I walked, pain free, to a train platform and waited several minutes for the right train to take me back home. My mind was swimming with thoughts of Jack, wondering how he’d gotten there, how long he’d been there, and how it was possible we had met so randomly. But despite my turbulent mind, I felt a warm glow in my chest and throughout my limbs. Suddenly, my life had purpose. I felt an overwhelming and burgeoning hope, and I couldn’t help but smile. Several people smiled in response to my own grin, and that made me smile even more. I almost floated onto the train and remained on a cloud during the short trip back to my apartment building. Although the city still gleamed like a newly burnished coin, it had now taken on a glow that matched the one I was feeling inside. Riding this high, I walked into the lobby and greeted a couple of people I hadn’t even met yet, but they seemed receptive to my friendliness. I rode the elevator to my floor and was scanning my ID card when Adam popped out of his apartment, wanting to know where I had gone.
“Trying to get a feel for the city, eh?” he asked before his eyes landed on my bandaged leg. “What did you do?” he asked in alarm, his eyes growing big.
I didn’t mind regaling him with the tale of my injury, but left out the part about meeting Jack in the clinic. I did tell him I was having a friend over later, and this roused his curiosity even further.
“But you don’t know anyone here in the city, do you?” He screwed up his face in confusion, raking his hand through his disheveled mop of hair.
I smiled and merely said, “It was an old friend. I was very surprised.”
Before he could question me further, I told him I had better go rest my leg, as I had been instructed to do, and quickly ducked into my apartment and ordered the door shut behind me. I felt amused at Adam’s perplexed expression, and chided myself for being mean to the poor guy. But I was too elated to feel bad. I had several hours before Jack would arrive, and I was eager to set about preparing myself, and wondered if I should cook food. I decided that would be the appropriate thing to do, and began to clean myself up. Jack had seen me sweaty and dirty from my fall, and I was determined to be put together at our next meeting.
The fabric of the bandage was obviously constructed to handle water, so I decided to take a bath. It was my first since waking up, and I decided to give myself several beauty treatments as well. I realized I was behaving like a giddy young girl, but that was how I had always behaved around Jack in the past. After my toilette, I walked to my closet and lamented that there was nothing very flattering there. It was all so sterile looking. I sighed, and chose a tunic set that more or less resembled all the others. I decided I’d have to style my hair in a way that made more of a fashion statement. I longed for some good jewelry, too. Thankfully, there was makeup in my bathroom, and, although the colors were a bit odd compared to what I used to wear, I was able to create a look that wasn’t too over the top.
Realizing I had another hour to kill, I foraged in the kitchen to see what I could create. I wracked my brain for memories of what Jack might like, and decided it probably didn’t matter. It would only take several minutes to actually bake, but I still had to prep the food. I decided on Chicken Cordon Bleu, and set about constructing an endive salad, with what appeared to be goat cheese. In the pantry was some wine and an assortment of other liquors, and I was glad these hadn’t gone out of style. I chose a Pinot Noir, and opened it to let it breathe. I kept checking the projected clock screen on the wall, and felt my apprehension grow. I let the food cook, and instructed the oven to keep it warm.
With time left to spare, I sat in my living room, tapping my slightly sore foot, counting the seconds. I decided some music might soothe my nerves. What if Jack and I didn’t have the old rapport? What if we’d been through too much to ever go back to how it used to be between us? I ordered the sound system to play music from the 1970s; I was in the mood for some Van Morrison. I leaned back and elevated my leg, so I could at least report I had followed orders. It had yet to start throbbing again. I closed my eyes, enjoyed the sounds that transported me to a recording studio all those centuries ago, and began to calm down.
And then, my front door announced an arrival. My heart leapt and began hammering. I rushed to the door and commanded it to open, and before I could stop myself I was throwing myself into Jack’s arms once more. It was as if we were meeting all over again. My nervousness disappeared, and I simply clung to the solid reality of the person who meant the most to me in this strange world. Neither of us spoke for several minutes, until I heard Adam’s door open and he peeked out. I realized I had forgotten how tall Jack was when I saw him next to Adam’s slight frame. I cleared my throat to speak.
