Half Life

by Lillian Clark

  I grab her hand, stop her picking at her pants. It’s both weird and not weird, touching her. Weird because my brain says mine, but not weird because it’s like touching anyone. Just warmth, just skin. I turn her hand over to look at her palm, holding it flat beside mine. “I don’t know,” I say. “I think we’re kicking this trial’s ass.”

  She laughs, then stares at our hands like I am. “You know enough about me—”

  “Understatement.”

  “Tell me about you.”

  Twenty-six days of consciousness. Fourteen at Life2. Twelve here. But there’s a lot. I tell her about Facsimilate and how her memories shift and recolor until they feel like mine. I tell her about how it feels to spend time with Mom and Dad. “I can feel their love, but it’s for you. Not me,” I say, and her brow curves before she rests her head on my shoulder. I tell her about school, about art: “I think I love it so much because I know you’ve never felt it. Which sounds kind of shitty, I guess. But everything about me is either copied or repurposed, while this is entirely and purely mine.” Then, about Bode: “I don’t know why he likes me. I like being liked. He’s fun and interesting and creative. But there’s that extra thing where he thinks I’m you.”

  She listens to all of it. Letting me talk, meandering along the tangents of my thoughts, without interrupting. Just being here with me. Proving that neither of us is alone.

  Finally, I talk about me: “You talk about feeling partial. Or, I know how you worry about being inadequate. I can feel it in a way that’s more than empathy. Like I can pull the feeling on and wear it around for a while. But I also know that I don’t feel that way. After all of it, how and why I exist, Life2’s incessant attention to semantics. ‘It.’ ‘Life surrogate.’

  “I know I’m not a thing, Lucille. I know I’m a person. A whole person. Not you, just me, but—”

  I take a deep, centering breath, and stand up. “I need to show you something.”

  LUCILLE

  Closed in my bedroom, I sit in my desk chair, laptop open. Lucy leans over to plug in a flash drive. “From Isobel,” she says, then stands back to watch me watch them. Video after video. Dr. Mitchell, BF1901, AA1903, GT1904, and the rest.

  I feel sick.

  I mean, I knew. Not details, but I—we—knew, right? That they’d have had to do tests. That Isobel wasn’t their first attempt. But that’s not what turns my stomach. It is, but it isn’t. What makes me cover my mouth in shock is the heartbreaking callousness of it. With my own Facsimile at my back, I want to scream at every single one of them, Don’t you care? About Olivia? About Isobel? About Lucy? About yourselves?

  I feel painfully, impossibly naïve. I can’t even blame just Thompson or Life2, because while they were using me, I was using them, too. For validation. To loosen the knot in my chest. To feel complete. I share that guilt. I didn’t think of my Facsimile, of Lucy, as a person. Not one with thoughts and feelings. She was temporary. An extension of me. A thing. And irreparably wrapped up with my own sense of deficiency. She was partial, but supposedly the perfectly shaped piece to fill in my own gaps.

  I look up at her. “How do we— What do we do with this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why’d Isobel give it to you?”

  Lucy lifts a shoulder. “So I’d know? She said she was trying to help me. Help me help myself.”

  I look back at the computer, the video of Isobel’s presentation paused near the end. “It’s proof. Gigabytes of it.”

  “The NDA.”

  “Void. Since I used the fake ID. But that means Life Squared can sue Mom and Dad. I looked it up yesterday.” I meet her eye. “You think they’d do that?”

  “I think Thompson used it as a way to make you feel important. In on it. And to scare you into keeping your mouth shut.”

  “So, then what? The contract’s void too, but it’s not like they’re going to give a shit about that. Say Whoops! Guess we’ll let Lucy go!” I push the heels of my hands into my eyes, and try to picture it. The fallout of what we’re both refusing to say outright. I drop my hands into my lap and look at her, eyes slowly refocusing. The pink suits her. “We both know the issue isn’t the paperwork.”

  Lucy purses her lips. “So we publish it. Go public.”

