Swans and Klons Page 15

  “Not me,” she whispered. “I’ve been so good.”

  “Come with me,” Rubric said sternly.

  “I’m not allowed to leave my post,” she said. “The girls might drown.”

  “Another Klon is coming to take your place,” Rubric lied.

  The girl’s eyes flicked around, as if she was searching for the backup security a real Doctor would have. But she slid off her lifeguard’s chair and followed Rubric. There was a moment where Rubric was afraid she would push her into the pool and pull a runner, but she didn’t.

  The original plan had been to get the girl onto the electric bike, get her out of here, and then explain everything. They had lost a lot of time trying to explain things to Gold Eyes. But on the spur of the moment, Rubric decided to change the plan. This girl was so skittish. It was hard to imagine herself in the girl’s position, but Rubric didn’t think she would get on a bike with some menacing Doctor. So Rubric led the girl into the locker room.

  There were at least a dozen women by the lockers. That was inconvenient. Rubric brought the girl to the communal shower area, where there was just one Panna showering. Rubric envied her. Showers were unknown in the Land of the Barbarous Ones, and their bathwater was never hot enough.

  “Get out,” Rubric told the Panna showering. And she did, even though she was covered in soap! She didn’t even stop to turn the water off. This Doctor’s robe was magic.

  “I’m not really a Doctor,” she told the girl. The girl’s eyes flitted again, as if this time she was looking for cameras. “And this is not for edfotunement, either. I’m part of a secret organization that thinks it’s wrong that Klons have to do all the work.” That sounded good, didn’t it? “I’m here to take you to the Land of the Barbarous Ones, where Klons are free.” She hated doing all this promotion for the Land of the Barbarous Ones, but Dream had been adamant that this was the simplest way to explain.

  The water from the shower sputtered and hissed as Rubric and her Jeepie Similar stared at each other.

  “You’re not a Doctor,” the girl reviewed. “You’re not taking me for treatment.”

  “Right,” Rubric affirmed.

  “Give me your robe,” the girl said.

  “What? Why?”

  “I need to know I can trust you,” the girl said. “I’m sure you have your own angle, just like everyone else in the world.”

  “Fine,” said Rubric, and she took off her robe.

  The girl shook it out and tried it on.

  “Do I look like a Doctor?” she asked, pivoting.

  “Very much so.”

  The girl smiled. “I still don’t trust you,” she said. Then she punched Rubric in the stomach.

  Rubric doubled over, staggered, and slipped on the wet floor. It happened so fast, but her mind seemed to be working slowly. Why do my Jeepie Similars keep hitting me? she wondered. I’ve never hit anyone!

  As if in slow motion, she saw the girl grab a bottle of chlorine and uncap it. Then Rubric screamed in pain as the scalding liquid splashed onto her.

  By the time she stopped screaming, the girl was long gone, but a crowd of people had gathered.

  Some people seemed to think she was the Lifeguard Klon, even though she wasn’t wearing a bathing suit. These people scolded her. Others seemed to think she was a Panna. One woman helped her get under a cold shower. The cold felt good, but the spray of the water on her skin was too hard. Although she was soaking wet, her skin felt like it was on fire.

  A Security Klon pushed her way to the front. Belatedly, Rubric realized that she should have made herself scarce.

  “What happened here?” the Klon demanded. Rubric noticed she didn’t call her Panna.

  “I am a Doctor,” Rubric said. She tried to speak in a dignified way between gasps of pain. “I was here to take a Klon for treatment. But she attacked me.”

  “There was a Doctor here,” one Panna murmured. “Is that her?”

  “Uh-huh,” said the Security Klon. “So, Doctor, where’s your security team? Where’s your robe?”

  “She stole my robe,” Rubric said.

  “And how did she come to do that? Can I see your identity card?”

  “She took that too.”

  “What’s your name, Doctor? Where do you work?”

  They had rehearsed this, but everything had fallen out of Rubric’s head. “Uh,” she said. She had to say a name quickly, or they would know she was lying. “I’m Panna Theodorica.” It was the first name that came into her head. “I mean Doctor Theodorica.” Theodorica was a Barbarous name. It wasn’t a noun, like a name should be. Totally unbelievable. “I don’t have time to talk to you. Let me through!”

