Short Stories

Author’s note: This is third installment of a Science Fiction story from my fourth book, 7D: Tales from the Future. You can find the first and second installments here: Resurrected: Part 1 and Resurrected: Part 2

Last week, opposition attacks had become even more personal. In a live debate, the spokesperson of the opposition had pointed out that their eight‑year marriage in their ‘past life’ was not as happy as they project because they never had a child. Ankh had responded with an emotional outburst, “They killed my babies! The religious leaders considered our family a threat to their power. They did not want an heir. When I got pregnant the first time, one of them had offered me a medicine. It caused spasms and killed the unborn child. The second time, I declined. So, he forced the medicine down my throat. Tut retaliated this time. So, they tied him up and forced him to drink it too. I lost my love and my child on the same day.”

She had cried openly that day in Tut’s arms, never looking at me for approval. The world believed her, assuming they remembered their past lives. I, however, knew better. Ankh was mixing memories. She must have read about the two foetuses found in Tut’s tomb and she has mixed the memory with the time I gave them Holy Sanction. She had, then, constructed memories to connect the dots with their unborn children and Tutankhamun’s mysterious death. She was delusional.

I should have corrected her personally, reminding that Tutankhamun’s body didn’t have any trace of poison. But right then, Tut declared that Ankh was with a child again. It was the winning shot! Within an hour, my email Inbox was overflowing with passionate mails about how I had truly done the right thing by bringing them back to life; that they deserved another chance; that I was akin to God. So, I got too busy in cashing out the opportunity.

*****

We campaigned by marketing their abused teens, tragically short lives, lost family and lost chance to reach their full potential as great leaders. The slogan “Second chance to live and lead” became a chant among the youth and their exit‑poll ranking jumped up dramatically.

This close to fulfilling my life dream, I couldn’t change my focus to manage wayward clones. But Ankh had been too restless since that day. She has been itching to go back ‘home’ to ‘get her sanity back’. I should have stopped her but another emotional outburst in public would have undone all my efforts. So, I allowed them both to go for a few days.

*****

And now, I must drive three hours to this god‑forsaken place for a ‘family celebration’. With all the money I had raised for the elections, I could have easily rented a limo with a chauffeur, but I must ensure this insanity ends today and I can’t afford a witness. Also, her unexpected death by a ‘pregnancy seizure’ will help Tut get sympathy votes.

Reaching the destination, I am disappointed. No one awaits me at the gates. I walk inside the open doors of the house that was my laboratory once—where I had raised both of these guinea pigs. I enter the open doors and head towards my office first, as usual. There is a scrambling of feet inside. I open the door to find both Tut and Ankh standing in front of my table like obedient students as I had trained them. I can smell my favourite dish, and an open bottle of my favourite wine sits at the desk in a chiller. A wine glass is filled up to brim untouched in front of my usual seat. Two other glasses sit empty awaiting my orders. Ankh looks herself again. Maybe, she is not as out of control as I had been thinking. Maybe, I’ll let her live.

*****

I smile regally and take my usual seat. My subjects keep standing out of the habit I had built over the years. I pick up the first glass as usual. Then I motion them to sit and pour drinks for themselves. We all take a deep drink.

Suddenly, a spasm of unbearable pain rushes from my tongue to the back of my neck and from my spine through my entire body. I fall on the ground twitching. Ankh looks at me wide‑eyed as Tut hurriedly takes my head in his lap. Why isn’t anyone calling the emergency?!

 “I’m still not sure, it was him,” Tut’s shaking as he speaks in Ancient Egyptian—a language I had never taught them to ensure they don’t read ancient scriptures and find any flaws in my version of their story.

Ankh’s eyes are glazed over, “Of course, it was him—in a different life. His drinks caused me spasms that killed both our children. And he forced you to drink that wine. And you died…”

Delusional bitch! I want to yell at her, but my tongue is too heavy to move.

“And he would do that again. Why else would he keep the Holy Sanction in his worktable?” She holds the familiar brown bottle in her palm.

