rly now, from her thermal imprint to the deep brown colour of the
artificial eyes hidden behind her epicanthic folds. In every
discernible way, she looks identical to me. She's even wearing the
fleece, t-shirt and jeans I picked out this morning. Even more
incredibly, she looks just as confused as I feel.

"Oh, that's just perfect," she says. "Did Mike send you?"

"_What_?" I don't take my eyes off her. Her face is serious; her
poise calculated. She's ready to attack me without warning, just
waiting to know for sure that I'm a threat. I nod, gesturing towards
her. "Who _are_ you?"

"Suzi Yamada," she says.

"That's impossible!"

"Evidently it isn't." She speaks without moving her head a single
degree, watching me carefully. "Listen, I've had a _really_ bad day
today. Some phony doctor tried to kill me earlier, and it doesn't look
like you're shaping up to be any friendlier."

"You killed him?" I ask.

"It's a habit." She lunges towards me, her sword pointed directly at
my chest, aiming straight for my heart.

I manage to nudge her blade out of the way of my body with my own
sword, redirecting the force of her sprint away from me. "I didn't
come here to kill you. Can't we just talk like civilised adults?" I
then sweep my blade around, aiming to slice off her bicep, but she
similarly counters my move. In a weird sort of way, it's exhilarating
to finally have a worthy opponent to fight--someone who could actually
beat me.

"Let me guess." She swings her blade around to my hip and I counter
it. "The last thing you remember is Mike sending you to some creepy
bastard who gave you a brain scan, then you just woke up somewhere
strange."

"How do you know that?" I try to stab her in the stomach, but she
sweeps my blade away.

"Surely it must have occurred to you by now that one of us is an
android."

"Actually, I'd kinda been preoccupied."

"So why'd they build you?"

"How do you know they didn't build _you_?"

"Because androids are damned near infallible," she says as I take one
last sweep at her neck. "And you're better than me."

As I'm taking in what she's said, my sword's edge slices through the
air towards her neck. I lunge backwards, managing to just barely nick
her skin instead of slicing her head clean off. She starts to bleed a
tiny dribble of bright red blood, but I know she'll live.

"You've got a point." I stare at the blood. _Real_ blood. "And
_we've_ got a problem."