"A large portion of his nerves has been removed. Most of his organs have been emptied, and despite him not knowing, he has only a few hours to live. The parasites living inside have laid eggs, and finding which organs the baby parasites are circulating in is a difficult task… He has memory loss, and his mind appears clouded. There is an incredible amount of tissue loss in many places. The mechanical grafts on his back and many other parts of his body were done haphazardly and have caused infected wounds. The interesting thing is that a few joints in his jaw were broken from clenching. Given the tortures he was subjected to by those mind-weavers, this is actually quite normal." So said a brain with a mouth. This brain, sent to treat me, sat in a metal cage suspended from the ceiling and was usually responsible for giving orders to the mutants. Hearing the brain's words, the mutants tried to treat me with the surgical tools in their hands. It only took a few minutes for me to be put to sleep after those words. The only thing I saw in those few minutes was the mutants' struggle to remove a worm they had forced into my mouth.
When I opened my eyes, I was in a hotel room. As I lay on the comfortable double bed, I felt the aches in my numb body. The room was fully equipped… It had a television, a nightstand, a lamp, and even a carpet. As I straightened up on the mattress, which was swollen like a water balloon, my hand reached for the glass of water on the nightstand. I got up and walked to the room's window with the glass in hand. I took a sip or two and caught my breath, but then the glass slipped from my hand and fell. As the glass shattered on the floor and cut my thumb, the hotel room door suddenly opened. A mutant came in with a broom, pushed me aside, and began sweeping the floor.
The mutants here were more human-like than the ones outside. Though their faces and bodies were still distorted, their movements were more humane. In fact, if not for their dirty and rotting skin, you could even mistake a few for humans. This was because most were outfitted in very stylish maid uniforms. One of the mutants came, put a bandage on my foot, then kissed my foot, and said, "Our esteemed master…," before walking away. The kiss on my foot disturbed me so much that I had to force myself not to punch the window. I watched the magnificent forest outside the window. I knew the scene was artificial, but knowing that this planet was once filled with greenery only made my heart ache more.
"How are you, Master Mehmet?" a mutant asked. This was the mutant who carried 210 on his back. Since returning to the base, he had been wearing maid's clothes.
"I still need a little rest."
"In that case, would you like me to accompany you to the rest area? I have to ask the same question today. Do you have any special requests?"
"Just cold water, as always…"
In this place where only cleaning mutants worked, I slowly followed behind 210, was put into an elevator without being allowed to press a single button, and then with heavy steps, I entered the massive metal-shuttered room. With every step I took on the sandy floor, the lights came on, the environment changed, and the sea began to ripple. My chair and table were ready, with my cold water on them. My view was of an endless sea. This was the place where, in my memory, Flora and John Crowrift had sat. The place where the holiday simulation had been held… I could remember Flora, the woman, pulling up a chair in her bikini next to me and the 210 under my feet as if it were yesterday. But… But even though those memories were mine, I was not the man in them. I was not like that man…
I was sitting in the place from my memory, as if in a tragic joke. As I sipped my cold water, a single thought was in my head every time. What was I going to do? What did I need to do to get out of here?
I wiped the condensation from the side of the sweating glass with the back of my hand. When I asked why my left hand couldn't grasp things, they told me it was a psychological issue. Why would my brain play such a trick on me? Was it trying to show me that I was weak?
As I sat at the table where John, or at the time, Arthur Vale, had sat, I constantly tried to think of a way out of my current situation. After all, Arthur Vale had thought of a way out. If I was of the same blood, the same DNA as him, then shouldn't I be able to think of one too?
I brought my right hand to the glass and took a sip of the cold water. It was so hard to make a plan without Jose. I had never been in such a helpless position, not even during the training Rose had given me. Should I look for a way to control the mutants? Would anything happen if I woke Jose up and kidnapped him? I don't think so, because there don't seem to be many computers here… This place was designed to be immune to a computer attack. Jose had no special privileges in this facility either. I was thinking of starting an uprising, but I didn't even know what I meant by that.
I hit the table hard with my right hand. The glass tipped over, and the cold water stained the sand at my feet black. Two mutants came into the room, picked up the glass, and cleaned my table. Just then, mutant 210 came to my side. Arthur Vale had given him the name Kohn. Now that I think about it, I knew the name Kohn. Wasn't he someone who used to work at this facility? A person from my memories… Or had he been turned into a mutant? Could he really have done that? The mutant in front of me looked like that man but had a pure white skin tone. Just like all the other mutants… Kohn, the hunchbacked mutant with the yellow box on his back, began to read from the paper in his hand.
