Vera Searles lives in St. Petersburg, Florida. She had sold over three hundred short stories to print and webzines, including Prometheus Unhinged Anthology, Aberrant Dreams, The Taj Mahal Review, and Panic Anthology. She recently completed a fantasy novel.

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     In the year twenty sixty-one, the twenty-five presidents stood at twenty-five podiums, fielding questions from the press. They looked identical. The reporters were told there were twenty-four clones and one was the real President Allen.
     Clark Villers of the Post shook his head in disbelief. It was impossible. But there they were. Since Cybertech Systems had perfected the nanotech replicator, both the King of England and the president of Russia had been cloned for security purposes. And most of the movie colony were being cloned several times over. It eliminated the need for stand-ins. Broadway shows were starting to use this technique so they could increase their performance schedule. For show business it worked well. But this was the President of the United States, not someone doing a movie. And why twenty-five? Why not fourteen or twelve or six? Clark raised his hand.
     "Yes, Mr. Villers?" one of the twenty-five asked. He sounded similar to, but not exactly like, President Allen. Clark had an excellent ear for voices, and that was not the President.
     Clark looked across the sea of cloned faces. "Mr. President? Will we be told which of you is the real President Allen?"
     All twenty-five smiled in unison. One replied, "Mr. Villers, wouldn't that defeat our purpose? The terrorist network has plans to take me hostage. Rather than cancel my normal schedule, I'm now available to make speeches and appearances as planned. We don't trust anyone. There are spies in the Global Intelligence Agency, the National Security Administration, and the Pentagon. Even you, Mr. Villers, might be a spy." All twenty-five nodded, and smiled again. "Next question?"
     Clark sat down. It was like watching an old Twilight Zone movie. He made notes into his mobicom: Prez paranoid. Thinks old terrorist network is out to get him. Research if anything left of them after we wiped them out in twenty forty-two. Also, something not right about the voice of the clones.
     Clark vividly remembered the president's voice, especially in last fall's debates with Jessica Kendall. For a brief moment, the lovely face and throaty voice of Jessica Kendall crept into Clark' s mind. She was president before Donald Allen, who defeated her in the last election. Clark and Jessica had been an item back in their college days. Her driving ambition and need to excel at first attracted him, but after he knew her better, he realized it was an obsession with her, and it turned him off. They drifted apart after graduation and each married someone else, but their paths crossed again when Clark was assigned to the White House press by his newspaper. They remained on professional terms only. Clark was fifty, long divorced, and Jessica' s husband had left her years ago. She was now CEO of Cybertech Systems, where she once worked before becoming president.
     Clark looked up as Gabe Frankovich of NewsNow TV stood. He asked, "Mr. President -- or whoever you all are -- how do we know that one of you is the real thing? Maybe the real President Allen has been kidnapped and secreted away in a bunker in Montana or Alaska. And what about the expense to the taxpayers? Are all of you entitled to the perks, such as flights in Air Force One---" He was interrupted by a gunshot. Gabe Frankovich fell to the floor. Two secret service agents dragged him away.
     "Spy," all twenty-five presidents said in unison.

#

     The bar was crowded and noisy. Everyone's mobicom was tuned to the news and they all watched the scene over and over. The shot rang throughout the bar again and again.
     Clark saw Jason Muller of AP motion to him from a small table in the corner. They ordered beer and waited till the waitress brought it before they spoke.
     "Weird day, huh?" Jason asked. "Do your copy yet?"
     Clark nodded. "Commed it in. But my editor thought it was overly dramatic and took out the part about President Allen being paranoid. You?"
     "I've learned to file a straight report without any speculation on the mental condition of our president or about the murder of a fellow reporter."
     "Odd word, murder," Clark said. "I thought what we saw was the execution of a spy."
     Jason took a sip of beer. "Gabe was only a kid, just getting a foot up the ladder. I didn't know him well, but I know he was no spy. You know it too, from the skeptical look on your face." Jason sighed, shook his head. "Wouldn't you like to know the real reason they totaled him?"
     "Probably something in the questions he asked," Clark speculated.
     "About the perks? I doubt it."
     "No, what he said about one of them being the real thing."
     Jason said, "The kid was probably only guessing, just making copy. If he had any evidence, he'd have brought it out instead of veering off about taxpayers. But he may have pushed somebody's button without knowing it."
     They sat without speaking for a few minutes longer, drinking their beer, listening to the buzz of voices and bar noises. Finally Jason drained his glass and said, " I know someone who can help us to find the answer. Want to do this with me?"
     Clark nodded, and they rose to leave together.
     They went in Jason's car. "Anybody waiting for you at home?" he asked Clark.
     "No. I'm alone since the divorce. My daughter is away at college. You?"
     Jason grinned as he adjusted the rear view mirror. "Cockatiel. My neighbor looks in if I'm away."
     Clark watched the lights of the Capitol Building disappear behind them. "Where are we off to?"
     "Know any good hackers?" Jason asked.
     "No, but I assume you do."
     Jason nodded. "The best. We have a two hour drive to get there, but it's worth it."
     "And your hacker? You can trust him?"
     "Her," Jason corrected. "She's my mother."

