SEX CLONE

 

Liang had just pressed the drain button. The shiny, silky liquid was slowly withdrawing from the incubator's interior, revealing the flawless plastic of a teenage girl. This time, it was a "Jisoo" model, a luxury series that had been very successful, but whose fashion had long since passed. African girls, Persian girls or the new trans models were preferred at the moment. Ugh, he didn't want any of their degenerate stuff! Liang wanted chicks with chick shapes, and if possible Asian girls, like him.

Elite people had strange fantasies. They wanted something new all the time, and more and more often, something weird that Liang didn't understand.

He was not an "improved" man. He functioned poorly and mediocrely in the old way, and perhaps not for much longer, considering the many bloody coughs he had been experiencing lately. The numerous bacteriological attacks and years of perilous races on the New Silk Roads had worn him down.

He had, however, been one of the oldest couriers working for Cao, one of Chongqing's godfathers. When Cao was killed, his son took over, only to be killed in turn.

It was Johnny Ho, a descendant of Limpy Ho, who took over Cao's smuggling business. Johnny was, of course, the one who had Cao and his son eliminated. If the latter had been haughty and ruthless masters, Johnny Ho's reign had been a nightmare. Ho was a user of those synthetic drugs that drive you crazy, the kind that make you suddenly slit your throat for no reason. Many of Johnny Ho's employees had been slaughtered like that, before the madman was finally shot by one of his lieutenants.

In the gang war and the confusion that followed, Liang had managed to get away from his former employers.

He found a job as a "de-motivator" with Deng Yuesheng, a doctor who had set up a clandestine factory of clones, mass-produced sex slaves to supply the luxury prostitution market.

Liang's job was a cushy one, he just had to check that the machines were working so that the girls would "grow" without problems in their "incubators". There wasn't much to do, just to make sure there were no leaks, power cuts or overheating. So Liang spent his days and nights playing go with his colleagues, between rounds to check the machines were working properly. If there was a problem, all he had to do was call the boss or, at night, one of the engineers on call.

Liang was housed and fed, along with other old men, in this hospice for old fogies, which would probably be his last home. He stayed there, dying, with his buddies. Many of them had been messengers on the Yuxinou, the train that linked Duisburg to Chongqing. They spent their time bickering, insulting each other and reminiscing about the good and bad times of their lives as "ants" for the Chinese triads.

Frankly, it was one of the best jobs of his miserable coolie life. The food was good, the bed was clean, and Yuesheng was a discreet and unobtrusive man. He even looked after his employees when they had the good idea to finally leave this world of suffering and frustration. The only rule was not to "touch the goods". That was why Yuesheng only employed old men like Liang. These guys were the scum of the earth, lawless creeps, but now they were poor old men without strength or means. These girls who were being brooded over in the shelter of the machines had nothing to fear.

The girls arrived in the form of seeded eggs. It took two to three years for the embryos to become young women of "consumable" age. Yuesheng was quite well known in the business. The girls who came out of his house were of good quality. Above all, they were real women, who cried, suffered, spoke and acted like all the women in the world.

Liang, too, farted, burped, and, despite the limitations of his age, fantasized about these unattainable girls. Girls like this, world-class girls, he had never had, even when he was young. There were robot whores and virtual salon girls, but they were no substitute for the real thing. In these X-rooms, they put you on a plastic mattress, with a helmet and sensors all over your body and a kind of disposable slip to put on. On the screen of the helmet, an inexplicably lewd dream creature would appear and throw itself on you without transition, completely overexcited. After a few minutes of a dubious but supercharged scenario, you found yourself completely traumatized, swimming, with a soiled diaper. The girl had abruptly disappeared from the virtual screen, the neon light was on, the pornographic dream was over.

Through a loudspeaker, the hostess would ask you, in a mechanical and annoyed voice, to take off the headset and leave the place, so that the room could be completely decontaminated for the next customer. Liang had tried these booths several times; they sucked. There was none of the hesitation, confusion and uncertainty of seduction. There was no realism.

