FIC: The Sake of Momentum (Part 1)

[tebtosca]

“And may all your brethren live long for us.”

There’s always a pause between Commander Richings’s signature goodbye and when the hologram shuts off. It’s in that pause that Ackles-1 likes to study the man’s face.

The great commander is strong but wizened, as one would expect from the leader of all. His face is long, cheeks sunken in with age and the hardship of the world’s travails. His eyes—dark and deep in their sockets—radiate a sense of purpose, but without the softened glow of empathy.

Those eyes frighten Ackles-1, for they belong to the only father he will ever know.

“Lessons are done for today, little one,” Mother Tapping says as the hologram fades. She’s standing over his sleek metal desk, the only one there in the middle of the learning room. Her soft brown hair is up in a bun, and her smile is warm. Twin indentations kiss her cheeks.

“Thank you, Mother,” Ackles-1 replies, standing automatically and moving towards the door. Her hand just barely brushes the back of his head, and he leans into it.

“What did you learn today?” she asks, just as he is about to clear the doorframe.

“That we are special, Mother. That I am special.”

There’s a slight pause, before her lyrical voice is heard again, “That you are, little one. That you are.”

He walks down the hallway of the center—the Home, as some of the others call it mockingly—curving automatically to the left to find the lunch room. Sometimes after a lesson, Mother Tapping will allow him to take his meal in his room, but she has been discouraging this behavior as of late. If only she knew half the reasons he prefers it that way.

The room is full when he enters it, the rush of noise filling his eardrums automatically from the bluster of activity. The entire Murray line is at their normal table dead center in the middle of the room, a few Hodges and one Welling sitting with them. The younger Palicki line is sitting in a neat row, their blonde hair in high pigtails as they sip from their cups of juice.

Ackles-1 scans the room, glancing quickly over the various Corteses scattered throughout the room, until his eyes land of Cortese-5. She waves him over to the corner table that she is sitting at, smiling brightly. Ackles-1 blushes at the attention she draws from the other Wellings sitting nearby, but he heads over to her and takes a seat quickly.

“Hey, you,” she says in greeting, bumping his shoulder with her own. Her dark eyes are crinkled up at the corner as she grins, and he can’t help but smile back at his only real friend.

“What are you eating?” he asks, peering over at the mysterious substance on her plate.

“Probably something rescued from Mommy T’s toilet bowl this morning from the looks of it,” she says with disdain, poking at the food product with her fork.

“I think I will avoid the special then, thanks,” he says, shuddering.

Dinwiddie-78, one of the staff duplicates, comes over and places a tray down in front of him. She raises one eyebrow as to say “just eat it” before heading off to her next duty.

“Why do you get the pink apples? This is favoritism at its most blatant,” Cortese-5 protests with a pout, attempting to sneak her hand onto his tray to steal whatever she can get ahold of.

“Maybe because I’m not a brat who calls our Mother names and falls asleep during lessons,” he replies primly, but hands over one of the tiny pink fruits to her anyway.

“Who told you that? I swear 7 can’t keep his mouth shut,” she grumbles, glaring over at the Murray table at the back of Murray-7’s spiky blond head.

There’s a tiny pang of something in Ackles-1’s belly at the reminder that the other duplicates get to study together, brothers and sisters united to learn about the glory of the State and the process that keeps it running. The process that they, as Duplicates, are a part of. An integral part, important and special.

Ackles-1 is different, though. There are fifty-one Duplicate children in this wing of the center. The initial ten each of five different models and him. He is the only duplicate child who has only one of his kind, and it marks him as different in every way.

All of the others learn about their Originals from a young age. The Cortese line from a great and important geneticist, one of the pioneers of the process. The Murrays, from the scion of an important legacy family. Welling, from an All-Star athlete who was the most famous player of his time. Hodge, from a starry medalist from celebrated games from the past called “the Olympics.” And the little Palicki girls, all of seven years old, their Original a famous screen beauty renowned for her grace.

Ackles-1 has never been informed about his Original. His maker, his father.

He remembers years back, when Cortese-5 came to him excitedly one day and told of how her Original won a Nobel prize. Neither of them really knew what that was, but it sounded important, and there was a proud puff in her chest when she told him.

He had gone back to Mother Tapping and said to her, “Mother, who created me?”

Mother Tapping had bent down to peer into his face, her mouth curved up into a knowing grin. “The State did, of course.”

He had persisted then, because it was suddenly important. “But who do I look like? Why don’t I have brothers like the others?”

