The Individuality Gene Read online

  He’s dead.

  I should be sad, but I’m happy he got to stand one last time before he passed away. And that’s how he will remain until the decay of time takes his body. I turn away, but a cracking sound catches my ear. I turn to find a shocking sight.

  The man is still as a statue, but his skin is now riddled with cracks. They deepen and expand, causing fragments of the rough dermis to fall away. Soon, none of it remains. In its place now stands bark. From it, branches emerge. Most erupt from the man’s fingers, but some arise from the body itself. They grow at an accelerated rate, reaching skyward as leaves burst to life. The man’s legs thicken and merge together, forming a massive trunk. His toes turn to roots and burrow deep into the moss. His head elongates, prolonging the trunk until it no longer resembles a cranium. Soon, a full-grown tree stands before me, its glowing leaves rustling in an inexistent breeze.

  I stare at the tree for a long time, frozen. It’s not until I tear my gaze from it and notice the other trees that I realize I’m standing in a graveyard. While beautiful, the thought of all the people who had to die in order to make this forest repulses me. The fact that my friends and I are responsible for every single one of these deaths sickens me. Unable to hold on to my dinner, I double over and throw up.

  Reconstructed Memory 5

  K ara awakes to the sound of a blaring alarm. One look at her surroundings reveals she’s back in the cavern. The glowing trees that surround her bathe the forest in an ominous glow, but it’s the sight of the women and children that emerge from their slumber all around her that causes a shiver to run up her spine.

  “How long was I out?” she mutters. Her throat is dry, and her stomach feels empty, but she otherwise feels fine. This, coupled with the rousing of the other humans, indicates she’s been unconscious for a little under a day. While worrisome, it does ensure A’lara had enough time to start looking for Jonn and Will. It’s only a matter of time before she returns with news of their whereabouts. In the meantime, Kara just needs to keep a low profile, and the best way to do that is to play along and hope the sentinels don’t recognize her as the troublemaker she is.

  Kara stands and follows the crowd. She tries to sneak past the sentinels unnoticed but fails miserably. Luckily, the robots seem unaware of her involvement in the previous day’s disturbance. They escort her as they did the previous day, making sure she reaches her destination without getting lost.

  Unlike the previous day, she’s taken to a section of the facility that makes both the cloning facility and the human storage warehouse seem like heaven on Earth. Kara’s new workspace can be described in a single word.

  Slaughterhouse.

  The room itself is rather small. Split into two identical sections, the workspace is divided into various stages. Women enter through a wide doorway, pushing a trolley atop which lies a fattened clone. Picking whichever processing chain is free, they lift the obese clone using a claw-like machine and deposit it onto a conveyor belt. Once in place, the clone moves along until it reaches the first worker. Her job is by far the worst of the bunch. Using a sharp knife, she slices the clone’s throat, causing it to drown in its own blood. Though repulsive, the woman performs the task with a blank expression. So do all the others.

  Once dead, the clone continues its journey. The second worker hacks away at it with a cleaver and detaches both arms from the body. The next worker does the same for the legs, and all four limbs are placed onto another, smaller conveyer belt.

  The two final workers have one of the worst jobs of all. Using sharp knives, they cut open what remains of the body and remove its entrails. They then saw the mutilated flesh into more manageable pieces and place them on the second conveyer belt. The morsels travel the remainder of the room and vanish into a hole in the wall.

  Kara stares at the nightmarish scene for a while before one of the sentinels that accompany her hands her a cleaver and guides her toward the conveyer belt. The sight of the corpses was bad enough, but now that she’s closer, she can smell them. They stink of sweat and feces. She can also make out the metallic smell of blood.

  “I’m not doing this,” she says, crossing her arms.

  The sentinel shoves her toward the conveyer belt. Instead of taking the hint, Kara uses the belt to propel herself into the air and strikes the robot. While powerful, the attack leaves the automaton unharmed. The cleaver merely bounces off its thick metallic frame clatters to the ground.

