Tyoma led the grim-faced general to the grav tube, which whisked them down to the third basement level. The lights flicked on to show an enormous room, antiseptically clean, about half the size of a football pitch. Rows of crèches lined the floor like huge silver and glass coffins. The room smelled strongly of glass cleaner.
Neither man spoke as they approached the nearest crèche. Tyoma could never help but marvel at the features of each clone, no matter how many times he visited. The first crèche contained what looked like a naked teenage version of his friend Kostya, though hairless and with much smoother skin.
“Ah,” said General Andreykin, with the first smile Tyoma had seen on the man’s face. “It is Dr. Sakaev, yes?”
“Yes. This row here contains six of his clones, each a year apart in age. This one will be ready to test in around four more years.”
The general strolled to a different row of crèches and leaned forward to stare at the clone within.
“I’ve never seen a room this clean in my life, not even in a hospital.”
Tyoma grunted but otherwise didn’t respond.
“How can they look so healthy? I would think lying in these boxes for years would produce little more than pasty corpses.”
Tyoma slid a finger along one of the tubes that ran through the glass and into the clone’s right arm. “Look here. What do you see?”
Andreykin remained at his crèche but bent to examine one of the tubes. Tyoma was especially proud of the swarm of nearly microscopic dots he knew the general was seeing; he had programmed them himself and jokingly called them his children.
“The miracles of modern medicine. Each of us has billions of nanobots doing anything from preventing colds and other diseases to scar repair to…” He raised his eyes to the general’s bald dome. “…preventing baldness.”
“I like being bald, Dr. Grachev.”
“I’m sure. Anyhow, we have our own special nanobots here. We’ve spent decades coming up with new ones for all the problems we’ve encountered. We need them for muscle development, bones, lungs, basically anything that would typically atrophy if unexercised. The brain was the toughest. It’s critical that it develop properly. We’ve perfected it with chimp clones, and we think we are ready with humans now.”
General Andreykin walked to a new row of crèches. “Who is this? I can’t place him.”
“That was Dr. Anatoly Vorobyev. He was our psychology expert, but he died three years ago.”
“Why do you keep his clones then? I want to get started on my soldiers. We don’t need to waste space on him.”
“It’s not a waste. If anything, he’ll be the most important test…at least from a moral perspective. He’ll be our first human test subject. We have some successful mind scans for him. If we do manage to successfully reconstitute him, we won’t face the issue of having two of him in existence.”
“Why no women? Surely there are female scientists every bit as brilliant as any of you?”
Tyoma walked around to join the general. “Naturally. We had two women on the project initially, and added another later. They all dropped out due to disagreements over the morality of what we were trying to accomplish. Not to say that only women have moral qualms about this stuff. We lost a splendid male neurologist also.”
“Why clones of your own people?” Andreykin stabbed a finger at the glass of the crèche. “It should be my soldiers in here!”
“The project cannot succeed without many tests.”
“I’m not stupid, Doctor. But, why not use my soldiers for your tests?”
“We can start soon, General. I asked you already for some DNA and mind scans from your chosen soldiers.”
“I’ll send some men over. Scan them and use them in these bodies. I need—”
“General, we can’t use them with these. The rejection rate is very high unless we layer the mind into a body made from the same DNA. It’s too costly to have so many failures during the testing phase.”
The general threw up a hand. “This is too slow. These take what? Eighteen, twenty years to grow? I need my soldiers now!”
“This is but one of the projects we are doing for you, General,” Tyoma said, holding his palms up. “We’re working on speeding up the aging process for the clones to make this one workable, but we have other projects that will bring more immediate results. Remember, I said we have one ready now? How about I show you?”
“Here?” the general said. “Where is it?”
Tyoma fished a data card from his pocket and held it up. “Right here.”
The general reached to take the card, but Tyoma withdrew it and snapped it into his own slot. “General, you will receive a connection request to your wireless. It’s the only way to see how this works.”
General Andreykin frowned. “What do you mean? No one uses wireless with strangers. It’s too dangerous.”
Tyoma gave what he hoped was a calming smile. “We’ve all heard that, General, but have you ever actually known anyone to have their wireless compromised? This program runs off of our protected wireless here at this facility only, and its range is purposely limited. We all share this network. You are perfectly safe.”
The general stared, scowling, at Tyoma for a full minute before thrusting a finger in Tyoma’s face. “My people know I am here. Nothing better happen to me.”
“You’ll be fine,” Tyoma said, and sent the handshake request to the general’s slot.
The general jerked in surprise as he saw what Tyoma was already looking at. A soldier in full combat uniform stood at parade rest only a meter away.
“Oh,” the general said. “It’s like those porn programs so many are using these days. How does a fake soldier help me?”
The soldier came to attention and saluted. “Permission to speak, General?”
Andreykin’s eyebrows flew up. “Sure.”
“Sir, I am a virtual squad leader. My mind was scanned from one of the best combat NCOs from the Polish front. I get visual cues from each member of my squad, so I am able to assess any situation and use my experience to pass orders to my men.”
“General,” Tyoma said. “Headquarters would never admit it publicly, but you and I both know the primary cause of problems at the front is bad leadership at the squad level. We don’t have nearly enough good NCOs. This program ensures you have the very best squad leaders at all times for all troops.”
General Andreykin nodded slowly. “I can see some use for this. But, what if the soldier carrying the card is killed? It’ll throw the squad into disarray.”
Tyoma waved a hand as if shooing away a fly. “I used this just to demonstrate the program. In the field each squad would carry a bomb-proof transmitter. It has an effective range of up to a hundred meters. More than enough for anything the squad leader needs to do.”
The general sighed. “Look, this isn’t bad, but it’s small. I need more, and I can’t wait twenty more years for it. Those fuckers are starting to win this war.”
Tyoma nodded. “We have some other projects nearing completion that will amaze you. I promise. We also have an idea that we think President Shirov would like.”
“Sounds to me like you want to wheedle more money out of us.”
“It’s totally up to you, General. We think the president will love the idea.”
The general twirled a finger to tell him to get on with it.
“We can win the space race.”
“Space race. We have no space race.”
“China and America West are racing to be the first to reach New Eden. Their ships are ponderous and will take centuries to arrive. We can build small and fast and beat them both. New Eden can be ours.”
“What do we care?” General Andreykin said. “Let the fools fight over a planet centuries away. We’ll fight for this one.”