When the redhead was distracted by the other Nelly’s rambling, I gave her a sharp kick to the knee, which loosened the grip she had on my wrist. I used that chance to make a break for the door. I ran as hard and as fast as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough. The stocky guy tackled me to the ground and knocked the wind out of me. As I laid on the ground and gasped for breath, the redhead locked a handcuff onto one of my wrists. They then dragged me across the room, locked the other end of the handcuffs to the pod, and distanced themselves from me.
Once I regained my breath, I started swearing and screaming at them like a dog barking on a chain. The redhead took out a checkbook and wrote out a check to the other Nelly.
“Forget this ever happened,” she said and handed her the check.
I felt sick.
“This should keep you well off for the rest of your life, Nelly. We will deal with this ‘mistake’ so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“I hope you all go to hell,” the other Nelly told them and was escorted out by the stocky guy. She would cash the check in later that night, and for the brief moment the door was open, some of the scientists outside looked in curiously. One of them was the girl I rode down in the elevator with.
The redhead shut the door and left us alone. “What are we going to do with you?” She said with this horrible grin on her face.
Was she planning to hurt me?
“We have a little clone who doesn’t belong in this world and no ideas what to do with her.”
“Just let me go,” I pleaded. “I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”
“Why would we do that?” She was keeping her distance. “There can’t be two Nelly’s in the world. Only one of you can legally exist.”
“I’ll find something to do, I swear!”
“I’ll keep you in this room until we figure out what to do with you,” she told me as she started walking away.
“Please don’t leave me here!” I screamed, but she flicked off the lights and closed the door, leaving me in darkness.
Hours soon passed and I was slumped against the side of the pod with my arm hanging from the cuffs above my head. I had just enough room to kneel down but not enough to actually sit. My wrist was raw and bleeding from the weight I was putting it on, but I was just too damn tired to care.
When your concept of time is taken away from you time doesn’t end. Minutes felt like hours and hours felt like days. I had a lot of time to think and my thoughts start to wander.
There was another me out there. The experiment went wrong and now I was a clone who was locked away in a science lab. I kind of expected myself to feel like a clone. Feel like I was a copy. But I didn’t. I just felt like normal old Nelly. I remembered Elliot that morning watching TV and I remembered the boring psych class. Wasn’t that me? Wasn’t I Nelly?
Three months earlier, Elliot and I had been laying in the bed together. It was during a summer heat wave and it was way too hot for blankets. We just moved in together, and for the both of us that was a first in a relationship.
He was smoking again. I thought he quit.
“You do love me, right?” I asked. I knew he did but I was just being a brat.
“Of course,” he said as he took a huff of smoke. “What kind of question is that?”
The thought of starving to death cuffed to a transporter crossed my mind. No, I’d die of thirst before that.
“Like, what if I died? How sad would you be?” I rolled over and grinned at him. My hair was long back then and the humidity made it a poofy mess.
I felt blood roll down my forearm.
“I’d be ruined,” he was getting ashes on the bed but I didn’t care. There was much worse on those sheets. “You mean a lot to me.”
I started crying until my head hurt and my eyes ran out of tears.
“But you’d find someone else, eventually,” I told him. I needed a haircut.
I started feeling around to find something sharp. If I could cut off my hand, I might be able to make it to the elevator if I ran fast enough.
“I would. But it wouldn’t be me,” he stuffed the butt of his cigarette into an ashtray.
I couldn’t find anything sharp. I don’t think I could have actually done it anyways.
“What do you mean it wouldn’t be you?” I played with his hair. “It’d have to be you.”
“In three months I’ll be a different person. In three years I’ll be even more different,” he said. “If you died it’d change me. When I found someone else I wouldn’t be the same man I would have been if you were still alive.”
If I died there, would he have missed me? No. The other Nelly would be his Nelly. He’d never know.
There was light. Bright, bright, bright light that burned my eyes and made me cower behind my arms. Someone opened the door and I was certain it was the redhead from earlier. She had a vendetta against me for sure. The door closed part of the way behind her and left a crack of light that dimly lit the room. I could barely make out her figure, but she was way too thin to be the redhead. It had to be someone else.
“Who are you?” My voice was raspy from dehydration and fatigue. I definitely would have died of thirst before hunger.
“Just be quiet,” she said. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t pin it. I backed away from her as far as I could but she grabbed my wrist to stop me. “I’m here to help, so stop squirming.”
She was messing with something large and metal. They looked like bolt cutters, but I wasn’t too sure. She pressed the metal tool against the chain of the handcuffs and broke it. My hand fell and rested by my side. I wished she had cut the cuff itself, but I was happy she was helping me regardless.
She grabbed my hand and led me to the door. “Thanks,” I said. I owed her that much.
The entire room filled with light when she opened the door and I had to shield my eyes again.
“Put this on and try to look important,” she told me and put her lab coat on my shoulders. Keeping my eyes closed, I guided my arms through the sleeves and she buttoned it up for me.
