Half Life

by Lillian Clark

  She blinks once, slowly. “They’re my favorite, too.”

  “They’re beautiful,” I say, and her smile widens a fraction, losing a bit of its falseness. She’s wearing dangling earrings the same color as the flowers. I’ve never seen her wear jewelry before, never seen her deviate from her professional, grayscale uniform.

  The door opens, and Dr. Kim waves me forward without preamble.

  I follow him down the hall. “No Thompson today?”

  He doesn’t look up from his tablet. “No. She’s presenting a progress report to the investors.”

  “On me?”

  He nods.

  “And?”

  He turns into a room dominated by a single enormous piece of equipment. “All good,” he says. “We haven’t hit the hard part yet.”

  I snort. “Sure. Brain tissue samples are the easy part.”

  He breathes a laugh out his nose. “When you’re building a human from scratch, they are.”

  “True.” I wave a hand at the thing in the room. “What’s this?”

  “Full-body scanner.”

  “Like a CT?”

  “Yes. Like one. But…” He taps around on his tablet before turning the screen toward me. On it is an image of someone’s body, a 3-D digital rendering of their entire physiology from the inside out. “See?” he says, shifting around to stand beside me, moving his fingers on the touch screen, tapping sections of the image to highlight, enlarge, isolate, and rotate them. “Organs, skeletal structure, nervous system.” He pulls forward the image of the body’s large intestine, then uses his thumb and index finger to pull the coiled mass apart, stretching the intestine out straight. Next, he double-taps on it, and a section enlarges. He taps again, once, and an array of data shows up on the screen, numbers correlating with things like width and density, measuring the thickness of the intestinal wall, the variations in texture and contours.

  “So, this thing will make you a 3-D Paint-by-Number ‘Lucille.’ ”

  “Cool, huh?”

  “Incredible.”

  “It’s one of a kind.”

  My brow rises, though I don’t know why I’m surprised. This place is inside a schism in reality, after all. “And you’ll use that to make molds of my kidneys and liver and such?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “After which bio-goop imbued with my specific and specially extracted ‘Lucille’ goop will be extruded by the ITOP into said molds, so it can start growing into extra kidneys and livers and such.”

  “Basically.” He closes out of the scanner image on his tablet and opens a different one, this one a photo of what looks like a kidney. But, a kidney in progress. Nestled in the blue, not-quite-Jell-O like the arm, it’s pale, bloodless, and…partial. The shape of a kidney, even with the shadow of where the renal artery should be, but it’s semi-translucent. And textured like a grid. “The ITOP uses your ‘Lucille bio-goop’ ”—he grins—“to build the structure of your kidney. A detailed blueprint. Then we encourage the cell growth that fills it out.”

  “Wow.”

  He tucks the tablet under his arm. “Ready?”

  Back in my white scrubs, lying on the scanner’s platform with my head, shoulders, hips, and ankles strapped down, I listen to the machine’s percussive whir, loud even through the headphones Kim gave me.

  I think about kidneys.

  Printing kidneys. Cells growing over the printed blueprint for kidneys like mold on bread. Or do the scientists layer them on like strips of papier-mâché? A kidney. A heart. Vertebrae, ribs, lungs, trachea, skull, nose, ears.

  Ears. Orange earrings, flowers on the sideboard, and a nonplastic smile. I remember, Isobel said Saturday. But, she remembers what?

  * * *

  If I run after the car, right now, I could catch him. Tell him I’m going to be sick, that I can’t do this. I look from the Reach the Sky building to the road and see Dad’s car already halfway down the block. I can’t remember anymore why I even signed up for this. Well, no, that’s a lie. It’s because this is the most competitive volunteer opportunity for high schoolers in the area, because recommendation letters from its director are basically golden tickets. But what good is that when you’re the alternate? Like, cool, I’m in, I’m here, but only barely. Only because the one they really want can’t be.

  Which, super fun, also makes me the only one who won’t already know everyone else. The only one with something extra to prove.

