Who: Karin Hallimere, Miles (Clone, unknown to Karin and himself), Derek Stills (Clone).
What: Sci-fi action, a low-key manhunt, cloning technology, government conspiracy.
Space travel is only a few centuries old, but it is a time of great innovation. In light of First Contact, cloning research has slowly but painfully been accepted as a part of society alongside human augmentation, though the technology is still far from perfect: it is predicted that, if the Human Government were to ever allow the cloning of entire human beings, too much brain matter would be lost in a memory transfer, thereby quelling widespread rumors of illegally cloned humans. (There are people who are paranoid about clones.)
The Human Government heavily regulates human augmentation and cloning. Today, there are still many activist groups that are against augmentation and cloning in any form.
On the record of human cloning, only human body parts have been cloned in support of medical science, as well as for the controversial HAP (Human Augmentation Project), a privately owned mega-corporation closely monitored by the Human Government. People speculate that the Government’s “support” of HAP is a response to the growing black market for modified HAP augmentations outside the limits of the Bio-Modification Act.
Unbeknownst to the public, the Human Government has a top secret project to “weaponize” cloning technology by developing an “immortal” covert task force to fulfill highly dangerous missions outside Known Space (therefore outside human jurisdiction), and there have already been three “voluntary” subjects: the first, a former Special Forces soldier, vanished into the Fringe Systems after dying once; the second, a former Technology Specialist of the GIA (Galactic Intelligence Agency), is being hunted down by the IBI (Interstellar Bureau of Investigation) after “going rogue” and relocating the clone vats (having been tipped off by Subject One after their failed mission); the third, an IBI agent hidden from Subject One and Two as a contingency plan, had his memory modified by the Human Government to have no recollection of his clone status and has been assigned to the Subject Two manhunt. (Subject One is presumed to be dead, for Unknown Space is volatile, though Subject Two may have reactivated his clone vats in the relocation.)
When and Where: In the far future, Yamashita Solar System, primarily in the public space station anchored in the orbit of barren-class planet Yamashita IV, where mining operations are conducted.
Why: Karin is made to question her sense of justice and purpose as a government agent, as well as the innate nature of humankind in the face of imminent immortality. (What if?) In the loss of life’s value with the coming of great power, as if it has become a game and a source of cynical entertainment, the reader may react to the portrayal of Derek Stills and be led to reevaluate the one life we have in the real world.
· ACTION: The chase and the showdown with Subject Two, Derek Stills, in a service hallway of the Yamashita IV Station Market District. After Derek is gunned down, Karin and Miles once again fail to track down the data stream of Derek’s MTU (Memory Transfer Unit).
· BACKGROUND/DEVELOPMENT: The return to IBI (Interstellar Bureau of Investigation) headquarters for a briefing under Klacks Stone, director of IBI Yamashita. Karin’s team is working overtime. She tells Miles to rest with his family to prepare for the coming days.
· BACKGROUND/DEVELOPMENT: The investigation of leads in the underbelly of Yamashita IV Station. (Incomplete freighter records suggesting another clone vat relocation.) Derek’s previous two lives were immersed in the criminal underworld as part of his undercover assignments with Subject One. He was especially known in the smuggling ring for his digital forgery skills. A group of armed smugglers wait in ambush, obviously tipped off by Derek. Karin and Miles barely make it out of the district alive.
· CONFLICT/CLIMAX/ENDING: A lethal toxin smuggled in and mixed with the fuel of high-exhaust vehicles has killed all the people in the mining colonies of Yamashita IV. People on the news “wish the innocent had a second chance with cloning”. Views have been shifted. The theatrical performance of Derek Stills in a high-class bar, the “final showdown” and the murder of Miles who is revealed to be Subject Three, all compound on Karin’s probable resignation from not only her job but from her faith in the Human Government.
Docking in Yamashita Station. Karin returning from another system after failing Subject Eight.
Miles was unpredictable. But he is the best Clone Tracker in the system.
“Time’s ticking, rookie.”
Five’s memories will be downloaded into a new clone, possibly within the same solar system. But deaths after the first did not guarantee a full transfer rate, with a greater loss of memory in each subsequent death.
“Just keeping you on your toes, rookie.”
A crowd is beginning
Those blue eyes.
The force of the explosion slams against my body, throwing me to the pavement.
The Yamashita VI Market District erupts with life, streams of habitation modules and rivers of
“We gave Nine a second chance. Do we really want to give him a third? A fourth?”
Miles dies, but Karin discovers that he comes back as a clone. YSP is adopting the controversial technology to combat criminal clones. The balance of justice and life is shifting. It always shifts. The sheriff and the stranger become one.
Karin: “I quit.” Undocking from Yamashita Station. Wet cheeks, she does not feel herself crying. Returning home, finding solace in endless space.
The sun does not set in space. Where does this leave humanity?
I CAN’T LOOK at my uncle in the eyes during briefing sessions, even if he’s speaking as the Yamashita director of the Interstellar Bureau of Investigation.
Klacks Stone slams a fist on the glass surface and points at me across the table. “I know that, somewhere in that stubborn head of yours, I am giving you hell in all its burning glory, and that’s enough for me at this point because we’re running out of gods damned time.”
On top of human cloning being publicly illegal, my team was informed that the technology was far from perfect, that subsequent deaths after the first did not guarantee a full memory transfer rate. But Subject Two’s methods haven’t been deterred.
No comments:
Post a Comment