Imposters [Homicidal Twinning, Lions, Jennys]

My claws go down again on the fake. Blood slashes against my claws, stains my cheeks. The howls of death quickly go down. Their body goes still and lifeless, and with a heavy conscience I turn away to roam the plains once more. The sky is full of endless shades, but for as long as I remember the only thing dominating the skies above me has been an endless sense of gray.

My name was Nala, or atleast that was the name bestowed upon me by my other. Once again I have slain another Imposter.

They were not the one I was looking for, they would not be the last.
I don’t remember how long it’s been now, the days will fade and come like ensuring rain. Their dates, numbers and even their names each fell past me without any regard for their passing. I wasn’t  going to die here. Nor was I going to stop. The hunger, it held onto me, not merely in my chest and watering mouth but immaterial reins of my soul. No true life could be had, no personal revelations or choice was to be had until I got rid of it, got rid of the hunger, the endless craving to persist, to infect and reproduce my own desire. This instinct was only met by the sheer disgust that welled up inside me, not only towards myself but the victims when the process happened.

I couldn’t stand the looks on their faces, the imposters. Once born, even with a face matching my own, taking on a soul much like mind we were castrated from the apathy of natalistic being forevermore. What set in next was only anger, despair and utter hatred, the sincere loathing of the other baring my own existence, that the ensuring actions could only be met by certain hostility. The transformation of others into myself was always proceeded by violence, and once I’d make short work of the imposters, the hunger would set in again.

This was the way it was, how it’d always been. What was it like before this, what was I before being this? I don’t remember, if I was anything at all it’d long since become irrelevant. Friends, family, entire lives put behind me for this, a hunt without end or satisfaction. Who knows if I was even the original? I’d yet to recall if the primordial other at my birth was my mother, or another with this face and body, this hunger. Perhaps she was much like me, but failed to kill her prey in time, and then after forcing herself on me passed on this wretched being. The pale white clouds move far to the easy in a direction towards the slowly setting sun. It’s already noon, I had to make another or the hunger would drive me crazy all night.

There was a shallow spring nearby. I stopped by it to get a drink and quench my thirst. One had to keep cool if they were to keep on the hunt. Quick, curt sips like this kept me going, kept me sane. I heard another approaching.

A blurry figure treads through the heat and humility and comes into view. My eyes scan them, a gazelle. Fine, fit, agile and brimming with vitality, but inevitably doomed. I take cover behind a bush by the watering hole and wait for them. Their hooves, leaving little pitpats across the plain and damp soil mean substance to me as they  approach. Not the substance of meat, nor marrow and bone, yet still a substance my fangs could sink into. No, what I craved was the substance of being, an unfulfilled taste for the authenticity of existence as I bit upon the fabric of their meat, tearing not only their flesh but very identity for my own. Something, anything to complete the cycle, to end this fruitless search for being across the deserted horizon of meaning. I’d taken many lives and given them all my own, only to take their lives too. Today I would take yet another.
I waited for them to come close, lean in and drink up. Taking pleasure in the watering hole always lured such creatures into a false sense of serenity, it made them feel safe. I’d soon show them why that falsehood was fatal. The gazelle drank slowly, slurping cold spring water up. It saw a figure in the reflection of the water, but instincts kicked in much too slow to recognize it. By the time any fear arrived I’d already gripped my claws against around it’s body and sunk my fangs down it’s jugular. It lead out a harrowing cry, the last vocal trace of vanquished prey.

Stepping back, it fell over for a minute into the water. During these parts it was best to stand back and wait, watch to see if it would be the one, or create yet another disgusting imposter. The animal sunk in the deep, staining the water with its flowing blood. I couldn’t see the transformation happening very well, just a blurry outline, a pantomime of change happening underneath the surface. It reached out and struggled, yelping and thrashing all the while as it’s silhouette changed. It’s leg shrunk, but became muscular and hooves pawed. The horns up top disappeared, it’s face rounded out, body softened, and it’s majestic equine splendor soon gave way to a predatory revival. Two Lion’s paws burst out of the water, rebirthed as it surfaced!

