My better half…

“How could she have been so blind…”

The woeful howl of a cold December wind made for poor companionship, mused Lyrus Tyharl, his blank eyes locked upon the grey city streets below. Sheets of driven rain crashed into the hotel’s plastic window with the cadence of a war-drum.

Still, he could not justify feeling any sort of anger toward his wife. The circumstances of her infidelity were hardly ordinary and had necessitated his sequestering in the motel until Lyrus figured out his next course of action. He allowed himself a bitter chuckle. This mess was practically a holo-novel script in the making.

Lyrus Tyharl, successful In’Roonte film star and director. Lyrus Tyharl, family man and loving husband. Lyrus Tyharl, cuckold to a fucking clone. His fist clenched and unclenched in a dance of impotent rage.

The cloning revolution had swept through the empires of the Outer Clusters like the AI, computer and industrial revolutions of centuries past did on Earth. At first solely meant to extend the priceless lives of stasis pilots, the technology was quickly adopted by the wealthy and renowned. The subject was one rarely broached in polite conversation, as maintaining clones of oneself was perceived as slightly macabre. Still, it was widely seen as a given that any individual with the required wealth - and fear of death - would possess such an insurance policy, often hidden away and best left unmentioned. Lyrus himself maintained one out of necessity; in a past life, he had been severely injured during a movie stunt, sustaining life-threatening wounds that could only be addressed by cloning and starting anew.

With the revolution came the inevitable pitfalls inherent to radical technological advancement. The first cases of hijacked clones being used to commit crimes or impersonate important dignitaries for purposes of espionage had hit the news some twenty years prior. Short of prohibitively expensive genome sequencing or a skeletal scan, there was no quick way to detect these doppelgangers - it truly was the perfect crime. One could even conceivably employ it to sleep with another man’s unwitting wife.

Who could it have been, he wondered. Hid mind raced with paranoid theories. His wife had visited the movie set a number of times. There was the catering worker who openly flirted with her, but he lacked the resources for something so elaborate and Lyrus discounted him quickly. There was the film’s producer, an abhorrently obese and wealthy Ga’Roonte with a penchant for invading personal space and kissing ladies’ hands. There was his co-star, a burly Altaru upon whose firm derriere his wife had teasingly commented on many an occasion. Truth be told it could be anyone, he thought - Lyrus’ life was certainly one worth stealing.

He slammed his fist into the plastic window, recoiling in pain as the inanimate object refuse to give way in any sort of dramatic and fulfilling fashion. Tearing apart his hotel suite had crossed Lyrus’ mind before and while likely cathartic, would have little to soothe his anger in the long term. Besides, the cuckold had already formulated a better plan.

“Never fuck with a film-maker”, he warned the hotel furniture with a dire mutter, picking up a pocket holo-camera from the nightstand nearby.

In the coming days he would be his simulacrum’s unseen shadow. He would film the duplicated from a distance, film his every mannerism and compare it to his own. The research he had conducted on the infamous clone-hijack of one Anlan Pier suggested that a consciousness transplanted into a new body would retain its previous nuances of behaviour. Thus he filmed and filmed, waiting with building rage, watching for the clone to scratch his per Slarrier the wrong way, or pick a fork with the wrong hand, or call his children by the wrong name, or stuff its tongue down his wife’s throat. And, at night, who knows what else would be pouring down that throat. His wife’s throat.

He ground his teeth until he tasted grit in his mouth.

 

***

 

Having returned to his exile in the hotel, Lyrus sat and pored over the pages of notes he had scribbled down during his one-man stakeout. Frustrated, he tore pages out of the notebook, crumpled them up and cast them aside. The duplicate was flawless in every respect but one.

Filming on Lyrus’ latest holo-movie had begun some three months prior. It was tentatively titled The Family and told a story of murder and organized crime from the perspective of a Kaalaki mercenary. Filming was the most demanding part of the movie-making process and Lyrus recalled the many sleepless nights spent at the studio, away from his family for weeks on end, his thoughts never leaving them. It was here that the clone differed from him - almost as though to taunt him it spent an inordinate amount of time with the family it had appropriated, living his life, hugging his sons and always kissing his wife. He wished he could confront her directly, but the clone was proving far too convincing and Lyrus feared she would not believe his outlandish claims.

He had his evidence now, however. It was simply a matter of bringing the film and his notes to a Peacekeeper ground station. The hijacking of a clone was unilaterally viewed by the nations of the Outer Clusters as a capital crime and human rights statutes extended only to those consciousnesses that occupied their rightful bodies. To all intents and purposes the duplicate wasn’t even human. Lyrus relished the thought of his stand-in being sold to an Empireon slave camp and being beaten brutally for the rest of his short, painful life, trapped in a body not his own.

The acid rain came in suffocating torrents, stinging his eyes and nearly obscuring the towering Peacekeeper installation with its improbable, near-horizontal density. The place was an authoritarian fortress and Lyrus pushed through crowds of officers streaming out, and shackled criminals pouring in. An unoccupied officercaught his attention, and he approached the bored-looking man, dropping his reams of evidence in unceremonious fashion upon the desk.

“I’d like to report a clone jack.”

The Peacekeeper stirred. Clearly this was no everyday occurrence, having shaken him from his stupor so quickly, noted Lyrus. His face lit up with the slightest hint of a smile.

 

***

 

“Sir?”

With revenge looming, Lyrus Tyharl had finally given to exhaustion. The Peacekeeper officer prodded him again, rousing him from his sleep. “Sir, we have apprehended the accused and brought your wife to the station. Come with me.”

Finally. The past few weeks had been hell for Lyrus, but at last it would be set right. He followed the gleaming black uniform to what appeared to be an interrogation room. It was the first time he had glimpsed his beloved wife’s face through something besides a telephoto lens in as far as he could recall. He rushed to embrace her, but the Peacekeeper officer stepped between them. With a stern glare, he ordered Lyrus to sit. For some reason, his spouse eyed him warily.

“There have been some inconsistencies in the story you gave us, Mr…”

The Peacekeeper glanced hesitantly at Lyrus, then at the duplicate. Another officer entered the room shortly thereafter.

“Well, whatever you are called. To put it bluntly,” continued the seated officer, “we have no way of telling which of you is the original. You have both been cloned, so a skeletal scan is out of the question and, frankly, we lack the resources to do a genome analysis.”

Lyrus’ blood ran cold. “Just ask my wife. She knows me. She is my better half.” His eyes turned expectantly toward her and were met with naught but a cold stare. The Peacekeeper turned to Lyrus’ wife.

“Ma’am? Your thoughts?”

The woman shifted. As though defeating one last bit of uncertainty in her mind, she wrapped her arm around that of the doppelganger. “Officer, I think I know my husband.”

Her eyes took on a devilish gleam, one that made Lyrus feel she knew exactly what was going on. She continued. “My husband is a caring and loving family man.” She probed Lyrus’ eyes as tears welled up in them, the shock of her utter betrayal finally hitting home. She hadn’t been tricked; she had just traded up. Whore.

“And my husband is right here,” she explained, her eyes never leaving Lyrus’ but her embrace of the foul copy tightening visibly. “He is my better half. He is all the husband I could possibly ask for.” Her voice took on a bitter hint. “He spends time with his family.”

Lyrus found himself dragged to his feet and secured in chains before he could react. Kicking and screaming, he was pulled from the interrogation room by the two Peacekeeper officers. He tried shouting at the top of his lungs, reciting facts and events from his marriage to his wife, but they fell on deaf - or purposefully ignorant - ears.

With his last glimpse toward the interrogation room, he caught sight of his dupe tenderly kissing his wife’s hand.