Doppelganger Girl

by T. R. Woodman

  Evelyn felt the touch on her shoulder. Looking up, she caught his smile. His dark hair, which had mostly dried now, was hanging into his eyes. “It’s okay, Evie, I understand … Maybe next time.”

  She felt her heart sink. “So, was it fun? Did a lot of people go?”

  “No,” he said, and she immediately felt a little better at the thought she hadn’t missed anything.

  “I mean, yes, it was fun, and no, not a lot of people came.”

  Evelyn’s momentary good feeling fled.

  “It was just Titus and Autumn and Misha … and me.”

  Evelyn’s heart pinched and sank deeper at the realization that Joseph had spent the day with Misha, when he could have been with her—if she hadn’t been so stupid.

  “Oh,” was all she managed to say in response.

  Joseph started to stand. “Do you think you can walk?” he asked, holding out his hand for her. “We really should have the doctor look at your legs. Your knees still look pretty rough.”

  Grabbing his hand, she stood and felt the dull ache in her shin and the rawness of her knees. “Yeah, I think I’m okay.”

  She walked quietly next to Joseph, unsure what to say, feeling like she had ruined any chance they may have had to be together. A few minutes passed, and as they crossed through the trees into the clearing, Joseph gave her arm a little nudge.

  “You know, it’s not a day at the beach, but I’m going to take a group of the little kids to the garden after classes on Friday. They seem to like me, and as it turns out, I’m pretty good in the garden … Do you think you might want to come with me?” he asked with a sideways glance.

  Evelyn’s heart leapt. He could have asked her to visit the dump and she would have been overjoyed.

  “Sure,” she said, giving him a little smile.

  “Great … it’s a date.”

  Evelyn couldn’t contain her smile, and she felt her heart pound in her chest. She hadn’t ruined everything, and bloody knees or not, she felt like she was walking on a cloud as she and Joseph headed back to the camp together.

  WORM

  The smile hadn’t left her since the day before. Neither had the bubbly feeling of giddiness. She knew it was foolish, but she didn’t care. She had a date with Joseph, even if it was to work in the garden with a bunch of little kids. In all the strangeness of the new world around her, the way she felt when she was with him—maybe the way she had always felt when she was with him—was perfect.

  She tightened the nut on the housing, furrowing her brow for a moment at the effort, and then noticed her reflection in the metal casing. Her smile sprang back.

  Doctor Wynn had basically confirmed exactly what Evelyn had thought about the nanites. They flooded the area in her leg to pull the flesh back together, essentially sealing it so it could heal naturally. As a doctor who had seen nearly everything, Doctor Wynn couldn’t contain the surprise in her voice as she touched the area with her fingertips. She had even sent one of her techs to find Adam, the biophysicist who had developed the nanites. He came running into the tented area, breathless and sweaty, and looked like his eyes might pop out of his head he was so excited. By that time, there was little for him to see, as the swelling had gone down, and other than having a long silvery scratch the length of her shin, Evelyn looked nearly normal—except, of course, for her scabby knees, which nobody, even Doctor Wynn, seemed to care much about.

  Joseph had sat with her the whole time. After an antibiotic treatment on her knees, they had stepped out of the medical tent to the shaded grove of trees near the top of the main road.

  Sitting under the leafy branches, they talked about all the things they hadn’t had time to share since they had arrived. They talked about his classes with the other teenagers and the things he was doing with the little kids, and she tried to explain everything she was doing with the generator and the Leap Frog. The look on Joseph’s face told her pretty quickly she was getting too technical, so she changed the subject and spent the rest of the afternoon talking about Earth.

  For all she knew about Earth, she didn’t really know it. She had spent only twenty minutes standing on its surface just before they left, and in that time, she had seen Ironhead, the slum where Tate lived, in the early hours of the morning. She had seen the inside of the orphanage Joseph called home. She had seen the inside of the chapel and rectory where Tate lived. Then she had been shot at by military personnel with orders to kill all of them on sight, and then she was gone.

