explain to me what the hell
the point is of creating a replica who is far more defiant than her original
would ever have been.
With a low curse, I punch the code for Security. The fear I
feel at the thought that she may actually be in danger ignites into anger. My
orders are blunt and explicit. Find and secure her. By any means necessary.
Chapter Seven
Amelia
I have to keep moving. If I stop, I will think, and if I think I will break, as I
almost did in the library. In front of him.
What Ian claims cannot be true.
It simply can’t. I am not a puppet dancing to the choreography of a dead woman,
being made to feel, yearn, delight and even, heaven help me, come on command.
The mere idea is beyond repugnant.
I am a human being with a mind
and a will of my own.
Who awakened with no knowledge
of who or where I was. Strangely compliant at first and still helpless to control
my response to a man who by all rights is a stranger, for all that he has the
insane idea that he owns me. A man to whom I have an instinctive sense of
belonging.
No! He can own a house, a car, a
pet. He cannot own me, no matter what he believes.
What was last night? Ian
deciding to try out his new possession?
My stomach heaves at the thought
but there is worse. Does he know about the Cabinet of Secret Delights, about
the dark intermingling of erotic pain and pleasure for which it is intended?
Does he expect to take me there? Will I be able to refuse?
How helpless am I?
They are there again outside
my chamber. I can see them through the clear walls but they don’t look at me.
They’re watching the machines. One of them spins a dial. I know what is coming
and try to brace myself but there is no preparation for the pain that lances
through me. My whole body convulses, my spine arching, my head thrown back.
Soundlessly, I scream.
The vision comes without
warning. By the time it passes, I’m on my knees, the palms of my hands pressed
into ground softly covered with pine needles. My throat is so tight that I can
scarcely breathe.
Get up! Keep moving!
I try but I don’t get far before
memories that aren’t supposed to exist thrust upward from the darkest corners
of my mind.
They come again, the usual
half-dozen or so who are always there, not the others who appear only when
something especially tormenting is about to happen. They stare at me but their
eyes never meet mine. No matter how desperately I long for just one of them to
acknowledge that I am there, I exist, I am real, none ever does. There is only
the chamber and the pain, and my screams that no one but myself ever hears.
My fingers claw into the ground,
holding on frantically as the truth rains down on me, blow after remorseless
blow until at last I can no longer resist it.
Ian was right--I am what he
said.
And he was wrong--I was never a
blank slate. In all the years that I waited, growing from embryo to infant to
child to woman adrift in the gestation chamber, I had terrifying moments of
lucidity that will destroy me if I let them.
Get up! Keep moving!
Whatever they did to me,
at least I am not weak. My legs are strong and supple. I can run flat out over
hard ground, dodging gnarled roots, heart pounding but steady, run and run and
run. The exertion is a release that at last, in a rush of endorphins, calms me.
Even then I don’t stop but keep
moving, just more slowly. Dragging in breath, I smell the scent of evergreens
mingling with that of unfolding ferns and the first wild flowers. I hear
rustling nearby and turn in time to see a startled deer bound gracefully away.
Apart from that, the silence is absolute. It sinks into me, stilling my
clamorous thoughts.
I close my eyes for a moment and
open them to see columns of sunlight descending through the branches of trees
dotted with the swelling buds that will become soft green leaves. A sense of
reverence creeps over me. Whatever I have to face, there is no denying that the
world is astonishingly beautiful. Every tiny
the point is of creating a replica who is far more defiant than her original
would ever have been.
With a low curse, I punch the code for Security. The fear I
feel at the thought that she may actually be in danger ignites into anger. My
orders are blunt and explicit. Find and secure her. By any means necessary.
Chapter Seven
Amelia
I have to keep moving. If I stop, I will think, and if I think I will break, as I
almost did in the library. In front of him.
What Ian claims cannot be true.
It simply can’t. I am not a puppet dancing to the choreography of a dead woman,
being made to feel, yearn, delight and even, heaven help me, come on command.
The mere idea is beyond repugnant.
I am a human being with a mind
and a will of my own.
Who awakened with no knowledge
of who or where I was. Strangely compliant at first and still helpless to control
my response to a man who by all rights is a stranger, for all that he has the
insane idea that he owns me. A man to whom I have an instinctive sense of
belonging.
No! He can own a house, a car, a
pet. He cannot own me, no matter what he believes.
What was last night? Ian
deciding to try out his new possession?
My stomach heaves at the thought
but there is worse. Does he know about the Cabinet of Secret Delights, about
the dark intermingling of erotic pain and pleasure for which it is intended?
Does he expect to take me there? Will I be able to refuse?
How helpless am I?
They are there again outside
my chamber. I can see them through the clear walls but they don’t look at me.
They’re watching the machines. One of them spins a dial. I know what is coming
and try to brace myself but there is no preparation for the pain that lances
through me. My whole body convulses, my spine arching, my head thrown back.
Soundlessly, I scream.
The vision comes without
warning. By the time it passes, I’m on my knees, the palms of my hands pressed
into ground softly covered with pine needles. My throat is so tight that I can
scarcely breathe.
Get up! Keep moving!
I try but I don’t get far before
memories that aren’t supposed to exist thrust upward from the darkest corners
of my mind.
They come again, the usual
half-dozen or so who are always there, not the others who appear only when
something especially tormenting is about to happen. They stare at me but their
eyes never meet mine. No matter how desperately I long for just one of them to
acknowledge that I am there, I exist, I am real, none ever does. There is only
the chamber and the pain, and my screams that no one but myself ever hears.
My fingers claw into the ground,
holding on frantically as the truth rains down on me, blow after remorseless
blow until at last I can no longer resist it.
Ian was right--I am what he
said.
And he was wrong--I was never a
blank slate. In all the years that I waited, growing from embryo to infant to
child to woman adrift in the gestation chamber, I had terrifying moments of
lucidity that will destroy me if I let them.
Get up! Keep moving!
Whatever they did to me,
at least I am not weak. My legs are strong and supple. I can run flat out over
hard ground, dodging gnarled roots, heart pounding but steady, run and run and
run. The exertion is a release that at last, in a rush of endorphins, calms me.
Even then I don’t stop but keep
moving, just more slowly. Dragging in breath, I smell the scent of evergreens
mingling with that of unfolding ferns and the first wild flowers. I hear
rustling nearby and turn in time to see a startled deer bound gracefully away.
Apart from that, the silence is absolute. It sinks into me, stilling my
clamorous thoughts.
I close my eyes for a moment and
open them to see columns of sunlight descending through the branches of trees
dotted with the swelling buds that will become soft green leaves. A sense of
reverence creeps over me. Whatever I have to face, there is no denying that the
world is astonishingly beautiful. Every tiny
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