Disclaimer: Do not own Marvel or The 100
Warnings for child abuse, murder, arson, violence, unhealthy relationships and potential dubious consent if you squint. Also graphic violence-someone gets stabbed in the neck and someone else gets stabbed with a fork, then pieces of a broken plate.
Creator's folly
As soon as the alarm went off, Clarke knew what day it was. She didn't even have to check the calendar on her phone or on the calendar on the wall. Today was the day it was going to happen.
She and her mother were going to put through the final act required to create life.
To make the clones they were planning to bring forth into the world.
Clarke got out of bed, slamming her fist down onto the off button of her alarm, switching it off.
She stood up, vaguely able to survey her room, with what little light was coming in through the window.
Her room likely would be considered a "disaster area" to any person that liked to think of themselves even remotely as a neat freak.
Science textbooks, artbooks and fictional books alike were scattered about the shelves and floors. Several pieces of art equipment she used regularly, also was scattered about-pieces of charcoal, crayons, markers, paintbrushes, some empty tubes of paint.
There were stacks of sheets and canvases that Clarke had drawn and painted on in a few of the corners of the room.
She of course, had her clothes in her dresser and closet, but there were even some of her clothes strewn about the room.
She had long since perished the thought of having anyone over at her apartment.
The friends she met up with, she met up in mostly public areas and those that she knew at work, she knew of at work and they hung out at various clubs.
And romantic partners? Give her a break.
After college, Clarke had stopped having hopes for any real romantic relationship.
In a world full of soulmates and soulmate marks? Clarke was one of the outliers. She was thirty-three and her soulmate mark still hadn't shown up.
Which meant that her soulmate still hadn't been born yet. And if that was the case, what was she supposed to do? Hope that when she turned fifty, her mate would finally be born? Her life would be halfway over by then.
Yes, it was an intensely depressing and troubling thought. But it was the truth.
Yes, Clarke like her mother, was a scientist, and she knew that people were living to be older all the time nowadays.
It didn't change that Clarke was probably looking forward to only the single life.
And yeah, she had tried dating people that weren't her soulmate-assuming she'd ever have a soulmate at all.
A lot of the people she had dated throughout her life, men and women alike, there just was no strong connection. No bond that she knew would last.
She stayed with some of her partners for a few years, but she had seen how things tended to turn out. Either they lost interest or she did.
Better not to let her heart get broken again or let someone else's heart get broken.
Then there was her work. Well, not her work. Her mother's work, that she was helping with.
She and her mother and other scientists had worked for years on one specific thing.
On creating clones.
And yes, Clarke knew that she and her mother were essentially probably breaking about a million "natural laws."
And yes, they were also breaking about a million actual government laws.
No, their experiments were not sanctioned by the government. Which meant that the government didn't have a clue what Clarke's mother, Abby Griffin, and Clarke herself, were doing.
Yes, cloning of human beings, was illegal.
Cloning animals like sheep, fish, even dogs or cats? That was perfectly alright.
But cloning human beings? That was definitely a no-no.
But it didn't change that in a few hours? There was thirty tubes filled with human matter that had taken form and would soon be born.
Why do something so illegal and potentially wrong?
Well, why not?
Humans were dying in some countries by the thousands. It was unlikely that there would be a huge need for a mass population replacement anytime soon. But on the off chance that it was needed? The human population would need to be replenished.
Humans were very good at wiping each other out.
There needed to be a "backup" to make sure the species survived, in case the usual way of reproduction, or even sperm or egg donating failed.
Clarke suspected that there would be many, should they find out what she and her mother had done, would claim Clarke's reasons were bullshit and that she just had wanted to play god.
Yes, some part of that was true. She wanted to know if she could do it. But her other reasons were very real.
If cloning worked and was fully successful, could you imagine the diseases that could be cured?
New cells could be cloned and immunity could be built up.
Then of course, there were the actual clones themselves.
Clarke also knew that there was another complication.
She and her mother weren't just creating thirty mindless shells by doing this.
They were creating several actual living and sentient beings.
Designed to specifically be fully grown and to have all the knowledge of the people that they were cloned from.
They were making actual human beings, who probably would understandably feel like they didn't have much autonomy.
Which…would be correct.
Clarke knew that she'd have to protect them. Have to make sure that they understood that she didn't consider them just objects.
She didn't. They didn't even exist yet, and she didn't consider them that way.
This whole plan? Had been her mother's idea.
These clones were her mother's creations.
But Clarke knew that her hands weren't clean either.
While Abby had always made it clear to Clarke that she would sabotage any attempts Clarke might have to be anything except a doctor and except helping Abby in her labs, Clarke knew she could have pulled the plug on this by destroying the lab or telling someone. But she hadn't.
She might not be as guilty as her mother, but she was guilty enough.
Clarke yawned, feeling lethargic still. She'd barely slept, so, she supposed that was why.
She grabbed some clean clothes she had, pulled them on, got her shoes on, grabbed her other things; her charged up phone, her wallet, her keys, her steno pad, everything, and got out, locked her apartment door and headed to the labs.
