Cloning

Written by White Shade

In a reclusive lab in Scotland, two scientists in a large room were waiting impatiently for a small alarm clock to buzz. Tubes and wires leading from all directions converged into a single white box sitting near the wall of the room. The box superficially resembled a coin operated washing machine, with a small round door and lots of dials. Strange bubbling and banging noises emanated from it. Dry-Erase boards were covered with formulas, pictures of cells, schematics, and large blocks full of DNA Strand information. Suddenly the alarm clock rang and one of the scientists leapt over to the box near the wall. He flipped a switch, pulled open the door and stepped back. They both held their breath and watched as a figure moved inside the box...

An adult sheep stepped out.

"Alright! We've done it," cheered the scientist.

"Yeah," laughed his partner.

Within a week, people all around the world were talking about the event, calling in "Cool", "Astounding", and "Terrible". "Elvis May Live again!" was a popular headline, as was "Sheep Cloned!" and "Should we clone humans?".

Yes, the adult sheep that had stepped out of the box a week before was only a week old. It was a clone. The first of many and the spark for progress, comment and disaster.

"This is Jauqes Moostow, reporter for NPR 3. Today on Some things Considered we will interview two Scottish scientists and a week-and-a-half old Adult Sheep. Are you guys there?"

"Yeah, we're all here," replied one of the scientists, followed by a loud "baaa" noise.

"Good! First, could you tell us your names?"

"Sorry, we can't, national security issues."

"Ah. Oh. Well then, could you tell us how you cloned that sheep?"

"That's a secret. We haven't perfected the process yet so we don't want anyone using a not entirely working procedure."

"Look, can you tell the world anything at all?"

"Well yeah. Our new sheep's name is Daisy 328 and is an exact copy of another one of our sheep, whose name is also Daisy."

"Why Daisy 328?"

"Well, the previous 328 sheep were... deformed. Terribly deformed. Either that or they were psychotic."

"What do you mean 'deformed'," asked Jauqes.

"Well, the DNA in those samples wasn't of perfect quality and so the resulting animal wasn't of perfect quality."

"Ahh..."

During the next year, Daisy 328 grew up fine, with no sign of mutation or deformation. The Scottish Scientists' method was perfected and more Daises were cloned, all but a few with no problems at all.

However, more than just sheep were cloned. The raging battle about whether or not Human Beings were cloned finally resulted in the answer of "Well, I guess we can cloned ourselves. Why not?". Of course, it was Bill Clinton who spoke this most inventive and concise statement.

Humans were being cloned by the hundreds all over the world. All cloning facilities had to pass tests for Genetic Stability so no insane or deformed clones were entered into the world.

Most of the clones were put into the military because they were expendable, as the only family they had were themselves and they didn't need to be paid, just fed and taught to speak, write and use machine guns. Most people were happy because they didn't need to do work, they just left it to the clones. These facts distressed Human Rights activists but they couldn't do anything about it, as the clones didn't complain.

The date is February 28th, 1999. CloCone, a new Cloning Company, had just entered the market and was supplying clones of the best "Freebirth" soldiers to armies all over the world. A meeting between the CEO and one of the head researchers was in progress. A fly on the wall would have heard this...

"Who cares if they're not perfect? They're alive and they can fight, right?" said the CEO.

"Yeah, but they might be corrupted. They might have a hidden brain problem or something and they could go crazy and cause terrible problems. You know what happened last year. We have to spend more money on protection," replied the researcher.

Last year a cloning plant had sold a bad run of clones with a brain stem problem which slowly grew worse. No one realized the problem until the clones started dropping dead in convulsions and started shooting up facilities as their brains were destroyed.

"That's why you're not a CEO like me. You always think about spending money. We don't needlessly raise costs to prevent non existent problems. That's why our clones are the cheapest and more people are buying clones from us than from any other company. All we need to do is make it look like we're diverting a lot of force to protection and we'll be fine."

"Well don't say I didn't warn you."

By the next year, CloCone had their clones in nearly every army in the world. CloCone Clones were all very intelligent and skilled so most of them manned missile stations, piloted bombers and held important strategic positions.

The place is Shamson Air Force Base, somewhere in the American Midwest. The date is July 18th, 2001.

"Bomber A-503, your landing gear are not down and you're not heading for the right runway. Please correct this and land. Now," was heard through the speakers of Bomber A-503's cockpit. The copilot was slumped in his chair and the pilot was sweating blood and was shaking wildly. Both were CloCone Clones. The Bomber had live bombs.

In a guard station watching the bomber coming in, a cadet noticed something. "Hey! Their bomb doors are open! What in the world are they doing?"

As the bomber came within 50 feet of the ground and was approaching the command bunker, small black objects tumbled down from the plane. The cadets eyes bulged as he saw huge orange explosions engulf the command bunker and the plane itself. The shock waves from the bombs ripped through the air, smashed windows and spread burning shards of metal and JP-7 all over the base.

The next day the smoke had cleared and the flames were finally out. Most of the bomber was spread out in a several hundred foot radius. The command bunker was a blackened crater. As the forensic experts surveyed what was left of the cockpit they came upon the body of the pilot, face still frozen in a look of insanity.

By the next month, CloCone was out of business and the CEO in jail for life. A study of some of their clones showed that they all had corrupted brains. Several American military bases using CloCone Clones were shut down, but nothing was done in other countries.

CloCone Military Clones started going crazy and dying. Some of them just dropped dead. However, the others lost all sanity. They either ran away and were never seen again or did what the bomber pilot had a month ago. In other words, using their weapons to their full extent. Papers around the world were full of headlines about "Massacre in towns! Clones Blamed!"

The place is a small town just away from an old mountain ranged. The date is September 16th, 2002. A small child happened to glance at the mountains and saw as several large metal tubes rocketed up. One of the tubes came back down. The others head in random directions. The mother gasped as the tube hit the ground. The gasp turned into a scream and cut off as a huge white flash instantly blinded anyone who was watching. Thirty seconds later the child, the mom, the town and anything within five miles didn't exist anymore. The large mushroom cloud was all that anyone needed to see to realize what had happened. The mountain range held several Ballistic Missile silos, all of which contained thermonuclear warheads.

In the Alabama Minimum Security Prison, the CloCone CEO gaped as he read about the nuclear explosions. His second to last thought before Alabama became a cinder was "CloCone Clones manned the nuclear missile silos". His last thought as the blinding flash seared his eyes and body was of his head researcher saying "Well don't say I didn't warn you."

By the end of the next week, a large portion of Earth's land had been hit by thermonuclear bombs that had been fired by clones. Clones that at one point had been labeled "perfect".

The survivors who didn't already have terminal radiation poisoning began research as what had happened. Slowly they managed to decontaminate many cities and rebuild a civilization. They also realized why the missiles had been fired. Amazingly, the CloCone Cloning Facility was undamaged. It had been shut down but all the records and samples were there and unharmed. Finally, the survivors learned that the original people CloCone had used all had small and unseen brain problems that were spurred on by the rapid growth the clones had undergone. CloCone hadn't known they existed and never bothered to make sure their clones were okay beyond the basic mutation and sanity checks.

In the end, pure greed of man and the instabilities of corrupted clones had caused the near total destruction of man and clone kind.

- White Shade