by Pam Richter
The woman was there, staring at her. Same breasts too, Sabrina thought, looking at the woman critically. She appeared younger, though. The eyebrows were tangled. Of course, she doesn't take care of them, like not shaving her legs. The woman did not have any lines on her forehead, but the eyes were the exact same shade of light blue. The nose and mouth perfect replicas. There were no little lines in the woman's neck, as though the head had never made an independent movement.
"The bathroom is across the hall."
Oh great, Sabrina thought, she has my face and body and is able to read my mind.
"They say everyone in the world has a double, somewhere," Sabrina remarked thoughtfully as the woman continued staring. "Is this some strange coincidence?"
"No," the woman said.
"I don't mean to be rude. What's your name?" Sabrina asked.
"No name. Your name?"
"Sabrina. Everyone has a name."
"No one named me."
"Where do you come from?"
"Here."
The woman must be insane. A deranged woman with Sabrina's own face and body. Or else she herself was insane. Something to do with this incredible new modern tanning device that renders insanity along with a beautiful tan. Cooks you inside and out.
"I would like to look like you," the woman said.
Sabrina was thinking, Maybe she's some kind of a clone. She looked up at the tanning machine. It was weird looking in a high tech kind of way. The hood was a gray funnel which went all the way up to the ceiling. Maybe it went through the ceiling. Sabrina had a strong compulsion to run again. She stood up, but still felt faint; her vision darkened and flashing lights sparkled in front of her eyes. She sat down abruptly, wondering if she had been drugged or had contracted some terrible neurological disease.
Sabrina shrank back as the woman got up, took hold of her arm firmly and started walking slowly to the door, pulling Sabrina with her. The woman stumbled a few times, but moved relentlessly. Her grip was a painful vice.
"Where are you taking me?" Sabrina asked.
"You want to go to the bathroom," the woman said.
"Mind reading?" Sabrina asked.
"Your body says."
This is too weird, Sabrina thought as she went into the bathroom. She looked in the mirror above the sink. She was spectacularly tan but her face looked puffy, like she had been asleep for an extended period. She used the toilet, splashed her face with water and drank out of the faucet.
The woman was outside the door when she left the bathroom.
"We better get dressed," Sabrina said, walking toward the locker room. Seeing the woman again was a shock. She was standing there without clothes like it was a perfectly normal state.
"I don't have garments."
Sabrina stopped and turned around.
The woman had gone past her into the bathroom and was peering at her face. "I like looking like you."
Suddenly there was a terrifically loud crashing noise from above the tanning salon. Sabrina jumped with shock, clapped her hands to her ears, and ran into the locker room. There were more crashes. It sounded like gun shots. And very close.
Sabrina peeked out of the locker room, squinting and waiting for the next one. The woman was standing right at the door so Sabrina pulled her inside and slammed the door.
"We have to get out of here," Sabrina said, dressing rapidly. "There's something very odd about this place."
"Okay." The woman was standing motionless.
"The back door is down the hall. We can make a run for it. Sounded like someone was shooting a gun."
"Yes."
The woman was still standing there, absolutely peaceful.
"No clothes," Sabrina said. "Shit, you have no clothes?"
"No." The woman was maddeningly calm.
Sabrina threw her coat at the woman. "Put that on. Hurry." The woman put it on. Perfect fit of course.
"No shoes," Sabrina muttered, and peeked carefully out of the doorway toward the reception area.
She could hear a murmur of masculine voices: "She's still drugged. Couldn't have heard a thing. Now you want to take the computer, and get rid of the original?...Are you both crazy! After all my work making her...What's wrong with you two? Carrying guns like gangsters!"
Sabrina recognized the shrill voice of Ferd, the tiny old guy who owned the tanning salon.
On no, Sabrina thought, shaking and starting to pant. They drugged me, made this woman, or computer or whatever, and now they're going to kill me.