The labs, which were called the "Prometheus Labs," were located several yards from Clarke's home.
She got there easily enough. The extremely plain building, gray with some dark windows, had an overhang that Clarke went under easily enough and entered the building, signing in and greeting the doorman, Sinclair there, then going up to the floor where her mother worked.
Clarke was not naïve, she knew it was probably on its own a bad sign that her mother had decided to name the lab company, "Prometheus Labs."
Anyone who knew so much as anything about Greek myths, knew how that one ended for Prometheus.
It had ended with Prometheus, for daring to take from the gods, for his arrogance, to be chained to rocks and have his liver torn out by vultures for all of eternity.
Clarke hadn't come up with the name, her mother had. And Clarke felt like there was something almost foreboding about the name.
Clarke had always been an avid reader. And Clarke, during her years in college, had read a great many of the classics, as college students were supposed to during those years. Yes, Clarke knew during college, that almost all of her peers had been too busy partying, fucking and getting high to care about the classics, but Clarke had read and read happily.
One of the books she had read, had been Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. "The Modern Prometheus."
And maybe it was just jitters, but recently? After creating what was necessary for the clones to be created today, Clarke kept getting the feeling that she was about to have more in common with Victor Frankenstein, than she wanted to.
Frankenstein-so many people made the mistake of thinking that the creature that was created in the book, was actually Frankenstein. This was a mistake. The creature had no name. And Frankenstein had been his creator.
But there was one thing that was true. And it was this; Frankenstein was as much of a monster as his creation was.
He had created a sentient being and then had abandoned it. Had created a creature that was lonely and wanted love like any sentient being did, and didn't consider what the consequences of his actions were.
And how had it ended? It had ended with Frankenstein's brother, his adoptive sister and his wife, even, dying.
Now, the creature that Frankenstein created, by that point? Was a sophisticated and learned creature. So, he knew what he was doing when he killed Frankenstein's brother, framed the brother's nanny and got the nanny executed and then killed Frankenstein's wife.
The creature was completely responsible for his actions.
But he never would have existed, had Frankenstein not created him.
Over the years, Clarke had come to see the creature and Frankenstein in similar lights. That they both were trash.
Yes, Frankenstein suffered from extreme hubris by creating life like that. But he had wanted to save humanity. Did that excuse it in the end? Probably not.
But the creature? By the time the creature came back into Frankenstein's life, he was educated. He was articulate. And surely, he had a moral compass of some sort. Which meant that everything he did, from that point? Was his fault as much as it was Victor's.
Essentially, the book was just about two horrible men. That was all.
Clarke had read up on Mary Shelley's history, curious about how bad the woman's marriage was, and see if that had caused Mary to write that.
It was an excellent book, she'd never deny that. But she wondered what events had inspired it.
From what she read? Shelley's marriage indeed had been a complicated one. And from what she read, Shelley's dealings with one Lord Byron, probably couldn't have helped her opinion of men all that much.
Increasingly? Whenever Clarke came into this building, she kept feeling more and more, like her mother was about to make the mistake that Victor Frankenstein had made in Shelley's book.
Clarke got to the room where she could see the back of her mother, as Abby Griffin worked, typing into the keyboard as the older woman, looked over the multiple human-sized tubes in the room.
There were thirty shapes in those tubes.
Human figures. Not alive yet. But they would be.
Or rather, not born yet.
There were vitals on a bunch of screens grafted into the wall, and it showed that the vitals of the thirty clones were steady.
In a few hours, Abby would enact the process where the clones essentially were "born."
Across the tubes, were the names of each of the clones. Names that Abby had chosen for each of the clones.
The names were Bruce, Pepper, Brunnhilde, Thor, Elektra, Loki, Sam, Steve, Christine, Peggy, Tony, Yelena, Natasha, James, Frank, Jessica, Luke, Danny, Stephen, Barney, Simone, Clint, Laura, Melina, Sylvie, Hela, Carol, Maria, Wanda and Pietro.
Clarke closed the door as she came in, trying to keep her eyes off of the tubes where the crea-clones were.
Clarke tried not to think of them as "creatures."
But thoughts of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, hadn't helped her.
She stepped across the room, noticing Marcus Kane leaning against the panel where Abby was working, smiling at Abby.
Clarke tried to ignore her stomach turning at this.
Abby had married Clarke's biological father, Jake Griffin. And they'd had Clarke together.
But Abby hadn't met Kane yet.
Jake wasn't Abby's soulmate. Kane was.
When Jake had died only a year ago, while they had started getting finished up with this project, Clarke had expected Abby to mourn.
But Abby hadn't. She had seemed…happy.
And only a few months after Jake's death, Abby had married Kane.
Yes, Clarke understood that Kane was Abby's soulmate, not Jake.
But it hurt Clarke. It hurt her deeply.
And besides? Clarke had begun to suspect why Abby had been so happy about Jake's death.
