Perfect Replica

Kurt was pensive as he re-read the letter. It was about all that could distract him from his surroundings.

"About your dad, huh?" The speaker was to Kurt's left, fiddling with the fly of his pants.

"And my sister, somehow."

"And you got no idea why?"

"Some idea."

"Check this out."

He wasn't sure he wanted to. Kurt looked up. The room had a dim blue light, with severe shadows from the tiny windows near the ceiling. The man speaking was his boss, so he didn't deign to disobey.

The man, Fox, had his cock out. It was half-erect already, enormous, glistening with precum, and distinctly synthetic. "You like it?"

"What the fuck, Fox?"

"This isn't your first time seeing a mod, man."

"Yeah, but why would I want to look at your dick?"

Fox looked proud. "This is a state of the art synthetic penis. It's custom and handmade. Looks red, like a fox." He grinned. "Knots like a fox, too."

Kurt held back a groan. His boss was no stranger to creative body mods, such as the pair of very convincing and fully functional fox ears atop his head. It was a little hard to maintain respect for him after that mod was implemented, and that was saying something, since what Fox did for a living was pilot an ultra-complex space combat vessel through fields of asteroids in what was essentially the wild west of the the solar system, and command a private security force which did the same.

Fox turned, and in a moment, his cock disappeared into a discrete hole. He rapped on the wall three times, waited for a moment, groaned, and then resumed his amiable chatter. Fox had an amazing, if quite awful, penchant for holding conversations in inappropriate situations like this one. Even a blowjob couldn't shut him up.

"So you think it's, like, inheritance or something?"

"The last line of the letter is that I can... see my sister again."

Fox turned. His face was beet red, though surely not from the news. Kurt could actually hear the slurping coming through the wall. "Damn, that's some heavy shit. What does that even mean?"

"I suppose I'll find out on Earth. Argentina."

"Yeah? Good for a vacation, I th-oh, shit, I think she's turning around. God damn, yeah, give me the other end..."

Kurt walked off as Fox was thrusting into the wall.

"You sure you don't want a turn? She's fucking good!" Fox called.

"No thanks, man," and Kurt was out the door.

***

[i]Click.

Hum.[/i]

A red light flashed.

"Your name please, for the record. Given name first."

"Kurt Garner."

"You're the son of the industrialist, philosopher, polymath, and spiritual leader Dr. Peter Garner."

"That is correct."

Kurt was seated at a wooden table - probably real wood, knowing his dad - in a small room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were reinforced glass, holding back the water from a massive aquarium which enclosed the room. Coral, octopi, and all manner of fish could be seen.

The interviewer caught his look and smiled. "Your father intuited that the appearance of the sea had a very calming effect on interviewees."

The interviewer, a serene man with the unlikely name of Ortega Ruiz, had a scalp and forehead made of shining chrome. It was an aesthetic choice, unlike Kurt's not-quite-natural looking left arm. It was apparently a natural arm until you spotted the occasional flash of a status light beneath the skin. A silly mistake by the designer, and common among prosthetic limbs now, but one that was very expensive to correct.

Ortega cleared his throat. "Did you know your father?"

"From age ten until his death in 2345. I was eighteen."

"And since then you've been..."

"Piloting a class A-9-7 Corsair in the outer systems, mainly Alpha Centauri. My official residence is in the United States, but I'm there only once every two years."

"How much do you know about your father's death?"

"I know he was captured while overseeing an operation just over the border from here, in Chile. The Chilean government executed him for what they called racketeering, heresy, and various research crimes."

"Kidnapped," Ortega corrected, "And murdered. By charlatans who fear progress. I'll not hear such ill spoken of Dr. Garner."

Kurt waved a hand. "Don't think I didn't love my father. I know how your group feels about him."

"Moving on. You had an older sister."

"Half-sister. Died nine months before dad. A rare disease caused her kidneys to fail. An auto-surgeon could have done something about it, but she was in a remote jungle, and the evac unit insisted on only using a damned human doctor. Idiots."

"You weren't happy with the treatment she received, of course."

"She could have been saved. The doctor was high, too, on some bullshit amphetamine."

"It pains me to think of the incident." Ortega wiped a real tear from his eye. "We all loved her vitality."

