In 500... (or less)

I Cannot Tell a Lie

It was the perfect cover while it lasted. Then I had to go and do something stupid. Chalk it up to vanity.

I knew a long time ago they wanted me out of the picture. I knew too much. I took some measures to safeguard against it, stuff they would never have found out.

Life isn't safe for the guy who perfected human cloning. I was a little naive to all of the sinister things happening behind the scenes, but I caught on before it was too late.

The unassuming silver sedan was following me that day. I drove out of the city, down a lonely country road that no other person coming from the city would possibly have an interest in. That's when I knew I was going to be eliminated.

But they hadn't counted on me having a backup plan. I had perfected a lot more than cloning. In a secret location, my backup plan was ready. I sent the signal from my cellphone and activated the waiting body. I was impressed by how quickly it came online, complete with all my memories and mental capabilities. The phone erased itself just before the bullet went in behind my ear. The police never found my body, I am still listed as missing.

The new body was a perfect place to hide. He looked nothing like me. I could live out another lifetime without the slightest suspicion, free of the bonds in which my discovery had placed me. But then I messed up.

The woods of Maine are a good place to hide, and I had studied up on how to live off the grid. I should have picked a better spot. Then again, I'd really be dead if those hikers hadn't come by when they did. I was pretty sick when they found me, too weak to protest being evacuated from my crude shelter.

I should have probably put more thought into who I cloned. As I said, it was vanity. If you're going to make a clone, why not do it in style? The hospital and police tried to figure out who I was.

"The blood work came back." The nurses out in the hall didn't care about privacy. Everyone on the wing could hear them.

"And?"

"You're not going to believe this." I heard paperwork shuffling, and the sounds of everyone at the nurses' station collecting in one spot.

"That has to be wrong," one of the nurses said. "He's probably just related somehow."

The other nurse was adamant.

"DNA does not lie. It is him. Not a relative."

I knew the next call was going to be to the police, so I quietly slipped out of my room, stole some clothes from another room, and beat a hasty retreat.

Imagine, having to explain how exactly George Washington himself turned up alive and well in the middle of the Maine woods more than 200 years after he died.