Dextorite

           “Goodbye and good luck you two,” Ze’noha cheered, giving Marius a loving embrace. Marius chuckled and gave only a lazy one-armed hug in return. “What’s funny?” she asked exasperatedly.

           “Nothing,” Marius said in a guilty tone, pulling away from her. “It’s just how you hug the exact same way every time.”

           Ze’noha scoffed at him, but her sister S’maro—already out the door—nodded at Ze’noha. “One arm around the back, one hand on the nape,” she said, grinning. “The Ze-ze classic. Though I will say it’s better than the half-assed bro hug you seem so fond of.” She gestured to Marius, exiting the door. “That’s no way to hug your wife.”

           Ze’noha sighed. “He’s never been a hugger,” she admitted, her face turning red. “And so what if I hug weird?” She raised her voice.

           Marius laughed. “No, your hug’s adorable. Don’t ever change it.”

           “I wasn’t planning to.”

           “Good.”

           “What if she just up and croaked?” S’maro jumped in out of the blue. “You’ll weep the times you didn’t hug her back.”

           Ze’noha rolled her eyes. “Love you too, sis’.” She closed the door forcefully.

           “Why did you say that?” Marius asked as they walked down the hall to the elevator.

           “What? Joke about her death?” S’maro shrugged, still wearing that same grin. “It’s a sibling thing. Don’t worry about it. C’mon, we got shit to do.”

------

           After a three-hour drive, Marius and S’maro waited in their car with a few extra minutes to burn before their time. S’maro looked at Marius’s fidgeting hands and restless legs as he stared across the street at the large Bogar Tech logo. “Yeah, I’m a bit nervous, too,” she admitted, causing him to look back at her. “We’re the first nonemployees to see inside these buildings. They could be creating zombies for all we know.”

           “Well, you’re an orachi. You have a valid reason to be nervous.” He took a deep breath. “But why am I?”

           S’maro raised an eyebrow at Marius. “I think you’re worried about me,” she said, nudging his arm. “Marrying my sister really has made you a better person. But don’t worry. They won’t hurt famous journalists.” She lifted a few of her tentacle hairs in front of Marius to initiate their special handshake—or hair-to-hand-shake. It was something they did all the time—as a greeting, farewell, before and after investigations, when they did something cool—kind of an all-purpose handshake that only existed between the two of them.

           Marius followed through with it and they nodded their heads together in sync. “Yeah. Right,” Marius conceded. “Let’s go.”

           Underneath the large ‘Bogar Tech Dextorite Labs’ sign, Marius and S’maro were greeted by the head of dextorite research and development Manel Eugene.

           “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet both of you,” he said with a great big smile. “Mrs. Tioni, why don’t we head on into the labs?” He gestured S’maro towards the door to the labs.

           “Oh,” she started, pointing at Marius with her thumb. “We’re partners, so we usually—”

           “Of course. But the labs are full of dextogen gas, which is highly toxic to humans, while orachi are remarkably immune to its affects.” Manel interrupted, presumptuously holding the door open for S’maro with a welcome smile. “It just makes things simpler.”

           S’maro and Marius exchanged a brief glance before complying. “Well, I suppose you would know,” S’maro said and walked in, somewhat reluctantly in her step.

           “Wait, what am I—" Marius tried to say but only ended up speaking to a closed door. Am I allowed to just walk around for myself? he thought. No. Bogar Tech would’ve never allowed that. Someone was coming for him.

           “Mr. Gauthier?” a woman’s voice came from behind Marius. He turned around to see a well-dressed, good-looking woman—no older than her high twenties by his estimate—smiling at him.

           “That’s me,” Marius responded, raising his hand as if she’d need to find him from ten feet away. Seriously? S’maro gets the head of Dextorite research and I’m stuck with this intern-looking chick?

           The woman approached with one hand holding up her clearance badge and one reaching for a handshake. “Vanessa Bogar, Chief Scientific Officer. Call me Vanna.” Marius looked at her badge incredulously, only to stand corrected.

           He shook her hand with a smile of his own. “You’re the CEO’s daughter?” he asked amiably.

           She pushed up on her upper lip. “In the flesh,” she responded as if annoyed by the comment.

           “Well, it’s an honor to meet you,” he replied. “You must be the youngest chief officer in the entire star system.” A bit conceited to appoint your own daughter to such a position, but alright.

           Vanna chuckled. “Thank you,” she said, breaking eye contact. “Though I really should be thanking my last name.”

           Marius smiled awkwardly. “The company’s performing wonderfully right now. You must be doing something right.”

           Vanna looked back at him for a moment before walking past. “Let’s get started,” she said, waving him along.

           She gave him a several-hour-long tour of the whole facility, covering all the different facets of research and development, but to his surprise, Marius found Vanna almost as intriguing as the place itself. In his extensive journaling career, he’d grown numb to the cut-and-paste corporate smile and charisma every high-ranking officer had, but she felt like a real person. It was a well-appreciated change of pace.  

           Marius came with one specific question he wanted answered. “Now, a rumor’s been going around that you’ve been working on developing artificial life. Could you talk about that?” He asked.

