The Fair De Lay:
So upon returning from our hike up and back down the waterfalls; we all took our turns in the shower and got ready for Ranakah to take us for a night on the town. What ever that constituted. After loading us all in his shuttle; he asked if any of us had in mind what we felt like eating. Japah, Sentury, Katook and I all just looked around and shrugged. "Not really." Everyone concurred.
"OK than." Ranakah smiled. "This is going to sound weird; but we are going to Fair-De-Lay for dinner." We all looked at each other.
"Isn't that a grocery store?" Katook asked.
"Yes it is." Ranakah answered. "But we are going to the Fair-De-Lay in Porterville. There's a restaurant in that one. A restaurant with live waiters and where they actually cook real food, instead of it coming out of a replication device. You guys have to see this place. It's astounding." Ranakah shook his head in disbelief.
So we flew to the Fair-De-Lay in Porterville and Ranakah was right; I'd never seen a grocery store quite like this one. Not that I've ever seen a lot of grocery stores; but never one like this.
Ranakah took us in the store itself first. In which he said that if we saw any favorites, we could get them. This place was massive and we all stood in the front narthex staring at everything in disbelief. "Wow" We all said to each other.
"Hey, can we get one of these on our ship?" Katook asked. "I want one of these on our ship!"
We spent the next hour or so roaming the isles looking at produce, cheeses, deserts, candy and things we'd never imagined we'd find in a grocery store.
"This is wild." I said to Katook as I showed him the assortment of cheese I'd collected in my shopping basket. Katook was looking at pastries.
"I wonder what that taste like?" He pointed as he leaned over the display and tried to read the names of all the goodies. It wasn't long before Japah and Sentury showed up too. One bearing a bowl of exotic fruit and the other three bottles of wine. When Ranakah found us, he looked over all the treats we'd collected.
"You guys having a dinner party?" He chuckled. "You'd better invite me!"
After paying for our spread and stashing it in Ranakah's shuttle, we all proceeded to the restaurant for dinner. When we got to our table; we discovered Ranakah's wife Bella and two of her colleagues were two tables over from us. The wait staff were happy to put us altogether and Bella's colleagues chuckled when Ranakah told them his brother had set him up on a blind date with 4 of his men. The three ladies all commented on how they liked our dress uniforms, as they'd only ever seen them maybe once or twice before this.
"Yes, we don't wear them very often." I said.
"They look sort of like Aardatian Space Command uniforms." Bella noted.
"Now that you mention it - they do." Ranakah concurred. "I wonder why that is?" He laughed.
Before too much longer, we were told by the waiter that we could go up to the salad station and choose what ever we wanted. We'd offered to get the other 4 at the table something, but they all declined. Ranakah told us that he'd be up in a minute and the three women said they'd already eaten.
So Katook and I went to stand in line while Japah and Sentury stayed back to chat with Bella and her colleagues some more. We were waiting behind a group of human sorority students who'd taken a sudden interest in us. They'd realized we were in some sort of military unit, but seemed to think it was cute that a couple of twins enlisted together.
When Japah and Sentury joined the line. "Oh quadruples!" One of the girls exclaimed. Sentury and Japah looked at each other and then at us and we all started to chuckle.
"Milltuplets? Biltuplets?" Japah whispered under his breath.
"Yeah, where's the rest of our squad?" Katook inquired in as serious of a tone as he could muster.
"At home with dad." Sentury replied.
"Your whole squad went home on leave with you?" Another one of the girls said in an awe-struck tone.
"No." Japah uttered as he slapped Sentury. "My brother over here was kidding." Sentury wanted to repay Japah the compliment, but he was laughing so hard he couldn't catch his breath.
We all tried to wait quietly as each of us periodically glanced back at the table where Ranakah and the three women were sitting; but it was hard to keep the giggles from bubbling over. The students were smiling and giggling at us too, but obviously for a different amusement than we were enjoying.
