Lost Ark Ch. 03

Author's note:

This is chapter three of Lost Ark, a sort of sequel to Lost Colony (previously published) but which may be read as a standalone story. The characters and setting are new, with only the Lost Colony backstory tying them together. It is also more science-fictiony than most of Lost Colony.

All characters are over the age of eighteen. Thank you for reading!

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-Kyle-

Okay, Kyle said to himself, I take back my earlier claim that yesterday's encounter with Skye was the most pornographic sex of my life. This topped it.

After he and Amber2 had finally emerged from the well of their shared bliss, the blonde led him to the bed and laid him down. Amber1 joined her and soon the two were licking his cock, chasing the remaining drops of cum, and trading kisses with one another. Kyle soon began to harden again, but suddenly it was as if a hidden timer expired. The two stood, found Skye, and together began to clean the room. Once more he and Lissa were on their own.

Kyle caught Lissa gawking at his erection before quickly turning away. "Sooo," she began awkwardly.

"You and Skye seemed to get along," Kyle observed. He picked up his clothes and began to dress.

He had expected denial, but Lissa surprised him. She kept her eyes averted but didn't shy away from the question. "This generation," she said, "they're more complete, aren't they?"

As much had occurred to Danton. "In several ways. The shave and trim were pretty good." Danton stroked his smooth cheek and jaw. "And they didn't go into a coma afterward."

"And now look." Lissa nodded in the direction of the clones, who were now sweeping up hair, wiping the tub, and returning their equipment.

Danton got her point. "No one told them to clean up."

"And..." Lissa began to speak but trailed off nervously. When she felt Danton's eyes on her she blushed but continued. "The sex," she said, "is pretty nice."

"So we're talking about this now?"

By now Danton was dressed enough that Lissa felt comfortable facing him. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Sorry you got on my case so much when I slept with Skye?"

Instead of answering him directly, Lissa posed an unexpected question. "Did you ever attend one of Alain Sparr's lectures?"

"Several of them," Danton admitted. Everyone in the camp had. Sparr was an Odysseus biologist who had been the victim of a plot to hijack Kaybe's biological rights. His perilous first year on the planet was the stuff of legend. Secretly, Kyle was jealous of the man. At well over six feet tall, handsome, and with stories to match his scars, Sparr might as well have been the official camp heartthrob.

"He likes to say that on Kaybe, death is never far, and neither is its twin, lust."

"Is this your way of apologizing without actually apologizing?" Danton asked.

"Mmmaybe," Sloane said, drawing out the word while smiling sheepishly. "Let's just say it would be hypocritical of me not to."

"Kinda apology kinda accepted." Danton stood, pulling on his other shoe. "Now, let's see where those clones came from."

It wasn't difficult to figure out. The next room was as bleakly utilitarian as the other lab spaces, with just enough room for three tanks, a corner shower fixture, and a wardrobe. The tanks were each open, still dripping with the orange fluid that unhatched clones floated in.

"They just hatched, look," Danton said, pointing to the dripping tanks.

"And then showered and dressed before joining us earlier." Lissa was peering inside the wardrobe. "More of the same spa uniforms."

"It's incredible," Danton mused out loud. "They hatch, know to shower, dress themselves, and go to the spa. Once there, they're skilled in giving massages, baths, cutting hair, cleaning, and are completely uninhibited in bed."

Lissa was smiling at something private.

"What?" Danton wanted to know.

"It reminds me of a joke: A woman needs a man who is a boss at work, a wizard in the kitchen, and a demon in the bedroom. And those three men must never meet."

"Yeah, funny," Danton sighed. "I heard that same joke, but from a man's perspective."

"Of course, but you get it, right? It's exactly what Bauer was trying to create. An ideal clone who would clean, cook, pamper her man, and meet his needs in bed. This was his proving ground."

"The first clone we met, the first Skye, was nowhere near that ideal," Danton pointed out. "And it sounds like even the second generation clones were a disappointment. I don't know what generation we just encountered, but it obviously took a while to get there."

"And for all we know, Bauer kept going, making even more sophisticated generations."

Danton nodded. "Right. So how long did it take? How did he keep the others on board, so to speak?"

"I don't know," Lissa admitted. She looked around the tank room, her eyes settling on the exit. "If we can find a place to hang out for a while I'll see if I can put a timeline together."

