Clones, Dates, and Genetic Mistakes
A Love Triangle with a Sci-Fi Twist
A beautiful but erratic woman is confronted at her house by a strange man. Stranger still, the information he gives her will not only fundamentally harm the relationship with her husband, but it will cast doubt upon her entire identity.
Aleksandr Popov
I
Diana, in her parked driverless car, flicks back her head. In her eyes, she carefully places two iris-covers. Looking in the rearview mirror, she leans in and blinks - the covers transform from opaque grey into Diana's original eye colour - hazel. She’s never used these before - they are goddamn expensive - and highly illegal; would they work?
The Turkish restaurant is across the road. The sign flashes in neon red and yellow, flickering in the falling snow, highlighting passing pendys, bums, and rogue cats; street stragglers all, real rabble.
Why’d he want to meet me here? Couldn’t it have been in a place a little cozier?
She steps out of her car, arm raised to protect her iris-covers from the skating breeze. At the door, she glances up to the left. On the edge of the crumpling building, barely visible, is a Street Scout - a surveillance cam.
She blinks. Well, if they don’t work, my husband will know I’m here …
“You alright, miss?”
She jumps; it’s a man. Not the man from the weekend. A pendy, just a government dependent.
“Ah, yeah … it’s just cold. SOOO cold.” Her tone expertly balances polite and curt: I don’t intrinsically hate you, but I would very much appreciate it if you get the fuck away from me.
He nods, and continues, as she begins to breathe deeply, through her nose. Come on, she urges herself, reciting her Yogi:
The ways of the world,
Are just like the water and the wind
Any anxiety, any shame, any unnecessary complexity
Let it wash by, fly by, circle by,
Just like the water and the wind,
That birthed us from this Earth.
She has to find out what he has to say. Diana opens the door, and some solo Bağlama music plays as she approaches the cyber-plinth. The machine starts in Turkish, before Diana interrupts, “English, please. English.”
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Yes. Under Ares.” The strangeness of the man’s name suited the strangeness of his claims, that was for sure. What kind of a name is Ares?
The plinth takes her to a small table behind a half-height wall. Behind her, pots and pans clash and she blocks her nose from the oozing smell of meat. Poor animals! Why’d he make me come here?
Going through the menu, she tries to distract herself but all she sees is pictures of meat - nope! Squealing, she lets the menu fall flat on the table, her fingertips massaging her face.
“Miss; may I get you a beverage? Or maybe even one of our starters?”
“Can you, like, fuck off? I’ll call for you, dummy.”
The cyber-plinth bows on its little wheels, and trails away.
She shakes her head. The past few days - as her therapist would say - she’s been ‘emotionally dysregulated’; her mind like a rubber band, pulled to its limits, about to snap. Ever since that man, Ares, knocked on her front door.
Jamie was out, cycling. She’d just got out of bed, earlier than usual for a Sunday, around 10:30. She was in the kitchen, stirring her organic chai, when she heard crack, crack, crack.
What the fuck was that?
Behind her front door, she peered through the look-finder. A handsome man stood. He had black gloves, a heavy black overcoat, and lush black hair. Devilishly handsome. Darkly handsome. Maybe he was here for Jamie? He never had visitors, but still.
Back to the door, she realised she could never make it to the bathroom in time to put on any blush; any deodorant. Smelling her underarms, she cursed - and looked at herself in the hallway mirror, messing with her hair, pulling over her dressing gown.
Crack, crack, crack. Those knocks were like gunshots!
She’d never had a man’s knock turn her on before.
“I’m coming,” she shouted and abruptly opened the door. The first thing she remembers was that smell, his aftershave - Earthy-Oak, then blurting, “Uh. … Can I help you?”
He stared at her with his black eyes. He had a strange look, as if he’d known her for years. But there was something else, the morose on the corners of his downturned smile.
She chuckled, “C-can I help you, Mister?”
“Holly …”
“What? Holly? My name’s Diana.” She retreated a half step, pulling her gown across her body. “Who are you?”
He sighed, “So similar … or the same?”
“Dude, you’re weirding me the fuck out. WHO ARE YOU?”
He raised his hands, “You can call me Ares for now. Listen, I’m an old friend of your husband's. I waited till -”
“What’s his name? My husband.”
The man smirked. What a charming smile! Even jovial.
“Ah, his name is Jamie. Jamie Nathanial Timmison; though he tells people his last name is Donaldson because his father was embroiled in an oil drilling scandal and went to prison when Jamie was -”
“Seven. At elementary school. He tells that fuckin’ story all the time.” She smirked back at him, and they laughed.
“How do you know that?” She continued, “What was your name? Ares?”
“I told you; we were old friends. But you must listen to me.” The edges of his nose curled up. “About seven years ago, you were involved in a car crash.”
“How do you know about that?”
“Listen,” he commanded. “Seven years ago, you were involved in a car crash. The Doctors told you had retrograde amnesia. You couldn’t remember anything from two years up until the crash.”
“Yes. I still don’t know how you -”
“Don’t you think it was strange you didn’t have any … injuries?”
She was frowning and had moved half inside the door. This guy was charming - and scary. The most intoxicating combination.
“Don’t you think it was strange you didn’t have any cuts, any bruises? You didn’t even have a headache - where apparently, you had smashed it on the steering wheel of your car in a crash that left your car - and the other person’s car - totalled? Written-off?”