My eyes are closing on their own and Tut’s voice sounds faraway, “I’ll drive him to the hospital. Clean your fingerprints and throw the bottle in the river on the way. Don’t worry. He won’t survive the three‑hour journey, and Holy Sanction doesn’t leave a trace.”

END

If you would rather read all the stories from the book itself, 7D: Tales from the Future is available for free download here: Link

Photo by Dilip Poddar on Unsplash

Author’s note: This is second installment of a Science Fiction story from my fourth book, 7D: Tales from the Future. You can find the other installments here: Resurrected: Part 1 and Resurrected Part 3

Once his foetus stabilised, I began resurrecting Ankhesenamun, his perfect wife, because nothing moves the public better than a good love story. She was also his half‑sister (incest, of course) and carried almost all the same congenital diseases. But they were easier to deal with now that I knew what to expect. Whether she would be accepted by the world where incest was looked down upon still remained to be seen. But if I hadn’t brought her into the picture, it would have crushed the whole romantic angle that the female voters craved for.

Four years later, Tut and Ankh came out of the incubator as fully mature humans. With a mature brain, I could condition them in far less time. Also, I didn’t have to deal with tiny toddlers. For me they were tools to achieve a purpose, not my children, even if they did carry a few of my genes.

*****

In the first year, I moved them to this faraway estate. For the next year, until their brain reached maturity of a five‑year‑old, we all wore Egyptian dresses and slept inside an Egyptian set, decorated with authentic artifacts acquired on loan from collectors. While sleeping, a recording told them stories about ‘their life’ over and over. The artifacts helped them relate to the stories and making them feel like a memory from their Egyptian lives. These ‘past experiences’ brought authenticity to their claim to ‘another chance at life’, which would become their selling point.

In this year, I also conditioned them to obey my orders using the Holy Sanction—an ancient Egyptian medicine in a small, brown, earthen bottle meant for punishing traitors and non‑believers. The collector I bought it from had claimed that it came from King Tut’s tomb. It was still usable and, once mixed, left no trace in blood or glass. With alcohol, it was poisonous but with water it was merely excruciatingly painful. On the few occasions the duo displeased me, I mixed a pinch with a pint of water and poured it down their throat. Instantly, their bodies would shake uncontrollably with painful chemical spasms. They would lay on the floor crying for mercy.

It made them eager to please me.

Later, when we removed the set bit‑by‑bit to condition them according to the current world and provided formal education in the next five years, I returned all artifacts, but I retained the bottle on a whim. Now, it seems like it is the need of the hour.

*****

I should have understood the signs earlier during the election campaign, which began last year. Both Tut and Ankh had been too quiet. But I thought, they were mentally drained because of the never‑ending public appearances, speeches and the questions around their background.

The emotional way they had answered those questions, had I not conditioned them, I, too, would have believed that they remembered their past lives. They’ve always had this habit of talking about their ‘memories’. Often, they spoke of remembering their “parent’s faces”, whom they had never met. It was probably a reconstruct memory of a face they had seen in a movie. They also spoke of how present‑day movies did not reflect the true face of ancient Egypt. I let them believe their memories were real. It added weight to their claim to the ‘throne’.

But then, I should have guessed that Ankh was taking it a bit too far. Like, on the day when the opposition questioned their faith in an attempt to remind the voters that they were not Christians. When the press requested her to comment, Ankh hadn’t looked at me for answers, “We’re above petty religious politics now. Our father, King Akhenaten, had rejected the common faith in his lifetime. Hence upon his death, the religious leaders had made us an example. They had forced us to change our faith and names to suit them. We were too young to fight back then. But not anymore!”

The information probably came from internet but the passion and pain behind her words had swayed the public sympathy in Tut’s favour. So, I had let it slide.

Author’s note: To be continued…

Photo by Dilip Poddar on Unsplash

If you would rather read it all together in the book, 7D: Tales from the Future is available for free download here: Link

Author’s note: This is first installment of a Science Fiction story from my fourth book, 7D: Tales from the Future. You can find the other installments here: Resurrected Part 2 and Resurrected Part 3

The bad roads and the three-hour drive are getting on my nerves. Damn them both for going back to the old estate!

