Ty, a shift manager with an alcoholic wife, creates a female replicant in a dystopia veering toward full mechanization. For Ty, the surreal drudgery of working in a retail environment is interrupted when robotic interfaces are installed at his job...
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It worked.
Ty had created another human being.
A human woman, but the creation was cool nonetheless.
While he worked, he could think of nothing else.
Every conversation he had with a customer was empty, or emptier than ususal. Wallace grilled him for specifics on the mystery girl, which he refused to share.
"Just lemme go to the hospital with you. It'll be cool!" Wallace insisted.
Ty declined, citing the need to maintain a professional demeanor. At least, that was the bullshit he invented to satisfy his friend.
He needed to go alone to have a candid meeting with his doppelganger. Ask him (no, her) if the memory lapse was real or conjured. Ty wanted to know what memories, if any, his female copy possessed. Was she truly a blank slate, with no knowledge of how she had come into being?
Papers in hand, Ty knocked on the door of the hospital room later that afternoon. He glanced at the nurse's station. A State agent chatted with the staff. It was Agent Crendan, probably intent on monitoring any changes in Jane Doe.
Ty waved, but received no greeting in return.
Fuck, she knows.
A weak "Come in" saved him from further speculation.
Ty opened the door. Inside, a small girl with dark hair lay on the hospital bed, hooked to various machines. She was frail, or appeared frail, until she began speaking.
"You asshole!"
Ty shuffled to the foot of the bed, mouth open. She had his bow-shaped mouth, brown eyes, and curly hair. They even shared the same deep-clefted chin, what his mom teased him into believing was his "butt chin". On the girl, there was no butt-chin about it. Her chin was dimpled. It was pretty.
Ty rubbed his chin, trying to work out the disparity between their features. The most glaring difference was her skin color. A Native Puerto Rican, Ty's skin maintained a deep olive-glow year-round, regardless of the sun's appearance. His twin's complexion, though similar, was much darker in hue. If he had to place her ethnicity, Ty might say she was Dominican.
But she's from a machine, she's got no damn ethnicity.
"You just left me there. Naked, disoriented, and hungry as fuck."
When he was twelve-years-old, plenty of people had laughed at his pre-pubescent voice. He had been told he sounded like his mother. If his voice had never given in to hormonal changes, he was hearing what would have been.
"Are you gonna say sorry sometime soon and stop gaping like a hooker's asshole?" the clone demanded.
The analogy didn't shake him, but her awareness did.
"How do you know who I am?" he asked in tone higher than he would've liked.
Her nose wrinkled, and Ty wanted to praise her adorableness.
"The fuck should I know? What I do know is, pretending not to know shit saved my life from those Statie dickwads."
Maybe she was defective.
"Why are you talking like that?"
"This is how I talk. Cock, cunt, shit, balls. Would it sound different if I didn't have these?" She cupped her large breasts. "Yes, I know how you think, dummy."
Ty took a gulp of air, scrambling to say something, anything. He settled on:
"You shouldn't talk like that. Makes you seem," he struggled for the right word, "angry."
Brows knit, she asked, "Why?"
"Not sure, you just seem angry."
"Thompson talks smack all the time. Do you think he's angry?"
"No." He considered her mention of Thompson. "You have all of my...memories? My thoughts?"
~*~
A/N: Change the white star to a black star if you liked this chapter!
From here, move on to mind_in_2157's Unfinished Life. The sci-fi novel incorporates elements of action, adventure all woven around a futuristic setting in the aftermath of WWIII:
