Express Delivery

By Sarah Pinborough

artin looked at the foot sitting nakedly in the box in front of him with a numbness that only true terror can inspire. All he could picture in his head was the way he had smiled at the boy from Express Delivery. He had smiled and thanked him whilst taking possession of the innocuous looking brown box with the blue and red company logo down the side. The logo down the side, and his left foot sitting cosily within. And there was no doubt about it; that was definitely his left foot. The only difference between the one in the box and the one inside his slipper was that the one in the package wasn't attached to the rest of him. Oh yes, and the one inside that padded tartan warmness didn't have a tag tied round its big toe stating in bold black letters: YOU HAVE TWO DAYS.

Even though he'd recognised the landscape and the structure of the foot immediately when he'd seen it, he still pulled off his slipper in the vain hope that the foot had been delivered to the wrong door, that there was someone else in the world that had gotten themselves into some deep shit, and this was just a crazy coincidence. Being very careful not to touch the contents, he picked the box up from the coffee table and placed it on the floor. Feeling the heaviness and uneven weight of the package made the skin between his fingers tingle in disgust. Maybe it was time to put his toes on a diet, ha, ha. Not very funny, he concluded to himself. Not very funny at all.

Looking at the two together there was no doubt about it, they were definitely a pair. The same dark brown mole just inside the arch, and the same little tuft of hairs sprouting from his big toe. If he counted them he would bet his breakfast that there would be the same amount of hairs on each, and each one of those hairs would be identical to that of its counterpart. His mouth dried instantly, and although his face was flushing he could feel a chill running through his body as his blood pulled back into the centre of him, protecting itself.

He looked at the note again. YOU HAVE TWO DAYS. Shit, oh shit, oh shit. How had he let things get this far? Although dramatically delivered, the words themselves were pretty irrelevant. They were just a time scale, tickety tock said Mr. Clock, and all that jazz. The real message was the foot itself. It told him their intentions more fluently than any amount of words could attempt. The message was pretty simple.

In two days time, if he didn't produce the money, he was a dead man. A dead man, and yet not a dead man. He would cease to exist, be rubbed out, whacked or whatever these gangsters called their form of murder these days, but no one would find his body, no one would grieve for him and more importantly, there would be no police investigation, because, hey, to all intents and purposes he would still be alive. Not the original him naturally. No, he himself would be incinerated neatly out of society. Not him, but a perfect copy. The perfect clone that would visit his children at weekends, sleep in his bed, and wear his goddamned tartan slippers. The clone that would find a job and would pay a percentage of its salary every month to its creators; partly to cover the cost of bringing it into the world and party to cover the debts of its dead predecessor. He was only thirty now, so that gave them a good thirty years to get a return on their money.

He stood up on shaky legs and crossed the room. Standing on tiptoes he reached over the top of the bureau, feeling the dust shifting beneath his fingertips. After a few seconds of blind fumbling, his hand found what it was looking for, and pulled down the small tin. Cigarettes had been illegal in England for over ten years, but thank the Lord for small mercies, the government wasn't as harsh about it as they were in the USA. Sure, you could get busted for it, but if you only had a few for personal use, the police tended to turn a blind eye. After all, most of those guys weren't beyond having the odd puff themselves. The end of the Marlboro blazed red as he sucked in deeply, the harshness of the stale tobacco tickling his throat, and as his head began to swim and buzz, he returned to sit on the sofa. Hell, he might even smoke two today. There was a time when the fear of getting busted for smoking would have kept him awake at nights wondering if the neighbours could smell his once a fortnight law-breaking activity, but those days were well and truly over.

He could feel his panic resurgent within him. Two days. Two days to find one hundred thousand pounds, or the clone had his life. He pulled harder on the cigarette, not wanting to waste any of its polluting cargo.

He had been expecting something, but not this. Cloning wasn't the big deal over here, not like in big brother's America, where the surge in the industry had created national paranoia. Was your mother really your mother, or has Dad traded her in for a replacement? For a price, you could have the satisfaction of murder with none of the comeback. There were even strong rumours in many leading international newspapers that the President hadn't really recovered from that heart attack he had last year, and this was in fact, version two, the new model. But here in little England, it had never really taken off. Or so he had thought until now.

It was common knowledge that the Greater London Mafia ran most of the city, and some said the country, but they must have way more money than he originally thought to spend out like this on a nobody like him. A whole load more money.

