Rod, Rex and Rhoda

by Bob Brill

The Long Reach of Rumex

The running is over. The adventure is finished. They take us to the transporter center in downtown whatever this place is. We’ve been living in a hermetic mobile world, moving from one town to another without seeing them, and although we know we’re still in the hinterlands of America, we’ve paid no attention to the names of the towns.

Next thing we know we’re back in the familiar transporter room at Rumex with the comfortable chairs and the conference table. Pumphrey sits there smoking a cigarette and dealing out cards to Hollister and the other Rod. Rhoda Two is nowhere to be seen.

“Welcome back, kids,” says Pumphrey. “You led us a merry chase.”

“We had a great time, Pumphrey,” I say. “We loved every minute of it. Well, not every minute, but most of it.”

Hollister lays his cards face down, walks over to the transporter and opens the door. “I hope you two are finally ready. We can’t go on with this clone situation.”

“No way, Hollister. Don’t you know we’ve changed our minds?”

“But you signed an agreement. Now you have to follow through.”

“No we don’t. We want to live, same as everyone else. What’s a few clones among friends? You’ve got clones up the wazoo, a whole army of them.” I don’t really have hard information on that, but I see that I struck a nerve.

Hollister stiffens, says, “That’s quite a different matter. The law permits exceptions for the military.”

“Well, you’re going to have to make an exception for us too. You don’t want to have a murder on your hands, do you?”

“What murder?”

“If you snuff us now, against our will, that will be murder.”

“Nonsense, it’s nothing of the kind. But even if it should be so construed by the uninformed, who will care to bother or even know?”

I take a step closer to Hollister, hoping to intimidate him. “Look here, Hollister. It’ll be a lot easier to cover up a bit of cloning than a couple of murders. You see, when we agreed to your proposition, we wanted to be separated, but while we were on the run, something extraordinary happened. We fell in love.”

I step even closer and he takes an involuntary step back. “Those two copies can’t continue our lives for us. They’re not in love. They’ve already parted company. Fine. Let them do what they want, but it’s not what we want. We want what we’ve already got, each other, just as we are.”

Hollister looks at us and strokes his little mustache. Rhoda adds, “That’s right. And what’s more, if you let us go, we’ll disappear from the scene. The other couple can have our lives as we once knew them. Rod Number Two can take over my Rod’s lab at Cal Tech and delve into the mysteries of Fallow’s Syndrome. Rhoda Number Two can go on being a reporter if that’s what she wants. We’re done with all that. We’ll start a new life far from here, if you can get us some good fake ID.”

Hollister closes the transporter door. “Let me look into this. I’ll lay this before my bosses and see what can be done. Damn, I was holding three aces. Now I’m holding a bagful of trouble.” He turns over his cards to show the aces and moves toward the door. He looks back and tells the two gunmen, “Nobody leaves this room,” and he goes through the door.

“Well then,” says Pumphrey, looking at us. “Care to play a few hands while we wait?”

“Not really,” I say. “What I want to know is how our credit cards got canceled.”

Rod Two speaks up. “Those were our credit cards. You bought a lot of stuff, including a car, that we’re going to have to pay for. So we canceled the cards and got new ones.”

“We fully intend to pay for that stuff.”

“Not from my bank account you won’t.”

“That’s my bank account you’re talking about.”

“No I’m not. We closed those accounts and opened new ones at a different bank.”

“I see we’ve got a little problem that has to be settled.”

“Not really,” says Rod Two. “You’re almost certainly going to be terminated. You won’t be needing any money, and I’ll get Rex. Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him even better than you could.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I say. “There’s a good chance we’ll survive this, in which case we’ll have to make a deal about the money and I’m positively going to keep Rex. He’s got some of my best brain cells.”

“He’s got mine as well.”

“Wait,” says Pumphrey. “I’ve got an idea.” He rises to his feet, clearly excited by his thoughts. “I can’t solve the money problem, but I can get each of you a Rex of your own.”

He paces around the table as he works out the details in his head, then stops and says, “Let’s consider the recently cloned Rod and Rhoda. They’ve been restored to the way they were just before the second transporter scramble, so Rod is still mixed with Rex from the first scramble, and Rhoda, she’s the pure original Rhoda, not mixed with anyone.”

He turns to the other Rod. “Okay, we still have the pre-jump dissociated image in storage from the first scramble. If we load that image and transport it, we get Rod and Rex as they were before any of this messing around started. That way Rod gets his Rex. You won’t remember anything beyond stepping into the transporter just before you were scrambled. So you won’t remember meeting Rhoda or me or any of your experiences at Rumex. Is that okay with you, Rod?”

