“Sir, one of the clonerace escaped the hivemind,” Georges said, explaining the frantic alarms and flashing lights.
Head Caretaker McCarter sprung out of his seat. “What?” he cried in disbelief. “How is that possible?”

“I’m not sure...” Nirasi called from the security computer, biting her tongue in thought. “Has it been done before?”

“No! Never in my time as Head Caretaker, and never in anyone else’s. I thought it wasn’t possible. None of the clonerace have ever left the hivemind,” McCarter replied.
McCarter sighed. This was going to be a perfect day. No problems, no interruptions, no speedbumps. Just a smooth, productive day. Until 11:02, it had been a very fine day. McCarter at actually managed to get surface time and ate his breakfast under the sun for the first time in weeks. The Caretakers had filled out big exports a day early, and assimilated a whole batch of the newest model of clonerace.
“Sir, what are we going to do?” Georges asked, bringing McCarter out of his pointless wallowing.
“First, we’re going to turn off the alarms,” McCarter ordered. George obeyed and sat back down. Now in peace and quiet, McCarter could think. “Are we sure it’s a clonerace and not just a Surf?”
“Yes, the hivemind had an inflection in the frequencies and she definitely broke loose,” Georges frantically assured.
“Do we have a visual?”
“Sir, we’re doing the best we can to zero in on her, but they all look the same,” Nirasi replied. She turned and ordered a few more techies to start looking for the escapee.
“Which model is it?”
“The attendance roster is coming in from the lower level, sir. The only one not linked to the hivemind is... citizen #10827, model... four,” Georges replied.
“Oh, good,” one of Nirasi’s techies blurted out. “Model 4 has the smallest population. That narrows it down to only a couple hundred.”
“Brilliant,” McCarter said.
Georges spun in his chair to face McCarter. “Sir, even if we catch the 10827, reassimilation might not be possible.”
“I hadn’t thought that would,” he replied. He held out a hand to stop Georges from continueing with the possibilities. “But a dead clone is better than a free one.”

Citizen #10827 was confused. A moment ago, she had been perfectly happy to go and mine with the other clones. But now all she could do was stand. She stood and watched all of the other clones walk past, grab a helmet, take a lunch box in one hand and a shovel in the other. Citizen #10827 thought maybe that was what she should be doing, but she just didn’t want to go today.
She had made up her mind. She wasn’t going to work today. She was going to go back to the dorm and take a nap. Or maybe she would go talk to the Surf workers.
But she didn’t move. She tried again, I’m going back to the dorm, she thought. But her feet didn’t move. She sighed and tried to think about what it meant to walk. This was odd. She had never thought about walking before, she had just gone where everyone else had gone without thinking about it and now it was nearly impossible to take a single step. She slowly and clumsily took a first step. And then another.
After a couple dozen thought-out steps, it came a little more naturally and Citizen #10827 could divide her attention. She looked up and saw a girl. Maybe she would want to go back to the dorm with her. Seemed like a bright prospect, to have a partner in crime, so Citizen #10827 tried to grab her attention. Once again, she found something she couldn’t do. This time it was talking. Now that she thought about it, it didn’t seem like she ever had talked. Not even when she didn’t have to think about and was just happy about everything. Citizen #10827 racked her brain for the seldom used words that the kind Caretakers had used.

The girl was gone, but there would be others. Sure enough, another girl came close to Citizen #10827. She even looked like Citizen #10827.
She stopped, tilting her head. How did this girl look like her? Citizen #10827 looked around and realized that there were many, many girls who looked like her. And half the boys were the same as well. But that wasn’t a problem, was it? No, not at all.
Citizen #10827 went back to trying to get a friend to skip work with her. She tried to stop an dark haired duplicate of herself, but the copy didn’t even blink, she just kept walking. Citizen #10827 frowned and tried again. The clone didn’t stop.
She tried twice more and finally took a shaky, thought-out step away. She didn’t want to go to the dorm anymore, she wanted to see the Surfs. The Surfs were different; just poor, desperate workers from the surface.
How did she know that? She wasn’t sure. It was like the information was just there in her mind. And it always had been. But she just hadn’t known she knew it. Just like how she hadn’ t known she knew what a clonerace was. Or why the Caretakers were better than them.

“Nirasi, are we any closer to finding the rogue clone?” McCarter asked.
“10827,” Georges clarified.