  “You’d do that?”

  She gives me a helpless look. “Do we have a choice?”

  That’s when we hear it. We’d been so focused we must’ve missed the garage, the door to the kitchen, Boris’s whines. Now there are footsteps on the stairs, and, “Lucille? Are you home? I got a text from the school…”

  The bedroom door opens.

  Together, we turn. “Mom?”

  She sees us. Both of us. For one wide-eyed second. Then faints dead away on the floor.

  LUCY

  Dad comes back into the dining room from the kitchen and sets a bottle of whiskey on the table with a thunk. “You won’t blame us, will you?” he asks.

  Mom unscrews the cap, takes a shot straight from the bottle, then hands it to Dad, who does the same.

  They sit beside each other, across from Lucille and me. Midafternoon sun falls in through the windows at their backs, illuminating the occasional dust mote and Boris hair floating through the air.

  “I’m going to need the original Lucille to put her hair up,” Mom says. “Please.” Beside me, Lucille pulls her hair back into a short ponytail.

  “So,” Dad says, then stops.

  It’s been like this since Mom came to. We both rushed to her. A beat later, she blinked the focus back into her eyes, looked between us, and screamed, crab-walking into the hall as fast as she could. I backed away. Finally, she stopped screaming long enough to shout, “What the fuck?”

  Then Lucille called Dad, and we waited in silence, with Mom in this weird orbit, not too close, not too far, until he showed.

  “Clone,” Lucille supplies. “Lucy’s my clone.”

  Dad nods. “Ah.”

  Mom swallows. “I think I’m going to throw up.” She runs from the table to the main-floor half bath. We hear the fan turn on. A few minutes later, the toilet flushes and the faucet runs. Then she’s back and reaching for the bottle again. She sips it more slowly this time. “Sorry,” she says, leaving the cap on the table, then gestures to Lucille. “Continue.”

  Lucille explains about Life2, punctuated by frequent interruptions.

  Mom: “It’s not fucking possible. It’s just not possible. This is decades beyond today’s science. An ear, some skin. An artery. Even a miniature human heart. They’re doing it. I know this. The foundation is there. But…” She gestures (purposefully not looking) at me. “She’s— A complete brain? An entire human body? In weeks?”

  And Dad: “You’re a minor. Nothing you signed is valid.”

  Lucille shifts in her chair. “I used a fake ID.”

  He throws his hands up. “Oh, good! Fraud!” He pushes away from the table and starts to pace.

  I wish Lucille would take down her hair. Because the way they look at me, the way they won’t loo-oo-oo-oo— Her hand finds mine beneath the table, our fingers lacing. She squeezes once. When I turn my head to meet her eye, she smiles.

  “Dad,” Lucille says.

  He keeps pacing.

  “Dad,” she says again, louder. He stops. I glance up at him, then at Mom, who’s looking between us like she’s trying to solve a riddle that’s actively breaking her heart. Lucille checks the clock. Somehow, it’s almost four. “You should probably know that Lucy has an appointment tonight at six, and…”

  She looks at me.

  “And?” Dad asks.

  “I kind of forgot to mention that in two and a half weeks, they’ll want her back.”

  In unison, Mom and Dad yell, “What?”

  LUCILLE

 
They excuse us to my room. Like I’m seven again. Lucy and I plod up the stairs, Boris following, and I close the door behind us.

  Immediately their voices rise.

  There are whiffs of accusation, of “How didn’t you notice?” and “How didn’t you notice?” Until we hear Mom call a truce and their volume lowers to a murmur.

  Lucy leans her back against the wall and slides down to sit on the floor. Boris curls up next to her, and I join her on his other side. “What do you think they’re talking about?” she asks. “Us?”

  We laugh, then quiet, both of us petting Boris.

  “You really think we should go public?” I ask.

  “If that’s how I get out of being Life Squared’s floor model? Yes.”

