Chapter 23
Albany, Homeland
“I said, I would help you,” Mark the garbage collector said.
"Huh?" the clone said. “You will?”
"You are not going to get culled, whatever your name is.”
“It’s a terrible name. Does it really matter?” He said, holding his throbbing head.
“Okay, fine. Let’s just say your new name is Accura, then."
"I don't get it. Why are you helping me?"
“That’s my business.” Mark stopped to think about why he was moved to compassion for the clone. Perhaps it was more of an action taken in defiance against a culture that gave him the pod family; the dead end job; and the killing of children. Everyone has their limits, he thought, and he should have reached his a long time ago. Mark was willing to help the group of clones he had never met; even at the risk of facing the ruthless Homeland criminal justice system. For some reason, though he was not sure why, he felt there was a need to do the right thing during his lifetime.
Mark pointed at Accura’s lifeless body. “Anyways, Accura is his name, or was his name, so now it is yours. You will take the place of my partner, steal his identity, at least for now. I doubt if anyone will really care if he is missing. Okay, New Accura?"
"Accura 2.0?" the clone suggested.
"Yea, Okay. Looks like you can fit into his clothes. He was a terrible guy, you know. Bad as it is to say, I can’t really say that I will miss him either."
Accura 2.0 put on the fuchsia garbage collector colored jumpsuit that read “Sanitation Dept.” on the back. There was a lot of extra material hanging all over. Mark said, "You seem to be taking off a few pounds, Accura."
Accura 2.0 held out some of the bagginess of his baggy suit and looked at it. He sniffed the front of it and turned up his nose.
Mark said, "Let's put this body into the truck. Hurry up! Traffic's coming!"
They hastily hoisted Accura 1.0's body into the back of the truck. Mark pushed the big button and the compactor pushed the body into the big bin in the back of the truck and out of sight of anyone in the Transit Worm. They got back into the truck and continued down the road.
Then Mark said, "You know where that clone group is? The group that is going to get culled?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Because, Number Two, we're going to go rescue them."
"What? You can't go there. They have to be culled."
"Wow. What did they do to your brain? Not this time. I ask again, can you get us there?"
"Us?"
"Yes. You killed my partner, so now you have to fill in for him. We don’t like the way things are going, right? So we are going to help change things."
“I’m not so sure Accura 1.0 would have helped you in an effort to rescue clones.” He rubbed his aching head, still throbbing from the fight.
“Well, he’s dead, and will never be found. Again, do you know how to find the group that is getting culled?
"I don't live there anymore but I know I can find it, if you can get me the strain number. It's a big place out in the country, away from all of the cities."
Mark said, “So, are you with me on this?”
“Yes.”
Mark asked, "Where do you live now?"
"I live with a group on a farm. Not a farm like they call these clone propagation centers, but an actual working farm that produces food. We live off of the grid."
"What are you doing living like that? Lemme guess, you are breaking clone law."
"I have a girlfriend out at the farm. Another clone. She's pregnant. She was supposed to be infertile, but . . . I don't know. If the UCA found her with an unauthorized pregnancy, they would haul her off. You people know nothing of what we go through. If I started to show the least symptoms of a viral infection, I would get hauled off. I'm not letting my woman get culled, so we escaped. The UCA thinks they own us. We have defective humans trying to make us into a perfect race, or kill us all while trying. If we are caught after an escape, even once, they will just take us straight to the grinder. We aren’t really worth anything."
"I . . . I never realized it was that bad. That is totally wrong. Sorry."
There was an awkward silence.
Mark said, "Hello?! How do we find the building where the clone rejects are?!"
"The buildings are numbered by clone strain number. It shouldn’t be too difficult to look it up."
Mark pulled out his personal device and swiped at the screen for awhile. "Looks like according to this article, we want building F34C."
"We can't go there."
"Why?! "
"Because . . . that is the female side. ‘F’ is for female."
"Look, I don't plan on asking permission to go into the female side, or permission to do anything. You people aren't much for initiative or imagination, are you? Now shut up and get in."
It started getting light out as they drove the garbage truck to the UCA campus. Although not many travelled the roads in those times, they started seeing some more traffic as people made their way to work in the early morning through the scenic countryside.
Mark said, "Man! Accura sure did a number on your face." He handed 2.0 a filthy shop towel.
Accura 2.0 was worried about garbage pathogens so he touched his face lightly with the towel.
Mark glanced at him and said, "That is going to leave a . . . Okay that is just really bad."
"We'll get caught," 2.0 said.
"Maybe, but try to be a little more positive. You clones are raised for one job and you can't even conceive of doing anything but that. You know they need refuse service at the UCA too."
"You mean ‘garbage pickup’?"
Mark said, "First we gotta get rid of this load. This looks like a good place." Checking to see if there was any traffic, Mark turned and stopped with the back of the truck facing the side of the road. He got out and raised the compactor, dumping the load down the side of the steep hill. The back of the garbage truck slowly rose up like a dump truck. Ton upon ton of compacted garbage tumbled out and down the hill. Mark chuckled. “I always wanted to do that.” He saw one of Accura 1.0's legs sticking out of the heap as the trash tumbled out, but decided at this point, he was "all in" and it really wouldn't matter if the body was found. Accura 2.0 couldn't believe what was going on.
A car came up and stopped on the blocked road, and the driver was no doubt amazed at the scene.
Mark casually hopped back in and pulled away. "So how far is this place?"
"About an hour or so."
"We still got plenty of gas. To get there," Mark said.
"What about enough gas to get back?"
"There may not be any gettin' back," Mark said.
The clone said, “The farm is not far from there.”
“That’ll work.”