from THE REASON

The mechani-clone ship held few surprises. A room full of look-a-likes leaves me searching for strangers, strangeness. Every room exactly alike. Everyone in every room exactly alike. Shocking in its strange sameness. The most shocking surprise: the blatant lack of vacu-jac facilities.

“Where do I go?”

“Go? Go where?

“To go! Where do I go to go?”

“You don’t have to go anywhere. You have freedom of the ship. You can go wherever you’d like.”

“Very well then!”

“What are you doing?” He asked as I soaked his pants leg. His Bio-fleshy mechani leg made no move.

“I’m going!”

“No you’re not! You’re urinating on my leg!” He seemed fascinated.

“Ah that’s better…”

“When will you be back?”

“What?”

“If you are going when will you be back?”

“I don’t have to go anymore.” These mechani-clones! They do not excrete. No fluids, no solids, no semi-solids. Consequently on this cloneship there are no facilities for the treatment of human wastes.

“Well…what do I do if I gotta go?”

“Go where?”

Aw geez, not again! “Real humans shit and piss! We make a lot of it! Where do I put it?”

“I don’t care. We don’t do it. Not my problem.” His denial pre-programming had engaged.

This mechani-bio design feature of nil-waste metabolism could be their eventual downfall; an excri-test. Anyone not observed shitting or pissing would be suspect mechani-clone. Para-military detection dogs make great clean crotch sniffers. Hubert 45721 my shepardly liaison has no pre-programmed aversion to sewage. Smearing crap on people would quickly weed out the ones who don’t mind.

“We cannot be affected by filth. Germs, however virulent, that kill, have no power over us. Why, I can’t even smell noxious fumes. I could drink urine and eat feces! It would be burned in the carbon furnace bio engine.” No more kissing the girl mechani-clones then.

Since they didn't seem to mind I chose a semi-private corner using one of the amply available tunics for clean up. This went well till I approached to find several of them had the deck plates tore up searching for “the cause of the corrosion”.