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  ‘Hang on a minute,’ Maggie said, her head on an angle as she looked at her new position on the chair. ‘Let’s get that hair out of the way. It’s gorgeous, but you’ll end up treading on it as you walk, if you leave it hanging over the back of the chair like that, Julio.’

  Maggie swept the hair over Jane’s shoulder, where it then pooled in her lap. Jane fiddled with the strands that were as bright as copper wire, and as fine as silk threads. How long was this hair? If Maggie’s was anything to go by, it would be way past her hips. What would she do with hair like that? And she wasn’t sure she liked being a red head. They had bad tempers, didn’t they? Would her new eyes have coppery spikes around them so she looked washed out and anaemic, as some red heads could look? It wasn’t fair. If she had to have a new body, why couldn’t she have hair the colour of Maggie’s? It was gorgeous.

  ‘Who chose what I would look like?’ she asked.

  ‘I guess that would have been Karl Ontario, the head of the clone research team. And the head of the medical centre, too. You would have seen him around the place. Nice looking middle-aged man with warm brown eyes?’ Maggie said.

  ‘I think they had a couple of clones shells to choose from, as they’ve been collecting spares from around the communities for research purposes. He picked the prettiest, I’d guess,’ Julio said, as he began to direct the chair that was floating several inches above the ground, out of the ward and down the short corridor to the entrance.

  ‘Spares?’ She was trying to pay attention to Maggie and Julio’s answers, but what she saw outside the building was taking her breath away.

  Outside was a classical paradise of elegantly columned buildings, perfectly laid out gardens alive with colourful flowers of all kinds, and white pathways, some of which seemed to be moving slowly along. Julio directed the hover chair along a fixed walkway until he reached one of the moving paths that radiated out from the medical centre like a fan. He slipped her chair onto one of these paths, which was about two feet wide and then continued to stroll along, as the ground started to pass by them at twice the pace.

  Maggie walked beside her on another path the same width as her own, and she nodded at people passing on the two moving ribbons going the opposite direction, which was only a foot away. The combined width of the four ribbons, with a foot space between each, was about 8 or 9 feet, she would estimate. No wider than a narrow lane back home.

  ‘The moving paths are like spokes on a wheel linking all the concentric circles of the city to each other. The static paths run in concentric circles linking the different areas of the same precinct to each other,’ Julio explained, noting her interest in the walkways.

  ‘What is a Spare?’ she asked again, determined not to be side-tracked by what she was seeing.

  ‘You want this one?’ Julio asked Maggie, who shrugged and pulled a pained face.

  ‘Okay, I’ll give it a go. Clones are grown from our Original’s DNA. It takes a month for a fully matured clone to be ready for integration. That means having your onsciousness placed inside the clone. Clones are not alive as sentient beings. They can’t even breathe on their own. But when a Consciousness is integrated with it, the clone becomes that person’s new body.

  ‘It is the only way the human race found to keep going, after the Last Great Plague made them all sterile. And just to make the situation worse, clones are sterile, too. And so are we, once we use the Portal. Time travel degenerates the cells.’ She paused to see how her explanation was going down. Jane nodded for her to go on.

  ‘They discovered early on, that a Consciousness couldn’t go into a body that wasn’t created from its own DNA. Well, they thought they had. That’s being revised in light of you and Jac. It seems it is possible, when the Will is strong, to migrate to any suitable clone. They didn’t expect you, and there was no time to grow a body of your own. So you got a clone that was grown and stored for another citizen. That woman must have died somehow, and rather than waste the clone, they brought it here for research. Although now they’re considering keeping them for situations like this, just in case a person is strong enough to integrate with a clone that’s not their own DNA.’

  ‘So, this body I can see. This clone thing. It’s human, not some kind of robot? And it was grown for someone who died before they could use it?’ Jane tried to clarify.

  ‘Okay, future shock again. You wouldn’t even know about cloning. That didn’t come along until the 90s when they cloned Dolly the Sheep. Had they discovered DNA in the 60s? I can’t remember.’