“Mister, I want you to leave, please. And don’t come -”
“Hold on - hear me out. I’m not going to hurt you. I would never do such a thing. Ever.” Through his nose, he breathed deeply, glancing down at the pavement. He pulled something from his pocket. “Listen: Take this envelope. Inside is evidence of the truth of what happened to you, seven years ago. You never had retrograde amnesia. That was the cover story for something … I want to say sinister, but I don't know if that's the right word.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just take the envelope. If this conversation and the evidence compels you, contact me on this cell phone. There’s one number programmed: Mine.”
She took the envelope and an old flip phone that her grandparents used to use. She’d heard that drug dealers and criminals use these because they’d become nigh untraceable.
“Also take these: Iris-covers. I’ll assume you’ll want to put these on when we meet.”
“If we meet, you mean.”
“Read what’s inside the envelope, Ho- err, Diana. Trust me. You’ll want to meet. Goodbye now.”
Back at the restaurant, Diana is somehow holding in a cascade of tears. It took hours of preparation, getting ready for tonight. She’d had to cancel a 1000 dollar-a-head spa with her girlfriends.
Though Jamie didn’t know that.
She has to stay. She has to see Ares. What was in the envelope … It can’t be possible!
She’s … she's just a duply? A goddamn duplicate? No way! They weren’t even real!
That smell again, Earthy Oak. “May I sit, Diana?”
He’s dressed similar to that of Sunday; that muted style, aristocracy from an earlier age. Never trying to be something else because it needn't be. The exact opposite of her try-hard, unfashionable husband - who just follows all the online trends.
Those colourful sneakers? With the neon? Gosh, they were ugly.
Diana exhales, head-bowed, “Sure. Sit.”
After sitting, he inspects her for several seconds. “Hmm. Let’s just get down to business.”
“Let’s” she replies, sniffing. She raises her head, mustering the deepest recesses of her fortitude, and glares at him.
“First, I take it you read what was inside the envelope, and second, that you didn’t tell your husband.”
“No shit. I even put on those fucking eye things. They’re fuckin’ itchy you know?”
“I do know. More than you can ever imagine. Now, listen: Your first question might have been the veracity of my claims; how do you know I didn’t doctor that print-out I gave you?”
Once inside the house, Diana opened the envelope. Inside were two sheets of paper. On the first, there were two passport profiles, side by side, social security numbers and all.
One ‘Diana Masalanta Sutherland’; one ‘Holly Hanson Nevis’.
The photos were identical.
Ares continues, “But, then you’re probably smart enough to ask yourself -”
“Why the fuck would a person cold call me on a Sunday morning with a dumb-ass prank like this?”
“Ex-actly.”
“Ares - if that’s your real name - what are you trying to say? That I’m just a fuckin’ dupl-”
“Sssh, sssh.” He turns to the cyber-plinth that has arrived on his right. “I’d like a whiskey with just a touch of water and my date here a double vodka martini. I’ll call for you when we want starters. Thank you.”
Diana covers her face. His charm made everything so much more confusing. She can't remember the last time a man ordered for her.
Ares waits for the plinth to vroom away, before slowly leaning forward on his elbows. “Do you have any questions about the second piece of paper?”
The first piece of paper had Diana repeat ‘what the fuck’ to herself; the second, well, it had made her squeal and squirm on the floor.
It was a print-out of two genetic profiles, like the passport photos, identical. She could make sense of them, of course. Diana has a Masters in Genetics; in fact, she met her husband while studying her post-grad - he, she never tells anyone, was her supervisor.
She read over the piece of paper hundreds of times. Matching each line of code. It lined up; made sense, she couldn’t fault it. If she had access, she would have looked each of them up on the Government's biometric database.
But it wouldn’t have mattered.
Diana, trembling, lets her head fall, “Please … please just tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Ares waits until after the drinks are served in front of them. He takes one sip of his whiskey, and sighs, “I’m sorry Diana, but you were never in a high-speed car crash. Instead, your now husband, Jamie, with my reluctant agreement, and against National and International Law, duplicated my wife, Holly. And over the space of a year, he grew you in a bio-chamber.
“Diana, you’re a clone, a duplicate.”
Diana’s hands are interlocked over her face, covering her teary eyes. She shakes her head and manages a squeal, as Ares continues, “Jamie knew, because of the nature of duplication, that your memories would only be intact up until about two years before the duplication, where they would become hazy to the point of non-existence. Retrograde amnesia would be the perfect cover.
“Also - it would mean that all your memories of loving me, as Holly, instead of Jamie, would disappear. The perfect opportunity for him to have a reciprocal relationship with you, too.”
Thank you all for reading.
Chur, and have a good day and night,
The Delinquent Academic
You can also tip the bro, here.
Interesting premise! Diana is a clone--but why? There's a lot of mystery here.
I'm not a fan of present-tense narration, and I would second the need for some proofreading. But you do descriptions really well. All the writing needs is a little fine-tuning.
Consider me intrigued...a sci-fi story that digs into the implications of cloning is always welcome. Now I'm listening to baglama music!
(Also, your content is great, but there are grammatical issues which disrupt the reader's experience and break the story's 'immersion'; I'd consider getting a friend to line-edit or try an editing program.)