I’d never visited with this new Dolores, never asked her where she was from, let alone the question that would prompt her beyond that. I’d been content to spend most of my time elsewhere, taking long constitutionals outside the Vault when it was allowed or visiting the office of the Professor to whom I’d recently been reintroduced. No one seemed to expect how uncomfortable I felt, now that I was not alone in the dormitory, now that there was a memory constantly present, and one I knew well.

I must have done it because of that. To remind myself that she was not mine, this extract who looked exactly like me in the unbecoming gown issued to both of us by the Vault. After all, I’d not lived in the outside world yet; there was nowhere else I felt I belonged. But still. I was certain I did not belong with her.

“Where are you from?” I asked.

Her attention shifted, as it was meant to. At the sound of the question, she engaged, first recalling the date.

“I’ve just watched a boy fly,” she said with a smile. “And what happened today is the most remarkable thing I’ve ever seen.” I was proof that it wasn’t—except that by the time Dolores extracted for a second time, she didn’t remember the incident we’d seen the year before.

There was a second question, and it would cause a Mem to relay the entirety of their spawning memory. Sometimes it was only the details of whatever event had been extracted; sometimes more: the environment wherever they’d been or thoughts that had occurred to them. It always depended on the Source.

Sitting on the edge of my bed, I took a deep breath before asking, “Dolores Extract No. 2, can you tell me what you dream?”

She did what any Mem would do, what I had learned by observation was expected of me whenever I was asked. First she set the stage. She began with our separate arrivals, the point at which they must have decided the memory began.

“Father and I don’t wait long for her to arrive.”

There was no point interjecting; the Mem would tell the story her own way, however Dolores recalled it.

“I expect her to look exactly like me, hair and dress included. No one had told me before that I have a Mem of my own, and I half hope that she’ll be like a twin, more a sister than a friend. But Father says she’ll not be.”

She spoke about the river after that, the way it sparkled beneath the summer sun. The way the boy they wanted her to stand beside had at first been less than interested in a budding socialite and her unintentional accomplishment.