#

     They arrived at the Muller farm a little before midnight. Jason's mother looked about sixty, was skinny as a pencil, and wore jeans and a red flannel shirt. "Mom, this is Clark Villers of the Post."
     "Hey, Clark. Name's Gretchen." Her handshake was firm. She moved quickly to the wood stove in the corner, picked up an old fashioned percolator, and poured three steaming mugs of coffee. "Well, guys, what did you think of that fiasco today?" While she spoke she shoved aside some tech journals to make room on the table.
     Clark said, "I suspect President Allen is paranoid. There hasn't been any terrorist activity for the past twenty years, since the final arrests in twenty forty-two."
     Gretchen wrapped her bony fingers around her mug. "I don't think it has anything to do with the old terrorist network. I think Gabe Frankovich was outted for some other reason. And -- are we sure he's dead? Did you take his pulse?" She looked from Clark to Jason.
     "Come to think of it," Jason said, "I didn't see any blood."
     Gretchen nodded and drank some coffee. It was red hot. Clark could hardly sip his. "None of those clones is the real President Allen," she said. "I' m going in to the White House master computer tonight. My theory is persons unknown kidnapped President Allen, took his DNA to synth a clone, and it took them twenty or more before the replicator got it close enough. It takes a little smarts to program the algorithms of a high-speed nanotech system, and I doubt they have anyone who's trained for it. All of the twenty-five presidents are defective, you know, if you know what to look for. Come on, I' ll show you what I mean."
     Gretchen led the way to a basement stairway and switched on the light. They descended into what appeared to be a normal basement, with a furnace, washer, dryer, and workbench. Behind the furnace, Gretchen tapped a code into her remote control device, and the back wall of the basement swiveled smoothly and silently to reveal an electronic paradise. It was crammed full of all shapes and sizes of computers, monitors, scanners, audio and video equipment, and many gadgets Clark had never seen before.
     Jason smiled as his mother sat down at the dazzling array of lights, keyboards, screens and switches. "She's a nanotech engineer," he explained. "Retired from Cybertech a year ago."
     "And bought this farm so I could set up my playroom," Gretchen said as a large wall monitor slid into position above them. On the screen was the still photo of the twenty-five presidents. "Start at the left end," she said, zooming in on the first president. "See how he's just a smidge taller? Number two has slightly darker hair, and number three has a deeper cleft to his chin." She continued through all twenty-five clones, pointing out their differences. When she finished, she looked at Clark and asked, "Now, if your life depended on it, which one would you swear is the real President Allen?"
     Clark shook his head. "But why would a replicator keep spitting out so many clones? And then why weren't they just set aside? Why put them all out there on display?"
     Gretchen shrugged. "They could have easily been dismantled and the parts cryosynced for future use," she said.
     "Dismantled?" Clark asked. "Aren't clones living, breathing, humans? How can they be dismantled?"
     Gretchen smiled. "You don't know much about nanotech replicator systems, do you? Today's clones are manufactured humans, their DNA genetically mutated so what they do and how they act depends on the original programming of their implanted network. Their neurohumors are in continual transition and can be manipulated at any time by remotely altering the synthetic DNA."
     "Sounds like they're more robot than human," Clark said.
     "Not at all," Gretchen disagreed. "They're a step forward in the genetic manipulation of human DNA Whoever is at work here probably doesn't know how to program the remote dismantling unit. Or, keeping them all may be part of the strategy." She went to another keyboard. In her roller chair, she slid across the floor, playing keyboards like an organist. After a few minutes, she smiled again. "I' m in. Now to decode. Sit down, guys, this may take a minute or two."
     They found chairs and Clark watched the large monitor fill with strange symbols and digits. "Is all this safe?" he asked. "I mean, can't somebody trace what she's doing?"
     Jason shook his head. "She has everything cross hatched and bugged with false info that dematerializes itself. Remember the ancient automatic virus delete system? It's similar to that."
     Fascinated, Clark watched the symbols and digits give way to words. On the screen he read: Searched Frankovich apartment. Nothing. Family denies knowledge. Note: Work on President' s voice. Go over recent speeches for correct inflections.
     Clark snapped his fingers. "That's right, his voice. I noticed it sounded all wrong. You're right, Gretchen, none of them is the real president Allen. Otherwise, why would they have to go back over his speeches?"
     She nodded. "Tech for the voice is real complicated. Back in the days when we cloned by DNA there was no distortion. But that process was slow. It took forty-eight hours for the DNA to materialize into a fully cloned individual. With the high-speed replicator and synth DNA it only takes a few hours. But the drawback is in the programming. It's like fine tuning an instrument. It depends on the tuner' s ability. There are only a few of us who ever trained for it. Apparently they have no one competent enough to program the duplicating voice system correctly."
     "But who is they?" asked Jason.
     Gretchen rolled to a smaller monitor. "All the security messages are signed D.A." She uploaded the president's photograph. "Nicer looking than those stupid clones," she said. "Widower, isn't he?"
     "D.A.? Donald Allen?" Jason asked. "A missing or maybe dead president is sending messages to those who kidnapped him? Mom, you've been watching too many Alien Files movies on TV."
     Clark frowned. "Or maybe he's alive, or someone is trying to create the impression that he is."
     Gretchen sighed. "Well, whoever they are, they've shut down for the night. I guess we better do the same. Let's go to bed." She programmed the system to close and the room swiveled back into its hiding place behind the furnace.

