Jay thought that the hardest part of the trial might be staying awake. The shock of seeing them had, surprisingly, started to wear off after only a few occurrences, and with almost an hour having passed now it was a struggle to keep himself focused. The experimenter, perhaps sensing this, paused briefly from his scribbling and elected to interrupt the monotony. “We’re almost finished,” he said, tilting his circular spectacles down a centimeter. “Okay to power through until the end? Would you like some water?” “I’m okay,” Jay answered, staring directly ahead, through the glass pane and across the chamber. He hoped that he was not being short, but he did have somewhere to be, and he had made as much clear when arriving in the morning. “If you’re sure,” the researcher said, smiling, and he lowered his balding head back to his pad. Jay merely continued to stare forward, at the glass, though with his peripheral vision he re-absorbed the setting. Everything was as it had been when he'd first entered. There was the hulking machine in the corner, the whizzing red and green lights the only thing that prevented it from blending in with the shiny, pewter wall. The researcher was to his left, some ten feet away, and he, perhaps in an act of solidarity, had not taken a seat in the chair behind him for the entire duration of the testing so far; Jay, after all, was inexplicably being forced to stand. Aside from that there was a computer monitor near the experimenter, untouched, and, Jay was fairly certain (though they weren't quite within his gaze at the moment) what was a pair of speakers above him, though he had the suspicion that there was a recording device present as well that he could not see. There was also a very unremarkable door in the corner on his right, and yet it was this that had drawn his attention most as of late. Through the glass pane, however, sat the object of his intended attention; a containment door, giant and heavy looking, a shade darker than the walls surrounding him and bearing, in faded black, presumably the name of his location: Test Chamber C-2. That was all that was in sight currently, but in a moment, Jay knew, the door would slide upwards, revealing a gap of empty darkness, maybe fifteen feet or so in length, and then, a glimpse into a similarly plain room. As if on cue, a loud buzzing—perhaps from those dangling speakers—went off, and the door began its clamorous ascension. Jay watched it go for a few seconds, as slowly, the sight across from him came into view, a sight that would be most confusing under normal circumstances, though which now brought boredom rather than perplexity. It was himself—nearly. Jay ogled his doppelganger with disinterest, fairly certain that it could not see him, as its expression was quite blank. For about three seconds his gaze lingered, and then, quite suddenly, the shielded door dropped, much faster than it had risen. There was silence then, followed by another sound, this one closer to a school-bell, which indicated that it was time to answer. Jay turned to the tester, who was scratching at his orange beard. “Uh...darker hair?” he ask-answered. “Okay,” the tester replied, and he began jotting quickly. The blinking machine continued to blink along. Jay turned back to face the metallic door, remembering that he had been asked to stay as still as possible. He tried to keep his focus from lingering on the incessant flashing of the machine and the scratching of the pen. His mind again returned to how long he’d been there, though he figured that it might be best to assess the duration based on how many trials had happened, rather than how many minutes had passed. He’d been told when entering the clinic in the morning that a total of 25 clones had been made from the sample he’d provided roughly a week ago. Surely, he was more than half-way done by now. He had thought, at the start, that he would be there for half an hour at the most, but the researcher tended to have a lot to write in between his answers—strange, considering how simple the experiment seemed in principle. Though of course, it wasn’t really so much simple as it was undemanding. Jay knew—had known for a while—that cloning experiments were rigorously developed. Cloning studies had entered a sort of vogue roughly a decade ago, though this movement, interestingly enough, revolved more around the advent of time-travel technology than cloning. Scientists were not quite there yet, but they were close enough that it was determined a proper time to investigate what kinds of things could occur when two identical individuals occupied the same time-frame. One old hypothesis—a relic of more theoretical times, really—was that, if someone were to encounter themselves from the future, they would not even recognize it. This was (hypothetically) because a person’s perception of themselves, even visually, was considerably more subjective than they tended to realize. The study that Jay was in now existed to test this idea; his task was to find the differences between himself and his clones. “Ready?” the researcher asked him. “Ready.” The buzzing returned, the gigantic door climbed laboriously out of view, and the next clone came into sight. Jay held back a snort as he stared at it, hardly needing the full three seconds to identify the difference. Once the clone disappeared there was a brief pause, followed by the answer-bell, which barely had time to fade out before he offered his answer. “Black skin,” he said with