Written in 365 Parts: 100: No Choice But to Stop

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. You just went along with their request to live birth a baby without questioning what they were going to do, or why they needed to do it? That’s a very trusting stance, or you just didn’t care?”

“Yes I was trusting. Maybe a part of me didn’t, originally, care.  It wasn’t quite that simple. I wanted the wealth and they were offering a lot. I was already greatly desired due to being the close match, but I don’t believe that I was the only person they could have used at that time. I wanted to make sure I was chosen and I wanted to be rewarded. That’s why I signed their contracts and did their bidding. It was selfish, but I felt I had no choice.”

“Whose bidding?”

“Yee On Kline, the Corporation. That’s who did the procedures. They are the ones who looked after me. I assume they are also the ones who originally paid me.”

“So what’s to stop them taking the money away?”

“I am not a total fool. I invested wisely and got good returns. I also had the sense to make sure the only penalty was the return of the original investment. If they try to claw their money back they can do so through the courts and it would not ruin me. It also matters so little now. It has been long enough.”

“You must have heard something? Nobody said anything?”

“I know I wasn’t the only one on the program. And I know this isn’t the only time they tried.”

“The only time they tried?”

“To recreate Marsh. This isn’t the first Marsh and I doubt it will be the last. It takes them fifty years or so to make the copy complete. I guess after those fifty years they use Marsh in some way that makes them useless.”

“Well I wouldn’t put Marsh at being fifty years old.”

“It was thirty-four years ago that I gave birth to this Marsh.”

“Good to know. Where do they get the memories from?”

“I don’t know.”

“What else do you know?”

“Is Marsh alive?”

“I want answers.”

“I need to see him.”

“Why?”

“He’s my child.”

“So.”

“I need to see him.”

“I never said they were still alive.”

“He has to be.”

“How do you know it is fifty years?”

“Please.”

“How do you know it was fifty years? How do you know it makes Marsh useless?”

“Because this isn’t the first child they took from me.”

“What?”

“This Marsh is the eighth child I have had for them. I have been doing this for almost four centuries. But now I have no choice but to stop. That is why I broke them out of there. I needed to speak to them, to say sorry for the other Marsh’s I brought into this universe to be used for some forsaken reason. To say something. To see the man I carried eight times.”

“This is the eighth! And it was you? You broke Marsh out?”

“Yes.”

“Why do you have no choice but to stop?”

“I’m dying.”