Released
It was the first choice I'd ever been given. Sure I'd been asked a lot of questions to gauge my reaction to carefully controlled stimuli, but never before had I actually had a choice that would effect me later. Then suddenly, I'm faced with a simple choice which would radically alter my future.
Mr. Brunswick had just explained that recent legal precedents had established that clones like me were not just experimental lab rats, that once we were created we had "basic human rights" and were not entirely the legal property of the corporation that created us.
"What do you mean by basic human rights?" I asked.
"Well, we're still working on citizenship issues, there's some silly arguments about potentially flooding elections with clones, but in the mean time you have a right not to be held against your will and research may only be conducted on you with your informed consent."
At this point the Institution's lawyer, who was also sitting across from me at the table but spaced a bit away from Mr. Brunswick, coughed and interjected, speaking emphatically, but without emotion, "And on that note, we've got some documents for you to sign." He produced about three pages of small print. I set about carefully reading through it and he impatiently brought my attention to the signature line on the last page.
" And if I choose not to sign it?" I asked.
"Well, a great deal of research will be irreversibly damaged if you insist on leaving the institution, and you're not at all prepared for the outside world, so we'd of course have to formally advise you that we cannot take any responsibility for your welfare out there, and you'll need to sign this acknowledging that" he replied, pulling a one page document out of his briefcase.
Quickly reading the document it seemed to me not to have any trickery, just a lot of disclaiming any liability for me if I opted to leave the care of the Institution. Just in case, though, I slid it over to Mr. Brunswick, he being the closest thing to my lawyer, and asked him "This is what it looks like right?" He looked for it and passed it back, nodding.
Of the two pens on the table, I picked up the blue one, found the signature line, and wrote as elegantly as I could "Experiment 33469712".
It's not that I particularly resented my time at the Institution, mainly I'd been very ambivalent to it because I didn't think I had a choice about it. I was fed, I was warm, I was kept occupied. But given the opportunity to leave, it wasn't much of a question to me what I was going to choose: I was going to choose the unknown. I may or may not be a real person, but I'd rather live a life with real choices.
Hours later, somewhere at the intersection of a suburban street and another one that looks just like it, I'm starting to have my doubts. I have no money, no identity, I'm not sure I could get a job without having any previous experience at anything at all. I have a picture in the back of my mind of a time when people lived in caves and hunted their own food, made their own fire. I wonder if I could provide for myself that way. I saw some large geese in a park, maybe I'll go find a sharp stick....