Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Where the Darks of Society Hide:
We exited the lounge a few minutes later and walked Katura back to the quadrant of the ship where her living quarters were. She paused a minute before walking through the security check point and asked us if we would be willing to stop by the nearest library for a minute as she had something she said she wanted to ask us before we left.
Well Ok. I just shrugged as it seemed she still wanted to talk.
So we snaked our way back down the hall to the nearest entrance of the medical library. When we went inside; Katura walked all the way back to the last empty study room. Katook and I glanced at each other one last time before we went inside and she closed the door. Katura looked at both of us and sighed.
We all stood there for what seemed like 10 minutes or so before Katura finally spoke up.
"OK" She said. "Here's the deal. If it's OK with you guys." She began to get strait to the point. "I have a little experiment I want to try with one;" She paused a minute. "Or even both of you." She said.
We stood there a few more moments, feeling a bit adhesive of all this; before I answered.
"Well, maybe? What is it? I'm not going to do anything that's going to get me in trouble." I said.
"Me either." Katook nodded too.
Katura stood for a long time just contemplating us. "Yeah, you're right." She finally concluded. "Although it'd be me that would really be the one in trouble. So don't worry about it. Bad idea!"
Katook and I looked at each other and than back at Katura.
"Why? What'd you want?" Katook asked.
Katura let out one long sigh and folded her arms. "Well OK." She said. "I'll tell you what happened once and I was just curious to see what you guys would do?" She began to explain. "Back some time last year; before I even applied for this internship; my father had a couple of clone officers he'd brought home with him one evening. I guess they were suppose to be leaving the next day and the hotel was full; I don't know." She went on.
"Well they were down stairs watching the late night show, news or something; when I went down to get something to drink. One of them was still awake and I sat and talked to him for a while; sort of like I'd talked to you Nakahm." Katura sighed.
"He was kind and listened to my troubles of teenage woe; I guess. He was so intrigued with my life, since his was so different. And so when I was done and went to go to bed; I gave him a hug. He seemed to be OK with that; but than I tried to kiss him and he wouldn't let me. He said it would be OK if I kissed him on the side of the face or forehead or something of the like manner, but that clones don't kiss people; any other way than that." Katura let out another sigh and than looked long and hard at us.
"Is that true?" She suspiciously inquired.
"Yeah." We both nodded.
"Wow." She said.
Katura stood for several more long minutes evidently happy to behold us.
"Can I try anyways?" She smiled rather innocently.
"No." We both shook our heads.
"Oh... darn!" She giggled. "I think you guys are darling." She whispered a reluctant admission as she pulled out a chair, sat down and put her head on the table.
"Darling!" I started to giggle myself. "I haven't heard that since I was four. Come here darling!" I clapped my hands together and held my arms out to Katook, while wiggling my fingers like he was some little child.
"OK!" He exclaimed in a wee voice as he took a couple of steps and leaped into my arms. We all started laughing as I almost dropped him on the floor. "Now I know why we don't use accelerated growth chambers any more." I commented and rather dryly at that.
"The 175 pound toddler is an issue huh?" Katook smiled as I dropped his feet to the deck.
"You guys are so... cleanly funny!" Katura nearly laughed herself into hysteria. "Sorry, I'm a little embarrassed." She confessed to the table.
We both chuckled a little as we took a seat across from her.
"I guess I'm glad you guys said no though." She spoke as she sat up. "It'd probably be the end of my internship if you hadn't."
"You know when I first got here; so many of you that all look, sound and basically act the same, kinda freaked me out." She continued. "It sort of felt like dealing with 'the army' was like dealing with one person; and vice versa. The longer I'm here though, I start to see how unique you all are." She laughed.
"I've witnessed some pretty amazing things. I've watched you work together. You're very task orientated and I'm amazed how efficient you all are, because there's very little fighting. It's funny, it's kind of like a competition to see who's the most cooperative." Katura giggled.
"And any idea I've had." She added. "People have actually listened to me." She smiled again. "And if my idea was more productive than any of their's; they went with it!" She proudly contributed.
"It's strange though. I've seen the dark side of all this too." Katura sighed after a bit of a pause. "I watched one clone reprogram a whole computer network. He sat there for four hours; got the job done, but cried through the whole thing? It's like he had two brains; I don't know how he did it? I've seen that happen more than once." Katura looked at us as if she was searching for an answer.
Katook smiled. "I've done that." He confessed.
"So have I." I admitted too, while Katura sat a little awestruck.
"When he was done, they sent him to medical. When he returned 3 days later, he was better; but still not quite right." She said. "Is that common with all of you?" She inquired. "Do you all have a tendency to get so depressed?"
Katook and I just smiled. "That's one of this army's dirty little secrets; I guess." I said. "We are all on anti-depressants."
Katura looked at us for another several minutes. "That's weird. Why is that? Do they know? Do you guys know?" She finally asked.
"Something in our genetic makeup I suppose." Katook answered.
