FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

More Time

By Bluevirage

This story is copyright Bluevirage (c) 2015

A short story inspired by a Reddit post on /r/Nosleep

Mark looked at the digital birth certificate data he had scanned onto his wrist PC in disbelief. He had an elder brother named Mark that looked identical to him according the data he had found on the Sol Interplanetary Network.

The dark haired boy trembled as he traced his fingers over the face displayed via holographic projection. The man he looked at was him, his eyes, his hair, his nose, his lips, his chin, his cheeks, his ears! Everything was identical and Mark was suddenly feeling very frightened about having discovered such a thing as he went through his parents belongings. Having returned home from school after learning they had died in a space accident.

He had been told that he had been an only child, that the older couple that had given birth to him, both in their fifties, had tried for years to have a child. But that extra room they had always managed to convince the station authorities to allow them to have had finally been put to use twenty years earlier when he arrived.

But the discovery of the digital file on a brother with the same name as him made him swallow hard as he tried to piece together what could have happened. Where was this brother? What was he doing? Why did they look so damn near identical?

As Mark's thoughts raced the phone function of his wrist PC activated and he was greeted by a recorded video message. In the video his mother and father stood next to a dog, they never owned a pet while he was alive, that looked like a Labrador mix. Both looked like they did before he was born, bits of gray showing and less wrinkles than what they had during their last video message to him.

"Hello Mark," Mark's mother started to speak looking a bit sad as she appeared to fight to find the right words for her son. Finally with a bit of comfort found via a stroke of her lower back from his father his mother continued to speak. "you are a clone."

Mark nearly began to tear the room apart but instead broke down sobbing as he realized he was a copy of their first son. His father? Brother? Were they his grandparents as opposed to his parents? The twisted logic behind clone parentage made Mark nearly completely lose the last thing he had eaten as he wretched. Not caring where it went he tumbled onto the bed his parents had owned. But he forced down the bile, the taste stuck at the back of his throat, and continued to listen to the video.

"Mark, I know this is hard, I know you may hate us for what you are about to learn. But listen and listen good. This message was set up to be played if we died. It is encrypted per law as a living will. Within this recording we will give you information that you will need to take over the resources necessary for you to continue living as a human."

Mark was pulled fully into the video by those last words. Continue living as a human? What did they mean? He wiped away mucus from his nose on the back of his hand. Wincing at the sticky mess he would have to wash off later.

"Duke, here was key to us having a son again." Mark's mother smiled at the dog. "Human cloning of a complete individual is illegal. We were desperate to have those moments again or at least replicate them as much as possible. The moments we had with the first Mark. We knew we would end up with a different person, but having Mark back, or something of him back after he died of radiation induced cancer." Mark's mother pleaded with the recorder, pleaded with her second child, her words laced with the agony of her guilt, her shared sin in creating the second Mark. "You have to understand," the woman pleaded. "our sorrow was so great!" she broke down briefly and hugged her husband as she calmed down.

Mark's father took over speaking while his wife regained control of herself. "I spoke with a work friend soon after," Mark's father paused to find the right words. But appearing to have nothing better to say simply continued to speak. "He said we should simply get one of those, at the time they were new, humanoid pets and treat it like a son. The suggestion however gave me the idea to look into splicing human genes with other species since it was obvious genetic manipulation had come so far since the early days of it back in the late twentieth century. So, Duke, our family pet since Mark, your elder brother and source of your human genes, was fifteen became our donor and key to reviving Mark, and making you, Mark."

The message cut off briefly and suddenly Mark was viewing his family's living room. The camera autofocused on to people sitting. Their clothing had changed, meaning it was another day when they had resumed recording the message. Mark wondered then if his mother's guilt had taken a toll on her greater than she could have suspected as his parents started to speak again after Duke climbed up next to them and rested his head on his father's lap looking as tired as his owners did.

Mark had rolled over on his back and the holographic video continued to display one and a half feet away from his face. His preferred preset viewing distance for video files.

"We found a lab that specialized in cloning pets, which is legal." Mark's mother started to say.

"We also found a lab that specialized in custom micro-robotics. I got a lower paying job there to gain access to their technology and spent a year learning how to adapt what was used for building machinery and not people. I practiced in V.R. to complete our plan on how to bring back our son using legal loopholes." Mark's father looked triumphant then, his mood lifting as he spoke. "So, we had a clone embryo of Duke made and had them put it on ice for transport. It was to be implanted by another facility in a donor dog, but in reality I implanted it in your mother. This was after we fed the creators the lie that a friend wanted a dog like ours so we had our dog cloned as a gift.

"I later inserted Mark's genetic structure into said embryo with the micro-robots I had custom programmed. At that phase of development cells are so malleable. My projections estimated that the resulting being would be about a mix of roughly 80% Mark, human, and 20% canine, Duke. Certain genetic traits could not be eliminated. But I hoped that they would never express themselves. "

Mark's mother sighed and looked away from the camera lens before facing it again. "We opted for a home birth with video call help on stand-by in case there were complications." Mark's mother produced a small vial of liquor, she never drank in front of him ever, and emptied it into her mouth, apparently savoring the liquor as it burned down her throat. "Oh child, there were complications."

"You came out looking like a smart pet, a hybrid as they are sometimes known. I did not count on that 20% canine DNA playing such havoc with your physical build. We had only hoped that the rewriting process would change the embryo enough, you, to be more human. I figured and the projections estimated what your final appearance would be. But, your mom's womb changed variables more than I thought. More than the computer simulations predicted."

"Blame me you bastard! Go on, blame me for giving birth to a puppy!" Mark's mother gasped and covered her mouth. "Baby," she reached towards the camera. "you were adorable and I was fully ready to raise you however you looked. But,"

"Hybrids have no full-rights." Mark said aloud.

