“What?” I asked.

She turned away. “Your father and I never should’ve raised you like we did. It wasn’t right. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“Wha...what are you talking about?”

“Chance, did anyone ever tell you about your older brother Hugo?”

“Brother? Since when do I have an older brother?”

“He died.” The words sounded physically painful for her to say. “Talking about it is... hard. So, we mostly kept it a secret from you and the girls. We wanted kids more than anything, you know, me and your dad. I was pregnant before we even got married.”

I knew that already. I’d seen photos of their wedding. Her belly looked like it was about to rip through the front of her dress. I’d just assumed she’d been pregnant with me.

“Hugo died at four months. We found him dead in his crib. We never knew what happened. His doctor blamed it on his blanket, but it couldn’t have... Anyway, nothing was ever the same after that. Me and your dad stopped getting along. Less than a year in, and our marriage had already gone to shit. I wanted a baby so badly, losing Hugo changed me. I was lost. Didn’t know what I was going to do. And then, a miracle happened.” If she turned any farther away she’d be facing the wall. “I met a man. Howard Blaise.”

“Should I know who that is?”

“You don’t? Chance, he’s world famous. Howard Blaise gave me you. You were Hugo’s second chance at life. That’s even how you got your name. But...well, he...oh, Chance. I’m sorry. I swore I wouldn’t be the one to tell you about this. I can’t. I thought you would find out on your own after I left, but your dad, that asshole, must have kept up the lie.”

“What are you talking about? What lie? What aren’t you telling me?”

“Back at the lake house. Your dad’s old work shed. Does he still have it? Does he still keep it locked?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Go there. Break the lock. Then, you’ll see why I had to leave. Having you was great at first, but it wasn’t real. I couldn’t live with the charade of it all. Everything about you is just wrong. So wrong! And your sisters...after everything that happened with Hugo...my four wonderful girls, well, they never really felt real to me, either. Not really. You ruined my life, Chance. Spoiled my desire to be a mother. You broke me. But now that Mom has those girls... This is their chance to get away. This is their chance to be free. From both of us.”

What was she accusing me of? My limbs went cold, and I couldn’t swallow the lump in my throat. “I’ve never done anything to them,” I breathed. “I would never.”

“Just go to the work shed, Chance. See for yourself.” She picked up her coffee cup again. Her hands shook, and the mug clattered against the wood. “And for Christ’s sake, go now. I can’t stand to look at you another second.” Her voice caught. “Never come back here again.”

I didn’t remember leaving or getting into the car. Suddenly, I was on the road, my mind filled to the brim with this new information. It overwhelmed me. Suffocated me. I was the one who destroyed our family? I was a child. What could I possibly have done? She said something waited for me in my father’s work shed, but I could hardly fathom what it could possibly be. Even if, worst-case scenario, it was a body, it’d be rotten. Someone would have smelled it. And whose body could it have been? Howard Blaise? I always suspected she left us for someone else. Did my father find out and do something?

I didn’t want to know more. It would have been better if I ignored everything Mom told me and went home. I never should have gone to the work shed.

But the work shed was where I ended up.

It was tucked away in the brush in the farthest corner of our lake house property, the one place my sisters and I were never allowed to go. Not that we didn’t try—we were children, after all—but three heavy padlocks on the door prevented entry. The shed was weathered and aged, its wooden boards warped from years of exposure to the elements. Moss crept up the sides, and vines tangled around the roof, giving it a forgotten, almost haunted appearance. To that day, I’d never gone inside, and the locks were still there, rusty but solid. 

The shed’s only window faced the lake, a small square pane covered in dirt and grime. A set of blackout curtains on the inside kept prying eyes at bay, but that was all they kept at bay. I picked up the nearest rock and, with hardly any effort at all, smashed the glass clean through. My father should have invested less in curtains and more in safety glass. The echo split the silence around me, as if the shed itself had been holding its breath, waiting for someone to finally breach its defenses.

Careful to avoid any shards left behind, I hoisted myself onto the windowsill and slid my legs in first. Darkness and dust consumed me, the air thick with the smell of mildew and old wood. I couldn’t see a thing. A few cautious steps forward, and my face brushed against something cold and metallic dangling from the ceiling. A chain. I gave it a gentle tug, and with a faint click, a single lightbulb sprang to life above my head, casting a dim, flickering glow over the cluttered interior.

I was right when I thought there wouldn’t be a body in there. There were eight. A baby, a crawler, a child no older than five, another no older than ten, a preteen, a young teenager, and a man. Some of them were laid out on tables. Others hung from racks on the wall. Two deep black holes remained where they once had eyes, and their jaws gaped open without living muscle to hold them shut. They stared at me with their horrible faces, but everything else about them was normal. Even life-like. As if they’d been dead only minutes. And every last one of them, from the tiny newborn baby to the fully grown man, was me.

No. No. No. None of it was real. It couldn’t be. It didn’t make sense.

I threw my hands over my face and peeked from between my fingers. My skin’s yellow undertones. My dark hair. The mole on my right cheek. My crooked front teeth. I was recognizable at every age, from every angle. All except one. The man. He was definitely me, but slightly older. He had a subtle difference in height, facial hair, and thicker physique. I had never looked quite like him, but I could. Soon.

He sat propped in a chair beside a table where the five-year-old lay face-up in nothing but a tarp. In fact, the man was the only one wearing clothes. My clothes. I knew the shirt and jeans from my own closet. But I’d only been wearing them a few days ago. Whoever dressed him had done so recently.

A clean white sheet of paper draped the five-year-old’s legs. I inhaled in gasps. My limbs could hardly move. Lifting the single leaflet from the table took every bit of strength I could conjure. But I had to know. One didn’t see letters very often anymore. Whoever sent it didn’t want to leave a digital trail.

“Dear Mr. and Mrs. Reyes.” The paper trembled in my hands. I could barely read it. “Congratulations on Chauncey’s eighteenth birthday! Please find his adult model enclosed in this package. I realize this delivery is early, but I heard he’s been giving you some trouble lately, and I thought you might need some extra time to prepare. The procedure for transferring his program into the new brain is the same as previous models, but I’ve included a copy of the manual for your reference. The next model will be sent at thirty. Here’s to eighteen years of error-free functionality, and on to twelve more! Best, Howard Blaise.”

I fell to the ground and crumpled the letter against my chest. Everything I ever thought about who I was, or ever would be, was over. The empty android bodies represented the death of my past, present, and future.

No wonder Mom left. I wanted nothing more than to get away from what I found in that shed. The window wasn’t any less shattered, but turning around meant facing those bodies. And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t look at them again. I banged on the door with my fists. My legs. My arms. The locks jangled on the other side. Laughing at me. Mocking me. I shut my eyes and fought the door. Please! I begged. Just open!

But if there was an answer to my plea, it was masked by the sound of my screams.