  I close my eyes and think, Ideal candidate, the business of exceptionality, the best. I wonder if this is what Bruce Wayne feels like. The whole double-life, alter-ego, secret-lair thing. Does he ever doubt himself while he’s Bruce and think, Wait, I’m Batman? Like how while I stand here debating my merit, thirty-odd miles from here a supersecret mega company is literally growing me a second self.

  So what if I’m starting this session as the odd one out. So what if Cass hosted a Fourth of July party at her house on Saturday and didn’t invite me. So what if my business-class group practiced our final presentation without me and I had to do my part separately like some sad—albeit obsessively prepared—dingleberry. So what if my “this class isn’t for you” ass then went on to get a C overall, basically making the whole thing pointless, since who the hell brags about getting a C in their first college class on their applications?

  So. What.

  That supersecret mega company, a few short weeks out from changing my life and altering the course of human history, picked me. Not me, Lucille Harper, Barely Keeping Herself Afloat, but me, Lucille Harper, Worthy of Being Duplicated.

  It’s early enough that the halls are still quiet. I wander until I find the director’s office and introduce myself. Adaline’s welcome is warm but brief, since her phone starts ringing midsentence. She tells me where to find the break room where the interns meet and not-so-subtly ushers me out of the office.

  The break room is home to a coffee station, fridge with magnetic poetry already arranged into a mess of jokes, and a single table in the center of the space surrounded by a dozen chairs. I hesitate, worrying I’ll pick someone’s favorite seat, then opt for one in the back corner.

  The others start showing up around ten till eight, walking in in pairs or groups like they carpooled or met up beforehand. A few carry coffee cups and snacks. And everyone’s talking, catching up on what they all did over the weekend like it’s just another Monday because for them it is. Some wave at me, others nod, but no one goes out of their way to talk to me. Their chatter drowns out the twang of the knot yanking tighter in my chest.

  Usually, in a situation like this, I’d be sizing up my competition, wondering about their hooks, what they have that I don’t to float them to the top of their Ivy League application baskets. Sports stars, maybe. Tragic pasts. Maybe the one with the reporter-style notebook is a politician’s kid, state representative or something. A legacy. Maybe the girl with perfect hair runs track. Maybe the guy with dark, messy curls, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, seemingly asleep, is…Okay, that one’s got me stumped.

  Then there’s me. To whom it may concern, please enjoy this essay on how I cope with my life’s greatest tragedy: my inability to tan. Sincerely, Mayonnaise Incarnate.

  Though, of course, I’m the new blood now, and I swear I can feel them wondering about me. If only I could wear my currently-being-cloned status around like a hat. A flashy one, with glitter and blinking lights.

  At five till, Adaline comes in with a clipboard, gives a quick welcome back, then says, “Everyone say hi to Rachelle’s replacement, since she’s abandoned us in favor of an exchange in Italy, poor girl.” There are mock groans, and glances at me. “Lucille, you’ll be with Marco since everyone’s already paired up.” She waves a hand at the dark-haired guy—who’s now awake and mashing the heels of his hands into his eyes—then at a bulletin board on the wall by the do
or. “The new schedule’s up on the board. I switched your class orders to make sure everyone works every session and with each teacher, so make sure you check where you’re supposed to be. There’s also a list of a few new campers up beside it; check their names against your class rosters and help them find their way around and fit in with the others.

  “Otherwise…” She scans her clipboard. “Oh! Two peanut allergies this session, noted on class rosters, so beware. And that’s it!” She looks up, smiling. “As always, do your best, be your best, and…”

  “The best will follow,” the interns finish. All of them but me. Then they move, checking the new schedule and filing out in pairs.

  I get up and go stand next to the dark-haired guy’s chair. “Hi.”

  He drops his hands, blinks—long, dark, ridiculous lashes—melodramatically, and looks up. Gorgeous dark lashes, gorgeous dark eyes. Curly dark hair that’s a little too long. And tousled. Really. Like, run your hands through it and oh my freaking god what if I just crawl under the table and die. “Hey, Lucy,” he says.