"Master, your 210 is very close to waking up. We know you are still in the rest phase, but you might want to see 210."
"Thank you, Kohn," I said, and the mutant was surprised to hear me address him by his name. I slowly got up and said, "Take me to Jose…"
***
We were in an empty, rust-colored, and foggy room with steam-leaking pipes covering the ceiling and only a small table in the middle. I walked slowly into the room, hiding my left arm inside the jacket I was wearing. On the table in the middle of the room lay Jose, opened up with his mechanical parts exposed. Arthur Vale was standing over Jose. He wore a welding mask and was fusing Jose's parts with a laser welder he held in his hand. He was replacing the broken parts with new ones from the sides of the table, arranging the cable systems, and doing many other things. He glanced at me with his eyes. His face, visible from the edge of the welding mask, was covered in sweat.
"Ah… My brother… The sleeping beauty has awakened."
"How is he?"
Arthur Vale took off his welding mask and placed it on the table. Kohn handed his master a cloth. Vale wiped his face and smiled:
"Not even a 'how are you,' Mehmet?"
"How are you, Arthur Vale?"
"I'm tired. I've been working on your friend for a few days. Our mutants have ruined many of his circuits. But it's not a problem… I'm just about to fix it."
"Thank you. I wouldn't have been able to restore Jose without you."
"What you just said is very interesting…" said Vale, as he took a screwdriver and connected the cables to a terminal. Then, he secured the cable system to the side of a metal piece with clips. "…It's very strange that as a clone of John Crowrift, you don't know this stuff."
"What do you mean?"
"All of John Crowrift's clones have a purpose. That's why their abilities must be at a very high level. But it seems you don't have many skills… Give it power, Kohn," he said. Kohn pulled the lever of the generator at the back down, and an electric current flowed into Jose's body. Just as Jose was receiving the electricity, there was a small explosion, and the smell of burnt plastic filled the air. Vale coughed from the smoke and motioned for Kohn to stop. "Ah… I'm sorry, Mehmet. Looks like I dragged you here for nothing… I thought it would work."
"It's okay…"
"Well… Since you've left your room, how about a little chat?" Vale said and extended his hand. "After all, I don't get many visitors here. Especially if the visitor is one of John's clones… I would love to both give such a special guest a tour of the facility and listen to his story." The skepticism in his words was obvious. Then, with a sincere smile, he said, "I insist…"
I had left my room for once, and returning to it would have attracted too much attention. I grasped the hand he extended to me and said:
"Why not, brother… I'm really curious about the miracles that happen here."
***
The facility we were in was indeed the president's mansion in the middle of the city. As we passed over the facility in the ship, we had a hard time making out what the building looked like because of its constantly steaming pipes and pumps.
Since the facility was once a high-level science complex, most of its rooms had a modern architectural design. However, the rooms in use had changed over time and were equipped with biomechanical systems. The sensors on the doors, the computers in the offices, and many other things had been torn out and taken away. Whenever I saw an office or a workspace, it was either completely empty or filled with feces and rotting food.
As we walked along the main corridor, I could see how much this facility had changed because nothing was in its place from my memories. Not a single lamp, not a plant in a pot, not a single mirror… As we walked through the corridors that made a person feel suffocated, Arthur Vale, who was used to this place, showed no reaction.
"The clones…" I said, breaking the silence. "…you said each one has a purpose, didn't you? That means there's more than one clone, right?"
"Yes… Absolutely." My not knowing about this must have made him suspicious, and his talkative and friendly demeanor had disappeared.
"I didn't know there were so many clones. John never told me that."
He suddenly stopped, turned to me, and grabbed me by the shoulders. "You met John?"
"Didn't you?"
"Of course not. When I opened my eyes, there was only a task list and a description in front of me. He must not have felt the need to meet me personally since he had already implanted what I needed to do into my memory."
"That's very interesting… So you carry John's memories."
"I carry Arthur Vale's memories."
"Isn't that the same thing?"
"Absolutely not. I have many gaps in my memory. I don't remember much about before or after Arthur Vale."
"Our mother…"
"I remember her, of course…"
"What about the Maria Incident… Do you remember that?"
"Wait a second, do you know what the Maria Incident is?"
