Chapter 10: Replication

I wake on another medical bed and am denied another breakfast. This has become routine. I almost wouldn’t care, except I know what today is. I’m being replicated, whatever that means. I think it’s been explained to me before. Something about my doctors taking a scan of my body so that I can be fixed up between sessions. They’re basically granting me immortality, and I still don’t understand why. Sometimes in my sleep, I can hear Doctor Wentzler’s voice answering that burning question. I’m always drenched in sweat and sobbing. I’m in such terrible pain I almost can’t hear him. He tells me horrible lies about how I’m supposed to be a plaything for my betters. Then I wake up and it all washes away. I know it can’t be true. Wentzler would never be so cruel to me.

My door unlocks. I hold my breath, sitting on the edge of my bed. I already heard the breakfast cart breeze by forever ago. Unless I’m getting a late meal, it has to be one of my tormentors.

And it is.

“Well, heya sugar!” Lucy says, stepping in with a warm smile. Her southern accent is like butter on a slice of warm toast. My stomach growls. “Do you know what today is?”

I nod and hop to my feet. “Replication.”

“Tha’s right!” She extends her hand, gloved in pink latex as it always is, and I take it. She’s warm. “We gotta get you all good and cleaned up for the Replication lab. The cleaner the subject is, the better they can recreate ya!”

“Why?” I ask, shuffling behind her as she leads me into the hall.

“Well, ya didn’ hear this from me...” Lucy leans in close until her cherry red lips are pressed to my ear, “But they say a feller came in with hair aw’ over his body once, and when they tried to replicate him, he came out lookin’ like a sasquatch!”

Lucy howls with laughter and peels away. I don’t remember what a sasquatch is, but the word is familiar to me.

“What about the hair on my head?” I ask, threading my fingers through my long tangles. When Mom gave me a trim, she only knocked off about an inch or two, so my heavy black locks still fall just above my waist. I think it makes me pretty, but it’s a hassle to manage.

“Oh, that’ll be fine. It’s the stuff on your arms and legs we gotta worry about! And your little girlhood, too. Full body scrub-down and wax, that’s the first item on the list!”

Her enthusiasm should be calming, but it only makes me sick. It doesn’t help that there are more subjects than usual on the medical floor today. They screech and yowl like caged birds being plucked of every feather on their bodies. I keep my eyes held to the floor when a subject passes us. I can only take the sight of sexed-up zombies so much before it will drive me insane.

As we pass an examination room, a woman inside screams, “DON’T PUT THAT IN THERE! PLEASE! NOOOO, IT’S TOO BIG!” I cringe at the sounds of her blood-curdling shrieks. She begs for mercy, claiming that she’s being ripped in two. When her screams quiet down, all I can hear are sobs. I stay close to Lucy, and she squeezes my hand for comfort.

“You get used to it, sugar,” she says, calming her tone. She’s still chipper, but there’s a certain authenticity in her voice that I hadn’t heard from her before. I wonder if she’s been putting on an act for me.

I’m taken back to the showers, but this time I have a suite to myself. There are guards already waiting inside, dressed in identical uniforms, only theirs are made of slick latex for easy washing. The room is divided into two sections, each one sports difference equipment and restraints, as well as an extra nurse to aid Lucy. I find myself breathless when I’m dragged to the most daunting section first.

“Go ahead and get those clothes off for me,” Lucy says. She steps away to cover her vintage nurse uniform with a rubber apron. When I’m nude, she snaps on a pair of rubber gloves and nods towards the left side of the room. A metal block stands surrounded by a halo of drain grates, waiting for me. “Bend over that, would ya? Like you’re getting a spanking.”

I’m hesitant, but I’m more afraid of what the guards will do to me if I disobey than of what awaits me on the tile floor. The station’s silent nurse flips on a surgical light and prepares a system of hoses when I approach. She’s an older woman with cracked, scowling lips and a stocky build.

“We’re starting with your insides,” Lucy explains. She takes a knee by my head and smiles as she tilts my chin up. “Then we work out from there, moving to your hair, then skin, then blemishes, and finally you’ll be sent off to the scanning room for stage two.”

“Will it hurt?” I ask. The other nurse preps more tools behind me. When I try to look at what she’s doing, Lucy pulls my head back.

“Of course it will, sugar,” she says, smiling sadly. “And it will be absolutely humiliating. Isn’t that fun? So just try to relax. You aren’t going anywhere, anyway.” She punctuates her sentence by snapping the hem of her glove, making me flinch. She brandishes a metal ring gag from her apron pocket and dangles it by my face. “Say ‘ahhhhh... ‘“

I scramble off the block, hitting the nurse behind me. I don’t care that the guards are already marching toward me; I refuse to let that thing go back in my mouth.

“Take it easy,” Lucy says, outstretching her hand to me. “It’s just for a moment.”

I shake my head feverishly until I’ve accidentally pushed myself into a wall. “No, no, no, please ... I ... I can’t!”

“Don’t hurt her, boys,” Lucy says, stepping out of the way when the two guards yank me by my arms.

I struggle to put up too good a fight; my hunger has left me weak and disoriented. It isn’t long before one man has me pinned back across the block, while the other works to strap me down. My legs are free to kick, but my backside is pinned in place with a thick leather strap that hooks to the cuffs on my wrists. It’s a pain to keep my head upright when Lucy has to pry my jaws apart to put the ring inside. She says the pain is my punishment for being naughty while she threads a massive tube down my throat.

Kicking and whining, I’m so distracted by the ache in my mouth that I almost don’t notice the other nurse has threaded a catheter inside of me. I wiggle my hips in defiance, but the woman persists. Horrible memories of that wretched cage flood my head. Days upon days, years upon years, of total isolation; surrounded by people but unable to communicate—leave me breathless and sobbing. Lucy dries my tears and plants a heavy kiss on my forehead, but I know the gesture is empty. She giggles when she flicks on a large machine, and revels in my terror as gallons of freezing water pump through my tube and plump out my stomach.

I quickly regret my choice to try to run, as the more water floods my insides, the worse the cramp in my belly grows. The strap around my back keeps my growing stomach pressed against the block until the pain becomes so terrible that I shriek. I plead with Lucy to shut off the machine, using only my eyes to beg. I’m going to pop!