A thick liquid, like bile, oozed up into the hollow, and the man plunged his hand into it. Red tendrils of blood swirled through the slime until, with a hungry sound, the goo was sucked back down. The man withdrew his hand; the blood was gone, and the cuts had healed into bright pink scars, vivid against his pale skin.

“You’re strangers, aren’t you?” asked the woman, drawing her eyes away from the blood and goo.

Ava nodded dumbly, before realizing that was probably a bad idea. The man—the Mark, she couldn’t help thinking—came over to them. Ava grabbed onto Jules’s sleeve, huddling close to them.

“It’s been so long since we’ve had strangers in our hive,” Mark said. His voice was nothing like the training video, but it was nearly identical to Dana’s in cadence and pitch.

“I wonder why,” Jules said faintly.

“We should take them to Mother,” Mark said to Dana.

“Let us take them to Mother,” Dana said to Mark.

“No, that’s okay,” Ava tried to say. She felt breathless, her skin was prickling with fear. This was worse, somehow, than the wingback chair.

“Mother will want to meet you.”

“Mother will have questions for you.”

“Mother will want answers.”

Jules pulled Ava back the way they’d come. “We actually have to get going,” they said. “We’re, uh, on a mission? From our own mother! She sent us here to, uh …”

Mark and Dana’s faces darkened in awful unison. “Your mother sent you to infiltrate our peaceful hive?”

Ava looked over her shoulder, and felt her stomach drop. They were attracting attention from everyone in the food court. Ava beheld an entire crowd of Marks and Danas, gazing at her and Jules with open hostility.

“No, no,” Jules stammered. “That’s not what I—what we meant was—”

“Abort,” Ava hissed. “Abort!”

“Yeah, fuck this,” Jules said. They grabbed Ava’s hand, and the two of them ran for it.

So this is what it’s like being chased by an angry mob of clones, Ava thought. Cool. This was shock, wasn’t it? While she could feel a mute, animalistic terror taking over her body—had she ever run this fast? She hated running, had always walked the last three-quarters of the timed mile during gym class—a part of her brain stood aside and watched, hands on its hips, vaguely bemused.

She followed Jules through the store, showroom cubes blinking past them. The layout was nearly identical to their own LitenVärld’s, and she realized that Jules was taking them toward one of the fire exits in the back of the store. It was one of the shortcuts that only employees knew about, or serious LitenVärld shoppers who had memorized the store, followed all the sales, and could order the secret off-menu items in the food courts. Even a stupid place like LitenVärld had a fandom.