11. CONFUSION AND A THREAT

We're getting to know who the red underwear twosome are.

“Before I make any promises, I think it would be wise for you explain to us exactly what a clone is,” said Inspector Wasp slowly, “because I rather suspect that neither the sergeant nor I have any clear idea what one might be other than a sort of exact, what shall I say, doppelganger...”

“You’d better explain, Reuben, “they mustn’t go away from here in ignorance or they might start gossiping, and that could, well, it might, lead to awkward questions being asked by the wrong people and Heaven knows what would become of us.”

Professor Styx nodded slowly. “Perhaps,” he said, and then he stared intently into first Sergeant Stone’s face and the Inspector Wasp’s, There was some thing almost intimidating about that stare, something that seemed to see past the superficial expressions on their faces to whatever might be going on behind them. Then he nodded again.

“Very well,” he said, “and this must be brief because time is of the essence. My wife and I are busy professionals, you know, and can’t spend our lives going into intricate details that you probably won’t begin to understand...”

“Try us,” suggested the Inspector.

“I will say this,” said the professor slowly, “a clone is an exact genetic copy of an original organism, like a carbon copy, if you like, but with no imperfections whatsoever, so smudges, not little pencil marks from a previous usage, but a pristine and perfect exact copy in billion after billion different ways. Every cell is in place exactly in the copy as it was in the original. Every letter in the DNA sequence of the genome of the second is identical to that of the first. So we have, in essence an identical replica of one person, but as human beings grow and develop from a sperm and an egg to end up as complete adults over time, so the clones must do that. And then, when they are ready, when they have passed the stage usually called puberty and are technically adult, the personality, the memories, the essence of the original can be transmitted to it and it will be, to all intents and purposes, that original, but at a younger physical stage of its life.”

“This is all a bit hard to swallow,” muttered Wasp, “because just now you said you yourselves were clones. So are you trying to tell me that you have been artificially grown and aren’t the Professor and Dolly Styx that all the records say you are?”

“Oh, we’re them all right, if you accept a definition of what the individual is,” smiled the Professor. “Put in basic terms each one of us has flesh and bones, blood and hair, all the physical attributes of a complex organism. That is the body and it starts at conception and struggles on to death. But that body is controlled by the person. And that person is an even more complex thing because it is esoteric. It consists of memories, experiences, ideas, prejudices, loves, hates, everything that life’s experiences have given it. It is abstract yet definite. And consequently it is hard to both define and explain.”

“I’m beginning to see where we’re going, sir,” murmured Sergeant Stone.

“That’s more than I am,” growled his Inspector.

“We have a body in the morgue and an empty-headed individual in the cells,” said Stone slowly, “and to all intents and purposes they bear a powerful resemblance to the professor here, and his wife. Can I jump over all the theory, all the how and why, and suggest that they are the professor here and his wife? And that exact copies of them have been somehow conjured out of goodness knows what and that we are talking to those copies? But they’re more than copies, aren’t they? A copy would be exactly like the original, but leave that original intact, as it was. Our man we call Ruby has had everything that we call human drained out of him and is, to all intents and purposes, an empty husk. But he’s an alive and walking and almost but not quite talking empty husk.”

The Professor stood up and shook his head sadly. “You’ve hit the nail on the head, sergeant, and with more insight than I expected of a plod! They got away somehow, our security was breeched and they somehow managed to wander mindlessly off. They weren’t aware of where they might be going, though. You see, in order to program individual personalities into younger clones from the original copy those characteristics must be removed from one body in its entirety and fed into the other. So the original, the one, shall we say, that was me becomes a shadow, devoid of any memories, even of language. That’s what we call them: the shadows. It’s important that it happens like this or we would be left with two individuals who were exactly the same person in every respect and that would lead to confusion if they interacted, and, I suspect, eventually insanity.”

“Bumping into yourself would be spooky indeed,” murmured Stone.

“And this works?” spluttered Wasp, “this emptying of one person into a younger head actually works? I think it sounds like a nightmare! Going to bed at night with the aches and pains of a man in his old age and waking up with a body capable of running a marathon! It might sound ideal, but...”

“But, sir?” asked the sergeant.

“But what do you do with the old man you were? And how does an old man’s mind cope with the younger mind of the clone?”

“You must remember they are the same person,” sighed the Professor. “I was the old man you say is in your cells, but I’m not that old man any longer. I’m young, vibrant, healthy, with none of the frailties that old age can bring to a person. I can even cope with the demands of a younger woman when it comes to our love life, something that was becoming frighteningly infrequent before I was transferred into this clone of myself.”

“And he copes well,” smiled Dolly, “though it is rather naughty of him when you consider, and I’m not kidding, that I’m really a clone of his sister!”

“Now, Dolly, you weren’t to mention that to anyone,” said the Professor sharply, “you know that for no rational reason there’s deep prejudice against incest!”

“Silly man,” sighed Dolly, “don’t you know they have our shadows, one dead and one alive, and those shadows have no doubt had their DNA recorded? They’ll know all about our relationship, and, you know, I don’t really care.”

“But I do!” snapped the Professor, and it seemed that he produced a toxic looking little pistol from nowhere, and aimed it at Inspector Wasp.

© Peter Rogerson 21.09.19