Chronicles of Humanity

Part Four - The Clone Saga

Chapter 1

James thought he had heard it all before. But this was quickly becoming the most bizarre bullshit he had ever heard. His boss and his company's #1 customer were on some fucking "Save the Treadways" rescue mission. But who were they saving them from? At this point THEY seemed to be the fucking people he needed saved from. In his mind, they either kidnapped, or killed, Marilyn, or both at this fucking point, he couldn't really determine. Or worse, Marilyn was in on some kind of scheme. And at best, he was the victim. In all the philosophy books he ever read, he never read anything that made sense out of all of this bullshit. Not Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, Kant, or any other great thinkers touched even briefly on the subject matter at hand. Well, maybe they did, briefly. But it didn't help him any at the moment.

At the moment he was sitting in an office 300+ miles from home, with two men, one whom he thought he knew all too well, who better have a very good explanation as to why they just put him through all this shit. "First", James finally stopped thinking long enough to start talking, "someone please explain this to me. You say someone is trying to kill us. Well someone did kill Marilyn, or so I thought. But now you tell me she is here somewhere. For all I know that piece of footage was recorded before she was murdered." And with that James waited for an answer that hopefully made sense out of all of this.

"James", Mr. Colman spoke first. "There are things going on around you that you cannot comprehend right now." No shit, James thought. "You see", Mr. Colman continued, "you and Marilyn are being targeted by a security task force that is comprised of members that used to work for Stem Cell Robotics. You see James, your work at our company has put us, in conjunction with Stem Cell Robotics, at the forefront of the next great technological breakthrough. After you were able to negotiate the deal with Mr. Arigato, our companies were able to "merge" if you will, our scientific research and engineering teams, leaving some other former members of our company without purpose. So they left the company and formed their own business, taking with them some of the technology and research they were working on at the time."

James interrupted, "That's all well and good, Mr. Colman. But with all due respect sir, what does that have to do with me thinking Marilyn has been murdered, only to find out you and Mr. Arigato have Marilyn here?" "I think I can take it from here Mr. Colman", Mr. Arigato now added to the conversation. "You see James, we here at Stem Cell Robotics are able to clone humans, although this technology is not currently legal, and we would like to keep it our little secret. However, while speaking with Mr. Colman about the former members of our company, he and I were able to come up with this plan to fake Marilyn's murder so that she could be safe from her would be killers. Of course we spoke to Marilyn about this first, and while she had to keep it a secret from you, she agreed to take part, thinking it best for both of you."

"Wait, hold on", James said. "So you are telling me that the woman that I thought was my wife and that I saw laying on our kitchen floor with a butcher knife sticking out of her chest, was a fucking clone?" This went way beyond the craziest shit he had ever heard. This was absolutely insane. "So who exactly killed the clone? Is that something you set up as well???"

"Well", Mr. Arigato started. "You see...", and he was quickly interrupted by Mr. Colman before he could say anything else, "James", Mr. Colman chimed in. "What's important is that you and Marilyn are alive and well. And we should talk about this at a later time."

Mr. Colman now gestured toward Mr. Arigato, and the latter picked up the phone and dialed out. "Hello. This is Mr. Arigato. Please send Marilyn into my office. Thank you." He hung up and stared across the table at James. Was this really happening, James thought. Am I in the middle of some futuristic sci-fi flick where I find out later that Mr. Arigato and Mr. Colman are really aliens sent from the future?