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  Randy said, “That’s because they were talking about his memory.”

  “Okay, fine,” Milton said. “Someday, or at least in real life, every one of those characters will die off. In fact, everyone watching that story in the holoplex will be dead too. There won’t be anyone left in the world to remember Coyote-Man or anyone else at all, because they will be dead too.”

  “Hey, that’s not very nice.”

  “Then why do they have to say such stupid things? I’m getting tired of not being able to say things that are true because some people think they are offensive. I think that stupid line by Pink Arrow in the movie was offensive. What about that?”

  As they exited the holoplex and were walking toward the transit worm stop, Randy said, “It’s just a movie, Milton. Quit making a big deal out of it. You gotta not take it so seriously and forget about it.”

  “Why should I?” Milton said. That movie is telling everyone a big fat lie. Why is it okay to promote a stupid idea like that just because it is in a movie? Once you are dead, you are dead. And what really makes the Pain Posse the good guys? To me, there really is not any difference between them and the Tolerance Consortium. What is the purpose of living anyways?”

  Randy became perturbed and said, “I thought we went there to watch some action and see bad guys get beaten up, not to try to learn things or think about stuff like that. I guess I was wrong. You want to make Pain Posse 6 into this big lesson or something and spend all night thinking way too much about it.”

  Milton saw a couple of girls about their age walking toward the holoplex looking at their devices. He asked them, “Do you girls believe in God?”

  They huddled together and continued walking, only faster.

  “You can’t do that,” Randy said, grabbing Milton by the arm, trying to pull him to the side.

  Milton would have none of that and stood his ground and jerked his arm away. “Why not?! Why is it so bad to talk about God?! Something is definitely wrong with this world! I’m getting tired of this!”

  Randy said, “What’s the difference if God is real or not, it doesn’t matter to us!”

  Milton said, “Seriously? If there is no God, then we were not made with a purpose. If there is no God, then we are just a random accident and it won’t matter or not if I made my bed this morning. If God made us, He did for a reason and I want to know what it is.”

  “All that kinda talk is what they call clone envy,” Randy said. “Clones are raised for a purpose and we freely conceived people are just random. No one expects that much out of us, which I think is good. It takes a lot of pressure off of us.”

  “I am not jealous of clones,” Milton said, “and that is just loser talk, and has nothing to do with what I am saying.”

  “Loser?! I’m just a realist,” Randy said. “My grandma says I am a very well adjusted young man, not a loser. You just need to relax. All this stuff will go away. I promise.”

  Chapter 6

  The next day in school Milton was still full of frustration and hostility. He felt a void in his life, in his future, and was being treated like a criminal just for having a basic question that he believed should be asked by everyone on earth. But it seemed like Sleepy was right; asking other humans was the only way he would ever find out anything he could believe in about God.

  Milton asked Norton Burton, who he thought to be the smartest kid in his class, “Do you believe in God?”

  Norton looked nervous. He said, “Um . . . What do you think?”

  Milton couldn’t get any kind of commitment out of Norton one way or the other. It seemed like Norton was just trying to guess what Milton wanted to hear.

  Dave and Dale Urbano were a set of identical twins in his class who were good in sports. He had always heard that twins and clones were good to use in experiments because they had the same DNA. Besides, clones went to separate, more demanding schools than freeborn, and he didn’t know any clones personally.

  So he asked the Urbano twins separately if they believed in God. Dave shrugged his shoulders and said, “I dunno.”

  Dale just made a face and walked away, so the twin thing was inconclusive.

  Milton did not want to get a bad name among the girls in his class by asking them awkward questions, but he was not doing well with the boys. So he approached Norma Blanchester, the one whom he admired greatly, and asked her if she believed in God.

  Norma panicked and ran away.

  He saw Sylvia Gonzalez. She should be good because she liked to talk all of the time. So he asked her the same question. Sylvia looked a little startled and she said, “Yes, I do.”

  Milton said, “You do? I mean, thank you, Sylvia. He wished he had thought out this impromptu survey better, but he could not think of what to say next, so he said, “Thanks again,” and he walked away.

  Milton looked behind and heard Sylvia laughing and talking to other girls, so he concluded that she was just playing him with her answer. He was not so glad that she talked a lot anymore.

  As he made his way down the hall, he ran into Mr. Chang, the social studies teacher. Mr. Chang told Milton to report to Principal Stafford’s office at once.

  *******

  Mr. Stafford said, “Okay, Milton. So what is this all about, you going around imposing harm on your fellow students?”

  “Imposing harm? I’m not imposing anything on anyone.”

  “Look, Thomas. Don’t act all innocent with me. I know you are playing games with the minds of our children here. I promise you that I will not stand for it. So you better decide right now to give up this nonsense.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong, and I am not changing my mind about what I am doing at all. All I did was to ask my friends if they believe in God.”

  “No. You need to stop and think, Milton. What if these children don’t feel good about themselves? What if you disturb them to the point they take their own lives? Do you want to be responsible for that?”