confidence. His tester didn’t acknowledge his candor. He simply started to scribble away furiously, leaving Jay somewhat discouraged. His wife would think it was funny, he thought. But of course, she found the whole thing more amusing than he did. In truth he had actually only signed up at her request; they had needed the extra money, what with the new move and all, and it was something of a coincidence that she happened to be interested in time-travel and all of that. Jay himself, while not afraid of it by any means, didn’t quite carry the same enthusiasm. He had voiced as much a few weeks ago, when he’d first met with the lab and signed up, almost on a whim. They had gone out of their way to make him feel comfortable, had allowed him to ask questions about the nature and implications of the study, as well as the exact mechanisms that would be in use for the procedure. They had not pressured him in the slightest, nor had they used anything other than money to entice him, and no more than had been written on the flyer. It had all been very professional. He had had one more meeting after that, a few days later, to confirm that his agreement had not been spur-of-the-moment (though, his wife had needed to give him a good talk of reassurance the night before), and then just last week he had provided a blood sample with which to be cloned. “Ready?” the experimenter asked, cracking a single knuckle as he did so. “Ready.” Buzz. Clang. Clone. This time the difference was not quite as humorous as a mere skin-swap, though it was just as easily identifiable. A few seconds passed, and the target disappeared behind the noisy door. “M-missing an arm,” Jay said, with something between certainty and concern. The researcher made no comment at this, merely keeping his face to the pad as another sequence of scratching noises began. Jay did his best to focus on those sounds, but despite his best efforts he found his mind wandering into darker territories. There had been very little mention of the ethical treatment of the clones at that first meeting—most discussions on the matter had pertained to Jay’s well-being, not that of his duplicates. The only real information provided in that respect had been methodology sections that he had been permitted to peruse. The clones, Jay knew, had had their ages accelerated exponentially, effectively aging forty years in a span of a single week. This was required, Jay learned, because people tended to poorly remember how they had looked when they were younger, and so using clones of a different age would serve as a major confound in the study. Barely mentioned, however, had been the sentience of his counterparts. The papers had cryptically alluded to the full creation of memories (and, consequently, personalities) to ensure that the clones had identities, which, as had been known for a while, could influence an appearance, if only marginally. What Jay didn’t know though, was whether each clone had been given unique identities and backstories or not, and, moreover, the extent of each clone’s intellect. The only thing that he knew for sure was that, following the test, they would be terminated. Surely, they at least didn’t know that. “Ready?” Jay gave a fake cough, for no reason. “Ready,” he affirmed. The buzz made its return, the heavy door ascended once again, and through the glass barrier and stretch of black Jay watched yet another clone materialize. Like its predecessors it was motionless, which was a good thing, because he was having a very difficult time identifying the error. He caught it just as the door came crashing down, having needed to squint to do so. He was so proud of his achievement that he accidentally provided his answer before the bell had signaled for him to do so, his words instead accompanying the chime. “Brown eyes,” he said, though at the next second, a nearly indiscernible voice had echoed around him, concealed within some crackling, electrical tone. “Bru eyes.” Jay looked around the room wildly, finding the source of the sound at once; it was the speakers above him. “What was that?” he asked sharply, turning to the researcher, who for the first time was not writing. He had instead galloped over to the blinking machine, and was now twisting at various knobs, his expression stony. “Nothing,” he said, though an erratic, staticky hum continued to pervade the chamber. After a few moments of fiddling with the knobs, it stopped. “Sorry about that,” he added, wiping sweat from his blonde brow and returning to his corner. Only then did he begin in his note-taking, this time more vigorously than any other. Jay merely stood there, perplexed, continuing to gaze around the room, and mostly up at the speakers, which continued to hang innocently above. He continued to eye them until the scribbling noises had ceased, and the experimenter had addressed him once more. “Ready?” Slowly, Jay turned his head back to the shield door. He suddenly felt quite uneasy, and yet, it was difficult, even in his head, to articulate why. “Ready?” the researcher asked again, his voice somewhat lighter this time; almost charming. Jay pushed the feelings away, then gave a tiny nod, his eyes still rested firmly in front of him. “Ready.”
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About MeVekin87 is the author of the Albus Potter Series, a 7-book continuation of the J.K Rowling's Harry Potter books. The Things I Write While You're Asleep |
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