  I purse my lips, look at my feet, and think, Screw you, Lucille Harper, Overachiever, you knot of insecurity, you champion of self-consciousness. So, he’s hot. So what? You’re Batman! This guy doesn’t know you. You can be whoever you want to be!

  So I sit on the table next to him and stick out my hand. “Actually, it’s Lucille.”

  He grins one of those awful—awesome—cute-boy grins where only half of his mouth curves up. “Okay, Lucille,” he says, and shakes my hand.

  “Your eyelashes are ridiculous.”

  He blushes. “Thanks?”

  I blush too. “Statement of fact.”

  “Should we be done shaking hands now? Or go for a record?”

  “Well”—I pull out my phone with my free hand—“let’s see.”

  Still shaking—subtly now, so it’s more like we’re just holding outstretched hands—I google it. “Fifteen hours, thirty minutes, and forty-five seconds.”

  “That’s the record? Sounds fake. Fifteen, thirty, forty-five.”

  I set my phone down on the table. “Right? Like they planned it.”

  “Probably did,” he says.

  “I would.”

  “My arm’s getting tired.”

  “Yeah.” My hand’s getting sweaty, which is sort of mortifying? But I’m deciding, right now, that Lucille Harper, Flirts with Reckless Abandon, is done being mortified. “And my hand’s getting sweaty.”

  He’s grinning again. “Maybe we should stop.”

  “Probably should.”

  “On three?”

  I nod. We count to three. Together. And drop hands. It’s the corniest—cutest—thing I’ve ever done. God, my bar is low.

  Smiling, he shakes his head, then pulls his phone out of his pocket—older model, cracked screen—and reaches for mine. I unlock it, hand it to him, and he programs his number into my contacts, then hands it back. “Now text me, so I have yours.”

  I read the new contact name and cough a laugh. “Marco—Gorgeous Lashes?”

  “Hey, you said it.”

  I text him: Ridiculous. I said ridiculous lashes.

  His phone dings. He opens the message and types an answer back.

  My phone buzzes: semantics

  I laugh. “Fine. Marco dash Gorgeous Lashes it is. But, then, who am I?”

  Sirens in my head scream, Wah! Wah! Wah! What are you doing? Who the hell do you think you are? Fraud, fake, sham, shame. Flirting with a stranger, and one who looks like—

  My phone buzzes again. I open the message. It’s a screenshot of his contact entry for me: Lucille—Beautiful Smile. And he says, “Statement of fact.”

  It’s good. Too good.

  Him. The day. It’s easy, fun. He leads me from session to session, introducing me to the teachers and students—all of whom seem to adore him—catching me up on what and how and when to do what we need to, all without seeming bored or inconvenienced or condescending. We spend the morning making papier-mâché, setting up badminton nets, acting as team leads for an ongoing math tournament. And I keep waiting for the punch line. Waiting to say something awkward. Waiting for him to say he’s not single or straight or allo. Waiting for some sign that I can’t have this if only because I never have this.

  Gorgeous boys do not flirt with me. I do not make gorgeous boys laugh by telling jokes about stuff like how the advertising for Teddy Grahams is weirdly cannibalistic. But that’s what happens. Jokes and sitting with him at lunch, where we chaperone our group of campers, opening yogurts and bags of chips, mitigating mini arguments, and he asks me what I did the first half of the summer. I tell him about tutoring and the business class and he whistles, impressed.

  “Save it. I barely passed. And the professor pretty much told me I didn’t belong there.”

  “No shit?”

  I shrug. “Maybe he was right.”

  “Why’d you take it?”

  I surprise myself by being honest and saying, “I don’t know.”

  He breathes a laugh. “Like you forgot? Signed up in your sleep?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Sleep college. Sleep registered? Whatever, yes. That’s what happened.”

  “Like those people who take Ambien and order shit online.”

  “Or drive.”

  “Or murder.”

  “Damn, Marco, take it there.”

  He laughs, and I’m grateful when his next question is “What else?” and not some follow-up about the class.

  Because, truth is, I’m not proud of my other answers. Why do you try so hard, Lucille? So I can get into a great college and finally make some sense to myself. How do you feel about your first college experience being a truly epic letdown? Well, awesome. If “awesome” means that every assumption in my life from my happily married parents to my best friend since birth to my very hopes and dreams is turning out to be a lie.

