in His own image

Tired but triumphant he lay on the bed, resting. On his right was a cupboard with a full-length mirror, on his left lay a man, asleep. He turned towards the mirror and carefully saw the image of his face, noting the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, the mole on his left cheek, the sharp nose, the linear mouth. Then, he turned to the man lying next to him, and smiled. He slowly went over the face, the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, the mole on his left cheek. It was just the same as the mirror image, exactly, perfect, down to the last wrinkle. At last, after all these years, Dr. Kruen had met his twin brother.

It had been a long and difficult search. God had not helped Dr. Kruen; he had had to help himself find his twin. Long years of research, of experiments and errors, trials and tribulations. No one had believed him; sometimes even his own belief had seemed to falter. But he knew, he just knew that it was possible and that he would do it before any of his colleagues would ever dare.

Oh! How they had laughed at him when he had announced his theory at the annual Reykjavik Seminar on Genetic Research. They had called him a fool, a fraud, a crank, a crook. They had got together to ban his research, claiming that it was harmful to the human race. The parallels he had drawn with the early research on surgery, on understanding the human corpses, had fallen on deaf ears. Genetic research on human beings was Not Acceptable, they said. Ban it, they screamed. Scientists, they called themselves. Incompetent idiots who could not stand a true genius, thought Dr. Kruen contemptuously. In just a few hours, he shall have his revenge; all the world shall witness his triumph. Especially those scientists.

They had forced him to hide out in this remote Pacific Island, a country that had no extradition treaties with any other country, a land that was too far for the world media to bother about. And if the media did not, the governments could afford to ignore him too. A crank scientist in an island far away from civilisation wasn't a threat to anyone.

Instead, his presence was a boon to the local population, and the government - and he had sold the idea to the current rulers here. He spent real American dollars, and not just the few that the rare tourist brought, but millions. The laboratory was built here; the right word was "assembled", not "built", but he was always careful to say they had built it. It was theirs, he told them; it would be a monument to them when it was completed.

That it was sponsored by the generosity of Mr. John Doors was known to very few. The billionaire, one of the richest men of the world, had been convinced by Dr. Kruen to invest in his scientific quest. The doctor liked to think that the quantum of money was small compared to the vast potential the research offered : the ultimate human dreams - the promise of immortality, eternal youth. That was what Dr. Kruen had told the billionaire. The truth was a bit different, but he liked to think that was what good marketing was all about : selling the dream, and only the naïve believed in selling the exact truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now that this phase of his work was done, he could sell the idea to all those who needed it - and could afford it, those who craved to see themselves live ... forever.

Throughout the last decade, the doctor had worked to create human clones, not silly nursery-rhyme stuff like Dolly the sheep, Mimi the mouse, and Roger the rat. Dr. Kruen's clones would be perfect copies of the human being. Every bit of nail and nerve, hair and hormone, bone and brain would be identical. The PhenoCopier would do that. Slide in a human being, press a button and make a copy. Or would you like two ?

It wasn't as simple as that. The vision was clear, the steps were hazy. The entire genetic coding scheme had to be mapped out, and replicated. The unending patterns of recombinant RNAs, the spirals of DNAs, the deeper complexities that lay hidden behind layers and layers of obvious complexity. It was like cracking a code, as if the message had been left for him in a riddle or cryptogram. It made him wonder sometimes : could this really be an accident of evolution, a pattern created by randomness, or did such precision, such elegance come by design ?

Solving these riddles had not been an easy task. It had needed dozens of experiments with humans, with people he had chosen. Dr. Kruen thought, these people, stupid people. They never understood genius, scientific research, history in the making. In a rational world, those people whom he had chosen as the pioneers would have been happy; they were making a journey as exciting as the men who had set off for space, as those who once had ventured to cross the oceans. One would think they would be happy to go, to take part in such a quest, to be recorded in history ... forever, even if the first voyages failed.

Of course, there were dangers; great experiments never succeeded on the first attempt. It had been the same with him; he had failed completely with the first few men. The PhenoCopier had not worked properly, and they had not lived long after being exposed to its rays. But the key point was that he had learnt from each of the experiments. The next few attempts had produced hodge-podges, characters drawn from the fictional realm, creatures not truly human. He had had to kill them. It had taken many attempts to ensure the process was completely safe for the original. Useful, those martyrs to the cause, even if they had to be forced into it, with promises of millions and guarantees of safety and sometimes with a few injections that curbed the more violent of those he chose for his experiments.