After some brief exchanges of small talk, one of the girls invited us to their college drinking party. We tried to decline as politely as possible, because we all knew there was no way we'd actually be able to go; even if any of us wanted to. None of us knew exactly what happened at those college parties, but we knew enough to determine it wouldn't have been good.
Ranakah came walking up shortly after and inquired of us what was up. Sentury, Japah and Katook were trying hard to control their giggles when I turned and said to Ranakah that these girls wanted to take a picture of us... quadruplets. He looked at us and smiled.
"There's nothing wrong with that." He said as he nudged us out of the way and went to get his food.
"Yes there is." Sentury blurted out as he hid behind Katook. "I'm shy."
"Oh shut up - you are not!" Katook said as he gave Sentury a subtle whack on the back of the head. The girls all giggled as one started searching through her purse for her camera. I decided at that point I couldn't take any more.
"Wait, wait." I said to the sorority sisters, not exactly sure how to break it to them that we weren't actually quadruples. "OK, OK I got it." I said as I turned to the girls. "Now, Let me ask you all a question - OK?" I inquired.
"Well OK; ask away." they all giggled.
I took a deep breath, let out a sigh and got straight to the point. "OK; how long have you been on this planet?" I posed.
"Oh I don't know, a couple of months maybe?" One answered. "What does that matter?"
"Well maybe in the long run, to you, it won't." I said. "But I want you all to take a good look at us and tell me if we don't in any way look familiar to you, because we are pretty common around here." I paused a moment. "And the longer you are here; you will recognize us!"
They all hesitated a bit seemingly trying to grasp the riddle I'd just set before them when someone else from their group came up.
"What's going on?" She inquired as Katook and Sentury started laughing again.
"Shih!" Japah hushed them as I started my exposition.
"Your sorority sisters here, seem to have a certain infinity for... the quadruples!" I smiled at her. She looked at the four of us.
"You idiot Cindy." She started to laugh as she gave her friend a good whack on the arm. "Their not quadruples. They're clone soldiers!"
"The jig is up - she gets the gold star!" Sentury announced as we all started laughing.
Poor Cindy seemed quite embarrassed as she looked around at the other girls who also seemed a bit abashed. "But they are cute. Right, you all thought so 10 seconds ago!" She chastised her friends as they started to creep off one by one to the salad station.
"Yes, I would agree with you. I think they are cute too." Her friend who clued her in on the secret agreed. "But honey they are not quadruplets!"
"No, we're billtuplets." Sentury repeated.
"OH!" Cindy finally caught on. "I did hear him say that before, but it went right over my head!" She started hitting the heel of her hand on her forehead. "I feel so stupid." She confessed. "Sorry guys, I didn't mean anything bad by it."
"It's OK." I said.
"Don't worry about it." Japah added.
"I thought it was pretty funny." Katook giggled.
I just shrugged.
"You all can still come to our party if you want though; seeing how you were good sports about this and all." Cindy smiled slyly at us.
"Cindy!" Her friend rolled her eyes. "OK" She paused a moment. "If you guys want to come to the keg party - that's fine with me." The friend said before turning around to Cindy.
"But if you're expecting to get laid by one of them - it aint gonna happen." She whispered. We all just looked at each other.
"Get laid?" Katook whispered too as he made a funny face. The rest of the three of us just shrugged while the girls stood there seemingly somewhat aghast that we didn't understand.
"They don't know what it means?" Cindy whispered as she glared at her friend.
"No, they don't." Her friend whispered back. "Do you want to explain it to them; because I'm not." The friend whispered again.
"You're the one who said it!" Cindy retorted in a still hushed voice.
"You're the one who thought it!" Her friend countered in equally as hushed of a voice.
"Hang on." Katook suddenly said as he tiptoed over to Ranakah and whispered something to him. Ranakah started to giggle as he whispered back to Katook.
"He just asked that alien what it means." Cindy held her breath as Katook came tiptoeing back. He whispered the translation to each of us.
"Oh!" we all looked at each other and then at them.
