AMOR DE CLORES
Autor: Alicia Fenieux
alicia.fenieux@gmail.com
Editorial Forja
General Bari N° 234, Providencia, Santiago-Chile.
Fonos: 56-2-24153230, 56-2-24153208.
www.editorialforja.cl info@editorialforja.cl
Primera edición: abril de 2017.
Prohibida su reproducción total o parcial. Derechos reservados.
Ninguna parte de esta publicación, incluido el diseño de la cubierta, puede ser reproducida, almacenada o trasmitida de manera alguna ni por ningún medio, ya sea eléctrico, químico, óptico, de grabación o de fotocopia, sin permiso previo del editor.
Registro de Propiedad Intelectual:
ISBN: Nº
Kira wakes up mid-morning amidst the freshness of her silky sheets. The light is dim; the blinded windows recreate the atmosphere of a sunset. As soon as she opens her eyes, she feels the weight of the newly thick lashes provided by the last follicular fertilization. She likes dense lashes with a slight bluish hue accentuating her honey-colored gaze. She allows herself to be trapped by the vestiges of sleep until the feeling of something pending forces her to wake up. "The game..." she says out loud. “Oh, and let Mel know." The phrases get instantly recorded in her personal journal.
She stretches and takes the time to go over the outline of her legs. They remain as firm, smooth and well contoured as a teenager’s. She inwardly wonders what the purpose of the next game will be. The mere fact of the proximity of a new challenge gives her a shudder. She props herself up with a jump. In the bathroom, the toning radiation capsule devices immediately activate, ready to provide its esthetic treatments. The glass panels turn from opaque to clear and the room fills with light.
Just before Kira leaves the room, the hologram of a woman of undetermined age illuminates the dark hollow space designed to receive virtual visitors. The image of Melina - in full body sizetakes possession of the center of the room and tames the hard, rather arrogant expression that usually dominates Kira's eyes. She smiles, wraps herself in a twentieth-century Japanese robe - in tune with her short blue hair - and takes time to contemplate the perfect beauty of the visitor. Mel is very beautiful, identical to Cuinsara, her genetic mother: the high cheekbones emphasize the almond-shaped and yellow eyes that resemble those of a tiger; the large mouth with deep red lipstick highlights the clearness and impeccable texture of the skin. The platinum blond hair falls in rich waves on the precisely proportioned shoulders. If she had arrived in person, Melina would have remained as ethereal and luminous as her hologram.
Kira summons her courage and immediately raises the issue that awoke her that morning:
“I'll take a trip, Mel,” she takes a breath and stares at the window. “You know I cannot give you more information.”
“Another one? Uhmm... I already sensed it,” Melina tosses back a platinum lock of hair and, with a finicky tone that imitates Cuinsara's, conceals her annoyance. “Will you ever tell me what have you’ve been hiding for so long?”
Kira focuses on the nails of her left hand. In spite of everything, she is never ready for that conversation.
“That cuticle polish does not absorb...”
“Don’t start please,” Mel interrupts, “Kira, you know that no distance can separate us. Where are you going and for what reason?”
Silence arises, the same silence that grows between them every time Kira announces a departure; the prelude of an inevitable argument.
“Nothing important, someday I'll tell you. Trust me, I won’t do anything to embarrass you or put us at risk.”
“That’s not true!” says Melina in a hoarse voice. Her amber gaze sharpens and casts off invisible flashes. “I can feel the danger every time you leave. If something happens to you, it also happens to me. What do you do on your trips?!”
Kira can almost feel the aura of hologram extending through the bedroom and reaching her. The pressure is palpable. She shakes her head no. Even if she wanted to, she could not talk about the game, it would be reckless. She looks up, defiantly, and concludes.
“I have a right to my individuality! To live my life!” she stressed raising her chin. “I'll be back soon... And now Mel, you have to leave, it's late.”
