help. D-53682 was no different. Dr. Clarke ticked the box 
designating that he was uncomfortable with his new life. She ticked 
the box designating him as insistent upon their innocence. She 
ticked the box denoting he — rightfully — had no control of his life 
anymore. 


The assessment only went for an hour, but for Dr. Clarke it took an 
eternity. Several years had surely passed as this man cried and 
sobbed and begged to be let free, or be sent back to Site 18 in the 
states. Australia was so far from his home, too far he claimed. 


“Can | at least send a letter to my mother? She lives back at the 
farm, she would be worried about where I’d gone...” he begged. 


“Of course. We'll do our best to make sure that she gets your letter, 
Jesse.” Accepting the handwritten note from the man, she stood and 
escorted him to the door of the room and into the care of a guard 
waiting outside. Returning to her seat, Dr. Clarke dropped the note 
into the nearby garbage chute as she pulled the filled form from the 
clipboard, filing it into a tray marked ‘completed’. The letter would 
never reach anyone — none of them ever did. Anyone who cared 
about these criminals had already been told what they needed to 
think, that they had been killed in a prison fight and disfigured 
beyond recognition. In desperation and grief, families and friends 
wouldn't even notice that the few stray limbs they were burying ina 
coffin weren't human, just animal meat and bones moulded into 
vaguely humanoid shapes. 


Taking a brief drink from her glass of water, Dr. Clarke pressed the 
button on her desk that signalled for the next to enter as she 
attached a blank form to her clipboard. The next to walk in was a 
woman with a downbeat vibe about them. Dr. Clarke didn’t bother 
trying to identify their race or ancestry; she hardly even registered 
the woman had dark skin. As thoughtlessly as before, she spoke. 


“Good morning, D-53683,” she spoke as she filled the designation 
into the form. “My name is Dr. Amanda Clarke, and | will be 
conducting your psychological evaluation today.” Again, the 
empathy and warmth in her voice was fake, perfected over the 
countless evaluations she had conducted. As before, she had 
already predicted the response, and only paid heed to their first 


name. 


“My name is Jesse Ball,” she responded, pathetically trying to resist 
the impeding numerical designation being forced upon her. Dr. 
Clarke knew that just like all those before her, and all those to follow, 
D-53683 would fail. 


“Very well then Jesse. How has your day been?” A vague sense of 
déja vu washed over Amanda, but was quickly overlooked as little 
more than the consequence of this line of work as she ticked the first 
box. Amanda’s mind wandered elsewhere as her interviewee spoke, 
planning the small remainder of her day outside of her job. What’l/ | 
have for dinner? she wondered as the woman before her babbled 
on. 


Just like all the other D-Classes, D-53683 was just another 
expendable, death-row criminal. People didn’t end up on death row 
for minor crimes, so if she was here, she deserved whatever she 
got. Any attention paid to her was attention wasted. 


And just like the previous interview, D-53683’s handwritten letter to 
their worrying, farm-life mother was discarded thoughtlessly into the 
trash as Dr. Clarke filed the form away and fetched another. 


With a muffled thud and a pair of clicks, the next D-Class was 
buckled and chained to their seat. With no further action being 
needed to restrain them, Agent Don Blake marched back up the 
carpeted aisle past the forty-odd others similarly restrained to their 
seat, and fetched the next one. Unfortunately today was one of the 
hotter days that the region experienced, and even though the trip 
over the tarmac back to the plane was short, the scorching heat 
from below was unbearable. 


Unlike the last one, this chained prisoner was fully compliant to the 
leading arm of Agent Blake. The mildly beefy man had visibly been 
broken in spirit long before he had arrived at this airstrip in 
Wyoming, the only sound confirming his existence being the clinking 
of chains and the thuds of his footsteps. Up the stairs they went, 
past the other restrained prisoners, all the way to a vacant seat. The 
man, already knowing what was wanted of him, preemptively moved 


forward and positioned himself into the seat to ease the act of 
padlocking the chains to the seat, and similarly locking the seat 
buckle around their waist. Agent Burke turned and once again exited 
the plane, returning to the group of waiting deportees outside. 


Don didn't know much about the flight itself, just wnat he needed to 
know. The hundred-strong D-Classes had arrived at Jackson, 
Wyoming from some vague site north of the town, and were bound 
for Alice Springs, Australia to disappear off to another vague site. 
Don chuckled. From nothing, to nothing, he thought to himself as he 
grabbed the scrawny arm of the next to be seated. For this part of 
their journey, the passengers were as close to nought as a human 
could reasonably get within this digital age - nobody knew where 
they came from, nobody knew where they were going, nobody knew 
who they were. Here and now, they didn't even have their D-Class 
designations. Here, they were little more than 'male' and ‘female’. 


