Fifteen Years Ago:

A billowing trail of smoke followed the rocket from the launcher resting on Amanda's shoulder. With her eye she traced the line and followed it to it's resting place, a man with thin red hair and wild green eyes that reminded her of a snake's eyes. Gabriel Connors. She and her team had chased him half way across the country since he escaped from their last encounter.

He stood now with his arms held out, a smile wide on his face showing off unnaturally white teeth. There wasn't much natural about Connors. He'd altered every strand of his own DNA in a quest for immortality that had led him only to insanity. He hadn't been hard to follow. Bodies had been like breadcrumbs in his wake.

The rocket hit home in a fury of fire and smoke that washed backward down the street and blew Amanda's hair back. The heat from the explosion chapped her lips.

"We've got the bastar—"

The wind fell out of the sky and washed the smoke away revealing a pulsing chunk of flesh that grew and jiggled. White bones sprouted awkwardly from the mound of flesh, only to be covered seconds later by muscle and skin. Organs sprouted seemingly from thin air, and then ribs reached up and grew around them. The mass began to take form. Began to look human. When the head appeared, even before the skin had grown back, laughter echoed out over the block and a voice grisly and animal and human all at once.

"You'll have to do better then that!"

*

Three months later Amanda stood in front of a bank of screens and listened to the radio chatter of her people. She'd been ordered to stay behind at base in order to let some big shot commander bag Connors and take the credit. They'd traced Connors to a small coffee shop in down town Seattle. They hadn't come unprepared this time. Military scientists filled the room around her. Their mussed hair and bloodshot eyes hinted at the late hours they had worked finishing a weapon that not even Connors could survive. He'd proved capable of growing himself back from even a small chunk of flesh, so they'd resorted to the only possible answer: leave nothing behind. This time when the rocket hit home nanomachines, the size of atoms, would disassemble Connors.

Amanda held her breath as she watched this second rocket hit home. There was no smoke and no explosion. Just a loud pop. Connors laughed and darted forward, his mouth open to reveal shark shaped teeth and then suddenly he stumbled and the laughter cut off. On the small monitor Amanda watched Connors transform from a person to a pile of fine dust that blew away in the air.

Cheering filled the room only to be cut off when chairs and tables began to dissolve on the monitors, followed by a rumbling sound as the coffee shop collapsed. And then the screams began followed by static and silence as the entire city of Seattle transformed, just as Connors had, into a pile of fine dust.

And Amanda watched it all happen. She saw sattalite images and terrified news reports and read the blogs that streamed in from every corner of the globe. All her life she had expected that it would be success that would define her life, but in this moment she knew that it would be her failure that would determine the course of her life.

Next Week: Okay, okay, I'm done teasing you. Find out how Amanda and George escape.

George stood with his face against the window staring out over the armored city of Chicago. He felt how he imagined ancient kings must have felt when they stood at the tallest tower of their castle. The buildings of the city stood out against the deep blue of the sky and in the distance George could see the shimmering blue green of Lake Michigan.

It made him dizzy and giddy at the same time. Wisps of clouds floated in the sky like banners, but there were no words to be read on them. They were so white. In his world clouds were always gray—almost a murky green. But then in his world Lake Michigan was brown and one of the most polluted bodies of water in the entire world.

He took a step back and noticed for the first time the ceiling of his office. In contrast to the window, which made up an entire wall of the room, the ceiling had been painted a rich blue black. Stars dotted the surface and a quarter moon glowed with a light of its own. George felt his mouth go dry with the stunning luxury of it all.

"Not one for small things am I?"

"No, sir. No you aren't."

Amanda sat at the desk in the middle of the room typing on a keyboard built right into the surface. It was a clean desk without a lot of clutter. There were no photographs, no name plate, not even the usual knickknacks that George associated with office desks. In every way possible it was the desk that George would have had if he'd ever had an actual desk in an actual office and not just a cubicle.

Amanda kept her eyes focused sharply on George even as she pulled a small thumb drive out of her pocket and continued to type.

"Amanda, I don't get something. If this is my office, then what the hell are you doing at the desk?"

She smiled, but it was a mean smile, the kind of smile George associated with children pulling the wings off of bugs.

"I need some of your files…I hope you don't mind." Before George could open his mouth she pulled a gun from out of a pocket and pointed it at George. "I'm sorry, you're nice enough for a clone of…that man…but I have to do this. I hope he doesn't have you destroyed…but I don't have a choice."

"You're…you're ROBBING me?"

"Actually, she's robbing me."