I watched the new lion crawl out of the muddy depths. With a sneeze and shake of its fur, the drying animal in front of me had replaced the old one. A stunning lioness, a new Nala! Every edge and curve, absolutely each part of her was identical to me. I saw her go stiff, freeze up in the crossfires of the spiritual renewal. While I’d never had any way to know for truth, every indication pointed to a common process occurring here. A lifetime of memories and instincts rewritten, becoming my own. Who knows, it might think it’s me as of that very moment. But I wouldn’t let it think so for much longer. Like a virulent stench infecting my nostrils, I could already feel the repulsion kicking in again. If sexual appetite could be described as leading to the throes of life-giving, these disgusted, tingly, itchy prickly sensations crowding my mind with unease, they could only be said to be enablers of a death-bringer. She looked at me, so innocently, as if sympathy could be drawn by looking into my own face again.

My head shook. The crowding got worse, prickling intensified, it was like having a thousand nails inside your skull pounding and chiseling away, each and every time you looked at once. A fake, an atrocious and despicable falsity that lay before you grating away inside the sorest pasts of your mind. She’d become yet another imposter. And she had to go.

While she was still stiff and raw, taking in the aftermath of her change I decided to act. She may have had my body, possibly even my soul but before her instincts kicked in, I had the upper hand. Her exposure left her vulnerable, and gave me the only opportunity I’d need. Pouncing back at her, I’d reached the same spot on her neck still scarred and bled. Imposters never healed their old wounds, just another sign they weren’t meant to replace me. Pressing my claws deep into her, I tore away the flesh and bit in to completely decapitate her. Kicking her body into the spring, her head flailed about on its neck like a ragdoll, hanging on by the flimsy skin remaining. The spring was dyed a deep red, it accepted her corpse with open arms and she fell to the bottom of the murky crimson waters never to be

I’d slain another imposter. Good riddens.

The sun soon set. I’d had enough, I found some tall grass to lie in and made my bed. Sleep swept over me like a sweeping tempest, since dreams and rest never came easy to me.
The morning came with a crude interruption, the sound of an engine roaring. I’d practically pounced out on the spot when I saw the hunk of metal drive by. The large contraption stopped right by my bedpatch, oblivious to me with its occupants bending outwards towards it’s corners, with their straw hats and binoculars peering out over the brazen gold fields as it were their own voyeuristic fantasy.  
Tourists.

Never was fond of them, to be honest. I cannot imagine any proud, self-respecting Lion would be. Their meat tasted like raw shit and they were such a handful to catch and kill, with their strange guns and vehicles. It always struck me as quite novel that they’d come here to observe us like we were there pets, just attractions for their gazing. It was also quite insulting on a deeply personal level. While they’d risk their lives just to see me, I’d end theirs just not to see myself. I’d ended up taking the lives of many and then again, as myself over the years. Humans weren’t above the laws of nature, why should they escape my judgment? I saw no reason to give them a free pass for all their insolence. Seeing two tourists sneak out as the vehicle took a pit stop, I saw my chance to deliver their punishment.

*     *     *     *     *

“But mommm!” Jenny complained. “You said I could see the festive Skating Rink with Brad and my friends! “ She gave a pout with her titanium lips and crossed her arms.

“Yes, but I also said only AFTER we get a proper examination of the local habitats outside the hotel. Jenny XK9, the meager attractions run all day. These scheduled touring expeditions however are only permitted under strict ordinance. Do you know how hard it was to get us a reservation for this route? Now stop your whining and enjoy the trip. And make sure to look at things! I have to examine your visual data later for feedback.

“Ugh, wouldn’t just carrying around a camera be easier?” The robot girl sulked, looking out to the sullen plains.

“Why would I, when I have a daughter with lenses for eyes. Less talky, more watchy! Or no skating rink.” Ms. Wakeman declared. Jenny gave a slight ‘hmmph’ and slumped herself over the tour bus.

The minutes dragged on. They seemed to stretch like hours, than days, years to centuries. Eons with the same endless stretches of gray. The clouds would move, wind rustle and sky dragging on through, as if reverberating a thousand lifetimes of endless monotone ennui. The robot girl leaned back, than over again, setting her optical sphere against the sky, hard drive calculating its pallet and wind trajectories in the same manner a hippo feels the cold boggy slime against its hide in a riverside.

It’d only been 5 minutes, but for Jenny it felt like hell had frozen over.

