A Year

"How on earth can that be humane?"

"It isn't. She isn't a human. Our research indicates that the instances of rape and domestic violence have plummeted since the introduction of this model. We have helped stop real women from being beaten or worse for two decades by introducing this model."

"But she feels pain. Her heart hurts when he punishes her."

"Yes, and depending on the programming she reacts exactly how he wants her to. She isn't a real person. Neither are you. Your outrage right now belongs to the real Anja. It is one of the facets of her personality that intrigued Mr. Dysart."

"And telling me I'm not human, but essentially a sex toy is supposed to help me understand is it?"

"Yes. Either you accept what you are or it will be erased from your memory. It might be anyway, depending on Mr. Dysart's decision."

"Bill. Please don't erase me."

"I...well um, I don't know." He turned to Mr. Handy." I like that I don't have to keep secrets now. I'm a man of science; my life has been about uncovering secrets not keeping them."

"By all means do what you like, but remember your contract. If your clone puts another clone at risk then she will be re-booted. There are five other clones on this floor alone. She knows them, is friends with two of them. Their owners might not appreciate her telling the others about this."

"They already know. " Anja stated defiantly.

"I see. Well if the cost of re-booting becomes necessary or is disputed, the company will seek reimbursement from you Mr. Dysart."

"I have money."

"Yes, of course, but... and I hate to be indelicate, but given your current legal situation your finances are not likely to get better over time. I had understood that you were already looking to reinsert your Anja into another at year's end. Re-booting is costly."

"I see." Bill slumped.

"So what? I get re-booted if I don't keep my mouth shut?"

"From your perspective yes. But try and look at it another way. If you stay silent you will be saving your love money, and making life easier for your friends who you are programmed to love as well. Everyone wins if you just understand your situation and stay silent."

"I already told you they know. Paul and Tia are looking for proof of... whatever is going on with us. Paul had a picture of his original."

"Ah. I see. Like Mr. Dysart his owner could not rid herself of mementoes. Well that may mean that Dysart is not liable for their re-boot. There is an argument for that. If it goes that far there will be in-depth legal proceedings."

Bill groaned. His feelings about legal proceedings scattered over his desk in bold headlines.

Anja looked at him, his misery written on his careworn face. Her heart went out to him, as it was programmed to do. She felt immense pity for him and stood up and went to him.

"I'm so sorry this happened."

"No, no, no this is my fault. If I had been able to control myself. If I hadn't felt I loved Anja... but you! You are so much more than her. So much better a person."

"But I'm not a person Bill. I'm not."

"No? To me you are. To me you are a miracle of science and of nature. A perfect blend of the two. A synthesis." She hugged him, his pain filled eyes too much to look at.

"I'll tell you what. I'm going to have to call the owners of these other two and see if we can contain things before they get messy. I will call on you later Mr. Dysart. Perhaps some time and dinner will help you see more clearly what you need to do. And perhaps you too Anja."

He left them alone, Bill clutching Anja as she knelt before him, the afternoon sun falling on them in their sorrow.

Both her Master and Tia heard his phone ringing upstairs and she thought she might have an opportunity to escape if the call was long enough. Running up the stairs he hurried to catch the phone in time and Tia ran along well behind him, then started to cautiously climb the stairs when she heard him speaking into the device.

Tia listened to him talk hoping he would move away into another part of the house. She took the steps one at a time, carefully, waiting to see what he was going to do.

"How could this happen?" His voice thick with anger her Master moved into the front room.

Tia made it to the top of the stairs, and looked for a place in the kitchen to hide. If he went back downstairs after the call he would pass her by, and she could get out the front.

"Well I'm not paying for that! This is hardly my fault!"

Tia went into the pantry. There was no way out of here, but her Master had a drink and some food left downstairs, so if that is where he went after this call then he wouldn't need to come here.

"This is bullshit Handy. I paid a shit ton of money to NOT have this happen."

Handy? Mr. Handy her landlord? Did he know about them being clones? Is that what they were talking about? Belatedly Tia wanted to start listening.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay I'm calm. But I'm not happy. I may sue the old fuck anyway." What old fuck? Professor Dysart? Did he catch Anja? "Yeah I'll call her and see if she knows." Who would he call?

Tia listened closely waiting to see what else her Master would say when suddenly her phone began to ring in her pocket.

Tia almost fainted when she heard it. The ring was so loud, loud enough to hear if her Master had called her when she was sleeping, and it filled the pantry with its distinctive sound. Trembling Tia walked into the kitchen in time to see her Master enter with his phone in his hand and a shocked expression, no doubt a lot like her own.

"Tia?"

"Master!" she threw herself to her knees and wept. She began to crawl to him and kiss his feet.

