Swans and Klons Read online

  “Ru, it’s just a prop. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t even have to work.”

  “If we’re going to be holding a camera, we might as well be filming.”

  “You know we’re not really making a documentary, though,” Salmon Jo said. Now she looked worried. “Ru, if this is going to work, you have to focus. We are doing one thing—freeing Klons!”

  Rubric thought Salmon Jo was talking too loudly in a public place. Then she reflected that it wouldn’t matter if anyone overheard her. In Society, the phrase freeing Klons was nonsensical. It was like saying having a conversation with rats or playing a song on the zucchini squash.

  “Yeah, yeah, sure,” Rubric reassured her. Salmon Jo was such a worrier. “It’s just that the documentary is such a great idea too.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Gee, no one has ever asked me that before, Panna,” the Kapo Klon said. She was practically wringing her visor in her hand out of nervousness. “I better be asking our Panna, the manager. This is something for a human to decide. Is that okay? I’ll be right back.”

  “Certainly, Kapo Klon,” Rubric said politely. It was a freakishly hot day, so the sweat pouring down the back of her neck probably didn’t seem strange. A week after they had stolen the vid camera and the handheld screen, they were standing in an eth-fruit farm just a few klicks outside of Velvet City. It had been a week of stealing: stealing electric bikes, stealing pies from windowsills in rural areas where there were no Comfort Stations, stealing clothes from lines. Now, Rubric was ready to steal a Klon. She and Salmon Jo were standing under the blazing sun in a huge field filled with row after row of eth-fruit trees.

  The Kapo Klon walked off, hoisting her cylindrical stun baton over her shoulder. The group of Klons in the area immediately slowed their pace. They were picking eth fruits and dropping them into mesh sacks.

  “I like this documentary thing already,” one Klon said to another, loud enough for Rubric to hear. Her companion laughed. The first Klon straightened up and pushed her visor off her forehead. She pulled her tunic by her collar and wiped her face, revealing a slice of tummy about ten shades lighter than her sun-reddened arms and face. One by one, most Klons dropped their sacks and went to the water trough to drink and dunk their heads. Some flopped right down on the ground. But a few continued working, radiating disapproval to the others. Off in the distance, Rubric saw oxen pulling plows, led by other Klons.

  Rubric heard the whine of an electric vehicle. Most of the Klons returned to work. A few seconds later, a little blue vehicle came over the hill into view and parked. The Kapo Klon asked the human manager something, and the manager replied with a curt shake of her head. Rubric had seen that gesture dozens of times from Salmon Jo. With a shock, she realized the manager was Salmon Jo’s Jeepie Similar. Rubric and Salmon Jo exchanged glances.

  The manager had many long braids. She looked weather-beaten and about fifty years old. As she walked closer, Rubric saw that she limped a little, and there was something not quite right about her face.

  “Hello, I’m Castle Mattea,” she said in a rougher, more mature version of Salmon Jo’s voice. Then a happy grin split her face. “How wonderful! How wonderful! I love to see my little Simmies!”

  She embraced Salmon Jo. Salmon Jo was smiling too and returned Castle Mattea’s hug. Since Salmon Jo wasn’t much of an actor, Rubric figured it must be genuine. They introduced themselves, with fake names.

  “So you girls are making a documentary?” Castle Mattea asked. “I’m surprised. Our Jeepie Type is typically not artsy.”

  “It’s really her project,” Salmon Jo said. “I’m just helping my schatzie.”

  Castle Mattea smiled. If she says anything about how she once had a schatzie of my Jeepie Type, I’ll puke on her, Rubric thought. Stanky older women on the trolley had given her that line.

  But Castle Mattea didn’t say anything like that. She said, “I want to help you. But this can’t be one of those movies about how conditions for the Klons aren’t good enough. I’m going to show you our operation here. We do everything perfect, and I have nothing to hide.”

  “It’s absolutely nothing like that,” Rubric said. “We really only want to interview Klons who are our Jeepie Similars.”

