The Adventures of Cento

"We'll do that." Paul said and then he left.

The transaction was complete and Maxwell gave Buck the gift card as well as his own id.

"Ready to go?" he asked.

"Having one of these will really keep them from messing with me?"

"I can't guarantee it but most folks will honor it."

They stood up and went to exit the building. Outside there were about twenty uniformed cops with guns. Maxwell told them everything was fine. Buck watched as his gun was put into a metal box and locked. Then they escorted him to the police station.

Buck really did think they were going to arrest him but instead they sat him in an office. Maxwell was true to his word. The secretary took Buck's picture and after a bit of waiting, she gave him his own id card.

"The first one is on us. Don't lose it. We charge 700 credits for replacements."

"Great. What did you do with my gun?"

"It's waiting for you back at your ship. I take it you want to keep that one."

"It's my favorite."

"Here's a list of all the other guns you have. Some of these are pretty nice. I'll give you 300,000 for the lot of them."

"Is that good?"

"It's a little on the cheap side but that's what we can afford."

"How much more could I get for them?"

"Maybe 20 or 30 thousand extra if you haggled for every gun. Of course, getting a license to sell guns will cost you at least 50,000."

"I need to keep two pistols."

"Ok. How about we take this one off, too?"

They made their deal and Buck was again surprised at the cash he was given. After paying the fine for carrying a gun out of spaceport, registering his ship with a tag number, and paying docking fees, he had 250,000 left.

"You might want to think about putting that in a bank account. Even with no guns, it might not be the safest thing to just carry that on you."

That sounded like good advice but Buck wasn't about to leave his money there. He took his cash and new id card and proceeded to get back to his ship and get the hell off that planet.

The doors opened and Buck walked up to the robot. He got his two guns back and then got back on his ship so he could get ready to leave. Before taking off he radioed to the robot about buying provisions so he could just cook food for himself instead of having to land and put up with people.

The robot said it would put in the order. That was easy. He should have just done that when he landed. Live and learn.

Buck rested from his ordeal and thought the delivery had arrived when he heard someone requesting to come on board. Instead of being food, it was just a seductively dressed blond with blue eyes who looked like she was in her mid twenties.

"Hey." she said.

"Can I help you?"

"You sure can." she answered. "How many men on board?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Just me."

"Get lost."

"Come on. Don't any of the guys need a little refresh before going back to the void?"

"What's your name?" he asked her.

"I'm Candy."

"Not A01?"

"No. They only use those numbers for soldiers."

"I was a soldier."

"Did you fight in many battles?"

"More than I care to remember."

"So, now that we're all friendly, anybody here want to have a go?"

"It's just me."

She looked confused. "How long have you been awake?"

"A few weeks."

"Wow. And you already have your own ship?"

"Spoils of war."

"Did all the soldiers get a ship."

"They're all dead. I was the only survivor."

"So you were in a recent battle."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Ok. What should we talk about?"

"I don't know. How do you like being a sex worker?"

"It's ok. I don't really have a choice, though."

"What do you mean?"

"I have to follow any command given to me by whoever owns my work contract."

"You're a slave?"

"Slavery is illegal but I have to pay the company back for the 18 years they put into me as I grew."

"You're born in debt? That's not fair."

"That's the law with clones."

"How much do you make?"

"Minimum wage."

"How much is that?"

"750 an hour."

"And how much is your debt?"

"90 million."

"You'll never be able to pay it off."

"I know. I'd rather not think about it."

"You'll be a prostitute for life."

"No, only while I'm pretty. Thankfully, that same dna that makes me want to have sex all the time also makes me look young for a lot longer too. When I do start to lose my looks my contract will probably get bought by a factory somewhere. Then I'll make shirts or cameras or something for the rest of my life. If I'm lucky a family might buy my contract and use me as child care or cleaning."

"How old are you?"

"I'm not supposed to say but since you're like me ... just don't tell anyone. With the 18 years I was in the growing tube, 42." Buck was amazed.

"When do you expect to lose your looks?"

"Sometime when I'm about 70."

"This is wrong."

"It's not so bad. I like sex so I might as well get paid for it."

"But you were made to like sex." Buck stepped away from her and shook his head in disgust. "Well, look, Candy, there's no one here but me so you're wasting your time."