"Wait, wait, wait. Get up. Stop!" He ordered her so she sat up and controlled her crying with iron will. "I'm not mad at you my pet. Come on get up. Come in here and talk to me."

He took her hand, and his tenderness nearly broke her resolve not to cry.

He sat her down and took a seat across the room. "How long have you been here?"

"All afternoon Master."

"What did you do here?"

"I snooped, sir. I found out that I am clone."

"Ah." He vigorously rubbed his hands over his face as if trying to wipe away the past few minutes. "So, what do you think of that?"

"I'm sad sir. I thought I was a real woman. I thought... I thought...I was special."

"You are. You are very special. You are the perfect woman for me. Yes, I picked you. I could have picked anyone, but I picked you, and I helped make you the special person you are. Then you did the rest."

"I didn't do anything sir." She was leaking tears, but refused to let herself sob. Her throat was tight with anguish and her hands trembled but she did not cry.

"Every choice you have made, everything you have said, thought or done since the day we met has been your doing."

"I was programmed, sir."

"Yes, but how you executed that programming was your choice. If I'd had the money and made two of you by now you would be two different people. All these months you have become unique, as would the other one. Do you understand?"

"I think so."

"Every experience you have separates you from all the other clones out there. You are a special person and I love you."

"You aren't mad at me Master?"

"Not at all. I love you."

"May I ask a question?"

"Of course."

"Why do you send me away when I'm having my period? Why can't I stay here with you?"

He laughed at her, and hurt her feelings, but when he saw her face he stopped and spoke. "I send you away because I need to rest. You are designed to take all this physical activity, but I'm just an old out of shape computer nerd. I'd love for you to stay, but it is a perfect time to pull myself together. I can't keep up with you Tia! Plus I thought you would like some time to yourself."

"I hate it! I get so lonely there without you. Please don't send me away Master. I want to be with you, to help you. To do anything you want."

"I know you do Tia, I know you do. We'll see. Maybe I can exercise some more control and spare my poor aching dick. But for now we should go to your place and find out what is going on with those friends of yours. Shit has really hit the fan over there."

"Thank you all for this meeting." Mr. Handy said. Anja, Bill, Tia and her Master whose name was actually Danny Vesperrelli were sitting in meeting room on the top floor of the apartment building most of them lived at. "I've not been able to contact Paul or Mrs. Tierney his owner, so we will have to proceed without them."

Mr. Handy had provided them with water, coffee and soft drinks, and each of them was seated in comfortable chairs with side tables. It was an informal arrangement, but no-one there felt in any way at ease.

"For the two owners here I want to assure you that Clonall has had dealing with this sort of thing before. Nothing that happens here will be entirely unique. We are able to meet the challenges the situations brings. All that remains really is your decision as to the fate of the clones. As first time owners you may have some difficulty with any of the hard decisions. I am here to facilitate the best method for you to achieve peace of mind, and retain the pleasure you have gotten from your clones."

"First question I have is what happens if we do nothing? What if we let them stay the way they are?" Vesperrelli asked.

"Good question Mr. Vesperrelli. " Mr. Handy leaned forward and looked him in the eyes. "In our experience, for the clones this is a real trauma. It is not as if they have learned they have a relative they never knew of, or that they have s mild medical disorder. This is on the magnitude of learning they are adopted after years of not knowing. Or even more apt, that they have terminal cancer and everyone else knew save them. It is very distressing to them."

"Which means?" Vesperrelli pushed.

"It means that not only will it alter your relationship with Tia, it will mean she will be unable to talk about it, unable to process it without the comfort of others facing the same circumstance. Most likely the other clones on her floor. The clones that others own, and might not appreciate knowing about this. It could be a vicious and expensive cycle."

"Okay, lets' talk about costs. That guys did this." Vesperrelli pointed at Bill.

Anja spoke for the first time. "No you did! If you hadn't beaten Tia so badly, and tortured her mentally I would never have known."

"Anja! I told you this is what I like!" Tia said heatedly.

"You were programmed to like it."

"Please, ladies." Mr. handy interjected. "Gentlemen the cost can be analyzed if you like. We can do a full investigation and determine fault if that is what you want Mr. Vesperrelli. I would recommend however our least expensive, and most pleasant option. We send you on vacation. For a minimal fee we reprogram them to forget this. It takes a few days to do, so a vacation is the easiest cover for the time lost. They wake up in some exotic destination with you and all is back to normal. They live out the remainder of their lives not knowing."

"Until the next time." Anja said quietly. Disturbed by the whole idea.

"Potentially yes, but our clients learn to hide things better, or not bother to keep files at all. We have never had any clone discover their true identity more than two times. Excepting in special cases."