McCarter rolled his eyes and pulled his tie loose. Today was a loose tie day.
“We’re looking as fast as we can. You do remember that they all look the same, don’t you?”
“How could I forget?” McCarter snapped. “Look for one that isn’t going where she’s supposed to.”
“Model 4 clonerace were all assigned to mining, but the camera quality is much lower down there,” another one of Nirasi’s techies explained.
“Georges,” McCarter said, swiveling around to face him. “Hook me up with Hayes, I want to see how we could manipulate the hivemind to our advantage.”
Georges skeptically raised his eyebrows while he dialed the number and handed the phone to McCarter.
“Hayes here, hurry up if you’re not important, I’ve got a crisis I’m dealing with and I can’t deal with yours.”
McCarter sighed. “It’s McCarter, Hayes.”
“Ah. Right. What are bothering me for?” Hayes asked, not even trying to be more polite for a figure of authority. Typical Scotsman.

“Could we send a code through the hivemind to get all of the other clones to, I don’t know, grab the one that got free?” McCarter asked.

“Are you kidding me?” Hayes cried. “Think it through, man! You’re telling me that you want me to tell the entire eight hundred million clonerace population that one of them got freedom. What do you think is going to happen to the rest of them?”

McCarter bit his lip, seeing the problem. “Okay,” he tried again. “How about we tell them all to go back to their dorms? That would leave the one who escaped out in the open for us to take.”

“No. And I’m not saying that for the sake of the clones. I’m saying that for your own good, McCarter. Even if you and your men get in there and out in, say, ten minutes, you’d have lost a thousand dollars in exports. And I know that you know the price for a Model 4 clone these days and which one is worth losing. Now, I’m trying to prepare the hivemind to reaccept 10847. Call back when you have a plan that could actually work,” Hayes said, clicking off.

“Two seven,” Georges muttered under his breath.

“Nirasi, tell me we’re close.”

“She’s entering the Surf side of the city,” Nirasi reported, relieved.


Citizen #10827 had gotten the hang of walking again, just like before when she had simply coasted through life, unaware of anything. She had gotten scared for a moment that maybe she’d gone back to however it was before- not in control. But it was fine. She was in control.

She took her final steps into the Surf’s half of the mine.

“Hi,” Citizen #10827 said loudly.

A boy with wavy, caramel colored hair turned. His dark eyes looked her over, trying to figure out why she’d shouted. He unclenched his square jaw to say something back.

Citizen #10827 immediately fell in love with him.

“Hey...” he replied, waving awkwardly.

Citizen #10827 smiled and couldn’t think of anything to say. The boy raised an eyebrow, flipped his helmet over his head and walked away. She wanted to go with him, even if it meant going to hack at rocks all day. It didn’t matter what the Surf did, she wanted to do it. Surfs were different from clonerace. They were also better than her. Citizen #10827 started to follow him, but didn’t move.

She sighed. She had forgotten how to walk again.


“One of these days I’m going to get the Surfs different uniforms so I can tell the difference,” McCarter muttered.

“One of these days, I’m going to get a job on the surface that doesn’t deal with the underlings of society,” Georges replied.

“That’s the one,” one of the combat men called.
“Where?” McCarter asked.
“Look at that dark haired girl staring at the Surf. Normal people don’t do that, plus that’s the right proportions and coloring for the Model 4 clonerace.”
McCarter, satisfied, ordered the combat team down the hill. From the safety of high ground, he watched the team pick the clonerace off her feet and carry her back. She didn’t run, she hardly even struggled. McCarter was surprised and a little disappointed; after all of the hassle in the office, this certainly seemed like an anticlimactic ending.

McCarter strode into the tech room, for hopefully the last time that day. “Georges, bring up the camera feed for me,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” Georges replied, clicking a few buttons.
Citizen #10827 was right back where she belonged, now in line at the mess hall, standing silently like all of the other cloneraces. She was perfectly assimilated back into the hivemind.
McCarter smiled. “Good work, team.”
Today had turned out to be a good day after all.

Citizen #10827 stood in line, silent. She watched the machine-like motion of the mess hall as the clones sat down to a rhythm, not taking a care as to who it was they sat next to. The free movement of the Surfs in the back of the room caught her attention. Citizen #10827 saw the boy with the light hair and square jaw. She smiled.