At the end, Jake had died of a heart attack. And while Clarke had known even if her father had been in good health, something had felt off.
She knew that there were various chemicals that could trigger a heart attack.
And Abby would have access to those chemicals.
Clarke of course, never voiced these suspicions out loud.
But she kept all of her thoughts; about her mother, about Kane about their experiments, locked in her journal in her room. Under her bed.
She most certainly had never let her mother see what was inside that journal. Her mother didn't even know that she had a journal.
Being logical as she was, Clarke at first, hadn't been sure why anyone would keep a journal, if they weren't going to let anyone else look at it.
But the more she wrote in it, the more she understood it.
Getting those frustrated and angry and hurt feelings out? It felt good. It felt soothing, almost.
Clarke never let that journal out of her sight when she was home, and she made sure it stayed in her locked up apartment.
Clarke came siding up next to her mother and Kane.
Clarke realized eventually, that she could actually picture her mother having poisoned her father and giving him a heart attack, because well, hadn't Abby done nothing but manipulate Clarke into doing what she wanted?
Clarke was to help Abby in the labs, or Clarke would get nothing.
Yes, Clarke was an adult now, and could get her own job in various fields.
But Abby had been cunning. She had made sure that Clarke only had experience in science, so, should Clarke try to apply to any other lab, not under her mother's control? She would have no chance of getting that job, because Abby would sabotage Clarke's hopes for that.
That was just the sort of person her mother was.
You did what she said, or there were consequences.
That was just who Abby was.
"Ready, Clarke?" Abby asked, looking at Clarke with a proud smile-one of the few times when Abby looked at her with pride, was when Clarke did as she said.
Clarke didn't face her mother and nodded.
"Ready," she said.
Abby reached down, grabbed the biggest and gray switch and slammed it down.
As soon as she did, several things happened.
The machines all around them, which were humming, hummed louder.
And the tubes filled with clones suddenly vibrated.
Then something else happened.
Clarke gasped, and she felt a stinging in her chest.
She was confused.
Why was her chest stinging?
When the hum of the machines increased even more, and the lights flared, indicating that the clones were about to be born, the stinging in Clarke's chest was almost unbearable.
Clarke winced, and knuckled down a gasp, when she felt something almost like a branding pain in her chest under her heart.
Clarke raised her hand to chest, feeling around under her heart.
As soon as she did, she froze.
There were multiple spots, singular multiple spots under her heart, burning into her.
Clarke counted them silently.
Thirty.
Thirty marks.
Her soulmate marks?
And she had thirty of them?
Clarke had heard how it felt when someone got their soulmate mark. It felt like a painful branding sensation.
Clarke felt a shiver run down her spine as the realization hit her.
There were thirty marks on her chest. And they were just appearing. Meaning her mates were just being born.
Clarke raised her head and stared at the thirty tubes, watching as the bodies within those tubes shook.
No…it couldn't be.
It wasn't possible…..
Clarke's mouth dropped as she felt the sharpness of her marks end as soon as the thirty clones' eyes opened up.
As soon as her eyes met theirs and as soon as they looked at her, any doubt Clarke had, was discarded.
Clarke felt it. The connection.
And she felt like it was appropriate to feel vomit in her throat. But she didn't.
But she should have.
Because weren't these people in a way, sort of her siblings? Her mother had given birth to her, and her mother had created these people too.
And what was more? There was a huge age difference.
Yes, all thirty of these clones were developed to physically be full-grown. And yes, all thirty of these clones looked the age of the people they'd been cloned from.
And yes, all of these clones had been designed specifically to have all the knowledge that their predecessors had.
Meaning that they knew all about the world, they wouldn't be created with the "minds of babies."
They would have the minds of adults. Know about the world, know math and literature and history and some of them would even know science. And all of them would have knowledge of adult relationships.
But it didn't change that there was a huge age difference between Clarke and these clones.
Clarke fought a shiver when she saw all of the clones smiling. Smiling specifically, at her.
The tubes, which had names taped over them-yes, the clones had names, stopped vibrating finally. And no, the clones weren't named after the people they were cloned from.
You see, these people weren't cloned from just one person each.
Each one of these clones, were cloned from multiple people. They were a combination of people.
One of these clones, Jessica, was cloned from three different women.
One of the other clones, Bruce, was cloned from two different men.
And so on and so forth.
They were a combination of different DNA strands.
The tubes were clear and there were metal arms that held the clones' arms and legs, keeping them upright, but there was nothing blocking their extremities from view.
Clarke before, had accepted her mother's way of thinking about that particular issue. "It's just science," and "why be disgusted by a human's body? By a vagina or a penis or breasts? It's just the human body."
Now? Now, Clarke suddenly felt very repulsed by her being able to see the extremities of these clones.
Clarke looked away from the tubes, wanting to give her mates their privacy.
She heard startling smacks against thick plastic, forcing her to look back around.
Several of the clones had slammed their hands against the plastic tubes, looking angry.
They hadn't liked that Clarke looked away from them.
That was clear enough.
