Clone Girls

Ticia looked anxiously at the timer that A-4 was projecting in front of her. Only five minutes and a dozen seconds were left on the timer.

Right now, Ticia and A-4 were in the clone facility on the 6th floor. Three weeks had passed since the beginning of the cloning phase, and the 'clone girls', as Ticia liked to call them, were about to come out of their nutrition pods.

Ticia had thought for a long time about how to treat the clones. She wanted to treat them as human beings, but didn’t know what kind of relationship she would have with them. After agonizing for a long time, she finally decided to consider them as family and that she would consider them her little sisters, just like the older kids in the orphanage treated the younger ones. From her memory, at least, and not that she was treated the same way anyway… Beside this, Ticia’s reasoning was rather simple. She thought that those kids would need someone to guide them, unlike how she herself had been abandoned by so many people when she was young. Ticia did not have experience in taking care of children, but she thought it would be fun to watch them grow up, even though that time would be short. There would only be six months before the clone girls reach the age of sixteen.

Ticia looked around the room. It was the smallest of all the cloning rooms, with a capacity of 100 nutritional pods. Out of those hundred pods, only twelve were lit up. A-4 had rearranged them so the pods were close from one another. Those twelve pods were located to Ticia's left.

On the ones lighted up, Ticia could see inscriptions on a screen above the pod. She closed in on the first.

Somehow, seeing the green words calmed her. She never felt like she did right now. She asked herself. Is this how it feels when you are waiting for the birth of a new member in your family? The answer was probably yes. But she still felt like she was partly wrong. She remembered her superior, Rika, telling her about a similar feeling when her younger brother was about to be born. But this small talk was made to make her forget about the horrible wound she had just suffered at that time.

"Notification: Nutriments pods will open in 3 minutes."

A-4 called out to her. Ticia just nodded at the AI. Looking back at it, she was quite happy that the AI had accepted the change to the usual codename of the clones. Ticia had insisted that her clones should be referred to as ‘clone girls’ since it would be cuter. Hence why the codename became ‘Null Clone Girl’, followed by the production number.

The epithet Null was a special designation made by A-4 to separate those clone girls from other generically produced clones. Not that Ticia wanted to create more… It recalled the fact that they were produced for testing only. The AI did mention however that this codification would also give them more command power over other clone types. A small detail to Ticia, but one that the AI was very adamant to notify it at every occasion possible.

But those codenames didn’t satisfy her. She wanted the girls to have real names. As such, she spent hours thinking about names for each girl under the comments of A-4. The AI had judged her quite critically about her naming sense, but thanks to A-4, she was now sure those names were somewhat correct.

Ticia walked over each pod, carefully examining them and looking at their screens.

As she reached the last pod and put her hands on it, A-4 called her again.

"Notification: Nutriment pods will open in 1 minute. Owner Ticia is advised to stand back from the pods."

Ticia didn’t say anything, she simply joined A-4 near the entrance. She knew that this moment was important not only for her, but also for the little girls. She watched overs as the seconds passed. It felt like she was back on the battlefield, when time slowed down.

The timer ticked down…

"Notification: Awakening phase has begun. Draining preservation liquid… Nutrition pods will now slowly open as their occupants wake up."

Just as A-4 announced, the pod containing Null CG-01 made noises. Ticia read what was on the screen just above it.

Ticia slowly approached the pod as it opened slowly. Just as she had expected, an 8 year old girl was lying inside the pod, naked. She opened her eyes slowly, and her eyes met Ticia’s gaze.

"Ah" That was all Ticia could muster as a wave of emotions flooded her. She did not know what kind of emotion it was, but she was just happy to be stared back. Even if it was an expressionless stare.

This moment did not last long however, just as she was about to muster some words to the girl, Ticia heard some noise from the pod right next to Null CG-01’s pod. It was Null CG-02’s pod. She turned in a hurry. She did not want to miss a moment of the girl’s awakening. She made it just in time as Null CG-02 opened her eyes in a rather quick way. Just like with Null CG-01, their gazes locked into each other. This time, Ticia managed to speak.

"Hey there~" Ticia was all smiles. As for Null CG-02, she did not know how the clone girl felt. After getting out of nutrition pods, there was a bit of time where the body had to adapt. Because of that, and the fact that this was basically their birth, they did not show any emotions.