"Don't you?" I rubbed my eyes with my right hand. "Ah… I thought all the clones knew about it. It's really strange that you don't…"
"What do you mean? If the other clones know about the Maria Incident, why don't I? I had to go into John's company archives just to remember her name. How can you know something I only know by name?"
"I can't tell you that. I don't know how I can trust you since you don't even know about the Maria Incident." With these words, I had completely turned the tables. Now, he was the one who felt he wasn't trustworthy. And I could preserve my mystery. Yet, I also only knew about the Maria Incident by name.
"Ah… You are so right," he said and slapped his forehead.
"But it's okay, brother. Trust is something that can be earned. As I spend time here and get to know you, I might want to tell you what I know."
"That… That's a really great thing to say."
"So the mutant called Kohn, is he really Kohn?"
"You know Kohn too, that's very interesting. I'm starting to think you're a special clone, dear Mehmet. Yes, I turned that unspeakably cowardly man into a freak."
"He really got what he deserved…" Then I pointed with my hand to the end of the corridor. "…You were telling me about the facility last."
"Ah… Yes… As far as I know, John has more than 10 clones, and each of them…"
"Is striving to fight the Supreme World Republic" I interjected.
"Yes… Each of them has that purpose. I don't know what the others are doing, but I think this must be one of the most important facilities. In a war, you need ground forces, medics, naval forces, engineers, and many other things. But I think the most important is the air force. The fate of a war that will span a galaxy is determined by a fleet that can move between the stars. So…" he said and pointed to a door. As we walked toward it, the door slowly opened, and we found a huge area in front of us.
In the middle of the area was a giant spaceship the size of a shopping mall. The spaceship was in a maintenance pit, and we could only see its upper part. Thousands of ladders extended one after another onto the spaceship, while thousands of mutants hung from ropes in the ceiling. The three-meter-tall mutants were carrying ship parts on their backs, bending the parts, and doing many other things. The glare of the constant sparks was blinding us like the flashing lights of a plane in the dark sky, and the sound of metal clashing made my heart pound, raising goosebumps on my skin. As the mutants hanging from the ceiling hammered metal parts into place, laid cables, and did many other things, they sometimes lost their strength and were replaced by other mutants. Winged mutant heads flying in the sky continuously barked out orders with megaphones mounted in their mouths, scrutinizing every move of the mutants. From a section without a metal plate on the spaceship's hull, we could see inside the spaceship.
Inside, mutants with knives in their hands were busy cutting flesh and bone, adding biological contributions to turn this mechanical vehicle into a living thing. It would not be wrong to say that blood flowed like tears from the open holes of the ship.
"Wow…" I managed to say, though I was left speechless.
"That's the purpose of this facility, Mehmet," he said, pointing to the magnificent ship. "A biomechanical spaceship… A living spaceship that feeds on the energy of the mutants inside… A massive death machine that will be able to navigate the SWR's radar systems without being taken down by any cyber-attack, and capable of carrying a dormant army of millions of people… A ship that can be used as a ghost ship one moment and a monster the next."
"Is this ship alive?"
"It pumps blood, it's nourished by the organisms inside, and many other things… But is it alive? Not really."
"Will this spaceship be enough?"
"As of now, we have 48 of them."
"48 is quite a lot, isn't it?"
"Yes… Quite a lot, but if you haven't noticed, I should tell you this. The only reason those clouds were created on this planet with a fake accident was not to cut off contact with the outside. Another reason was to make time on this planet flow more slowly with the time-space that those clouds bend."
"So…"
"One day here is equal to 140 days in common time. So it would be right to say that we had more time than those outside. If you're asking if the ship has enough energy to navigate wormholes, the mutants' energy is insufficient, but we have a second plan. Volems…"
"Volems? I know about them."
"Yes, we have 10 human-sized versions of those creatures that are normally the size of a nuclear power plant, stored in each ship. They are dormant, but when we need to make a wormhole jump, we will wake them up. We can make one jump with one Volem… Each jump will cause the death of a Volem, so in short, we have 10 jumps. It's enough for an army going to war…"
"That's unbelievable…"
"This planet was on the verge of being destroyed with a fake accident after producing Volems for Quartez. The real goal was to hide this facility and slow down time on the planet using the clouds created with the Volems. I don't know if Quartez stopped using Volems outside or if Unify stopped producing them, but Volems continued to be produced on this planet. Just to be kept as fuel for the ships…"
"This… This is truly astonishing…"
"Isn't it? Master John thought of everything, and all I had to do was fix up this facility." As a mutant walked by carrying a metal plate, he grabbed the mutant by the nape and squeezed tightly. The mutant screamed for being late to his task, while Vale laughed: "Hundreds of years spent with these wretched creatures!" he said and pushed the mutant forward. The mutant fell into the maintenance pit and probably died. "I hope Master John will understand my sacrifice."
