My Two Elas

“You’re strangely quiet.  I would have thought you’d be over the moon to meet yourself.”

I looked up at Martialla from my position in repose on a pile of sacks that I hope are filled with grain “Because I’m a self-obsessed narcissist?” She nodded “Well first of all there’s no reason to use the words self-obsessed and narcissist both like that Martialla, those are synonyms and you should know that.  Second of all I’m not convinced that she is a clone.”

Her stupid bug-eyes bugged out more “Are you kidding me?  She looks exactly like you.”

I spit over the side of the boat like one of my country cousins “Maybe if I was turned into a piece of human jerky, spit on, and microwaved for twenty years.  She’s got no tits and no ass and everyone knows that I inspired that song Baby Got Back.”

“You were in high school when that song came out.”

“I developed early, don’t be jealous of my good looks just because you’re an ironing board wearing a man’s wig for hair.  Regardless of what she looks like, her story is ridiculous.  I’m supposed to be believe that while we were frozen society advanced to the point where they could clone people and they had entire facilities dedicated to growing Ela clones so their organs could be harvested and transplanted into old people to keep them young and fit, and then a rouge group of heroic rebels used their future technology to beam all my movies and TV show appearances into the brains of these clones at the exact same time this advanced future society was destroyed by the barbarian hordes outside and then one of these clones, based purely on remembering shitty movie dialog and my on-screen charisma as an example not only survived in this deathworld but became the leader of the River Kingdoms?”

Martialla rolled her shoulders uncomfortably “Well when you put it like.”

“Not to mention which, according to her, one of these Ela clones already tried to fight a war against Duke Eagle and was killed in Murdertown in front of a little girl who grew up and just happens to be traveling with us, and that this Ela clone, or one of the others, is most likely the inspiration for a syncretic religion where they’ve gotten me mixed up with both Jesus and Mary.”

She had a mildly pained look on her face “Stranger things have happened?”

I snorted “Have they Martialla?  If I was working on a show and the writer came to me with this crap I’d order you to slap him right in the face.  Clones Martialla?  I’m supposed to believe that cloning is a thing?”

“Why is that so hard to believe?  They cloned a sheep just a few years ago.  I mean, a few and a hundred years ago.”

“I know what you mean” I said irritably “I’m not a sheep.  I’m still not convinced that they had cryogenic nano-bots figured out in our time.”

She steepled her brows like a cartoon vampire “Despite all the evidence.”

I waved my hand “Evidence schmevidence.  If this so-called society was advanced enough to clone people and artificially advance them to adult age in three years and also beam information directly into their brains and also this was all done by robots, they would have a better health care system for keeping rich people happy than growing clones and ripping out their livers.  That’s sci-fi bullshit.”

She cocked her head slightly “I actually kind of agree with you on that.  So what?  You think she’s your second cousin twice removed?”

“Who cares what she is?”  I waved at her angrily “Get off the bowsprit before you get shot, haven’t you seen every Vietnam movie ever?”

She laughed as she jumped back onto the deck like nimbly like a shaggy mountain she-goat “How do you know what a bowsprit is?”

“Glencrest Yacht Club.  I don’t care who this woman is, if she wants to call herself Ela and tell crazy stories about clones and high-tech Bladerunner cities with flying cars that’s fine as long as she also wants to help me put a stop to Duke’s reign of terror.”

Martialla nodded “She did seem to really hate that guy, must be genetic.  And all we have to do is bring her a tank.”

“And all we have to is bring her a tank.”

Martialla sat back against whatever the call the side of the boat “It’s too bad you don’t look enough alike to Freaky Friday her.”

“Freaky Friday was a body swap movie.  You’re thinking of the Prince and the Pauper.  Or probably the far superior Josie And The Pussycats episode Swap Plot Flop wherein Valerie agrees to pose as a kidnapped princess who looks just like her, only for the plan to backfire with hilarious results.”

“It’s too bad that Lucien isn’t a woman, then we could be like Josie and the Pussycats.”

“Shut up Martialla.”