"Oh, you’re a fast one…" To Ticia’s surprise, Null CG-02 lifted her upper body already. She thought they would need more time before doing that.  The clone girl looked at the ground. Somehow, Ticia immediately understood what she meant. And although she was a bit worried, she lifted Null CG-02 and put her down. It was a rather fortunate thing that the nutrition process included a function to implant knowledge into clones. Ticia could not imagine herself teaching twelve eight year old kids how to speak or how to walk...

"You really are a fast learner…" Ticia muttered as she warmly watched  the clone girl checking her own body.

Then, she heard some movements behind her, and was reminded of Null CG-01’s presence. She turned over to see the young girl mimicking the same actions as her little sister. Ticia happily helped her too.

"Phew…" Ticia watched over as the two clone girls were now staring at each other. Then she noticed one thing.

"They need clothes!" She had totally forgotten about this fact.

As she began to panic, she heard A-4's voice.

"Indication: This unit has brought clothes."

"Oh god, I've never been more happy to have you A-4"

"Notification: Unneeded praise received."

Ticia took the clothes A-4 brought her, and immediately helped Null CG-01 put on her clothes.

"There you go." She patted the girl on the head, then turned around to help Null CG-02 only to find out she had already begun. She was struggling to put on her tee-shirt. "Hehe. Let me help you. There you go~."

After helping the two clone girls, Ticia suddenly realized.

"Why are the other ones not opening yet? Is there a problem?"

"Indication: Awakening phase can take some time depending on the concerned individual. Once signs of natural awakening are appearing, the preservation liquid in which the subject is submerged will be drained, and the subject will finish to wake up naturally."

"I-is that so?" Ticia sighed. "Sorry, for some reason I began to worry over nothing."

Noises that were becoming familiar to her were heard for a third time, and Ticia’s worries washed away for good. There was no reason for her to be so stressed out. Everything would be fine. She looked at the pods right next to the two first, but it wasn’t Null CG-03’s pods.

"Eh? Which one?" She looked over hurriedly until her eyes met the pods at the end of the line. "Over there!"

Null CG-11’s pod was opening, she quickly walked and reached it. Null CG-11 still had her eyes closed, which made Ticia sigh in relief. She didn’t miss the girl’s awakening. A few seconds passed, but unlike the first two clone girls, Null CG-11 did not open her eyes directly. Instead, the young girl curled up into a ball and shifted to her left side. It seemed that the girl just wanted to sleep more.

"Awww~" Ticia smiled warmly. Before knowing it she was tenderly caressing the girl's right cheek with the back of her left index. "Wakey wakey~, little one~. Time to wake up~."

At her words, Null CG-11 finally opened her eyes. She turned her head while yawning and locked gaze with Ticia. The instant she did, and as if the sleepiness showed just now was a lie, she held out her arms to Ticia. She was asking for a hug.

"!!!" C-cute!  

It was like an arrow struck Ticia’s heart. Even though Null CG-11 was expressionless, it had a devastating effect on Ticia. She scooped up the girl in her arms and they hugged each other for what Ticia thought was a whole hour. In reality the hug only lasted less than fifteen seconds. She reluctantly ended the hug when she saw Null CG-02 approaching with a set of clothes in her hands and put Null CG-11 down.

"Thank you~. You learn so fast, I’m proud."

She praised Null CG-02 and patted her head again with her right hand. But then Null CG-11 clung to her clothes and looked up. She was asking for a head pat!

"Fufufu. Someone already wants to be spoiled~. Fine by me~." Ticia happily obliged, she knew that even though the girl was expressionless, she was happy.

Meanwhile, Null CG-01 was staring at their interaction next to A-4, but Ticia was too focused on helping Null CG-11 wear her clothes to notice the stare.

Then, Ticia heard loud noises. Ticia immediately knew it this time, but surprise still appeared on her face as this time, two pods were opening simultaneously! Reaching them, she looked at their codenames. It was Null CG-05 and Null CG-06’s pods! Just like before, the clone girls opened their eyes slowly, then looked at Ticia. Just after that though, the two girls stared at each other and did nothing else than that. Ticia said nothing and proceeded to get the girls out of the pods. Once she did that, Null CG-02 came over with 2 sets of clothes, and while Ticia helped Null CG-05 wear her clothes, Null CG-02 did the same with Null CG-06.

After that, things proceed smoothly. Null CG-03’s pod opened, then Null CG-04, Null CG-07, Null CG-08, Null CG-09 and Null CG-10 woke up without a hitch. Ticia felt happy like never before. She never expected to experience such bliss. She gathered all the clone girls near the entrance and watched over them as they identified each other.

But the next moment, Ticia’s expression of pure happiness morphed into one of horror after hearing A-4’s words.

