Doppelganger Girl

by T. R. Woodman

  Tate looked at her for a few moments, his expression shifting subtly, seemingly from being confused, then to the spark of a hopefulness in his eyes, and finally to a reluctant acceptance, perhaps, that he was wrong.

  “I’m sorry, miss,” he said, the flicker of a smile fading faster from his eyes than from his lips. “I just … I can’t … I thought you were someone I knew. Sorry to bother you,” he added.

  Evelyn watched him walk toward the tables in the back, his once-black but now-faded T-shirt hanging off his shoulders. He sat with his back to her, and though she could see he had a plate of food from the grill on the table in front of him, he seemed preoccupied, poking a straw into his glass and staring into seeming nothingness.

  Evelyn couldn’t move, and she felt like someone was twisting her heart in her chest as she watched Tate. He had recognized her, or rather, he had recognized Jane’s DNA in her, and the flickering hopefulness in his eyes that she might be Jane was torturing her, especially because she knew Tate would never see Jane again. The conversation she knew she had to have with Tate—the reason she had traveled light-years to find him—seemed impossible to her, and for a moment, with a lump forming in her chest, she thought about turning, running, and never looking back.

  A thousand years seemed to pass. Knowing she had to move, Evelyn swallowed hard and forced her feet forward. Another thousand years seemed to pass as Evelyn walked around the tables, and then stepped quietly to his side.

  “Tate,” she heard herself say.

  Snapping out of his fog, Tate turned to look at her and the hopeful smile returned to his eyes. Then his brow furrowed, clearly unable to explain the resemblance of the girl in front of him to his sister, who obviously should have been older.

  He leaned back in his chair, the plastic creaking under the weight of his back, and a quirky smile emerged. A moment later, he slowly stood.

  “Jane?” he asked.

  “No, Tate. It’s me—Evelyn.”

  DOPPELGÄNGER

  Before Evelyn was a person—when she had just been artificial intelligence—she had struggled to understand many things about people, but chief among her questions had been why people were so slow to process new information. As fast as her computer brain was then, she knew the human mind was faster, and it wasn’t even on the same scale of fast. If her super-fast processors were like a racehorse tearing across a field at full gallop, the human mind was like a shuttle flying overhead at Mach 3. Strangely, though, most people used about as much of the horsepower in their brain as the horse, while it was taking a nap, and the disconnect would often suck Evelyn into days of swirling rumination trying to comprehend why people would choose to be so dumb when they had it within themselves to be extraordinary.

  Then one day, she had skin and bones and muscle tissue, and knobby knees, and a training bra, and hormones, and acne, and insecurities, and it made sense why it seemed people were so slow to process data. It didn’t take her long to realize that even her fastest ideas were encumbered with emotions, no matter how small or fleeting the thought, and the emotion triggered by the thought made the thought inefficient. Remembering back on her first days in the lab with her body, free from the purely mechanical world of semiconductors and memory chips, this was the hardest of all her adjustments to make. She no longer had the ability to process data to a conclusion, efficiently, without emotion. Emotion was there, and it was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. It was as if, one day, she saw the door at the end of the hallway, and she walked to it and through it without care, and the next day, she saw the same door, wondered what was on the other side, worried it might be a monster, realized monsters didn’t exist, wondered if she was a monster, realized she was a girl, wondered why she was a girl and not a young woman, realized she might never become a young woman if she went through the door and a monster was on the other side, and then threw a smoke grenade in her path just so she wouldn’t have to watch if the monster—which didn’t exist—tried to eat her.

  Above all, she realized it was exhausting being human, and very quickly she understood another facet of being human, which had stumped her until then: the need for sleep, and what a blessing of the cosmos it was to occasionally sleep in.

  And so, as the expression on Tate’s face morphed and mulled and struggled over what seemed an eternity, Evelyn waited—patiently, but feeling her breathing getting thinner all the same—for Tate’s brain to actually grasp what he was seeing. Then it seemed to click.

