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  Maggie and Julio both looked so surprise and horrified, she immediately felt relieved.

  ‘No, Maggie and I only met each other yesterday. My boss is Maggie’s friend. Neither of us are mated. And neither of us see you as a child in need of parenting.’ Julio was standing over near the window looking down at the ocean. She wondered why he was suddenly keeping his distance. Maybe he was lying to her for some reason. Maybe he needed her to think of him as unattached so that he could continue to use her crush as some kind of carrot.

  Suddenly she was feeling very tired again. She also wanted to find the toilet. Her new body was starting to function normally, it seemed.

  ‘Can you show me to the bathroom?’ she asked Maggie. Again she noticed both Maggie and Julio go on high alert.

  ‘I don’t know whether… are you sure you’re ready?’ Maggie asked gently.

  ‘To use the bathroom? I think so. Is there something I don’t know about clone plumbing?’

  Maggie laughed. ‘Oh, you want the toilet. Sorry. Thought you wanted to see yourself in the bathroom mirror.’

  Jane froze. If the toilet was in the mirrored bathroom, she would see her new self. Was she ready for that? In her mind, she saw herself looking like a red head she’d gone to school with. That girl had been so ugly she made Jane look pretty in comparison. Just because this Karl had chosen the prettiest of his ‘spares’ didn’t mean she was actually pretty. How devastated would she be to find herself with a face no better than her old one. At least the body was slim and feminine. And she liked being tall. How bad could it be?

  ‘I guess now is as good as any, to see what I’m stuck with for eternity. Let’s get it over with.’ She tried to lever herself out of the deep cushioned seat of the sofa, but it took Julio coming quickly to her side to pull her up, before she was able to stand on her own. Or on her clone’s own two feet.

  Jane looked closely at him from beneath her eyelashes. His face was closed. She wished she understood what was going on for him. They had seemed so close when he held her on his lap and fed her. Now he was an aloof stranger again.

  He kept his arm around her, as she followed Maggie down the hall to the bathroom. The toilet, it appeared, had its own separate room. The woman stepped out of the way and let Julio walk her into the mirror-filled bathroom. It was quite unlike anything she’d ever seen. But before she got too caught up with 24th Century plumbing, she had to look at the figure in the white tunic held at Julio’s side.

  ‘She’s a… princess!’ she gasped, as she took in the glorious sight before her. Porcelain skin unmarred by freckles, delicately balanced features, full plump lips, and huge green eyes flecked with gold. And instead of the copper lashes and brows she had dreaded, what she saw were dark auburn, like Maggie’s hair. Those incredible eyes were doe shaped, tilting up at the side. Her high cheekbones were flushed pink. The princess was as embarrassed by the close scrutiny as she was.

  ‘Do you think you can be happy with this body, Jane?’ Julio asked gruffly, drawing the thick curtain of copper hair over each shoulder so she could see how far down her body it went.

  ‘I… she… looks like a catwalk model. Like Twiggy!’

  ‘Good God, you look better than that! More Bo Derek or Michelle Pfeiffer!’ Maggie exclaimed, from the doorway.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Jane. Two beautiful actresses of the 80s, I think. I am still waiting to hear you tell me whether you can be happy seeing her in the mirror every day.’

  Jane didn’t know what to say. Being beautiful had been her dream all her life. Now that she was, she felt like a fraud. This wasn’t her. The real her was Plain Jane. How could she possibly be herself ever again? As she looked at the beautiful princess standing next to her darkly handsome prince, she felt as if she had lost something. Julio would never fall in love with the real Jane. He might fall in love with this stranger, but that wouldn’t be her. She had lost him, even though she had never really had him.

  ‘I’m very lucky.’ She wondered if her reply sounded as if she was thanking someone for an unwanted Christmas present. It was how she felt.