Kira turns her back on the image, enters into the radiating cabin and reluctantly resumes her cosmetic routines. Even minor discussions between them always affect her mood. Actually, any disagreement with Mel leaves an indistinct annoyance in her soul, hard to placate. She loves Melina in a peculiar way, as one loves an identical being, an exact copy, a real replica of oneself. The opposite styles don’t matter, if Mel uses platinum hair and Kira prefers blue. They are still as recognizable in each other as the same actor who plays different roles.
At thirty years old, Kira and Melina Farsán are clones: identical twins simultaneously created from the donated tissues of Cuinsara Farsán, the great actress of the mid twenty-first century.
In her first and second youth, during the prelude and later consolidation of her fame, Cuinsara Farsán thought about motherhood as an improbable journey. There was no doubt that the deformation of her body and the setbacks of a pregnancy would have interrupted the spiral of successes in which she intertwined with her audience. However, the only real reason for her resistance to having biological children was of a personal nature: she had never wanted to be a mother. If she had ever wanted to reproduce organically, the solution would have been as simple as renting a womb.
Cuinsara lived for her stardom. She was talented, or maybe she had the rare ability to understand the subtle language of the cameras. She glided in front of them with total confidence and provided what they requested: a wink, a profile, a flirty tone of voice or a soft one or whiny as a cat's meow, the precise inflection at the exact moment, passion, sorrow, fulfillment ... whatever the occasion needed. Her charisma flowed, bursted, filled the hollow souls of millions of viewers. The actress, whom her fans called Cuini to feel closer to her, only needed to raise an arm to the crowd and smile to spawn in that act thousands and thousands of new admirers. She was the queen bee, the world loved her. In addition, she possessed an exceptional beauty, one of those unusual cases in which physical perfection is original Nevertheless, when she decided to clone herself, very little of that splendor was still natural.
She was already sixty one years old.
On the exact day of her decision she woke up in her immense extra king size bed, just as exhausted as the night before. She had a headache and the weariness was still stuck to her bones. She was getting old. She remained in bed a long time with her face covered by a drainage mask while a new and persistent anguish began to hijack her mood. The last romantic failure with a man forty years younger had forced her to glimpse into the dry and lonely wasteland of her old age. The truth was that Cuinsara did not tolerate being close with her lovers for long. Neither with friends, family or trusted advisors. She knew -and so said her acquaintances behind her back- that she would probably die between cloned pets and a clique of employees as shameless as they were indispensable.
She removed her mask and scanned the room; a whole family could easily live there. For the first time it seemed unnecessarily big. She herself had participated in the design of the mansion to make sure it was as spacious as she had dreamed. "I want big rooms with simple lines where my ego fits," she had said to the architects in a somewhat joking tone She had requested the building of a bunker to live safe from harassment. "An airtight facade, few windows and clear skies. Only sunlight will trespass" When she was still young her soul embraced that amplitude. Now, the footsteps echoed on the walls, the dogs got lost in the rooms and the staff and cleaning devices crossed from one corner to another like ghosts. It was crucial to find something or someone to ease the loneliness,
especially the kind of solitude of the old age, which was lurking behind the fatigue she had been suffering. Something or someone that at least calmed down the inescapable restlessness that made her go from one side of the room to the other when she thought about the final stage.
Alone in her bedroom, unable to get up, she suddenly had the vision of her own childhood. She saw the four-year-old girl she had once been and the image stirred the depressed mood of that morning. She could transfer some of her experience to that girl, even implant her memories, supervise her growth and, through it, assess her own history, repair in some way the unfortunate episodes... and then, when she became old, have someone alike to take care of her. If everything turned out alright, she could live on in a clone after her death and perpetuate her image for a lifetime.
She did not think it further; the necessity to clone herself had completely overwhelmed her. She sat up on the bed and looked towards the new landscape of her future. At her feet, four dwarf bulldogs dozed peacefully, the last litter that some genetics laboratory had bred for her. She raised one of the cubs and held it to her cheek; the dog licked her face. The closeness of a living being, that animal smell and the illusion of change, refreshed her mood with a flow of satisfaction. "Little one, we will have a family of our own," she said smiling. She got up and dressed quickly.
