Enemy Chapter Five

Enemy Me
Author: J Carrell Jones
Table of Content

---

Chapter Five

---

Chapter 5

Pete sat back down in front of the computer screen. He waited several seconds. Nothing. “Mike, I apologized. I am sorry.”
Nothing.
Pete counted to ten. “Mike, please, continue with the videos.”
Nothing.
Pete yelled, “Goddamnit! What do you expect of me? I don’t know you and I’m trying to cope here! Give me some answers!”
Nothing.
“Fine then. Can you at least give me access to the Internet? The Internet is still around, right?”
The screen lit up and displayed some icons. Pete clicked on a world icon. The application ran and displayed a blank screen. An empty address bar had a blinking cursor waiting for data. Pete typed in “Search engine.”
Google appeared. He let out a sigh and said more to himself than to Mike, “Finally! Something I remember.” He typed in “Pete Walker”.
37,600,000 results in .002 seconds. He added cloning. A Wikipedia entry was at the top of the list. Several pictures of him appeared underneath that. One picture was his face, the rest of what he looked like at 10 years his senior. So, I’ll start to grey in ten years? Then he remembered George only lived for six. A rather dumb and expensive way to achieve youthful immortality. He clicked on the Wikipedia entry. He, meaning Pete, first died fifteen years ago. That meant the average clone life expectancy sucked. He sat back and stared at the contents again. The wallet. Let’s start with the wallet. It was brown leather with worn edges, standard two-fold with the expected number of credit card slots, all of which were filled with various cards. A platinum AMEX in George’s name. Nice! A Visa, MasterCard, Discover card. Some food card of sorts. He would have to ask Mike about it later. That is, if the computer started talking to him again. Maybe Becky would be a better source of information now. Maybe. A driver’s license with George’s face and name on it and a piece of paper, folded. Pete unfolded the piece of paper:

