The 3-Dimensional Boy

By Ian E Hart

What if there was a 3D printer that could copy a living human being? Tom Chan's father is building one in his laboratory at Coolabah University. 14 year old Tom and his neighbour Bethany 'Biff' Piechorowski take shelter in the lab from a thunderstorm and accidentally print a copy of Tom: a dopplegänger with no personality and no memory. They try to pass him off as 'Baker,' Tom's long-lost twin from China. But there are dark forces at work who want human clones for sinister reasons and they kidnap Baker in order to perfect their Human Replicator. Rescuing Baker leads Biff, Tom and their friends on a wild pursuit through the labyrinth of WW2 tunnels beneath Coolabah City, unearthing political machinations and grotesque secrets kept hidden for nearly 100 years. And Baker also has a secret...What if there was a 3D printer that could copy a living human being? Tom Chan's father is building one in his laboratory at Coolabah University. 14 year old Tom and his neighbour Bethany 'Biff' Piechorowski take shelter in the lab from a thunderstorm and accidentally print a copy of Tom: a dopplegänger with no personality and no memory. They try to pass him off as 'Baker,' Tom's long-lost twin from China. But there are dark forces at work who want human clones for sinister reasons and they kidnap Baker in order to perfect their Human Replicator. Rescuing Baker leads Biff, Tom and their friends on a wild pursuit through the labyrinth of WW2 tunnels beneath Coolabah City, unearthing political machinations and grotesque secrets kept hidden for nearly 100 years. And Baker also has a secret...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Pigface Books
• Release date: Dec 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223600527

Ian E Hart

I have worked with words, ideas, images and stories all my life: as an academic in Australia, Europe and China, as writer-director of over 30 broadcast documentary and fiction films., as a playwright and theatre maker. Now, after 60 years of grafting at typewriter and computer keyboards, I have narrowed my focus to the gentle art of novel writing. I live with my first and only wife in Canberra, Australia. We have three grown-up children and four grandchildren. We try to re-visit Kong Kong as often as we can.

Book preview

For Sam, Olive, Max and Marley. You know who you are.

© Ian E. Hart 2023

Pigface Books

PART ONE

Neighbours

CHAPTER ONE

The Lunch Club

The first time I spoke to Tom Chan we were outside the Principal’s office, and it was odds on that I was about to be expelled again. He was calm as a clamshell, playing chess on his smart phone. Tom was like, the school nerd, with an IQ off the scale. Some people said he was on the spectrum. Most people thought he was a bit strange, but they just didn’t know how to talk to him. It wasn’t so hard really, you just needed to know three things: first, he took everything you said literally; second, he wasn’t interested in goss; and third, he had absolutely no sense of humour.

I looked over his shoulder. Who’s winning? I asked. He ignored me for a while—well, it was a dumb question.

Can you play? he asked, without looking up. I guess he thought I’d come back with: Oh no, I’m a girl, chess is too hard for me.

I lied as convincingly as I could, Oh, my dad is a Grand Master. I play with him. That did the trick. He shut down the game and gave me his full attention, as though I’d passed some kind of test.

You’re the new girl. What crime did you commit to be sent to the Office?

I biffed Gormley Gorgon. I think I broke his nose.

You biffed Gormley? What does ‘biffed’ mean?

"It wasn’t my fault. He started it. I was showing stuck-up Courtney and her friends how to break a wooden board with a kick. Gormley’s face got in the way. I guess they will expel me.

He looked at me with that puzzled, puppy dog expression of his, So when you say ‘biff’ you mean a certain kind of kick. Is that a karate term?

Kind of. I’m a Taekwondo Black Belt.

On the day I was suspended from Bluebottle Beach High School, for giving Mervyn Mud Crab Merton a black eye (he was twice my size) Mum was offered a promotion to Police Superintendent in Coolabah City. Moving schools seemed like a good idea in the circumstances. I realised it was a bad idea when I discovered Dad wasn’t coming with us, and half the kids at Coolabah High had genius IQs—their parents were diplomats or professors. The other half pretended they were smart—their parents were public servants or in the army, or worked in real estate like Uncle Rodney, cousin Pandora’s dad.

What makes you think you aren’t smart? Tom asked.