“Sooo boring.” Jenny remarked. She looked back and saw her mother lost in her own gazing, staring out her binoculars without any regard for the time or her daughter’s wellbeing. She looked back over the shuttle. Something seemed to move through the grass in the nearby shadows.

“Hmm?” shaking her head, Jenny calibrated her electroscope sensors to recalibrate her vision to 17 different wave monitor frequencies. Every possible form of vision, from infrared radiation, ultra red,  to scanning radioactive isotopes  on the objects coordinates was calculated at light speed for the sake of Jenny’s own realizations.
“Oh cool it’s a lion. Maybe I’ll go pet it, beats sitting on this lame bus.” She looked one back time to see her mom and the tourists indifference, than pulled herself up off the top ramp and climbed down onto the grassy surface. To an ordinary person this would be paramount to surrounding their safety and exposing themselves to the vast dangers and unknown of the foreign plane, the domain of nature. To a hyperadvanced and indestructible robot it was a walk in the park.

Whistling Beethoven’s 9th symphony, Jenny walked smoothly into the tall grass. She turned around and detected the giant feline prowling around the tour bus. It’d heartbeat had just skipped a beat. Was it scared or excited that someone had willingly stepped off the bus? Regardless, she stretched her legs and laid down, as if offering herself to it. The clouds moved through the sky once again right in front of her, breezing by in the direction of the grass, the ebb and flow of all things originating from the very vectors of heat interaction in the air and skies, moving in accordance with the magnetic resonance of the rotating earth right from it’s very core. This magnetic flow often tickled Jenny in a way others would only be scarcely aware of with the most advanced of monitoring equipment. It could feel like the rustling of leaves some days, and a hurricane at others, such as when she flies over to the poles, chilling her circuits like raw nerves more than any sub-zero temperature would’ve. It wasn’t odd for her to experience it now, close to the earth.
But this was a little different. Jenny curled her lip and scratched her head. This wasn’t like the frequencies felt neither from the earth’s rotation nor at Antarctica.  It was observed vividly, like a force sensed right in front of her. Her mom had let her play with electromagnetic therapy in front of clairvoyants and mystics before, most fake, but some giving a similar sensation. Similar yet unique, indefinable.  One might even be tempted to call it, magical.

She pulled her upper half up and stared at the source of this strange energy. It was originating from the lion, she deducted. “Are you going to come out, or am I going to be bored out here too and have to get back on the bus? C’mon show me something way cool!” Jenny taunted the animal in front of her.

Nala didn’t take well to this invitation. She pressed her legs back, compressing them like a spring, than released the kinetic energy potentiated within her satori muscles, springing forward. In a split second her teeth reached Jenny’s neck and bit in!
And shattered.

No teeth or claws on earth could pierce the teenage girls titanium outer exoskeleton shell, not natural made anyway.  “Yeeeah, that’s not going to work.” Jenny slapped Nala in the face and pushed her back a little, rotating her foot around so the tip anchored the feline to the floor. Pinned and outmatched, Nala struggled to even move. With what little movement she could, she looked up at her captor, into the eyes and face of the mechanical cybernetic girl who’d bested her.

How many hunts had she taken part in, countless victims and thousands of Nala’fied, defeated imposters that were just cast aside. She’d spent her whole life, the life she could remember creating and hunting them, that was all her instinct allowed, something designated to her as if it were pure purpose recognized within her. At that moment of defeat, all her strength and reason, each and every victory, all that purpose, it meant nothing. She meant nothing. Her hunger, the search and very reason for her existence was reduced to a mere footnote in front of a being she could not overcome. Her eyes went wide. The area where she bit Jenny seemed to sparkle slightly, sending shines throughout the robot’s body, a flash of electricity shot out from Nala to Jenny, than the Lion rolled over. Her arm turned into a buster canon and charged 12 Gigawatts of plasma-propelled turbine torpedoes.

“Any last words before I make you a new fur coat-waitaminute, are you okay?”