But there was no longer a choice to satisfy the reproductive instincts of the few remaining functional males in this post-modern world. The girls didn't want to be touched for a long time. They used artificial stimulators, things that they plugged directly into their brains. This made them climb the curtains perfectly, much better than the best of the studs. They didn't need a guy who imposed his foul breath, his dirty hands and, after shaking them more or less skillfully, stained them with a sticky, smelly seminal fluid.

It was out of the question that they be impregnated by a useless asshole. They preferred to live virtual love stories with perfect partners, apollons who smelled good, came when they were called, answered without ever getting annoyed to all the fantasies of their feminine nature.

For decades, the media and web influencers had been instructed to criticize the carnal act between partners of opposite sexes. The planet had to be depopulated, humans had to give up procreation. The sexual act between two spouses had thus become dirty and despised. What the constant bacteriological wars, the planned poisoning of the food and the environment, the condemnation of procreation or the promotion of sterile homosexuality had not been able to achieve, they tried to achieve by the unanimous condemnation of the sexual act. And it had worked. The Earth was depopulated. The last poor men, like Liang, were condemned to frustration and shame. He had endured this most of his life, but it was hard.

This clone Liang had before him was a model of luxury, a perfect girl, a model designed to satisfy the sexual instincts of the rich. The model was old, but had benefited from all the improvements made, since then, to this human cloning technology.

"Fuck, I'd do that one..." Every time he pulled one of the clones out of the machine, he drooled with envy as he saw the dreamy creatures. Well, with his willy reduced to the size of a dwarf snail, he wouldn't do much harm to this kid...

He looked at the girl through the window. The liquid had finished flowing out, the fan had been turned on and the last traces of moisture had been removed. Liang looked at the girl, her perfect proportions, her nostrils quivering with the breath of a newborn. To think that they could produce such a beauty in less than three years! From zero to fifty kilos in eight hundred days. It is true that the maturation process was accompanied by a monstrous cocktail of growth hormones and more or less toxic "boosters". It was said that these girls didn't live long, that they lived long enough to be fucked to death by a guy with lots of money and maybe his buddies. For these girls, there was no second-hand market.

Liang was watching the process. He was waiting for the machine to stop, for the girl to be delivered. Perhaps he would have time to open the window, to touch her...

But already Deng Yuesheng, the boss, was coming. He was accompanied by two tall women in white coats. They were two heads taller than the doctor. Liang suppressed his annoyance and stepped back cautiously. He kept his eyes downcast, anxious not to betray the flame of lust that must surely still be burning in his eyes.

Yuesheng passed in front of him with the two giants. All ignored him and waited for the machine to stop. The doctor's two assistants followed his instructions without a word, preparing needles and pills, operating the dials and levers on the control panel. Liang never understood anything they said.

Luo, a friend of Liang's, had just approached. He knew that Liang did not like to ogle girls in the presence of others. Now that Dr. Deng Yuesheng was there, he allowed himself to come closer and enjoy the show.

The girl was easily taken out of the car. The platform that supported her was pulled out like a drawer. The two young women placed themselves at each end of the body, then, lifting this one in only one movement, posed, without apparent effort, the teenager on a bed on casters, which the doctor pushed towards them.

The ease with which these big girls lifted the most impressive weights reminded Liang and his old comrades every time that these girls were probably worker clones or military class B androids themselves. They had the strength of a sumo wrestler and the humor of a rattler. It was impossible to make them smile, impossible to exchange a word with them. Liang and his classmates had never tried to pinch their butts. They knew that these creatures would not like it and that the punishment would be brutal and painful.

