Helena called me in the middle of the night.

“Hey, sorry I didn’t call you sooner,” she said, “but things were a bit hectic here for a while. Is it a good time? I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

“It’s alright, I was up,” I lied. “How are you doing?”

“Me?” she asked, surprised. “Well, I’m… fine. Did something happen? Your message earlier had me a bit worried.”

“It’s nothing,” I admitted. “I just… wanted to know if you were okay.”

“Oh, boy…”

“What?”

“You watched the interview, right?”

I chuckled. “Yeah, I did, kinda.”

I heard Helena sigh. “Look, Lucie, don’t worry,” she said. “I know things are looking grim right now, but it’ll be okay. I’m okay. And I don’t want you to worry yourself sick because of something that hasn’t happened yet.”

“I wasn’t…” I began to say, but stopped when I realized that she was right, I really was worrying a lot about her and her future ever since the interview, that afternoon. “Can I see you?” I asked, instead. “I miss you, right now.”

“I miss you too, Luce,” said Helena. “And sure, you can see me, but I’m not at home right now.”

That surprised me a little.

“You’re not? Did something happen?”

“It’s not a big deal, I just can’t go home right now,” she explained. “I’m at a hotel just outside town. Can you come? I’ll send you the address.”

I agreed. The address Helena had sent me was just short of an hour away by car, which is a long time, and the ride there wouldn’t be cheap, but I still said I would go. I wrote a message to mom on a sticky note, and glued it to the front of my door, telling her I’d be spending the night at a friend’s, and that she shouldn’t worry. It wasn’t much use, she’d probably be seriously angry once she woke up and found out that I wasn’t home, but that was a problem to deal with later. Right then, I needed to go see Helena.

The travel there was quicker than I had assumed, probably because there was almost no traffic at this time of night. I walked into the hotel lobby, gave the receptionist my name, and she told me to go in. Third floor, room 31.

When I got there, Helena was already waiting for me by the door. She was wearing a cardigan over a camisole, which looked sexy in a way, but the most striking thing about her was the huge smile on her face when she saw me. I was probably smiling a swell, as I walked up to her.

“Hey,” she said, then she took my hands in hers. “Thanks for coming. Come on in.” She pulled me into the room, then locked the door behind us. “Sorry for the mess,” she said. It really was a bit messy: there were several sheets of paper spread over the bed, along with a couple of notebooks, and even more stuff was piled on the table.

“What’s all this?” I asked her, sitting on the edge of the hotel bed.

“Letters,” she said, pointing at the stuff on the bed, “and petitions, schedules, contact details, message drafts, you name it.” She started going about picking up her stuff and piling it on a corner of the room. “I’m trying to reach out to as many people in congress as I can, before the law gets voted next Wednesday.”

I suddenly felt as I was in the way. Helena was giving her best shot to try, and I was probably just wasting her time. “I’m sorry,” I told her. “I shouldn’t have come.”

“No!” she said, hurriedly. Then she rushed to my side, took one of my hands in hers again, and sat beside me on the bed. “I wanted you to come!” she told me. “Really! I’m…” I heard her voice change, and I knew that she was beginning to cry, even though no tears left her eyes. “I’m scared,” she said, “I’m scared, and I’m tired, and I don’t know what to do anymore. Please don’t leave me now.”

“Okay,” I whispered to her, while I caressed her face. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I kissed her forehead, and kept on caressing her until she seemed a little calmer. Deep inside I wanted to cry too, but I didn’t. Somehow, I felt as if Helena would feel even worse if I cried as well.

“Thanks,” she told me, resting her head on my elbow. “God, I’m a mess.”

“This room is a mess,” I told her, and she chuckled. “You’re not a mess.”

“You know, I get really nervous about this sometimes,” she confessed.

“This?” I asked.

“Us,” she explained. “I keep wondering what you see in me, and if you’re going to leave me someday. I mean, you’re this really sweet, talented girl, and I’m just… plain old me, you know? I’m not interesting, I can’t do anything on my own, I cry all the time, I don’t study, I don’t have a job, I’m not even organic, why would anybody want to be with me?”

“Honestly?” I asked, looking her in the eyes. “I think you just said a lot of bullshit.”

“Oh, come on, Lucie!” she protested.

“I mean it,” I told her. “You are interesting, and of course you can do stuff on your own.”

“Like what? Cook?” she joked.

“Well, nobody’s good at everything,” I told her. “And you’re wrong about me, because I’m not that sweet, and definitely not that talented.”

“For heaven’s sake, Lucie, you made a mouse replica when you were thirteen.”

“You would have done the same if you grew up with Giuseppe for a father,” I said. “Besides, I cry all the time too. And just because you don’t study or work right now, doesn’t mean you don’t have dreams. You wanna be a marine researcher. We just have to do something about the law first.”

Helena smiled. “You’re really something, you know.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I told her.