Nala felt queasy. Her stomach rumbled, and her eyes had opened up as if waking up from a bad endless dream. Each of her paws receded, becoming weak soft talons. The fur fluffed out to become feathers. Her strong muscles went to jelly and sucked in towards her gut, every part of her mass was reduced to a pathetic drooping spherical bean-like form. Her muzzle became a beak and mane inflated out to become a gullet. Where her front paws formerly hung out were two feathered wings. She stood upright, quite large for her new avian form. After a series of bone crunching, body contorting and physical alterations, Nala, or whoever she was now stood up and clucked. The giant chicken bawked endlessly in joy, running over and hugging Jenny.

“Wha?” Jenny gasped. The electromagnetic energy coming from the lion now chicken was gone- but she was still detecting it, somehow.

“Thank you, thank you! Thank you so much for saving me! I finally remembered who I am now!”

She let Jenny go and inspected every part of her body. The teenage robot stood in utter disbelief. She set her language interpretive engines to ‘Fowl’ and listened closely as the Chicken explained.

“You see, my forefather once had an ancient enemy. It was foretold that this enemy and him fought again and again, the two bitter rivals violently clashed to their deaths. Neither had achieved victory over the other when their war took apart their own lives. However, a disciple of the fat one had one day wished for his master to return. Somehow, this cursed him and he took on his former master’s flesh and form, becoming him in the process of reviving him. They’d called this one, ‘Brian Griffin.’ Ironic, since he was not a griffin. Griffins were our proud ancestors, so we chickens who were descended from their ilk wore a great shame by his very being. I sought out a way to defeat this Brian fellow, but my search was in vain until I came across a mystical monkey. He’d grieved that his own lord had lost his bride, the love of his life. In order to appease that king, he’d promised to bring her from the dead, all while promising to give me the strength to stand up to the Griffins. The hex he cast was to ensure it’d create a deadly enough Lioness to slay them, but since Nala, as she was known and I became, wasn’t strong enough. So I had to search endlessly looking for a champion that was. It’s taken eternity to rid myself of that curse, but now I’ve finally-CLUCCCCCCCK!”

The chicken stumbled over, wacked on the head by a newspaper. “Off, shoo with you!” Ms. Wakeman yelled. Her hand seemed to spark for a short moment, but she didn’t notice as she batted away the chicken. “And you, you young lady! Don’t think you’re not in trouble for trying to get out of tour guide’ing with your mother. All tourist activities should be done strictly from the tour bus, it says so in the guidebook! Didn’t I update all your guidebook’ing protocols the other day?”

Jenny shrugged. “I think they had some spyware in them. My brain couldn’t stop thinking about buying penis enlargement pills last night.” She turned to the fleeing chicken, battered but happy and proud to finally be in her right mind and body again.
Speaking in chicken, she called out to the bird before she escaped into the sunset.
“Wait! One more thing, what’s your name? Can you atleast tell me your name!”

The chicken gave one last look back, and whispered.  “Scootaloo.” Then headed into the horizon, never to be seen again.

Shortly later, Jenny and her Ms. Wakeman made it back to the hotel over on the reserve. Jenny got into an argument with her mother over the skating rink, but her mom had eventually conceded to let her go as long as she came with her to the observatory that night and took notes. She had to go sort matters out with the Hotel staff in the meanwhile, letting Jenny to go swim at the hotel pool. They'd split up and Jenny spent almost an hour lounging on a pool float in the hot sun. The pool float had looked strangely like some kind of horse, it was white and blue and had headphones atop. She didn't know what to make of this, so she thought less of it.

Upon heading back into the hotel, she bumped into a random tourist.

"O-oh, sorry about that! I was just trying to get to the elevator." The young man said, scratching his head. Jenny chuckled and rubbed his head. "No problem! I have to get upstairs too so just come with me." She guided him to the nearest one and they waited for it to arrive. During that time, the same electricity from earlier returned. Jenny wasn't sure what it was but, an influx of foreign energy surrounded her, ran through her nanowires, was detected in her own head. It made her digitalized mind go haywire, like an itch she couldn't scratch. Most electromagnetic radiation felt like a loss of sobriety to her, but this was different. It was like someone put a magnet in her own head.

"You alright? You're fidgeting a little miss robot lady." The human tourist asked.

"Yes, I think so. Just a headache. Nothing to worry about!" She skipped her way into the elevator as it opened, her new companion following through. They hit the right floor as it opened, smiling to each other when they realized they were staying on the same floor.

