For this week’s Teaser Tuesday I bring you two paragraphs from a chapter that has a brief discussion on cloning (why, specifically, I will not reveal). This is only part of the narration from this section, and is part of my efforts to make more of the revelations about future life and tech come from the narrator and/or the character’s personal experiences rather than having Darin, Lyla or someone else explain things directly. Enjoy!

The major problem with clones is not so much the feelings of deja vu one experiences after encountering several of them in rapid succession, but rather in the semantics involved with keeping track of them. When the technology to clone first came into use, the scientists involved briefly experimented with numbering, lettering, even code-naming each clone to try and distinguish them from one another. This practice was quickly discovered to be rather ineffective due to the fact that as soon as the clones moved around the room, it was impossible to know which of them was ‘Alpha’ and which of them was ‘Beta’. It was rather disheartening for the scientists because the idea had seemed so good on paper, but in use was rather futile. This realization resulted in brief trials with name tags, but this too failed when the clones realized how much fun it was to distort the results of the experiments by switching name tags halfway through.

The labeling system caused just as much frustration for the clones. After all, it was rather disheartening to hear that Victoria M had gone off to a really great party and met a dashingly handsome young man while you, Victoria E, sat at home watching a sappy romance for the sixth time. Thus, most clones came to refer to themselves as if they were a single entity, causing the lines between which clone had done what to blur. Of course, with the technology to truly merge memories still based entirely in theory, the clones were left to merely revel in the delusion that they had all done really cool, awesome, and exciting things.