  Joseph, on the other hand, had lived in the slum, in the orphanage, and had never known his parents—up to the point when he left Earth, his only real family had been the kids he lived with and the priests who took care of all of them. This was especially true of Tate. Joseph talked about him often, and it was obvious to Evelyn that he wanted to go back to Earth at some point to see him again. Though Joseph never said so, it was as if he thought of Tate as his father—his real father—not just as Father Tate.

  Evelyn could see there was a lot that she and Joseph had in common. Neither of them had parents. They both had strange early lives, and they both had to take on a lot of responsibility. The one thing she couldn’t understand was why he seemed so relaxed about his life when she felt totally disjointed by hers. She figured it had something to do with his relationship with Tate, but she didn’t know for sure, and she let him talk all afternoon about all the things Tate did with them while he was at the orphanage.

  If it hadn’t been for the fact that Joseph had told Jane he would help her organize the search and exploration tent with Marcus, they might have spent all night talking under the stars. It was a perfect afternoon—could have been made more perfect with ice cream—and she loved her day with the green-eyed boy. Thinking of his eyes and his crooked smile had been an all-day distraction in her efforts to finish her work on the shuttle.

  She tightened the nut once more, and then, satisfied she had finally finished installing the Leap Frog, she stood and stretched, arching her back. Turning to look out the bay of the shuttle, she realized it was getting late. It wasn’t dark, but the gray light of the end of the day was settling in.

  Evelyn walked down the ramp of the shuttle and stepped out into the grassy area beyond. She turned toward her mountain—her lonely mountain. She didn’t feel so lonely or isolated anymore, and she felt the bubbles of excitement in her stomach again.

  Figuring she might still have a chance of catching Joseph somewhere in town, she decided to take a walk, for the first time feeling like she really didn’t have to rush off to do something else.

  The path from the shuttle landing area to Philips Landing was well-worn, with most of the native grasses trampled or completely gone. Since they had arrived, hundreds of people had been moving gear and equipment back and forth from the town to the shuttles to Vista, and the other way. After so much traffic, it looked like life could never grow on the path again.

  It was nearly a mile walk down to the edge of town, and the outskirts were still mostly just tents encircling campfires, as the residents hadn’t worried over building shanty homes just yet. The cool nights still made for perfect camping weather. As the light faded, the lanterns in many of the tents gave off a warm glow, giving her something to walk toward. Deciding to detour through the campsite and shave a few minutes off her walk, Evelyn turned toward a cluster of tents.

  She could smell the char of firewood and the pungent aroma of campfire cooking, though she had no idea by the smell what most of these people were eating. To some degree, they were all still experimenting with rough cooking, most of them having eaten nothing but processed Vista food for the past six years. Every now and then, Evelyn had smelled something that actually made her hungry, but most of the time, she preferred to just smell the campfire over the food being cooked on it. Tonight was no different.

  Keeping mostly to the back side of the tents to avoid intruding on anyone’s privacy, she stepped lightly through the dark. Many of the residents were finishing their day around their campfi
res, eating and drinking and relaxing, and Evelyn was glad for the sounds of children and parents laughing; they were sounds she heard less and less on Vista as the years passed in transit, but more and more with each passing day on Orsus. The laugher she heard walking among the tents fed her mood, and she smiled as she walked over the trampled grass.

  “I hate her, Autumn.”

  Evelyn stopped in her tracks at the sound of Misha’s voice. She couldn’t help but look over her shoulder at the tent she had just passed. Through the fabric, she could just see the shadows of the girls sitting, probably on cots, but far enough away from the wall of the tent that Evelyn couldn’t make out anything definite. She could definitely hear them, though. She desperately wanted to keep walking—to ignore whatever gossip they were about to unload on one another—but she couldn’t help it. She froze and held her breath.