  Julio spun her around so she was facing him. His look was intense, his dark brown eyes sparking. ‘Listen to me, Jane, you are this clone now. I see you looking out of her eyes. This isn’t a mask or a disguise you’re wearing. This is you. The expressions are yours, the gestures. I’ve watched you for over a week, probably more than you were aware I was watching you. What makes you Jane, is here. I see it. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

  Jane felt her eyes filling with tears. Yet again, he was doing just what she needed. Somehow he understood what she was thinking and feeling. Her heart opened a little more to him.

  ‘No more tears, Querida. I said no more tears…’ His hands were on either side of her face, holding it as if it were as fragile as glass. Now she knew that was exactly what he was holding – a beautiful face – ethereal and fragile. She, Jane, the real Jane, wouldn’t have been treated with such care.

  His thumbs were stroking away the tears again. And his eyes warned her what he was about to do. His mouth came down to touch hers, a butterfly kiss. Yearning for more, she moved toward him and opened her lips. It was enough. His arms came around her, and pressed her into him, his mouth covering hers, tasting her, savouring the connection.

  She wanted to close her eyes, to focus all her attention on the feeling of it. But she wanted to watch him too. This beautiful man was kissing her, and she wanted to see him, up close as he did. In the end, she just let go and closed her eyes, drinking in the blissful feelings, as her heart pounded loudly in her ears.

  Finally, Julio drew her away from him. His hands were shaking, and he looked distraught. ‘It might be better… There is plenty of time…’ He backed out of the room. A moment later she heard him talking softly to Maggie somewhere down the hall.

  What had she done?

  Chapter Seven

  Julio had to get away from Jane. He didn’t trust his clone with her. From the moment he realised that she was not repelled by his age, his body had become aroused. It was such an outrageous state, that he was left completely at a loss.

  When he’d felt his body changing, he’d moved her off his lap as fast as he could, so she didn’t find out. He’d hated that look of pain in her eyes, at his perceived rejection. But it was better than the horror that would have been there, if she’d known what she was doing to him.

  The fall of the tunic provided sufficient cover when standing up, but when he dragged her into his arms for that shattering kiss, there was no disguising his passionate physical response to her closeness. For a few moments there, he was in danger of dragging her into a bedroom and tearing the tunic off her body. His hands still shook with the need to feel her, to touch her, to bury himself deep in her, until they were not two people but one. It was frightening how much he wanted her.

  Sex had never been an overwhelming need for him. Not even during puberty, as was common for young males. By the time he reached puberty, his body had been so eroded by the plague it had become a challenge just staying alive until he was considered old enough to take on his first clone. There had been no thoughts of sex.

  He’d been a sick weakling, back in the first eight years after the Last Great Plague, in a world filled with healthy, fit adults. And he’d begun to resent those clone bodies then, seeing them as the lucky invaders who had claimed the planet from the ‘real’ human race.

  Of course, it was a stupid way to see things – ‘Us against Them’. After all, the Them were the Us transformed. And even when he became one of Them, he’d felt like he was selling out to the winners. Somehow, being strong and healthy was an affront to all those who had died such terrible deaths. And the more tranquil and utopian the world became, the more out of place he felt. Living on an agricultural community, focused on growing food, kept him from dwelling on his irrational thoughts. Being in the centre of their Utopia, as he was now, intensified those thoughts.

>   He continued to resent the bodies he was forced to live in. Especially when he was forced to feed, with dispassionate ease, the occasional sexual urges the sterile clone might feel. Julio couldn’t remember ever feeling really attracted to a woman, as he was attracted to Jane. And that attraction, that obsessive need for her, was getting stronger the longer he was in her company.

  When he saw her confused disgust at the beauty of her new body, it felt as if he was looking at his own clone for the first time. The difference between the weakened, under-developed Original and the clone, had been almost as extreme a shift as Jane was having now. He understood a little of what she was feeling, and that only fuelled his fascination with her. Jane’s Original had been like his Original – an imperfect specimen, shunned by the world. A gem in the rough.

  And he wanted that Jane, the imperfect, fascinating, different Jane, who was now imprisoned inside one of the superior beings, unable to get out. His need had nothing to do with that exterior package, and everything to do with his Jane that shone out through its incredibly beautiful eyes.

