Introductions: Riley Meets Liam a Human Clone

   Teagan whispered, “I'm glad it's you as

my partner and not the freak in front of us.”

Making me curious, I looked up. Liam Kingsley

was directly in front of me. Noticing his partner

was Bianca, A grin spread across my face. Of 

all the people he could be partnered with,

she was well suited for him, she was the most 

manipulative person I knew. I didn't really 

care for her, she was self absorbed and snotty. 

It was rewarding to see that she would have 

to deal with being teamed up with the local 

freak.

    

   I leaned in closer to Teagan, “He'll have fun with

Bianca. That's going to be entertaining to watch.”

Teagan laughed a little too loud, catching 

Liam's attention. He turned, looking at us. He 

didn't blink, instead he just stared at me. No 

emotion showing on his face. The longer 

he looked at me the more uncomfortable I 

became.

   Instead of looking away or ignoring

him I stared back at him, my eyes hardening, 

my jaw clenching as my stomach tied in 

knots. Yet he didn't look away. Worried

Bianca or Teagan might say something. I 

spoke up.

   “What are you looking at Xerox!” I uttered.

   Glaring at me, “That's not very original.”

   “And you would know about being original?”

I bated. Unwilling to back down.

   “I take it you'd be the vociferous tellurian?”

He redirected. 

Confused by his words I couldn't find anything

to retaliate with.

   “Miss. White?” I looked up, Mr. Mathews 

 the math teacher was looking directly at me from 

the front of the classroom. He stopped the lesson.

  “As interesting as your conversation may be, 

can I please get your attention up here?” He 

warned me. Liam turned to the front giving 

Mr. Mathews his full attention. I continued 

looking towards the front, seeing Liam's

annoying brown hair blocking my view.

   Teagan wrote a note on the paper in front of

her. She tapped her pen on the cold black lab

table, pointing to what she'd written.

   In her bubbly penmanship; What did he call

you?

   I shrugged my shoulders mouthing, “I don't

know.” I was sure I saw him smiling towards 

the front. Infuriating me even more.

   When class ended I left Teagan behind,

heading back to my locker. 

I had a travel size dictionary there. It

bugged me not knowing  the term he'd called 

me.

   Vociferous: Conspicuously and offensively

loud; given to vehement outcry. “a vociferous

mob.” I flipped a few pages going back to the

T's and looked up the other word he had 

called me.

   Tellurian: an inhabitant of the earth.

   So basically he had called me a loud mouth 

person. I didn't know what upset me more, the 

fact that he had stumped me or the fact I 

had to look up the insult to understand it.

The Valley Gazette

Overton's Newest Residence Are In

The newest residents of the Moapa Valley are the Kingsleys of Maine. Dr. Martin Kingsley - a retired Pediatrician and renowned controversial stem cell scientist is the valley's latest addition to our local community.

He and his wife Elaine, with their two children, Liam-15, a registered clone and Madden-5 who is not on the National Clone Registry, are looking forward to the slower pace the city of Overton brings.

Although the doctors experimental scientific back ground may play a part huge part to local advocates, who protest human cloning.

Dr. Kingsley worked as a New York Pediatrician, until the death of his first child;  switching to scientific research with the Cel-Tech Corporation,  who's known for focusing on stem cell research. As we are all aware Cel-Tech Corporation was the first to successfully reproduce a  human clone in their medical facility.

Bridget Simpson a diligent activist against human cloning who has seen the atrocities of human cloning first hand, speaks out on the cloning process. She stated, "Human cloning is going against the natural state of  human reproduction, it's not sanctioned from God. The United States government is making a huge mistake by allowing this to continue, " over the government limiting the human cloning process. In 2011, the United States government placed restrictions on the amount of  human cloning produced,  after Cel-Tech announced their first success in human cloning.

Due to the resent verdict of Barker vs the state of Virgina. On February 19, 2031, a federal law evoking illegal actions for killing human clones.  Barker's statement at trial was; "In order to keep the order of God, I was cleansing the human race of vermin and mongoloids."

With so much conflict surrounding the Kingsleys it's this reporters view that Overton will never be the same whether you're for or against human cloning.

Riley Inspired Playlist

Part of writing in trying to understand my characters and getting into their head. One way that's worked for me is using music to set the tone.

