Chapter 5
Green Mountains, Homeland
Deep within the Lucid secret complex, Beth returned to her newly assigned room with twelve Julia series clones. There was no possibility of her staking out a corner of the crowded room to herself with this many people staying there. The clones were still wearing their tattered less white and more dirt UCA uniforms with name tags. Beth had seen many clones before, but never interacted with them on a personal level.
The older woman was still among the clone girls in the room making small talk. Then she approached Beth. The older woman of above average height was wearing a big floppy hat. She said, “You must be Beth. I’m Jenn.”
“Yes, I am. Hi, Jen.” Beth wasn’t sure that she liked everyone knowing who she was before they even met.
“Technically, I’m in charge here. I used to run this place, until that Andy android got here. Anyway, I guess they are doing a fair job of it. I have to admit that those androids made some really good improvements around here. I like sleeping down here better than up on the surface in the weather. Anyway, just remember, Beth, everyone here pulls their own weight. There is a lot of work to be done. You don’t need to worry about these Julias here. They got that clone vigor. You know, they are probably a year or two younger than you but are already bigger and stronger.”
Beth said, “What kind of work are you doing?”
Jenn said, “We’re out farming. That’s how we get most of our food. The best food you ever ate, I’d say.”
“Aren’t you worried that you will get caught outside by the smurfs or cops?”
“The Homeland Police don’t get much cooperation up in here when it comes to random acts of farming. Everyone in Homeland knows that we all need more food. If anyone stops food production there will be a shortage, then the killing and stealing will increase. Anyways, I gotta run. Tomorrow you can go ahead and figure on going out with us. We gotta get a couple acres of crops cultivated.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll show you what to do. I gotta run. See you tomorrow.”
Beth was glad Jenn wasn’t bunking with them. That was one less stranger to make her uncomfortable; especially with Jenn being an older adult with a strong personality and having authority among other adults. She wasn’t sure how anyone would know when the next day was happening while they were underground.
Beth regretted not being in room 1 with Milton and instead being in a crowded room with so many identical clone girls. She found the clones’ identicalness to be creepy. Not only did they all look alike, they did not use the same words or act like any of the other children she had ever met. While growing up, kids she knew would always pass along stories about clone girls and say ignorant and vile things about their clonish habits. What if some of those weird stories were true? She couldn’t help spending most of the time staring at them, and they spent most of the time staring back at her.
Finally Beth couldn’t take the awkward silence any more. She said, “Does it suck for you clones to all look alike?”
Julia 119 looked at the others and said, “No. Not really. Does it suck for you to be so different from everyone else?”
“No. It’s normal, really. That’s the way it works.”
“But some of you are ugly and some are beautiful,” 119 said. “It seems like some people wouldn’t like that much, especially the ugly ones.”
Then there was a long silence again.
Julia 119 said, “I guess since we all look the same, no one is better than anyone else, but sometimes we wish we could be at least a little more different.”
“Why can’t you?” Beth asked.
“Because we’re clones,” Julia 38 said.
“That’s stupid . . . no, I mean that is not necessary for you to think that.”
The clones looked at each other in confusion.
Beth reached into her bag and fumbled around. Then she pulled out a pair of scissors.
“What are you doing?!” One of the Julias said.
“No. I’m not going to attack you. That would be stupid.” She also pulled a comb and a tiny mirror and a marker out of her bag. “Who wants their own identity?”
“What do you mean? My identity is Julia 119, right?”
“Yeah. My identity is Beth Thomas.”
Beth got up and walked over to her. She sat down and started to comb Julia 119’s ratty blonde hair. Then she cut it moderately short as Julia 119 nervously sat there with her eyes bugging wide open wide and her mouth agape.
Julia 119 looked in the mirror and then she relaxed. “I look really different. Good different. You did a good job.”
“Yeah, it did come out alright, didn’t it? I’ve had some practice,” Beth said with a smile.
One of the other Julias said, “You look . . . I don’t know, that is really cute on you. But don’t you want to look like us anymore? It’s like now we are not in the same family or something.”
Julia 119 thought about it for awhile and said, “No. I think I don’t want to look exactly the same as everyone else. We can still be sisters though, right?”
Beth said, “Is somebody forcing you to be Julia 119? I mean, seriously. One nineteen? Get real. Changing your hair won’t make you change the way you think about each other, will it?”
“No. Not really.” The others seemed to agree.
Beth crossed out the 119 with the marker. “Then your new name is Julia. Just Julia.”
Julia 119 said, “Can we do that?”
Beth replied, “Who is going to stop you? You are here to be free, right?”
Another one said, “I want you to do mine. You know, I want to be different; and free. Then I want a new name too. I guess not Julia, though, and not the same hair.”
So Beth made her a ponytail and said, “Your name is Jules.”
“Yeah. That would be good.”
“Hi Jules, I’m Julia,” the one formerly known as 119 said.
They all giggled. It started to look like the new identity system could work out very well for them and was becoming popular among them.
Another one raised her hand.
“Get over here,” Beth said with a smile. “I already got you figured out.”
Beth cut the hair on her left side to the nubs and combed the rest over to the right. “Okay, now instead of being Ju-LIA, your new name is Leah.” She wrote it on her uniform.
Leah stared at herself in the mirror smiling as she walked away with it.
“Leah, I need that,” Beth said.
“Oh.” She handed the mirror back.
“Thanks, Leah.”
The others laughed.
Beth found herself becoming more accepted among them with each hairstyle that she completed.
One of them jumped up and said, “I want to be Jenn!”
Beth said, “Really? That old lady? You want to have the same name as her? I don’t think you quite get what we are doing here.”
“We love her,” she said.
Beth shook her head and said, “Okay, fine. It’s your name and your hair. What does her hair under her hat look like?”
“It’s all really short.”
“All right. Let’s do it, Little Jenn.”
The others laughed and said “Little Jenn”.
Beth continued with the styling and renaming; each girl with her own individual name and hair style. The other clones were named; Lee, June, Jo, Janet, Jane and Jill. She came down to the last one, and said, “I’m running out of names. Got any ideas?”
The last one stood before her looking nervous and shrugged her shoulders. Feeling brave, she asked the personal question that she had longed to ask her entire life, “What is it like to have a mommy?”
Beth started tearing up and choking back the tears. “I don’t really have one anymore, but . . . it was wonderful.”
“I’m sorry,” the girl said. “I didn’t mean to . . . “
“It’s okay. I love to think about her.”
“What was her name?” her last client asked.
Beth sniffed and wiped her nose. “It was Sharon.”
“Beth, can I be Sharon?”
Beth nodded as her face turned flush and she bit her lower lip. She said, “Okay, but I better end up liking you, or I’ll be really mad.”
Sharon smiled and said, “I promise you will like me, Beth.”
A couple of the clone girls were sobbing.
“What now?” Beth asked while wiping her eyes.
Jo said, “I know what it is. They are feeling sad over all of the other girls in our group who decided not to come here. It makes us all sad whenever we think about it.”
Beth made up her mind not to ask them about it for fear of saying the wrong thing.