Blue Ink: A Short Story Read online

  * * *

  He was cold when he woke up. And hungry, but he didn’t care. Jason wanted to go find his clone.

  The room was empty except for the clone nurse. She stood facing away from him, scanning readouts from a big machine on the far wall. The room’s door was ajar.

  Jason pushed himself to a sitting position. His limbs and muscles felt clunky, as if they hadn’t been used in a long time. His feet thumped as he slid from the too-high hospital bed onto the tile floor. The nurse glanced up.

  She straightened and tapped an intercom switch on the wall. “He’s awake, Doctor.” She lifted him gently back onto the hospital bed.

  “I want to see my clone,” Jason told her. His voice sounded funny, as if his tongue didn’t know its way around his mouth.

  “I’m sure we can arrange that,” the nurse said. But she wouldn’t meet his eyes, and turned away to make some notes on her clipboard.

  Dr. Kessan entered the room and scanned the computer readouts without greeting Jason. She crossed the room, checked his eyes and ears, and listened to his heartbeat. Then she tapped on his knee with a rubber hammer. “Do you hurt anywhere?” Jason shook his head no. “Can you speak to me? Tell me your name.”

  “Jason Calloway.” He stumbled over the familiar sounds, trying to make his tongue respond correctly. Jason began to feel afraid.

  Dr. Kessan straightened up and took the note pad from the nurse. “He seems to be doing well,” she said, marking something with her pen. “I think he’ll maintain a slight slurring of speech, though. And watch for any tremors or lack of coordination.”

  The nurse took the notepad as it was handed back to her. “Will that be all, Doctor?”

  “Yes. Take him through the preliminaries, then send him on to the training school.” The nurse nodded and Dr. Kessan left.

  Jason remained sitting on the hospital bed, shivering. “Can I see my clone now?” he asked.

  The nurse looked at him as though she were recalling a distant pain. Finally she lifted him down from the bed and took his hand. “Come with me.”

  She led Jason across the room, then sank to one knee and directed his gaze towards the full-length mirror on the back of the door. He stared at his reflection and reached up to touch his forehead in disbelief. There, emblazoned in blue ink beneath the skin, were the characters JAS-1, followed by a registration number.

  Jason tried to rub the letters off, but they wouldn’t come. He rubbed harder. The nurse grabbed his hands and held them by his waist. “It won’t come off,” she told him, “You’ll only hurt yourself trying.”

  “B-but I’m not a clone! I’m Jason!”

  “Jason Calloway is at home rightnow with his parents. You have all of his memories, but you are not Jason. You’re his first clone, and you must respect and obey him from now on.”

  Jason felt as if someone had turned the world inside out and then stepped on it. The nurse was mistaken. She had to be. Because if Jason was a clone, then he’d feel happy. The teacher in school said clones were always happy. Happy, happy, happy! He pounded his head against the mirror until the nurse pulled him away from it.

  Later, headed towards the clone school with six other children and a drooling chaperone, Jason felt the first seeds of bitterness. He sat on an unpadded chair in a shabby rail bus that jounced and rattled like it was about to break down. And he was surrounded by clones. His mother would be appalled at these circumstances. His mother would be appalled at him. No wonder people were discouraged from meeting their own clones.

  There was no chance, Jason slowly realized, that Mother would let his Original come speak with him. She couldn’t stop Jason’s Original from getting the biannual duty letters — those were private — but would his Original read them? In twelve years, when he was no longer a minor, would he seek out Jason? Yesterday Jason would have felt certain the answer was ‘yes’. Now he was no longer sure.

  At the front of the bus, a smiling human spoke to them from a video screen; a recorded, five-minute message that played over and over. The dark-suited man explained that they were headed for a brand new life, with new, exciting challenges, and that they shouldn’t prejudice themselves against it just because it wasn’t the life they’d expected to have. After the ninth repetition, one of the boys threw his shoe at the screen. Mr. Suit Coat vanished in a crackle of static.

  The chaperone did not turn him back on.

  * * *

  Looking for Something Else to Read?

  Movement: A Short Story about Autism in the Future

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  "If I were given only one word to describe "Movement" by Nancy Fulda, I would choose beautiful." – Christine Amsden, author of The Immortality Virus

  "Recommended especially for parents, or anyone who wants some insight on autism." – Amazon Review

  Other Stories by Nancy Fulda

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  Backlash

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  Originally published in Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, this novelette was listed in Tangent Online's 2010 recommended reading list and received an Honorable Mention in Gardner Dozois' The Year's Best Science Fiction.

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  This short story was originally published in Jim Baen's Universe and was recommended for a Nebula Award.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nancy Fulda is a Phobos Award Winner, a Vera Hickley Mayhew Award Recipient, and a two-time WOTF Finalist. She holds a Master’s Degree from Brigham Young University, where she conducted research in artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Afterwards, she turned to the equally complex task of raising three small children. She tries to make each of them laugh at least once per day.

  https://www.nancyfulda.com

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