He could remember sitting in that huge office, with its leather chair, sweating against his trousers, wondering if when he stood up there would be a damp patch there betraying his nerves, his naivete, his lack of criminal experience. He did not do things like this. He was a LAW ABIDING CITIZEN. He was a respected space-planning officer and he had PROSPECTS. The man who owned the illegally large office had just smiled and asked him the details of the program that he required, and then politely offered him a cup of tea. He imagined a solitary hair falling desperately slowly to the floor as he recalled leaning forward to take the delicate bone china cup. Whether it was a hair, or a flake of skin, it was irrelevant. They had got his DNA from somewhere.

He reluctantly extinguished the smouldering butt. This was all Carol's fault. If she hadn't told him out of the blue she didn't want him anymore, to leave her and the kids to get on with their own lives, to go and live with his precious work, then he wouldn't be in this situation. There would have been no Express Delivery. He smiled acidly to himself. It was easy for Carol, but then, everything had always been easy for Carol, the archetypal little rich kid who never had to work. Daddy had been the creator of the Space Management Council, after all. Revolutionising London's housing situation. Hero of the people, etc. etc. blah, blah, blah. The sharp bitterness in his head felt like it was scraping at his skull.

When they had first met he thought she had admired his ambition, his determination to get on, to succeed, to be SOMEONE. She finally admitted, five years and two children later that all she really wanted him to be was her husband, her companion. Someone to spend all day at the tennis club with. They were never really what they had pretended to be for each other, and faking it wasn't working anymore. That's what she thought anyway. She never bothered to ask his opinion as she virtually shoved him out the door.

Deep inside though, he figured that she just got bored. Simple as that. Bored of her working class toy. Whatever it was, one day she just couldn't stand the sight of him anymore. But God did he love her, spoiled brat or not. Maybe he loved her almost as much as he hated her. It was always rather hard to tell with these things. Different moments, different moods. And these days he was finding it hard to tell if it was virtual Carol or biological Carol that still had the hold on him.

There was a spluttering sound from the box on the floor, and he watched as the foot mulched down into brown gel, folding in on itself from the inside, looking like an old-fashioned rubber veruca sock with no solidity within it, until the outer layer itself melted away, leaving only a damp lump of some glutinous substance behind. Revolting as it was to watch, he wasn't really surprised. A whole spare foot sent through the post could most definitely be used as evidence in a court of law.

He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands like an infant would, tired even in the midst of his panic. He wasn't used to being offline this long, especially since he'd given up going into work, and although it was definitely illegal to go virtual for more than five hours a day, that was another rule that he had taken to bending quite vigorously. Most people didn't have a choice, government produced programs had a fail-safe cut out. Five hours out of twenty-four was all they would run, no matter how much you swore, and if you decided to have a little tinker around inside and see if you could extend the program yourself, it would log right in to the nearest cop shop. More than one attempt and it was a custodial for you. There was no turning a blind eye for that one.

But the beauty of an illegal program was that there was no cut off point. Sure, they shut down like all the other programs every five hours, to make sure you eat and don't pee in your pants, but then you can start them up twenty minutes later and you're in for another five hours of fun. And that was pretty much how he had lived in recent weeks. Wired up and playing.

He looked longingly at the door to the bedroom where his system was set up. Maybe he should plug in for an hour and try to relax. Maybe then he'd have a lifesaving idea. He resisted the urge, but only just. He thought of calling Carol. She was, after all, the only person he knew that could get her hands on that kind of money, but he could just imagine how the conversation would go.

Hi Carol, it's me.

Martin? What are you calling for? You're not due to see the kids until next weekend. Her voice would be cool. Get out of my life. This is not your allocated day to speak to us. Come back on Saturday, but please don't stay too long.

Well, the thing is, it's like this. I've got myself in a bit of a financial pickle and need one hundred thousand pounds, preferably in cash. Ideally today or tomorrow. Definitely no later than that. Any chance of a no-way I can repay you loan?

How much did you say? What on earth do you need that kind of money for? What kind of trouble are you in?

Ah. You see, that's the really fun part. When we split up, I had a really hard time trying to cope, and a crazy part of me thought that I might be able to deal with things better, might be able to concentrate on work, on keeping my head above water, if for a few hours a day I could have my old life back. Sad, huh? So I went to some programmers that weren't strictly legal and they put my old life on disc for me. Sure, that means that unknown to you, they have been in our, sorry, slip of the tongue, your house, watched the kids at play, filmed you naked in the bath, stolen sweat from your tennis gear to get your smell right, rifled through your perfumed underwear, all that kind of great stuff. But, hey, it was all in a good cause. What you didn't know didn't hurt you, did it?

Carol? Are you still there? Are you getting all this?

