Author's note:
I lost the email to the original account drunkpencil, so I will be continuing the story on this one.
Somewhere deep in the Megacity, hidden from most prying eyes.
Killy laid the female clone down on the cold metal floor. He cycled his optical sensors and scanned her medical condition while preparing the last remaining vita-shot he had found earlier. She was not in need of immediate medical attention, but he injected her with it anyway. She did not struggle when the needle pierced her skin. For now, she was safe. They were safe. He left her to search for a blanket and maybe some food. Surely his storehouse had some.
The storehouse was well-equipped. It had its own power supply, multiple cameras and sensors, and an AI to control all the different systems. It had been over 10 years since he had last been here, but the AI reported that all systems were running optimally, ranging from water and nutrient-bar production, to air filtering and thermal regulation, and most importantly, the pseudo-autonomous algorithms crawling the nearby local networks for information about the net terminal gene. He paused for several minutes before giving the order to stop the search. His mission was completed. Completed?
Without warning, a burst of emotions and flashing images came over him, and he fell to his knees. For a brief moment he remembered something, some faint detail about his past, who he was. He saw himself dressed in a blue uniform, at least he thought it was him, though the face was blurred, somehow missing. In this memory he appeared to be talking to an older man, a human scientist by the looks of it. Oddly the words did not make sense to him, as if he was speaking in a language he did not know, or maybe no longer knew. The man looked worried, shifting his weight and twiddling his thumbs, before presenting asome paper document. He could not read it, but he felt it was important. An uneasy silence followed. Then they shook hands, and the scientist smiled oddly.
He came to his senses slowly, sprawled awkwardly on the floor. He had a terrible headache, but otherwise he felt fine. However, a quick system check revealed substantial memory corruption. "Are you ok?" A voice said from behind, startling him.
Killy turned around rapidly, gun raised and finger on the trigger. It was the clone. They stared at one another, his dark eyes meeting her striking green. "I took the liberty of finding some clothes," she said, breaking the silence, The clone was wearing an identical suit to Killy's, a black leathery suit that shaped to its host, equipped with numerous biological interfaces and life-support functions. She reached into one of her pockets, and Killy's trigger finger twitched briefly, but it was only a nutrient bar. He lowered the weapon, shaking his head. What am I doing? He thought.
While Killy struggled to debug his own memory banks, sitting in diagnostics mode, and pondering the strange memory he had relived, the clone grew in strength, and appetite. She was a quick learner, and before long she was using the facilities of the storeroom as if she had always lived there. After a few days the clone had reprogrammed the nutrient bar production procedures to make one that tasted better. At least she claimed it did. To Killy it was just a nutrient bar with slightly higher sugar content. They did not talk much to one another, but at least the tone was friendly. Nearly a week passed, and Killy gave up debugging. Whatever damage had been done to his mind appeared permanent. It was time to explain to her what she was, who he was, and what he needed her for.
"B-27, can you come over here?" Asked Killy. "I need to check something." She logged off the console and turned around in her swivel chair. Killy felt his gaze drawn towards her eyes again. They were just like the others, like B-001, the first clone. However that girl was dead now, her body lost to the uncaring metal of the Megacity. "I need to perform some medical tests on you," he continued. She obeyed and the two went into the medical room. It was the smallest interior room in the storeroom, filled with large diagnostic instruments that Killy had hauled from different parts of the Megacity and modified long ago. He was not much of a scientist, but he had access to extensive data on the how-to's, and more importantly, he had been around for quite some time. The various instruments were mainly for treating his own unique physiology, but could be used for more general purposes too. Killy had once cured several members of a tribe of humans here who suffered from a flesh-eating virus. They turned on him after, and tried to take the storeroom for themself. He was forced to terminate them. However, for this particular job, he had prepared for many, many years.
He hooked the clone up to the machine, and this time, when the needles pierced her skin, she complained audibly. "Ouch," She yelped, "that hurts!". Killy ignored her. A few minutes went by and the setup was complete. The data began flowing across the screens, and Killy interpreted the readings. The Net Terminal Gene was there, intact, unmutated, but dormant. In this state it was unusable, and he would not be able to use her as a bridge to access the Net. Not that he had found such an access point anyway. He knew they would be heavily guarded, however, so if activating the gene turned out to be a lengthy procedure the task ahead would prove difficult. Also, there appeared to be some impurities in her bio-readings as well, perhaps those were responsible for her apparent memory loss, childlike naivety, and accelerated learning. Was her biological status stable enough to survive activating the gene? Would it cause her pain, would she die? The clone studied Killy's face. Unknown to himself, Killy was frowning. It was the first time she had seen an emotion in him. "Are you ok?" She asked him carefully.