Mari

The bustling marketplace swarmed around me. Bright neon lights flashed from overhead, advertisement blaring from drones buzzing around the sky. They carried flashing holographic images of their dancing advertisements, raining them down upon us in an unwavering tide.

Every person who walked by me didn’t seem to notice my damp and wet state. It wasn’t exactly unusual since it was raining. I had grabbed a hooded sweater off one of the clothers without getting caught. I now wore it, hood up in an attempt to hid my Marilyn face.

It was only a matter of time until I got found out.

On top of the real world advertisements, V-World ones blared from inside my head. Stands stood mismatched throughout, popping up anywhere with a flash of bright light. Holographic sellers were paced in front of them, hoping to snare up one of the people passing by. Almost everyone wandering around had a chip gleaming in their eye, and the V-World knew it.

I kept my head down, hoping no one could see me.

“Face changers, 500 coin,” yelled out a merchant to my left. I glanced over to see it was the same one as the night before.

He was set up haphazardly, partially overlapped a real-world jewelry merchant who had her fingers pressed over her ear com. Her face was filled with annoyance, and based on the glares she kept shooting the V-merchant, I was certain she was not happy to have her retail space eaten up by a freeloading V-Worlder. She turned her shaved head away from me as she continued to argue, revealing an ear full of rings and chains interconnecting them. Weights held down the lobes of her ears, stretching them down nearly to her shoulders.

“Asshole upped his price,” I muttered and made to walk past them. A face changer wouldn’t do me any good if and android could just scan my chip. They weren’t tapped into the V-World like humans were, and were harder to trick. However if a human found me...

My eyes darted back to the shop, then I shook my head. Not worth it.

I pulled the sweater around myself tighter and kept walking.

Across from me stood a sex bot shop, the figure of a bronzed woman writhing back and forth behind a backlight creating dancing patterns of light against the slick pavement.

Just then all the lights in the area flashed red, the sign of a city-sanctioned alert. A voice blared over the speakers and in my head simultaneously, making me press my hands to my temples. I let out a surprised gasp that just barely concealed my internal scream.

“ALERT: FUGITIVE IN THE AREA. CONSIDERED ARMED AND DANGEROUS. STATUS: CLONE, TYPE: MARILYN. ALL CITIZENS OF NEW ATLANTIS TO BE ON ALERT.”

I swore sharply under my breath as the pounding voice cut off. Around me people were experiencing the same thing, looking around in a daze.

Then fear ignited, spreading like a fire lit upon oil the alert had just splashed all over the ground.

Fuck.

I turned back to the V-merchant. He was hovering in standby mode, the alert having momentarily cut off his feed. Then he jolted back to life, flickering and reappearing three steps from where he had been. Had he not been a program, he would have looked just like any of the other merchants in the area. Tall, dark, with a look in his eyes that suggested a slyness that no matter what deal someone worked out with him, they would leave the place still getting ripped off.

Maybe a face-changer was what I needed. Now everyone in New Atlantis was looking for a Marilyn, and I just so happened to be the only one left. The rest of my sisters had been rounded up by ECCO goons.

I looked back at the merchant, who was calling out to the other people walking by, oblivious to the tension now in the air. Beside him, the jeweler was still yelling into her com, unaffected by the alert for completely different reasons. She looked pissed.

I sauntered up to the v-Merchant, keeping my hood up as two large men nearly bumped into me.

“Hey! Watch where you're going!” boomed one of them. He had a partially robotic lower arm. Cheap work by the make of it, all the wires and metal bones exposed. Probably some lower street enhancer looking to sell shoddy work for a quick buck.

I was too afraid to speak and only nodded, ducking through them until I was face to face with the V-World man selling face changers. His price, 500 coins, blinked up over the stall. Behind him and the jeweler stood a tall holo advert for an upcoming movie, the actors playing out a scene right in life-sized holograms. They were visible through the merchant's virtual flickering display on the side he wasn’t blocking off his neighbor.

Right then another alert struck, like nails against my skull as the male voice talked over it in a distinct artificial monotone. Then it ended, the flickering holographic image of the merchant feezing for a few seconds.

I had no way of knowing, but the tingle at the back of my spine suggested whoever was after me-- they were close. My plan to try to blend in wouldn’t work. The alert mixed in the with the usual absence of other Marilyn’s around me did nothing but make me stand out anymore. This hood would only work for so long.

And my chip… I needed to find a way to block that too.

The merchant reappeared, this time right in front of me. His lips curled up into a smile as he set his sights on me.

“You look like you are trying to hide.”

I glanced around. Hopefully, no one heard that. I let out a sigh.

Safe.

I kept my voice low. “I need one of the face changers.”

A low hum sounded over the air, louder than the drones or the blaring adverts. My blood chilled, and anxiousness filled me. I moved closer to the merchant.

He sensed my shift and pounced. The point where desperation was overtaken by something more.

“500 coins then. The product is prepped and ready. Will fool any eye, even the real world ones as long as they are linked up.” He paused to glance out over the crowd. “Which all of them seem to be. A gift in your case, a tragedy in others.”

I looked around the crowd. He was right. Not only were there no Marilyns, I couldn't spot the clear jackets of any clones, either.

The complete absence of clones felt like even with the hood on I was standing there exposed to everyone, naked for them all to see right down to my replicated DNA.

Still, his price was a rip-off and the merchant and I both knew it. I steadied my gaze and met his eyes. His eyes widened. He too knew what the alerts were saying. The difference was that the V-World didn’t care about real world problems.

Usually.

“400.”

The man frowned, his eyes narrowing to slits. He picked up one of the devices from his transparent counter and flipped it in his hand. It was small and circular and meant to be placed over the face where it would adapt and mold to the wearers features.

He studied it, then rose his eyes to me. “Okay, I’ll give you a deal, 'cause you look like you might really need this. 475.”

I grit my teeth. I heard the distant sound of shouts as a disturbance in the market crowd started then spread, reaching out to me as everyone turned towards it, on high alert.

“425,” I insisted. I had nothing but coin, not a real dollar to my name. My eyes darted to the coin balance on my screen and my lips tightened. I was going to need every last bit of coin I had.

The merchant sighed, a comical gesture considering he didn’t even breathe.

“Do you really have time for this, little hollywood?”

I smiled thinly. I could still remember the slogan for Marilyns, "A little piece of Hollywood" that had been plastered over every advert when clones first got big--back when they couldn't make enough of us to fit into consumers' greedy hands. The signs had been long gone by the time I came around.

Now it was another word used to degrade us.

“We both know 425 is more than enough.”

“450. Take it or leave it, darling. Make up your mind quick, you might need it soon.”

More shouts. A soft whirr and mechanical limbs marched through the market. The call of a man’s voice. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

But I knew it wasn’t good. They were close, and I still needed to block my chip.

“Fine!”