I should have ordered Tut and Ankh to stay. But Ankh wasn’t able to deal with the pressure of Tut’s Presidential elections, and if Tut hadn’t gone with his pregnant wife, it would’ve hurt their image as a ‘nesting couple’. Last week, there was a brief respite in their public appearances, and I let them go. It didn’t seem to improve her ‘condition’ though. She had called me this morning, requesting one last family celebration before ‘opening our lives to the world’. It is the first time she had overridden a clear order and insisted on anything.

Lately, she has been becoming more work than she’s worth. So, I’ll deal with her once and for all. Conveniently, the small, brown, earthen bottle of Holy Sanction was still in my worktable’s drawer at the estate. It is poisonous when mixed with alcohol and it doesn’t leave a trace. Though, it would waste half of my life’s work.

*****

Fourteen years back, when I saw the DNA samples of King Tutankhamun and his wife at the genetics research organisation where I worked as a scientist, I could see myself in the senate, closest to the ‘throne’ as the President’s father and main advisor. He was the perfect Presidential candidate.

Tutankhamun was the last Egyptian king whose family claimed to be descendants of the Sun God. History claimed him to be handsome, intelligent and well educated, with a perfect lineage and a romantic marriage to his stepsister—well, that was a different world. He had all the traits that majority of the traditional voters preferred and he came from royalty, something everybody loves. The mystery around his death at 19 added to his aura and, even dead, he was one of the most craved‑for historical celebrities among the female populace. Ever since his tomb was opened, everyone wanted a bit of him—coffee mugs, dresses, latest fashionable items with motifs of him, his death mask or his portrait where he stands with his wife in a garden. Once reborn, he would be the latest scientific invention, luring the forward‑looking voters too. Overall, he was a complete package and a sure win. With the right conditioning, I could make him my pawn for life.

Of course, I could raise any Tom, Dick or Harry, and hope that he would win the elections, but where was the guarantee? Whereas Tut’s win was guaranteed. All he needed was a few legal permissions and a bit of conditioning.

*****

Human cloning required special permission due to several humanitarian issues, like, experimenting on a fellow human, conception in a test tube with no natural parent and concerns about genetic memory.

The last one was a lot of rubbish, of course. All children receive a small percentage of ancestral memory, especially of their parents, for easier conditioning to the world and quicker response to major dangers. Since clones receive the full genetic map of the ‘donor’, Psychologists claim that the shared genetic memories can lead to shared phobias and identity crisis. But I had turned the genetic memory claim to my favour, requesting the permission to resurrect the King and his wife to give them a ‘second chance at life’ since their lives were mysteriously cut short by their early deaths.

Of course, it needed a lot of funding and political influence, but once I laid out the plan of Presidential elections, some important people were ready to invest their time and influence and wait until I paid off their ‘loans with substantial interests’.

*****

So, I started off with the body cells that had been dead for 3300 years. I had to figure out ways to bring the DNA back to life. It took over a year.

But once the foetus was large enough, I could see that Tutankhamun was not as perfect as History had presented. He carried many congenital diseases, thanks to incest in early ruling families—cleft palate, club foot and scoliosis that gave sideways curve to his spine along with a predisposition to malaria and muscle degeneration—clearly, he was not a handsome warrior he is made out to be. I wondered what mental diseases he carried because these diseases couldn’t be accounted for until he was old enough to think. I had to discard the useless foetus and start over.

I would have given up then, but I had debts to pay. So, I spent the next year fixing these genetic diseases, replacing unhealthy genes with my healthy ones. It took another year, and many trials and errors, to get it right. My research notes are a matter of pride for me now.

Author’s note: To be continued…

Photo by Dilip Poddar on Unsplash

If you would rather read it all together in the book, 7D: Tales from the Future is available for free download here: Link