Well, except this one. Agent Burke tightened his grip on the prisoner 
he was escorting, feeling the tug of their repeated attempts to walk 
off in another direction. This one in particular seemed insistent on 
being an annoyance to staff, but not quite annoying enough to need 
disciplining. Feeling the tug of the man's divergent path again, Agent 
Burke yanked him roughly back into the right direction. There was 
always the odd one out, the one who persisted in rebelling any way 
they could. They probably kept going even when they arrived at their 
destination - Don couldn't help but wonder how many got 
themselves killed ignoring orders. He wondered how long this one 
would last. 


There was a brief, strong pull in the direction of the prisoner, 
followed by nothing. Burke must've softened his grip as he idled in 
his thought, and the escapee had taken the opportunity to break free 
and make a run for it. He was running down the airstrip as fast as 
his feet could carry him, away from the plane and the guards. Agent 
Burke barked a command to stop before he gave chase, but tired 
quickly - the heat belted him from above, from below, and the thick 
security gear he wore made it even less bearable. 


"Fuck it," he mumbled to himself, pulling his handgun out of its 
holster and steadying his aim. The sound of three small explosions 
pierced the silence, followed by the fleeing prisoner stumbling and 


hitting the ground. Satisfied, Agent Burke turned away from the 
plane and back to the group of shocked prisoners as he holstered 
his gun. 


"Any more of you expendable fucks want to die here?" he barked, 
angered by the brief event that had just transpired. He wasn't angry 
that he'd been forced to shoot the man, no - that would imply Agent 
Burke felt empathy for the death-row convicts. No, he was angry 
because now they were one passenger short. He'd have to get 
ahold of a replacement at some point, which would mean finding out 
where these lot came from, which means lots of red tape... 


Don rubbed the bridge of his nose in frustration. Fucking inmates. 
Why can't they just listen... He thought, grabbing the arm of the next 
in line, and escorting them to the plane. 


The sound of whirring machinery and liquids flowing through pipes 
finally died down, the sources of such sounds finally turning off after 
being left running for several days. Readings on gauges subsided to 
normal levels, lights turned on or off on consoles, and to signal that 
everything had successfully switched back to standby mode a 
collection of synchronized alarm bells briefly sounded. 


Sitting in one of several control rooms scattered throughout the 
complex, a particularly stout man relaxed in his seat. Taking a drag 
from his lit cigarette, the man looked up at the multiple screens 
positioned around his seat, glancing at them for a few moments 
each before moving to the next. He watched as thousands of naked, 
dazed adults stumbled out of pods in countless rooms spread 
throughout the facility, being collected up by a small legion of men 
and herded into waiting vehicles. 


“Poor sods,” he mumbled to himself, “no idea what’s goin’ on, no 
control about what'll happen.” He was referring to the fact that every 
single one of these humans were mentally idle, their lack of free 
thought making them easy to handle. Some of them collapsed 
where they stood, unable to survive with the malformed organs they 
had. They were simply thrown onto a separate vehicle and counted; 
twenty-seven had died. In front of the man, a screen lit up with the 
portrait of a human silhouette. 


"Report." 05-11 spoke with an ambiguous, synthesised voice. The 
seated man was obliged to respond. 


"Monthly production has concluded. One hundred thousand 
produced today, with a loss of twenty-seven immediately post- 
production. Remaining ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and 
seventy-three are sufficient to fulfil monthly requirement, and are 
being transported to the surface for dissemination." His voice was 
rough and wheezy, years of constant smoking having damaged his 
throat and lungs beyond repair. Whether he would suffocate or die 
from cancer he didn't know, but neither did he care. 


"Were the fixes implemented?" asked 05-11, overlooking the 
abhorrently bad health of the project manager. 


"Yes. Personality components should be more randomised now, and 
the Haemophilia glitch should be fixed now." Feeling an imminent 
coughing fit, the seated man whipped out a handkerchief and held it 
to his face as the fit struck. After a minute it subsided and, ignoring 
the new splotch of blood and phlegm, the handkerchief was returned 
to its pocket. 


"Sorry. There were no losses in staff this month, so no replacements 
were required. We've noticed some of the machines are in need of 
replacement, which we'll be doing before production resumes next 
month." 


"You should stop smoking,” said 05-11, apparently ignoring the 
report in favour of the stout man's health. The latter in turn took 
another drag from his cigarette before continuing. 