“You exist for all of us, little one. Put these selfish thoughts out of your head,” Mother Tapping had replied, standing to her full height, which had been much greater than his own at that time. Her voice was stern suddenly, and Ackles-1 had been afraid that he had angered her.

She had tapped her finger against the “Ackles-1” stitched across his shirt, right over his heart. They did not teach the children to read, but they did teach them their numbers. So they would know, so they would remember. Not like they could ever forget.

He had put his hand over hers and felt the warmth of her skin for just a moment before she pulled away, leaving his hand touching only his designation.

“That’s a good boy. Run along,” she had said.

Cortese-5 crunching the apple brings him back to the present. The look on her face is more thoughtful than it had been a minute ago, and he nudges her to get her attention. He pushes a lock of dark hair that has fallen into her face, and she smiles up at him.

“What are you thinking?”

She shrugs, but he can tell that there is something on her mind. “It’s next month, you know.”

“What is?”

“We turn sixteen.”

He huffs in a little breath. He knows that the date is coming soon, but it hasn’t been on the forefront of his mind because she never really talks about it. The Cortese line is nine months older than him, and he realizes with trepidation that the inevitable is coming his way soon.

“Are you guys excited?” he asks, trying to keep his voice calm because he can tell the conversation is darkening her mood.

She barks a laugh and then looks away quickly. She looks almost scared, and it’s the first time he’s ever seen that emotion cross his friend’s face. It’s like suddenly and terrifyingly looking into a mirror.

When a duplicate reaches the age of sixteen, they go through a screening process and then it’s decided where they are going to go to—either to the Nursery or to the Factory. No one really knows what the screening is for, or what really lies ahead once they leave the Home, but there have been enough hushed whispers from the staff duplicates for the children to get an idea.

The last line to leave was a year before, when two of the Cohen models went one way and eight of the others went another. The looks on their faces as they were separated were devastating, and Ackles-1 feels suddenly lucky that he doesn't have brothers that he would have to leave in ten months time.

But then Cortese-5 looks up at him—her eyes dark and sad—and he realizes that the closest thing he has to a sister and a friend will be lost to him in much less time than that.

“I’m not hungry anymore,” she says suddenly, putting the half-eaten fruit back down on his tray. Her fingers are sticky with juice, and she sucks on them absently.

He swallows and puts his head down. They sit in silence for the rest of the lunch period.



“You can do better than that,” Worthy-94, the duplicate in charge of physical education, barks.

Ackles-1 clings to the rope hanging from the ceiling of the gym, his hands on fire as the fibrous material scraps into them.

“Faster!”

Sweat beads at his forehead, and his chest feels tight as his breath quickens.

“Stop being so weak!”

He feels tears at the corners of his eyes, his head throbbing and the tinny sounds of laughter comes from the fellow duplicates below.

“You’re holding up the rest of the class!”

A cry slips from his mouth as his hands slide off the rope and he falls, crumpling to the ground. Cortese-5 runs to see if he’s all right, cradling his head in her lap while two of her sisters and the coach come over to help.

“No wonder they only made one of you,” Murray-2 says from a few feet away, not even trying to be subtle. Two of his line snicker with him, and Ackles-1 buries his head in shame.

“That’s enough from you. Showers, now,” Worthy-94 hollers at the Murrays, who roll their eyes in unison and head towards the showers.

“You okay, buddy?” Cortese-5 asks, her voice soothing as she strokes his hair.

He turns his head into the warmth of her belly, closing his eyes for a moment and letting himself be held. He knows that he’s different than the others, that there must be something wrong with him if his Original only thought he was good enough for one copy. It hurts every time to be reminded of that fact.

“You’ll do better next time,” Worthy-94 insists, shooing the other Cortese duplicates away and pulling Ackles-1 out of his cocoon.

“Yes, sir,” he replies, eyes downcast as he starts automatically heading back towards his room. There is no way he’s going to shower anywhere near the Murray line right now.

“Hey, meet me in the cove in thirty minutes,” Cortese-5 whispers, running along side of him to catch up.

He nods in agreement, even though he wants nothing more than to go hide in his room for a couple of days with his sketchbook and colored pencils. He knows that he has to keep his body strong and healthy for the State, but he hates the days when they have gym. Especially since it’s the one class that he’s forced to take with all the others.

==

He washes quickly—too fast for the water to even get very hot—but then stands for a few moments in front of the small round mirror in his bathroom. His face is flushed red from the exertion and heat, the tiny dots spread lazily across his cheeks standing at attention. He runs his fingers over his mouth—lips a bit too plump—and the tip of his nose. He closes his eyes and feels his wet lashes flutter against the tops of his cheeks.

