A Part of Something
The first thing I remember seeing was a white light. I read that most newborns cry when they see the light, but I wasn’t like most newborns, and I did not cry. There was no need. The light was a comfort. It felt safe and warm, like I imagine a mother would. I never understood the fascination all other newborns have with the darkness: you’re always separate in it, never a part of it.
I grew up in the light, a clear plastic bubble surrounded by dull gray computers and people in white. Their faces and forms were hidden by their clothes, and guessing who was working that day by body language was a game I often played when I was young. They never talked to me, and my enclosure limited my understanding of their conversations. They just gave me food and books and talked about me. I ate the food, but a lot of their books I put away. They were all stories about love and adventure and far off places. I never cared for love or adventure, complicated and dark, and other places were only interesting so far as their technology was concerned.
That was what really held my attention. I could spend hours thinking about machinery and electricity. It all just felt right, watching how the gears and wires worked together to make a spark or a movement. There were no loose ends, no spare parts, no duplicates. Every piece was unique, and everything belonged.
…
It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I made my first friend, or what I imagine a friend might be. She laughed at the same things that made me laugh, and she talked to me and listened when I talked to her. Charlotte was two years older than me, brought along by one of the faceless scientists who I discovered was Dr. Guillory. Most importantly, she shared my passion for technology. We’d talk about spaceships and their inner workings, and think about how they could be improved. She brought me a whole bunch of schematics of drone designs they were using, and I poured over them endlessly. When she’d return we’d parse out what we could do to make them run faster, or for longer, or on less fuel. Dr. Guillory once called us prodigies, but I had no point of reference.
It was during one of those days, right before her graduation day, that we were interrupted by her father. “Alright, honey,” he said. “It’s time for the presentation.”
Charlotte looked up at her father, then back to me, and her face cycled through expressions that I couldn’t understand. “Good luck,” she said at last as she shut the door of my chamber behind her hesitantly and followed her father out of the lab room.
I stood watching her in relative silence when suddenly I heard the hiss of pneumatics and the clanking of gears as my microcosmic sphere sunk out of the station that had been my entire life. As it sank, I began to hear another sound that I’d never heard before. I was certain it wasn’t mechanical. It was a dull roar, and the lower my chamber went the more the roar intensified. It was coupled with a bright light. The light enveloped my sphere so completely that I had to shut my eyes for a brief moment. When I opened them again, I saw the blue sky and bright sun, and the world beneath and around me. There, I saw faces, thousands and thousands of faces, and I came to the conclusion that the roaring sound was their shouting and screaming. Then, I heard a voice that must have been amplified, as it cut over the rest with ease.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice said, “I am proud to present the summation of our efforts these past years. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Janus: the first human clone!”
The crowd erupted once again, and I realised they were cheering for me. Me! Thousands and thousands of people cheering for me. I was part of the machine, the spark or the movement, a seething mass of wires and gears below me. I was part of something. I was something.