In Bluebottle Beach, the main subject is surfing. It’s uncool to be too smart.

Coolabah City—you couldn’t imagine a bigger let-down after Bluebottle Beach. Instead of sand and sparkling water, there is a brown puddle they call Lake Gryphon. Instead of rolling breakers, there is a waterspout that squirts for a few hours every afternoon. Instead of our big shady Queenslander house with wide verandas, our new house looks a Lego construction kit. And any sight was better than the 50 storey Gorgon Tower Hotel and Casino. Dad calls it the golden toilet brush.

Mum hoped her promotion would mean a step up from arresting jay-walkers and tracking down stolen surf boards, but her first job was investigating a string of supermarket burglaries, where the only items stolen were cans of baked beans.

That afternoon outside the Principal’s office, I was wondering where we could go if I was expelled again.

When we were kids, my cousin Pandora and I were thick as thieves. Dad said we must be brain twins: we didn’t look much alike, but we had the same opinions on everything. Now we are in high school, Pandora is almost unrecognisable: she dresses like a fashion model and all she talks about is K-pop singers and couture, a word that makes her mouth pucker up as though she’d going to kiss you. And she doesn’t like it when I laugh. Her best friend, Courtney Caldera, is a YouTube Influencer, sponsored by the KT chain of clothing and beauty boutiques. Every girl in the school ties herself in knots to be one of Courtney’s Facebook friends, but the highest honour of all is to be invited to the Courtney Caldera Ladies’ Lunch Club. You can pick out club members by the way they tweak the school uniform: tunic hem raised 3cm, waist lowered, shirt sleeves at half mast, tie loose, two buttons undone, plus styled hair, some discrete makeup and piercings and an inconspicuous Chinese tattoo.

Pan wangled me an invitation on my first day. It surprised me to see that the membership included a boy named Gormley Gorgon. Pan whispered that Gormley’s uncle was Mister Ghastly Gorgon himself, who owns the KT clothing chain and the Gorgon Tower Hotel and about 100 more like it around the world. He’d even donated the bench we were sitting on. Courtney had bent the rules to make Gormley an honorary lunchtime lady, which was lucky for Gormley, because all the boys hated him.

I took my place on the bench under the only tree in the playground and unwrapped my organic rye bread and garlic hummus sandwich.

Ohh, did somebody fart? Gormley pranced about, holding his nose. Does one of you ladies have a dog turd on her shoe? he simpered.

It’s Bethany’s lunch, giggled Phyllis Farnsworth.

OMG! Courtney shook her blonde ringlets and put on her ‘I’m amazed’ face, Bethany Piechorowski, why is your bread black?.

It’s rye bread, I explained. It’s good for you.

Gormley held his nose. Urrgh. Is your family veeee-gan or something? He made it sound like a skin disease.

Pandora tried to stand up for me: Bethany’s mother is a police superintendent.

What does she superintend, school crossings? Gormley squeaked.

(Temper Biff!) I gritted my teeth and answered quietly. Mum’s in police intelligence.

Uncle Ghastly says ‘police’ and ‘intelligence’ are morons. Gormley smirked around at the ladies, expecting applause for his clever repartee.

I’d tried to shut up, but my big mouth got the better of me.The word is oxymoron, you lame-brain. It’s Greek. It means a contradiction in terms. Police intelligence lets people like you sleep safely at night. You’re the only moron around here.

Courtney pursed her bee-sting lips, took a sip from her box of imported Mexican açai berry and guarana juice, and patted her lip gloss with a tissue. Bethany, Rule Number Two of the Ladies Lunch Club is never criticise another member—at least not to her face.

I don’t think that thing on Gormley’s shoulders qualifies as a face.

That got under his guard. Gormley pointed at the brass plaque screwed to the back of the bench. No wonder they expelled you from your last school. Move your skinny butt off my uncle’s bench before I tell him what you said.

(Remember Mud Crab Merton!) I sat tight and looked the other way. Bad decision—he snatched my sandwich and peeled it open.

What is this? It looks like cat vomit.

I drew on my Taekwondo training. I stood up and faced the slimy slug, took a deep breath and expelled it slowly while assuming Pomsae First Position. Feet evenly balanced, arms and hands loose and relaxed.

I said quietly, Give it back, if you know what’s good for you.

