Artificial

I look at the girl lying against the steel table. She seems so peaceful, her face almost angelic in the way it lacks blemishes or wrinkles. Blonde hair clings to her face and falls in waves down onto the slab beneath her. They removed her from her growth canister and brought her into a sort of observation room. It feels like a morgue the more that I look around. The incubation holds are set into the walls at even intervals. To think that only moments ago, she had lid in there soaking in a hyper growth solution that… I do not remember what they told me it was. As if it really mattered to me anyway.

The girl on the slab slowly opens her eyes and winces at the abrasiveness of the fluorescent lights above her. I do not blame her in the slightest. Even after months in the compound, it was impossible to get used to them. It causes her to flinch as the nurse comes into view of her. She is wearing a surgical mask and her hands are gloved as she moves around a tray of equipment that lies next to the metal slab. The girl shies away from her.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” the nurse coos. “I just need to run some tests. Okay?” The girl is extremely hesitant, but she nods and allows the nurse to stark poking and prodding at her with her instruments.

The girl sits incredibly still at first, but soon starts to show her growing discomfort. Her chest rises and falls with her rapidly increasing breaths. She is becoming antsy and somewhat stir crazy. I watch as her toes curl and her feet flex in anticipation. The nurse notes this on a clipboard attached to her cart. All the while the girl begins to fidget with pieces of the paper dress she was dressed in for decency. Her hands are my hands, and I start to mess with the skin tight suit that currently hugs my still petite frame.

Her eyes begin to wander the room, looking for anything to focus on I assume. It is the first thing I would do to try and ease my mind. My eyes meet hers for the first time, and it is like every time I have looked into a mirror combined. At the same time, it is like all the memories of my mother coming back to haunt me. The innocence in her eyes though is nothing like the gaze my mother carried with her. This girl looks at me as though she knows me rather than looking right through me. She understands me. She gets me. Yet, her existence is conditional simply on the fact that the first attempt had failed.

I want very much to take her hand and tell her that she is going to be okay, but I know it is a lie. Once the nurse has finished her work, checking the vitals and collecting blood and tissue samples from her, the doctor will come in. A half human hybrid with the knowledge of how to extrapolate her brain tissue without damaging the samples. The only problem with that… it will kill the girl currently lying on the slab in front of me. It is a punishment bestowed upon me for failing to provide them with a suitable clone the first time. I get to watch them kill her.

If not for the idea that I could easily break the restraints with my newfound strength, they would have me cuffed to the chair to keep me from bolting from the room. But they know me, which means they know that I would not leave a helpless girl behind. Especially if that girl was a carbon copy of myself.

“Miss Palmer?” Both the girl and myself look to the nurse. “Not you, sweetie,” she says to the girl, placing a hand on her arm. She looks to me. “Doctor Briggs will be here shortly. You have until then to compose yourself.” Her gaze is level and her voice is stern. She knows of the predicament we were placed in. The nurse leaves, giving us the room to ourselves.

I look to the girl on the slab as she sits up to stare at me. She sees it too; the fact that we are identical. I stand up and walk toward her. She does the same. As I stride up to her, I take in one key difference between us. She is the size I used to be before I received my augmentations. I cannot believe how small I used to be. I am easily a full head taller than her as well as a lot bulkier muscle wise. She seems so small and delicate, Like I could snap her like a twig if I really wanted to.

“Where am I?” she asks, her voice small and sheepish. A mirror to how I used to be before I met Sam. How many of my memories were missing from her? Would I have to open her up like Sam did with me?

“Who are you?” she asks looking me up and down.

“A friend,” I lie.

Little does she know that her body will soon turn to a puddle of lifeless grey goo. I should have just opted out of the smart AI systems. I should have spared her, and myself, from this fate. But how could I knowing I have condemned yet another version of myself to death. I died when they turned me into this tool of war. This machine of destruction. Does she know of the atrocities I have committed, or is she as weak and naïve as I used to be in childhood? The answer to that question eludes me. It does not matter either way. In minutes, she will be nothing but another voice in my head.