Chapter 19
Albany, Homeland
After a hard night’s work, garbage collector Mark went home to his podmates and asked the husbands and wives of his pod at the dinner table if they thought he was too nice. They were sitting around the table. This time of day was the worst for Mark. He could just feel all of the bad chemistry that was going on among the pod members in the house. Mark thought that joining with a pod, would be a liberating experience. He was not tied down to one spouse, unlike the backwards old fashioned way. But all this freedom turned out to be slavery in disguise. Most of the time, a fellow podmate was unhappy with him for whatever reason.
"Oh that is ridiculous", Sven said. "How can someone be too nice?"
"Yea," Sheila said, "That makes no sense. Don't be such a wimp."
"You worry too much," Torrie added. "Your dinner is going to get cold."
Mark thought; great, now I am too nice, a wimp, and worry too much. It’s like I am hyper-emotional.
Bond just sat there eating his soup. The others in the pod were tired of him just freeloading off of them. Some of the podsters were contemplating getting a dispersal order placed on him, but it had to be a unanimous decision and Torrie was holding out. It had been two years since Bond had a job. Bond's contribution to the twenty third century quasi-family model was that he was trying to change his work status to "totally disabled" so he could collect money from the government without working.
Mark hated his dysfunctional pod and wanted to leave. He thought; at least his pod had not produced any children. Most pods didn't produce children because having freely conceived children carried a stigma, and all of the members pressured each other not to bring a pregnancy to full term. Whether or not he was the biological parent, leaving a pod that had littered the planet with FCI children was seen as even more careless and irresponsible. The expectation was that the pod would “abort” their mongrel, non-engineered children, and most complied.
The worldwide birthrate had been declining for more than a century. About 150 years before, Japan had led the way in mass production of lab-grown humans. This was an attempt to keep their country from falling apart because of a shortage of people. It was hoped that robotic and android projects would fill the population gap, but those countermeasures were inadequate. So the focus went back to biological solutions.
But two main problems with the Japanese cloning arose. In their haste to gain numbers, they failed to take full advantage of available genetic engineering. This was seen as reckless because of the future waste of medical resources on inferior offspring. Also Japan made no special provision for nurturing their crop of engineered people, many who turned out to be of worse than subhuman in character and behavior. The international body, known as the UCA was formed to improve these practices, but even after so many generations of operation, they still had no solid answer for the character issue other than termination of corrupted individuals, a practice which continued worldwide.
Mark had some faint distant memories of how his more traditional family upbringing seemed almost normal during his earliest years as a child. His family fell apart after his father left his mother for the pod lifestyle, but even Mark's brief traditional family experience told him it was a lot better than the mess he was living in now during his adult life.
Now Mark was absorbed into this dysfunctional pod. If he left the pod, he would be financially ruined, since the others would likely get to keep all the mutually-held possessions. Although he hated the podhouse and the pod, those who openly rejected the pod lifestyle were typically accused by one or more members of being a "hater" or "insane" in addition to losing all their possessions.
*******
The next day, Mark started his garbage collecting routine all over again. Early each morning, while the traffic was low, they were out picking up trash in a neighborhood of the city in a rotating schedule.
Accura was not one to talk in the morning, but he said, "Hey! Look over there! That guy down there is going through that trash, throwing crap all over. That's that same guy. I bet he's a clone. I'm gonna go bust him." Accura started running down the street to get at the scavenger.
Mark just stood there watching the scene. It was bound to play out this way sooner or later, so why fight it? Accura, who was a lot bigger than the scavenger, pounced on his unsuspecting victim. Then he started punching the surprised undefended forager in the face. You filthy clone! I'm gonna tear you a new one. . ." He slammed the clone's face into the sidewalk.
The clone was nearly knocked unconscious. But he was able to raise his arms and block the incessant onslaught. Accura bent over to get a better shot at the clone’s head. Wham! The much smaller, badly beaten clone hunter-gatherer landed a vicious unexpected blow onto Accura's face, jolting his head back. Accura was laid out with one punch. He fell back and his head hit with a "thud".
"Oh no!" Mark said, as he ran to the scene. He looked at Accura. "Hey! C'mon! Snap out of it!" Mark shook Accura and there was no response. Blood trickled out of Accura’s ear. Mark checked Accura's pulse. Nothing. "Are you kidding me?! He's . . . He's dead!" Either the punch or the fall onto the concrete had done in Accura.
"I didn't mean to. . ." the clone said as he wiped blood that was running down his face.
"You killed my partner with one shot. You're a clone, right?"
"Um . . . yeah."
"Now you're gonna get culled for being violent, clonie. I'm reporting you." The UCA would declare a clone as unfit without much red tape. Also, if a clone was defective enough, those with the same DNA, even though they were not involved, could also be called into question, receiving UCA defect “points”.
"I didn't mean to . . ."
"Yeah, I know, that's what you said already. You can't get away with hitting and killing normal humans like that."
The clone grabbed Mark by the front of his shirt. Their noses were almost touching as they stared down each other in the eyes. "I AM A HUMAN!"
"Okay, already . . . you can back off now."
"No, you stupid garbage man! I was minding my own business, and this idiot attacked me! If you think I'm going to answer for his pointless death. . . You’re just wrong!"
Mark couldn't believe the strength of the enraged clone, even after he took a beating. Mark didn’t want a round with him. "Okay, okay."
The clone shoved Mark backwards. He said, "Why do you people hate us so much?!"
"Umm . . . I guess I really don't hate you."
"Well, what did I do wrong?!" the clone shouted while holding his face.
"Nothing. I guess I would have done the same thing."
The clone pointed at Accura and said, "It's all his fault! It' not fair! You know I could end up being culled over this."
Mark hung his head. He wondered what he would think about himself as a disinterested onlooker ten years from this moment if this clone got culled just because he was merely trying to defend himself. Was this all there was to life? Just to do your work and mind your own business, then quietly die off while so much injustice was taking place? Would he look back and see himself as a guilty non-involved bystander? What about honor? Virtue? Were those even a real thing? Would he want the burden of having the memory of an unfair clone execution? Mark's decision was, "No! You’re right. That ain’t gonna happen, clone."