Clone

By Mike Crowson

Liza is a 23 y/o graduate student in electronics. She records radio signals from the galactic centre with her radio telescope ... And finds she has somehow downloaded circuit diagrams from outer space.

Intrigued, she builds what looks like a 3D copier and slightly drunk at a student party, clones herself. Next morning Liz is sober again - but her clone Liza is permanently slightly drunk.

How does she explain a drunk double who looks and sounds just like her? Liza fancies Liz's boyfriend, so they clone him too, hack into various databases to give them a past and then send them on teaching practice ... Still slightly drunk.

A3D copier is a good money-maker, but when Liz attempts to sell it, it's amazing who wants to cash in and grab a share. Will there be money for a double wedding and what will Liz’s father say walking TWO daughters up the aisle?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Crowson
• Release date: Mar 19, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301142378

Mike Crowson

Former teacher, former national secretary of what became the UK Green Party and for 40 years a student of things esoteric and occult. Now an occult and esoteric consultant offering free and unconditional help to those in serious and genuine psychic or occult trouble

Book preview

CLONE

Mike Crowson

© Mike Crowson 2013

Smashwords Edition

Chapter 1

I slammed down the pile of DVDs in frustration and started rummaging through a stack of magazines.

Don't mess those up, Boz warned. I have those arranged exactly as I want them.

Arranged? I muttered, looking at the untidy stack. I suppose you mean you know which ones your dirty pictures are in.

I share the house with four others and Boz is one of them. His full name is Brendon Ozark, which accounts for his nickname. As a matter of fact I've never heard anyone call him anything except 'Boz' though I suppose someone must do. His mother perhaps.

He's OK really, when I'm not in the foul mood I was in right then. You'd never know he was doing an MSc quantum physics: he's clever but a lazy git with it. He slouches around the house in a T-shirt that reads FBI – female body investigator. I guess he's good enough looking in a laid back, scruffy, lazy sort of way and I've fancied him myself quite a bit from time to time, although I've always been either too timid or too preoccupied to do anything about it. Boz can be good company when he makes the effort and he's clever, don't forget: Einstein with an intermittent sense of humour?

At least I know where to find what I want, he said. I don't leave my stuff lying around for anyone to pick up by mistake. Besides, my special magazines are safely in my room.

What've you lost? Ginny asked, looking up from the textbook she was reading. That girl is such a swat. I bet she gets a first class honours at the end of the year.

The DVD I made last night, I told her. I left the DVD writer going all night, hooked up to my radio telescope.

What radio telescope is that? she asked, looking faintly interested for a change. Honestly, everyone knows about the arrays and aerials I have on the garage roof. At least I thought everyone did. It's been a hobby of mine for years. I'd done an electronic engineering major at undergrad level and I'm doing a PhD now. I'd have done better if I'd done astro-physics instead of electronic engineering but I had to go where I could get a grant.

On the garage roof, I said.

Oh that, she said dismissively and looked down at her book again.

Well, have you seen my DVD? I demanded.

Nope, she said, shaking shoulder length, auburn hair without looking up again.

I'm Liz, by the way. Elizabeth Felicity Cummings. I'm twenty-three going twenty-four and I suppose I have average good looks on the rare occasions I actually dress up and make up. At any rate, I have a reasonable figure, my hair's a bit long and frizzy and I usually wear a sweater and jeans. At this moment I don't feel 'Felicity' would be an appropriate name and I was getting steadily more frustrated and cross.

I wandered out of the living room and went to look for the others elsewhere in the house. In the kitchen-diner I found Ellie. Ellie Markham is an amiable, slightly overweight, twenty year old, reading IT and computer programming languages. We're all a bit inclined to take advantage of her good humour and willingness, but I like her and I do try to be fair. She was washing up. She often does wash up and tidy up – she's a bit of a tidomaniac really, but it's a good job someone is.

The Grunge left his dirty dishes as usual, she remarked when I went in.

Some middle of the road muzack was playing but I couldn't see a radio, just a small speaker on top of the fridge.

