"I wish you'd give us a fair hearing instead of just shouting us down."
Karyn stopped arguing. She tried to say something and instead coughed. There was nothing she could do; she didn't have any choice but to listen. And... Jonnie had just wished for a fair hearing. Would it really be right not to give them one, anyway?
"Karyn," said Jonnie, "you didn't complain when I just came out of the machine."
"What are you talking about?" replied Karyn.
"Look, when I was made with a full set of memories, I didn't have to be. There's nothing about the Replomat which says that when you make a person they have to have any particular mind. It's just the default, nobody has to use it."
"I still don't get it."
"Isn't making me be Jon a much bigger memory change than making me be in love with Jon? Or to put it another way, are you just unhappy because Jon did it in two steps? What if he had just said to make a girl who's like him except for being in love with him? It's exactly the same thing, except instead of 'make a girl and then make her be in love', it's one step, 'make a girl who's already in love.'"
"That would be okay," said Karyn, "because he would be starting from nothing. It's not a change, it's what you started with. He wouldn't be transforming someone who already exists."
"How do you know?" said Jonnie. "Maybe the Replomat makes one part of me a hundredth of a second later than another part. First it gives me the memories of Jon's first eight years, and then it gives me the memories of the next eight years. If it was even a fraction of a second later, then would he be transforming someone who already exists?"
"I suppose," said Karyn, "but it hardly matters since we'd never notice it."
Then Jon spoke up. "I'm completely on board with Jonnie. Look at it this way, Karyn. Remember what I did? First I made an infant. Then I used the stone to change things so the infant became me as a girl. The infant already existed. Why is it so awful that I changed Jonnie from a girl not in love into a girl in love, but the first step of changing an infant to a girl is perfectly fine? I mean, why don't you get mad at me for robbing an infant of a childhood of her own and forcing her to have mine instead?"
"Maybe that's wrong too," said Karyn, but she was a little hesitant.
"Maybe not," said Jonnie. "We should just stop using the stone and go home, right?"
"What?"
"Karyn," said Jonnie, "remember how the stone works? It changes memories. It's not falling in love with someone but it's still mind control, right? Mind controlling someone to think you have blonde hair."
"That was an accident."
"But the stone changes memories all the time and those aren't accidents. Not to mention these ARDs. In order to go to another reality, if we already exist there, we take over our counterpart. That's also slavery. You're in some other Karyn's body and you're making it do whatever you want..."
"But it's temporary."
"No, it ends, but it still affects her. If you robbed a bank right now and we left, the other Karyn would get arrested."
"I give up," said Karyn. "But would you really do anything Jon wants, Jon...nie?"
"Of course I would," she said. "I'd... Don't look at me like that, Karyn. I don't mean I'd literally do whatever he wants. I'd do things for him because I want to do things for someone I love. If he told me to dance naked in the mall in public, I'd do the same thing anyone else's girlfriend would do... break up with them. The only thing I know I'd do for him is stay a girl. I'm really not a slave, Karyn."