He wonders what it would feel like to look at another person and see yourself looking back. He said that to Cortese-5 once, asked her what it was like to see her face in all of her sisters’. She had told him that all she saw were their differences. The chime of Cortese-2’s laugh. The way Cortese-6 is ticklish if you hit the right spot on her ribs. The tiny scar on Cortese-4’s finger from where she cut her hand when they were ten.

“We’re different. Every one,” she had said to him.

Ackles-1 hadn’t been sure what to believe. Not when the voice of Commander Richings was in his ear telling him that it was as one blessed unit that they would salvage the world.

“Different,” Cortese-5 had repeated, her eyes glowing.

Fifteen minutes later, he is squeezing into a little alcove they had discovered a few years back tucked behind the smaller kitchen used only by the staff duplicates. Cortese-5 is sitting in it, back against the smooth metal surface of the wall, her legs crossed and a tattered manuscript in her hands.

The duplicate children—as a rule—are not taught more than the alphabet. But the Cortese line has genius riddled throughout their DNA, and 5 has been patiently teaching herself to read the rudimental basics for the past six months. Dinwiddie-71 is sweet on her, and has managed to sneak her a few copies of contraband books from the outside.

“What’re you doing?” Ackles-1 asks, lowering himself down beside her and squeezing into the pocket of space.

She looks up from the book and smiles at him. He wonders if she really understands anything on the page, or if she’s just looking at the jumble and wishing it would soak into her brain through her fingertips.

“Learning all I can before next week.”

He pulls his knees up and wraps his arms around them. His hair is wet, and it’s slightly chilly in the cove. “Maybe you can sneak them with you when you go?”

She shakes her head just a little bit, a small frown on her face. “Maybe if I end up in the Nursery, but you know the Factory-bound don’t get to take anything with them.”

He knows this to be true, although no one is quite sure why. The ones chosen to go to the Nursery are rarer, sometimes only one out of an entire line are sent there. Mother Tapping always says that everyone has a job to do and that no matter where they go, the State will be ever thankful for them.

“Maybe you’ll end up at the Nursery. You never know.”

“2 and 7 have been feeling down the past few days. Skin kind of itchy.”

He gulps, knowing what that means. Most of the time, the ones chosen for transport to the Nursery start to get a fever the week before their sixteenth birthday. It’s not always the case—Cohen-3 didn’t show any symptoms before he left—but it’s always a good indication.

“Remember the Balaban line? They sent five to the Nursery,” he points out, trying to be helpful. But she just puts down the book carefully on the ground and leans her head against his shoulder.

“We don’t even know if that’s any better,” she says, her voice a whisper. It’s weird seeing someone as usually outgoing and fiery as her so quiet.

He swallows hard, not knowing what to say. None of them know what life is like for the duplicates when they leave these walls, so supposition is pointless. The best thing to do is to tell oneself to be brave and true and know that the State will do right for the blessed among it.

They sit in silence for a few long minutes, her warmth bleeding into him and keeping out some of the chill from before. Her hair is soft where it brushes his cheek, and reminds him of what home should feel like.

“I wish I was going with you,” he murmurs. He’s scared of what his life will be like without her, without the small morsel of companionship they allow each other.

He’s also scared of what his life will be like when he’s in her shoes.

She slips her fingers into his, and squeezes. It’s enough—knowing that she’s there—even if only for the moment.




“We wish you great tidings in this next phase of your journey. May it be one of honor, of bravery, of depth of character, and of strength. You as a collective unit are the blessing of this great State, and together you will keep us in prosperity and happiness for many years to come.”

The hologram flickers on Commander Richings’s face, one last moment of solemnity in the angles of his cheekbones. The image is large, covering the entire wall in the auditorium where the duplicates assemble together for ceremonial events like the one that is currently happening.

The Cortese models stand in a perfect line in the front of the collected children. Their hair down—sleek and brown—and parted in the middle and exactly like their sister’s next to them. The numbers on their chests are in red stitching now, different from the black of the rest of the children.

One would never notice the tremble in their hands if one wasn’t looking for it.

Ackles-1 closes his eyes for just a moment when he sees it.

Mother Tapping stands before them. Her hair is twisted into tight braids like a halo, and her dress is as long and yellow as the sun that they’ve seen only in images. It’s the dress she wears only on the days of the crossover, and Ackles-1 wonders if she chooses a gown so cheerful in order to soothe the inevitable sense of loss in those left behind.

