Here it is. What is hopefully the final draft of chapter one of HEFM. This was so annoying to format lol. Enjoy 5.6k words of my boy Vin in overstimulated hell <3
I jolt awake and find myself in a blank white room — no doors, no windows. The floor and walls look smooth like concrete, but it’s as white as fresh snow. There’s a vague outline of a rectangle on the wall to my left which reaches to the floor that might be some sort of exit, but there seems to be no way to open it from inside. There are a few similar outlines along the walls, which suggest the placement of windows that are all sealed like this door is.
What’s going on? What is this place? I try to remember something, anything to give me an idea of where I am or what’s going on. The fog of unconsciousness drifts from my mind easily enough, but the memories I find don’t even feel like mine. I can remember things in stark detail — every mundane detail that made up most of my life, my dad dying when I was fifteen, exactly where I was when I heard we were at war, everything up until being in a jail cell somewhere I don’t know the name of — but it’s like I’m a passive observer looking on from inside someone else’s head. What the hell? I look down at myself to make sure nothing is wrong with my body, and there’s no visible damage. So it’s just my head that’s fucked. Great.
I reach into my memories to see if there’s any explanation for what’s happening to me. Or… is it really my memory? Am I really a twenty-three old named Matt like my memory suggests, or is that someone else entirely? How would that even work, taking someone else’s memories? I sit up to look at my immediate surroundings a little better, try to process exactly what’s happening.
I’m on a hospital bed, more like the ones they have in the ER than the nicer ones they have in actual hospital rooms — a safety rail is pulled up on one side, and my head is slightly elevated. The sheets are white, and from what I can tell the frame is some sort of plastic imitation metal. I’m wearing a light blue hospital gown, which sits loose on my shoulders and is splayed around me wildly. The blanket has a pleasantly rough texture, but the way the hospital gown is positioned around my joints is irritating.
I start to pull on the fabric of the gown around my left shoulder, when my vision is suddenly obstructed by a pop-up window. It’s a clean light blue box with plain black text on it that reads “Subject 72 Online. All Systems Nominal.”
I scream and jump back, falling off the bed and onto the floor. I would normally wince in pain from the impact, or yelp in shock from my bare ass hitting the cold ground, but the only thing in my mind now is the chest-tightening panic filling my mind. I blink a couple times and look side to side, but the window stays centered in my vision. What is this? What’s happening to me? Why do I feel like some hollow vessel for someone else? Who even am I? My thoughts start to spiral — that seems familiar, at least — and I stick my head in between my legs and try my best to not hyperventilate. Attempt unsuccessful. I start breathing faster, lungs and diaphragm starting to ache, and suddenly the window flashes a new set of text — “WARNING — HEART RATE ELEVATED." I jump again, and I can feel tears pricking at my eyes.
At that moment a panel opens in the wall, exactly where I thought the door might be, and a woman steps into the room. I start to study the features of her face when another pop-up window appears next to her head with a detailed profile. [Name: Rachel Whitman; Age: 31; Height: 5'3"; Hair Color: Brown; Eye Color: Green] I stop reading the window. Even what I've read feels like too much personal information, knowing her name and age without ever speaking to her, and there are paragraphs more of information on this panel that probably gets a lot more personal. I avoid looking at her face, instead turning my gaze to the floor by my feet.
The woman — Rachel, according to the window — walks over and squats down to look at me face-to-face. I look back up to meet her gaze — her skin has a gentle tan to it, her hair is pulled back into a short ponytail with an undercut, run through with purple highlights. She's wearing a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, black dress pants, square glasses with rose gold frames, and platform boots that come up [3 inches] off the ground. She reaches her hand out to me, and I stare at it for what feels like an eternity. She sighs, drops her hand, and says "you seem confused." I nod slowly at her. "Can you tell me the last thing you remember?"
Oh right, I was already starting to do that earlier. "I remember…"
The concrete floor of the cell is biting at my skin through my clothes, chilling me all the way to the bone. My joints ache and it feels like my head has been split open. I’m wearing my normal hoodie and jeans, but they took my shoes.
“I remember a jail cell…”
Steps echo down the hall on the other side of the thick metal bars. Four people come into view, all dressed in martial uniforms. They’re leading a small team of men with broad shoulders and three piece suits, with sunglasses and stern expressions to match.