“I am going to clone myself,” she announced to her advisors, who had been urgently summoned to the mansion.
The group exchanged glances. None of them had ever considered the scope of cloning. They were not even sure that something like that was possible. The most influential of the counselors spoke up.
“Wouldn’t it be better if you fertilized your eggs? They remain frozen.”
Cuinsara had dismissed that option as soon as the idea of a family arose in her. Organic reproduction remained hazardous. No one was going to guarantee that her genes would be dominant in a child conceived by insemination. What if the features of grandparents and other strangers showed up? Nor did she want to share the upbringing of the child with a formal parent or be exposed to the risks of an anonymous donor. The human seed banks were a disaster. If the donor tracked his genes and found out that Cuini herself was raising his children, he could reach the mansion with absurd demands. Similar situations occurred every day.
She walked diagonally through the conference room while another aspect of her decision prevailed over the previous ones: the idea that cloning would lessen the intricacies of human beings reproducing in a traditional way. It was just an assumption, but so much widespread that it was already considered a fact of reality She pressed her lips and shook her head.
“No, no, no... An offspring would be more difficult to raise than a clone,” she halted in the middle of the room and said in a firm voice: “I do not care to be a mother.”
She paused briefly and fixed the waves of her platinum hair. Reconsidering, she added:
“Well, it can be the same to raise a daughter or a clone… I don’t know. I will adopt her and she will grow up with me.”
“If you already made up your mind, then we must capitalize on this news,” said another counselor.
Cuinsara had not thought about the social implications of a cloning. Although she was still a great diva, the unavoidable possibility of being forgotten hung over her like a black cloud. It was imperative to keep making up stories to stay on the front line of stardom, especially now when her beauty was receding day by day, film by film. Her tigress gaze was losing its shine; the skin, the voice, her stance had acquired a different tone that no effort of cosmetic medicine could vitalize. She was already expecting the day when an impertinent fool would offer her the role of a mother in a low budget family series She directed her honey-colored eyes towards the counselors and concluded.
“Yes. We will go public.”
Cuinsara was doubly rejoiced about the decision to clone herself. The news would shake the networks and the media. Her clone would be named Kira, like Kira Knightley, or maybe Melina, that name gave her some kind of peace.
Besides, what could be better than a version of oneself to keep you company in the last stage of life?
III
As soon as she finishes the cosmetic sessions in the maintenance capsule, Kira adjusts the Japanese robe to her waist and, holding a mug of authentic coffee, walks firmly to the north wing of the mansion. There, in what used to be Cuinsara’s haven during the years before her death, Kira has assembled a connectivity room for her personal use, the most private of her spaces. She closes the door and makes sure that nobody else will open it.
A thin wood veneer upholsters the walls from floor to ceiling creating a dim atmosphere. The room is impregnated with an exotic and disturbing aroma. "Kira smell," Mel says when allowed to enter. The lowered blinds accentuate the effect. On the floor lies the skin of an African lion hunted by Kira during one of the first games in which she participated... an experience far from satisfying. The lion had been bred in captivity to become the prey of millionaires lacking in adventure and, consequently, was not even a challenge. However, it was then that a previously unknown personal feature was unveiled for her: cruelty. In the subsequent animal and human hunts that followed that
discovery, she felt like reaching the edge of an electrifying realm where she was the absolute sovereign. Killing made her feel alive, powerful and above all, unique. The latter was the most vibrant sensation of all. During the games she could distance herself from her clone condition and take revenge on the tacit contempt that traditional humans felt for her class, the clones.
Kira walks through the room to the desk, an intimate space of simple lines that reveals the dark soul of its owner. The hunting trophies are displayed on the work table: the claws of a bear turned into a rattle, a fan made of long colored feathers, the braid of a brown haired woman rolled up in a spiral, a human ear with piercings... Each one of those objects holds a priceless history and value for Kira: they preserve something of that moment in which she decided to kill or let live. How and when did such a strange calling incubate in her? She usually thinks about that.