She hung her head. "Ok. But maybe I'll see you around."

Yeah, don't bet on it, Buck thought as he watched her walk away.

How long could a clone live? How much dna did he share with the likes of Candy? Was he going to live extra long and be young looking as well? And all that time she'd been there fucking guy after guy at a spaceport. She'd probably paid off all of that money already. It was just a legal loop hole to allow de facto slavery.

He looked up what all the laws in all the various places in regards to clones. He felt like he needed to know the places that would be safe for him to land.

They were completely banned in the Republic. Then again, the Republic seemed hard ass about everything. Clones were property on most Sokai worlds. They weren't even trying to go around the idea. Birayn Commonwealth law governed this trading hub so they had to do the little contract song and dance here which was basically slavery. On Mjuzal worlds it was legal to used clones as food. Ew. But it fit with all the other fucked up things that went on among the Mjuzal. They were crazy people. Ok, sure, maybe not every single one of them. But their religion taught them to kill anyone who wasn't a Mjuzal and that clones had no souls.

Amazingly, the Gypt seemed to be the most accepting of clones. A lot of runaway clones ran to them. They were a really loose confederation of worlds. They didn't fight each other and they didn't fight anybody else. According to the news service Gypt systems were very undeveloped. They were mostly dealing with pirates and merc groups.

Way past Gypt controlled systems was the Empire. And past the Empire was other stuff but it was so far away Buck didn't see the point of looking it up. Any information would probably be either wrong or outdated.

And finally there was the little collection of worlds that no other government recognized. There were a bunch of news articles about sanctions against companies that dealt with them, some news about a blockade and even some public saber rattling from politicians. There were a couple of different names that people used to refer to it and everything was second hand accounts as no one wanted to quote from the leaders of that world directly. And then Buck found out why. On one of the worlds there had been a clone uprising. The soldiers had rebelled and allegedly slaughtered everyone who wasn't a clone. For years they were contained to just one world but then they attacked the worlds in the next system. If the news could be believed, the clones again slaughtered everyone, even the children. Buck found himself shaking his head. He wasn't sure he could really believe the panicky hyperbole he was reading.

Buck spent that night wondering what he would do with his life. His money would not last forever. What he had was really just about as much as a working class guy would earn in a month. He'd have to work. It was a must. He had a ship. He knew basically how to fly it. He could haul cargo. Why not? But it would be later. In the morning he'd fly out to beyond the system, stop the ship, and just spend a few days learning and thinking.

In the morning Buck decided to go ahead and cash in that gift card. He didn't see Paul there since Andy the robot handled all the orders and serving the food. It was a nice breakfast. Buck ordered double grits since he actually liked them so much. It was a good morning.

Then the monitor started showing some news headlines.

"The fighting between Zukuway and Danbolhako has now reached Daiziban. Sources on the ground here confirm ..."

This was really pissing Buck off. "Will someone turn that off, please." Buck could eventually not stop himself from saying. The robot turned to a different program.

"I was watching that." said one of the other patrons but then he saw Buck's face and quieted down. He'd been sent out there to die. They were all expected to die. Killing and dying. That was all he was meant for. From the moment he was spawned in a growing tube and for the 18 years he gestated in it, he was born to die for seemingly nothing more than fucking squabbling. It made him sick. He was nothing. He was disposable.

The Sokai were always at war with each other. And why not? Each one had tens of millions of clones in storage that they could just sent out to battle after battle. And it wasn't just Zukuway and Danbolhaku either. Of the hundred and thirty four different Sokai, at least a quarter were always at war with one planet or the other. There was no end to it. And why should they care to stop. They never used their own citizens for war. All the common people on Danbolhaku ever saw was the glory of victory and not the horrors it took to achieve it.

And besides that, the Sokai went to war for the stupidest reasons. They were all trying to one up the others to improve their position with the Republic. They couldn't attack the Republic that demanded taxes from them and they were protected by the Republic so no other worlds would dare get into a war with one of the Sokai. However, there was nothing stopping the Sokai from attacking each other. When Buck looked over the battle plans for battles going back a hundred years he saw a very disturbing pattern. There were many times when it seemed that a Sokai world really didn't even want to bother with fighting so they'd only send in a token force that was sure to be annihilated just to save face.