“Military officers, men in suits…”
The door creaks open, and the officers storm in to surround me before I can move towards the exit to the small space, holding my arms and bringing a cloth to my face as I start to thrash and scream before the chloroform fills my lungs and everything goes black.
“and getting knocked out." It doesn’t feel like that was me, though. There’s no way this Matt guy and I are the same person, right?
Her expression seems to lighten at that. "Okay, that's good. That's the last time you were conscious before you woke up just now. Now, do you know your number?"
The last time I was conscious. That’s not helping with the confusion. But what is she talking about with the number? The one on the first pop-up window? "S-seventy-two? What does it mean?"
"We'll get there. For now I want you to come with me, if you don't mind." She holds her hand out again, and this time I look at it for just a moment before reaching out to take it. Her hand is warmer than mine, and her skin is rougher. She pulls me to my feet and promptly lets go of my hand, walking back over to the open panel in the wall. I hesitantly follow after her.
There’s an off-white hallway outside that goes on for [102 meters east, 37 meters west] with grey doors every [10 meters]. If I see one more fucking measurement appear on the corner of my vision I’m going to rip my eyes out. It’s uncomfortable walking on the floors with my bare feet, since it’s a lot colder than I would expect with how warm the air is. The contrast is building onto the overload I can already feel amplifying my senses.
“Seventy-two is your designation number.” Rachel says after a few moments of walking in silence. “You are the genetic clone of Matthew Anston, a prolific political activist from the mid twenty-first century, who died about seventy years ago. The hope is that you would be an exact copy in mind and body, however in an attempt to perfectly reconstruct the brain, we’ve had to incorporate some artificial components to get acceptable results. Because of our shortcomings, we haven’t been able to make a clone that actually thinks it’s Matthew, yet. Though, we haven’t made many clones that can actually think, in the first place.”
That’s why I don’t feel like my mind is mine. That’s… good? At least I know, now. Seventy years ago, my latest memory is from twenty-sixty-three, that means we must be well into the twenty-second century. I start fidgeting with my gown to stay grounded. “Artificial components?”
“While you have a fully formed brain, we were unable to perfectly reconstruct Matthew’s exact neural structures. To compensate for this, you have small implants in your hippocampus, visual cortex, motor cortex, auditory cortex, and prefrontal cortex. Because of the main locations of this system, we’ve come to call it the Cortex system.”
Robot brain — cool. Terrifying and violating, sure, but cool. “Is there like… a settings menu for that shit? I keep getting windows and numbers popping up on my vision; it’s really stressing me out.”
Rachel’s eyes light up in some way I can’t quite name — is it fascination? Fear? Why would she be afraid? “If you press the backs of your hands together, you should see a settings menu.” She explains, demonstrating the motion.
I mimic the motion and a menu pops up, the same light blue color as before. It reminds me of the settings menu on a computer, with the different categories along the left side of the screen. I really don’t like how this looks plastered across my vision. “Uh… how do I select things?”
“Everything from here should be a matter of conscious decision making. Focus on the section of the menu you want to access and will the display to change, and when you want to change a setting just think of what you want to change and the new value you want it set to. Fairly straightforward, I hope.”
I nod. “Th-thanks.” I look at the menu and go to Visual; Visual Disturbances; I turn all of it off: Alert Windows: Off, Shortcuts: Off, Quick Info: Off. That’s better. No more pop-up windows. I breathe a sigh of relief and close the menu, focusing my attention back to the physical world. Rachel looks over at me, that same look of fascination and fear still on her face.
“We’re going to be meeting the rest of the team in a moment here.” She explains. “They can explain the purpose of the project to you.”
“Project?”
She hisses through her teeth. “I’ll… just let them explain.” She stops in front of one of the doors and grabs the doorknob. “There’s a lot you need to get caught up on.”
She opens the door into a plain gray room with a table in the middle of it and four chairs around it, three on one side and the last one sitting opposite. There’s a full length mirror against one wall, but the other three are undecorated save for an emergency escape route framed next to the door. There are two people sitting at the table, an older looking man with olive skin, a full beard and jet black hair dressed in a collared blue shirt with a logo of two hands holding a globe and some text under it that I can’t be bothered to read. The other person is a boy who seems to be about my age, maybe twenty-three or twenty-four at most, with skin the color of terracotta, buzzed black hair, and ocean blue eyes that show no emotion and wearing a lime green hoodie with no discernible identifiers on it. He’s pretty, I think to myself.