Tonight. Alone.
Waterfront dock 2
100K

Cloak and dagger. Quaint.
The screen lit up and George’s face appeared. He said, “Thanks, Mike. I’m getting the hang of this. Hey number six and others, hopefully not others, but anyway, I left you puzzle pieces. Some of the items were left for me. I’ve added a few new ones. So, now that I have your attention I’ll go through each one. The photos. Very important. Number six, you are really number seven . . .”
Pete held his breath.
“George continued, “. . . you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout. I’ll assume that others, at some point, will be viewing this in the future. So, forgive me brother six for stating the obvious between us. . .”
Pete absently nodded.
“. . . Twenty years ago, cloning required the isolation of certain cells – stem cells. Those were the cells used in the process. They could’ve been any cell in the body but they had to meet certain criteria. For me, it took three months, from the records it took four months for you. Number 18 took nine. Once the right cells are found, they’re cultured. These are the base cells used to make all of us and they do have limits. For one is the shortened telomeres, of which Pete’s process negates the negative results. But because of the process, seven identical clones can successfully be created. After that we have to modify the geno- and phenotypes. Maybe it’s nature’s way of keeping human vanity at bay. That’s why Pete cloned us, after you, as females, kids, and different races. They are us, but also someone else. In a sense, they really are our brothers and sisters. I say all this to stress that, brother six, you are the last of the Pete originals. In mind? That went with Pete three.”
Pete said, “Mike, please pause the video.”
George’s image stopped in mid speech.
“Will you talk to me now? Please?”
The silence went on for three minutes before Mike said, “I will talk to you, now.”
“First, what did I do or say to you to make you mad at me?”
A full minute ticked by. “You made her cry.”
“I see.” He did actually. “You like Becky.” Pete said it as a statement, not a question.
Five minutes went by. “I do.”
Pete nodded. “Understood. I will try not to hurt her feelings again, but because I’ve only known the both of you for less than two hours, please forgive me for any faux pas I may commit going forward. I am a stranger here.”
Mike answered almost immediately, “Understood, sir.”
“May I ask you another question?”
“Certainly.”
“It’s about Pete Prime.”
“Please ask. I am here to help.”
“Can you see a difference in me and Pete Prime?”
Silence for about three minutes.
Pete wondered if the silence was the equivalent of a computer sigh or Mike running hundreds, if not, thousands of simulations?
“Yes, sir. There is.”
Pete held his breath.
“You have more patience. Pete Prime was rather impatient. Physical appearance, speech, and gait are identical to a Pete Walker at 39 years old. There hasn’t been enough time to discern other differences. Please ask me again in 24 hours.”
Pete nodded. “Thank you, Mike.”
“You are welcome, sir. Should I resume the video?”
Pete smiled. “Yes, please. Thank you.” This one he decided worked best with pleasantries. ‘Incredible’, he thought. Totally incredible. Eerily, Mike sounded and acted human. Was it that Mike ‘evolved’? Or was he installed with a conscious? Pete decided once Mike got to know him he would ask.
“. . . For some reason, the memory transference changes slightly with each use. That’s why I didn’t remember Stephanie. Mike has mentioned that with each clone we seem to be more reflective, more thoughtful. We are not as reactionary as Pete Prime. If you have time, work on it or not.” He smiled. “You can always leave it to our brothers and sisters to ponder over, that is if you . . .” he coughed. “. . . decide to wake them.” He leaned in close to the screen. “Interesting that you have that option.” His right eye brow raised up. “I wondered why Pete Prime did that. Are we that much a super genius as to play chess twenty years in the future? By the way, you may have met or not met Becky.” His smile was slight but noticeable. A few seconds later, “More on that later.” He leaned back. “The wallet, I’m sure you’ve already rifled through it. Nothing special there except that it is 20 years old. Mike can help you get a legal license with proper papers to back everything up. The same for credit cards. Mike, hopefully, started inserting purchase history into the national databases. We have a drop box at the local post office. It’s within walking distance, which is good, because it’ll help you to learn the streets. Slow is well, fast is hell.”
Pete nodded.
“Now the photos. The Red head is Pete Alpha. Pete Prime and Alpha started Forever Life, Inc. together. The records show them as twin brothers – one of which was separated at birth only later to be reunited with family. Good story. Reads like a good mystery.” That smile again. “As you can see, Pete Alpha, now named Forrest, looks nothing like us . . .” He leaned in close. “. . . that’s the power of Transgenetics. It really is amazing and powerful, but it is a time bomb. Prolong usage ultimately changes the phenotype. Very subtle over a period of years, but eventually, the user starts to look like Forrest. Prolonged use also causes sterility. In most cases, the host will be beyond reproductive age anyway, but here is the kicker. At some point, all users will have nearly the same DNA sequence. As in brother, sister, mother, father.” He paused and let that settle in. “At some point in the future humans will be inbreeding. Oh, we may figure it out before it is too late, but why take that chance? Through different means Mike, I, and our brothers have tried to sound the alarm through academic papers, protest, and other means. But a billion dollars can go a long way in suppressing the truth.” He shrugged. “The other photos are of staff and his top scientist, Gordon. I’m hoping to eliminate most, if not all. Gordon is the one who really must go. He’s the one who put all the pieces together. His assistant Sandra Spaulding broke the code, but he figured out the proper sequence for Transgenetics to work. Prep the recipient, introduce modifiers embedded in a pill. The adenoviruses are enclosed in small casings that survive the digestive tract long enough to enter the blood stream. From there they find host cells, and turn on or off trigger hormones and proteins needed to work the magic. Brother, they change the very nature on how the host cell works and functions. Brilliant, but not without a cost. This is a payment we should never make. Incidentally, I really did mean to come back, but death seems to be irrelevant when you have brothers and sisters who can at any time tap into my last thoughts. We all started getting very philosophical about life. It would be nice to think that I died of old age and forgot to update this recording, in which case Forrest was stopped and the world went about its busy life. Existentialism is pretty heavy stuff. We are all individuals who just happens to spring from the same well. Our very existences precede essence, brother. From here forward you are who you are. Seriously, you’ll have to stop thinking of yourself as Pete. Forrest did. Kevin did, I did. Our brothers and sisters will certainly think so. It’s your turn, which brings me to that small black box.” George lowered his head. “Of course, if you are looking at this I never did make it back.” He took a deep breath, “The box is for Becky, which, hopefully, you two have met already and hopefully things have not gotten too weird. Read what I wrote and please give her the box. I’ll trust you to know when and where.” He cleared his throat after several moments of silence. “The bottle of pills is from pre-trails. Kevin was able to get a hold of them. I left you enough to study. The gun is special. 3D printed and holds ten shots. Eight now. It is completely detection proof. The passport is mine, of course, Mike will get you a new one. It’ll take a few months. The glasses you’ll need later. Trust me.” He winked. “Once you get your license you’ll need to get around. Becky can help with that. Our car is the latest model and essentially needs no driver. You’ll find out later. Google made good on their threat on making driverless cars a reality, and the world is a safer place for it. The knife, well, that is the same as the gun. I’ve used it twice – don’t ask.” He smiled. “I said Google made the world a safer place, not the neighborhoods. That’s something different. What? All those years learning martial arts and you thought you’d never need it? The future is great but it is far from utopia. Not quite dystopia but damn close. Despite one political power trying very hard not letting the other political party drive us into the ground we still got there. The economic divide is bigger than ever. Becky can best instruct in that. And the cell phone. It’s to Forrest. I’m going to leave it at that. Talk to Becky about it, but remember this, ‘Enemies of my friends may not be my enemies.’ The camera has my latest shots of the Forrest Building. Probably useless now, but . . .” He shrugged. “There are other Easter Egg videos I left. Some relevant, some not, some total bullshit. Six years is a long time for us, Brother. Live yours and then some. After Pete Prime passed, Pete Two went into total isolation. He left one day to confront Forrest. That was After Pete four years. Never came back. The news feed says he was struck by a car. Killed instantly. Pete three lived longer – died seven AP. He studied Forrest. Even challenged him. He met a horrible and lonely death. Kevin lived longer to 15 AP. If you are getting this last addendum to this video you’re at 21 AP. There is one last thing.” George seemed to be considering his words. “There is a memory all of us cannot remember. It’s a pin-point of thought that just nags at us. Mike can’t or won’t explain it. The data records only show that something was there. Pete Prime removed a piece of his memory from the process. Maybe you’ll be the one to uncover it.” The screen went blank.
Pete sighed. “Mike?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you think?”
Silence.
Pete stared at the screen for about two minutes.
Kevin appeared. Pete could tell it was him but not him and not George. They really did seem to be different. “Number three was captured. The drugs, unofficially, made human trials that day. Transgenetics was able to breeze through initial FDA testing because Forever Life, Inc. had the perfect subject, Pete three. From what I can uncover they kept him alive for a year. I remember being woken up four times only to be placed back in hiber at least four times. Mike tells me he could not control the process. He had to let the safe guards take control when the system received some life telemetry from Number three. He died four times and they brought him back for more testing. Bastards!” The screen went blank.
“I see,” Pete said. He sat staring at a blank screen for a while.
Mike finally said, “Pete. It is time for dinner.”
Pete reached over to the black box. He opened it and took out the note. Tears streamed down his cheek as he read the note. Several drops hit the paper and slightly stained some of the letters. He folded it back up and placed it back in the box. After he wound the small turnkey at the back he got up and made his way to the kitchen.

---

Table of Content