Sabrina strained her ears but could only hear a mumble of voices, and then: "I've destroyed the copy machinery." It was the old man's voice, sounding panicky.
That must have been the crashes. Messing up the machine.
Sabrina pulled the woman out of the locker room, putting a finger firmly over her mouth to keep her quiet. They tiptoed down the long hall toward the back door.
"They're coming after us," the woman said.
Should she let them have the woman? Sabrina wondered, as they crept toward the door. They would search for her. For both of them. And the woman obviously could not take care of herself. Poor thing hadn't even known how to button the coat Sabrina gave her. Maybe the woman was not human. They had called her a computer. But maybe she was, and maybe they would experiment on her, hurt her.
Sabrina started running, hearing footsteps thundering down the stairs from above.
Sabrina was afraid the killers might find her anyway. It's hard to be anonymous when you're on the cover of magazines. But, maybe not. Sabrina didn't believe her modeling photographs looked anything like herself. She was so glitzed up she appeared like a plastic mannequin. Somehow nonexistent cleavage, cheekbones and sullen lips appeared. The pictures never revealed how very tall and skinny she was.
Almost to the door.
Sabrina glanced behind her. There were two gigantic dark men at the end of the hallway. They stopped suddenly, now stalking slowly toward the women down the dim hallway. The back door had a bolt and Sabrina yanked at it ineffectively until the woman reached around her and turned the knob. Sabrina jerked the door open, grabbed the woman's arm, and pulled her outside.
Sabrina could see her car a half block away. She ran toward it, dragging the woman, who stumbled after her.
Sabrina glanced back. The two men were outside now. One of them shouted, "Put the goddamned gun away! Go get the car."
Sabrina felt like she was in a nightmare. The sun was in the wrong position and made the normal residential street appear surrealistic and alien.
Perhaps she was still drugged and a little sluggish, but Sabrina had always had a funny metabolism. Valium, codeine, grass, sleeping pills and alcohol never gave her a comforting relaxed feeling. Now she had barely escaped because the drugs had worn off before they anticipated.
Sabrina glanced back. One man was hurrying around the corner, probably to get a car. The other was rushing after them. Sabrina fumbled the key in the lock and pushed the woman inside.
"A car."
"Yes," Sabrina said, hustling the woman toward the passenger side. "Move over. Fast." She locked the door.
The car coughed, almost died, then coughed again. "Don't die on me," Sabrina muttered.
"I won't die on you," the woman said.
Sabrina glanced at her. The woman's expression was perfectly serious.
"Thank you," Sabrina said as the car revved and they burnt rubber in a fast U-turn, shooting past the man who had been rushing toward them. "Lets haul ass out of here."
Sabrina didn't think anyone had caught up, with all the wild turns she was making, but she went to a nearby residential area and cruised. She thought a blue car was following, but couldn't be sure. Then she watched in her rear view mirror as the car stopped in front of an apartment building. False alarm, she thought.
When she got home she would have to call the police. They would think she was crazy, but she had the evidence sitting right beside her. Undoubtedly, they would believe the woman was crazy,
too. She talked very peculiarly and there were no real clones, or computers, or whatever the hell she was.
Sabrina drove to her condominium and parked underground in her assigned space. The woman was staring at her again in that strange way, without blinking. The woman did not look too terrific. The garage elevator went directly to the lobby of the condominium, not to the floors above, so the doorman could screen everyone.
Now I get to walk past the doorman with a woman who looks exactly like me with bushy tangled hair, hairy legs and no shoes, Sabrina thought. Wonderful.
"If the doorman says anything, you're my double. You're the 'Before' and I'm the 'After' for a commercial. Okay?"
"I am your double, the Before. I don't know what a Before is."
"That's all right," Sabrina said, sighing. What a horrible complication the woman was. And how disconcerting her staring. Maybe she would regain her memory and figure out where she really belonged.
"How do you feel?" Sabrina asked.
"Running was new."