"Hum." Katura nodded and made a funny face.
"I'm not so sure." She went on. "But I have noticed one thing. I know you guys have all been fixed and all that; and so I don't think this has anything to do with sex or anything like that, but I've seen clones become rather jealous and possessive of other clones."
Katook and I started to giggle. "Yeah, we've seen that too." We both acknowledged.
"That's usually an indication that someone's supplements need to be adjusted." I laughed.
"No." Katura shook her head. "I don't think it's that at all." She continued to expound upon her theory. "I think it's because one's afraid something is going to happen to his batch buddy. You display great valor on the battlefield, but really you're all terrified of dying." She looked sadly at us. "You're afraid of being alone and afraid of what's going to happen to the guy you leave behind. Yeah, 'if you feel alone, there's always another clone'; but that principle only works in theory. In all honesty, you are just as destitute in side as all the rest of us!"
The three of us just sat there for a real long time before any one said or did anything. No outsider I'd ever met, with maybe the exception of San Wan; had ever admitted to me their own empty desperation. So many had just attributed our melancholy as being evidence of something missing, defective or deficient in our being. The 'clones have no soul' cliche'. It never seemed to me, that anyone had reasoned why we got this way; was precisely the opposite of what they'd just always assumed. Maybe the fact that I did feel so empty all the time, was evidence that I really did have a soul? After all, how could I ache so much if I really had no capacity to ache with? So much of my life seemed to be exactly what they said. Ironic contradictions.
Well before too much longer, Katura got up. She took a deep breath, walked around the table and looked at us one last time before saying "Good night." She leaned over, kissed us on our foreheads, turned and walked out of the room.
We never saw her again after that. Two weeks later, her internship ended abruptly when she'd come down with the Horopian flu; a dangerous strand of influenza that has caused deadly pandemics on certain planets. For what ever reason though clones seem to be immune to it; even though most other species on the ships are not.
No-one could figure where she'd contracted this, since our battle cruiser had gone nowhere near any sites of outbreak in the time she was aboard. The sudden and unusually rapid onset of her illness though, was believed to have saved thousands of lives as this made it easy to identify the flu strand before anyone else became sick.
As it turns out, the point of infection was found to be one evening she's spent in a lounge with a couple of soldiers. She'd mistakenly drank out of one of their cups. Medical nabbed both of us and quarantined us for a week till they could render the virus we carried impotent.
Katura though, died three days later.
I glanced up at my desert friend. I wanted so badly to ask if she just might be around here somewhere? I didn't have the heart though.
"I'm sorry." I whispered.
"Yes, I know." He whispered back.
"I didn't mean to kill her." I cried. "Just like so many others I wish I hadn't killed?" I mumbled quietly.
"Soldiers carry a special burden." He replied.
I just looked up at him.
"You were never in an army, were you?" I asked.
"Not an Earthy one." He answered.
"Yet even with all the evil around; it says you take no pleasure in the death of the wicked?" I confirmed.
"Yes, you are correct." He nodded.
"I think I get that?" I mumbled as my eyes drifted toward the ground again and I wiped a few more tears away. "How many times it should have been me."
"Yes, you are correct there too." He confirmed a truth I knew to be accurate, although really wished I somehow had the power to change. "But God so loved the world." He continued.
"A world He didn't have to." I looked up at him.
"Yes, a world He didn't have to." He smiled at me. "But God is..."
"Love!" I concluded.
He simply nodded in confirmation.
We sat there for a long, long...long time.
How many had I lost? My mind began to stir as the memories came flooding in. Twisted knots, explosions and the eerie pop of wrenching metal. I could smell the vehicle's coolant as we ran for our lives. Anther explosion and the smell of exhaust and burnt flesh. Withering cries for help filled the suddenly silent air. There was no earthly hell like that of a battlefield.
I was suddenly jolted back into consciousness as I stared at my mysterious...brother? The face I'd seen staring down at me from two heavy planked boards that had been bound together. A face bloody and swollen, two empty eyes piercing the soul I still wondered if I had? I raised my bayonet and jutted it into his side. The first gush of blood spirted onto my face. I shook my head as I stood and watched. It ran down my weapon, onto my hands and down my arms. I gave my rifle and unceremonious yank. The body slid a bit as it lopped over to one side; still held by the spikes my own hands had driven into it. The whole world had grown menacingly dark. That ominous day had come and I just stood there waiting. Waiting for the wrath I knew I deserved.
I shook my head and snapped out of the place I'd just been. Those eyes were still sitting watching me.
"What did it feel like?" I mumbled. "What was the fist thing you saw?" I wondered out loud.
"The light." He answered. "The first thing I saw was the light, when the angel rolled the stone away."
"For the joy that was set before you." I mumbled.
"Yes." He laughed.
"Did you bounce off the walls of the tomb." My silly question slipped out.
"Well, not exactly." He giggled. "But almost."
"I'm... I'm sorry." I whispered.
He just smiled at me.
"I'm not." He whispered back.