  ‘I think I’ve heard the term DNA, but I don’t know what it is.’

  ‘Hmmm. Science is not my thing. DNA is the building blocks of cells. Our personal blue print. We each have a unique DNA that has all our genetic code imprinted on it. Identical twins have the same DNA, and are natural clones of each other.

  ‘Clones, as we use the term, are human beings that are grown from the cells of an existing person, not from an embryo. They are totally human, but not alive, as we knowing living. They’re fast grown in a subsistence tube, in a month instead of twenty years, but they aren’t strictly alive until Consciousness is transferred into them. Like a car doesn’t move until it gets a driver to work the controls.’

  ‘And there are more of these clones in test tubes somewhere?’ Jane asked.

  ‘In medical centres around the Confederacy. Everyone has a clone body in storage ready for them. Spares, those that no longer have living counterparts, are only kept here though, because this is the research centre, and the only Portal for Time Travel.’

  Jane felt her head beginning to explode, so she focused on the canal that they were just crossing. It was about twelve feet wide and filled with what smelled like sea water. Once across the canal they were in an area much more densely built up, but still elegant and classical in design. Two and three storied buildings surrounded them, all linked by static walkways.

  ‘The dormitory precinct. This is where I live,’ Julio put in, pointing to one of the upper floors of a building nearby. Jane was suddenly very aware of the quiet. Except for softly spoken people passing by, the only sounds she could hear were the wind and the birds in the trees nearby. It was very disconcerting, after a lifetime of traffic as the constant and familiar background noise.

  ‘Couldn’t I have a place here?’ Jane asked, preferring not to disturb Maggie in her lovely home by the ocean.

  ‘Not until you’re strong enough. This complete break from everything you have known about yourself and your world can be psychologically damaging. We want to make your transition as smooth as possible. Most of us have a month or more to get used to this world before we have to get used to having our younger selves back again. Not easy, I can tell you. And none of us, except Jac, have been through what you have.’ Maggie tried to keep her voice upbeat. But the seriousness of the danger was apparent in her tone.

  ‘I recognised myself when I looked in the mirror the first time.’ She glanced down at Jane and frowned. ‘But you won’t. The person you see in the mirror is going to be a total stranger to you.’

  Chapter Six

  For the rest of the journey out of the city to the coast, which took a little over half an hour, Jane guessed, she kept her thoughts to herself. Maggie and Julio kept silent too, aware of the deluge of sensory input already bombarding her. Nothing about this world was familiar. It was like walking onto a movie set for an ancient Greek Epic, but with odd anachronisms.

  Finally, they left the moving pathway and began to walk up the hill to the residences clustered along the edge of the cliffs. There was a sense of uniformity about the architecture everywhere, but it didn’t translate to the sameness of ‘little boxes’. It just looked like one long extension of the same design: aesthetic and classically pleasing to the eye.

  As Julio directed the chair in through the front door of one of the villas, Jane began to shake. It started as a gentle tremor in her hands, and spread out until her teeth were chattering loudly.

  ‘Are you cold
?’ Julio asked in concern, coming around to crouch in front of her. She shook her head, afraid to speak because of the shivering. He lifted her out of the chair, and walked with her to a large, well cushioned sofa in the living room that face out toward floor to ceiling glass windows. He sat down with her draped over his lap, pulling her in close, holding her like a father might hold his child. She buried her head against his neck and let his closeness and warmth calm her.

  ‘It’s a lot to take in, I know. Just hold onto me until the world stops spinning.’ His voice was a gentle rumble beneath her ear. She moved her cheek against the warm smoothness of his neck. It felt so good. He smelled so good. Not even the soft silky fabric of the tunic he was wearing felt as good as his skin.

  ‘You feel up to food, Jane?’ Maggie asked gently from behind her.

  ‘Yes, food. It will ground her. She’s had nothing since this shell came out of the tube.’