Anyway, that's all kind of unimportant right now. What is important is that although I did pay a quarter of the cost up front, these things are really rather expensive, and I promised to pay the rest in instalments, which would have been fine if I'd been going in to work, but our life has just been so good in the program that I didn't think that going into work, (I mean real work as opposed to virtual – virtually I've been promoted twice now – are you still with me?), was really that important anymore, and to cut a long story short, it would appear that I've missed a couple of payments, well, four to be exact, and I have a sneaking suspicion they've found out that I've lost my job.

What was that? What will happen if I don't pay up?

Oh well, this is the really great bit. I, me, the me that is, will no doubt have my neck broken in some savage manner, but don't worry about the kids being traumatised, I'll still be along to take them to McDonald's on Saturday, in a manner of speaking of course. In fact, your life won't be affected at all. You probably won't even notice the change. He will be me, after all. And yes, he'll probably beg you to take him back every time he sees you as well.

He started to laugh out loud on the sofa, sitting there in his dressing gown and slippers. If he told her all that there'd be a whole wardrobe full of feet arriving from her Dad in no time at all. His laughter was taking on a manic edge and he found his eyes straying to the bedroom door again. Maybe just half an hour.

He was distracted by a familiar sound that for a moment he just couldn't place, his brown eyes looked quizzically round trying to locate its source, before realising it was the gentle whirr of his front door opening. But that couldn't be. That couldn't be at all. His heart started to speed up, knocking frantically at his ribs, realising the awful truth of the situation well ahead of the rest of him. The only thing that could open his door was a scan of his handprint. His handprint. His handprint. No, no, no. Oh, no. God no.

His brain was slowly catching up as the two men walked casually into his living room, one slightly behind the other. The first wore a dark overcoat and was pulling a gun with a silencer attachment from its inner pocket with leather clad hands. He was obviously proud of the traditions of his trade. Despite the fact that the man in front was the one with the gun, Jesus Christ, he has a gun, it was the man standing slightly behind him that held Martin's stunned attention.

He was about five feet eleven, with dark hair that couldn't decide whether it was straight or curly, creating the impression that it was tugging his skull in all directions, all except for the fringe which hung lethargically over his dark brown Mediterranean eyes. His hands were pushed far down into his baggy trouser pockets, as he looked awkwardly round the flat, trying desperately not to look at its current owner, obviously wishing he was anywhere but here.

Martin couldn't take his eyes off him, for a moment the danger of the situation forgotten. He was him, and yet not him. The new Martin was slightly heavier, his hair longer. He was also slightly more tanned. In fact the clone looked exactly as he himself had when he had walked into that oversized office, back at the end of summer.

A sharp clicking sound emanating from the man in front brought his attention back to the situation at hand. The gun was armed and pointing confidently in his direction. He drew his eyes away from its dark barrel and into the face of the man holding it. This wasn't right. They had given him two days to get the money. In the corner of his vision he saw his carbon copy slipping away into the kitchen. He almost screamed for him to come back, but pure panic squeezed his throat silent. Something about the way the other him had looked terrified him to the core.

It was the same expression he himself would be wearing if he was about to witness something very bad happening to another human being. Something very nasty and definitely very bloody. The thought of blood made him feel sick. The sight of it made him pass out. It had been the same for the past twenty-four years since he had seen some kid knocked down by a speeder. Knocked down never to get up again. That kid's skull had been flattened and his brain spread generously over the tarmac in clumps, like grey jelly. There was also more blood than he had ever seen, or ever wanted to see again. He could see the look of surprise in those glassy eyes as clearly as he had at six years old. A look that said that a terrible mistake had been made, and that he'd like to change his mind and look both ways now. Martin brought himself back to the present, his vision a tunnel leading into the eternal blackness of the gun barrel that seemed to be oh, so close to the delicate flesh of his face. He could feel his stomach contracting, searching for some hope to cling on to. Please God, he didn't want to be like that kid. Please no, anything but that.

He felt tears springing to his eyes, and could barely keep his trembling lips still enough to force out in a whisper, "But the note said, two days, you said two days, you said..." His voice trailed away as, with the flick of a gloved wrist, the man ushered him onto the sofa.

"Yes, that's right. We did say two days, and two days you would have had if one of the lab boys hadn't got a bee in his bonnet about that mole on your foot."

He didn't understand, didn't understand at all, but at least while they were talking he was still alive. "My foot?" There was more voice than whisper there now, he was pleased to hear, small confidence returning. The stranger wearing the impossibly expensive suit and overcoat, could you still get real wool these days?, reached into the open tin box on the table and took a cigarette, sparking it up with a silver Dunhill lighter he pulled from his trouser pocket. He didn't offer Martin one, but started to smoke with a casualness that implied regular use, exhaling a long stream of white chemicals before speaking.