It had taken several trials, but it had been worth it, he thought, looking proudly at his twin beside him. Perfect. The absolute proof. Now no one could doubt him. Ever. True, it wasn't quite what he had promised John Doors. But that was a fine line. John thought he could get eternal youth. That wasn't strictly true with the PhenoCopier. It made perfect copies possible, but he had not worked out how to adjust the copies : press a few buttons and adjust the output : 10 years younger, or a shade darker, or 5 cm taller: no, that was not in his research plans at all. But he could figure out how to freeze the clone for years so that the institute could revive one's clone after one was dead. So, eternal life was possible, but there was a catch. One that he had never explained to Doors.

With the creation of the clone, came the problem of the creation of the human mind. The mind was inseparable from the brain and the body; the two were too closely intertwined. Even if it were possible to back-up the mind independent of the body, it would take too long for a mind to identify and work with a new body. Imagine waking up one morning with a new body; the thought of reconciling to it was enough to drive someone mad.

So Kruen had abandoned the idea of doing separate back-ups of the mind and body. The PhenoCopier took copies at an instant of mind and body together. It worked beautifully, the clone never had a problem when it woke up. It felt it had just gone to sleep a few hours ago ... and here was a new day, normal and perfect. The clone knew everything that the original knew: all memory, all knowledge, all the conscious and sub-conscious thoughts were preserved by the PhenoCopier.

The catch was that a frozen and revived clone would have lost out on the activities, the memories, and thoughts of the passing years when its original walked the Earth and the clone slept. So, a revived clone was rather like a Rip Van Winkle, or a Woody Allen in Sleeper emerging from his sleep in the future. So, while the body could be preserved and one could reach immortality, the clones would always be a step behind the original. This little difficulty he had never bothered to explain to Doors, who was so keen to keep an eternal youth.

He laughed to himself, what Doors had asked for, he was going to get. Of course, the results might not be what he expected, but that was not his problem, was it ?

Another few hours to ago, that's all. Some of the world media was at the island already, a few of the others were landing up soon. He had promised them a real surprise, and they were going to get it. The media had gathered, not because they expected anything, but because they loved to report on his cranky notions. They had sent their worst reporters; they were sure there was nothing to report. Get the bare facts, get his crazy speech; the chaps at the office would spin the rest. Dr. Kruen never bothered to dispute the media, however silly they may make him sound. He had known from personal experience that they only published the sensational stuff ; facts were often irrelevant.

This time, it was going to be different. These third-grade reporters would send in the facts, the amazing facts : the success of the cloning, the perfection of the replica, not just physically but also mentally. For the first time in history, the mind had been copied - every piece of the mind, every thought. The chaps at those offices, those useless editors would probably not want to believe it. So, he had organised an Internet video-conference as well; none of the reporters gathered knew that the evening's entertainment was going to be webcast live.

The world would see him. Or, rather his twin. The reporters would interview him, and he would answer everything. And I will be standing at the other end of the room, smiling with success, he thought. A masterly demonstration of his power, the ultimate proof. There was only one thing he was not sure of : how would his twin react to seeing him ? As a precaution, Dr. Kruen had prepared a special chair : one that would not allow its occupant to move. Bands of steel circled the chair; rings over the handle, and the seat appeared at the click of a button. He was adventurous, but there was no reason to take undue risks.

He turned and saw his clone, asleep, snoring gently. I didn't know that, he thought as satisfaction swept through him. In his mind, for the hundredth time, he ran through the speech he was to make to the press a few hours later, the standard questions he expected, the standard answers. As he did so, the tiredness of the last hour overtook him and Dr. Kruen fell asleep, snoring gently.

He awoke, uncomfortably seated in a chair. Unable to move his arms, his feet. He felt a great silence around him, the silence of a hall full of breathless people. The back of his head hurt, throbbed with a dull ache. Slowly, his eyes focussed. Many people stood in the large hall, all looking at him in awe. A voice echoed : "Ladies and gentlemen, a perfect copy". It was his voice, but he wasn't speaking.

All the people in the hall looked above his head; there was probably a screen there. Yes, he remembered there was a screen there. He was supposed to be speaking now. But before he could speak, the voice boomed again.

"You can ask him anything, he can answer everything. All that I know is known to him, every single detail that I knew before I stepped into the PhenoCopier. All my thoughts, my dreams, my fears, my plans. We can spend an hour today in separate rooms while you quiz us on anything you like. You can match the answers at your convenience. We won't spend too much time today, both of us are tired, but an hour will clearly establish that this is indeed a Perfect copy."

He could remember the words he had practised, many times over, trying to get it perfect.

"In fact, a bit too perfect, perhaps. My clone, whom I call Kruel, seems to think he is the original. Kruel thinks he is me, Dr. Kruen! This may influence some of his answers, and he may seem a bit upset at being treated as the clone. Therefore, I have taken the precaution of putting him in a steel-strapped chair for now. Please bear with me - and him - for the moment.

"Questions, ladies and gentlemen. The floor is yours."

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