“Seventy-two, this is Andrew Fischer and Mac Stevens. They’re the other members of your team here, but you’ll see our other employees roaming the facility on occasion.” Rachel introduces the two men on the other side of the table, but after that I tune out for a few moments and look over at my own reflection in the mirror on my left. I look about how I remember Matt looking — cropped brown hair shorter than he ever cut his, pale freckled skin, grey eyes… and a tattoo right in the crook of my neck of the number 72 in clean, serif font. That must be an identification marker, big and bold so there’s no mistake of who (what?) I am. Thinking about the connotations of the tattoo make me nauseous. The hospital gown I’m wearing is falling off of my shoulders, but I didn’t need to look in a mirror to know that one.
Rachel taps me on the shoulder, and I instantly stiffen and look over at the shorter woman. She gives me a gentle smile and gestures towards the chair. “Take a seat, let yourself relax.”
I nod hesitantly and sit down slowly, watching as Rachel takes her seat in the leftmost chair to me. The man sitting directly adjacent to me, who I believe is Andrew, looks at me with a blank expression that has an unsettling sort of quiet anger behind it. I try to look anywhere but into his eyes.
“Hello, Seventy-two.” He says, sounding exceptionally bored with all of this. “I’m Director Fischer, I’m in charge of the Variant program.”
“H-hi.” How am I meant to respond to that? What the hell even is a variant?
Andrew — Director Fischer — squints his eyes at me and carefully examines all of my features. “Whitman, did you notice anything… unusual with this one during decanting?”
“When I found him, he was panicking. He seems to have a level of cognitive function we haven’t observed in any variant before.”
He hums his approval, and leans in a little further to examine my face. “Seventy-two, how are you feeling right now?”
“Fucking terrified.” I don’t even think before I answer, and considering the way Fischer’s face flinches ever so slightly at my use of the word fuck, I should’ve maybe used a gentler word. I discard the thought and continue. “I don’t have any idea what’s going on right now, and I would really appreciate some answers.”
The boy, Mac, looks at me with interest, or at least something akin to it. It doesn’t spread across his whole face. He stays quiet, but he looks at me intently.
Fischer sighs and rubs his face with his hands. “This… complicates things, for sure. Whitman, do we have any plans for this scenario?”
“There’s only so much we can do to keep the terms of our contract, but you can always talk with Director Svoboda to find as much wiggle room as possible. There’s also the physical aspects of his preparation to consider…”
Physical preparations? What’s that supposed to mean? It probably sounds worse than it actually is, but it doesn’t stop me from thinking they’re gonna do awful experiments on me. My mind supplies an image of me lying in an operating room with my chest cracked open and my heart being ripped from my body.
I don’t even realize that I’m staring into the table just in front of Fischer before I feel a hand on my shoulder once again. It’s jarring enough that I fall back into my seat and let out a little squeak, almost enough momentum behind my jolt to send me tipping backwards in my chair. My eyes shoot up to look at Fischer’s face, just below his left eye.
Fischer growls low in his chest, surely not meant to be heard, then sighs more audibly. “It’s going to be rather hard to explain things to you if you keep zoning out, Seventy-two.”
“Right. Sorry.” Okay, stay focused on the words they’re saying. It’s important for me to listen right now.
“Alright. As I was saying, you heard the gist of what exactly you are from Whitman, but not the purpose for your creation. Correct?”
“You, as I’m sure you know, are the genetic clone of Matthew Anston, and on top of that you have the closest thing to his mind that we can construct. You are no doubt aware that Matthew found his line of work in building a global intelligence network that brought an end to the third world war.”
“However, as long as we humans have free will, we will be waging war with each other. Some of these conflicts are so senseless and so well-funded that outside intervention is needed, and the company contracting us believes that the best way to bring an end to these wars is to replicate great minds from recent history to do that work.”
That- that tracks, in an awful sort of way. “But why don’t they just let people fill that void themselves? Why replicate Matt?”