The next room felt like a poor cousin of the common room from the first segment. The tables were metal and synthetic laminate, not rare hardwoods. The floors were plain, and the walls unadorned. Lissa seated herself in front of a terminal, Danton unlocked it, and she began flipping through the log entries.

"Here," Lissa said, just minutes later. When Danton returned to her side she pointed out a menu category not previously encountered: Li - Private Log. She pushed play.

"It's recording," a voice said. "Let's get started."

The scene was someone's personal quarters. Four people faced the camera, their faces poorly lit from the side, the light creating deep shadows. Nearest to the camera was Doctor Li, the cloning specialist. He was recognizable from the interview video with Bauer, but here looked tired and slouched.

"Day eight hundred and twenty-seven," Li began. "More than two and a quarter years into our mission. I'm Doctor Thomas Li." Here he paused, turning to those seated just behind him. "Could you each identify yourselves please?"

A young woman at Li's right shoulder went first. She was at least a decade and a half younger than Li and might have been pretty but for the worry in her dark eyes. "Elise Weir. I'm Doctor Li's research assistant."

"Adam Cheung," a young man said, leaning forward nervously, "Doctor Ford's assistant."

"Sandra Corbin." A brunette leaned into the frame, pushing Cheung to one side. "I was Nkosi's assistant. Was!" Corbin was a few years older than Weir and Cheung, and visibly agitated. "I'm done with this sickness."

"Yes," Li said, gently nudging Corbin back. "Yes, that nicely brings us to why we're here. The four of us, a majority of the scientific team, state our objection to the direction this mission is taking."

Li drew in a breath, squared himself to the camera, and continued. "Bauer, this is all wrong. The direction this project is going is not ethically sustainable. When I signed up you told me that I'd have the liberty to pursue my cloning research, take it farther than I could on Earth. In this you were truthful, and I have, in fact, made the breakthroughs that I envisioned at the beginning of the project."

"Truthful?" Corbin laughed harshly. "He hasn't been truthful about anything!"

Li raised his hand for quiet. "Ms. Corbin is agitated, but she has a point. While I was making my breakthroughs, you and Dr. Nkosi were already planning to use them to make sex slaves. At first, I thought that something had gone wrong, that the clones were simply reverting to their base sexual drives. But their explicit language, their response to auditory and visual cues, those could only be programmed."

Elise Weir spoke up. "And now we're getting a view of the endgame, and it isn't just sex. Cooking, cleaning, massage. Sewing, for chrissakes! It's like you're trying to make June Cleaver, but with a vagina."

Who's June Cleaver? Danton wondered.

Li nodded somberly. "What about you, Mr. Cheung? I believe you may have slightly different motivations for joining our protest."

Cheung appeared to be the most reserved of the four, with a wide-eyed expression as if startled to find himself in front of the camera. For a moment Danton thought he wouldn't speak at all. Then Corbin elbowed him and suddenly the young research assistant spoke up loudly. "I just want to get out of here!" he blurted. "We're here, at Kaybe. All of the cargo pods have been unloaded. The colonists are on the surface. Why aren't we? I'm tired of preserved food, of artificial light, of it always being twenty-three degrees. There aren't even any windows here!"

The outburst seemed to startle Li, who looked back at Cheung for a moment before facing the camera once more. "Thank you, Mr. Cheung," Li said. "Mr. Bauer, we've shared our ethical and personal objections to this mission. It's time to end these untenable experiments and to move the operation planetside. Our contracts grant you rights to our research, but not to hold us hostage. We're giving you thirty days to meet these demands, after which we will be forced to go to the surface on our own." The video concluded with all four nodding in affirmation.

"I didn't see that coming," Danton admitted. The implications of the rebellion were still turning in his mind.

"Kinda though," Sloane said. She was still staring at the last frame of the video. "Remember in Bauer's log he predicted that once they reached Kaybe the others would become impatient?"

"I guess he was right."

"Yeah. Give me a few minutes. I'll see if I can put a timeline together from the date stamps on those files."

While Lissa organized her notes, Danton poked around the room. There was little in the way of personal effects, but he did come across a stack of books. The sad little collection reminded Danton of a similar shelf of books from his apartment building's library back on Earth; the stack was seemingly as much about discarding unwanted books as it was a place to seek a new read. He thumbed through the pile until he found a book titled On Faith: Essays and Perspectives. Something struck him.