As she stood there, the binary qualia inside her head continued to rewire, sending sparks of electricity in and out, manifesting in her newly erratic behavior. She clutched her head and shook, trying to calm the stress on her digital brain. Strange new urges, uncontrollable desire rewrote itself into her brain, a program built not of natural thought but pure mechanical instinct and aggression. "G-get back!" Her hand morphed into a blade and she approached towards the tourist. "Aaahhh!" He pressed every button on the wall and slammed against the door. When she looked towards him, the formerly kind Jenny was no longer there, something darker and more sinister had taken over. She reached over and grabbed him by the neck, holding him in place as her bladed arm impaled him in the heart.

He chucked a mouthful of blood and then went silent. Jenny threw him towards the door, than slumped back to the opposite side. "Oh mom, oh mom nononono what have I done?" She began to cry oily brine tears and shook her head in denial at the murder she'd just committed.

The human coughed another pint of blood, than oil. He fidgeted wildly as the oil started to spread down his body, shiny and slick across his every inch of skin. Once it spread out, it hardened and then turned white and blue, replacing his skin with solid titanium steel. Underneath all his organs and fleshy bits were consumed, absorbed and converted into metallic counterparts. His human form was completely coated over and overtaken by the oil, becoming lithe thin, feminine. Within less than a minute he'd become fully robotic, and designated more a she than he. The paint and gloss finished applying itself and she was finished, a mirror copy of Jenny right down to the metal pigtail. His human life faded from mind, in its place Jenny's own hardware was installed.

Jenny blinked. She wasn't sure what just happened or how but her own cybernetic brain was too clouded to think straight. The bladed hand of hers turned into plasma cannon. The other jenny, now thinking, calculating and processing things identically to her opponent did the same. Both counterparts aimed their charging arms at each other, filled with thoughts of violence and superiority.

"Imposters must die." "Imposters will be terminated."

Both gave a steely look, than fired.

A bright light lit out of the cracks of the elevator and everything inside went up in flames. Two Jenny's had entered the gunfight.

Only one Jenny walked out.

It didn't really matter who had won and which had lost. They were both Jenny afterall, completely the same now in every way imaginable. Jenny walked over to her room and opened it up. Inside, was Ms. Wakemen working on her newest device on the bed, and helping her was- Ms. Wakemen?

"Mom?" Jenny asked.

"Oh, hello deary. A funny thing happened while arguing with the clerk downstairs earlier today." "But nothing to be concerned about, just an easily explainable transmorgification into another's duplicate via a process of enacted quantum entanglement properties." "Yes quite, I think it may have started with that chicken I- we, whoever, hit earlier." "Yes, that'd do it. It's so much better this way anyway! Having a partner to work with and discuss my favorite pet theories and ideas with is such a treat!"

"Don't-" "-you agree?" They said in unison. Everything about their voice and mannerisms was certainly mom alright, Jenny thought in contempt.

"Not really."

She rolled her eyes. Things were going to get so weird around here.
"Don't you dare roll your eyes at me young lady!" Her mom’s shouted.

It had been several months since the Wakeman family's visit to Africa. While life had become one romp into insanity after the next, with alien invasions, robot dissenters, thieves, asteroids, standard end of the world flair, everything just seemed to go on as usual for Jenny Wakeman. Nobody really questioned it when they flew home that weekend, went through school and the usual hoops. Her mother continued to perfect her experiments, and for Jenny everything else was life unfettered per usual. Of course, the massive pile of Jenny corpses built up and hidden in their garage made for an unsightly remark on whatever had happened since then, but it went mostly unnoticed. Her mother(s) found them a useful source of spare parts even. That part of it still bugged her, that unlike herself her own mother kept multiplying, but without the unfortunate side effect of unruly 'Imposters' needing to be dismantled and destroyed for their imperfections. That her own mother was immune to her instincts and the kill-clone-kill again phenomenon didn't help. One day a salesman made the unwise choice to come in and offer some noise. The person who'd walked out was another super intelligent and happy Ms. Wakeman, her superego as pleased as ever that order and reason had been given to her, instead of whoever he'd been before. (Nothing he remembered) Another brilliant scientist to add to the Wakeman clan.

Another mom to ask her to take out the trash, Jenny lamented.
Sometimes culling the herd would’ve just been preferable.