Once in his room, Jericho punched the wall several times; the final blows causing the drywall to crater. He then opened the whiskey and took a hearty swig before offering it to his friend.
Malcolm declined.
“Damn it!” Jericho shouted. “Damn it damn it damn it! I thought we had him! I thought we would have figured this one out!”
“Well, we did a little.” Malcolm conceded in a small voice. “I mean, we now know he’s a clone and we know he comes in peace.”
“We don’t know he’s peaceful!” Jericho bellowed. “What, you believed him? He could’ve been lying!”
Malcolm frowned. “It didn’t seem like he was lying. I thought-”
A knock at the door caused the words to catch in his throat.
“Son? Are you okay?” Mr. Sanders’ muffled voice asked. “I heard you hitting something and shouting.”
“I’m fine!” Jericho hissed.
There was silence. “Alright son. If you say so. You know you can always talk to me if you need to.”
The pair listened as Jericho’s clone-dad descended the stairs.
“I still hate him.” Jericho mumbled before taking another swig.
Malcolm’s eyes followed the bottle with concern, but he said nothing about the booze. Instead, he opted to discuss the clones. “How can you think they’re bad? Your dad was nowhere near this nice before.”
“That’s why I’m suspicious. You don’t get something for nothing.”
“Your brother explained-”
“-He’s not my brother!”
Malcolm sighed. “The clone explained it. He said that if humans benefit from a better world, they benefit too. I mean, it made sense to me.”
“Of course it did, because life’s always been easy on you!” Jericho hissed. “You’ve got great parents who love you and care for you! Me, I’ve got no mom and my dad…” He took another swig. “If there’s something I learned in life, it’s that anything that seems good is a lie, and there’s always, always a catch.”
Malcolm’s mouth was pursed into a thin frown. “You think my life’s easy? You think I have it fucking easy?!”
“I know you do.”
The studying…Living up to his sister’s legacy…The stress…Sixty twos on tests…Not getting accepted…He’d have to tell his mom…He still hadn’t told his mom…
Every frustration ran through Malcolm’s mind. He stood up from the bed and walked over to his friend.
He wanted to punch him.
He wanted to land a solid blow on the cocky little bastard’s cheek.
“I’m outta here.” He said instead, walking past him. “Try not to become your father with that drinking.”
He closed the door before something smashed against it from inside.
…
Malcolm threw himself into his studies. Without his friend constantly distracting him, he felt a new level of mental clarity.
But more than that, he felt the need to prove to himself that he could be as good as a Mycelloid clone.
He knew he had the potential.
His sister could do it, after all, and they had the same parents. That meant the genes of greatness were within him.
…But his sister had turned to cigarettes and self-harm in order to cope with the stress…
…And he was never able to stay focused on his lessons the same way she did…
…And even if he could, and even if he did have great genes, that didn’t mean he possessed the abilities necessary to overcome other genetic obstacles.
…Easily distracted…
…Low intelligence…
…No confidence…
He tried reading a book on American history, but his mind kept leaping back to the same thought…
Over and over…
His phone buzzed. He checked it.
‘Dude I’m sorry.’
He ignored it.
It buzzed again.
‘Are you mad?’
He dove further into the history of the country.
Bzzzz
‘I know your parents are shit too okay? I’m sorry I’ve just been so stressed lately.’
This gave Malcolm a small, sardonic chuckle.
“You think you’re stressed?” He said aloud.
He still hadn’t told his mom that he’d been rejected from the universities he chose.
He still wasn’t ready for the ACT.
“If there were just some way to ace this stupid test.” He said to himself.
His mind spoke almost as loudly. “There is. You know there is. You know perfectly well that in less than an hour, your parents could have the perfect son.”
He tried not to think about it…Studies! That’s what he needed to focus on! He needed to concentrate on stuffing his mind so full of data that there wouldn’t be room for darker thoughts!
The phone rang. He ignored it.
His mind began tantalizing him with cruel ideas. Ideas of pure bliss for him and an excellent child for his parents. He did his best to ignore them as well.
He tried studying…Tried pushing out all the negative thoughts…
Finally, he couldn’t take it anymore.
He waited until it was extremely late, then he snuck downstairs, headed outside, and quickly crept toward the Sanders’ house.
…
Malcolm didn’t want to talk to Jericho, but when he knocked on his friend’s front door and no one answered, he felt tempted to call him.
However when he tried the door he found it unlocked.
He hesitated. He didn’t want to get into trouble, but thought that perhaps the clones were likely too polite to chastise him for breaking in. Only his friend, the last flesh-and-blood human inside, posed a threat.
