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11:23 Wednesday 24 March 2077
Michelle had become quieter, more withdrawn, since her return from the island. She had tried to hide the conflict that was raging within her mind from her family and colleagues but she was noticeably not the woman that they all knew. Professionally she was the same, she wasn’t making mistakes and was as efficient as ever, but there was something about her personality that had recently changed. Nobody could accuse her of being happy-go-lucky at the best of times, but she always had a pleasant smile and a good word for her colleagues. In recent days nobody had seen her smile and the sparkle seemed to have gone from her eyes. Where she would have previously engaged in banter with the rest of her team, she would now only offer platitudes that would allow her to leave the conversation and return to fight the demons duelling inside her head.
Life at home was little better; the façade that she tried to present at work was far less easy to maintain at home. If she lived with someone outside of the One Life setup maybe she could have got away with it, but Danielle witnessed both her work persona and how she was at home. The sense of fun seemed to have gone out of her, Danielle had tried to help her but Michelle would just clam up as soon as she tried to broach the subject of what was troubling her.
It was killing Danielle to see Michelle this way. This simply wasn’t Michelle. She wasn’t some kind of automaton that performed her duties efficiently and silently, she was an approachable human being who could elicit loyalty from the members of her team that went way beyond a shared allegiance to the One Life cause. Danielle had to say something.
“You can’t go on like this Michelle. I know something is eating you up inside.”
“I’m fine, really.”
“You’re anything but fine, Mitch. I know you. Better than perhaps even your own family.”
“It’s nothing. I’ll be alright.”
“When? Tomorrow? The next day? A month, a year? You’ve been back from wherever you went for a week now. You’re not you. You’re not my Michelle, my Mitch.”
“But what am I supposed to do? Yes, something is troubling me, but I can’t share it with anyone – not even you.”
“If you don’t you’ll go crazy, and that won’t do anyone any good. The resistance needs you. I need you.”
Tears started to form in Michelle’s eyes.
“But I can’t tell you. I can’t tell anybody. It’s my problem and I have to deal with it myself. Me. Just me.”
Danielle couldn’t bear to see Michelle crying like this. Michelle didn’t cry. Michelle was tough. Danielle knew the softer side of Michelle too, but this wasn’t the Michelle that she knew and loved. She had to do something.
“I have to pop out for an hour or so. I have a quick errand to run. Will you be alright?”
“I’m not going to do anything stupid if that’s what you mean. You go. I’ll still be here when you get back.”
Ten minutes later Michelle’s phone rang. She didn’t really feel like taking any calls but when she saw that it was her sister Caitlin calling her, she relented.
“Hi, Cait. What can I do you for?”
“Meet me round mum and dad’s now. No ifs. No buts. I’ll meet you there in ten minutes. Fifteen tops. Bye.”
Michelle thought she’d better do as her little sister said – it sounded urgent.
She walked into her parents’ house just after midday to find Caitlin, Maurice, and Karen waiting for her. Her dad spoke first.
“In the old days they’d call this an intervention, but what it is, really, it’s a mother, father, and sister who are worried about you. You’ve something on your mind, something that you’re keeping to yourself. I know that you probably feel that you can’t tell anyone but it’s not going to do your health any good to let it fester. The house is secure. Adam has seen to that. Anything you say can’t be overheard by anybody. Anybody at all. You know how paranoid I’ve always been about being bugged? And how I’ve always taken precautions?”
“Yes, but I always just thought you were a bit paranoid.”
“Anything you say here is strictly confidential. You know that. It’s safe to talk with us, your family. We just want to help you. We love you.”
“I don’t know. It’s my problem. I’ve got to deal with it.”
Karen took her daughter’s hands.
“But you’re not dealing with it, Mitch. It’s eating you up inside. You’ve got to tell us what’s going on. Better out than in. You know you can trust us.”
“Of course I do. But...”
“No buts. Caitlin and your dad and I, we’re here for you. We always will be. Use us. Please.”
Michelle sat on the sofa next to her sister.
“Ok. Sit down. I’ll tell you everything. But you can’t breathe a word to anyone.”
Karen quickly rushed out to the kitchen and returned with a tray holding four mugs of steaming hot tea.
“Everything is always better with a nice cup of tea.”
“Oh mum, you’re such a...”
“I’m such a mum. I know. I’ll never change.”
Michelle took a deep breath.
“I have a problem. A crisis of conscience really. I know something that hardly anyone else knows but it’s something so big that it will affect millions of people.”
Caitlin took a sip of her tea.
“Go on Michelle.”
“Well, you know that One Life’s dream is to create a world where people don’t have past life recall?
Nobody answered but nobody needed to. They were well aware of the vision of the resistance movement; they were all involved in one way or another.
“And you know that when Recarns are reincarnated they recall PLMs and – if they’re not good people – they can and do use these memories to their advantage. Well, One Life is developing a virus that will remove Recarns’ PLMs.”