  “You don’t even know her,” Autumn said.

  “I know enough … and why do I have to know her to hate her, anyway?” Misha asked, obviously not looking for an answer.

  “I’m just sayin’, you don’t have to worry about her, that’s all.”

  “Autumn, he left me … at the lake. You saw it … He went back without me … and the next thing I know, he’s sittin’ with her in the trees … and I’m pretty damn sure they weren’t talking about me in my bikini.”

  “Maybe next time you shouldn’t wear one,” Autumn deadpanned. A second passed and they both started laughing.

  “Yeah, maybe next time I’ll accidentally lose my top in the water,” Misha said loud enough for everyone within thirty feet of her to hear, the shadow of her hand through the fabric raised in a striptease flourish. “If that doesn’t get his attention, he’s not into girls.”

  Evelyn couldn’t help but laugh. Quickly putting her hand up to her mouth, she held her breath again, wondering if anyone heard her. Another moment passed.

  “God, I’m so stupid!” Misha finally said. “What am I gonna do, Autumn? Joey’s known her forever … How can I compete with that?”

  Evelyn couldn’t help but smile. Joseph was hers. She knew it, and so did everyone else.

  “C’mon, Mish … quit bein’ dramatic … You know he’s not going to choose her over you … She’s not even real.”

  At this, Evelyn’s smug confidence completely evaporated.

  “It’s, like, you … or a robot,” Autumn added a second later, though decidedly quieter than before, obviously worried someone might overhear.

  Evelyn watched the girls gesticulate through the wall of the tent. Then the girls burst into laughter. Evelyn felt a sadness grip her, and a tightness constrict her chest. She wanted desperately to leave—she would have taken her chances with the beast in the lake over this—but she was stuck. Her legs wouldn’t work.

  “Nobody likes her, Mish.”

  “No kidding!” Misha said, again probably more loudly than she intended.

  “She doesn’t have any friends. I don’t even know what she does all day … but nobody knows what she’s doin’,” Autumn said.

  “Yeah … you know, I overheard my mom talkin’ about her to the council a couple days ago. Nobody even trusts her.”

  “Well, all I know is she’s creepy weird … runnin’ around all over the place … always by herself … She’s a freak, Mish … a freaky science experiment.”

  Evelyn felt the tears forming in her eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She already didn’t feel like she belonged in the colony anyway, but this made it way worse. Apparently, everyone else thought the same. Gritting her teeth, she covered her mouth to keep from letting out a sound.

  “You’re right … Joey’s probably just hangin’ around her because he feels sorry for her,” Misha said.

  “Probably, but you shouldn’t. She’s not a person.”

  “She sure looks like one.”

  “Yeah, but she’s not,” Autumn repeated. “I don’t know what she is, but she’s not a real person. You know, I heard they grew her in a pod … like a … like a worm.”

  “That’s disgusting!” Misha said with a laugh.

  “Well … she’s disgusting,” Autumn replied. “We’re all stuck on this boring, stupid planet. Joe’s not gonna choose her when nobody else can stand being around her.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right,” Misha agreed. “Plus, her teeth are too big and her butt is too skinny.” At this, both girls let out a loud laugh, and Evelyn couldn’t help the tear from falling down her cheek. Does Joseph really just feel sorry for me? She knew it was only a cruel conversation between a couple of girls—and one she never should have heard—but she couldn’t shake the thought. And it made her sick to her stomach to think that most of the people in the colony didn’t trust her or even like her. How could Joseph ever want to be with me? How could I want to be with him, knowing it would make him an outcast too? The questions whirled around in her mind, most of which she didn’t want answers to.

  Evelyn had heard enough. Wiping the tear from her eye, she pried her feet loose. No sooner had she taken five steps than Mrs. Vandergaast came around the corner of one of the tents.

  Evelyn’s eyes went wide.

  “Oh! Evelyn,” the councilwoman said, clearly surprised at finding her lurking in the dark.