“This is not a farewell, but a rebirth,” she announces, her arms spread wide. The indentations in her cheeks must hurt from their depth as she smiles.

She heads down the line, placing a hand upon each duplicate’s cheek.

“Thank you, Mother,” each intone as the touch fades from their skin.

Mother Tapping reaches Cortese-5—the last in the series of her line. Cortese-5 tilts her chin up, her eyes glowing fierce with what Ackles-1 recognizes as defiance.

She must hate that middle part. Hate that red stitching. Hate that Mommy T can touch her with a feigned tenderness that she doesn’t seek.

Ackles-1 sees all of that in the tilt of his friend’s chin. But as Mother Tapping brushes her palm across her cheek, Cortese-5’s eyes flutter closed, and her shoulders slump in defeat.

“Thank you, Mother,” Cortese-5 says, because ritual is important.

Soon the entire line is being led out by three Dinwiddie duplicates, probably to be prepared for their final transport. Mother Tapping tells the remaining children that they have the rest of the day free and dismisses them.

Ackles-1—a sense of loss overwhelming him suddenly—runs to the cove in an attempt to lessen it.

He is not there more than ten minutes before a clattering of footsteps brings his head up and to attention. His eyes widen as he sees his friend staring back at him.

She drops to her knees in front of him. Her hair is messier than it was during the ceremony, and it’s such a familiar sight that he wants to reach out and touch her face just to remember it better.

She pulls the secret compartment from the wall where she has her treasures hidden, and takes out one of the more battered looking paperbacks. She holds it up to him, and he sees a title that he can’t read in bright, rainbow-hued colors. A picture of a laughing infant is in a circle in the middle of the cover.

“I don’t know what it means,” he says, knowing that they don’t have much time but wishing that he instinctively understood.

“It’s a book of names,” she tells him, her voice wavering in a way he’s never heard. “It’s from before the Plagues, before the Wars. When people would have children of their own that they would raise and love and name. They would name them.”

Her voice is edging towards hysteria as she starts flipping madly through the pages. Halfway through she stops, her finger pressing against the ink so hard that the tip of it grows white.

“I have a name.”

“I don’t understand,” he says, flustered.

She holds the book up to his face, willing him to see. “I have a name. Here, it is. This is mine, not theirs. Mine. I chose this.”

Finally, he sees. He takes the book from her, closing it gently, and putting it down on the ground next to them.

“Tell me your name.”

Tears trickle down her cheeks. “Genevieve.”

“Genevieve.”

She chokes back a sob. He’s never seen her cry and knows he never will again.

“Genevieve,” he repeats, holding her to his chest.

“It’s pretty, right? My name,” she whispers, wet eyelashes, damp cheeks, and swollen lips pressing against the number on his chest.

“It’s the most beautiful name in the world.”

Heavy footsteps signal someone in the hallway. They pull back from each other with a gasp, knowing they have only moments if they don’t want to be caught.

She wipes the tears off her face, and an odd sense of serenity overtakes her countenance. “I’m being sent to the Factory. I don’t know what that means, but I know who I am.”

She picks up the book and presses it into his hands. He clutches it to his rapidly beating heart.

“Be someone,” she says to him as she stands. She’s backing up, and soon she’ll be out of his life forever.

“Genevieve,” he says again because he doesn’t have any words left.

She smiles at him one last time, and then is gone.

==

The next day, the new replacement line comes in. Little girls, perhaps three or four years old, their hair in perfect matching pin-curls.

One comes over to him in the lunch room where he is sitting in the corner, alone and ignored by the rest. Her shirt says McCoy-5 in black stitching. She tugs on the leg of his pants.

“Hello,” he says, simply.

Her eyes are dark and wide and for the briefest moment, he remembers being that age with another little girl.

“Hello,” she replies, grinning. She’s missing a front tooth.

He gives her his applesauce and turns around until she gives up and leaves.




The next nine months are a lonely existence. The others leave him alone, knowing it is pointless because all of their times will soon be up. Sometimes he thinks he would forget how to speak if he didn’t greet Mother Tapping every morning.

He spends a lot of his free time in the cove, running his fingers over the edges of the books that Genevieve left behind. He can make out letters, but his useless brain can’t quite put the pieces together to tell him what they mean. He holds on to them though—as a keepsake of his only friend, and as a strange hope that one day he’ll be someone as well.

==

He wakes up one morning—four days before his sixteenth birthday—with what feels like a layer of fire coating his skin. He moans from the sensation, sweat trickling down his temples, beyond his chin, and down the length of his neck. It’s like tiny insects are dancing under his skin, pushing from underneath the flesh in a valiant attempt at escape.