“Hey, Adam, this is Jack. I don’t think you’ve met before.”
Adam’s eyes were bright with questions, but he sensed my reluctance to engage in conversation and merely extended his hand to Jack.
Jack was his usual jovial self. “Hey man, good to meet you. Have you been keeping an eye on Mina?”
“Yeah, it’s been … interesting. I’ll leave you to it, though.” Adam winked at me before turning back into his apartment.
I had composed myself enough during the short interchange to invite Jack in. Once the door was closed behind us, we immediately embraced again. This time no prying eyes were there to intrude. And this time our embrace was less frantic, as if we had both realized we wouldn’t be disappearing from each other’s lives again. After what seemed like an eternity, Jack separated himself from my arms and looked at me closely. I blushed under his close inspection, but he quickly assured me it was amazing how young I looked.
“You should see yourself, kid. I hate to sound trite, but you are a sight for sore eyes. I guess that dates me pretty well, doesn’t it?” he chuckled.
I smiled and responded that he should probably take a close look at himself as well.
“I guess they made us so that we were in our prime,” I said, not yet wanting to broach the topic of our cloning, deciding we needed more time to simply enjoy one another’s presence before any grand inquisition. Jack took my hands and led me to the couch, and we sat and simply stared at each other for a little while. Jack broke the silence by commenting that something smelled good, and I laughed.
“I am loving how easy it is to cook here. I never really could in our old world. Here though, gourmet food on command.”
I snapped my fingers, and got up to go get the wine, shushing Jack when he offered to get it for me. “You really should be staying off that leg. Stubborn as usual, though, aren’t you?”
I nodded. “I’m pretty sure our personalities are identical to what they were before,” I said, gently alluding to the massive changes we had undergone.
I came back with the wine, and we sipped in silence for another couple of minutes. His gaze seemed content to rest on my face, and I didn’t feel self-conscious at all. I was staring right back at him. Then he said exactly what I had been thinking.
“This is some kind of miracle, kid.”
I again felt a rush of relief to hear his thoughts mirror my own. I agreed, and then asked, “But how? How is this happening? I mean, I get that you were cloned, too, but when I asked the Director at the Facility, she told me the only other person from our team to be cloned was Ingari. She must have known that wasn’t true…. But why would she lie?”
Jack’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Ingari? But I would know for sure if he was here, and he’s not. I’ve been here for a while, going on six months. And that Director was … difficult, to say the least. When I met with her to be assigned, she made it clear no one else from the team would be resurrected.”
I was puzzled and suddenly felt a sense of trepidation. “Why would she lie so blatantly to us? Did she think we’d never meet each other in the city? Why cover it up?”
A look of realization dawned over his features. “I think she was testing you. Psychologically sizing you up. But I can’t honestly say why. You’re the one with the background in all things psych. Any ideas?” Still confused, I shook my head. “We’ll figure it out. As for the cloning process, well … The person they assigned to me when I woke up, a young guy named Kevin, told me some things about it, and how my remains were found, how I had been interred near someone else from the team. And maybe that’s why I never fully gave up hope of ever seeing you again. I hoped, Mina. For so long now I’ve hoped you would show up here…. I’ve been awake for only six months but every second of every day I’ve thought only of you.”
He had placed his wine glass down on the table and was now grasping my hands and staring at me intently. “I know it might be too soon, but I was wondering if I could kiss you.”
He sounded like a nervous little boy, and it endeared him to me. I nodded. He leaned in, and it was all that old magic again, as if no time at all had passed, we were back in my hotel room in Lagos, and nothing horrific had happened to us. His hands were in my carefully coifed hair, and I didn’t care. He broke away and rested his head in the slope of my neck, and I realized how terrifying this whole thing must have been for him too, alone in a strange, futuristic city with no one familiar. I had only been on my own a few days. I was over-whelmed with compassion, and let him stay there.
