Submitted for the December 2023 prompt: Treasures, Brightly Wrapped

It's the third day of anti-robot rioting. Thousands lie dead in the streets, bodies untended and starting to bloat, police and civilians intermixed. Worse, the entire colony is dangerously out of balance. If the destruction continues at this pace, we won't have enough harvester droids left to feed us through the winter. The crops will rot in the hydroponics fields.

 

Just like the bodies in the streets.

 

* * *

 

We saw this coming, my brother and I, only not exactly when. Fred was here for dinner just last week. He's my mirror image only younger.

 

"Just starting to go grey at the temples," I observed. "It suits you. Lends you a bit of gravitas."

 

He shrugged. "The P.R. department wants me to change my image. After all, I've been the public face of the Company on Erebus for almost twenty years now. I shouldn't look young forever, they say."

 

"Well, then, you should copy me," I suggested, only half joking. "Little Ellie just told me my wrinkles are starting to grow wrinkles." She's six, and very forthright.

 

"You shouldn't spend so much time Above, Will," he said earnestly. "That much radiation isn't good for anybody."

 

"Hell, someone's got to maintain the domes. No matter how high we set the wages, we just can't keep good people on the job. We're going to have to bring on more bots; that's all there is to it."

 

"And a good thing too," Fred said. "That's what they're for: to do the hazardous jobs, and the menial ones."

 

"Hazardous, okay, I can see that. But I've been getting applications for menial labor for over a year now. Even janitorial work—"

 

"You're kidding me!"

 

"I'm not. Over a thousand applications last month, and of them all, only three were willing to go Above to help work on dome maintenance. Which, lets face it, is the only place we truly need help. I've got two hundred people on make-work jobs already, and Administration is on me to cut staff. I'll tell you, Fred, there's something badly wrong."

 

He sighed and, grudgingly, nodded. "It's only a matter of time before things break loose. If only Administration would listen to reason and do something about the cost of living!"

 

"Yeah; that'll be the day. You've been trying?"

 

Fred nodded. "I threatened to walk if they didn't, and they laughed in my face. If it's not on a balance sheet, it's not real to them. I might quit at that, I'll be honest." The reason he doesn't goes unspoken: He gives most of his salary to local charities, and he'd do more if he could. Has a heart of gold, my brother.

 

Susan and the kids came in just then with dinner in their hands, and the conversation changed to happier subjects.

 

The next time I saw Fred was on the coroner's slab.

 

* * *

 

Dr. Willkie must be nearly a hundred by now, and he looks it. He'd love to retire, but can't keep an assistant long enough to get him trained. "I can't last forever," he said to me on the way in to the morgue. "They'll have to recruit from off-world again."

 

He led me in and pulled back the sheet. It was Fred all right, though there's not another soul that could have recognized him. They'd beaten him terribly, and his chest cavity was cracked wide open. I could see his cybernetic core buried deep within, a flash of gold amid all the red.

 

I tried to say something, but instead I was sick. Willkie had a bucket ready.

 

* * *

 

"Do they have any suspects?" Susan asked me on the way home.

 

I shook my head. "They know who did it. The mob did it. That's all they'll ever find out. Nobody will be caught, or punished. They've already stopped looking."

 

She was horrified. "How is that possible? Frederick was an important man, the top representative of the Company on Erebus! They can't just ignore his death!"

 

I sighed. "Two things. First, they aren't ignoring it, but there were ten thousand people involved in the riot. There's just no way to tell who did this to him. And second, to them this is a property crime. He was an android, not a person. They'll replace him with a new model and write off the expense."

 

"But that's not right! He was as alive as we are!" she exclaimed, and I couldn't disagree. "I mean, he was your brother! Doesn't that mean anything?"

 

"It does to me," I said. "Not to them."

 

She was silent the rest of the ride home. Later, as we were getting ready for bed, she brought it up again.

 

"He was your twin, Will," she began.

 

"My clone, technically."

 

"Identical, is what I mean. The only difference is, his brain was computerized and yours is organic. How did anyone ever find out? How did they know he wasn't human?"

 

"They didn't know, Susan," I explained. "They killed him because he's the boss. They blamed him for everything that's gone wrong, as though he had any power to change the world."

 

"So... they could... they could come for us next," she said. Her face had gone white.

 

"Maybe you and the kids should go offworld for a while."

 

She didn't say anything, but the next day they left. I've been sitting here on the balcony off and on ever since, sipping whisky and watching the fires down in the city below as the mobs rage. It's not as though I could fix anything at this point, and I'm not really sure I care to try anymore.

 

I couldn't tell Susan the whole truth. I've never figured out how, and maybe now the colony will collapse and I'll never have to. Fred and I are the same under the skin too. It's a truly perfect illusion.

 

You really can't tell the difference.