Clarke hoped to find a way of putting distance between her and these clones. But she knew that would be impossible.
Her soulmate marks had shown up and the connection between her and her mates had formed.
It was too late.
So, what now?
Clarke heard Abby gasp.
Clarke looked at Abby, confused, and Clarke saw Abby looking to Clarke, then looking to the tubes.
Clarke's eyes narrowed and she looked back at the tubes, then she saw what Abby had been staring at.
Of course, Clarke wasn't the only one with notable marks on her chest.
Her mates were naked. Their upper torsos were completely exposed from the front and the back.
And all over her mates' chests? Under their hearts? The marks of their soulmate or soulmates had formed, the moment their eyes had snapped open.
Clarke swallowed, hard.
On the chests of the clone called Laura and the clone called Clint, there were two different soulmate marks.
The same was for the clone called Barney and the clone called Simone.
The same was for the clone called Christine and the clone called Stephen.
And for the clone called Pepper and the clone called Tony.
But for the rest of the clones? There was only one soulmate mark.
And the mark that they all shared, very obviously, was Clarke's soulmate mark. The mark that signified who she was.
The mark on the palm of her left hand.
The mark of a gold sun surrounded by fire.
Clarke shivered and turned to look then at her mother.
Clarke read Abby's face carefully. Kane just looked shocked and at a loss.
But Clarke, she looked at Abby and observed the older woman.
What she saw, made her very nervous.
There was shock there, yes. And anger. But something far more troubling? Excitement.
It was like Abby had just discovered some sort of new experiment.
Clarke tried to ignore how her stomach turned at that.
She knew that Abby probably deemed her daughter as no different from any experiment, but the thought of Abby using the clones to control Clarke, or using Clarke to control the clones, made her feel sick.
"Clarke," Abby said in that sickly sweet voice Clarke recognized when her mother wanted her daughter to do something for her, "Honey, why don't you open the tubes and greet our new guests?"
Clarke shuffled on her feet slightly. Guests? More like prisoners.
It wasn't like the clones would have any choice in their lives.
They were property.
Clarke paused at that thought. Although, not necessarily.
The government? It didn't even know that these clones existed. This was a secret experiment.
Clarke, Abby and Kane and a handful of others were the only ones that knew these clones existed.
The money that was being given to fund this project?
It was money that the government gave, likely thinking that it was going into something like new chemicals for medicine.
This was a project, designed for medical care, yes, but not in the way any of the donor's to this project, thought it was.
These clones could be free. As long as whoever created them, remained silent.
Or died.
Clarke saw Abby's look sharpen when Clarke hesitated and she knew that the moment she resisted, Abby would whip out the comments saying things like, "when did I get such an ungrateful brat for a daughter," or "why did I think you were capable of being competent enough to help me, you're such a waste of space, Clarke."
Clarke tried not to glare at Abby and she moved away and over to the tubes, unlocking them, and opening the latches, opening the tubes up.
As soon as she did, the clones within those plastic columns, started to move closer, trying to reach for Clarke, smiling. But they were bound, so they couldn't move closer.
The metal arms still had them.
Clarke turned to Abby, unable to keep the anger out of her voice, "You know, you wanted me to let them out, but it's a bit hard to let someone out, when they still have restraints on them."
"Yes, yes," Abby said, sounding bored.
She pressed the button closest to her, and the metal restraints on the clones, opened up and the clones were allowed to move around.
This didn't have the outcome that one might think it did.
See, the clones were stood upright the whole time they were made, and they had never gotten the muscle memory required for walking.
So, when they reached for Clarke, what happened?
They fell right over.
Clarke gasped, half moving out of the way, half trying to make her mates' fall to the floor less perilous.
When Clarke's many mates collided with the floor, they had unexpected reactions. They started laughing.
Clarke's eyes widened.
Several of them were grinning, like this was oddly fun for them.
Then one of Clarke's mates, Bruce, looked at Clarke, smiled at her, and reached for her.
Clarke moved back slightly and shook her head. "Don't," she said gently.
Bruce stopped reaching for her, and frowned.
"Why not?" Another clone, Sylvie, asked.
"Because it's not right," Clarke said quietly, "There's a huge age difference. I don't know if you know what you are, but-"
"I know," Bruce said, nodding, "I have memories of cloning notes and biology. And I woke up in that tube," Bruce nodded at the tube that he had fallen out of, "I can put the pieces together. We're clones, right?"
Clarke's eyes widened, startled at Bruce's insight.
Yes, all of these clones were designed specifically to have knowledge that the people they were cloned from, would have.
But she hadn't realized they'd figure out that they were clones so easily, or that they would accept that, so easily.
"Then you know that there's a big age difference between me and between all of you," Clarke said, "You're clones. You were just born. This isn't right."
"Why isn't it?" One of the other female clones, Natasha asked, as she propped herself up against the tube she fell out of, looking at Clarke suggestively, "We know all about sex. I certainly do. We have all the memories needed for a romantic and sexual relationship. Why's it wrong?"
