I’m not quite sure what to make of that. It’s bold.

Seems like a blend of films - human organs like Coma,  the clones reminds me of Oblivion, fake lives etc Reminds me of the matrix.

Writing wise I think this tried too hard for six pages. The clones and number one’s did distract on occasions. Felt like a condensed feature in some ways. Man asleep, wakes up tries to escape, caught, escapes, the big plot revealed Etc

Waking up in a room of clones would be enough for a short and a very interesting concept

I would say the budget etc was probably outside of the criteria as well

All the best

You start out without a time element in your Slug, so I skimmed to the end and see you omitted this numerous times.  Uh...why?  You need a time element in your Slugs.  Just do it!

"goggles covers" - "goggles cover"

"observers" - "observes"?

I'm not exactly sure what I just read.  This does not seem to be "the near future"...at least I hope it's not.

Your writing style is interesting.  Mostly 1 line passages.  There are numerous 2 liners, but nothing over 2 lines.  There's alot of white on the page, and peeps like alot of white, because it makes for an easier read...but this is not an easy read.  Far from it, actually.  The reason is that your writing is not visual.  You're not painting images in our head...at all, and because of that, it's very hard to visualize anything that's going on here.

Yeah, I get it, and I've seen this movie many times, read this story many times, sung along to songs about the same thing.  Is there anything new here?  I'm sure there is, but without being able to visualize literally anything, I'm not really sure.

With no real characters to care for or root for, it's tough to enjoy something like this...at least for me.

I don't see or feel the horror, and I think you missed the idea about a future in our lifespans, so I think you missed the parameters.

**

A familiar premise revealed in a fun way. There's always a trick with these endings that undercut everything we've just watched. I'm not sure that this one manages to stick the landing, because there's nothing particularly satisfying about the escape story in and of itself (the black humour early on is probably the biggest success), and the last sequence doesn't really have much drama since it seems like it's just a decision of necessity. In the end, it's Prime's story, and I'm not sure you give us enough character there to really sell the weight of the decision. I think it would help to try and get Prime in the story from the start.

Very entertaining, anyway.

I am a fan of the opening images. The red goo is cool. I also like the idea of a fake escape being fed to the clones to keep them mollified. It is also interesting that the guards are just clones of captives.

I think the orientation concerns are legitimate. Hard to tell sometimes what is being done and said virtually vs. the actual world.

Is there a detail that could be added about Number One that would make us sympathize a little more with him?

Thanks for all the reads and comments. This obviously needs work and I think I have figured out how to make it more obvious what is going on while not just telling, so thank you for all the suggestions!

A brief explanation. Cloning humans is technically possible now. It's just illegal and immoral.

If we feck up the environment though, cloning maybe the human race's only option for a viable workforce, organ replacement, fertility, experimentation and even... food.

We'd try and be humane about it though. Hence the Pacifer project. A totally immersive VR experience combined with drugs that makes the clones believe they are living whatever full life the programmers design for them.

The story is about the start of the program and a trial which the Prime (think of an 80-year old Theresa May having to come out of retirement because all the other politicians are dead - shudder!) wants to oversea before she approves mass cloning all over the world. The scientist who the clones are based from decides to show her what the project would look like when it is up and running and show-off how realistic the Pacifier is by making the first clone believe he has 'Woke' up to the real world when, like Inception, he's in a VR within a VR.

Anyway, that's the basic idea. I'll extend it to 7 or 8 pages and flesh it out more. Thanks again.

-Mark