  Julio made his way to the back of the villas, where a path wound its way up and around the cliff edge. He could see the storm approaching, but he didn’t care. It matched the tumult that he’d been feeling for the last few days. His world was being turned upside down, and he didn’t know what to do about it. What to feel about it. Jac had said it wasn’t a malfunction of the clone, this debilitating and uncharacteristic intensity. He called it Love. But that was a word Julio had never understood. Doubted he had ever felt. If he felt it now for Jane, what did it mean? Nothing good could come of it.

  Whatever it was that was causing this obsession, had to be brought under control, or he would end up doing something to Jane that would destroy her feelings for him completely. If he was right about her experience with sexual abuse, then fear would be the only emotion she would feel, if he let his clone’s lust loose on her. He must keep his distance, and make sure the clone never had a chance to get out of control again. If that meant not seeing Jane as much, even though he had committed to helping her, as Cara had requested, he would do just that.

  He strode on blindly, as his mind played over the options. By the time he got back to Maggie’s villa, the storm had broken, and he was soaked to the skin and shivering. But his mind was clearer.

  If his heart still ached, then he would just have to ignore it.

  ‘Where did Julio go?’ Jane asked Maggie, after she had finished in the toilet. She felt weak and overwhelmed, confused by everything that had happened to her. And most of all, she felt helpless. Julio’s strange and erratic behaviour seemed so inexplicable that she didn’t know how to deal with it.

  ‘He said he had to go out for a while. He wants you to rest, He’ll be back later,’ Maggie said as she made herself a cup of coffee.

  ‘Want a drink?’ Maggie waved the coffee mug in her direction. Jane had never been a coffee drinker, and she wondered how a good Aussie like Maggie could have taken to drinking it.

  ‘Water would be good, thanks. Julio just kissed me.’ The words were out before she had a chance to stop them.

  ‘Yeah, got that vibe, so I left you to it. You seem upset. Didn’t you want him to?’

  ‘Are you kidding? He’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met. I’ve wanted him to kiss me from the moment he walked into the shop just over a week ago. Gosh that sounds strange. A week? It feels like another life time.

  ‘It was. So what’s up then?’

  ‘So many things. First, is it this clone thing that he’s kissing, or is it me? He didn’t kiss the old me. Well, he did. He kissed my hand the day he left. But that wasn’t romantic. I never thought he saw me romantically. Now, since this new Princess body, he’s kissed me twice. But after he does, he runs off, like he’s sickened by me. Or it, or… Gosh, I don’t know. I’m so turned around right now, I don’t know what direction’s up.’

  ‘I guess it will feel like that for a while. Even without Julio’s input. I don’t know the man. I only met him yesterday, when Cara arranged for you to stay with me. He seems to care about you. And there’s definitely a sexual vibe zinging around, when he’s with you. But I don’t know if it’s the old you or the new you that’s the object of his interest.

  ‘I know he went out on a limb to bring you back here. Caused a real stir within the Retrieval team. Unauthorised Retrievals are against Protocol and dangerous. These people don’t go against Protocol, Jane. They want their world to stay safe and stable and predictable. It’s understandable, after what happened to the planet.

  ‘So it’s a big deal that he did that. He thought a lot of the old Jane to do that.’ Maggie poured her a glass of water from a dispenser on the wall. It also deposited chunks of ice with it. She handed Jane the glass, and then they went into the living room to look out of the window, as Maggie drank her coffee and Jane sipped on her water.

  They could see the storm approaching. It was a spectacular sight, and it filled Jane with awe and trepidation. But it reminded her too much of the southerly buster that had ended her old life. She wondered if she would ever be able to look at the ocean, and not remember what it felt like to drown. The utter panic she’d felt when she fought the urge to breathe water, instead of air, into her labouring lungs.

  ‘I didn’t know that. I know he said I wasn’t the target. That the boy I tried to save was the target. And I know he was mad at me when I said I wanted to go home. Said something about protocol, but I didn’t understand… He got in trouble for saving me?’

