They were fighting.

He discerned the fickle words through his layers of blankets and pillows. Ty rolled over and faced his alarm clock. In another few hours, he and Sam had to be at work.

For the last three days, Ty had called in sick, but his sick days were up. Pen told him to come in, or else. Pen usually didn't have it in him to follow through on an "or else". All the same, Ty didn't feel like testing the man.

He rose from the bed to wash his face, pee the best pee of his life, and wake Helia from her nap. When he stepped into the hallway, the full brunt of Sam and Damon's argument pierced his ears.

"Why can't I goddamn wear this?" Sam was asking.

"'Cause you look like a d y k e, and you should be blending in, that's why!" Damon gestured every which way, all but stamping his foot.

Sam rolled her eyes. "Anyone who thinks I'm a d y k e is not going to automatically assume I'm a clone, you fucking nut."

Every since they had met, Sam and Damon found reasons to bicker. They fought about the way Sam spoke, her mannerisms, and most of all, they fought about who she dated. Ty didn't care what she did, as long as she didn't go up and down the street screaming the truth about her immaculate conception. Debating over her choice of words, clothes, or dating partners was beyond his control. Not for Damon, though.

Damon needed to control things. From what he could tell about his clone, Sam hated control. She especially hated sharing a room with Damon, but there was no where else for her to sleep.

Their dynamic reminded Ty of his own relationship with Damon when they were much younger. There was nearly ten years of space between them, and at times, it felt endless. Ty couldn't understand why Damon was so immature, and Damon couldn't understand why Ty was such a simpleton. They managed to reconcile in their teens, forgoing the pettiness and becoming close friends. Now Ty couldn't comprehend the level of dislike he was seeing between his brother and his double. They were well past the adolescent age, which is where most of Ty and Damon's controversy had sparked from.

From the onset, Jennifer and Helia had taken to Sam. Ty had thought it creepy, but it made sense after awhile. The near-hate between Sam and Damon was just odd.

He heard his brother say something like:

"Just like a real woman, trying to see what you can get away with."

Then Sam's hiss of breath and muted words.

Ty stepped into the living room to referee the two (again).

Damon held up a finger to stall his brother's rationale. "They won't know your origins, no, but just by playing the part of lesbian, you're going to ring some big Prominent bells."

Sam snorted. "You're paranoid. Prominents aren't that anti-gay."

At work, Sam and Antoinella had been openly affectionate. Most nights, they snuggled together on the couch watching movies. Ty thought it was amusing. All it had taken was one night with a man for Sam to turn completely away from a heterosexual way of life. It wasn't just amusing; it was cute.

Ty took his chance to break into the conversation. "I don't see anything wrong with her choice in partner." He smiled.

His smile died. Sam didn't seem grateful for his help, and Damon sighed like his brother just didn't get it. Ty didn't know what there was to get.

"You both need to wake up," Damon told them. "Prominents are watching more than you realize, and gays show up on their radar a lot faster than regular people. Be more discreet."

He stalked out of the room.

Sam turned to Ty, who had found his smile again. She punched him in the shoulder, hard.

"Ow."

She ignored him, not even offering an apology.

"I know why you don't care about my rug-munching preferences. It makes you feel manly, knowing your clone rejected men. And you like to think about the mechanics involved, with me and Antoinella."

As usual, she had forced his intentions out into the open.

As usual, Ty denied the truth. "Not at all."

He tried not to think of it, but images of Sam and Antoinella flooded his brain at least 70% of every day. It was sick; Sam was like his sister. Ty told himself all of these things, but the images couldn't be stopped. Presently, he imagined what they must do after their love sessions. Girls liked to shower, right? Slippery, wet---

Sam glared at him some more. It was like she knew what he was thinking. Ty did his best to look innocent.

Sam grinned stiffly. "I'll tell you, in detail, why I rejected Wallace, and really, all men." She led him by the arm to the kitchen and sat him in a chair. As she continued speaking, she stood over him, looking down at him, arms crossed. She wasn't tall, but looking up at her, Ty thought he must have under-estimated her size after all. "I didn't like the feeling of submitting, of being..." She rolled her hands around, searching for a phrase, "of being entered. With Antoinella, we share pleasure, and there's no debt to pay." He wondered what she meant by debt. "Can you say the same thing about any of your sexual partners? Didn't you always feel you deserved that b l o w job, a chance at a n a l, without having to give much in return? Hell, I know you've felt that way, 'cause I remember a heady sense of fuckin' power. It's intoxicating, but it's an illusion."

