I don’t really have to worry about it, though. People coming out of stasis has only happened a handful of times in forty years. Not good odds.

Then there are the outages. Whole wings of people in stasis losing power, and they die before anyone can fix it. So convenient, right? The government always claims it’s an accident. They promise to install a back-up server. Then they never do. One day, I’m pretty sure there’ll be an outage on everyone in stasis. Whoops. Away they go.

Thinking about living without Taema has weirded me out. I can’t get it out of my head. I’m alone in this cell, and my sister’s miles away. I’m still not used to being alone, even ten years after we separated. Tomorrow is our surgery anniversary. Whoo. The first sixteen years of my life were spent looking over my sister’s shoulder, or resting cheek-to-cheek with her to look at someone together.

I wonder sometimes if I started on this road as soon as they took the knife to us. She’s my better half, Taema. She’s the one with the sensible head on her shoulders, who would talk me out of doing stupid shit as kids because she didn’t want to be drawn into my trouble. She was usually drawn in anyway, though. It’s not like she had much of a choice.

If the news does get out, she’ll have to dodge paparazzi drones left and right—how many alleged murderers have an identical twin they were once conjoined with? And grew up in that crazy cult in the redwoods across the bay? They’ll have a field day. At least she’s not here in the cell with me, and she’s not going into stasis when if I do, so that’s something.

Ugh. I’m almost tempted to crumple this whole thing up and flush it down the toilet. I’m not stupid. Even though this is paper, they can read whatever I write on here and they’re going to rake through it with a fine-tooth comb to see what I’m trying to hide. When I’m in the shower or something, they’ll sneak in here and read it.

WON’T YOU, ASSHOLES?

It’s a waste of time. I might as well tell you now. There’s not going to be any confession in here. Don’t hold your breath.

The guards just dropped off my food. Boring meals of algae and vat-grown meat. The guards seem to like the look of me. Men always do. Plenty of women as well. But then their eyes drop to my chest, to the white scar against my brown skin, peeking over the collar of my prison uniform. They can’t hide their fear at what it represents: that I am only half of who I used to be.

*   *   *