Spares - Michael Marshall Smith [21]
And so, nearly twenty years ago, SafetyNet was born.
The company was founded by a biochemist who combined scientific ability with genius for cold-hearted, bloody-minded pragmatism which I trust will earn him a long stretch in the hottest corner of Hell. Almost certainly not, though. I’m sure Heaven takes Amex just as readily as everywhere else.
The idea was very simple. “Hey,” this man said to himself, one long dark evening in the lab, “we’ve got a problem here. People keep fucking up bits of themselves, and their bodies respond with a hard-line ‘accept no substitutes’ approach. Maybe we have to stop trying to fob them off. Perhaps we should try giving them something they’ll recognize.”
This biochemist approached his richest clients, got a positive response and venture capital, and so the Farms were born. For a sum which is not generally known, but which must be well in excess of a million dollars, when you have a child you can take out a little life insurance for it. You do this by creating a life, and then systematically destroying it.
After the child has been conceived, surgeons remove a couple of cells from the emerging fetus. These cloned cells are grown in a variety of cultures, test tubes, and incubators, the process matched to normal development as closely as possible. As soon as the fake twin can breathe, it is left with droids for a while, until it’s got the basic motor skills and perception stuff worked out. Then they bring it out to a Farm, put it in a tunnel, and forget about it until they need it.
Twice a day, a medic droid checks vital responses and gives each spare a carefully designed package of foodstuffs to ensure that it grows and develops in tandem with its twin. Sometimes the droids’ll get them to move around a bit, so their muscles don’t atrophy. Apart from that, all the spares know is one long endless twilight of blue heat, the mindless noise of other spares, and the slow blur of meaningless movement that takes place around them. Then, when a spare’s real-life twin is injured, or gets ill, the alarm goes off and an ambulance comes. The doctors find the right spare, cut off what they need, and then shove it back in the tunnel. There it lies, and rolls, and persists, until they need it again.
Example. There was a spare on the Farm called Steven Two, and I read his records. His brother out in the big room was a real piece of work. When he was ten he smashed up his right hand by getting it crunched in a car door. Okay, maybe that wasn’t entirely his fault, but the way life is you’re supposed to have to deal with the consequences of your actions. The real Steven never had to. The ambulance came and the doctors put Steven Two’s arm on the table and hacked his hand off at the wrist. They went away, and sewed it onto Steven. A little discomfort for a while, some tiresome physio sessions, but he ended up whole again.
At sixteen, Steven rolled his car while drunk and lost his leg, but that was okay because the doctors could come back and take one of Steven Two’s. After the operation the orderly carried him back to the tunnel, leaned him against the wall just inside the door, and locked it. Steven Two tried to shamble forward, fell on his face, and remained that way for three days.
At seventeen, Steven got a pan full of scalding water in the face from a local woman he’d