At a glance Narkkid didn’t look ex-military. Her body was small and lithe; her black hair was long and straight; and her brown eyes were soft and light. But when she spoke, when she asked her mechanics to prep a flit or when she told a customer their ride wouldn’t be ready for another week, then the evidence of her past life surfaced like a dead body in a river. Listeners knew that she’d seen and done things they could only imagine. They knew she had told people to “Go there; do that.” knowing full well they’d die in that going and doing. And that she’d done it more than once.
Though she had been very good at what she’d done, she never liked it much. She’d have rather been a musician or a painter creating melodies or landscapes with her hands; being a flit mechanic was as close as she’d gotten in the ten years since she’d retired.
Knowing she wouldn’t utter the next number in her countdown, she went to her office and set the door near closed.
180 words on day 910
In My Head
I wrote in my head yesterday while driving. Today I’ll try to transcribe those thoughts below.
The girl thinks Narkkid is her mother due to a scrap of paper with her military service number printed on it next to “Mother”. There is a “Father” section, but she was unable to locate any information on him.
This is when it gets weird: I do a whole clone thing and devise a situation where clones caused some social issues in near past and now all cloning is done via deceased DNA. Except in this case, Narkkid’s DNA got used. I manufactured a transposed number in the id sort of thing so that it might seem accidental that hers got used.
I try to leave the government contractor blameless in the end, but still seemingly the bad guy for awhile—they want to get the girl back too since they realize she’s proof they broke the law (how they find out I’m not sure). Or the real bad guy kills the main doc and pins it on the girl. Not sure. The technique for cloning renders the clone sterile and the cells themselves ‘self-destructive’ so that the IP is preserved. Thus the only way to make more clones is to have the original donor’s DNA which the main doctor destroyed (or so he thought).
The trouble with the clone thing is working out how successful and prevalent it is. There’s got to be some reason why the girl is special above and beyond her cloneness. Maybe this is where her inlaid bionics and cyber come in to play. Must be she’s the first/best version to accept the wetware, so they’d like to do more of her.
Then comes the accident which is no accident part and the real bad guy. I’ve done such a great job obfuscating the start-up that I still don’t know much about the RBG. I’m thinking maybe this is just some fellow officer who was a bit pissed about Narkkid leaving the service that he somewhat on a lark posted her DNA out there via the transposition and serendipity turned it into a great thing for him. Big kudos he didn’t want to lose face on when people found out it was Narkkid, which they would since she was popular enough. He’d been planning on killing her in some garage ‘accident’ but then the doc spoiled the germ cells and he had to now keep Narkkid alive. Even if the dates didn’t work out, in the military forgiveness is easier than permission. If Narkkid gets dead at any point it retcons the cloning.
Ultimately they (start-up and military RFP) didn’t anticipate the clone to be as self-directed and sharp as she was. They thought they’d get a worker bee but they got a queen. Which is what queered the whole deal. Maybe at some point RBG decided to cut his losses and kill them both. Plus there’s got to be some dealing with the paperwork. You kill the doc, but he’s got papers somewhere, right? Files?
Upon seeing Narkkid, the girl immediately realizes she’s a clone and not a daughter. She splits to protect the woman, whom she thinks must be hiding out or something since she’s not dead yet (the girl knows a lot, but not everything).
That leaves me with the question of the father on the birth cert. Is that just pure sham? Or is that a red herring. It can’t be a red herring if the girl knows immediately unless the girl doesn’t get back in contact with Narkkid before she starts her own hunt.
621 words on day 914