"What's the worst it could do, kill me?" His laughter was quickly 
interrupted by a coughing fit, his body struggling to process enough 
air. Once it subsided, he answered less humorously. "The 
carcinogens will make the products more authentic. In this day and 
age, it's pretty tough to grow up without being exposed to something 
lethal. It'll be distributed when | die." A brief silence ensued before 
05-11 responded. 


"Very well. Continue." And with that, the screen went blank once 
more. The seated man returned his attention to the screens in time 


to see the first group of products depart on a freight elevator bound 
for the surface. 


He was glad he was who he was. Others might find it miserable, 
stuck watching everything that occurred in a five hundred thousand 
tonne machine hidden beneath Yellowstone, spending only an hour 
or two at the surface each week. But from the day he had been 
birthed by the machine, he had no choice in the matter - it was either 
this, or be given a false history and be conditioned into a convict, 
like those on the screen. He was much happier repairing and 
maintaining the most important machine ever forged by mankind, 
the same machine which birthed him, than being doomed to die 
within a month and get blended back into the biological soup he had 
been made from. 


He had necessarily been conditioned to an extent, though. The 
Overseers had to be sure that he wouldn't defect to an enemy or go 
on some mad rampage, and so they had conditioned him with a 
strong sense of duty to protect his iron mother, as well as an 
undying loyalty to the Foundation. But some aspects of his 
personality had developed on their own, filling the vacuum around 
the conditioning; the most notable of this was his choice of name, 
Tukay Dee. Not particularly original considering he was a fourth- 
model worker, but it was enough to set him apart from the 
disposables he exported. 


The toxic yet soothing smoke of the cigarette once again entered his 
lungs. The name signified his higher purpose, to protect and help 
rather than simply die. It showed he had earned any empathy he 
received - not for what he was, but who he was. He expected no 
different from his creations, and so they were given their phantom 
lives of villainy and crime. To avoid the misguided empathy of a 
researcher falling upon them simply for where they came from, 
causing hesitation at whether they truly deserved the imminent 
death before them. The chains of ethics would hold the Foundation 
back, constricting and killing it. 


So a necessary evil was added, justified by placing it in the control 
of Tukay Dee. Rather than use the finite quantity of death row 
inmates to try fill the infinite requirement the Foundation had only to 
fail within a month, an endless supply of recycled convicts were 


made, bound to the caste of persecution and death they bore in their 
previous life, unable to ever escape from the cycle to nirvana. 


Well, no cycle was ever perfect and the reuse of the Foundation's D- 
classes was no different. Tukay Dee turned his attention to a 
monitor showing one of the lifts, from which a dump truck piled high 
with purportedly uncontaminated human corpses was emerging. The 
Foundation had dangerous, anomalous biohazards within its care, 
some of which needed sacrifices to understand. In a warped way the 
ones killed by these diseases were the lucky ones, the ones whose 
bodies broke free from the cycle and could truly be at rest. 
Decontaminating a decaying corpse was expensive and difficult, so 
they were incinerated rather than sent back to the phantom "Site 
18." 


The machine had a critical purpose which it had to be prepared to 
fulfil at any time. It had to be able to resurrect the human race from 
extinction, reset the clock in the wake of the rapture. Regardless of 
what contaminant was floating within the biological soup, the 
machine could fulfil its purpose - but the entirety of humanity would 
be infected as a consequence, and a lot of the biohazards the 
Foundation studied would severely stint, if not exterminate the 
human race, if such were to happen. Tukay Dee hadn't been made 
paranoid, but he had developed it as a trait. Even though it wasn't 
supposed to be his job, he made sure to check every single corpse 
that came in. Just to be sure. 


Leaning back in his seat, Tukay Dee watched the workers go to 
work as he smoked his cigarette. 


At the same time, Tukay Dee hefted a rotting corpse from the 
mountainous pile, glad he had developed the bulging muscles that 
came with his arduous, physical work. He briefly paused as he 
watched himself escorting a batch of fresh humans onto an empty 
freight elevator. 


Elsewhere in the factory, Tukay Dee retrieved a wrench from his 
toolbox as he set about unfastening the bolts connecting a faulty 
Bokanovsky divider to the rest of his mother. 


D-5111 


Day 1 


D-5111 woke with a sudden jolt, and a splitting headache. As she 
rapidly blinked, her eyes adjusting to the low light of her 
environment, she took the time to look around. She was dressed in 
an orange jumpsuit. She was lying on the bottom bunk in what 
appeared to be some kind of dorm, the room packed with bunks and 
about 20 other terrified looking women. Already the room was filling 
with panicked voices, shouting, and crying. The noise made D-5111 
realize she had no idea who or where she was. 


D-5111 bolted upright, her eyes wide as she began to 
hyperventilate.