Sam didn't stalk from the kitchen. Rather, she left quietly. She carried with her an air that spoke of Ty's guilt, his denial, and his regret.

~*~

Usually, Ty could shrug off what Sam said. After all, most of what she said was driven by estrogen and didn't have much base. Her views on sex from a woman's perspective stayed with him, though.

At work, he was just going through the motions, walking through the part. Pen called him to the office mid-morning to discuss which new hires were worth keeping after the Halloween season. Ty handed over his list of recommendations. Pen squinted at the paper, then proceeded to slash at most every name. When he slid the paper back, Ty was shocked. The only name left was Sam's.

"We're only keeping one new hire this year?"

Pen tilted back in his chair, his belly looming like a small mountain. "It's the damn kiosks. Corporate showed me the reports, and there's no need to keep on that many people anymore."

Pen's revelation added to all his woes, making a zombie of him. Wallace seemed in a similar lurch. He asked if Ty wanted to eat lunch at Burger Town, and Ty accepted. They hadn't spent time together since Sam's arrival, and had much to discuss on the short walk to Burger Town.

Wallace wanted to know why Ty was depressed. Ty waved his hand in silence. Wallace took it as his cue to share his sad story first. He was disappointed because another girl had rejected him. The previous day, he had entered an electronics store, sporting a small finger light. While flirting it up, the cashier had asked him what his finger-gadget was for.

"Oh this?" Wallace had held up his hand, the light shining bright red. "It's ma scanna. See?" He picked up the batteries he had intended to buy, passing the light over the barcode. "Beep. Beep."

He had been expecting laughter, but the girl said nothing. Her face was confused. The flirtation was gone, just like Wallace's chance at a date with her.

"That sucks," Ty said.

Imagining the scenario in full made it hard for him to keep a straight face. However, Wallace's story created a good lead-in for Ty to ask about Sam. Casually, he finagled the details of their last date.

"I was getting to know her," Wallace said. "I asked her what she was into, like fashion, T.V., animals...For some reason, I made her mad, like girls aren't into that kinda shit at all."

Ty knew what Sam was into because it was everything he liked. Fashion, television, and animals weren't anywhere on the list.

Ty pressed further. "What about the sex?"

Wallace raised an eyebrow. "It was okay."

"Were you," Ty searched for the right phrasing, "nice to her?"

"Did she say something to you?"

There was hardly an instance when he saw Wallace angry, but Wallace was angry now.

"Not really." Ty looked down at the ground as he walked.

"I was nice! I asked 'please can I touch your boobs', 'thank you for the kiss', and 'will you give me a b. j. now?'"

"Really?" Ty stopped walking. "You asked her, 'Will you give me a b. j. now?'"

Wallace's dark face was flushed. "I should've said 'please' too."

"Huh." Ty resumed his stride, with Wallace following. "And then did you go down on her?"

Did you just ask that? A voice within him laughed.

From the look of him, Wallace was also taken aback. "Dude, that's nasty. I'll stick my dick in a pussy, but not my tongue."

"But she put her mouth all over your genitals."

Genitals? The voice sniggered. Drop it, you sound like a wuss.

Ty couldn't help it. He could hear Sam's voice in his head, countering the mean one. She was the one driving the questions, not him.

"Doesn't the girl deserve to come too?"

Wallace faced him. "Girls come when we're thrusting into them, duh."

They had reached the entrance to Burger Town. Wallace held the door open for Ty.

"Somehow, I don't think so," was the last thing he said on the matter.

Burger Town had upgraded their interior. All the booths and tables sparkled, and the walls boasted a fresh coat of paint. What really stood out were the three kiosks at the front counter, lined up, silently waiting.

Ty and Wallace stepped up to the clear screens, which activated immediately.

"Welcome to Burger Town. Please say your order aloud, or use the interface to choose from our varied menu."

The screen on the kiosks changed to an interactive pictorial representation of the different dishes available. Little cartoon burgers danced at the bottom of the screen, beckoning the customer to consume them.

"Where are all the people?" Ty glanced around.

The kiosks took his question personally, though he had merely been speaking his thoughts aloud.

"We are here to serve you efficiently. Please, speak your selections."