She sits in an Elizabethan chair designed by herself. The replica is so accurate that even Kira considers it an original antique. The com and its extensions sit orderly on the satin glass surface of the desk. A curved wall devised to reproduce images frames the furniture.
Kira straightens her back against the seat, her features sharpen. Every time she starts a game her body becomes tense. She rests her fingers on the touch panel, instinctively looks side to side in search of an improbable intruder, and pronounces the password. The preliminary page of a portal unfolds before her. Only a small club of millionaires have access to this place on the Net; a ferocious group, capable of turning against its own members to protect its anonymity.
Kira has been part of the group for more than a decade. She does not recall if someone took the time to follow her and invited her to participate or if some magnate presented her casually in a day of boredom. Whatever was the case, the game performed by the members of the club demanded requirements that Kira fulfilled better than many of them: audacity, excellent physical condition, tough spirit, intelligence and discretion. Since she started playing, she was always one of the best. Her clean, efficient and successful hunts invariably placed her in the line of winners.
She is certain about the reasons to remain in the club. She likes the risk and the adrenaline charge, no doubt about that. However, the deep motivation is hidden in her clone nature. All those who she had "executed", according to the criteria of the club, were people in the most conventional sense of the word. A sense that provides superiority in order to distance themselves from the clones. Kira manages to shorten that distance with each execution. Besides, having a double life behind Mel's back gives her an exquisite illusion of autonomy and that feeling can be as powerful in her as total domination over another being.
In the connection room, the image of an artificial man designed in resemblance of Theo James, an old action film actor, fills the center of the curved wall over the desk and lights up the immediate surroundings.
“Good morning, Kira. Welcome to the club,” the host lays his elbow on the back of a high chair and warns seriously. “Are you ready? This will be a challenging game.”
Theo James puts his hands in the pockets of his pants and waits for a signal to continue. Kira nods and her eyes shine. The expectation that the man in front of her knows how to provoke with silences and preambles, excites her.
“In this occasion, your villain is a manufacturer of biological weapons. It will be a pleasure to eliminate him,” the virtual character moves away from the chair. His face enlarges within the projection area of the wall. “Retain the preliminary data: May 6th, 2080. 1800 hours. San Agustin Cathedral, Valle Seco.”
The cloning of Cuinsara was not easy and was only carried out because, at that time, all doors opened for her. The creation of human clones had been authorized two years before, but it required so many protocols and permits that clinics preferred to remain in the field of research, in order to reduce taxes and bioethical and religious barriers. Those cautions did not prevent them from acting clandestinely and that replicas of humans already existed in the private worlds of the powerful.
On the same day of her sixty-second birthday, Cuin recorded a note and uploaded it to Belive, the worldwide community with the greatest impact. "It is time to expand the family, I’ve decided to clone myself," she announced from a red armchair that highlighted her albino hair. That same afternoon, surrounded by a swarm of journalists and onlookers, she checked into a procreation clinic to undergo a procedure to extract samples of epithelial cells. The news boosted her appreciation and esteem indicators and for three weeks the actress was once again the absolute queen of show business.
Meanwhile, senior specialists of the clinic performed a duplicate cloning and commissioned the search for two surrogate mothers of impeccable biological lineage.
“Why two embryos?” asked Cuinsara to the medical team, with which she was already in constant contact.
“The survival of at least one specimen must be guaranteed,” explained the project manager, a middle-aged man with notorious cosmetic interventions. He held his hands behind his back and continued with an emphatic tone, “Mrs. Cuini, our clinic will be a pioneer…”
“Don’t start with that,” interrupted Cuinsara, “You’ve been experimenting with human clones for a long time now.”
The rest of the team looked down. In the midst of the silence, the boss decided to tell the truth.
“
The issue is that you have made this procedure public. Now we will have the whole world watching over us. We cannot fail.”
On that occasion Cuinsara authorized the double incubation in the understanding that it was unlikely that the two embryos would survive. She enquired about the last doubts she had on the initial phase of the project and said goodbye to the geneticists. The technical details did not concern her.