Dinwiddie-75 finds him like that when she comes to change his sheets in the late morning. The ones underneath him are soaked with perspiration from the terrible heat inside of him, and he’s writhing in pain. She runs to Mother Tapping, who comes quickly and sits down at his bedside.

“Looks like it’s time, little one,” Mother Tapping says, smoothing her hand across his reddened forehead. He barely feels the needle that slips into his arm as blackness overtakes him.

==

He comes to later, blinking his eyes against the harsh light of the medical suite he’s lying in. A pill is being pressed to his tongue by McNiven-49—the nurse duplicate. He coughs at the dry object, and she shushes him and holds a small cup of water up to help ease the way.

“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice rough with disuse. The fire is still raging in him, but it’s softer now. Farther away like a shadow of what it once was.

“You’re going through puberty,” the nurse says, pushing him back down firmly when he tries to sit up.

“I don’t understand,” he says, the words not sinking in.

“Your body is preparing itself for the next step in its evolution,” she explains, although it’s not a particularly thorough explanation.

All it’s telling him is that he knows where he’ll be four days from now.

“I’m going to the Nursery, aren’t I?”

McNiven-49 smiles, her face lovely but eyes shuttered. “We all have to start somewhere.”




He takes the mysterious pill four times a day. Along with ice baths daily, his fever manages to abate. There’s an odd floating sensation inside of his head, clearing only at intervals when everything that is soon to happen comes rushing in. The fear is sharp and bright in those moments.

None of the other duplicates come to his room over the course of the next four days to say goodbye. The one time he makes it into the lunch room, a few of the Palicki girls glance over at him with shy smiles on their young faces. Hodge-2 looks like he might say something, but Murray-3 glares at him. There is only silence.

It doesn’t really matter to him. Genevieve is gone, and there is nothing to tie him to this place. He’s not sure that the Nursery will be any better. Any sense of home he felt for this building that he has spent almost the entirety of his life in left when she walked out the door.

He spends an hour each day watching Commander Richings on the hologram. He speaks to Ackles-1 of honor and duty, his words like poetry in his deep, melodic voice. The content is new and obviously saved for those with the fever. Their bodies changing instinctually at the same time that the words are meant to mold their minds.

It’s strange to stand up there alone during his farewell ceremony. He’s staring out into the audience, and it’s a sea of monotony. Face after face in a row staring back at him with the same expression.

Maybe Genevieve was wrong. Maybe none of them are unique at all.

The duplicates look back at him like one monolithic mass, and his eyes are closing before Mother Tapping and her bright yellow gown even stand in front of him.

Later, he sits on his bed for the very last time. Mother Tapping comes into the room and sits down next to him.

“You’re one of the chosen, little one. You and your kind will help us keep this world full and alive.”

He nods. The words are familiar from where they poured from Commander Richings’s thin, pale lips.

“And maybe if you’re lucky, one of the Originals will let you carry a real baby for them. Isn’t it wonderful? Having all of that trust given to you?”

He looks up at that. Baby?

It reminds him of the book tucked in a hidden pouch in the one bag he is allowed to bring, and suddenly it’s very important that someone acknowledge him.

“Can I have a name, Mother?”

He clings to the skirt of her yellow dress, fingers bunching in the fabric. It’s like grasping sunshine, light and spark and life.

“You already have one, Little One,” she says. “One.”

He can feel the color drain from his face at the realization that what he thought was an endearment his entire life was anything but.

“Your name is One.”

==

Part 2A

Comments

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

“You already have one, Little One,” she says. “One.”

He can feel the color drain from his face at the realization that what he thought was an endearment his entire life was anything but.

“Your name is One.”

That's so chilling--so sad.

[dulcetine.livejournal.com]

this is so creepy but i cannot look away. i am in love with this world building and terrified at the same time! ack!

[meus_venator]

Oh I feel a chill going up my spine a the thought of 'Mother' Tapping. The slim comfort she showed those children. THe mockery of the yellow dress. GRRR I'm getting mad. And I'm so worried about where fierce, loyal Gen ended up. And denying the duplicates the simple pleasure of reading. .... Watch your blood pressure M-V.
And then you are so cruel, you steal Ackles-1, one last scrap of a imagined affection when he finds out Little One, is not an affectionate term, but the One of his name...
COld heartless AU you've created. I hope they have a good reason for it.

[rjunkie.livejournal.com]

Oh my god... It's only Part 1 and you're breaking my heart...

[locknkey.livejournal.com]

Nice world building, bb!