"Warning: Critical failure detected on Null CG-12’s nutritional pod. Owner Ticia’s attention is requested at all costs."

"!!!"

Ticia left the clone girls and rushed to the last pod without second thought. When she arrived in front of it, the screen, which should have been displaying green letters, was displaying red ones instead.

After reading those words, Ticia began looking for the manual commands.

"A-... A-4! Check on the child! What’s her situation!?"

The AI obeyed its owner, and the drone did a quick medical check on the pod.

"Report: Null CG-12 has begun to wake up. Warning: If the preservation liquid is not drained within 5 minutes, Null CG-12 will drown."

This is bad! Ticia hurried on, she found a sealed box on the right side of the pod near the screen. There it is. She saw no lock. Instead of just searching and losing more time, Ticia just took out one of her TP-100 laser blaster pistols, and shot the sides of the boxes where she could see screws.

"Warning: Damage to the structure has been detected. Owner Ticia should follow-"

"I don’t care right now!" Ticia screamed back at the AI. Right now, she would not listen to any of its advices. She was too panicked to think rationally. Something that rarely happened to her.

The metal cover finally ceded, and Ticia could see a panel. She quickly navigated through it and found two buttons, one to drain the liquid and the other to open the pod. She pushed the former.

"Update: Liquid drainage is proceeding as planned."

"...Good." Ticia was relieved, only for A-4 to make her tense again.

"Warning: Oxygen levels within the pod have reached low levels. Owner Ticia should proceed to open the pod with great urgence."

Ticia did not respond. Instead, she just punched the button to open the pod.

*clunk*

A loud noise was heard, a small opening was made, but nothing came after. Ticia began to punch the button again and again. Nothing changed.

"Damit!"

She looked around. Her eyes fell on a metallic tube near her on the wall. Within moments, she already shot the tube on the two extremities, melting them. She then proceeded to pull on the tube with all her force.

"Warning: destruction of material won-"

"Ugh! Just. SHUT. UP!!" She yelled anoyingly as she pulled with all her force. In Ticia's head, now wasn't the time to care about the destruction of equipment.

*Clink*

She finally managed to take out a part of the tube. Unknown liquid splashed all over her, but she didn’t care one bit. While panting from the effort, she pushed one of the extremities inside the opening of the pod. She then used the bar as a lever to force the opening of the pod.

"Ugh! Shit!"

She stopped for a brief instant and cursed, she did not have enough strength to make it open by herself. She was extremely worried about the state of Null CG-12, even if the small breach was enough to give her oxygen, the young clone girl would still be stuck inside the pod. What would the little girl think if she woke up in such a narrow space!

As she was about to try a second time, she noticed that the other clone girls had gathered around her. Although expressionless, Ticia could guess that they were also worried.

"Huh?" As she was about to try again, three clone girls approached her. "What are you doing? It’s dangerous!"

Null CG-02, Null CG-05 and Null CG-06, she did not know how, but even though they all looked similar, she could tell who they were. Those three girls took position in front of her and grabbed the tube, they then looked at her.

"You three… Alright, let’s do it together then!" Determination came back to Ticia’s eyes as she pulled with all her force. The young girls did the same. Ticia did not think much about it, but it was really a good thing that the clone girls were stronger than normal kids.

*Ca-klunk*

With their combined force, the pod began to slowly open, until one third of it was open. Ticia let go of the tube and quickly reached inside the pod. She carefully extracted the clone girl. Null CG-12 had yet to open her eyes. Ticia just held her up in her arms. Was I too late?  Her eyes began to fill with tears. Was the life of this little girl going to end like this? After she managed to survive where others had failed? Would Ticia already lose one of her newly found family members?

In this tense atmosphere, Ticia totally forgot about asking A-4 to do a medical check-up. All her attention was focused on Null CG-12. the AI itself did not comment, applying it's owner latest order to keep quiet.

"Uuuuh"

Finally, after what felt like hours to Ticia, Null CG-12 weakly groaned.

"!!!" Ticia lost power in her legs and collapsed on the spot. She held Null CG-12 tightly to her chest as she began to cry of happiness. Null CG-11 then hugged the both of them, and the other clone girls followed soon after. They all stayed in this position for a while. After a bit of time, Null CG-12 finally opened her eyes. She looked up and met Ticia’s warm gaze. Ticia patted her head, her eyes still full of tears. Then finally, her voice trembling and full of emotion, ticia said.

"Nice to meet you… Vinia…"