The day went along fine without any real need to use the now-on-vacation stone until Jon and Jonnie were doing their homework, and interrupted by someone ringing the doorbell. They went to the front door and Jon peeked out the peephole, only to see, surprisingly, Sarah McMillan outside. That didn't happen often.
Except it wasn't Sarah McMillan. The girl resembled Sarah, but she was younger--she was the clone, a 13-14 year old version of her.
Jon opened the door and said "Hi. Sarah? Or is it something else?"
"Sort of," she said. "I picked a new name, but it's my new middle name, so I'm Sarah L. McMillan. It stands for Leah, but everyone can still call me Sarah. In fact, they should. And no Sarah Lee jokes. Sarah's nice enough not to do that, but some people aren't."
"I'm Jonnie," said Jonnie.
"I know," replied Sarah. "Sarah told me."
"Wait," said Jon. "You're confusing me. Sarah tells Sarah?"
"No, I'm not. Think about it, sheesh. We're both Sarahs."
"Whatever. Why is it you're here?"
"You're responsible for the cloning machine. You know, the one where I came from? But there's nothing wrong with that. No, it's Joey. Your friend's sister. I was the closest person to come to that might listen to her, since I'm a clone, you know. She had this chain around her neck with a broken link
and told me that Joseph had tied her up and told her to have sex with him. She didn't want to but she didn't want to disobey him at all, so she did it anyway. She managed to sneak out, I don't know how. She didn't want to go out on the street, she was afraid that if Joseph saw her he'd order her to go home and she'd obey him. She was crying about how she remembered wanting a girl like her but she never thought of being the girl, and now that she was the girl it was awful..."
"And...?" said Jon.
"You're the one with the cloning machine," yelled Sarah L. "Do something!"
"I don't even know how Joseph got a chain!"
"Wal-Mart?" replied Sarah. "You did it. Fix it! She's too scared to ask, so it's going to be me."
"I'll see what I can do," said Jon. "I inherited the machine, you know. I didn't make it. I don't know everything it can do."
Jon and Jonnie were staring at the empty box
that the stone came in, but which was going to stay empty for at least the good part of a week.
"What do we do?" wondered Jon. "The cloning machine isn't supposed to be used for rape. Or whatever it is, I don't think it's quite rape."
"I don't think so either," said Jonnie. "Sarah L. didn't say Joseph forced Joey. Maybe he took advantage of her, but if she's a version of him, she agreed to be vulnerable. And if that doesn't count as consent, then you'd be raping me. But I still don't like it."
"Me neither. And what gets me is that we didn't even do it. The whole thing is the stone filling in the blanks with its own broken image
of what everything else is like once we've changed something. But I guess we can't really blame the stone. It's just a piece of rock, and there's no problem fixing it. Once the stone comes back, anyway. But in the meantime...?"
"It's okay, Jon," said his clone. "We'll figure something out. I'm sure."
