Prelude to Apocalypse

By: Immodicus Furor

A prequel of Tears of a Clone by: CSquared

Par-al could not help but laugh as his limo-type skycar approached the metal spire that was his new creation. A group of maybe thirty protestors could be seen gathering below, at the base of the building. They were ineffectually hollering and attacking the small army assembled at the ground entrances to the facility, shouting their endless chants that called for the cessation of cloning. These tiny cretins actually believed that they could stop him, the founder of the entire world’s organ replacement program. He was amused, at best, by their pitiful attempts to do so thus far.

            The skycar slowed as it neared the already opening doors of the facility. It slowly lowered itself onto the nearest available landing area, small robots floating towards the craft to form a parade formation as it touched down. The back door of the vehicle swung open with a nearly inaudible hiss, Par-al stepping out with dignity and grace. He smirked as he walked between the two rows of at-attention robots towards the group of awaiting technicians that were barely containing their obvious excitement.

            “Is the grand opening on-schedule?” Par-al asked the nearest technician.

            The technician quickly nodded. “Of course, sir. The cavern has nearly been fully dug out, and the clone storage system is online. We’ll take you to the main control room immediately, so that you can begin the production of the organ replacement units. There is something that we did want to ask you though: what do you want to officially label the organ replacement units? Most people seem to be calling them clones; others are calling them replicas… just for the record.”

            Par-al rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. “Oh please, it’s a simple word. ‘Clone’ will do just fine. Now, before we are late for the button-pushing ceremony…”

            The technician merely nodded again, walking off towards a lift built into the dock wall. Par-al was about to start following him on foot when a group of about twelve small robots floated up behind him, projecting a cushion field beneath him. They pushed him slightly off the ground, forming the cushion into the shape of a comfortable chair. The robo-chair silently pushed Par-al along, which could not have been an easy exploit; Par-al, at the young age of seventy, was over two hundred fifty pounds in weight. He had to admire the power of these small mechanical devices.

            The robo-chair glided him to the lift, which began to rise the second he was fully within it. It skyrocketed upwards at an incredible velocity, the lighting from outside of the transparent tube flashing by at such an amazing rate that it formed a strong strobe effect. Par-al shut his eyes tightly; he definitely did not want to have an epileptic seizure just minutes before he would have the ability to repair any damaged tissue he might receive from the event.

            As the lift began slowing, Par-al noticed that there were absolutely no inertial effects during the ride. He had to smile at that; evidently, he had done well when he chose the gravitician that designed the anti-gravity generators for the various modes of transports in the cloning facility.

            The lift door whistled opened, Par-al’s chair floating him out into a massive control room, which was nearly all glass. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all of it was made of glass. Only the two banks of computer consoles on either side of the room blocked the view of the vast cavern that the control room hung over.

            The chair stopped at the very center of the room, the technician standing beside it.

            “Sir, the cameras are on already, if you wish to perform the ceremony,” the technician informed him, “it will be edited by the network censors before being broadcast, so don’t worry about any mistakes.”

            Par-al nodded and lowered himself from the anti-gravity cushion of his robotic chair. The twelve bots immediately dispersed, disappearing to wherever it was that the robots were stored in this particular area.

            He smiled towards the micro-camera station built into one of the computer consoles.

            “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “I am about to bring in the new era of humanity’s evolutionary process. No longer will we all have to worry about heart disease, liver damage, or indeed, damage to any organ. We are now bridging the gap that we have long struggled to bridge- the gap between us and immortality. Have you had an arm amputated? Give us a call; we’ll harvest a new one for you! Need a skin graft? No problem! Nothing is beyond the reach of this new development in medicine. Our clones will age at the same rate as you, and will possess the same genes as you! You will never have to worry about possible rejection by your body’s immune system again. Now, without further ado… bring in the clones.”

            With a light tap to one of the nearby buttons on a control console, the machinery behind the glass of the control console became active, massive floodlights flashing on. Thousands upon thousands of rows of coffin-sized containers could be seen arranging themselves mechanically, hundreds of technicians walking amongst the catwalks of the massive cavern to check various readings and settings.

            A feminine voice sounded over the speakers. “Clone production has begun. Genetic samples are being read. Protein synthesizers active. Nutrient mixes deployed into pods. Production capacity is at twenty percent… forty percent… sixty percent… eighty percent… maximum production capacity has been reached.”

            The technician standing slightly behind Par-al looked nervous.

            “What is it?” He asked the technician.

            The technician shook himself out of his self-induced state of worry. “I was just thinking about all these protestors that have been talking about the evils of cloning. Do you think they could be right? What if they gather enough people eventually? What will happen because of what we’ve done here today?”

            “That’s the problem of future generations.” Par-al stated blandly. “Why should I care? This is going to make all of us very, very rich shortly.”

            Why should anyone have cared? After it, only lives were at stake. Nothing compared to vast fortunes and possible immortality.

            One simple statement became the beginning of the end of a great world.