He usually does when it's his turn to cook, I agreed. What's the music?

The broadband router is radio linked to my air play and that's linked to mini routers with a speaker attached. If I listen to a digital radio station on my computer I can air play it anywhere. I'm just trying it out.

Trust Ellie to be up with the latest technology. Can you have it anywhere you like? I asked.

Pretty well.

Sounds impressive, I said, rather vaguely, my mind still on my missing disk. I'm missing a DVD I made last night, I explained, and added. I suppose you haven't see it. I might have left somewhere in here or perhaps in the lounge.

Oh! Well, I might have, she admitted. Grungebucket is always burning illegal copies of DVDs. I saw one on the dining table this morning and thought it was probably one of his, so I took it up to his room. Try there first.

Thanks Ellie, I said, and headed upstairs.

On the first floor of the house – it belonged to my grandparents, by the way, but because my mum and dad had split up by then and had plenty of cash of their own, they left it to me. Where I go and what I'll do with it when I finally get my PhD – if I ever do – I don't know, although I'm hoping I get a permanent teaching post at uni. Anyway the has a bathroom and three reasonable sized bedrooms on the first floor, occupied by Ellie, Boz and the Grungebucket. That's Graham Robertson, to give him his proper name. He's a slob. Boz is a scruff, but Graham is … well, a Grungebucket. Actually, no one calls him that to his face and he is, after all, a slob it's hard not to like. I knocked on his door. There was no answer so I knocked again, wondering whether he was on one of his rare trips into uni for a lecture.

I could hear the faint sound of heavy metal music, so I opened the door and looked in. His room is always a mess, and there he was, lying on his unmade bed, surrounded by absolute chaos, earphones stuck in his ears – which is probably why he hadn't heard the knock. The music was so loud I could hear it. He switched off his iPod, took out the the earphones and looked at me questioningly.

Yes? he said.

I'm looking for a DVD I've lost, I said. Ellie said she gave you one she found when she cleared up this morning, I wondered whether it was mine.

Might have been, he agreed. The one she gave me wasn't one of mine.

Honestly, you'd think he would have asked whose it was.

I did think it might be yours, he said as if he'd read my thoughts. It was all circuit diagrams and things.

That didn't sound like the missing one.

I left the radio telescope hooked up to a DVD writer last night. It would just have been clicks and pulses and stuff, I said, Not circuit diagrams.

When I tried to play it, it made those sort of noises. Like a computer programme. I thought it might be Ellie's, except that she gave it to me, so I put it in the computer and it was all these circuit diagrams.

I left the telescope pointed towards the galactic centre. Milky way to you, I added when he looked blanker than usual. There's a lot of radio waves around there and I just wanted to record the wavelengths and so on.

Well, if it's your DVD, your circuit diagrams must have come from the galactic centre, he said indifferently. Here. he reached amongst the clutter on his bedside table and held out a disk.

I went a bit further into the chaos that was the Grunge's room and took it from him. I looked at the label. It read R.T. Gal. Cent. 17 Mar. 2.30 am. EFC That certainly looked like the right one. It was even my handwriting on the label.

Thanks, I said faintly and went up a floor.

The top floor has two very decent sized rooms, though they both have sloping ceilings one side. I have one, the other is occupied by Ginny. There's another, smaller room that I just use as a store room and home for the monitor and recording equipment from my CCTV set up. I built that when I first came here and was a young and rather nervous woman alone. Eventually I had a toilet and shower room fitted ( which made the third room smaller) and started letting lots of rooms to other students for company and to help with costs. It's actually quite a decent house for a bunch of students, but I choose pretty carefully who lives there.

In my room, I turned on my desktop computer and loaded it with the DVD, still wondering whether Graham could possibly have overwritten whatever I had recorded. I had recorded it the previous night, leaving the DVD writer on. Well, if you want to be technical, it's linked to a laptop with a quick programme to burn it to a DVD in half hour chunks. I'd taken it out of the reader first thing in the morning and I must have taken it with me when I went for breakfast. I remember I was in a real rush to get to a lecture, so I must have left it on the table when I rushed off. That's presumably where Ellie found it.

