Derrick Warcraft stepped off the stage knowing he'd just lost the first debate of the Presidential campaign to a clone.

     The implications were far-reaching, and he didn't like where any of them led.  Clones were commonplace now—had been for years—but they were still seen mostly as second-class citizens.

     They didn't have “souls” was the most common argument against them, even though large numbers of the genetically-engineered beings went to church.  Still, there was something about these people that made a large portion of the “natural born” population a little uneasy, and if a clone became president there was no telling what the future might hold in store.

     “Sir, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but….”

     Derrick waved off his assistant, Gene Harbinger, with a flick of his hand.  “I know already.  We've gone too far,” Derrick said in a near-whisper.  “Our own science is about to make us obsolete.”

     It was true, too.  Science was slowly but surely eliminating every conceivable flaw from the human gene pool.  Diseases were being wiped out, genetic defects being cured after birth, lives being extended, and smarter, stronger, “better” humans were being born inside of laboratories instead of inside human wombs.  On paper, the results were incredible.  Who wouldn't want a world full of smart, healthy, beautiful people?  On the other hand, there was something missing—the very flaws and passions that made the human race so great in the first place were being wiped out, leaving the planet full of perfect little robots.

     Hours later, long after being debriefed by his team of highly-educated advisors, Derrick sat alone in the dark at the back of his private plane.  His eyes were closed and he was listening to music through an earpiece so small it was barely even visible.  Music was something the clones still hadn't been able to get a firm grasp on.  There were clones who'd gone on to become musicians, but the music they produced was a little too perfect.  It never sounded right.  It needed pain, a little suffering, and a few flaws every now and then if it was going to tug at the heartstrings.  Music was about human frailty, and if there was no human frailty, it just became a bunch of meaningless sounds strung together in a mathematical sequence.  And it wasn't just music that suffered now.  It was art of all kinds.  Art simply had no place in a perfect world.

     Derrick smiled as a particular passage struck him and transported him back to a much simpler time—his childhood.  He'd heard this song back then and it reminded him of a world that was much smaller and much easier to understand.  It was a song about love lost and found again, and even though his young mind had no real concept about these emotions when he'd first heard the song all those years ago, there was something about the energy of the music and the triumph in the singer's voice that had stirred his heart back then and inspired him.  Even now the music had a kind of power over him and he couldn't quite explain it.  It was like candy for the soul, and what would a clone know about that?

     Just as he was about to drift off to sleep, a firm nudge on his shoulder brought him back to full alertness.  He opened his eyes and saw his chief advisor, Jarrod Franklin, sitting beside him.  Jarrod had advised two other presidents in the past, and the wrinkles on his tired old face bore the brunt of an untold number of political battles both won and lost.  He was as accomplished a general of the intellectual battlefield as any man ever born, and Derrick trusted the man more than anyone else on his staff.

     “You're going to lose this election,” Jarrod said slowly so his voice wouldn't be heard by anyone sitting further up the plane.

     “I know,” said Derrick.  “We've still got a long way to go, but I know I can't win this election.  Garrison's too perfect.  We've made him that way, haven't we?  We've gone out there and created the perfect president, but we can't afford to have him actually be the president.”

     “Exactly,” said Jarrod.

     “But there's nothing we can do to stop it from happening.”

     “In the long run, no.  Once you've opened Pandora's Box there's no way to close it again.  Actually, you can close it, you just can't make it to where the box was never opened in the first place, and that's the problem.  One day, they're going to take over.  You and I both know that.  The human race is going to get the perfection it wants.  All those bad things, those defects and flaws we hate about ourselves, are going to be gone.  Ignorance, ego, racism, hate, stupidity—gone, all of it.  And people like us will be gone as well.  We'll either be upgraded or cast aside.  But we're going to lose a lot more than we think we're going to lose.  Passion, for one thing.  It brings out the worst in us, but it brings out the best in us too.  That's going to be wiped out, because you can't have the good without the bad.”

     “You wouldn't think a couple of politicians would care about something as irrational as passion, would you?” Derrick said, half laughing at the notion.  Truth be told, politicians were as passionate as anyone else.  Where else would the thirst for power come from?  It all started with passion.  Politics as much as art was fueled by passion.

     “There is something we can do in the short run,” Jarrod said, smiling for the first time.  “If Garrison dies before the election, he doesn't become president.  Your chances of winning become much greater, and in the short run, we stave off our eventual demise a little bit longer.”

     Derrick Warcraft surveyed the crowd in Peoria, Illinois as he stood behind the podium and gave a speech about his vision for America.  He talked a lot about passion, and smiled whenever he spotted someone in the crowd wearing one of the GOT SOUL? T-shirts his public relations division had come up with at the beginning of the campaign.  It was a catchy slogan, and it should have been the rallying point that tipped the election in his favor, but the country was over-run by clones and genetically-enhanced people—people who'd survived and recovered from diseases thanks to experimentation done on clones, or had limbs replaced through cloning.  Truth be told, most of the country didn't care whether they or anyone else “had soul” as long as they could afford to put food on the table and had a nice retirement plan.  Soul was an antiquated idea that ranked very low on people's list of priorities.