           Vanna took a deep breath that felt a little out of place to Marius. “It’s not as developed as our other areas, but with dextorite’s unique memory-storage properties, we’re working to build humanoid robots with memories of personality and muscle movement to form a unique and emotional being.”

           “Where do those memories come from?”

           “We copy the memory matrices of our own workers and volunteers and feed them to the dextorite. But we haven’t made great progress so far. The AI often misreads the memory instructions and, say, gives a hug the wrong way, if that makes sense.” Marius tilted his head at her. “It’s like they’re reading the wrong fingerprint. It’s still a real and valid fingerprint, but it’s not theirs.” She looked at the ground as if thinking deeply about something disturbing. “We’ve also found orachi brains to be significantly more compatible than human ones.” She arched her brow at Marius as if signifying to take note of that fact, which he did in his small notepad.

           He also took mental note of Vanna’s sudden change in tone when talking about artificial life; she suddenly seemed a touch on edge, making him wonder if they did have secrets. Furthermore, she made a sharp redirection towards the back of the labs, where it was darker than the rest of the premise. “Do you believe it’s possible to make an exact clone of someone?”

           Vanna paused for a moment as Marius stared at her. “Yes, in theory. Though we, as a company, do not wish to explore such a path.” When they reached the back of the lab—dark and hidden—Vanna abruptly snatched Marius’s notepad out of his hands and started writing something in it. “The ability to replace people would mean sacrificing the value of human and orachi life,” she continued before Marius could say anything. “It would be too easy to just replace someone. And not to mention the horrifying military implementations. Espionage warfare would quickly spiral out of control at least. Bogar Tech would never want that.”

           She showed Marius what she wrote: “People are listening but not watching.” She looked at Marius with intent as he felt his stomach twist. Then, she started writing again.

           “So,” Marius started, trying not to show any sign of doubt in the tone of his voice. “Is that why you’ve kept such a veil of secrecy over it?”  

           “Precisely,” she said. “The last thing we want is for malicious people to discover this technology.” She then pointed to a hatch on the back of the labs that said “Authorized Personnel only” in all red. Marius looked at it then looked back at Vanna, showing him something new she wrote. “Down that hatch. Password 30459#$44ut92893. You’ll find the truth.” She handed the notepad back to him, who received it with a sweaty hand. “It’s the right thing to do.” She gestured to the hatch. Marius stared at it as if it were the surface of a black hole, behind which was a singularity—the ultimate truth. He’d never turned down the chance to see such a thing, but he feared it might be the last thing he saw.

           Nonetheless, he entered.

           A deep and dark stairwell descended to another door, slightly cracked open. Trembling, Marius peaked his head through the opening to get a lay of the room. No one was in it. Giant computers up to the ceiling covered the back wall. Thin tubes hanging from the ceiling pumped dextogen gas into metallic endoskeletons, each laying on a lab table, paired with dead orachi bodies. There was one empty table that looked recently used based on the dextorgen gas leaking out of the tube and the fact that the bloody orachi organs strewn all around it like children’s toys weren’t stinking up the room yet. As for the others; the bodies were connected to the endoskeleton via a purple, glowing fungus-looking cord, pulsing back and forth as if transferring data. Out the window to the right was a dark and massive factory with raised conveyor belts about twenty feet off the ground. Legions of endoskeletons hung from them like corpses.

           Marius felt his entire stomach crumble inside him. “What the hell is this?” he asked as if speaking to the universe. He slowly tiptoed through the room—taking pictures of everything he could—his legs trembling beneath him. He headed for the computer on the back wall and got into it using the password Vanna wrote in his notebook. And just like that, he could see the singularity….

           He dug until he stumbled onto a file titled ‘dev notes 04/30/61’:

           Monthly update #32 (April, 3261): Clones are nearly perfect recreations of their original orachi. They’ve been consistently lasting for several months without failure. That being said, the ‘lover bug’—as we’re calling it—has proven to be a bigger challenge than any of us expected. The clones still have issues with intimate actions—anything from a special handshake or hug to copulation. It’s sometimes minor enough that family members and partners will just question it briefly, which is an improvement, however it still remains the final hurdle we need to clear before we can move on.

           Side note: We’ve officially burned through 1% of the terrestrial orachi population for the purposes of our tests.

           - Clone Development Team.

           The more he dug, the more his heart and stomach sank. Soul transmutation? Clone tests and results?! He clicked on the folder titled ‘Clone tests/results.’ A list of orachi names popped up before him, with an audio recording titled, ‘analysis’ attached to each one. With every bone and muscle in his body shaking, he looked back at the door cautiously, checking he was alone before opening one of the audio files.

           A young man’s voice started speaking:

           “Subject test 3509. Pyr’gar Droui, orachi, 52-year-old father of three, currently taking care of elderly parents in the eastern district. Married to human Kristen Strauss.

           His parents were none the wiser. They had no clue their son was a robot. But, unsurprisingly, the lover bug strikes again. His wife noticed something…. She told him he was different in bed. Sparing the details, apparently he used to do some … thing with his hair that, I guess, felt good to her, but he stopped doing that. Or, the clone did…. But it pretty much resolved itself, and that was basically it. The best I’ve seen.