“It is,” she told me, before leaning in to kiss me.

“So,” I began to say, after that kiss. “Why exactly are you staying at a hotel, tonight? You said you couldn’t go home.”

“Oh, that,” said Helena, sounding annoyed. “Well, it seems my address got leaked, somehow. I got this message from my landlord, just after the interview today.”

Helena showed me a video. It was the front of her building, and there were several people there, maybe about thirty, brandishing posters and shouting in protest. I was horrified to read some of the messages on the posters. “MACHINES AREN’T ALIVE,” said one. Another read “REPLICAS ARE ABOMINATIONS,” and a third seemed to be protesting against replication, by implying humans were “playing God” and should be stopped. I finally realized what they were shouting, and it was “robots aren’t human”, over and over.

“Shit,” I said, once the video was over. “Does this happen often?” I asked.

“It does, actually,” said Helena. “That’s the price you pay for speaking up. I’m in the news, people know my face. I’ve had to move four times in the past, because of things like these. I might have to move again now. I’ll have to call Jayme tomorrow about it.”

“I wish I could take you in,” I said, without thinking, and was embarrassed once I realized what I had just said.

“And you say you’re not sweet,” Helena joked. “Don’t worry, Jayme’s gonna find me some other place soon. In the meantime, I’ll probably be staying at the hotel.” She sighed. “I do think it would be nice to wake up by your side every day.”

I chuckled. “It almost sounds like you’re proposing,” I said.

“Oh, no!” she yelped, then covered her face with her hands. “I can’t believe I’ve said that. Please forget you heard anything.”

“Hey,” I whispered, and took her hands in mine, uncovering her face. “You can wake up by my side tomorrow.”

We exchanged an intense glance. “Okay,” she whispered back at me. We started kissing once more. I pushed her down on the bed and started to kiss her neck. Helena moaned. Then, a moment later, she pushed me back lightly.

“Hey, listen, Lucie…” she began. “Is it okay if we don’t do this tonight?”

“Hm? Sure. Of course it’s okay,” I said, then moved from being on top of her to lying beside her on the bed. She took my hand in hers, and looked into my eyes.

“Don’t get me wrong,” she said, “I do want to. A lot. It’s just that… I haven’t, you know, done this before, and I’m a bit nervous. I thought I could do it, but it turns out I can’t, not tonight… Please don’t hate me?”

“Hey,” I called. “You know I didn’t come here for sex, right? I came here to be with you. It doesn’t matter if we do something or not, I’m just happy to be by your side.”

Helena smiled, and snuggled up to me. “You really are sweet,” she said, happily.

“Isn’t that normal?” I asked, surprised. “It’s what everyone should do.”

“I know,” said Helena. “It’s just… I’m not used to people being nice to me. My… first boyfriend left me when he found out I had ALS. My first girlfriend left me and never gave me a reason. You can see why I get so anxious about us.”

I ran my hand through her hair a couple of times, feeling the shape of her bronze-colored locks in between my fingers. “Sounds to me,” I said, “like the two of them are jerks. And it’s their loss, they’re missing out on being with you.”

“Why do you like me so much?” Helena asked me, looking tenderly into my eyes.

“You know,” I replied, “I remember asking you the very same thing, a while ago.”

Helena giggled. “I was wondering if you’d remember that.”

I kissed her ear, and Helena retreated slightly. “Stop that,” she complained, though she was smiling, “it tickles.”

I chuckled, and kissed her forehead.

“This feels nice,” she remarked.

“What? The kiss?” I asked.

“That too,” said Helena. “But I meant this,” she pointed to herself, then to me, a few times. “Us. It feels comfortable. Like I can forget all my worries when we’re together.”

“You’re right,” I told her, my voice barely more than a whisper. “It does feel nice.”

“Doesn’t it…” She seemed hesitant to say it. “Doesn’t it bother you at all that I’m a replica?”

She looked into my eyes, expectantly. I smiled.

“You’re the one I fell in love for. I won’t have it any other way.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, smiling.

“What?” I asked.

“You just said it. The four letter word.”

I chuckled again. “Didn’t you say it earlier today? That you wanted to be with the people you loved.”

Helena’s grin grew wider. “Gee,” she said, “so you knew I was talking about you.”

“I had a hunch,” I admitted.

We remained in silence for a while. Helena snuggled closer to me, and I held her tightly in an embrace.

“Hey,” she whispered, at some point.

“Hm?”

“Don’t let them kill me,” she pleaded. “Please.”

“Helena, look at me,” I asked. She turned to look at me, with saddened eyes. “I’ll break,” I told her, “whatever laws I have to, in order to protect you.”

I remembered, of course, that Cyan Four was listening in on us, either through a hidden microphone in my clothes, or through Helena’s hidden recording device. I didn’t care. It was better that they heard. I wanted them to know that I was serious, and that I wouldn’t let them lay a finger on her if I could do anything about it.