What if I don’t?

I’ll biff you.

You’ll what?

Biff you. I warned you.

Ooo I’m sooo scared! What will you biff me with, your deadbeat dad’s surfboard?

Finally, my cousin Pandora stood up for me. She put her hands on her hips and gave Gormley an earful: You’re such a wanksta Gormley Gorgon. Bethany’s a karate black belt. I’ve seen her break a plank of wood with one fist. Apologise before you get hurt.

If I’m a wanksta, she’s a… Gormley tried to think of the right hip word. She’s a greasy snowflake, and he raised my sandwich above his head in triumph. Wanna geddit?

I took a deep breath and bowed to the members of the Lunch Club, turned side-on, then launched myself into a 2-part head-high kick aimed at the sandwich in Gormley’s right hand. Haa! Haiyaa! Gormley chose that moment to swing around and poke his tongue out.

I was wearing my Doc Martens, but the result would have been the same with bare feet. My right foot connected with the exact centre of his nose. The crunch echoed around the playground. Gormley swayed, his eyes went even more crossed, then he toppled to the ground like a tree. He clutched his nose as blood oozed from between his fingers and mixed with the garlic hummus from my sandwich.

Courtney stared at the mess in horror, OMG! Is that Gormley’s brains?

School children converged on us from the four corners of the playground and I saw a teacher pushing his way through the crowd.

I turned to Pandora. Thanks Pan, but I’m only a First Dan Black Belt. If I’d been Second Dan, I wouldn’t have missed.

Tom asked, If the Lunch Club’s Rule Number Two is never to criticise another member, what’s Rule Number One?

Don’t talk about Lunch Club, of course.

Tom nodded seriously, Gormley’s uncle has just donated an indoor swimming pool to the school.

So Gormley gets to be the victim and I’ll be expelled?

I don’t think you’ll be expelled, said Tom seriously. Even the teachers hate Gormley. He held out his hand. My name is Thomas Chan, by the way.

I shook his hand. Bethany Piechorowski, but my friends call me Biff.

I’m going to call you Biff too, do you mind? By the way, I’m your next door neighbour.

I know. You’ve been spying on me for the last week.

It’s hard to ignore you.

Your father…

My father is a genius.

Does he often forget to wear trousers?

CHAPTER TWO

Trousers

Let’s get the question of my father’s trousers out of the way first.

Papa’s a genius, OK? And sometimes he forgets things, like if he has a Eureka moment when he’s getting dressed and he forgets to put his trousers on. As long as I’m there to keep an eye on him, there’s usually no problem.

And as for spying on my neighbour… I was woken by a dreadful racket outside my bedroom: shrieking and thumping and banging—like possums, or maybe wombats, brawling. I looked out the window and saw the girl who’d just moved in next door, dressed in white pyjamas, fighting with someone under the big tree in her backyard. They were shouting words like Heyaa! and punching and kicking one-another quite hard. I don’t understand fighting.

There are a lot of things I don’t understand, particularly slang words and jokes, so I don’t have many friends at school. Pandora Swan is friendly to me sometimes, but we don’t have much in common. She hangs around with Courtney Caldera and her very superficial friends. Pandora told me that my new neighbour was her cousin and described her as a bit of an outsider, who read books when she wasn’t surfing and also didn’t have many friends. You two would hit it off, she said. I hoped that meant this new girl was interested in science, mathematics and computing like me, but when I waved to her from my bedroom window, she put out her tongue and made a gesture with two of her fingers.

I was trying to get a better view, when I noticed Papa emerge from our kitchen door. He was dressed for work as usual, in a grey suit, white shirt and tie, but he had forgotten to put on his trousers. I ran downstairs via his bedroom, snatched his pants from a hanger, and just managed to catch him before he opened the garage door.

Papa is the Tesla Professor of Cyber-Engineering and he has invented a machine that is going to make Coolabah University world famous. How can I explain it? Imagine a crocodile bites your leg off—Papa’s invention could make you a new one as good as the original; or, say you walk into an aeroplane propeller and it sliced your face off—no problem, we use your DNA to grow a copy (with improvements if you like!); or how about, your heart stops working—hey presto, a new heart! No waiting around for a donor. No need to take drugs to stop your body rejecting it. Papa’s invention was going to revolutionise transplant surgery.