#

     Clark woke to the smell of coffee perking. He and Jason had slept in the small bedroom off the kitchen. Clark smiled. What a contradiction Gretchen was, with her old-fashioned coffeepot and her ultra mod nanotech computer room. He looked over at the other bed. It was empty. Jason was already up.
     Clark went into the kitchen where the coffeepot was still perking. It was probably mud by now. He pulled it from the heat and called, "Jason, where are you? Want some coffee?"
     He heard the sound of footsteps running up the basement steps. Jason's face was white as he burst into the room. "She's gone, Clark. Mom's gone!"
     It took Clark a moment to comprehend. "Gone? Where? She can't be far. She put the coffee on."
     Jason shook his head. "No, that was me. Then I went upstairs to her bedroom to wake her. The bed was rumpled, but she wasn't there. I went outside to her tool shed and the back garden. No sign of her. I finally went downstairs to the computer room, but nothing was touched since we left last night."
     "Maybe she went to a neighbor, or to the store?"
     Jason kept shaking his head. "No. Her car's still outside and the nearest neighbor is over a mile away. She's gone. I have a feeling she's been kidnapped."
     "Oh, come on. We didn't hear anything. She must be here somewhere."
     Jason sank down into a chair, looking like he had been punched in the gut. "No. She's gone." He stared up at Clark, bewildered, helpless.
     "Well, if you're sure, I'll call it in..."
     At that moment, the mobicom beeped. The two men looked at each other as Jason grabbed it, roll dialed the receptor button. A still photo of Gretchen appeared on the screen. "Mom!" Jason said. "Where are you?"
     Her voice, strained and passive, came over the audio: "Jason and Clark, I'm all right. Don't go to the police or the media. If you interfere in any way, I'll be killed. My life depends on your silence."
     The screen went blank and the audio silent.
     Jason gaped at it, his mouth open. "Mom? Oh, my God!"

#

     Clark made a quick breakfast, but Jason only picked at it. He seemed in a daze of disbelief. Clark said, "Jason, don't worry about your mom. She's a smart apple. She'll use her wits to get away from them."
     Jason's stupor suddenly turned to anger. "Them! Who is them, Clark? We don't know who has her or why. Sure she's smart, but you saw the size of her. Against a thug she has no more power than this spoon." He picked it up and slammed it to the table. When it clattered to the floor, he stared down at it, then up at Clark. "I'm sorry. I'm all on edge. I feel so damn frustrated."
     Clark nodded. "I understand. We need to figure this out. Let's go downstairs and see if there are any clues on the computer. Gretchen said she had been working on the whereabouts of President Allen. We' ll start there and keep at it until we find a connection to her disappearance. I'm almost certain that the president's voice is why they took her, to force her to re-program the replicator voice mechanism But like you said, who is they?"
     "And how can we find her? They've probably got her locked away in a secret hideout. Even if we knew where she is, we can't notify anyone -- they'll kill her if we do."
     Clark nodded. "I know. But let's give it a try. She may have left a clue..."
     He was interrupted by his mobicom. It was his editor. "There's another press conference today at three at the White House. Be there."