Riley White's Playlist:

Love Like Winter.............AFI
Hand In My Pocket..........Alanis Morsette
Come on, Come on..........A Fine Frenzy
Teenagers.......................My Chemical Romance
Breaking the Habit..........Linkin Park
18th Floor Balcony.........Blue October
All Around Me...............Flyleaf
Wings of a Butterfly.......HIM
White Flag......................Dido
The Last Night................Skillet
Not As We.....................Alanis Morsette
Crawling in The Dark....Hoobastank
Face Down....................The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Bring Me to Life...........Evanescence

Riley White

 Having lived in Overton, Nevada her entire boring life she's working towards obtain a scholarship and get the heck out of this Podunk town.  Sophomore year becomes interesting when the town's first clone moves in. Being a teenager in the year 2031 is hard enough, but having a human clone in town is adding pressure onto an already difficult time in her life.

                       ReGeneration

   Despite it being the first day of school, I was already in the principal's office. Mrs. Ward had seen my shoes and assumed they were against the school dress code. School uniforms sucked! Even though I went to a public school the district had changed their policies a year ago and forced us all into wearing “school appropriate clothing.”

   It never failed that I ended up in the office, at least five or six times a year. I had all but memorized the school guidelines by now, especially the part about uniforms. It didn't specify what kind of black shoes were acceptable.

   So, my thick healed, lace up Docs  should have been fine. I was wearing the required navy blue skirt, white-collar shirt and had the tie loosely hanging around my neck, like a noose. My hair had been died to a black color, from the pink it had been during the summer, and a band-aid was over my left eyebrow, where a new piercing was concealed.

   I sat in the hallway, now picking at the black nail polish on my fingers waiting for Principal McFarlin. In the rush to polishing them and my mind having been focused on the article I hadn't been as steady as I had earlier thought, slopping some of the enamel onto my skin and cuticles.

   “Riley you're already in here?” Principal McFarlin barked across the hallway from his office. He was leaning to the side of his chair peering out the open door.

   “Mrs. Ward sent me in.” I said, a lack of emotion resting on my face.

   He motioned for me to come into his office. His dark stained wood veneer desk was neat and orderly, with only a small stack of papers to the right and a new name plate on the front edge. I slouched down in the chair in front of his desk, picking up the name plate and twisted it in my hands, while reading it out loud.

   “Principal Marlin McFarlin?” I looked up at him. “Seriously! Marlin?” I snickered. He calmly grabbed the name plate from my grasp, placing it back on his desk, then nudging it just so, making it line up with the edge of his desk. Principal McFarlin was your typical middle-aged man with a receding hair line and a thinning spot towards the back. In-spite of me being in his office he was a decent principle. He'd actually listen to the student before administering punishment and sometimes he could be persuaded by something you said, which was what I was hoping for now.

   “I thought it would take longer to see you in here Miss White. What did Mrs. Ward send you in here for?” He stood up stepping closer to the door, peering out at the front desk. It was obvious he was distracted by something else. “Torturing small underclassmen?”

  

   “Whatever!” I turned in my chair to face him.”That really wasn't my fault last year.”

He looked down leering at me “So you say, but I'm sure that Sarah Copper would think otherwise, since you were the one to have started the name calling.”

   “Mrs. Ward is looking for anything to get me written up. I guess my shoes aren't acceptable for the dress code,” it sounded harsher than I meant to, but I didn't want to talk about Sarah Cooper and her life as a pathetic and miserable wench.

  

   “You can change into your gym sneakers.” he said. He stood to the side, towering over me, now giving me his full attention, probably attempting to intimidate me. I, however, wasn't about to back down.

   

   “Mr. McFarlin, the dress code doesn't specify the type of shoe. Only the color.” I stood firm on my argument. He was about to speak when the main doors to the school opened adjacent to the office. Through the glass window of his office I saw a boy with brown hair and brown eyes walked in. He looked just as normal as any other boy in the school. I didn't notice anything different about him. He was wearing the school uniform, his tie was perfectly straight, his shirt was pressed, and his shoes were perfectly polished. 
   
   His hair parted and combed to one side. If you asked me it looked more like the uniform was the style of clothing he preferred, a preppy look. There were two adults with him, probably his parents. I didn't really get a good look at them, considering I was more intrigued to know if this was the boy, we'd heard so much about? They walked forward to the front desk where Mrs. Ward stood waiting on the opposite side. She motioned to Mr. McFarlin.

   “Okay Riley. Get to class.” He dismissed me forgetting the topic completely and letting me off the hook. I wasn't sure if it was because of my argument or because of the current situation distracting him, but I would take it any way I could.

   While reaching for my bag, “Marlin” walked out to the new arrival waiting for him. With all the fussing occurring at the front desk; papers being pushed in front of them, lots of looks from school staff and students, and knowing most of the time Principal McFarlin didn't handle the new student enrollment forms, I could only assume this was all for Liam Kingsley, the clone.