Amy One

The phone rings. Mark half answers knowing at 11pm it could only be one person. He hands the phone to his wife Elizabeth as he answers — “Yes Lynda she’s here..”

As he passes the phone Lynda is shouting “No, I need to speak to you.”

Mark just about hears and says knowingly “Is your computer or phone broken?”

“No, it’s a girl. A girl came tonight and said she was sent by you. I let her in.”

Mark “You do know I didn’t send her?”

Lynda “Yes, but she caught me unaware. She says she’s your daughter, Amy. Actually she says her name is Amy One.”

Mark “That’s impossible.”

Lynda “Yes I know. But she looks like you.”

Mark “So a woman who looks like me is in your house saying she’s my daughter”
Mark is saying this deliberately loudly so his wife gets to understand the situation. He forgets he can switch the phone to loudspeaker mode.

Mark “Can’t you get rid of her?”

Lynda “No, she’s asleep in my bed.”

Mark “So you’re going to let her stay?”

Lynda “I’m trying to figure it out. But she says you have to come.”

Mark “Amy is instructing me to come?”

Lynda “She says bad things will happen if you don’t”

Mark “I’ll talk with Elizabeth and see what she says”

Elizabeth snatches the phone “Lynda what’s going on. This is crazy”.

After a repeated heated phone call where Lynda explains all the details again and again Elizabeth eventually hands the phone back to Mark.
“She wants to speak to you”

Lynda “Mark you have to come. I don’t know what to do otherwise. I don’t want to call the police.
She looks like your daughter — the police will think I am being horrible throwing her out. She’s beautiful.”

Mark buys petrol from an all night petrol station and drives to Oxfordshire from Northamptonshire. The roads are quiet.
The final part of the night drive is down winding lanes. As he approaches Lynda’s house his headlights throws up rabbits in the hedgerows.
Mark ponders who are the rabbits in the headlights. Me or them?

Mark knocks the door. Lynda looks pleased. “You’ve come”
They start whispering entering the hallway.
“She’s in my bed, downstairs”.
They approach to spy on the sleeping girl. She’s fast asleep. You can’t really make out her face.

They retreat to the lounge. The phone rings.
“Yes he’s here” Lynda explains to Elizabeth. “The girl’s still asleep. We’ll have a cup of coffee then try to wake her up. I’ll phone you back later.”

Mark and Lynda move to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. Just as they enter the kitchen the girl quietly enters the lounge. Amy One is dressed in a one-piece cat suit — except it is more like a human dipped in iron filings. She has bracelets around her neck, wrists and ankles that define the boundaries of the covering. On her hip is a small handbag which seems to match the pseudo-iron filing covering.

“You’re here Mark” says Amy One.
Mark looks at the girl “I’ve never seen you before”
“Yes, I know you think you haven’t, but you have.”
Lynda continues to make coffee.
“Do you want one as well?”
“No says Amy One “I need some water for my pill”
“Are you taking medication?” says Mark.
“Not what you think, it’s a nutrient pill”
She pulls out a clear container with blue tablets inside and tips one out.
The strangest part is the bag on her hip seems to open and close itself.
Amy One sees their curiosity.
“It’s a smart bag” says the girl. “It’s a hipster. You invented it Mark”.
Lynda approaches with a glass of water and two cups of coffee.
Amy One swallows her blue pill rapidly.
Mark and Lynda watch waiting for some change.
“I don’t start dancing or anything” says Amy One.
“is One your surname?” says Mark.
“There are many of us”
“You are saying there are more than one of you?”
“Yes, you made lots of us”.
“You say made. You mean made like a factory?”
“Yes I suppose that’s the best way to describe it — a clone factory.”
“How many of you are there?”
“My best estimate would be one million” says Amy One.
“And you are the first?” says Lynda.
“No, but I thought it would be easier for you to call me Amy One”
“Why was I chosen as the clone factory donor parent?” says Mark still going along with the fantasy.
“It was discovered, or should I say you discovered that if you combined extreme left brain and extreme right brain parents you can double IQs. My IQ is about twice yours presently.”
“So I am the left brain who is the right brain?”
“Can’t you see?”
“Me?” says Lynda?
“OK, me and Lynda need to speak” said Mark. They retreat to the hallway.
“She’s obviously deluded. You can’t make clones of people — of us. And you wouldn’t make a million the same.” They return to the living room.
“Amateur psychology at work. I have a PHD in psychology amongst others” says Amy One. “I am not schizophrenic or delusional. I am what you see. Here take one of my blue pills and it will help you clear your mind. They fix things.” She pulls out two pills from her hipster bag.
“Lynda don’t take it. “ shrieks Mark but Lynda recklessly throws the blue pill in her mouth and swallows it with her coffee. Mark copies shaking his head.
“Nothings happening” says Mark.
Then they both feel a surge — like when you have a cold pure orange juice drink on a hot sunny day. A feeling of it being too cold but too nice.
“Your IQ will progressively increase. It won’t take long” says Amy One. “It will also fix minor health problems. Like if you have blocked arteries or a dysfunctional liver or in Lynda’s case her hearing.”

