Scribbles and Drabbles

Notebook Drabble 69 - AI Clone

"The hell does that mean?" Luis frowned, unsure which of the three faces spinning in front of him was truly Mindas. He drank the swash regardless. He wasn't on duty tomorrow, he could drink. The worst that would happen was another lecture about not poisoning his liver before the mines wrecked his body.

Mindas grabbed his arm roughly and pushed the sleeve up enough to show his inner elbow. It was small, but a tattoo of a cog sat there.

"I don't remember getting that," Luis closed one eye to focus on it, confused. He would have remembered getting a tattoo, probably.

"That's no tattoo," snorted Mindas. "You don't know what being cogged means?"

"Cog in the machine? A good example? Some phrase that the clones use?" Luis didn't remember the wording. Clones didn't end up in these places unless they were defective. Clones had options beyond their enlistment and futures to enjoy. The Great A.I. did not leave its clones to waste away in mining corporations. 

"Something who that. You don't know you're a clone?"

"I'm not a clone. I've got all my paperwork to prove it," Luis said. Amber made sure he did. 

"Werid," Mindas sucked on another bottle, determined to wake up unable to fuction in the morning. Or possibly to float off numb to the work to stop the endless torment of pain that Mindas survived with. Chronic pain was a bitch that Luis did not care te know. "Only people who get cogged are clones, or clone partners. It means you're being conscripted. You need to contact the local server room and get your placement."

"Fuck that shit. I'm no clone, and I'm pretty sure MEX holds my soul and firstborn child until I finish my apprenticeship." And possibly his kidney, too. The contract was not a slave contract, but it covered a lot.

"Not sure it works like that," Mindas closed his eyes and slumped against the metal wall. "MEX is A.I.-owned. They'd give your contract up to please the great A.I."

"Our wonderous overlords."

"The Great computer that rules us all, all hail the binary code," laughed Mindas, sipping down to lie starfished out on the floor.

"All hail the binary code."

"You sure you're not a clone?

"Positive," Luis lied, ish. He couldn't say he was half a clone; that didn't exist.

"And you're never signed a contract with them?"

"Dude, I'm not 18. This is the only contract I've ever signed," Luis gestured around them. "This is some mistake or prank. I'm not eligible for their conscription or whatever the verb should be."

"Fuck knows," yawned Mindas. "Better contact them sooner rather than later to fix it, or else you'll risk your neck."

"Thanks for the tip."

Passing out did not resolve the issue. The next shift pattern, it remained on his arm, innocent but with heavy intent. He covered it with bandages and ignored it. He wasn't contacting the server to report this as wrong. What exactly was he going to say? His paperwork marked him as Freeborn, but some clones got marked mistakenly.

The cog got bigger, itching as the skin around it turned red and hot. His first gut involved tattooing over it, which required finding someone willing to do so. Unlikely, even a mining base, noone wanted to piss off the Great Al.

He started wearing long sleeves and skipped showers to avoid people noticing it. He wasn't sleeping; one infernal thing kept him awake, with the itchiness and the fear of what it meant. Despite his mother's careful planning and gene cleansers, she'd been unable to remove the Al's claim over his being.