Jon got up, followed by Jonnie a second later. They got to the living room, to see that at the door was Zoe.
"Hi, sis" said Jon. "How did whatever you were doing go?"
"What I was doing? I was just with my friends for a while, that's all."
"With that dress and boots? What were you doing?"
"Jon, it isn't any of your business. Anyway, who's your friend here? She looks, well..."
"Like I could be Jon as a girl?" offered Jonnie.
"Right," replied Zoe.
"I just cloned her," said Jon. "So you'll be seeing double from now on." Jon had, after all, wished that nobody thought it particularly strange that he had a cloning device, or what he did with it.
"Wow, really?" replied Zoe. "I guess Grandpa's old thing really worked. That's an amazing inheritance. I thought you were crazy when you set aside a whole corner for it, as if really worked. And Mom and Dad, for letting you put it in."
So that was what had happened, thought Jon. If the stone does something, people think there was a reason for it to happen. The reason was that his grandfather had left it to him, sort of like the stone... except a cloning machine is a lot more big and obvious. How could his grandfather possibly get one? Well, he'd have to figure that out later.
Zoe extended her hand. "It's, well, it's nice to meet you, I didn't get your name."
"My name's Jonnie," said the clone, "and since we were the same person, I know who you are. We don't need to meet." He shook her hand anyway.
Zoe looked Jonnie up and down. "You do look like him a lot," she said. "If you know what he knows, we do know each other in a way. But you're a girl! Jon, is she, I mean, are you and her..."
"We still haven't figured it out," replied Jon, looking at Jonnie.
"Just like Jon says," added Jonnie. "We were talking about this before, whether to call ourselves boyfriend and girlfriend. Being called anyone's girlfriend is so funny. I don't think of myself that way... I'm not going to wear dresses or cover my room in pink..." As Zoe began to give her a curious look she added "I don't mean it that way, Zoe, I mean, people, uh, expect girls to have a lot of pink even if they're like you and they don't..."
"You're a girl, Jonnie," said Zoe. "You've got breasts, and I imagine you've got everything else. The person who's closest to you is a guy who you're wondering about calling your boyfriend."
"Well,..." said Jonnie.
"Look," interrupted Jon, "I'll handle this. Zoe, I set up the whole cloning process so that my clone would be a girl, and attracted to me. But that's pretty much it. I didn't plan for anything else." He supposed he could use the stone to change the plan, but his clone could do that for herself; besides, she had the stone now.
"And you're okay with this, Jonnie?" asked Zoe. "To be a duplicate of Jon, but to have this strange body and these strange thoughts that Jon would never have?"
"You're always so melodramatic, Zoe!" exclaimed Jonnie. That much, for sure, was often true. "I'm fine with it. We have the same memories--we're the same person. I know how I set up the cloning process, and I knew at the time that there would be a 'me' like this. It wasn't some sort of surprise."
"If you really are the same person, then you used to be a guy and Jon changed you into a girl."
"No, no, Zoe. If you don't count me as being Jon, then I was always this way from the moment I existed and I never changed. If you count me as being Jon, I did it to myself on purpose. Either way, Jon didn't do anything to me against my will."
"I guess I can't wrap my head around how this cloning thing works. It just bugs me. And something else that bugged me since I saw you.... are you related to me?"
"You're my sister, Zoe," replied Jonnie.
"Then you're Jon's sister too. That's incest."
"Is it?" said Jon. "Maybe she's my daughter. After all, I cloned her from me."
"Then I'd be her aunt," said Zoe. "I'd rather not have a teenage niece."
"It's something else I... we were thinking about," said Jonnie. "Before the procedure was finished. Nobody's ever had any clones before. Whoever invented the definition of 'brother' and 'sister' wasn't thinking about clones, so we don't know how clones are related."
"So what would you suggest?" asked Zoe.
"We can't go by birth parents, because Jonnie wasn't born from Mom and Dad. So the only choice is to go by what's in everyone's head. Jonnie remembers living with you as her sister, so you're her sister. But Jonnie doesn't remember living with me as her brother, so I'm not her brother."
"I thought it was a math thing," said Zoe. "If I'm Jon's sister, and I'm Jonnie's sister, then Jon and Jonnie are brother and sister."
"Either that, or we're the same person. If we are, you can be the sister of both of us without us being related. I mean, can you really be related to yourself?"
"But you're not the same person." She pointed at Jon and said "You're standing there." And then to Jonnie and said "You're standing there."
Jonnie took this moment to return to the argument and said, "It isn't exactly like being the same person. I'm sure if we go to a movie we'll need two tickets. But it isn't exactly like anything else either. What he's saying is that we're like the same person in this one way."
"I'm sure you've thought about this more than me," said Zoe. "Very well. I won't argue. You're my sister, Jonnie. My new thinks-just-like-Jon sister who hates earrings and pink. Now that I have a sister, we've got to get you settled in. Why don't we go down to the mall and do some shopping for you? I'm sure you'll need clothes. I can't wait to see you in a blouse and skirt. That's got to be the next step!"
"That's..." said Jonnie, and looked at Jon...
And they both said, as they knew they would, ".... the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of!"