“Perfect.” Rod Two replies. “As long as I get the bank account. It would be wonderful to go back to the way it was before I ever got mixed up, and I do mean mixed up, with all you people. Rhoda has gone back to her life in Washington and I want to go back to mine at Cal Tech. As much as I was attracted to Rhoda, it would have been better if I had never met her. Just me and Rex as it used to be.”

I’m finding Pumphrey’s reasoning a bit confusing, but I don’t mind. As long as they’re talking about the other Rod, I don’t care what they do.

“Of course,” says Pumphrey as he sits back down, “Rod, you’ll have to step into the transporter so we can clear the buffer.”

“Erase the current me, you mean.” Rod Two understands this Rumex euphemistic language.

“Well, yes, but we’ll save your image in offline storage, as we always do in such cases, though we would hope you’d never want to be scrambled with Rex again.”

“It won’t be easy,” says Rod Two. “to step aside, but it will be worth it to get my life straightened out again, even if it’s not exactly my life.”

Pumphrey turns to me, absent-mindedly shuffling the cards. “I can’t offer you the same deal, Rod. That would just continue this illegal clone situation, unless Mr. Hollister comes back with a reprieve for you.”

“I don’t want the same deal even if you do offer it to me. It would be a tragedy never to have met Rhoda.”

Rhoda squeezes my hand.

“We can do this right now,” says Pumphrey, addressing Rod Two. He walks to a file cabinet on the wall and searches for awhile. “Won’t take a minute.” He extracts a container, looks like an old-fashioned magnetic tape, brings it over to the transporter and opening a side panel he slides the container into place. He presses some buttons on the console and a moment later Rod steps out of the other transporter across the room with Rex in his arms. O my God. Now there are three Rods and two Rexes in the room. Rex leaps out of Rod’s arms and runs barking at my Rex.

Pumphrey introduces himself to the latest Rod. “Welcome to Rumex Pharmaceutical, Dr. Blass. I’ve got to explain some things to you. We’re not going to need those metafallazine tests.”

The new Rod, or should I call him the old Rod, says “Hey, wait, what’s going on here? Why is that other pug here and who are those guys that look like me?”

Pumphrey takes him by the arm and says, “Just a minute, Dr. Blass. Sit over here. Would you like a coffee? I’ll get back to you in a minute.” He turns to Rod Two and says, “Just step into the transporter, Rod, and we’ll expedite this matter.”

The Rexes are scrapping and I hope I’ll be able to tell them apart. Rod Three comes over to try to separate the dogs. I try to help him. “Hi,” I say, “my name’s Rod. Pleased to meet you, Rod. Pumphrey will explain everything.”

“Who’s Pumphrey?”

“That fellow over there opening the transporter door for Rod. Hey, Rod,” I cry, “before you go, let’s see if we can straighten out the money situation. Can we make a deal?”

“Rod, you won’t be needing any money where you’re going. Neither will I. It all belongs to Rod over there who doesn’t understand any of this. But he will.” With that he steps into the transporter. He sticks his head out and says, “So long, all you Rods and Rexes.”

And with that Pumphrey closes the door, races to the console and presumably turns Rod Two into atoms and decants his image into one of those containers. Then I see him press the button marked Erase Source Buffer.

I’m thinking, Imagine if everyone got stored at birth. If you hate your life or have screwed up too badly, you could opt to start over from the git-go. What a strange world that would be. Of course you’d have to grow up all over again, have a new set of parents to raise you, go through school again. No thanks. Ha, what if your mother decided to start over. Would you have to raise her?

Hollister reenters the room, and all attention turns to him. He’s stroking his mustache with thumb and forefinger, which I take to be a sign that he’s mulling over how to tell us the bad news. He stops to have a quiet word with the two goons and simultaneously they draw their guns.

“Uh oh,” Rhoda says.

Pumphrey takes the newly created Rod by the arm. “Let me show you around our facility. I’ll explain everything to you as we walk.” As they head for the exit the thugs turn their guns on them, remembering that Hollister said to let no one out of the room, but Hollister nods his approval and Pumphrey leads the totally confused Rod from the room.

“Sorry, you two,” Hollister says. “the powers that be have declared that we positively can’t allow clones. So, if you’ll just step into the transporter...” He waves the two gunmen closer. They point their pistols at us. We have a choice, die painlessly in the transporter or get shot to death.

I take Rhoda by the hand and we step into the transporter. Rex tries to follow us in. “No, you stay here, buddy. You’re a clone too, but apparently they don’t mind pug clones. No one can tell the difference anyway.”

We hear Rex scratching to get in. I squeeze Rhoda’s hand, then the lights go out.

Proceed to Chapter 21...