Consumed again by the suprahuman scope of the mega-stars, Cuini did not return to the clinic nor did she worry about the matter. The mundane aspects of life, like the gestation of a child, in this case clone, disappeared under the lights.
The cloning continued behind closed doors. These were the first official testings of the clinic in the field of human replicas and, considering the donor was a celebrity, they had to take extreme cautions to prevent a leakage of genes in those already obtained, safeguard the healthy development of the specimens in the rented wombs and conclude with an utmost spectacular delivery that gave the institution due recognition. The facade of the clinic was completely renovated in the months prior to the birth of the girls.
One day before the delivery, Cuinsara received the virtual visit of the doctors in the holographic room of the mansion. The diva watched them from the interactive seat equipped with micro cameras that would capture her reactions and transmit them to the clinic. She kept her back straight, her chin out and both arms on the armrests of the seat, like a queen in her throne. Three small dogs rested at her feet.
"I have excellent news, Mrs. Cuini," reported the team leader, the man disfigured by too many cosmetic surgeries. “Both clones are in perfect conditions and will be born tomorrow via c-section.”
The expression in Cuinsara's face changed from expectant calm to indignation. The radiant of the doctor smile froze for a few seconds.
“You have disregarded me I wanted a single clone... Why would I need more!! I feel cheated. Listen to me, this is not my problem, you can give one up for adoption, get rid of it... I don’t care!”
The diva got up from the chair and paced up and down the room. Far from the cameras embedded in the seat, none of the geneticists could see her. Speaking to the void and without the smile of the beginning, the leader of the group raged:
“Clones have the same rights as any human being. To eliminate one would be a murder punishable by law. If you want to put one up for adoption it is your responsibility. The clinic will respect your decision ”
The confidence and promptness of the answer told Cuinsara that they were prepared to confront her.
“Get out of here!” she demanded from the door, “I’ll have to think about this,” she added, before leaving the room followed by her pets.
The light from the holograms dissipated. The trace of a halo hovered over the small reproduction set in front of the empty seat. V
In that same place thirty years later, on a glossy desk, other images fade out. The usual dimness in the connectivity room regains its spaces outside and inside Kira, while the echo of Theo James' last words remains in the air. She is restless, she fidgets in the Elizabethan seat. “It's obvious that Mel is suspicious, maybe she already knows about the game... I wonder how many times she has had interferences or felt the adrenaline!” she ponders. Only clones created from the same genetic seed are able to feel the experiences of their replica as if they were their own, even in the distance; predicting the thoughts without looking at each other or sharing memories that only one had lived... Although many times those visions of the past that appeared spontaneously in her mind or Melina’s did not belong to either of them, but to the memory of their genetic mother, Cuinsara. There is yet so much to discover about the life of clones and so few certainties!
Kira holds the fan of feathers, plunder of one of her first hunts. She caresses her right cheekbone with it Her thoughts come back to Mel, her copy. “She may be suspicious that the game is a hunt, but she’s not sure yet and will not want to be.” In the last years, Melina has become someone who avoids unpleasant emotions. As soon as they arise, she crushes them with some minor matter that immediately acquires an imperative significance. Since the death of Cuini, Mel strives to keep her memory alive... literally, although all the efforts she makes to resemble the diva only confirm how unique she still is. “Talent is not transferable,” Kira thinks. "No, only the soul is non-transferable”
Kira leaves the fan on the desk with a grimace and gets up from the seat. It is unavoidable: every time she has a disagreement with Mel, she falls in these meditative states. Why can’t she have a life like anybody else, with the minimum amount of individuality! She grabs the cup of coffee, already warm, and with the last sip she cuts the thread of her thoughts
She walks towards the cyber sphere placed in the darkest corner of the connectivity room. She wants to learn about Valle Seco, the location of the next game. She slips on the virtual vision goggles, adjusts the bands with sensors on her arms and legs and starts the system with a soft tap of the index on the touch panel. "Valle Seco," she says aloud. The program asks to specify the year; she thinks for a few seconds. Cuinsara had visited that city on more than one occasion -she had even filmed a couple of movies there- and Kira is tempted to see Valle Seco as it was during the reign of the diva. Despite the lack of love, the influence of her genetic mother-even more, the impossible
remnants of Cuinsara's experiences- tends to leak into Kira's decisions. "Once again you will not do your will, Cuini," she whispers and shakes her head. "Cuini." She hates that name, her genetic mother used it to refer to herself in the third person. "Cuini wants this, Cuini wants that..."