Eventually he raised his head, and I felt better when I saw him smile. “But here we are, even if the circumstances are bizarre,” he said. “Tell me everything that’s happened to you since waking up. How long have you been here, and why did you spare no time getting yourself injured? Obviously nothing has changed if you’re still accident-prone.”
He was looking at my leg again, and I laughed. I began to regale him with my tale of resurrection, of Eva, of my meeting with the Director, of coming to this apartment building and my fear of this new city and its people, ending in my decision to go for a run and winding up in his clinic.
“And what do you remember about that last day in Nigeria?” He was serious now, and I tried not to let myself be overcome by the flood of memories.
“I remember everything. We were up on the roof, and then …” It was too difficult to repeat, and he nodded, his eyes far away.
“I remember all of it too. But I also remember all the good parts.” He looked back at me, and I blushed a little at that.
I decided it would be good for us to continue talking over the meal I had semi-prepared, so I led the way to the dining room table, which I had largely avoided since arriving in my new apartment. It was far too intimidating, and a constant reminder I was alone. I set about placing the food and plates on the table, and insisted yet again that Jack not help. It had been literally centuries since I’d entertained guests. This was important for me to do. He kept his admiring gaze on me the entire time, and I shamelessly showed off my new long limbs and the inherent vitality of this new body.
Once everything was set, Jack made the appropriate noises and comments about how everything looked delicious, and I rolled my eyes. “You are well aware that this didn’t require any skill of mine,” I said, pointing to the kitchen.
“I know what you mean. I’m still not used to all the technology around here,” Jack said, gesturing toward the wall where the television screen was projected. “And the fact that we can use our minds to control this stuff if we want to? Bizarre …”
He forked some of the chicken into his mouth and moaned with appreciation, and I giggled at his parody.
“Tell me more about what it was like when you woke up,” I asked, digging into the salad in front of me. “And tell me anything and everything you know about how this city is run and, more importantly, by whom.” I emphasized the last word, and pointed at the ceiling.
Jack nodded, catching my drift. “Them. Yeah, how utterly bizarre is that? We’re not alone in this universe. I never thought we were, not even back when we first lived. But this? This is beyond all imagining.”
He reached for the wine bottle and poured himself some more, and I could tell he was preparing himself for what he was about to tell me. “I got a look at the labs where they clone us,” he said, and I gulped.
My curiosity over how we had come to be here had been increasing, but I’d had no opportunity to discuss it with anyone yet. And I hadn’t dared ask the Director, as she had made it clear it was none of my business.
“Tell me,” I managed to reply.
“Well, the young guy they gave me to help me in my … what did they call it? Acclimation? He was a bit of rebel, as well as an assistant to the Director. And he knew with my background in human physiology I’d be dying to know what was going on in those labs.”
He grinned and drank some more wine.
“It was like the most pristine warehouse you could imagine, except instead of being full of, say, frozen meat, it was full of adult human bodies. I wasn’t there for long, only a couple of minutes. Kevin, the kid who was acclimating me, was breaking some serious rules by showing me. And bear in mind, I’d only been awake for a day at that point and was freaked out of my mind. So maybe I don’t recall everything perfectly. But all these people were hooked up to machines inside these … pods. It was exactly like you’d expect to see in a sci-fi movie back in our day. But they were playing music in there, classical music. And I could see images on screens that were connected to each person’s head. It was like I was seeing dreams of memories or something, playing out on these screens. I asked the kid what exactly the cloning process consisted of. How was it possible we had all our memories from our previous lives? And, above all, I wanted to know how these alien visitors had found my body to get the right tissue for cloning. He said they had been excavating for decades, looking for all of us. For some of us, they knew exactly where to look, for instance some scientists had had their ashes or remains interred in a very specific place. But someone like me, and you, for example—well, we died in a natural disaster. But Mina, they found our bodies and buried us together in Nigeria. What are the odds of that?”
