“Listen to me. Listen to me!”

The irritated clone had enough and grabbed the loud mouth clone by his turquoise uniform and gave him a hard slap in the face. “Who do you think you are?” said the irritated clone.

The loudmouth clone clenched his teeth in anger and tried to lunge at the other, but the other easily dodged the maneuver, resulting in him plunging down a dark chasm, which the vicinity was filled with for elevators.

“Damn fool,” said the living Morto clone, who was issued with the number M. Model 73.

As Morto walked, he began to feel weak. An indescribable type of feeling overwhelmed his body and mind. He felt as if he suddenly just needed to eat, drink, sleep—yet he knew he didn’t want to do any of that; he just wanted to keep going forward towards his destination. But the more Morto thought about getting to his destination, the more he began to realize that he had forgotten where he was going. A string if saliva dripped from his mouth and he caught it with his hand. Looking at his hand with the contents in it, the beach came to his mind. The damn beach…one in Morocco 6 before it got destroyed. He was holding his favorite co-pilot in the sand…she was such a beauty. Morto collapsed, and in doing so he fell through a glass sheeted floor. Without much of a sound, he dissolved through a series of exotic trees and plants that Laboratory 09 used to breed oxygen. Finally he impacted a large turquoise bush. Had a single branch not been in a certain position, Morto might have been able to get up unscathed; but as it were, Morto had a shoulder pushed out of place. The pain caused his eyes to well up, and as he squinted and rolled off the bush onto even surface, a streak of tears slid down his cheeks.

His jaw began to hurt because he was clenching his teeth together so hard, so he tried to relax as best he could…and adapt to the situation.

Above him the exotic trees wavered by an invisible breeze. He was almost put to sleep by their movements, and of course, by his pain.

A hand reached into his view and it came down and patted him gently on the face. He shifted his upturned body so he could see where the hand came from. Disappointment overwhelmed him as he discovered it wasn’t the attractive co-pilot he had once known so well.

“Parlez vous fracais? Non?”

Morto looked into a reflection of himself, except this reflection was wearing a funny looking turquoise uniform.

“Mald!” said M. Model 18 as he angrily stormed out of the view of Morto.

Morto didn’t feel like thinking about all that surrounded him and why. He decided to go to sleep.

“My friend you have had the immense fortune of falling into our company!”

Morto awoke to find himself in a medical room filled with at least forty of his clones, eagerly looking on.

“And you’re fortunate you’re a clone of me!” Morto tried to get to his feet but was gently pushed back down onto the medical bed, which was hard and unwelcoming.

“Git yer hands off me!” said Morto slapping the hands away and arising to get onto his feet.

Faces, faces, and plenty more faces smiled like giddy school children as they watched Morto give them cold stares.

“Dracu cloned you,” said Morto, strolling around them all like a Roman general prepping his army into battle, “So aren’t you supposed to be evil and try to kill me…or is this some type of ploy?” He grabbed a bystander, but the clone simply smiled, almost dreamily.

Morto rubbed a hand over his face wearily and started to walk towards the exit of the room.

“Great…my clones are damn dunces.”

After he left the room he sat down on some rubble, and tried moving his shoulder: it worked fine.

“Wait…that would mean…” He turned back to the clone mass, which stared back through the door.

“That there is someone intelligent out there?”

He turned to the voice, which happened to be surprisingly right in front of him. He knew that, if he ever survived any more years to come, he would never get used to having himself talk to himself, man-to-man, literally.

Suddenly that odd feeling came over him again, and he began to slump forward in unconsciousness.

“Easy there,” said M. Model 73, catching Morto before he bit the dust on the hard metal floor. “You’re just suffering from some side-effects. Formula 405 isn’t exactly the most kosher of stuff, especially after you’ve been submerged in it as long as you have.”

“And…” said Morto, trying to widen his eyes to keep them open. “How long have I been in it?”

“At least,” said M. Model 73 cocking his head back to the side a little. “At least…”

Suddenly there was a burst of fire that enveloped out of the floor. M. Model 73 got his face burned and grabbed his eyes. He took his hands from his face, but the only thing Morto could still see was a smoking, bubbling residue of flesh. “Ahh!” said Morto, jumping backwards.

M. Model 73 looked sternly at Morto shivering on the ground trying to crawl away. “I was going to say that at least you’re not suffering from paranoia and delirium.”

Morto looked back and was relieved to see the clone was ok. “Answer my question.”

“I can’t break it to you gently.”

“Than don’t.”

“Ok,” said M. Model 73 as he reached over and helped Morto into sitting position once again. “You’ve been contained, tested, and studied for over four years now.”

“So I’m four years older now?”

“Technically, but not physically…really your mind hasn’t even aged either. Consider yourself transported just a little bit in the future.”

Morto rubbed his arm and smiled. “Now I’m surprised our cause has lasted this much longer. I would think that by now even Rex’s regime would be exhausted.”

“The fight continues.”

“And why do you? How the and why the hell are you here?”

Morto rubbed his temples; he knew that he might as well sort the damn thing out—anything to help him sleep at night.

“We were developed as a tool for infiltration against the human lines.”