  Kara stares at it for a moment, debating whether or not to retrieve it. By the time she focuses on the sentinel, its palm is glowing. It doesn’t shoot, but the message is clear.

  One more outburst and Kara is in serious trouble.

  The thought of hacking up human bodies repulses her, but A’lara insisted she keep a low profile. There’s no telling what will happen if she rebels again, and the last thing she needs right now is to be sequestered.

  Kara retrieves the cleaver and focuses on the conveyer belt just as a fattened corpse comes to a halt before her. Its arms are missing, but its legs are intact. It’s obvious her job entails removing them, yet it takes a while before she musters the courage to take action. Raising the cleaver, she takes careful aim and swings.

  The next few hours are the worst of Kara’s life. Hacking up human bodies is horrible, but not as horrible as the revelation that she has grown accustomed to it. After a few hours of work, an alarm sounds. The conveyor belts grow still, and the women gather around a food trolley that has been placed in the center of the room. They eat avidly, but the sight of food turns Kara’s stomach. She doubles over and heaves, but nothing comes out.

  Kara spends her lunch break sitting in a corner, doing her best to ignore her surroundings. Her mind wanders. She thinks of Avalon. She thinks of Jonn. But, most of all, she thinks of Will.

  Why did I break up with him?

  She did what she thought she had to in order to keep them safe, but they would still be in this mess had they remained together.

  I was wrong, she realizes and makes a silent promise to tell Will as soon as they’re reunited. She pictures them kissing, their lips brushing together, their bodies—

  An alarm blares, interrupting the imagined moment of tenderness, and the workday resumes. Now accustomed to the goriness of the task, she spends the remainder of the day pretending she’s elsewhere. Still, it’s with a sense of relief that she’s escorted back to the cavern where she and the other women spend their downtime.

  Dinner is served shortly after Kara’s shift ends. Though the sight of meat no longer repulses her, the nature of her job keeps her from consuming it. The bread looks tasty enough, but she remembers what A’lara said about the humans being drugged and chooses not to take part in the meal. She considers also refusing the water, but she needs to stay hydrated if she’s to survive long enough for A’lara to find her companions. Still, it’s with a sense of unease that she gulps down her water ration.

  Sleep takes a while to come, but she eventually falls asleep. Her slumber is filled with nightmarish visions, but she manages to recover from her first full day of forced labour.

  The following day, she’s assigned to the kitchen. While better than the slaughterhouse, the revelations that accompany her new assignment make her yearn for the days when she was butchering bodies.

  Kara’s job is simple. She takes the pieces of meat that arrive via the conveyer belt and feed them into one of the dozen or so grinders that make up the kitchen’s only furnishings. Metallic teeth grind the meat, bones, and tendons and spit out a thick red paste, which gathers in a large wheeled container. Once full, it’s carted away, and a mysterious black powder is added, which gives the paste a familiar reddish-brown hue.

  “Oh no!” gasps Kara upon seeing the finished product for the first time.

  The aliens aren’t the ones eating the clones. The humans are.

  It’s a shocking revelation, but it’s one she now realizes should have been evident. The aliens have no mouths with which to eat. As for the sentin
els, they require no sustenance. Only the humans need constant feeding. And what better way to accomplish this than by forcing them to eat ground-up clones? It makes sense, in a sick, perverted kind of way.

  Kara spends the next few hours in a daze. She barely notices the lunchtime alarm. It’s not until she’s given a glass of water, a piece of stale bread, and an empty bowl that she realizes the grinders have stopped running. Focusing on her coworkers, she watches, aghast, as they dip their bowls into the paste and consume the freshly-ground meat. Unable to watch, she looks away.

  Kara takes this moment of solitude to make sense of what she just learned. The Kra’lors enslaved the humans and are drugging them to keep them from revolting. Given the black power she noticed earlier, it’s safe to assume the paste is the source of the drug. This also means the water and the bread are safe to eat. After all, why bother drugging multiple items when all the humans seem to care about is the paste?