After a few minutes Lynda can hear fully in both her ears. Mark notices his skin feels smooth, clean.
“If they fix things why do you keep taking them?” says Mark.
“That is a minor problem. Progressively we get attacked by solar radiation. It dislodges our DNA code.
Our programming gets broken a bit every day. To stay one hundred percent I take one a day” says Amy.

“So who made you?” says Mark.
“You did” says Amy.
“I made you? I couldn’t even make cress grow on a kitchen shelf — let alone engineer a human being”
“That’s where it gets complex. You may need to wait until the blue pill takes effect. But basically you made me when your IQ was made artificially higher. You created a device which you called a brainbox — that effectively tripled your intelligence.”
“Now this is getting too weird. None of this actually happened” says Mark
“It will” says Amy. “That’s the problem”.
“So it’s a problem in the future that I make one million clones”
“Yes” says Amy.
“But if you didn’t tell me. I wouldn’t know. It wouldn’t happen. You created the problem.”
“There is a loop. A bit like a mobius strip that never begins and never ends. By tomorrow your intelligence will be high enough for you to work on the brainbox.”
“What’s a mobius strip?” asks Lynda.
“Imagine a strip of paper that you twist like an infinity symbol.” says Mark. He continues.
“You are saying that I sent you back in time to make me create a brainbox to create a clone to send you back in time to stop me making it, endlessly?”
“What is my part?” says Lynda.
You are the other donor — the right brain.
“Are the clones running amok — taking over the World?” jokes Mark.
“No. You sent them to different times and dimensions. It took a million to get one here. A bit like a scatter gun effect. A scatter clone effect.”
“So what is the problem?” said Mark.
“You” said Amy One. “You are taking out all opposition — like a dictator. You have weaponised robots to do your bidding.”
“You are three times smarter than anyone else — but only with the brainbox”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“Either you kill yourself or Lynda kills you or I kill you”
“I think you’ve been watching too many films. What is that one where they send the robot back in time to kill the boy who would grow up to become the leader of the opposition.”
“That is why I gave you the blue pill. It will help improve your memory. You face a choice. Without a blue pill to fix you tomorrow you will start to breakdown. You won’t create the brainbox and I won’t give you another one.”
“So you’ve poisoned me?” says Mark.
“Not exactly. More like I won’t give you a crutch to help you walk”
“But what will happen to you?” says Mark.
“Eventually I’ll run out of blue pills — only you know how to make them — with the brainbox. But if you don’t get a blue pill you won’t make a brainbox”
“So you intersected one mobius strip that repeats forever with another that repeats forever?”
“Or cut it hopefully. That was the plan”
“What doesn’t make sense is I sent you back to kill me. Remorse?”
“What doesn’t make sense is we have no evidence that any of this is true.” says Lynda.
“Explain me” says Amy One. “I look like you, I sound like you. Both of you.”
“So we sit and wait for the pills to wear off and we become less intelligent and ill.”
“I’m not doing that” says Lynda. “So you are saying we become the most powerful human beings on Earth — if we take the blue pills”
“Yes. But you also become the most terrible. Millions suffer.”
“What if we agree not to do terrible things. Put it in writing” says Lynda.
“Unfortunately we have that letter. Power corrupts you”
“How do you know we won’t simply take the blue pills off you?” says Mark.
“That’s why I have a smart bag. It won’t let you open it”.
“So now we sit for however many days, weeks or years until you run out of blue pills?” says Mark
“I have told the bag to only open twice. It will never open again” says Amy
“Don’t clones have rules — like those rules of robotics?” says Mark
“Yes we have three rules — clones can never marry another clone, clones can never have children, clones can’t kill their donors.”
“So you are breaking rule three” says Mark.
“If I wanted to kill you I can use my energy suit. I could simply touch you, turn off the DNA match and make it cover your entire body. You’d suffocate. The bands on my wrists, ankles and neck limit the suit”. She says quickly “suit off then on”. The suit flashes off then back on. Underneath she is naked.
“Wow” says Mark embarrassingly.
Lynda looks disapprovingly at Mark briefly seeing their naked clone.
“So we wait?” says Lynda.
“I have to get back to take Elizabeth to work tomorrow. I’m treating this as some sort of TV prank. I’m waiting to see the hidden cameras.” says Mark.
Lynda suggests Mark has a nap on her bed upstairs while she talks to Amy One.
“I hope you’re not going to come upstairs and bump me off” jokes Mark. Just a little worried as he climbs the stairs.
After four hours Mark is suddenly awake. Lynda and Amy One are quiet. He feels the power of the blue pills.
He realises with the blue pills he is smart enough to devise the brainbox to improve his intelligence more — but not the blue pills. He needs the brainbox for that.
He drives off without waking Lynda and Amy One — to wait outside Maplin’s to buy electronic parts. He has stolen Amy One’s smartbag to figure out how to open it.
Waiting in the car he draws out his plan to build a brainbox to amplify or improve his intelligence.
As soon as the shop opens he makes out his order for things like transistors, resistors and capacitors. He realises that this would be a prototype brainbox — not the final version that Amy One describes.
But he assumes the blue pill has doubled his intelligence and with a brainbox he can improve it again — at least for a day.
He doesn’t return home as he realises that wastes time as he may need Amy One to solve a problem.
He texts Elizabeth to say to catch the bus or get a taxi as he still needs to resolve the situation with the girl — Amy One.