  “I’m not responsible for anything like that, Mr. Stafford. I just want to know what they think.”

  “That’s the problem. You can’t expect people to start thinking about troubling things like that. It bothers them. There is such a thing as separation of Church and State and hate speech. That’s why you can’t talk about it at school. Read your history; people who used to believe in God were not tolerant of others. God was just their excuse to hate people. Your little game puts a lot of stress on people and makes them feel like others disapprove of them or hate them for no reason.”

  “Maybe they need to be bothered with it. I just want to know if God is real. That’s all. If there is a God, then maybe there is life after death. If there is life after death, and you have to live a certain way or do something to get it, then that is the way I will live, no matter what anyone else says. Maybe those other kids wouldn’t feel so weak if they knew for themselves why they believe what they believe. But all I see are people who feel threatened by the thought of God. To me, everyone ought to be asking the same questions I am.”

  “Think about what you just said, Thomas. You think everyone else should think the way that you do. They don’t, and you should realize by now that how you are imposing your views on them is selfish and hateful. You are violating their right to privacy. You are just passing your own terrible thoughts and emotional instability on to others. It won’t continue here. I think you have a lot of mental and emotional problems you need to work out; probably because your father is in reeducation camp. Since you are having problems understanding the meaning of your freely conceived life, or some other nonsense, I’m going to tell your mom that you need professional help for your clone envy. Otherwise, I’ll have to suspend you from school. Now why don’t you just forget about all of that and join one of the sports teams or clubs we have here?”

  Milton asked, “Don’t you care about people?”

  “What do you mean by that, Thomas?”

  “Everyone says I am the one doing harm, but all I am trying to do is find o
ut about God. Knowing about God would be good for everyone, but nobody really cares about that part of their lives.”

  Principal Stafford said, “I don’t know who is feeding you this stuff, but I want it to stop. Got it?”

  Milton felt more anger than ever at Principal Stafford. For the first time he felt like lashing out at him. But that imagined situation would have ended extremely badly. Milton still believed that he had not done anything wrong to anyone. “I know that to you I’m just another stupid kid, except that I don’t agree with everything that you are paid to tell me to believe.”

  “Get out of here Thomas. And you better watch yourself. I’m being real serious here.”

  *******

  That evening, things got progressively worse for Milton.

  “Mom!” Milton objected to the idea she of having to go to counseling with a psychiatrist.

  “What do you want me to do, Milton?! I’m not going to have my son kicked out of school for out-of-control behavior!”

  “I’m not! All I did was asked some kids if they believe in God!”

  “I’d rather you keep that at home. People take that sort of thing personal.”

  “No,” Milton said, “that ain’t it! At school we talk about personal stuff all the time. They are just afraid to talk about God. It makes no sense at all.”

  “Milton, all you have to do is tell the counselor, or whoever, the same thing you just told me. Just do it and see what they say.”

  “Okay! Fine! Maybe everyone will just get off of my back then! All right?! Daaa!”

  *******

  Later, Beth had to get her daily dig in on Milton. She said, “Hey dummy! I hear you were going around and asking the girls a bunch of personal questions and getting them all embarrassed and mad. Way to go.”

  “No, I wasn’t!” Milton said. “I mean, they took it all wrong.”

  “That’s not what that Norma chick was telling everyone online.”

  “Don’t believe everything you see.”

  “I don’t. I just believe what Norma said.”

  “Whatever,” Milton said. “It’s not my fault if they get mad.”

  “Duh! Whatever!” Beth mimicked. “Everyone keeps asking me what’s up with my weirdo brother. I don’t like it.”

  Milton was just grateful that his mom didn’t tell Beth about his appointment with the counselor.

  Chapter 7

  Boston, Homeland

  “You said, what?!” the excited bald clone said to Andy the Android.

  “I told another android that was also named ‘Andy the Android’ that I was not trying to steal its identity, and just by being named the same as the other android, it did not constitute identity theft.”

  “No, not that part, the other part of this magnificent story of yours!” the bearded clone said.

  “You mean the part about me explaining how true identity theft is done correctly and effectively?”

  “Yeah, that would be it! You went and told another android how to skim off someone’s account?!”

  “Yes, but it was only to correct his wrong assumption that I was stealing his identity because we had the same name. He didn’t know what he was talking about.”

  “No you didn’t!” the blonde clone said with his hands on the sides of his head. “Andy, all you should have said was that your same names were a coincidence, not an effort to steal its identity!”

  The bearded clone said, “Andy. Stop and think about what you said to that android.”

  “I see the problem now. It turns out I’m not very good at being a cybercriminal.”

  The bearded clone said, “Some things require competent deceit; such as our business. If you are in this business and fail at deceit, the cost is extremely high.”

  The blonde clone said, “I know we will end up going to jail because of this droid. Who thought it was a good idea to have it help us in our enterprises?”