  “I’m going to show you the living quarters here, just in case,” Castle Mattea said doggedly, in a way that was familiar to Rubric. She brought the girls in the electric vehicle to a concrete building. Inside, the building was just like a dormitory, except there were no doors on any of the rooms. Everything was clean and recently painted. Except for a certain sterility, there was nothing to complain about here. Castle Mattea led them through the hallway, and Rubric saw that each room was different, some messy, some tidy and prim. Some had a single cot, others had two cots shoved together, which took up most of the room. A few had no cots. Most had some sort of decoration on the wall. Some, graphics of popular edfotunement celebrities, others had homemade art on the wall featuring found objects. Parts of the eth-fruit tree were displayed prominently in the art: leaves, stems, flowers, and even dried eth fruits were woven in. There was a great use of duct tape, staples, and string.

  “Can I film some of this?” she asked. This Klon art would be an amazing addition to the documentary that she wasn’t really making.

  “Sure, go ahead,” said Castle Mattea. “I keep telling them they have to take that scheiss down, that it’s a fire hazard. But they don’t listen to me.” She showed them a spotless kitchen and a tiny shower room that was being cleaned by one of the Klons. “See? It’s like I said. They have nothing to complain about. If they want to couple up with each other, they can. Play loud music after work, they can. If they get injured on the job, they rest up. No one interferes with them and there’s no violence. I try to get them a special treat just about every week, like edfotunement or a dessert. I’ve had to send less than a dozen for treatment the whole time I’ve been here, and a couple of them even came back. I know each one individually. Sometimes the Kapo Klon gets a bit overzealous with the stun baton, but it’s better if I take a hands-off approach. It’s just their way, the Kapos, to be very strict. If I keep doing a good job here, I could become a managers’ manager. I bet you didn’t even know that existed! They report directly to the Doctors.”

  “I’m impressed with the whole setup,” Rubric lied. Actually, the Panna’s smug attitude made her sick to her stomach. She was patting herself on the back for not being brutal? “The Klons are clearly being treated very humanely. Can we do an interview now? This is going to blow the art world wide open.”

  “Sure, sure,” Castle Mattea said. She hesitated and then said to Salmon Jo, “It’s nice to see a little Simmie like you on the right track. Don’t ever get confused and do anything veruckt. It’s very important. You have to be a get-along girl and don’t make any trouble. You could be a Doctor someday! It’s not so bad being a manager. But it wasn’t my dream. You could do better.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Salmon Jo said expressionlessly.

  Castle Mattea led them back outside. Rubric had to admit, the farm was beautiful. Wide open space, bucolic views. As they were driving back to the eth-fruit field, a flock of birds flew by. Rubric was startled to see that the birds were a red metallic color, except for their undersides, which were white with silver flecks. As they wheeled and turned in the sky, following their leader, they made pretty sparkling patterns.

  “I’ve never seen birds like that,” Salmon Jo said. “What kind are they?”

  “They’re Castle Mattea Birds. I invented them. I have a hobby lab here, down by the waterwheel, that I’ve built up over time to be quite good. I did a bit of genetic tinkering on some local birds. I feed them, so they always stay in the area. Actually, the metallic red was the easy part. The white-and-silver undercarriage took seven generations. Let’s just say some of the failures were not pretty.”

  “And you say our Jeepie Type doesn’t become artists,” Salmon Jo said. This seemed to please Castle Mattea.<
br />
  The Klons had spread out, working on different eth-fruit trees. Mattea seemed to know who was where, and she led them to a grove where Rubric immediately saw her Jeepie Similar Klon. Just Rubric’s age or maybe a couple years older. Sweating, picking fruit, looking bored. It felt to Rubric like she was looking into the mirror, except this girl had a low-maintenance buzz haircut and a bit of a sunburn. And Rubric had never picked fruit or done any other kind of manual labor in her life. The girl startled when she saw Rubric.

  “Picker Klon, these Pannas need to interview you. Be cooperative and truthful with them, and I might have something nice for you at breakfast time tomorrow.” Then she leaned back and folded her arms.

  Rubric wanted to be alone with the Klon but didn’t know how to ask Castle Mattea.

  Salmon Jo solved the problem. “Actually, Panna Castle M—”

  “Please! Just Castle Mattea.”