#

     After spending two hours in Gretchen's computer files, they came up with nothing that would help find her. During the search, Clark came across the schematics for the various stages of the nanotech replicator, and downloaded it into his mobicom. If Gretchen understood all this, she was really a genius. No wonder someone had needed her to figure out the voice problem.
     On their drive back to D. C., Clark took the wheel. He and Jason kept their mobicoms tuned to the major networks. One of the cloned presidents was being interviewed. The newsman asked, "Mr. President, how do you feel about the young reporter's affiliation to the terrorists?"
     "Just awful," was the answer. "The evidence that he was working as a spy for them was shocking."
     The voice was still off. Clark switched to pause, replay, and listened again to be sure. He could hear the difference. The voice hadn't been fixed yet to match President Allen's. Gretchen had had about eight hours to correct the problem. Clark didn't know how long it took to program a nanotech replicator -- maybe minutes, maybe days. And when she fixed it, would they release her, or---?
     He switched to another station. Another cloned president was being interviewed. But as soon as the clone spoke, Clark knew the voice hadn't been redone. Where were they holding Gretchen? And what could he and Jason do to find her?
     As the cloned president answered a question, he put his hand to his right eye and rubbed. The eye fell out and rolled across the floor. The camera caught the look of horror on the reporter' s face, then switched to the eye as it came to a stop beneath a chair. The screen went blank and a commercial came on.
     "What the hell was that?" Clark asked as he pulled into the press entry area of the White House.
     For the first time in hours, Jason smiled. "I have a feeling that was Mom, dismantling the clones. She has all the programming in her head, and if they've got her on a nanotech system to fix the voice, she'd be able to do anything she wants before they know it."
     Clark shook his head. "But it might have been something else."
     "Like what?" asked Jason. "An eye falling out of a clone's face is my mother's type of horseplay She's got the devil in her, and right now she's gloating She' ll do just enough to make it weird before they know what's happening."
     "Or -- maybe it's like a message that she's okay, not in danger," said Clark.
     He slid their press cards into the gatecom and parked the car. The moment he shut off the motor, two men in gray trenchcoats and slouch hats approached, one on each side, and opened their doors. "Step out, please, and come with us."
     "We're press," Clark protested.
     "We know who you are." The man opened his coat just enough for Clark to see the snub-nosed revolver he had jammed into his belt. "Come along, Mr. Villers."
     "What's this all about?" Clark asked, but received only a silent stare for an answer.

#

     Clark and Jason were led across the White House lawn into a side door and taken on an elevator to a wing on the second floor. Clark recognized it as the Jessica Kendall wing, named for the second female president, who held office from 2056 to 2060. Clark wondered if Gretchen knew Jessica from Cybertech, if their paths had crossed between Gretchen's retirement and the start of Jessica's term there as CEO.
     Clark and Jason were taken into a large sitting room with a portrait of Jessica Kendall over the fireplace. The portrait stirred pangs of remembrance in Clark's mind. Seated in the room were four cloned presidents, each wearing an eye-patch on one side of his face. The two guards made Clark and Jason remove everything from their pockets, and locked it all in a desk drawer.
     Clark heard his own startled intake of breath as Jessica Kendall walked into the room. It was a shock to learn she was involved in this. She was still beautiful, and wore her blonde hair braided into a chignon at the nape of her creamy neck. She glanced briefly at Clark, then went over to Jason. She pointed at the eye-patched clones. "Your mother did this I want to know where she is."
     Jason darted a questioning look at Clark, then replied, "I don't know. She disappeared this morning. We got a message from her not to report it."
     Jessica nodded. "I know that. Anyone familiar with nanotech media could have easily faked that message, and your mother is the maven of nanotech. Now let me rephrase the question. Where is she?"
          Jason looked helplessly at Clark, then back at Jessica. "I don't know. I wish I did."
     "He really doesn't, Madame President," Clark said. He couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice when he called her that. He went on, " Gretchen was missing when we got up this morning."
     "Missing?"
     "Yes. As in kidnapped."
     Jessica's beautiful face remained impassive. Only her blue-shadowed eyes moved from Clark to Jason and back again. Then she fingered the small device that she wore on her wrist. Gabe Frankovich came into the room.
     "My God, he's still alive!" Jason blurted
     "No," Clark said. Instinctively he knew. Gabe must have had some knowledge of what Jessica was doing, and she had him killed. "That's a clone."
     "You're right," said Jessica. "I brought him in to show you I'm not altogether unskilled in nanotech." She turned to the clone. " Gabe, the old lady is probably holed up with Donald in one of his safe houses. Put the word out that I want them both."
     Gabe Frankovich's clone nodded and left.
     Jessica sat down and motioned to Clark and Jason to do the same. As she sank back into the luxury of the chair and crossed her shapely knees, Clark felt the stirring of long dead desire. But it lasted only a moment. When he spoke, his voice was steady. "What's this all about, Jess?"
     She gave him a Cheshire smile and replied, "Lots of things, Clark. But mostly, nano power. When I turned the office of the presidency over to Donald, I informed him of the plans I had implemented to nano-invade China, Russia, and India, by assassinating their leaders and installing clones in their place. By programming the clones we could easily control those countries. I explained to Donald that it was the only way to get the United States back on top again, and that I had reactivated the old terrorist network in Malasia and Rio to do the assassinations."
     She studied her fingernails. "I thought I'd be reelected. I had everything in place, all set to go. So when Donald came in, I thought he' d go along with my perfect plan to take the United States back to top world power. But he refused. Said it was demonic. But I'm going to do it anyway. It will restore the U.S. to the most powerful nation on earth."
     "And what will you get out of it, Jess?" Clark asked.
     She leveled her eyes at him, smiled, and slowly replied, "Why Clark, I thought you'd see right away. I'll be the most powerful woman in the world." Her tone changed as she stared at Jason. " I already would be, if it wasn't for his mother -- that interfering bitch!"
     She fumbled with her wristband and the two trench-coated guards reappeared. "Send a mobi-message to her ecode," she told them. "Tell her I've got her son. If she doesn't stop removing the eyes from the president's clones, I'll have to use his eyes as a replacement. Tell her she has twenty-four hours. As the old saying goes, an eye for an eye." She turned her gaze to Clark. " Is that clear, Mr. Villers?"
     When he didn't answer she smiled and rose from the chair "I'll leave you in the care of my two excellent sharpshooters here." She motioned to the guards, and then left.