Kurt nodded. "As did I. I knew her from age ten, when we met, til I was eighteen. She was four years older than me, and was always an important guide."

"She is, of course, why we are here."

Kurt was silent for a while.

"You guys brought her back. Like Lazarus."

A smile. "I think of her as Persephone. Queen of the Underworld. As you surely know, it is not possible to resurrect the dead. A living thing that is dead is dead forever. Our principal innovation is that, in death, young Emily may know new life. Persephone went to Hades not to wallow in the river of souls, but to become queen. Your father, in his brilliance, began this project within mere moments of learning that something had happened to her; she was not even dead, truly, when the project began."

"I understand from your letter that my dad organized the greatest collection of bionics and genetics researchers in the world for this project."

"Correct. And this is so much more ambitious than a crude transplant of a false body part, like your arm there, or my stylish feature here," he tapped his dome, "rather, this is the total replication of a human body and mind, complete with memory transplants. Your sister lives, Kurt. She is alive and breathing. She looks the spitting image of herself at 22, before the accident seven years ago. She talks, she walks, she drinks beer. It is absolutely incredible!" Ortega patted his hands on the table for emphasis, nearly shouting. "All organic, every inch of her. Cloning and cybernetic parts are totally antiquated by this research."

"Memory transplants? So... her brain..."

"The brain your sister is using is a composite," he admitted, "Partially generated by this new process, partially neurocybernetic. We have the real one, however. Alive. On life support."

Kurt's eyes widened.

"It is down the hall. Would you like to see it?"

Kurt and Ortega entered a small room behind a few "RESTRICTED ENTRY" signs. It was dim, candlelit, with nearly the whole room covered in purple and gold silk. A vat was positioned ridiculously on what looked to be an altar at the far end of the room. As Kurt approached, he could see that it was a human brain, floating gently in fluid; he nearly collapsed at the sight of it. His sister. He fell to his knees before her.

"You've built a shrine to her..."

Ortega put a hand on Kurt's shoulder. "It was the only ethical thing to do, to preserve the memory of a young goddess like her. But you have come here to Argentina to see something much better than this."

Kurt was nearly crying. "Why is this here? Why isn't she in her new body?"

"Kurt, this brain is not functional. We had to construct a copy for her."

Hearing it almost made him sick. "Where is the new body? When can I see it?"

Ortega winced at his choice of pronouns, but handed him a note with an address, a date, and a time.

***

Three days later, Kurt was watching Buenos Aires sink. He was in a glass elevator, being scenically lifted to the top floor of a massive and luxurious apartment structure. Only the best for Emily; their father would never allow her to live in the vast metropolitan slums just beyond the city borders. Nor would that be the case for him, Kurt reflected, had his dad lived long enough to see him become a true adult. A rainbow of colored light sprawled out before him as the elevator rose over even the tallest towers. This was the massive Mann Tower, by far the largest building in the country. The city spanned out from it like the roots of a massive tree.

The elevator came to a halt. The doors did not open. A voice over the intercom. "Kurt?"

Kurt froze. His heart was pounding. "Kurt, I can see you on the camera..."

The door opened. Emily was on him, her arms tight around him, kissing him on the cheeks, squeezing his whole body. He was at a loss for words.

"Kurt," she said, releasing him. "Kurt, look at you! You're not my scrawny baby brother anymore, that's for sure!" She looked him up and down. He was in considerably better shape than he had been at eighteen, and a last minute growth spurt made him an inch taller than her now. "I'd say I could barely recognize you, but who could forget those eyes?"

He appreciated the compliment, but his eyes were the unassuming brown of their father's. Emily had inherited her mother's brilliant wide and green eyes, which were vastly more alluring. She was as beautiful as ever, with mocha-colored skin(also thanks to her mother) and long, red-brown hair. Colorful tattoos covered her forearms. She was as perfect to him as she had been all those years ago. "You're just as I remember my older sister..."

She giggled. "Better, I'm an android now. Or a cyborg, however you want to spin it."

***

Her apartment was the picture of class - fine art, rare plants, a real cat, a grand piano, which she was playing idly as she spoke to him. He sat on the couch, sipping a fine red wine.

"Of course you'll be staying in here with me, for as long as you like. I have a beautiful false fireplace, I really must show you later. Of course you already know, but the view is astonishing. And the kitchen cooks these ab-"

"Emily," he interjected, "You know about dad, right?"