  “I’d be very curious to learn more about those birds, so I was wondering if you could show me while my schatzie interviews the Picker Klon.”

  Castled Mattea beamed. She led Salmon Jo off, talking excitedly.

  Rubric cleared her throat. The other Klons had melted away. She wished Salmon Jo could help her with this. “So you probably noticed that you and I are Jeepie Similars.”

  “Yes, Panna.” The Klon crossed her arms. Okay, there was another difference. This girl had a lot more muscle definition in her arms.

  “That’s what my project is about. Can I ask you some questions?” Her voice sounded totally phony to herself. She had no idea how to talk to Klons like they were human. She had no practice.

  “Yes, Panna.”

  “First of all, what is your name?”

  The Klon’s expression was unreadable. “I’m Picker Klon,” she said.

  “But don’t you have a name that you Klons use among yourselves, to tell each other apart?”

  “We tell each other apart just fine,” Picker Klon said.

  “Okay,” said Rubric. This wasn’t going so well.

  “Can I ask you a question, Panna?”

  “Please do.”

  “Shouldn’t you turn your camera on?”

  Rubric flushed. “This is just sort of preliminary. Would you like to look at the camera?”

  “Yes, Panna,” she said, looking pleased. “I’d like that very much.”

  Rubric handed the camera over to Picker Klon. Picker Klon did just what Rubric had done when she first got it, turned it over and over, trying to figure which end was up. She held one end up to her eye, and then the other. Reluctantly, she handed it back to Rubric.

  What could she do to show she was an ally before just blurting everything out? Rubric plucked a few eth fruits and threw them on the ground. She pulverized them under her foot.

  The expression on Picker Klon’s face didn’t change, but there was a subtle shift, as though there was an expression behind her expression. Which was disgust. Rubric had the sensation of seeing herself through Picker Klon’s eyes. A dissolute, spoiled Panna, cloddish enough to destroy the eth fruits which were the foundation of Society’s energy supply.

  How could two people be genetically identical but so different that they couldn’t communicate?

  No. Picker Klon couldn’t be expected to read Rubric’s mind. Rubric hadn’t told her anything.

  “What’s really going on here, Picker Klon, is my schatzie and I discovered something really ghastly that happens in the Hatcheries. You know how it’s supposed to be that entities like me are human and entities like you are not human?”

  Picker Klon nodded. “I’m called a Klon, Panna,” she said, as if talking to a half-wit.

  “It turns out there’s no difference, biologically speaking, between me and you. The Doctors don’t do anything special to the Klons to make them not human. As far as we can tell, they select some of the Hatchlings to be designated human and the rest to be Klons.”

  Picker Klon raised one eyebrow. Rubric often did that. It looked good.

  “Do you believe me?” Rubric asked.

  “To me,” Picker Klon said in a hoarse voice, very different from the way she’d been talking up to now, “what you’re saying doesn’t make any difference. I’m not even sure I know what biology is. And I don’t care whether I’m a human or identical to you. But I know my own worth. I know I’m as good as a human and I deserve everything you have. I don’t care what the official story is. You still haven’t turned your camera on, Panna.”

  Wow. All her life, people had been calling Rubric impulsive and idealistic, and now she finally understood why.

  “Okay,” said Rubric. “So the thing is, my schatzie and I are traveling around Society, and we want to free our Jeepie Similar Klons.”

  The eyebrow raised again. “Free? Are you coming to take me to the Barbarous Ones?” Picker Klon asked in a low voice.

  “The Barbarous Ones?” Rubric echoed, confused. “No. Why?”

  “Oh.” Picker Klon looked equally confused. “I thought…Sorry, what is your plan exactly?”

  “To take you away from here, so you don’t have to pick eth fruit any more,” Rubric said.

  “Uh-huh. And then where are we going?” Picker Klon asked.

  “We haven’t worked that out a hundred percent yet,” Rubric admitted. “You’re the first Klon on our list. We were just going to play it by ear.”

  They stared at each other. Then at the same time, one flatly and one apologetically, they said, “It’s not much of a plan.”