"Everything will be all right," Sabrina said. "We just have to get past the doorman."
"We rush again?"
"No. We'll walk. You stay close behind me."
"I'm your double. Not dumb...just new."
"Of course you are. New, I mean," Sabrina said. She felt sorry for the woman and drawn to her in a strange way. Sabrina wondered if she ever smiled.
They walked through the blessedly empty garage over to the elevators.
"You were stumbling when you took me to the bathroom. And you said running was new?" Sabrina said as they waited for the elevator.
"When I started walking, I fell down a lot."
Aha, Sabrina thought. Childhood memories of toddling to the arms of loving parents.
"But I was much larger, then," the woman said.
"I'm not a small person, just skinny. And we seem to be exactly the same size."
"Ferd couldn't decide whether to make me a man or a woman, so when he started me, I was big."
The woman still did not blink. Sabrina pushed the elevator button again. This was definitely lunacy tunes times. La La Land for this lady. If she was a lady.
The woman continued, "Ferd said I would be too strong to handle as a man, so he made me a women, in case the experiment went out of control. Meaning me."
Sabrina closed her eyes briefly and shook her head. Now she would have to wonder if the woman was dangerous. "Did you ever see yourself before—uh—you looked like me?"
"Yes."
"What did you look like?"
"The Michelin Man."
The elevator arrived and Sabrina positioned the woman behind her as the doors closed. The elevator was swift and she wanted to be prepared before they got out. The Michelin Man?
"Stay behind me and act casual," Sabrina said as the doors opened into the lobby.
Jack, the doorman, saw her and waved as Sabrina stepped out of the elevator. Luckily, someone came into the lobby and Jack turned away. Sabrina saw an elevator opening across the lobby, walked briskly to it. The woman was right behind her. At least she follows directions well, Sabrina thought as they rose silently.
Sabrina closed the door of her apartment with a sigh of relief, but it only seemed like a haven for a moment. The stranger, who had once looked like a Michelin Man according to her own testimony, was in Sabrina's own apartment now, and maybe she was dangerous. Outside was dangerous too. Thugs with guns were searching for her and the experiment who looked just like her.
The woman was staring in her intent way, again. She did not look expectant or anything. She was just standing there, but she had started to blink. You never realized how abnormal it was when someone did not blink until you saw it.
"I have to go make a call," Sabrina said, intensely needing privacy. "You make yourself at home."
She knew she could not call the police and face their questions. Not yet. She needed to talk to Mark. She felt, but did not really believe, his voice could reduce her back to sanity, or something approximating it.
She went directly into her bedroom. The hell with manners. The woman didn't have any, with all that staring. Enough to make her crazy, even if she hadn't been drugged and cloned and there weren't people who wanted to kill her to protect their scientific creation.
Sabrina sat on the edge of the bed and dialed, glancing at the bedside clock. She suddenly realized that she had been at the tanning salon all day. No wonder the sun had appeared to be in the wrong position when she ran to the car.
She sagged with relief when Mark answered.
"Sabrina." She heard his smile.
"Mark, I need help. Right now. Something very serious happened."
"Why are you whispering?" Mark whispered back.
"Please, Mark. Can you come here?"
"Tell me what it is. Are you okay?"
"No. Listen, I know you have plans for tonight, but I'm so scared."
"Tell me."
"I have to show you."
"Why can't you tell me? Maybe you'll feel better."
"You wouldn't believe me," Sabrina said.
There was a pause, "I'll come over. Right now."
"Good."
"Take care, sweetie. I'll be there in a minute."
Sabrina found the woman standing in front of the open refrigerator door in the kitchen drinking maple syrup, Aunt Jemima's Buttery, from the pour spout.
"I needed brain food. Glucose."
"Drink all you want," Sabrina said.
Sabrina mechanically filled the tea pot with water and put it on a burner.
The woman was staring at her again, holding the maple syrup container. After a few gulps more she replaced the bottle.