  Jane wasn’t familiar with the terminology, but she got the drift. This new body would be hungry, just as her old body would have been, after twenty four hours without sustenance. There might have been a drip attached to her arm for part of the time. She seemed to remember something like that. But otherwise, nothing. She let Julio make the decision for her. All she wanted to do was curl up like a kitten in his lap, and draw on his strength.

  How could she do this without him? He seemed to know exactly what she needed. She doubted there was a text book written on post-integration trauma. Maybe there needed to be. Her tired eyes turned up to look out the window. The view was panoramic and spectacular. Up to the left were cliffs that fell to the turbulent ocean below. In front of her, and for the full width of the wide window, was grey, seething ocean. On the horizon boiled heavy, grey clouds.

  A storm was coming. She could see the rain already falling in the distance. Forks of lightning zigzagged across the sky. It was too far away for them to hear the boom of thunder. Soon, there would be thunder soon. The memory of the storm she had experienced, just a few waking hours before, beat down on her. Those waves below her seemed to be drawing her down toward them.

  Burying her face against Julio’s chest she tried to forget about everything but the man and the comfort he offered. She allowed her breathing to synchronise with his, steady and regular. Reassuring.

  What might have been an hour later, or maybe ten minutes, Maggie reappeared with a large square of thick crust pizza on a plate. The topping was ham and mushroom with plenty of sauce and mozzarella cheese. She’d cut it into finger size portions. It smelled divine!

  Julio took the plate and put it on her lap. Then, with his right hand, he began to feed her bites of the pizza. She had never had anything but thin crust pizza before, and the indulgence of the thick, slight greasy base was as tasty as anything she had ever eaten. Taking it from his fingers made it ambrosia.

  ‘You have Takeaway here?’ she managed to ask, between hungry mouthfuls.

  ‘No. But most food is available pre-packaged ready for the Kitchen Chef, a fast cooking oven a little like a microwave,’ Maggie answered, as she curled up on the sofa’s matching chair, with a plate of pizza for herself.

  ‘Microwave?’

  ‘Oh, sorry, they don’t get popular until the 70s do they? It’s hard to remember when you started using things that became such a familiar part of your life. Like TV. Do you remember when it went colour? That was so exciting! And when mobile phones came in. After a few years you forgot you ever had to depend on landlines.’

  ‘Mobile phones? Landlines?’

  ‘Maggie, you’re giving her a crash course in 21st Century living when she doesn’t need it. She gets to jump over that whole technological fast-forward, and just learn what we have here now,’ Julio cautioned, as an elder might reprimand a child. What was interesting was that Maggie immediately stopped talking, and obeyed him.

  ‘Maggie says she comes from 2008, and that she was born in 1946. She’s been here for two years, so that makes her sixty four. Have I got that right?’ Jane asked. She was feeling much better with food in her stomach, and she even stopped eating long enough to reach for and offer a piece of pizza from the plate to Julio. Much to her surprise, he seemed shyly grateful for her gesture, and ate the food from her fingers. How surreal it all seemed, to be sitting on Julio’s lap, being fed by him, and in turn, feeding him. Where was the confidence coming from that allowed her to do such things?

  ‘Yes. You have a good memory!’ Maggie exclaimed with pleased surprise.

  ‘Just because I worked in a corner shop doesn’t mean I’m stupid,’ she said tightly.

  ‘I… I didn’t mean that! It’s just that I couldn’t have done the maths to work out someone’s age like that. I have trouble adding two numbers together.’ Maggie blushed and looked away, upset that she had somehow offended her new housemate.

  ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have been rude. I don’t know what’s come over me. I… I’m not usually like this.’ Now Jane was feeling upset. Maggie was being incredibly good to her, and she got snarky with her? That was so unlike her. Maybe being a redhead was already affecting her temperament.

  ‘Jane had to leave school to look after her mother. She could have gone on to University if she’d had the chance,’ Julio informed Maggie, as he fed Jane another piece of pizza.

  Jane looked at him in astonishment. Where did he get that from? Just because she’d said she would like to be a psychologist, if she’d had the marks, didn’t translate to ever having been capable of going to University.