The voice, George' voice, filled the room. The wall across from the window lit up and George realized that the entire wall was a screen. And on that screen his face. No. It wasn't exactly his face. There were more lines around the eyes and mouth and a small scar across the cheek. And the face on the screen wore his hair shorter, where George usually needed a haircut.

"You should keep a closer eye on your clone George, he doesn't seem to have your instinct to keep people from stealing from you."

"Please Ms. Riggens—or should I use your real name? Ms. Landsmith. I know that you've broken the cloning law. As if treason wasn't bad enough. A pity I'll have to destroy it. I've never seen such an impressively done advanced age clone."

"Uh…guys…I'm not a clone."

"Then what? A robot? Who am I kidding, a robot as advanced as you would be…well…impossible."

"I don't think I'm a robot…I don't know what I am…I remember my life…my world…and this isn't it…I don't know what's going on here between you two, but please…just…maybe you can help me figure this out."

George stepped towards the screen with his hands clasped in desperation. The man on the screen stroked his chin.

"I have to admit that I'm intrigued…" He shrugged and started laugh. "Oh…what the hay! I can figure you out well enough once you're dead. I mean do you really think I'm going to let you live after you helped her? Ha! You almost had me though."

The elevator doors opened and huge men with guns poured out and surrounded them. George backed up till he was standing next to Amanda, who after brief consideration turned her gun from him to the troops.

"Well, Ms. Landsmith…what do we do now? I'm assuming you've got some sort of plan that doesn't involve those men shooting us full of, well whatever it is those guns shoot."

The George on the screen began to laugh, a deep laugh that filled the room like shadows at night.

"The only thing that happens now is that you both die. And I get to watch it. Better than a reprogramming. Fire boys! Let's show that clone of mine just what it is your guns shoot."

"No, really, I'm good. Not at all curious about the guns! You guys just go ahead and put them away. They're boring…dreadfully boring." The men tightened their fingers on the triggers.

George gulped. He was not bored. Not one tiny bit.

Next Week: A break from the main story (because I can't just be nice and let you know what happens next), but you'll get to know all about Amanda in a special episode.

The day George was almost incinerated in an elevator he learned that finger nails can not, in fact, claw through solid walls. He discovered this not without a little bit of trying. Amanda grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him until the entire room was a spinning mess.

"Incineration in exactly 30 seconds. Please don't pray too loudly, this is a government building. Thank you very much for your cooperation."

"Bloody hell!" Amanda's head darted around. "I'd hoped having you with me would keep this from happening! Why do you have to be such a paranoid bastard?"

"I don't want to be incinerated!"

"Incineration is now 15 seconds away."

"1-5-7-8." Amanda shouted to George.

George shot Amanda a bewildered expression, even as the computer began to count down the short remaining seconds of his life.

"It's the bypass code, you have to say it!"

"Three seconds to incineration. Activating ash vaccuming system." Something began to whir and a powerful wind pulled George's hair so that it was standing straight up.

"ONEFIVESEVENEIGHTONEFIVESEVENEIGHT."

George squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the world to end. The door hissed open and he eased one of his eyelids up. The room in front of him looked as though it were made of sunlight. Amanda was already striding towards a desk in the center.

With one giant leap George exited the elevator and collapsed to the floor in a heap. The elevator doors hissed shut, but before they'd closed all the way the elevator got in one last parting shot.

"It's been a pleasure serving you Mr. Miller."

This Friday: The Season Finale. George has faced the Barlack...but what will he do when faced with himself? Find out in the riveting conclusion to Season One, 1.13 - "The Doppleganger".

The doors to the elevator opened only when George touched a biometrics panel beside the door. With every step they took through this accursed building George felt a growing sense of unease, like some sort of creature deep inside him hungering for a way out into the light. People nodded to him and said hello. They asked him about his trip. They gave him details on their projects. It was that same feeling you get when someone recognizes you and says hello, only you can't remember who they are or where you met them. Only this was worse. This was everyone in the building. One of the security guards even stopped and begged for tickets to 'the reprogramming', which Amanda explained was this world's way of dealing with the criminal. Just wipe their minds and start over—fresh, new, everything they had been erased. George shuddered and wondered why anyone would want to see such a thing.

But worse than any of that was the fear that George saw in everyone's eyes when they looked at him. They refused to make eye contact. They flinched when he spoke, as though they were waiting for him to order their execution.

George did not engender fear. People who met him forgot his name. If it hadn't been so quirky as to be interesting he may have considered wearing a name tag just so people could remember who he was. It wasn't that he didn't achieve anything. His grades in school had been exemplary and his work as head of a research and development program was cutting edge in the field of personal computing.