  Kara is too repulsed to eat, so she gulps down the water and saves the bread for later. She then spends the remainder of her lunch break struggling with feelings of guilt. Now more than ever, she feels responsible for the downfall of humanity.

  The rest of the day is uneventful. Once the shift is over, she and the other workers are escorted back to the cavern. It’s not until the evening meal is served that she realizes just how hungry she is. Trading the paste for another piece of bread, she goes about consuming her first meal in over two days. It’s not exactly a gourmet feast, yet she enjoys every mouthful.

  After dinner, Kara goes for a walk. She wanders for a while before finding a small river running through the glowing trees. Thirsty from her recent meal, she kneels next to it and quenches her thirst. She then goes about washing her hands, hoping to remove the stench of death that clings to them. She rubs them raw, but the smell remains. Doing her best to ignore it, she finds a quiet spot and settles in for another solitary night.

  The next two days are uneventful. Every night she lies awake, hoping tonight will be the night A’lara comes with news of Jonn and Will, but the Kra’lor remains absent. Kara wonders if she made a mistake in trusting her, but she seemed sincere. Not to mention the fact that she’s R’ha’s daughter. Still, her absence is worrisome.

  Kara grows accustomed to her new duties. In fact, she does such a good job that she gets promoted. She’s now in charge of adding the black power to the paste. She considers stopping, but the sentinels keep a close eye on her. Then again, halting the distribution of the compliance drug would accomplish little without a proper plan, so she bides her time and waits for A’lara to bring news of her companions.

  A full week goes by before something of note happens. A particularly massive bone fragment gets stuck in one of the grinders and causes the entire thing to explode. No one is injured, but Kara and her coworkers are forced to work overtime to clean up the mess. By the time she reaches the cavern, she’s exhausted and immediately falls into a deep, dreamless sleep, but her slumber is interrupted when a voice awakes her.

  Kara’s eyes flutter open, and the world comes into focus. Hovering mere centimetres above hers is the face of a Kra’lor.

  “A’lara!” yelps Kara, bolting upright. “What are you doing here?”

  I have good news, she says. I found your friends.

  Memory 24

  I lower my tired body into the pool of clear water. The cool liquid envelops me, drawing a contented sigh from my mouth. I lean against the edge of the stone basin and watch as the grime and dust that penetrated my clothes during my long hours of labour seep out and drift away from my tired frame. I do this for a while before closing my eyes, resting my head against the basin’s edge, and letting my mind wander.

  So much has happened in the past week it feels like much longer since Jonn and I first awoke in this cavern. Our first day was eventful, but it was only the beginning of our misadventures.

  I awoke to the sound of a blaring alarm. The sight of my surroundings confused me, but only for a moment. The glowing trees and the memory of my coworker’s strange death was all it took to remind me of the direness of the situation.

  I glanced at Jonn. The left side of his face was covered in sleep wrinkles, courtesy of the moss on which he slept.

  “Why are you staring at me?” he snapped.

  “No reason,” I said.

  The forest was alive with men. Most were still asleep, but a few were already making their way toward the open part of the cavern. Aware that delay would accomplish nothing, Jonn and I followed them. The next hour or so was uneventful. After waiting in line for what felt like an eternity, we were assigned to a robot and tasked with gathering our supplies for the day. We then entered the stone tunnels and travelled down a dozen increasingly narrow corridors until we reached a dead end. Once there, we unloaded the wagon, turned it around, and got to work.

  Jonn’s wrist was still tender, so he was assigned cleanup duty. He didn’t seem pleased, but I convinced him to play along. He spent the rest of the morning retrieving the stone fragments my coworkers and I produced as we mined for ‘tals. Still sore from the previous day, each swing of the pickaxe was a struggle. The lactic acid eventually worked its way out of my system, only to be replaced by a brand new ache. Before long, every centimetre of my frame was alive with pain. I pushed through and somehow survived until lunchtime, but the short pause only made returning to work more difficult. After a few failed attempts, it occurred to me to try something I hadn’t even considered.