  ‘I’ve got the system running a check on you. I showed you what it found about your mother. It also pulled up your Vocational Guidance test and report. That’s what it said.’ Julio licked his fingers of the last of the sauce. Jane was suddenly hypnotised by the sight of his fingers in that lush mouth. A fire burned in her belly, and made its way to her cheeks. Looking away she tried to focus on what he’d said.

  ‘I didn’t know that. I left before I got the results of that test. I guess it was better that I didn’t know. I’d have been more resentful about having to leave.’

  ‘You can study anything you like from now on.’ Julio smiled. ‘We don’t have Universities or Colleges anymore. We have tutors that assist students to navigate the labyrinth of knowledge we have at our disposal. If someone requires specific skills or knowledge for a job, they undertake it privately, and then get tested by those who are already working in the field. A bit like apprenticeships in the past.’

  ‘What time did you come from?’ Jane asked him, resting back against his shoulder, now that she’d finished eating. She felt his body stiffen beneath her, and wondered what she had said that was offensive.

  ‘This time, Jane. I’ve always been part of this time-line.’

  ‘I thought you said the race had been sterile for a long time. You did, didn’t you?’

  She watched Maggie and Julio exchange tense looks. What had she fallen into here?

  ‘The human race has been sterile since the Last Great Plague in 2120. It is now 2331,’ Julio told her, his voice as dry and lifeless as dead leaves.

  ‘But… that’s hundreds of years. You’re not much older than me….’ Suddenly she felt very cold, as she turned to look up at him. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Maggie tried to deflect the line of conversation from dangerous territory. ‘Age is not an issue here, Jane! We don’t think about it. An old person can look young, a younger person can look old. I’m a spring chicken around here, but when I arrived, I looked as old as the oldest citizen. It’s irrelevant. All that matters is the person.’

  ‘I’m two hundred and twenty, Jane.’ He spoke softly, his face stark in its aloofness.

  ‘Oh. My. God!’ she whispered, staring at the youthful features she had come to know so well. ‘That’s incredible! You’re like an immortal!’

  Something in her excitement must have surprised him because he looked down at her, his dark brows disappearing up beneath his raven wing lock of hair. ‘Not quite. Well, I suppose if Jac’s precedent is re
plicated, there is the possibility of immortality. We are only now finding out that nine lifetimes is just the general limit. You and Jac are redefining us.’

  ‘So this is your clone that you took on recently?’ she asked him, her eyes wide with fascination as she studied his face more closely.

  ‘Yes, six months ago. In biological terms you and I are the same age.’ He spoke slowly, as if he was feeling his way through dangerous territory. She didn’t understand what the problem was. It was amazing that he had lived so long, had seen so much, and yet could look no older than she did.

  ‘Wow!’ was all she could think to say. Her enthusiasm made him laugh.

  ‘Oh Jane, you are a constant puzzle to me! Your mind works in ways I can’t possible follow. You’re okay about me being two hundred and twenty? That doesn’t ‘freak you out’ as you would say?’

  ‘No, why should it? I kind of understand now why you say really old things sometimes. Like when you told me I was a remarkable young woman. I guess, to you, I am young. I must seem like an ignorant child to you…’ Suddenly she was back to feeling shy and insecure. No wonder he was tense. Her crush on him must be so very obvious and embarrassing, in light of the difference in their ages. He would want a woman who was mature and worldly. Maybe he had a woman who was mature and worldly. Maybe he was parenting her. Maybe Maggie was his partner.

  ‘No, Jane. You are neither ignorant nor immature. Any other nineteen years old girl would …’ He stopped and gently moved her off his lap and stood up.

  ‘Would what?’ she challenged him anxiously.

  ‘I think what Julio means is that young girls see anyone more than ten years older than them as being old. We both expected you to think of us as old foggies when you found out.’

  ‘Are…are you two supposed to be my new parents? Because I don’t need parents.’