She hit a discordant tone on the piano. It rang out for a while. "Yeah, Kurt."

"Sorry, I just..."

"Kurt, we'll get to it later." She flipped a switch and the piano began playing again, but Emily was walking toward him. The sight of it was still enough to stun him, she in her gorgeous red evening gown; she truly was a perfect feminine beauty. She kissed him on his forehead. He lost his train of thought. "Get to what?"

She giggled and sat next to him, sipping her wine. "Exactly."

***

The piano stopped playing, but it was barely noticeable under their laughter. their sibling rapport hadn't faded a bit. Kurt had finished recalling a story about one of their father's partners chasing them through an interplanetary legislature after they released a pig he was keeping to gift to some lost tribe. "But do you remember his name?" Emily asked, barely able to contain her giggles.

"Juan Mann," they said in unison, breaking off into a fresh bout of laughter.

"He has a space cargo company now. We do security contracts for them sometimes. It's called Juan Mann's Material Movers." Emily buried her face in the sofa, giggling.

Kurt looked at her. From the moment she spoke through the elevator intercom until just then, he hadn't thought of her as anything but his sister. A perfect replica. But it was suddenly stuck in his mind that that's what she was: a replica.

"You're really handsome, Kurt." She was calm, staring right at him. Through him, even.

"Huh?"

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe it's time to go to bed."

"Yeah..."

Summarily, Kurt went to his bedroom. He didn't get a chance to appreciate it much. The bed itself was enormous and far too comfortable, as he fell asleep fully dressed immediately upon contact with it.

***

The following afternoon, they were shopping in an outer district, close to the vast fence separating the wealthy quadrant from the outside. Poor merchants were allowed through to participate in this bazaar; they could charge comparatively huge quantities for their food and goods, and the rich could indulge a dilettantish interest in this now-alien culture. For the son and daughter of a capitalist hyper-magnate with a bona fide religious cult behind his legacy, they looked rather unassuming, she in jeans, white tank top, and leather jacket, he in a black v-neck and gray pants. It was a of a retro look for each of them, but a far cry from the lace and petticoats the hip and super-rich often sported, nostalgia for the pre-industrial era.

Kurt wasn't sure if Emily's replicant's spell over him was broken or not. On one hand, at every turn, she behaved exactly as though she were the sister he knew. On the other hand... what? He had been told some "truth" about her by his dad's cronies? What, he reflected, is the meaning of a truth that makes no physical difference? If two things are exactly the same, perfectly indistinguishable, are they not just the same thing?

Emily was placing an order for them. He could hear her from his table: "...does it come with rice? No? How much for..." A mail icon popped up in his peripheral vision. With a thought, Kurt activated it. Ortega appeared before him in a pop-up window.

"Greetings, young Garner." His head twinkled. "I take it everything is going smoothly. I wanted to let you two know that we've left a reunification present at the apartment, courtesy of myself and some very generous friends of your father. Please enjoy." The video winked out of existence.

"So Kurt," Emily said, placing the food before him. It looked delicious. "I was saying something last night before you passed out."

"Oh yeah?" They started eating, enjoying the food in spite of its imperfect, non-synthetic ingredients.

"You're really handsome."

He caught her eye. She was smiling, beaming even. He choked a bit.

"Seriously. You're older than me now, basically. I've been alive kind of off and on for a few years, but they kept wiping my memory and starting over. Anyway, that's what they told me. But still, you're older than me now, and I really wish I was there to see how you became... this." She gestured to his body. "You were such a gangly little guy."

"Piloting a Corsair is hard work. Either you keep in shape or you get kicked out on your ass." He smiled.

"It must have been so long since you'd seen me. For me, it's only been a month or two, but somehow, it still feels like it's been forever..."

That stuck in his mind for the rest of the day. Kurt couldn't shake the thought that she hadn't actually seen or met him before, ever.

***

Emily looked over the bottle of liquor. "This is a first-run bottle of Ueno-Akiyama. Over a hundred years old. Our father's servants know their stuff; this bottle is worth as much as the whole marketplace we went to today."

"Do you think we should save it?"