Dr. Yuesheng examined the girl in front of him. He pulled her hair, examined her eyes, teeth and ears, palpated her limbs, and pulled on her knuckles. At one point, the moment Liang and his colleagues enjoyed the most, he inserted his plastic-gloved finger into the girl's vagina. His gesture was neutral, that of a jaded dissection specialist. He paused, concerned. He tried to insert his finger further. Obviously, from his expression, something was sticking. He asked his assistants for a digital endoscopic camera and inserted it. He examined in silence and suddenly, in a rage, removed his gloves and threw them on the floor. "Her vagina is too short! She's good for the scrapyard, get rid of it!" Furious, he was already walking away, followed by the two impassive giants.

The doctor was, usually, rather of the calm kind. This short burst of violence betrayed a black anger. This girl was destined for a small penis, a special order. Obviously, the intended customer this time did not have a micro-penis. It was therefore, potentially, a lost customer, a mogul perhaps.

It was well known that the breeding of clones was a difficult art, subject to strong hazards, but rich people did not allow themselves to be kept waiting. There were always several dozen girls in "culture", just in case. It would be necessary to propose an equivalent girl, not necessarily of the same model, with a few days delay.

This meant a small margin to apologize and a lot of skill on the part of the saleswoman who placed Deng Yuesheng's "productions" on the underground prostitution market.

"He only has to give it to me, the kid, I will know what to do with it! Why not sell her on the market in Guiyang or Liupanshui, we can get a reasonable price..." Liang ignored Luo's comments.

Dr. Yuesheng's voice could be heard in the distance. He was shouting at someone.

Liang was gloomy. The girl would have to be burned at the crematorium. In her condition, the girl didn't feel anything, according to what they said. Her functions had not been activated, she was in a deep coma. But still, burning alive a girl who had barely awakened to life, that was something. It was always fat Zhou Qi, a former basketball champion who had become obese, who was in charge of these operations. He picked up the girls in his huge arms, threw them into the oven, turned on the gas and watched with a smile as the flesh roasted. It was a cushy job, but it attracted a lot of strange people.

Suddenly, Liang and Luo were jostled by the two giants who were returning to take care of the girl. The doctor must have yelled at them because they had followed him without looking after the "failing room." One of them carried the young woman away and put her on her shoulder like a bag of cement. The kid was already considered a corpse.

Liang watched thoughtfully as they walked away, and he had a nasty thought in mind. He was trying to shut her up, but she was stubborn, like a fox on the lookout for chickens on the other side of the fence.

Liang had spent his whole miserable life as an asshole in the service of indifferent masters, a whole life running around on dusty roads, always within reach of a policeman's baton or Cao's henchman's kick. He had never had enough money to have a home of his own, let alone to buy a wife.

And now there was this international beauty award that was going to go to dust just because she had one tiny flaw. He couldn't bring himself to do it. He had to do something to get her, he had to be able to get his old hands on this creature. Before dying, he had to know that.

He followed the two ogresses from a distance, saw them drop the girl to the ground, near another pile of discarded girls, unceremoniously, in front of the great Zhou Qi. He could almost hear the sound of the girl's head banging on the tile floor. He hoped they hadn't broken his neck, those android bitches! He stood there, helpless, watching the scene from afar.

Liang didn't understand anything about the clones' awakening manipulations. He had seen the complex process of turning the levers, the electrical impulses, the countdowns, many times. Since he had never been instructed, he was unable to guess their purpose and the mechanisms involved. Dr. Yuesheng would never deign to answer any questions. Liang and the other scumbags were just helpless eunuchs, harem guards who had to keep their mouths shut. The fewer questions they asked, the better.

But Liang wasn't that stupid. He had noticed that at the end, just before they woke up, the girls were injected with a pink liquid in their left arm. It looked like the adrenaline shots he used to give to his comrades when they were overdosed, in his delinquent youth, when he was hanging out in the slums of Sichuan. It was like a shock to them, they had convulsions, screamed in pain, sometimes vomited water. It was their way of being born. We had to make them drink and leave them alone for several hours, in a quiet place. Most of the time, they woke up slowly and started to walk. Less than twenty-four hours after their awakening, they were sent to the client, ready to be used.