Clarke opened her mouth to try to explain why, but she was interrupted when she heard footsteps coming over.
She turned to see Abby and Kane walking closer.
Abby kept looking from Clarke to Clarke's mates, in fascination.
Clarke tried to ignore how her skin crawled at such attention.
There was a time when she would have been so happy to have any attention whatsoever from her mother.
Now? Now, Clarke thought of her mother the same she thought of as a disease.
Oppressive, controlling a person's every life choice and killing a person slowly.
"Do you know who I am?" Abby asked the clones, Melina, Bruce, Christine and Stephen specifically.
All four addressed clones looked up at her, then nodded.
"I remember you," Melina said.
"Yes," Stephen said, "I remember you."
"So do I," Christine said.
"I do too," Bruce said.
"Good," Abby said, smiling, "The people you were cloned from, were people I worked with. Now, we have much work to do. Don't let Clarke distract you. She's been helpful. But only when she gets something out of it."
Clarke tried not to snort.
Wasn't it funny how abusers labeled a person as what the abusers themselves were?
Abby was the one that helped people, only when she got something out of it.
If Clarke did the same, she wondered if Abby was aware of where she learned it from.
Clarke wasn't surprised that only the four clones that Abby addressed, remembered her.
The people that Melina, Bruce, Stephen and Christine, had been cloned from, had been in the biological and health field, like Abby was.
The others were in different fields.
Tony, for example, was cloned from two men involved in machinery and the invention of AI and advanced robots. Nothing to do with biology.
"Clarke," Abby said, showing that far too fake smile to Clarke, "Why don't you get some blankets for your mates? I'm sure they're cold."
Clarke again fought a snort, but did as she was told. She got up and grabbed some blankets from the shelves.
As she wrapped the blankets around her various mates, she noticed how they looked at Abby and she shivered.
She didn't like how they looked at Abby.
They looked at Abby as if they understood without question, just what exactly Abby's relationship with Clarke, was like. And they decided that they hated Abby for it.
Clarke watched as each one of the clones forced their expressions to change and they plastered fake smiles on their faces.
But Clarke recognized the hate there.
They wanted to kill Abby.
She was sure of it.
She swallowed, trying not to shiver.
Prometheus, Frankenstein-both of them had paid the price for playing god.
And Clarke had the unsettling realization that her mother likely would soon, too.
There had been times when Clarke, thinking back to Frankenstein, wondered if he got it not as bad as Prometheus, because at least he died in the end and his suffering and the suffering of his family was over, but she had to wonder if Prometheus perhaps, actually had deserved all his suffering.
Prometheus brought forth fire to human beings, and what good did knowledge do for human beings? Humans discovered wonders all the time, and what did they do? They turned those wonders into weapons.
Fire, steel, gunpowder, oil, chemicals. It always led to the same thing in the end. It always led to weapons used against other human beings.
Abby gestured for the clones to stand up and Clarke watched as the clones pushed themselves up to their feet, their hands grabbing the sides of the tubes as they did so, trying to gain some sort of stability they could lean against.
Abby said, "I hope I'm not being too blunt with you. But since I created you, I'd like to think you understand that you should listen to me. You could gain a great deal by doing that."
Clarke heard the threat there, and she was sure the clones did too.
The threat that Abby didn't say, which was "and of course, there are serious consequences if you don't obey me."
"We understand," the clone named Steve said, looking to the other clones and they nodded to him.
"Yes," one of the other clones, Thor said, "But for now?" He had a slight smile on his face as his large left hand went to his stomach, "We haven't eaten anything…."
Clarke almost laughed then. Right. she had forgotten.
The clones had been given a great deal of nourishment and hydration, before they were born, but before they could be born, the tubes had been removed hours ago.
And the clones had just been born, so…
Translation: they were hungry.
Abby chuckled, realizing what Clarke realized.
"There's food in a pantry in the next room. I can get you some," she assured the clones, "What would you like?"
Clarke knew that the clones would have memories of what they enjoyed eating.
Then again, would they have the same taste buds as those they were cloned from?
The clones dragged themselves over to where Abby was talking of, steadying themselves against the walls as they did and Abby got out food.
Clarke watched cautiously, as her mates devoured the food before them, satiated as they did.
They drank some water, then turned to look back at Clarke.
The clone, Peggy asked, after she gulped down a whole glass of water, "And how does this all fit for you, Abby? Clarke being our mate?" Peggy looked to Abby when asking this, but Clarke could tell that Peggy didn't actually care what Abby wanted. She was only asking so she could figure out what obstacles there were between her, the other clones and Clarke.
"Well," Abby said, smiling, "It fits very well. Clarke has every reason now to help me work with you. Although, I suspect, it might be difficult at times, considering what I made you for."
Clarke paused.
What did she mean by that?
"Abby?" Clarke said to her mother, coming over, "A word, please?"
Abby almost glared at Clarke, but nodded and walked over as Clarke moved back, going to the back of the room where she and Abby had some time to talk alone.
