The rain poured on us. We didn’t care. At some point, in between our kisses, Helena convinced me that I’d better get a warm bath and dry myself up, or I could catch a disease. It was strange that I couldn’t have the same concern about her, since human viruses do nothing against a replica. I followed Helena to her apartment, and we left a trail of water on the floor as we walked through the corridors, not to mention a big puddle of water on the elevator where we kissed.

Helena opened the door to her apartment, and I couldn’t help but notice that she was at least as messy as I was, if not more. She rushed me to the bathroom, explained how to turn on the hot water, and gave me a clean towel to dry myself afterward.

I felt exhilarated. Everything happened so fast. We were just kissing each other under the rain, and before I knew it, I was taking a shower in her apartment. That never happened to me before.

I wrapped the towel around myself, and opened the bathroom door. Helena wasn’t in the living room anymore. I saw a change of clothes neatly folded on a wooden bench next to the door, with a small paper note on top saying “I hope these fit”. I chuckled.

After I was dressed and had my hair dried, I decided to investigate the apartment. I found Helena in the kitchen, making an omelet.

“Hey,” I called her. She turned from the kitchen range and smiled at me.

“Oh boy, it’s a little embarrassing to see you wearing my clothes.”

I chuckled, pulled a chair from the table and sat down. “Is it more embarrassing than kissing in the elevator?” She laughed. I pointed to the oven, and said: “Why are you making an omelet?”

“It’s for you,” she said. “Or well, will be for you, if I manage to get the recipe right. You know I never cook, right? I hope I’m doing it right.”

I smiled. She was being such a sweetheart.

“It’s not like I’ll die if I skip a meal, you know that?”

“Oh well,” said Helena, embarrassed, as she tended to the food on the frying pan. “I do know that much, at least. But I figured you might be hungry.”

She was right, I was a little hungry. I haven’t had anything to eat since Abby’s leftover sandwich at lunchtime.

“Where did you get the eggs?” I asked her. “I don’t suppose you normally keep them in your fridge… where’s your fridge, by the way?”

“I don’t have one,” she answered. “And I got the eggs and butter from a grocer downstairs. I had to go there while you were showering, I’m sorry for leaving you here alone.”

Helena turned off the fire and dipped the freshly cooked omelet on a plate. She handed me it, along with cutlery and a glass of water. I took a tentative bite.

“How is it?” asked Helena, apprehensive.

“You forgot the salt,” I informed her, then saw Helena very nearly panic as she insisted she’d cook me another one. I had to calm her down and reassure her that it was plenty tasty as is, and that she didn’t have to go buy me any more food.

“Maybe I do miss food,” she remarked at some point. She had been sitting opposite me on the table as I ate in silence. “That way,” she continued, “I could probably cook you something better than this. And we could eat together.”

She was right. This felt a little lonely.

“Maybe I should save up and become a replica too.”

Helena laughed heartily.

“Don’t,” she said, hugging me from behind as I walked to the sink, to wash the dishes. “It wouldn’t be you.”

I turned around, and stared deeply into her jet black eyes.

“How come you like me so much,” I decided to ask her, “if we only just met each other today?”

The redhead looked around, as if searching for an answer, didn’t find one, so she just shrugged, and smiled at me. “I don’t really know. I think it feels like I’ve known you way longer, because of all the stories I’ve heard of you from your father. But I did find you cute even before I knew who you were. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have waited until we were all alone in order to talk to you.”

My eyebrows went up with surprise. “You did that?” I asked, baffled. “You… waited around to be alone with me? Is that why you called me out this morning? Because you thought I was cute?”

Helena made a cheeky expression, then let me go.

“Guilty as charged,” she said, smiling, as she retreated into the living room.

It’s weird how you can meet someone for the first time and something between you just “clicks”, and all of a sudden it feels as if there’s nobody else in the world you’d rather be with. I followed Helena into the living room, only to be surprised by a pillow swung right at my face. I dashed after her, grabbed hold of another pillow and tossed it on her head. We laughed, fell together on the couch, then started kissing once more.

“Hey,” I whispered, at some point. “Is it okay if I spend the night?”

Helena nodded, gave me a peck on the lips, then sat up. I sat up as well.

“On one condition,” she remarked, sounding serious.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I want you…” she got closer to me, then kissed me lightly once more, “…to tell me the story of Freddie.”

I furrowed my brow. “What Freddie?” I asked.

“So, you father once told me,” she explained, “that you won a science fair at school by building a mouse replica called Freddie.”

I whimpered, in anguish, and buried my face in a pillow.

“Oh god, I can’t believe you know about that.”

Helena only laughed.

“Does Freddie still exist?” she asked. “Is he still around?”

I nodded. “My mom keeps him.”

Helena sat a bit closer to me, and started caressing my hair.

“You have to show him to me sometime.”

I nodded, after raising my face from the pillow. “Will do,” I said. “By the way, what other embarrassing things about me did my father tell you?”

“All sorts of things,” said Helena, smiling.

We started talking about a summer trip I took with my parents, several years ago. It was that one time when I swam next to a turtle. Unlike most people, I was horrified and told everyone that I never wanted to get close to the sea again. I was 11 back then.

Helena told me about her own childhood experiences, from back before she was replicated. Many of those involved the ocean. “I used to want to be a marine researcher,” she told me, “there’s so much life in the seas, and I wanted to understand it all.”

“What about now?” I asked her, resting my head on her arm as we lay side by side on the couch. “What do you want to be now?”

“Alive,” she said, simply.

I looked into her jet black eyes, and she stared back at me.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Helena closed her eyes and remained in silence for a while. When she spoke, she did it softly, her voice barely more than a whisper.

“You do know my family rejected me, don’t you?”

“Go on,” I told her.

“Well, when a replica gets rejected, it reverts to being property of the laboratory that built it. In almost every case, we’re disassembled and our parts are used to build a different replica, for whoever else the laboratory signs a contract with.”

“Is this what’s going to happen to you?” I asked her. “Are you property of someone’s laboratory.”

“I am. But my case is very particular. You see, I have a brother…” Helena opened her eyes, and then searched for a picture of him to show me. Helena’s brother was a tall man with red hair and jet black eyes like hers. He wore a suit in the picture. “This is Jayme,” she said. “When mum and dad left me, Jayme was the only one who stayed. He filed a lawsuit against the laboratory, demanding custody — or rather, ownership — of me, and court decided that I should not be shut down until the issue of my ownership was resolved. Does this make sense to you?”

I tried to organize that information in my head. Law was never my favorite subject.

“So if the court decides that you’re really property of the laboratory…”

“They’ll shut me down immediately,” Helena finished. “Or kill me, essentially.”

“Do you think it can happen?” I asked, slightly frightened by what she was telling me. “Can the laboratory win the case?”

“Probably,” she admitted. “The whole thing is confusing because there’s no laws about human connectomes, and a lot of the arguments on Jayme’s side go by analogy, but to be honest, it’s never looked good for me, not from the start. I’m pretty sure that all Jay can do for me at this point is buy me some time.”

“How long?” I asked. “How much time can he buy you?”

Helena shrugged. “I don’t know,” she said.