Lynda and Amy One wake to find Mark missing.
“He’s taken the smartbag, my hipster. He thinks he can open it.” says Amy.

Lynda grabs her mobile to phone Elizabeth. Elizabeth answers.
“Where’s Mark gone? He’s supposed to help me solve the Amy girl problem not run off”.
“He’s not here. I thought he was still at your house. I had the message to get a taxi.” says Elizabeth.

In a hotel room Mark is busy with a soldering iron and his collection of components making a prototype brainbox — basically a spaghetti of wires screwed into terminals with components between.
The crude brainbox drapes wires over Mark’s head receiving and transmitting back amplified signals ensuring brain paths are stronger. He plugs it into a battery to power it up.
It starts to work almost instantly. His memories seem to come back stronger and influence his ideas. He remembers the name of the film he had forgotten earlier The Terminator.
But the thought that is strongest is childlike ‘Open Sesame’ so he says it.
The hipster smart handbag wakes up and opens. He can see a range of items — the blue pills the most obvious. His brain can now quickly scan and count them. Forty seven.
He wonders about the other objects but decides to wait until he’s built a new improved brainbox before tackling Amy One about them.

Mark logs on online and starts programming an app to trade shares and within an hour he’s made over £100,000. He leaves it running. He realises his wife Elizabeth will have a shock seeing the vast amount of money in the bank account. He sends her a series of text messages.

“I can’t explain but transfer about half of the money in the account to Lynda. It should be about £500,000 by midnight. I need to go back and sort out Amy. Meanwhile speak to Amy yourself.”

Mark arrives back at Lynda’s house about 12 hours later. He has been busy in his hotel room developing things and he changes his car to a top of the range BMW he buys for cash. He has taken another blue pill.

“Where have you been? says Lynda irately.

“Where’s Amy” says Mark.

Lynda notices Mark has a necklace around his neck very similar to Amy’s.

“I have made the necklace to stop her energy suit killing me. Here take another blue pill. I’ve made you one as well — put the necklace on. It may save your life.”

“Where’s Amy?” he repeats. She appears from the hallway.

“I’ve been out to look at the past. I wanted to know what cars and buses were like. You see them in films but it’s not the same. You don’t get the smell or sense of fear from irrational human drivers”.

“Contact with pollution kills clones faster” explains Mark. “You are trying to kill yourself faster”.

“I don’t have any blue pills so why suffer a slow death”.

“Here” says Mark tossing a blue pill to Amy. “She takes it without water like a drug addict.

Mark clears his throat ready to make a speech.

“Here is my plan. I will make clones of myself and Lynda. So the future rulers are clones — not us. You will have to teach them the rules for clones.”

“But what about you?” says Amy One.

“We stop taking the blue pills. I seal the smart bag. We die naturally. Perhaps a few years earlier than we would. But since we are now both very rich we will have a much better life.”

“What about me?” says Amy One.

“That is the hard part. You need to go away with our young clones. They will be your children. But you will all die naturally like us. We can give you money so you can have a good but a shorter life too. We can create a fiction about the last few days. We’ll say you gave us this money and left but that you were deluded into thinking we were your parents after an accident. No-one has
ever seen you apart from us. You need to become a different person. I can give you a handful of blue pills until you start a new life. Get a job. You are smart — become a doctor and give the clone children a good life.”

“Will it work?” says Lynda.

“I have no idea.” says Mark “Perhaps our clones become bad. But at least it won’t be us”.