“Last week,” Kira stipulates. In less than a second the images transfer her to Valle Seco.
The immersion is so real that Kira could assess the exact distance between the different objects on stage without mistake. It's a sunny day, the simulated reality intensifies the colors. She walks the streets in search of a suitable hotel. It must be discreet and have direct access to satellite networks. She visits the luxury suites of the big hotels, checks the thickness of the pillows and the caliber of the threads in the sheets with the tip of her fingers. She finally chooses lodging with walking distance from downtown She makes reservations under a false name and checks the availability of some equipment. She records the location data into the portable memory headset Finally, she looks at the surroundings. She moves on the rotating band inside the cyber sphere with the sensation of strolling through the streets of the city. She stops for a few seconds in front of the cathedral mentioned by the host. It is three blocks from the hotel. Good choice. She turns off the virtual environment, disconnects and exits the sphere.
She unhurriedly returns to the desk to deal with the issues related to the game. Intercontinental travel has become so accessible that it is not easy to get a place in an individual cabin. She takes a seat and begins to navigate on different online portals simultaneously, tracking a ticket that guarantees absolute confidentiality. She can’t be exposed to the public. Clones are still rare specimens for regular humans, especially if they are replicas of famous people... and Cuinsara's face, after her death, has become an icon of popular culture like Marilyn or Elvis. The curiosity of people has become brutal. Anyone can capture images of her wherever she is and sell them to the media or, even worse, post them to Be-live or any other citizen journalism platform. Why so much interest? That issue makes Kira wonder. The life of clones, however extravagant it may be, travels through the same uncertain and sometimes stony tracks of the rest of the mortals. Although created by science, they are still human beings. Why do people have such a hard time understanding that!
In the total privacy of that space that previously belonged to Cuini, unaware of time, Kira relishes in the tension of the new challenge. She makes confirmations from the com, goes over the preparations, gives orders and her eyes shine. From that moment, the tentacles of the game will gradually extend, coiling carefully over her, until she is completely seized. And she will not resist. She needs her full concentration and a total commitment to win. It is a matter of life and death.
Kira and Melina Farsán were born ten months after Cuinsara entered to an surgery room, an exaggeration worthy of the character, since the tissue collection was less than a scratch. Kira weighed six grams less than Melina, there were no more differences between them. The girls were the first single-strain human multi-clones, meaning they were created from the same cell nucleus, as stated in the official records.
Cuinsara did not attend the simultaneous c-sections, she was still furious. Confined in her rooms, while the press and her fans took positions in front of the mansion's gardens, the actress spent the morning analyzing the case with her counselors. “You cannot get rid of either of them. That possibility is completely ruled out” … “Are you going to allow a copy of you to go around the world without you having any control or knowledge?” ... “What are they going to say about you in the global community?”
The situation was irreversible -Cuinsara certainly did not need any advisor to know that- and she had no other choice but to record, at the end of that meeting, a message of gratitude for the love shown towards her and her newborn clones.
“Don’t you want to see them? See yourself?” The man in charge of the recording finally asked. “What an unusual experience!”
Cuinsara did not bother to answer, but silently admitted that the image of herself as a baby, in her most vulnerable expression, was awakening her tenderness. The undeniable fact that the geneticists had broken her will, the constant hedging, the weight of a double upbringing -or maternity or whatever was called the challenge that lay ahead- and any other uncomfortable situation, began to dilute in an unexpected rapture. A new version of Cuini had been born, or rather, she had been reborn.