  She tried to make a run for it, but the ring of people tightened around her. They wouldn’t let her out. Good citizens all, they grabbed her burned arms and restrained her.

  “I saw her give the robe to the other one,” someone said. “I think they’re in cahoots.”

  “But the other one hit her. I saw it!”

  “She’s clearly a Panna. Maybe she’s gone veruckt.”

  The Security Klon tied her hands behind her back with a plastic wire specially designed for the purpose, apologizing all the while. The plastic cuffs dug into her burned wrists.

  The Klon pulsed the hospital. Rubric’s heart sank when she heard her say, “I’m not sure, Doctor, but I think she’s the Jeepie Type we got the special pulse about.”

  Rubric didn’t resist when she was loaded into the ambulance. Two Medical Assistant Klons spread some kind of green goop on her skin that made it feel better. There were oval windows in the back of the ambulance. Rubric thought she saw Dream out on the street, looking worried, but she might have imagined that.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  It took the Doctors no time to identify Rubric. They had suspected who she was from the start, and then they rolled her fingertips on a handheld scanner.

  “That’s her fingerprints all right,” confirmed the Doctor.

  Every year during her annual physical exam, they had done that procedure. Rubric had always naively assumed it had something to do with her health. But she saw now that it was their way of preventing switching and impersonation, since everyone, even people of the same Jeepie Type, had unique fingerprints.

  The Doctor who dealt with Rubric’s case looked so much like her old friend Filigree Sue that Rubric thought she must be her Jeepie Similar. But she acted nothing like her. This Doctor was smarter and meaner. Maybe she wasn’t the same Jeepie Type. Rubric considered the issue as a Medical Assistant Klon treated her burns, and the Doctor relentlessly questioned her. The Klon’s touch was as gentle as the Doctor’s tone was harsh.

  “Did you steal a Klon from Sweet Fruit Farm near Velvet City?

  “Did you set fire to Blue River Ethanol Factory in Iron City and steal a Klon?

  “Did you not only steal more Klons but actually burn Sweet Fruit Farm down to the ground, which is going to bring down the rationing credits of every single Panna in Society for months? And caused three brave Firefighters to have smoke inhalation? And acute burns to Panna Castle Mattea, who was kind to you? How are your burns?”

  The Doctor smacked the arm which the Medical Assistant Klon had just loosely bandaged. Rubric winced, but she still didn’t answer any questions.

  “You’ll be happy to know that we sent all the remaining Klons from Sweet Fruit Farm for treatment since we couldn’t know which of them were involved in your nefarious scheme. I hope it makes you feel good to be responsible for that.”

  Rubric did feel a horrible pang for those Klons, but she shrugged and said, “You did it, not me. I think you’re confused about what the word responsible means.”

  “So you admit you started the fire? Good. Did you also kill seven people in Velvet City?”

  “I certainly didn’t.”

  “I see. So you admit everything else. Good.”

  Rubric vowed to keep her mouth shut.

  The Doctor questioned her further, and t
he Klon replaced the plastic cuff that bound her hands. Rubric decided to pay attention to her surroundings instead. Yellow and cream walls, brown rubber linoleum floors. A metal examining table. A cabinet. When she had exhausted all the entertainment value she could from the room, she closed her eyes and thought about Salmon Jo. She wondered if it had been worth it, freeing Gold Eyes and the Picker Klons.

  Her reverie was interrupted when the Doctor grabbed her shoulder and marched her out into the hallway. There were moaning sounds coming from somewhere Rubric couldn’t identify. Or she was hallucinating. The Doctor opened what looked to be a closet door in a long row of closets. Then she thrust Rubric inside and locked the door.

  Okay, it wasn’t a closet. It was just the size of a closet. Rubric’s eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. There was even less entertainment value here in this bare room. It occurred to her that the moaning sounds came from other patients/prisoners in other closet rooms. “Hello?” she said loudly, but no one responded.