  “It’s you … the girl at the orphanage, the night we escaped.”

  Evelyn smiled.

  “Is it really you?”

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  Tate stared, and then his knees buckled as he fell back into his plastic seat. His hands went quickly to his mouth, and Evelyn watched as he quietly heaved out a sigh and his eyes filled with tears.

  Evelyn didn’t know what was going through his mind, and she found herself sitting in the seat at the table next to him a moment later. She didn’t dare to touch him, so she sat and stared, her hands in her lap, and she prayed she would know what to say.

  “I thought … I thought all of you were dead,” he said, wiping away his tears and working up a smile through his crinkling chin. “The reports the day you all left were that Vista exploded … they even showed video of it. At first, I didn’t want to believe it, but then the years went by and I didn’t hear from any of you, and I figured … well, I figured maybe for once the government was telling the truth.

  “But you made it.”

  “We did,” Evelyn said, clearing her throat, thankful it was a question she could answer simply but also knowing it would lead rapidly to things she didn’t want to tell him. “It took a lot longer than I thought it would. Part of the Leap Frog was damaged as we were leaving, but that’s a whole other story.”

  “And now you’re back? So, is Jane here too? Or my parents?” he asked, looking around the market as if he might see them.

  Evelyn felt like her windpipe was constricting further with each question. She swallowed hard and looked at her hands. As her eyes filled with tears, she realized she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t say it. There was too much hope in his eyes. All she could do was shake her head slowly, wishing it was Jane in her seat instead of her.

  “No,” she managed to say in barely a whisper.

  A moment later, Evelyn felt Tate’s hand on hers. He didn’t say anything for a while, and then in a tone lighter than Evelyn expected, he finally spoke.

  “They didn’t make it, did they?”

  They did, Tate. We all did. It was incredible! We found a new home. A beautiful home on a beautiful planet. One with mountains that can look down on any here on Earth. And a lake as big as the Black Sea. And skies the color of ice just before it breaks free from a glacier. We found the perfect home, and after we landed, the people named the town after your family, for all they did, and for all they sacrificed.

  And Jane? She found the love she deserved. You know she was going to be married? To Marcus even. And there couldn’t have been a more perfect couple in all of history. They were wonderful together, and the family they deserved to have … well, they deserved to have it all.

  But that didn’t happen. They don’t get to have it all. They don’t get to live happily ever after. There is no light at the end of their tunnel, because I blew it all to hell.

  “No, they didn’t make it,” she said, a little louder this time. It was a small lie, another sin she would ask forgiveness for later—forgiveness she was sure she didn’t deserve.

  Evelyn felt him squeeze her hand, but he didn’t speak, and while she felt like all she needed was a little prick and she would erupt into a storm cloud of tears, she didn’t hear Tate sobbing inconsolably at the news of his family “not making it.”

  She felt the lump in her throat shrink and her shoulders relax. Maybe she was expecting a torrent of emotion from her brother, maybe not, but she had certainly expected his disappointment to be profound. If h
e was upset, he didn’t seem to be showing it, and the judgement she had imagined feeling didn’t appear to be coming.

  Evelyn looked up at Tate. His brow was smooth, and there was a sadness in his eyes, but it wasn’t the sadness that comes from losing someone you love as much as it was the sadness that comes from watching someone else suffer. She withdrew a hand from his, leaving the warmth behind, and wiped a welling tear from her eye.

  “You’re not sad?” she asked simply, unsure how to really express her question.

  Tate cocked his head, stretching his face a little to let his eyes soak up the tears that were forming. “Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel. But I buried my family years ago. I had a hard time with it for a long time, though … not knowing what had happened to them, but eventually, I had to let them go. I guess I have some distance from it now. It doesn’t look like you do, though.”

  Evelyn shook her head slowly.

  “I’m sorry, Evelyn. I know I can’t say much to make you feel better right now—believe me, I’ve had a lot of experience with this—but try to take some consolation in knowing Jane is with our Father in Heaven … We’ll see her again, one day.”

