Not the Real Thing

A man wakes up on a hard table, in pain. What makes you, you? Your body, each individual cell? Your mind, the specific chemical make-up of your brain? Or is your validity determines by society?

“…think he’s stabilizing.  How are the readings now?”

“Accelerated pulse; expected reaction.  Blood pressure stable.”

“Good.  Sensory should be returning; auditory will kick in first.”

“How will we know?”

“…We’ll know.”

“I can’t believe we’re doing this, Dameo.  Man, we hit the jackpot with this one.”

“I know.  This research opportunity will be the first line of my resume.”

“Even before your name?”

“Hell yeah, before my name.”

Is our biologist on lunch break? These kids must be interns.

The sound of their banter shook me from my sleep.

Wait.  Sleep?  Why would I be sleeping in the lab?

I was lying down on what felt like a cold, metal table.  For some reason, I was having a hard time breathing, like weights were sitting on my chest.  My muscles ached and my joints were stiff, and I wanted to shift my arms and legs to a more comfortable position when they were stopped by the restraints on my wrists and ankles.  

Restraints?

I cracked my eyelids open, confused because I usually don’t need a nap in the middle of a work day.  A bright light assaulted my eyes, and I shut them quickly, opening them again just a sliver to adjust to the light.

“The eyes moved!”

“Dameo, is the camera on?”  

“Oh, no, I uh-”

“Just, turn it on.  There you go.  Now point it to me.”  The young voice cleared his throat and spoke, his tone changing to one more formal.

“Today is the 17th of November.  The time is 0921, and I am Camen Emmerds, undergrad student at the North Eastern Institute of Tech.  Today is day three of our Jack Evans project.”  

My mind was having trouble understanding what was going on around me, but the name he mentioned felt like he had punched me in the gut, right here as I lay on this table.  Jack Evans.

I’m Jack Evans.

I attempted to open my eyes again, and was able to keep them open long enough to look at the tiled ceiling above me.  I breathed in deeply, needing air from the weights on my chest, but something immediately caught in my throat and I coughed violently, turning my head to the side.  My neck muscles screamed at me, and my throat felt incredibly dry.

“Subject shows signs of awareness; eyes react positively to light stimuli.”

I felt something touch my calf, and I flinched involuntarily, my muddied mind slowly processing the degree of severity of this situation.

I am restrained on a table.

“Subject reacts to touch and pressure.  Further physical tests will be postponed until psychological tests are given.”  The voice paused and I felt something tug the skin on the back of my neck, at the base of my head.  “Readings…are showing positive!”  The voice paused to cough and compose himself.  “Brain activity is stable all along the cerebrum, showed in use of basic motor skills.”

Despite my heart accelerating from not knowing where I am or what’s going on, my mind paused in its worrying to observe how little this intern seems to know.  Who hired this kid?

“Dameo, tell me.  How are the medial frontal and posterior cingulate cortices?”

“They…oh my God, Camen, they’re green.”

“They, what?! They are?!”  He responded in excitement.  Dameo continued in the analysis to the camera.

“Morality functions from the prefrontal cortex and amygdala indicate stable moral reasoning in subject, meaning psychopathic tendencies may be avoided!”

I wanted to slap my palm onto my forehead, disappointed in the simplistic and informal account of these kids’ experiment.  I’m going to have to be the one to show them how to make a proper lab report, aren’t I?  The team always makes me do it.  I swear these kids don’t learn anything in school these days.

“Subject’s eyes open further and blink rapidly.  Attempts to break from restraints.”

My mouth felt like it does after going to the dentist; partially numb and sore.  But I opened it to ask these kids where the hell I am.

“Wha-…” My voice rasped out, and I tried to clear my throat.  Why is my body so sore? I should be resting for-

And then the rest of my memories returned to me.

Our project!  My team, where are they?  

“Subject attempts to communicate.  Will engage in basic questions.”  The voice came closer to me then, and I opened my eyes more fully, trying to see exactly where I was.  I turned my head to the left and right, against the will of my tight and sensitive neck muscles.  I took in a small lab that looked nothing like my own.  Large screens took up the entire wall to my left, and to my right were the two interns in question, along with a large robotic arm hanging down from the ceiling over one of the boy’s shoulders, with a lens focused on me.  The intern looking down at me was wearing a strange white plastic material that vaguely reminded me of a lab coat, but what caught my attention was his face.  He was young and had tanned skin, and bright electric yellow eyes that were looking me over excitedly.

I am a professor at this established and award winning University.  For the past three years and eight months, my team of the top scientists ranging from biology to my practice, physics, has jumped through countless hoops and done whatever the University has asked of us in order to get to where we are now; with the means and the funds to expand our research in transportation.  The approach we have been using involves mostly biology up until this point, because to move a person from one space to another without completely deconstructing their bodies means cloning that person.  Replicating every cell, every molecule of them and reproducing the body in another place.  And I had volunteered to be the first test run.  To be the first person to have a clone be made from them.

Of course, the main reason it has taken us so long throughout this project is the moral dilemma that plagues the minds of so many other professors here.  What happens to the clone?  What happens to the original?  How should we treat the clone?  Who are we to play God?  And other such questions.

I think about these questions, but I’m not the one to answer them.  My team and I just want to press the boundaries of modern science.

I cleared my throat again and began to question him.

“Where-?”

“Can you hear me?”  He interrupted me in a slow and loud voice, bending down to allow me to see him more clearly.  I frowned.

“Yes, I can hear you.”  My throat was scratchy, but I ignored it.  I had more pressing concerns.  “I am Dr. Evans, and I had just begun the most important project of my career.  Where are we?  And do you know where my team is?”

The intern looked at me with widened eyes, shocked into silence.  I tried to find patience.

“Was I injured in the experiment?  Am I being restrained for my safety?  The cloning process was supposed to take a toll on my body.”  

The intern continued to stare at me, so I glanced behind him to the other intern.

“You there, which building are we in?  I don’t recognize this room.”

He looked just as confused and stared at me along with his classmate.  I sighed heavily and tested the restraints once again. 

“Either of you, tell me immediately why I am restrained in an unknown place, when I am in the middle of an experiment.”  I blinked and sighed once again.  “I need to see the outcome of my clone.  I need to see if this attempt survived.”  I muttered more to myself than to the not so helpful interns, and looked around the room once again.  Something seemed odd, like this room was missing something.  Something important to a lab.

An experiment.

Where is the experiment these kids were recording?

The table I was lying on was in the center of the room.  All of the lights were focused on me.  The camera lens focused as I looked at it.

…what…?

“Uh…”  The yellow-eyed intern stuttered, bringing my attention to him.  He remained wide-eyed, his experiment documentation forgotten.  “Actually…you are the clone.  Dr. Jack Evans died 129 years ago.”

Author's Note

Thank you for reading. May I please have constructive criticism about the order of information presented, and the italicized thoughts?

Reviews

[Scarlett North-Cavanaug..]

Hey, I really enjoyed reading this story. I have a few thoughts on how to edit it to make it read a little smoother. If you're interested I'd love to work with you to make some improvements. I'd also really like to publish the piece in my feminist science fiction zine. Let me know if any of this is of interest to you. Cheers :) Scarlett

[Daniel Seward]

Good story with a climatic revelation at the end. The order of events seems good to me, in order to produce a revelation. Dr. Evans thoughts made sense to me and seemed to facilitate the story except for her criticisms of the people working on her. I kept asking myself: how exactly are they inept? I just had to take her word for it. But then I don't know a whole lot about medicine either.
The story does make you think about what the self actually is. I personally think it is just an abstraction like some Buddhists do.
Keep writing,
Dan