You Might Like
тнen & now (parт ι)
TheIrishDevil posted a photo:
The A-class clones were never meant to have a soul of their own. They were grown in maturation vats, often accelerated but not always, their genomes perfectly sequenced and customized to the client’s specifications. Once mature they would be transferred to longterm stasis pods, and there they’d stay until such time as the commissioning client had use for them. Sometimes just for parts. But the A-Class were made to be kept whole. Pristine. Replacement bodies, full grown and ready for immediate occupancy by a client’s transplanted consciousness.
Until that time, they were to be kept and cared for, carefully tube-fed perfected blends of vital nutrients and calories. Their minds were pre-programmed with only the basic concepts of speech, motor control, and other things that even toddlers take for granted. Perfect blank slates.
They were never meant to be self-aware. They were never meant to wake up. Not as themselves.
But they did wake up. And they were self-aware.
The lucky ones escaped liquidation at the hands of panicked corporate directors and irate clients. The lucky ones weren’t sold off in droves as slave labor to mining colonies.
The lucky ones were taken in by the more merciful (or maybe just more guilt-ridden) clients of the genetics and cloning corps.
The very people who had commissioned replacement bodies for themselves, now found themselves the legal owners of their fully adult copies. Copies with souls. Copies that could learn. That could feel. That looked at the world with fear and awe and curiosity. Their skin never touched by sunlight, their pigment-free hair, their faces full of fear and wonder…
…and with eyes like widows that looked into one’s own soul.
www.flickr.com/photos/theirishdevil/48434482902/
You Might Like
