their masks. Once again I stare in disbelief. The male doctor could be my father, while the woman looks like a twin sister.

"We are Sam. We are one in the same. The only difference is that we have read different books than you have. We were the same until the resistors got us. The resistors were started by the 124th Sam in the year 2114 upon finding a long lost book of histories in the shambles of a library." The female doctor, or Sam, spoke slightly disjointed.

"Are you a robot?"

"The preferred term is android, but no I am not one. We are human, clones of the first Sam. I am a clone that was spliced with an extra X chromosome. You and Sam 156 are perfect copies of the first Sam. I am called Sam F117. Do you remember your training?"

"I am not a clone. I do not know what training you are talking about. I came from a town where cloning was being played around with, but not legal."

"That's what the agency likes for you to believe."

"Who is the agency?"

"The government. They stole cloning from the scientists who invented it and said it was illegal. However, they have been cloning since the first Sam was born in 2003." The male doctor said.

"I was born in 2003."

"What do you remember?" Sam F117 asked me.

"It the day before high school graduation. I went to school like normal, finished my last classes, said goodbye to some teachers, and then I woke up in the alley. Is my mother and father all right?"

"You do not have a mother and father." Sam 156 said.

"Yes, I do. I remember telling my father goodbye and giving my mom a hug on my way out the door that morning."

"That was a simulation. It is strange that you do not remember what happened after that day." Sam F117 turns to the male doctor. "Do you think it is possible he did not receive the training?"

"It is highly unlikely, but I suppose it is possible."

"What is this training you keep referring to? I've heard of no such thing. My parents are not a simulation either. This must be some kind of insane nightmare."

"You have dreams?" Sam F117 looks into my eyes with an odd sense of longing and perhaps fear. I glance at Sam 156. He is giving me a look of astonishment.

"Yes, I dream. I have dreams every night. Do you not have dreams?" They shook their heads.

"Sam 124 must be told." Sam 156 rushes out of the room.

"What are dreams like?" Sam F117 asks.

"They are like thoughts in your mind when you are asleep."

"I know their definition, but what are they like? How do they make you feel?"

"You guys are serious. You really don't dream?" She shakes her head. "Dreams are like television in your mind, only you are living. You are yourself, sometimes other things, but mainly yourself. Dreams can be very realistic and also fantasy filled. Some nights you may have a nightmare, some nights a dream about a relative who has passed away, other nights you may have a sexually stimulating dream, dreams are the soul's way of fulfilling wishes or scaring you." She stares at me in awe as I tell her about dreams.

"That is amazing. I have always longed to dream. We've read about it in books, but we are unable to do it." She grins then. "What is sex like?"

"Um… well…" The door opens and Sam 156 enters with a slightly older Sam. He could definitely be my grandfather. Sam F117 moves to a chair and picks it up. She carries it over to me and sits it in front of me. The older Sam hardly acknowledges the chair or her actions. His eyes are focused on me. He stares at me with wonder and fascination. He then smiles brightly, and holds out his hand. I take it. The skin is slightly loose and slightly wrinkled. His eyes twinkle with excitement.
"It is such an honor to meet you. They must have grown tired of Sams. It took them long enough. I can't say I am not glad though. It will be nice to see a different face around here for a change, whenever they are finally trained." He moves his hand to the side of my face and turns my head staring at my neck and my ears. He runs his hand through my hair slightly. "You are remarkable. We came from you. We have waited for this day for so long, but thought it would never come. You are our leader. You shall lead us to freedom."

"Leader? I don't think so. I'm sorry, but could you help me get home. I really want to see my family." An eerie gloom fills his eyes.

"You haven't told him his story yet?" The doctors shake their heads.

"We thought it would be best coming from you." Sam 156 says.

"Well, then. I guess you do feel a bit lost, don't you? Come on. Let's go to the library. We will get you something to eat and drink, and I will tell you the story of Sam."