CLONE TRANSPORTER
by
T.J.Hurford
copyright: Timothy James Hurford 1996
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Quote: 'According to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it is impossible to determine the location and energy of every atom in a human being'. Endquote.
Mavis McGrath shook her head wearily, crumpled up the scrap of paper with this singularly un-enlightening piece of information on it and made an unsuccessful attempt at hitting her editor on the head. Instead, the ball landed square in her own plastic cup of coffee. "BLAST!". She crossed the office and tipped the sodden mass into the waste paper basket.
Bob Tasker swivelled round in his chair and stared thoughtfully at his Chief - and only - Science Correspondent. Not for the first time he wondered how even science with all its wonders and marvels could possibly have come up with such a stupendously attractive young woman. As she came closer he toyed with the idea of wrestling her onto the nearest available desk, ripping her underclothes from off her struggling, firm young body, and......
Mavis eyed her editor apprehensively. Was it her imagination, or had the plate of sandwiches on his lap just fallen to the ground of its own accord?. She detoured and placed her desk between the two of them. The man sighed. The pain of their last encounter still made him shudder inwardly and even now, some two months later, brought the odd tear to his eye.
Mavis pulled up a chair and sat down, grimly aware that her micro mini-skirt was still visible to the man opposite. 'Why is it?' she mused inwardly 'That men always seem to think if a woman is wearing something even halfway revealing, it's for their benefit?'.
Then, honestly. 'In my case, it is true, of course, although not for him. The right man had not, as yet, turned up in her life, but that didn't stop Mavis hoping.
She looked at her 'Chief'. 'This Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Bob. It rather makes the 'Star Trek' Matter Transporter look a bit foolish,doesn't it?. I mean to say, you can't go beaming people about through space if bits of them don't turn up where you want them to, can you?'. Bob Tasker, Editor in Chief of Rutherford Science Monthly nodded. 'Mmmm!. That's why I want you to go and interview this Collins chap down in Cornwall. Seems to think that he's come up with a way round it. Must be pretty certain. He's already come up with a name for the process. The Lazarus Effect. Not too many boffins willing to stick their neck out that far nowadays. Not unless they're damned sure of their results, that is'.
The train journey down from London was, Mavis thought, almost entirely boring. She had been re-routed part of the way through Basingstoke and Salisbury on the Bristol line, and, with the exception of a slight disagreement with some 'squaddies' on their way back to base at Warminster, the 'run' had well nigh sent her to sleep. It had been this that had nearly been her undoing. Hushed whispers close at hand had alerted her to possible problems. She had been startled to find five or six leering soldiers, their beery breath enveloping her, ready to pounce in pursuit of what they obviously felt was 'fair game'.
Black Belts in four martial arts, however, had quickly put paid to the young mens' ambitions, not to mention their amorous intentions for some little time to come and they were deposited none too gently on the platform at their destination, rolling and moaning in anguished torment.
'Really!.MEN!.Just because I'm wearing a short skirt'. Mavis jerked the carriage window up and her mini skirt down, the former with total success and the latter, it must be said, with very little.
William Andrew Collins stared at the figure advancing down the platform towards him. From the top of her scarlet, dreadlocked head to the soles of her platform trainers, she was, from what he could remember, every inch a woman.
At thirty-one years of age, Collins was not exactly a wallflower, his friends having all married years before, but he wasn't exactly a lothario either. For some reason the right girl had never come along. Maybe it was the obsessive pursuit of his own Holy Grail or perhaps it was the ever-present pipe with its attendant cloud of tobacco smoke that put women off, but, whatever the reason, he was still a bachelor, and, he glumly admitted, likely to remain one.
Mavis McGrath stopped short someway down the platform. Her glasses, that some unkindly souls had hinted she wore merely for effect, but which she actually DID need had become suddenly clouded. There could be NO mistake. No-one else was waiting . The description she had been given, tall, tweed jacket, pipe, dog, had given her the impression of some latterday Professor Brainstorm, but here, waiting silently in the heavy drizzle of a late Spring afternoon, stood the Man of her Dreams.
At a guess, she thought, 6ft 2"?, and ever so slightly older than herself, built like a rugby player on steroids. Not obviously handsome, but extremely attractive nonetheless. She came closer. Sadness in the eyes?. Brown. Brown hair too. Slightly unshaven. Sensitive hands and long, potentially probing fingers. She shuddered inwardly at this thought. Threadbare tweed jacket it was true but black drainpipe jeans. Matching polo shirt and very ornate 'cowboy' boots completed his obviously 'normal' outfit. Good teeth. He was smiling at her and stepping forward, hand outstretched.