So he slowly and silently entered and slipped downstairs. When he got to James’ door, he knocked, but no one answered.
He wondered if fungal-based clones needed to sleep, and soon got his answer when he peeked inside.
The room was covered in snaking tendril of mold, and sitting in the center of the mess was a giant, human-sized pod. James’ head was sticking out, and Malcolm nearly jumped out of his skin when a voice said “I thought you might show up tonight.”
“Jesus!”
The pod began shrinking as the tendrils unwound and snaked their way back into the closet. Less than thirty seconds later, James stood in the center of an immaculate room.
“Every organism sleeps.” He said, answering Malcolm’s unspoken question. “But not every organism sleeps the same way.” He gave a wistful sigh. “I do miss my old home. Down there. The rest I get up here feels a bit incomplete.”
This caught Malcolm by surprise. “I thought you were happy up here.”
“In a way I am. I mean, I’m helping my colony and helping humanity…But I was born down in the depths of the Earth, and I’ll always have a connection to it.” He stretched and gave an odd impression of a yawn. “Ah, but you’ve caught me in a vulnerable state, and I ramble.” He smiled. “If I’m not mistaken you came to talk to me about other matters, yes?”
Malcolm shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “Errr, yes. How did you know?”
“I could sense your pheromones when we were talking earlier this afternoon. Doubt swirls around you, and you’re riddled with feelings of inadequacy.”
Malcolm could only frown.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” James asked. “Tell me, how’s your home life?”
“It’s good.”
“That’s not how it sounded when you and my brother fought earlier today.”
“How did you know we fought?”
Clone-James tapped his temple. “We share intelligence with one another. Dad heard everything.”
“Ah…” Malcolm cast his eyes downward in shame. “If I were just a bit smarter, or if I could focus-”
“Grades, right?”
“I didn’t get accepted to any college I applied for and the ACT is less than a month away and-”
“You need help, and I don’t think you came to me looking for a tutor. You want a stand-in.”
“It’d only be for a few weeks! Please!”
Clone-James gave a warm smile. “There’s no need to beg.” He clapped Malcolm lightly on the back and began leading him to the closet. “The offer is open for anyone who wants it, and can be rescinded at any time.”
Seeing the closet and knowing what awaited him on the other side, he felt a spike in anxiety.
James presumably detected this.
“Don’t worry! It doesn’t hurt and you can leave whenever you want.” He reassured.
The Mycelloid copy reached for the closet door but stopped before turning the knob.
“Ah. It seems my brother is heading this way. I expect you don’t want to see him?”
“No.” Malcolm agreed, shaking his head.
“Then please, hide on the other side of my bed. When he leaves I’ll help you down into the tunnels.”
Malcolm barely had time to duck on the opposite side of the mattress before the door to the room crashed open.
“You son of a bitch!” Jericho slurred. “You…You fuckin’ clone!”
He stuck his fists out as if to fight, but was swaying far too erratically in place to do any damage.
“Brother, you’ve been drinking.” James sighed. “Please, there’s no need to turn to alcohol.”
“I’ll turn where I want, when I want, how I want…When I want!” He looked as if he were on the precipice of vomiting, but somehow managed to maintain his composure. “I know you think you’re…You think you’re just sooooo perfect!”
“Mycelloids have many flaws. I’m not perfect. None of us are. But our primary objective isn’t perfection, it’s simply being an improvement compared to the original.”
“You think you’re soooo perfect.” Jericho repeated. “Improvement. Ha! You know what the problem is with perfection?”
“What, little brother?”
“It’s that the rest of us hafta deal with youuuu!” Jericho sputtered. “Yeah, that’s right, I said it! What happens to the rest of the world when perfect clones are runnin’ around everywhere? How’re we supposed to…Supposed to compete? Why, I’ll bet the fuckin’…The fuckin’ smartest humans we have will be forced to be janitors in this utopia of yours.”
Malcolm hadn’t considered this point and began wondering if submitting himself to the pit was really a good idea.
“If at any time anyone is unhappy, they’re free to enter the tunnels and let a clone take over for them. They have complete control of the situation, and it’ll always be the original human’s choice.”
Jericho merely swayed in place. For a moment it appeared as if he were about to pass out, but instead he took a step inside. Malcolm couldn’t see what was happening, but he heard clone-James give a small laugh.
“You know that can’t hurt me.”
A dull thud followed, then came a slight ‘Oof!’ from Jericho.
A stream of vomit hit the floor, and by the time Malcolm peeked over the bed he saw his friend passed out and lying in a puddle of his own puke.
“I’m quite sorry about all this.” James said, walking over and extending a hand to help Malcolm up. Once he was on his feet he nearly fell back to the floor in shock when he saw James’ face.