All the functions of language, of life in society, were taught to them during the gestation phase. The client received a girl capable of conversing, of surprising him, with her memories, a perfect knowledge of current events. Of course, they were perfectly instructed in the secrets and techniques of love, their primary function.

Liang walked back and forth to the side of Zhou Qi's den. The girl was still there, on a pile of corpses, the pile of "defective parts" to be burned. Dr. Deng's "clinic" was quite large. Hundreds of models were released every month, there was always some breakage, but it was out of the question to sell the imperfect girls on the black market. It was marketing, it was unthinkable that Dr. Yuesheng's creatures would end up in second-rate gambling dens. Firstly, Deng Yuesheng had a high opinion of himself; secondly, it was dangerous to leave traces of his clandestine works in the wild. If a competitor or opponent managed to get his hands on one of the doctor's creatures, he risked being sent by a hypocritical politician or an overzealous official to a labor camp, a laogai like so many others. Human cloning was strictly regulated, the cloning of women for prostitution even more so. Dr. Yuesheng's clients were only supposed to be immensely wealthy people, and above all untouchable. A preliminary investigation was systematically made on the potential clients and the dead girls were systematically taken away by the doctor's after-sales services. Nothing was left to chance.

Zhou Qi was assigned to the crematorium, among other tasks, to protect Dr. Yuesheng's daughter. He was close to the Yuesheng family. Almost as strong as the androids, but with greater social skills. He was human, unpredictable, emotional, alcoholic and occasionally depressed. In short, he was a human, and a human bodyguard, even one less reliable than the machines, was a mark of power and wealth highly valued in the school that Dr. Yuesheng's daughter attended... Besides, he had been a basketball star in his younger days.

So Zhou Qi was busy with many tasks, and of course the cremation of clones was not his passion. In fact, he would sometimes let days go by without disposing of the inanimate creatures left for him in the hallway.

This was the case now. Liang saw that Zhou Qi was quite busy, so he tried his luck. He went straight to the pile where the one he coveted was. He pulled it out and slid it across the floor to a door that opened into a disused warehouse behind the garages. The place was overgrown with weeds. No one came in.

Liang was exhausted. The young woman was not heavy, but the floor was cluttered with bits of brick and cardboard, and it was old. He was in a hurry, however, because it was a risky business. If he was caught, his retreat to Dr. Deng Yuesheng's house would end without notice. He would be condemned to die behind a wall, in shame and dishonor. Pulling the girl by the foot, sweating with all his body, on the verge of vomiting, he cursed himself for having had such an idea. It was absurd, he had no place to keep her. What was he going to do with such a burden? He no longer had the ability to get a hard-on, so what was he going to be able to do to her, other than look at her and talk nonsense?

He had to get her back to where she was, and resume her end of life, as if nothing had happened.

But he couldn't do it. He didn't have the strength to take her back now. He was even on the verge of fainting.

Suddenly he collapsed, overcome by the effort. Shit, he was going to die, there, caught with his hand in the bag!

After a short moment of fainting, he woke up. He was better. The girl was still there, in the same position.

There was no time to lose, he had to get out, to come back discreetly in the premises, to play the game of go, as if nothing had happened, with the other tramps of his kind.

He got up with a start and went back to the door.

Suddenly he stopped. He looked back at the girl. She was beautiful, so pure in her sleep. This world was really shit. Beautiful teenage girls were industrially produced to be fucked by bastards, to live a short life of debauchery before returning to their limbo, defiled.

Liang had lived the life of a tramp, since her birth in a miserable village in Guizhou, in the middle of a fatherless family. His mother was a poor woman, driven mad by misery. She had died when he was still a child. He had survived on the streets, on drugs and in the violence of a gang of young criminals, before their leaders were executed and he escaped to the slums of Chongqing.

All his life, since he was a child, he had been immersed in a world of violence, of filth, of corruption of souls. After this shitty life, he had become this lecherous, lying, thieving old man. After a life of voluntary submission to all the filth that was imposed on him, he was disgusted. How could he do otherwise?