  Evelyn felt the panic in her chest, but she tried to breathe. “Mrs. Vandergaast.”

  “How … strange … it is to see you here,” the councilwoman added, cocking her eyebrow and crossing her arms across her chest. “What exactly are you doing?”

  “I was just heading into town, ma’am, to look for … someone,” Evelyn replied in a whisper, knowing she was only feet away from Misha’s tent. Dear God, please don’t let them hear me.

  “Well … it’s a good thing I found you—”

  Evelyn heard a rustling in the grass and glanced over her shoulder. Both Misha and Autumn had come out from the tent, no doubt hearing the conversation. They had looks on their faces like they had been asked to lick a toad. Evelyn felt the urge to vomit and was sure if she had eaten anything since breakfast, she would have. She turned back to face Mrs. Vandergaast and felt a hot sweat of shame wash over her.

  “I was just coming from the council meeting, and we received some very disturbing news,” the councilwoman continued. “Are you the one who is responsible for programming the agribots? Is that part of your job?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Evelyn replied, wanting desperately to look away from the woman whose eyes seemed to be smoldering.

  “Well,” she continued, taking a step closer—close enough that Evelyn could smell her stale, mothbally breath over the campfire smoke lingering in the air, “one of your agribots malfunctioned today. A field worker was tending a new area of soil and your agribot nearly ran her down. It could have killed her, if she hadn’t gotten out of the way.”

  Evelyn was surprised, and it must have shown on her face because the councilwoman stepped even closer.

  “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  Evelyn didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t see how it was possible for an agribot to run down a person, given the way they were programmed. “I’ll take a look at it right away, ma’am.”

  “That’s it? You nearly killed someone today, and all you can say for yourself is ‘I’ll take a look at it’?”

  “Ah, no, ma’am, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  “You should be sorry,” Mrs. Vandergaast interrupted, now glaring at Evelyn and speaking through pursed lips. “But I don’t expect you to be sorry. I don’t expect you to care. I don’t expect you to understand the value of a human life. You have to be human to understand that, and you’re definitely not human … You’re nothing but an abomination … a dirty insult to humanity and a constant reminder of what happens when scientists try to play God in a laboratory.”

  Evelyn was shocked at the hate she felt emanating from this woman. Tears ran down her face. She stood as still as she could, her chin quaking, terrified that if she even blinked, the co
uncilwoman would tear her apart.

  “So, no, I don’t expect you to be anything but what you are … a tool, and as a tool, I expect you to do your job.”

  Evelyn didn’t know what to say, and a moment passed.

  Looking away from her in disgust, Mrs. Vandergaast turned and walked past her daughter and Autumn. “Get out of my camp, tool,” she said over her shoulder.

  Evelyn was shaking. She couldn’t stop herself and she wanted to run. She started to turn away, but caught Misha’s eye before she could.

  “Were you spying on us?” Misha asked, still with a look of disgust on her face, her arms crossed, leaning forward as if she might attack if Evelyn so much as flinched.

  Evelyn felt terrible about listening to the girls, and in spite of the horrible things they had said about her, and the things Mrs. Vandergaast had just said to her, she knew she should say she was sorry. She started to open her mouth. “I—”

  “I hope you heard everything we said about you,” Misha interrupted. The glare she gave Evelyn felt as if it was slicing through her skin. A second later, Misha turned to follow her mother.

  “Freak,” Autumn added, looking Evelyn up and down before following the others back to the front of the tent.

  For the second time in two days, Evelyn couldn’t contain her tears. Turning, shaking and sobbing, her hands covering her face, she ran toward her shuttle, wishing she could rip the shame she felt out of her chest before it stopped her heart from beating.

  ABANDONED

  Abomination … freak … Evelyn stared at the metal wall, the words relentlessly rolling over in her head. Sleep hadn’t really come for her, and with the sun already over the lake, she knew she would have little chance of getting any now.