Maria paused and looked thoughtfully at the room’s camera. IAN was getting more of a personality. She wasn’t sure if that was good or not.
“Come on. It’ll let Maria work without distraction. It will be fun.” Wolfgang’s teeth were slightly bared and his eyes were wide. This looked like anything but fun. Maria was caught between pitying Paul and being grateful it wasn’t her.
“You’re getting delusions of immortality,” Katrina said. “Right at the moment you’re not immortal.”
“I’m a clone. I am immortal,” he said, and laughed. He grabbed Paul’s shoulder in a viselike grip and pulled him toward the kitchen. “Paul, go and lift that food printer in there.”
“Hey, wait a minute! I just got this hooked up!” Maria said, stepping in front of the printer. “Go to the fitness room to do whatever testosterone war you’re about to start.”
Wolfgang turned his icy stare onto Maria, but she stood her ground.
“I’m serious,” she said.
“Come on,” Wolfgang said, and he led Paul from the kitchen. The doctor followed them.
“That crisis just took my drinking buddy,” Hiro complained. Then he blinked as if realizing something. “Hey, they didn’t invite me. Aren’t I testosteroned enough?”
Maria thought that Hiro feeling left out of a macho war was less alarming than his referring to Wolfgang as a “buddy.” We’re getting loopy without food.
“You are totally testosteroned, Hiro. You’re the testosteronedest,” she said. “Now let me work.” She focused back on the printer. She checked the calibrations and the memory and turned it on. “Meals and beverages for the whole crew, please.”
“Do you have to say please? Why be nice to these machines?” asked Katrina, still seated at the table.
“Habit,” Maria said. “I had a strict aunt.” She held her breath as the machine whirred to life and began clicking to itself.
“What do you think we should do with the other printer?” Hiro asked. “I think I might use it to set up a black-market café in my room. In fact, that sounds like a cool idea. Maria, tyrant of the kitchen, won’t let us have our sweets, so we all go to Hiro’s Speakeasy for dark chocolate made from the finest Lyfe that can be found on the ship.”
“A speakeasy that serves only hemlock? Be my guest,” Maria said.
“It’s a fucking carnival in here,” Katrina said, and tried to get to her feet. She staggered and sat back down.
Maria turned back to the printer, which was busy printing black coffee all over the interior of its chamber. She swore and went scrambling for a mug. When she had retrieved one, she caught the last of the coffee. She pulled out the mug as the printer got working on something else.
“Taste this,” she said to Hiro, handing it to him while she looked for a rag to mop up the coffee.
“Heck no, are you mad?” Hiro asked. “You taste it.”
Maria looked at him in surprise.
“Could be poisoned,” he said, shrugging.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, you know this printer just came out of the box!” She gulped the coffee down, scalding her tongue. It was black coffee all right.
The printer made beverages for all of them, and Maria brought Katrina her black coffee.
Katrina was staring at the table, tracing the metal designs with her finger. “I should kill her. The previous clone. This life is mine now.”
“Captain, the inability to murder someone on the ship is pretty far down the list of problems we have,” Hiro said mildly, gently pushing the coffee toward her. “It’s possible she’ll never wake up. It’s possible we could find out she did everything and we can punish her.”
The captain gave him a sharp look, and Hiro sat back in his chair as if stung. “Of course, that implies you killed us, and that you should be punished too, which I am not implying at all. You’re clearly delightfully innocent.”
“Captain, you will feel better after a meal and some sleep. I promise. Apparently Joanna says it’s scientifically proven,” Maria said.
“People need eggs at a time like this,” Hiro agreed.
A Missing Piece
I don’t get it, why are you picking on me?” Paul said nervously as they entered the gym.
“This is exercise. It’s bonding,” Wolfgang said.
“I’d think the captain would be a more appropriate sparring partner for you, Wolfgang,” Joanna suggested.
“She’s not someone I would ever spar with. Not with punches pulled,” he said. “Paul and I need to blow off steam.”
Like everywhere else on the ship, the gym was an excellent use of limited space: state of the art, a perfect room for weights, cardio, and stretching. In the middle of the gym were a number of obstacles with rings, poles for balance and jumping, and bars.
Joanna had heard Hiro had lobbied for a swimming pool, but had been denied.
Wolfgang unzipped his jumpsuit to his waist and slipped his arms out of it, revealing a black T-shirt and arms with long, wiry muscles. He motioned for Paul to do the same. Paul struggled out of his own jumpsuit with much less grace than Wolfgang. While Paul was, like all clones, a prime example of a fit young man, Joanna saw with distaste the telltale signs of the synth-amneo fluid caking in his elbow joints, indicating that he hadn’t showered yet. She suppressed a shudder.
“You’re going to follow me. I want to know what you’re capable of, since you’ve been essentially in a fetal position for the past day,” he said, then bounded off to the obstacles.
“You don’t have to do any of this,” Joanna said to Paul, but he didn’t respond. His face flushed and his fists balled up as he watched Wolfgang.
Joanna forgot her irritation briefly as Wolfgang swung easily from bar to bar, landed on a balance beam, and walked across with fluid beauty. He attacked every obstacle, from pulling tension strands out of the wall (the total weight estimation came up on a readout on the wall in both Earth and Luna gravities) to holding a handstand for three minutes.
Paul watched this silently, looking like a boiling pot of rage. He glanced at Joanna, and then went to the bars to follow Wolfgang’s example. He slipped from the bars twice, having to struggle to jump back up to get them, and then fell off the balance beam. His turn at the tension strands totaled less than half what Wolfgang could pull, and he couldn’t even kick his legs up to a handstand, much less hold one for three minutes.
It always amazed Joanna how muscle memory was retained through different cloning lives. While Paul was technically fit, he was no athlete like Wolfgang had apparently been in previous lives.
Wolfgang walked over to Paul and pulled him roughly to his feet. “That was pathetic. Next time will be better.” He motioned for Joanna. “Your turn, Doctor.”
Joanna quirked an eyebrow at him. “I’m not taking your challenge until I get some food in me.”
He shrugged. “Name the time.”
“Mr. Wolfgang? Dr. Glass? Mr. Seurat?” IAN asked.
“Yes, IAN. Are you not seeing your cameras here?” Joanna said.
“Not yet. Ms. Arena says that we finally have food.”