Popular Clone (11 page)

CHAPTER 10

I like precise, clearly defined rules. How else would I be sure I was breaking them?

—Vic Daring (Issue #1)

It was Tuesday morning, and Fisher held the old fedora his clone had been wearing in his hand. Two watched with a hint of a frown on his face.

“I think I know a way to keep you under con—I mean, to help guide you through the school day so that this operation goes as well as it can.” In Fisher's other hand was a self-camouflaging camera produced by none other than TechX Enterprises. He affixed it to the front of the hat and then pressed a locking switch. Instantly, it vanished, its active camouflage blending it perfectly into its surroundings.

A window on Fisher's computer popped up with the live feed from the camera, and Two's look of mild annoyance appeared from two angles. “With this, I can see everything you see during the day. And
this
,” he went on, slipping a tiny microphone pad under the front of the brim, “will allow me to hear as well. If you need any advice I can provide it with this earbud.” He attached a tiny, ear-fitting speaker to the inside of the hat. “Any objections?”

Two took a slow, deep breath, exhaled, and shook his head slowly. Fisher could tell that he had at least two or three objections. But Two remained silent.

“Good,” Fisher said, satisfied that the experiment was getting back on track. Clearly Two respected Fisher enough to listen to his direction. Fisher was pleased to see his clone defer to his wishes.

After all, Fisher
had
given Two life—that had to count for something, right?

As Two left for school, Fisher got comfy in front of his computer, stretched his neck back and forth, and put his feet on the desk, next to the keyboard.

The video window was open. At the moment, it only displayed the wrinkle-textured, brown vinyl back of a school bus seat, but at least the picture was clear. Fisher could also hear the sounds of the trip: cars outside, a dozen conversations, and sometimes, faintly, Two's own breathing all came through the speakers just fine. Fisher flicked a control on his keyboard and spoke softly into the little headset slipped over his ear.

“Mic check. Tap the seat in front of you if you can hear me.”

An arm and hand came into the picture, and Fisher shivered slightly. Watching someone identical to himself doing things he had done before was like hovering slightly behind his own eyes.

The hand that looked just like his own tapped idly on the seat in front. “Good, good. Okay, carry on. I won't talk unless it's really necessary.” The hand gave a thumbs-up that Fisher couldn't help but feel was more than a little sarcastic.

He turned away from the image as the bus made its way to school. FP was trotting lightly around the room looking for discarded bits to eat, and Fisher's lab machines were conducting their own work. A few were running computer simulations of a new growth formula he was testing for himself, one was incubating the next generation of attack squitoes, and one was collecting data from an automated telescope that scanned the sky for radio signals.

Fisher decided to kick back in his chair and catch a few minutes more of sleep. He felt what little muscle he had relax, the tension in his neck and eyebrows releasing. He breathed slowly and deeply. Having two Fishers might be a lot of trouble, but at moments like this, it
still
felt worth it.

He was jolted awake when he heard his name being called. A single, jerking, two-arm flail tipped his chair over and spilled him into a jumbled pile on the floor. FP trotted over to check on him, and Fisher lightly pushed him out of the way so that he could sit up. He scrambled back into his chair, staring in disbelief at the video screen.

“Hi, Fisher!” said Trevor Weiss, adjusting his enormous glasses.

“Hey, Fisher,” said Wally Dubel, blinking with the concentration he normally needed in order to speak.

“Fisher! How ya doin'?” said a tall girl Fisher didn't know.

“Hey, Fisher. What's up?” Corey Devonshire called from down the hall, with a quick wave.

The barrage of greetings almost pushed Fisher out of his seat all over again. Smiling faces streamed at him through the video screen as Two sauntered through the halls. His loping stride made the image bob slightly.

As Two walked down the familiar dull beige hallway, almost everyone he saw was talking to him. Being friendly to him. And Two was responding! He knew all of their names, asked them about things Fisher had never even
heard
of, like football tryouts and glee club. One boy came up, extending his arm, and Fisher saw that familiar looking hand dart out and give the kid a fist bump.

A
fist
bump.

Fisher turned the sound knob down as dozens of conversations, laughter, and shouts drummed in his ears. His substitute kept right on going, hellos left and right and calling out names as if he had them all written on the inside of his eyelids.

Then a massive
whud
sound, like an oak tree falling onto a whale, made Fisher's teeth rattle, and he flung the headset off his ear. The world in the computer monitor whirled around, spinning crazily until it stopped short at a mouse's-eye view. The hat had been knocked off. Fisher heard one voice pierce through the others.

“Sorry about that, Fisher! Didn't see you in the crowd.” The hat was lifted from the ground, and Fisher regained his clone's-eye view.

Staring him in the face was Chance Barrows—football player, basketball player, sunglass-wearing, slick-blond-haired, Veronica-talking Chance Barrows, who had a swarm of admirers buzzing all around him like an electron cloud.

Fisher gaped at his computer monitor. Not only did he know who Fisher was, he was apologizing!

The way the camera angle shifted slightly suggested that Two was shrugging in response.

“No big deal, Chance,” Two said. “Say hi to the guys on the team for me, will ya?” Chance nodded and smiled, walking off.

The bell for first period rang, and as Two turned a corner, Fisher reflexively recoiled.

Vikings.

