Scribbles and Drabbles

Life Debts

A pairing was normally two people by most human worlds. The Great A.I's clones bonded into family units of upwards of ten people but six was normal. Born humans who joined the army often accepted that part of the culture too. Mods were more complicated depending on their type and origin. Rygan Mods typically fell into threes, searching out mods whose active genes complemented their own. 

Then Rygan's council had pissed off the Great A.I and the armies of the computer-controlled nation slaughter Rygan's territory. The commoners were mostly spared but the mods, the ruling class of Rygan, were hunted down and dispatched for the honour and glory of the Clone Nation. Now, the numbers of Rygan Mods were very low and with the new peace settled, decisions had to be made. Governer Bradshaw had started the search for commoners with inactive genes to be activated and placed in the nurseries. The Great A.I wanted the Rygan Mods as an active part of their army and for that, they needed to recover the population. 

"How many Rygan Mods are in your enlisted number?" Governer Bradshaw growled, the sound rumbling through Ollie as the man glared at him. Ollie resisted the urge to shiver. Bradshaw's anger flowed with daggers. This situation was not looking good. The Rygan Mods had always been natural births but now he had to accept using the I.F machines.  It was better than the clone machines but not much better. 

The I.F machines required DNA from two people to create a child. They had been developed in part to allow same-sex couples to have children with both their D.N.A. Once the fetus was created, it was grown in the same manner as a clone before being 'birthed' at the age of normal natural birth. Expensive but with so many of the female Rygans dead, the remaining few could not birth enough children to fill the gap the Great A.I was demanding. 

"We will have to ask for them to come forwards," General Becker commented, sitting on his chair with a calm air as he watched Bradshaw pace around the room. "Within my crew, ten are known."

Bradshaw had come for a debriefing about creating the first batch of mods through the machines. The first batch needed to have as many surviving mods used as possible. From there the genes could be studied and resequenced to create new lines without worry of inbreeding later on. The first batch would be raised by the partners or by the same schools that raised 'natural born' clones. They needed to hunt down the graves of lost mods and get samples from them too. It was all a grime business. 

"Six full-bloods, and 3 half-bloods, one-half inactive, is out," Ollie interjected, fingers tapping on the table as he looked over the conditions the Great A.I had created. All officer ranked Mods were required to make a donation but not required to raise the child. Enlisted were different. They were to fall under Bradshaw's control and command. The weight of Ollie's bars were suddenly very reassuring. "There are two full blood officer ranked known too."

"Does that matter, Captain?" Colonel Reilly asked, writing sometime down on his own clipboard of information. 

"Active Mods will have more success," Bradshaw scowled, looking at Ollie with narrowed eyes. Bradshaw's parter placed a hand on his shoulder and pushed Bradshaw to sit down. One partner, Ollie had caused the death of the third. War was war. "Full bloods are best but half breed with active genes will work when mixed with full bloods." 

"Based on data from natural births."