"Yeah, for some reason he seemed to remember that mole. He used to work for the police, so he has a good memory for detail. So anyway, he started checking through the records, and that's when we found out that you weren't Martin 1 at all, but Martin 2." Stubbing out the half-smoked cigarette, he left it alongside Martin's butt from only an hour and a lifetime earlier, and selected a cushion from the sofa, plumping it up.

"Martin 2. What the hell is Martin 2?" Whatever the man was talking about wasn't making any sense, but still managed to make Martin even more uneasy. Uneasy and queasy. His ears had started to ring. The man stopped shaping the cushion and looked him in the eye. Martin didn't like the coldness that sat there so comfortably.

"Do you remember when you and your wife started having problems a couple of years ago?" Martin nodded numbly, no longer sure he wanted to know where this was leading.

"Well, she'd been reading some of the stuff that was going in America and came to the crazy conclusion that maybe by killing you, she might relieve some stress and save your marriage. Burn out all that anger and resentment in one hit. You know what women are like. Especially the rich ones. Too much daytime TV telling them how unhappy they are all the time." Martin hadn't eaten for over a day, but was still sure that he was going to throw up. This had to be a dream. Either that or he was still in the program and it was corrupting. This could not be real. This could not be happening.

"So anyway, she orders a replacement, and when it's ready, she murders the real Martin in the morning and you gets you activated in the afternoon." The room was spinning now. "As it transpired, and here's the funny part, she couldn't really deal with what she'd done, couldn't shake herself free of the guilt of killing the original you, so rather than having to face it every day, she just kicked you out. I guess she wasn't as American as she originally thought." He laughed aloud as if he had just told a great joke. "Lucky for her she had so much money, or that really would have been a waste of a small fortune."

Whatever it was, one day she just couldn't stand the sight of him anymore.

The man smiled and shrugged. "Ironic really. She should have just saved herself the money and divorced the original you. Anyway, when we called today and told her what trouble her clone had got itself into, she paid your debts instantly. We figured she would, a woman in that position. She even paid for another replacement. Between you and me, I think she's started to think of you as faulty goods. And who can blame her? Living your life online is hardly good for your mental health, is it?" He had sat down briefly while speaking, and now rose, still clutching the cushion.

"A new you must seem like the obvious solution to her, wouldn't you say? Especially as she's already done it once. The guilt won't be half as bad second time 'round." He was nodding to himself as if speaking from experience.

"She just wants a father for her children who's decent. Someone they can look up to. I can understand that, although it's touching coming from the woman that murdered you in the first place, huh?" His voice was light and conversational.

Martin decided that the man was definitely dangerously insane, although that didn't seem that important as the truth of his words started to sink in. The room was had taken on an edge of too much clarity, and he didn't know how much more of this dreamy nightmare he could take. Somewhere in his peripheral vision he saw the man hold out the cushion and come towards him. Carol had killed him. Carol. His Carol. He couldn't get his head round it, and then the cushion was round his head, and the world went black. A fraction of a second later the world went black forever.

Two weeks later and Martin 3 was smiling as he held his daughter's hand on the way back to the car. Sure, seeing Carol had been more painful than he had imagined it would be; the memory of the break-up still so fresh for him. The knowledge that she had murdered Martin 1 surprisingly didn't ease that pain, but he knew already that he wouldn't go the path of Martin 2. He had a healthy respect for his ex-wife's ability to replace him at will. Anyway, he had learnt from the mistakes of his predecessor, and he had a much better plan.

He had found, tucked away in the kitchen drawer with his wedding ring, a lock of familiar blonde hair. Written in his handwriting on the faded paper were two words, "Wedding night." It was weird the little events that got forgotten. Carol lying naked in their hotel bed, looking at him with so much love, her eyes bleary from sex, smiling as he cut the single curl from her head, promising to keep it with him forever. She had loved that and she had loved him. God knows why he had kept it after everything went sour. Maybe he just couldn't bring himself to let go of those halcyon times. Anyway, there it had been, waiting patiently for him to come up with the idea.

It might take a while but Martin had started saving hard now that he had got his old job back. He reckoned that within three years, he'd be taking that lock of hair back to his other side of legal friends who just might appreciate the sense of irony. Someone had to save their marriage after all, and there were plenty of accidents a girl could have that could wipe out several years of memory, everything from her wedding night, for example. Tragic, but true. Yes, he thought to himself, as his little girl smiled up at him, her eyes just like her mother's; this could definitely be third time lucky.