Free Machinations by Hayley Stone Page A

come across a mirror. Thin as a sheet of paper and reflecting the opposite wall, it camouflages itself well. I don’t even notice it until I pass by and catch a flash of red. My hair sticks out like a sore thumb against the room’s bland color scheme.
    I step back slowly, like it’s some big reveal.
    It
is
the first opportunity I’ve had to get a good look at my new, cloned self. For all I know, I appear deranged, hideous, inhuman. I could be a monster.
    I take stock of my features like I’m reading off a quality-control checklist for a Rhona Long doll. Everything seems to be there—two eyes (green), average nose and mouth, round face. Perfect teeth, too (all without the agony of having braces well into high school). But my freckles are different; they’re darker, splotchy, and only cover one side of my face, like a Dalmatian’s spots. I’m not sure whether to feel curious or repulsed. It’s an interesting look. Certainly…new?
    “Could be worse,” I say aloud to my reflection. “We could have ended up a cyclops or something.” Samuel had said cloning wasn’t textbook science.
    I decide the freckles aren’t so bad.
    I’m still analyzing them when the door slides open with a hiss of depressurizing air. A woman enters. I recognize her, but have to search for a name. She’s wearing her platinum hair in a simple braid that trails down her back, and has her hands clasped in front of her like she’s holding something important close to her chest.
    The door shuts behind her almost immediately, sealing us in together.
    She doesn’t speak, but instead begins signing with her hands. The first time she does it, I’m afraid this is going to be one long, awkward conversation. But she makes the same gestures again, more slowly, and understanding starts to come back to me. By the third effort, I know exactly what she’s saying.
    You look just like her.
    “I’ve been getting that a lot lately,” I reply with my usual cheek, and she smiles, so either she’s only mute, or she’s deaf and reading my lips. My gut tells me the latter.
    Do you remember me?
    That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
I’m grateful that this time I can actually find a name to put to the face without having to ask or be told. “Hanna?” I say, only a little uncertainly.
    Her eyes, a rich, hazel color, fill with glossy tears. Tall and long limbed, she crosses the room in two strides and embraces me like a long-lost sister.
    It’s as if someone has unlocked a vault in my mind, and I withdraw a few memories from the last five years, since I’ve known Hanna. We met after the end of the world, but our friendship wasn’t defined by it. I remember good times, like meeting in the cafeteria during dinner and how she would do the most hilarious impressions of past celebrities, fictional characters, and even our colleagues. She did a particularly excellent imitation of Camus, accent and all, which he always responded to with a stiff smile.
    But I also remember the hard times. When Hanna lost her hearing during an attack, and how we learned sign language together. I hadn’t wanted her to feel alone. Now she’s here, returning the favor.
    I squeeze her a little tighter.
    Samuel said your memory was—
she pauses to think, then makes the sign for
broken
—
I was worried
.
    “Samuel,” I say, recalling the forest and the machines. I’m almost afraid to ask about him. “He’s safe, then? I mean, it sounds like you’ve talked to him. Is he all right?”
    Hanna smiles patiently and verbally says, “Slow down.” I realize my lips are moving too fast for her to read—nothing more than a slur of concerned syllables.
He’s fine,
she adds with her hands, showing her preference for signing. I remember the first few months after the incident and how she hated being unable to speak properly, always too loud or too quiet. So much of what had made her
her
was the character of her voice. Yet somehow she managed to redefine herself. I wonder if