Isaac Asimov's still dead, right? He would have probably just used an analogy involving Tinker Toys and slices of individually wrapped cheese and I would be perfectly content. -- Tjames Madison
When I reached home I put the milk in the fridge and confronted Lenny
with what I knew. He said he couldn't take it any more. He said he
couldn't take any more of my accusations that his family was into the
clone business. I knew his sister to be clones, and his father was
responsible for raising a clan of clones. He wanted me to leave. I
suppose it was impossible for it to last, clones must keep to their
own kind.
I got a tiny apartment near Lennys' place. It was only a block away.
A security agent showed it to me, and the apartment building seemed
full of miscreants. I realized that this apartment building was used
for people who had had a falling out with the clones, and it was no
accident that the advertisement for this apartment had appeared in the
local paper the very day that the Lennys had asked me to leave. I
carried my few things down the street and moved in.
I spent the rest of the day listening to secret broadcasts on the
radio, which extolled the virtues of clone life and praised the
plastic surgeons of Guelph. There was a large dark stain on the
carpet in the tiny living room, which I was afraid to touch. I
learned from the radio that the last woman who had lived in this
apartment had been harvested. It took me a while to realize what this
meant. She had been found barely alive and lying on the floor with
parts of her skin and hair missing. As it became dark I talked back
to the radio. I told the walls that I was not afraid, and I placed
knives and a hammer in strategic places about the apartment so that I
would be ready for them when they came for me.
I waited, but nothing happened. I marched outside a few times to show
to the night air that I was not afraid. Eventually I went inside and
fell asleep. The next day I had an appointment with a specialist to
see about having my tonsils removed. I was very nervous about this
appointment. I walked downtown to the doctor's office passing by many
security people on my way. I had a sense that I was not accepted by
Guelph, since I was not a clone.
As I waited in the doctor's office, I saw him come into the waiting
room to usher in patients. He was slightly different each time he
came in to the office, so that I knew he too was a clone. When it was
my turn to see him, I was very honest. I explained that I had nothing
against clones, but that I didn't want to be one. I said that I
wanted to have the same face when I came out of the hospital that I
had now. He nodded, and made a telephone call to another doctor. He
politely explained to me that I should go down the hall to the office
of another doctor.
The other doctor very gently and carefully explained that he was going
to prescribe Loxapine, in twenty-five milligram doses, and that he
would possibly raise the dosage level. I understood this to be some
secret drug, which would give me another wonderful experience like the
experience I had had of seeing another man in my image. I began to
take the drug.
At first the drug knocked me out. For several days, I spent most of
my time sleeping. Then I noticed that there were no more voices
talking above the radio. I saw Lenny again and he seemed like one
person. The people of Guelph began to seem quite ordinary, and
details about them like their gestures seemed devoid of significance.
A couple of weeks went by without extraordinary voices or visions, and
my head felt relatively empty. The buzz and chatter of my thoughts
had subsided, and the world seemed bathed in a soothing clarity.