Ellie wouldn't have had time to do anything with it and anyway she had assumed right away it belonged to the Grunge and took it straight to him. He was the only one with enough time to overwrite it and he wouldn't have electronics stuff to copy. He's reading politics. Possibly the politics of inertia to judge from his level of activity. He'd never make it as a Political Party Spin Doctor – I don't think he could even spin in his grave.

A circuit diagram filled the screen. From what I could see it was a sort of overview of something, so I scrolled down a page.

The screen filled up with more circuit plans – detail of one of the components from the overview, I thought. I scrolled down another page and the same thing. It dawned on me that I was looking at something substantial with additional details of the various parts. I could see what there was some kind of sensor and a what appeared to be random access memory. How much memory?

Here I am, looking at an entirely new diagram for the first time and understanding some of it from the start. Surely that must make it a human design of some sort? Could it possibly have come from outer space? That seemed a mad, sci-fi idea!

OK, I thought, when you strip away all the high level languages, computers run on ones and zeros: something electronic is either on or off. You can't get more fundamental than that – binary maths - so the basics are likely to be fundamental, wherever this came from. The screen display was different: I'd have to ask Ellie about that. As it was I could pretty well figure out how much memory, but it didn't tell me what the sensor senses – assuming it is actually a sensor.

I scrolled down some more and studied the next diagram. I told you I was doing an electronics engineering degree and, though my interest in electronics started with building radio telescopes back when I was in the fifth year at school and I should really have been doing astro-physics, I am – though I say it myself – not bad when it comes to practical applications.

I studied the diagrams and wished there was a photo or drawing of the finished … whatever it was. This had a look of the prototype 3D printers that are starting to appear on the technological scene but I didn't know much about them, other than even the cheap ones are bloody expensive. £1,500 is really cheap! You know what I mean by a 3D printer? Additive production that lays down a series of layers from a 3D computer drawing, usually layers of some kind of plastic. Well I couldn't see anything plastic here. In fact, a search through the file gave no further clues as to what this device was – a 3D copier of some kind, maybe?

I wondered, could I build this thing? I was pretty certain I could – the only real problem was choosing the right voltage. I couldn't see any bits that used parts I couldn't identify, the the exact resistance of some diodes was debatable. My next thought was: OK, how much will it cost to build?

I went back to the start of the file, left the computer on and got up to go find Ellie.

As it happened, Ellie was going up to her room as I was coming down from mine.

Can you come up to my room for a minute, I said. I want to show you something puzzling – and mind blowing if it's for real.

Ellie looked surprised.

It raises some computer questions, I urged. I need to pick your brains.

OK, she nodded, and followed me upstairs.

You remember the DVD I was looking for?

Yes.

The Grunge had it, just like you said. I got it back from him and came straight up here. I put it straight in my computer.

OK, she agreed, waiting for me to come to the point.

We need to be absolutely clear on this. Whether it's so puzzling and stunning depends on being exact.

OK, she said again. I'm listening.

I put a blank DVD in a DVD writer last night, straight from a packet of them I opened for the first time then and there. There's no chance it was anything but blank. The Writer was connected to my radio telescope and that was pointed towards the galactic centre, the middle of the milky way. Actually, the real centre is equatorial but I pointed my arrays in the direction of the widest part you can see. It rises around 2 am-ish this time of year.

Ellie nodded.

I took the DVD out some time just after 7 o'clock this morning and took it with me when I went for breakfast. I must have left it behind when I went to uni.

You left about eight, Ellie nodded.

What time did you find the DVD? I asked.

Ellie thought about it. I think I saw it right off, but it must have been turned nine before I took it up the the Grunge.

So nobody other than him could have tampered with it?

That's it, and I can't see him doing anything with it that required effort.

He says he knew right off it wasn't his. The way he tells it he played it to see whose it was and got a noise like a computer programme, so he stuck it in his computer.

And?

See for yourself.

I sat down at my computer. It had gone to sleep in power conservation mode so I brought it back to life. The circuit diagram scrolled itself back onto the screen.