"Fuck that." [i]Pop.[/i] She poured a glass and handed it to him. The indigo liquid sparkled prettily. "Cheers." [i]Clink.[/i] They both took a drink, and they both grimaced for just a moment, followed by identical looks of satisfaction. "That's fantastic." She took another sip.

"Smooth, after that first second of burning." Kurt sat next to her on the couch.

For a little while, they drank in silence. Kurt was astonished at how apprehensive he felt. He was, for the first time, in the lap of absolute luxury. This apartment had real plants, real-smelling air. The couch was real leather, and colored like ivory. They had an incredible view, and music from every age of man at their disposal. More importantly, he had, or at least had something very much like, his sister.

"Emily, I've been wondering something."

"I knew something was bugging you."

"Why didn't dad tell me he was doing this? I mean, any brother would want to know if his sister was, you know, being made again."

She looked surprised, and then laughed. "Because he didn't know, little bro."

"What? That's nonsense, I talked to Ortega. He told me dad set the whole thing up."

"I set it up. I faked dad's credentials, there's no way I would have been able to do it under my own name. I set it all up so that the moment I was confirmed as dead, the order would be given to start the project of creating this new me. I had no idea if it would work, and I didn't think dad would appreciate the use of resources unless he saw it in action. I was hoping to surprise him. Didn't work out the way I planned."

"Yeah."

Emily leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. He was already warm from the alcohol, but the kiss made his heart rate spike. He felt a little sweat on his forehead. "I'm lucky I still have my baby brother. Even if he's not such a baby anymore. Scratch that, especially since he's not such a baby anymore. But Kurt, that can't be what was bothering you."

She was smarter than him, he knew. And she knew him too well. He wasn't ready to talk about his doubts about her, his misgivings about treating a replica as his own family, so he glanced at the liquor, desperate for an exit from the situation before she brought it up. The bottle was getting low. "It's nothing, don't worry about it. Hey, I'm going to get some sleep, alright?"

She frowned. "Okay, Kurt. Goodnight. Sweet dreams."

He went to his bedroom. It was ludicrously spacious, with his massive bed occupying the central position. One wall opened into a television and hearth, another into an equally ludicrous bathroom, and another was a glass door leading onto his own private patio. His father's name was as important as money in getting a place like this. Kurt approached the glass, looking out onto the city as he removed his shirt. He was well-built, with a few black tattoos stretching across his abs.

"Kurt?" She was just outside the door.

"Yeah?"

"You don't think I'm your sister, do you?"

Silence.

"Come on, no bullshit. You're concerned because you think I'm someone else. The original me is sitting in a vat in a facility somewhere, and I'm not your sister."

She nailed it. Of course she nailed it. She was always able to guess what he was thinking."Yeah," he intoned weakly. "I'm sorry, Emily. I can't stop thinking about it."

He heard the door open behind him. "Let's take advantage of it."

He turned. His jaw nearly hit the floor. She was naked other than a pair of white panties. Her dark skin was smooth, essentially flawless, and in particular her tits were beyond his imagination, seemingly gravity-defying teardrops a little larger than her head. She didn't bother with a lot of body modding, nor did she need to, because she was already the Platonic ideal of sexual beauty.

"I'm not your sister, right? Well how about this, Kurt: I haven't been shy. You know I think you're handsome. I know you think I'm hot. Look at this." She gestured to herself. "We're alone together in the most luxurious apartment on the continent. Don't be stupid, just drop your pants and let me suck your cock."

He couldn't believe what he was hearing, or feeling for that matter; she had approached him, her finger tracing the outlines of his abdominal muscles. He didn't respond.

"Oh, let me guess: second thoughts? I bet I know what you're thinking. 'That's wrong, she's my sister.'" He nodded. "Well let me let you in on a little secret." She leaned in toward his ear and dropped her voice to a sultry whisper. "That just makes it hotter." A kiss on his earlobe, and a little nibble. "Even when you were 17 I knew you were going to grow up to be a sexy man. There's nothing I want more than my brother's swollen," she moaned seductively, "drooling," and again, "cock," she bit her lip, "down my throat and pussy. Come on, let's not pretend you don't want this. If you unzip your pants right now, one of the hottest women you've ever laid eyes on, your own sister, will suck you like a fucking vacuum. I crave your cock."