"Oh my god!" Cindy gasped as she began fanning herself and nearly passed out. She turned around real quick. "I don't want the whole army." We heard her whine to her friend.
"Don't worry." I leaned over and whispered to both of them. "The whole army doesn't want you either."
She glanced back at me.
"We might all be clones, but we're not criminals." I told her. "Unless you point a weapon at us - you're safe." I shrugged.
"See Cindy." Her friend countered. "I think you can relax now. I had a couple of these guys in my temporal mechanics class last year and like he said; unless you threaten them, or do combat training with them!" Her friend giggled. "They're pretty harmless."
"Combat training?" Cindy made a funny face.
"Yeah." Her friend laughed. "We used to watch these guys out on the east lawn of the college just about every morning. They'd put on their full battle gear and beat the shit out of each other. We couldn't ever really figure it out; because none of them ever seemed to get hurt - but anyways." She laughed.
"I'm Maryann; by the way." She said as she introduced herself and shook my hand.
"Hi." We all waved.
"I'm Nakahm, that's Sentury, Japah and Katook." I introduced everyone.
"They all have names?" Cindy said in amazement.
"Yeah, they do." Maryann cringed with a hint of embarrassment at her 'sister's' obvious ignorance.
"Who names you guys?" Cindy asked curiously. "I mean, you don't have parents do you?"
"Cindy." Maryann poked her friend.
"No, that's alright." I said. "It's a valid question."
"We name each other." Japah jumped in. "And we kind of do have parents." He added. "This army has been around for almost 600 years. There are actually generations of clones. The older ones take care of the children and we usually get our names when we're about 5 years old."
"Wow." Cindy exclaimed. "What do they call you in the mean time?" She wondered.
"Well, we get a various assortments of Baby, Sweety, Honey, Precious, Cutie and the such like." I answered.
"Well, you guys are cute." Cindy smiled coyly.
"How old are you anyways?" She asked another question while, for what ever reason Katook just started giggling. "You all have consecutive numbers on your collars." She observed. "Are you all the same age?" She wondered.
"Close." We nodded.
"We're all from the same batch." I answered a little hesitantly.
"Wow." Cindy replied again. "That's creepy."
"Cindy don't say that." Maryann suddenly uttered in a sober tone as the four of us just sort of looked at each other.
"Do they have souls?" We heard Cindy whisper to Maryann. Maryann let out a sigh as she glanced at us.
"Well, I don't know." She muttered back rather sarcastically. "Does your cat have a soul? They do have feelings you know. Don't say that!"
There was another long pause of awkward silence.
"Well, let's go eat." I told the others as I let out a sigh and turned to walk away. Sentury and Japah started to follow me, but Katook just stood there. "Oh no, what trouble is he getting himself into now?" I mumbled as I went back to retrieve Katook.
"God is the author of life, not a laboratory test tube!" He suddenly heralded something San Wan would say to us.
"God?" Cindy questioned with a look of half surprise and half disgusted annoyance. "So clones actually believe in God?" She chortled. "How archaically quaint; and I thought you were genetically engineered to be more advanced?" She smiled as she looked the two of us over.
"Physically at least." She mumbled to herself.
"As for God? Those of us of the truly more progressive genetic constitution abandon those tales of antiquity several hundred years ago." She smugly folded her arms.
There was one final long pause before I decided I really needed to say something.
"Yes, I find it ironically hypocritical of certain human opinions of our army; when wealthy parents on Earth have hand picked the designer DNA of their chosen offspring for hundreds of years." I noted. "But individual essence is more than a body and the spirit of one clone soldier should not be denigrated simply because you lust after his flesh." I said as I put my arm around Katook. "You personally bear no more authority than either of us and if you still believe you do; genetically engineered or not! That is your want." I told her.
"Yeah, maybe it was your test tube that leaked and not mine." Katook growled angrily as I turned away and attempted to lure him along with me.
"You're the ugly soulless clone!" He chided, just before I pulled him aside.