  It was one of the things that held Jane together and pissed her off at the same time—Tate’s faith. It seemed unflappable. Even after Evelyn had obviously reopened the wound, he just seemed to have a certainty about where she was and that he would see her again, which was awesome, foolish, faithful, childish—childlike. Evelyn wanted to believe, and she did. She believed Jane was in Heaven. What she wasn’t so sure about was whether she would make it there herself.

  “Thanks, Tate. I hope we do.”

  Tate leaned back in his seat. “Look, you can tell me more about it later if you want. We don’t have to talk about it now.”

  Evelyn nodded, and she sat back in her seat.

  “You look hungry. Have you eaten anything?”

  “No, I haven’t had any time.”

  “Wait here.”

  Tate stood and walked over to the grill, and after a friendly exchange with the dark-skinned man behind the counter, Tate returned with a paper plate with three foil-wrapped tacos and a paper cup full of something watery and pale pink.

  “Eat these. You’ll feel better.”

  Evelyn smiled. “Thanks,” she said as she eagerly peeled the foil away, hardly getting it, or her fingers, out of the way before she had the taco stuffed into her mouth. Her tongue exploded with sensation—the tartness of lime, the salty, crumbly cheese, the bite of the chilies. She couldn’t believe she could taste so many things at once. It was enough to make her completely forget her manners. As she voraciously stuffed another much too big bite of the taco in her mouth, she looked up. Tate still hadn’t taken his eyes off her. He had a quirky smile creeping across his face as he watched her tear into her taco like a hyena into some unfortunate prey.

  “You’re staring,” she said through a mouthful of food, barely getting the back of her hand up to cover her mouth.

  Tate shook his head and chuckled. “Oh yeah, sorry about that. I just can’t get over how much you look like Jane. It’s like you’re her … just younger.”

  Evelyn tried to chew faster, swallowed quicker than she would have liked, and nearly choked. She grabbed her drink and took a sip—a watery watermelon drink that may have been the most refreshing thing she had ever tasted—and then wiping her mouth with a paper napkin, she tried to pull herself together enough to regain her manners.

  “I have her DNA. The scientists in your dad’s lab used Jane’s DNA when they made me.”

  Tate sat back in his chair. He still hadn’t touched his food, but he sipped his drink. “I just know I’m going to love this story,” he said, smiling.

  Evelyn smiled. “There’s not much to tell, really. Your dad knew a long time ago that if I was going to continue to exist, I was going to need a body … There’s only so much you can do with semiconductors. He knew it before I knew it, or even wanted it, frankly, but he didn’t want me to be some sort of robot that nobody could relate to. So he put a research team together, they took Jane’s DNA, used cloning technology and growth hormones, and voila, I’m here,” Evelyn added with a flourish.

  Tate chuckled. “But how did you get in there?” he asked, gesturing lightly to her head.

  “Oh, well that’s a little harder to explain,” Evelyn started, and then paused for a second to think.

  “When my body was growing, the researchers put the nanites in me early, and they threaded throughout my body and into my growing brain. For you, the nanites were programmed to break down the scar tissue in your brain, and then to help your brain transmit the signals to the rest of your body that weren’t getting through.

  “For me, the nanites were programmed to amplify the learning process. They took the information in the databanks of my artificial intelligence and relayed it into my rapidly growing live brain, and they packaged the information in a way the neurons in our brains remember things. After a year … after my body had grown enough, my brain had absorbed everything I was, and when they disconnected the growth hormones and woke me up, I was me.

  “In some ways, we’re a lot alike, Tate. We both have nanites that help make our bodies run better, but mine were implanted early enough that they taught me to learn faster than normal people. Though, honestly, sometimes I wonder if I’m actually using any of my brain at all with some of the stupid things I do.”

  Tate nearly spat his drink back into his cup, obviously caught off guard by his laugh, which had come out of nowhere.

