Control is a seductive mistress that lures you into bed, and then shoots you in the foot with responsibility. Steven was still responsible for his students’ success in school. At the moment, Steven, also known to his students as Mr. Parker, was attempting to grade their next paper. He understood the confusion that learning another language could build in his students, but are doubles really this dull? Could a clone really not put a period at the end of any of his sentences?

He knew that these clones, these doubles, couldn’t be that slow. He had seen doubles that had prospered under the right conditions. Was he not providing that? He couldn’t control how old the technology was at his job, since learning centers for doubles just aren’t that funded as much.

He wanted to get philosophical, and he needed an emotional justification for removing every single comma in a sentence because, without one, he might scream.

Mr. Parker looked to the past, and reflected on how doubles were originally made to grow replacement organs. They were merely thrown to the sidelines of society, like animals. Even now, most of them could be easily programmed to do someone's dirty work. Maybe this was their revenge. Making a foreign language teacher contemplate teaching English to those hooligans.

A noise went off outside. He walked out onto the balcony to check things out, and gazed upon three doubles who were fooling around with finger-snappers, little electronic microphones that could be placed discretely on the body with no noticeable effect. He called them finger-snappers from the way his parents called them. They named them from the times when they were first introduced to the mainstream, when they snapped their fingers into the mic and startled their parents, Steven’s grandparents, to near death in the middle of the night.

He could hear their weird rituals from up in his loft thanks to their portable speakers hanging off of their backs. Now, he knew the feelings his grandparents felt, and that made him more uncomfortable than he’d like to admit.

The scar on the back of Steven’s neck stung, and he grasped at it.

Lorraine, Steven’s partner, tapped lightly on the clear door between the balcony and bedroom. She slid it open, hoping that he had heard that noise and wasn’t going to be startled by her. He wasn’t.

“Are you sure you want to go out this late? I totally get the romantic things behind going out on Valentine’s day, but are you sure you can afford it?” she asked, while hoping he would say ‘no’ so that they could be together like they’d always been. Laying on the bed, ready for the next season of some show she forgot the name of.

“I have to grade papers anyway. Let’s just stay in and watch … what’s that show? True Blue Hues?”

Aha! That’s it’s name!

“Ooh! I am ready for the next season!”

She quickly undressed, unclicking her hoop earrings as if they were a pen, and wtching them retract in the mirror before she could pull them off of her earlobe. She adjusted into more comfortable clothing, and pulled up the newest entertainment provider. HHS beat GHC in stocks about ten months ago, and promptly replaced it. Comcast had been long dead.

They scrolled through the episodes before hitting the third season, rumored to be the final season by some. They watched. They laughed. They cried. They knew what actions to do, and when to do them.

They were average, and they were happy.

They were content.

They fell asleep after two episodes. The show kept running in their sleep until it’s internal timer ran thin, and it switched itself off. Steven woke up before Lorraine, as he always did. He needed to be ready by six o’clock, which was two hours before Lorraine needed to stir.