But there was one time, when I was about thirteen and he must have been fifteen, when Russ needed my help. I was someplace else in the plant when the accident happened, so I only heard stories that trickled down, whispers spoken when no one thought I was listening.
Dad was training Russ to perform the jumps, showing him how our satellites would transport the dead bodies, how we’d get the pre-ordered clones out of storage, then sort through the memories so the Stringers could keep the ones they wanted. But no matter how much we planned ahead, we always struggled with a nebulous potpourri of “what-ifs.” Things that could go monstrously wrong: what if the memories got mixed up; what if we used the wrong clone; what if the Stringer got lost somewhere in transit?
On this day, there was an unexpected Edgar Allan Poeesque what-if.
What if the Stringer wasn’t all the way dead when we started the jump?
Somebody along the way, some doctor or lab technician, made a wrong diagnosis, and this Stringer was still alive. Just barely. So when Russ started the download, it caused a horrible ripping inside the jumper. He flopped like a fish on the gurney, sparked back to a half-alive state, although most of the important stuff was already gone. He screamed and tried to break free. We didn’t use restraints on the dead bodies, never needed them, so when he lunged forward he yanked off the connector wires and broke off the implant—a long, tube-like needle that we insert deep into the brain—that is, if the Stringer still has a brain.
Dad and some of his techno-wizards dashed into the room and tried to calm him, to hook him back up. Apparently everybody knew that this guy wasn’t going to live, no way, no matter how valiantly he tried to fight death. I don’t know all the medical details here, but he’d done some serious damage to his current body that couldn’t be repaired. The bottom line is, Death was coming down the hallway and looking for this guy’s room.
Meanwhile, Russ waited at the controls, like he’d been told. From where he stood, he could see this guy’s clone, hooked up and already partially downloaded; he watched the clone move, saw it lift an arm at the same time as the Stringer. Saw it turn its head in the same direction.
But then the Stringer suddenly collapsed. Dead. Really dead this time.
At that same moment, the clone jumped off its gurney in the other room. It went through all the same movements that the Stringer had done just a few minutes earlier, until finally it fell to the floor, silent.
All the guy’s memories got fried in the process. And the soul—the Stringer’s fragile, almost indefinable essence—escaped.
There was nothing left but an empty carcass and a damaged clone.
Dad tried to tell Russ that it wasn’t his fault, but my brother didn’t believe it. He went through an inner turmoil, quiet and self-destructive.
Over the following months, I saw darkness and fear rise to the surface in my brother’s eyes at strange times, when he thought no one would notice. Until one night when I walked into his bedroom and found him alone at his desk, pretending to work on his journal.
One sleeve was rolled up and I saw a series of cuts on his arm. Self-inflicted and precise. As soon as he heard me behind him, he hid his arm.
He looked sick, like he had the flu.
“Whaddya want?” he asked, forcing a teen bravado that failed. He tried to mask the scared look in his eyes, but he was a second too late. I’d already seen it.
I don’t remember why I went into his room. I probably had a question about my homework, but it vanished the moment I saw his arm.
I sat on his bed. Hoped he would say something. He didn’t.
“It wasn’t your fault,” I said, wishing I could make the pain go away.
He laughed, a sardonic, twisted noise that sounded more like a sob. “Of course it wasn’t. We’re life-givers, not takers. I was just doin’ my job.”
But I knew it wasn’t that simple. I knew that there was something else going on, deep inside. I waited, quiet, hoping that he would tell me what it was. I never really expected him to open up the way he did. A hush fell over the room, thick as swamp water and just as dangerous. I imagined reptilian beasts