As Papa drove away (with his trousers on), I realised my neighbour was watching me from under the tree. Her ‘opponent’ turned out to be a punching bag dangling from a branch. I would have introduced myself and explained about Papa’s trousers, except at that moment, our housekeeper arrived for work.

Papa has no talent for cooking or cleaning or looking after us, so after Mama left, he put an advertisement in the university newspaper for a cleaner and cook. The next day, when I was at home alone working on a calculus problem, there was a ring on the doorbell. The caller’s name was Vex. She was as thin as a tomato pole with skin as white as arsenic. Her hair was jet black on one side and neon blue on the other. One of her eyes was green, and the other was pink, and when she looked at you with half-lowered eyelids, you knew what a mouse felt like being hypnotised by a cobra.

Her ‘business card’ looked like it was printed at Officeworks:

Dr Mortella Vex Ph.D. (Université Escroque)

Cleaner and chef de cuisine

I guess because I was always around people who are all called Doctor or Professor, I hadn’t thought it strange that someone with a PhD would want to work as a housekeeper. I also didn’t think it odd that she called the day before the university newspaper was published. And until Biff asked about it, I had never thought it odd that she arrived and left in a chauffeur-driven black limo with tinted windows, or that she never appeared when Papa was home.

I have little experience with housekeepers, but it soon became clear that she didn’t have any experience either. She ran around the house flicking a feather duster at the furniture and moving books and newspapers from one place to another. When she’d finished in the kitchen, I discovered that she’d put dirty plates and glasses back in the cupboard instead of in the dishwasher. Most days, I ended up having to clean up after she’d gone. As for cooking, she filled our refrigerator with take-away plastic containers of sweet-sour pork and fried rice. Our name might be Chan, but I prefer hamburgers to chop suey. Papa will eat anything you put in front of him, and an hour later he’ll forget he’s had dinner.

The one room our cleaner spent a lot of time and effort on was Papa’s study. She picked up every piece of paper and read it carefully before dusting and replacing it. Once, I caught her photographing some diagrams, but she said she was just checking the email on her phone and must have touched the flash by mistake. She cleaned all the desk drawers and bookshelves and spent a long time wiping down the computer keyboard.

If I don’t clean every key, they will be shtuck, she said. (I also didn’t think it strange that she spoke with an indefinable foreign accent.)

I know now that she was trying to crack Papa’s password. She was actually a spy, trying to steal Papa’s research.

Biff said, The first time I saw her, I thought she was your mother. By the way, where is your mother?

Where’s your father? I asked.

We called a temporary truce on that subject.

CHAPTER THREE

Gangles

I definitely have a loyalty problem. Courtney is my bestie, but Bethany is my cousin, and they are not talking to one-another. I always knew Courtney was a snob, and I didn’t doubt she’d drop me like a hot potato if I upset her, and the "incident’ with Biff and Gormley was nearly the end of a beautiful friendship. But Bethany is family…

My Mum and Auntie Scarlet are sisters (named Violet and Scarlet, can you believe it?). They are like Siamese twins when they are together, arms linked, gossiping about old boyfriends or recent break-ups or swapping stories about their silly husbands. When Uncle Sid wasn’t surfing or writing to the local paper, he’d be strumming his battered old guitar and singing bush ballads (some of them are quite rude!) with Bethany wheezing along on her mouth organ. Uncle Arlo seemed easy-going unless you mentioned ‘climate change’ or ‘big coal’. Then he’d launch into a speech about the secret conspiracy of ‘fat cats’ who aimed to destroy the planet before the next ‘great extinction.’

Dad, on the other hand, was rather right-wing politically. He once stood for parliament but was beaten by The Greens. We never stopped hearing about it. Dad said Uncle Arlo was a hippy who’d imbibed too many illegal substances when he was young. When he’d had an argument with Uncle Arlo, Dad would say, Your sister should have arrested him instead of marrying him.

It was certainly a shock to Mum and Dad when Scarlet brought him home, Mum would laugh. We couldn’t even pronounce his name.

I remember one summer at the coast when Bethany and I were 6 or 7, Uncle Arlo was scaring us with stories about pirates and ghost ships and how human greed was leading to climate change, which was going