     When the speech was over, Derrick decided the crowd was smaller than he'd anticipated.  His words had inspired less fervor than he'd anticipated.   And even the applause he'd expected at key points during his speech had been less enthusiastic and shorter in duration than he'd anticipated.  All of these things conspired to depress him, and if he'd admitted as much, someone would have encouraged him to get a prescription for the latest wonder drug.  Human frailty was taboo—depression and the common cold were things to be medicated and eradicated.  Yet another reason he couldn't win this election.  Garrison Reynolds didn't feel sadness.  That wasn't part of his DNA.  His campaign slogan was “Building a Better Tomorrow, One Chromosome at a Time.”  How could “Got Soul?” compare with that?

     Two weeks passed and nothing much changed.  Derrick, concerned more by the day-to-day grind of campaigning across the country, forgot all about the conversation he'd had with Jarrod Franklin on the plane after the first debate.  They'd only been talking in jest anyway; there was no way Jarrod would actually condone assassinating his opponent.  There was no way the conversation had been serious.  They were simply two flawed men sharing a moment, lamenting the fact that the world had finally passed them by.  It was the kind of conversation men had been having for as long as men had roamed the earth.  Eventually time passed everyone by.  The world evolved, changed, and adapted, while old age, sickness, and disease eventually caught up to everyone.  The human race marched on; individuals did not.  At least, that's how it had been until now.

     Jarrod stopped Derrick in the hallway on his way to the podium for the second debate of the campaign.  “Be careful,” Jarrod said in his raspy, ancient voice.  The look in his eyes was even sterner than the tone of his voice.  “There have been reports of…unrest out there.”

     “What do you mean?”

     “I mean, I would be very careful.  Keep an eye on the crowd.  You know what I mean.”

     It all came back to him then.  Derrick felt his cheeks flush and his composure seeped out of him like air leaving a balloon.  He couldn't be serious, could he?  Tonight?  Here?  With everyone watching?  This was madness.

     “Is something wrong?”

     Derrick shook his head.  He wanted to back out of this—he wanted to tell them to call off the debate because he was sick or something, but he couldn't do that.  It would just play into Garrison's favor.  Sickness was a weakness, and weakness was what made Garrison superior to Derrick.  “No,” he said firmly, straightening his tie and regaining his composure.  “The show must go on.”

     He stepped out into the glare of the lights and cameras and greeted his opponent.  The debate began and everything passed by in a blur.  It all seemed so routine by now, so choreographed, as if both men knew exactly what the other would say, and for the most part, they did.  They'd studied each other extensively, and this debate was akin to a dance, a parry and a thrust, one step forward, two steps back, each taking his turn and marking his path with the power of his words.  Then, fifteen minutes in, Derrick found himself at a loss.  Garrison dropped a bombshell he wasn't prepared for.

     “As for your claims that people like myself lack a soul, where do you have any ground to stand on, Mr. Warcraft?  We come from the same genetic background.  We have the same amount of chromosomes.  Are we not both human?  Just because my life began inside a laboratory and yours began inside your mother's womb, how does that make you any more ‘human' than me?  Why would the method of your conception bestow upon you a soul and leave me lacking this ephemeral quality?  If anyone is lacking, it is you, Mr. Warcraft.  Your DNA contains recessive qualities, while mine does not.  I am the very epitome of what the human form is capable of being, both intellectually and physically, while you, I'm sorry to say, are lacking.  How is it you can possibly claim to be more qualified to lead this country?”

     He was right, wasn't he?  Just because he had been genetically engineered didn't make him any less human.  If anything, it made him a better human.  And why shouldn't he have a soul?

     Garrison Reynolds wasn't the monster Derrick wanted him to be.  He was simply the next step in human evolution, and Derrick was the dinosaur standing in the way of progress.  Killing Garrison wouldn't do any good.   They would either rebuild him, or they would create a new Garrison in a laboratory somewhere.  Eventually the world would be full of Garrisons.  “Got soul?”  Maybe he did.  Maybe he didn't.  Did it even matter?  Maybe the concept of “soul” was as outdated as Derrick, another flaw standing in the way of progress.

     Derrick looked out at the crowd, unable to think of a single rebuttal to the diatribe.  Actually, he wasn't trying to think of one.  There was no rebuttal.  All he wanted to do now was find the gunman hidden in the crowd.  He was certain to be aiming for the wrong candidate, and Derrick wanted to make sure he didn't succeed in his mission and set the human race further back than necessary.  He spotted him then.

     “No!”
 

     Derrick shouted, moving to push his opponent out of the way.  Everything now seemed to be moving in slow motion.  His voice sounded deep and drawn out and his movements seemed like something out of a dream.  The gun went off, a loud pop louder than any of the voices screaming inside the auditorium.  Derrick jumped in front of Garrison, pushed him aside, and barely felt anything at all as the bullet pierced his chest right above the heart.  He fell to the ground, heard his head make a dull thump against the floor, and closed his eyes as everything faded to black.

     Would he die before they could save him, or would they just take the best parts of his DNA and create something new?  Derrick no longer cared.  Either way would be fine by him.  There was no longer a place in this world for Derrick Warcraft the way he had been until tonight.