3 

My clone-father had asked that I be named Adam, and my mother followed his wishes. Instead of Adam Silva Elwell, I was christened Adam Michael Elwell-2 – the “Michael” for Adam-1’s father and the “-2” to indicate I was the second person to use the DNA. But while everyone else called me Adam or Adam-2, Mom always called me Michael or Mikey.

I don’t remember the tempestuous night of my birth captured on the holovideo found in my Grandma Lily’s belongings. The night that protestors cursed my existence while the rest of the world watched uneasily as news footage of the first human clone was broadcast, finally giving the monstrosity a face. But a face that looked less like Frankenstein’s monster and more like the Gerber baby.

Nor do I remember a time when I didn’t know that I was the clone of the man I considered my grandfather. Grandmother Lily and Great-Grandfather Lyle talked about him all the time, often comparing me to him physically or in little habits I had like not wanting to get my hands dirty at the beach. Grandmother Lily visited almost every day, forcing herself between my toys and me, or clutching me to her body. Great-Grandfather Lyle never touched me except to perch me on his knee every now and then. He always seemed to be examining me, and I felt self-conscious whenever he was around. Mom rescued me as often as she could from both of them. I counted on her for that. More than I realized.

Each birthday there were letters and holocards from my late grandfather congratulating me on another year, telling me that he knew I was making him proud and that he hoped I was being a good boy for Sarah. As I grew older the handwritten letters, videos and holovideos would give me far more information about him and glimpses into his life, but during my early childhood they gave me only the feeling that Grandpa Adam was the nice man whose holographic ghost I would sit in the lap of while he wished me a happy birthday, and whose genes (whatever those were) had made my life possible, and that this gave us a connection that was very special in some peculiar way.

I never had any reason to think there was anything special about myself in the eyes of the rest of the world. Mom didn’t watch the news much while I was awake. I did go to the doctors for tests and checkups every few days, but I assumed this was normal. The street I grew up on was a small, secluded court in an old section of La Jolla, and the few neighbors we met often stared at me but rarely said anything, and exchanged nothing but pleasantries with my mother. And by the time I was four years old, dozens of more clones were born and the media only cared about me when my birthday rolled around. Thus, when I began to form lasting memories, I was not recognized in public. People recognized my mother first and then realized who I must be.

My mom never did go to jail. A jury sentenced her to one year’s probation for her part in the illegal cloning. She left her job in child counseling to spend time with her new baby. Her inheritance from my clone-father assured her a lifetime of financial security, so she began working from home, volunteering for the United Nation’s UNICEF program, but mostly just playing with me, teaching me, and saving me from Lily and Lyle. 

* 

Even as my mother’s trial was going on, others had begun challenging the constitutionality of the anti-cloning legislation. A few atheists claimed that a cloning ban deprived them of the only sort of afterlife they could hope to have, and was therefore an infringement on their basic rights of life, liberty, and happiness – not to mention their freedom of religion, as their “religion” required them to be able to clone in order to reach their afterlife. A few new religious sects, including Christian offshoots, followed the same reasoning, arguing that cloning was the resurrection or reincarnation that their religions had been expecting, and they hadn’t realized till now that God or the spirit world would use human methods to resurrect or reincarnate the dead.

Those were intriguing cases that were initially defeated in 2034 and 2035. Several requests from death row inmates to be cloned were quickly thrown out as well. But in early 2036 the landmark cloning case began winding its way up through the courts.

Shannon Smith had captured the hearts of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in 2034, during the midst of the terrible Mideast War. More than three million were already dead, including almost 200,000 civilian Americans murdered in a string of terrorist attacks. The escalation to nuclear war seemed as inevitable as it must have felt during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Ten-year-old Shannon wrote to Iran’s ayatollah, asking him if he wanted to kill all Christians and Jews, and saying she hoped everybody would stop fighting and live with each other in peace.

She was invited to Tehran for an audience with the ayatollah and then Jerusalem with the Israeli prime minister. The media and the people were fascinated by the sweet, adorable girl, and the video of her playing together with Iranian and Jewish children helped galvanize the public of all warring countries to reject vengeance and come back from the brink, giving political cover to leaders to end the war.

On August 25, 2035, an obsessive fan kidnapped Shannon, drove her up into the mountains east of Salt Lake, and strangled her. The New York Times called her the last casualty of the Mideast War.