Clarke faced Abby as she said, "What did you mean by that comment? That you made the clones for something that I might not like?"
Abby inhaled, as if realizing she had said something she shouldn't have, then sighed out, "Clarke, I know you think that we created the clones because you thought we'd be protecting the mass of humanity. And in a way, that's true. Because this is a prototype project."
"For what?" Clarke asked uneasily.
Abby sighed, "For making more clones, when the time comes. This is a test. To see if it works. These people are clones, and I want to see if they have identical blood types to who they were cloned from. I also slowed down their aging. So, while they are physically the same age as those who I cloned them from, they have stopped aging drastically. Their aging has slowed. And they will actually age more slowly from now on. And they won't need anything from me to do that. That's how they're going to live from now on, without scientific assistance. But, I will check if their DNA is identical to those I cloned them from. If not, we'll have to from now on, clone from only one person. But if so, it will be perfect."
Clarke was growing increasingly suspicious. She had no idea where this was going. But it felt suddenly unsafe for her mates.
"Perfect for what?" Clarke asked.
Abby at last dealt the blunt blow. She said, "Perfect for organ and marrow donors that we'll harvest."
Clarke stumbled back several steps, staring at Abby in horror.
That was what Abby had been planning this whole time?!
Clarke began to slowly figure out what it was that Abby had done.
The clones? No one except for the people in this room and a handful of others, knew of their existence. Which meant that if they wound up dead, and their bodies thrown in the incinerator, with all of their organs and bone marrow missing?
Who would know?
And even if someone squealed to the authorities? Abby would likely destroy any possible previous evidence, to cover her ass.
Abby nodded to Clarke, knowing that Clarke understood now. "Good," she said, "I know they're your soulmates. But don't get too attached."
Clarke couldn't believe this.
Abby was happy to snuggle up with her soulmate, Kane, but Clarke was supposed to suck it up and be fine with all of her mates being cut open, harvested and killed?
Fuck that!
"No, that's not going to happen!" Clarke snarled, not believing her own anger, as she felt herself at last going against her mother.
She yelled so loud, inevitably her mates and Kane all looked her and Abby's way.
"Clarke, stop," Abby snapped, looking nervously to the clones, "Compose yourself."
"Why?!" Clarke yelled, "So that you can murder my mates?! And I'm supposed to stay quiet about it?! Fuck you, you psycho! You killed dad, too! You just kill people that are important to me!"
That was when Abby made her fatal mistake.
She wrenched her right hand forward and slapped Clarke across the face.
Clarke gasped at the contact, but two things happened later.
Kane gasped and yelled Abby's name out.
But Clarke's mates reacted as well.
They snarled and leapt from the table where they were seated and lunged at Abby.
Clarke heard Abby scream in surprise and fear and she turned to look at Abby.
Her eyes widened when she saw all of her mates, with only their blankets on them, grab hold of Abby, both Yelena and Thor putting their hands around Abby's throat and squeezing hard.
Maria brought over her fork from the table and rammed the prongs into Abby's face.
Abby gave a silent scream, silent, because her air supply was being cut off by Thor and Yelena. But if she could speak right now, she would be screaming.
Bruce smashed a plate over Abby's head, and used one of the shards to begin to slice into Abby's chest, pushing down, stabbing.
Kane screamed out Abby's name, and raced forward, trying to save his soulmate.
But he was doomed too.
Steve and Frank both turned to him, both of them sporting knives that they had taken from the table.
Kane all but rammed right into Frank and Steve, Steve and Frank in turn, ramming the knives up into Kane's throat, forcing blood to spill out of the other man's mouth, instantly.
Clarke's hands went to her mouth, her eyes becoming huge as she watched Kane drop down, blood flowing out of his mouth, knives in his neck.
And Abby was straggled and slowly bled to death. After several minutes, when they were sure she was dead from strangulation, the clones lowered Abby's body to the floor, then dropped it there.
When they observed their work, the clones slowly turned to look at Clarke, smiling.
Clarke's hands shook as she understood what had just happened-as her mind slowly comprehended.
Her mother had just been killed. Her mother had been planning on killing her mates, and her mates had killed her. And Abby's soulmate, Kane.
It was like all the warnings of the great works she had ever heard of, Prometheus and Frankenstein, were playing out right before her.
The warning being: You can create life, but can you really control it?
"Clarke," Elektra said, stepping forward, her voice sweet, probably in the way a purring leopard would sound, "It's alright. You're safe. She can't hurt you anymore."
Clarke stared at her mates, unable to feel like she could move at that very moment.
Natasha, Melina, Frank, Jessica and Pepper looked to each other, nodded and walked over to Clarke.
Clarke gasped, backing away.
But her mates kept moving.
"It's okay, it's okay," Pepper whispered, moving forward, her body only covered by the blanket cloaked over her, as she leaned forward, embracing Clarke against her will.
Pepper held Clarke against her, cooing to her and intent on soothing her.