  But it’s not like my answer to this one’s easier. Can’t casually drop “stem-cell retrieval and full-body scans to facilitate the 3-D bioprinting of my fully functional duplicate” into the convo. So I say, “Very little. You?”

  He tells me about watching his little brother and sister—nine-year-old twins, Ariana and Sam, who attend the program and are half the reason he works here—and his job at a coffee shop, his mom, his friends, then we help clean up lunch and herd our group on to the next class. We spend the afternoon assisting with science experiments, supervising a scavenger-hunt-cum-history-lesson, and continuing work on set pieces for the end-of-session play, then it’s five, and I’m a balloon. Floating, lighter than air, and fragile.

  It’s too much. Too good.

  Out front, waiting for the twins, we watch my dad pull up. “Farewell, Marco dash Gorgeous Lashes,” I say. “See you tomorrow.”

  He smiles. “Until then, Lucille dash Beautiful Smile.” Then he puts a hand on his chest and bows.

  I hurry to my dad’s car, anticipating a sharp stick or dropped string.

  * * *

  Thursday after Reach the Sky, and the gate and doors of Life2 open for me—I’m Batman—the moment I approach, clanking and swinging wide in time with my footsteps so I don’t even have to slow. It’s awesome, like a slo-mo moment in a movie, complete with a breeze in my hair. It’s also weird. Because it’s not automatic, or specially Lucille-keyed, it’s Isobel.

  “Good afternoon, Lucille,” she says—always chipper, always crisp and neat—and leads me across the glowing white lobby like she always does.

  “Hi.”

  She pauses by the wall, hand hovering over the door’s incorporated touch pad. “Making the full-body mold today?”

  “Yeah.” My eyes flick to the orange vase on the sideboard, drawn to the room’s only color. It’s filled with tiger lilies today, the same mix of hues as the scarf tied
like a cravat around Isobel’s neck.

  “Slow breaths,” Isobel says. “In through your nose and out your mouth. It helps with the panic.”

  “Wait. What? Have you—”

  “Lucille,” Dr. Thompson calls from down the hall.

  I look to her, then back at Isobel, and find her watching me, face a perfect void. The door slides closed between us.

  Dr. Thompson doesn’t say anything when I join her at the end of the hall, just starts walking, expecting me to follow. Which, of course, I do.

  “So, Isobel,” I say over the knock of Thompson’s heels. “She’s…”

  “Yes?”

  “She’s done this before. What I’m doing.”

  We pass the first labs, heading toward the one with the full-sized ITOP and incubation pod. Through the observation window, I see Drs. Kim, Adebayo, and Karlsson, the kinesiologist, waiting inside. Thompson presses her hand to the touch pad. “Not exactly.”

  The door opens. All attention turns to us.

  “Not exactly,” I repeat. I feel it in my chest. Like a skipped heartbeat. “You mean she’s not an Original. She’s a clone.”

  “Facsimile. Yes.” She motions to Karlsson, who steps forward with a plastic-wrapped bundle in her hands.

  “Then…”

  What happened with her that makes them need me?

  But Thompson doesn’t give me time to ask. She takes the bundle from Karlsson and holds it out to me. “Change into this,” she says, pointing me toward a privacy screen in the back corner.

  I take the bundle, plastic crinkling in my hands. No one says anything. No one acknowledges what I just learned. Only Adebayo bothers to meet my eye.

  I change behind the screen, setting my purse and clothes on the floor, listening to the scientists’ quiet discussion out in the room. They talk about growth rates and CRISPR. Thompson’s voice goes tense when Kim mentions something about Shanghai. “No setbacks,” she says. “We have to be first.”

  I rip open the plastic and pull out what looks like a wet suit, only the material’s thinner and slick. It feels like trying to yank on a second skin, covering everything but my hands and feet, complete with a hood that pulls up over my hair and fits tight from above my brow to just below my chin, leaving nothing but the circle of my face bare.