Her face was utterly white save for her black lips and eyes that seemed to float over that white space, unattached. When she opened her mouth, a living red tongue ran across brilliantly white teeth. When she blinked, black lashes swept down over black irises. She wore a black kimono from which white hands and feet with black- painted nails emerged. She should have been terrifying. Instead, Helen found her strangely beautiful. When she spoke, her voice was soft and lilting, her accent vaguely Irish.
“Good afternoon, Kevin. Remember me?”
“Judy! How could I forget?” He had not been expecting this woman to be in the room, that much was obvious, but who would expect someone who seemed like a cross between a black-and-white geisha and the most sinister clown from their childhood? Strangely, Kevin seemed quite unconcerned. He casually looked around the room, searching for something.
“If you’re looking for Mona,” the woman said, “she’s somewhere safe, being counseled by Social Care.”
Helen looked on, a sense of unreality settling on her like snowflakes. Truth be told, things had seemed rather strange since she woke up that morning: the world just a little too bright, the colors just a little bit too simple. But this was a step too far. Kevin reached out into the space immediately before him and began to twist his hands, as if searching for something.
“No point activating the escape hatch,” said the woman. “I’ve taken control of this processing space.”
“Ah,” said Kevin. He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out his console.
Helen looked from Kevin to the black-and-white woman, utterly confused. Kevin still seemed quite relaxed.
“No problem,” he said. “There’s always a failsafe.”
He pressed his console and vanished. Helen jerked backwards in surprise, banging into the mirrored wall behind her.
The black-and-white woman turned to look at Helen.
“I’m Judy,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve met yet, Helen.”
Helen gazed at the woman for a moment, her lips moving silently. She suddenly understood.
“I’m a personality construct, aren’t I? This isn’t the real me any more.”
Judy’s black lips formed into a smile.
“You’re not as sentimental as your personality profile makes out, are you? No matter how many readings Social Care pass on to me, they never give the same feel as actually meeting a person. Each time I’ve met you, you’ve faced up to reality straight away.”
Helen bit her lip thoughtfully. “Each time we’ve met?” she said. “There is more than one copy of me?”
“Oh yes, you’re very popular in this little chamber of horrors.”
Judy’s console made a shushing noise, and Judy tilted her head a little, clearly listening to something.
Helen opened her mouth, and Judy raised a hand to silence her. Helen looked around the mirrored chambers, at all the black-and-white women who raised their hands to the young blond women, images receding into infinity. Helen had a sudden sense that she was not looking at reflections; that, instead, each of the pairs of figures that she saw was another Helen and Judy, trapped in another computer simulation. Each one of them awaiting some dreadful fate.
Judy lowered her hand.
“Kevin has shown up on one of the Level Three simulations. I’m going to intercept him. Helen, you will be safe within the stealth cube area for the moment. Don’t wander too far into the arboretum; the simulation only extends for a few hundred meters beyond the limits of this construction.”
“But…” said Helen.
“Read this while I’m gone.” She thrust a thin plastic pamphlet into her hand.
“What…”
It was too late. Judy had vanished. Helen looked down at the pamphlet. Written along the top were the words “Welcome to the Digital World. Welcome to your new life!”
Helen crouched in the corner of the mirrored room, knees pulled up tight against her chin, arms hugging her shins. She guessed she had been trapped in the room for about six hours now. Long enough to make herself hoarse, shouting for help. Long enough to realize that Social Care weren’t coming. Long enough to realize that she faced the awful prospect of being a victim to those crimes she had thought were only vicarious entertainment on historical shows. Rape. Murder. Torture. She gazed at nothing, not wanting to look into the terrified eyes of the other Helens who shivered around her. The wide eyes, the pinched cheeks, the pale faces all served to amplify her own fear.
“Watcher,” she whispered. “If you are there. If you really exist. Please, please. Help me.”
Then there came the noise of the seals in the door disengaging. Helen whimpered with fear. How much would it hurt?
A thin, unshaven man stepped into the room, his eyes lighting up with excitement as he saw Helen.
“Please,” Helen said. Reflexively she felt for her console, but it was no use; Kevin had taken it away when he had first pushed her into this place.
The man giggled. “Say it again,” he said. “Say please and I might be nice.”
Helen felt something inside herself harden. She pushed herself upright against the wall, gazing at the man’s fingers as she did so. He didn’t look so strong, really. Maybe she could get behind him, hold his blue-stained hands away.
Too late. With a speed that took her by surprise, he lashed out, brushing his fingers against her cheek. She felt her legs give way.
The man stood back and looked down at her thoughtfully.
“Now,” he said. “Where shall we start?”
“How about with a profile readjustment?”
The man jumped at the voice.
A woman stepped into the room. Black hair, black lips, white face. The sight of her terrified the man.
“No,” he croaked. “You don’t understand. This is not what it looks like…”
The woman smiled. “Hello, Helen. Hello, James. My name is Judy. I’m-”
The man’s face crumpled. “How did you know my real name? They told me that my anonymity would be assured.”
Judy rolled her eyes. “James,
The man stared at Judy, trying to understand the full import of what she had just said.
Helen was a lot quicker on the uptake. “You mean this isn’t real? I’m a personality construct?”
“I don’t know about real,” Judy said. “It
Helen wasn’t listening. She was still focused on the first part of the sentence. “According to my time frame…” she said slowly. A yawning feeling opened up in her stomach.
Judy shook her head sadly. “According to atomic time, you were copied seventy years ago. You’re just the latest in a long line of Helens. I’m sorry.”
Helen felt a pang inside her. She forced down the welling nausea for the moment.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why were you copied? As I said, so that people like James here could play with you. Torture you. Isn’t that right, James?”
“No,” said James. He began to wring his hands. “I wasn’t going to do anything like that. I just wanted to know…wanted to know…what it would be like…”
Helen felt contempt rising inside her. She dismissed James from the conversation.
“What happens now?” she asked Judy.
