The Killing Me

"So," I said, cutting through a thick silence in that police station conference room where I sat with my mother; the first time I'd been able to sit quietly and think for about 12 hours, "I'm a test-tube baby?"

My mom looked up from the table at which we were both sitting. "I guess you could say that," she said.
"Any reason you never told me?"
"When you were younger it would have been too hard to explain," she said, "and after a while it just seemed like it'd been too long to bring it up out of the blue. It's not an unusual thing. It's not as though you were adopted or grown in a jar. You grew inside me, and I gave birth to you."
"And dad never said anything about it? About genetic... whatevers?"

She was silent for a while, then said, "No."
"Nothing?"
"No. We had talked about having an in-vitro. I'd seen my doctor and he said I was a candidate, but they were expensive. Your dad said that he could have them done through his coverage at work, so we did that."
"Nothing about training regimens or hypnosis?"
"No, nothing like that ever came up. He did always seem protective of you, trying to keep you away from danger. I just thought that he was trying to protect his only child."

It was still too weird to think about. I couldn't be sure how much of what Schumer was saying was the truth, after all, and parts of it still didn't make sense. If I were being hypnotized every day at school, it seems like I would somehow be able to tell that the time was missing. He said I always had one class that wasn't real, but if that were the case how can I remember all my classes? How can I remember everybody who's in all my classes? They couldn't have me make up fake students during hypnosis, that would take just as much time as teaching me... whatever they supposedly were. They couldn't have made me have false memories of real classmates, because I might have one-day said I'd see him in whatever class and he'd ask what I'd mean.

There be more to this, I decided. The information I had now just didn't add up. If the only thing about me was that I was part of some training experiment and was having boot camp squirted directly into my brain, it didn't explain the growing number of people who seem to want me dead.

Even though it was less realistic, I could almost believe the clone theory. If there were a fleet of me's running around, it would explain how someone who looks like me was apparently in Vienna two years ago killing some guy. There can't be clones, though, it's just silly.

Though, they could have designed me from scratch and whenever someone comes in for an in-vitro, they end up with a me. That would be how they'd do it.

Still, though, no clones.

If there were clones, though, it would be cool to meet one. I bet clones of me would all be jerks, though.

Amy came back with a few cups of coffee from a machine. She set them down on the table, and the three of us took one.

"You really went to Austria?" my mom asked me a bit later.
"I did, yeah, last week," I said.
"How was it?"
"It was nice, I think. I was in a kind of mood the whole time, not really paying attention to the culture."
"I went to Europe when I was in college. Never went to Austria, though. We spent most of the time in Italy."

"Did you guys go over the part about your house burning down while I was outside?" Amy cut in.

"Oh, shoot," I said, "I was going to ask Bremer or Rubino if they had any idea who those guys were."
"What guys?" my mom asked.
"The guys who broke in and burned the place down."

My mom didn't seem to be handling any of this very well.

"Have you called the insurance company yet? We have fire insurance, don't we?"
"Fire. Yeah, it should be in with the homeowner's. I haven't called yet, I was told to wait until the police report was taken care of because they wouldn't cover it if it looked like you burned it down on purpose."
"I didn't burn it down at all," I said.
She nodded, slowly.

Bah. I was getting restless and anxious, but I knew things would be like this for a while. I had no leads, no trails to follow to Europe or any havoc to create. I began to worry that this was it, that this was the end, that my life actually was going to slow down and peter on from this point. The thought of no more running, shooting, fighting, stabbing, or lying seemed nice at first, but as I thought about it I actually worried I'd miss it. Special Forces types would come back from Vietnam, feeling like they were built for one thing and moping that they'd never be put to use again. They went through years of hellish atrocities in the jungle; I'd only considered my life interesting for a few days, could I already be addicted to the high?

I wasn't sure "high" was the right word, I never felt particularly elevated when I was in those dangerous situations. Perhaps it was the clarity I was addicted to. If my brain really was switching from one set of instincts to a second, maybe I liked the second one better. If there is a whole other Chris Baker in my mind, one who knows everything a trained soldier knows, maybe I'd rather be him. Always knowing what to do, knowing how to get myself out of danger, how to hurt people, how to protect people. Maybe I would enjoy that.

Would I lose myself, though? If there really is a way to have all of this knowledge "activated" and have it become part of me, would it really become part of me or would it just become me?

All I know is that I can't go on like this. I can't have a whole world of knowledge in my mind that's only accessible when I'm in danger. I can't keep wondering if the person controlling my body is the real me or the killing me. Worse yet, I can't keep knowing if the one doing the killing is perhaps the real me.