“That’s what I ask myself every day.” Mac finally chimes in, earning a pointed glare from Fischer. “What? All of this isn’t particularly practical, Andrew.”
“I know you don’t understand, Cameron, but it’s easier this way.”
“How?” It feels wrong, questioning my existence like this, but it’s good to know I’m not the only one totally lost on why, exactly, this is the way to go about any of this.
Andrew stares daggers at me, and Rachel interrupts. “It’s best we don’t argue about this now, Andrew. Mac, why don’t you show our new friend around?”
“Fine.” He gets up, walks to the door, then turns to look in my eyes. “Come on, apparently the grownups need to talk without us here.”
I get up and follow him out of the door as steadily as I can, but as soon as I’m out of the room I press myself against the wall next to the door to keep my legs from buckling under my weight.
“Are you okay?” He asks, no particular emotion in his voice.
“No. I don’t want to be here.”
Yeah, I can imagine.” He leans against the wall on the other side of the door after making sure that the door fully closes. “I’m willing to wait, take as long as you need to recover from what I can only think was an awful first twenty minutes of proper existence.”
God, it’s only been twenty minutes since I woke up. I don’t know if I can even process what’s happened so far. It’s just been a constant flow of information and they don’t even wait for me to process what I’ve already heard before they give me more.
So, what all has happened so far? Woke up with a mind full of memories, thoughts, and feelings that don’t feel like mine, and my brain actually has a computer in it, I had a small panic attack, then I was told that I’m some sort of freak science experiment that’s supposed to help in the fight for world peace. That’s mostly bad, but the end bit sounds good. Do I want that, though? Maybe if I’m detached from the whole thing, a mind behind a ground team, not like Matt when he would go out to the demilitarized zones and act as mediator to those awful people.
But still, I can’t help but ask myself why me?
I push off of the wall and look over at Mac, who seems very focused on the opposite wall. I open my mouth to talk, but no words come out the first six times I actively try to speak. He must’ve felt me looking at him, because after the seventh failed attempt to make any sort of noise, he looks over at me with genuine curiosity.
“Hey. Ready to get going now?”
What I try to say is ‘yeah’, but what comes out is little more than a whimper, so I nod my head to clarify.
I nod my head again, but when my voice once again refuses to make noise I default to ASL. ‘My voice is refusing to make sound.’ Wait, does he even know ASL? I shouldn’t expect him to, but I don’t have any sort of writing implement so I have to bank on him understanding.
“Oh. Was that like, a normal thing for Matt?”
Okay, he does know it. That’s good. ‘Sometimes, if he got back from really intense assignments. Sometimes he could barely talk for days.’
“That’s not ideal. But I’m sure everyone here would be willing to bend over backwards to accommodate you, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”
‘That sounds worse than being scolded.’
“I can imagine. But it could absolutely be worse.”
I try to speak again, but I can’t even force myself to open my mouth, like the ability is lost to me. It probably is for the immediate future. God, I hate this stupid fucking trauma response. I start gnawing on the inside of my right cheek to bring my attention somewhere else so I don’t get more upset. ‘Yeah, I guess.’
“Anyways, I should probably show you around like they said to. I don’t really wanna get on Andrew’s bad side right now.”
‘You mean more than you already have?’
“If you think that’s his bad side, you better hope you don't see him much. That back there was mild annoyance at best.”
Great. Another thing I have to worry about — the dude who’s overseeing my existence is probably terrifying when he’s angry. Which is just going to make me more anxious around him, and stuff like this will be less an inconvenience and more an inevitable part of being here. I mean, that’s if I actually end up interacting with him.
‘Great. We should get going, then.’
“Yeah. Let’s go, we’ll start with the gym.” He turns his back to me, which basically means I can’t say anything. Again.
Matt was someone who rarely had to rely on sign language. He was someone who could weather any storm, he was confident, he was stable. Is it fair to compare myself to him already?
He looks back at me when he realizes that I’m not next to him, and walks back to meet me. “If you have any questions about all of this, let me know. It’s part of my job to make sure you’re not too confused about all of this.”
“Yep.” He keeps his gaze mostly forward, but he keeps glancing over at me. I cross my arms tightly over my chest, and that’s enough for him to stop checking to see if I’m signing. I wish I had pockets, but I’m still in this stupid hospital gown.