  “That’s who we’d be forever. Lucille Harper, The Girl Who Got Cloned, and Lucy Harper, The Clone.”

  “That’s who we already are.”

  “But not just.”

  “No. Not just.” She stares off into the middle distance, eyes unfocused, then grins. “Think of the hook, though, Lucille. Think of the college essays. Guarantee, every single Ivy would be banging down our door.”

  I laugh, shaking my head. “Ah, well, if anything’s going to make a worldwide media cluster worth it, right?”

  “I don’t even have a birth certificate. Or Social Security number. Or, you know, legally exist in any way. Plus…”

  “What?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Yeah, well,” I say, “you don’t have loads of stuff. Your own clothes. Room. Bed. Classes. Not to mention all the stuff you’ve only done and tried in memory. Like, pistachio ice cream. What if you only think you like it because I do? What if you try it and end up hating it?”

  “Only the most important considerations, I see.” But she smiles, which was my goal.

  I pet Boris’s so-soft ear, and he groans happily, mashing his head into my leg. “I’m scared.”

  “Me too.”

  Forty-five minutes later, there’s a knock at the door.

  “Come in,” I say.

  Dad opens the door. Sees us on the floor and cringes.

  Lucy’s shoulders droop as she averts her eyes.

  “Time to figure this shit out,” he says, and turns back into the hall.

  I get up first and offer Lucy my hand. Together, we follow Dad back down to the dining room.

  As we settle into our spots, I watch them watch her. I still have my hair pulled back, but I can see from the way they look between us that it’s barely anything. A tiny signifier. That if I took it down, if they left the room and we switched places, they wouldn’t have the faintest clue which of us is which.

  “So,” Mom says.

  Lucy tenses, and I get it. That “plus” in my room. She’s worried they don’t want her, that they’ll decide to send her back.

  “How do we fix this?” Mom asks. “How do we get you out?”

  Lucy looks up. “Me?”

  “Both of you.”

  “But I’m not—”

  “Not our daughter? In what way?” Rhetorical, but Mom waits anyway. Lucy’s eyes start to tear, and I feel it too. My own eyes going sour and tight. “That’s what I thought,” she says. “So. How do we fix it?”

  Lucy and I share a glance, and I start.

  LUCY

  I’m surprised my phone isn’t buzzing as we pull up to Life2 because my heart is a jackhammer in my chest, but we (me, Lucille, my mom and dad—mine, it’s still surreal) decided it was better to come. Skipping out would tip them off, right? And this way we can maintain appearances while we sort the rest of it out.

  Stuff like what to leak and to whom, whether Lucille and I should come out bursting like a Ta-da! Human clones are real! firework, or if we should just use Isobel’s info to out Life2, doing our best to protect her and Olivia’s identities as well. Dad mentioned a college friend, Mitch, who apparently works for CNN; Mom countered with a plan to leak info through a masked IP for anonymity; and we argued fun stuff like what to do if the shadowy übercompany capable of printing people on demand decided that a media shitstorm wasn’t enough to let me go. Or, better, if it would warrant my disappearance followed by a tragic “accident” for the remaining Harpers.

  Then five-thirty rolled around and we all chose Put a pin in it till we’re back home. So here we are.

  We look out at the Life2 building, Lucille in the driver’s seat, me riding shotgun. “Well…,” I say.

  “Time to make sure all your guts are still in the right place,” she finishes, and we share a look, heavy with everything we both know now, everything we’ve decided, then climb out.

  The gate and doors open for us as they always do, and we find Dr. Thompson waiting in the lobby beside Drs. Kim and Karlsson. Isobel stands off to the side. Our eyes meet, and I can tell the moment she realizes that I finally watched the videos. Her eyes widen a fraction and she nods, tipping her chin a few faint millimeters. The feeling, the recognition, I don’t want to say it feels like power because it doesn’t. It isn’t as potent as that. It’s more like sloughing off my passivity. There’s tension in sharing this secret with her, with Lucille, like pulling a spring taut, knowing that, if we wanted to, we could release it and let it snap.