  ‘Yeah, a bit. Cara is his boss, and she’s one of us, so Protocol isn’t God to her. She seemed really pleased you’d been Retrieved and managed to integrate. She gets a buzz out of proving these people wrong, I think.

  ‘Like the children. I remember when she told me her idea about Retrieving ‘The Missing Children,’ as she called them. I didn’t understand her drive to change this perfect place. I never had much time for kids, I have to say. Never had any myself. But I’m coming around to the idea of kids here. It’s starting to feel more alive. Before, it was as perfect as I pictured Heaven to be: timeless, serene, and unchanging. Cara called it a Mausoleum – a place of the dead.’

  Jane sat down on the sofa, and sipped her water. Her legs felt very weak, and it was becoming difficult to concentrate enough to make them perform. When she was sitting, all she had to do was focus on holding the glass in her hand. It made it easier to take in Maggie’s words.

  ‘Doesn’t it feel a bit like stealing these children? I mean, maybe if they didn’t Retrieve them they would have found their way home. Tommy might have been saved by the ferry. I get that I probably wouldn’t have. But he could have.’

  ‘Messing with the Time-Space Continuum is dangerous. That’s why rescuing you was dangerous. We know that adults who were offered Retrieval, and for whatever reason refused it, died just as historical records tell us they did. The Child team works differently. Kids can’t make informed choices like adults. But if our experience with adults carries through to kids, then Tommy would not have been saved, if we hadn’t stepped in. He’d have drowned, and his body never found. Just as you would have been dead.’

  Jane was too tired to think through all of the ramifications of time travel. She must have looked as tired as she felt, because Maggie came over and took the glass from her hand.

  ‘I think you need to go to bed for a while. You look ready to collapse. It takes a while to rehabilitate. Plenty of rest is an important part of the process. Come on, I’ll show you your room. It isn’t very big, but it has a pretty view over the hinterland.’

  Maggie held out her hand, and Jane let her pull her to her tired feet. Slowly, she followed her new friend down the hall to the bedroom she was allocated. Maggie hadn’t been exaggerating about the view. It was as breathtaking as the one from the living room. But she was too tired to appreciate it. She collapsed onto the double bed, and was instantly asleep.

  Julio wandered down the hall to Maggie’s Studio,
after using her drying cubicle to address the worst of his rain soaked condition. His tunic still felt a little damp, but he couldn’t be bothered spending more time in the drier. He had more important considerations – like what to do about Jane.

  As he entered the large, airy room, with its requisite panoramic view over the Atlantic, he couldn’t help being impressed by Maggie’s work. Along one wall was a segmented mural that was reminiscent of Minoan Culture. It was, in fact, modelled on the art of the Atlantean Culture, although the three dimensional holographs, and the level of detail, placed it firmly in the category of modern art.

  ‘You like?’ Maggie asked, as she stood back from her work. Her face was alive, in a way he hadn’t seen it, during the course of their day together. He was reminded that this woman was a stranger, for all her easy, relaxed manner. He didn’t really know what to expect from her.

  ‘It is impressive. Does it have a location yet?’

  ‘Yes, the Knowledge Centre Atrium. I am trying to convey the beauty of knowledge in this.’

  Julio noted how they had both reverted to New Atlantean speech patterns now that Jane was not present. It sounded overly formal to his ear. How easily he could change habits of a lifetime.

  ‘It does that beautifully. How is Jane?’

  Maggie looked at him intently, her head at an angle, as if he were one of her works in progress.

  ‘Asleep. We gave her a lot to digest. But she is an amazing young woman. I do not think I was as quick to integrate as she appears to be. I seem to remember days of lying on my bed, trying to work out how to move my body. I wonder if they compare integrations. You know, the speed of it. What systems come on line first. Whether it is faster with subsequent clones.’

  ‘I imagine so.’ Julio dismissed her line of conversation in favour of a far more relevant one. ‘You saw me kiss Jane. I am concerned about my behaviour. I may not be the right person to act as her guide. I do not trust myself around her.’