I hadn’t moved in my chair since he had begun his tale and I didn’t think I’d be moving any time soon. He continued, “So this kid Kevin explained that the physical process for cloning was essentially the same as it had been for other animals during our lifetimes. A lot more complex, but basically the same framework. But our memories: that was the tricky part. They essentially used quantum computing. Now, this was not my area of study, but Kevin seemed to know quite a lot about it. That our memories were intact within our DNA codes, but had to be transferred to an operating system to be downloaded into the cloned human’s body. Here in Origin there are about a hundred of us.” That answered my question: our clone population was minimal. Jack continued, “The kid lost me after a while, but this alien race has essentially figured out how to keep their own race from ever truly dying. They go from body to body. All the same laws of entropy and aging apply to them, too. It’s just they figured out how to get beyond all that.”
I felt a frown furrow my brow at a thought that popped up unbidden in my mind, and I interrupted Jack with my question. “So wait—the Travelers basically figured out immortality, is what you’re saying. Why don’t the humans at the Facility just adopt the technology for all people on Earth and, I don’t know, never let anyone die?” This brought Jack up short, and he frowned, too. Placing his wine glass down, he mulled over my question before responding. “I didn’t think to ask that, kid. You’re still sharp as ever. But I think that, if the Travelers gave full control of this technology to humans, it would cause a whole lot of conflict. People fighting over who gets to live forever, who doesn’t, issues with overpopulation … It might get messy. And they’re all about keeping things very clean and sterile.” He seemed content with that response and took another swig of wine, all the while grinning at me with his eyes. But I had more questions.
“Are they … benevolent? Is their purpose here only one of peace, or do you think … ?” I left that particular question unfinished, sensing he’d know what I was wondering.
He looked around the apartment, then stood and walked to the wall. “Have you figured out how to see out of this yet? The windows here are a real trip.”
“No, I didn’t think there were any. But, now that you mention it, it would make sense that there’d be some way to see out.”
I got up to stand next to him, and he pointed to a little screen to the side. “Swipe your hand over that and say, ‘Open window’ or some such thing, and voilà! You’ll have a view.”
I did as he instructed, and a pleasant voice replied, “Window open.”
And there it was, the vista of the city laid out in front of us. I inhaled quickly, and Jack took my hand. We stood in silence and marveled at the panorama. The massive buildings and rail system were breathtaking in their complexity. Here was a city running like a perfect machine, and the beauty of it was stunning. Jack said quietly, “I don’t think they would have created all this if they had intended on destroying us in the end.”
I still had a feeling of disquiet in my gut. I turned to Jack and rested my head on his shoulder. I held my hand up, still holding his, and looked at the glow of our skin in the muted light. “Whatever happens, all that matters is we got to be together again,” I murmured, and his lips pressed against my forehead.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” he asked abruptly, and I was at a loss.
“Nothing … I don’t think. My job doesn’t start for almost three weeks….”
“What do you say we go shopping? We never got a chance in Lagos.”
I could feel him smiling, and I smiled in response. “It’s a date.”
We walked back to the table to finish our meal, and afterward we sat on the couch drinking more wine and talking about everything from our past lives to our current lives. Jack was gently massaging my wounded leg, and the sensation was lovely. It felt like it had been so long since someone had touched me. I didn’t realize how starved for affection I was. But here was Jack, the partner I had chosen centuries ago, holding my leg. I couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of it, and he asked what was so amusing. I acted coy and merely shrugged, which prompted him tickle me to get a response. That didn’t last very long though, because our desire for each other had been building all day and into the night, and soon we were on my bed, and it was as if those centuries hadn’t passed. We were back in my hotel room in Nigeria, discovering each other for the first time. The inexorable march of time stopped for us once more, and I felt like I was truly home.