Location Unknown

VALERY KONINGSBRUGGE

"So, the Fifty-One realised they needed test subjects," Early continued, "but volunteers would be too risky as they might expose the entire operation. It would also be impossible to accumulate any volunteers who wanted to risk their lives by journeying into the Bermuda Triangle. Then they heard of missing people in Antarctica. A few Fifty-One compounds are set up across the entire South Pole to monitor expeditionists. And if a person is unfound and forgotten by search parties, and frozen in ice, they get to them first, thawing around that body to make an iceberg and shipping them to the Triangle operation. It is why Ben came to the South Pole in the first place. To investigate these strange occurrences of bodies completely disappearing. And it's because we get to those bodies first and we use them in the name of science.

"On the 21st of June 1984, we collected three bodies. Ben Briar, Val Kobuge and young Jennifer Valasquez. They were all shipped to the Bermuda Triangle and used by scientists as they wished. They sent Val in first, and he lived for two years and worked at a pharmacy before dying from conflict. You were created in 1984 as a clone of Val. You stumbled upon a pack of Wayfarers as a Wayfarer yourself. Now usually, the Fifty-One would have extracted you using a robotic octopus of some kind, but you were in close contact with another clone of ours which had been spawned long ago."

Birds flew in a dancing flock above us. Each bird was the same as the next. No distinctive traits to tell a difference. Randomisation was absent. Appearance was repetitive.

"Molly," I said. Early took a moment to lick his lips and clear his parched throat. Buzzing bees straggled in a line across the space between us. A mirage was above the water, where the shape of a luminous foe was black against the white of the sun shining on those crisp waves.

The grass around us struggled with life. Too much noise from too many animals created nothing but disorder and distortion. I could feel flies around my bandaged stumps. That much I could feel. It was their minuscule legs that tickled sensitive areas of the thigh.

Caterpillars and snails crawled at a slow pace towards me. Converging at me. They crawled past me to Early's shadow. To cool off under until they were cold and needed warmth. I would be here to grant them warmth. They needn't strain themselves to move backwards into the sunlight.

I wonder if that black eight-legged creature was also looking to cool off this perfect morning.

I could never find any shade back in my world. I just had to endure and not resent because the sun is what warmed up that iceberg. Now I realise that it was all a lie. The iceberg should not be worshipped. It has been touched by so many liars.

The sun was in on it as well. Melting that ice to satisfy those scientists. Perhaps it is not a perfect morning after all if there is a traitor in the sky among those clouds of old.

"Yes," Early said. "The Molly you have been with the entire time has been her clone, Molleigh. But she has not been trained by the Fifty-One. She was free to progress, under observation of course, and she got herself conducted into a settlement. Molleigh was created in 1922, which was also when the real Molly entered the Bermuda Triangle. Molly's clone has lived for almost a century. Clones, such as us, do not age because we have been conceived by the ocean, and water does not age or turn stale. It remains clean and pure, but that does not mean we are immortal by any means. Your legs will not regenerate themselves.

"Also we each have unique special abilities akin to us. A gift from the water you could say. You can blow bubbles which change reality from what I've seen. And I can see almost everything. I have microscopic vision meaning I can see anything from far away. Not very useful, but it helped me find you. Jenny can create glass constructs from thin air. Benny died before he could show us his power and Molleigh's power is yet to be uncovered.

"On another note, Molly was extracted from the Triangle as soon as she entered and her iceberg melted from the sun. She is our oldest test subject, who we have kept in cryosleep for use in a different matter. I was created in 1948 when Earl Briar tripped into freezing water and the Fifty-One got their mittens on him."

"Jenny and Benny were created in 1986 because the Fifty-One held onto the bodies of Jennifer and Ben for longer, to allow you and Val to develop and adapt to the testing environment. It is why Jennifer was diagnosed with frostbite when she came out of that iceberg. If left unattended for too long, the human system will get like that under low temperatures."

"Let me stop you there," I said. "What are these numbers you keep blabbering about? We were not created in numbers, were we?" I threw my hands around like a fool.

"Oh, the years? They are Earth years. It counts how long humans have populated the planet. Your small isolated world is on Earth, so we will refer to our lives as being years. There are 365 days in a year, 366 on a quarterly basis. We inhabit 2020 at the moment. You are one of our younger clones. You have barely lived a year before being put under cryosleep. We exclude days in cryosleep, because it theoretically stops you from living, so no years were wasted in the pod."

"What do you mean barely a year? I have years and years of memories! I remember having to leave my pack because I was nearly sentenced by the High Court for disturbing the school board. I remember the first funeral I went to where I watched an inflatable sink with the corpse on it. I remember so much that it froze me sometimes - I would just freeze, my face would go blank, I wouldn't be able to move a muscle, cold sweat would run, it would take a nudge from Molly or another Wayfarer to get me out of that trance. You're telling me I'm a year old even though I've got so many experiences in my mind that it can't even keep up, I would just be focused on the past and nothing more. Is that what you're telling me?" Early put a thumb under his chin on the precipice of flicking the dotted stubble.

"Interesting. Counterfeit memories of a life that wasn't lived. And symptoms of ageing."

"I don't believe you," I murmured. "You're making this up. You're messing with my head! And what's this about me being in cryosleep? I don't remember that."

"Ahhh but that comes later. May I continue?"

"If you must."