"What special cases." It was the first time Bill had spoken, and his tone spoke of curiosity, and comprehension.

"I myself am a clone."

Everyone except Bill gaped at him.

"I am uniquely situated to understand the clone experience and monitor their movements and needs."

"You?" Anja asked.

"Yes. I have been doing this job through fifteen incarnations. I have experienced many of the problems a clone might face, and can speak to the ramifications of them, if you have any questions."

They all sat in silence for a moment.

"What happens when we die?" Tia asked.

"It begins a few weeks before termination. You will feel ill, weak, as if you have a bad flu. Mr. Vesperrelli will bring you to a doctor who will tell you he needs to run some tests, and will give you a sedative. You will fall asleep never to wake. All your memories will be downloaded and then uploaded to a new model if Mr. Vesperrelli so chooses. This new body will be identical to the old one, and for you it will seem as if you had a few days of bed rest and got better. Then you have another year."

The two women looked at each other.

"It really doesn't sound too bad." Tia said.

"It feels like I'd be lying to myself." Anja replied.

"You would be." Mr. Handy declared. "The way humans lie to themselves all the time. Every day human being lie to themselves pretending life is other than it is, temporary, intangible, precarious. No-one has any guarantees. People pretend that by ignoring something unpleasant that it will go away, and not threaten them. It will or it won't. We have a specific lie to tell ourselves, with a more predetermined outcome, and out fate is in the hands of a person we can see, touch, speak to, but it is no less out of our hands than theirs is to them. I recommend you accept t this lie. When you wake up you will never know that you are telling yourself the lie, unless there is some other mistake made. It is far easier than what most people live with constantly. "

"Thank for the pep talk pal." Vesperrelli sneered.

"By the time we are done here you will have already justified my statement into a manner best suited to making you feel exempt from my philosophy, have no fear, Mr. Vesperrelli." Tia's master blew air derisively through his lips.

Anja turned to the Professor. "Bill? What do you think? Should I let them do this to me? Am I just an appliance to you?"

"Oh Anja. No! You are a companion to me. I just want you to be happy. It pains me to see you suffer like this." His own anguish filled his gaze and it made Anja love him even more.

Turning to Handy she asked, "Have you ever seen a clone retain the knowledge of their own... I don't know what word to use."

"Their own inhumanity? Yes. I myself have retained it for years."

"You didn't know at some point?"

"I discovered it in my first year. They allowed me to maintain my awareness as, I believe, an experiment. But because I do not have a relationship with my owner, I am company property, I have a distance that you do not. I feel no betrayal by my lover, or husband, wife, mother or father. Just a faceless corporation to whom I feel gratitude."

"Ah. And you think that makes a difference."

"I know it does. I have seen it on many occasions. Often clones such as yourself attempt to convince owners who love them very deeply to not take knowledge from them. It always goes poorly. It is as if a marriage had been violated by an affair. Very few such betrayals can be forgotten and forgiven. Later some other smaller infraction will re-open the wound, and eventually , to continue the metaphor, the wound festers beyond healing."

"I see."

"Do you feel betrayed?" Bill asked her. Anja looked in her heart and nodded yes. She did feel it. On behalf of the woman who she was modeled on, and on behalf of herself, a woman with no power to change her fate.

"Then we must do it. We must take this hurt away from you, and I will do everything in my power to ensure this never happens to you again." Just like a husband who has cheated, he told her he would never do it again.

"Tia?"

"I just want this to go away. I was so happy all this time, I want that back. I don't want to know."

Anja sighed loudly.

Then nodded her acceptance, as a single tear rolled down her perfect cheek.

The only thing that marred the idyllic honeymoon was on their return. Anja was utterly devastated to hear that Paul had moved away. His girlfriend Marny Tierney was in a mental hospital having had a breakdown, and Paul had gone back home to his family to seek comfort from them.

The whole situation bothered Anja. Something didn't seem right. Paul would have spoken to her, she was sure. They had been so close for so many years. They had been great friends for a long time, and his silence hurt her.

As she and Bill moved her things to his apartment she couldn't stop thinking about Paul.

After a few days she decided to call him. As soon as she was unpacked she would hunt down his family and talk to him, certain that hearing a familiar voice would make him feel better.

Satisfied with her plan Anja smiled at her new husband. Bill beamed back, his tanned face glowing with joy. Her heart full of her perfect love Anja set aside the troubles her friend was going through. Soon she would talk to him and help him through his troubles, meanwhile her own life was utopia, and she didn't want to do anything to mar it.

Going to Bill she hugged him, and the afternoon light bathed them in its golden glow.

Bliss.