As we walked, I would keep trying to force my eyes open. It took a minute or so before I could actually keep them open and focus. When I could finally see, I noticed that the girl who rescued me was the girl from the elevator.
“Why?” I asked.
“I saw you in there earlier and I knew I had to do something,” she said. “You’re also the only person here who’s ever actually talked to me.”
Poor girl.
She led me down through the hallways of the lab and I did my best not to look confused and disoriented as we made our way to the elevators. Some of the passing scientists took glances at me but none of them really saw anything wrong with us. This place must be used to weirdos walking around all the time.
“You weren’t the only failed experiment locked up around here,” she said. “After I saw you chained up in there I did some looking around in the other departments. It was disturbing, really.”
“I don’t need to hear details,” I told her. My throat was so sore. I hadn’t had water in almost a day. Well, technically I’d never had water before because I was a clone. I mean, I had water before, I remember drinking water, but not in this body. I think. It’s too confusing to think about. “You’re done with the lab?”
She laughed, “I think this counts as my resignation.”
For the first half of our walk she had to guide where I was going. My sight was nothing but red dots, but it didn’t take too long before I got used to the light. I kept ducking my head whenever someone walked past us, just to be sure. I knew it was a big place and they would assume I was a fellow scientist, but it never hurts to be cautious. If anything, the girl was more likely to draw attention than I was. She was the one without a lab coat on.
I couldn’t help but smile when I saw the elevators come into the view, the harsh silver of the doors clashing against the white walls. The girl approached first and pushed the button on the elevator and we waited for the d
oor to open.
There was a gunshot. A loud, ear breaking shot that hit the door in front of us and left a massive dent. We both looked over and saw the redhead from earlier pointing a small handgun at us. Since when did scientists even carry guns? Lucky for us though, the door opened and we both ran in before the redhead could fire another shot. She tried to stop us but the doors closed too fast for her. We were safe for the moment but there was a second elevator that she could use.
There was a calm before the elevator started up. I noticed she was on her cellphone. “Why the hell are you texting?” I asked, my voice now a raspy mess.
“They give all the scientists unmarked phones. So we can make calls without worrying about our names being connected with them,” she said.
“I don’t understand,” I responded. “Who are you calling?”
“The cops,” she said and adjusted her glasses.
After a very descriptive call to the police, the doors to the elevator opened and let us into the lobby. I was a bit snow-blind from the lab and I’m sure the girl was as well. We made it half way to the door before we heard the second elevator open and redhead chase after. She fired a few shots but aside from the deafening sound, she didn’t hurt us.
We could hear sirens getting closer when we left the building. Just as the police car turned the corner we ducked into the alley and watched as the officer pulled a gun on her. I can’t even tell you how satisfying it was to see the redhead put in cuffs and stuffed into the back of a car. Almost made the whole thing worth it.
I sat next to the girl and hid in the shadows as we saw a S.W.A.T. team called in. They arrested dozens of people in the short time we watched, but I’d later read that they spent months searching through the place and cleaning that whole operation up.
We walked a safe distance from the lab and hid in a narrow alley while we waited for the arrest to blow over and for it to be safe to walk out of there.
“Are you scared they’ll get you too?” I asked her. My voice feeling a lot better after drinking some nearby puddle water. Yeah, I drank from a puddle, don’t judge me.
“They don’t have our last names on file,” she said. “We should be fine.”
I was glad to hear that.
“Thank you,” I said. “I do mean that.”
“I know you mean it,” she grabbed my hand, which was kind of weird but I let it slide because she had just saved my life. “You’re a good person.”
“Thanks,” I told her.
Crossing the trains to get home sucked as always, but I knew I wouldn’t have to hop those ever again, so I didn’t mind as much. What I did mind was that I only had a lab coat on and that it was a colder than usual night. The entire way home, people kept staring at me. It’s almost like they don’t expect scientists to be walking around alone at night.
Part of me really thought that this was some crazy dream, or a hallucination. I thought I might go home, cuddle next to Elliot and everything would be fine. Just fine.
That would have been nice.
It was almost midnight when I got back to the house. It looked so much taller and more foreboding than it normal did. Almost like it was about to collapse and swallow me whole. The lights were on and I could hear the low tremble of the TV upstairs. I really hoped it was just Elliot there. Just Elliot and no one else. I’d sit next to him and all of this would be behind me like a nightmare I’d soon forget. But that didn’t happen. Of course that did happen. She was there.
I stood at the top of the stairs for a moment before they noticed me. The floors there never creaked so it was easy to sneak up on people. Elliot looked like he could barely understand what he was seeing and the other Nelly looked shocked and angry.
“You can’t be here,” the other Nelly told me. She was wearing my green turtleneck sweater. I loved that sweater. “You can’t be here.”
I took a step towards them, but she put her arm over him and pulled him close. It was like she was trying to protect him. Did she really think I was dangerous?
“Nelly, what’s going on?” He looked at her when he asked that. I guess I don’t blame him for thinking she was the real Nelly. He’d spent the night with her, while I showed up out of nowhere and was wearing a lab coat with a handcuff on one wrist. Which one would you really trust?