For the first time in her life, Mavis McGrath stepped outside of her normally reserved and somewhat shy self. Brushing aside his welcoming handshake, she flung her arms about the young man's neck and, with as much passion as if it had been her wedding night, kissed Professor Bill Collins full on the mouth.
...........
The laboratory, housed inside a collection of large farm buildings, was about as well-equipped as it was possible to be. Everywhere, state of the art electronic machinery -some of it as yet unwrapped- stood in buzzing splendour. At the centre of the main room, a rather incongruous red London telephone box stood in silent scarlet arrogance, as if to say: 'I'm every bit as important as you lot with your microchips and fancy diodes'. Even more strange in this laboratory, dedicated, or so it was rumoured locally, to 'THE TRANSPORTATION OF HUMAN BEINGS THROUGH THIN AIR!!!', a small but fully functional recording studio stood in one corner.
Mavis' resignation had been delivered by First Class mail, Monday morning to her office in London, breaking the heart of her editor and indeed, many others, both male and female in the surrounding work places. Their only memento, a life-sized cardboard photograph of the girl in the Martini advert who wiggles on her roller skates in a lift. NOT Mavis McGrath, but as near as dammit.
In Mavis, Bill had found the perfect companion. Scientifically educated to a very high standard, yat able, and willing, to more than live up to his fantasies elsewhere.
"SO!.Ladies and Gentlemen, esteemed colleagues. To put it succinctly, my process will allow not only the transportation of human and, indeed, plant, life, but also its storage for an indefinite periods.
For the benefit of the press who are here present, I will just re-iterate the salient features which my wife and I have developed".
"Basically, it is now possible to map the human G-Nome. This has been made possible with the help of a linked 'congress' of my own and the world's 'Kray' super computers. The combined computing power of these marvelous machines has allowed this phenomenally complex procedure to be completed way ahead of schedule. Indeed, I can think of very few other projects more suitable for the celebration of the Millennium. For some time now, it has been 'common knowledge' that, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it would never be possible to subject human beings to matter transportation and yet, some years ago now, it came to me that there just might be a way round this problem. I am very pleased to announce that a way has been discovered. I have invented a machine that can almost instantaneously 'read' an entire human being. The information thus collated is then recorded onto a compact disc which can then be sent anywhere . Kiosks such as this crude telephone box behind me could be set up in most locations to perform this important function. With our new Clone Transporter, it is now possible for mankind to reach the stars".
A loud raspberry in the audience showed the level of skepticism present. "How does it work?. Well!. A customer might decide that he or she has had enough of the maunderings of deranged and critical journalists (laughter), and wishes to go to another planet. Stepping into the kiosk, they are 'sampled' and invited to press the 'Eleventh Hour Button' if they have final second thoughts. This would halt the procedure. If they wish to continue, they insert their 'plastic' to pay for their trip, depress the 'proceed' switch and the fully automatic machine takes over. The glass walls polarise. A tranquiliser gas is injected to put the seated passenger to sleep and the machine 'vapourises' them. It has, of course, previously noted the desired destination and automatically places the cd into a mail box compartment to await collection by a postal delivery service. It is then despatched to the destination of choice. I do realise that vapourisation may seem a bit drastic and the ethical considerations problematic but this is an important part of the procedure, which, hopefully, once the possibilities inherent in the scheme have been fully discussed, will seem acceptable".
"Think, also though of the enormous benefits. In a world of increasing population growth, vast numbers of people could choose to be stored in this way and either prolong their lives almost indefinitely, to be re-awakened at some pre-programmed time in the future or sent through the far reaches of space by an automatic probe. its mission, to find inhabitable planets, recreate the necessary lives for colonisation from within its storage facility and deliver them to the planets surface".
Whole armies could be transported in this way. Most functions of today's deep space missions are automatic and autonomous. ally these to large on-board libraries of specialist stored clones and settlers could finally allow humankind to spread out from our own small, fragile and isolated planet to other worlds without having to worry about the time involved in travelling such enormous distances. Imagine how many people could be transported in one shuttle. Instead of the expensive and uneconomic missions that today deliver six or seven astronauts into space, under this system, tens of thousands could be sent. An interplanetary expedition would need only an automated 'juke box' in command waiting to play the 'requests' that sensors showed were needed for that particular destination. If warlike 'peoples' were encountered, an army could be restored from the space ship's cd collection to protect the mission. If scientists were needed, then they would be the first to be 'uploaded'. The opportunities are endless. The boundaries are limitless. Only the will is needed".