“Tell me, why are you here talkin to me why the rest are over there drooling.”

The other clones let out an uproar of laughter.

As Morto and M. Model 73 impatiently waited for the noise to subside, they continued.

“That is because they are earlier models. As each model was developed from the start, a new characteristic of you was established: appearance, gestures, emotions, etcetera all had to be individually developed to fit the perception of your character.”

“Was I ever awake during…any of that shit?”

“Well yes, sometimes. But they afterwards wiped your memory of it.”

A dark cloud enveloped over Morto’s mind. His...family. Who the hell were they? His childhood…what was in it?

“And I believe…” continued M. Model 73, “that by wiping your memory in some areas, they may have wiped other segments.”

Morto sniffed the air and lay on his back with his arms folded behind his head. “And again I’m screwed over by the machine.”

He realized that being completely angry at Dracu was futile. In any time there’s a bastard that abuses his power, and makes others suffer for that reason. Kind of like…Morto tried to think back to whence he had looked at some old history documents from the far past. Kind of like…Dammit! He knew he couldn’t place a name, and at this point he was pissed off at Dracu.

“You got a cigar or something?” asked Morto with his eyes closed, trying to enter a relaxed stupor.

A loud, irritating, noise started to ensue the quiet, mysterious atmosphere that made up the complex.

“What the shit is that?” said Morto, raising a heavy eyelid.

“Those damn fools…” said M. Model 73 under his breath.

Morto slowly got to his feet and started to shuffle towards the source of the noise.

“They call that fricken music?”

At this point, when he got to the group of clones that had managed to turn on a cyber music device, he was too frustrated to talk with them. A smiling, blunt even tried to go so far as to shuffle to the music in a type of dance. Morto knocked him out with a tightly clenched fist, then went ahead destroying the music device by means of hard stomps and kicks. After this was done, his weariness demanded that he get rest. He shrugged off his body’s demand, and went back to where M. Model 73 stood in obvious satisfaction.

“I have a question for you,” said Morto, finding a nice piece of torn metal to sit on. “Where have you been while I’ve been incarcerated?”

“Well, after I was developed, they kept me watched. Basically, after anyone of us was created and thoroughly examined with tests and what not, we were allowed to walk around the premises and screw around, while under close supervision by 5.1 Guards. They seemed to not want to get rid of anything, in fear of the possibility of needing to make more check-ups.”

“The things you know…” Morto coughed. “Are they things that I know?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know my past?”

“…Yeah.”

“Ha,” Morto passed a hand through his hair. “So my clone knows my past but I don’t…great.”

Morto looked up quickly, suddenly a little alarmed. “You know everything?”

The latter nodded his head, seemingly abashed.

“Just remind me to ask you some crazy stories.” He put his head in his hands and became quiet.

Brrrrrraaaa!

Eyes became coolly alert, the grip on the rifle tightened: Morto rose. Brrrrrrraaaaa!!

M. Model 73: “What the hell are they doing?”

Morto walked forward: Service Dogs, meaning human loyalist to the robots, were open firing heavily into the masses of the clones. Service Dogs…Morto gritted his teeth… the things they would do to ordinary civilians.

A Service Dog took a break from his massacre and looked to see Morto coming towards him.

Morto: “What’s the reason for this?” He was cold; he wouldn’t let any emotion come out, not for these people.

“By order of Dracu!” said the Service Dog, raising his gun to Morto.

Morto leveled the loyalist with his rifle.

The others also began to see Morto, and directed their weapons towards him.

Morto snagged a grenade from the man he had laid to rest and quickly uncorked it and spun it under their feet. This did it, and now the whole damn thing was coming down, stop all the violence now was the message, and Morto wished he could follow that more.

In his earlier days, he actually was what many would call, using the ancient word, ‘hippie’. He hated bloodshed. He hated the hell out of it. Suddenly now he was killing.

He knew that many would never second think killing, because they were immune to it, or they thought they were: watching their entertainment sets, playing their entertainment consoles. It was all the same…He grew up in America, and the damn nation loved violence, lived off of it, amused themselves in every aspect of its condition. If those bastards had spent a day in this future…he knew they probably wouldn’t change much, but maybe. He knew that at least for himself after he learned what violence…and war…really held, he was a different man. Truly ignorance is bliss, but Morto hated being ignorant…especially since he was Finnish. He was Swedish also, and that breed had no room for false notes.

And so Morto had ridden the area of the Service Dogs in the back area of Laboratory 09, that held the infirmary that he woke up in, that had a flat cement way for vehicles and transportation routes, and that now held more corpses.

“Look at them,” said M. Model 73, as a gentle breeze from an unknown zone made gentle ripples through his hair. He was looking down at the slaughtered clones, the ones that looked just like him, that looked just like Morto.

Morto wiped his brow and walked over, slowly picking up more ammo on the way, slowly pulling the rifle back across his shoulder.

Something in the bodies caught his eye, and he suddenly realized the ‘clones’ weren’t as human as they first appeared.

“They’re robots too,” said Morto, crouching down and putting a finger on one of the torn body’s metallic skeletal structure that showed itself, drenched in an artificial formula that represented itself as blood.