  The bald clone sighed and said, “Fine. Then let’s just get rid of him. I agree that there is no possible way it will make us any money; without us ending up being culled.”

  The bearded clone said, “Did you upload any data to this other Andy that you were so worried that he was trying to steal your identity?”

  “No utilities, only descriptions and operational protocols.”

  The bald clone said, “The problem with that, Andrew, is that when you do that, you are spreading around evidence that you are part of some things we want to keep a secret. Eventually, someone could connect the dots leading to us.”

  The bearded clone said, “Right now I’m going to hope that other Andy is no savvier than the wondrous one that we have the privilege of owning.”

  Andy said to the bearded clone, “That is not a correct assumption. The other Andy is a 2213 model Dextroid. However, it only has been in service for a short time and has not developed much of a database.”

  “So you just thought you would show him the ways of being a loose-lipped law-breaking robot,” the bald clone said. “This thing with you is really becoming a distraction. We are wasting too much energy wondering what Andy is up to. Can we please just get rid of it? How about if we just disown it and put it out on the street?”

  The blonde clone asked, “Is that possible? I mean, just go in there and delete ourselves as the owner? Anyway, Andy cost us way too much to just ditch him. Maybe we could make a deal with that Rosario. We could trade Andy for some protection.”

  The bearded clone said, “You may hate this idea, but I know Tekujin made specialized implant upgrades for these Lucids that could help, such as human facial expression recognition. There are a lot of psychology modules that we could install in his noggin that could eliminate some of his nonsense.”

  The bald clone shook his head and said, “I don’t know about that. I hate sinking even more money into such a walking money pit, especially if we are going to end up junking it.”

  The blonde said, “I did hear some of the original tricked out Lucids were well-regarded for certain soft-skill jobs. Maybe we can scavenge up an old expansion package for small money.”

  “Whatever,” the bald clone said. “Or we could just beat some sense into him. Andy! Do you understand the problem here?!”

  “Yes, completely. I was loose-lipped.”

  “Then watch what you are saying!”

  “I will increase my verbal and radio output articulation filters to 12.”

  “Whatever,” the bald clone said. “I hope that is a couple of clicks past stupid.”

  Andy said, “The articulation filter is not based upon intelligence, but will not me say things that may be sensitive to our overall goals.”

  “Daaa!” the bald clone picked up a chair and was ready to smash Andy with it for being so obvious. The other two clones restrained him. After the bald clone relaxed, they went back to their workstations.

  The blonde clone was looking at a screen and said, “Ooh! Look! A whole psych package for Tekujin Lucids listed here for five hundred Homeland Credits. Must sell. Wonder why it’s so cheap? I’m getting it.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Just do it,” the bald clone said. “You can install it.”

  The bearded clone asked, “Andy, will it really bother your mechanical sensitivities if we continue to build our botnet now without further trouble or commentary from you?”

  “No,” Andy said, “I encourage it.”

  Chapter 8

  Hartford, Homeland

  “Just Relax,” the psychiatrist said as she motioned for Milton to take a seat in a cushy chair. “My name is Dr. Lorenzo. I just want to interview you to see what you think about some things in relation to what has been going on with you. This won’t take long, and then you can get back to class.”

  Milton had a strong mistrust of the psychiatrist, since she represented the school administration. The school already demonstrated that they had it out for him, for no reason.

  “Milton,” Dr. Lorenzo said, “So you were asking fellow students if they believe in God, corr
ect?”

  “Yes. That is true,” Milton said.

  “Do you think students have a right to keep their ideas about that private?”

  “Yes. But I also think I have the right to ask the question. If I bug them so much, all they have to do is not answer.”

  Doctor Lorenzo said, “Here is the problem with that: Many people choose to keep their thoughts, as well as their opinions on questions about religion to themselves. They have protected rights to privacy. When you ask them questions like that, you are invading their own personal ‘safe space’. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “Yes. You are protecting them, because they are wimpy. You are trying to protect them from the real world or knowledge about religion, whether it may help them or not. Then on top of that, everyone is trying to make me out as some kind of bad guy.”

  “Thank you for your honesty, Milton. Now let me be honest. Some would say that you are bad and you are not talking about the real world. You do have the right to think whatever you want as long as you don’t speak of it.”

  “Do you think I am bad?” Milton asked.

  “People like to feel good about themselves. Don’t you think some of the things you say make others feel bad about themselves?”

  Milton paused for a few moments. Then he said, “I still don’t see how it is my responsibility that others feel bad because I asked them a normal question that everyone should already be thinking about.”

  “Milton, maybe it’s because they are like you and can’t answer your question and it bothers them that they can’t. And at school, your classmates may feel your priorities are out of order by asking inappropriate questions.”

  “My priorities? If God is real, He would want us to believe in Him, not ignore him. He would want us to do what He wants. Maybe He is somehow making me want to find out about Him. I just want to know if He is real. You are right. I do consider that a big priority.”