"Do you think they have souls?"

It took Lissa a moment to look up. "Who, the clones?"

"Yeah."

"I'm not religious."

"Okay neither am I, but I still believe in the soul." Danton struggled for the right words before continuing. "Something precious and unique in us. I think you and I have souls. Do the clones?"

Lissa stretched, either happy to take a short break, or making the most of Danton's interruption. "I don't know," she said carefully. "If you had asked me that yesterday I might have said no."

"But Skye, today..."

"Yes," Lissa said. "I know she was only behaving within her programming, but beneath that, there was a spark. Not sure I'm ready to call it a soul, but I sensed more than just a conditioned response."

The moment was fraught in a way that Danton hadn't anticipated when he broached the topic. Still, he pushed ahead; there would never be a better time to sate his curiosity. "I wasn't sure you were bi, you know."

Lissa stiffened slightly. "We talked about it a couple of times, didn't we?"

"We did." Danton and Lissa had spent a memorable afternoon relaxing outside on a blanket, joking about which of the women in the camp Lissa would make out with. It had felt like a game, but later when they went back to Lissa's room to make love, Danton found her drenched with desire.

"Does it bother you?"

"No. I'm a guy, Liss'. Watching you make out with Skye was pretty hot."

Lissa took this all in. "You had your eyes closed most of the time when you were with Amber."

"I snuck a peek or two."

"What about you and Amber? Do you think there's something there?"

"A soul? Yes."

"I mean, did you feel something for her?"

The implication was clear. Lissa must have experienced something beyond superficial attraction to Skye or she wouldn't have asked the question. "No," Danton said easily. "She's beautiful, confident, and skilled. It felt good. But no, I don't feel anything for her."

A silence fell between them, causing Danton to wonder if Lissa thought she had said too much about Skye. "Okay," she said after a moment more, "let me get back to work."

When Lissa finished the timeline it looked something like this.

● Three months before launch: The habitat is complete. All scientific equipment, food, and supplies are on board. The tanks contain several clones well along in their physical development.

● One month before launch: Bauer and everyone else are on board.

● One week into the mission: Bauer begins documenting the mission with video interviews.

● Two months into the mission: The first generation Skye clone is hatched. Bauer shoots the video of himself in bed with her.

● Three months into the mission: New clones are being grown. Nkosi begins work on enhanced programming techniques.

● Nine months into the mission: Next-gen clones are tested, with mixed results.

● Fifteen months into the mission: They seal off the half of the segment with the Rods in it.

● Twenty-one months into the mission: They abandon the first habitat segment entirely.

● Twenty-three months into the mission: Third-generation clones are tested in the spa/playroom.

● Two years into the mission: Ark I reaches Kaybe.

● Twenty-seven months into the mission: Ark II arrives with the colonists. The cargo pods on Ark I are detached but the ship remains in orbit. Around this time Li and the three assistants record their protest video.

"That's what I have so far," Lissa said.

Danton nodded. Seeing the timeline written out reminded him that although he and Lissa had been discovering clues for only a couple of days, the events on Ark I had played out over several years. It wasn't difficult to imagine cracks forming between the team members as they lived and worked in such close proximity. They had no families to come home to, and no outside friends or distractions. They couldn't go for a walk in the park to de-stress. How frayed had their relationships become?

"Let's check out the rest." By Danton's estimation, they had already seen half of the habitat's second segment. They would have plenty of time to explore the rest.

The far side of the room opened onto a corridor with a door at the far end and one halfway down. The moment they opened the first door Danton knew they had found Bauer's quarters. The room wasn't quite as spacious as the one in the first segment, but it was close. The bed was just as imposing and the shower stall was every bit as opulent. A smaller work area and conference table were the only concessions to the more compact space.

"Do you get the feeling that Bauer was all about Bauer?" Lissa was shaking her head in amazement.

"He was definitely a man who embraced his own privilege."

Lissa headed toward the work area but stopped when she neared the back of the room. "Look at this."

'This' turned out to be a window flanked by a door into an adjoining room. The window was an oddity in its own right. Danton couldn't recall any other windows situated between rooms, and there were no outer windows of any sort. When Danton peered through the glass he saw that the adjoining room was a compact bedroom with two beds and a wardrobe.