           Uh, analysis by Jade.”

           Marius felt a cold sweat sweep through his entire body. “S’maro…,” he whispered under his breath. Is that why they wanted her in the labs instead of me? He looked back at the bloody lab table and suddenly felt his heart skip a beat. Are those her guts?  

           He nearly had a heart attack when he heard voices from the stairwell behind him.

           “What’s worse, they’re breeding like rabbits, and now with humans!?” an angry and raspy voice seethed. A second voice snickered as the first one continued. “Those humans getting down with or-raunchy deserve the same fate as them rags.”

           Marius spun in circles of panic, not knowing where to go or how to hide. His breath lost all sense of rhythm.

           Until a small hatch beneath the window opened up, revealing a ladder down to a walkway over the factory lines. It was S’maro, waving Marius over to her in frantic gestures.

           Marius followed with haste, leaving the computer on.

           “Marius,” S’maro shuddered once he was safely through the hatch. “Are you alright?” She touched his face as if making sure he was real. 

           “I’m fine,” Marius whispered back, getting chills up his spine from feeling how shaky her hands were.

           “Vanna told me everything,” she said quickly. “Bogar Tech’s nothing but a front."

           “Handshake. Right now.”

           “What?”

           “Just do it.”

           She did it correctly. Marius felt a huge sigh of relief and gave her a full embrace. “Thank you.”

           S’maro held her hands up as if avoiding a hot stove. “I’m not a clone, silly.”

           He took a deep breath and pulled away from her. “Right. let’s get out of—"

           “Hey, why the hell is the computer on!?” the man from the staircase yelled, causing Marius and S’maro to freeze. The walkway led towards the middle of the factory room before turning left, towards the exit. With the window in the room above them, they’d get spotted immediately if they tried to make a break.

           “I told you I heard someone scurry out of here.” said the second voice.

           Marius and S’maro stared at the door as if staring at death itself, for one of the men started approaching the hatch with heavy footsteps.

           “Only one place they could’ve run.”

           When the footsteps were right on top of them, they shared an expression acknowledging that the only possible way out was to fight, which isn’t to say they put on tough faces. Fear still controlled every facet of their bodies.

           Then a third, familiar voice came from the room. “Sorry, that was me,” Vanna corrected, coming through the main entrance into the lab. “I forgot to turn it off.”

           “Chief officers shouldn’t be so forgetful, Ms. Bogar.” The second man hissed.

           “Please, feel free to step up to the job. Take my place for a while. I’d really appreciate the time off.” The man scoffed as Vanna shooed them out the door. “I’ll clean up your mess. Just get out of here.”

           Shortly after they left, Vanna joined Marius and S’maro on the walkway. “Alright, let’s get you two home.”

------

           After Vanna led them out of the factory room and directed them around the facility for a few extra minutes to blend in, they found themselves standing across the street from their car. After cooling down, a question still burned in Marius’s head.

           “Why are you doing this, Ms. Bogar?” he asked as if ripping off a band-aid. “Why defy your father?”

           “It’s Vanna,” she said tersely, then crossed her arms and looked down at her feet. “Would you believe me if I said moral reasons?”

           “Probably not.”

           She looked back up at Marius, then at S’maro and gazed into her eyes for a moment. “Then I’m trying to save someone I love. An orachi.”

           Marius felt his muscles tighten as the thought of Ze’noha being one of the bodies the underground lab crawled onto his mind. “Then I hope you save her,” he stuttered, sharing an anxious look with S’maro.

           Vanna inhaled as if trying to keep her mind anchored in the present. “Mr. Gauthier, you got the evidence?”

           He nodded.

           She turned and started walking back towards the labs. “Then we’ll be in touch.” She casually gave them a backwards wave goodbye.

           Marius and S’maro did the same.

------

           The journalist duo explained everything to each other on the drive back. They called Ze’noha the way too, just to put their minds at ease.

           When they entered the lobby of their building, it was like stepping into the safe and protective walls of heaven.

           “So,” S’maro started as they were walking down the hallway on their floor. “’You ready to give your wife a goddamn hug, now?”  

           As they approached their door, Marius remembered the report—the orachi husband swapped with a clone. He remembered the dead orachi bodies, and the blood and guts strewn on the table. “Yes.”

           Inside the apartment, a delicious-smelling dinner waited for them on the dining room table. Ze’noha was sitting at the bar, drinking a glass of wine. She immediately put it down to greet them.

           “Hey, my stars,” she began with high energy. “Let me hear all about—” She was cut off by Marius throwing himself around her like a child to his mother. “Oh,” she grunted from the impact. “This is new. Is everything alright?”

           “We’ll explain over dinner,” he sighed in relief. “For now, hug.”

           “Okay,” she conceded—leaned her head into his chest. “Whatever happened, I’m always here,” she closed her eyes and matched his embrace with her own.

           For a split second, they were equally at rest in each other’s arms. But that second lasted only for the amount of time it took for Marius to process the position of his wife’s arms.

           Firmly around his waist.