“You’re such a little slut!” Bruce Clark screamed at his terrified fifteen year old daughter, Linda.
As he approached the trembling girl with his clenched fists, Linda’s Mother, Joannie, threw herself into his path.
“Bruce, you lay a hand on her and I’ll call the cops so fast you won’t have time to run,” she warned.
“The little slut needs an ass whipping. Fifteen and fucking pregnant? I can’t believe that you’re defending her.”
“I’m not a slut!” Linda cried out, “I’ve never even had sex before.”
“What kind of fool do you take me for, Linda? Your belly looks like a basketball and your mother says that you haven’t had your period in five months.”
“I should have never told you,” Joannie butted in, “I should have just taken Linda and moved away. I knew that you wouldn’t be able to support her.”
“Go ahead, take her and go live with her baby daddy. Maybe he can support you with a pizza delivery job.”
“I don’t have a baby daddy,” Linda screamed hysterically, “I swear that I’ve never been with a man before!”
“It’s true,” Joannie backed up her daughter’s claim. “The doctor said that her hymen is still intact.”
Bruce’s look of anger faded a little and it was replaced momentarily by a confused expression.
“What? How is that even possible?” he asked.
“The doctors don’t know. They want Linda to get some tests run. She swears she’s a virgin and I for one believe in her.”
Bruce was still angry and not a hundred percent ready to buy his wife’s explanation.
“So our daughter is the Virgin Mary, huh? This is such bullshit. How could she possibly be pregnant? Next thing you’re gonna tell me is that aliens knocked her up.”
“I don’t have any answers Bruce. There’s a round scar beneath Linda’s belly button that she noticed about six months ago. The doctors seem to be curious about it. Other than that we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Dr. Steinman, nice to see you again,” the young technician said as he welcomed the distinguished scientist back from his journey.
“How long was I gone?” Dr. Steinman asked.
“Two years, seventeen days, ten hours and thirty seven seconds. It’s amazing; you look exactly the same as the day you left.”
“That’s because although it was over two years to you, it was merely a few hours for me. Damn, I’ve got to iron out the glitches in this time traveling. I can’t lose two years every time I use it.”
“Glitches or no glitches, your machine is brilliant.” The young man was in awe of the aging scientist.
At that moment two armed men entered the room, effectively ending the conversation.
“Dr. Steinman, the board needs a debriefing, now. Please don’t say another word, sir,” the one guard ordered.
Steinman knew the drill. He smiled at the technician and then he followed the guards out of the room.
“Dr. Steinman, sir, I’m sorry that we had to treat you that way. You’re a great man and humanity owes you for its very existence. You should control the board, not answer to it,” the other guard stated, much to the disapproval of his gruff partner.
“We each have our purpose in life,” answered Steinman.
The two guards escorted the doctor into a room where he had previously been on numerous occasions. As usual, he sat alone at a large table. The armed men then departed, locking the door on their way out.
“Ah, Dr. Steinman,” a woman’s voice filled the empty room. “We were starting to worry that you might not return. We’ve always known that your mission would be successful, but we were unaware of what was to become of you.”
“You seem to have little faith in my abilities, even though I’m responsible for saving this planet. I’ve lived my entire life within the walls of this compound and I’ve worked my fingers to the bone for you. I’ve cured cancer, wiped out aids, developed weapons to deal with the global aggression, solved the energy crisis, perfected cloning, and I even developed a way to travel through time. I did all of this on the hopes that you would one day fulfill your promise to tell me about where I came from and who my family was.”
“And with the completion of your mission to the past, your time has come my good Doctor. It is time for you to know the truth.”
Dr. Steinman sat with a smile on his face. He had waited forty six years to find out about his lineage.
The woman began her story:
“In the late 1990’s, a scientific team led by the now defunct United States Government, made some astonishing advances in the field of cloning. They found that by using long dead skeletal remains they could in fact create an embryo of an individual.
The team went crazy trying to produce embryos of everyone from John Lennon to Abe Lincoln.”
“How did they get permission to do that?” Steinman asked, wondering who the two men were.
“They didn’t need permission. The United States government did whatever they wanted to.
Somewhere along the way, a young scientist came up with an ingenious idea. He wondered what the unlimited brain power of Albert Einstein would be able to accomplish with the technology of the modern world at his disposal. All they would have to do would be to find his remains, create an embryo, and plant it into a willing subject. This was eventually made a reality, and in 2005 a healthy baby boy was brought into this world. Unfortunately, it would take sixteen years before the boy was old enough to begin utilizing his potential. He grew up in the care of the U.S. government and he was never told about his upbringing.”
“So I’m this guy??” Dr. Steinman’s face turned white. Although he wasn’t familiar with the other two names, he had been taught everything about famous scientists.
“Oh, no, that was way before your time. I forgot that you aren’t aware of the current date. Anyway, the young boy was brilliant. He brought about advances in society and he proved that it was possible to recreate a genius.”
“What happened to the other ones like that Lincoln fellow?”
“Once the Einstein clone proved to be an asset, the others were exterminated.”
“So cruel,” Steinman shook his head.
The woman continued:
“At the age of thirty, the Einstein clone began to lose his memory. The other scientists wondered if it was a problem with the cloning process itself. They worked together as a team until Einstein could no longer function. Using the new updates, the government once again cloned the genius and implanted his embryo into another woman. The elder Einstein was then euthanized.”
“Oh my God! That is beyond unacceptable!”
“Calm down, Dr., there’s a lot more. In 2036, Einstein clone number two was born. At the same time the United States crumbled and what was once a proud empire became a land of turmoil and upheaval. Scientific and government agencies like ours went underground and sold their technology to the highest bidders. Nations like China and Brazil offered protection and statehood to some of the agencies. We are technically owned by China, although we are based in what was once Michigan.”
Steinman was lost when it came to history. He was never taught anything about it.
“You, Dr. Steinman, are Einstein clone number two,” the woman’s voice echoed throughout the room.
The Doctor couldn’t even respond. His mind had been blown.
“Your predecessor and his colleague ironed out some of the problems with the cloning process, allowing you to make it to your current age without slipping. Unfortunately your own research has taught us that you won’t make it too much longer before your mental condition deteriorates. We couldn’t afford to make the mistake that we made between version one and two, leaving such a giant gap in the years of productivity between the two Einstein incarnations, so we decided to use your time travel device to our advantage. When you impregnated the young girl with what was up until this very minute an unknown embryo, you created a situation where we would have access to a fully grown version of the scientist when the first one began to lose his mind, effectively wiping out that sixteen years of lost production. Also, unbeknownst to you, we have been cloning you in five year intervals for the past twenty years.”
“You’re insane! What happened to the girl? You told me that the future of the world depended upon me injecting her with the embryo and that she wouldn’t be in any danger. Did you take care of her? What about her family?”
“She was directed to a government medical clinic and she became a ward of the state. Her family mysteriously disappeared.”
“How did the scientists in that time know whose child she was carrying?”
“Don’t be naïve, Doctor. Just because you invented the time machine; don’t think that it hasn’t been used before. We just needed you to do the cloning process because you were the most qualified.”
“You’re all a bunch of sick bastards!”
Your oldest offspring is now educated and ready to take your place. Doctor, you have been a great asset to our society and this version of you will surely be missed.”
“You can’t be serious! This must be a joke?”
A light green gas began to flood the room as the scientist begged for a better explanation. In the matter of a few minutes his body was still and his heart was no longer beating. It was now time for young Dr. Steinberg to take the helm of the Ting Wa science department in what was once Detroit Michigan. Just another smart kid in a long list of Einsteins.