That's why he thought it was mine. What do you think?

Ellie studied the screen. Are you sure it's your DVD? she asked.

Oh it's the right DVD all right. It's even my writing on the label. The question is, could it have been tampered with? If not … My voice tailed off.

So the choice is tampered with somehow or you've downloaded a set of drawings from outer space, Ellie finished the sentence, so matter of factly that I wasn't sure whether she was joking.

I'm pretty sure she wasn't!

Chapter 2

I glanced at my radio telescope on the garage roof as I went in through the side door of the place and looked around. There was my car in it, of course, but it doesn't go far these days - I can't really afford to use the thing. Not now insurance premiums for women have shot up. The EU has ruled that insurance companies can't take gender into account when setting premiums, and young men (especially students) are a really bad risk – they have lots of accidents. As a result premiums are set by age alone, and I have to pay hundreds of pounds more. I drive carefully but my premiums have gone up because boy racers are cocky bastards … and usually lousy drivers, though it's an offence against their manhood to say so! It's enough to make one vote United Kingdom Independence Party next time, if UKIP weren't such a load of thoughtless right wingers. It might even turn some women into man-hating lesbians. I'm a bit timid when it comes to men, and I don't currently have a boyfriend, but I'm not by any stretch of the imagination a lesbian.

There isn't much room inside the garage but, if I took the car out and parked it on the driveway, we could all put our bikes inside AND there'd be plenty of room for me to build that … whatever it is.

I hadn't actually decided that I would do. Build it I mean. I was going to sleep on it, but curiosity was getting the better of me and, if I'm honest, it was down to a detailed estimate of what it might cost. I'm a student and I don't have unlimited funds, but I thought I might get my dad to pay the insurance on my car when it falls due again come the summer vacation, and I could probably get a summer holiday job. Hearn Bay and Whitstable are not the riviera, but there are enough summer visitors to create a few seasonal jobs. That and access to the resources of the electronic engineering department ought to be enough.

I was doing a rather unimaginative piece for my PhD and, in practice, building the thing – whatever it was – might be possible as an interesting alternative project, if I could just figure out what it was intended to be. Could I interest my tutor in such a hair-brained project? If I was a more committed student I might, but a just passing, very ordinary time wasting 'avoider-of-the-real-world'? Probably not!

Well, even if I couldn't persuade the prof. I could always help myself from the lab stores when nobody was looking, and order some of the more offbeat components cheap through the department.

I came out of the garage, closing the door behind me and rattling to make sure the catch had dropped. It was starting to rain, so I hurried back into the house. I looked into the lounge. The Grunge was watching something on a TV rolling news channel but nobody else was around. I went to the downstairs loo and then went up to Ellie's room.

Ellie yelled Come in! when I knocked. She was sitting in a bean bag chair, reading something about programming in Java script. She put the book down as if she was glad of the interruption and indicated the other bean bag chair.

I'd furnished Ellie's room with a couple of quite comfortable armchairs, but she preferred these 'beany' things, so the armchairs were up in the storeroom on the next floor.

It's my birthday next week, she announced. It's a good excuse for a small party on Sunday – you don't mind, do you?

What are you planning I asked, thinking that it was likely to be more organised and less chaotic than some."

Just a few friends round for a drink. I thought I'd suggest each person brings one other. I'll bring Geoff, she added.

I wasn't sure who I'd bring and I wasn't sure that I wanted any of the Grunge's friends.

Sounds all right to me, I agreed, Though I don't think most people have much student loan money left this late in the term. Anyway, I didn't come up to talk about parties.

What did you want? she asked. Just a girlie chat or was there something special.

I think I'm going to build that – whatever it is, I said.

I thought you might eventually, but you said you were going to sleep on it.

Technically I am going to, I said, But the only question is the cost. I'm going to try and price it and then decide overnight whether I can afford it. That's what I wanted to ask you – the cost of memory.

"I see. Well, the RAM won't cost much. I can wangle some used blocks cheap from the IT store – or even filch them when