You push the cat figurine into the very bottom of your pack, figuring Terra will never know about it. Then you shoulder your bag and head to the quad. Boris is already there, grinning to himself. He looks about as pleased on the outside as you do on the inside.

“How did you get picked for this?” You dump your bag next to his.

“By being awesome,” he says. “This is going to kick. ass.”

“I don’t know,” you reply. “Seems like it could be kind of hard.”

“You scared?” He cocks his head and looks at you in a challenging sort of way.

“No,” you lie. “I can’t wait. I hope it’s horrible.”

“Yeah,” Boris agrees. “I hope it sucks. I can’t wait to be miserable!”

“I hope we have to eat nails,” you smirk.

“Eat nails? I hope we sleep on nails!” He does what he thinks is one better.

“I hope we have to sleep on them, and then eat them,” you giggle as he grins. As much as you hate him sometimes, you two do share a bond. The blood of the same place runs through you. That counts for something. Maybe more than you want it to.

“Is this the quad place?”

You turn to see a young woman about your age. She has very straight, very sleek black hair to her shoulders and wide blue eyes with generous features. Boris’ jaw practically hits the floor, and yours isn’t that far behind. Her body is perfectly proportioned. She makes the uniform look like it was designed for a catwalk.

“Yeah,” Boris says. “I’m Boris. What’s your name?”

“Sarah,” the young woman says. “Sarah Terra.”

“Terra as in…” Boris lets the question hang.

“Yeah,” Sarah says. “We’re related.”

“Is she like your aunt or something?”

“She’s my mom,” Sarah says. “Terra’s my mom. Let’s never talk about it ever again, alright?”

Holy. Hell. You don’t know what do think about this. Your emotions are confused. Sarah is stunning and your attraction to her is… hell, it’s a physical force.

“You’re kidding,” Boris says.

“Yeah,” Sarah laughs suddenly, her face cracking into a gorgeous, mischievous smile. “She’s not my mom. Well. Not by birth anyway. I think I might have some of her DNA though. So I guess she could sort of be my mom? I have about twelve moms, and at least three dads.”

A little chill runs down your spine. Suddenly you know why Sarah looks so perfect. She isn’t a natural born human. She’s a clone. A biologically engineered human with almost none of the rights of a real person. Successful clones are pretty rare and they don’t tend to live long because their DNA is taken from adults. If Sarah is in her early twenties, she might have less than a decade left to live. Clones were banned ten years ago, but she was obviously born long before that.

“Wow,” Boris breathes, impressed. “That’s amazing. Do you have clone strength? I’ve heard about that. They say clones are super strong.”

“I could kick your ass,” Sarah says, looking him up and down.

“Cool! Show me!”

Boris can be so stupid sometimes. Sarah shakes her head at him.

“I get in trouble if I beat cadets up,” she says. “And I don’t want to be in trouble this soon. They only just let me out of the brig.”

“You were in the brig!?” It’s your turn to ask the question with wide eyes.

“Yeah,” Sarah says without a hint of shame. “And I’d still be there if Terra didn’t break me out. She said she had a use for me. They said fine, as long as she got me out of here and didn’t bring me back.”

Sarah speaks with pride, but you can see from the expression in her eyes that she’s not really as proud as she seems. She looks a little sad and a little lost, and you can’t help but feel bad for her. Sarah is all alone in the world without anyone to care for her. She doesn’t have anyone to give her a little contraband cat figurine. All she has is this chance with Terra and whatever the next few years of life will bring her.

****

No poll today 🙂 I really love watching the votes come in though. Seems that people get naughtier the longer the day draws on. Something to do with time zones, I suspect. Well behaved Britishers getting up early, perhaps, and rebellious West Coasters coming on later! A geography of misbehavior.