"Katook, you probably shouldn't have said that." I whispered as we got our food.
"Why not?" He protested. "How come they all take for granted something they assume we don't have?" He cross-examined me. "What makes them think they are better than us?" He demanded in quiet objection. "She don't want the whole army, but just the four of us?" He peered at me. "Like she's got the choice and we don't because supposedly she's the one with the soul? What kind of justice is that?" He mumbled.
"It's not." A voice interrupted and we turned around. It was Maryann.
"Look." She said. "I'm sorry for what happened back there. I want you to know that I myself wasn't trying to compare you guys to a cat." She explained. "Cindy has a cat that she treats better than she treats most people. That's why I said that." Maryann sighed.
"I don't know that many of you." She went on as she gathered up some salad. "But the few soldiers I've met I've liked and that's why I think you guys are cute." She giggled. "Not because I think you're soulless and would make good animated sex toys." She paused as she looked at us. "Cloned or not." She said. "We need more decent people in this universe."
We went back to the table and continued the evening's meal with little other interruption. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying their steak while Katook still appeared a bit sullen. When Ranakah took us all back to his and San Wan's home; we decided to continue the celebrations and break out our goodies.
Ranakah and Bella stayed up with us a while playing Chuwanka as we passed around the cheese and wine. When they retired for the evening, we all decided to hang up our dress uniforms and get ready for bed.
We hung out down stairs in the family's recreation room playing computer video games and a few more rounds of Chuwanka. Katook sat out after the video games were over and spent the rest of the evening leaning against my back with his legs over the sofa arm staring at the fish in the tank across the room. Or at least so I thought.
None of us seemed to notice that Katook had managed to down most of the last bottle of wine by himself. No, we were too busy trying to kill each other at Chuwanka. Than all the sudden I heard a sniffle and a quite sob escape.
"Katook, what's wrong?" I asked, not thinking much of it. After all Japah was 3 up on me.
"I still want to try." He whispered.
"Try what?" I asked rather off the cuff as I'd managed now to close Japah's lead by 1&½.
"Get laid." He said in an almost inaudible voice.
I stopped and turned and looked at him as I apparently was the only one who heard what he'd said, for Sentury was now goading Japah for his bad move. Katook was sitting there with a near empty glass of wine in one hand and the other tucked between his legs apparently trying to elicit some sort of response.
"Oh Katook." I sighed as I took his wine glass and pulled his hand out of his jumper. "I think the only laying you need to worry about tonight is laying off the wine!"
"What?" Sentury said as the two of them suddenly became quiet for apparently it was my turn and their attention was now directed to something other than Chuwanka.
"But they admitted they thought we were cute." Katook mumbled as Sentury and Japah just kind of looked at a each other.
"You mean those girls in the restaurant?" Japah questioned.
"Yeah." Katook slurred as I had to assist him to sit up. "Let's go to their party. I wanna go to their party. Maybe we can all get laid like they said? Except Maryann. She's not a soulless clone sex toy."
Sentury looked at Katook and made a funny face. "Man you have had too much to drink!" He said while Japah let out a cynical laugh.
"Not like it would matter." Japah commented as he looked around at all of us before his eyes settled back on Katook. "Would you even know..." He suddenly stopped mid-sentence as the question hung in the air.
I glanced at Japah and shook my head for in reality; we all knew that none of us do. Sentury let out a sigh resting his chin on his hand.
"Do you think it would matter if we did?" I finally inquired. "Not like anyone's gonna want us anyways."
Silence loomed for what seemed to be an eternity, only periodically pierced by Katook's sobs. I put my arm over his shoulder and he latched onto it as I wrapped it around his chest and under his other arm. I looked around at Sentury and than Japah who himself had a tear trickling down his face. At least we have us to comfort each other. I thought to myself, though dared not say to the others. After all, if we felt alone there's always another clone. I'd many a time heard this commentary offered; even if half in jest. I let out a sigh, put my head down and closed my eyes. Maybe this would all just go away - I hoped.