  There was just enough room to sit down, so Rubric did. Weirdly, the first thing she thought about was that awful Klon who had knocked her down and scalded her. Why had she done that? She supposed the Klon didn’t trust her motives and thought she would do better on her own. She might even be right. That Doctor’s robe could probably get her far. The Klon had no reason to trust any Panna. Maybe the Klon didn’t want to go to the Land of the Barbarous Ones. Rubric could scarcely fault her for that. But she could fault her for being so violent and horrible. How could she be the same Jeepie Type as Rubric? Maybe your genes weren’t your destiny. Maybe the Klon had lived through unimaginable horrors, and that had warped her. Maybe Rubric had been naive to try to help random Klons just because they were genetically identical.

  For the first few hours—or what felt like the first few hours—Rubric felt defiant and proud. No matter what they did to her, it was worth it, to fight for the cause of freedom. But hunger, pain, her bursting bladder, and stiffness from her cuffed arms changed her mind. She had made a huge mistake. She should never have left Salmon Jo behind. She was the most important thing in the whole world to Rubric. How could she have abandoned the girl she loved? If she ever saw her again, she would never leave her side. Rubric didn’t want to be a heroine anymore.

  As time wore on, Rubric realized she was going to die in here. Then get thrown into the high-heat compost unit, an anonymous body, unremembered, unsung. And for what? Some Klons, whose names she didn’t even know. All she wanted was to be with Salmon Jo again. Rubric tried to come up with any believable scenario in which Dream could get past the pairs of Security Klons on every floor without being captured, and rescue her. She couldn’t think of any way.

  For a long time, she tried not to cry. Then she gave in and wept her heart out.

  She had completely lost track of time. She slept and woke, screamed and sang. There was no way to know if it was day or night. She felt like she had been in the room for weeks.

  Long after she had given up hoping, the door opened. Light flooded into the tiny room. Rubric blinked. The original Doctor was looking down on her, along with a petite, curly-haired Doctor.

  “What do you think went wrong with her?” asked the petite Doctor. “Eights aren’t usually so troublesome. Stick some clay or a paintbrush in their hands, and they’re happy enough. Must have been some environmental factor.”

  “I’ve been running some numbers. I think it was the combination of her and her schatzie, a forty-two. I’m going to make an urgent recommendation that in future, eights and forty-twos never share a dorm or academy. Maybe they should be raised in different cities.”

  To Rubric, she said, “Get up.” But Rubric couldn’t see what was in it for her. So they dragged her back to the examination room by her legs. The petite Doctor was surprisingly strong. The Medical Assistant Klon was there, and she began to change Rubric’s bandages.

  “What do you think?” the first Doctor asked.

  “Treatment, without question,” the petite Doctor said. “And this girl must spend the rest of her life as a Klon. In a closely supervised assignment where she has no contact with other Klons.”

  Being a Klon wouldn’t be as bad as that closet, Rubric thought. Nothing could be as bad as that closet. Was it possible that she wasn’t going to die?

  “I wonder…” said the original Doctor, and she pulled out her handheld screen. “There’s a Panna here in Lvov who needs a lung transplant. End stage of emphysema. We could take a lung lobe from this one.”

  Rubric didn’t like the sound of this. “I have terrible lungs!” she said. “You don’t want them.”

  The petite Doctor snapped her fingers, and the Medical Assistant Klon hastened to cover Rubric’s mouth with duct tape. Now Rubric had to breathe through her nose. She felt like she was going to pass out, and she forced herself to calm down.

  “Is your patient Jeepie Type eight? I didn’t think we had any Panna eights here in Lvodz.”

  “No, no, she’s a sixty-six. They’re always getting emphysema. I personally think we should phase out the sixty-sixes. But the originals of eight and sixty-six were sisters, so this one’s lungs should be compatible. Maybe I should just take a lung lobe out of this one right now.”

  This was bad, very bad.

  “Sounds good,” said the petite Doctor. “I had completely forgotten that eight and sixty-six are compatible. That’s very clever. In fact, I have a sixty-six patient myself, with diabetes and a dicky kidney, that I’m about to start on dialysis. But maybe I should just give her a new kidney since you’re opening this one up anyway.”

  Rubric began to struggle, but the Medical Assistant Klon restrained her.