Clarke rested her head against Pepper's breasts, her left ear against Pepper's heart, her eyes finding the other clones, the blankets around them slightly opened up, allowing Clarke to see how hard some of the men's lengths were, as they looked at her, and seeing some moisture trickling down along the inner thighs of some of women. All of this indicating how much they wanted her.
Clarke shivered.
She couldn't control them, she knew that.
And Abby and Kane both were now dead.
So, what now?
When Clarke took a deep breath over and over again, calming down, she heard Frank say firmly, "We should burn the bodies and everything else in this lab. No one will know about us if we do that."
Clarke felt sick.
They were going to destroy all of the lab?
This all for a slap?
Clarke must have said this out loud, because several of her mates looked at her and Peggy said calmly, "No, Clarke. Not all for a slap. It's more than that. We have memories from the people that Abby cloned, remember? We lied when only four of us admitted to knowing Abby. But we all remember her. We're cloned from people that Abby knew through other people. You recall that party that Abby and Kane had a few years back? In Dallas?"
Clarke nodded against Pepper, vaguely remembering. She hadn't attended the party, since she was sure that her mother hadn't wanted her there, in fact, Abby had outright told her that she didn't want her there, but what did that have to do with anything?
Peggy went on, "The people we were cloned from? Went to that party. And while Abby never paid them much mind, they heard Abby joking with Kane, and some other scientists. She was talking about you. She was talking about you cruelly and making fun of you."
Clarke narrowed her eyes, staring at Peggy, trying to gain sense of what this woman was saying.
Jessica snorted, apparently corroborating what Peggy was saying, "The bitch, the people we were cloned from, heard her talk about your journal. About what was in it. About how 'stupid' you were and how much of a 'sentimental loser' you were, and how she wished she'd never had you."
Clarke felt cold. Icy cold blasted through her.
The journal-she always made sure it never left her apartment.
But that didn't mean that someone couldn't come in and read it, right? And her mother had an extra key. She could come and go as she pleased. And Clarke wasn't always there.
Seeing Clarke's shocked expression, Natasha said, "Remembering all of that? We wanted to kill her anyway. Besides, the last thing she said at that party before it came to a close, made our decision for us. She said that she wished sometimes that someone would come along and free her of you, by bashing your skull in."
Natasha stared at Clarke, and Clarke felt like someone had stabbed her in the chest. She could tell from how Natasha was looking at her, that it wasn't a lie.
Abby really had said that.
Clarke cringed and Pepper whispered to her gently, holding her carefully, trying to sooth her again.
"Don't worry," Peggy assured Clarke, as Steve went over to one of Abby's desks and grabbed her papers with all of the late doctor's notes all over the pagers and he threw those pages about the room, "We'll destroy this lab, and any evidence of us with it."
"Does anyone besides you know about us?" Natasha asked, lifting her eyebrows at Clarke.
Clarke knew that she could lie, but she doubted that her mates would believe her.
Yes, there was a handful of workers and staff who knew about the clones. But the details? Those they didn't know about.
They didn't know what the clones looked like. Didn't know their names.
These specific rooms, where the clones had been kept? Was reserved only for three people to be able to have access to.
Those three people being, Clarke herself, Abby Griffin and Marcus Kane.
That was it.
So, even though several other people knew that Clarke's mother had been cloning people, they hadn't been able to get a look at the clones. Or know what the clones' names were.
Abby didn't even release information about the DNA strands that were being used for the cloning.
No one knew even who Abby had cloned.
Which meant, even if people ran into someone like Melina, who resembled three women scientists, they wouldn't know who she was. Both because they didn't know where the DNA strands came from that made Melina, and because Melina wouldn't look enough like any of those three women, because of the combining DNA strands, for anyone to figure it out.
"There are others that know about you," Clarke said, "Coworkers of my mother. But they don't know that much. They have never been to this room. They haven't seen your faces. They don't know your names. They don't even know who provided the DNA for you to be made."
"I see," Natasha said, both sounding and looking satisfied.
"Then we don't have to kill anyone else," Steve said, "But we need to check to see if there are any cameras and destroy any footage that there is."
Tony said, looking at Clarke, "Where is the control room with the monitors?"
Clarke pushed the words out, not sure she wanted to help these mates of hers, but doing it anyway, "Across this room. On the other side," she gestured to a far back door, "That door."
Tony nodded and he and Natasha went to the door opened it, walked through it and began to delete the videos from the cameras.
When that was done, Clarke showed them where there was some spare clothing, that had been brought specifically for them.
Clarke noted as they moved, that they were getting better and better at walking. Their walking appeared more natural with every movement.
They pulled on that clothing and when they were fully dressed and had shoes on, they began disposing of the lab and all the evidence of them with it.
Clarke was helpless to do anything, except watch as flammable chemicals were splashed all over the lab and all over files and computers and papers-all holding information about the clones that Clarke's mother had created.
Bruce had a huge ream of papers under his right arm and Stephen had gathered up a bunch of memory drives.
Clarke wondered why but didn't ask. It seemed counterintuitive to be bringing along things from this lab, when they were trying to destroy evidence.