Sometimes, too seldom in his life, he had had a jump, a gesture of humanity that had come to him and had produced a few sparks of light in his dark world.

He took out the syringe and injected its contents into the girl's arm. Once this was done, he crushed the syringe under his foot. He threw a large piece of the shattered syringe away, at the foot of a weedy wall, so that no trace would be found. Again, he pulled a plastic sheeting from the floor and covered the girl's body.

That was all he could do for her. He quickly walked away.

When he returned to his companions, Jie-Rui shouted at him: "What the hell were you doing? We started the game without you."

- Nothing, I went to the bathroom. I almost died, I fainted. I don't feel well.

- Ah, this is the end, you old bastard. Try not to end up with your head in the hole, in your shit!

All the jerks laughed. Liang let the jeers and laughter pass. His face looked funny, a reflection of his latest emotions, but it was appropriate. He had saved his life again, perhaps he had even done a good deed. He liked to note that at no time, he had not had indelicate gestures on the kid. Against all expectations.

In the weeks that followed, old Liang heard nothing of the young woman's disappearance. As he had expected, Zhou Qi and Dr. Deng Yuesheng did not keep any records of the "discarded" models. The mountain of muscle and fat simply grabbed the girls and threw them into the fire, without a glance. Since this phase of "production" was abhorrent and no trace was to be left, there was no control.

This last event was fantastic. Liang lived his last months more serenely, convinced that he was less despicable than everyone, including himself, thought. He died a few months later with a peaceful look on his face, ready for what was to come.

She woke up with a start, shaken by the shot of adrenaline that old Liang had injected into her arm. Her whole body was in pain. She felt like acid burning through her arteries and veins. Her lungs were on fire, burned by the air flowing through them. Withdrawn, she silently vomited the slightly sweet-tasting liquid that had nourished her organs during all those years of gestation.

She was not afraid, however. This event, and the stages that would follow, had been taught to her long ago. She knew perfectly well what mechanisms were at work, the gestures that had to be made, the sensations, the pains.

She had been born psychologically for more than a year, her body had simply finished growing in the shelter of the incubator. During all this time, her mind had matured, permanently fed with millions of information on the world, the social, emotional, economic, political life. The machines and the software had tried to give her all the information that a sixteen year old woman should have known, learned or experienced. She knew that several steps of the protocol had not been respected, that it was not vital for the continuation, simply more uncomfortable. Since her release from the incubator, she had recorded all the events. So she was not at all surprised to find herself there, on the floor, under a dusty tarp. She knew she had escaped a horrible death, burned alive in an oven.

She had not been able to thank the old man who had dragged her there, she did not know his name. But she knew that the circumstances of her escape were miraculous, that she was a model unsuited to the needs of the customer who had ordered her. She knew that she was the Jisoo 514 model, that she was meant to give pleasure to the customer who had ordered her, a Chinese-Korean named John Junior Hyun-Suk-Lam.

She understood that the circumstances of her coming into the world were peculiar, that she was not heading for a known world. After a few minutes of coughing and vomiting, she was free of the fluids that clogged her bronchi. She straightened up, played with her joints and stood up. She did the recommended check-up to make sure everything was okay. Everything was fine. She knew that the anxiolytics and sedatives, which had been massively administered to her so that she would not panic and live peacefully her "birth", would no longer be effective in a few hours. She would have to find a way to secure her situation, to find a protector, a Sugar daddy, someone to protect her from the street.

The first challenge was to leave this place alive. If she was found in the compound, she would not come out alive. She had heard Dr. Deng Yuesheng's orders and the staff's comments: she had to be removed. She looked around, the courtyard was large. She saw that there was a corridor on one side, it led to several courtyards and, at the end, to a gate. She walked cautiously, keeping her ears open, so as not to run into someone by surprise. There was no one at the windows, no noise. She crossed the different spaces without difficulty. When she reached the end, she was concerned about a small guardhouse near the gate. Was there a guard? The door to the gatehouse was ajar. There was no one inside. She saw a large jacket hanging from a hook and put it on. Her sexy little outfit, designed to win Mr. Hyun-Suk-Lam's heart, was not appropriate for walking through unfamiliar streets. She went out immediately and pressed the handle of the gate. The gate was closed. She then started to climb the gate.

