Finding Fiona (21 page)

To keep them separate, one wore a red bracelet
and the other a blue one. Fiona had the faint memory of wearing a
red one, so she could tell who she was. Her parents didn’t know,
though; the next few videos were about Richard and his wife running
tests on both of them. They found them completely genetically
identical, down to every last detail.

After a few weeks, it was clear neither
Elizabeth was going to revoke her claim to the original. They both
wanted to go to classes, meet with James and their other friends.
They came to a compromise, switching off, but they were both
frustrated with that plan. The two constantly argued, and the
parents tried to placate them, never knowing which was their true
daughter.

Mid-April, the red Elizabeth–the original,
Fiona–got on the camera late at night. “The other one’s out with
James right now,” was the first thing she said after marking the
date and time. “It makes my skin crawl. This can’t go on forever.
Only one of us can have this life. And it should be me because I’m
the original.” She shook her head, rubbing her forehead. “I should
have waited until they got home, then Mom and Dad would know it was
me and not her.” She scoffed. “Maybe we could invent a time machine
next… maybe Sarah was right.”

The Alarias called day and night during the
last month. The family struggled to keep the secret from Sarah and
the others. Elizabeth and her replica fought constantly.

It was late-April when the original Elizabeth
made a video in the middle of the night. “Her hair is falling out,”
she whispered. “I keep finding chunks in the shower, and she’s
wearing bandanas. When I asked her about it, she started yelling at
me and crying. I think something’s wrong with her body. She could
be hiding more.” She glanced around the dark room, her eyes wide.
“I think she’s up.” The screen suddenly went black.

Later on that night, Elizabeth started another
video, her eyes red, faint pink lines running down her left cheek.
“She found out I was logging about her, and she got angry. She
started yelling again, saying I needed to respect her privacy. We
both started yelling… horrible things… she scratched me.” Her
breath caught in her throat, and she covered her mouth, sobbing.
“And her fingernails fell off. They just fell off while we were
fighting. Her fingers are just bloody stumps now.”

Over the next few days, the replica’s
condition grew worse. She got on the log, saying everything was
fine, but Fiona could tell she wasn’t healthy. Her skin had an
unhealthy pallor, and her hair, hidden by her bandana, was greasy
and full of gaps. She refused to do any tests for Elizabeth’s
parents, saying she’d be better soon.

Fiona read through some of the notebooks,
comparing the video logs to the written ones. The replica’s
handwriting grew shaky, and her grip on basic grammar and spelling
seemed to slip away. She kept writing that she was sure she’d get
healthy soon. There weren’t any entries from her after the day
Elizabeth said her fingernails had fallen off.

The last video was May 3rd. The Elizabeth with
the blue bracelet came on the screen.

Fiona gasped at how drastically she’d changed
since the last video. Her skin was falling away in flakes, and it
was pink, nearly red in some spots, as if little remained. Her face
was emaciated, her lips colorless. She wore a scarf, and Fiona
didn’t see any hair hanging down. Her eyebrows and eyelashes were
gone.

It was an image Fiona had seen in her
nightmares, but she hadn’t realized it’d been real at one point.
She almost wanted that ignorance back; she didn’t want to think
about the suffering this girl had gone through because of what
Elizabeth–no, Fiona–had done.

“
I’m not getting any better,” the
replica said in a hoarse voice. “I’m the replica. I denied what I
saw in the video because my memories were so intact, but I think my
body is deteriorating because of the machine. I might have been a
prefect replica, but it doesn’t last. I can’t keep living. I don’t
know, my body’s just breaking down slowly. I was never meant to
be.” She rubbed her forehead. “It sucks because I was so convinced
this was my life. I loved my family and my friends, and all my
memories were so vivid. I think I’m losing my mind, too, though. I
can’t remember as much as I can before. Like I can’t really work in
the lab anymore because I don’t understand what we’re doing. I
haven’t been out of the house for a week or so because I’m so sick
and I can’t really control what my body is going to do. No one
should have to live like this.”

Fiona eyes stung with tears, and she tried to
blink them back. She had to go through what she did because of
Fiona, because of her family’s replication machine.

The replica sniffled. “I can’t even
cry, even though I want to. I feel like there’s a hole inside of
me.” She paused and looked into the camera, panting as though she’d
been running. “Sarah is working with the Alarias. I heard her
talking about a fire. I called and paid the extra money to have the
phosphorus
shipped in a day early. They
want to distract us just to get us out of the building, but the
phosphorus
will burn the whole place down
within a couple hours. I’m not going to wait around for my body to
completely fall apart.”

Fiona’s mouth fell open. She put her hands
over her mouth, watching as the replica put her head in her
hands.

“
I hate this,” the second Elizabeth
moaned. “I just want it to be over.” She gave a weak shrug and
turned off the camera.

Fiona’s ears rang in the silence that
followed. She sat in her seat in shock, staring at the computer
screen where her replica’s face had been.

She’d tried to accept that she couldn’t change
the past, but that didn’t stop her from wishing she could. She
should have waited until her parents were home. They’d still be
alive. Tears fell down her face, and she didn’t bother wiping them
away. She’d lost so much because of her impatience.