  “I would be willing to go with you if you take me to the Land of the Barbarous Ones,” Picker Klon said.

  “Why do you want to go there?” Rubric asked.

  Picker Klon rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I don’t, not really,” she said. “But I have my reasons. And not a whole lot of options. So are you ordering me to go with you?”

  “Um, what?”

  “Are you ordering me to go?”

  “No,” Rubric said.

  “Well, Panna, not to put words in your mouth, but maybe you could order me to go,” Picker Klon said.

  Rubric didn’t know if her brain could absorb any more confusion. Might her brain actually explode and drip out through her ears? Girl’s Head Explodes, in the dark style of Stencil Pavlina.

  “You see, Panna,” Picker Klon explained patiently, “if I get caught carrying out this lunacy, the penalty for Klons leaving their posts is very severe. So I’m thinking, if this was a case of you ordering me to do something, it is naturally my job to carry out orders from a respected Panna. If your orders turn out to be contradictory to the wishes of other Pannas, then that would be your responsibility.”

  “Ah. I see,” Rubric said. “Picker Klon, I order you to accompany me to the Land of the Barbarous Ones. What I want you to do is sneak away from here and meet me and my companion outside the perimeter of the farm, as close to the entrance gate as you can without attracting attention. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, thank you, Panna.” She shot off in the direction of the Klon dormitory.

  Sweating more than ever, Rubric rejoined Salmon Jo. They took their leave from Castle Mattea. “So?” Salmon Jo asked as soon as they were out of earshot.

  “Picker Klon is coming with us,” said Rubric.

  “Wow,” Salmon Jo said, and swallowed. “You know, I’m not sure I really believed this could work.”

  “But she wants to go to the Land of the Barbarous Ones.”

  “Good gravy. Why?”

  “Don’t know. She said she has some purpose for it.”

  Salmon Jo shrugged. “We have to go somewhere.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  They didn’t have much parley with Picker Klon until they were sitting around the campfire. Picker Klon said she had never slept anywhere except in a dormitory, so she simply watched with interest as Salmon Jo set up the tent while Rubric made the fire and dinner. Rubric had discovered she had a wonderful talent for building blazing fires, so she was always in charge of this.

&n
bsp; They ate quickly without speaking. Salmon Jo, who polished her food off first, poked the fire and said, “I think we’re just one day’s ride from the fence that separates us from the Land of the Barbarous Ones. But I don’t know if there’s a place that’s better than any other to cross it.”

  “Klons say that near the town of Lvodz is the best place,” Picker Klon said. “I don’t know if that’s true. Klons escape, but they never come back. So we don’t know what happens to them. My schatzie escaped two years ago. The Kapo Klon said she was captured and redistributed. But they would have to tell us that, whether it was true or not. I mean, they want us to think escape is pointless.”

  “Do a lot of Klons escape?” Salmon Jo asked in surprise. “I never heard that before.”

  “Of course you wouldn’t hear that,” Rubric said. “That would imply that Klons don’t like their lives and have something to escape from.” Rubric felt self-conscious talking to Picker Klon. Every second, she couldn’t help thinking that Picker Klon was a Klon, a Klon, a Klon. She wanted to think of Picker Klon as just another girl, but she didn’t know how to shake off sixteen years of training. She kept wanting to prove to Picker Klon that she thought she was a real person, even though Picker Klon clearly wasn’t worried about Rubric’s opinion.

  Picker Klon nodded. “We don’t escape a whole lot. But it does happen. And there are so many different stories and songs about the Barbarous Ones. Some say they are bestial and they will make you mate with Cretinous Males and, you know…” She made a pregnant belly shape with her hand and crinkled her face in disgust. “Then others say the Barbarous Ones don’t really have Cretinous Males or”—she made the pregnancy gesture again—“that these are just stories that Panna humans made up about the Barbarous Ones to make them sound bad. That actually the land of the Barbarous Ones is a wondrous paradise.”

  “Wow,” said Rubric. She felt that brain-exploding thing again and glanced at Salmon Jo. She looked pretty shocked herself. Rubric inched closer to her schatzie.