Immortal Mistakes

numb and alone

"Chloe?" A clear voice rang across the room pulling Chloe to her feet. She stood in front of the printing machine trying to hide the feet and legs of the new Henry from the thick, blonde woman striding across the room.

Octavia. The Minister for Science. She must have ported here. This was bad.

She stood in front of Chloe now, hands on her hips. Octavia was the only woman with wrinkles Chloe had ever met. The only woman who wasn't young and thin. The only woman who made Chloe feel like a child.

"Now," Octavia said, "what is going on here?" 

Chloe straightened her spine so she stood taller than Octavia. "There was some memory file contamination. It caused brain damage in the clone. I terminated the damaged clone and am re-printing now. It's all logged."

"That's not the protocol, is it?" Octavia said, pursing her lips.

Ice ran through Chloe again, freezing her mouth, leaving her unable to speak.

"The protocol, Chloe, is to leave the body for post mortem gene and tissue analysis by the Scientific Oversight Committee. Now they will not be able to conduct a proper inquiry, will they?"

A little nugget of heat burned in Chloe's belly now, thawing the ice. She had been the Director of the Brisbane Rejuvenation Clinic for over 100 years. She was not a child. She was an award-winning scientist. "I was not aware that the protocol had changed."

"That's put us in a bit of a pickle, hasn't it? If the Oversight Committee cannot conduct an inquiry, then there is only one other option."

Octavia leaned into Chloe and smiled, a crocodile smile full of teeth. "I will delete the log this time but you must audit all the memory files to make sure this doesn't happen again." 

But that's not what happened. 

What happened was much worse. 

It was not Octavia who came up behind Chloe as she watched Henry form in front of her, bones and muscle and skin growing, stretching, forming into her friend. 

ROD's front glass panel swung open and the smells of blood and muscle and death and life swept over Chloe. Henry's eyes cleared. He turned around in the box looking lost until he saw Chloe. He gave her a tiny, almost smile and quick nod. His hands reached for his head, feeling the shape of it. Feeling it fill with thoughts and sensations, with smells and sounds and ideas. He moved his arms and legs and turned his hands over in front of him. Chloe choked back a sob. He was fine. Henry was fine.

He stepped out of the printer and enveloped Chloe in a hug. "How?" he said into her ear.

"Fishing accident."

"And the memories?"

"All there."

She hugged the new Henry, feeling lighter than air because he was alive again and safe, free from the dangerous memories. 

"Thanks Koala." And Henry walked out the door, with his thoughts safe inside his head.

Chloe was halfway across the room on the way to the lab to delete her memories of this morning when a clear voice rang out across the room. "Justice Department."

Chloe stopped mid-step.

She turned to face two men with short dark hair and pale skin. They stood side-by-side, their legs planted apart and arms hanging, matching fleshy lips jutting from their faces. Chloe wanted to sink into the stones, to be swallowed by the cold and taken away. Because that's what the twins would do. Take her away to the Centre for Medical Anthropology to be experimented on. The price for committing a crime.

"Chloe Lee?"

Her heart stopped beating then, she was sure of it. She hadn't had time to edit her memories. If they arrested her, they would see everything. Henry, Susan, Felipe. Her closest friends would be arrested too. The whole Silence Network would be exposed, at least the Queensland cell that Chloe controlled. The only way to get rid of the memories now, would be to stop her brain function. She looked around the room at the beeping machines and the locked doors and the crash cart still in disarray from where she had fumbled for the sedation. Bottles with more drugs sat snugly in the side of the cart. She started inching towards the cart, sliding her feet along the ground.

"Yes, I am Chloe Lee but there must be some sort of mistake. There hasn't been any crime committed here."

The men sensed it, the plan forming in her mind or they saw at least that she was trying to move away from them. They pounced, each taking one of her arms. "We are arresting you for murder," one of them said. 

She should have struggled then but she couldn't move, couldn't think. It was happening, her worst fears, the ones she tried not to think about even when she was alone. The men dragged her to the back door. One pressed a finger to the bioreader and the other forced her through the door into the port dock. His twin entered the co-ordinates for the CMA.

The world shrank away from Chloe leaving her numb and alone.

Thanks so much for reading. What do you think about the alternate memories? How would you feel if you remembered different versions of the same event?

This chapter is dedicated to @IceRequiem - thanks so much for making this story better.