“Nothing is impossible until it’s been ruled out,” Fenton countered.
“Will someone tell . . . what’s going on?” Con asked.
No one acknowledged the question much less answered her.
“。 . . talking to you!”
Still no answer. This was a living nightmare. She was like a specimen pinned down on a dissecting tray, unable to move, listening to these ghouls discuss her clinically. Her right hand spasmed, gripping the side of the examination table.
“Who is the steward?” Fenton asked.
The assistant pulled up the information on his LFD. “Laleh Askari. It’s her day off, but she’s on her way in now.”
Relief flooded Con. Laleh would be here soon. Laleh would listen to her. She would explain to them how this was all some terrible misunderstanding.
“How are its stats?” Fenton asked.
“Inconclusive,” the assistant said, throwing the chart to Fenton’s LFD.
Fenton swiped through it with a manicured index finger. “How old are these neurologicals?”
“Initial readings, so twelve hours plus,” Dr. Pranav said.
“Alright,” Fenton said with a funereal sigh. “Rerun all of these tests every six hours. Let’s see if there’s any improvement after thirty-six hours.”
“Yes, Dr. Fenton.”
“Wait,” Fenton said, something in Con’s chart catching her eye. “This is Abigail Stickling’s niece?”
None of the assembled doctors seemed to know, and all pulled up the chart on their LFDs.
“It appears so. She must have been a client of my predecessor, Dr. Qiao,” Dr. Pranav agreed, clearly delighted to foist the responsibility off on anyone else.
For the first time, Fenton looked unsure. Everyone waited in awkward silence.
“Dr. Fenton? What is it?” Dr. Pranav asked.
Fenton waved him off. “I want to see Laleh Askari the instant she arrives. Until then, no one goes in and no one comes out.”
“What about the client?”
Fenton looked at Con with dispassionate, calculating eyes. “Put it back under until I’ve had a chance to talk to the board.”
The doctors murmured their agreement, but Fenton was already halfway to the door, leaving them to scurry after her. Con struggled to sit up, but her arms still weren’t responding. She lay there in stunned disbelief as the doors swung back and forth, the sound of voices growing more distant.
“Wait,” Con said, a terrible feeling of loneliness settling into her joints. The lab tech’s words echoed in her ears: It’s your download. Welcome back.
The female tech returned, alone now. She gave Con a wide berth. She reconnected her LFD to the surgical theater and kept her back to Con while she entered instructions.
“。 . . not a clone,” Con told her, stuttering again.
The lab tech flinched but didn’t answer. Con wrestled herself into a sitting position. This time, her arms pushed down obediently on the table. She felt a gentle tug and looked down at IVs inserted at the back of her hand and the crook of her arm. She had to disconnect them before the tech could sedate her again.
She froze.
Her tattoos were missing. All of them, the entire sleeve. Her left arm was bare. More than that—it was pristine. Her nails weren’t orange either, but they were unnaturally long. How had they grown so fast? She put a fumbling hand to her earlobe and felt along the cartilage. Her piercings were gone too. She couldn’t even feel where the holes should be. She checked her leg and hit a snag that threatened to unravel her. There were no scars on her knee. As though the accident had never happened. But it had, so what did that mean?
You know what it means.
A blanket of fog was settling over her thoughts, the sedatives taking effect. Her arms gave out, and she fell back on the table. There could only be one explanation. A terrible, unavoidable explanation.
She had died.
Not her.
The other her. The original her.
And if Con D’Arcy was dead, what did that make her?
Thankfully, the sedative did its work before she could answer.
CHAPTER FIVE
When Con awoke in the surgical suite for the second time, Laleh stood over her. Her hair had been cut short to her shoulders, which made no sense until Con remembered it had been eighteen months since they’d seen each other. It was hard to keep straight because her memories felt so recent. As if only a few hours had passed since she’d arrived at Palingenesis to refresh her upload. She could still taste the wasabi on her tongue, although that was quite impossible. It wasn’t even the same tongue.