  “Hello, Lucy,” Thompson says. “You look well. The hair is…” She tilts her head, amused. “Was that your decision or Lucille’s?”

  Lucille and I look at each other. “Mine,” I say, while she says, “Lucy’s.”

  Thompson smiles. “Fascinating. With that and your recent deceptions, I’ve begun to wonder just how much of your docility and acquiescence was for show.”

  “Deceptions?”

  “Of course. Just today you replied to a status inquiry with a lie. Or were you really in class yet somehow left your GPS chip at home? Not that it matters. It’s honestly more intriguing than anything else.” Lucille looks at me. Heat buds in my cheeks. Thompson waves me forward. “Time to go, Lucy. Thank you, Lucille, that’ll be all.”

  “What?” we say.

  “Lucille’s role with us is finished. We’re terminating the field test and moving on to the next phase.”

  “Excuse me?” Lucille shouts while my hearing goes hollow. Kim crosses the lobby to us in wide strides, aiming for Lucille. She tries and fails to dodge his grip. I lunge for him, feeling too slow, as though we’re all underwater, in a dream. But Karlsson grabs me, hauling me back.

  There’s screaming.

  Mine.

  Lucille’s.

  Then the doors close between us, and it’s only me.

  LUCILLE

  Kim pushes me outside and shuts the exterior door in my face. My breath burns in my throat. My heartbeat is too big for my chest. I want to lose it. Scream and kick and pound my fists on the door.

  Instead, I close my eyes, clench my jaw, and take ten deep breaths.

  In, one, two, three, out, one, two, three.

  Then I back up until I’m in clear view of the camera mounted over the door and glare into it, imagining Thompson staring back.

  I call Mom on the way to our car. “Change of plans.”

  LUCY

  Karlsson lets me go when the door closes. I want to run at it, yank the handle, scream until my throat bleeds. But I make myself still, from the soles of my feet to the ends of my hair, feeling my heartbeat in my fingertips.

  “Ready?” Thompson asks.

  I turn. It takes everything in me not to spit in her face. “For?”

  “Your final BodyProg and SyncroMem appointments before I present you to the Board tomorrow morning in New York.” She smiles, close-lipped and mirthless. “You should be proud, Lucy. You’re more than I dared hope for, and I make a practice of aiming high.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”


  “About our success? Never.”

  In, one, two, three, out, one, two, three. “You’re a remarkably shitty person. I feel like you should know that.”

  “Perception is subjective. Apparently, even for you,” she says, then gestures to the sci-fi door. “After you.”

  I refuse to cry, through the body scan verifying that all of my parts are present and accounted for, while Adebayo sets the sensor halo on my head and asks me questions I choose not to answer. “I like the pink,” he whispers as he takes the halo off.

  “Did it bother you when they died? When yours died?”

  I wait for him to ask how I know, but he only says, “Yes. The last one especially.”

  Kim walks me to my room. “Here,” he says after pressing his hand to the hidden panel and opening the door. He holds out a phone. “I turned off the signal jammer. You have two minutes.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because you deserve the time to say goodbye.”

  “Since when do I deserve anything? Aren’t I just an ‘it’ to you?”

  He swallows thickly. I watch his throat move. “I spent a lot of time convincing myself exactly that.”

  “But?”

  “But, you remember. You were conscious. When you woke up in the hydrogel during the final stages of your assembly, you remembered it. And I started to wonder, did mine remember too?”

  I consider telling him that’s bullshit, too late, not enough. That a phone call is a shitty consolation prize, one that won’t fix his guilt. Instead, I take a chance and move to close myself in the bathroom. He doesn’t stop me.

  LUCILLE

  We’re spread out at the dining room table, each staring at a laptop, each with our own task. Mom researches the laws about cloning and minors entering into legal contracts in Colorado while Dad digs deep into the conspiracy sites, following every thread with even a kernel of truth. I compile a compendium of information for release.