Hmmm, with the revelation that Harold in FO3 was some kind of retarded clone.
PC "So what did you find in the wasteland?"
Harold "Well after I left Gecko I walked around for a while until I discovered this military base in the middle of nowhere.
I remembered visiting such a place earlier so I decided to check the base out to see if it was the same place.
Turns out it wasn't, instead it was something called Sleeper Base and apparently it was once a place where they performed research.
I could easily enter the base as some people before me had gone in and taken out all the defense turrets and robots.
But now this is the weird thing.
As I went deeper into the base I found the bodies of the people who had probably gone before me, everything indicated that they had started some fire fight amongst themselves.
After I checked out all the bodies I concluded it really was a fight amongst themselves as most of the bodies looked almost alike, as if they had been copied.
That is when I found the machine in one of the old labs.
A huge impressive device with cylinders attached to it that could hold a man.
The computer that was connected to it was still functioning, next to the operating program it also contained a series of logs, probably kept by the people who had made the machine.
Apparently it was part of some project to clone people, seems the Pre War government wanted to copy their best people; scientists, soldiers, politicians.
Originally just as a back up should the real thing perish, but then someone came up with the idea that more is always better.
Why settle for copying just a rocket scientist in case off? Why not make an entire science department filled with dozens of the same genius.
Well they took it serious and were planning to mass produce these chosen people, or at least that was the intention.
Bombs probably got there before anything worthwhile came of it.
Still, seeing the identical corpses in the hallway, I wanted to check out if the machine was still something worthwhile.
The instructions were simple enough, the scientists had simplified the process so much that even a kid could do it.
All the machine needed was a bio sample and some clone fluid.
Plenty of the last still in storage, and some medical robot took care of the first part.
At first the computer told me there were some biological complications with the sample, probably due to me being 'dead', heh heh.
Anyway, the computer asked permission to work around the problem which I granted it, and an hour later it was working on 'Harold 2'.
I was rather curious how Harold 2 would look like.
Would he be me before I mutated? And how would he would react when he realized he was a clone of me?
Well a noise from the computer indicated that the process had finished, one of the cylinders opened up, releasing a small wave of used clone fluid, and there he stood, naked as the day I was born; my new identical twin brother.
Of course the biggest surprise was how the computer had solved the problem mentioned earlier, rather than making me when I was at full health it introduced changes in the sample it took to make my copy as identical to me as possible.
Same corpse like look, same smell, heck, the computer had even gone through the trouble of copying Herbert and surgically 'installing' him.
At first we both were stunned of surprise as we looked at each other, and after I got my 'brother' some clothes, we had had all kinds of conversations about our situation and if we should travel on together.
Yeah, the first days where the best, then Harold 2 started to act weird and erratic, he insisted that we should go East, past the radioactive wastelands and twisters in the Mid West.
Now I am all for adventure but not even I was going to risk going to some place without knowing if I could make it safely back in case the East turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.
But Harold 2 insisted, saying it was our destiny or something.
But that wasn't the worst of it, at some point Harold 2 became convinced that he was the original and I was the clone, and that because of that I should listen to him.
After trying to talk with him about it for several days I came to the conclusion that it was pointless, and when he pissed me off for the last time I told him to fuck off and go bother other people.
I guess hell can be multiple versions of yourself.
Those people I found dead in the hallway must have discovered that the hard way, and when I later looked through the private recordings of the head scientist I discovered several entries in which he concluded that the cloning process didn't go as it was suppose to; the clones produced turned out to be erratic.
Apparently that feller had cloned himself in order to make his life and work easier, being able to divide it between the two of them.
Like Harold 2 his double also started to act erratic, and when the head scientist discovered that his double had been seeing the base administrator's wife, for which he was held responsible for as the administrator didn't know about the clone and was rather miffed to see one of his employees between the sheets with his significant other, not to mention cleaning out his bank account, the scientist decided to cancel the project, after he dealt with his double permanently.
Guess it was a good thing that Harold 2 decided to go East after I kicked him out, most likely I would have had to deal with that asshole if he had decided to stay here."