She departed to the clinic in the middle of the night, burning with curiosity. She tiptoed into the ward assigned to the two clones, followed by a couple of doctors. A diffuse white light covered the insulating bubble that contained the girls. Cuinsara took off her leather jacket, the same one that animalist rights activists had tried to destroy on more than one occasion, and approached her face to the cold transparent capsule. She saw two small bodies lying on their backs, one next to the other. They slept with their heads slightly tilted to the same side. She stared at the faces and ate them up with her eyes: they were two identical faces, with moist appearance and features so soft that were hardly noticed in the fair skin. That was how she looked on the day of her birth. Just like that. There was no chance that there was a single trait unrelated to Cuini in those creatures, in fact, there was not a single gene that did not belong to her. The medical team had said it a thousand times. However, as much as she tried to recognize herself, the expected delight did not appear. The emotion that had brought her to the clinic that night had vanished, just like the fury of the previous
hours. Before her eyes, under the clear dome, there were a couple of babies who only had in common with her the same genetic combination. Nothing else.
Cuinsara returned to the clinic three days later to officially present her clones. A crowd of people and thousands of cameras waited for the actress inside an events hall decorated with the original billboards of her films. At the scheduled time, someone thanked the "priceless contribution of our beloved Cuini to the science of cloning" and welcomed her. She walked to the stage with a girl in each arm and in her eyes, a mixture of awkwardness and surprise, and a dash of disappointment. It was the first time she held the clones, she could feel the weight of each and the softness of their heads in inner part of the elbow. The feeling of closeness was excessive and disconcerting.
A few minutes after posing, she felt tired and left the set. With great relief she delivered the babies to the nurses.
Cuinsara had been a cruel person. Maybe she did not intend to be, but often she was due to carelessness, narcissism, indifference, selfishness, and so many other reasons inherent to her nature. And they, her clones, had been created to perpetuate Cuini in all her features. If cruelty was in her essence, why was Mel different? The question arises with the weight of a complaint as soon as the excitement of the beginning declines in Kira’s mood and the game exposes its sinister nature Kira tightens her lips... Once again there are no answers.
She presses her cheek to the plane’s window, looks out and her thoughts dissipate in the desert landscape. The city of Valle Seco is surrounded by rocks and low stony hills. An immense geodetic dome covers the urban area of mega-buildings, crossed by elevated highways. The great cupola seems to float on a translucent mist. Towards the horizon, the cement crust of endless residential buildings, protected by anti-radiation shields, extends over the desert. Nothing new, all covered cities look the same. Kira closes her eyes and waits for the landing.
Upon arriving to the hotel, she puts on her screen-glasses just to hide the most recognizable feature in Cuini: her amber feline eyes. Anonymity is a crucial requirement in the game and, at the same time, a demanding challenge for the clone of a diva who continues to live in hundreds of films and countless photos. Moreover, her genetic mother had shot in Valle Seco two of her most famous films and precisely in the last one -thanks to all the cosmetic surgeries her body endured- looked exactly like Kira at the time she entered the hotel. “Sure, she stayed here,” she deducts, as she feels the gaze of a group of young men over her.
She lowers her head and hides behind the digital panels in which guests register their data or proceed to check out. A mirrored wall forces her to look at herself. Cuinsara is still there, in every pore of her body. Neither the short, bluish mane nor the satin skin preserved with expensive cosmetic treatments manages to appease Cuini’s genetic presence. Thousands of details and her whole self reveal her heritage: the long and flexible bone structure, the high cheekbones, the broad forehead, a mole on the temple, the distinctive mouth and, in the outline of the lips, a haughty rictus. She has the impression that Cuinsara looks in the mirror through her... Or Melina. The strength of the genes destroys every attempt for Kira to differentiate herself.
The group of young men keep staring at her, the situation gets distressing. Kira lifts the collar of her bodysuit and the fabric that previously fell loose on the neckline, immediately attaches to the lower part of the face as a second skin, covering mouth and chin. She walks quickly to one of the panels to enter the registration data.
“Miss?”