  I pretended to work. While logical, the approach was pointless. In order to keep the subterfuge alive, I had to swing the pickaxe, which defeated the purpose of the exercise. My next few attempts were equally ineffective. I was about to give up when I noticed our robotic escort wasn’t as vigilant as I originally believed. Instead of surveying the entire group, the automaton took turns focusing on a single member of the team to make sure they were performing to the best of their abilities. While this made taking things easy difficult, it allowed me to stop working whenever the metallic being’s gaze was on my coworkers. It took a while, but I perfected the art of appearing to work while, in fact, accomplishing very little.

  My second day of work was far from relaxing, but it was nowhere near as dreadful as the first. I even had enough strength to explore the cavern. While failing to locate an escape route—there was but one exit, and it was under constant watch—I did come across a small river. It ran through the forest, feeding both the trees and the men it harboured. Hoping to find an unexplored escape route, I followed the river, only to discover it vanished into the earth after a short distance. While disappointing, it allowed me to locate a small, secluded basin. Filled with water, the miniature lake was perfect for a post-work soak. I didn’t even hesitate before dropping into it and letting the cool water wash away the pain and exhaustion.

  I spent the next hour or so enjoying the water. By the time I returned to the clearing where Jonn and I parted ways, the grey-haired soldier was sound asleep. Unlike me, his second day had been exhausting. Desperate to prove himself, he had insisted on single-handedly lifting every last rock fragment produced, no matter how massive. The fact that he only had one good hand hadn’t helped. As a result, he passed out from exhaustion moments after reaching the glowing forest.

  I settled in for the night. Fully rested from my recent soak, I drifted into my first restful night’s sleep since arriving in this time. The next day was identical to the last but for a few details. First of all, my new approach to work ensured I was no longer in a perpetual state of near-total exhaustion. Second of all, Jonn was back on pickaxe duty, a task he took to heart. Now almost healed, his wrist barely inconvenienced him. Taking full advantage of this, he whacked away at the stone with great vigour. It was a very cathartic way for him to vent his frustrations.

  It wasn’t until the fourth day that I started noticing my friend’s odd behaviour. He seemed quieter than normal, but I chose not to dwell on it. At lunch, he devoured his meat paste with even more zeal than us
ual. He didn’t even bother asking for my portion. He merely snatched the bowl from my hands and started stuffing the meat into his mouth.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, but he ignored me.

  We spent the rest of our lunch break in silence. The second half of the day also unfolded without a single exchange. It wasn’t until we returned to the forest after our post-work meal that I was forced to accept Jonn’s radical change in behaviour. Instead of staring at his wife’s picture, he went straight to bed. It was the first time he did this since our arrival.

  Something was going on. I contemplated my friend’s odd behaviour as I took my customary end of day soak and began to realize he had been acting odd ever since we first appeared in this time. Not only was he more distant than ever, but he seemed less agitated than usual. He hadn’t mentioned Kara in two full days, and the last time he lost his temper was when our robot escort tried to help him lift a particularly heavy rock on our second day here.

  What’s wrong with him? I wondered, but no amount of pondering helped answer the question. It wasn’t until the start of the fifth day that it finally dawned on me.

  Jonn was acting like every other man. His movements were slow and unprecise, his shoulders were slumped, and his expression vacant. I had seen that look enough to know what it meant.

  Jonn was being drugged.

  The revelation was shocking but perplexing. If my friend was intoxicated, then why wasn’t I? We both led the same lifestyle. We both drank the same water. We both ate the same—

  “Oh my god!” I gasped, halfway through swinging my pickaxe. Distracted by the epiphany, I let go of the tool. It bounced off the wall and nearly took my eye out, but I dove out of the way just in time.

  My coworkers stared at me questioningly, but no one spoke. Even Jonn remained silent. But I didn’t care, for I had just figured out how he was being drugged.

  The meat paste.