Buck returned his thoughts to his food while the program on the monitor reported on alleged alien sightings in an area of space out past the Empire.

"Probably just mutants again." someone said.

"You don't believe in aliens?" someone else asked.

"If there were real aliens out here, we'd have found them before now."

When Buck finished his meal he told the robot to keep the rest of the charge on the gift card as a tip for Paul. Then he headed out and made his way back to spaceport so he could take off and maybe try to find another place to be.

Back at his ship he saw the two women waiting for him. As he got closer he could see that they were both clones. Even though one was a light skinned blond with blue eyes and the other had dark skin and kinky hair, they shared the same face.

"I'm the only one on this ship so you can ..."

"You were the one we were looking for." said the blond.

"Me? For what?"

"This is Ebony."

"Right. Cause of course that's her name."

'They just woke her up and I was wondering if you'd like to buy her contract."

"Me? What for?"

"I ... I'm also programmed to work as crew on a ship." the dark skinned girl said.

"The brothel owner doesn't think customers'll be in interested in her because of how she looks so he's just had her cleaning and stuff. He's willing to let her contract go for just fifty million."

"Well, that's way more than I've got."

"Your ship is worth a lot more than that."

"Yeah, but with no ship, why would I need crew? Huh?"

The blond looked at the timid one and said "Ok. We tried. Let's go back." The blond tried to lead Ebony by the hand. The dark girl pulled her hand away.

"I'm not going."

"Come on. Don't make a scene. The robot's watching."

"I'm not going to go. Please." She said as she squatted down.

"Please, don't mind her." said the blond. "She's young. Younger than you even."

Buck looked at Ebony. "Why don't you want to go back."

"I don't want to."

"She doesn't understand how things are yet." the blond tried to explain.

"Are you the same one from yesterday?" Buck asked and the blond nodded. "Candy?"

"Yes. That's me. I'm sorry she's acting like ..."

"Candy, shut up." Buck knelt down next to Ebony and put his hand on her shoulder. "Ebony, tell me what's wrong. You seem scared."

"They want me to ..." she began with a look of disgust on her face. Then she continued in a hushed whisper, "have sex with strange men."

Birayn law was funny at times. While yes, a clone was supposed to obey the orders of the person who owned their contract, there were of course things that an owner could not order a clone to do. A clone could not be ordered to kill anyone or break the law in any way. Prostitution was only legal under Birayn law if there was no coercion involved. The likes of Candy just saw a brothel as her best job option and went along with it.

That should have been the same for Ebony as well since it was clear they were very nearly identical to each other. But Buck had learned in the short time that he'd been alive that your dna was not everything. Even though everyone in his unit had the same dna as him, they were all different inside somehow. It would seem that just because you put dna into a girl to try and force her to want to be with men, it wasn't a certainty that it would take.

Buck stood up. "Your boss bought a defective product and you want to saddle me with her."

"I just thought you'd ..."

"I don't have the money to buy her."

"Not buy her. Her contract. She's strong. They made her as strong as any man. She can do the work if that's ..."

"Ebony, did you agree to borrow fifty million from that guy?" Buck asked as he helped her to her feet.

"I don't understand." she said.

"Did you sign anything?"

Candy spoke up. "I know where you're going but they don't let clones go into court to argue that."

"She didn't sign anything. She didn't agree to it. They can't force her to be a prostitute."

"They can sell her contract to a mine, or some other thing like that were we don't last long."

"I don't care who they want to sell that little piece of paper to. She's not a slave, right? Go tell your boss that if he wants her, he can try to come get her. If he does and he's lucky, he'll only get arrested for attempted kidnapping. If he's not so lucky, he might end up a corpse with a hole in his head."

"But she as to make payments on her debt. We all do. That's the way things are."

"She didn't sign it so she doesn't owe it. Go tell him I said so."

"They'll come and arrest her for failure to pay and insubordination."

"You must be hard of hearing or something. Fine. Ebony, you stay on my ship. Do not leave. You leave and you'll get no more help from me. Robot, you remind her of what I said if she starts trying to walk off. And you. Candy. Show me where this brothel is."