"I just want to check this out," Lissa said, pushing open the door before remarking, "It's half bedroom, half observation room."

Danton saw what she meant. The window turned out to be a one-way mirror; Bauer would have been able to see in, but the occupants of the room would only see their own reflections. "Well, this isn't creepy at all."

"Nothing surprises me about Bauer anymore." Lissa opened the wardrobe. "Kimonos. Heavy on lingerie. Another huge shock. Oh, but there are a few sundresses."

"So bedroom antics and the occasional garden party?" Kyle mused.

"It looks that way."

The room didn't have any other doors; whoever lived there must have belonged to Bauer. Danton stepped out, then paused to look back through the glass at Lissa, who was still exploring the room. How had Bauer viewed the clones, Danton wondered. Had he seen them as playthings, science projects, or people? Danton and Lissa had discussed whether or not the clones had souls. Had Bauer ever troubled himself with the same question?

When Lissa came back into Bauer's quarters the two resumed a familiar ritual. Danton used his interface kit to break the password on the terminal, then yielded the chair to Lissa who began searching for clues. She found plenty.

"This one is dated shortly after Li's protest video," Lissa said, before clicking 'play'.

The scene was the sofa in Bauer's quarters, with Bauer occupying the end cushion. It reminded Danton of the set of a talk show just before the guests arrived. Bauer looked relaxed and at ease, holding a drink in one hand and with his legs comfortably crossed.

"Right on schedule," Bauer began. "We've only been in orbit for three months and Li is ready to bail." He sighed and took a sip. "I thought he was a visionary. I've given him everything he needed. All the tanks, nutrients, sequencers, money, and of course freedom from Earth law. Without me, he would still be growing livers and skin in that warehouse that he called a lab."

Considering the list of grievances that Bauer was burdened with he appeared uncharacteristically serene. Danton even thought he detected a note of smugness in the man's demeanor.

"So of course the others are with him. I thought Weir would be loyal but Li must be twisting her arm. She's his assistant, after all. Cheung surprised me, but I guess he's tired of fucking for science and wants to go to the surface to dig turnips or whatever it is they're doing down there. Shame, his knowledge of pharmaceuticals is almost as good as Ford's. Corbin I won't miss; she's a rabid bitch."

Bauer seemed distracted by something out of view. He waved his hand and one of the Ambers approached. The blonde was dressed in a striking blue kimono which brought out her eyes while leaving plenty of sleek, bare flesh in view. She knelt before him, reaching for his belt, but Bauer redirected her. "Arm candy," he said, tapping the cushion next to him.

While Amber draped herself against him, Bauer continued. "But the truth is we don't need them. The builds are perfectly fine at this point, taking even Nkosi's latest programming without difficulty. Ford wants to tweak the drug addiction and resistance gene profiles, but she's never happy anyway. She'll make it work." Here he shrugged as if deciding upon something of so little consequence that it barely merited his attention. "I'll take every one of their thirty days. After that, I'll let 'em go, even if leaving is going to be harder than they think." He winked, then turned to Amber, kissing her eagerly as the video faded out.

"That sounded ominous," Lissa muttered.

Danton was inclined to agree. "With his ego, Bauer would have seen it as a betrayal for sure."

Bauer's terminal contained dozens of equally promising files. Lissa found one called Key Phrases, a folder with Nkosi's research notes, and a handful of video logs. Using the interface kit Danton downloaded them all to Lissa's datapad. One of the last videos was labeled Juice.

"Okay," Danton said with a laugh, "I have to see that one."

It wasn't what they expected.

The video had been recorded in the spa room using an overhead camera. Adam Cheung lay on his back on the bed, naked and with his eyes closed. An Amber was riding him, her hips gyrating and surging while she tossed her fine blonde hair. The clone stroked Cheung's chest while eyeing him intently. The two were obviously nearing the end of their encounter.

Cheung moaned then moaned louder yet. His body tightened, and seconds later he climaxed, bucking and gasping, his hands clutching at the sheets. Amber kept riding him, smiling sweetly while she coaxed out the last of his orgasm. When at last the young man sagged back into the sheets Amber kissed him, rose, and went to clean up.