Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Tears Of A Clone By CSquared



   Chapter 6: "I'm Kara." the woman said.  The man swallowed what he was
eating, and said, "I'm...  I'm...  actually, who the hell am I?" Kara
smiled, and took a small hand-held screen from a robot floating nearby. 
"According to this, you were cloned from a man named Van-el.  So I suppose
that's your name." she said, handing the screen back to the robot. 
"Van-el." he said, musing the name over.  "Yeah, I suppose that sounds ok.
Yeah.  Van-el it is.  Now, why have I been brought to life?" "That's a
little complicated." "I've got the space in my head." "Alright then.  It's
a long story, but I'll cut it down a little." "Fire away." "Thirty years
ago, the most devestating war this planet has ever seen broke out. 
Actually, it was a series of wars, but it was one cause, and so it could be
classed as one war, I suppose...  I'm babbling.  They were...  are known as
the clone wars.  They were fought over the rights of clones.  See, you
yourself came from one of three clones, made from the DNA of the original
Van-el at birth.  Each person had three of these clones, and they were used
as organ donors, and other things like that.  Any time you had an accident,
they patched you up with your own tissue, from an identical copy of you. 
This eliminated any chances of your body rejecting the transplant. 
However, none of these clones were ever allowed to be born.  they lived
their entire lives within protein pods, growing at a normal rate, to
coincide with the original.  Eventually, people started to realise that
this was gross exploitation.  Did not these clones have the same rights as
everyone else?  Well, as you would expect, not everyone felt like this. 
They didn't want their clones running around with them.  What would happen
if they commited a crime?  How could you prove that it wasn't you, it was
your utterly identical in every way twin?  And so, the protesting minority
had to gradually build up its numbers, until it had enough members to take
on the establishment head on, and take what they wanted by force.  They did
this, and the wars wiped out most of our race.  Your original killed his
three clones before the war, which is the only reason you're here.  If your
source clone had been released and born, he would have died within four
years.  The wars finished twenty-five years ago, and I was born soon after.
Unfortunately, due to the background radiation that's built up because of
the weapons used in the wars, a genetic fault has appeared in the race's
make-up.  Everyone born in the generation after me is sterile.  the men of
my generation are sterile.  We had to find an uncontaminated person from
the past - you - to restart the race.  We just hope that everyone coming
from one man isn't going to screw things up any more." "Ok...  that's a lot
to take in." "I know.  I'm sorry."

   They sat in silence for a while, before Van drew his breath, and said,
"Well, if we're going to do this, there's no time like the present.  Let's
get to where you live." Kara smiled, and stood up.  She took him by the
hand, and they walked together to the flight bay.  Standing in the doorway
was her battle suit, but that was a one-man beast.  She pressed buttons on
the leg to walk it out of the way, and they followed a beckoning robot to a
dark corner of the large room.  There, covered in dust and cobwebs, was a
small, two person jet.  They climbed in, and the automatic system sprang to
life, as quick as the day it was built.  It worked out where they wanted to
go from what little information Kara could give it, as she had only been
five years old when she had started on her long journey.  The jet hummed
into life, and blasted out through the permanently open doors.

   Three years pass.  In kara's village, almost every woman now has a
child. Van-el's son or daughter, every one.  "We cannot stay on this
planet." said the village elder.  "The radiation is too much.  Another
fault will occur, and then we will have nothing to fall back on.  I say, we
find our way back to the world of our origin.  To the best of my knowledge,
they called it...  Earth."

   In a small, dark room in a hut, Van sat by a window.  Alone, and
un-noticed, he stared up at the sky and wept.
   The End