We walk in silence for about a minute before Mac stops in front of one of the nondescript grey doors. “This one’s the gym, you can’t really tell which rooms are which because the names are etched into the doors.”
So they’re not totally without identifiers. I look a little closer at the door, and I can see the vaguest little engraving of the word “Gym.” Cool. That’s definitely not intensely impractical.
“This and the archive are the only real interesting places here, but the archive’s kind of out of the way, it’s always got lab coats going in and out.”
“The scientists. They’re all over the place, they’re just hidden away in their labs most of the day.”
‘They’re the ones who made me?’ I sign hesitantly. I don’t know that I actually want to know the specifics, but my curiosity is overwhelming my reluctance to know.
“Yeah, basically. I don’t know much of what they do exactly, the whole process creeps me out.”
“A little. I’m sure I’ll get used to it.”
“Then I imagine my job is about to get pretty damn miserable.” He’s leaning against the wall just to the right of the door to the gym, like he’s waiting to see if I go in or not.
“Do you wanna check it out?”
“Alright. Don’t blame me when we bump into the neurologists and they freak out when you start signing.”
‘Have the others not been able to?’
“Not that we ever saw, I don’t know that they ever felt the need to… if they ever actually felt anything.” We’re walking again, now. The gym is right at an intersection in the hallway, and we turn left down a corridor that has significantly less doors. We walk about a hundred feet before we turn right, and then down two flights of stairs to a lower level. I still haven’t seen a single other person around here, which I can’t manage to find concerning.
It’s about five minutes of walking in total before we get to a room, labeled with an actual nameplate, that reads “Archive.” There’s a key reader next to the door, which I scowl at. Mac takes notice of my harsh stare, glances over at the key reader, and shrugs. “It’s never actually locked, don’t worry. If it eases your worry, your key card is going to give you access to the archive. Something about the importance of understanding the past to better prepare for the present. There’s also links to the digital material on the front screen of the Cortex.”
‘I hate the stupid Cortex. It makes me feel like a fucking robot in the worst way.’
“I get that. I actually helped test the layout, they gave me these AR goggles and I had to tell them all of the things I hated about them, then they’d maybe fix half of the problems. Have you been getting pop-ups on your vision this entire time, or did you already disable those?”
‘It was basically the first thing I asked about. I was about to rip my eyes out.’
“I… did not have that strong of a reaction to it, but I can see why you would, given everything.” He shifts his weight between his feet for a moment, looks back at the door, then points to it vaguely. “Do you wanna check it out, or did you just want to know where it was?”
I open my mouth again to try and speak, but again it’s just a hoarse whisper that’s pretty much just a solid exhale. I’m probably not getting my voice back for a little while yet. ‘I’d like to check it out.’
“Alright.” He pushes the door open, then holds it open for me from the inside. I practically run through the door, then nod and sign a quick ‘thank you.’
“The books are organized by Dewey Decimal, the actual archival material is sorted by date. There’s a focus on the time after Matt’s death, but there’s some stuff from before that too.”
‘How far back does it go?’
“I think the oldest stuff we have is a few records from the Manhattan Project, that’s mostly for the people here who study the history and effects of nuclear bombs. Most of the records here are about the affect of war on the planet, so if you’re looking for lighthearted reading you’ll have to find it on your own.”
I start to sign a response, but then I spot a woman peeking around one of the bookshelves and I cross my arms over my chest with such force I accidentally jab myself in my right pec. I flinch a little, but do my best to ignore the pain. Mac looks confused for a moment, then turns around to look at the woman staring dumbly at us. She gives us a little wave, then steps out from behind the shelf.
“Hi, Mac.” She says in a voice that is nauseatingly cheerful. “What are you doing down here?”
“Hey Liz. I’m, um, showing the new variant around the facility.”
She takes a moment to process the information, then her eyes go wide. “Is that Subject Seventy-two?” She takes a closer look at me, walking closer, and her eyes go wide. “You’re not like the others have been.”
I don’t respond, don’t make any move to communicate with her, but she’s studying my face very carefully from where she currently stands ten feet away from me.
“I can see it in your eyes. You’re special. We haven’t made something like you before.”