James sensed this fear.
“He smacked me pretty good with that bottle.” He said. “But I’ll be alright.”
Malcolm wasn’t sure he’d be alright, however, as the image of a half-human face misshapen with shattered glass and wounds filled with wriggling purple tendrils and pulsing black bubbles of ooze would surely haunt him forever.
“Come now, I know for a fact that you humans don’t look much better when your flesh is broken.” James’ busted mouth contorted into a sort of grin. Perhaps it was meant as a joke, but the statement chilled the air.
“I suppose.” Malcolm responded, but he still did not look up at Clone-James’ face.
“If it makes you feel better, it’ll grow back within the hour.”
“I don’t think I’ll be here in an hour.” Malcolm said.
“You ready to go down into the pit?”
Malcolm shook his head.
“I thought you came by to do just that.”
“I did, but…”
“But my brother’s intrusion made you feel uncertain. I understand. Uncertainty is one of your most obvious traits. It’s what brought you to my house tonight, and it’s what’s taking you back home again. I wish I could tell you that you’ll outgrow it, but from what I know of humanity, many spend their whole lives feeling deep uncertainty, and you’ll likely be the same way. There is one way to cure it…”
Clone-James trailed off, and Malcolm could almost feel the Mycelloid sensing his thoughts as they lingered over the pit…
“…But that’s for another day, I suppose.”
“Yeah.” Malcolm nodded.
Still keeping his eyes trained away from the horrible wound on the clone’s face, he made his way to the door, stepped over his drunken friend, paused, and turned back to stare at his body.
“You’re worried I’ll replace him in the middle of the night.” Clone-James said. It wasn’t even a question. “But that’s not how we work. The process must be entirely voluntary.”
Satisfied the clone was being honest (and not wanting to drag a vomit-covered Jericho upstairs), Malcolm left the room, left the basement, left his friend’s house, and ventured back home.
…
Malcolm ignored his phone when it buzzed and instead tried his best to throw himself into his studies.
“I’m not gonna let those damned mushrooms be better than me.” He swore. He’d force himself to be the superior version of himself. The Mycelloid told him the clones could copy humans down to the very neuron. If that was true, then there was nothing his clone would be able to achieve that he couldn’t.
But every tiny sound and every passing thought drove a wedge between him and his textbooks, and every time he found his attention drifting he had to physically stand up to collect himself.
“I’ve got less than a month to prove the world wrong.” He said aloud. “I can be better than those clones. There’s nothing they have that I don’t.”
And yet his wavering attention span and inability to retain vital knowledge made the statement feel like a hollow lie…Maybe it was a lie, but if so, it was a lie that he needed to nurture if he wanted to maintain the morale necessary to keep focused.
He sat down and stuck his nose in his book.
He began reading.
He began learning.
He was becoming smarter.
And for a while Malcolm felt as if he really were making progress. Knowledge that once felt arcane suddenly began to make sense. Facts he’d tried to remember were no longer slipping away. Equations…Details…Dates…
“It’s happening! I’m doing it!” He imagined himself as intelligent as his sister, following in her footsteps without any of her vices. “I can do this!”
He imagined himself passing the ACT…Imagined getting into a good college.
…But another passing thought crossed his mind, and this one erected an exceptionally large obstacle.
You got rejected from all those colleges.
And that thought led to another.
You studied just as hard for your science test, felt just as confident about it, and still got a 62. How do you ever expect to pass a test that’s even harder?
And another.
Uncertainty is one of your most obvious traits.
He stared back down at his text. The letters fused together in nonsensical patterns and the numbers fused into a hulking behemoth he couldn’t hope to overcome.
It no longer made sense.
None of it.
What had he just read?
“Maybe I’ll go for a walk.” He said to himself. “If I just get out of the house…No sense in studying while frustrated… Breaks are important!”
But even as he left the house, he knew where his feet were carrying him.
“I’m not going down into that pit. I’m just going to ask James’ Clone for studying tips. If Mycelloids are so smart then maybe I can find out how they learn.”
Uncertainty is one of your most obvious traits.
He ran faster, passing by blocks of neatly set homes, through well-manicured lawns, and across overgrown fields-
-He stopped. Something in an overgrown lot had caught his eye.
Initially he thought he was seeing things, but as he got closer he saw a familiar pit; dark and impossibly deep… A yawning void.
He stooped down and inspected the edges… Fleshy and pink.
“Son of a-” He trailed off. Did the pit mean there were others being cloned? Why was it here?
He pulled himself away from it and hastened his pace.
To buy on Amazon, click below.
