Author: Arianna Smith
The doctor glows in the overhead light. He is the doctor because he is the doctor. The light is called light because that is what it is, and that is what it does. The doctor has a pale face with green eyes, and his face is lovely, and his green eyes are lovely. The doctor is lovely. The lovely doctor desires peace and order.
The lovely, peaceful, orderly doctor leans over, and his lovely, peaceful, orderly face plunges into shadow. He reaches down and flicks his wrist, and there is a sharp — something.
It’s a feeling, right in the middle. The word for the middle is the abdomen. The word for the feeling is —
“Ow.” The word for the feeling is — “Hurts.”
The doctor freezes, though his lovely eyes scan the abdomen. “What was that?”
A request for repetition. “That hurts.”
“I don’t care about that, clone. I mean the words.” The doctor leans in close, and he smells like the doctor, because that is who he is and that is how he smells. “Can you say more?”
Clone says more. “You are the doctor.”
The doctor smiles, baring his shiny white teeth, and a sudden fluttering excitement replaces the hurt in the abdomen. The doctor is pleased! Perhaps more words will please the doctor more. So many words crowd Clone’s mind that he must pause to place everything in the correct order. “This is your laboratory,” says Clone. “Here, with your strength and skill and ingenuity, you shall build a great army of clones. Your forces shall impose stability on this chaotic universe.”
The doctor blinks. “Amazing. Clearly, the cloning process preserved my vocabulary and transferred my trace memories into your mind.” The doctor chuckles, and his voice is low in his throat. “I am more than the doctor. I am your creator, your progenitor, your prototype. Your master.
You may call me Father.”
“Father.”
Father smiles again. “And what is your role, my child?”
On his tongue, My Child tastes the sweetest words of all. “To live for you.” The life-force above the abdomen — the heart — thumps with conviction. “To die for you.”
“Yes,” says Father, his lovely green eyes gleaming. “For me alone.”