I avert my gaze and stare at my feet instead. My face is heating up, and I want to melt into the ground. Curling up under a table might suffice, but I can’t manage to uproot myself from this spot. I can’t even find it in me to unglue my hands from under my arms so I can sign to her, paralyzed by my anxiety.
“H-he’s been pretty overwhelmed by everything. He’s been nonverbal for the past fifteen minutes, so he’s been signing with me.” The emotion is leeched from his voice, and he sounds like he’s giving a formal analysis. As if all of this didn’t scream “lab rat” already.
Liz makes a surprised sound, and I can imagine her eyes going wide. “This is a huge improvement from the last one! How did Director Fischer take it?”
“Not as bad as he could’ve. We had a bit of disagreement over the whole reason for cloning, you know my stance on it.”
“I do, and I appreciate that you bring a different perspective, Mac, but- but look at him! You said he’s been speaking with ASL as well as in English? I can’t wait to let the rest of the team know!” She steps closer, and now I can see her feet in my view. How I haven’t dissociated to another planet, I have no idea. She holds out a hand in between us, and says “Hi! I’m Elizabeth Woods, I’m one of the neurologists on staff.”
I lift my head just enough that I can make eye contact with Liz, then glance down at the outstretched hand. Move your hand move your hand move your hand shake her hand shake her hand my brain chants over and over again, and after a full ten seconds of nothing happening I reach my hand out to meet hers. I try again to speak, but I’m even more upset right now than I was before and if I were able to talk before this interaction this would be the thing to take my voice out of the equation. I keep the handshake brief to free up my hand. ‘Hi. Sorry, I’m a bit on edge right now.’ My movements are rigid, but hopefully clear enough to understand what I’m trying to say.
She watches my hands in awe, and when I’m done she looks at me like I’m the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen in her life. “Oh no, don’t apologize! I can only imagine how shocking all of this is for you, but don’t worry! You’re in good hands here.”
That’s not the main thing I’m worried about. I’m mostly worried about the fact that my function is supposedly to relearn the skills that Matt had — which I never forgot because it’s not like I’ve experienced any passing of time in the past seventy years — and then use me as a tool to somehow achieve world peace. Which they apparently just can’t manage to do without Matt.
‘Mac, is there a room I’m going to be staying in?’
“Yeah, let’s go check it out.” He catches on to my discomfort immediately, and shuffles me out of the room. Behind us, Liz calls “Bye Mac! Bye Seventy-Two!” Another wave of anxiety hits me — I’m just a number now, no name. Nothing to get attached to when I’m just a number, the perfect way to dehumanize me. They won’t feel guilty when they send me to die if I’m just a number.
I’m barely present for the whole walk, only snapping out of it when we stop in front of a room, labeled with a nameplate that just has the number “72” on it. Just a number. All I am to these people, encapsulated in two little numerals.
Mac taps me on the shoulder, and I almost jump out of my skin. He looks at me sympathetically, green-blue eyes soft and eyebrows drawn together. I shrug at him, then open the door.
It’s about the size of a college dorm room, and about as well decorated. The walls are the same grey as the halls, the furniture is all a slightly darker shade of grey, and the sheets on the bed are white with grey and black geometric patterns on it. The other furniture consists of a bedside table, a desk with a chair, and a wardrobe.
‘Was the person who designed this facility allergic to color?’ I joke in a desperate attempt to calm myself down, but it doesn’t work. Grey furniture, neutral, no personality. Just how they thought I was gonna be.
“I know, it’s kind of ridiculous. After a certain point, you’d think they’d run out of shades of grey to use in this place.”
I consider poking around the room, but only for a moment. The bed looks far more appealing than any idea involving staying awake any longer. I fall face first onto the bed, cringe a little when the frame creaks loudly, then shift just enough so I can breathe.
“You good?” Mac asks from the doorway, and I respond with a grunt and a thumbs up. “Alright. You want me to leave?” I grunt again and sign ‘yes.’ The angle is a little weird with how I have to twist my arm around, but he must get the message because the door closes and I can hear his footsteps trailing off down the hall.
The pillow is too soft, and it sinks down dramatically where my head rests on it. At least I finally have some relief from the mental exhaustion that has been threatening to melt my brain for the past half hour. I don’t want to think about what happened today, I don’t want to worry about anything.