A well intentioned scientist sees only the advantages and not the potential pitfalls of his ideas. (Assassination by erasing; kidnappings; slavery by theft of cds; private collectors; ethnic cleansing, etc., etc,.euthanasia, clone discs used as 'frisbees' or hung on wires in fields to scare birds away from crops, cloned people being used as avatars for on-line gamers who don't realise that the images on screen are actually real, if cloned, people, eugenics through the mixing together of different clones by some future deranged studio recording engineer....
In Mavis, Bill had found the perfect companion. Scientifically educated to a very high standard, yat able, and willing, to more than live up to his fantasies elsewhere.
..............................
"SO!.Ladies and Gentlemen, esteemed colleagues. To put it succinctly, my process will allow not only the transportation of human and, indeed, plant, life, but also its storage for an indefinite periods.
For the benefit of the press who are here present, I will just re-iterate the salient features which my wife and I have developed".
"Basically, it is now possible to map the human G-Nome. This has been made possible with the help of a linked 'congress' of my own and the world's 'Kray' super computers. The combined computing power of these marvelous machines has allowed this phenomenally complex procedure to be completed way ahead of schedule. Indeed, I can think of very few other projects more suitable for the celebration of the Millennium. For some time now, it has been 'common knowledge' that, because of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, it would never be possible to subject human beings to matter transportation and yet, some years ago now, it came to me that there just might be a way round this problem. I am very pleased to announce that a way has been discovered. I have invented a machine that can almost instantaneously 'read' an entire human being. The information thus collated is then recorded onto a compact disc which can then be sent anywhere . Kiosks such as this crude telephone box behind me could be set up in most locations to perform this important function. With our new Clone Transporter, it is now possible for mankind to reach the stars".
A loud raspberry in the audience showed the level of skepticism present. "How does it work?. Well!. A customer might decide that he or she has had enough of the maunderings of deranged and critical journalists (laughter), and wishes to go to another planet. Stepping into the kiosk, they are 'sampled' and invited to press the 'Eleventh Hour Button' if they have final second thoughts. This would halt the procedure. If they wish to continue, they insert their 'plastic' to pay for their trip, depress the 'proceed' switch and the fully automatic machine takes over. The glass walls polarise. A tranquiliser gas is injected to put the seated passenger to sleep and the machine 'vapourises' them. It has, of course, previously noted the desired destination and automatically places the cd into a mail box compartment to await collection by a postal delivery service. It is then despatched to the destination of choice. I do realise that vapourisation may seem a bit drastic and the ethical considerations problematic but this is an important part of the procedure, which, hopefully, once the possibilities inherent in the scheme have been fully discussed, will seem acceptable".
"Think, also though of the enormous benefits. In a world of increasing population growth, vast numbers of people could choose to be stored in this way and either prolong their lives almost indefinitely, to be re-awakened at some pre-programmed time in the future or sent through the far reaches of space by an automatic probe. its mission, to find inhabitable planets, recreate the necessary lives for colonisation from within its storage facility and deliver them to the planets surface".
Whole armies could be transported in this way. Most functions of today's deep space missions are automatic and autonomous. ally these to large on-board libraries of specialist stored clones and settlers could finally allow humankind to spread out from our own small, fragile and isolated planet to other worlds without having to worry about the time involved in travelling such enormous distances. Imagine how many people could be transported in one shuttle. Instead of the expensive and uneconomic missions that today deliver six or seven astronauts into space, under this system, tens of thousands could be sent. An interplanetary expedition would need only an automated 'juke box' in command waiting to play the 'requests' that sensors showed were needed for that particular destination. If warlike 'peoples' were encountered, an army could be restored from the space ship's cd collection to protect the mission. If scientists were needed, then they would be the first to be 'uploaded'. The opportunities are endless. The boundaries are limitless. Only the will is needed".
............................
A well intentioned scientist sees only the advantages and not the potential pitfalls of his ideas. (Assassination by erasing; kidnappings; slavery by theft of cds; private collectors; ethnic cleansing, etc., etc,.euthanasia, clone discs used as 'frisbees' or hung on wires in fields to scare birds away from crops, cloned people being used as avatars for on-line gamers who don't realise that the images on screen are actually real, if cloned, people, eugenics through the mixing together of different clones by some future deranged studio recording engineer....
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