The warm voice of a man startles Kira. She waits for a couple of seconds to recover and turns around. She sees a luggage carrier robot ready to follow her. The three-dimensional torso of a smiling attendant is projected in the high cavity of the machine “I'll bring my bags in, leave them at the door of my room,” Kira says with evident relief as the admission software completes the facial recognition of the new guest and ejects a magnetic key. She withdraws it, looks ahead as if the rest of the world did not exist, and crosses the hall to the elevators.
Shortly before 6 pm on May 6, Kira walks to the historical center of Valle Seco. She immediately suspects that it is a misleading place. The facade of the cathedral is still intact, but upon crossing it you face a three-story mega store; some flowerbeds hide security devices and the trees -each identical to the other, molded by bioplastic plates- line up in rows as perfect as artificial. They resemble the pieces of a large scale model. Everything reveals the human flatness, the craving for control and manipulation, thinks Kira. Even the light, filtered through the dome, acquires a milky tone and gives the atmosphere an unreal aspect.
Even though she is in an open space, Kira has the feeling of being enclosed. The air is thick, the heat is overwhelming and the scent is unpleasant.
She will later regret not picking up on the signs She stands in the front of the steeple of the cathedral. Staring vacantly at the top, she holds a camera to look like a tourist while she waits for her contact. Suddenly, alone in front of the tower, she feels surrounded by strangers harassing her and asking her for a selfie. The clothes, the hairstyles, the cell phones, even the way the people talk to her belong to another era. Kira puts her fingers to her temples and closes her eyes to block the burst of the unknown memories, probably belonging to Cuinsara. The experience is distressing. Her eyelids tighten and she takes a deep breath, none of that is real. The interference gives way to another vision: Cuini, maybe Melina, walks through the streets of the historical center. Someone walks beside her, the closeness is warm and protective. She has never been to Valle Seco before nor
does she know anyone in that city. She presses her temples with the tip of her fingers and breathes deeply again, just as she used to do back then when she wanted to permanently block the mental connection with Melina, her copy. At that moment a young man bumps into her, apologizes and brings her back to the present. Kira clears up instantly. The stranger man stays close by and with a movement that only she can notice, drops a small electronic device into her purse. Kira retrieves the object from the bottom of the bag. It is a high tech chip case. She squeezes it between her fingers and smiles while the young man gets lost in the crowd.
Back in the huge hotel suite, she plugs the chip into her terminal. The voice recognition window activates and Kira pronounces the password. A second later, the secret portal opens in front of her.
Once again Theo James welcomes her and, this time without preamble, starts “the mission” Kira likes that word, it gives a certain seriousness to the imminent actions and mobilizes inside her an energizing flow that awakens her, as if her body became ready to fight. She listens carefully to the details given by the virtual man. The first phase of the game begins at that moment and can be more challenging than the later execution, which in no case displaces the essential: the power to kill or let live. Those seconds in which the eyes of the victim meet Kira’s and she strikes the final blow if she so decides, justify each stage of the action. Ever since being part of that anonymous group, Kira lives the moment of hunting with special intensity, never caring much about how villain the prey has been. Unlike the rest of the members of the club, reaching that point places her far from the sad subordination of the human copies. If some apprehension arises, it is enough for her to remember the times when she and Mel had to play “mirror” in front of Cuini, thrilled to watch her child version. It’s then when the resentment inflames her as a whiplash in the back. In each execution, the conventional humans, her creators, literally fall at her feet and she can honor her clone quality.
Theo James calls her attention. There he is, with his intense gaze, reminding her that she can die or, if she were to commit inexcusable mistakes, become the next prey of the group. Everything she does from now on will affect her thoroughly. With a barely visible gesture, Kira accepts the challenge. Feeling unique and powerful it's worth the risk.
“There won’t be any contact between us until the end of the mission,” the host reminds her. “Memorize the data:”
Axel-Nan Pharmaceutical Consortium
Operations: Development of lethal nanobes
Motive: Bioterrorism
Villain: Itan Wein
Objective: Elimination
Term: Six days