Maurice decided to ask the questions that obviously needed answers.
“Will it kill people who are Recarns?”
“No. They’ll just lose their PLMs.”
“Will they be harmed in any way?”
“No. They can continue living their lives.”
“Then I fail to see the problem.”
“It’s biological warfare, dad. That’s the problem. It’s wrong.”
“But the aim is not to hurt or kill anyone. Correct?”
“Correct.”
“Would you agree that the eradication of disease a good thing?”
Michelle could see where her father was going with this train of thought.
“Of course.”
“Vaccinations are a good thing?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“But vaccinations are a form of biological warfare.”
“Not against humans.”
“You said that Recarns won’t be harmed.”
“Yes. They won’t be harmed.”
“I still don’t really see what the problem is. The measures to be taken are for the good of all humanity. We’ll be free from Illuminati rule that much quicker.”
“But that’s the easy part. The virus that’ll be used to remove the past life memories is being tested on clones.”
“Can the virus not be tested on humans?”
“That would be ethically wrong.”
“Is testing on clones ethically wrong?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Why?”
“The First Article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that even if clones aren't born the typical way, they are still created ‘born’ and still deserve the same rights as us.”
“I agree. In principle, I agree. But I have another question. A baby conceived in the conventional way...”
“Conventional, as in through sex?”
“Yes. A baby conceived in the conventional way, is it born with a reasonable expectation of human rights being applied to it?”
“Yes. I suppose it is.”
“And a baby conceived through IVF, is it born with a reasonable expectation of human rights being applied to it?”
‘Yes. Just like any other baby.”
This was a strange experience for Michelle. She had never seen her father analyse a problem in such a logical manner before. He’d always seemed an emotional man. Maurice continued his train of thought.
“A clone created through stem cell donation, is it born with a reasonable expectation of human rights being applied to it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think it’s an important question. IVF and natural babies are born to parents that, on the whole, want them. They are born into families that will love and provide for them. They’re children. Of course, unfortunately sometimes their futures don’t live up to expectations.”
“Your point is?”
“These clones can have no expectations. Under present circumstances, they won’t be raised by a loving family.”
“But they have souls...”
“They have souls, yes, but they have no life experience. Even if they die during these experiments – which seem to be necessary to save humanity from slavery or worse – is their soul destroyed?”
“No. They’ll be reincarnated.”
“The alternative. What is it?”
“How do you mean?”
“The future of humanity. If nothing is done, what’s the future of humanity?”
“More of the same, I guess.”
“And what is the same?”
“Oppression, atrocities, murder, pain, injustice, despair...”
“Hopelessness?”
“Yes.”
“Is this a future you want for humanity?”
“No.”
“Then you have no choice but to accept the use of clones for experimentation, do you?”
“I guess not. But I don’t like it.”
“You don’t need to like it. I don’t like it either. But the objective of this process is a pure one, one that’ll change society, change the world for the better. Better for us, and certainly better for our children. Would you agree?”
“Yes, but the clones?”
“We’re prisoners of circumstances, and those circumstances are those under which we suffer at the moment. The day may come when clones may be welcomed into families, into society as equal to natural humans. It’s a nice thought but we’re not there yet. If that day arrives, then that’s when we can give clones equal human rights. Until then, we’re subject to other forces and must take those other forces into consideration when making up our minds about how we feel. Our sense of empathy makes us feel that using clones as guinea-pigs is wrong. They look like us, they feel like us, they sound like us. But they aren’t us. Not yet, anyway.”
Michelle listened intently.
“Are you sure you’re my dad and not some clone?
Maurice was surprising himself with his strand of logic.
“If I am a clone, I’m not doing a very good job of protecting my kind, am I?”
Michelle looked at her father in awe as he sipped his tea.
“But remember what the alternative would be. Do you want your children, your children’s children, to live in the same world, to fight the same fight that you are fighting? Or do you want better for them?”
“I want them to have a better life. Of course.”
“Then remember that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
Michelle remembered what her father had said to her all those years ago. She could see things more clearly in her mind now. She didn’t have to like One Life’s plan but she did need to accept it. And the alternative was far worse. Sometimes a person has to decide son which side of history she wanted to be and Michelle wanted to be on the correct side. She went over to her father and gave him the biggest hug that she had ever given him in her life.
“Thanks, dad.”
“Just doing my job.”
Danielle was waiting for Michelle when she arrived home.
“Feeling any better?”
“Much better thanks, Dani. For a while there I felt like I was carrying the world on my shoulders.”
“And now?”
“I still don’t like what’s happening but I can accept it. I can live with it and, more importantly, I believe I can live with myself for knowing about it.”
“Well, I don’t know what’s going on and I have no wish to know. You’ll tell me if and when you want me to know. I can live with that.”