It wasn't that he didn't achieve anything, it was that he was boring. He didn't go out with the other employees after work. He didn't watch movies or play video games. He went home and read a book and went to bed at night.

The elevator doors hissed shut and George suddenly felt trapped, like a tiger pacing a small cage in the Zoo. He looked at Amanda who had her eyes closed. He could see her pulse pounding in a vein in her forehead. Sweat beaded her face.

"Something wrong? You look…well, you don't look well. Kind of like a gremlin hit you in the stomach."

"Hmm…" Her eyes snapped open and narrowed on him like the sight on a gun. "No, no, nothing wrong…nothing wrong…I'm almost there."

George frowned, trying to figure out what she meant. Before he could ask a cold mechanical voice filled the cramped space.

"Unauthorized personal detected. Preparing counter measures." Counter measures, it turned out, meant very big guns mounted to the ceiling. "Enter override code or prepare to be incinerated."

How, wondered George as he waited to die, exactly do you prepare to be incinerated?

Next Week:Escape from the elevator of death!!! (Three exclamation points means it HAS to be good!!!)

The man knelt before George pleading. He held his thin, shaking hands up and rubbed them together incessantly. Every once and a while he would stop rubbing and grab the folds of George's jumpsuit leaving behind sweaty streaks on the colorless fabric. Tears and sweat glistened together on his face which was twisted into an expression partially a grimace and partially an ingratiating and very desperate smile.

All the while he plead for his life.

Amanda had led George down an underground tunnel into a brightly lit lobby with black leather waiting chairs and a bright red carpet the color of dried blood. A man behind the desk made eye contact and nodded as though he knew George, who had never seen him before in his life. He looked over at Amanda who smiled at him with those green eyes of hers. They were trusting eyes. The kind of eyes that put you at ease and make you think of better places. When George looked into those eyes he saw the green fields of his home, his real home, the home he had abandoned.

But could he really trust her? He didn't even know her, and yet she seemed to know him. Every once and a while, when she didn't think he was looking, George caught her watching him with narrowed eyes and a twist to her lips that could only be described as hatred.

And then this pleading man had rushed from the waiting chairs and fallen before him.

"Mr. Miller…Mr. Miller. I'm sorry…I know…I know I've let you down, but please…just…reconsider. I'll never fail you again. I…I don't deserve…don't deserve to die…PLEASE!"

Two men appeared from a door behind the lobby desk. They towered eight feet over George and Amanda like mountains. Muscles bulged through their jump suits and blank pitch black eyes stared out from their faces. They each took an arm and dragged the shrieking, writhing man away.

"Who…who was that man?" He turned to Amanda, whose eyes narrowed to sharpened slits.

"I think he was your project manager. I met him once a few weeks ago. Nice guy, a bit of a weasel, but…but he had a great sense of humor. I heard a few days ago that he was convicted of murder."

"What…what does that have to do with me?"

"Who do you think had the accusations made? Who bought off the judge? The jury? Who bought every single ticket to his reprogramming?"

George swallowed and looked to the door the man had been dragged through.

"I'm…I'm not a very good person am I?"

"No. No, Sir, you're not."

Next Week: An elevator ride brings George that much closer to answers...and death.

A while back I drew a tiny picture of a Barlack and used it as the centerpiece of my blog banner. My drawing skills being, how shall we say it, horrendous no one could tell what it was. Thankfully Will Wright sensed my problem and gave me a way to bring the Barlack to life in a big way. Now seems as good a time as ever to unveil what the creature creator has allowed me to make:

Check out the video version at youtube (P.S. I apologize for the poor choreography in the video, what can I say? The Barlack just doesn't like posing for the camera )

It's not perfect, the Creature Creator is powerful but it does have some minor limitations when it comes to bringing something like the Barlack to life. For instance the tentacle is rigid and lacks the squid like suction cups I described in the story. It does have some nasty hooks, although they're much larger then the small little razors I envisioned nestled in the center of each suction cup. Probably the other largest difference is the location of the arms. Saddly the creature creator does not allow you to connect arms to the knee joint on the legs. I'm guessing it would make figuring out how to animate the thing too difficult for the game.

The only other difference is the eyes, which should be red and a bit more bug like. Also I'm guessing the scale is wrong (i.e. the creature should be a bit larger), but there isn't much to compare with so it works.

All that said I'm very pleased with the way it turned out. This little taste of Spore is a lot of fun. I highly recommend you guys download the trial and have some fun. Here's my page in the Sporepedia.

Tune in tomorrow for the next regularly scheduled update, Episode 1.10.