#auscomedy

"How's his intelligence?"

Rudi glanced at Dave Stewart, the ChaserCorp CEO, beside him. "Still to be tested. But he could host late night if we wanted it. He could work for that."

"That is a market we haven't cornered just yet. That might work if he has the right personality. Otherwise, have him destroyed with the rest."

"Of course. I'll have him tested tomorrow. My report will be in by Friday."

"Good. If this works, I'll send in the rest of the team. Why hire more than you need to when I can just clone them? The people crave familiarity. They need consistency in these difficult times. They need faces they can trust. We can't be changing them just because they get old."

"I understand. Don't worry, this should work."

The man standing before them didn't speak, but did move a little on his feet. He seemed deaf to their words. Rudi liked him. He was the most successful one to date. Hopefully he would work well. The future of the fledgling CNNN television network depended on it.

-----

Rudi held up the liquid in the glass vial so the light shone through it. It was a slight pink colour, but the colour didn't really matter. It could have been blue or orange for all he cared. He'd developed this years ago as a secret project. He'd always been interested in aging, and not aging. It was a good excuse to cover for his PhD work, so he could have lab access to develop this serum in secret. It wasn't that he didn't want it getting out, because it could do remarkable good for humankind. But, well, there was a war on, and maybe now wasn't the right time.

He picked up a syringe and drew out a small amount of it. It was surprisingly effective for how little he needed. In a moment, it had been injected into his arm, and he sighed happily as he felt it spreading around his body, taking away all the old cells and tissue. He was hoping it would stop aging, but if not, hopefully it would delay it long enough for him to work out another way to stop it all together. He had to be careful. Some changes might end up permanent if he wasn't careful. He didn't want to be an immortal old man if he could help it.

He took out his lab book and started writing today's dose in. He hadn't felt any side effects yet, but they might come soon enough. Usually it was a slight burning around the wound site, but sometimes it was a headache, or a short sharp pain in the ball of his feet. But these were small and insignficant things to live with when the benefits were so great.

Besides, if the cloning program was going to be effective, he would have to oversee it forever. Thus, his intense desire for immortality. Was working for a television network how he had seen his future? No, not at all. But when someone was willing to pay him a lot of money to continue his work in secret, well. How could he possibly refuse, when being on television was just so much fun?

CNNN Studios, Sydney, February 1968

Rudi Blass watched his creation preparing for the show. Bob Paskernal, he'd decided to call him. Someone to fill in the late night slot on their network to compete with the other late night offerings. Filling a gap in their schedules, as it were. It was a new format from America that had never been tried here in Australia and CNNN were nothing if not innovators. If no one else was willing to bring late night television to a new audience, CNNN would.

Bob had turned out very nicely. Rudi had done good work in getting the maturity and personalities worked out as quickly as possible, so they were almost ready go in a week. Would he prefer a faster turn around? Of course he would. But that was what the technology could currently achieve. Hopefully in 20 years, it would be much better.

Paskernal paced around his dressing room, cutting quite the figure in his light grey suit. Rudi could hear him practicing his lines for his opening monologue. This was a big moment. If Paskernal could make it work, then the technology was perfect, and he could work on the rest of the network's hosts. That was his real job, after all. Hosting his own shows was merely a distraction.

Chaser Cryogenics Research Laboratory, Sydney, June, 1981

The new warehouse had taken three years to construct properly, but now it was done, and ready for the new work to begin. Rudi had spent many years perfecting the design to make the process work. Paskernal had worked a treat, and energised by this success, Rudi had pursued the work on getting the others prepared.

There was a lot to still do, of course. And no one had actually been replaced yet, so how their memories would cope with that was still to be tested. But the principle was there. They had agreed on a theoretical procedure. To bring in the old host, and replace them with the new body, to perpetuate the comfort of having the same faces on all the time. Why pay for new hires when you can just clone them instead?

Rudi walked along the containment chambers, specially constructed beds to hold the cloned bodies until they were needed. It wasn't his decision when they were replaced, of course. That was too much power in his hands. But their CEO had a good head on him, and he would let him know when it was time. At least he was prepared.

The chambers would make it possible to program them with the correct personalities while they slept. Rudi still wasn't entirely sure how it worked, just that it did, which was all ChaserCorp cared about. Did it work? Yes. Then that was enough. He had test subjects in them now, the first attempts at cloning anyone who wasn't himself. It remained to be seen how well the personalities would transfer when they weren't his own. But he was hopeful.

At least they looked the part. Rudi looked down at Craig's clone, sleeping peacefully in his chamber. He'd turned out a little younger than Craig was, but that was fine. As long as he didn't come out looking like a child, it was fine.

The success of his own clones was proof enough, of course. He had two more now doing good work for the network. Simon Target worked the European beat, since the Brussels desk was so unreliable, while Andrew Hansen worked the financial news, simply because someone had to. It didn't feel entirely like a good use of his skills, but the time wasn't right for him to unleash his full power just yet. One day, but not today.

Rudi walked to the last chamber on the end of this row, where his own clone lay sleeping. He wasn't sure what he'd use this one for just yet, but he was sure he'd find a reason. At least his own testing had given him a sense of how these clones aged, and it did seem to be rather natural aging, which gave him hope. The last thing he needed was for them to age faster than they could be replaced. They took so long to make. This wasn't a quick simple process, but the technology needed to incorporate their personalities had improved greatly since he'd first started this process and it was virtually seamless now.

He returned to his desk and got out his lab book. Another dose of serum into his arm was written up, and he sat back in his chair, waiting to feel younger again. It was getting a bit harder to achieve as he'd gotten older. Not impossible still, of course, but it was clear his body was still aging, albeit slower than normal. Much slower. His hair wasn't greying yet at least. He hoped he wouldn't need to increase the dosage. It was a dangerous serum to be playing around with, and he could damage his body if he used too much.

Still, if it bought him more time to attain immortality, then it was worth it. And he was getting closer. The advances that had allowed him to make the clones look a bit younger might yet unlock the key to immortality. Then he would be unstoppable. And he could watch over the CNNNN network and its precious hosts to ensure their continued prosperity.