“Machines can only build machines,” said M. Model 73, “that has never changed, despite the technology.”

“So you’re a robot,” Morto’s other hand tweaked a pistol he had gotten from a fallen Service Dog. But the impulse to eliminate more, whether it be bionic or not, seemed to fade from his soul. He just wanted peace now. He just wanted…peace.

“You can if you want,” M. Model 73 said, crouching down next to Morto. “I won’t feel a thing.”

“Yeah, but I will.”

His mind seemed like it changed; everything changed. He got up, took the rifle, pistol from his person, and threw them as far away from him as possible. He started walking, and walking, and he continued until he got to the outside door of the oxygen farm that he had fallen into. He looked at all the plants, trees, earthen beauty. Almost repulsively, he unattached three grenades from his belt.

“Copy!” yelled Morto to M. Model 73, who was rather far away, watching the whole thing.

“Copy! Start heading back! Get the hell out of here! Run!”

M. Model 73 didn’t argue. His footsteps echoed in Morto’s mind as he uncorked all three grenades, and threw them into the oxygen farm.

They were thrown far back into the abyss of greenery, their delayed detonation time aided in them getting farther away, particular when they began to roll down an artificial hill, that was used to grow materials on separate elevations. Then, finally they detonated. The oxygen absorbed the flame from the explosions, and seemed to fan its desires into the flame so severely, that soon the entire room, with all the plants and trees, turned into the fire. That room, that farmed oxygen, seemed to suddenly come alive…and the air it breathed was fire.

Morto could feel the heat intensify with every passing second. He began to love the heat, and he escaped in its world…let it control him. He raised his arms out to his sides, let his palms face the heat and sweat. He put his head back, closed his eyes, and let the sensation take him. What happened next shattered his ecstasy, and when it was all over, he still wasn’t fully recovered from denying his bliss so fully.

M. Model 73 had got a hold of a Hydro Vehicle, a two seated humvee that moved on wheels and had a turret on the back, left behind no doubt by the Service Dogs. M. Model 73 drove by and seized Morto, throwing him in the passenger seat, right as the flames would have engulfed him.

As they sped out of the complex of Laboratory 09, the whole place was becoming riddled with explosions, some only small, others enormous, but everywhere.

Morto caught a glimpse of all the bodies Rex was talking about; there were plenty of them heaped outside the building. His eyes weren’t just tearing up now out of reflex and what not, his eyes were tearing because he had to go through it again, live it out, let it surround him in all its hatred and violence. He was going to have to continue.

It was dark now, and M. Model 73 pulled up in front of a heaping pile of smoking trees.

The air was alive with the things of the world trying to destroy. There was man versus machine, man versus man, and of course, even now in that parked humvee, man verses himself.

Morto hadn’t said a word the whole way as M. Model 73 drove through mine fields, turret grounds, and infantry and robot search-and-destroy parties. His eyes were glazed over with nothing artificial, it was something pure, innocent, simple, God made: emotion. He looked down at his hands; tears had fallen on the palms.

“I’m tired, Copy... I’m so…tired.”

“We all get tired.”

Morto looked at M. Model 73.

“You don’t.”

He got out of the vehicle, and laid himself down on the smoldering earth. Fumes encroached his nostrils, filled his lungs, but he used this as some sort of drug…to rock him into a coma. He held his arms tight, let his feet scrape at the dirt as he tried to maneuver into a position that could suit his needs. But he knew that the true reason why he couldn’t sleep lay not in the position that his body was in, but what position his mind was in. His mind had been full of nonsense, of self-desire, greed, lust, anger…but now it didn’t matter.

M. Model 73 closed the vehicle door. He sat upright and watched out the front of the windshield. Nothing could be seen, and if even he did see something, so what? His human was on the frits, downcast, immobile. He wished for action now, yet he also wanted peace. He just needed to know there was a plan.

Outside not a bird chirped, not a cricket: things just blew up...and made noise.

Morto cupped his ears and tried to rock himself to sleep.

The morning was madness. M. Model 73 had to ditch the car, grab Morto, who was drowsy and unresponsive, and run for the Smoke Hills. This was so because as M. Model 73 had awoken that morning, he had leisurely glanced outside the left side window. Outside the window, he saw a very large rocket headed his direction. He started the car, had it gently pushed forward with a little acceleration, and saw the missile slightly wavered. This proved it was a homing missile, which M. Model 73 was positively sure of. How he knew that information didn’t excite enough attention to thwart his focus. The missile wasn’t going to stop, and M. Model 73 knew he didn’t have enough smooth clearing to out run it, or enough obstacles around him to cause a pre-detonation. For this reason, M. Model 73 was now dragging Morto haplessly along through charred, silty earth towards the Smoke Hills, which were ancient cities, now laid to ruins.

M. Model 73 took one last glace at the humvee before it was incinerated. Interestingly enough, he had actually enjoyed driving his new commodity. But now…he shrugged Morto along…now they had to find some real shelter. We? He sure hoped there still was a ‘we’, because as of now he was making all the decisions. What was wrong with th