Sabrina got two cups and put them on the kitchen table, wondering if the woman reacted badly to stimulants. Even tea. Maybe she got homicidal on caffeine, but Sabrina noticed she herself was feeling better and decided not to worry so much.
"Let's sit down," Sabrina said. "I want to know all about you. We have to decide what to do."
Sabrina sipped the tea.
The woman was copying her, Sabrina realized, when the woman frowned a little as Sabrina had done when it scalded her tongue.
"Too hot?" Sabrina asked.
"I don't feel hot," the woman answered.
"Why not?"
"I don't have the nerve receptors."
Sabrina looked at the woman curiously. There was almost no inflection at all in her voice. Exactly like she had no opinions or emotions. Or, Sabrina thought eerily, like she really was a machine. The lack of voice intonation made the woman hard to understand and she had to think a moment before replying.
"That could be dangerous."
"I don't feel pain, either. I could inadvertently burn myself, be on fire, and not know it until I actually saw it."
No emotion whatsoever about being on fire?
The woman got up and went to the drawers that held cooking utensils. She opened a few and took out a knife. It was a big one.
Sabrina felt a sudden thrill of fear. The woman would kill her! Then she watched in horror as the woman calmly sliced her own palm, very quickly and deeply. Blood drops pattered to the floor. The woman put the bloody knife back into the drawer and sat down again, holding out her hand in Sabrina's direction.
Sabrina watched as the cut stopped bleeding almost immediately and closed up, erasing the wound magically.
"Accelerated healing," the woman said, and sipped her tea.
CHAPTER 2
"You dumb shit," Alexander said, frowning at his brother as he drove down Sunset Boulevard toward their home in Bel Air. "Why didn't you get the damn license number?"
"She was driving like a maniac," Stephen wined. "And a blue car was right on her tail. I couldn't see."
"You drive like a little old lady," Alexander stated furiously.
"Well, you were just standing there. They drove right past you. You should have gotten the number."
"Hell. We'll find them. We're going to make so much
money, nothing will matter at all."
"How? You called the Defense Department and said the experiment died. You planning to say it was magically resurrected?"
"No. I got a better idea. Remember the corporation making a takeover bid for two electronics firms in the silicon valley last year?" Alexander asked.
"Oh no," Stephan moaned. A big brooding dark man, he was wincing and shaking his head. "You didn't!"
"The one buying all the real estate near San Francisco? The one we worked with, on the merger here in Los Angeles?"
"Shit. The Japanese? That Hashimoto will chew you up and spit you out like hamburger," Stephan protested, remembering the small dapper Japanese with seemingly infinite patience. The man whose patience was trickery; whose small stature had hidden his inexorable will; who had hammered Stephan and Alexander and all their partners into submission to his own volition. A very scary guy to deal with. A man who did not understand the meaning of No.
"I called them while you were cruising around aimlessly," Alexander said.
"You're crazy if you think we can sell it to Hashimoto. You're in way over your head." Stephan stated.
"I can handle it."
"We barely got out of that last deal alive."
"We have the leverage, now. Hashimoto's flying over himself. You know how the Japanese are about new computer technology. Who cares if they fucking tear it apart to see how it works. We'll get a long term contract."
"You're out of your goddamned mind!" Stephan could feel the eye tic beginning again, the one that he had acquired during past negotiations with Hashimoto.
"First," Stephan ticked off on his fingers, "we don't have it. Secondly, we're supposed to get it to work for them? What if the implant made her insane. She might be crazy instead of brilliant."
Alexander, hunched over the steering wheel, went on as if he had not heard Stephan, "A computer does not get a salary. We do. The computer is out of the country and who knows where it went? My friend in Defense warned me we could be in serious trouble for aiding in the experimentation on a human being. So we're off the hook. And the Japanese are talking in the millions a year. Just to use her. And if we can get information on how she was made, we'll be billionaires."