She and the replica were practically the same
person, and the replica had wanted to end the lives of the people
who created her. She’d called in the order. She’d known the fire
could kill everyone in the building, including herself. She hadn’t
warned them. Was Fiona capable of the same things?

How could she go on with her life knowing
these things? She again thought of the way Troy and Sarah had kept
her from her past. They’d been trying to prevent this. The truth
was worse than her ignorance. She’d brought on the death of her
parents.

She struggled to keep control of her sobs. She
went to the bathroom and sat on the ground, her back to the door.
“Schrodinger’s Cat,” she whispered. “Somewhere, Mom and Dad are
alive. Happy.”

She finally stopped crying and sat in silence.
She couldn’t live like this. Thinking about the past and lamenting
over bad choices made her feel hollow and sick. She still had James
and Keith. She wasn’t sure how to feel about Sarah, but she had
her, too. She had Hannah now. If the fire had never happened, she’d
have never met Hannah.

Fiona walked back out to the lab and stared
down at the video camera. What was she going to do with all of
this?

“
What are you doing down here?”
Sarah’s voice made Fiona jump. “Sorry,” Sarah said, chuckling. She
closed the door of the lab and walked over to the table. She
motioned to the video camera. “Where’d you find this?”

“
In the vault,” Fiona
whispered.

Sarah’s eyes widened. “You remembered the
code?”

Fiona nodded. She unplugged the camera and
brought Sarah back to the hallway where the vault stood. Sarah
stared at the machine. “Is that it?”

“
Yeah,” Fiona said. She fell silent
as she placed the video camera back where she’d found it. “You were
right.”

“
About what?” Sarah asked, her eyes
still on the machine.

“
The Remus project. It wasn’t
right. Look what it did.”

Sarah paused. “I don’t know. It may have saved
your life.”

“
No.” She told Sarah about how the
replica’s body began to deteriorate and about her confession to
paying for the phosphorus to come in early. “If we hadn’t have… I
don’t know, maybe…”

Sarah put her hands on Fiona’s shoulders. “You
could always invent a time machine.”

Fiona cracked a smile. “I said that in one of
those videos.”

Sarah grinned. “We joked about it all the
time. I sometimes wish I had one, you know… to change what I did.”
She dropped her hands, her smile fading. “I don’t think James will
ever forgive me.”

Fiona wasn’t sure what to say. She was still
working on forgiving Sarah herself. She looked at the machine. “I
think we should get rid of it.”

“
Fiona, really? I…
it’s…”

“
Amazing science. A miracle. I
know. But it didn’t even work. I don’t want it in this house, and I
don’t want anybody using it.” She hated just standing in the same
room as it. She had a certain measure of awe, yes. She would never
forget the video, or the memory she’d now recovered, of standing in
that frame and opening her eyes to see another of her.

She would also never forget the conflict
between the two Elizabeths or the replica’s sadness. She deserved a
name, at least. Fiona chewed on her lower lip. She’d call the
replica Elizabeth. Fiona had a new life, a new name, and the
replica could be Elizabeth, at least in her mind. That’s what the
headstone at Holy Trinity said. That’s who she thought she was
until the end.

Sarah smiled. “I think there’s a blowtorch
somewhere in here.”

With Keith’s help, they dragged the frame
outside to the small parking lot. While they were carrying out
boxes, James showed up. “You got the vault open?” he asked, his
eyes wide.

“
Yeah,” Fiona said. “Follow
me.”

She led him outside, where the replication
machine lay on the ground, surrounded by notebooks, blueprints,
pictures–anything that would rebuild the machine. Sarah lay one
last box of notebooks in the pile, then stepped back.

“
It’s the replication machine,”
Fiona said.

James gasped, circling around the pile. “Oh,
my god.”

“
I want to destroy it.”

“
So, you’re… putting it on the
ground?” James asked.

Keith came outside with a blowtorch. He held
it out for Fiona, grinning. “Your treat.”

Fiona shook her head. “I don’t think I can. My
parents’ hard work…” She motioned to Sarah. “You do it.”

“
Me?” Sarah repeated.

Keith laughed and handed her the blowtorch.
“Just do it, Fiona.”

Fiona gazed down at the blowtorch. It was more
of a flame gun; the fire would shoot out far and eat up the
machine. She adjusted the torch to the right pressure and stared at
the massive frame lying on the cement. It truly was remarkable. It
had taken a living, breathing being and created a replica. A
replica who had feelings and hopes and dreams.

Maybe if she had her memory, if she were still
Elizabeth Normans, she’d have a different idea of what to do with
it. Maybe travel around the country, become famous, find ethical
ways to use it. But the last year of her life had taken her
parents, her memory, her uncle. She entertained the idea for a
moment longer, but she wasn’t Elizabeth Normans. She needed a new
life now, one without the Remus project.

Fiona lit the blowtorch and watched it all
burn.

* * *

About the Author:

Emily Ann Ward is an author living in
Salem, Oregon with her husband and their two cats. Along with
writing, she loves to read and cook. She’s been published in
Pond Ripples E-Zine
and
Literary House Review
.

Blog:
http://wordsofeward.blogspot.com

Twitter:
http://twitter.com/emilyannw

Website:
http://emilyannward.com