A man's voice shouted something to her from the window of a building. She didn't look back, hurried through the obstacle and jumped to the other side. There were two guys talking in front of the gate at the corner of the street, she looked down and immediately ran into the street opposite, on the other side of the small square. She ran for ten minutes, always turning left, to go in the opposite direction of the exit she had taken. If one were to chase her, one would tend to look in the direction in which the two guys had seen her run.

She had reached a large boulevard, not far from Eluosi Fengqing Jie Street, on the harbor side. It was a beautiful day in April. Joosing stood on a low stone wall and observed the crowd. There were employees there, young people, foreigners. Who could she explain to that she had just been born, that she had no money, no family, and that the only people who knew her wanted her dead?

She looked around, but no one was looking at this young girl in a big, dirty coat. She had to find out, quickly, before her pursuers, if they were pursuing her, caught her.

She saw a tall man, in his fifties, who stared at her intently. She knew how to catch a look, she had learned. She went straight to him, smiling, "Hello."

He didn't seem fazed.

- Hello,

- Can you help me? My story is long. I'm an escaped clone.

- A Jisoo model, if I'm not mistaken...

- ... Yes, model 514. I don't know what to do, I have no money, I don't know where to go... But... You seem to understand?!

- Yes, you've come to the right place. I'm the first person you're talking to?

- Yes!

- Well, you're in luck. I'm Hong Pang, tell me your story.

They walked for a few minutes in the streets. She told everything in detail. He simply asked a few questions, from time to time, to ask for clarification. Suddenly, he interrupted her: "Well, my family has a foundation that should be able to help you. You'll have to make up an identity, find an occupation and... dress more decently, unless you want to become a bar coach, which you're not allowed to do anyway, considering your age..."

He took her to an office building where a self-driving car was waiting for them and took them to the outskirts of the city.

They stopped in the Maqiaozi district, at the foot of a brick building. She looked at all the balconies, at the stair railings repainted in a faded blue, pitted with rust. The neighborhood was plain, a few ungainly trees were struggling to survive.

An old man, very small, opened the front door of the building. He was scratching his belly.

Hong Pang told him to come down. As she hesitated, he encouraged her: "Go ahead, Zhāng knows. He's the one who will help you."

She looked around quickly. It was beginning to get dark. This tiny Zhāng, this ugly, paunchy old man, was also the promise of a home. She noted that Hong Pang was getting impatient. Surely he had other things to do than take care of her. She got out of the car. As she thanked him, the car started. She barely had time to see Hong Pang's face as he sketched a brief smile.

She turned back to Zhāng. "Oh, you won't see him much anymore. Hong Pang never comes here. Come in, you'll explain."

Already Zhang was disappearing into the building, continuing to say things she couldn't hear.

She entered the stairwell and was immediately assaulted by the smells of food, rotting fish, and mold-soaked walls.

Zhāng was walking up the stairs in front of her, still talking about his life. She could hear the sound of music, TV programs blaring behind the doors.

Zhāng pushed open a door and entered an apartment, "Here, welcome to the Yu Pengnian Foundation apartment! You are safe here. I'm here to see to it."

He showed her a rather large apartment, a meeting of several apartments on the same floor. She spotted several individuals eating at a large table or busily working on screens. None of them paid any particular attention to her. It seemed to her that many had peculiarities, disabilities.

Zhāng walked down two corridors cluttered with objects, mismatched furniture. It reigned in the places a frightful disorder. She immediately felt comfortable there, as if in a cocoon.

Zhāng stopped in front of a room: "There, you should be fine. This is girls' room number 5. Put your things down... Oh, that's right, you have nothing and we need to find you some clothes... Come here."