"Yes… You must have been quite lonely here."
"Actually, I have a friend. Would you like to see her?"
"Why not?"
***
I could feel my eyeballs shaking uncontrollably and had difficulty breathing at the horror I was witnessing. It was as if the rituals performed by ancient barbarian tribes under the sway of the devil had re-emerged thousands of years later… If this scene wasn't meant to frighten mortals whose only faith is absolute peace, then what was it made for? Science? Research? If so, was science itself the new God to be feared?
I could feel my head spinning and my stomach churning. I don't know if I could have even stood up if I hadn't leaned my hand against the glass in front of me. Because the devil's final portrait, drawn with blood, tears, and sorrow, was in front of me, and the only thing I could think of in its presence was that I had to escape from there.
On the other side of the glass was a familiar woman. The woman was suspended in the air with her arms spread wide, just like Da Vinci's drawing of the Vitruvian Man. Her legs were spread so far apart that her abdomen was separated from her body. The skin on either side of her abdomen tried to hold onto each other, while her internal organs hung in the air as if tied to her body with strings. The woman's womb was covered with a metal plate. Her metal plate was continuously opened, and flesh and bone marrow were inserted into her womb. As the woman's metal plate was burned by mutants holding flamethrowers, she trembled in agony where she was suspended. When the flames stopped, the woman started to get electrocuted, and blood streamed from her eyes as she looked at me. A few seconds later, the metal plate in the woman's womb opened, and a blood-soaked mutant, with skin as red as a newborn bird chick, fell from her womb.
The woman's skin had changed color from the burns and dried blood. Most of the hair on her head had fallen out, and her scalp had rotted. I could see that the mask on her mouth was used to feed her, and her exterior stomach overflowed with food. Each of her organs was connected to one another with metal pipes. I could see each one hanging in a ravaged state. Her lungs were coated with tar, her heart was leaking blood as it beat, and her intestines continuously filled a cauldron.
I stepped back a little from the glass, took a breath, and looked at the woman's face one more time. It was obvious from her blood-streaming eyes that she recognized me. This woman… This woman was Flora, the woman from my memories. The Unify coordinator on this planet.
"How about it?" Arthur Vale said, tapping the glass. "We needed a human womb to give birth to mutants. Bringing in a human from outside would have drawn the attention of the SWR, so we used our dear Flora, whom we showed as having died in the accident here."
"Yes…" I said and tightly gripped my left arm. That weak arm that reminded me of my helplessness and fueled my anger…
"We used to give her painkillers, but…" he said, looking at the notebook across from the glass. "…we ran out a long time ago. Ah… What does it matter if she suffers a little? We can't remove her nerves either, because by controlling her nerves, we can control the mutants that are born. Besides, she's in no position to demand an explanation for why we didn't sedate her, is she? And her sanity is quite stable… We constantly use electricity to correct her neurological networks and give her hormonal treatments so she doesn't lose her sanity. We wouldn't want an insane mother, would we? Look… Ah… She has a pleading look on her face. It's as if she sees you as a ray of hope, what do you say?" Arthur Vale waved to the woman named Flora. "Hey…" Then he came and hugged me tightly. "…this man is our friend. This man is on our side… You can wish all you want!"
"Are all the mutants born here?"
"Yes… Even those three-meter-tall mutants come out of this woman. That's an even more painful process… We have to change that metal cover and make some adjustments to her womb. Also, for a birth like that, the woman's organs have to work at full capacity. Ah… Look at that… Her stomach is overfilled again…" Just then, one of the mutants began emptying the woman's suspended stomach with a hose. The woman writhed in even greater pain and began to receive electricity once more.
"That's enough!" I yelled involuntarily.
"What do you mean?" Vale asked in surprise.
"I think the mind-weaver you brought me to see has had enough peace, don't you agree? This scene reminded me that I need to have a talk with him."
Arthur Vale bent down and gestured with his hand toward the way. "Of course, my esteemed guest…"