Sarah's heart was pounding much later as she stepped up to the panel.
Just as she had hoped, there was no one around. But what if you need
a secret code to enter? She looked around for a keypad or fingerprint
scanner but couldn't find any. Good. She tapped lightly on the panel,
just as she'd observed the staff do and, to her relief, the panel drew
aside silently.
She entered a short tunnel-like hallway that shone with the same steady
glow as the rest of the building. It led to a glass panel that drew
aside as she stepped up to it.
This was much too easy, she thought as she stepped outside.
Her relief was instantly replaced by a terror that clenched her throat,
knotted her stomach. She was in a strange city that she didn't recognize.
The buildings all seemed to be made of a mirror-like material that reflected
the setting sun in blinding shimmers. What looked like enormous television
screens were interspersed between the buildings like three-dimensional
billboards, playing an array of eye-popping ads in such rapid succession
that watching them made Sarah dizzy. The wide streets had multiple lanes
that bullet-shaped vehicles whizzed down at incredible speeds. The sidewalks
swarmed with people, men and women, garbed in loose, cloak-like garments.
They bumped her from all sides.
Sarah spun around, struggling to gain her bearings in the strange place.
She could feel the chill of the smooth sidewalk through her thin hospital
slippers. The cold seemed to seep into her chest. She wanted to crumple
to the ground, to scream, to run back through the door she had entered.
Where should she go? She had no idea where she was. She felt like a
small child lost in a strange city.
"I had a feeling you would try this sooner or later," said
a voice at her side. A refreshingly familiar voice.
She wanted to cry and throw her arms around Dr. Cohen.
"Come with me," she said, leading Sarah to a silver cylinder
vehicle parked along the street. The gull-wing door swung gracefully
open as she clicked something in her hand.
Sarah paused. "No. I have to find my family."
Dr. Cohen cocked an eyebrow. "Do you know the way from here?"
Sarah sighed and shook her head, defeated. "I have no idea where
I am."
"This is the same city you came to each day to work. You have
just been away for so long."
Sarah went numb. "What do you mean?" Could this possibly
just be a wild dream?
"Get in the car. I'm going to take you to your daughter. I'll
explain on the way."
Sarah had to stoop to enter, but once she was in, she found the interior
soft, roomy and comfortable. It held the distinct odor of a new car,
with a hint of lemon-blossom fragrance. "My daughter? What about
Roger, my husband?" Her chest grew tight. Something was wrong.
Dr. Cohen pushed a button on the side of the steering wheel, allowing
the car to drive itself.
"Sarah, you were an organ donor. Is that correct?"
"Yes. But what has that..."
"Just listen. Your accident took place over thirty years ago."
Dr. Cohen's gray eyes were locked on Sarah, unblinking.
Sarah felt her face pale. "What are you talking about?" She
stared out at the wide streets, the impossibly tall buildings, the billboards
that eternally flashed three-dimensional holograms. And she was sitting
in a bullet-shaped car that drove itself. Still, she couldn't believe
it. None of this was true. It couldn't be.
"I don't work in a hospital but a cloning lab." A chill iced
Sarah's spine. "We obtained your brain shortly after the accident,
in the early part of this century when our company was just starting
out. We had a number of body parts from other donors who had died, but
you were our first and, so far, only success."
Sarah was silent. She looked down at her hands, hands that were unmistakably
hers, minus the wedding ring. A lump formed in her throat. "Then
I'm... I'm not me?"
"You are still you. You have your thoughts, your memories, although
they may be blurred. Just your body is new, but it is identical to your
old."
During her stay at the facility, Sarah had seen her reflection in the
bathroom mirror a number of times but had thought nothing of it. Now
she looked at her face closely in the rearview mirror. Everything was
the same as she recalled, every randomly scattered freckle, even the
faint laugh lines around her eyes.
"This will take some getting used to, I know. That's why I couldn't
reveal any of this to you right away. You needed time. You will now
have to adjust to a new life."
"What about Roger?" Her mouth went suddenly dry, her heart
beat faster. "And Jill?"
"That's where we are headed. Jill is an adult now and has a family
of her own. You will stay with her until you can adjust to this new
life."
Sarah gazed out the window. They had left the city behind and were
whipping down an open country road. The sky was frosted with more stars
than she had ever seen, reminding her of the camping trips she used
to take with Roger and Jill on hot summer nights. A wistful feeling
twisted in her chest.
The car zoomed up to a solitary spherical structure that was made from
the same shining material as the buildings she had seen earlier. Lights
shone from a few scattered windows.
"Here we are," Dr. Cohen announced as the car came to a stop
at the end of a long driveway leading up to it.
"This is Jill's house?"
"Yes." The car door popped open, and the seat lifted slightly
beneath her, as if ejecting her. Dr. Cohen shook her hand. "I'll
be in touch with you if you need me."
Sarah's legs were shaking as she approached the funny looking house.
Jill will be around my age, she thought as she took a deep breath. Will
I be able to handle this?
She rang the doorbell. Her heart pulsed as she heard the sounds of
rapid footsteps. They were light, like a child's.
Perhaps Dr. Cohen is wrong, and this is all just a terrible mistake,
Sarah thought as the door drew aside slowly. Jill is still little and
that means Roger...
A small face peered out from behind the door. It was a boy with short
auburn hair and curiously mismatched eyes: one a bright blue, the other
half brown, half blue like a dusky landscape running into a pale sky.
Those eyes widened as they studied Sarah.
"Are... are you my... are you Grandma? You don't look like any
of my friends' grandmas."
Sarah's insides tingled. She couldn't move, couldn't respond. All she
could do was stare down at the innocent freckled face with those odd
eyes. A grandma? I have a grandson? Her legs turned to fluid.
"Is that Grandma, Ryan?" called a voice that was achingly
familiar, yet older than she remembered. "I told you that I'd get
the door."
A woman stepped up to stand beside the boy. She was pretty with long
dark hair tied back into a ponytail.
Jill? Sarah found that she could only stare. She looks just the same
as I saw her last, yet completely different. How can that be?
Tears filled Jill's eyes. "Mom? I thought I'd never..." Her words broke off in a sob as she pulled Sarah close. "You look just like you never left. It's been... too long."
Sarah held her sobbing daughter, momentarily feeling as if the woman
were a child again, upset over a skinned knee or lost toy. But she was
bigger now. God, she's taller than me.
"Is everything all right?" asked a voice from the kitchen.
"Did your mother..."
A man as freckled and red-haired as the boy stepped into the room.
His eyes were a startling blue.
Jill pulled herself from Sarah's grasp and brushed at her tears. "Mom,"
she said in a voice that was still slightly trembling from her cry,
"this is my husband Bruce. Bruce, this... this is my mother."
Bruce smiled but continued to stare at Sarah. "It's just amazing,"
he said, shaking his head. "You two could be sisters."