"Yes," Mark's father nodded as if knowing his son was going to finish what his mother was going to say. "Hybrids have no rights currently. The current legal threshold to maintain full human rights is a genetic profile of at least 60% human genetic material. Most hybrids are made with their genetics deliberately under that percentile so that they can be created and sold. Things may change in the future, and I donate to causes fighting for rights for genetic constructs. I solved our issue with your appearance since you were already born using more micro-machines.

"The food you eat from home is laced with the things. I get them from work, program them, and your mom makes your favorite foods to have shipped to you on a regular basis. The machines are designed to break down over time. I did this because I feared they could cause runaway mutations if allowed to build up in your body or if there was a malfunction in their programming; a risk that ran higher the longer they operated, if we just kept using the same batch."

"Mark honey, we are not sorry we made you, we are sorry we have hurt you with this revelation. We knew we would pass before you did. We hoped it would be via natural causes, deathbed confessions and all that." Mark's mother giggled, as if tipsy from her home brew, just what was the alcohol content Mark wondered.

"But we are dead and you are watching the joint video we prepared. In case one of us died before the other we both made videos. Mostly to allow the blame to be cast upon the other, dead, spouse." Mark's father chuckled while his mother produced another vial of alcohol, she was a drinker? And downed it as fast as the first.

"But you are up shit's creek without a paddle as the old Earth saying goes. You need a steady supply of micro-machines to suppress your canine genetics. There should be a month's supply stashed in our bedroom in the chest where we keep the sex toys."

Mark groaned and rolled over on his stomach at that. "Mark, face the video, your parents do have to keep things interesting. Otherwise your elder brother's death would have caused us to divorce or separate or even go down even stranger paths than homebrew human cloning which reminds me, I need to make more of this to drink."

Mark's father picked up the narrative as his mother wandered off screen as he resumed watching the video. "Your mission now however old you are is two-fold. You have two months to learn how to make your own micro-machines, acquire them through old channels I had while alive, or embrace a life as a hybrid with limited or no rights in the future you live in."

"Why do this you bastards." Mark whispered.

"We love you, we loved your brother, our son, and your father. We just wanted more time, and we are too old to have children of our own. And adoption agencies, we checked, like parents to live at least thirty years of any newborn's life. As lower tier workers we lack the financial means of artificially extending our lives as well. So, this was a result of a lonely middle-aged couple wanting their son back."

Mark's mother returned holding a beaker filled with a cloudy liquid. "The good news is during this whole mess we learned a few hobbies that we hope to turn into profitable enterprises. My brewing and your dad's genetic modification techniques. Whatever happens now is in your hands and as proof we are not making this up as a horrible practical joke," Mark's mother left the room with her beaker and returned instead with a small child with a dog's nose, floppy ears, and a hairy canine tail. She was guiding them by the hand or rather paw in this case. "this is you at age one. Took your father a few months to get the micro-machines for genetic expression suppression working right. I came up with dozens of excuses why my son could not go to check-ups. My favorite was the Pastafarian excuse, 'our lord composed of noodles hates needles for they resemble uncooked pasta'. The bribes to the welfare officer really helped."

"Before you start questioning some of the facts, know that a lot of what we are saying was or rather is how we predict things will go as far as micro-machine distribution. We plan on giving you the micro-machines by slipping them into stuff you eat; right now we will start by giving you shots. Also for full disclosure purposes this is the first time we are injecting you, so this video also gets to act as a confession if we accidentally kill you. I worked really hard on the programming for this batch. So, hopefully we will see results, positive results, after all my hard work. Then I can take you to the park, play fetch..."

Mark smiled weakly as his mother smacked his dad upside his head for his joke before his younger self got a needle in the arm. He looked towards his own arm and wondered if he should start injecting the stuff into his system from now on. Though he wondered just how he did not notice the micro-machine laced food until now. Certainly something would have been off about it, though he was at the mercy of the locally grown food from the hydroponics gardens like the rest of the station personnel. Focusing back on the video he smiled again despite himself as his mother hugged the younger him.

"We have agreed to commit joint suicide if this does not work." Mark's mother soothed her child as he looked a little tired after the shot. "Nothing like this is instantaneous. With enough food the change should start and progress quickly. If your father's notes are accurate."

"We both screwed up, and we are dragging things out." Mark's father put away the needle and sighed into his hands. "Your choices are yours but they have been shaped by us. Sorry about that kid."

"Say bye-bye Mark!"

Mark's toddler self simply yawned and curled up against his mother's chest to slumber.

"I swear this kid loves breasts more than the other Mark did."

"The video is still going!"

"So what? Seriously, let's hide the stuff in the sex toy chest for future Mark to find!"

"Not an old batch though, I may come up with something better in the future for him to take as science advances."

Mark watched the video end and at the tail end of it was data pointing him to an encrypted data cluster on the network along with the password for it. He thought about how long it would take for these canine features to express themselves if he went without the micro-machines. He also thought about what his life was going to be like now and if he would be able to have children that did not need suppressants.

"Now all I need is my girlfriend to tell me she is pregnant and my shitty week is complete."

At that moment Mark's wrist PC rang and he tore it from his arm and threw it at a wall. Mark was drained emotionally and physically. He knew he would have to raid his parent's personal belongings in search of micro-machines capable of suppressing the canine genes within his body. The alien genetics a gift from the illegal cloning process they used to give themselves a copy of the first Mark.

A child they loved so dearly they would tear some part of him away from the afterlife just to have more time with him. The new Mark considered them lucky that they were dead. With what he was going through he was liable to have killed them himself because of the stress of having learned that he was a clone of a dead son and a mutant freak that ran the risk of having most of his rights revoked if he did not successfully suppress his canine DNA.

Life was such a bitch.