  Recovering, he wiped his mouth and set down his cup. “You know, you sound a lot like her. Jane was always really hard on herself too. She never wanted to cut herself any slack at all. You two could be sisters … or twins even,” he said, nodding as the thought occurred.

  Maybe an evil twin … probably more like her doppelgänger.

  Wait … that’s it! Doppelgänger Girl … She can control computers with her mind, she has super-intelligence and super-healing, but rather than using her superpowers for good, she uses them to destroy her nearly perfect sister and the rest of her family. That settles it … I’m not a superhero, I’m a super-villain.

  You’re a priest, Tate. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll perform an exorcism and send me back to the new world before I blow you up too.

  “Yeah, something like that.”

  “So, I guess that means you’re my sister too.”

  Evelyn smiled again and shrugged her shoulder. “Yeah, maybe a sister of equal or lesser value,” she said through a smirk.

  “I don’t agree with you being lesser, but the sister part I’ll accept.”

  “Thanks, Tate,” she said. For a moment, the torrent of self-berating thoughts flitting though her mind stopped, and for the first time ever, she knew what it felt like to be a girl who was getting to have lunch with her charming and handsome big brother.

  DELIVERED

  Evelyn crumpled up the foil from her last taco and dropped it on her plate. It took her less than two minutes to eat the remaining two, and as she looked up at Tate, the look of shock on his face was enough to make her giggle.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, still trying to swallow and feeling her face blush at the attention. “I was really hungry.”

  “I gathered that.”

  “And I don’t have any money.”

  “I figured that too.”

  “Thanks again for lunch,” she added, now feeling a little self-conscious at making such a pig of herself.

  “You’re welcome, Evelyn—”

  “Evie … My friends call me Evie.”

  Tate smiled. “I’m happy you have friends, Evie.”

  Evelyn quirked the corner of her mouth and her eyebrow. It seemed a strange thing for someone to say—to be happy she had friends—but then it occurred to her that the last he knew, she was just artificial intelligence. What does a computer need with friends?

  “Actually, I really only have one friend, and he calls
me Evie, but I’m not so sure he’s still talking to me after the way I left.”

  “He?” Tate asked with a loop of mischief in his tone and in his eyes.

  Evelyn felt the blood rush into her face, and she couldn’t help the smile from forming.

  “Yeah, Joseph actually,” she said, hoping that Tate might find some happiness in hearing one of his orphans was okay.

  “Joseph, really? Looks like he may be more than just a friend.”

  “Yeah, I mean no, I mean … I don’t really know,” she stammered. “He was always my friend. He’s my best friend … He’s really my only friend. But I think I really messed things up. He’s probably moved on to someone else by now.”

  Tate leaned in closer, the mischief leaving his expression, and a calm spreading over his face. Evelyn was startled at how quickly he seemed to go from being brother to priest, and she froze.

  “Evie, I’m a pretty good judge of character. I’m not supposed to have favorites, but in the orphanage, I knew there was something special about Joseph. He doesn’t just move on, and I can say with certainty that there are few people in the world who are as special as you are. It sounds like you and Joseph are important to one another … whatever’s going on, you’ll work it out.”

  Evelyn smiled and felt a flutter in her heart, but not a second later, she had doubts, remembering Joseph walking off to the garden with Misha and knowing that girl wasn’t going to give up on him very easily.

  “Yeah … I hope you’re right,” she said, and was shocked to hear herself admit that she really wanted Joseph, even if it meant he might also have to live as an outcast. She remembered the night on the beach and how he had kissed her and the taste of sugar on his lips. It’s his choice. He can choose me, if he wants. I’ll let him … I hope he chooses me.

  Evelyn felt a warmth in her chest like she hadn’t known before. It was as if she had just given herself permission to love the boy she loved, and she felt the shudder run all the way down into the soles of her feet. It was perfect—a perfect feeling—if there was such a thing, and she didn’t want it to fade.