“That’s a clone,” she told him flatly. I guess she wasn’t lying. I mean, she stepped into the pod and I appeared in the other one. That makes me a clone, right?
“Is that what those science freaks did to you?” He was breathing way too fast. “They made an evil clone?”
“I’m not evil!” I blurted out. Where’d he even get the impression that I’m evil?
“Nelly, she looks evil,” he said quietly to her. Why did he think I was evil?
“Elliot she’s not evil,” the other Nelly told him. “She’s just not me”
“I’m just as much her as she is!” I was getting mad.
“Please calm down,” she tells me.
I took a few deep breaths. Getting mad was not going to help, so I took a seat on the couch to relax a bit. Elliot stood up when I did but she stood as well, wrapping her arm around his shoulder. I felt jealous when she was touching my Elliot.
“Look, Clone Nelly, you need to leave,” she told me. Clone Nelly? Really?
”This is my house,” I said.
“No, it’s not. Just leave and start your own life,” How dare she? “Away from us.”
“What’ll you do if I don’t?” I asked them. “Call the police?”
Now she was the one getting mad. “We’ll force you out.”
I laughed. “I think Elliot loves me too much for that.” He had been very quiet through that whole conversation. Why wasn’t he talking? “Elliot?” Why wasn’t he talking? “You do love me, right?”
He held onto the other Nelly tighter and said, “I’d like you to leave.”
I felt my heart skip a beat and my knees almost buckle. He didn’t want me. My own boyfriend rejected me because he didn’t think I was actually me. I still remember the first time he said he loved me. But that didn’t matter. I’d slept next to him every night since we met. But that didn’t matter either. When his father died, he punched a hole in the bathroom mirror and I spent the entire night with him picking the glass out of his knuckles with a pair of tweezers. But that didn’t fucking matter. The only thing that mattered was that I was a clone, and the other Nelly wasn’t.
I wanted to plead with him, and beg, and stand my ground until they threw me down the stairs. But I didn’t do that. I instead left quietly and closed the door behind me.
I spent the night on the streets. There was this nice little alley where the building’s roof dipped out far enough to shield me from the rain. I slept against the cold, wet concrete and used an old cardboard box as a pillow. Surprisingly I had a hard time sleeping like that.
My dreams were filled with endless copies of myself. All laughing at me and mocking me. Elliot was standing in the middle of this forest of Nellys. He had picked out one Nelly that looked no different than the rest.
“I like this Nelly the best,” he said and laughed at me. “She is like no other Nelly.” I felt so alone, drowning in a sea of other Nellys. I felt like I was dying. Why couldn’t I have stepped out of the right pod? Then I’d still have him.
It was sunny when I woke up. My back was stiff and my legs hurt from sleeping on the hard ground. The lab coat was dirty and damp. But while that sleep might have sucked, it was still miles better than sleeping in the science lab, I’ll tell you that.
I didn’t have anywhere to go, or anything to do that morning. I didn’t exist. I was Nelly in name only. I considered just leaving to another city. Maybe change my name to whatever and do some illegal work. Nelly, the real one, would continue her schooling and Elliot would continue bouncing between minimum wage jobs. I was supposed to go to class that morning, but I suppose the other Nelly had that covered for me. It was a Monday and I always hated Mondays because I had class b
ut Elliot didn’t work. We missed out on so much together time that way. That meant that while I was spending my morning in an alley, the other Nelly was at school and Elliot was at home watching TV. Watching TV all by himself, with no one there to skew his opinion.
Walking back in the day was a bit embarrassing. There were a lot of people and cars out and they kept staring at my dirty, barely covering lab coat. I caught a glimpse of my hair in a window and it was a poofy mess. Like, more of a poofy mess than it normally is.
Hell, on the way there a girl even stopped her car, right in the middle of the road, and asked me if I was okay. Did I really look that bad? I politely, yet firmly, told her to leave me alone and that I was fine. I mean, I wasn’t fine. Not even close, but there was nothing she could do about. Unless she had, like an anti-cloning machine, but I doubt she did. I probably should have asked if she did.
I found Elliot in the kitchen, making breakfast. Given that the floors didn’t squeak there, he didn’t notice me walk in.
“What’s for breakfast?” I asked him. I figured if I just acted as Nelly as I could, he’d accept me.
“Just bacon and fries,” he said. “You’re home early. Was class canceled?”
“Well,” I stepped into the kitchen. “Technically I’m in class right now.”
“What?” He asked, then saw my lab coat and handcuff and knew what I was talking about.
I put on the friendliest smile I could have possible put on and walked past him, grabbing a clean plate. “How long until it’s ready?”
“You have to leave,” he said. And I thought I was making good ground too.
“You seem to be forgetting who bought that bacon,” I told him.
“Nelly bought it.” Ouch.
“But I am Nelly,” I said. He wasn’t really grasping the whole identical clone thing very well, was he?
“You’re not her,” he turned the stove off and took the frying pan off the burner. “You might look like her and sound like her. But you’re not her.”
The Other Nelly Page 2