He immediately went back down another hallway to another door, reached into his pocket to pull out a set of keys. After several tries, he found the right key, opened the door.

"Here is the room of wonders, you find yourself a bag, you put in it an outfit, underwear, shoes, accessories, what you want for the night, morning, noon and evening. I'll get you a set of clothes, we'll get all that stuff and I'll take you back to your room. We'll eat in an hour, can you cook?

- Yes, I can cook.

- Perfect, come on, see you later. Ah, your coat... Throw it in the garbage. It's all the big yellow barrels...

Already, it was gone.

She spotted a yellow barrel, threw her coat into it without hesitation, returned to the room Zhāng had opened. It was the kingdom of the girls. The room, huge, was filled with t-shirts, skirts, pants, pajamas, belts, shoes, jackets.

She walked through the aisles, discovering things as she went. She gasped when Zhāng returned." Ah, la la, girls! If I leave you here, tomorrow we're still here! Well, I'll help you."

He took, peremptorily, a bag, stuffed in an outfit, underwear, shoes, pajamas.

"Okay, you put this on and see if it fits. "

He walked out and closed the door. "Put the stuff on, you tell me if it fits."

She undressed, tried on the outfit Zhāng had chosen for her. It wasn't bad, this old man had better taste than most men. The underwear was a good fit, the shoes too. Decidedly, the old man had an eye. She went out, dressed in new clothes. She had her outfit in her hand, the brand new one they had picked out for her at Dr. Deng Yuesheng's clinic; she threw it in the trash. Old Zhāng registered the gesture and its symbolism. He added a toiletry kit to the bag. She saw that there was shower gel, toothpaste, toilet water, and sanitary napkins.

They walked back down the hallways to girls' room number 5. Zhāng tapped on the door. No one was there. The room was spacious, with four beds scattered on all four sides and two bathrooms.

"There, you're responsible for cleaning the rooms like everyone else, on a rotating basis. You put your stuff in there, nothing should be lying around outside. Here's a lock, you put your code on it, you lock it."

The locker was big, she dialed a code. Zhāng asked her for the code, wrote it down on her cell phone. "I am the only one authorized to open this cabinet. What is your name?"

- I don't have one. I'm a Jisoo 514 clone...

- Well, I'll mark "514" for now, we'll find that out for you when we do your paperwork.

Zhāng didn't seem perturbed by any situation. The old man had been in quite a few situations.

Already, he was leaving again. "Follow me, we're going to the office."

She ran to catch up with him.

After crossing the living room again, Zhāng entered a room, facing the front door, whose door he opened with a key. He walked around a desk, sat down.

"Okay, sit down."

She sat down. The desk was small. Zhāng spoke as she kept looking at the door and the people walking past the desk. "Do you know where you are?"

- ...

- You are in heaven. Here is the Yu Pengnian Foundation. Mr. Pengnian was a billionaire from Hong Kong. Several generations ago, he left his entire fortune to this foundation. The children of the family have not touched anything. So no one was interested, except one.

He was Hong Pang's grandfather, a property manager. He got rid of the whole thing, bought those apartments in this city, connected them, put me in charge thirty years ago. We have everything we need to function for centuries to come. It's full of food, full of clothes, everything is paid for in full. You don't have to worry about anything, all we ask is that you don't do anything stupid, don't bring anyone from outside and keep yourself clean.

So, you don't do drugs, you don't bring anyone in, you stay clean, you have everything to gain.

You'll be safe, you'll be fed, you'll be housed. We'll be able to give you access to training, to get you papers. It's paradise, right?

- I can't believe it!

- Yeah, you're very lucky you met the right guy. Hong Pang never comes here, he lets me handle everything, but he trusts me too. Well, you're going to tell me your story. Not so much tonight, but every day we'll meet, we'll talk. I need to understand your flaws. And if you are a Jisoo, as you told me, and as I see it, there is work to do!..."

[To be continued, but probably not]

https://www.amazon.fr/~/e/B07BR6V6D9