#

     The guards sat quietly, their eyes never leaving Clark and Jason.
     "Do you think we could rush them?" whispered Jason.
     Clark shook his head. "Unless they're distracted, we wouldn't stand a chance in hell. Just try to relax, Jason"
     "Relax? When she said she'd take my eyes out? You know her well, Clark. Would she actually do it?"
     Clark considered for a moment. Jessica Kendall was obsessed with power, with getting her own way. She had had Gabe Frankovich killed because of something he knew, probably that she was going to assassinate the foreign leaders. "She might," he replied. "To prove a point. You're the son of the woman who's standing in her way."
     Jason asked, "Do you think Mom is really with President Allen?"
     Clark nodded. "I think he and some of his staff came for her last night. She put out the phony mobi-message to throw Jessica off; she knew Jessica was monitoring everything President Allen did. They no doubt went back to Cybertech to manipulate the clones."
     "I wish we could get into that desk for our mobicoms," Jason said, shifting his feet restlessly. "We have to do something! We can't just sit here! Suppose Jessica finds them? She'll kill them both!"
     The near-hysteria in Jason's voice gave Clark an idea. He asked, "Are you a good actor? Can you fake something -- heart attack, seizure, something like that?"
     Jason's face brightened. "Sure," he whispered. "What's your plan?"
     "Pretend pain, spasms. I'll try to persuade them you need your meds that are locked in the desk with your belongings. While they're opening the desk, we'll rush them."
     "Right." Jason nodded.
     He started to clutch at his chest when they heard a rumble in the hallway. "Wait," Clark whispered, his well-trained ear detecting a woman's familiar voice.
     The door flew open and a dozen cloned presidents rushed in, followed by Gretchen and the real President Allen, followed by another group of clones surrounding Jessica Kendall.
     "Mom!" Jason went over and hugged her. "Are you okay?"
     She nodded, then directed the cloned presidents to grab the trench coated guards. She said, " Sorry I had to scare you into thinking I was kidnapped, but we had to keep Jessica in the dark. I needed time to reprogram the clones to get them under my command. Donald wasn' t kidnapped, either. His DNA is kept on file, for security purposes, and Jessica knew how to obtain it. Donald was in conference with our allies, to alert them to Jessica's scheme. Then he came for me, to reprogram the clones."
     Clark pointed at Jessica Kendall. "What will happen to her?" he asked.
     "That's up to the National Security Administration and the Justice Department," Gretchen replied.
     Clark smiled sadly at Jessica. "You had it all, and threw it away."
     "I'm not done yet," she said. "The courts will understand that I was doing it for my country."
     Clark shook his head. If he knew Jessica, she might just persuade them that was true.
     Jason asked, "Mom, what's going to become of the twenty-five presidents? It will make a good story for my paper."
     "I'm going to alter their appearances, and Donald is giving them jobs on the White House staff." She linked her arm through the president's. " It may take me some time to reprogram them into their new looks, so I won't be home tonight."
     Gretchen winked as she and President Allen walked out together.

© 2006 Vera Searles