Her parents claimed that they had the right to have another child using Shannon’s DNA. Not allowing Shannon to be cloned would perpetuate the murderer’s deed, and her parents deserved access to full reparation. In extenuating circumstances, the mother’s health problems left her body with no viable eggs, and the parents claimed that Shannon had expressed an interest in eventually being cloned when she saw Adam-2 in the news.

In a shocking 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court agreed with the parents. They told Congress that, as it stood, the anti-cloning law was an unconstitutional restriction on reproductive rights, recommending that cloning be allowed in cases where the original person was dead or in the case of couples who couldn’t reproduce naturally. A defiant Congress tried to pass an anti-cloning constitutional amendment, but the Senate failed to get the two-thirds majority by three votes. Lyle Gardener had powerful friends.

USCS worked their cloning magic on Shannon Smith and more than twenty others before Shannon-2 was born in November 2037. That year and the next saw a rash of new cloned births, all performed through USCS whose competitors were still behind in the race to commercialize the process. For most people, I was old news.

The Smiths lived in Salt Lake City, but they flew down to La Jolla for the cloning procedure and returned a few months after Shannon-2’s birth to meet our family. I had recently turned four, and their visit was one of my strongest memories from that period of my life. They told me that she was only the second cloned child. I still didn’t completely understand what being a clone meant or how it made us special from everyone else, but it was the first clue that in some way I was considered a unique person in the world.

The adults holotaped the historic meeting, took a lot of pictures and chatted, and I marveled at this tiny visitor who grasped her tiny fingers around mine as I bent over her carriage. We were destined to meet a couple more times at special functions as we grew up, and eventually became long-distance friends as adults. She also would join me as one of the members of the Genetics and Cloning Board.

“What was grandpa like?” I asked the morning after the Smiths left.

My mother smiled as she continued buttoning up my shirt, getting me ready for church. “Well, like all people, he had his good and his bad. He was really depressed when his mommy died. He was only seven, just three years older than you are now. Then your Great-Grandpa Michael died too, and your grandpa was really sad and lonely.”

I put my hand on my mom’s shoulder as I stepped into my shoes. “But you still liked him, right?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered, smiling as she tied my shoes. “I loved him. Whenever I was sad, he’d always try to make me happy. He loved me a lot.” Finished tying my shoes, she playfully held both my feet down so I couldn’t move. “He told me I reminded him of how much fun life was when he was your age. And that’s one reason why I want you to be whoever you want to be, and not just try to be who your grandpa was. I think he may have wanted you to live the life he started before his mommy and daddy died. So if you grow up to be whatever you want, you’ll end up making you both happy. Okay?”

I nodded, though I don’t remember fully understanding.

That night I dreamt my first dream about my c-father. I was ensnared in the clutches of an ugly, cackling witch who had chased me through the rooms of Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Her fingernails grew into long, curling claws and closed around me like a cage.

“I’ve got you now, Adam! And you’ll be with me here forever,” she said, and cackled again.

“He isn’t yours to keep,” my clone-father said from behind her.

She turned on him and hissed like a cat. “He’s mine! I’ve caught him!”

“Take me instead!” he responded, another Disneyland fragment from their staging of Beauty and the Beast.

She grinned hungrily, released me and snatched Adam-1 in her tangled claws.

“Run away,” he ordered.

“Daddy!” I called, reaching out to him. “I won’t leave you!”

He frowned at me. “This is my home. Not yours.”

And so I awoke with mixed feelings, thankful he’d saved me, disappointed he had sent me away. It was the first time I remember wanting a dad.

The next time I opened my birthday letters from my Grandpa or sat in his holographic lap, I did it with new eagerness. I sensed that, even though he’d never met me, he cared for me and wanted to protect me. 

Shortly thereafter I had my first brush with death.

Gerber Baby










Holocards: A brief holographic video projected by a holoplayer (usually a cell phone) that has been either created by a card company or holotaped by a friend/relative. Playing it shows a hologram wherever you direct the player.


Genes




La Jolla








UNICEF









Resurrection
Reincarnation






Inspired by Samantha Smith

Cuban Missile Crisis


Ayatollah















Supreme Court



Constitutional Amendment













Holotape: To record an event as a hologram.

Disneyland

Haunted Mansion

Film: The Haunted Mansion

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast Soundtrack