They were on the prowl, and they had Two in their sights. This wasn't their normal hunting routine, either. Normally, they looked like they were having fun, laughing, shoving each other, their grins like sickle blades. Today, they looked completely serious. They stepped together like soldiers, fanned out in formation to minimize the possibility of escape.

And they made straight for Two.

Fisher fought the urge to hide, an urge that almost overpowered his knowledge that he was merely watching a transmitted image.

“Vikings dead ahead!” he whispered frantically into the microphone. “They're after you. Get out of there while you can!”

“I see them,” came the half-whispered answer. “I'm not running from anyone.”

“You
what
?” Fisher said. The Vikings kept lumbering forward. Brody was in the center, his jutting forehead leading the way. Leroy on his left, legs rolling forward like he'd learned to walk by watching truck pistons. And Willard on the right, his sneakers slapping the ground rhythmically like a sword banging the side of a shield.

Two looked around, and Fisher saw through his camera that the hall was empty. No witnesses. The three stopped a foot from Two, and glowered down at him.
Run,
Fisher thought.
Run run run run run run run run run.

“Looks like our friend Fisher has been making a new name for himself!” sneered Brody, clapping a hand on Two's shoulder so hard it made the camera jump.

“Y-Yeah, he's, he's getting around, isn't he?” answered Willard.

“He's really flipped over a new flower,” finished Leroy, a satisfied, smug grin on his face.

Brody closed his eyes in frustration and turned to him. “
Turned over
a new
leaf,
Leroy. He's … whatever. Just grab him!”

The camera was suddenly a whirl of images, like the shaken-up pictures of a kaleidoscope: first the floor, then the ceiling, then Brody's face, then a series of rapid side-ways jerks.

In the middle of it all, though, Fisher saw something that made his jaw drop. He saw a familiar-looking elbow shoot out and catch Brody in the stomach. He saw one of his own sneakers kick Leroy right in the nose, as Leroy let out a yelp of pain.

Two was fighting back. And he was fighting hard.

“Ack! Hold him steady, guys!”

“My nose, Brody! He broke my nose!! What do I do?”

“You don't have to smell him, idiot, just hold on! We're almost there!” The three were using all their strength to hustle him into the bathroom. As Two struggled, he looked down, and Fisher saw a freshly bleached toilet bowl, flecks of blue cleaner still clinging to its sides.

More shouts of pain from the Vikings as they finally managed to wrestle his head into the toilet, and the camera was submerged. Fisher closed his eyes and turned away from his desk, feeling like he might throw up.

The torrential roar of the flush nearly overwhelmed the microphone. On the one hand, it was fortunate that the equipment on the hat was waterproof. On the other hand … Fisher wouldn't exactly have been upset to be spared the view it was giving him.

“I can't feel my nose, Brody,” came Leroy's voice in the background over the slow exiting footsteps of the Vikings.

“I-I think he broke my toe,” said Willard, who was grunting in pain with each step.

“Come on, you two,” Brody's fading voice responded. “Don't be wimps. Let's just get out of … aagh, I think a tooth is loose… .”

The bathroom door opened, and closed.

“Are … Are you okay?” Fisher asked into the microphone. He felt a newfound respect for his clone. Two might be reckless, but he was also brave. Where had he gotten the courage? That desire to fight? Fisher, the original, had never once stood up to the Vikings.

Water dripped off the camera lens as Two picked himself up, and the view wobbled a bit as he walked a little unsteadily to the mirror. Fisher watched drips of water fall from the fedora's brim. Then Two turned to face the mirror, and Fisher was overcome with the weirdness of it. He was looking at a mirror image of himself looking at a mirror image of himself.

Two reached up and adjusted the tilt of his fedora. He reached up and brushed a spot of the blue cleaning fluid from his cheek and another from the tip of his nose. His expression was blank. “Fine,” he said shortly. “I'm fine.”

“I told you, you should have run,” Fisher said quietly. “You should listen to me next time.”

Two just scowled into the mirror, then turned around and stalked out of the bathroom.

Mid-morning, the bobbing camera turned down the familiar—and dreaded—dull red-painted cement hallway of the gym, and Fisher was glad he hadn't built any kind of smell-transmitter to go with the camera and microphone.

Two walked to Fisher's locker, spun the lock to Fisher's combination, which was the first five digits of pi—3, 14, 15—and tossed the hat in, turning it around so Fisher was staring into his own face. Two wasn't looking as smug as usual, but considering his recent encounter with the toilet bowl, he didn't look too bad, either.

“I'll see you after gym,” said the mirror image, and then the locker door slammed shut.

Fisher breathed a sigh of relief. Things were looking up for the long-term success of his experiment. The incident with the Vikings was unfortunate, but hopefully it had shown Two exactly where he belonged in the scheme of things at Wompalog. He turned from the computer and walked over to what had been his father's platypusegg cold-storage unit, which Fisher had inherited after an especially adventurous brood had hatched early and sought warmth in his parents' bed.

Fisher opened it up and withdrew turkey, some sour-dough bread, and honey mustard. He'd converted the storage unit into a makeshift refrigerator to avoid going into the kitchen when he was supposed to be at school. As he made the sandwich he felt himself jostled at ankle level, and looked down to see FP bumping his forehead against his shins.