  “Oh, I would certainly do that,” the first Doctor said. “Once they go on dialysis they tend to tolerate a transplant less well later on. And we have plenty of kidneys walking around, so why not go straight to transplant?”

  “This Klon-to-be can still serve Society with one kidney and most of a lung,” the petite Doctor said. “Let’s put one of her corneas in the freezer-bank as well. She won’t be needing two.”

  Rubric started thrashing around, so the Medical Assistant Klon strapped her arms and legs to the gurney.

  “Although…” the first Doctor said hesitantly. “She’s made so much trouble. I would hate if that continued, just because we’re too softhearted. And it might take so much treatment to make her a good Klon that she’d be of little utility. Do we really need another drooling, lobotomized Klon to carry things? You know, maybe my patient would benefit most from a double lung transplant. Afterwards this one could still serve Society by being compost.”

  Rubric began to scream through the duct tape.

  “That is probably better,” said the petite Doctor. “Klon, prepare her for surgery. Let’s go pulse our patients.”

  As Rubric writhed and fought her bonds, the first Doctor leaned over and hissed in her face, “Good-bye, Rubric.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Rubric stopped struggling. If these were her last moments of consciousness, she had to reflect.

  She no longer felt like a brave martyr to a just cause. She merely felt thicko. But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was she would never see Salmon Jo again. Salmon Jo would never even know what became of her. She might wait for her for years, the way Prospect had waited for Dream. But in vain. An image came to her of Salmon Jo, living in a tent by the fence, waiting for her to cross. The snow would come, and then spring, summer, autumn, and winter again. The tent would get old, fall apart. So would Salmon Jo. Rubric truly felt she would be ready to die if she could only see Salmon Jo one last time, and tell her how much she loved her.

  The Medical Assistant Klon was bustling around making preparations, sanitizing her hands repeatedly. She cut off Rubric’s clothes. She gave her a shot. She swabbed Rubric’s abdomen and chest, then covered her torso with a sheet. Rubric could hear her clinking around in parts of the room that she couldn’t see from her position, flat on her back on
the gurney. The Klon wheeled her down the hall. Rubric counted the light fixtures in the ceiling, wishing the last sights of her life could be more beautiful. The Klon brought her into a brightly lit room that Rubric knew from edfotunement was an operating theater. A tray of shining scalpels and other instruments was the centerpiece of the room, next to some other more mysterious equipment.

  Then the Klon did a strange thing. She asked, “Did the Doctor say your name was Rubric?”

  Rubric nodded. The Klon had short fuzzy blond hair and a round face. She had crinkly lines around her eyes. Rubric bet she smiled a lot. She wasn’t smiling now. This was the last face Rubric would ever see.

  “That’s an unusual name. Did you live in Mountain City, in Yellow Dorm at Masaryka Academy?”

  She nodded again.

  “Oh dear,” the Klon said. She looked disturbed. Then she disappeared out of Rubric’s view.

  That was too much for Rubric. She began to thrash and grunt as loud as she could through the tape. Finally, the Klon reappeared.

  “Oh dear,” she said again. “What to do, what to do.”

  Rubric kept grunting, and finally, the Klon addressed her directly again. “You see, dear, my schatzie was a Nanny Klon in your dorm. I’ve heard all about you, from her missives. She said you were her favorite.”

  Rubric grunted even louder. Finally the Klon took off the tape.

  “Are you Shine?” Rubric asked hoarsely.

  “Oh dear,” the Klon said. “Yes, I am.”

  “Will you help me?”

  “I must say, I’ve never seen a Panna as an organ donor before. It makes me think it must be true that we’re all the same, if they can just decide to redistribute you. It’ll be hard to tell Bloom that I helped redistribute her favorite young Panna.” Then her face hardened, and she said, “But if it wasn’t for you, Bloom wouldn’t be sweeping the streets now.”

  “I didn’t mean to make problems for Bloom,” Rubric said. “I loved her.”

  “That’s all right, dear. You’re certainly paying for it now. Getting your just deserts. Can you imagine, a talented Nanny Klon like her, now a Street Sweeper Klon? At first, they just transferred her to an academy in Soot City. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the things you said. Before long, they said she was no good at her job, and she couldn’t work with young Pannas anymore.”