She reached out and touched the wall. It was felt like glass but it looked real enough to step into. It was a shame there wasn’t sound.
“Gemma?”
She turned and stared at him.
“There are some things I must tell you, and I need you to trust me. Please understand that you’re safe. I won’t hurt you. This is going to be difficult to hear, but I’m going to help you every step of the way. Change can be a good experience. I’m trying to imagine how you will feel…and your reactions once the denial wears off. But there’s nothing to fear. You’re not alone, and we are the same.” He sucked in a deep breath.
“Okay.”
He studied her. “Cloning technology advanced beyond what you could imagine. You are a clone, with the memories and feelings of the woman you still believe yourself to be. Look at your hands. That should be proof enough.”
She lifted one hand to study it. “I see. I’m young again. No wrinkles or age spots. Who doesn’t dream that?”
“I’m a clone. So are you. We were each created for different purposes. I’m still a living person, with emotions and feelings. I’m as real as anyone born to a mother and a father. I debated on allowing you to come to terms with your new reality on your own, but I want to be with you when it happens. I’m afraid you’ll hurt yourself if I’m not at your side.”
She frowned. “This conversation is getting too heavy. I’m not happy about dying, but I’m a realist. Everyone goes at some point. We can’t live forever. I just wish I had more time. Then again, I’ve lost some people before they’d even reached my age. I just wanted to survive long enough to see my sons marry and hold a grandbaby or two.”
He took her arm and turned her toward the large TV wall. He reached up with his other hand and touched part of it. A small blue keyboard appeared and he tapped commands into it. The beach view disappeared, and it became a giant mirror. He stepped closer to her and met her gaze in the glass.
She studied her face. It looked like her old pictures of herself. Her hair had been pulled back into a bun, something she really hadn’t noticed until then. It had been too distracting waking in what she thought was a coffin, then immediately dealing with the annoying robot, and finally the pirate taking her onto his ship.
She leaned in, almost pressing her nose to the glass. Her skin appeared flawless and healthy. The scar on her forehead wasn’t there anymore. She’d fallen off her bike as a kid and needed six stitches. She backed up a little, checking out her body.
“This is amazing. Look how thin and in shape I am!” She tugged out of his hold and flattened a hand over her stomach.
“There’s your proof.”
She grinned and met his gaze in the mirror. “Honey, I don’t think I ever looked this good in real life. I was always chubby when I was younger.” She turned sideways. “I always wanted to be skinny. Now I am.”
“Some of your genetics would have been enhanced. That’s standard for a clone.”
“Enhanced?” She was still admiring her body in the mirror.
“The company screens out genetic defects. All illnesses are removed and you have an improved immune system. You were altered on a cellular level to avoid aging the way normal people do. Every three months, you need a plasma transfer to feed those cells that work to keep us in great health. We also need plasma if we’re seriously injured. It’s one of the reasons I targeted that transport. They were carrying clone plasma to resupply Clone World. I’m stockpiling a vast supply. What I just stole is enough to last six clones for approximately five years.”
“Blood?” She scowled at him. “Now we’re vampires?”
“It’s not blood as you know it. It’s plasma cells that were created by JDJ Cryo Corp to replenish dying ones in clones, and they keep us in peak condition. Without new plasma, we don’t begin to age, but our bodies will start to break down. We’ll grow weak and die in a matter of months. It was a way for the company to keep control of us, while also making more money off the clients we’re sold to.”
“This is getting too weird for me.” She faced him. “As kickin’ as this body is, I’d like to see the beach again.”
He reached up and tapped the panel, changing the screen back to the cove. “You don’t believe me…but you will.”
She sighed, growing tired of the dream. “This can’t be real. It’s too crazy.”
“I understand. You’re from a time period where none of this was possible. It’s true, though. You died, and I believe your body was mistakenly stolen by JDJ Cryo Corp to get tissue and the brain of the singer who shared your name. They began doing that in the early two thousands, from what I remember of the information I’ve read. They just couldn’t perfect the technology until much later. You were ordered to be created by the owner of Clone World, and were being shipped to him. You’re a clone with the memories of someone who died.” He paused. “Look at it this way. You are the same person, but you have a new and much-improved body.”
“Cool concept. Who wouldn’t want to be given a second chance at life in a young body? Not me, said no one ever. It’s the thing fantasies are made of. One problem, Big.”
“What’s that?”
“How did they rip my brain out of my body and put it into another? It’s one thing to donate a kidney or something. It’s entirely another to pass memories and emotions to someone the way they can with a transplant.”
“Your brain is also cloned. The original one will be kept in storage in case someone else orders a Gemma Grady clone.”
That was a disturbing concept. “There could be more versions of me out there?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Who wake up in the future?”
“Yes.”
“With all my memories intact?”
“Yes, if the buyer wants the clone to retain the memories and personality of the source material. It’s a law that clones must be blanked of any memories, until they’re programed for their purpose right before being awoken. JDJ Cryo Corp is willing to break that law. The company has sold illegal clones before.”
She refused to consider any of that. “I’m me. I don’t care what you say. I remember my parents. I still ache over their loss. I’m replaying my life inside my head and there are no gaps. I can even remember how furious and hurt I felt when my ex-husband came home from work one day and informed me that he’d been having an affair with his law partner, and she’d gotten pregnant. Our boys were ten and thirteen. I had to go through pure hell trying to piece my life back together after he walked out, and struggled to make certain our sons were okay. Then the bastard tried to fuck me blind in the divorce settlement. That happened to me, not someone else.”
“The source mind’s memories have been copied precisely, Gemma. You saw your new body. It’s much younger than the one you remember, and it’s been enhanced.”
“That’s because I’m drugged up in a hospital and having this dream! I’m as high as a kite.”
He sighed. “You just woke inside a shipping container. How do you feel? A trained clone medic should be attending to you and checking you over. Are you tired or hungry? Dizzy?”