I thought hard. I knew nothing of her being her before she was me being me. My memories were simply of me. “Nothing.”

“Shame. Stig?”

“Physically, specimen excellent,” he said, “good muscle tone, firm all over—almost no fat.”

“It was a great body,” I said, somewhat wistfully.

“But it made hastily,” he said. “Look at legs.”

He showed us an athletic yet hairless leg.

“Stretch marks on the knees and shin?” said Landen, leaning closer and putting on his reading glasses. “And why is the skin so smooth otherwise?”

“No sweat glands. On a hot day, she’d boil.”

“How quick did they grow her?”

“Our guess ten weeks,” said Stig as he showed us her hands. The fingernails looked long, but they were stuck on. He pulled one off to reveal a real nail below, and only a quarter way down the nail bed. He pointed to the side of the scalp still remaining, which at first glance seemed to have a goodly amount of long hair, which was in fact manmade fibers stuck into the scalp.

“Six brushings and no hair left,” Stig said. He prodded the stomach—which was flat, I noted. He then grunted with interest, looked in her throat, rolled the body over and pulled down her trousers and pants.

“No digestive tract. Not designed for longevity.”

A tract wasn’t the only thing she—or it—was missing.

“She was going to be seriously frustrated with that libido, too.”

“Not what she designed for,” said Stig. “See here?”

He pointed to what looked like a thin scar on her upper back. It wasn’t, though—it was a flap.

“Umbilical went here,” he said. He wiped his finger on the flap, then smelled it. “Activated two hours ago, give/take. Not seen this sort of Synthetic before. Cheap body.”

“But excellent brain,” added Landen.

“Indeed,” agreed Stig. “She sent here find out something, do something, see something—perhaps report back, then die.”

“The BookWorld,” I said. “Goliath has always wanted to get in there. I could easily have read my way in with this body. Do you think that’s what they were up to?”

No one answered because no one knew.

Stig peered into the skull cavity and poked a chubby finger into the the remains of the brain stem. “Dismantle it when back at lab. Shame you shot it through head, Landen. We could have learned more.”

“Note to self,” said Landen sarcastically. “Don’t shoot wife through head.”

Landen and I walked out of the bookshop after offering our apologies for the mess, and I told them to send a bill for any damaged books to Braxton Hicks.

“Are you okay?” asked Landen as we hobbled back toward the car.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just miss running.”

“You will again,” he said, but I knew, despite the conviction with which he said it, that it was going to take a while.