Then Jessica lit a match and tossed the match onto the chemicals, the flames starting to grow into deadly hot towers in seconds.
"Time to go now, love," Natasha said, smirking as she walked through the door, and Frank wound his right arm around Clarke's waist and his left arm around her shoulders and pulled her along.
Clarke watched the flames consume everything within the lab, beginning to climb up the length of the thirty columns, the plastic casing cracking.
Clarke winced as she heard some explosions as she was carried off.
Clarke hated how she was happy this had happened.
Abby had done the worst thing possible; she'd tried to create people, just to kill them.
And some part of her was happy the woman that had mistreated her so badly, was now dead and her body would now be kindling for the flames.
Clarke, as she was forced to walk alongside her mates, almost subconsciously, hugged herself to Frank.
She remembered what Abby had said before, when she had explained the whole "organ harvesting" thing.
That she had slowed the aging of those that she had cloned. Meaning that even if Clarke's mates were now the same physical age as those that they were cloned from, their aging had slowed down to a point where they actually might age more slowly than those they'd been cloned from. And what was more, they would require no scientific aide for such a thing. They were just going to age slowly from now on.
Clarke smiled at that thought as she leaned her head against Frank's chest as they moved to where one of Abby's employees' truck was parked, and Natasha and Yelena began to break the door open.
Clarke snickered as she thought to herself, (So, when did the people that Natasha and Yelena were cloned from, learn how to break into vehicles and hotwire them?)
She shouldn't be so happy, but through all her horror and confusion, one thing Clarke understood for certain was this; her mates were here, they were going to age slowly, unlike normal humans, which meant she'd have all the time in the world with them. And they loved her. Like she wanted to love them.
Natasha and Yelena got the truck's cab opened, and they carried themselves and Clarke inside the vehicle. Clarke was placed in the backseat between Frank and Jessica, and they made sure she had her seatbelt on, and they all put their seatbelts on.
The vehicle wasn't big enough to carry all of them, so, the others got into another vehicle they broke into. When everyone had their seatbelts on, they drove down the road, away from the labs which were now in nothing but flames.
Clarke leaned back, watching the flames ascend to the now night sky as the fire consumed the building they were fleeing.
As she did, she sighed, when she felt two mouths at her throat, giving her kisses there.
Jessica and Frank, it looked like, wanted to give her some affection.
Clarke closed her eyes, wishing she could hate herself for what she was allowing, but couldn't.
It was almost as if Abby had played god and had paid the price, both for those actions and for how she had treated Clarke and Clarke's father, Jake.
And the fact that it was Clarke's mates that were the ones that dealt out that punishment, made it feel all the more meaningful.
Clarke knew that she was throwing away her morals by letting her mates do this. For all her protests before about the age gap, she didn't think she wanted to do anything about this.
She had been doing what Abby wanted. Never what she wanted. And what she wanted was someone to love her. To really love her.
And she could practically feel it being poured into her by her mates.
"Where do you want to go, Clarke?" Tony yelled from one of the further up seats.
"Huh?" Clarke asked, gasping the word out practically as Jessica gently bit her neck.
"Where do you want to go?" Tony repeated, "We can take you wherever you want. Where to?"
Clarke thought about that and lifted her head to survey her mates. All of them, save for the driver, Bruce, who had his eyes on the road, were watching her.
Clarke noticed that there was that ream of papers on Elektra's lap and Christine had the group of memory sticks in her hands.
She asked, unable to help the question and not answering Tony's question, "Why did you bring all those papers and the memory sticks?"
There was a pause, then Bruce answered as he drove, "Just precautions. We want what's best for you. And we'll keep you safe. Those papers and those memory sticks, have notes on how we were made and our slow aging process. And we have notes with the email, email password and the data storage passcodes that we took from Abby's desk, so, we have access to any notes that she has on us, in the data storage that she put that information on. Should anything happen to us? We'll make more clones. And if we have to, put our minds in those clones. So, you'll never be alone."
Clarke tried not to laugh. These people were completely amoral. But they wanted to do everything right by her. They wanted to do what she wanted, unlike her mother.
No, she was not going to do anything about them.
She was going to live with them.
And she was going to have a very long time to be happy with them.
Clarke smiled and told them where she wanted to go. To her apartment and grab her things, including her journal. If anyone found that journal, they'd assume that she was the top suspect in Abby's murder. So, it was for the best that she destroy that journal. Then after that, she told them where she wanted them to go. Her mates agreed, and took her to her apartment building. Clarke got out, went to her apartment, grabbed her journal, came back down, and went into the van, almost instantly back into Jessica and Frank's arms, as they lowered her to the seat and buckled her seatbelt, and then the vehicle she was in, followed by the vehicle carrying the rest of the clones, drove off to where Clarke wanted them to live, far, far from where Abby, the abuser had raised Clarke.
Author's note
As everyone might have guessed, I wrote this fast. Like I wrote it just today, fast. So, if anyone is curious as to why it's so messy, that's why.