Humanity, Afresh

As soon as he reached the 20th floor, the elevator opened to the quietest arena of the entire building. There were people, well-dressed, perfect-bodied, mechanically functioning on some superior power’s instructions. It was in desperate need of a restart. He walked forward to the reception desk. 

A woman, draped in white overalls, smiled at him. “Welcome to Curestus. How may I help you?” Her almost-automated voice and perfectly set teeth made it clear that she was one of them. Within exactly 5 minutes, he was instructed to enter one of the rooms with a glass door. 

Glendale Bjorkich was seated on his ivory chair- a balding, obese man in his 50s, suffering from acute asthma. This was the biggest sign that he was not one of them. How could he be! He ran the whole Curestus. At one corner of the hall was his secretary, Miss Molly. Her quick side glances didn’t escape his eyes, and that’s what made her so real.

Glendale almost brushed him off. That was an assurance that even such a cunning man could not identify the difference. “Rupert, I assume you survived the bullets! What brings you back now?” 

“The same Mr Bjorkich, whatever proposal I had in mind before.” 

“You don’t seem to deviate from your path of morality, huh! All those speeches about humanity and its rapid decline- how does that help?" Grumbled Bjorkich.

“This time I will show.”

“I’ll show you a bullet?” Bjorkich hissed. 

“Try me”, he said, smiling. 

Bjorkich was pointing his gun towards him now. He shot a fire at him, and immediately fell backwards, dropping the gun. 

He went past the chair to find that the bullet that had backfired had pierced through Bjorkich’s forehead, making a hole in it. 

He went towards Miss Molly’s desk. The poor woman was shivering, perplexed at how quickly everything had happened. 

“Look, Miss Molly, I know the last time Rupert was shot, you tried to call the police, but Bjorkich had threatened to harm your mother. Now the truth should be exposed. Please inform the police that Bjorkich had replaced all his human employees with their clone versions, and how Dr Rupert Brindon, who actually had initially aided him in his mission, wanted to bring in change to save humanity, and how he was killed because of that.” 

“Wait, are you not Rupert?” Molly fumbled.

“That day, Rupert drove back to his lab, despite being severely wounded. He finished his work before succumbing to his wounds, the very proposal he came here with that last time and the very mission he was killed for.”

“But who are you? His twin or something?” Molly raised her eyebrows in fear.

“I am just like him. I have his looks, his body, his mind, but the only difference between me and the others is that I also have his feelings and emotions. I am here to begin humanity afresh, though I am one of them. I am his clone. 

This story was an entry in Penmancy's Flash Fiction Monthly Contest 

This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’
hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla
in collaboration with Tanvi Agarwal