Sounds emanated from the kitchen. A man emerged, and Ty was glad to see a human being. The man looked like he had stumbled out of a dark cave into the sunlight.

"Where is everyone?" Ty repeated.

The man shook his head. He wouldn't look at Ty. "Speak your selections to the kiosks, man. I just make the food."

Wallace stopped tapping his finger on the kiosk screen. "You're the only person here?"

"Me and the manager. That's it. We make the food, stock everything." Momentarily, his mouth twisted up into a bitter bunch. "Until they make kiosks with fully functional arms and legs. Then they won't even need us anymore."

"I heard they have kiosks with functional arms in a lot of the factories these days."

Wallace's contribution was innocent, but it was the wrong thing to say. The man's eyes dropped to slits, and Ty thought he might jump the counter to attack. He nudged Wallace.

"Let's go."

His friend was nose-deep in the kiosk, unaware of the anger he had induced in the Burger Town employee.

"Naw, I'm hungry. Plus, our break's almost over."

"If you two aren't eating, then go." The man marched back into the dark kitchen.

"Why don't they use 3D printers? Then they definitely wouldn't need humans working here," Wallace whispered.

At first, the question offended Ty with how much sense it made. Wouldn't need humans at all was right. But then his anger faded, and he considered the question for the sake of his friend.

"Some people don't like the taste of composite food. Tastes funny." He was remembering Damon's dislike of composite food.

"Composite food, real food?" Wallace completed his order tap by tap. "Tastes the same to me."

Ty refused to order. He nearly went back to the kiosk when he saw Wallace biting into a juicy cheeseburger. Two new customers waltzed into the restaurant, activating the kiosks, further reminding Ty why he didn't feel like eating.

How was Wallace so unaffected? As he chomped his burger, he talked about video games and comic book characters as if nothing unnatural was afoot in Burger Town. Ty couldn't get over the sterile atmosphere of his once favorite burger joint. He knew he would never come back.

That day, he was glad he'd rode his bike to work. Cycling in the brisk October air was a bittersweet punishment for his body. The cold combined with the physical work numbed his mind to the truth no one else around him seemed to realize: humans were soon to be a minority. Prominents were pushing more kiosks into corporate stores, even putting A.I. robots in the factories. Regular (and not so regular) people were also contributing to their literal ends by killing one another, as if murder was their only recourse for entertainment.

Ty rode past an altercation on a quiet street, quiet but for the two boys brandishing guns and bloodied faces. They were so intent on each other that they didn't notice Ty. He peddled faster.

Home, safe and sound.

Before he could say hello to Helia, Damon grabbed him, dragging him into his bedroom. Sam was there, perched on the bed.

"Where's Helia?" Ty was about to walk out of the door.

"Chill, she's napping. You need to see this. Both of you." Damon zeroed his gaze on Sam.

"What?" She tapped her foot on the floor.

With a nerd's quick agitation, he moved to his desk to grab the "this" he needed to display. He held it out in his palm, moving over to Ty and then Sam.

"It's a dead fly," she said. "What's spec-fucking-tacular about that?"

Ty had a guess ready.

Damon was careful to answer until after he had placed his dead pet into a clear cube on his desk.

"It's a composite fly."

The past few days and weeks had been filled with chaos, and Damon's first live composite print had been easy to forget about. This wasn't the first print, as Ty had squashed that, but Damon had printed others. Ty was surprised Sam had forgotten it, though. Then again, she had never really seen it. Not the way Ty had. She merely had the memory of seeing it. Sam had confided in her twin, telling him how some of her memories of her old life were blurring, almost as if her brain needed to wash away some of the old to fill in the new.

"How did it die?" Ty picked up the cube, passing it to Sam.

She shook her head, not wanting to touch it.

"I'm not sure yet." There was a second container in Damon's hands. "But what I do know is how long it lived."

Sam rolled her eyes at his infamous dramatics. "How long, dick cheese?"

"Seven days."

Chewing silence.

~*~

A/N: Click the tiny star and create a big impact for this writer!

This chapter is dedicated to one of my favorite Wattpadians, HardeeBurger. He's full of eccentric ideas, and even better story ideas. Read C.A.R.O.L.I.N., a sci-fi story about an artificial intelligence struggling for autonomy:

https://www.wattpad.com/story/12391159-c-a-r-o-l-i-n-r-e-t-o-l-d-for-wattpad